On the silent, grey plains of the lunar far side, a massive impact crater broke the monotony of the landscape.
Inside the crater lay a heavily damaged starship, its silver hull torn open at the stern like a jagged, gaping wound. Skygnaw descended into the pit, his pedes making no sound in the vacuum. He paused, surveying the derelict behemoth—The Ark.
According to the records of the humans' first moon landing in the last century, they had discovered this ship. But limited by their primitive technology and oxygen reserves, the astronauts had only performed a cursory sweep before retreating, leaving the "anomaly" untouched for decades.
The ship had lost at least a third of its mass upon impact. Another third was buried deep beneath the lunar regolith, the result of a catastrophic "braking" failure during its high-speed descent.
As Skygnaw neared the hull, his towering Elite-Class frame suddenly felt small. Even broken, the Ark was leagues larger than Airachnid's scout ship. He stepped through the breach in the hull.
Within a few meters, he felt something crunch beneath his pede.
He looked down. It was a metallic face, so corroded by age and lunar dust that its features were nearly unrecognizable. Skygnaw knelt, brushing away the grime from the shoulder plating. A familiar sigil emerged: the angular, heroic mask of the Autobots.
So, Sentinel Prime didn't leave Cybertron alone...
Skygnaw stood, his processors whirring. It was clear that when the former Autobot Leader fled the war, he had taken a loyal retinue of high-ranking disciples with him.
The deeper he ventured into the ship, the more bodies he found. Many were missing limbs or had been torn apart by the internal explosions of the crash. Skygnaw counted over a dozen extinguished sparks before he reached the heart of the vessel.
A set of massive, sealed blast doors blocked his path. Skygnaw peered through the reinforced observation port.
His internal fans stuttered. He instinctively took two steps back.
Less than five meters away, standing upright in a pressurized alcove, was a Cybertronian far taller and more imposing than himself. His jaw transitioned into a mechanical "beard" of steel struts, and his brow was etched with the complex "wrinkles" of an ancient Prime.
Sentinel Prime.
Skygnaw had expected a room; instead, he had found a vertical stasis pod.
He approached the glass again, moving cautiously. Sentinel's optics were dark, his red-and-gold plating dulled by a thick layer of oxidation. Though he looked ancient, he carried an aura of regal, terrifying authority even in sleep.
Skygnaw stared at the former Leader for a long moment before turning away. He didn't dare touch the pod. He had no desire to find out if the "Primacy" of a Leader-Class warrior could override a million-year stasis if disturbed by an intruder.
He spent the next few hours scouring the rest of the ship.
The bad news: the Ark's primary armory and storage bays appeared to be located in the third of the ship that had disintegrated during the crash.
The good news: the science and research labs were intact.
Skygnaw had hoped to find the legendary weapons of the Primes, but they were likely stowed within Sentinel's own frame or lost in the debris field. He turned his attention to the lab. After bypassing the security locks with a localized EMP burst, he stepped inside.
Most of the equipment was dead, victims of the crash and the eons of vacuum. But after a persistent search, Skygnaw found a single terminal still drawing power from an auxiliary emergency cell.
He extended a data-link from his chest and interfaced with the console. He closed his optics as the torrent of data began to flow.
As the stream intensified, the lab echoed with a low, electric hum.
Suddenly, Skygnaw's optics snapped open, a flash of predatory joy crossing his faceplate. Sentinel Prime hadn't just been fleeing; he had been carrying the blueprints for a new civilization. The data was encyclopedic. It ranged from mundane Cybertronian civil engineering to the crown jewel of strategic technology: The Space Bridge.
"A harvest indeed..."
Skygnaw retracted the link. He hadn't found physical crates of energon or weapons, but he had found the recipes. This data was worth more than a thousand starships. With this, he wouldn't just be a commander; he could become the premier scientist of the Decepticon cause.
Diego Garcia. NEST Headquarters.
Since the formation of the joint task force, this remote island had become the hub of the secret war. For weeks, the Autobots had been stationary, helping the humans build their infrastructure. But today, the team had requested a rare excursion to the island's airfield.
"Hey, Optimus! Ironhide! Anyone want to tell me what's so interesting about a runway?"
Colonel Lennox sat in a jeep, his radio crackling. The brass was nervous about the "guests" wandering around, so they had sent their most trusted liaison to monitor the situation.
The red-and-blue Peterbilt slowed to a halt in a clearing near the edge of the base, followed by Ratchet and Ironhide. Lennox hopped out of his jeep just as a massive fireball breached the atmosphere directly above them.
"What the hell is that?"
Lennox shielded his eyes from the sun. Epps stood beside him, squinting at the descending streak. "Meteor? UFO? Missile?"
"It looks familiar," Epps muttered. "I've got a bad feeling we're getting more roommates."
Optimus Prime didn't move. He stood in his robot form, looking up at the sky with an expression of quiet longing and expectation. Beside him, Ironhide signaled Lennox to stay back.
"Shh. Don't disturb the Prime. Just watch."
The fireball shrieked toward the clearing, decelerating with a series of sonic booms before slamming into the dirt with a world-shaking thud.
As the dust settled, a pressurized landing pod hissed open.
Out of the smoke stepped three slender, elegant machines. They were smaller than the average scout, their frames sleek and feminine. Their shoulder insignias identified them clearly: Autobots.
Behind them trailed two small, hunchbacked bots—one bright orange, one neon green—who looked like twins.
"Whoa!" Epps punched Lennox's arm, his excitement getting the better of him. "Will, look at that! Three identical ones, just different colors!"
Epps shook his head with a sigh. "Man, if only they weren't made of cold, hard steel..."
The pink one was Arcee, the purple Elita-One, and the azure Chromia. They were the Arcee Sisters. While their raw combat power was minimal compared to Ironhide, their status was legendary.
Specifically, because Elita-One was the spark-mate of Optimus Prime.
They had been searching the stars for resources for eons, finding nothing but dead worlds. Upon receiving Optimus's global broadcast, they had abandoned their search and burned a path straight to Earth.
Elita-One walked up to Optimus, her optics locking onto his. Even for a Leader who had faced the end of the world without blinking, Optimus looked visibly flustered.
"Lennox," Optimus said, his voice unusually soft. "I would like you to meet Elita-One... my spark-mate."
"Spark-mate? Like... a girlfriend?"
Lennox stared. He had assumed these mechanical beings were all about pistons and protocols. Hearing the word "mate" in reference to a ten-meter-tall war machine was a culture shock he wasn't prepared for.
Epps, meanwhile, was doing the math. He looked at the towering Prime and then at the much smaller Elita-One. He shivered slightly. "That's... that's a lot of metal, Will."
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