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He'd always loved the sky. It was so vast and quiet, which made it a good place to go whenever he needed to clear his head. Of course he mustn't stay away from the warship for long, otherwise he'd be lectured and likely punished, usually by Starscream or Soundwave as Megatron wouldn't bother wasting his time on him. "Forecast!" He heard Starscream screech "Your mission has been completed for nearly a megacycle, return to the warship now!"
"Sorry commander, I was just taking my time. I'm not needed anywhere am I?" He replied leisurely, it is true he was taking his time, however he was anything but sorry.
"W- well no, but you need to get return now or Megatron will have my head!" Starscream exclaimed, mostly exaggerated but it's best not to push his buttons anymore.
Stepping on the metaphorical gas and shifting his metaphorical gears, and soars his way back to the warship in record time Feels a little closer to the upper atmosphere than usual but it's probably nothing to worry about, upon arrival of the landing pad he realises the presence of Megatron himself.
"Forecast, where have you been, if you had come any later we'd have already arrived on Cybertron!" He said in a stern, demanding tone.
"I- I apologize Lord Megatron, I was unaware of the- wait Cybertron?!"
"It appears you have been in the dark of our plans for quite some time." Megatron replied impatiently. "We must depart for the space bridge, go assist Soundwave with his duties."
He nodded, quickly retreating from the intimidating warlord into the catacombs some would call the hallways. As the intimidation calmed down he felt his suppressed excitement bubble up, the thought of going back to Cybertron after all this time is exhilarating. Sure, It'd be in ruins but even just being at the remains of their former planet would ease the feeling of homesickness he'd been feeling for quite some time.
After a good long while navigating the halls he finds his way to Soundwave's location, giving a small gesture of greeting. He used to verbally communicate with Soundwave when he was first assigned as his assistant, but he both found it easier and thought it'd be nice to communicate with a nonverbal bot nonverbally.
He signed to Soundwave using his limited knowledge of decepticon sign language to say what he thinks means "Whats going on?" He continues signing. "Boss said something about Cybertron and a space bridge."
Soundwave ceased his work to sign back. "Making undead army to conquer Cybertron." He went back to working like that wasn't the weirdest sentence he's heard on the ship.
He took a few moments to question his sign reading capabilities before tilting his head, antennae raised as he signed "And he's going to do that how??" He knew he was in the dark but wasn't expecting it to be to this degree, he probably wasn't paying attention for the space bridge stuff but an undead army?? That definitely seems like something he'd know about.
"Dark energon." Soundwave signed. Oh, that explains quite a lot in hindsight, he'd heard of Megatron plunging the stuff into his spark chamber but had passed it off as a scare tactic to make him more fearsome.
Getting back to his tasks, he monitors potential energon signatures in what he believes is called "Tasmania", with Soundwave occasionally supervising and correcting errors. Everything's going pretty smoothly, but kinda boring, he does detect an energy spike from some backwater island but brushes it aside.
After a few more lackluster minutes he grows inpatient and starts signing to Soundwave "Can you teach me how to fight?" It's an out of the blue question but something he's wanted to ask for a while.
"Why?" Soundwave responds, tilting his faceplate. "I only get sent out on scouting missions or here with you, if I learn how to fight I can get some experience" He answers, not signing this time as frankly it'd take too long.
Soundwave considers this for moment, then signs back "Fine." And moves into a defensive stance. He gets into his own stance, which is instantly corrected by Soundwave with small gestures, after the correction he's walked through the basics of hand-to-hand along with a few advanced techniques.
All is going well when the crackle of Megatron's voice comes over the intercom. "Attention all decepticons, we have arrived at the space bridge. All fliers on standby are to report to the flight deck excluding high rankings officers."
"I guess that's my cue, maybe teach me some more after?" He says, rushing over to the flight deck. There's a surprising amount of bots here, he didn't even know there were this many fliers like him, none of them could probably go faster than him though.
He's not exactly sure why they'd be called up here, I mean there's no way the autobots would even be able to get up here, let alone learn that they have a space bridge. Better safe than sorry I guess. Although he does see a bridge down there, maybe just making some last minute calibrations before they fire it up.
But no, lo and behold, none other than Optimus prime himself and his allies pop out, which is both unexpected and what he thought was impossible. Alarms begin to emanate from the halls, Starscream's voice comes from the comms "All fliers, engage combat with the Autobots, leave Prime for Megatron!"
The others around him begin transforming and attacking the autobots, leaving their leaders to fight one on one. It feels a little faulty, surely the best way to fend them off would be to attack Optimus all at once, Megatron must know this right? Regardless he's sure Lord Megatron had thought of a better way to handle Prime than him, so it's useless to try change that plan.
"Forecast! Stop spectating and engage the Autobots, now!" He hears Starscream say, directly to him this time. "Right, sorry commander." He says, transforming and trailing behind the other fliers. Was he really ready for an actual battle in the field, he's confident in Soundwave's teaching, but this must not be all he'd need to know for actual combat, especially against the experienced warriors of the Autobots.
One by one, he watches the Autobots take down their forces, eventually leaving it up to him to deal with them. The big green one seems strong, but with his stature ramming into his legs would likely topple him, as for the smaller two, he'd hopefully be able to handle them in close combat.
With a plan in mind now comes the time to inact it, he pushes his thrusters to their maximum and rams himself into big green, making him fall as expected with a satisfying grunt from him as he hits the ground. "Hey tough guy, how about a round of actual combat!" Yells the small two Wheeler, jumping at him with her blades at the ready. As taught, he takes his own built-in blades out in an attempt to block, what he wasn't expecting was for the surprisingly fierce bot to feint her attack and take out his legs, knocking him down to the ground.
"Wow, have you even been in a fight before, that was easier than you made it seem." The bot says, pinning him to the floor. "You're tougher than you look!" He says surprised, blasting her off with shoulder mounted thrusters. With the other two down for atleast a few nano-cycles, the only one left to deal with before reinforcements arrive would the— wait where's the yellow one? He turns around and sees him already throwing a punch, making contact with his left optic and making him fall down from the impact.
"So what should we do with him?" He hears the two wheeler say. "I'm going to throw him off, if he's lucky he'll land on solid ground." The green one replies threateningly. He feels himself getting picked up and tries to retaliate, but only gets out a small groan. "Sayonara buddy, we have a job to do." The green one exclaims, throwing his body away from the space bridge, hard.
He slips in and out of consciousness, unable to fully see due to the earlier hit he took. He does however hear a large explosion, strong enough for the shockwaves to reach him and send him hurtling further into a direction unknown to him. He comes back into consciousness yet again, feeling a burning heat as he reenters a planet's atmosphere, despite that the pressure of reentry knocks him back out of consciousness.
When he finally reawakens, he finds himself paralysed, in some earthan forest with a broken optic and a headache. Luckily he's able to turn his head to see what the cause of an odd burning feeling accompanied by a hissing sound is, and is surprised to see the cause of which being a human male, seemingly an elderly one. "Ah! You're finally awake, I thought you were a goner." The old man rejoices, putting down a small blowtorch, which upon further reconsideration must be the true cause.
"Wh- what..? Don't touch me, human.." He winces, trying to get back on his feet but failing. "Hss, ow what'd you do to me?" The old human sighs and responds calmly "I'm sorry little one, it seems my mechanic skills have gotten rusty with age, besides I'm sure more of your kind would have better equipment to deal with this." Little one?? He's much larger than the human, why would he say that?
"Well for rusty you did an alright job, could be better," He mutters, why was he being so nice to this human? "And uh, what did you mean by 'little guy'? I'm larger than you." The old human laughs, likely to his naivety to his term. "It's just a phrase we humans say to those younger than us, metal friend." He explains, wiping the tears from the corner of his eye.
"Why don't you stay a while, you're not in a hurry are ya?" The old man asks. "I can show you our earth nature terms, in sure you'd like that." He nods, he doesn't really have to hurry after all, the decepticons and autobots alike probably presumed him dead. "Hm, fine, but I need something to support my legs." He grumbles, wincing as he runs his finger across the edge of the piece of scrap metal the man used to patch him up.
"There's some cut trees down here you could use!" The old man exclaims, dragging them into his arms reach. Using the logs as crutches, he slowly follows behind the man as he blabbers about the forest. "So uh, how long have I been out while you've been fixing me?" He asks, silently hoping it hadn't been more than a day. "Oh at least a week or so, I couldn't have patched you up that quickly!" The man says, quickly noticing his surprise and changing the subject "Hey, you want to see my favourite part of these woods?"
"Not really—" He cuts himself off before he could finish talking, the view he saw left him breathless. They stood at the foot of a crystal clear lake, with rushing rivers coming in from all sides, and at the top stood the biggest spectacle there. A massive crashing waterfall, coming down from a beautiful cliff. Looking down he saw a small winged creature taking small sips from the river with it's beak, and a large (for human standards) mammal with massive outstretched antlers besides it, coexisting without conflict. It was surprisingly calming for an earth location.
"So? What'dya think?" The old man exclaims happily. The bot snaps out of his admiration for the sight to reply "it's.. Great."