CHAPTER FIVE
--Paradron--
"Heed the word of Primus! Spread the truth today!"
"Those zealots still out there?" Gutcruncher asked as he poured Octane his drink.
"Apparently," Octane muttered, staring out the bar's window at the group of bots handing out pamphlets. "I just got here so I have no idea how long they've been there."
"Too long," Gutcruncher grunted. The green and yellow Decepticon then narrowed his optics at Octane. "You say you're new?"
"Yeah, I just arrived here on a ship full of Autobots. We're making a stop here in our quest to find the Knights of Cybertron."
Gutcruncher snorted. "Well, you certainly aren't gonna find them here. You're better off talking to the crazies outside."
Octane smirked as he lifted his drink. "Perhaps. I honestly couldn't care less about the Knights; I just needed to get away from all the stress on Cybertron."
"Well, no stress here. Paradron isn't a half-bad place to stay. So long as the Autobots don't bother us, we don't bother them."
"Hm. I might have to consider renting a place here."
As Octane began downing his engex, the doors to the bar opened and a black and blue spindly mech with a single optic barged in, waving his wheel-hands frantically.
"Gutcruncher! You gotta come out here, quick!"
"I'm kind of busy, Skidmark," Gutcruncher said. "Can't it wait?"
"It's your friend Stratotronic! He's dead!"
Octane hadn't even consumed the last drop of his drink when Gutcruncher went flying out the door.
* * *
"It wasn't me! Swear to Primus!"
Skids waved Whirl to be silent as he and the other stared at the crowd gathered outside the Friction Bar. From what he could see, a pair of medics were examining a body while security tried to shoo the onlookers away. The religious preachers that had been shouting earlier had fallen silent, clutching their pamphlets close to their chests.
"So much for being called 'Paradise City,'" Skids muttered. "How could anyone have done this when guns are banned planetwide?"
"And yet you're still allowed to walk around," Whirl said snidely.
"I have an inhibitor claw on, wise guy."
"Maybe we should keep moving," Nautica said. "I'm sure the officials have got it under control."
"Yeah, it's just a murder on a pacifist planet," Whirl commented. "Nothing to worry about."
"Swerve says there's a park nearby," said Tailgate, carrying his newly purchased hoverboard. "Let's go there so I can try some stunts on my hoverboard."
"Last one there gets murdered," Whirl said, transforming and flying off.
While Tailgate, Swerve and Cyclonus followed him, Skids lingered, still staring at the unfortunate scene. He didn't take his optics off it until Nautica gently tugged on his arm.
"Come on," she murmured. "Let's go."
He stared at her for a moment before nodding, walking after the others towards the park.
* * *
"You're stalling, aren't you?"
Brainstorm refrained from looking up from the databook he was pretending to read. "Why do you say that?"
Dion smirked at him. "Call it a hunch. The fact that you pulled us away from Skids and haven't spoken a word since is also a major clue."
Sighing, Brainstorm lifted his head and swept the park with his optics. Chromedome and Rewind were cuddling on a bench, far out of hearing range. Rung was busy with tweaking a model ship. Some blue guy was sitting by himself, watching a bunch of skateboard-bots race around. As far as he could tell, he and Dion were by themselves.
"Okay...." Taking a deep breath, Brainstorm turned to face Dion. "I was hoping to put this off for a while longer, but I suppose there's no point in waiting. Just to warn you though, especially for Cop-Tur's sake, this is gonna get heavy."
"Hey, I'm a big bot!" Cop-Tur said, appearing on Dion's shoulder. "I can take it!"
"If you say so," Brainstorm muttered. "Anyway... Optronix is no longer with us."
"Well, that's certainly blunt," Dion remarked.
"No, no, there's more to it than that. See, after I... after you...." Brainstorm huffed. "Let me try again: about a thousand years ago, Optronix was captured by the Decepticons. While he was in their clutches, they corrupted him and turned him into one of them.
"When he returned to us, he had taken on the name Megatron and executed Sentinel Prime and the High Council. Then he took control of the Decepticons and began a millennia-long conquest of the galaxy, which we Autobots managed to put a stop to. Then Unicron showed up--"
"Whoa, slow down," Dion chuckled. "This story's starting to sound just a little bit too unbelievable. Dial it back a bit, yeah?"
"As I was saying, Megatron then sacrificed himself to destroy Unicron... only to show up a month ago alive and well. He's currently on the Lost Light, much to our... discomfort."
"Discomfort?"
"Well, I mean... the thousands of years he spent trying to kill us all are still fresh in our minds. Wouldn't you feel uncomfortable sharing a home with a former tyrant?"
Before Dion could respond, the two bots noticed Skids, Nautica, and the others arriving at the park. Seeing Skids give him a look, Brainstorm turned back to Dion.
"Look, why don't we bring this to Skids? I'm sure he can explain it better than I can."
"Oh no, that won't be necessary." Dion smiled as he shook his head. "I think your retelling was quite sufficient."
"Um... good?" Brainstorm rubbed his neck. "Uh, no offense, but you're taking this a lot better than I expected."
"Of course I am. Because I already know all of this."
Brainstorm blinked. "What?"
"Hey!" Swerve suddenly cried out. "Who called in the fuzz?"
Brainstorm looked up to see a group of security bots on skysleds flying over the park, sirens blaring. As they hovered down to surround the Autobots, one of the police bots dismounted her skysled and walked up to Dion.
"Are these the delinquests you reported to us?" the black and white bot asked.
"Some of them, yes," Dion replied. "There's more scattered across the city -- and Megatron's on a ship full of them in bay 84."
"All right, I'll dispatch a squad immediately. Clamp Down, get these bots restrained."
"What the Pit is the meaning of all this?" Skids exclaimed as a police mech cuffed him.
Brainstorm looked to Dion, optics narrowed. "You knew. All this time, you knew."
"Did you really think someone like Megatron would have been forgotten about after little more than seven hundred years?" Dion replied. "Even in the future, member worlds of the Galactic Alliance are still recovering from the devastation he had brought upon them."
"Then why travel back to this time? Wouldn't it have made more sense to go back to a thousand years ago, before he turned evil? I mean, that's what I did!"
"And upset the timeline? Come now, we at Star Command are better than that. Besides, we didn't come back to kill him... we're simply arresting him."
"Arresting him? Why would you travel back in time just to arrest someone?"
"To bring him back with me, of course; to answer for all his crimes. You see, Brainstorm, by the year 2825 -- or Cycle 10625 for you -- Cybertron and all of its inhabitants are long gone."
Brainstorm's optics widened. "You mean...?"
"The Transformers are all dead. I am the last Autobot... and I am going to finally bring the last Decepticon to justice."
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