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The first portal appeared 1354 days after their arrival on the planet, opening in the middle of the Atacama desert.
All the readings indicated it was a ground bridge – except that it very clearly wasn’t, much to Ratchet’s loudly-voiced frustration. The EM fields matched, the power output was about right, but there was something about the readings – subtle variations in the signals, a line that waved up when it should have waved down – that was just wrong, Ratchet grumbled, and the scalpel he’d been holding suffered the same fate as so many of his tools had at the servos of others. No one dared to point out that he might have needed that.
The portal stayed open for 15.6 seconds and then vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
The next one opened up 3 days later, far to the north, over the planet’s polar region, prompting Arcee to roll her optics and make a comment about the weather. It stayed open for longer this time – 30.3 seconds – before closing just as suddenly as the first.
A few more hours passed.
And then the signals started coming in from everywhere.
Three here, located high in the upper reaches of the stratosphere – almost a dozen here, floating above the waters of the Pacific Ocean – one here, apparently located inside a mountain, causing tremors and rock falls that would no doubt raise questions with the authorities later.
Optimus split up his team and sent them out to investigate. Arcee and Bulkhead headed out to a set of signals located in a familiar set of Greek ruins, while Bumblebee and Smokescreen departed for the site of a pair in the Peruvian rainforest that had been open for almost ten minutes. Ratchet remained behind to coordinate, calling up groundbridges and shuttling the teams from one location to the next, as portals closed and new ones opened elsewhere.
Optimus stepped through the groundbridge on his own.
His first was a set of 5 at the bottom of a deep, shadowed valley that winked out one by one as he neared them. His second was a group of almost twenty, the entwined energies churning the air into a roiling morass that he felt it wise to keep his distance from. A sparkbeat passed, then two, and suddenly all the portals vanished at once.
He was on his third set of coordinates when it happened.
This portal was an isolated one, located high in a mountain range in the south of the largest continent. Optimus stepped out of the groundbridge into a thick, swirling mist.
The portal in front of him was a strange distortion floating in the air, almost a mirror of the bridge he had just exited but completely lacking in color. He approached it, reaching into subspace to retrieve the (uncrushed) device Ratchet had provided to take readings.
And Megatron appeared in front of him.
Instinct took over. Optimus fell back, cannons unfolding and spinning to life, their whine mingling with the building hum of Megatron’s fusion cannon to create that sound now so familiar to Optimus that he heard it in his dreams. The sudden heat from their weapons burnt away a halo of mist.
Optimus braced himself, prepared to open fire – and then he saw Megatron’s optics.
Their hazy blue glow widened as Megatron stared back.
“Orion? Orion, is that you?”
The name Optimus said next was not the one he had intended.
“Megatronus?”
Megatron dropped his arm first, the glow of his cannon dying away.
“Well. Shockwave did say there were infinite possibilities, but somehow I never thought this would be one of them. It is good to see you again, old friend.”
Optimus kept his weapons up and trained on the strange apparition in front of him.
“I suppose an explanation is in order – ”
Static burst from Megatron’s comm link, and he winced and raised a servo to his helm. The voice on the line was familiar to Optimus, but the concern it expressed was not.
“Commander? Commander, are you all right?”
Megatron sighed in exasperation and rolled his optics. “I am fine, Starscream. This planet is inhabited. I will be returning through the portal shortly. We must look elsewhere to replenish our energon supplies.”
“Commander – ”
“Starscream.”
The line went sullenly silent, and Optimus finally lowered his own weapons.
Megatron smiled. “As quick as ever, I see, Orion.”
Interdimensional travel. Back before the war, there had been theories. Optimus – Orion, then – had worked mostly in the historical sections of the archives, but he had heard the excited babble of his fellow archivists as the latest scientific datapads had come in, and he had listened.
Multiple universes, each unique from every other, although the theories had also said there might be some similarities to be found.
Apparently, they had been right.
Similarities and differences.
If Megatron had believed him to be an enemy…
“What happened?”
There was no need for him to elaborate further.
Megatron sighed and rubbed at his face, an oddly human gesture. “There are some who say that the Matrix was tainted when you received it – that the poison infecting our planet had reached the core before you arrived, and that it, in turn, poisoned you.”
His expression turned distant, and if he could still see the world in front of him now, Optimus would have been very surprised.
“I know better. The change in you had taken place long before you ever received that cursed trinket. Perhaps it truly was poisoned, but by then, it didn’t matter.”
Megatron laughed once, short and bitter, and Optimus shifted, the familiarity of the sound sending warning signals flickering up his backstrut. “When the Council named you worthy of being a Prime, I was enraged. How dare those privileged, arrogant fools overlook me? The jealousy…I thought it would consume me. But then I saw what it did to you – how it changed you.”
He fixed his gaze on Optimus, the intensity something Optimus could recall from long ago, even if the blue optics were not. “You wanted to help. More than anything, you wanted to help. But no one would listen. No one would listen to their Prime. So you made them listen.”
Silence fell again as each of them faced a future-that-might-have-been. Megatron broke it with an inquiry of his own.
“So you never feared such an outcome for yourself?”
“I…no. I have always known I was not worthy.”
Megatron smiled. “Ah. And that explains everything, does it not?”
And suddenly Optimus realized. Here it was – a chance to speak with his oldest friend again, and there was so much he wanted to ask Megatronus.
And maybe, just maybe, he could even find out why –
Starscream’s voice broke in once again.
“Commander, the portal is destabilizing. You must return now!”
“Understood, Starscream.”
And without warning, Megatron closed the distance between them.
Optimus took an instinctive step back, his guns unfolding to defend himself even though he already knew he’d been caught off-guard, that he’d moved too late –
– and Megatron caught him and pulled into a rough embrace.
Optimus stiffened, eyes widening even as the whir of his cannons died away.
After a moment, Megatron released Optimus and stepped back, holding him out at arm’s length. “Ah. Forgive me. Too much time spent among the humans.” He smiled. “Still. It was good to see you again, old friend.”
He turned and strode through the portal.
“And you – ”
The portal vanished.
“…old friend.”
The mist closed around him once more.
It was a different voice that broke the silence this time, but the tone mirrored one he’d heard not so long ago.
“Optimus? Optimus, are you all right?”
“I am fine, Ratchet. Recall the others. I have found the source of the disturbances.”
“Well? What was it?”
“I will explain upon my return, old friend. It is…a long story.”