ONE: WELCOME BACK TO THE WORLD OF MOVING PARTS
Now (2017) - Earth
“I don’t think he’s waking up.”
“Shut up, Sludge. Nobody asked you.”
The largest of the four Dinobots gathered around the single CR chamber shrunk under Snarl’s harsh words. Swoop gave him a friendly pat on the back while Slag simply sat in silence, staring straight at the CR chamber in front of them. The smallest of the Dinobots, Slash, was pacing around in her Velociraptor form, sniffing the chamber as if she would find something that would solve all of their worries.
It had been six months since their leader had been left severely injured by the Decepticon known as Scorponok, forcing him to be placed in a CR chamber in order to repair his injuries. While his repairs had been finished for quite some time now, Ratchet had said that something was keeping Grimlock in stasis lock and had yet to figure out what. No progress had been made since then, and to this day Grimlock remained locked within his chamber.
And Slag had been there for him each and every one of those days.
His refusal to leave Grimlock’s side had surprised the other Dinobots and Autobots. Out of all of them, Sludge or Swoop or even Slash would have been the most likely to stick around and wait for their leader to emerge from stasis (Snarl, of course, was never going to do such a thing). But Slag had insisted on being the one to wait for him while the others went on missions for the two Primes, with Swoop being given temporary command of the unit (as a former member of the Elite Flying Corps, he had the most military experience out of all of them, besides Slag). While the other four headed out, Slag spent his days sitting in front of the CR chamber or resting in his alternate mode, never once stepping out of the room.
The others had given up on asking him why he did this. Which was just as well, since he was never going to answer them no matter how many times they asked.
Swoop cleared his vocal processor to break through the awkward silence that had become customary of their gathering. “Elita’s sending us on another mission.”
“Don’t care,” Slag grunted.
“Well, maybe you should, ‘cos she wants all of us to go. Says it’s pretty important.”
“Don’t care.”
Snarl rolled his optics as he shrugged his shoulders in a theatric manner. “That’s that, then. Told you it’d be a waste of time.”
“I just don’t get why you care so much,” Sludge said to Slag. “I thought you hate Grimlock.”
Slag opened his mouth, ready to fire off a ready retort, when Slash suddenly jumped away from the CR chamber. “I didn’t do anything!” she bleated.
Without warning, the CR chamber hissed as steam exhumed out from the bottom of the pod and its doors slid open. From within the chamber, a large figure in gray and gold armor plating took a heavy step out, then another. He ran a hand over his black helm as life slowly came back into his red visor.
After several months, Grimlock was back online.
“By the AllSpark!” Swoop exclaimed.
“See?” Sludge said. “Told you power of friendship would work! Eventually.”
Slash transformed to her robot mode and jumped around excitedly. “Big Bot back in town! Big Bot back in town!”
“Huh,” was all Snarl could muster.
Slag was silent as he rose from where he had been sitting for the past several hours. He took a step towards Grimlock, who regarded him with a look of hazy recollection, still recomposing his thoughts after having spent so long in stasis lock. Then, Slag reeled his arm back and threw his fist into Grimlock’s face, his fist hitting the Dinobot leader’s faceplate with a loud crack.
The other four Dinobots could only stare in silent shock as Slag stormed away, leaving Grimlock to massage his dented faceplate. Slash looked up to her larger counterparts, hoping they would impart some wisdom as to why Slag had displayed such behavior, but they had none to offer her; they were just as lost and confused as she was.
Once again being forced to break the silence, Swoop waved awkwardly at Grimlock. “Um, hey, boss. Welcome back to the world of moving parts.”
* * *
“Glad to see you back up and running, Grim’… I’m sorry that your teammate didn’t give you a warmer welcome.”
Grimlock simply grunted noncommittally as Wheeljack worked on patching up the dent Slag had left in his faceplate. Besides Ratchet, Wheeljack was the only Autobot that Grimlock really trusted with fixing him or any of the other Dinobots, primarily due to the fact that Wheeljack had once served in his Lightning Strike Coalition during the war. Before then, the Dinobots had a medic in the form of Skar… but, of course, those days were long gone.
Standing nearby was Elita-One, watching Grimlock with a careful eye. He had been unable to explain to her why he had spent so long in stasis lock, primarily because he did not know the answer himself. He remembered Scorponok somehow shutting him down via some remote connection, but even that he could not explain. He could not think of any time when Scorponok would have had the opportunity to modify him in some way that would have allowed him to do what he had just done, which meant that Scorponok must have found some other means. But what those were, or what implications it may have, he could not even begin to speculate on.
After waiting for Wheeljack to finish most of his repairs (which already cosmetic anyway), Elita finally spoke whatever was on her mind. “I take it the others mentioned that I’m sending them on a mission?”
“Swoop said something about it,” Grimlock grunted.
“Then I suppose I should give you the details. Not too long ago, we detected a strange anomaly near Earth’s Antarctic region. Primal and his team of Maximals volunteered to investigate it… and they never returned. We sent another team of Maximals, with the same results. Before we knew it, all of the Maximals had gone missing.”
“Why only Maximals?”
“Because the anomaly we had detected was an island that wouldn’t have been suitable for any of our vehicle modes,” Elita replied. “Jetfire did fly out to the island’s position, but his scanners failed to pick up anything. The island still shows up on Metroplex’s scanners, but not on our personal ones.”
“Strange.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Elita said under her breath. “Our next best hope is you and the Dinobots. Sky Lynx has also offered to accompany you and serve as transportation. I take it you all have experience with the Maximals and their endeavors.”
“Somewhat,” Grimlock replied. To his recollection, shortly after the Cataclysm, he and the Dinobots had been sent to Eukaris by the Fallen out of the belief that (according to Nightbeat’s speculation, at least) Grimlock was some sort of descendant of Onyx Prime, the supposed progenitor of all Transformers with beast alternate modes. Regardless of whether there was any truth to this—Grimlock never cared enough to do his own investigation—the Dinobots had allied themselves with the Maximal resistance for a short time until the Predacons’ space bridge had sent them to Earth—with the exception of Grimlock, who had been plucked by the Fallen to be used in his plot to bring about “the Unbinding” (whatever that had entailed).
It was here on Earth that Grimlock and his fellow Dinobots would be found by Optimus Prime’s Autobots over a century later, and after returning to Eukaris to continue their alliance with Maximals, they would once again find themselves on Earth when Onyx Prime brought all beastformers under his control.
It was enough to make Grimlock wonder if there was some sort of connection between Earth and Eukaris, outside of the fact that Shockwave had targeted both worlds as part of his Regenesis program. It had not escaped his notice that some of Earth’s wildlife resembled both those of Eukaris and Cybertron itself, though he had simply chalked it up to coincidence. After all, humans pretty much looked like flesh-colored Nebulans or miniature Femaxians; resemblance between alien worlds was not unheard of, especially to someone such as Grimlock who had been stationed at several planets over the course of the Great War.
Even so, the fact that the Maximals had once again started vanishing en masse to some location on Earth, not unlike what had happened when Onyx Prime had taken control of them all… it was enough to make Grimlock wonder what it could all mean, and he was typically not the type to wonder about such things.
As Wheeljack stepped away from him, his repairs to Grimlock’s faceplate finished, the Dinobot leader rose to his full height and stepped towards Elita, who regarded him with an even gaze.
“So,” Grimlock said, “when do we leave?”
* * *
“With all due respect, Prime, a lot of this is sounding pretty far fetched.”
Optimus Prime stayed silent as he patiently waited for Marissa Faireborn to finish going over the report detailing the recent clash with Tarantulas and a reborn Cobra. The red-haired woman, from what he understood, was the daughter of a veteran member of G.I. Joe, known by the codename of Flint. As such, Cobra’s resurgence concerned her not only as director of the Earth Defense Command, but also as someone who grew up as the child of someone who had fought against Cobra and seen to their downfall.
That in and of itself was already concerning enough, of course, but when you threw in everything about Tarantulas and his time machine, in addition to Gears’ extra-dimensional experiences… Optimus could understand why Faireborn would be hesitant to believe any of it. While she had been part of Sector Seven’s NEST taskforce, she had had few interactions with the Autobots until now, having been named director of the EDC by the newly elected President of the United States. Thus, it stood to reason that she would be less forthcoming to believing the types of adventures the Autobots had as opposed to someone like Agent Fowler, as much of a skeptic he always was.
Once she had finished reading the report, Faireborn lowered the tablet and looked up at Optimus, regarding him with a scrutinizing gaze. “Normally I would dismiss a report like this as nothing more but sheer delusion and have whoever gave it to me sent for a psyche evaluation.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “But from what Agent Fowler has told me, this kind of stuff is more or less normal for you ‘bots.”
“Believe me, Director, I would likely feel the same if I hadn’t been there for it,” Optimus replied. “If it is any assurance, we do have Tarantulas and his ‘Timemaze’ in custody, so you are free to see them for yourselves to verify the report.”
“I plan to do so.” Raising the tablet again, Faireborn changed the screen to replace Optimus’ report with a request he had sent in prior. “In the meantime, I have authorized your mission to the mysterious island you guys detected in the Antarctic region. Will you be partaking in that operation yourself?”
“No. I am passing command of that mission to Grimlock, an old… friend of mine, I suppose you would call him.” Optimus wasn’t sure if ‘friend’ was the right word to use for the caustic relationship he had with the Dinobot leader, but he did not feel like now was the time to get into the semantics of it. “He has recently come out of stasis lock after being taken out of commission six months ago.”
“And you have cleared him medically for this mission?”
“My chief medical officer has given him the greenlight, and I trust his judgment more than anything.”
“I will hold you to that, then.” Faireborn looked back up at Optimus and tilted her head, a somewhat quizzical look on her face. “If you won’t be going on this mission, then what do you plan on doing in the meantime?”
“I was actually hoping to catch up with Professor Sumdac,” Optimus replied. “As you know, we rescued him from Cobra’s clutches, and his offspring Sari informed us of what he had told her when she was also in their captivity. However, I feel that there is more to his story that he isn’t telling us.”
“What makes you say that?” Faireborn asked.
“My chief engineer Wheeljack has conducted much research on the Sumdacs in trying to solve Sari’s origins and has discovered that her—I believe you humans use the term ‘grandfather’—was once associated in some way with our old foe Scorponok.”
Faireborn raised an eyebrow at this. “Is that right? I believe we have files on the Sumdac family, if you would like to peruse them.”
“That would be helpful,” Optimus said. “I only hope that Professor Sumdac will be just as forthcoming with answers to the questions I have for him….”
* * *
Prowl stood outside of Tarantulas’s cell, staring at the Predacon arachnid with his arms crossed. Tarantulas stared back at him, his arms—all nine of them if one counted the limbs contributed by his alternate mode—held down with stasis cuffs, chains, and various other restraining devices. Both of their faces were impassive, betraying nothing of their true thoughts or emotions; a silent battle of the wits.
After several long, pressing minutes of silence, Tarantulas was the first to speak. “Let me guess: You are here to either gloat over your victory, or to ask for my help because you can’t accomplish anything without my genius.”
Prowl did not indulge his taunt without any sort of response, instead speaking as if Tarantulas had never spoken. “The Timemaze. Sari told me that you made it to upset the Omega Guardians.”
“I did.” Tarantulas cocked his head, the tiny mandibles on his faceplate clicking together. “And what of it?”
“What do you know of the Omega Guardians? They’ve been a mystery to us and most of galactic society for ages. What did you learn about them that prompted the creation of some time machine?”
Tarantulas chuckled. “Ah, so I was right on that second part, wasn’t I? You need me, Prowl. You need me for my knowledge. That’s why I’m still alive, isn’t it? Because otherwise—”
“Just answer the question,” Prowl said through gritted teeth.
The Predacon laughed again, even louder this time. “Naturally, I first learned of the Omega Guardians from Shockwave’s studies, which I was made privy to during our brief alliance. He claimed to have been in touch with them, but what he and many others failed to realize was that the stone golems that inhabited Ki-Aleta were not the Omega Guardians themselves but rather their effigies; their liaisons to the corporeal world. The real Omega Guardians have long since ascended to the Higher Realms, a reality that transcends space and time.”
“And you know this how?”
“Countless hours upon hours of studying and translating native texts from the natives of Ki-Aleta. You would be surprised by how much free time I was allotted on Outpost One when I was with the Secret Order….”
Prowl frowned, unsure of how sincere Tarantulas was actually being. “And how did this discovery lead you to creating the Timemaze?”
“It didn’t,” Tarantulas said. “It was when I was studying Centurion—that doppelganger of your little yellow friend—that I reached the hypothesis that the Omega Guardians had not only transcended our reality but were in fact watching over it. After all, what must they be the guardians of? And the word ‘omega’ suggests a certain degree of finality. When you remove everything in the universe, what else is there to guard but the universe itself? And given our penchant for meddling with time and space—something which Shockwave took to the extreme by sending Centurion and his kin thousands of years into the past and modeling them after individuals who had yet to even come into existence… it only made sense that they would be more than a little irk.”
“And you sought to irk them further with the Timemaze,” Prowl murmured.
“Of course. How else could I test my hypothesis unless I followed in Shockwave’s footsteps and continue meddling with time and space. Sooner or later, their patience is going to reach its limit and we will all suffer their wrath!”
Prowl glared at him. “And this is something that you eagerly anticipate?”
Tarantulas chuckled, but it was without mirth this time. He lowered his head and narrowed his visor, glowering at Prowl through a thin slit. “Prowl, old friend… nothing would please me more than to prove to you and everyone else that I was right about something… even if it means destroying reality itself to do so.”
“You’re mad.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Prowl shook his head as he stepped away from Tarantulas’ cell, turning his back to the Predacon. “I don’t know if you’re telling the truth, or if you even know what you’re talking about… but I will get to the bottom of it. Mark my words.”
“Of course, Prowl,” Tarantulas said from behind him. “I would expect nothing less from you.”
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