I think we’ve seen enough Cybertronian politics for one day. Let’s get back to Mobius. It’s dawn in Station Square and the people are waking up. Well, it’s 5:30 am on October 31st and G.U.N. is waking up. In military terms, it’s called oh dark thirty. All soldiers were woken up and got ready for training. Ironhide and Ratchet had already adjusted to Mobian Time, so they got up too. They noticed that the other Autobots hadn’t woken up yet, so Ironhide got an idea. He keyed in something on the consoles attached to the recharge berths and pressed the big red button. A few seconds later, Optimus, Jazz, Bumblebee, and Cliffjumper woke to the sound of Reveille blasting into their audio sensors. They sprang out of the recharge berths and readied their weapons. “Was that the alarm?!” asked Optimus. “Are we under attack?!”
“That was Reveille,” explained Ironhide. “It was used by the American military to wake up personnel at 5:30 am.”
“…No one’s attacking?” asked Optimus.
“Nope,” replied Ironhide. “It’s morning on an alien world!”
“IRONHIDE!” protested the recently awoken Autobots.
“Come on!” urged Ironhide. “Let’s go see it!”
“See what?” asked Bumblebee as he put his guns away.
“An alien sunrise!” explained Ironhide. “Ear…Mobian sunrises are the best!” Optimus sighed.
“All right, fine,” he griped. “Autobots, follow Ironhide.”
“Where are you going?” barked a voice. It was Commander Tower.
“I’m just taking the young’uns to see a sunrise,” replied Ironhide.
“Not so fast,” snapped Tower. “I still have questions for you.”
“I can answer all your questions,” answered Ratchet. “Just let them see the sunrise and humor an old mech at the same time.”
“Hey!” protested Ironhide. “You’re no new-build yourself!”
“Look, these bots are not exactly combat, medically, or scientifically savvy,” remarked Ratchet.
“Hey!” yelped Optimus. “I’ll have you know that I was the best data clerk in Iacon!”
“You won’t find a better source of knowledge than me,” assured Ratchet. “Just let the bots explore.” Commander Tower thought for a few seconds.
“All right,” he decided. “After that, return here so we can get the equipment you need to make your base.”
“Got it,” agreed Optimus. “All right Autobots, let’s rise and ride!” Everyone in the room blinked at Optimus. “What?” he asked.
“Dude, that was weak,” sighed Jazz.
“You’re still trying to find a rallying cry?” asked Ironhide.
“Oh, come on!” protested Optimus. “How could you not be inspired?!”
“Needs work,” observed Cliffjumper. The bots transformed and were led to the exit of the base. Ironhide led them through the woods and to a cliff edge. The sky had a few clouds, but that only added to the effect of the beautiful sight the Autobots saw.
“You know,” sighed Ironhide as he transformed, “when I came here, I was so wrapped up in the war, I didn’t have time to appreciate the planet’s natural beauty. I always said that before I fade to gunmetal grey, I would see the sights of Earth again and appreciate them.”
“I can see why,” replied Optimus. “Cybertron’s sunrises never took this shade of purple. This is so beautiful! No bots can say that they can replicate this. No bots should be able to. These colors can only exist in nature.”
“Like Master Yoketron said,” recalled Jazz, “‘natural beauty can never be artificially made.’”
“And all it took for me to understand that was travelling to an alien world,” chuckled Optimus.
“Checking out the sunrise?” asked a voice. The Autobots turned around and saw Sonic right behind them. “Nice to see, isn’t it?”
“For us,” remarked Optimus, “it’s breath-taking. Try to imagine yourself as a visitor to an alien world. Seeing this is the most beautiful moment in our lives.”
“Yeah,” sighed Sonic. “I always wanted to see if a Halloween sunrise would be any different.”
“Hallo-what?” asked Optimus. Ironhide was suddenly intrigued.
“Do you guys still dress up in costumes?” quizzed Ironhide. “Do you still know what trick or treating is? Do you still have pumpkins to carve?”
“Er, yes on all counts. Why?” asked Sonic.
“Just checking,” replied Ironhide. He suddenly got an idea. “Why don’t I teach you bots how to carve Jack O’ Lanterns?”
“Jack O Whats?” inquired Optimus.
“I’ll show you!” cheered Ironhide. “Sonic, where’s the nearest pumpkin patch?”
“About a mile down the hill,” replied Sonic as he pointed behind them.
“Let’s get a good pumpkin on the way back,” declared Ironhide.
“What’s a pumpkin?” asked Optimus as the Autobots transformed.
“It’s a round vegetable,” explained Ironhide as they drove down with Sonic in Optimus’ cockpit, “orange in color. People on Halloween would hollow out the pumpkin and carve a face onto it so a candle would be placed inside to light it up.”
“What’s the purpose?” asked Bumblebee.
“It’s just a decoration,” replied Ironhide. They finally found the pumpkin patch Sonic talked about. “Those are pumpkins,” said Ironhide.
“Those things?” asked Jazz.
“You’ve been on this planet longer than the others,” quizzed Ironhide, “and you never heard of pumpkins?”
“I spent most of my time investigating who’s digging up the dead and jamming at Dancitron!” protested Jazz.
“Ah well,” sighed Ironhide. “Spread out and find the right pumpkin.”
“What’s the way to know what the right pumpkin is?” asked Optimus.
“It’s just gotta have the right sound,” replied Ironhide as he tapped some pumpkins.
“Should they sound like someone digging?” asked Cliffjumper.
“Not to my knowledge,” answered Ironhide.
“That’s no pumpkin,” observed Sonic. “Follow me. Stay down.” The Autobots followed Sonic to the source of the noise. It was a fat human with a beaky nose and a greasy mustache in a flying vehicle that had a digging attachment on its underside. It finally extracted a cog like device from the hill.
“That’s a t-cog!” whispered Ironhide.
“A what?” asked Sonic.
“It stands for transformation cog,” explained Optimus, “a vital part of Cybertronian bio-mechanics. It’s how we switch from robot to vehicle.”
“How easy are they for you to make?” asked Sonic.
“We can’t,” growled Ironhide. “It isn’t technology, it’s biology. It’s an organ and a replacement requires a transplant. Stealing a t-cog is considered a grave sin in Cybertronian culture.”
“Let’s have a little chat with him,” said Optimus.
“You read my mind,” agreed Sonic. The group marched up to Eggman. Optimus cleared his throat to get Eggman’s attention. Eggman whirled around and saw the group.
“Blast it, Sonic!” he snapped. “I hadn’t even begun my latest evil scheme and already you’re here to thwart me?!”
“I just wanted to introduce you to my new friends,” chuckled Sonic with his usual grin. “Meet the Autobots!” Optimus stepped forward.
“I’m Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots,” he introduced. “This is my first lieutenant, Jazz, my heavy weapons specialist, Ironhide, my assassin, Cliffjumper, and my scout, Bumblebee.” He glanced at the t-cog. “Did you get written permission from the bot that belongs to?”
“…No, but…,” stammered Eggman.
“Then you can’t have it,” interrupted Optimus. “Put it back.”
“I gotta say,” snarked Bumblebee, “that digging equipment you’re using isn’t very sophisticated.”
“SHUT UP!” protested Eggman. “My equipment is far superior to any you’ve got! I don’t even see a shovel on your person!”
“Don’t need one,” remarked Ironhide. The holo-forms disappeared to Eggman’s shock.
“It’s still new to me,” replied Sonic. Eggman heard the Autobots transform and saw them walk out from the trees in robot mode. Eggman’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates.
“Are you the robots that decimated my army?” he asked.
“We got rid of more than one tenth,” recalled Bumblebee. “We easily took three fourths.”
“You know,” gulped Eggman, “I didn’t bring any weapons with me. I’m just going to put this back.” He set the t-cog back into the hill and started flying away. “Have a happy Halloween,” he said. As Eggman disappeared, the Autobots relaxed and headed back to the pumpkin patch.
“That’s twenty Shanix you owe me,” said Jazz to Ironhide.
“What?!” yelped Ironhide. “No! The deal was that Eggman would steal our t-cogs while we were online! He stole from a corpse!”
“Semantics,” argued Jazz. They soon found a pumpkin and loaded it into Ironhide’s vehicle mode. Once they secured it, the Autobots headed back to G.U.N. HQ with Ironhide explaining Halloween. Ratchet met them at the front with Commander Tower.
“Your chief medical officer was very informative, Optimus,” he explained. “Thanks to him, we now know things that we originally didn’t. For example, we dug up a giant ore that took the shape of a blue crystal. Ratchet identified it as your fuel source, Energon. He also told us how the radiation it puts out can be harmful in large doses and Mobius has a very high Energon density.”
“That’s right,” replied Optimus. “We may need Energon for power, but this is too much of a good thing. After a few minutes exposure, our robot forms will start to short out. Your planet is an unusual one to us. Energon ore has a high radiation density, but it’s a feast to us.”
“Ratchet also showed us how you refine Energon into a liquid form,” continued Commander Tower. “Why the color is pink, I’ll never know.”
“We can’t figure it out ourselves,” muttered Bumblebee.
“He also told us about how he and Ironhide also came here during the 21st century when this planet was called Earth during your war with the Decepticons,” continued the Commander.
“I haven’t told him about the Pax Cybertronia,” supplied Ratchet, “or how we function.”
“I assume that the refining demonstration used the Energon ore they had,” guessed Jazz.
“Indeed, it did,” confirmed Ratchet. “We have more than enough Energon to keep us going for a week.”
“In that case,” chuckled Optimus, “trick or treat!”
“Where did you learn that?” asked Tower.
“Ironhide told us about Halloween on the way back after our first face to face meeting with Eggman,” explained Bumblebee.
“We even got a good pumpkin to carve a Jack O’ Lantern!” cheered Ironhide as he fished out the pumpkin from the shotgun seat. “Where’s a good table and knife?”
“Over in the mess hall’s kitchen,” replied Tower. “I think Mike will be eager to show you. Miss Rose is there in costume as well.”
“Let’s go then!” called Optimus. “Autobots, let’s roll to the mess!”
“Ew!” gagged the Autobots.
“Yeah, that does sound a bit dirty,” gulped Optimus. They soon arrived at the mess hall where Amy was talking to Mike the painted turtle. Amy was in an orange sleeveless ball gown with black tulle around the top, waist, and bottom of the dress. She wore black, arm length gloves with orange tulle at the arm and wrist and had an orange stripe going from the pointer, middle and ring fingers to the top. Her quills were done up in a small ponytail and had a tiara on her head. She saw the Autobots and their pumpkin.
“Planning on a Jack O’ Lantern guys?” she asked.
“That IS the intent,” replied Optimus. “Er, what are you supposed to be?”
“I’m the Princess of Halloween!” announced Amy. “I would be Queen, but I haven’t married my prince yet!”
“She means me,” whispered Sonic to the Autobots.
“Ah, one of those girls,” said Ironhide in a slightly louder whisper.
“One of what girls?!” snarled Amy as she summoned her hammer.
“I didn’t mean anything!” yelped Ironhide. Amy hmphed and turned around.
“If it’s a Jack O’ Lantern you want,” cheered Mike, “it’s a Jack O’ Lantern you’ll get!”
“I’ll get the bowl!” called Amy.
“Mind if I get a knife?” asked Ironhide.
“Get a serrated one,” directed Mike, “they’re hanging on that rack over there.”
“I’ll get a marker,” announced Ratchet.
“And we need those, why?” asked Optimus.
“You’ll see!” called Ironhide as he got the knife.
“All right,” instructed Mike. “Put them all here!” They put the materials onto a table. “First off,” said Mike, “we need to draw the face to carve. For first timers, I recommend the classic jagged mouth.” He drew the triangular eyes upside down, a triangle nose, and a jagged, toothy grin. “Next, we need to hollow out the pumpkin. So we cut a hole into the top.” He started cutting.
“I can see why you’d need a serrated knife,” observed Jazz.
“Yep,” confirmed Mike. “We need a saw like motion for something this tough.” He finally made the hole and started lifting the stem off. “Oh yeah!” he said. It came off completely with some innards hanging from it. “Oh yeah!”
“Vector Prime!” said Jazz in disgust.
“Oh, Primus!” gagged Optimus. “Ew!” Mike handed Optimus the top to sniff. Optimus did so and reeled back in disgust. “Ew!” Mike cleaned the innards off the top and put them in the bowl.
“Now here’s the tricky part,” he continued, “getting all the guts out.” He used the spoon to scrape the inside of the pumpkin. “This is always the hardest part. You don’t want to scrape too much of the insides.”
“Why not?” asked Optimus.
“It needs to hold a candle,” explained Amy.
“I see,” realized Optimus. “Go too deep, you run the risk of making too it thin and easy to collapse.” Mike finally got all the guts out and started carving the face. As he did so, Commander Tower came in with a bunch of people. They were Mobians and were led by Tails.
“Autobots,” he called, “since you’ve become friends with Sonic and Amy, I’d like to introduce you to their friends. We’ll start with this kid, the one who found your stasis pods when they were in the atmosphere.”
“I’m Miles Prower, but you can call me Tails,” introduced Tails.
“I’m Shadow the Hedgehog,” growled Shadow.
“I’m Rouge the bat,” purred Rouge.
“E-123 Omega, reporting,” droned Omega.
“I’m Espio the Chameleon,” rasped a purple chameleon in ninja gear.
“Call me Vector!” rumbled a crocodile with headphones.
“I’m Charmy!” buzzed a young bee in a flight helmet and goggles. He flew around Bumblebee. “Wow! Another bee! Too bad you’re so short.” Bumblebee grinned.
“You’d be surprised at what I’m capable of,” he chuckled.
“I’m Cream,” squeaked a young rabbit. “This is my mother, Vanilla, and my best friend, Cheese.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Vanilla politely.
“My name is Big,” boomed a giant lavender cat, “and this is my friend Froggy.” He showed the frog in question.
“You met me before,” chuckled Knuckles, “I’m Knuckles. Er, what was that universal greeting again?”
“I’m Amy Rose,” called Amy as she curtsied.
“And I’m Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog!” cheered Sonic as he gave a thumbs up.
“Nice to meet you all,” bid Optimus. “I’m Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots and Cybertron.”
“I’m First Lieutenant Jazz,” responded Jazz, “second in command of this team.”
“I’m Master Sergeant Ironhide, the heavy weapons specialist,” introduced Ironhide.
“I’m Corporal Bumblebee, the scout,” called Bumblebee.
“I’m Private First Class Cliffjumper, the assassin,” replied Cliffjumper.
“And I’m Chief Medical Officer Ratchet, the field medic,” remarked Ratchet.
“Excuse me, Mr. Prime,” called Cream, “but Commander Tower said that you were more than meets the eye.”
“And he would be right,” replied Optimus. “Let’s step outside so we can show you.” The Autobots led the group outside. Apparently the media was alerted as reporters from all sides were asking the Autobots questions.
“ONE AT A TIME!” shouted Ironhide as he fired a couple of shots into the air. The crowd went silent.
“Thank you, Ironhide,” sighed Optimus. He turned to address the media. “Since our presence is global. I might as well say ‘greetings’ to you, Mobius. I am Optimus Prime. These are my men from my home planet of Cybertron. We may look like you, but I can assure you we’re not. You see, we’re robots in disguise! For most of Mobius, from what I’ve gathered, robots are considered bad. That would be this Eggman character who’s also wronging us by disgracing our name. Before I explain, I must ask that everyone step back.” The crowd was confused but complied. “Okay, stop!” instructed Optimus as the crowd left enough space for their vehicle modes to come out and change. “Autobots, convert to robot mode!” ordered Optimus. The holo-forms disappeared and the vehicles turned into robots. “Ta da!” cheered Optimus. That’s when the press conference really began. The Autobots answered the questions to the best of their abilities.
“There is one thing,” called a Skunk Newswoman from Mobius News Network, “you said that you were trying to make a base of operations. How available is it to the public?”
“It’s not,” countered Optimus. “This base must be kept secret. Heck, we were supposed to be secret. The only reason you guys knew was because G.U.N. helped us fight Eggman’s forces last night.” The media understood and believed that it was time to pack up. Once G.U.N escorted the reporters out, the Autobots let themselves fall to the ground. “Well,” sighed Optimus, “so much for robots in disguise.”
“Autobots,” called Commander Tower, “we have the equipment you need for a new base. Since Sonic is offering you his old place, he’ll lead the way.”
“Sounds awesome!” cheered Optimus. “All right bots, let’s move and groove!” No one said a word. “Oh, come on! That was my best one!”
“Quit while you’re ahead, Prime,” advised Ratchet.
“No way!” protested Optimus. “I’m gonna find an awesome catchphrase!”
“Let’s just go,” growled Shadow. The Autobots transformed and everyone fell in behind Sonic.
“Wait a minute!” called Amy as she brought the Jack O’ Lantern. “Ironhide, do you mind if I ride with you?”
“Don’t mind at all, little lady,” assured Ironhide as he opened the passenger side door. He helped Amy in as if she were a real princess. Amy buckled up and set the Jack O’ Lantern in her lap. Ironhide shut the door and got into the driver’s seat.
“All right guys!” called Sonic. “Follow me!” The convoy started off and followed Sonic. Amy wanted to know more about the Transformers, so she started talking.
“So,” she began, “what’s life like on Cybertron?”
“A bit hectic, nowadays,” replied Ironhide. “We’re still recovering from that war we talked about in the press conference. A few bots are getting up in arms saying that the Matrix chose the wrong bot to be this age’s Prime.”
“The what?” quizzed Amy.
“The Autobot Matrix of Leadership,” explained Ironhide. “It contains the collective wisdom of all of Cybertron’s leaders from the Thirteen to Optimus. The Matrix itself is the one that chooses who will lead Cybertron. Honestly, I see a lot of potential in Optimus. That could be because we’re family friends.”
“Really?” asked Amy.
“Really,” confirmed Ironhide. “My wife, Chromia, was a childhood friend to Optimus’ mother, Soleanna Pax.”
“We have a city named Soleanna!” revealed Amy.
“No kidding?” asked Ironhide. “She’ll be tickled to hear that.”
“I wish I could meet her,” sighed Amy. “On another note, you said you were married.”
“Yep!” replied Ironhide. “Chromia is the most beautiful femme you’d ever lay optics on. Deep blue chassis, excellent in hand to hand combat, shooting skills that rival mine, the greatest wit in the universe, I consider myself a lucky mech to marry someone like her.”
“You really dote on her, don’t you?” observed Amy.
“Of course I do!” remarked Ironhide. “We’re happy together! We even had a baby.”
“A baby?” quizzed Amy. “What’s the baby called?”
“Her name was Firestar,” explained Ironhide. “When we were fighting the ‘Cons, we always had a tag team attack, the triple blazer.”
“Was?” asked Amy. Ironhide hoped she hadn’t noticed. It was a painful subject for him. But, he had to tell someone. Maybe a complete stranger would ease his pain a bit.
“Firestar died during the final battles here,” he revealed. “It was in the capital of the old United States of America, Washington D.C. We had received a call that a Decepticon invasion force was outside the White House, where the leader of the U.S., the President, lived. My squadron, the Wreckers, was sent to get the President and his family out of there.” The scene started shimmering to a wavy flashback.