>OBJECT DETECTED: SOL-3 (DIRT)
STATUS: APPROACH VECTOR LOCKED
"Oh god. That's Earth. That's literally Earth. I'm going home. As a war machine. For the side trying to conquer it. Great. Amazing."
If he still had a stomach, it would've been in his throat.
If he still had skin, he would've been sweating through it.
Instead, his engines just stuttered for a second, the Decepticon equivalent of a panic hiccup.
I'm supposed to land there. Meet Barricade. Help conquer my own planet.
He couldn't breathe—but then again, he didn't have lungs anymore, so that made sense.
Dan zoomed in on the blue dot.
He imagined all eight billion people down there doing normal things: working, eating, walking dogs, watching Netflix, not expecting a cosmic metal alien to drop from the sky like a tactical refrigerator.
"Yeah nope. Not doing that yet. Absolutely not."
He needed to think.
He needed space.
He needed—
His gaze drifted slightly to the right.
The moon.
Safe. Empty. Quiet.
No atmosphere, no people, no soldiers, no Barricade, no Decepticon commanders judging him.
Just a big, peaceful gray rock.
"…yeah. Yeah okay. Moon it is. That's doable."
He updated his nav-route.
His engines flared.
He banked hard toward the moon.
---
Dan had never transformed before on purpose.
The closest he'd come was when Starscream called him earlier, and his body forced itself to respond.
He hoped this would be less traumatic.
Spoiler: it wasn't.
He tried to trigger the transformation the way Blastech used to. Some instinct. Some internal switch. It felt like trying to do a push-up with a body you'd never actually seen before.
CLANK — SHIFT — ROTATION ERROR
"Oh that does NOT sound healthy."
RECONFIGURE — LIMB MISALIGNMENT — WARNING.
"NOPE. RESTARTING. TRY AGAIN."
He took a moment.
Reset his mental grip on his new body.
Tried again—slowly.
And then—
WHRRRRRRRRRRRRR— KACHUNK — KLAKKA— KLOOOONK
His wings folded.
His nosecone split.
Panels rotated.
Parts slid into place.
It didn't hurt.
It didn't even feel strange.
It felt… relieving.
The way standing up after sitting too long felt relieving.
The way stretching your back after years of terrible posture felt relieving.
He hit the moon's surface hard enough to leave a crater.
Dust plumed.
Rocks bounced.
His new metal body groaned.
"Ooof… okay. That landing gets a three out of ten. But hey—robot mode achieved."
He stood.
And holy hell, standing felt good.
He stretched, joints clicking, servos adjusting. For the first time since waking up, he felt like he wasn't trapped in a flying coffin.
"Gravity here's… wow. Nothing. I feel like I could punt a boulder across the horizon."
He took a step.
The dust kicked up in slow motion.
He looked around.
Silence.
Gray endless horizon.
The Earth hanging in the sky like a painting.
A weird joy bubbled up inside him.
"…I'm on the moon. I'm on the actual moon."
He waited for guilt or dread or existential terror.
Instead he got—
childish wonder.
"Fuck you Neil Armstrong. I'm king of the moon now!"
His voice echoed weirdly in his own audio sensors, but it felt good to say it.
He scanned the surface.
"Where was that Apollo landing site again…?"
---
It took him about an hour of walking—mostly due to stopping every few minutes to marvel at something dumb like the texture of a rock—but eventually he found it.
A little area roped off with time and history.
Footprints.
Equipment.
And the flag.
"Oh damn. They really did it. Humans actually got here."
Looking at you, conspiracy theorists.
He stared for a long moment.
No one was watching.
No cameras.
No satellites aimed this way.
Just him.
And an artifact of human pride.
"hmm I Wonder if…"
A beat of silence.
He flicked the flag with one finger.
It fell over.
"Hehehehehehe… okay, moving on."
---
He sat on a boulder—well, more like leaned, because he didn't trust himself not to launch it into space with his weight.
"Alright Dan. What's the plan?"
He checked his internal map.
Earth loomed close now, big and bright and terrifying.
And somewhere down there…
Barricade.
"Do I meet him? Do I ditch the Decepticons? Do I try to find the Autobots? Do I join them? Will they shoot me?"
He rested his metal chin in his metal hand.
"I don't exactly have fond memories of Earth. My life there wasn't… great."
He thought about Blastech too.
About what he'd seen in the memories.
He wasn't evil.
He wasn't loyal enough to be a Decepticon.
He wasn't kind enough to be an Autobot.
He was… stuck.
Between sides.
Between philosophies.
Just like Dan.
Earth shimmered in his visor.
Blue.
Green.
Home.
Not-home.
He exhaled through vents he didn't understand.
"Well… I guess the first move is meeting Barricade. After that? We'll see."
He stood again, dust falling from his armor.
One last look at the fallen flag.
He snorted.
"Goodbye moon. Love you. Best vacation ever."
He transformed—much smoother this time—and lifted off the lunar surface, angling toward Earth.
Toward his first meeting.
His first mission.
His first choice.
Whatever happened next…
Dan Blazer was finally in the war.