Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
Sparks of hope.
Sparks of new life.
The Emberstone had brought a new balance on planet Earth, slightly chaotic and still working through to reach its peak. The wave that hit the planet not only restored every cybertronian life fallen to the Space Bridge Weapon, but created new Wells all over the world, some easily accessible, some deep into the crust remaining hidden for years.
Terrans were here to stay and proliferate.
It wasn’t long before there were news of new protoforms emerging from these Wells. It wasn’t a large number at first, barely around a hundred from all over the world and governments acted quickly upon their discovery, promptly assisted by cybertronians, all eventually reporting to Optimus Prime’s HQ.
Optimus Prime had a lot on his hands after the Weapon had been neutralized…
Alongside agent Jon Schloder and Megatron, they completely reformed G.H.O.S.T. as true equal-side partners, renamed “Sp.Ark.” (the name was still somehow a work-in-progress, suggested by both Optimus and Schloder, something connected to a Special Ark, about bringing everyone together… they tried different things, but the name simply stuck, much to all the other bots’ excitement, especially Megatron’s…even Elita gave up at some point), expanding their praxis as wide as possible to all the different organizations in other Countries. Their main goal was to provide a deeper equilibrium between humans and cybertronians, including a guided introduction for former Decepticons on Earth coexistence –no more forced capture and imprisonment unless strictly necessary- and to evaluate the Terrans’ situations, guaranteeing them guidance into society.
An important broadcast has been shown over the world, a message from Optimus Prime himself alongside the most estimated human leaders from every continent, a call to all humans and cybertronians in the highest hope to build a wonderful future for everyone. It had been translated in more than 1000 languages (of both terrestrial and cybertronian origins) and the list still grows.
Unfortunately, as it was expected, there would have been quite a few obstacles to achieve their goals. Despite coexistence between humans and cybertronians starting almost half a century before, some things in species never change, and some bad apples still approached with indignation, hostility and in very rare cases, even violence.
Some Countries were those cases and two Terrans were born in such territories. Despite countless attempts to diplomacy, those two new life forms were never registered in the Global Archive and never shared a contact. Optimus deeply feared for those Terrans after seeing their life force disappear from their scans…
Former Decepticons surprisingly responded more positively than expected to this new broadcast. Many came out of hiding desperately wanting to live their lives in peace, encouraged by the latest events and seeing how many of the former Decepticons high ranks had joined the cause. Back in the day, seeing Megatron joining the Autobots was outraging, a deep-cut affront, a visceral betrayal… but many soon saw past that… exhausted by what millions of years of war had scarred them with. They were all given a new guidance, a new meaning, a purpose, a new start. With a lot of work, many found their peace, a job, an instruction, a home.
There were still a few bots who preferred to stay neutral or directly out of the main events.
The new Terran members approached as well, followed by eager human or cybertronians or even mixed families, and soon Academies were built in the biggest capital cities.
The Maltos were easily chosen to be a beacon for every other Terran, the crest shown by Quintus Prime was their new emblem and many wore it with pride.
Within 10 years, the number of Terrans reached a million.
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“Is there any progress? Report,” Megatron proudly stood before the reworked frame of the Groundbridge, reallocated from the underground level of the base to an upper, better accessible story. It was way more stable and more efficient than ever, the phenomenal work their engineers put into it gave bots and humans a new way of transport, despite being incredibly controlled. There were 52 active Groundbridges around the globe and counting, yet only one has been worked on in the hope to achieve Spacebridge level. For now they were simply updating the Bridgenet for the 53rd opening, based in Italy.
“Reaching complete update in 6 hours, sir. Italian side will be ready to celebrate the opening by midday, our time.” Tarantulas said from the control panel.
“Marvelous,” said a cheerful well known voice as heavy steps echoed in the big chamber. Megatron turned to see Optimus approach the frame, standing next to him. “it surely put me in the mood to visit the Country.”
Megatron raised a brow at him, “I’m surprised you haven’t seen it yet. Lovely place,”
“You kept me busy enough here, Megs,” His voice was low as he commented and Megatron didn’t even need to look at him to know about the grin on his face, he could almost feel it. “And made me feel somewhat peckish, would you join me?”
“By Primus, if I hear another joke about energon pizza,” growled the grey bot.
“Eh, I still take pride I made you laugh,” Optimus turned on his heels, congratulated the lead scientist and his team for the continuous amazing job and waited for Megatron at the door.
After taking a deep, sharp in-vent, Megatron fought hard to not smile as he felt his lips twitching and curling at the reminder of that stupid joke from some time before. He pinched between his eyes, cleared his throat and followed Optimus out.
The top floors were finally getting busy with a lot of people and bots coming and going, sign of the start of the day and change of shifts. It was still breakfast time and the majority of the staff was heading towards the canteen.
Megatron didn’t even take a step out of the elevator that his intercom beeped. Bringing a digit to his audial, he listened in. From the frown alone, OP understood something was up, but the other bot waved him off. “I’ll save you something then. Maybe.” He tried a humorous grin and headed out, while Megatron pressed the button to descend again, to a deeper level this time.
“Elaborate, Shockwave.” Megatron’s calm voice echoed in the big dark room, catching everyone’s attention. A myriad of screens covered every single wall of the chamber, the console panels crowning the whole picture with many little lights.
The scientist raised his head, his big eye flashing bright. “Allow me to let the one who discovered it talk. It’d be…logical.” He showed the palm of his hand towards Nightshade.
The little Terran typed quickly on the console and on the big central screen behind them and an audio analysis program opened playing a file. It was subdivided in different layers and a few peaks were signed in red. They were incredibly small, but showed a clear repeated pattern.
“We picked up a signal from the deepest quadrant of our network! We’ve been monitoring it for the last 12 hours and we deduced it’s artificial for sure!” They cleared their throat, “Sir,” Nightshade smiled proudly, standing straight with their wings behind their back. There wasn’t truly a need to address Megatron so formally, not even on the job, but it was still pleasant to the commander’s audials.
Megatron looked at the young one with a sort of fondness. Having a bright mind, it was the right call to put them to work with a team of specialists, with Tarantulas being their main mentor. Nightshade had indeed put an immense work to reshape the structure and if it wasn’t for them, there wouldn’t be the main courses of the Academies. Many things had changed in 10 years and the Terran proudly showed their new upgrade on their frame, now looking more to what humans call “harpy”, with big owl wings attached to their arms, metalling feather-tips carefully not touching the ground and a long feathery tail as well, eyes big and bright as ever. Their colors remained somewhat the same, if not slightly lighter shade with rims in silver.
A 3D map of the network was projected in the center of the room, showing as far as the cybertronian satellites had scanned in the starry sky. The Solar system was barely a speck at the very center of it and a red dot flashed weakly in the corner of the room. Megatron analyzed for a second the position, whatever it was it couldn’t come from Cybertron (if it was still an active planet…), wrong direction and probably way too far to send anything at all. If they had to base themselves on the 3D map, Cybertron would be positioned easily out of the State from their location.
“Artificial.” He looked at Nightshade, “A ship?”
“It does match the general pitches of a cybertronian ship! But we still don’t have enough to clearly identify what kind of ship.”
“We can exclude militia ship. Otherwise it would be… illogical.” Cut in Shockwave.
“How so?”
“Too high pitched and regular. War ships don’t produce this kind of signal.”
“Very well. Is there more?”
“We calculated all the possible trajectories based on what we registered so far, and there’s a high chance it’s travelling towards Earth.”
“How high?”
“2,67% an hour ago, sir.”
“5,98% currently.” Updated Soundwave, who was on one of the far consoles. Both Nightshade and Shockwave looked at him slightly surprised and intrigued.
Megatron nodded and turned to all. “Do send hourly reports and keep this signal hunt on high priority.”
“Yes, sir!” A general response boomed in the room.
