Part 2

A solar storm rages far off in space, the distant death throes of a star, spelling oblivion for all its orbiting children. So terrible and yet, from this distance... so wonderful. Perhaps even in death there is beauty. Perhaps it is all a matter of perspective.
More and more now, as the years mount up behind me, I find my thoughts growing darker. I see death all around me, a dark cloud gathering on my horizon. A brooding, ominous presence - a harbinger of catastrophe.
Was this truly a better time I now remember? Did I not make the same terrible errors of judgement that have now brought us to this point? Perhaps it is as we were once taught, that our lives are predestined - our actions, even our mistakes, just part of some grand universal scheme. Was it not enough that we once saved the whole universe from a force that defied description, a menace so vast it threatened to consume all life? Must we now do battle again, face death once more?
Unless... there is a lesson to be learned from the past. Yes, were we also not taught that we must learn from our mistakes, grow from them?
Perhaps, in that distant time and place, there are answers to be found...

---

Why had he come back here?
It was a question Grimlock had asked of himself and his Dinobot companions - Swoop, Sludge, Slag and Snarl - at regular ten minute intervals since they had first set foot on Hydrus Four.
Why had he returned to this mad planet, this galactic junkyard of a world where one moment fire winds lashed you and the next arctic blizzards tore ice talons at your skin? Where slime swamps snatched at your legs, pulling you down into molten pools below, where razor vines scratched and energon limpets sucked? Where spine hogs gored, and winged Terracowls assaulted?
They all, Grimlock included, knew the answer. They had come in search of a miracle.
A shout from Slag and Grimlock turned, seeing an explosion of charred wood behind them, accompanied by a thunderous noise coming ever closer, the sound of vast hooves hammering on ground baked metal hard by the relentless sun. The brittle outer layer of petrified trees erupted scant moments later, a huge beast charging through towards them. Only the boneskin head registered, lowered to gore, black pits of eyes sunk deep beneath multi-horned brow, steam pouring from its molten mouth. There was no time to take in its muscled immensity, its tank-like structure, there was only just enough time to take evasive action.
Grimlock hurled himself at Snarl, the Dinobot momentarily frozen by the charging juggernaut in front of him, the two crashing to the ground, narrowly avoiding the sledgehammer hooves that sent destructive shockwaves through the baked earth, ripping it like paper.
Swoop aimed and fired, his missile launcher swivelling and locking on to the beast's flank. An explosion equivalent to five thousand pounds of TNT boomed loud, the concussive force lifting Swoop and Sludge and hurling them backwards over twenty feet, crashing them in to trees which fragmented on impact.
The beast wasn't even scratched.
But it was mad!
Howling its fury, the beast turned back towards the grounded Grimlock and Snarl, its screeching maw belching molten fury at them. Unbelievably, for a creature of its sheer immensity and bulk, it reared up on its stumpy hind legs. Its front hooves flailed in the air, ready to crush the sprawled, winded Dinobots below. Frantically trying to disentangle himself from the panicked Snarl, Grimlock reached for his energo sword. If he could just...
With a piercing scream, the creature brought its hooves down - and was knocked backwards by a vast jet of fire and seething energy. It staggered back, the raging inferno clinging to it, engulfing it. Slag, in his dinosaur mode, charged the creature, belching flame and fury from his mouth as he went. His twin front horns imbedded deep in to the beast's neck, green gunge spurting. It shook its head, lifting Slag clear of the ground and flipping him away through the air.
Grimlock leapt at the creature, tensing his body, ready to transform to dinosaur mode. Neural triggers sent the right signals, but his body refused to respond. In the heat of the battle, as with so many before, he'd forgotten. He could no longer transform! Of the five of them, only Slag was still able to trade his upright, robot mode for a form modelled on Earth's long extinct dinosaurs. No longer could Grimlock transform to the thunder lizard, the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex, no longer could his super powered jaws with their twin rows of super tungsten teeth rip and tear through any substance.

Caught off guard by his own mind, Grimlock more or less collided with the beast, just managing to grab a handhold on the jagged tufts of razor sharp hair running along its spine as it reared again. Still coated by Slag's adhesive flame, Grimlock found himself bucking on a raging, burning monster, hanging on grimly with one hand, feeling the hair begin to cut deep into his metal skin. Cursing his own stupidity, Grimlock grabbed for his energo sword again, yanking it free from its magnetised resting place on his leg.
The other Dinobots could only watch helplessly, blasters levelled and pointed, fingers on triggers - tensed but stayed. Where the chance of hurting the creature seemed slight, the chance of hitting their commander seemed entirely likely. Like some armoured rodeo rider, Grimlock hung on as the creature surged forwards, smashing through a wall of charred trees, trying to scrape Grimlock off. Grimlock howled as rock hard wood exploded against his unprotected face, but his grip on neither mane nor sword slackened in the slightest. With a final howl (the awestruck Dinobots watching could not be sure whether it was of rage or pain, though the former seemed more likely) Grimlock plunged the glowing sword into the back of the beast, its blade shimmering with furious energy.
It howled once more, staggered... and fell. The impact was like a small earthquake, the ground splitting and opening in ever widening fissures, knocking the Dinobots from their feet, sending up a vast cloud of choking ash and soot.
Swoop looked up from his prone position, eyes searching the cloud for Grimlock. Did he -? Staggering slightly, but with chin raised triumphantly, Grimlock emerged from the thinning, settling ash.
"What on Earth were you playing at?" Swoop almost screamed at him. "Grandstanding plays like that will get you killed... and you're no good to us like that, boss!"
Grimlock just shrugged. He'd won hadn't he? "And anyway, what's there to lose?" he muttered, almost as an afterthought. Powerful they may be, but without the ability to transform... what good was it?
A silence descended on the five of them. He was right, of course. Transformers who couldn't transform - it was a bad joke. And the joke was on them. Even Slag, who could still make the switch, knew that his days as a Transformer could well be numbered. They had to find a way to reverse the process or they might, as Grimlock so rightly said, as well be dead! They needed a miracle! But then, that was why they were here, risking their necks, wasn't it? A rumour had reached Cybertron, telling of new breakthroughs at the recently reactivated Nucleon research centre on Hydrus Four. Apparently, so the story went, mechanoids who had been treated with Nucleon could now purge their systems of the new energy, replacing it with a new, safer version of the life-giving compound. But the process was untested, untried - they needed volunteers.
Grimlock hadn't hesitated.
He'd told Prime, of course. Grimlock had seen the haunted look in his eyes every time he saw Prime, seen the signs that said he too hated the prison his body had become. He honestly thought Prime would jump at the chance. He didn't. As before, he warned of the danger, the risk. The chance the Decepticons might be lurking, waiting to follow them to the Nucleon. He forbade Grimlock to undertake the journey to Hydrus Four. "Don't go!" he'd said, but his eyes had betrayed him. Grimlock had seen the desperate hope there, seen the 'need' in him. The official line was no, but everything else in Prime said YES!
Not that it mattered one way or another to Grimlock. He'd have found a way to get to Hydrus Four if Prime had locked him away deep beneath the surface of Cybertron and thrown away the key. If a chance existed, a chance to truly live again, they had to take it. This time... this time he would return to Cybertron a hero, this time there would be no accusing stares.
Oh, no-one came out and said it, least of all his faithful loyal Dinobots, but they all thought it. 'You did this to us' their eyes accused, 'you pumped us full of Nucleon without so much as a by-your-leave, you condemned us to this mockery of existence'. Sure, he brought them back to life, but what good is life when it's a living death?
"We're here," said Slag, interrupting Grimlock's brooding thoughts.
And indeed they were. They'd reached the coastline, the island just a short distance across the blood red waves. The island... and the medical centre that treated them with Nucleon. The medical centre that could now cure them, make them whole again. A hover platform was waiting, so inviting - so simple. Just a step now, a step to take them to the island. But what a monumental step. What if they failed now? What if the 'untried, untested' cure wasn't a cure at all?
"No turning back now," said Sludge simply and stepped aboard. The others, realising he was right, followed. Grimlock was last, eyes searching the distant island for signs. There were none. With heavy heart, he stepped aboard and moments later, stepped off onto the island. He was well pleased with what he saw. When he came here before, the place had been a wreck, abandoned save for one small mechanoid who'd warned him, told him, not to use the Nucleon. Well, he was back now, the medical centre pulsing with light and life. He was ready to listen this time.
The Dinobots entered the medical centre, surprised that no-one had emerged to meet them. In fact, though the centre was undoubtedly in operation, there was no sign of anyone! Where were the doctors, the technicians? Where -
Suddenly the world around them exploded in light, dazzling, disorientating. A high pitched sonic scream seared through their audio sensors, losing them in a world of pain and noise. Suddenly up was down, left was right, forwards was backwards. In a mad world of sensory input, the five staggered blindly, finally collapsing, drowning in a sea of colour and light.
Removing his optical and audio shields, Bludgeon stepped out of the control room, signalling for Dreadwind to cut power. As the noise died away to a whine and the specially prepared strobe lights that had replaced the normal tubes dulled, Bludgeon looked at the fallen Dinobots.
"Kill them!" was all Fangry had to say, emerging from another chamber.
Bludgeon's skull-like face turned towards him, silencing the feral Decepticon with a single stare. "Restrain them, hurt them... but keep them alive."
Fangry didn't like taking orders, but he had learnt not to cross Bludgeon. After their crushing defeat on Klo he had suggested to Bludgeon that, as their temporary leader, the blame was his to bear. Fangry almost didn't live to regret his mistake. He hadn't even seen Bludgeon move, he was just suddenly on his back, the point of Bludgeon's sword at his throat. It was rumoured that Bludgeon was a master of the forbidden, almost mystical martial art known as Metallikato, and the speed and sheer deadliness of his movements seemed to back that up. So Fangry just grumbled, asking Bludgeon why? "I mean, they led us here... that's their usefulness used up, isn't it?"
Bludgeon didn't answer. He simply turned away, entering the central operating theatre. Terrified technicians watched him (themselves watched by the rag-tag band of Decepticon survivors) as he walked past, gazing reverentially up at the figure spreadeagled cross-like on the wall, his shattered body hooked up to feeder tubes, suspended by hundreds of wires and cables. "They are to be witnesses," he said at last. "Witnesses to the rebirth of a legend - the greatest Decepticon who ever lived."
"Megatron," breathed Bludgeon, and above him the dead eyes seemed to glow with anticipation.