melodiesofeternity | Endgame-Lighting the Darkest Hour

Who: Megatron, Minimus Ambus, NPCs, and anyone who signed up for this plot
When: During the endgame plot
Where: The Transformers universe - an unknown planet, the ship, and Unicron
What: The gang goes to IDWverse and has to fight a weird robot and his giant evil plant.
Warnings/Notes: Please post under the appropriate toplevel for your post.

When the airship breaks through into this new reality, it does not come out over a planet. Rather, the Heroes find themselves in the depths of space. The Cybertronians of their group grow much larger - Minimus is over ten feet tall while Megatron is nearly forty feet tall. Thankfully, this was accounted for before departure, and with the return to his native universe, Megatron regains some control over his mass-changing tech, allowing him to shrink down to a (slightly) more manageable size for the benefit of the organics among them. Who find themselves suddenly clad inside a suit of delightfully retro-futuristic space armour that the Cybertronians helpfully identify as an "exosuit", which not only provides superior levels of protection and onboard blasters, but also can safely transform with the occupant inside into a wheeled vehicle mode. There's plenty of time to get used to moving in the suits, which can be surprisingly clunky to the uninitiated, and the transforming, which while perfectly safe is still disconcerting the first few times one tries it. As is attempting to drive it.

"This is bad." Megatron notes grimly, checking the ship's navcomp. "According to the coordinates, we should be over Veras Centralus. No, I apologize, Verus Centralus. Veras Centralus is in the Kol system." But even a cursory glance out the bridge viewscreen shows no planet whatsoever. "We should push onto Cybertron." He says, grimly.
There are a few planets along the way that they can quantum jump to as they hop across space towards Megatron and Minimus' home. Or there should be; each jump brings them to just more empty space, or more distressingly, a debris field unaccounted for in their star charts. With each passing trip, the likelihood that they are too late for this universe becomes more and more apparent. Has Balahaka won this round?

However, one tiny sliver of hope remains when the shuttle picks up an errant transmission from the distant plant of Clemency. It's the first transmission of any kind they've picked up since they arrived, and their first indicator that they are not yet too late. Apparently, long ago during the Great War, Clemency was the site of a massive battle between the Autobots and Decepticons. Nowadays there's not much there beyond the rusting bodies of all the dead neither side had the time or inclination to retrieve. It seems fitting, in a darkly ironic sort of way that the only place left to hide is among the dead.

The ship is running on vapours when they arrive, but there is indeed a still-whole planet in the viewscreen in front of them. Minimus takes one group planetside to investigate while Megatron stays on the main ship. Considering his reputation, it would be safer for everyone if the natives did not know that the scourge of the universe was not among this rescue group. However, thanks to communicators and a secure comm channel, he can at least listen in and be kept informed of what Minimus and the other Heroes find.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well, we did come to help, and all of us were pulled away from our worlds as inopportune times," S'reee noted. She inclined her head at Minimus. "Were you in that much trouble when you left?"

Because being removed from a deadly situation might well cause everyone around to assume he was dead. A nice explanation.

This is all so confusing. Minimus? Dead? Even though he's clearly alive and well? This whole planet has been so fascinating, if a bit morbid, but this? Papyrus squints, head tilted within his exo-suit.

But when the topic of help comes up, he lets out a boisterous laugh. "NYEH HEH HEH!!! FEAR NOT! WHILE I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, KNOW LITTLE OF THIS UNICRON, HE, SHE, OR THEY CLEARLY CAN'T STAND UP TO THE MIGHT OF OUR COMBINED FORCES! BECAUSE IF WE PUT OUR HEADS TOGETHER AND BELIEVE WITH ALL OUR HEARTS, THERE'S NO WAY WE CAN LOSE!"

So, maybe that's a bit too idealistic, but dang it! He wants to be positive here. Maybe it'll help boost morale?

Though astute listeners may pick up on a hint of uneasiness in his voice.

"I don't recall being in such a situation," Minimus murmured as he glanced to the side. "Was this when we were inside Skip?"

The blank look (minus the deep frown) Ratchet gave him was an explanatory enough answer.

Minimus huffed and adjusted his mustache. "The time at which I recall the timeline split was above Mederi after storming the Grand Architect's ship -" The corner of Ratchet's mouth twitched - "But otherwise, we have been in different universes for the past year or so."

The fact that split timelines was not an unheard occurrence to the two Cybertronians gave them cause to groan in their mind, and it added to the credulity of Minimus' statement. Not that Ratchet was happy about it.

"Hah." It did not sound like a laugh. "So now we have another quantum duplicate issue. Anyone else who's actually alive?"

As hopeful as the possibility would be...Ratchet did not entertain the notion for long.

"He frowned at S'ree, who was at head height to him, but frowned at Papyrus. "Sure, like believing that some other force is going to save us all did any good to stop Adaptus and his pet project. Might as well sit in a circle and sing in the hopes the noise'll drive him away from destroying Clemency, too!"

Minimus' head jerked back two degrees of an angle. "Adaptus? He's behind this?"

Ratchet folded his arms. "Yeah. Destroyed the Functionists with his new tech, hijacked this planet-eater called Unicron, and you can see what happened next."

With some bandages applied and make-shift splints secured into place, Rutile re-joined the others, overhearing most of what was going on, especially thanks to Papyrus' ever-animated tone. At least this, Ratchet? was open and accepting to the idea of their quantum-origins. Small victories, they supposed.

"Singing is ill-advised. I think these people have suffered enough already." What they could do, perhaps, was at least try to stop this planet-eater? Unicron? And the one behind it. Perhaps these the sorts of things you couldn't believe until you saw them. ~~Like the human digestive system, for example.~~

"Was this their last target? Is there any telling where they may be headed?"

"New technology? That was what we came here to discover; who was using unexpected new technology." S'reee noted. "I'm afraid things will be even worse if we do not locate it and shut it down, even if that doesn't seem possible."

Megatron's voice crackles over the open comm channel. "Hello, Ratchet." He says. "I'm here too, but for everyone's safety I've remained onboard our ship. Adaptus is restarting the God War, isn't he?" It makes the most amount of sense, based on what they've seen. It was Adaptus who initiated the first wave of Cybertronian galactic conquest, or tried to. Now, with Unicron at his disposal and modified with Soul Divider tech at that, there'd be precious little to stop him from carrying on with his plans. Or at least that must have been his original intention, but clearly the Soul Divider technology was working on ensuring this was less about conquest and more about total devastation.

"Adaptus has been duped; the technology you spoke of will succeed only in destroying our universe if left unchecked. In order to keep that from happening, Adaptus will..." He sighs. "...have to be killed. He's tied to the tech now, and only his death will stop it from destroying our reality as we know it, but time is of the essence."

The revelation of death has him curious, of course, but as Kuja listens to the conversation he weighs the options. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask: what means do we have of actually stopping this Adaptus? You all seem quite resilient here on your home planet, I would guess it would take unconventional weaponry to actually significantly injure you. What do we have at our disposal?"

"You too?" Ratchet made a noise that was a cross between a grumble and a groan. "Of all the people...

He shook his head. "Who knows. We've tried a lot of things, but you can guess by our numbers how well they went." Ratchet went silent for a moment. There were a lot of deaths imprinted on his mind. "Not all of them were from injuries I could have saved."

Minimus glanced at the others, then nodded sadly at Ratchet.

"Unicron's the size of a planet. It kills entire civilizations at once. As much as we Cybertronians believe that we're immortal, no one can survive that. Not Cybertron, not Caminus. Not even Tyrest." A glance. "I was prisoner on Unicron for a while. Saw everything that happened. Barely escaped with my life. Funny thing, Adaptus is just possessing an old medical colleague of mine. Not that it's a good thing considering it's Pharma, but he did try to spare me for his own gain. All he did was lock me up for himself while he murdered everyone else in front of me.

"...Drift especially."

"Well," Kuja said, quietly. "If I've learned anything from my life, it's that there is no such thing as an insurmountable foe. This Unicron has a weakness, it's just a matter of finding it."

He glances up at the cybertronian. "My sincerest apologies for your losses. We're here to help."

Ratchet folded his arms to block himself from the others. Minimus waited for someone to speak up, but decided to take the initiative.

"...Everyone?" He tentatively questioned.

There was silence, a refusal to speak.

"Everyone. Maybe he kept some of them prisoner, considering that he - Adaptus, actually - mentioned one in holding, but it could be anyone from Cybertron." He shifted his gaze at the smaller allies. "Losses? I've felt losses the past four million years. If you die, it's another set of lives that I couldn't save." He gestured at the planet of Clemency below. "Those people are alive thanks to doctors and heroes who could do something about this. I'm supposed to be the greatest Autobot medic, and I couldn't stop Pharma from sparing one life. Not my crew. Not Drift. Not those odd Decepticons we picked up at Mederi."

With a deep breath, he steadied his glare. "You better have some plan in case things go south."

Endgame-Lighting the Darkest Hour

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