Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Parallel Centres!

Here are the review replies for the final chapter of Strange Beginnings!

haloangel21: Knew you would. And seriously. Take your time with your chapter for A Different Beginning. Seriously. There's no rush.

Neon: (1)How many fanfictions are you following?

(2) Fading Suns isn't the sequel to Strange Beginnings. Fading Suns is Talida Prime: Fading Suns. It's part of the original series. It's the sequel to Talida Prime: Rising Storms.

Awesomo3000: Yeah. Sure. You guys are 'patient' unless I take more than a month to update.

storygirl99210: (1) Who doesn't? Fortunately, Bumblebee took care of that for us. …oh wait. The movie.

(2) Who doesn't?

(3) You won't have to wait long, my friend. Don't worry.

PrincessofDreams123: Did you just do The Three Muskateers? …or Star Wars?

Creepy-Pasta: I said I would, didn't I?

MonkeyGirl13: It may not be Megatron should I decide to follow my plan…

Everon Prime:Ratchet does need some loving.

Luno Uchiha666: Please do.

Transformers: Prime rightfully belongs to Hasbro and The Hub.

© Talida and other OCs rightfully belong to me unless I say otherwise.

ENJOY!

After spending the day at the dance competition, everyone returned to the base. Talida wore a series of gold medals around her neck. She won best solo and best duo with Josh and the dance team came first overall, advancing to the next stage of the competition series. But the smile she wore on the podium was fake. And the Autobots saw through her façade.

After all, they knew the reason of her sadness.

"I'm taking you on a ride around the Grand Canyon in the helicopter to celebrate how well you did," Fowler proclaimed.

"Won't you get in trouble?" Talida asked in confusion.

"What General Bryce doesn't know won't hurt him," Fowler smirked.

"Why not?" Talida shrugged.

Fowler had never been so thankful that Talida accepted his sneaky little offer. The government agent couldn't help but have respect for the young teenager. The Decepticons kidnapped both of them at different stages of their lives. And even though Talida had it worse than him, she came out the strongest. And he admired that about her.

He also wanted to get her mind off of the events that occurred the day before. Losing one's father was tough. But losing your father after just finding him again? That was harder. And it was clear that Talida was taking the loss extremely hard. Sure. She had a close bond with Arcee. Everybody was able to witness that bond. However, even when she was in the womb, everybody knew from the very beginning…

She was a daddy's girl.

"Hold that thought," Fowler told her as his phone began to ring loudly, "Fowler. …yes, General Bryce. They're all here. I just arrived at the base. …yes, sir. Yes. I'll have a report for you by my next check-in."

"What did he want?" Arcee wanted to know.

"What happened concerning Optimus," Fowler clarified, "I gave a brief report last night. But they want to hear your perspective."

"I'll do the talking," Ratchet sighed before beginning the paragraph,

"In hind sight, we accomplished what was required. With Unicron's awakening, extreme measures needed to be taken. Enemies became allies. Allies became confidants. And with the Matrix of Leadership, Planet Earth was saved… Though at a measurable personal cost. When Optimus surrendered the Matrix, he lost more than the collective wisdom of the Primes. He lost himself."

Since it was the first time everybody was truly talking about what had happened in Unicron's lair the previous day, everybody had a lot of questions that needed answers.

"That doesn't follow," Arcee objected, "Optimus knew Megatron."

"They were like BFFs," Bulkhead couldn't help but pipe in.

"If Optimus did not know his own name, perhaps it may be because the title of Prime hasn't yet been granted to him," Ratchet mused.

"Huh?" Fowler demanded.

"What?" Jack gasped.

"Say again," Miko requested.

"With the power of the Matrix no longer within him, it would stand to reason that Optimus has reverted to his pre-Prime state; the historical archivist Orion Pax," Ratchet decreed.

"You mean in his mind," June surmised.

Fowler had managed to keep it together when he found out what had happened. However, having officially heard from Ratchet that Optimus wasn't Optimus Prime anymore, needless to say, he lost it.

"ARE YOU TELLING ME PRIME THINKS HE'S SOME KIND OF LIBRARIAN AND A DECEPTICON?!" Fowler snapped.

"Being a Decepticon is a choice, Agent Fowler. One that I have a hard time believing Optimus would make at any point in his life," Ratchet immediately jumped to Optimus' defense, "Not when he has so much to live for."

At that sentence, everybody glanced at Arcee and Talida. The two girls who have become his everything.

"So if he's riding with the 'Cons," Bulkhead began.

"It's because Megatron's working some kind of voodoo," Arcee finished.

"Orion Pax may not currently be an Autobot up here," Ratchet began, gesturing to his mind, "But I must believe he will never stop being one in here," this time, he gestured to his chest plates where his spark rested.

"But we don't know that for certain. We've gotta find him first," Talida pointed out, speaking for the first time since the discussion began several minutes ago.

"Hold up! I have a chip lodged in my behind that lets Uncle Sam know when I stop for doughnuts! Are you telling me you can't just track Prime?!" Fowler asked in disbelief, creeping June out a little bit with the 'chip lodged in my behind' sentence.

"Optimus' signal has not reappeared since he embarked for Earth's core," Ratchet clarified, bringing up the Autobot's life signals, showing the red mark where Optimus' life signal once was to prove his point, "But we must get to work finding him if we are to have any hope of initiating his contingency plan."

"Contingency plan?" Arcee repeated in confusion.

"What contingency?" Bulkhead demanded.

"Is that even a word?" Miko asked in true Miko style.

"The keycard!" Jack gasped, pulling the key from his pocket, "So what's it do?"

"It grants entrance to Vector Sigma, the repository of the wisdom of the Primes," Ratchet answered.

"Is that some sort of supercomputer?" Raf immediately piped in.

"So we can download Dad's memories back into him?!" Talida said excitedly.

"Great! Which one's the Big V?" Jack immediately asked as he looked around, "Over here? Somewhere in back?"

"Vector Sigma is more than a supercomputer, Jack. It is a source of mystical power…on Cybertron," Ratchet corrected, surprising everyone.

That ignited June, who immediately tried to put her foot down on the quest before it could even start, "Jackson William Darby, you will not be travelling to another planet!"

"I'm in!" Miko piped in, eager for another adventure.

"You're not going either, Miko! Not when one of you can!" June objected, glancing at Arcee, Bulkhead and Bumblebee at the last statement.

"June's right. Why send the boy to do a bot's job?" Fowler wanted to know.

"Because only a Prime can access Vector Sigma…or one chosen by a Prime. Optimus gave the keycard to Jack. It is now imprinted with his unique bio signature," Ratchet answered.

"So you mean Jack's some kind of honorary Prime?" Miko surmised.

"Let's just say Jack is the only one who can return Optimus to the Autobot he knew," Ratchet said mysteriously.

"But why would Optimus willfully endanger a human?! A child?!" June blew up.

"I'm not a child, mum!" Jack cried, clearly left feeling indignified by the label.

"Maybe Optimus believes there's more to Jack than meets the eye," Arcee shrugged.

"And, for your information, Jack is not the only one endangered by this quest," Ratchet said mysteriously, glancing at Talida.

"Whoa whoa whoa! No one said anything about involving my daughter!" Arcee immediately cut in.

"How am I involved? Dad gave the key to Jack. He's the only one who can restore him," Talida reminded Ratchet of some key points.

"That may be true. But Jack can't obtain the wisdom of the Primes because he doesn't know where Vector Sigma is. You do," Ratchet clarified.

"Dad never mentioned anything to me about Vector Sigma. How the heck am I supposed to lead Jack to Vector Sigma when even I don't know where it is?!" Talida demanded.

"Your foresight," Ratchet said, causing Talida to look at her boyfriend in confusion, "You cannot control what you see and when you see it. But one thing's for certain. When you are on Cybertron with the holder of the Key to Vector Sigma, your foresight will show you Vector Sigma's location and how to get there."

"Yippee. More headaches," Talida cheered sarcastically.

"However, all of this is moot. The keycard and Talida's foresight ability are useless to us without a means of reaching Cybertron. Which we, at present, do not possess," Ratchet proclaimed.

"Dude, what about that?" Miko suggested dryly, gesturing towards the GroundBridge.

"Miko, the GroundBridge barely got them to Earth's orbit. Remember?" Raf reminded her.

"Yeah. But Ratchet built it. Can't he just turbocharged the thing?" Miko asked loosely.

That struck an idea in Ratchet's mind. Perhaps he could turbocharge the GroundBridge. However, it would require a lot of time and testing. And he didn't want to get the other's hopes up in case it turned out to be for nothing.

"Well, I think I've heard enough," Fowler proclaimed before turning to Talida, "Come on. I'm still gonna give you that ride around the Grand Canyon."

"Be careful. The Decepticons will be more dangerous with Optimus in their grasp," Ratchet warned her.

"I'll be gone a few hours. Tops," Talida promised as she kissed Ratchet's cheek when he leant down.

"Watch your backs!" Arcee called to the retreating duo.

"Don't worry, Arcee. Tally's more capable of watching her back than Fowler," Miko tried to reassure the anxious mother.

"Tally's all I have left. If anything were to happen to her…," Arcee trailed off.

"Arcee, don't worry about that. We all have her backs," Jack promised.

"If the Decepticons wanted to touch Tally, they'd have to go through my wrecking ball before they could go within a foot of her," Bulkhead promised, unfolding his wrecking ball to prove his point.

Arcee still sighed. She knew that the Autobots would lay down their lives to protect her daughter. It comforted her to see that she wasn't the only one who cared about her.

However, she still couldn't shake off the gut feeling she had about something happening.

Not bad for a prologue, eh? A bit longer than my usual one. But I had to include all those scenes. Because after next chapter, it's a time skip. …like, a two month time skip.

You guys should know what to do by now. Review. Fave. Alert. Whatever. Right now, I'm gonna jump across to Fading Suns.

BYE!