Author’s Note: 3 AM warning! I put it at the end of the fic again...

It had been a hundred Earth years since the Maximals had been rescued from that prehistoric world. After the probe had located them, it had only been a matter of time until a ship came to find them. The Predacons had fought desperately, but they hadn’t stood a chance against an entire ship full of Maximals angry over the broken peace treaty between the factions. That anger had burned hot and long even after the Predacons were captured, and only Optimus Primal’s level-headed influence over the Maximal crew had kept the prisoners alive.

He hadn’t been able to stop the war, though. Whether it was the Maximals’ refusal to hand over Megatron and his minions to the Tripedicus Council or the backlog of hatred between the two factions, a new civil war started on Cybertron. In a way, it had been pathetic. The Predacons had tried, yes, and they had done a lot of damage…but the Maximal High Council had been in control of the planet since the original Great War. It had more weapons, more allies willing to help, and a larger army. The second Great War ended with the Predacons crushed and meekly coming before the Council for a truce.

The Maximal High Council had looked at the Predacon faction, its representatives dignified but defeated, and it had seen pride. Pride that would soon spark resistance. Cybertron would face another civil war, and another after that, unless something was done. Something to protect Cybertron.

The terms the Predacons had no choice to accept were harsh, but it wasn’t just their faction that was forced to live under that truce. All of Cybertron, for the good of Cybertron, was placed under new laws. Weapons research was banned, civil rights restricted. Peace-keeping laws were enforced with a heavy, merciless hand. Because the lawmakers were Maximals, however, there was no death penalty. Just imprisonment and eviction from the planet. That was all that was needed to ensure that Cybertron would prosper. That was all that was needed for a peaceful, happy, perfect planet.

At least…at first.

But it had been a hundred years to the day from when the Maximals had been rescued when he came. He always came. Every twenty years, he came. He didn’t quite know why after so long, but he kept coming anyway. Oh, at first it had been to gloat, to parade the Maximals’ accomplishments before Megatron’s optics, but after a while the gloating had lost its pleasure. The tyrant had been captured and brought low by the Maximals, kept confined in a prison, locked away from the world he had thought to rule. The only contact he had with the outside world was through visitors, and there were few of those. It had made him stop and think for a long time when he’d realized that all of those who came to see the ex-tyrant gloated, too.

After that, he just came to sit and tell him of the outside world. What had passed in the twenty years since he’d last come to visit, who had done what, how their world had changed. Megatron, condemned to the “merciful” torment of life in prison, merely sat across the table from him, in the same cold, barren room every time, and listened quietly. His face was always blank, a mask of broken dreams he showed to all of those who had captured him, the hatred beaten down with helplessness. There was a trace of sadness, a faint stirring of anger, but an overwhelming sense of hopeless despair blurred it together into a mask that simply hinted at the emotion underneath.

The ex-tyrant never spoke.

So he talked, looking back on the past twenty years like it was just a story. Every twenty years, he came and told the story to the silent Predacon. Cybertronians could live a very long time. How long would he continue to do this? He didn’t know. He just knew that he would keep coming back.

This time had been different from the times before, though. The pattern had been broken. The ex-tyrant had spoken. True, it had just been a few, brief words. But the deceptively simple question had so much meaning behind it that the depths drew him in. Now he sat in the cold room and watched the door close behind the guards taking the prisoner away, and he remembered…

The first time he had come here, the world had been different. Cybertron was preparing for war; the Predacons protesting Megatron’s imprisonment, the Maximals grimly pointing out the violation of their treaty, and neither side really listening because it was all an excuse, anyway. The lost Maximals had returned, and war was inevitable before six months had passed.

And he had come. Megatron had been brought into the room, mask already in place. After six months of being stripped of his rank, his dignity, his freedom, that mask was already covering up what he really felt to prevent the world from using it against him.

He had smiled as the prisoner sat across from him, and he had waited for Megatron to say something. The silence had stretched out, the ex-tyrant staying so still it was hard to tell if he was alive, and he had eventually filled the silence with words. Had he really laughed at the Predacon? Strange how he didn’t even think about gloating now, but back then his words had been full of mockery.

He had spoken of the beginnings of war. He told of how Rhinox had been recruited into the Maximal army for his computer abilities. It wasn’t like the rhino wanted the war, but both he and Optimus understood that it would happen, and the Maximals needed them. Optimus was going to be an officer, and he would serve under him with Tigatron. Tigatron didn’t want to be in the war at all, but none of them had a choice, really. They had all kept their beast modes, too, by the way. It marked them all as the lost Maximals, letting them stay together in a group without actually being together. Besides, there was something special about having a beast mode from ancient Earth.

The other Predacons had kept their beast modes, as far as he knew. The other Predacons had gotten off lighter, although Scorpinok might end up with life in prison if he acted like such a loyalist in front of the parole board when his time came. Terrorsaur and Waspinator ended up with the exact same sentence: 20 years imprisonment. Waspinator had the chance of being paroled, though. Terrorsaur had mouthed off to the judge at his trial.

Blackarachnia was actually in a counseling center after pleading conflicting programming. Stupid Pred thought that the jury would fall for her line about ‘true Maximal programming,’ and she had almost been right! But it would be a while before she got out of counseling. Maybe they’d be able to clear out her Predacon reprogramming, after all. Tarantulas, however, had been handed over to the Tripedicus Council in an attempt to placate the Predacons. There had been a highly publicized trial for him that had ended with him in a Predacon detention center, but the rumor was that it was just a move to make the Maximal High Council happy. He’d be released the day the war started.

That might be any day now.

Did he know that Rattrap and Dinobot had left Cybertron? It was true. The Predacons had almost unanimously condemned Dinobot for his actions, but the Maximals hadn’t trusted him. Optimus had tried to persuade him to join the Maximal army permanently under his own command, but it went against the raptor’s honor. Then Rattrap refused to join. That caught everybody by surprise, but he insisted that he was through with wars. Rattrap and Dinobot argued constantly about it…but they eventually agreed to leave on another exploration mission. That surprised everybody again, but it made sense. There was a lot of political consideration behind the decision; the High Council wanted Rattrap either to join or get out of the public spotlight, and Dinobot couldn’t stay on Cybertron when there was a war going on that he couldn’t join on the Predacon OR Maximal side. So they’d left on a fairly short mission to somewhere. Nobody knew when they’d be heard from next.

Megatron had watched him with that blank mask as he talked, not speaking, not moving. The ex-tyrant had left quietly when the guards came into the room for him, but there had been that small taint of anger contaminating the mask if one looked closely enough.

He had been watching that closely. He had seen the anger. And that’s when the thought had occurred to him, that no one but Maximals could ever come into this prison, it was such high security. And what kind of Maximals would come to see a fallen tyrant?...what did that say about HIM?

He had taken that thought with him when he’d left.

Nineteen and a half years later, on the anniversary of the day the Maximals had rescued him and his friends, he had come back. This time he hadn’t smiled, didn’t mock. He had learned. He’d waited for Megatron to say something, anything, but the ex-tyrant had simply looked at him with a face that showed nothing. So, again, he’d filled the silence with words.

The war had ended, the Maximals had won. There was peace on Cybertron, and the beginnings of a Golden Age. The Maximal High Council had promised that this time Cybertron would be perfect. There would be no underground plotting by the Predacons this time. Steps were being taken to ensure that everything and everyone would be equal in the world they envisioned. The new laws were kind of frightening, but Optimus and Tigatron had joined one of the Council’s projects, and they talked about them constantly. The vision they had of what Cybertron could be was really amazing…

But Rhinox had died to bring about that vision.

They told him it had been lucky hit, a freak chance. The Predacons had been using terrorist tactics, and somehow they had found one of the buildings the Maximal computer specialists had been working out of. One bomb and his friend was dead. Did he understand that? Did he care? Rhinox was dead.

But Waspinator was dead, too. A prison fight had gotten out of control, and the guards had broken it up. In the process, Waspinator got blown up somehow. Brought back memories of the Beast Wars, didn’t it? But this time there was no CR tank waiting; they had been taken out of the prisons for the war effort. Prisoners were less important than soldiers. Waspinator’s parts had been melted down and recycled. It was…strange…to think that the wasp wasn’t alive anymore. It hurt to think of Rhinox as dead, but in a weird way it also hurt to know that Waspinator had died.

Scorpinok had ranted on about the Predacon cause at his parole hearing, though. He’d be in prison for a long time if he kept that up. Terrorsaur was still in jail, and he apparently got into a lot of fights that he lost. But Tarantulas was free! The rumors turned out to be right, and the Tripedicus Council freed him as soon as the war started. He was thought to be one of the most prominent Predacon terrorists in the entire war, but he’d disappeared with the Tripedicus Council despite the Maximals’ demands for their surrender. Nobody knew where they’d gone.

Blackarachnia…something had happened there. The counseling center she’d been in hadn’t allowed her any visitors for a while, and when she’d finally gotten out after the war…well, she didn’t call herself Blackarachnia anymore. And she wore a Maximal insignia. And the counseling center found her a job as an aide to a High Council member. She hadn’t recognized him when they’d spoken, either.

Dinobot and Rattrap were still off trying to kill each other on the exploration ship they were on, but the reports the captain had been sending back said that their arguing kept the crew’s moral up. That brought back memories from the Beast Wars again…but their ship was on its way back to Cybertron. They might arrive any day now.

He’d waited for Megatron to react, to say something, to do something, but the ex-tyrant had sat quietly. Even when he’d told of Rhinox and Waspinator’s deaths, the Predacon had said nothing. When the guards had come for him, however, there was a tiny flaw in the blank mask: a hint of sadness.

Then Megatron was gone.

Twenty years later he’d come back to sit across from the Predacon and talk. He hadn’t expected the ex-tyrant to say anything, anymore. According to the guards, Megatron didn’t respond verbally to much of anything. He just listened.

So he had talked.

He told the prisoner about Dinobot and Rattrap. They had come back to Cybertron, did he know that? They had, at least briefly. This time they hadn’t left voluntarily. Maybe it was easier to disagree with since they hadn’t lived through it, but they hadn’t liked the laws the High Council had passed. Civil rights were more restricted. Violence of any kind meant imprisonment or exile from the planet. Weaponry was getting harder and harder to own, much less use, even if it was built-in. People who had built-in weaponry were required to register themselves, and there was a lot of pressure to be rebuilt to exclude the weaponry. The only ones who carried weapons openly anymore were the Visionaries. That’s what the police force was being called, now, to end the distinction between Maximal and Predacon armies. They had been joined into one and renamed. The High Council wasn’t the ‘Maximal’ High Council anymore, either. People were being strongly encouraged to call themselves ‘Cybertronians’ instead of ‘Maximals’ or ‘Predacons,’ too.

Rattrap and Dinobot had been shocked by the changes. The Visionaries kept everyone on Cybertron in their jobs, in their own lives. Everything was monitored and everyone was told what to do. The High Council wanted life on Cybertron to be perfect. Dinobot and Rattrap didn’t see it that way.

They never had a chance to do anything about it, though. They picked a fight with each other a few days after their ship got back to Cybertron, and the Visionaries arrested them. Everything went so fast…Optimus was out on a mission for the High Council at the time, so he couldn’t use any of the influence he’d gotten during the war to do anything for them. Fighting in public brought a sentence of three years in jail, and they apparently lost it at their trial when they heard the judge say that. What they said against the High Council was bad enough--that would have added another year or so onto their sentences by itself--but then they appealed to the Maximals and Predacons to follow their lead and protest against the new laws and regulations…

Maybe if they had come back a few years earlier, something might have happened. As it was, Dinobot and Rattrap were banished from the planet. Optimus had told him that they were trying to win support for their cause off-planet, now.

Tarantulas had reappeared for much the same reason, but he was strictly an underground figure for the moment, at least. And he was bluntly calling it a rebellion. There wasn’t any sign of the Tripedicus Council, but it was rumored that the spider was being supported by it. There were Predacons responding to his call, and even a few Maximals. He was on the Visionaries ‘Most Wanted’ list, but he didn’t do any public appearances for them to arrest him at.

Terrorsaur died a little over a year ago. Someone had told him that it was in a fight over energon, but someone else had said the guards had shot him with a bunch of other prisoners for organizing a resistance. Another piece of the Beast Wars, gone. Scorpinok hadn’t been allowed visitors ever since the last parole hearing he’d ranted through.

Optimus was on another exploration mission, now. He said that he wasn’t sure he believed in what the High Council was doing after Dinobot and Rattrap had been exiled, so he was going to distance himself from everything for a while. His new ship was called the Axalon II, just in case he’d been wondering.

And Tigatron…he had said that Dinobot and Rattrap deserved their sentence. He hadn’t seemed to care at all about Terrorsaur’s death, either. It was almost frightening how devoted he was to the High Council’s vision. He had actually joined the Visionaries! Not that he was violent, but…

He’d trailed off, not knowing what to say next, and Megatron hadn’t said a word. The guards had come in for him, and for a moment, just a moment, there was a look of frustrated anger and deep sadness on the Predacon’s face, but it’d vanished back into that same blank mask as he’d left with the guards.

That was what he remembered when he had come back twenty years later. That was what he had looked for in the prisoner’s face when he’d sat down. Behind the mask, he could just barely see it. The guards had told him later that Megatron hardly showed a reaction to anything, anymore, and the most he ever showed was when he came here, to this cold, barren room. So he had waited for words that never came.

The ex-tyrant had merely watched him as he spoke.

What had happened in twenty years? Sometimes it was hard to tell when the years blurred together. Well, new laws had been passed. Owning weaponry was now completely illegal unless one was in the Visionaries. There had been an attempt at a rebellion over that, but…nobody really knew what had happened with that. For the good of Cybertron, the High Council had seized control of the media, and nothing had been reported. A few people were missing friends, now, though. And since the prisons were filling up so quickly, the High Council had decided to start evicting more of those who broke the laws.

But it was strange how many of those who were evicted never contacted anyone on Cybertron again. Or was that strange? The High Council HAD seized control of the media. ALL media. And most private starships. Their reasoning made sense; after all, the on-planet economy had been skyrocketing since they’d taken over private businesses, so why shouldn’t they do the same with the off-planet commerce system? It did make it difficult to travel, though. In order to get on or off the planet, there was a set of procedures that a ‘bot had to go through, and it was becoming more and more likely that a travel request would be turned down.

The Axalon II had returned to Cybertron before the new laws had been passed, and Optimus had taken the ship back out soon after. Government funds for exploration missions had been drying up even then, but Optimus had told him that he’d traded on his reputation as one of the “lost” Maximals.

There were few of them left, now. Dinobot and Rattrap had been trying to keep in contact, but after the new laws were passed that had become harder and harder to do. Optimus had offered him an officer’s position in his ship’s crew before he’d left, but the ape had left abruptly before anything could come of that because of Tigatron…Tigatron and Optimus had actually yelled at each other. Tigatron had wanted Optimus to stay on Cybertron, insisting that exploration wouldn’t be needed in a Golden Age, and Optimus had asked him where he’d gotten that idea from. When Tigatron said that’s what the High Council had said, and Optimus had disagreed…

Both of them had stormed away from that argument. Neither of them had acted like they’d be talking again, and Optimus had left immediately afterwards. He had told him that Tigatron was too high up in the High Council’s favor; offending the tiger more might cause the exploration mission to be cancelled.

Scorpinok was still alive, if he cared. He’d finally been allowed a parole hearing again, but he’d blown it by going on and on about how the Predacons would rule Cybertron. After that, the judge had just made his sentence life in prison. Normally they’d exile ‘bots like that, but he was still an important political prisoner.

Tarantulas had moved to the top of the Visionaries ‘Most Wanted’ list, and rumor had it that Cybertronians were flocking to the underground rebellion he was organizing. The High Council had condemned his actions repeatedly, but people kept joining despite the repression. It was only a matter of time before something happened. Rebellion was brewing under Cybertron’s peaceful surface.

He had paused awkwardly, unable to think of anything more that didn’t sound trivial, and Megatron had watched him. The mask had been heavy with an emotion he couldn’t name, and it had taken until the guards led the ex-tyrant away that he recognized it:

Despair.

Twenty years later, and the mask had been cracking. A hundred years since a Maximal ship had rescued the lost crew and captured the Predacons, and hopeless, helpless optics had watched him through a mask that was transparent if one knew how to look. He did. Perhaps the guards couldn’t see it, but he could. He had waited, just a moment, to see if the ex-tyrant had anything to say, but no words had come.

So, once more, he’d talked.

Did he know that there had been a rebellion? Probably not, locked away as he was. Tarantulas had led it, by the way. He’d led it, and he’d died for it. It had died with him, shattered by the Visionaries. The High Council hadn’t stopped with just stopping the rioting in the streets, though. No, there had been investigations, tying in with those already going on.

Oh, yes, there had been investigations going on already. The trigger for the rebellion, for all the violence, had been Optimus’ return. His exploration team had been called back to Cybertron prematurely. Nobody had known the Axalon II was even in orbit, the High Council’s control was so tight, and Optimus and his crew hadn’t been allowed to leave their starship. Optimus’ request for a new mission had been turned down immediately, and when he’d persisted, he’d been arrested and taken down to the planet. There hadn’t been a trial, hadn’t been publicity. He’d sat in prison until someone finally found out about his return.

That someone turned out to be a representative of a group of Cybertronians with off-planet interests and wealth. They offered to fund an exploration mission to find a planet to colonize, to escape to, and Optimus agreed to try. Somehow, the group managed to break him out of the prison, and into a shuttle headed off-planet. That got a lot of media attention because the Visionaries had put out a planet-wide alert for the missing prisoner, and the High Council made the decision to focus newscasts on the event when the rogue shuttle launched. Everyone thought that they would force it to land and arrest Optimus again. Nobody was happy with the idea of arresting the leader of the “lost” Maximals from so long ago, but that was what was expected.

The Visionaries shot it out of the sky.

One moment the newscasts had shown a lone shuttle jetting out of the atmosphere. The next, there was nothing but flaming debris raining down from the sky.

There were no survivors.

The same day, the same HOUR, the High Council announced that there would be investigations into the group of ‘bots who had planned and funded the escape attempt. It touched off Tarantulas’ rebellion prematurely as fury built beyond control planetwide. People wanted revenge after what had happened. Optimus, the leader of the “lost” Maximals and a prominent officer during the Second Great War, died without trial in a sick show of power that served no purpose. How had that pushed forward the High Council’s goals of peace on Cybertron? Had the morbid spectacle been expected to crush the planet’s spirit?

On that question, Tarantulas’ rebellion touched off. They joined forces and set out to dispose the High Council, with the Predacon spider in the midst of the action for once.

The Visionaries were waiting. Optimus’ arrest, the media attention, the investigations…it had all been a trick. A plot to bring the troublemakers out into the open, to make an example of them. And it worked. They came out in droves, and the Visionaries slaughtered them in droves. Mechfluid drenched the streets, with newscasts covering each gory moment as the High Council’s enforcers methodically executed even those that surrendered. There was no mercy.

Most of Cybertron’s population was paralyzed with terror by the time a day had passed. What inertia had started, fear kept going. No one moved to help the rebels or to join them. The attempted rebellion died on the streets, and investigations rooted out sympathizers. Trials were either highly publicized or nonexistent.

In the name of Cybertron’s own good, the High Council reinstated the death penalty to free prison cells for the new wave of prisoners. Exile from the planet was now considered too lenient, costing too much, and prisoners who had committed crimes judged unredeemable had been recycled before they had a chance to revolt. It wasn’t likely Scorpinok had lived through the first prison purging. Tigatron had offhandedly mentioned that scum like that deserved to die.

Of course, the tiger’s high rank had put him in danger of being investigated in the High Council’s search for traitors, but his loyalty was unquestionable. He had been in the thick of the massacres, proudly presenting the High Council with Tarantulas’ head afterwards. He served the Council now, but he worked eagerly towards someday becoming one of its members.

A soft voice had interrupted him, and he had gaped at Megatron in astonishment. It had taken him a moment to find the words to ask the Predacon to repeat what he’d asked. Megatron, face still locked in a mask showing hints of anger, a taint of sadness, a layer of despair, had quietly repeated his words. For the first time in a hundred years, he’d broken the silence in the barren room, and his question held all the emotions his blank face hid.

For a long, long time, he had stared across the table at the prisoner. So long, in fact, that the guards had come in to announce that their time was up. Megatron had risen, silent once more, and passively let the ‘bots lead him from the room without looking back.

He had been left behind, watching the door close behind the Predacon who had wanted to rule. He watched, and he remembered…and he thought.

How long had it been since he had thought for himself? It was so easy to condense the years into stories leeched of the terror and pain, the grief and dread. It was easier to let the High Council decide, listen to Optimus, nod when Tigatron talked, than think for himself. When had the habit started? Sometime between when the Beast Wars ended and the Second Great War began, he was beginning to realize. When he started bringing those simplistic, 20-year stories to Megatron.

How long had it been since he’d thought of what he had done in those 20-year periods? Looking back, he couldn’t seem to pick out his own actions. It was like he was part of the background, blending in, causing no waves. Everyone else, all of the other “lost” Maximals, had created some kind of impact in their lives. He had kept tabs on them, but in an absent-minded kind of way. It was like he had zoned out reality for the last 100 years. Others saw him, but only as the harmless ‘bot that he had become. The impatience and impetuousness he had known in the Beast Wars had met the politics of war and peace, and he had been numbed. Or had he numbed himself? It had been a pleasant fiction, either way. A numb suspension of thought; eternal neutrality.

How long had it been since he’d started refusing to judge the world? To judge, he would have had to think critically about the High Council, side with Dinobot and Rattrap, gone with Optimus, argued with Tigatron. He would have had to object to how the Predacons from the Beast Wars had been treated. He would have had to make decisions between his friends and his morals, bringing himself out of the unfeeling statis he had put himself in and making what was happening around him into reality again instead of just a story.

How long had it been since he’d actually looked around himself? The Cybertron he had pretended existed wasn’t really there. The High Council had sought perfection, and in a way they had gotten it. No longer divided by faction, Maximals and Predacons had become unified in terror, afraid to speak out or act. Set tasks were done under the threat of hovering Visionaries, insuring that perfection WOULD result. Life ran smoothly, enforced by those same Visionaries. But choice had been sacrificed; individuality had been stripped away.

How long had it been since he’d been any different than a drone? How long had it been since he’d started telling himself that ignorance was bliss? The High Council had taken away everything he had fought for in the Beast Wars, and he had stood by in the shadow of the crowd as it happened. He had convinced himself to become nothing but a narrator of the fight taking place around him…because this time it wasn’t Megatron or the Predacons they fought. It was a foe with a friend’s face: what used to be the government he supported, and somehow it was so much more terrible to have to stand up against what he had once fought for.

How long had it been?

The question haunted him as he stared at the closed door. The room around him was barren and cold, but all he could see was what a fool he had been. Standing up, he strode from the room slowly, still lost in his thoughts. The question circled in his mind, faster and faster, and his feet kept pace until he was sprinting down the halls, the guards jumping out of his way in surprise as he streaked past.

He stopped short as he burst through the exit. Before him lay Cybertron.

His memory supplied the devotion of past times, painting the planet in vivid passions and freedoms. His optics showed what that memory had been warped into, and for the first time in a long time, he actually saw the picture. It stretched before him, and it tore into his spark with the pain of realization. What had happened to the Cybertron he once knew? Where were his friends, now? This was not the world he had fought for in the Beast Wars. Cybertron lay before him, barren, cold, and confining. What was it but a larger cell in a bigger prison?

Dimming his optics wearily, he heard the guards of this world of prisons approach. Visionaries surrounded him. A familiar voice demanded to know why he had been talking to Megatron. Was he plotting against the High Council? What was he doing? Answer!

He felt the numbness creeping through him as a hand fell on his shoulder, spinning him around, and the urge rose in him to give up again, to just to narrate what was happening…

But there was that question. That slagging QUESTION.

He turned from Tigatron, towards the cold, unwelcoming world the High Council had made Cybertron into, and deliberately stepped away. The tiger’s optics narrowed, surprised and angered, but it was already too late to stop. The neutral pose had been abandoned, and the veil of ignorance ripped away. Numbness gave way to bitterness.

No longer a narrator, he swept his gaze across the ranks of the Visionaries surrounding him. No longer inactive, he noted how they looked at him with respect for the one of the last two “lost” Maximals. No longer ignorant, he planted the same seed of doubt that was blossoming in him now.

He raised his optics above the crowd one last time to look at the perfect world the High Council had made, and even as a gun clicked against the back of his head, he repeated the question:

“Is this, then, Utopia?”

Author’s Note: Yeah, I know it’s not exactly well written, but the idea would NOT leave me alone. I wanted to write it with only one spoken line in the entire fic and without saying the narrator’s name, and it was very frustrating. Plus I was using a character I’m not terribly fond of but wanted to be fair with…grrrrr… inspiration abandoned me almost as soon as the idea struck, so I was left with the idea and no idea how to write it…*sighs* Anyway, this takes place in a What If? Situation after the episode in Season One called The Probe. Someone’s already done what would happen if the Predacons won, so I wanted to try what if the Maximals did. I mean, who ever said that was a GOOD thing?

This was another fic written at 3 AM that turned out solemn…weird. Oh, and if you didn’t figure it out by process of elimination, the unnamed character is Cheetor.

Author’s Note: 3 AM warning! I put it at the end of the fic again...

It had been a hundred Earth years since the Maximals had been rescued from that prehistoric world. After the probe had located them, it had only been a matter of time until a ship came to find them. The Predacons had fought desperately, but they hadn’t stood a chance against an entire ship full of Maximals angry over the broken peace treaty between the factions. That anger had burned hot and long even after the Predacons were captured, and only Optimus Primal’s level-headed influence over the Maximal crew had kept the prisoners alive.

He hadn’t been able to stop the war, though. Whether it was the Maximals’ refusal to hand over Megatron and his minions to the Tripedicus Council or the backlog of hatred between the two factions, a new civil war started on Cybertron. In a way, it had been pathetic. The Predacons had tried, yes, and they had done a lot of damage…but the Maximal High Council had been in control of the planet since the original Great War. It had more weapons, more allies willing to help, and a larger army. The second Great War ended with the Predacons crushed and meekly coming before the Council for a truce.

The Maximal High Council had looked at the Predacon faction, its representatives dignified but defeated, and it had seen pride. Pride that would soon spark resistance. Cybertron would face another civil war, and another after that, unless something was done. Something to protect Cybertron.

The terms the Predacons had no choice to accept were harsh, but it wasn’t just their faction that was forced to live under that truce. All of Cybertron, for the good of Cybertron, was placed under new laws. Weapons research was banned, civil rights restricted. Peace-keeping laws were enforced with a heavy, merciless hand. Because the lawmakers were Maximals, however, there was no death penalty. Just imprisonment and eviction from the planet. That was all that was needed to ensure that Cybertron would prosper. That was all that was needed for a peaceful, happy, perfect planet.

At least…at first.

But it had been a hundred years to the day from when the Maximals had been rescued when he came. He always came. Every twenty years, he came. He didn’t quite know why after so long, but he kept coming anyway. Oh, at first it had been to gloat, to parade the Maximals’ accomplishments before Megatron’s optics, but after a while the gloating had lost its pleasure. The tyrant had been captured and brought low by the Maximals, kept confined in a prison, locked away from the world he had thought to rule. The only contact he had with the outside world was through visitors, and there were few of those. It had made him stop and think for a long time when he’d realized that all of those who came to see the ex-tyrant gloated, too.

After that, he just came to sit and tell him of the outside world. What had passed in the twenty years since he’d last come to visit, who had done what, how their world had changed. Megatron, condemned to the “merciful” torment of life in prison, merely sat across the table from him, in the same cold, barren room every time, and listened quietly. His face was always blank, a mask of broken dreams he showed to all of those who had captured him, the hatred beaten down with helplessness. There was a trace of sadness, a faint stirring of anger, but an overwhelming sense of hopeless despair blurred it together into a mask that simply hinted at the emotion underneath.

The ex-tyrant never spoke.

So he talked, looking back on the past twenty years like it was just a story. Every twenty years, he came and told the story to the silent Predacon. Cybertronians could live a very long time. How long would he continue to do this? He didn’t know. He just knew that he would keep coming back.

This time had been different from the times before, though. The pattern had been broken. The ex-tyrant had spoken. True, it had just been a few, brief words. But the deceptively simple question had so much meaning behind it that the depths drew him in. Now he sat in the cold room and watched the door close behind the guards taking the prisoner away, and he remembered…

The first time he had come here, the world had been different. Cybertron was preparing for war; the Predacons protesting Megatron’s imprisonment, the Maximals grimly pointing out the violation of their treaty, and neither side really listening because it was all an excuse, anyway. The lost Maximals had returned, and war was inevitable before six months had passed.

And he had come. Megatron had been brought into the room, mask already in place. After six months of being stripped of his rank, his dignity, his freedom, that mask was already covering up what he really felt to prevent the world from using it against him.

He had smiled as the prisoner sat across from him, and he had waited for Megatron to say something. The silence had stretched out, the ex-tyrant staying so still it was hard to tell if he was alive, and he had eventually filled the silence with words. Had he really laughed at the Predacon? Strange how he didn’t even think about gloating now, but back then his words had been full of mockery.

He had spoken of the beginnings of war. He told of how Rhinox had been recruited into the Maximal army for his computer abilities. It wasn’t like the rhino wanted the war, but both he and Optimus understood that it would happen, and the Maximals needed them. Optimus was going to be an officer, and he would serve under him with Tigatron. Tigatron didn’t want to be in the war at all, but none of them had a choice, really. They had all kept their beast modes, too, by the way. It marked them all as the lost Maximals, letting them stay together in a group without actually being together. Besides, there was something special about having a beast mode from ancient Earth.

The other Predacons had kept their beast modes, as far as he knew. The other Predacons had gotten off lighter, although Scorpinok might end up with life in prison if he acted like such a loyalist in front of the parole board when his time came. Terrorsaur and Waspinator ended up with the exact same sentence: 20 years imprisonment. Waspinator had the chance of being paroled, though. Terrorsaur had mouthed off to the judge at his trial.

Blackarachnia was actually in a counseling center after pleading conflicting programming. Stupid Pred thought that the jury would fall for her line about ‘true Maximal programming,’ and she had almost been right! But it would be a while before she got out of counseling. Maybe they’d be able to clear out her Predacon reprogramming, after all. Tarantulas, however, had been handed over to the Tripedicus Council in an attempt to placate the Predacons. There had been a highly publicized trial for him that had ended with him in a Predacon detention center, but the rumor was that it was just a move to make the Maximal High Council happy. He’d be released the day the war started.

That might be any day now.

Did he know that Rattrap and Dinobot had left Cybertron? It was true. The Predacons had almost unanimously condemned Dinobot for his actions, but the Maximals hadn’t trusted him. Optimus had tried to persuade him to join the Maximal army permanently under his own command, but it went against the raptor’s honor. Then Rattrap refused to join. That caught everybody by surprise, but he insisted that he was through with wars. Rattrap and Dinobot argued constantly about it…but they eventually agreed to leave on another exploration mission. That surprised everybody again, but it made sense. There was a lot of political consideration behind the decision; the High Council wanted Rattrap either to join or get out of the public spotlight, and Dinobot couldn’t stay on Cybertron when there was a war going on that he couldn’t join on the Predacon OR Maximal side. So they’d left on a fairly short mission to somewhere. Nobody knew when they’d be heard from next.

Megatron had watched him with that blank mask as he talked, not speaking, not moving. The ex-tyrant had left quietly when the guards came into the room for him, but there had been that small taint of anger contaminating the mask if one looked closely enough.

He had been watching that closely. He had seen the anger. And that’s when the thought had occurred to him, that no one but Maximals could ever come into this prison, it was such high security. And what kind of Maximals would come to see a fallen tyrant?...what did that say about HIM?

He had taken that thought with him when he’d left.

Nineteen and a half years later, on the anniversary of the day the Maximals had rescued him and his friends, he had come back. This time he hadn’t smiled, didn’t mock. He had learned. He’d waited for Megatron to say something, anything, but the ex-tyrant had simply looked at him with a face that showed nothing. So, again, he’d filled the silence with words.

The war had ended, the Maximals had won. There was peace on Cybertron, and the beginnings of a Golden Age. The Maximal High Council had promised that this time Cybertron would be perfect. There would be no underground plotting by the Predacons this time. Steps were being taken to ensure that everything and everyone would be equal in the world they envisioned. The new laws were kind of frightening, but Optimus and Tigatron had joined one of the Council’s projects, and they talked about them constantly. The vision they had of what Cybertron could be was really amazing…

But Rhinox had died to bring about that vision.

They told him it had been lucky hit, a freak chance. The Predacons had been using terrorist tactics, and somehow they had found one of the buildings the Maximal computer specialists had been working out of. One bomb and his friend was dead. Did he understand that? Did he care? Rhinox was dead.

But Waspinator was dead, too. A prison fight had gotten out of control, and the guards had broken it up. In the process, Waspinator got blown up somehow. Brought back memories of the Beast Wars, didn’t it? But this time there was no CR tank waiting; they had been taken out of the prisons for the war effort. Prisoners were less important than soldiers. Waspinator’s parts had been melted down and recycled. It was…strange…to think that the wasp wasn’t alive anymore. It hurt to think of Rhinox as dead, but in a weird way it also hurt to know that Waspinator had died.

Scorpinok had ranted on about the Predacon cause at his parole hearing, though. He’d be in prison for a long time if he kept that up. Terrorsaur was still in jail, and he apparently got into a lot of fights that he lost. But Tarantulas was free! The rumors turned out to be right, and the Tripedicus Council freed him as soon as the war started. He was thought to be one of the most prominent Predacon terrorists in the entire war, but he’d disappeared with the Tripedicus Council despite the Maximals’ demands for their surrender. Nobody knew where they’d gone.

Blackarachnia…something had happened there. The counseling center she’d been in hadn’t allowed her any visitors for a while, and when she’d finally gotten out after the war…well, she didn’t call herself Blackarachnia anymore. And she wore a Maximal insignia. And the counseling center found her a job as an aide to a High Council member. She hadn’t recognized him when they’d spoken, either.

Dinobot and Rattrap were still off trying to kill each other on the exploration ship they were on, but the reports the captain had been sending back said that their arguing kept the crew’s moral up. That brought back memories from the Beast Wars again…but their ship was on its way back to Cybertron. They might arrive any day now.

He’d waited for Megatron to react, to say something, to do something, but the ex-tyrant had sat quietly. Even when he’d told of Rhinox and Waspinator’s deaths, the Predacon had said nothing. When the guards had come for him, however, there was a tiny flaw in the blank mask: a hint of sadness.

Then Megatron was gone.

Twenty years later he’d come back to sit across from the Predacon and talk. He hadn’t expected the ex-tyrant to say anything, anymore. According to the guards, Megatron didn’t respond verbally to much of anything. He just listened.

So he had talked.

He told the prisoner about Dinobot and Rattrap. They had come back to Cybertron, did he know that? They had, at least briefly. This time they hadn’t left voluntarily. Maybe it was easier to disagree with since they hadn’t lived through it, but they hadn’t liked the laws the High Council had passed. Civil rights were more restricted. Violence of any kind meant imprisonment or exile from the planet. Weaponry was getting harder and harder to own, much less use, even if it was built-in. People who had built-in weaponry were required to register themselves, and there was a lot of pressure to be rebuilt to exclude the weaponry. The only ones who carried weapons openly anymore were the Visionaries. That’s what the police force was being called, now, to end the distinction between Maximal and Predacon armies. They had been joined into one and renamed. The High Council wasn’t the ‘Maximal’ High Council anymore, either. People were being strongly encouraged to call themselves ‘Cybertronians’ instead of ‘Maximals’ or ‘Predacons,’ too.

Rattrap and Dinobot had been shocked by the changes. The Visionaries kept everyone on Cybertron in their jobs, in their own lives. Everything was monitored and everyone was told what to do. The High Council wanted life on Cybertron to be perfect. Dinobot and Rattrap didn’t see it that way.

They never had a chance to do anything about it, though. They picked a fight with each other a few days after their ship got back to Cybertron, and the Visionaries arrested them. Everything went so fast…Optimus was out on a mission for the High Council at the time, so he couldn’t use any of the influence he’d gotten during the war to do anything for them. Fighting in public brought a sentence of three years in jail, and they apparently lost it at their trial when they heard the judge say that. What they said against the High Council was bad enough--that would have added another year or so onto their sentences by itself--but then they appealed to the Maximals and Predacons to follow their lead and protest against the new laws and regulations…

Maybe if they had come back a few years earlier, something might have happened. As it was, Dinobot and Rattrap were banished from the planet. Optimus had told him that they were trying to win support for their cause off-planet, now.

Tarantulas had reappeared for much the same reason, but he was strictly an underground figure for the moment, at least. And he was bluntly calling it a rebellion. There wasn’t any sign of the Tripedicus Council, but it was rumored that the spider was being supported by it. There were Predacons responding to his call, and even a few Maximals. He was on the Visionaries ‘Most Wanted’ list, but he didn’t do any public appearances for them to arrest him at.

Terrorsaur died a little over a year ago. Someone had told him that it was in a fight over energon, but someone else had said the guards had shot him with a bunch of other prisoners for organizing a resistance. Another piece of the Beast Wars, gone. Scorpinok hadn’t been allowed visitors ever since the last parole hearing he’d ranted through.

Optimus was on another exploration mission, now. He said that he wasn’t sure he believed in what the High Council was doing after Dinobot and Rattrap had been exiled, so he was going to distance himself from everything for a while. His new ship was called the Axalon II, just in case he’d been wondering.

And Tigatron…he had said that Dinobot and Rattrap deserved their sentence. He hadn’t seemed to care at all about Terrorsaur’s death, either. It was almost frightening how devoted he was to the High Council’s vision. He had actually joined the Visionaries! Not that he was violent, but…

He’d trailed off, not knowing what to say next, and Megatron hadn’t said a word. The guards had come in for him, and for a moment, just a moment, there was a look of frustrated anger and deep sadness on the Predacon’s face, but it’d vanished back into that same blank mask as he’d left with the guards.

That was what he remembered when he had come back twenty years later. That was what he had looked for in the prisoner’s face when he’d sat down. Behind the mask, he could just barely see it. The guards had told him later that Megatron hardly showed a reaction to anything, anymore, and the most he ever showed was when he came here, to this cold, barren room. So he had waited for words that never came.

The ex-tyrant had merely watched him as he spoke.

What had happened in twenty years? Sometimes it was hard to tell when the years blurred together. Well, new laws had been passed. Owning weaponry was now completely illegal unless one was in the Visionaries. There had been an attempt at a rebellion over that, but…nobody really knew what had happened with that. For the good of Cybertron, the High Council had seized control of the media, and nothing had been reported. A few people were missing friends, now, though. And since the prisons were filling up so quickly, the High Council had decided to start evicting more of those who broke the laws.

But it was strange how many of those who were evicted never contacted anyone on Cybertron again. Or was that strange? The High Council HAD seized control of the media. ALL media. And most private starships. Their reasoning made sense; after all, the on-planet economy had been skyrocketing since they’d taken over private businesses, so why shouldn’t they do the same with the off-planet commerce system? It did make it difficult to travel, though. In order to get on or off the planet, there was a set of procedures that a ‘bot had to go through, and it was becoming more and more likely that a travel request would be turned down.

The Axalon II had returned to Cybertron before the new laws had been passed, and Optimus had taken the ship back out soon after. Government funds for exploration missions had been drying up even then, but Optimus had told him that he’d traded on his reputation as one of the “lost” Maximals.

There were few of them left, now. Dinobot and Rattrap had been trying to keep in contact, but after the new laws were passed that had become harder and harder to do. Optimus had offered him an officer’s position in his ship’s crew before he’d left, but the ape had left abruptly before anything could come of that because of Tigatron…Tigatron and Optimus had actually yelled at each other. Tigatron had wanted Optimus to stay on Cybertron, insisting that exploration wouldn’t be needed in a Golden Age, and Optimus had asked him where he’d gotten that idea from. When Tigatron said that’s what the High Council had said, and Optimus had disagreed…

Both of them had stormed away from that argument. Neither of them had acted like they’d be talking again, and Optimus had left immediately afterwards. He had told him that Tigatron was too high up in the High Council’s favor; offending the tiger more might cause the exploration mission to be cancelled.

Scorpinok was still alive, if he cared. He’d finally been allowed a parole hearing again, but he’d blown it by going on and on about how the Predacons would rule Cybertron. After that, the judge had just made his sentence life in prison. Normally they’d exile ‘bots like that, but he was still an important political prisoner.

Tarantulas had moved to the top of the Visionaries ‘Most Wanted’ list, and rumor had it that Cybertronians were flocking to the underground rebellion he was organizing. The High Council had condemned his actions repeatedly, but people kept joining despite the repression. It was only a matter of time before something happened. Rebellion was brewing under Cybertron’s peaceful surface.

He had paused awkwardly, unable to think of anything more that didn’t sound trivial, and Megatron had watched him. The mask had been heavy with an emotion he couldn’t name, and it had taken until the guards led the ex-tyrant away that he recognized it:

Despair.

Twenty years later, and the mask had been cracking. A hundred years since a Maximal ship had rescued the lost crew and captured the Predacons, and hopeless, helpless optics had watched him through a mask that was transparent if one knew how to look. He did. Perhaps the guards couldn’t see it, but he could. He had waited, just a moment, to see if the ex-tyrant had anything to say, but no words had come.

So, once more, he’d talked.

Did he know that there had been a rebellion? Probably not, locked away as he was. Tarantulas had led it, by the way. He’d led it, and he’d died for it. It had died with him, shattered by the Visionaries. The High Council hadn’t stopped with just stopping the rioting in the streets, though. No, there had been investigations, tying in with those already going on.

Oh, yes, there had been investigations going on already. The trigger for the rebellion, for all the violence, had been Optimus’ return. His exploration team had been called back to Cybertron prematurely. Nobody had known the Axalon II was even in orbit, the High Council’s control was so tight, and Optimus and his crew hadn’t been allowed to leave their starship. Optimus’ request for a new mission had been turned down immediately, and when he’d persisted, he’d been arrested and taken down to the planet. There hadn’t been a trial, hadn’t been publicity. He’d sat in prison until someone finally found out about his return.

That someone turned out to be a representative of a group of Cybertronians with off-planet interests and wealth. They offered to fund an exploration mission to find a planet to colonize, to escape to, and Optimus agreed to try. Somehow, the group managed to break him out of the prison, and into a shuttle headed off-planet. That got a lot of media attention because the Visionaries had put out a planet-wide alert for the missing prisoner, and the High Council made the decision to focus newscasts on the event when the rogue shuttle launched. Everyone thought that they would force it to land and arrest Optimus again. Nobody was happy with the idea of arresting the leader of the “lost” Maximals from so long ago, but that was what was expected.

The Visionaries shot it out of the sky.

One moment the newscasts had shown a lone shuttle jetting out of the atmosphere. The next, there was nothing but flaming debris raining down from the sky.

There were no survivors.

The same day, the same HOUR, the High Council announced that there would be investigations into the group of ‘bots who had planned and funded the escape attempt. It touched off Tarantulas’ rebellion prematurely as fury built beyond control planetwide. People wanted revenge after what had happened. Optimus, the leader of the “lost” Maximals and a prominent officer during the Second Great War, died without trial in a sick show of power that served no purpose. How had that pushed forward the High Council’s goals of peace on Cybertron? Had the morbid spectacle been expected to crush the planet’s spirit?

On that question, Tarantulas’ rebellion touched off. They joined forces and set out to dispose the High Council, with the Predacon spider in the midst of the action for once.

The Visionaries were waiting. Optimus’ arrest, the media attention, the investigations…it had all been a trick. A plot to bring the troublemakers out into the open, to make an example of them. And it worked. They came out in droves, and the Visionaries slaughtered them in droves. Mechfluid drenched the streets, with newscasts covering each gory moment as the High Council’s enforcers methodically executed even those that surrendered. There was no mercy.

Most of Cybertron’s population was paralyzed with terror by the time a day had passed. What inertia had started, fear kept going. No one moved to help the rebels or to join them. The attempted rebellion died on the streets, and investigations rooted out sympathizers. Trials were either highly publicized or nonexistent.

In the name of Cybertron’s own good, the High Council reinstated the death penalty to free prison cells for the new wave of prisoners. Exile from the planet was now considered too lenient, costing too much, and prisoners who had committed crimes judged unredeemable had been recycled before they had a chance to revolt. It wasn’t likely Scorpinok had lived through the first prison purging. Tigatron had offhandedly mentioned that scum like that deserved to die.

Of course, the tiger’s high rank had put him in danger of being investigated in the High Council’s search for traitors, but his loyalty was unquestionable. He had been in the thick of the massacres, proudly presenting the High Council with Tarantulas’ head afterwards. He served the Council now, but he worked eagerly towards someday becoming one of its members.

A soft voice had interrupted him, and he had gaped at Megatron in astonishment. It had taken him a moment to find the words to ask the Predacon to repeat what he’d asked. Megatron, face still locked in a mask showing hints of anger, a taint of sadness, a layer of despair, had quietly repeated his words. For the first time in a hundred years, he’d broken the silence in the barren room, and his question held all the emotions his blank face hid.

For a long, long time, he had stared across the table at the prisoner. So long, in fact, that the guards had come in to announce that their time was up. Megatron had risen, silent once more, and passively let the ‘bots lead him from the room without looking back.

He had been left behind, watching the door close behind the Predacon who had wanted to rule. He watched, and he remembered…and he thought.

How long had it been since he had thought for himself? It was so easy to condense the years into stories leeched of the terror and pain, the grief and dread. It was easier to let the High Council decide, listen to Optimus, nod when Tigatron talked, than think for himself. When had the habit started? Sometime between when the Beast Wars ended and the Second Great War began, he was beginning to realize. When he started bringing those simplistic, 20-year stories to Megatron.

How long had it been since he’d thought of what he had done in those 20-year periods? Looking back, he couldn’t seem to pick out his own actions. It was like he was part of the background, blending in, causing no waves. Everyone else, all of the other “lost” Maximals, had created some kind of impact in their lives. He had kept tabs on them, but in an absent-minded kind of way. It was like he had zoned out reality for the last 100 years. Others saw him, but only as the harmless ‘bot that he had become. The impatience and impetuousness he had known in the Beast Wars had met the politics of war and peace, and he had been numbed. Or had he numbed himself? It had been a pleasant fiction, either way. A numb suspension of thought; eternal neutrality.

How long had it been since he’d started refusing to judge the world? To judge, he would have had to think critically about the High Council, side with Dinobot and Rattrap, gone with Optimus, argued with Tigatron. He would have had to object to how the Predacons from the Beast Wars had been treated. He would have had to make decisions between his friends and his morals, bringing himself out of the unfeeling statis he had put himself in and making what was happening around him into reality again instead of just a story.

How long had it been since he’d actually looked around himself? The Cybertron he had pretended existed wasn’t really there. The High Council had sought perfection, and in a way they had gotten it. No longer divided by faction, Maximals and Predacons had become unified in terror, afraid to speak out or act. Set tasks were done under the threat of hovering Visionaries, insuring that perfection WOULD result. Life ran smoothly, enforced by those same Visionaries. But choice had been sacrificed; individuality had been stripped away.

How long had it been since he’d been any different than a drone? How long had it been since he’d started telling himself that ignorance was bliss? The High Council had taken away everything he had fought for in the Beast Wars, and he had stood by in the shadow of the crowd as it happened. He had convinced himself to become nothing but a narrator of the fight taking place around him…because this time it wasn’t Megatron or the Predacons they fought. It was a foe with a friend’s face: what used to be the government he supported, and somehow it was so much more terrible to have to stand up against what he had once fought for.

How long had it been?

The question haunted him as he stared at the closed door. The room around him was barren and cold, but all he could see was what a fool he had been. Standing up, he strode from the room slowly, still lost in his thoughts. The question circled in his mind, faster and faster, and his feet kept pace until he was sprinting down the halls, the guards jumping out of his way in surprise as he streaked past.

He stopped short as he burst through the exit. Before him lay Cybertron.

His memory supplied the devotion of past times, painting the planet in vivid passions and freedoms. His optics showed what that memory had been warped into, and for the first time in a long time, he actually saw the picture. It stretched before him, and it tore into his spark with the pain of realization. What had happened to the Cybertron he once knew? Where were his friends, now? This was not the world he had fought for in the Beast Wars. Cybertron lay before him, barren, cold, and confining. What was it but a larger cell in a bigger prison?

Dimming his optics wearily, he heard the guards of this world of prisons approach. Visionaries surrounded him. A familiar voice demanded to know why he had been talking to Megatron. Was he plotting against the High Council? What was he doing? Answer!

He felt the numbness creeping through him as a hand fell on his shoulder, spinning him around, and the urge rose in him to give up again, to just to narrate what was happening…

But there was that question. That slagging QUESTION.

He turned from Tigatron, towards the cold, unwelcoming world the High Council had made Cybertron into, and deliberately stepped away. The tiger’s optics narrowed, surprised and angered, but it was already too late to stop. The neutral pose had been abandoned, and the veil of ignorance ripped away. Numbness gave way to bitterness.

No longer a narrator, he swept his gaze across the ranks of the Visionaries surrounding him. No longer inactive, he noted how they looked at him with respect for the one of the last two “lost” Maximals. No longer ignorant, he planted the same seed of doubt that was blossoming in him now.

He raised his optics above the crowd one last time to look at the perfect world the High Council had made, and even as a gun clicked against the back of his head, he repeated the question:

“Is this, then, Utopia?”

Author’s Note: Yeah, I know it’s not exactly well written, but the idea would NOT leave me alone. I wanted to write it with only one spoken line in the entire fic and without saying the narrator’s name, and it was very frustrating. Plus I was using a character I’m not terribly fond of but wanted to be fair with…grrrrr… inspiration abandoned me almost as soon as the idea struck, so I was left with the idea and no idea how to write it…*sighs* Anyway, this takes place in a What If? Situation after the episode in Season One called The Probe. Someone’s already done what would happen if the Predacons won, so I wanted to try what if the Maximals did. I mean, who ever said that was a GOOD thing?

This was another fic written at 3 AM that turned out solemn…weird. Oh, and if you didn’t figure it out by process of elimination, the unnamed character is Cheetor.