Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Several Years Ago, Garrus-9. Shortly After Overlord’s arrival

Standing on the raised area beside the prison, Overlord looked out over his crowd of triumphant Decepticons. Garrus-9 was his. And now-

A large ship materialized through Overlord and most of the building behind him. His last thought was, incongruously, “Sixshot never had to deal with this kind of thing”.

A door opened and two Cybertronian figures stepped out. The crowd of Decepticons stared up at them.

“Hey,” said Roadtrap, in the part of the crowd closer to the ship. “Isn’t that Dreadwing?”

“What’s he doing here?” asked Battleslash, who was standing next to him.

“We’re too early,” said Scoop, too quietly to be heard by most of the crowd. “Shockwave’s still in stasis.”

“We can just put him back together,” Dreadwing replied. “We’re in an alternate timeline anyways, it doesn’t matter what we do.”

“Do you know how to put him back together?”

“Hey, Dreadwing!” yelled a figure from the crowd, interrupting them. It was Roadtrap. “You still owe me fifty shanix!”

“He owes me too!” yelled another voice from the crowd.

“I owe that slang-slinger a nickel-plated knuckle sandwich!” yelled yet another voice.

"You know what, never mind, you're right, let's jump forwards a bit more," said Dreadwing to Scoop, starting to walk back onto the Nemesis.

~~~~

Three Years After Overlord’s Takeover, Garrus-9.

Overlord stared down from his throne. The Wreckers, recently crash-landed there, stared up at him.
There was only one thing for the Wreckers to do now…

“Wreckers, combine!” yelled Rotorstorm. There was a beat of silence.

“Well, I thought it was funny,” said Rotorstorm, a bit quieter this time.

Then Overlord began to laugh.

However, his laugh was cut short by the prow of a large ship materializing through his body.

“Okay, I wasn’t expecting that,” said Rotorstorm.

The door of the ship opened and two Cybertronian figures walked out.

“Wait,” said Dreadwing. “That’s the Wreckers. We’re too far forwards. And we busted the building again,” he added gloomily.

“Hey, wait,” said Twin Twist. “Scoop, is that you?”

“Scoop, who left the Wreckers?” Ironfist asked.

“Scoop, you still owe me fifty shanix!” Twin Twist yelled. “Wreckers pay their debts!”

“Wait, wait, back up,” said Dreadwing. “You were a Wrecker? You? Do-gooder right thing supreme?”

“I hate that I understood what you meant by that,” said Scoop, not answering the question.

“Was he too nice? Did he tell you guys not to threaten to shoot people too?” Dreadwing yelled down at the Wreckers. “Is that why you kicked him out?”

“What’s he talking about?” Verity asked. “What’s going on?”

“Please stop talking,” said Scoop to Dreadwing.

“Can’t believe you of all people owe someone money,” said Dreadwing as they left the very confused Wreckers behind. “Going to have to look up that guy after this.”

“He’s dead,” said Scoop shortly. “Everyone in this room but us died on that mission.”

“Not in this timeline though,” said Dreadwing.

Scoop stared out the port windows in silence for a second.

“No. I guess not in this timeline.”

Their survival was far from guaranteed, but Dreadwing had enough of a spark not to say anything about it.

“Hey, is that a human down there?” asked Blackrock, interrupting the moment.

“Not our problem,” said Dreadwing. “We’re jumping again.”

~~~~

5 hours ago (absolute time), 4 days later (subjective time experienced in the time travel ship)

“How did you manage to get us stuck halfway through the basement?” Blackrock asked, incredulous. “This is a new low.”

“Hey, it’s better than that energon mine we landed in on our first jump,” said Dreadwing.

Around them, the remnants of Aequitas twitched and spat out sparks.

“It moves through time, not space,” said Scoop.

“Right,” said Dreadwing. “This is the thirty-seventh time we’ve tried to do this. I don’t think this is going to work. We need to find a different Shockwave.”

“Do you think you guys killed that Overlord guy again?” Blackrock asked with interest.

“Probably,” Dreadwing and Scoop chorused.

“Along with a bunch of other people,” Scoop added guiltily. People did tend to die when a large spaceship materialized through them.

“It’s all alternate universes,” said Dreadwing. “We didn’t actually kill them.”

“I still don’t think that’s how alternate universes work, but if it makes you feel better,” said Blackrock.

“So when’s the next good chance to find a Shockwave?” Scoop asked.

“Let me look at the list,” said Dreadwing. “Me and the guys on the Big Conversation crowdsourced a Shockwave timeline-“

“Robots with social media,” said Blackrock, shaking his head.

“Let me pull it up,” Dreadwing continued, reaching for a datapad.

He fiddled with it for a bit.

“Just…give me a sec…”

The second trickled on for Scoop and Blackrock. On the monitors, they could see that a party of Decepticons had begun attacking the port side of the ship.

“It’s not loading,” said Dreadwing.

“Didn’t that place only get founded after the war was over?” asked Scoop.

“You didn’t back it up on your device?” asked Blackrock incredulously.

“It shouldn’t need a connection,” said Dreadwing. “I had it all loaded up. Who designs these stupid things anyways…”

“Okay,” said Scoop. “New plan. We go back to the present, we load the whole list, we save the whole list, we find a new point in the Shockwave timeline. Sounds good?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Dreadwing. “I can update the guys on how it’s going, too, and see if anyone has any more advice.”

“Crowdsourcing time travel tips on what’s basically Space Reddit sounds like a recipe for disaster,” said Blackrock.

“Hey, it got us this far,” said Dreadwing defensively. “Those two science guys getting into a contest about the best way to put this thing together saved us so much time.”

“Engineering, not science,” said a long-suffering Scoop.

“Eh, same thing,” said Dreadwing airily.

“It’s really not-“

“I’m just messing with you,” said Dreadwing. “Engineers are the guys who get drunk on Nightmare Fuel on a weekday night before their exams, scientists are the guys who think arguing about a rock formation is a wild Friday night.”

Scoop and Blackrock, both engineers, looked at each other.

“You know, he’s not actually that wrong about engineers,” said Blackrock quietly.

“I know what I’m talking about!” said Dreadwing, bobbing his head up and down.

“I’m assuming from context that Reddit is like Dreadwing’s social media but for Earth?” asked Scoop, trying to get back on topic, despite the fact that he was the one who created this tangent in the first place.

“Yeah except mostly it’s populated by smug internet dudes and not war criminals,” said Blackrock.

“C’mon,” said Dreadwing. “Let’s get back to saving the timeline."

He input some numbers and then hit the giant red button in the middle of the dashboard labelled TIME TRAVEL BUTTON.

And they were off to the present.

Chapter Text

IT IS A TIME OF CIVIL WAR…

WELL, NOT ANY MORE IT’S NOT!

THE WAR’S OVER, HAVEN’T YOU HEARD?

THE AUTOBOTS WON, KIND OF, AND WENT BACK TO CYBERTRON

OPTIMUS RAN OFF INTO SPACE TO HAVE ADVENTURES AGAINST WHAT TURNED OUT TO BE SHOCKWAVIAN MACHINATIONS

AND ALSO JHIAXUS

MEANWHILE ON CYBERTRON A RANDOM TITAN APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE AND SAID STARSCREAM WAS THE CHOSEN ONE

GENERIC NICE GUY SCOOP WAS ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVED IN HIM

ALSO MEGATRON TRIED TO TAKE OVER AGAIN

AND FAILED AGAIN

STARSCREAM ENDED UP LEADER BY BEING BASICALLY THE ONLY HALFWAY COMPETENT PERSON STILL STANDING WHEN THE DUST SETTLED

AND THREW ALL THE AUTOBOTS AND DECEPTICONS OUT

EVERYONE WHO WANTED TO STAY HAD TO TAKE OFF THEIR BADGES

SCOOP HELPED REBUILD BUT THEN RATTRAP FRAMED HIM TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE HE WAS DOING SABOTAGE

SO SCOOP WENT INTO PRISON

MEANWHILE SHOCKWAVE AND DREADWING HEADED OFF TO CRYSTAL CITY TO BEGIN OPENING A PORTAL TO THE DEAD UNIVERSE

WHICH LET GALVATRON BACK INTO THE REAL WORLD

WHERE HE HAMMED IT UP

SHOCKWAVE TOLD EVERYONE INVOLVED THIS WAS GOING TO INVOLVE DECEPTICON DOMINATION OVER THE UNIVERSE

BUT WHAT IT ACTUALLY INVOLVED WAS USING THE DEAD UNIVERSE AND ALSO ALL OF THE WEIRD POWERED ORES HE CREATED

 TO EAT TIME AND SPACE AND COLLAPSE EVERYTHING

IN ORDER TO SOLVE THE ENERGY CRISIS



CAN'T HAVE AN ENERGY CRISIS IF EVERYONE IS DEAD

YOU'D THINK HE'D JUST TRY BLOWING UP CYBERTRON BUT WHAT DO I KNOW

I'M NOT A GENIUS SCIENTIST

LOOK DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE SPECIFICS

AFTER THIS PART BECAME CLEAR, GALVATRON AND DREADWING RESPECTIVELY NOPED OUT

MEANWHILE THERE WAS A PROPHECY ABOUT THIS

THAT SCOOP TOLD EVERYONE WHILE HE WAS IN JAIL

ALSO PLOT TWIST STARSCREAM WAS MAYBE THE ANTICHRIST

AND PEOPLE WERE BLAMING THE END OF THE WORLD ON HIM

MEGATRON DECIDED TO BECOME AN AUTOBOT

WHICH MADE SOUNDWAVE NOPE OUT

AND ALSO SHOCKED SHOCKWAVE ENOUGH THAT OPTIMUS WAS ABLE TO USE THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP

ALAS FOR SHOCKWAVE HE FELL IN THE TIMESTREAM

GALVATRON MANAGED TO SCOOP UP THE REMAINING DECEPTICONS WHO HADN'T TAKEN OFF THEIR BADGES

THEY WERE LIKE A BUNCH OF HORRIFIED CATS

OR MAYBE THAT WAS JUST SOUNDWAVE

AND THEY DECIDED TO GO TO EARTH!

Chapter Text

Dreadwing looked at his compatriots. This…was not what he had expected when he’d joined Shockwave. Everything had seemed great, Shockwave seemed to have everything planned out…right up until he’d gone off the rails.

Well, he’d still had all that planned out. But Dreadwing wouldn’t have signed on if he’d known he was signing on for helping Shockwave end the literal universe.

So, here he was, having got out while the getting was good.

At least this new guy (Gal…vanize? Galvatron!) had also been helping out Shockwave, for a time, when they’d been convinced there was actual conquest going on and not…eating the universe. Or whatever it was. Dreadwing had managed to follow along for a bunch of it, but Shockwave had gradually gotten more and more incoherent as he’d continued on.

And now, well, Shockwave was dead, there weren’t going to be any more resurrections or regenerations, and Dreadwing was probably going to be the primary target of everyone who’d known he was helping Shockwave.

Everyone but the group here, at least.

Though, judging by the way Soundwave was eyeing him, that wasn’t exactly set in stone.

“No hard feelings, right?” he asked Soundwave.

Soundwave ignored him.

Eh. A step up from shooting him point blank. Dreadwing would take it.

“Hey, who’s that?” he asked, squinting at a yellow figure jogging towards them. He wasn’t any of the Decepticons, that’s for sure. Everyone had gotten to know each other a bit too well after living cheek by jowl on the asteroid, and then in Kimia. So this guy was either a neutral or an Autobot.

Galvatron shrugged.

The yellow guy was close enough that Dreadwing could see him clearly. No insignia…so, a neutral then. Or one of the traitors who had taken off their badges instead of leaving. And hadn’t been on the asteroid. No, that was stupid, hadn’t he just thought there was no way this could be a Decepticon?

His train of thought going nowhere, Dreadwing looked over at Galvatron, who stared off into the distance impassively. Finally, yellow dude reached them.

“Hi,” he said, smiling. “I’m Scoop. I’d like to join your group.”

Really? Just like that? This totally wasn’t suspicious or anything.

“By all means!” said Galvatron, clapping him on the back. “I remember seeing you fight bravely against the forces of Shockwave’s chaos.”

Yellow Dude squinted at Galvatron. “Wait, weren’t you helping Shockwave?”

Galvatron grunted. “We were allies of convenience, no more. I did not expect the depths of his folly.”

That wasn’t fair, Dreadwing reflexively defended Shockwave in his thoughts. You had to be very smart to pull off what Shockwave did. Just…with priorities that didn’t make sense to most normal people.

“You…jetformer. Explain things to him, I need to confer with Soundwave.” Galvatron walked off.

Dreadwing was starting to have second thoughts about Galvatron.

He didn’t have to put up with this scrap from Shockwave. That was part of the whole reason he’d agreed to help him out in the first place.

Dreadwing looked at the newcomer.

“So…I’m Dreadwing.”

“Scoop,” the yellow guy said. He paused. “Wait, weren’t you also helping Shockwave?”

“In my defence,” Dreadwing said. “I didn’t expect him to try ending all of time and space.”

“Why did you help him out, then?”

He promised me everything I ever wanted. But, that was a bit much to get into with someone he’d known for all of slightly less than a minute.

Eh. Whatever.

“He promised me a lot of stuff,” said Dreadwing. “Some of it even turned out to be true.”

“I…see,” said Scoop.

“What about you?” Dreadwing asked. “Why were you in this fight?”

“Well, it was the end of the world,” Scoop said. “Everyone was going to die. What, was I supposed just sit there and panic about how I screwed up enough that things got to this point?”

The last part seemed oddly specific.

“Sorry,” said Scoop. “Nothing to do with you.”

“Seems like it’s kind of putting the blame on yourself a lot,” said Dreadwing. He racked his brains trying to remember if Scoop had been involved at all at any stage of the process.

“Not really,” said Scoop. “I was just…never mind.”

“All right, then,” said Dreadwing. He looked out over the flat plains and wished they had some kind of cover. They were the opposite of stealthy, right now, which was wrong and a violation of the natural laws of the universe. He was a stealth bomber, emphasis on stealth. He wasn’t made to stand outside on a featureless plain.

And what was with that, anyways? It was like Primus had been short on time and budget when he’d made this part of Cybertron, and not bothered to fill it in.

“I’m sorry,” said Scoop, after the silence had stretched out a bit, “but…what could Shockwave have possibly offered you? It’s not like you would have survived to see it, if he had succeeded.”

“Well,” said Dreadwing.

A silence stretched out again.

“I didn’t know about the collapsing time and space bit. He didn’t mention that part when he asked me to help him.”

“Still, it was Shockwave,” said Scoop.

“Hey, Shockwave wasn’t that bad,” objected Dreadwing. “He always explained everything to me when I asked. Okay, I wouldn’t say he was nice, but he wasn’t mean or cruel either. Heh,” he reminisced. “Feels like I can still hear him…”

“Dreadwing, I require your assistance once again…”

“Yeah, just like that,” Dreadwing said. “Really feels like I can hear his voice sometimes.”

“Dreadwing?” said Scoop. “I heard it too.”

Dreadwing’s comm continued to emit the message.

“This is Shockwave, sending this message from the future. Dreadwing, I am not dead. I have become…unstuck in time. I require your assistance in retrieving me from the…”

“Is this really happening?” Dreadwing asked, excited.

Scoop shushed him.

“…from the past,” what was clearly a recording continued. “The fate of the universe and all of time depends on you returning me to the present. I have sent you instructions for building a time travel engine. You will need the assistance of the one called Blackrock on Earth. He is not a human, by a Cybertronian deep cover agent. Find me at the end of time, so we may return to the start.”

Then there was silence.

Dreadwing looked at Scoop. Scoop looked at Dreadwing.

There was a “ding!” as the schematics for the time travel engine were successfully downloaded from an unknown point in the future into Dreadwing’s brain. Because Shockwave could apparently do that. Remotely. Gross.

Once more into the breach, then.

He looked over at Scoop. He’d heard the whole thing.

Dreadwing had two options here. One, kill Scoop. Two…

“Wanna help me find Shockwave and save the universe?”

…recruit him.

There’s no way this guy would last ten minutes with Galvatron and Soundwave. Soundwave hated neutrals.

Dreadwing, on the other hand, hated working alone.

Scoop frowned. “It’s Shockwave, though. He tried to destroy the universe…”

“And now he needs us to save it,” said Dreadwing. “C’mon. He wouldn’t plan out some weird elaborate lie like that.” He totally would, Dreadwing realized after saying it. After all, he’d managed to get Galvatron and all those guys in the Dead Universe snookered into helping him with the promise of universal domination. Which…had technically been true, from Shockwave’s weird point of view. So, Dreadwing figured they were in the clear. You couldn’t destroy the universe in order to save it, after all.

“I suppose you’d know better than I would,” Scoop said with a sigh. “But what’s in it for you?”

“Eh?”

“Why are you going to help him?”

The thought of not helping out Shockwave hadn’t even occurred to Dreadwing.

“What, am I supposed to just ignore him?”

“Well…yeah.”

“I live in this timeline too, doofus. I don’t want it to collapse or whatever any more than you do. And…it’s Shockwave. He keeps his promises.”

Scoop stuck his hand out. Dreadwing took it and pulled Scoop to his feet.

“So. Team-up?”

“…team-up,” said Scoop.

Dreadwing looked over at the clump of Decepticons (and Galvatron) and winced.

“What?” asked Scoop.

“Great. He’s coming over here,” Dreadwing muttered.

“Greetings!” said Galvatron. Loudly. “Has…my compatriot explained things to you?”

He still doesn’t remember my name, Dreadwing thought incredulously.

“Not really,” said Scoop, throwing Dreadwing under the bus. “I don’t think he’s sure what you’re doing either.”

“Well, come over here,” said Galvatron, throwing an arm around Scoop’s shoulders. “Let me lay out our plans. We’re going to a planet called ‘Eart’…”

Scoop shot a look back at Dreadwing over his shoulder. Dreadwing really wasn’t sure what it meant, but followed them anyways as they walked back to the rest of the group. Well, heading to Earth would be a good thing, they could pick up this Blackrock guy while they were there.

~~~~

Galvatron smugged. There was no other term for it. Soundwave was also probably smugging too, that obnoxious tool, but Dreadwing could never figure out what he was feeling.

Together, they stood in front of a very large ship.

“Behold!” said Galvatron. “Our transportation!”

“Hope you didn’t kill anyone I know to get it,” said Astrotrain, grinning.

“Bet it’s your spark brother’s corpse,” Dreadwing muttered. Scoop shot him a dirty look.

“Dreadwing! Scoop! Thank you for volunteering to liberate some fuel for the ship,” said Galvatron.

Astrotrain snickered.

~~~~

“Knew I shouldn’t have cracked that joke,” said Dreadwing as the two of them walked towards Iacon.

“No, no, this is good,” said Scoop. “We can get some fuel for the time machine at the same time, and start picking stuff up.”

“Where are we going to put it?” Dreadwing asked. “And when are we going to have time to work on it!”

“We’ll figure something out,” said Scoop.

Dreadwing groaned. “Ugh. Anyways, you’d better be the one to go in and get the fuel since I’m…a wanted fugitive. Probably.”

Scoop made an awkward sound in his throat. “I’m also probably a wanted fugitive, since I, well…left the jail. And didn’t come back.”

“Why were you in jail?”

“Got framed for sabotaging the power grid,” said Scoop flatly.

“So you didn’t actually do it?” Dreadwing paused. “Sorry, stupid question.”

Dreadwing had known Scoop for, what, less than an hour? And already he knew there was no way he would knowingly sabotage anything. The guy oozed wholesomeness.

There was a pause as they continued walking towards Iacon.

“No,” said Scoop.

Dreadwing didn’t really have anything to say to that, either.

“So, what’s the plan?” Dreadwing asked. “How are we gonna do this?”

“I was thinking we’d just walk in and pay for it,” Scoop said. “The guy in charge is a neutral, he’s probably not going to recognize you, not unless your face was on the news. He might recognize me, though…”

“You should put on one of those face things,” said Dreadwing. “You know, like that old coot who says he knew the Thirteen. Also lenses. And a fake nose. No one will recognize you then.”

“Wait, do you mean Alpha Trion?” Scoop asked.

Dreadwing shrugged. “He was purple but the stuff on his face was white?”

“That was Alpha Trion,” said Scoop in a resigned tone. “You want me to cosplay as Alpha Trion.”

“No, no,” said Dreadwing. “Just the face stuff bit.”

“It’s called a moustache,” said Scoop.

He looked pained, but also like he was considering it. Score. This was a good thing because Dreadwing didn’t have any other ideas other than wearing a cloak, which made it incredibly obvious you were trying to avoid being identified. And cloaks were expensive.

“Where are we supposed to get that kind of thing?” Scoop asked.

~~~~

“Hiiii Swindle,” said Dreadwing.

“No,” said Swindle, not even looking up from his drink.

“Come on, I didn’t even say anything!”

“Unless the next words out of your mouth are ‘Swindle, I’ve got what I owe you’, I’ve got nothing to say to you,”

Blurr, polishing what Dreadwing thought was called a carafe, frowned at Dreadwing.

“You helped Shockwave try to end the universe, you’re lucky I don’t throw you out.”

“I didn’t know it was going to do that!” Dreadwing put his hands up defensively. “Look, I just need to know where to get one-”

~~~~

“You got thrown out?” Scoop asked.

“I got thrown out,” Dreadwing said glumly.

“Maybe I should have gone in there after all,” Scoop said. “Well, maybe not if Jazz was there. He was my guard.” He frowned. “We’ve got another problem too.”

“What now?”

“Since everyone started settling into Metroplex, everything’s been moved around. I don’t know where the fuel depot is any more.”

“Okay,” said Dreadwing. “We’ll find another bar. A better bar!”

~~~~

“A Decepticon bar,” said Scoop, looking a bit askance at the askew “Grand Opening” sign at the door.

“These guys all gave up and took off their badges,” said Dreadwing. “It’s an ex-ticon bar.”

“That’s not a word.”

“It could be!”

“But it’s not.”

Scoop looked like he was about to say something else, but his attention was caught by someone standing at the bar and he did a double take.

“Sandstorm?!”

The guy holding one end of a cabinet also did a double take. The cabinet started to slip from his fingers.

“Scoop?!”

“Don’t drop it, Sandstorm!” The guy holding the other end yelled.

Sandstorm quickly regained his grip on the cabinet.

“Didn’t think you would be the one to know a Decepticon here,” said Dreadwing in an aside to Scoop.

“That’s because he’s not a Decepticon,” said Scoop, equally quietly.

“An ex-“

“He’s not an ex-ticon either. He was an Autobot.”

Dreadwing smiled. He couldn’t believe Scoop had actually used the term. Then he mentally backtracked.

“Say what? What’s he doing here then?”

“I have no idea.”

~~~~

“Sure, I can grab you some of those…insignia,” said the bartender. “Any friend of Sandstorm’s is a friend of mine.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Scoop.

“Don’t forget the lenses!” said Dreadwing, deciding to ignore the suspicious pause in front of “insignia”. “And the fake noses.”

“Oh, I know,” said the bartender. “How about a four in one! Nose, lenses, moustache annnnndd eyebrows!” He pulled it out from behind the counter.

“You just had that there?” Sandstorm asked.

“Hey, you never know when you’ll need a quick disguise,” the bartender replied.

“You know what’s up,” said Dreadwing.

“I only made the one, though, you’ll have to put together the other one on your own.”

“Wait, you made it?” Sandstorm asked, once again dumbfounded.

“Hey, everyone needs hobbies.” The bartender went over to one of the boxes standing by the walls and started rummaging through it.

“Isn’t this a bit too convenient,” said Sandstorm.

“Shhhh don’t question it,” said Dreadwing.

Scoop was staring at him. “You knew he’d have these.”

“It’s a Decepticon bar thing,” Dreadwing lied. “You wouldn’t understand.” He’d known there was a guy who made these wacky disguise kits. He’d been running a bar on…Dreadwing couldn’t remember. Some ship somewhere. And he’d known the guy was on Cybertron so, a Decepticon ex-ticon bar seemed like a good bet.

Suddenly, Dreadwing remembered the reason he knew about this was because he’d stolen one of the wacky disguise kits and pretended to be a medic coming off an all-nighter so he could go recharge in the middle of the day. Hopefully this guy (whose name Dreadwing still didn’t remember) had no idea about that.

He put on the Groucho Marx glasses. “There. How do I look?”

“Incredible,” said Scoop.

“Here,” the bartender guy said to Scoop, holding out a pair of glasses and a fake nose. “Sorry, I can’t find any of the other pieces. Must be in one of the boxes we haven’t brought in yet,” he grumbled.

Scoop gingerly put them on.

“So how do I look?” He asked.

“Kind of weird,” said Dreadwing. Sandstorm nodded behind him.

“Thanks so much for helping us out with this,” said Scoop. “We’ll be right back.” Then he turned and started walking for the door.

His nose fell off.

“You gotta be careful with those,” the bartender said. “Try not to make too many quick movements.”

“Got it,” said Scoop.

“Thanks a million,” said Dreadwing. “Now let’s rustle up some nucleon.”

The door closed behind them.

“I’m sorry,” said the bartender to the closed door, and also Sandstorm, “what did he just say?”

~~~~

“Gotta say,” said Rattrap. “Of all the things I expected to see here, you in a bad disguise did not make the list.”

“Hello, Rattrap,” said Scoop.

“Oh good, it’s a friend of yours,” said Dreadwing.

Rattrap snorted. “Oh yeah, me and Scoop are real close buddies, right, Scoop? After all, here I am, not tryin’ to arrest you after you evaded justice.”

Scoop’s smile looked a bit strained. “Why did you do it, Rattrap? We’re Autobots, we’re better than that. At least, we’re supposed to be better than that.”

Rattrap laughed a little. “I can’t believe you said that with a straight face.”

Scoop stared at him, looking disappointed.

“It’s a cruel world out there, Scoop. You gotta be able to land on your feet.”

This did not seem like it was going to be a fun conversation. Dreadwing was sure this was probably important to Scoop, but they had a job to do here.

An idea popped into his head.

“So you’re the guy that framed Scoop?”

“I’m not admittin’ to anything,” said Rattrap.

“If you don’t want everyone knowing you framed him, you’ll give us…” Dreadwing did not actually know how much nucleon they needed. He decided to make a guess. “Two dollies full of nucleon.”

“Are you trying to blackmail me?” Rattrap asked, incredulous.

“Dreadwing,” said Scoop disapprovingly.

“And you! How can you judge me when you’re working with the guy who tried to end the universe!” Rattrap said to Scoop.

“For the last time, people, I didn’t know that’s what Shockwave was doing. And you know what? At least I got some cool stuff out of it, like magical healing. And getting to shoot Soundwave. What do you even get, being Starscream’s minion? At least Shockwave has style.”

“He really doesn’t,” said Rattrap. “He turns into a giant cannon with a jetpack.”

“And it’s awesome,” said Dreadwing. “So, are you gonna give me the nucleon?”

Rattrap looked at him like he was an idiot. This was a look Dreadwing was familiar with, because many people he knew were jerks.

“No, of course I’m not gonna give it to you,” said Rattrap. “Who are you even going to tell? ‘Yeah, hi, I’m Dreadwing, Shockwave’s goon, yeah he tried to end the universe, anyways, Rattrap framed- wait, don’t call the cops on me!’” Rattrap mimed being a depressed Dreadwing walking sadly away.

Dreadwing pointed his very large gun at Rattrap. “What about now?”

“Dreadwing!” said Scoop, stepping in front of Rattrap. “You can’t just threaten to shoot him!”

“The fate of the universe is at stake here, Scoop! We need that nucleon! Also he framed you,” Dreadwing said, puzzled.

“That doesn’t mean it’s okay to kill him, Dreadwing!”

“Hey can you guys just be quiet for a minute?” Rattrap said. “I gotta take this call.”

There was a strange pause as both Dreadwing and Scoop turned to look at Rattrap.

“Sorry, boss, I’m a little tied up here,” said Rattrap. “I’ve got Scoop and Dreadwing of all people tryin’ to get some nucleon and- what? Really?…all right, I’ll tell ‘em.” He looked back up at them. “Starscream says you can have the nucleon as long as you get out of here pronto and take Galvatron and Soundwave with you.”

~~~~

“Well, that was simple,” Dreadwing said, as he pushed his dolly of nucleon.

“Dreadwing, you can’t just go around threatening to shoot people if they don’t give you what they want,” said Scoop.

“Sure I can,” said Dreadwing. “It’s pretty easy.”

“I mean it’s wrong,” said Scoop.

“Well, yeah, but how else am I gonna get stuff if people say no? Not like I have any money, and while I am pretty sleek with great colours, I’m not so good looking that people will just give me stuff.”

Scoop looked like he was trying to form a response to that when-

“Hey, wait!”

Dreadwing and Scoop turned to see someone neither of them recognized running up behind them.

“Sorry, who are you again?” Scoop asked.

“I’m Windblade, the cityspeaker,” she said. “What are you doing with all that fuel?”

“Nothing weird!” said Dreadwing, in a high pitched voice.

He and Scoop did their best to look like normal sensible boring Cybertronians who could be trusted with enough nucleon to level Iacon. Windblade eyed them skeptically.

Scoop’s fake glasses started to slip onto his fake nose. He hurriedly pushed them up.

“It’s for a ship,” said Scoop.

“It’s for a bar,” said Dreadwing at the same time.

They looked at each other.

“Some of it’s for a bar but most of it is for a ship,” said Scoop, improvising. “We’re leaving Cybertron.”

“The bar is a favour for a friend,” said Dreadwing.

Windblade frowned. “Is it normal to drink nucleon at Cybertronian bars?”

“Yes,” said Dreadwing.

“No,” said Scoop.

“It’s normal if you’re not a weenie,” said Dreadwing. “Have you ever gone to a bar in your entire life?”

“We were just at a bar,” said Scoop. “Not drinking,” he added hastily, looking at Windblade. “We’re completely sober.”

“Exactly!” said Dreadwing triumphantly. “See what I mean? Anyways, Rattrap said it was okay. Just go ask him! He’s right behind you!”

“Yeah it’s fine,” said Rattrap, who was indeed right behind Windblade. Windblade turned towards him.

“C’mon, let’s book it,” whispered Dreadwing to Scoop.

Scoop sighed, but started pushing his dolly of nucleon.

~~~~

The two of them stood just outside of Metroplex, having successfully managed to flee.

“I’ll bring these back to the Nemesis,” said Scoop, gesturing at the fuel. “You take…the bar stuff to the bar.”

“You’re the one that knows this Sandstorm guy, though,” said Dreadwing.

“I don’t think you could handle taking all this fuel back to the Decepticons,” said Scoop.

“What! I am totally responsible and can be trusted with large amounts of explosives!”

“I just don’t want you accidentally blowing yourself up,” said Scoop patiently.

“What, do you have experience with this stuff?”

“Actually, yes,” said Scoop. “Though, mostly it was using it for demolition purposes…”

“Ha!”

“Which means I know how to avoid blowing myself up,” said Scoop repressively.

“Wait…” said Dreadwing. “I think I know what this is about! You’re trying to avoid seeing your old buddy! The one you owe money to!” He nodded sagely. “I totally get that. Yeah, sure, I’ll drop it off.”

“Thanks,” said Scoop.

~~~~

Dreadwing was just returning from the bar when his comm went off with a crackle.

“Should probably get that fixed…” he muttered to himself.

“Dreadwing! It’s Scoop!”

“Yeah yeah, what is it?”

“We have a problem! The Decepticons are leaving! You’ve got to get back here fast! I tried to stall but-”

“You’re kidding me, Galvatron’s ditching me? And keeping you? No offence,” he tacked on.

“It’s fine,” said Scoop. “I agree, I’m not even a Decepticon. He even said good job for ditching you…something about you being too close to logic and science?”

Wow. This sucked. The Decepticon cause really was dead here. Dreadwing briefly entertained the idea of flying off into deep space to join up with more Decepticon misfits and then remembered he had a quest from Shockwave.

Wait. The quest! How was he going to get Blackrock to help them if he wasn’t there!

“Scoop! I’m sending you the information about Blackrock and everything! If I don’t make it, it’ll be up to you to get him to help us!”

“But-“

Dreadwing transformed.

“I’m a stealth bomber I can’t hear you!”

He nyoomed off towards the Nemesis.

~~~~

“They actually did it!”

Dreadwing stared at the very empty spot where the Nemesis had been parked.

Well, Blackrock was Scoop’s problem now. He now had…roughly two months until Scoop would be back. Time to start assembling supplies.

And of course not get caught by the cops.

Or Swindle.

Once again, the thought of stealing a ship and just flying off came to Dreadwing. He gritted his teeth.

“No…remember…do it for him. Do it for Shockwave.” And his magical mystery healing rocks.

Chapter Text

DAY 1:

It was at times like these that Dreadwing thought, What Would Shockwave Do?

Step 1: Create A Secret Lair In Crystal City

Well, thought Dreadwing as he looked at the black hole that contained what used to be Crystal City and the wind eerily wailed around the rust sea, at least no one is gonna come out here.

DAY 2:

Dreadwing was bored. Once again, what would Shockwave do?

“Something logical,” he muttered to himself. What was even logical to do in these circumstances? Shockwave’s logic had created the black hole and tried to end the universe so…maybe he shouldn’t think logically. The word logic was starting to lose all meaning to him at this point.

“What is logic, anyways…”

Making a list of what he needed. That was normal, safe logic, right? It definitely wouldn’t be a gateway to making portals to destroy the concept of time.

Well, it was for a time machine. So - could he trust Shockwave? Could he trust himself to figure out what to do here?

This was too much introspection for poor Dreadwing. He needed to do something fun.

“Maybe I should see what’s going on out there, anyways…”. Wasn’t Waspinator still around somewhere? Maybe he should find him.

DAY 3:

The day had started so well. He’d managed to find Waspinator pretty quickly, just outside of Maccadam’s. The problem was, their reunion had been loud enough to attract attention, probably because Dreadwing had been yelling and waving his arms to try and get Waspinator to look at him.

And now, here they were, being chased by the agents of corrupt authority into Metroplex’s internals. Because Dreadwing was wanted for things like “continuing to wear a Decepticon badge”, “stealing nucleon”, and “almost causing the end of the entire space time continuum”.

“Why universe hates Waspinator?” came the cry from behind Dreadwing as he ran through the ankle-deep dubious liquid in the tunnel deep within Metroplex. Dreadwing did his best not to think about that. The worst part was, Metroplex could always be watching. And telling Windblade about it, but, more importantly, judging them.

“Quiet!” yelled Dreadwing. “They’re going to hear us!”

“They’re this way!” Starscream’s goons were gaining on them. And Dreadwing knew goons. He’d been one himself. These guys were high-level goons.

“Here!” Waspinator whisper-shouted, pointing at a hole in the wall just big enough to fit in.

“Here we go!” said Dreadwing, flinging himself through the hole.

Now they just had to wait until the chasers gave up, and then he could go back to his black hole lair.

DAY 5:

After a day of lying low (and recovering from squeezing through that hole), Dreadwing figured he deserved a special little treat.

Unfortunately, the only bar he could go to was the exticon one.

“So,” Sandstorm began. They were sitting next to each other at the bar.

“So?”

“How do you and Scoop know each other? And why are you working together? No offence but…you don’t really seem the type,” he added. “Though, given he’s preaching the gospel of Starscream…”

“The what?” Dreadwing asked.

“I know, right?” said Sandstorm.

Dreadwing had no clue what Sandstorm was talking about, but he’d cut off his left wing before he’d admit it.

The two of them sat together in silence for a minute.

“We’re gonna save the world,” Dreadwing said suddenly. “No. The entire universe! The entire space-time continuum!”

Sandstorm choked on his drink. The Firecons (ex-Firecons) sitting not too far away did their best to pretend they weren’t eavesdropping.

“That’s, um, a bold goal,” Sandstorm said weakly.

“Just as soon as Scoop gets back…” said Dreadwing.

“Actually, I was hoping I could talk with him some more,” Sandstorm said.

“He’s busy,” said Dreadwing. “Very busy. Doing normal Scoop things. Like…” he paused. What did he know about Scoop? “…not going to bars.”

“Did he ditch you?” Sandstorm asked. “He does that. Dramatically. What kind of moral high ground does he have, anyways…” He stared at his drink.

That doesn’t sound at all like Scoop, Dreadwing thought. Sounds more like you have issues.

He wondered what Scoop was doing right now.

ABOARD THE NEMESIS:

“I understand,” said Galvatron. “You are unused to true war, such as I experienced. Your spirits are weak. But! Deep down within you, lurks a true fighter’s fire!”

Scoop and Blitzwing found themselves exchanging incredulous looks.

I’d like to see him last one week in the Wreckers, thought Scoop. No, that was uncharitable. Scoop desperately searched for a positive way to react to this statement, and eventually landed on ‘pity’. Poor Galvatron, his time in the Dead Universe had left him burbling on about true adversity to black ops veterans of a four million year long civil war.

Oh hey, another positive thing: Galvatron was increasing the Autobot-Decepticon solidarity! Scoop was pretty sure he and Blitzwing were thinking the same things about Galvatron. His internal chronometer ticked forwards at an agonizingly slow pace. Just 3 minutes and 32 seconds to the next 5 minute marker. Just 8 minutes and 31 seconds to the next 10 minute marker. Just…

Just slightly over three weeks to go on board this ship.

DAY 8:

“Yeah, some guy out in the back off beyond made it,” Dreadwing overheard.

“You know, I completely forgot about those guys. Think Starscream’s gonna try and get them to come back?”

“Good luck,” the first voice sniggered.

“It’s kinda crowded enough right now, I dunno if I want them stealing my spot.”

“No one wants your spot, dingus, it’s right on the edge of the wastes.”

The conversation faded out as the two (ex-)Decepticons walked off past Dreadwing.

~~~~

“So, I heard about some new Decepticon communication thing?” Dreadwing asked at the bar, propping his feet up.

The bartender pushed his feet off the table. Dreadwing overbalanced and fell off the barstool.

“Seriously, don’t do it,” said Blast Off. “It’s just a huge time-waster.”

“Eh,” said Vortex. “I’m having fun there.”

“You got into an argument with someone about the functionality of having flaming sword helicopter blades for seventy-six hours!”

“He was wrong!”

“Weren’t you two just throwing insults back and forth after hour 40?” Brawl interjected.

“I can’t believe it took the mods nearly 2 whole days to lock the thread and ban the two of you…”

“But what is it?” Dreadwing asked, interrupting their byplay. “Where was this?”

“It’s called The Big Conversation,” said Brawl. “And well, that’s basically what it is.”

“I see,” said Dreadwing, who was currently metaphorically as blind as a creature with no optical sensors.

This definitely merited further investigation. And by “investigation”, he meant “eavesdropping on more people until he finally figured out what was going on.”

DAY 14:

Dreadwing realized, with a shock, that he had been trapped in social media for 3 days straight. Vortex’s internet argument suddenly made a lot more sense.

It was…really nice. Being able to talk with other Decepticons again. The ones who hadn’t taken off their badges. The ones who hadn’t been stuck with him on the cannibal asteroid for 3 years. The ones who weren’t Soundwave groupies.

He had a job, though. He needed to get as much of this time machine together as possible. He stared mournfully at his collection of supplies.

Then an idea struck him.

New Post in “Help”

To Anyone Who May Be Able To Help,
I am a respected and powerful mad scientist who was recently forced to flee Cybertron due to recent events. I have many cool and interesting weapons that I had to leave behind, and I am looking for someone who could pick them up for me.
Anyone who helps me gets dibs on the gun of their choice.
In order to get them, I need…
Dreadwing sat back and waited.

~~~~

“Your post has been removed for scamming and your account has been banned from the Help subforum?” Dreadwing read incredulously.

He had gotten a few comments on his post before the mods had come and shut it down. Including a number of people making jokes and a couple of people who thought it was real.

“No, this is a classic scam,” had been the reply from Dreadwing’s new nemesis.

Well, time to try on a different subform.

~~~~

“Your account, “MinionF22”, has been permanently banned from The Big Conversation.”

Dreadwing stared at his screen in shock. What was with the mods at this place?

And he’d liked that username. No one would think a stealth bomber would be using “F22”. The perfect disguise.

Venting, Dreadwing began to make a new account.

Let’s see…

“Sorry, ‘isurvivedcannibalmeteorandalligotwasthislousyusername’ has been taken?” He read out loud with mounting incredulity.

Begrudgingly, he added a 2 to the end of the username, and was finally able to use it. And thus ‘isurvivedcannibalmeteorandalligotwasthislousyusername2’ entered The Big Conversation.

DAY 20:

Dreadwing carefully walked aboard the Lost Light, doing his best to seem normal and like he belonged. He may not have been any kind of secret agent but hey, he was a stealth bomber. That meant he should be good at this sneaking scrap, right?

He resisted the urge to touch his fake moustache.

A minibot, also sporting a fake moustache, walked by, giving him a nod. Wait. Was this guy also in disguise? Was he also sneaking onboard?

No time to consider that. Dreadwing followed the handily placed signs to the engine room.

The Big Conversation had actually ended up being useful. When Dreadwing had brought up time travel, another poster had showed up to brag about his time travel machine.

And also a bunch of stuff about the Lost Light’s engine.

And so, here he was. Stealing valuable components from the Lost Light’s engine.

This was gonna go great.

~~~~

“What do you mean, it’s missing?” Ultra Magnus stared down at Perceptor. “Where did it go? It can’t have just gotten up and walked away!”

“There…was a note,” said Perceptor, pausing almost imperceptibly.

“Are you saying someone stole parts of the engine?”

Perceptor pulled out the note. It read “HA HA YOU HAVE BEEN BAMBOOZLED. PS GALVATRON DEFINITELY DID THIS.”

“Wait, wait,” said Rodimus. “Galvatron? Didn’t he die or something? Back when he was trying to destroy Cybertron? Why would he steal our engine parts?”

Perceptor looked pained. “Galvatron did not steal our engine parts.”



“It says so right here, though,” said Ultra Magnus.

“He can’t steal it because he’s dead!” said Rodimus. “Unless he went to the Dead Universe and back…which was a thing that happened recently. Hm.”

“The phrasing implies that it’s someone trying to frame Galvatron. Badly,” said Perceptor, trying to return the conversation to sensibility.

“But,” said Rodimus,”why would someone do that? Everyone’s out to get him for trying to end the world anyways, what’s the point of framing him for theft? Also,” he added, “have you met Galvatron? He would definitely write a note like this.”

Ultra Magnus nodded.

Perceptor decided to give it up as a lost cause.

DAY 22:

Dreadwing looked down at the diagram on his data pad. Then back up at the partial machine he had kludged together. Not bad, he thought.

Only seven weeks to go…briefly, Dreadwing entertained the thought of just using the time machine and taking off without Scoop.

But, he needed a ship. And he needed Scoop’s help to install it. And that Blackrock guy.

Shockwave had said so.

…

What could it hurt if he tried to install it himself?

DAY 28:

Dreadwing walked to the spaceport, wearing a new and completely different fake moustache. No one would know it was him.

This time, he was sure he could successfully steal a ship.

DAY 30:

“Waspinator has got to stop meeting you like this,” said Waspinator.

“Quiet or they’ll hear us,” said Dreadwing. He crouched closer to Waspinator and waited for the lights to move away. Okay, repeated attempted ship theft had not been his brightest plan.

DAY 32:

“Did you know they’re gonna melt down Megatron’s cannon?” said Sparkstalker.

Dreadwing laughed. “What did he expect the Autobots to do after he threw away his badge and took one of theirs from a dead guy?”

“Probably not that,” said Wilder.

“And you know what, I’m glad. He just reeled drunkenly from disaster to disaster and never cared about us anyways. And then he stabbed us in the back!” He pounded on the table for emphasis. “Well, he stabbed me in the back. You all jumped ship like scared…Rattraps! And for what! Look at the state of things around here!”

Treadshot got to his feet, his chair scraping across the ground. “You-“

“If you’re just going to insult us and drink my engex, I’m getting Sandstorm to kick you out,” said the bartender. “And never let you use my fake moustache supply again.”

Dreadwing subsided and a slightly awkward silence fell over the small bar.

“Dreadwing did you. Did you ever do anything. Really bad?” asked Sandstorm suddenly.

Dreadwing paused. He thought about all the things he’d seen during the war. Most of the stuff that was, kind of sort of, really bad, he’d just been helping out Shockwave. So, that didn’t count. That left…

“I…I pretended to be a medic once. To get out of paying my bar tab.”

“Isn’t that a war crime?” asked Brisko.

“It’s just a regular crime,” said Dreadwing.

“It’s a dirty move but it’s not a crime at all,” said Sparkstalker.

“Impersonation, though,” said Sandstorm frowning.

“I’m still a person!” yelled Dreadwing.

“I’m cutting you all off,” said the bartender.

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE (JUST KIDDING, ITS EARTH):

Finally.

Scoop stared at the little blue ball of a planet with a sense of deep relief.

Now all he had to do was…find Blackrock. And then find a way to get back.

Chapter Text

As soon as they landed, and Scoop was able to get some time to himself, Scoop followed the (weirdly specific and detailed) instructions he’d gotten from Dreadwing about how to connect to the human internet and search for Blackrock. How did Dreadwing know how to do this? Or was it Shockwave that had written the instructions originally?

But that just raised more questions.

Then again, expecting anything that made sense out of Shockwave, a mech who thought it made sense to end the universe to solve the energy problem, was pretty stupid, so that was totally on Scoop for having expectations there.

Not for the first time, he wondered why he was helping Dreadwing. Sure, Shockwave had said the fate of the time-space continuum depended on it, but Scoop had had a lot of time to think on the month-long trip to Earth. Shockwave could have just been lying to try to get them to help.

On the other hand, Scoop was pretty sure Dreadwing would have helped Shockwave anyways, even if it didn’t involve saving the space-time continuum. Time-space. Whatever you called it. Scoop was a combat engineer, not a physicist.

The point was, there was every sign that Shockwave was telling the truth, which meant that he should be helping. Scoop still felt a bit uneasy about it, though.

Whatever. He could worry about it later.

Garrison Blackrock was a very easy man to find. And now Scoop had to figure out how to talk to him and tell him he was actually an alien sleeper agent.

Sometimes he wished he was back with the Wreckers. And then he actually examined that thought, and immediately threw it in the trash.

“Skywarp,” he said. “Can you do me a favour?”

~~~~

“Look,” said Blackrock. “I don’t know how you got in here but-“

“Oh,” said Scoop. “It’s because I’m actually a hard light hologram. My real body is much larger and is a good ways away.” He deliberately let his holoavatar fizzle out for a second.

Blackrock shaded his eyes with his hand. “Okay. Fine. Let’s say I believe you that you’re one of these robots-“

“Cybertronians.”

“Whatever. They’ve actually got me in on the negotiations because I’m the world expert on- actually,” he interrupted himself. “It’s not really relevant.”

“Why are you guys even agreeing to ally with them, anyways?” asked Scoop. “They killed so many of your people. Galvatron, the leader, definitely wants to conquer Earth. He’s really not subtle about it.”

“Well…we needed some kind of…allies….in case more Cybertronians came back to try and conquer us…”

Scoop’s holoavatar stared at him flatly.

“Okay, okay, I wasn’t the one that actually made that decision,” said Blackrock, raising his hands. “But if I had to guess, it’s pretty hard to say no to an alliance when there’s guns pointed at you. Especially very large guns. What were we supposed to do?” He shook his head. “Aren’t you one of them? Why are you even asking me about this?”

Scoop shook his head. “I’m an Autobot.”

“Right,” said Blackrock. “The ‘good guys’.”

Scoop had heard that tone before from Neutrals. He restrained his first impulse, which was to snark back at Blackrock with something cutting enough to make him shut up. He restrained his second impulse, which was to explain how exactly the Autobot were the good guys. He had to focus on the mission. “I came to you because I need your help. Your technical expertise.”

“So, you looked me up…”

“Actually, someone on Cybertron gave me your name.” And here was where Scoop started getting into the sketchy stuff. “We got a message from the future saying that we needed to get you to help build a time machine, or the entire time-space continuum could collapse.” He paused. “I know it sounds outrageous but-“

Blackrock interrupted him with a snort. “The hard light hologram of a giant alien robot manages to sneak into my office to tell me I’m also secretly a giant alien robot. The time travel stuff is just the cherry on top. Am I an anime protagonist now?”

A what? No, not important.

“I know it’s hard to believe but-“

“Are you kidding? Are you on drugs? Robot drugs?” Blackrock looked like he was ready to continue in this vein for a while, but then he cut himself off and looked thoughtful. “How, exactly, do you want me to build a time machine?”

“Well,” said Scoop. “First the two of us would take our ship and go back to Cybertron. We have all the plans there.”

“Just the two of us? None of the others?”

Scoop winced. “They have other plans.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, stranding the ‘bad guys’ on Earth?”

“It’s probably better than them having the ship. And besides, they’re not really stranded. They have Astrotrain.”

Scoop had had an entire month to plan this, and eventually he’d realized something important. The best way for them to get back to Cybertron would be to steal the Nemesis.

Something glinted in Blackrock’s eyes, then was quickly gone.

“I’m not really sold on the ‘you’re a robot, Blackrock’ bit, but I gotta say you wanting my help to build a time machine is good for my ego. All right, Scotty, beam me up. Let’s steal ourselves a giant interstellar spacecraft.”

Scoop didn’t even have to pull out any of the info Dreadwing had given him.

This was too easy. But hey, on the bright side that meant he didn’t have to kidnap him.

“I can prove you’re one of us, once we get back to the ship,” Scoop offered.

Now he just needed to get back to the ship and hope no one else was around. He wondered what Dreadwing was up to back on Cybertron. Hopefully nothing too strange…

~~~~~

“Could we get into trouble for this?”

Dreadwing considered this. “He’s in prison, right? That means it’s fine to steal his stuff and no one will come after you.”

“Waspinator doesn’t quite think that’s right, but what does he know…”

“Yeah, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m out,” said Sparkstalker. “Have fun storming the prison, or whatever.”

“What a square,” muttered Dreadwing as Sparkstalker walked off. Brisko, Wilder, and Treadshot exchanged glances, but none of them followed Sparkstalker.

The plan was simple.

Step 1: get a fake copy of Megatron's cannon
Step 2: break into where the actual cannon was and switch out the fake for the real one
Step 3: leave

Pretty simple, right?

“What kind of plan is that?” asked Wilder, incredulous.

“Sounds pretty normal to me,” said Sandstorm. “So, how much stuff are we blowing up?”

“Waspinator thinks,” Waspinator looked at them nervously. “Waspinator thinks if we don’t want anyone finding us, that there should be zero stuff blowing up.”

Wilder, Brisko, and Treadshot nodded eagerly.

“What about emergency explosions?” Sandstorm asked.

“Maybe we could have fireworks afterwards?” Waspinator asked.

Dreadwing clapped Waspinator on the back. “Waspinator, you’re a genius! No one will think we’re the thieves if we are doing something loud and flashy like fireworks!”

Step 4: steal fireworks

“Uh,” said Treadshot. “Why can’t we just…buy them?”

“Waspinator doesn’t know where to buy them,” said Waspinator. “But Waspinator does know where Starscream’s secret fireworks stash is.”

“Wait, why does he even have a-"

Wilder shushed Brisko.

“You know,” muttered Treadshot. “I bet we could get a lot of money for those fireworks.”

“But how are we going to carry them?” asked Brisko.

“Just bring a bunch of carts and pretend you’re maintenance workers,” said Dreadwing. “Works every time.”

The trio eyed him skeptically.

“Also fake moustaches,” he added.

“Where are we even going to get-“

Dreadwing, having anticipated this, pulled his fake moustaches out of his subspace pocket.

There was a pause.

“No,” said Sandstorm. “Absolutely not.”

~~~~

Sandstorm strode down the street, trailed by the moustachioed trio.

Treadshot began to speak. “So,” he said, “we moustache you a quest-“

He was rudely interrupted by Brisko and Wilder putting their hands over his mouth.

“Mmph!”

Dreadwing’s cloak flapped satisfyingly in the breeze. For about 1.2 seconds, after which it got stuck in multiple spots on his kibble and he had to try and walk and detangle it. Someone should invent a cloak that doesn’t get caught on things, he thought, grumpily.

Waspinator, stuck in a cloak that was unfortunately Dreadwing-sized, kept tripping over the bottom. They had tried to fold it up and get it to stick, but it somehow kept getting unstuck.

“That’s it,” said Sandstorm, and picked up Waspinator. “Now let’s get going. I bet Springer doesn’t have to deal with this…” he muttered to himself.

~~~~

Rattrap just put his hand to his head when he saw them.

“Why are you always around?” Dreadwing asked.

“I work here, moron,” said Rattrap.

“Like, as a guard for Starscream’s secret fireworks stash?” asked Treadshot.

“Let’s go with that,” said Rattrap. He looked very tired. “Are you here to…steal Starscream’s fireworks?”

“Nooo?” said Dreadwing.

“Good,” said Rattrap. “If you were, I’d have to activate the automated defences.”

They stared at him.

“You would all get shot and die,” said Rattrap, enunciating each word clearly.

“I could take them,” said Sandstorm.

The firecons exchanged glances behind his back.

~~~~

“Well, that didn’t work,” said Treadshot.

“We could have just killed him,” said Sandstorm.

The ex-Decepticons (and Waspinator and Dreadwing) began loudly protesting.

“Are you crazy? Things are precarious enough as they are without being wanted for murdering Starscream’s bag man,” said Wilder.

“What’s a bag man?” asked Waspinator.

“You know this whole idea seems a lot stupider now that I’m sobering up,” said Dreadwing, ignoring Waspinator’s question.

Everyone muttered agreement.

“Good time, everyone,” said Dreadwing, handing his fake moustache to Sandstorm. “Make sure these get back to…bartender guy, will ya?”

“Why does he even have all these moustaches?” muttered someone. It might have been Treadshot.

“I’m not sure I want to know,” muttered someone else. It might have been Wilder.

Everyone stood awkwardly in the street for a moment.

“Well, see you later,” said Dreadwing, spinning on his heel and causing his cape to flare dramatically.

He immediately tripped as his cape got caught on a nearby wall.

~~~~

No, there was no way Dreadwing was up to anything too weird, thought Scoop.

“So,” whispered Blackrock. “What’s your plan for stealing the ship?”

“Wait til everyone else leaves then take off,” said Scoop.

Blackrock squinted at him. “That’s a bit simple, isn’t it?”

They were standing behind some trees, looking at the Nemesis. Or at least, Blackrock was successfully standing behind the trees. Scoop was incredibly obvious. The trees weren’t that big.

“Do you have any other ideas?” Scoop asked Blackrock.

Blackrock rested his chin on his fist and thought.

“What about-“

“Scoop…Blackrock…Query: reason for presence?”

Scoop and Blackrock jumped. Which, given that one of them was roughly the size and shape of a piece of heavy duty construction machinery, was not subtle.

Scoop thought fast. “Galvatron asked me to show Blackrock around, he needs to see the ship to help design some of the…” Wait, what was it that Soundwave wanted again? Scoop hadn’t really seen Soundwave much on the trip over, as Soundwave had locked himself in his room for the majority of the trip, and was apparently “moping” (according to Blitzwing).

“The habitat,” said Blackrock.

“You can ask him about it if you like,” said Scoop.

When Soundwave paused to make a call to Galvatron, Scoop seized his chance and also Blackrock and booked it to the ship, ignoring Blackrock’s yelp. He skidded through the corridor to the pilot’s area, and immediately hit the close doors button, and started running through the takeoff sequence.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered to himself.

He could see Soundwave through the windows, and he did not look happy. Not that Soundwave ever looked happy. He was a morose individual.

But he looked especially unhappy with Scoop right now.

The Nemesis took off, and Soundwave rapidly shrunk in the window.

They were safe.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Came a voice from another room.

Scoop looked at Blackrock.

“Stay here,” he whispered.

“Hello? Anyone?” The voice spoke again, and Scoop immediately realized what had happened.

“I forgot that Skywarp was connected to the ship,” he said.

Chapter Text

“Why is this guy connected to the ship with tubes?” Blackrock asked.

“Why is there a human on the ship?” Skywarp asked.

“He’s not a human,” said Scoop.

“Okay,” said Skywarp. “Why is he here, though?”

“Why are you here?” asked Blackrock.

“He has a condition,” said Scoop.

“It’s a long story,” said Skywarp. “Anyways, can we make the human not a human now?”

“Everyone’s taking this whole ‘Blackrock, you’re secretly an alien robot’ thing a bit too calmly,” said Blackrock. “Since we don’t have any proof. I know I’m weird but I have a normal body. But also, maybe not?”

“Are you agreeing with me, or not?” asked Scoop, a bit amused.

“I just want some proof, is all,” Blackrock said. “Get out your scanners or something.”

“Okay,” said Scoop. “I’m going to activate your sleeper agent programming.”

“Wait, what, this is kind of fast-“

“Do it, do it!” said Skywarp. “I want to see what happens.”

Scoop and Blackrock paused and turned to look at Skywarp.

“I’ve been stuck in this ship for a month,” said Skywarp defensively.

“So have I,” said Scoop.

“You got to walk around! You got to leave! You got to walk away when Galvatron was talking to you!”

Scoop winced. “That’s…fair…” he said. “But it doesn’t mean that I should be doing something possibly irreversible to Blackrock here just for your amusement.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a killjoy?” Skywarp asked.

“It’s come up,” said Scoop.

“You know what?” said Blackrock. “I changed my mind. Let’s just get this over with now.” He beckoned Scoop.

“All right,” said Scoop.

~~~~

Sovereign, formerly Blackrock, darted past Scoop.

“He’s loose!” yelled Skywarp, his tone unnecessarily gleeful in Scoop’s opinion. “Get him before he gets to the controls!”

Scoop spun around and ran out into the hallway. Sovereign was dashing forwards, his feet clicking on the floor.

Using the momentum from his spin, Scoop made a flying tackle and roughly two thousand pounds of construction equipment came crashing down on the minibot. Or would have, if Sovereign hadn’t slid out of the way.

As he slid, Scoop managed to grab an ankle, and, holding Sovereign upside down in the air, hurriedly undid the sleeper agent code.

There was a pause.

“Ugh,” came Blackrock’s voice. He was breathing hard. “Let’s never do that again.”

“Agreed,” said Scoop.

“Aww,” came Skywarp’s voice from the room behind them.

~~~~

INTERLUDES FROM THE 13 DAYS LEFT TIL CYBERTRON

“Is there anything you can do to make the ship go faster?” Blackrock asked.

“Sorry,” said Scoop.

The two of them were sitting on the floor of Skywarp’s room.

“I didn’t expect this would take so long,” said Blackrock. “Then again,” he said, pausing, “I didn’t ask any questions at all.”

“I thought it was a bit weird,” said Scoop, “but I needed you to come with me so I wasn’t going to question it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Skywarp. “Now go back to playing cards! Entertain me, minions!”

Blackrock and Scoop looked at each other, then simultaneously decided not to pick up their cards.

Well, data pads. Due to the size difference, they were playing via data pad. This also let Skywarp join in. However, he had lost and was now out, so it was down to the two of them.

Or it would be, if they ever decided to actually play.

~~~~

“Wait, I need you to break it down for me again,” said Skywarp. Scoop suspected that they did not need to “break it down for him” again. He suspected that Skywarp was just making him recite the entire sordid tale because he thought it was funny to point out the ridiculousness of the whole plan.

But maybe Scoop was doing him a disservice. Maybe Skywarp really didn’t understand. Scoop prepared to begin explaining again, but was interrupted by the door opening.

“Hey, guys, look what I found,” said Blackrock. He was standing on a dolly.

“How did you get it over here?” Scoop asked. The dolly was significantly larger than Blackrock. It was probably big enough to carry Scoop.

“I can command it to go wherever I want!” said Blackrock. “With the power of this remote I made!” He pulled out a smallish piece of metal with wires sticking out of it.

“Interesting,” said Scoop.

“Yes, well, all in a day’s work for the eccentric genius CEO,” said Blackrock. “Now, onwards, my steed!” He pressed a button on his remote, and the dolly backed up out of the doorway.

“No, no, wait, stop backing up, stop!” His voice trailed off as the dolly zoomed backwards, before there was a distant crash.

“Looks like you’ve still got some work to do on that remote!” Skywarp yelled after him. Scoop was shaking his head. “Anyways, you’ve still gotta explain things. Go back to you stopping Dreadwing from threatening Rattrap.”

~~~~

SEVERAL HOURS LATER:

“Look, you’re actually an Autobot, right?” Skywarp asked.

“Yes,” said Scoop suspiciously.

“Like, a real Autobot who just helps people, right?”

“Well, yes,” said Scoop. “What do you need help with?”

“Wh-what do I need help with?!” Skywarp sputtered. “Have you missed the part where I’m slowly dying due to being out of phase with reality?”

Scoop had, actually, in all honesty, kind of forgotten about that.

“It’s not really my area but I’d be happy to take a look,” he said. “See if I can do anything.”

“What, really?”

“I said I would help you, didn’t I? I’m not the sort of person who goes back on my word like that,” Scoop said.

“Well…huh,” said Skywarp, nonplussed. “Didn’t expect it to be that easy.”

“Don’t expect a miracle,” Scoop warned.

~~~~

2 DAYS LATER:

“This was a mistake,” said Blackrock, his voice muffled. His voice was muffled because he was lying face-down on the floor. “My company. Why did I abandon my company? What about the zombies? What if the US government decided to use them?”

Blackrock sat up suddenly. "No, they don't even know about them. I'm good."

He lay back down on the floor.

Scoop patted him on the back very delicately and gingerly.

“I thought I could steal the ship from you guys,” Blackrock said to the floor. “It was going to be perfect. What better opportunity could I ask for? A delusional alien robot telling me I’m one of them and he needs me to save the universe. But no. He was right. What have I done to deserve this?”

“Is he drunk?” asked Skywarp with some fascination. “Is there engex on this ship and no one told me?”

“I’m not drunk!” yelled Blackrock.

“There’s no engex on board,” said Scoop. “And even if there was, I wouldn’t give you a drop of Unicron’s Drink.”

“No drinking? Really?” said Skywarp. “I thought you religious weirdos were all about that. Partying and stuff.”

“That’s the Primalists,” said Scoop. “They’re the ones following a false tradition created by Nova that asserts the Primes as-“

“Don’t care,” said Skywarp.

“You did ask,” said Scoop, injured.

“No, I didn’t,” said Skywarp.

Blackrock continued to regret his choices. Only 4 more days until Cybertron…

Chapter Text

“So this is Cybertron,” said Blackrock, looking out the window. “It looks very metallic.”
“Didn’t you have all your memories unlocked?” asked Skywarp.

“I locked those memories right back up again,” said Blackrock. “I don’t know who I was as Sovereign, but I don’t like him very much. I’d rather stay as Blackrock.”

“You know,” said Scoop, “talking about yourself in that way really isn’t healthy.”

Blackrock gave him an incredulous glance. “It’s a whole other personality! And he sucks!”

“I hope you can come to peace with yourself someday, Blackrock,” said Scoop. “But for now, we need to find Dreadwing. I think I know where he might be…”

~~~~

“Oh good you’re finally here,” said Dreadwing. “Let’s get going to a nice abandoned planet and start putting this thing together.”

“We have to deal with Skywarp first,” said Scoop.

“Skywarp?”

“I promised him I’d help.”

“Just dump him on Starscream, if anyone has the resources to help him, he does. Now c’mon, let’s load up the ship.”

~~~~

Starscream looked at Skywarp. A slightly translucent Skywarp looked back at Starscream.

“Hey,” said Skywarp.

Starscream shut the door in his face.

“Starscream, I’m dying! You need to help me!”

Starscream opened the door a crack.

There was an awkward pause.

“Where have you been?”

“That’s a long story,” said Skywarp. Then he remembered he was supposed to be a distraction. Then he remembered that despite his promises and overall wholesomeness, Scoop had not in fact helped him. “You know what, I’ll tell you some other time. You might want to know that your buddy Scoop brought Galvatron’s ship back. Along with some human who’s actually not human.”

“With Galvatron in it?!”

“No, it was just us,” said Skywarp, then winced.

“So you really did go palling around with Galvatron!”

Skywarp was beginning to remember why he hadn’t gone to Starscream for help in the first place.

Starscream paused. “Wait, what’s that noise?”

“Oh, it’s probably Dreadwing and Scoop’s time travel machine. Man, they put it together fast,” said Skywarp. “Ah, scrap, I guess I really was a good distraction.”

Starscream looked down at Skywarp, who was still sprawled on the steps. There was a moment of silence.

Then that one buzzkill guy with a revolutionary name - Guillotine? No, wait, Barricade! - came running up.

“Starscream-“

“Unless you have good news, I don’t want to hear it,” said Starscream.

“We found the culprit for the theft of all that nucleon,” said Barricade.

“I already knew about- I mean, that is good news,” Starscream interrupted himself. “Wait. What’s the bad news? Tell me Galvatron and Soundwave didn’t come back.”

“Well, their ship did,” said Barricade.

“Oh, that’s fine,” said Skywarp. “That’s just Scoop. They’re gonna turn it into a time machine.”

Barricade mouthed “time machine” to himself incredulously.

“On the bright side,” said Skywarp, “maybe they blew themselves up trying to use it. Like what happened with the Lost Light. C’mon, it’s Dreadwing. You really think that guy could build a time machine?”

~~~~

“I think you put everything together backwards, Dreadwing,” said Blackrock.

“I just followed Shockwave’s diagrams!” Dreadwing protested.

The ship lurched dangerously, in a way a ship of its size should not lurch.

“We need to find somewhere to land so we can fix this,” Scoop said.

“What’s the closest empty planet?” asked Dreadwing.

Scoop scrolled through the ship’s database. “It doesn’t say.”

“Okay, just pick the closest planet period. No one wants to live near Cybertron, it’ll be fine.”

“Gee, I wonder why no one wants to live near you people,” Blackrock said dryly.

“It’s because of the war,” said Scoop and Dreadwing in unison.

“Also the radioactivity,” said Dreadwing.

“I was being sarcastic but, wait, radioactivity? You took me to a radioactive planet?” said Blackrock.

“It’s fine now, don’t worry about it, everything magically disappeared after Megatron punched the giant Decepticombiner in the face,” said Dreadwing.

“I have questions,” said Blackrock.

“That’s not how it happened,” said Scoop. “Optimus saved everyone from the Dead Universe trying to swallow reality by using the power of the Matrix, and that somehow healed the planet.”

“I have more questions,” said Blackrock.

“I don’t have answers,” said Dreadwing. “It was pretty weird.”

Scoop shrugged. “I wasn’t there. I only know what people told me.”

~~~~

“All right, here we are,” said Dreadwing. “All the parts, and the diagrams are…” he scrolled through pages on his datapad, “…here!”

Blackrock stared at the diagrams from atop Dreadwing’s shoulder. He made a face.

“What does that face mean?” Scoop asked.

“It means- you know what, take a look yourself, Bob the Builder,” said Blackrock. Scoop took the datapad from Dreadwing, then stared at it for a moment in silence.

“Step One,” said Scoop grimly, “figure out what Shockwave’s diagrams actually mean.”

“Seemed pretty clear to me,” said Dreadwing. He quickly continued talking before anyone could interrupt him with ‘but didn’t you mess up building it’. “I see where I went wrong. I just need a few extra hands to help get things in alignment.”

The two of them stared at him.

“What?” He glared defensively. “I’ve been helping Shockwave with his stuff for years, I know how he writes his stuff! Been doing it ever since we were stuck on that asteroid. How do you think I got this funky body, huh?”

“Uh…” said Blackrock. “I just thought you got it at Build-a-Body or wherever you guys get your bodies from.”

“No!” said Dreadwing indignantly. “Shockwave made it for me! It was the trial run for Megatron’s new body! I’m a stealth bomber! This body is extremely cool and funky fresh!”

“Did he install diagram-decoding skills in the body?” Scoop muttered.

“Is that a thing you can do?” Blackrock asked, fascinated.

Scoop and Dreadwing looked at each other.

“You know what? I bet Shockwave could do that,” said Dreadwing. “But he didn’t! I got these mad skills through my own efforts.”

“None of this is changing that you still put it together wrong,” said Blackrock.

“Just -do the job we brought you here to do, fake human guy,” said Dreadwing.

~~~~

“It works! It works!” Blackrock cackled gleefully. “I can’t believe I did it! I helped build a time machine!”

Scoop picked up both Blackrock and Dreadwing in a group hug. “We finally got it!”

“Aw, put me down, Constructi-Lite,” said Dreadwing. But he was grinning.

“All right,” said Scoop. “Now we need to get Shockwave.”

Chapter Text

“We need to get to the end of time, whatever that means,” said Dreadwing. “That’s where Shockwave is.”

He looked at the time machine controls in front of him.

“So just plug in the max range and go there,” said Scoop.

“Wait! Don’t do that!” said Blackrock quickly.

Scoop and Dreadwing turned to look at him.

“The thing is, the end of time is literally the end of the universe. If we jump there we won’t survive,” said Blackrock. “Also, we don’t know where he is. We jump forwards in time we’re just going to be right here - wait unless you can set coordinates in the time machine?”

Dreadwing looked at the notes, then back up again. “No,” he said. “We gotta travel the normal way.”

“So it’s just a time machine and not a time-and-space machine,” said Blackrock.

“Hey, hey, a time machine is a pretty big deal!” said Dreadwing defensively. “The space machine is right here already.”

“Please tell me you’re not talking about yourself.”

Dreadwing looked at Blackrock like he was an idiot. “What? No. The ship.”

“Oh. Right.”

“So how do we actually find Shockwave?” asked Scoop.

“Good question!” said Dreadwing, who had no idea.

“Why don’t we find a different Shockwave, and ask him what he means?” said Blackrock, only half-seriously.

“We do know where Shockwave was at various times,” said Dreadwing. “Actually wait, I have people I can consult with.” He pulled out his datapad.

“Hey guys,” Dreadwing said as he typed, “I’m making a timeline of what Shockwave was up to for personal reasons. The-o-retically, when would be a good time to ask him questions?” He dramatically hit the post button. “And now, we wait.”

“Dreadwing, why don’t you try to think, and not make people on the internet come up with everything?” asked Blackrock.

“I don’t know that much about what Shockwave was up to for most of his life. I know about four million years ago he was a Senator, then, I dunno, he was doing Decepticon things? Then he just randomly disappeared, until he showed up again on the asteroid a few years ago.” Dreadwing shrugged.

“Yeah, that’s fair, that’s not a lot to go on,” said Blackrock.

“I guess we’ll take a chance on finding another Shockwave, then,” said Scoop. “Not like we really have any other ideas.”

“If you change your mind, I’m the first in line, honey I’m still free, take a chance on…me…” Blackrock trailed off his song as he saw the other two Cybertronians were staring at him.

“No, no, go on,” said Dreadwing.

“You know what, I’ll just play the song for you,” said Blackrock, pulling out his phone. “No bars…well what did I expect?” He scrolled through his songs and soon the sound of the seventies was filling the ship as ABBA’s hit song played.

“This isn’t half bad,” said Dreadwing. “Doo doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo dooo, hm hmhm hm hmmm hmmm…”

"I've introduced the robots to ABBA," Blackrock said in tones of horror. "That feels like it should be some kind of war crime."

"War crimes are no joke, Blackrock," said Scoop.

Blackrock abruptly remembered that his companions had probably personally seen more war crimes than had ever been committed on Earth.

"I am so sorry," he said.

"I dunno about that," said Dreadwing. "I know a great one. What happens when you mix Scorponok, the Solstar Order, and fifty tonnes of gelled energon?"

"Dare I ask-" Blackrock was interrupted by Scoop.

"Don't!"

"Absolutely nothing!" said Dreadwing gleefully. "Because Scorponok is too busy trying to infiltrate them and turn them into their armour!"

There was a pause.

"I...don't get it," said Blackrock.

"That's because it's not funny," said Scoop. "Not even in a black comedy way. Dreadwing’s just terrible at telling jokes.”

ABBA continued to play in the background.

“So,” said Scoop, changing the subject. “When should we find a Shockwave?” asked Scoop.

“Maybe we should go back to before he got, you know,” said Dreadwing, making vague gestures at his head. “We actually know where he was then.”

“That’s pretty far back, but it might not be a bad idea,” said Scoop. “I knew him back then, after all.”

“Wait, really?”

“Not well or anything, but I was one of the students at the Academy.”

“So we have some credibility,” said Dreadwing, clapping his hands. “All right, let’s head back to Cybertron and fire it up to go about 4 million years ago.”

“4 million years ag- are you serious? Like, 4 million years ago to the day?” Blackock asked.

“Hmm maybe go back another few thousand years to be safe,” said Dreadwing. “Okay, we just gotta get back to Cybertron and-“

“You already said that,” said Blackrock.

“Well we didn’t get going, did we?” said Dreadwing.

There was a bzzt noise coming from the console.

“Uh,” said Blackrock, looking at it. “We’re being hailed - that’s the right term right? - being hailed by a Tracks.”

“Blast!” said Scoop. “Okay hurry up and start the engine!”

There was a weird coughing noise, and then the ship shook.

“Did it work?” asked Dreadwing, who had jumped behind a chair.

“Well the guy from Cybertron isn’t hailing us any more,” said Blackrock.

“Look out the window!” said Scoop.

4 million years is a long time, and planets (and everything else) move in space. To be honest, they were lucky they had actually been near Cybertron. However…

“We materialized into an energon mine?!”

Scoop winced. “We’re lucky we didn’t cause an explosion.”

“Wait, what about all the people in the mine?” Blackrock asked.

“Sucks to be them?” said Dreadwing.

“Uh, wow,” said Blackrock.

"Look," said Dreadwing, mentally shuffling through Shockwave's time travel notes, “it's fine. If you’re time travelling and you diverge from the timeline, you create an alternate universe bubble that collapses after you leave.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that, but go on,” said Blackrock suspiciously.

“No, no!” said Dreadwing. “It’s a good thing! We’re in an alternate universe bubble right now. And the reason I know this is cause this never happened in the original timeline, right, Scoop?”

"Yeah," said Scoop. "I'm pretty sure a random ship materializing into a mining facility would have made the news."

"Unless the government covered it up," muttered Dreadwing. "Anyways!" he continued in a more normal tone. "Since no one remembers it, and it's something that should have been remembered, it's not our timeline. If what we do doesn't contradict recorded history, then it's our timeline. Which means we didn’t really kill anyone.”

"Hey, hey," said Blackrock. "How do you actually know that? Just because you guys didn't record it doesn't mean someone else didn't see it, or it didn't affect someone else. Shouldn't they all be alternate universes anyways? Butterfly effect and all that."

"That's not how it works," said Dreadwing. "Shockwave told me."

"Okay, well, that's stupid," said Blackrock.

"I think it makes sense," said Scoop. All three of them ignored the weird crackling noise coming from outside the ship.

"Of course you do," said Blackrock, sighing.

"What's your problem with it, anyways?" asked Dreadwing.

"It means all of our actions are meaningless! No matter what we do, if we manage to find Shockwave or not, it's not our actual efforts, it's because it already happened and we were meant to find him. Or not, it's because he was meant to be lost in time.”

“It still matters,” said Scoop stubbornly. “Knowing that something is going to happen doesn’t actually make it happen. We’re still the ones doing things and making choices.” He paused. “It’s not that we’re being puppeted around, it’s not that we can’t change the past, it’s that it already happened. It means we already made those choices.”

“But if there’s a timeline for every possible choice-“

“Hey, I never said that!” said Dreadwing. “We’re creating…I dunno, midget timelines? When we land in the wrong place. Alternate universe bubble collapsing midget timelines.”

“None of this makes sense! How does the physics of that even work?”

“Ask Shockwave when we find him,” said Dreadwing. “Which probably isn’t here. I thought this would be easier but, this is going to take so much time. Even if we get the time right, we have to search all over the place to even find him.”

“That just means we need to find out where he was specifically at certain points in time,” said Blackrock.

“I have an idea,” said Scoop. “Why don’t we go into the future a bit? That will give us some time for people to answer Dreadwing’s question on his “making friends” group.”

“It’s ‘social media’, Scoop,” said Blackrock.

“Isn’t it just people posting text? Where’s the media?”

“Sometimes people post pictures,” said Dreadwing.

There was a weird noise coming from outside. All three of them turned to look out the windows.

“Is energon supposed to do that?” Dreadwing asked.

“Maybe we should get going,” said Scoop. Blackrock snorted.

“It’s time to go…back to the future!” Dreadwing said dramatically, and hit the button.

The weird coughing noise happened again and they were off in time! Except…

“Why are we still stuck in an energon mine?” said Blackrock. “I mean I think it looks different at least?”

“Ohhh my bad,” said Dreadwing. “It’s because it’s using the old time coordinates.”

He fiddled around with the dashboard. “Now we’re good.” He pushed the button again.

~~~~

“Home sweet home,” said Blackrock, looking at the empty space that surrounded them. “It feels like it’s been four million years since I’ve seen this! Ah hahaha…”

“It was only a few minutes though?” said Scoop.

“No, no, he’s got a point, we went through four million years of time,” Dreadwing frowned. “But it did only feel like a few minutes…”

“It was a joke,” said Blackrock.

“It wasn’t a very good one,” said Scoop. He paused. “It’s still better than the one Dreadwing made earlier.”

“Or is it later, if we time travel back again?” said Dreadwing. “Eh?”

“No,” said Blackrock.

“No,” said Scoop.

“You guys just have no sense of humour,” said Dreadwing. “Now, time to check if my internet minions have succeeded at their mission.”

“You do know they aren’t actually your minions, right?” said Blackrock.

“That was another joke,” said Dreadwing.

“Oh, okay,” said Blackrock. He paused. “That one was actually a bit funny.”

“Thank you,” said Dreadwing, gratified. He started scrolling through his data pad, then pumped his fist. “All right!”

“Good news?” asked Scoop.

“I got a time and specific place! Now c’mon, we’re heading off to Garrus-9!”

~~~~

And that's how we got here!

~~~~

“Well, that was a bust,” said Blackrock, as the ship returned to the present, surrounded by empty space.

“What should we do now?” asked Scoop. They turned to look at Dreadwing.

Dreadwing opened The Big Conversation and once again took a look at his beloved timeline. He rubbed his head.

“Only other time I can think of is after the war on Cybertron. But he was pretty focused on the prep for Dark Cybertron. It’s still just about the only other time when we know where he was and could actually talk to him without it being too risky.”

~~~~

“Oh, hey,” said Dreadwing. “We’re actually in orbit around Cybertron this time. We didn’t crash into anything and we’re not in empty space.”

“Who would have thought actually calculating the position of the planet and taking that into account would have helped,” said Blackrock dryly.

Scoop frowned. “We’re being hailed,” he said. “It’s- you’d better take this one, Dreadwing,” he said.

Turmoil was staring at them from their dashboard.

Dreadwing made a face.

“Let me guess,” said Scoop. “You owe him money.”

“I don’t! It’s just- he used to be my boss. And he has a time travel ship. And he built it first.”

“Isn’t first a relative thing when time travel is involved?” asked Blackrock.

“Nnnnot in this case,” said Dreadwing. “Ours is better though.”

“Obviously,” said Blackrock.

“Dreadwing,” said Hologram Turmoil. All three of them jumped. “I thought you were on-planet.”

“I’m in two places at once,” said Dreadwing.

“Wait, did he hear all of that?” Blackrock whispered.

“Maybe?” Scoop whispered back.

“I’m on a time travelling ship of my own,” Dreadwing blurted out.

Turmoil’s hologram stared at him impassively.

“I wasn’t kidnapped!” said Blackrock.

“I wasn’t either,” said Scoop.

“I didn’t have to kidnap anyone to build my ship!” said Dreadwing. “Anyways, we need to talk to Shockwave, so-“

Blackrock pressed a button on the dashboard, and Turmoil’s hologram vanished.

“Why’d you do that?” asked Dreadwing.

“That conversation wasn’t going anywhere,” Blackrock replied.

“…he’s right,” said Scoop. “We need to talk to Shockwave, like you said. So…”

“So?”

“So let’s just call him up now and then leave before anyone on Cybertron notices us,” said Scoop.

“Besides Shockwave, you mean,” said Dreadwing.

“Well, yes.”

“Oh yeah,” said Blackrock. “That’s a lot easier than what I thought we were doing.”

“What did you think we were doing?” asked Scoop.

“Going down onto the planet?” said Blackrock.

“Yeahhh, no,” said Dreadwing. “That is an incredibly bad idea. Besides, we could run into Present Me. I mean Past Me. I mean-“

“The version of you that’s down there right now, I get it. What’s so bad about that?”

“We have no idea what would happen! I could explode, the universe could explode, or we could immediately attack each other because only one Dreadwing can exist in this universe.”

“Like a betta fish,” said Blackrock. He paused. “No, wait, like a bird attacking itself in the mirror.”

Dreadwing frowned at Blackrock. “You trying to say I’m stupid enough to fail the mirror test?”

“Yeah, that was a bit too harsh,” said Scoop.

Blackrock had another concern first, though. “You know what the mirror test is?“

“Shockwave,” said Dreadwing, like it explained everything.

Blackrock coughed awkwardly into his fist. “I’m sorry, that really was going too far.”

“All good,” said Dreadwing. “Now, let’s call up Shockwave!”

He paused.

“Just as soon as I figure out where I put his comm code.”

~~~~

“Why did I put his comm code in the “organic plants that tried to eat me” folder?” Dreadwing grumbled.

“Why did you?” asked Blackrock laconically.

Dreadwing ignored him.

There was an awkward silence as Dreadwing waited for Shockwave to pick up. And waited. And waited. And-

“Ohhh he just sent me a message,” said Dreadwing.

“What does it say?” Scoop asked.

“Don’t go to Crystal City yet,” Dreadwing read out. The three of them exchanged puzzled looks.

“So what’s up with the Crystal City thing?” asked Blackrock.

“Shockwave always says stuff like that,” said Dreadwing. “It ends up making sense a hundred years down the line, or it never makes sense at all and you wonder what was happening and what you should have done. It’s a mystery!” He paused. “Or maybe it was because he thought I was Past Me. And was telling me not to go to Crystal City yet.”

“Maybe you should try calling him again,” Blackrock suggested.

“Yeah, yeah, calling him up,” said Dreadwing as he once again tried connecting to Shockwave’s comm. There was another pause, though much shorter than the previous one.

“Okay,” relayed Dreadwing. “He sent another message. This time he said…”DREADWING STOP BOTHERING ME”?? In all caps?”

“Wow,” said Blackrock. “After all we went through.”

“It’s not like he knows any of that,” said Dreadwing. He clapped his hands together. “So when should we go next?”

“Maybe we can just skim forwards a few years at a time,” suggested Scoop.

“It’s as good an idea as any,” said Dreadwing. “Okay, I guess let’s try for a year or so?”

The ship vanished from above Cybertron.

~~~~

“Okay we should not have gone down on the planet! This is a disaster area!” yelled Blackrock as he clung for dear life to Dreadwing’s shoulder. “And how did they get the Enigma, anyways? It’s supposed to be in my secret building in China!”

“Your what?” Scoop asked Blackrock, following hot on his heels.

“Less talking, more running and clinging,” Dreadwing turned his head back to yell at Scoop.

“Scoop? Dreadwing?” asked Rattrap, who was currently holding the Enigma and standing nearby. “I thought you were downstairs.”

This simple statement, in combination with Dreadwing not looking where he was going, proved catastrophic.

Dreadwing, in his haste, accidentally ran into Rattrap, who went flying with the Enigma into Windblade, Prowl, Wheeljack and Starscream. Immediately a combiner arose.

“Oh, no,” he breathed.

The mind of the combiner drew upon one commonality it could find.

“WHY DOES NO ONE LISTEN TO ACCOMODATOR! WHY DOES ACCOMODATOR GET NO RESPECT!”

“This isn’t really the future, right?” Blackrock asked, horrified. “Did we just cause this?”

“It doesn’t have to be if we fix it!” said Dreadwing desperately.

“How do you fix the future?”

Dreadwing floundered. He was not equipped to answer philosophical questions when watching a combiner protectively hug a spacebridge.

“Maybe this is fixing it,” said Scoop. “Maybe we were meant to do this.” He paused. “No one with bad intentions is getting through that spacebridge, that’s for sure.”

“Let’s get somewhere a bit less busy before people start asking questions,” said Dreadwing. The three of them withdrew into an alcove.

“That’s another thing,” said Dreadwing, as people ran around like decapitated turbo foxes.

“Hm?” said Scoop.

“Was anyone gonna tell me we had working spacebridges or was I supposed to find out like this?”

“All titans have spacebridges, Dreadwing. Everyone knows that.”

“Yeah, Dreadwing,” said Blackrock, chiming in.

“You did not know that! You didn’t even know you weren’t organic until like a month ago!”

“Give or take several million years,” muttered Blackrock.

“Not this again,” groaned Scoop.

“I actually do have a spacebridge back on Earth, though,” said Blackrock.

“Ohhh, that’s where that went,” said Dreadwing.

“You lost a spacebridge?” asked Scoop. He sounded mildly judgemental. “How do you lose a spacebridge? It’s a giant portal!”

“You forget to cherish it,” said Blackrock, unable to resist.

“It wasn’t my job to cherish it,” said Dreadwing. “Anyways it was back on Earth, we had no way to get it.”

“Why was it on Earth in the first place?” asked Scoop.

“The Constructicons built it or something when Megatron was taking over Earth,” said Dreadwing.

“Oh wait is that where it came from?” asked Blackrock. “I thought maybe it was some ancient Cybertronian artefact that somehow ended up on Earth.”

“That’s stupid,” said Dreadwing. “Why would ancient Cybertronian artefacts be on Earth?”

“I-“ Blackrock frowned. “You know, that’s a good question. Why are there ancient Cybertronian artefacts on Earth? Why was I there?”

“Your other personality probably knows,” said Scoop.

“Don’t you start on that again.”

“Hey, you guys seen Prowl?” Came a voice from outside the alcove. The three of them turned to see the Constructicons (yes, all of them) standing there.

“Hey, we were just talking about you guys,” said Dreadwing. “You built the space bridge on Earth that we used to get back to Cybertron, right?”

“Sure did,” said a Constructicon. Dreadwing wasn’t sure which. He honestly still had trouble telling them all apart. The only one he’d been able to always identify had been Scrapper. Who was dead.

“See, I told you,” said Dreadwing to Blackrock.

“I didn’t say you were wrong, Dreadwing,” said Blackrock.

“Prowl’s in that combiner over there,” said Scoop to the Constructicons.

“What?!” they all cried out.

“How could he do this to us?”

“We’re the dream team!”

“It wasn’t exactly his choice,” said Scoop guiltily.

“How did he accidentally join a combiner?”

“The Enigma did it,” said Dreadwing. “It just does that sometimes.”

“Incredibly, he’s telling the truth,” said Scoop.

“What do you mean, incredibly? Do you think I’m a liar?” Dreadwing asked indignantly.

“No,” lied Scoop, “but Dreadwing, you have to admit it does sound fake.”

“What are you doing here anyways?” asked one of the Constructicons.

“Being out of the way,” said Dreadwing, after an agonizingly long pause.

“Fair enough,” the Constructicon replied.

“We should be going back to our ship now,” said Scoop.

“Yeah,” said Blackrock. “Have fun with the custody battle, guys.”

~~~~~

“I can’t think about what it’s like being in a combiner with those guys,” said Scoop as they speed-walked away from the space bridge area.

“Can you imagine?” Dreadwing asked gleefully. “I’m imagining you with green paint now…huh. I guess you could pull it off.”

“Thanks, I think,” said Scoop.

“I’ve always kind of wondered about that,” said Blackrock. “If they’re supposed to be in disguise, why are they bright green?”

Scoop and Dreadwing stopped and looked at each other.

“You don’t ask questions like that,” said Dreadwing. Scoop nodded firmly.

“Fine, whatever,” said Blackrock.

“So!” said Scoop brightly, changing the subject, “where should we go now?”

“We just keep going further into the future, I guess,” said Dreadwing. “The further forwards we go, the closer we get.”

“At least we can hope,” said Blackrock under his breath. “All right,” he said in a more audible tone, “how far forwards do you think we should jump then?”

“Maybe just a few years?” said Scoop. He paused for a bit as they continued walking. “Also let’s not forget again that planets rotate. And maybe move first?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Dreadwing. “Hey, we got here just fine even though we ended up in empty space! Just took a little longer.”

“It was probably the safest option,” said Blackrock.

Scoop rubbed his forehead. “It’s not the landing in empty space I mind, it’s the landing in the middle of Cybertron.”

“Right…” said Blackrock.

~~~~

“Here we are,” said Blackrock dramatically. “The future!”

“…again,” chorused Scoop and Dreadwing.

“You guys are taking all the fun out of this, you know.”

Dreadwing screwed up his face. “This is the only part you find fun? Dramatically announcing things?”

Blackrock deflated. “Yeah, when you put it like that, it does sound stupid, doesn’t it.”

Scoop was looking out the window and frowning. “There sure are a lot of ships out there. Even though we’re pretty far out.”

“Well, that can’t be good,” said Dreadwing. “Hey, signal the nearest ship and ask what’s going on.”

Scoop pressed a few buttons and an unfamiliar face popped up.

“Eh? What is it?”

“Hi!” Said Scoop brightly. “We were just wondering what was going on here.”

“Also, have you seen Shockwave?” Dreadwing asked. Both Scoop and Blackrock turned to look at him. “What? It’s a fair question.”

“He’s on Earth…somehow,” grumbled the mystery mech.

Scoop, Dreadwing, and Blackrock stared at each other. A single thought echoed around all three of their brains:
“!!!!”

“Hey, why are you guys all smiling?”

“Just happy we know where he is,” said Scoop.

“Knowing where Shockwave is is bad,” said Blackrock, improvising after seeing the look on Mystery Mech’s face. “But not knowing where he is and what he’s up to is worse.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Anyways, just hang tight til we teleport to Earth, all right? Maybe move a bit closer, I don’t know how big the field is going to be.”

“Is this kind of thing normal for you guys?” Blackrock asked in an undertone.

“Are you joking?” said Dreadwing. “Of course not!”

“I am standing in a literal time machine! Scoop teleported me to this ship! What am I supposed to think!?”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Mystery Mech. “What’s this about a time machine?”

“It’s a long story,” said Scoop.

“Anyways, who are you?” asked Dreadwing.

Mystery Mech looked to the side. “Oh no, looks like I got another call coming, anyways see you sooooon-“

“He hung up on us,” said Scoop.

“Weird,” said Dreadwing.

Then, with a poof, they were teleported to Earth.

Chapter Text

“Well,” said Blackrock, as alarms blared around them. “At least it took less than a month to get here this time.”

Scoop squinted out the window. “Is that…the combiner we just saw? Fighting…I’m not sure exactly what that is?”

Blackrock and Dreadwing also squinted out the window.

“I don’t like it, whatever it is,” said Dreadwing. “Things shouldn’t…undulate? Undulate like that. It’s unnatural.”

“You know what, normally I’d defend undulation, but you’ve got a point there,” said Blackrock. “That thing looks like Cthulhu owes it child support money.”

Very faintly, they heard Accomodator yelling something about road paving regulations. Then Devastator came out and attempted to suplex the tentacled monstrosity from another plane of reality.

"Why is Devastator's head red now?" Scoop wondered. There was no answer.

“Oh, look over there, it’s the Lost Light,” said Dreadwing. “Guess they fixed the engine.”

“They had time. It has been a few years,” said Scoop.

“Is that Galvatron standing on top of the Lost Light? Strangling some dude?” asked Dreadwing.

“Looks like it to me,” said Scoop. “I think that’s Hot Rod.”

“Don’t you guys not need to breathe? Why would you even try and strangle someone anyways?” asked Blackrock. “No, wait, that’s not important. Should we be doing something here instead of rubbernecking?”

“Yes,” said Scoop. Then he paused. “Who should we be helping again? Not Galvatron, obviously, but…”

“We should just start blasting,” said Dreadwing. “We’ll hit the right guys eventually.”

“No!” The other two chorused.

“Hey, it worked for Flyhigh!” Dreadwing defended himself. “Though, they did start calling him something else after that…” he muttered.

“Let’s just head closer to Earth,” said Scoop. He fiddled with some stuff.

“Uh, Scoop?” said Blackrock. “Earth is the other way.”

“I know!” said Scoop. “We’re being pulled by- some kind of tractor beam!”

“This better not be a Death Star,” said Blackrock. “Do we have rear view cameras on this thing?”

“Of course we do!” said Dreadwing.

He paused.

“Scoop, why don’t you show him where the rearview cameras are.”

With a long-suffering expression, Scoop pressed a button and screens lit up to show-

“It is a Death Star!” yelled Blackrock.

“Is that Starscream flying into it?” asked Scoop.

“Maybe?” said Dreadwing. “I can never keep track of what he looks like.”

Scoop shot him a dubious look.

“Okay, okay, it’s easy to tell it’s him once he opens his mouth but…” Dreadwing decided not to bring up the entire hour he had once spent thinking Ramjet was Starscream.

“I vote we get as far away from the Death Star as possible,” said Blackrock.

“I vote Blackrock stops calling it a Death Star,” said Dreadwing. “I may not be great at science, but I know a star when I see one. But he’s right that we should get closer to Earth.”

Scoop had some kind of expression on his face.

Dreadwing scrambled to figure out how to phrase it. “Someone closer to Earth will know what’s going on and, uhhh, tell us how to help? And weren’t you the one who wanted to go closer in the first place?”

“Did you two forget we’re being pulled by the tractor beam? Which I said, not a minute ago?” asked Scoop.

Ohhhh, that was what that look meant. It was the “Dreadwing, you missed something obvious” look.

Then the screens lit up as the Thing That Was Definitely Not A Death Star exploded, parts flying everywhere, flames billowing out in a clear violation of the laws of physics.

“Does this make that Starscream guy Luke Skywalker?” asked Blackrock.

“Sure, why not?” said Dreadwing, who had no clue who Luke Skywalker was, and had zero interest in finding out.

“Well, he’s- wait, why are there flames?” asked Blackrock, interrupting himself. “Okay, I’m willing to put up with it in Star Wars because it’s a fun movie but this is not actually Star Wars!”

“Maybe they’re spectral flames from the spacebridge portal dimension?” Dreadwing suggested, remembering the last time that had happened. Man, that whole thing had been weird.

Blackrock opened his mouth, then closed it.

“Nah,” said Dreadwing, as their ship finally began to shoot towards Earth, “those flames were all spooky and black and purple. Maybe it was carrying an invisible giant bag of oxygen?”

“Oh, like that thing with Hydradread on Ifiltrat?” asked Scoop.

“You are both going to explain this to me some other time,” said Blackrock. “After I set you guys up with a Star Wars marathon.”

~~~~

By the time they got close enough to Earth to figure out what was going on, the battle was over.

“How do we find Shockwave in this crowd?” asked Blackrock, looking at all the ships around them. They were currently hanging out in low Earth orbit.

“Simple,” said Dreadwing. “We call him.”

“Why didn’t you do that earlier?”

Dreadwing had been too caught up in the whole experience of being teleported into the middle of an epic space battle that he hadn’t even been able to shoot anyone in, but he knew that excuse wouldn’t go over well. It never did.

“I needed to be in range,” he said, hoping Scoop wouldn’t contradict him.

Scoop, being a true bro, did not contradict him. Or maybe he just had his attention taken up by steering the ship and making sure they didn’t crash into anyone, and hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation.

“Are you in range now?” asked Blackrock.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Dreadwing, starting a call to Shockwave.

“Hey, boss- huh, that’s weird,” said Dreadwing. “He just hung up on me as soon as it connected.” Though, in retrospect, it wasn't that weird, given he'd done that the last time he'd tried to call Shockwave.

“Well, at least we know he’s here,” said Blackrock.

“And able to answer calls!” said Dreadwing more enthusiastically. “Wait. He just sent me a message. It’s…coordinates?”

“All right!” said Blackrock. “Scoop, take us there!”

“Sorry, you said something?” asked Scoop.

“We have coordinates for Shockwave!” said Dreadwing joyfully.

“That’s great,” said Scoop. “Let’s get going, then.”

Chapter Text

When they arrived at the spot where Shockwave was supposed to be, they found a mysterious portal surrounded by tech looking things, Prowl having what looked like an intense conversation with some woman with an undercut, and no Shockwave.

“Where’s Shockwave?” asked Dreadwing, interrupting the emotional moment. At least, there was a lot of yelling.

"Hey," said Blackrock. “Doesn't she look familiar to you?”

“Maybe?” said Scoop.

Dreadwing shrugged.

“She was that human! The one at Garrus-9!”

The woman’s face made a weird expression. “The name’s Verity, not “that human”. And what of it, suit guy?"

“Uh, nothing,” said Blackrock. He realized with a shock that his social skills had deeply atrophied after the month spent with Skywarp and Scoop. And then all the time in the time machine with Dreadwing and Scoop. It was ironic in a way, because for the first time in his life, Blackrock felt like he had genuine friends. “I’m just happy you got out of there all right. Scoop said everyone in that room died…”

“‘All right’ is one word for it,” said Verity.

“It’s two words,” said Prowl and Blackrock in unison.

She sighed, clearly deciding it wasn’t worth getting into an argument with pedants “Anyways, why are you people in here? Can’t you tell when someone is having a private conversation?”

“I don’t really care,” said Dreadwing. “We’re on a quest to save the universe.”

“Oh, in that case,” she drawled.

“It’s really true,” said Scoop. “So if you could just point us to where Shockwave went, we’ll let you get back to yelling at Prowl.”

“Thanks,” said Prowl.

“No problem.”

“I should really have expected this behaviour from someone who thinks Starscream is the Chosen One,” muttered Prowl. “Though…in the end he did sacrifice himself to save everyone.”

“So that’s what we saw up there? Starscream really sacrificed himself to save everyone?” Scoop was shining.

“Yes.”

“He really did it,” said Scoop. “I knew it! He really was the Chosen One!”

“Are you sure it was Starscream?” asked Dreadwing. “And not some doppelgänger or body double?”

Prowl winced. “Yes. He’s…not entirely dead. Just stuck in the combiner infraspace. We’ll probably get him out in a few days. Worked for Bee, after all.”

Dreadwing didn’t really care if Bumblebee had been in a combiner or not. “You know, I wasn’t sure I should say anything before but…why are you so obsessed with Starscream being the Chosen One?” he asked Scoop.

“Well, it’s true,” said Scoop. “The Titan-"

“Yeah, yeah. But why is it being specifically Starscream important?”

“Because,” Scoop said, then stopped. “Because if Starscream out of everyone can be the Chosen One, and save everyone, then there’s hope that any of us can change. That we can get out of this cycle. I think that’s why it had to be him.”

“Putting your faith in Starscream to do the right thing-“ Prowl started.

“But he did,” Scoop said firmly. “So, I was right to believe in him.”

“But you didn’t have any guarantee he would!”

“Dreadwing, that’s what faith is,” said Scoop. “I know you have faith in Shockwave - for some bizarre reason I’ve never understood - despite everything, so-“

“Ohh, I get it,” said Dreadwing. He felt like an idiot now. If it was the same, then- “So are we going to go kill Rattrap then once we get back?” he asked.

“Bwuh?” said Scoop.

“You most certainly are not,” said Prowl.

“He’s an irritating twerp who will not be missed,” muttered Dreadwing.

“You can’t just go around killing people because they’re annoying, Dreadwing,” said Scoop.

“Yeah, otherwise I’d have killed you like fifteen times by this point,” said Blackrock.

“Only fifteen?” Prowl asked.

“Yeah, he kind of grows on you,” said Dreadwing.

“Didn’t you people have something to do?” Verity asked.

“Oh! Right,” said Dreadwing. “Shockwave. Where did he go?”

Prowl pointed at the portal. “He tripped and fell through.”

Dreadwing stared at him suspiciously. “Tripped, or ‘tripped’?” He asked, making scare quotes with his fingers.

Prowl stared at him in exasperation. “Why would I, after having put so much effort into catching Shockwave, just let him go free to who knows where?”

“Because it’s easier if he gets ‘shot while trying to escape’?” Dreadwing asked, once again making scare quotes.

“Just- go get the last coordinates from there,” Prowl said, pointing at part of the strange structure next to the giant ring. “I can’t guarantee he’ll still be on the other side, it’s been a while since he went through the portal.”

“If we go to those time coordinates though, we’ll arrive exactly when he gets there,” said Blackrock.

“That feels wrong somehow,” said Scoop.

“I know what you mean,” said Dreadwing.

“Do neither of you know how time travel actually works?” Blackrock asked incredulously. “After all this time?”

“Blackrock, weren’t you the one who thought a time machine was going to also jump around in space?” Scoop asked.

Verity’s head swivelled back and forth between them like she was watching a tennis match.

“Dude’s got a point,” said Dreadwing. “I think at this point we all gotta admit that none of us know how time travel actually works.”

“This is incredible,” said Verity.

“All right,” said Dreadwing, “Let’s see…” he took out a data pad and started copying the coordinates into it. Scoop leaned over his shoulder to watch.

“What are you doing?” Dreadwing asked. “Haven’t you ever heard of personal space?”

“I’m just making sure you put it in right,” said Scoop. “We don’t want to end up in the wrong century.”

“Hmph,” said Dreadwing, who couldn’t come up with a better response. “Well I got it, and it’s fine.”

He paused. “Right?”

“It’s fine,” said Scoop.

“Bye,” said Blackrock. “Nice meeting you two! Love the hair, by the way,” he said to Verity.

Scoop waved awkwardly at Prowl and Verity as they walked out.

“Huh,” said Blackrock as the door closed behind him. “I wonder what I’d look like with an undercut.”

~~~~

“You know,” said Prowl, after the trio had left for their ship, “if there’s anything that gives me faith in the existence of a higher power, it’s that those three somehow managed to save the universe.”

“How do you know they’ll do it?” Verity asked.

“We’re still standing here, aren’t we?” Prowl asked rhetorically.

And with that, it was time for him to get back to work. The sooner they got this done, the sooner he was free of Starscream complaining at him to hurry up from within combinerspace.

Chapter Text

The sky was lit up around them.

“Primus! It’s full of stars,” said Dreadwing.

“I didn’t expect the end of time to be so beautiful and…bright…” said Scoop as he stared out at the brilliant stellar tapestry.

“It’s because the universe stopped expanding,” said Blackrock.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Dreadwing.

“Okay, so in our time things are moving further and further apart,” said Blackrock. “That’s why it’s so dark. But scientists have a theory that-“ he stopped abruptly.

“What's the theory?” asked Dreadwing.

“Everything’s gone,” Blackrock said heavily, looking out at the barren rocky landscape that was Earth. “I mean- I knew it was going to happen eventually but…O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant…”

Scoop gently put a hand on Blackrock.

It was a solemn moment, and Dreadwing let it stretch on, even though he really wanted to find out what the theory was. And also point out the giant black monolith standing on Earth’s surface that became clearer and clearer as they slowly headed down. And- was that half of a body? It was the wrong colour to be Shockwave though.

Probably.

There was some kind of bright jumping light coming from behind the monolith, something that looked almost electrical.

And still no sign of Shockwave.

“Is that black monolith supposed to be Shockwave?” asked Blackrock, as the Nemesis gently landed on the ravaged surface of Earth. Dreadwing could hear a door open. He looked at Scoop, who wasn’t touching anything. Scoop looked down at Blackrock, who also wasn’t touching anything. The door had opened on its own.

Answering Blackrock was more important than possibly-haunted ships, though.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Dreadwing. Then he paused. Was that something purple sticking out? “Actually, maybe we should go out and take a look.”

“Shockwave isn’t a black monolith,” said Scoop.

“Maybe he’s on the other side,” said Dreadwing. He gestured widely. “We know he came to this time. There is literally nothing else sitting around here. Unless he disappeared in a poof of logic, he’s here.”

“A puff,” said Blackrock.

“Eh?”

“The phrase is a puff of logic,” said Blackrock. He sighed. “Dreadwing that was…actually good reasoning and logic.” He patted Scoop’s large hand, which was still sitting on top of his head. “Let’s head out.”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” asked Dreadwing as they walked towards the open door. “I’m a logical guy.”

“You do have your own kind of logic,” said Blackrock, who had climbed up to Scoop’s shoulder.

Dreadwing was pretty sure that was supposed to be an insult, but, well, it was true. Besides, it wasn’t like he was the only one. Shockwave, the master of logic, had his own kind of logic too.

The planet made a weird unpleasant noise under his feet as he stepped out the door. There was a layer of something on top of the rock.

The black monolith wasn’t that large. It wasn’t even that much taller than him. But it was perfectly smooth. And on the other side was-

“Ha!” said Blackrock. “Someone pick up the phone, because I called it!”

On the other side was Shockwave, who was partially encased in the monolith. Brilliant sparks were coming from his eye. Sitting not too far away from him was that half of a Cybertronian body they’d seen when they were coming in, its presence as inexplicable as the monolith.

“Shockwave!” Dreadwing called out. “We found you! You’re here!”

“What the fff-frill,” said Scoop.

“Dreadwing,” said Shockwave. They all leaned forwards.

“A clipped wire I have been but for you a river,” Shockwave continued.

“Does being at the end of time make you crazy?” asked Blackrock. Dreadwing gave him a look. “What? It’s a valid question!”

As they watched, Shockwave was being slowly absorbed into the monolith.

“We need to get him out of there,” said Scoop. “It’s doing something to him."

“No!” cried Shockwave. “We need to leave.”

“So we need to bring the whole monolith too?” Dreadwing made a face.

~~~~

Getting Shockwave and the monolith onto the ship was an annoying and laborious process. Until, that is, Scoop remembered that there was a dolly on board.

After that, it continued to be an annoying and laborious process, because the dolly’s wheels didn’t like whatever was on the ground. Or its unevenness, for that matter. Why couldn’t Soundwave have sprung for a nice repulsorcart?

“So how did you get stuck in the monolith, boss?” asked Dreadwing as he pushed the dolly.

“The portal lead to it,” said Shockwave. “I am intermingled with its essence on an atomic level. I see what it sees. It speaks through me. I grow stronger and more myself…the longer time goes on.”

“Is anyone else concerned that a giant black monolith with some kind of alien consciousness was just chilling on future Earth? Or is it just me?” asked Blackrock.

“It’s just you,” said Dreadwing.

“I’m more worried about Cybertron,” said Scoop guiltily. He was busy keeping monolith-Shockwave on the cart and also helping by pulling from the front.

“This isn’t really how I imagined this going,” said Dreadwing quietly.

“Me neither,” said Scoop.

“I knew it would be like this,” said Shockwave.

“You knew you’d be trapped in a monolith?” Blackrock asked curiously.

“Yes,” said Shockwave. “But also no.”

There was a pause as they got to the ship. Also because none of them really knew how to respond to that.

“How are we supposed to get him up there?” asked Dreadwing.

Scoop pressed a few buttons in the door frame, and a ramp shot out. “Have you ever been on a ship before?” he asked Dreadwing. “Serious question.”

Dreadwing looked at Scoop. Then he looked down at Shockwave and the monolith. Then he looked back up at Scoop. It was a very eloquent look.

"That’s fair,” said Scoop. “It’s been a very weird day.”

Chapter Text

“First, we get you out of that monolith, then we go back to our time. No, first we get out of here, then we get you out of the monolith…” Dreadwing talked at Shockwave as the door closed behind them.

“We did it!” said Blackrock. “We saved the timeline!”

Behind him, outside the window, half of Overlord’s body sat, motionless. Nothing beside remained. Round the decay of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretched far away. Of their footprints, there was no trace.

“Incorrect,” said Shockwave. “I am not the Shockwave you need to rescue. But yes, Dreadwing, we need to return to your time in order to send your past self the message and the plans for this ship.”

“‘Find me at the end of time, so we may return to the start’…boss, are you saying there’s another you stuck at the...start of time?” Dreadwing asked.

“Incorrect,” said Shockwave. “The Shockwave trapped in the past is still me.”

“I’m getting a headache,” said Blackrock.

“The train of events from my perspective was this,” Shockwave adopted a lecturing tone. “I fell into the time stream after attempting to unite all of time and space, and ended up in the past. There, I was rescued by the three of you, and returned to the time shortly after I left. From that point I lived normally until I was captured, and then chose to jump through Tarantulas’ time portal.”

Dreadwing was studiously taking notes on his data pad. Shockwave continued.

“At which time, I became bonded to the monolith, in this era. Shortly afterwards, you arrived.”

“My headache is getting worse,” Blackrock muttered.

“It is not that complicated,” said Shockwave.

“I got a few questions,” said Dreadwing.

“Go ahead, Dreadwing,” said Shockwave.

“Who’s Tarantulas?”

“He was a scientist and student of mine,” Shockwave replied. “His portal relies on entirely different principles in order to perform time travel.”

“Okay,” said Dreadwing. “Also, uh, you just kind of skipped over why you were captured. We had to fight our future selves who were really mad at you, and we promised them we wouldn’t let you - uh, I guess the past version of you we’re going to pick up, since telling you now won’t make a difference - try to end the universe. Again.”

(“When did we fight our future selves?” Scoop whispered to Blackrock. Blackrock shrugged.)

(“Okay, I may have just made that up,” Dreadwing whispered back.)

“I was framed,” said Shockwave. “If it had been me, I would have had a better plan.”

“You know what, that’s a good point,” said Dreadwing, nodding.

Scoop frowned and looked like he was restraining himself from saying something.

“What’s getting me is, when did you have the time-“ upon saying this, Blackrock snorted “-the time to make the time travel machine plans.”

He looked vaguely ill. “Please don’t tell me you got it because Dreadwing gave them to you now. I don’t care if Heinlein was one of the greats, the bootstrap paradox is still a stupid way of solving things. It assumes that-”

“Paradoxes are paradoxes as they twist through the mire of thought, not that which exists. Long have been my efforts-“ Shockwave said, interrupting Blackrock, then cutting himself off.

“That’s a no,” said Dreadwing. He paused. “I think. It’s getting worse, boss?”

“Indeed,” said Shockwave, whose entire lower body had been swallowed by the monolith.

“We have a bit of a problem,” said Scoop, who was once again fiddling with the dashboard. “We’re running low on fuel for the time travel machine.”

Shockwave fixed them with an unsettling gaze. “It should have taken maybe three to eight jumps to retrieve me.”

Scoop, Dreadwing, and Blackrock exchanged looks.

All three of them wordlessly decided not to mention the thirty-seven jumps they had used trying to find Shockwave at Garrus-9.

“Maybe we didn’t retrieve enough back at the beginning?” suggested Dreadwing.

“We do have enough to get back to our time, right?” asked Blackrock. “I really don’t want to get stuck here. This place gives me the creeps.”

“I’m pretty sure,” said Scoop. “We should have enough for another two.”

“Why didn’t you check before we left?” asked Blackrock.

“I forgot,” said Scoop stiffly.

“Have you ever been on a spaceship before?” Dreadwing asked. “Serious question.”

Scoop fixed him with a beleaguered look.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I had to,” said Dreadwing.

“Blackrock is right,” said Shockwave. “This time and place is exerting a deleterious effect on all five of us.”

Dreadwing did a quick headcount, to make sure he wasn’t having another brainless moment.

“Am I missing something? There’s four of us.”

“Dreadwing, you forgot the monolith,” said Shockwave.

Yeah, they needed to fix this fast.

~~~~

“So, good news,” said Scoop, as the ship shuddered slightly from the jump. That was a problem for Future Dreadwing to fix.

“What’s the good news?” asked Dreadwing.

“We made it back to our time,” said Scoop.

“I can see that,” said Dreadwing.

“What’s the bad news?” asked Blackrock suspiciously.

“Who said anything about-“

“We need to get back to Cybertron and it’ll take a month,” said Scoop, interrupting Dreadwing.

“This is simple to fix. We will use the time machine to jump through space,” said Shockwave.

“Ha!” yelled Blackrock triumphantly. “I told you guys it could do that. Time and space are the same thing!”

“Huh,” said Dreadwing. “Okay, I guess I was wrong.”

“You’re going to have to set up the jump, Shockwave, because I’m not sure how to get it to move through space.”

Shockwave, whose body by this point had mostly been absorbed into the monolith, nevertheless managed to convey an aura of judgement.

“It shouldn’t be that hard,” he said. “Otherwise, you would have been materializing inside planets half the time.”

“Yeah…” said Dreadwing. “About that…”

“Just wheel me over to the controls, Dreadwing,” said Shockwave.

“Got it, boss.”

~~~~

They materialized on the dark side of the moon.

“All right, it’s time to send the message,” said Dreadwing. He rubbed his hands together. “Then we go back in time to…when are we going back to?”

“The dawn of the Thirteen,” said Shockwave.

“Huh,” said Scoop. “I wonder…”

“What?” asked Dreadwing.

“Well, the prophecies-“

“-trace their way back to this,” said Shockwave. “Yes.”

“You’ve been doing pretty well,” said Dreadwing. “I mean. Making sense. With your words. You got the pillar under control?”

“The monolith,” said Shockwave. “And- in a way. It is more that the monolith is more finely attuned to my mind pattern.”

“Nnnot creepy at all,” said Blackrock.

“Leave the room, all of you,” said Shockwave. “I need to send the message without any interruptions or side commentary.”

The three of them looked at each other.

“You know what, good point,” said Dreadwing. “C’mon guys, let’s leave him to it.”

He put an arm around Scoop and attempted to do the same to Blackrock, in order to steer them towards the door. However, he was thwarted by the fact that Blackrock was a fraction of his height, so he ended up awkwardly scooping him up instead.

“But-“ said Blackrock.

“It’s nothing we haven’t heard before,” said Scoop, reasonably.

“I haven’t heard it before!” said Blackrock.

“You’re not missing that much,” said Scoop, as they walked through the door.

“Hey,” said Dreadwing.

The door closed behind them as they continued to squabble good-naturedly. Shockwave waited for a moment, then began.

“Dreadwing, I require your assistance once again…”

Chapter Text

The ship appeared in its usual fashion, above the skies of ancient Cybertron.

“Well,” said Scoop, looking down. “I don’t know what I expected.”

“It doesn’t look that different from now,” said Blackrock. “I mean-“

“We get what you mean,” chorused Dreadwing and Scoop.

“Now, we must locate my past self,” said Shockwave.

“I got this in the bag,” said Dreadwing. He pulled out his communicator. “We’ll just call him!”

Dreadwing was capable of learning from his earlier mistakes! He remembered how they had found Shockwave last time and applied it to this situation! But no one congratulated him for this.

“So just call him, then,” said Blackrock. Boo.

“It’s a good thing you found this simple solution earlier,” said Scoop. “I wasn’t really looking forwards to trying to search the entire planet.”

“Thank you,” said Dreadwing, gratified.

He once again called Shockwave.

“Dreadwing! Thank Primus you’re here!” Shockwave sobbed through the communicator.

Okay, he didn’t actually say that.

“Dreadwing? Is that you?” Shockwave asked. He sounded mildly disorientated.

“Yeah, boss! We’re here to rescue you!” Dreadwing paused. “Uh, where are you?”

~~~~

“Wow, he looks like a mess,” said Blackrock, as they looked at the hologram of Shockwave and the surrounding landscape.

And it was true. Shockwave had been totalled.

“Do you all not recall how I ended up in the past in the first place?” Shockwave - the one who was being swallowed by the monolith - asked.

“Dreadwing said that you got swallowed by the time vortex?” Blackrock said. It was more of a question. Dreadwing wracked his brain to try and remember what exactly he had told Blackrock. He had no memory of the conversation at all. “Swallowed by a time vortex” wasn’t a bad way of putting it, so he couldn’t have done that bad of a job.

“This is correct,” said Shockwave. “The ‘time vortex’, as you put it, was not a gentle mode of transportation. I emerged in the state you see down there.”

“He’s leaving out that he was also fighting everyone and the lab sink before that happened,” interjected Dreadwing. “Including Megatron.”

“You know,” said Scoop. “I expected there would be more universe saving involved. But mostly it’s just been playing a shell game with different Shockwaves.”

“If you had chosen to not answer my message, or to ignore it, the collapse of the timeline-“ Shockwave began.

“Oh,” said Blackrock. “It was a stable time loop. Because you only sent the message because we picked you up. And we only picked you up because of the message.” He paused. “I really don’t like that.”

“Well, we don’t actually know what he said in the message,” said Dreadwing. “Since he shooed us out. So it could have been different.” He frowned. “But wait, if the original message was different, then where would it have come from…”

“I know of another possibility,” said Shockwave. He did not elaborate.

“Are you…going to explain it?” Blackrock asked.

“No. Given your reactions to various events, you would dislike it even more than the existence of a stable time loop.”

“It won’t bother me,” said Dreadwing. “You can whisper it to me, that way we aren’t bugging Blackrock.”

“It would bother you as well, Dreadwing,” said Shockwave. By this point, only a small portion of his head was left free of the monolith.

“Is it…related to the eldritch nature of the uber-creepy monolith?” Dreadwing asked.

There was another pause.

“…perhaps,” Shockwave said.

“You’re right, I don’t want to know,” said Blackrock quickly. “Can we just get back to the rescue?”

Dreadwing resolved to ask Shockwave more questions as soon as they had a moment alone.

But Shockwave awaited.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

~~~~

“Hi Shockwave!” said Dreadwing. “We’re here to rescue you!”

“Dreadwing?” croaked Shockwave. The unknown mech standing near Shockwave stared at them in visible confusion.

“Where’d that guy come from?” whispered Blackrock to Scoop. He was standing on Scoop’s shoulder.

“He must have come up when we were landing,” Scoop whispered back.

“We’ll find someone who can fix you up back in the future,” said Dreadwing to Shockwave. “Uhh might need to threaten someone into doing it, though. Your whole “trying to eat space and time” move was pretty unpopular. Buuut on the bright side there isn’t a warrant out for your arrest or anything! Everyone thinks you’re dead, so they can’t arrest you!”

Shockwave was looking a bit overwhelmed at this barrage of excited sentences. Dreadwing dialled it back a bit.

“We’ll just get you onto the ship and explain everything there,” he said.

“Wait!” Came a call from the ship. It was Monolith-Shockwave. “Take me down!”

Scoop and Dreadwing exchanged a look.

“Uh, okay?” said Dreadwing. He walked back up into the ship.

“I must stay on Cybertron,” said Monolith-Shockwave. “I must tell them of what they will face. I have plans I must set into motion…I must be in place to warn…”

“I get it, I get it,” said Dreadwing. “All right, let’s get you out of here.”

Monolith-Shockwave was still standing on the dolly, so Dreadwing just started pushing the dolly down the ramp.

Too late, he forgot that it had taken both him and Scoop to manage this the first time. It was slightly easier, since by this point all of Shockwave had been absorbed, so there were zero Shockwave Bits sticking out. But it was still awkward.

As he gave the dolly a shove down the ramp, the monolith fell off and klonked on the ground.

“Sorry, boss!” Said Dreadwing.

“Oh no,” said Regular Shockwave. “It all makes sense! The whole time, I was the monolith! The prophecies, everything - it was all me, all along.”

“The monolith is apparently also a person, boss,” said Dreadwing. He jumped down next to Monolith Shockwave. “Anyone wanna help me pick him up?”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” asked Scoop. “Are the prophecies from Shockwave telling ancient Cybertron what he saw of the future?”

Blackrock bent down and patted the shoulder he was sitting on.

“No, I’m not upset,” said Scoop. “I’m just…wow. I’m privileged to have been an instrument of Primus.”

“But then they’re not really prophecies,” said Blackrock. “Since it’s just Shockwave telling people what he saw happen in the future.”

“That’s what a prophecy is,” said Scoop serenely. “Someone seeing the future and then telling people what they saw happen.”

Dreadwing had the feeling there was something missing from that argument, but to be honest he didn’t really want to get into an argument about it. He tried to set Monolith Shockwave upright, but only succeeded in flipping him over.

“Again, any help here?” He asked.

The random mech who had been standing next to Shockwave when they arrived came over.

“I am Onyx,” he said, helping Dreadwing lift up Monolith-Shockwave.

“I’m Dreadwing,” said Dreadwing, as they settled Monolith Shockwave upright. “Wait, maybe forget I said that. Actually, maybe you’d be better off forgetting this whole encounter. Or never writing it down. If you write it down, you could end the universe.”

“I don’t understand,” said Onyx.

“Just trust me,” said Dreadwing. “After all, do you really wanna risk ending the universe?”

“Well, maybe if everyone I liked was gone,” said Onyx.

“Wow, that’s dark, dude,” said Dreadwing. “I guess I can’t stop you, but I kind of like being alive. And if the universe ends before I show up, then…” Dreadwing wasn’t really sure where to go from here. “Uh, I can’t be alive. Because there’s no more anything.”

“Should we interrupt them?” Blackrock asked Scoop.

“No, I want to see where this is going,” said Scoop.

“I can hear you, you know,” said Dreadwing. “And thanks for just standing there instead of helping. Anyways,” he said, clapping Onyx on the shoulder. “Try to keep finding people you like. And don’t end the universe.”

~~~~

After the time travel ship had disappeared, Onyx stared at the eldritch black monolith beside him.

"Oh black monolith," he said. "We're really in for it now."

"Oh no," said the black monolith in tones of anguish, despite not having a mouth. "I forgot to warn them about Unicron!”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” said Onyx. “After all, you didn’t warn them, and you still ended up here, right?”

There was a pause.

“This is true,” the monolith said. Shockwave’s singular eye being enclosed in the smooth rock of the monolith, it no longer possessed a sense of sight in the way most beings would have understood it. Nevertheless, it stared out at the plains of Cybertron. And the twelve million years of immobility that awaited it.

Inside the monolith, Shockwave began to plan.

~~~~

The time travel ship, this time carrying the correct Shockwave, materialized on the moon in the present.

“Hey, we did it!” said Dreadwing. “High fives all around!”

“Dreadwing, thank you,” said Shockwave. “Honestly out of all my assistants you’re definitely in the top five.”

“I’m sorry,” said Scoop, unable to help himself. “But what kind of lab assistants did you have that could outdo this? He recruited a team, built a time machine, managed to follow a trail that was basically nonexistent, and successfully found you! How is that not a number one lab assistant?”

“Most of that has nothing to do with being a lab assistant, you know,” said Shockwave. “But still. You have a point. Dreadwing, you should be proud of what you accomplished to get here. Even if most of the time allocated to the time travel project was spent sitting around arguing with people on social media.”

“How do you know about that?” asked Dreadwing.

“You shouldn’t use such an obvious password on your datapad,” said Shockwave, who was holding said datapad.

“I thought it was so obvious, that no one would think of trying it,” Dreadwing said glumly.

“Anyways! Now we’ve gone…back to the future!” Blackrock said dramatically.

“Technically doesn’t it count as the present?” Dreadwing asked. “Since it’s where we started from? And it’s where we are now.”

“Dreadwing is correct,” said Shockwave.

“I am? I mean, of course I am,” said Dreadwing, grinning.

“I- wh- okay,” Blackrock sputtered. “I suppose it was stupid to expect a bunch of alien robots - and yes, before either of you say anything, I know I’m also one of those alien robots - it was stupid of me to expect you guys were familiar with Earth culture.”

“How would any of us have gotten familiar with Earth culture?” asked Dreadwing, who had forgotten the time he spent on Earth.

“I was trapped on Earth for a significant span of time,” said Shockwave. “But for most of that time I was underground. There are also many Earth cultures, often with few common references.”

“Ouch,” said Blackrock, miming being shot in the chest, “that got me right in the American.”

“So,” said Scoop. “What now?”

“You need to bring me back home,” said Blackrock. “I can’t vanish from my company for months, we need to go back to when you first took me and put me back.”

“There might be a problem with that,” said Scoop, looking at the dashboard. “Since we’re just about out of fuel for the time machine.”

“So just get more fuel,” Blackrock said.

“Hm,” said Scoop.

“We can use this ship to threaten Starscream into giving us more nucleon!” Dreadwing said.

“No,” everyone else chorused.

“We have enough regular fuel,” said Shockwave, looking over Scoop’s shoulder. “We could simply find some nucleon elsewhere.”

“But where are we going to get nucleon?” Blackrock asked.

“Uhhhhh…” Dreadwing pondered. “Messatine?”

“You want to go to Messatine,” said Shockwave. “And steal some nucleon from the DJD.”

“Well,” said Dreadwing. “When you put it that way…”

“Anything that inconveniences the DJD is a net benefit to the galaxy,” said Shockwave. “I was not trying to dissuade you from plotting a heist.”

“There’s Autobot mining facilities on Messatine too,” said Scoop. “We don’t need to steal anything. There’s also a medical facility too, Shockwave, so we can get you fixed up.”

“So you think the Autobots will just…give us some nucleon? And treat Shockwave?” Dreadwing asked.

“I’m sure I can talk them into it, as long as you all stay quiet,” Scoop said.

Shockwave rolled his eye.

“All right, road trip time,” said Blackrock. “Also I gotta say, I appreciate you all going to the effort just for me rather than just dropping me off now.”

“That’s what friends are for,” said Scoop.

“Returning you is not the only reason to acquire more fuel,” said Shockwave.

“To Messatine!” said Dreadwing.

There was a pause.

“Uh, anyone know where Messatine is?”

END

Chapter Text

ROLL CREDITS

EPILOGUE:

Shortly after Dreadwing received Shockwave’s original message:

As the Decepticons and Scoop walked away from what had been Crystal City, a single black column pulsed and shattered, and Shockwave fell upon the ground next to the miniature black hole.

“At last,” he rasped. “I am free. And now I will have my revenge!”

Thunder crackled ominously outside as a rare Cybertronian thunderstorm began to form.

“Well, that’s not good,” said Ghost Bumblebee.

Chapter Text

BZZZT

Blackrock, seeing the stage was finally dark and empty, shuffled across it. “Hey!” He yelled.

Story’s over, Blackrock. Time to go home

“You can’t end it there! I have so many questions! Why am I not in the title? It’s not just Scoop and Dreadwing, I’m a vital part of this crew!”

Not like they put Rufus in the title of Bill & Ted.

“Okay, I can accept that. But I have more questions!! Why did Unicron show up several years early? How did Combiner Wars even happen at all if it got completely derailed by me and Scoop not being around to toss around the Enigma like a hot potato?”

:)

“Don’t ‘:)’ at me, you hack! What is up with the monolith anyways? Where did it come from? Where did it go?”

Cotton-eyed Joe.

"How come this was billed as saving the timestream when it was just about doing Shockwave Switcharoo?"

You can blame Shockwave for that one

“Was Scoop right about there being a higher power orchestrating things for the better?”

:)

“Or was it just an eldritch abomination from outside the universe?”

:)

“How do you reconcile the existence of Lovecraftian monsters with a benevolent and omnipotent God?”

That’s a bit beyond the scope of this wacky time travel tale, dude.

“And are you ever going to explain how I ended up on Earth??”

Well, it’s not like canon explained it either…

Blackrock squinted suspiciously. “Sounds like a cop-out to me-“

All right, enough questions. Good night and good luck!