Keep Driving
Epilogue

Authors Note
I did originally hope to have this done and out before Revenge of the Fallen hit the cinema... yeah that didn't work. So to take my mind off it I was one of the first people in the cue to see the film. I didn't have much hope, admittedly. The first Bay film is perfect for DVD. The scene select button is under used in my opinion, I mean why suffer through the whole film when you can just pick and mix the best bits.

I have the feeling I'm going to wear out the skip and fast forward when Roll on the Floor whatever finds it's way into my player this coming week. Anyway, finally here's the end of this story in the saga. The rest can be easily found through my bio page.

Sam lent back on the hillside and pulled a rock out of his back. Looking up into the orange sunset he could see the first stars that were beginning to shine through the darkening sky. It was good to be home, his holiday with Mikaela had been brilliant, but it had kept him away when it had all gone down a couple of weeks earlier.

You couldn't cover up the destruction of a whole city full of people, or the massive battle at the foot of the dam. After the visiting Autobots and Decepticons were sucked back home the media went nuts. Asking how many were left, what had happened to them and just how much the government knew.

For almost a day there was nothing, at least in the public while the two of them flew back. According to Bumblebee behind the scenes it was a different story. Some people were already beginning to panic when Optimus Prime finally made his world wide broadcast.

He told everyone of how his Autobots had followed the Decepticons to Earth in search of an ancient artefact. He didn't say anything about the AllSpark, in fact he was very careful not to say too much at all. Optimus explained that aeons ago the people of his world divided into factions and how the war slowly caused their homeworld to die.

After a final battle in Mission City they had thought the Deceptions defeated. Without a home of their own Optimus had hoped to gather his forces scattered across the galaxy and set out to find a new world. As thanks for their help the government let them gather on Earth. Then the others arrived.

After Optimus had finished his story the President quickly followed up. Apparently he'd been in talks with Optimus and the leaders of the U.N. all day. The result was the leaders of Earth had agreed to offer the Autobots a permeant place here in exchange for Autobot science.

Not weapons or anything dangerous. More powerful and cleaner generators were at the top of the list, along with more efficient technology. Ratchet Explained to Sam later that because most of Earth's technology was based on Megatron it had all of the Decepticon's weaknesses. Inefficient, power hungry and far too big. The Autobots agreed to share that technology with everyone, at least everyone who wanted it.

Still the big point was that, in the end, the Autobots had been officially invited to stay. It.. it was amazing. Thing was it wasn't that simple. It had taken weeks to hammer out the agreement after the broadcast, as far as he knew they were still at it. Arguing about the finer points.

Worse still there were a couple of religious groups complaining at how machines couldn't be alive and more than a few that felt the whole idea of aliens was a threat to them. Others were springing up, seeing the Autobots as gods.

It was as Sam was thinking about it all in the fading light that a familiar Concept Camero pulled to a stop on the road. Bumblebee honked his horn as Sam's girlfriend got out. 'Mikaela,' Sam smiled as he stood up. Seeing her always brightened up his day. 'What brings you guy's out here?'

'You.' She smiled at him. 'Optimus just called, it's done.'

' "Done"? what do you mean "done"?'

'The whole treaty thing between the Autobots and Earth. They've agreed to it.'

'Cool' Sam kissed her on the cheek. 'What have they said?'

Mikaela sat down on Bumblebee's hood. 'Well the Autobots have what's left of Mission City and power from the Hover Dam. Optimus want's to re-build the city, Ratchet's already got some plans.'

'What? Sam blinked. Not quite sure what he was hearing. 'Their just giving them the city? A whole city?'

'Well I guess.' Mikaela shrugged. 'I mean what else they going to do with it? Someone's going to have to do something and the autobots offered.'

Sam felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. 'I whole city of Autobots. Won't that be something to see.'

'What's been happening to that arsehole General guy?' she asked. 'Wasn't he on trial or something?'

'That's still going on.' Sam shrugged. 'CNN's done a load of digging and found all sorts of stuff. Even if he gets out there's all sorts of people talking about war crimes.'

'War crimes?' Mikaela blinked 'What?'

'He's responsible for all sorts of shady stuff. He was even the one who ordered a strike on Ironhide.

'I knew that.'

'It's not the first time though, Lennox and a few others testified. Marks tried to blow them all up one time.' Sam explained. 'Turns out once they were scouting out a enemy base when he ordered an air-strike without telling them.'

'He was going to kill them?'

'Don't know, Might have just been going after the base. Will told me he thinks it was just to grab the glory and save on an extraction team. Thing is the air-strike missed and bombed out a village, it was why Will's team was there in the first place.'

'Your joking?'

'Wish I was, and you should hear what England's found out. You know how sometimes we get the wrong target? well...

'Wrong target?'

'Yeah, our bombers see a convoy and think its Iraqi or something when its really French or English. Well Marks was of those guys giving the okay to attack.'

Mikaela blinked 'That can't be real, we'd never do anything like that.'

'Hey CNN say's its true, so does a lot of people.' Sam shrugged. 'If it is Marks won't be a general much longer.'

A good distance off stood an imposing figure hidden amongst a group of trees. It's metal body covered in cogs and gears the colour of old rust. It watched the three friends talk before they drove off down the hill.

His smaller, human sized, companion Safeguard whistled at him in the bleeps of the Mini-cons.

'I'm not sure' Vector Prime answered. 'We've given them a good start, repaired their connection to Primus and revealed the truth to the natives.' The ancient transformer stepped into the open. 'Alpha did a good job when he built Optimus, but we got lucky. There are still Decepticons in this timeline, they'll all be coming here. They still have a long way to go'

Safeguard whistled again.

'No, we can't stay. Too much to do.' Primus's champion transformed. Plates sliding and his steel cloak opened up in to wings. Safeguard also transformed into it's smaller spaceship form.

Launching himself into the sky Vector Prime opened a dimensional space-bridge. Traversing realities at will.

End Keep Driving

Authors postscript

I really hate writing for Sam and Mikaela, I have to force the romance like getting blood out of a stone. I admit I've never liked the human companions in transformers. They get on my nerves and are, more often than not, a hindrance to the plot. The only exception to this rule is Sari Sumdac and she doesn't count on a technicality (she's a techno-organic, half human half cybertronian).

The real reason for this Postscript is Vector Prime's appearance. Looking back over my story I knew that there were a few things that were a little too convenient to be coincidental. Someone had to be pulling the strings. Now I hinted earlier that Vector Sigma was able to do that, but I needed some sort of agent to pull things off. So I made Vector Prime the puppet-master, the man behind the curtain AKA Deux Ex Machina

For those of you who don't know Vector Prime was one of the original thirteen transformers created by Primus as his caretakers. Included in this gang are Alpha Trion and The Fallen. While the Tomb of the Primes holds a some of them it's not all by any means.

These thirteen are "Dimensional singularities". In other words in all the multi-verse there is only one of any of them, opposed to all the different versions of Optimus Prime that exist.

Oh and if you're wondering, I hated Revenge of Michael Bay's Ego and would gladly strap that fool to the business end of a fusion cannon for his crimes.

Thomas Fishwick
AKA Mountain King

Disclaimer

Transformers and all related material belong to Hasbro. I do not own the characters used in this story and do not write for profit.