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Optimus Prime POV
Location: Forest Between Yellowstone Lake and Tower Falls
Time: 50 minutes until detonation
The forest should not be this quiet. It is unnatural.
My pedes crunch through ash-covered ground, the soil warm from the firebomb strikes one hour and thirty minutes ago—Earth time.
Ahead of me, the treeline begins to thin. My navigation system indicates I am thirty klicks away from the second MECH defensive line.
I do not trust it, not now at least.
I have fought in and led countless battles across my very long life. There is something wrong with this forest; the wind doesn't move in the right way the smoke doesn't rise. All my years of battle hardened instincts are screaming at me that this is what the humans call the calm before the storm.
My servo tightens around my blade. With every step, it feels like I am being watched, dissected, and analysed.
[OPTICAL SCAN INITIATED: NO OPTICAL ILLUSIONS DETECTED]
[LOCAL COMMS: INTERFERENCE, LEVEL 5]
I step over the wreckage of a United Nations reconnaissance drone. I kneel slightly to examine it, plasma scorched, but not shot down. Ripped open, its memory core gone.
Then I hear it.
A snap of wood. Barely audible if not for my upgraded audio receptors, I would not have heard it. Not a tree or a piece of debris.
A step.
I freeze. My processor runs faster than anything on this planet it isolates the direction – west, twenty degrees. Blade held vertically. Arm cannon shoulder shield forward. I scan the treeline.
Nothing.
I turn a fraction of a millisecond late.
SWOOSH—!
A violet, smoking blade slices inches from my helm.
I duck beneath the arc. I pivot on the spot. My body turns as another blur charges from my blind spot.
Ambush, the word rings inside my helm.
Two, maybe more enemies. Coordinated. Precise.
No. Too familiar.
I leap backwards, flinging a smoke cannister between us. The forest fills with choking fog as I draw my ion cannon, but I soon stop.
From the haze, two shapes emerge as virtually identical silhouettes.
Both of them... look like me.
For a moment, I don't move.
Their faces are wrong. Their optics glow crimson. Both of their blades are a mockery of the one I carry, though that purple one feels wrong.
They begin to slowly move in tandem, circling me.
I raise my sword and vanish into the fog.
But in my cold spark, something burns—brighter than the sun.
I am going to feed them their sparks.
The one on my left struck first—a downward slash, clean and calculated. A probing attack.
I parried. Sparks flared—the blades clashed. The hit rattled my shoulder; this opponent is stronger than it should be... or maybe I'm weaker.
I pushed back with a crisp flourish, but as I did, the second figure lunged at my exposed flank.
Their blades moved in perfect sync—impressive for copies.
I caught the next blow on the edge of my sword and guided it toward the forest floor. My pede ground into ashen earth as I retaliated with a slash aimed at the other's knee.
It leapt back too fast.
These aren't mere drones. They're learning. Watching me. Learning my every move.
A feint left—a shoulder bash. My optics tracked both. I blocked one blade and absorbed the other, taking a glancing hit to my forearm plating, but rotated into a counter-thrust.
My sword sliced clean across its midsection. It showed no reaction, nothing at all—it showed no visible sign of pain.
They struck again. Twin arcs, synchronised to perfection. No—they could see from every angle.
The edge of the purple blade scraped my hip plating—gouging deeply, it felt like it was corrupting me.
[WARNING: HIP STRUT ARMOUR 82% INTEGRITY]
[ALERT: CORROSIVE WOUND DETECTED — HALTED BY MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP]
I gritted my denta. The corrosive wound, halted by the Matrix, was interesting—but I had more pressing matters to address. I shifted into a tighter stance, shield raised. I had to break their rhythm. Letting them dictate the tempo would get me killed.
I kicked—the one with the purple sword went flying into a tree—and surged forward, clashing with the other.
Energon met Energon in a blur of strikes.
I pressed the advantage. Step by step, I forced it back. Blow for blow, it faltered—it relied on its twin too much. It tried to retreat, but I stayed on top of it. Its movements grew sloppy—no longer blocking, just guiding my attacks away with desperation.
It tried to slice a fuel line on my leg.
My blade caught it. I pushed in—punched it square in its mimicry of my face. It skidded backwards. It tried to raise its sword—
Too slow.
I brought mine down. The strike cleaved through its servos. I twisted the blade and, in a clean flourish, brought my blade down, slicing vertically at an angle, separating its body in two. I smiled behind my faceplate.
I'm done warming up.
I turned, but it was already there—blade poised to pierce me. I jumped aside and watched it bury itself in the ground. I readied my stance.
It didn't charge again. It didn't speak. It stalked me, slow and deliberate, dragging that unnatural sword across the earth. Purple flames scorched its path.
It struck.
Faster than I thought possible. Its blade sang through the air – a high-pitched shriek. I parried high. The force behind the blow struck so hard that the shock of deflecting the blow buckled my joints and sent me into a roll backwards.
Another slash low this time. I knew better than to match it. So I blocked it with my shield, coupled with a kick that caught it on its leg, it brought me enough time to leap away to catch a small reprieve.
[WARNING: SHIELD INTEGRITY COMPROMISED — 76%]
The blade left another surprise behind; it was like an infection burning through my shield.
[ALERT: FOREIGN ENERGY CONTACT – SOURCE UNKNOWN]
I threw my shield away, the corruption eating it away till nothing was left.
This is wrong. It was almost alive in a way that my processor was tickled in a way I have seen before.
I had no time to think. As the clone came again, with a ridiculous amount of acrobatics.
It drove a series of thrusting strikes towards all of my legs. It was attempting to push me into doing an overhead leap so it could slice through my midsection.
But I blocked and met it using a defensive form it relied on tight blade work, the form is very energy efficient and useful to catch your opponents' minuscule mistakes and exploiting them.
Until there was a gap so small I almost missed it. I struck. The battle flipped. I was all over the clone, flipping the battle around, no longer was I on the defensive. It was. Every parry cost the clone, my blade work and overall power clashed into its defences with the strength of a star going supernova.
It was brilliant, no doubt about that, had it been anyone else it would of won.
But I was Optimus Prime.
The Last of the Primes.
It retreated backwards using the terrain to its advantage, but I kept on it, tirelessly and ferociously.
Until Wack, my pede approached its face at terminal velocity and sent it flying into the forest and threw a few trees before landing in the water face first.
It slowly stood up and looked at me, crimson optics flashing into purple, frame scorched and damaged, it lifted its blade and beckoned towards me.
I responded in kind, we slowly spun around each other in a lethal dance, whatever advantage I had before in strength, it matched me. I finally understood why it was so strong. It was a natural, and its sword boosted it.
This was the most fun I have had in a long time.
My head fills with the smoky haze from his smothered spark for far too long; the thunder that darkness his mind. On the Vorsk offensive, Rada Mor, the duel with Megatron on Earth, the smoke that had clouded his mind that had left him a mindless machine of slaughter and rage. But now in this moment, his mind is as clear as the glass tapestry of the ancients, as clear and logical as the archives.
In that clarity, there is only one thing he must do.
Decide.
So he does. He decides to win.
His blade moves simultaneously with his will, and a blue blur shears through metal and joints and away the clone's purple sword falls. The servo that falls with the sword gripped within it, and his spark sings for the blade, so he catches it and then its arm too falls.
It crumples to its knees and looks at me, through me. Both swords, purple and blue, held within his servos the shine reflecting of his frame.
The blades cross across the clone's throat and then -
Snip.
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Nemesis Prime POV
Location: Cliffs Overlooking Optimus Prime
Time: 7 minutes before detonation
From above the treeline, beyond the reach of even Prime's sharpened sensors, a figure watched.
Perched silently atop a jagged Cliffside that overlooked the forest clearing, it stood still, unmoving. Plated in purple alloy, its frame bore the unmistakable shape of Optimus Prime... but corrupted, twisted.
Its optics gleamed with molten red light.
It had watched everything. From the first strike to the final, fatal flourish, forty-three minutes of combat.
The battle had been... beautiful.
"You were magnificent" it said, a smooth, deep voice of Optimus Prime said, pleased. "Our battle will be the stuff of legend, Prime. But not today. I want you to fester with the knowledge of what happened to your Second in command."
It turned, cloak dragging through soot-stained stone. A faint hum followed in its wake as it disappeared into the fog-cloaked cliffs, leaving nothing but scorched footprints and the chill of its absence.
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Optimus Prime POV
Location: Forest Clearing near Tower Falls
Time: 4 minutes before detonation
The forest was silent again.
Smoke curled lazily through the broken trees. My vents hissed in a slow. Methodical gasp. I stood motionless, optics fixed on the severed head at my pedes.
The corrupted sword hummed in my servo, pulsing with a faint violet glow. I turned it slowly, examining the edge. It shouldn't have felt so… familiar. But it did.
My blade lay within my right servo, shattered and spent. The once pristine edge dulled and blackened, the battle having taken its toll on it.
I looked from one to the other – a strange quiet came over me.
Not peace.
But a haze.
[...SYSTEM FLAG – RESETTING...]
Where the world should have roared. Instead, it whispered. Of battles lost, friends gone, choices. Every battle I'd ever fought led to this moment. It whispered promises of battle. Of glory and peace.
A low tremor shuddered through the ground. I ignored it and slowly began tightening my servo around the blade -
Then my comms flared to life.
"Optimus—Optimus! Yellowstone's reacting. The caldera—it's rupturing! Massive pressure spikes—steam vents, energy surges—Prime, we need to pull out now!" Ratchet's voice, sharp and filled with raw panic.
I didn't move, transfixed by the blade, how the light bounced off its surface.
"Prime, do you copy?! We've lost contact with Bulkhead and Arcee. Bumblebee and Warpath won't pick up. You need to respond. I need you, Optimus."
The haze broke.
I looked at the blade again. Then let it drop, tip-first into the scorched earth.
"I copy."
I slowly began walking away, resisting the urge to turn around.
One step turned into ten, and then I transformed and drove away.
Along the scorched plains, my wheels tore through cracked soil and molten rubble. The air was thick—choked with smoke, the stench of burnt metal and ozone. Ash drifted in like black snow, clinging to my chassis. Each metre brought me closer to the MECH stronghold—a brutalist fortress of steel and concrete, half-consumed by fire.
As I finally reached the main battle.
The ground beneath me lurched.
[WARNING: SEISMIC SHOCK DETECTED — MAGNITUDE 9.3+]
The world groaned. The pressure in the air spiked. Then—
BOOOOOOOOMM.
[ALERT: CALDERA ERUPTION IN PROGRESS]
The Yellowstone caldera had erupted, splitting the sky in half.
For an instant, all sound vanished—sucked into a vacuum of sheer force. Then the world screamed. A pulse of unimaginable energy surged outward like a tidal wave of heat, fire, and pressure. It ripped through the land, turning rock to powder, trees to kindling, steel to shrapnel.
[CORE TEMPERATURE SPIKE — EVACUATE BLAST ZONE IMMEDIATELY]
I braked hard, tires locking up, frame rattling with the strain. Transformation initiated—I shifted mid-stride into robot mode, armour snapping into place, shoulder struts locking as I dug my pedes into the earth.
I slammed the remainder of my blade deep into the soil and braced.
The shock wave hit.
It felt like being hit by Primus.
Debris punched into my frame like ballistic rounds from a starship—chunks of molten stone carved through the treeline. Flames bloomed in every direction. My vents howled, over-pressured. My vision whitewashed in the blast, optics reeling from the light surge.
Then came the second wave—earth collapsing beneath me as fissures appeared outward. A wall of heat and force launched me from my position.
My sword tore free from the earth.
I flew—spinning through the air like a comet. My back slammed into stone. It shattered beneath me. Metal twisted. Systems blared. My vision went dark.
My last thought before impact: So this is what the end feels like.
[...SIGNAL LOST...]
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Optimus Prime POV
Location: Unknown
Time: Unknown amount of time after detonation
[REBOOTING PRIMARY SYSTEMS…]
[REACTIVATING CORE PROCESSES…
12%…
39%…
67%…
COMPLETE]
[WARNING: SYSTEM INSTABILITY DETECTED — STASIS RECOMMENDED]
Light flickered back into my optics.
Static blurred the edges of my vision. My helm throbbed like a malfunctioning turbine. I was lying in a crater—half-submerged in ash and Primus-knows-what, smoke curling like ghosts above me.
I tried to move. Pain lanced down my bipedalism cord. My pedes scraped against fractured rock.
The world had changed.
The sky was choked black with rising clouds of superheated steam and molten debris. Where once mountains had stood, now rivers of fire cascaded into newly forged ravines. The repercussions of this will reshape Earth itself.
I had failed.
I slowly rose. Each movement was agony personified. The joints in my knees protested as I stood. The Matrix pulsed faintly within my chest.
Then I saw it.
Not Warpath. Not Bumblebee.
But the blade?
How?
Had it survived?
There it was—embedded in a column of volcanic obsidian glass. Impossibly pristine amid the chaos. Glowing faintly.
Calling to me.
I limped forward. The world fell silent, save for the echo of my steps. When I reached the blade, I hesitated. Then my servo reached out, seemingly of its own will.
My fingers closed around the hilt.
The glow intensified.
Visions danced before me—of what was and what could be. Power. The ability to save those closest to me. To control destiny itself.
I did not let go.
A moment later, I collapsed—servo locked around the blade.
As my systems began shutting down again…
A groundbridge opened.
Ironhide's voice cut through the ash.
"Prime?! Hang on, I see him—he's down... Thank Primus, he's alive! I've got him!"
Strong arms hoisted me from the wreckage. Ratchet's voice joined, sharp and shaken.
"We're losing him—get the triage bay ready now! We've got four critically injured!"
The last thing I saw before slipping into unconsciousness... was the blade.
Its violet glow dimmed.
Shifting. Transforming.
Disguising itself as my old blade.