//------------------------------// // The Autobots Arrival // Story: Grogar’s Endgame // by TheClownPrinceofCrime //------------------------------// ONE WEEK LATER The animals in the Everfree Forest were minding their own business and living in peace although utterly oblivious to all the chaos that occurred a week ago. Still, they didn’t suspect a thing...until now. A loud noise was heard. The creatures looked up and saw a bright comet coming towards the atmosphere. But as the comet drew closer and closer to view, it was no comet. It actually appeared to be a huge alien ship. The animals ran off as the ship started to crash land in the forest. As the ship settled, the doors started to open. Optimus Prime was the first to step out. The others eventually followed suit. They looked around their surroundings and realized that they were in a forest. “Ahhh, finally, it’s good to be out of the ship for once! It felt like forever!” Sideswipe said. “Yeah! I thought we would never leave the Ark!” Hound added. “Hmmm. I don’t see any of those equines which Perceptor spoke of around here. You think they ran off?” Bluestreak asked. “My scanner reveals that there were no equines before we crash-landed.” Wheeljack replied. “And naturally, citizens wouldn't visit a forest quite often due to harmful creatures and other environmental inconveniences.” “So where should we go now?” Bumblebee asked. “We will search for the equines and see if they can help us find energon.” Optimus answered. “Remember, Autobots, we must remain calm and peaceful if we desire for them to cooperate with us. Always remember who you are and what you stand for. Understood?” “Yes, sir!” they all saluted. Optimus nodded and led them through the Everfree Forest. They had their weapons drawn just in case any creature would attack them. They kept walking and walking until Wheeljack’s scanner started to beep. This caught all the Autobots attention. “Optimus, my scanner is picking up an Autobot energy signature!” Wheeljack reported. “It’s not far from here!” “One of our own is here? How is that possible? Optimus wondered. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure how he even got here before us without boarding the Ark. We will have to find out once we get to his location.” said Wheeljack. “Agreed. Let’s find him.” said Optimus. They continued their walk with a new and second objective in mind. Find the energon and find one of their own. As they walked across the forest, they encountered several creatures here and there such as the raccoons and squirrels. The critters ran off in fear of the giants. As they continued wandering in the forest, Wheeljack’s scanner got louder by constantly beeping in building speed. This signaled that the Autobot was getting closer. Then after two minutes, they saw something that made the scanner stop beeping. A large pile of huge rocks stood in their path. It was in the middle of the forest. The Autobots were puzzled by this. “Are you sure that this is it, Wheeljack? I’m assuming that this Autobot is buried underneath this large rubble.” Perceptor skeptically asked. “There’s only one way to find out.” he replied before turning to Ironhide. “Hey, Ironhide, can you help me take down this rubble?” “Sure thing.” he complied. “I’ll help too.” volunteered Warpath. The three Autobots quickly took off the rocks one by one until the rubble was cleared. All the Autobots looked down in the humongous hole and what saw them shocked them. What they discovered...was the body of Grimlock. “No...Grimlock...how did he get here? I thought he was last seen in Cybertron. This is not possible.” Optimus said with a tone full of shock and confusion. “I have no clear explanation for this. I am just as shocked and confused as you are, Optimus.” Perceptor acknowledged. “Ratchet, scan his energon level.” Optimus ordered. Ratchet nodded and scanned Grimlock’s energon level. After ten seconds, he retrieved his scanner. “His energon level is faint. It is shown that he has been here for quite some time. But since we have no energon left, we need to find more of them to revive our long-lost brother and warrior.” Ratchet reported. “Thank you, Ratchet. We need to split up and search for energon cubes as much as we can gather. Let’s move!” Optimus ordered all the Autobots. All of them split up into groups to discover any energon cube they could find. Ironhide and his team went west, the Aerialbots went east, Jazz and his team went south, and Optimus and his team went north. The Aerialbots flew over the trees to discover any energon cubes either on top of the trees or lying on the ground. They all landed just to get a closer view as they investigated. “There’s got to be some energon somewhere.” said Fireflight. “Aerialbots, above you!” Silverbolt alerted them. They looked up and saw a strange creature coming towards them. They raised their blasters as they were ready to fight. But the creature immediately called out to them. “Wait!!! Wait!! Guys, it’s me, Swoop!!” the familiar voice spoke. “Swoop? One of the members of the Lightning Strike Coalition Force?” wondered Slingshot. “Yes! That’s really him!” Skydive happily acknowledged. Swoop transformed from his pterodactyl mode to his robot mode and greeted the Aerialbots. “Silverbolt, guys!! I’m so glad you came!!” he said, very happy to see them after so long of being absent from each other. “We’re so happy you’re alive and well, Swoop. But where are the others?” Silverbolt asked Swoop. “They have been with me all this time here. We came here to retrieve our commander Grimlock after that tower exploded back in Cybertron. We saw him fly in the air from that explosion. So we got into our escape pods to follow him. Thus, we arrived here in desperate search for our friend but it was unsuccessful.” Swoop informed them. “Don’t worry, Swoop, we found Grimlock, but he is offline due to lack of energon. Also, what happened to your body?” Silverbolt said. “You never had that mode before.” “I’ll explain that later. Follow me. We have all the energon stored in our cave.” said Swoop. Ironhide and his team weren’t able to find any energon cubes. A few manticores got in the way, but Ironhide scared them off with his cannons. Ratchet took a disliking for that. “Must you really intimidate them with your ammunition?” scolded Ratchet. “What? I just wanted to show those creatures my cannons.” Ironhide joked. The rest of the squad chuckled at that. “Oh please, as if that’s actually funny.” Ratchet scoffed. Then suddenly another manticore jumped out of a bush roaring. Ironhide got in front of the creature and displayed his cannons again. “Feeling lucky, huh?” he intimidatingly said. Unlike the other manticores, it roared in defiance. But it’s bold defiance quickly died off as a louder roar shook it and ran off in fear. A huge metal triceratops came from the woods and transformed into robot mode. “Ironhide! Autobots! You’re here!! I can’t believe!” the Dinobot shouted. “Slag? Is that really you?” Ironhide asked in surprise. “Yes, it’s me!! Come here, you!” Slag said as he grabbed Ironhide in a big hug. Ironhide couldn’t take much of the force of his strength. “Okay! Okay, Slag! You can let go now!” he uttered. Slag let go as he was happy to see his Autobot companions once again. “How did you and Grimlock get here? Why do you have a Dino mode?” Ratchet asked him as they all needed to know. “Grimlock is here?! Like, REALLY here?! Where did you find him?” Slag asked with amazement. “We discovered his body in a rock pile. He is in desperate need of energon as we all are.” Ironhide answered. “Oh, we have plenty of energon cubes in our cave! Just follow me!” Slag replied. Jazz and his team had no success either. They picked up several rocks as they went along attempting to see if energon cubes would be under them but there were none. “This is no use, Jazz. We’ve looked everywhere for energon cubes but none in sight!” whined Cliffjumper. “I’m getting more tired by the second!” “Easy there, man. We’ve only searched a quarter of this forest. I know for a fact that there is energon just waiting to be discovered!” Jazz encouraged. “Yeah, Cliff, it will be fine. We’ll find them.” Bumblebee agreed. “Autobots!!” a voice called out. Jazz and his team turned to see a strange metal stegosaurus trotting to them and transforming in robot mode. “You actually arrived here!! I totally didn’t expect this!” the Dinobot said. “Wait...is that you, Snarl?” Jazz asked. “Yup! Good old Snarl here. We saw your ship crash-land here. We figured that you were looking for us right?” Snarl asked. “Actually, we were looking for energon cubes for our survival. But we did see Grimlock all busted up when we discovered him—.” Jazz clarified before interrupted. “GRIMLOCK?! You found him?! Where?!” Snarl blurted. “In the middle of the forest. We need to find energon to restore him!” Bumblebee replied. “We have plenty of that! Come with me!” Snarl enthusiastically replied before running off. The Autobots looked at each other then quickly followed him. Optimus and his group were just finished after thirty minutes of fruitless searching until Ironhide contacted him. “Prime, the other Dinobots are here! They have all the energon we need! Rendezvous with us at a cave in the northwest side of the forest!” he reported. “Excellent! We’ll be right over!” Optimus and his squad transformed and took off. 2 HOURS LATER Optimus and the entire army of Autobots, including the Dinobots and the recently resurrected Grimlock, exited the forest while conversing with each other. “I’m sorry, Optimus. I really wanted to take my revenge on Shockwave for what he did to me, my comrades...and Sludge.” Grimlock genuinely apologized. “All is forgiven, old friend. Keep in mind that revenge will never bring back those whom we have lost. It will only becloud your judgement and makes you no better than the Decepticons, not even Shockwave.” Optimus lectured. “I find that very hard to believe.” doubted Grimlock. “But I understand.” Then suddenly, a loud explosion interrupted their conversation. Optimus and the Autobots looked up and noticed that the entire sky was blood red. They never noticed that until now. They then saw a large pillar of smoke rising from a distant city. The Autobots walked over the hills and saw Ponyville below them. As they entered into the town, they noticed that the whole place was empty. As they searched for any signs of life, they discovered the destroyed castle and school. They wondered as to who have done this...until they got their answer. Optimus looked up in a distance and discovered the very ship he wishes he would never see even after a million years. The Decepticon Warship. The Autobots were shocked beyond belief at what they saw. “NO...It cannot be...what are they doing here???” Optimus tried to use words to convey the amount of shock and anger he had. “DECEPTICONS?!? They were here this whole time?!! And we didn’t do anything about it?!?” Swoop screamed in wrath. “We cooped ourselves in a cave so that we wouldn’t be discovered by the equines. Ughh, this is all our fault! If we had known that this would happen, we could’ve done something!!” Snarl recriminated. “Indeed. Unfortunately, from what Teletran-1 just reported to me personally...there had been thousands of pony and creature deaths.” Perceptor sadly reported. This greatly infuriated the Autobots. Those poor ponies and creatures died at the hands of the Decepticons with no mercy. All of them, especially Grimlock, had a fiery vengeance in their sparks. The Decepticons will dearly pay for what they had done. “Autobots, those ponies now need our help more than ever before. The Decepticons have committed grave crimes not only against Cybertron but also against this planet. We must work together to bring them all to justice. For today, in the name of freedom, we take the battle to THEM!!!” Optimus gave his speech. The Autobots shouted their battle cries. “We are going to prove who we are and why we’re here! ROLL OUT!!” Optimus Prime ordered.