//------------------------------//
// First Contact 
// Story: Top Of The List 
// by dudenotactive 
//------------------------------//

"No signal detected."

Starscream huffed loudly, his eyes tired after a whole night of searching, Shockwave on the other hand seemed to be unaffected by all the work they did. Throughout the night the two focused their mind and power on finding Blitzwing, as ordered by Starscream of course. 

Well, Steve was also there, but all he could find were rumors of a giant rat lurking in the Everfree Forest. 

Thunderblast strolled cheerfully behind them, an energon cube held in her hands as she planned to create a tastier brew for herself. Arcee and Smokescreen had just arrived to bear witness to the progress the Decepticons made. 

Starscream was almost at his last foot while Steve had already been vanquished by the sandman. Shockwave remained autonomous. Countless locations flashed through the screens, hundreds of possibilities, and yet they only scratched the surface. 

"Huh!?" Starscream exclaimed which caught the attention of every bot in the room. "N-nothing, someone keeps spamming the internet with these infernal apes. As adorable as they are, it got annoying after the fiftieth time."

"Could you at least tell us why you want Blitzwing found that badly?" Arcee questioned. 

"Any ally that is far more useful than Thunderblast is welcome, and he and I have fought together back in the war, I can vouch for him."

Smokescreen had a curious look. "So who exactly is Blitzwing?"

"I feel like we've already had this conversation, but to keep it short: Powerful triple-changer, both a marksman and a swordsman, that's all you need to know." Said Starscream. 

"Oh yeah, he's also very crazy." Thunderblast added to the description. "Like, really crazy. Three personalities and junk, I named the loud one Blitzbomb -BB for short- because he's always bombing the fun around the Nemesis. And the weird one Candy, since he seems to like sweets. Funny story with Candy, I woke up one time in the middle of the night with him at the foot of-"

"OKAY, Thunderblast." Starscream snapped at her, the energon in his veins boiled as she talked. "Please Shockwave, give her a better personality, I beg of you!"

"Negative," Shockwave rejected Starscream's request faster than he could fly. "Despite her vexing traits, she is still a skilled seeker in her own way. The upgraded T-cog only boosted her performance in the battlefield, and she also incorporated her charms into her technique, no mech could resist her."

"That's right!" Thunderblast puffed out her chest. "All sparks beat for me, no mech out there could ever say no, not even Megatron. Bless his spark, till all are one..."

"But you're still an idiot." Starscream seethed. "And he isn't dead, Megatron is alive out there in his self-exile."

Thunderblast gasped. "B-but if he's alive, then why are you leading the Decepticons!?"

"Can't really say he's leading anyone," Smokescreen smirked. "There's only like, um, three other Decepticons who'd follow his lead."

"For your information, brat, I have the support of over a thousand Decepticons"

"Right," Smokescreen tried his best not to laugh. "and the war for Cybertron was caused by a curly straw."

"And another thing, Shockwave had no interest in climbing the ranks, and Soundwave is out there somewhere. So that in turn meant that I am the rightful ruler of all Decepticons."

After Soundwave was mentioned, the Autobots looked at each other with silent guilt, this went unnoticed by Shockwave, curious as he was, it was not his priority to press further. 

"That's right!" Thunderblast beamed up. "My hubby Starscream has no competition, he earned that title fair and square!"

Arcee sighed. "Hubby?"

"Thunderblast, for the last time..." Starscream slammed his fist against the console and woke up the slumbering vehicon. "YOU ARE NOT MY CONJUNX ENDURA!"

"Oh my silly Starry," 

"Don't call me that..."

"Don't you know that every great leader has a femme by their side? As long as I stand by you, the Decepticons will flourish into something beautiful! Together, we can rule the skies and the ocean! Nothing can stop us thanks to the power of love!"

"The moment I lose my title you'll forget me in a spark beat," He pointed out. "If Shockwave is the leader, will you be his conjunx endura?"

"Pit no!" She screamed. "Have you seen him? He's weirder than you and Soundwave, at least Soundwave is a great listener."

"I am taking note of every word." Shockwave informed the room.

"I mean, uh... He's too much of a busy guy to even care for me." Thunderblast reworded her reason.

"Correct," Shockwave continued on his current objective. 

"Optimus give me strength," Arcee prayed to the heavens. 

These were her allies, an egomaniac seeker, a scientist with questionable morality, some drone, and finally a femme who might as well be useless with her injury still present. 

This was what she had to stand against Tarn and the DJD, it would only be a matter of time before their enemies converge on the planet and bring ruin. If that would ever happen, then she feared for the humans, once again they are fated to bring war everywhere they go. Arcee felt her spark ache, she knew what this feeling was, it was the same one Optimus felt when he first fought on Earth. 

She wasn't there when the humans became part of the war between Decepticons and Autobots, but he told stories of valiant heroes who fought with all their might to repel the tyrannical evil of Megatron. 

And now, there is a possibility that she herself will experience the same thing. 





"Why are we here, Swindle?" Nickel demanded to know. "I have some bots to fix up."

She and Swindle walked through the empty halls of the Nemesis with Brawl to keep watch for anything dangerous. 

Swindle had a spring in his step as memories flooded his mind with nostalgia, he remembered every transaction that happened in these halls, every deal he made with vehicons and other fellow Decepticons. 

"You mentioned Steve last time, and I just remembered something very interesting!"  He swiveled his head to face her. "And from what the others told me, your Bridge is in need of repairs!"

He should know, it was Swindle who sabotaged the machine. For good reasons of course, if they caught Starscream then, there was a possibility that they would end their hunt and return to Cybertron. Nope, he can't have that. 

So using his invisibility upgrade, he destroyed the Bridge with a small burst of EMP, enough to ruin the inner workings of the Bridge forever. That way he could sell them materials and save Starscream in the process. With that said, he had some idea on what to sell to Starscream when they meet again. 

"Get on with it, Swindle, and when will that long-ranged communication tower be done?"

"Patience, Nickel, I had to ask Astrotrain to deliver the important parts from a star away. That tower will be done in no time, then you can make all the calls you want." He informed her. "As for why we are here, well Steve once told me about a powerful Space Bridge located somewhere in the ship."

"A Space Bridge!? On this ship!?" She was honestly flabbergasted. A Space Bridge is a giant ring station near a planet or a quadrant. To have something used in a ship such as the Nemesis is unheard of. 

"Yes, Steve told me everything when he and I were in MacCadam's- Ever been there? Place was a neutral zone during the war, good history I say. Though nowadays someone else runs the shop, but Blurr got some magic, that's for sure."

"Primus," Brawl groaned as he listened. "I miss MacCadam, he was funny, and his brew was the best. I hope this Blurr guy lives up to MacCadam's legacy."

"Trust me, buddy, though he's an Autobot, Blurr will give you a taste of the past!"

"Whatever happened to the guy? He just vanished when Cybertron lost the Allspark..."

"Back to the subject at hand!" Nickel steered the conversation back on track. 

"Oh right, well Steve said Soundwave was able to open up Space Bridges. Remember the Airachnid incident? It was Soundwave who put her on one of the moons of Cybertron, all the way from Earth." This was valuable information, if Megatron had managed to create a smaller scale of the Space Bridge and gave the control to the communication officer, then this was a real game-changer. "So if we find the machine, then we don't have to fix the Bridge, just install an upgrade!"

"That's brilliant!" 

Their excitement died as they came across a gruesome sight. Nickel and Swindle stared as they bore witness to this scene. A vehicon, torn apart, limbs scattered everywhere. One of the most notable things was the fact that the floor itself was clean of any stains, which meant that no energon was spilled. 

The hallway suddenly felt devoid of oxygen, they felt a suffocating aura around them. 

"V-77?" Brawl muttered. 

"The drones did say he went missing..." Nickel pointed out. "But, who did this?"

"Can't be Blitzwing," Brawl said. "We would have spotted him miles away if he had gone back to the Nemesis. And to top it off, he was seen plummeting down the planet."

"Call Shatter, she is free to extract any information from the prisoners. There is a possibility that there are more in Blitzwing's group." Nickel made a wild guess.

Suddenly, the hallway lit up and they were bathed by the purple glow of the ship. 

"Well that's ominous..." Swindle said meekly. 

"Who's there!?" Nickel demanded to know. 

And to answer her, a large and imposing figure appeared at the end of the hall, the three stared as their knees quivered. It couldn't be... No, this must be a mistake... They all thought the same, it was impossible that's what they believe. For this shadowy silhouette at the end had the striking resemblance of the deceased, and yet he was back from the dead. 

"Lord Megatron?" Nickel said dryly. 

"Get off my ship..." The figure spoke, a familiar voice greeted them which sent another wave of fear. His voice was accompanied by white noise, it screeched into their ears like a banshee. His face was shrouded by shadows, but his crimson red eyes glared brightly. 

"That's not possible!" Brawl declared as he took on his tank form and shot at the figure. Only for some unknown force to push away his cannon which sent the projectile off course, it missed, nearly clipping the tip of the figure's shoulder. 

"This place is haunted!" Swindle exclaimed. 

"You idiots, stop!" Nickel demanded. 

Brawl tried again but was met with the same result. "S-something is moving my turret!"

"Get out..." The figure hissed with a dreadful echo. 

"Brilliant idea, my lord!" Swindle said as he inched away. 

"That isn't Megatron!" Nickel snapped at the cowardly merchant. "I don't know who that is, but he must be with Blitzwing."

Before she could even continue with her rant, she felt the ground stolen from her. Nickel watched with eyes wider than dinner plates as she was pulled into the ceiling. Lower body now trapped in the vents, Nickel struggled and cried out for help. 

She felt something on her side, she looked towards a strange device clamped onto her body which was siphoning her energon. 

"Help me you scraps!" Her arms flail about as if she was drowning and desperate to grasp onto something just to hold. 

"Get the commander!" Brawl ordered Swindle as he grabbed one arm while the other had Swindle around it. 

"Leave..."

"Then let her go you... scum!" Swindle struggled to find an appropriate insult, fear had control over him.

"When I get my hands on you, you're going to be so sorry!" Nickel threatened as she continued her struggle. 

After what felt like hours, the two Combaticons pulled Nickel out of her bind. With a sigh of relief, the three then ran straight out of the ship. They encountered more oddities on their way to the exit, whoever this phantom was, they were everywhere. They could see them in the corner of their eyes, he's on every corner just glaring at Nickel and crew. 

It was unbelievable how fast this impostor was. 

To make matters worse, they somehow landed themselves in a dead-end, and by Primus, Nickel wished that she was digging through Dead End's corpse instead. That would have been much better than this. 

The three found themselves in front of a blast door that closed off their escape, it was too strong for Brawl, and unlocking it would take them too long. Cornered like a pack of rats, an impending doom approaches. 

"I can't call for help!" Swindle said as he tried to find a solution.

"Whoever this guy is, they're after our energon!" Nickel only made the situation worse with that information, now the two larger 'Cons panicked even more. "Calm down you sissies! There's three of us and only one of him!"

"Easy for you to say, once they catch us, they are definitely gonna go for the big one, which is me!" Brawl said.

An explosion nearly pushed them down, they looked over to the door and discovered that it was reduced to rubble. There stood the seekers, all armed to teeth with weapons made to destroy a combiner. It also worked well against blast doors if needed. 

"Commander?" Slipstream was confused to find her superior in the ship. 

"No time, get out!"

Before they could even question, the jets noticed the ominous silhouette of Megatron slowly approaching. With fear shared between all of them, the Decepticons ran for their lives. Thrust tried to shoot at Megatron with a rifle big enough to punch a hole in the side of the Nemesis, and surprisingly enough, that is what happened when the large-caliber only phased through the tyrant. 

This only solidified their fear, so they ran faster than an Autobot could drive. Several doors closed with the intent to slow them down, but Slipstream and her crew were luckily armed. 

Soon enough they managed to make it to the exit, just in time too as a tentacle had almost grabbed Nickel, but it retreated back into the ship once the six were outside. Safe and sound, the group gathered their wits and tried to come up with an excuse or an explanation. 

"What were you three doing in the Nemesis?" Nickel popped the question out of curiosity. 

"The boss wanted to check on something, to..." Thrust ended his sentence as he felt the glare of Slipstream. 

With his silence, Slipstream continued where he left off. "I wanted to check if we could download any important files in the Nemesis to a backup, but then the ship started to act weird. We were lucky that we were near the weapons storage."

"Enough with that, there's an actual ghost on the moon! It's slagging haunted!" Swindle said as he continued to panic. 

"Calm down idiot!" Brawl smacked his friend on the back of the head. "Ghosts aren't real, that was obviously some kind of weird tech thing, or maybe magic."

"Then how can you explain that bullet just going through him!? Scrap, this is bad, it might come after us!"

"Enough!" Nickel snapped at both of them. "Contact Shatter and tell her to set up a perimeter around the Nemesis. No one goes in, or out until we find out who we are messing with!"

"We need to call for reinforcements. When is Astrotrain coming with those materials?" Slipstream asked. 

To which Swindle shrugged his shoulders. "No clue, Astro is close, but it'll take him a while to get here."

Nickel could only groan in frustration, this retrieval mission ended in disaster. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, their main target is just on the planet, and now the moon is haunted. This couldn't get any worse. 

Though they had escaped a mysterious entity, their trouble had yet to pass, as they spoke about a possible solution, an unwanted listener in the shadows. For a second, his body was illuminated by a purple glow, its slim build and hunched figure was still as a statue. Its claws flexed as he drifted back into the shadows like a puppet held by some strings. 

In truth, not even Blitzwing knows of the entity. 

This phantom was a mystery to all, and now Nickel had to watch out for two threats.