TWO: THE DRAGON'S LAIR
Elsewhere
One of the resolutions that Sari Sumdac had made for herself for the new year was to never again be captured by a giant alien robot.
Barely two months in, she had already broken that resolution.
She had no idea where she was now, but it certainly was not Autobot City. She was surrounded by stone walls with strange, almost alien hieroglyphics carved into their weathered surface. The ceiling went several feet above her head—just enough for an average-sized Cybertronian to fit in—and she was suspended in the middle of the room by chains bound to her hands and feet. She struggled against the restraints, but not matter how hard she tried, she could not break them even with the superhuman strength that her Cybertronian physiology provided her. She couldn’t even deploy her energy blades to cut through the chains or activate the boosters on her feet.
Across the room from where she was suspended, she saw a massive door open, and a giant mechanical figure entered the room. Clad in crimson armor, the mechanoid had a pair of large wings that were folded up on its back. That, along with the dragon’s head that its right arm terminated in, gave a clear indication as to what the Transformer converted into.
And although his appearance was radically different from the last she had seen him, Sari could tell from the familiar, sadistic gleam in his optical sensors who exactly her visitor was.
“Ah. I see that you are awake finally,” said the Predacon leader who called himself Megatron.
Sari huffed in a mix of anger and exhaustion. “Why is it you always show up at the worst possible moments of my life?”
“Perhaps some would call it fate. But I consider it to all be part of the plan.” Megatron crouched down slightly so that he was at eye-level with her, although his face greatly eclipsed her entire body. “I will say, however, that your little… feat greatly impressed me, and had not been something I had accounted for.”
Sari glowered at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t be so modest. When you fell through the Warren with the rest of us, I thought for sure you would end up here as I had expected you to. Instead, the Warren allowed you to do something that had for eons been considered to be something that was impossible: You altered the past to give you and your friends a better future.”
“Yeah, well, don’t expect me to do you any favors.” Sari realized that it was hard to sound defiant when one was at the mercy of a giant robot dragon. “What is ‘here,’ exactly, anyway?”
“It has gone by many names: the Savage Land, the Land Where Time Stands Still. Urban legend from your species’ culture also refers to it as Brigadoon.”
“Brigadoon?” Sari frowned. “I’m pretty sure that was a musical from, like, the 1940s. Only reason I know that is because of a theater class I was forced to take in high school….”
Megatron waved a dismissive hand. “Call it what you want, but the name is ultimately unimportant. Its origin and purpose is where the real interest lies.”
“And are you going to infodump on me about that as well?”
Megatron scowled. “Your insolent tone cannot hide from me the fact that, deep down, you truly want to know why I have brought you here.”
Sari kept her mouth shut, afraid that if she spoke it would betray the fact that she really did want to know. Her mind went back to several months ago, when she had first encountered Megatron and his Predacons. She recalled him remarking about her presence and saying that things had unfolding as they had been supposed to. She had no idea what he had meant by that, and still didn’t. And now he was offering to tell her.
Apparently, her face had told Megatron everything he needed to know as a sadistic grin returned to his face. Rising back to his full height, Megatron began to pace around her suspended form, circling her like a dangerous predator.
“For countless years, I had sought out an artifact known as the Talisman—yes, the very same that the Destructons threatened to destroy your world with. The one you helped destroy when the Warren sent you back through time. I knew not of what it was capable of, only what the legends had said of its power. When I finally located it on your world and was touched by its power, it far exceeded everything I could ever dream of.
“Just as the Warren allowed you to travel to the past, the Talisman sent me to the future. A future where I reigned supreme and all bowed before me, recognizing me as their rightful ruler. I then spent countless years retracing my future self’s steps, in order to figure out how to ensure that this future became a reality. That was when I learned about this place… and about you.”
Sari grimaced but fought the urge to interject. She feared that any interruptions would cause Megatron to think twice about explaining his plan. If she could get him to explain everything and then free herself, she could then get that information back to the Autobots and hopefully find a way to stop him….
“Once I had everything I needed, I found the Talisman again and had it send me back to this time, where I would set everything in motion. The first step was to find Tarantulas and see to the demise of Onyx Prime and Scorponok. The Prime and Scorponok needed to be taken out of the picture, as they would have simply gotten in my way with their own schemes and ambitions, and Tarantulas… well, I’m sure you know all about his plans to collapse reality and that was something I could not allow. I needed to keep him in check.”
“You do know that he’s still on Earth, right?” Sari asked. “Still trying to do everything he said he would do?”
Megatron chuckled. “Yes, but what he does not realize is that he is playing right into my schemes. After all, I did need him to create the Timemaze.”
Sari shook her head, her mind racing as she tried to make sense of everything. “Okay, so what about when we ended up in the Warren? Weren’t you trying to go back in time then?”
“Only because the latter accomplished the former. The moment I had the Darksyde travel back to was a pivotal moment in Cybertronian history—the day when the Ark carrying Optimus Prime and his Autobots crash landed on Earth. The Warren, being the self-proclaimed protector of time as the Omega Guardians are wont to do, reacted to this perceived interception and pulled us out of transwarp, banishing us here to Brigadoon to prevent us from changing history.”
Sari frowned. “But… the Warren allowed me to change history. I stopped Earth from being destroyed by the Talisman.”
“Ah!” Megatron appeared to her left as he circled back around her, startling her and making her heart jump in her chest. “And there is the underlying mystery. Why did the Warren let you change history when the Omega Guardians forbid such misuse of time travel? If there was one thing that Tarantulas was correct about in his incoherent babbling, it was that the Omega Guardians—or the Vok as they are actually called—were angered by our history of meddling with the timeline. From the Autobots and Decepticons’ experiments with transwarp, with Brainstorm’s ill-fated attempt to change history only to further solidify it… the Vok have indeed been monitoring our activities when it comes to the timeline… and they have had enough.
“So, the question is, did the Warren—whom, I should mention, began life as one of the Vok itself—make an exception for you out of sympathy? Or have you been living a lie this whole time?”
Sari stared at him, unsure of how to react to his words. Her entire body almost felt numb. “What do you mean…?”
“The Warren does not only connect the past to the future, but it connects our universe to other realities. To alternate or even adjacent timelines.” Megatron’s cruel smile widened across his face. “Perhaps the world you saved was not the same one you were born on, but rather one that is similar in everything but its ultimate fate. The Sari Sumdac of that reality was swapped out for you, and you filled her role in saving that Earth from being destroyed by the Destructons.”
Sari could feel her heart beating faster, just as it became harder for her to breathe. “But… that would mean… all of my friends… my father… are really dead…. And that—”
“And that the ones you have interacted with for the past six months have all been replications of them.” Megatron shrugged his shoulders, giving off an air of dismissal. “Of course, I do not know anything for a fact. I am simply speculating. Besides, it is all moot in the end.”
Megatron turned away from her, facing the open doorway but not making a step towards it. “While the other Predacons were sent here by the Warren, I managed to manipulate it into sending me to my intended destination: a reality that never knew the name Megatron and had a Cybertron that was ripe for the conquering. Once I had settled myself in, I had the scientists of that universe create a device that allowed me to travel to and from countless realities across the multiverse, so that I could gather my army. Once that was done, I returned here to send Tarantulas back to your reality so that he could recreate the Timemaze there… all while making him think that it was his idea in the first place, of course. That way, I could retrieve you and set the final stages of my plan into motion.”
Sari hung her head low, suddenly starting to feel fatigued, almost defeated. “And what is that plan?”
Megatron turned back around to face her. “To wipe the slate clean. Destroy all of reality so that it could be remade anew. All of the loved ones that you have lost would be brought back and you would be able to live a simple and peaceful life. Both Cybertron and Earth—indeed, the whole universe—would be untouched by war. It would be a perfect utopia.”
“…But with you as its ruler.”
Megatron spread his arms wide. “Is that such a high price to pay? Earth wouldn’t even know of Cybertron’s existence, just as it hadn’t for countless millennia. Things could go back to the way they were. Is that not what you want, Sari Sumdac?”
Sari kept her head down, avoiding his gaze. She did not dare speak, for she knew deep down that it was indeed what she wanted. Life had been so much simpler when all she had to worry about was her father losing his company to some ambitious entrepreneur. But now, here she was, some bizarre human-robot hybrid trapped in a world that was not her own, being menaced by a giant robot dragon….
After a while, she finally asked, “Why are you keeping me here? What role do you expect me to play in your plans?”
Megatron smirked. “I can only tell you if you agree to work with me.”
Sari glared up at him. “And if I don’t?”
“Then you will die. And you will never know the life you could’ve had.”
She hated herself for what she was about to say. But she knew it was the only way she was going to get answers. To set things right.
“Fine. I’ll work with you.”
“Excellent!” With a few sharp swipes of his right arm, Megatron cut through the chains binding Sari’s limbs. She started to fall to the ground but stopped herself with her foot thrusters. Covering her human face with her Cybertronian mask, she propelled herself back up to be at eye level with the Predacon leader.
“Before I can proceed with my plan,” Megatron continued, “there is some housecleaning that needs to be done. You are aware of the one known as Expanse, correct?”
Sari nodded, recalling the mysterious blue and yellow mech whom, like her, had been pulled back and forth through time. “Yes, we’ve met.”
“Good. Because he is not the only one whom Shockwave and his ilk installed with an experimental transwarp drive. There is another—a Decepticon scientist known as Gigawatt. I want you to find him.”
“Okay… and how am I supposed to do that?”
“The replica Timemaze that I have in my possession has already detected a few possible locations for him. I will send you to these times one by one until you find him. Once you do, bring him back here, and we can proceed to the next stage of the plan.”
Sari was grateful for her mask, as it hid her expression as she mulled over the potential opportunities of getting away from Megatron. Instead, she simply nodded. “Very well.”
Behind her, another door hidden within the stone walls open and she turned to see a device similar in appearance to Tarantulas’s Timemaze, albeit with more advanced materials and technology. Already, a portal was materializing within the device.
“I wish you safe travels, Miss Sumdac,” Megatron said darkly. “Your reality depends on it.”
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