Disclaimer: I do NOT own Transformers in any way, shape or form. Unless of course you count a few DVDs and books. And there is a MINOR spoiler for Age of Extinction in this.

More Than Meets the Eye

Prologue: The End and the Beginning

Night of April 18-19, 2012-Alamo, NV

Everything had gone to hell, even Earth. From the moment I had learned about the true number of pillars, nothing had gone right. From the attack on the highway to Ironside's murder and Sentinel's betrayal to my own forced spying to the destruction of the Xantium to Chicago. Oh, Chicago . . .

Chicago was truly the beginning of hell. The Decepticons had torn through it, hardly any buildings over twenty stories remained intact, and skeletons littered the streets. Getting far enough inside the Windy City to find my ex-girlfriend looked like it would be suicide for even the ex-Special Forces guys that had joined me. That is, until the Autobots had shown up and explained that they'd never been in the Xantium. Bumblebee managed to fly me to Trump Tower, where I offlined Laserbeak, though Gould escaped, and that led to more trouble, as he immediately told the 'Cons that the Autobots were alive. Carly then gave us some important information, but after that, she fled the city, too scared of the war. Then again, she probably didn't even make it out before a 'Con patrol found her.

We tried to take out the control pillar with an RPG, and while the initial plan was good, the building we chose to shoot from was unstable, and the 'Cons discovered us and sent Shockwave's driller-bot into the building, bringing the top half down on top of another, smaller building. Fortunately Optimus managed to destroy the driller-bot before it could do anymore damage.

Then I managed to get separated from Epps and his friends, only to be found by Starscream. "Hey Scream, it's been a while, hasn't it?"

"I'll kill you, boy!" he said, just as I had started running. "I love it when your little insect feet try to run." And sure enough, Scream managed to chase me down. "Thought you were working for us, boy?" he asked.

"Me? Work for you? Never!" I yelled, as I put on a grapple gun given to me by Que, and launched the grapple at Scream's optic. The grapple hit perfectly, but he started writhing around in pain, so I pulled out a boom-stick and stabbed him in the other optic. Fortunately Lt Col Will Lennox found me and managed to cut the wire on the grapple (Que had forgotten to mention how to disable it,) before the boom-stick went off, killing Scream.

Since I had no idea where Epps had gotten to, I stuck with Will and his NEST team, only for us to find Epps and join up with him. Then a SEAL team joined us, saying that they were there to vector in Tomahawk missiles. While Will was giving out orders, my heart was broken as I noticed that Bee and several other Autobots had been captured by the 'Cons. They killed Que as the Spacebridge was opened, bringing Cybertron here.

I had asked Brains and Wheelie to bring down a carrier ship, and it succeeded, sort of. They managed to bring down the carrier ship, but by doing that, the ships inside started falling. That might have made a good distraction for Bee to escape, but the second ship to crash killed him. I lost it at that. Bee had been my guardian since the Autobots had arrived on Earth, and losing him was worse than losing my parents had been during the Fallen/Matrix of Leadership incident in Egypt. It was worse than losing Mikaela because of my job. Bee was my first friend, the one to introduce me to my real family, and I lost control, blasting every 'Con in sight. I even started using the Cosmic Rust gun I had accidentally downloaded from Sentinel.

Once I had killed most of the 'Cons that had captured and killed Bee, I finally noticed that Optimus had brought down the control pillar and was fighting Sentinel. I instantly decided to destroy the pillar while the Special Ops guys helped Optimus fight Sentinel. I just managed to get to the pillar, but Gould beat me there and reactivated the pillar. "You chose sides, you chose wrong," Gould told me, just as Sentinel killed Optimus. I activated my arm canon and aimed at Gould, while he just turned and looked at me. "I just saved a whole other world. You think you're a hero, huh? You think you're a hero?!"

"No, I'm just a soldier," I said, repeating what Will had told me so many years ago. I then blew a hole through his chest, but Sentinel shot me, saving the pillar, and Cybertron arrived in Earth's orbit.

That was the beginning of the end for humanity. I managed to kill Sentinel, but not before he transported the entire human race to Cybertron and bombed Earth with millions of what he called 'seeds' that cyberformed Earth. NEST and the rest of Earth's military started a resistance, but we were no match for the 'Cons, not without Optimus Prime. Within three months of the death of Earth, the military was no more. Six months after that, the last Autobot was killed. And three months after that, Lt Col William Lennox, the last survivor of NEST, besides myself, was killed off-lining Megatron.

As for me, I was left alone, my friends and family were all dead, and we had lost the war, as there was no chance we could defeat Shockwave, especially after he repaired Megatron, who then took the name of Galvatron. What was left for me, the living container of the AllSpark and last bearer of the Matrix of Leadership? "We can give you another chance," a deep voice called to me. I recognized it immediately. It was Prima, one of the Seven. He had first spoken to me when I had died trying to get the Matrix to Optimus' body in Egypt, and since then he and his five faithful companions had been my constant companions and guides.

"Very well then, Prima, what do you mean by another chance?" I asked.

"We can send you to another reality, one where your family, and our last descendant still live. That is, if you wish to go," Liege Maximo said.

"Why me?"

"Because of the unique combination of AllSpark and Matrix energies in your body, little one," Solus answered. "We can promise you nothing, except that your family is alive there. Do you wish it?"

I had only one answer to give to her. "With all my heart."

Jackson Darby woke as soon as the answer was given. Primus, what was with that dream? he wondered. For the past year he'd been having that dream, or ones similar to it, and all of them connected to Captain Samuel James 'Orion' Witwicky. They'd become so prevalent that he'd started talking like him! The scary thing about the dreams was that there seemed to be an element of truth to them. The events of the day after he first had one of the dreams still scared him. But a year had passed, and no sign of any non-human intelligent life, and to be honest, Jack liked it that way. He liked his quiet, mostly normal life in Alamo. And with that thought, Jack headed to the garage, got on his bike, and headed in to school. Nothing could possibly ruin this day . . .