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"Never thought I would be here in life."
Cheetor looked over at Bumblebee. The two were situated over the balcony of the bridge, looking down as the tech team worked on the Ark.
Cheetor had been left at the Ark on account of Primal using 'the buddy system', not wanting Rhinox to be completely alone, given that Airazor had just been kidnapped.
Unfortunately, none of them were particular on tech, so the two of them were left practically twiddling their thumbs. Bumblebee tried to strike conversation.
"What do you mean by that?"
Bumblebee's optics met Cheetor's. "I was a scavenger before joining the Autobots. Didn't think I would be on some nowhere planet meeting bots from the future."
Cheetor laughed. "Trust me, I don't anyone was thinking this. Hence why Optimus thought your Optimus was Nemesis."
Bumblebee raised an optic ridge. Before he could properly question that, Cheetor spoke again.
"Hey, what do you think happens if we get the Allspark back to Cybertron?"
"If you listened to the old religions, then Cybertron would come back to life, I guess-"
"No, I mean us."
"You guys?"
"Ya, we're here because the Allspark never returned, and now we're in the past...what happens to us if we return the Allspark?"
Bumblebee thought for a moment. "Maybe it's like a time loop? We take the Allspark, you guys come into the past and help us bring back the Allspark?"
"If it is a time loop, doesn't that mean returning the Allspark before we existed mean that we never existed?"
"Well, scratch that out, then."
"And now that we're in the past, does that mean that we could disappear at any moment?"
Bumblebee stared at Cheetor.
"And what moment would that be? Could it be this moment? Or the next? Or could the Maximals out there do something that could make us disappear?"
Bumblebee sighed before turning back to the window, putting his helm into his hands. He really wasn't thinking too much about this before.
"It's a rule to not talk to your past selves, right?"
"Pretty sure I'm not your past self."
"Maybe! Galvatron is the reincarnation of your Megatron, I could be the reincarnation of you! Should I even be talking to you?? I AM GOING TO-"
"Hey, can one of you explain time travel, maybe before Cheetor explodes from an existential crisis?!" Bumblebee called down to the group below them.
Rhinox looked up at them. "Ya, what do you need to know?"
Cheetor called down. "Rhinox, are we going to disappear because we're in the past?!"
"No, don't worry, Cheetor, we'll be fine."
Instead of providing relief to Cheetor, it led to more questions.
"How so?? Everything about time travel says that we should disappear if we change the past too much! And here we are, changing the past!"
"That's not how time travel works!" Wheeljack yelled from his spot, crouched under a console of some sort.
"Then how does it work?"
Wheeljack sat up and moved closer to Rhinox.
"Imagine the timeline is like a string. A single piece of string." He made the motion of a string with his hands.
"Let's say that knotting the string is doing something to the past. Even if we knot the string, it's still the same string-"
"What if we shred the string?"
Wheeljack stared directly at Cheetor. "Shred...the string?"
"Ya, what if we destroy the string so much that it's barely a string?"
"Well, I mean it's still a string..."
"What if we pull it apart? Then it's multiple strings. Does that mean multiple timelines? Have we made multiple timelines?"
Bumblebee rested a hand on Cheetor's shoulder. "I think you're overthinking the metaphor..."
"Not my fault that Wheeljack chose a bad thing to metaphor with. Nothing makes sense! We should be disappearing, why aren't we?"
Rhinox sighed, deciding to take another approach to explaining it. "Listen. We traveled to the past. This past is now the future. And our present selves is the past now. Or, the present selves before we time traveled."
"Wha- that makes less sense!"
Bumblebee buried his face in his hands.
"How the hell did I get here in life?" He mumbled.
"The past isn't the future, it's the past!"
"Well, now it's our future!"
"No, it's not!"
"Okay, Cheetor..." Wheeljack started again. "Imagine the string..."
"The string. Is not. Helping!!"
"Hey!"
Ratchet called out after being silent for the entire conversation.
"Kid, the past is written out. The future is not. You can do anything in the past, and it won't affect the future. We can bring the Allspark back to the past, and you'll live."
"...oh. Oh, okay, that makes sense. Thanks, Ratchet!"
Ratchet merely nodded before heading back to work, Wheeljack and Rhinox following behind.
"That help?"
"Oh ya, a lot."
It was quiet for a moment before Bumblebee spoke again, a new conversation point popping into his head.
"Hey, who the fuck are Nemesis and Galvatron?"
"...Rhinox!"
"No. You can explain it."