After the cleanup of Station Square, Optimus gave his bots some R&R. Bumblebee and Cliffjumper were playing a game where you catch many different creatures and use them to fight other players. This game was from the old Earth era. One of Bumblebee’s creatures had lost at the hands of a wild creature. “Stupid thing fragging killed me!!” snapped Bumblebee.
“How’d your Torracat die by a paralyzed Cottonee?!” protested Cliffjumper.
“Not gonna let this thing beat me!” snarled Bumblebee.
“Bro, let me ask you something,” called Cliffjumper. “How’d your Torracat get killed by a…it’s paralyzed and it’s a fracking cotton puff! It’s a grass type Pokémon! How did a fire type die at a grass type’s hands?!”
“What’s going on here?” asked Optimus as he walked into the room.
“We’re playing Pokémon Sun right now,” explained Bumblebee, “and my Torracat just died at the hands of a paralyzed Cottonee.”
“Wha…?!” stammered Optimus, who was a beginner Pokémon player, “How…well, you did use it against my newly evolved Brionne, which was a bad idea anyway…”
“Prime, don’t embarrass me,” muttered Bumblebee as he threw a Pokè Ball at the Cottonee. “There, caught it! Fragging stubborn piece of scrap.” His character walked through the flowers to find another Pokémon. It was a yellow-green bird with pom-poms on the wings. “Oh, Primus, it’s an Oricorio!”
“Oh, it’s a Pomwing!” cheered Optimus. The only one laughing at his deliberate misnaming was Optimus.
“Prime,” remarked an unknown voice, “do you remember the episode where Ash caught a Pomwing?”
“Dude,” chuckled Optimus before he was interrupted.
“NO!” roared the voice
“Ow!” laughed Optimus. “Dude, that was in my audiooooOOOOOHH!” He came face to face with a strange bot in the base. He was big, heavyset, mainly gray with a yellow chest unit emblazoned with the Autobot symbol, had half of a T-Rex’s head and neck on his shoulders, the sides and arms of a T-rex acting as non-functional wings on his back, talons for fingers, and a big sword and gun attached to each side of his waist. Cliffjumper and Bumblebee activated their weapons.
“Who are you?! How did you get in here?!” squawked Bumblebee.
“The ‘who’ and ‘how’ are unimportant,” dismissed the intruder. “It’s the ‘why’ that needs to be asked. To answer it in advance, I heard Optimus had magic weapons.”
“Er…yeah. Why do you ask?” gulped Optimus. The intruder drew his gun.
“I’m taking them,” he replied as if it was a fact.
“Whoa! Whoa!” yelped Optimus. “Okay! See, here’s my gun.” He then fired over then intruder’s head, making him duck. He then got behind cover with Bumblebee and Cliffjumper spreading out and taking cover somewhere else in the room. “Hold fire until he fires back!” ordered Optimus. “Stun blasts only!”
“Typical Autobot behavior,” scoffed the intruder. He let a couple of shots loose at their cover.
“FIRE AT WILL!” shouted Optimus. Laser blasts started flying towards the intruder, but there wasn’t even a scratch on the bot. Meanwhile, the intruder looked at the points where his shots hit.
“Not a single scorch mark,” he thought. “What’s this base made of?” He shook his head. “Give up!” he shouted. “You can’t stop me! Eventually, your reserves will be drained! You’ll be defenseless soon! I’ll just keep coming! Even hand to hand combat won’t take me down!” Optimus rolled his optics.
“Time for a test then,” he thought. He drew his Cyber key and flicked it into the air. “CYBER KEY POWER!” This time, the key turned an access port in his back. His forearm armor split and released two halves of a glove on each hand that turned the fingers into talons. He got into a stance that had his left foot forward, his right arm at his optic level in a claw fashion, and his left arm level with his torso unit in a claw fashion. This was the ready stance of Circuit-Su. The intruder arched an eyebrow and smirked.
“A practitioner of Circuit-Su?” he asked. Optimus’ optics widened. “Yep, one of Yoketron’s favored styles. Nice bot, truth be told. I would’ve just stuck with a gun otherwise. Come on, young Prime,” he got into the same stance as Optimus as he tossed away his gun and sword, “let’s see what you’ve got!” He stamped his left foot forward a few times, an intimidation tactic that usually rattles the opponent into making a sloppy strike if it didn’t know that martial art. Optimus held his ground. It served to irritate the bot into making a quick punch. Optimus caught it, then stamped on the intruder’s foot, making him yelp. It served as a distraction to let Optimus throw him completely off balance. He then raked his new talons across the intruders back. This startled the intruder a bit.
“I’m sick of this!” snarled Optimus. He turned the intruder over and slashed across his face. The intruder then covered his face as it started to drip Energon. “I am flat out TIRED of jackholes like YOU coming around and picking a FIGHT with ME!” He then decked the intruder. “You think I give a scrap about your backstory?! You think I care about your endgame?! You think I’m afraid of you?!”
“Slash!” shouted the intruder into his comms unit. “Beam me out of here!” The intruder vanished without a trace in a flash of light.
“I have fought mad scientists, a hive mind, and a tech hating wizard,” proclaimed Optimus, “and I have always been victorious! There is NOTHING that can stop me! NOTHING!” That, my friends, is one of the dumbest things anyone can say. The instant the last syllable left his lips, Optimus felt himself shrink down a bit. He blinked and rubbed his head. It was then that he realized that his fingers were rounded, not pointed like usual. He looked himself over and realized that he wasn’t exactly a…er… “Prime” example of a Cybertronian. “Mirror,” he gulped. Cliffjumper pressed a button on the console near him and a full-length mirror popped out of the floor. The reflection was…different, to say the least. It showed a red, white, and blue bot with a helmet sporting two fins on the front, rounded shoulders with metallic, ridged wheels on the back, a transparent metal panel on either side of his chest unit, and stumpy legs with two wheels on each side. This was Optimus’ form from before he inherited the Matrix. This was Orion Pax. He opened his torso unit and took out the Matrix. “What did I do?!” he yelped, proceeding to slap the Matrix, to no avail. “WHAT DID I DO?!