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Characters: Cheetor, Botanica Location: Botanica's island Content Warnings: N/A Plot Summary: All other methods exhausted to get back to his own time, Cheetor makes a space bridge jump to Botanica's island with one final hope.
Cheetor had been preparing to go on patrol when he overheard something that had stopped him cold. A couple of the Autobots appeared to be gossiping as he was passing by, speaking of someone busy at work with varying projects, including a possible time machine being built. Skeptical as they sounded it certainly had Cheetor listening attentively, ears flicking back at what they were saying up until he heard some coordinates.
It seemed a little farfetched to most, but to the young cheetah it was a lead.
Every other method he could think of to try and return to his own time had failed up until this point, so what was there to lose checking it out? Rather than go on his patrol, Cheetor had made the space bridge jump to the coordinates instead and soon found himself on an island. "Whoa, where..." Cheetor looked around with some confusion at first, having expected something much different than an island seeming in the middle of miles of ocean. "Guess if you want seclusion, no better place than the middle of no where." The robotic feline remarked, taking in his surroundings for a minute or two before returning to the reason he came all the way out here.
Now, it was just a matter of finding that someone he had overheard about.
The island, while definitely picturesque and tranquil, was by no means quiet. Much had changed over the past few months since Botanica's discovery. Now with the Autobots lending a hand every once in a while, and with Rodimus to motivate her, Botanica was starting to make some headway. By this point, she knew exactly how to build a time machine! She just needed a chunk of exo-matter with negative energy density, a few truckloads of quantum foam, a portable black hole, some dwarf star matter to contain the whole thing, and a gravitational field manipulator; she'd need to invent the last item, still. Thanks to her new insights on the Matrix, she now knew precisely how to shape the dwarf star matter, too!
Take that, physics.
For now, the largest roadblock for her was that none of the materials she needed were present on Earth, nor would they be in the near or distant future.
So, it was time to shake the rust off the old girl.
The Axalon sat perched on the northern half of the island, accompanied by a cacophony of hammering and welding. Admittedly, Botanica had gotten into a bit of a funk when she first landed. All hope of returning home had been lost to her, so the Axalon had been turned into something of a field laboratory for her to make the most of her time. It was only thanks to a chance meeting with Rodimus that Botanica's motivation was sparked once more. Between Botanica and Windshear, it had taken them a few weeks to excavate the cave systems underneath the island to pull the Axalon's guts up to the surface. Now that it was done, all she had to do was rebuild the ship.
While Botanica was hard at work handling most of the finer details, Windshear was likewise busy using his stasis beam to excavate and organize some the larger sections of the ship. Neither of them were free enough to notice a ground bridge dumping somebody elsewhere on the island.
Cheetor began to make his way across the island, unsure of what exactly he was looking for or who. He only had a general idea someone was here hard at work on some projects, more specifically a ticket back to his own universe. Not that anything was wrong with this one but he didn't belong here, felt out of place even.
But he hadn't been walking for long before a distant sound caused him to pause, listening closely. There it was again. It sounded like someone was hard at work on hammering away, possibly the one he was looking for. "Only one way to find out...beast mode!" With a soft growl, Cheetor shifted to his robotic beast mode before taking off at full speed, the sound of Botanica's hammering getting closer by the second. And it wasn't long before the all too familiar sight of the ship caused Cheetor to skid to a halt in shock.
It couldn't be!
'That's...its the Axalon!' To say the least the young feline was rather shocked. He hadn't seen the exploration ship since his universe's Megatron destroyed it once and for all during the Beast Wars, and yet here it was. Hopeful this might be a positive change for once, perhaps even someone from the original crew being present in this universe, Cheetor sprinted the remaining distance, following the sound until he was close to where Botanica and Windshear seemed hard at work with the ship. A part of him wondered if they were repairing it or building it. Either way it brought a little nostalgia for the young former Maximal.
"Maximize!" Shifting back to robot mode, Cheetor turned to peer up at Botanica, not yet recognizing her from where he stood, "Hey you up there! Sorry to disturb your work but I was hoping you could answer a few questions." Cheetor called up towards her.
Botanica was busy making sure the Axalon's bridge had walls when Windshear silently beeped a proximity alert to her. She didn't like how accusatory the word 'intruder' sounded, so for now, they had a 'new friend alert'. Setting aside the turbohammer for now, Botanica fluttered her way over toward the adjacent railing, hoping to get a better look at her new pal. Just as she reached the railing however, she heard a most peculiar word.
"Maximize!"
Huh?
Had she heard that correctly?
Well she must have, of course.
Maximize wasn't a word any of the Autobots used, or had even heard of. To be quite honest with herself, Botanica thought it was silly to announce one's transformation with a quip like that. No, the culprit wasn't an Autobot.
But a Maximal.
Botanica's optics darted sharply downwards to find a very familiar and welcome sight looking back up at her. They practically grew three sizes upon seeing that blue and yellow paint scheme. "Cheetor...?!" she cried, her tone a mixture of confusion and joy. Windshear perched himself back on his master's chest once the new friend was revealed to be an old friend. Botanica cupped a servo over her mouth, whispering to herself, "This is unprecedented..."
Letting go of the railing, Botanica hovered down to the sand in front of Cheetor, her excitement causing her to glide a little bit faster than usual. Servos still clasped over her mouth in disbelief, her optics searched him over for every tiny little detail. Was this truly her Cheetor? Blue, yellow, cat; the evidence pointed to yes.
At first, Cheetor didn't recognize the individual peering over the railing, raising a hand to shield his optics from the sun. Not that he had to try hard when the individual spoke up since it was a voice he recognized quite well. In fact he had to do a double take, shaking his head with surprise. Was that...Botanica?
Perking up a bit more as she glided down towards him, Cheetor shuffled to the side a bit to give the techno-organic plant some room while lowering his hand. Once she was closer to where he could make out her details, his jaw dropped. It certainly looked like Botanica! Well, for the most part. There was a bit of a difference to appearance, same color scheme and techno-organic properties to her frame but definitely something was different.
Speechless for a moment, Cheetor could only look the femme up and down, trying to wrap his mind around the fact he wasn't the only Maximal! Far as he knew anyway. "By the Matrix! You're a sight for sore optics!" Cheetor said with joy and relief, embracing the one he thought was the Botanica he knew. "I didn't think any of you would be here Botanica!" He told her, releasing the embrace enough to look at his old friend, a wide, goofy grin plastered on his face plates. "You wouldn't believe the stories I have to tell you!"
Botanica eagerly returned the hug, happy to once again have somebody familiar to wrap her arms around. By the Matrix was right! The odds of the two of them finding each other at the same point in time was absolutely astronomical! Unfathomable! Nearly impossible! And yet, here they were. There was no time to run the numbers when hugs were abound. Even without the math, there was much that the two of them had to discuss in detail.
"I would very much like to hear them!"
She had some of her own stories to tell, too. She released her grip for now, not wanting to compress the feline any more than what was needed.
"I've been stranded on twenty-first century Earth for just over half a century now! I thought I was completely alone here, until recently."
A few of the circuits finally connected in Botanica's head, and she clasped her hands up against Cheetor's shoulders.
"But what about you? How did you get here? Did Optimus send a rescue party for me... or was this just random chance?"
Half a century...Cheetor wondered when the plant-former had even gotten there in this time. It seemed most unfortunate both of them ended up stranded by chance and had crossed paths once again it appeared, and possibly some of the others. Maybe.
Wait, did she really just ask about Optimus? "I got here through a transwarp explosion. Some idiots on the black market were trying to use transwarp cells illegally." Cheetor seemed clearly confused by her question, especially since she had been there when the final moments of Primal's life had resulted in him and Megatron falling to the very core of Cybertron. "Wasn't exactly a pleasant trip. Falling from space in the Axalon was a lot smoother." But her question was certainly bothering the young feline.
"But Botanica, why would Optimus send a rescue party? You were there with me and the others when Big Bot gave his life to end Megatron and reformat Cybertron." Cheetor pointed out, looking rather puzzled now. "Unless your memory circuits were damaged somehow." Maybe that was it. Perhaps an unseen injury had scrambled her memory circuits and she just forgot...surely.
Though if Botanica was here..."I was actually fixing to ask if any of the others were with you, Silverbolt, Blackarachnia, Rattrap, anyone?"
Botanica's joy quickly turned into confusion yet again as Cheetor recounted his own story. Events, names and places weren't lining up in the slightest. Something was wrong here. It only now dawned on her that the astronomical odds she'd thought they'd beaten before had actually beaten them. It was unlikely that Cheetor and herself were from the same time stream. And yet, they still recognized each other, still recognized names... yes, there were some commonalities here. They weren't from the same home, but at least they were both still Maximals at heart.
She withdrew a servo to scratch her chin.
"No, this isn't right... I'd hoped we'd be from the same timeline...."
Botanica paused, before continuing.
"This is intriguing, still. My Cybertron was reformatted before we were given life, we were techno-organic from the start...."
"Optimus and the Maximals were still battling Megatron and his Predacons by the time I left aboard the Axalon..."
She paced back and forth, as she usually did when confronted by mind-boggling temporal anomalies.
"My memory circuits are quite intact, Cheetor. I'm afraid this world, timeline... perhaps all of creation... is caught up in some sort of temporal sinkhole that's drawn us all to Earth at roughly this point in time... wait-"
"R...Rattrap...?"
Rodimus above, she'd forgotten about Rattrap.
"I...I..."
There was really no point in giving the usual 'our relationship is purely professional' talk with Cheetor.
Between Botanica's words and her confusion, it began to dawn on Cheetor he was looking at someone very much the same as the Botanica he knew yet at the same time wasn't her. None of this made sense to him, complicating his understanding of what exactly had gone on here. He had already faced an issue of time travel during the Beast Wars when the Axalon when in pursuit of Megatron and his Predacons, and now here they were in yet another similar situation. "Its like the Beast Wars all over again." Cheetor muttered aloud to himself, crossing his arms as his optic ridges furrowed.
"If that is the case, then I guess it just confirms the temporal shenanigans but no one knows why." Cheetor closed his optics in deep thought, quietly listening to her story of her own timeline, a backwards version in fact. "Strange. My Cybertron didn't become reformatted until after we fought Megatron and his crazy Vehicons. It was the Oracle's doing that were were techno-organic." He opened his optics as he glanced at his form. "Well, I was until I came to this timeline. Guess the Oracle gave me one final reformatting to handle the different atmosphere the Cybertron of this time had. Kinda feels like being transmetal all over again." He spoke as he glanced back at her.
The mention of Rattrap made him raise an optic ridge then. She seemed nervous about speaking of their relationship, not quite so different from his timeline during their final war on Cybertron. It brought s faint smirk to his face, "Guess even in another timeline some things never change." He mused before shaking his head. "But Botanica is it true what I heard? Are you really trying to make a time machine?"
He came to the island for a reason after all. As much as he wanted to know more about her timeline, the cheetah was there for more important matters.
Genuine surprise struck Botanica's face. She blurted out.
"Rattrap and I are universal constants...?!"
Cheetor's news had spun her mind out of focus, now starting to simply fixate on the fact that their relationship was meant to be, at least from a temporal standpoint. She did her best to turn out of the spin, as intriguing and pleasant of an idea as it was. Still, best she keep a pin in it for later.
Right. Time machine. Time ship, more accurately.
"A time ship, more accurately."
"I've had just over fifty years to research a method of returning to my own time and place... though, in light of recent events, it seems that I'll have some extra passengers."
Botanica paced back and forth, making inane and seemingly pointless gestures in her head. In actuality, she was running herself through a few quintillion energy calculations, just to double check herself on the math.
"Yes... my calculations are correct. I can use the ship to travel through time, theoretically. Many of the components I need to modify the Axalon's propulsion systems to accommodate the jump however, are not found on Earth... or, will not be found on Earth for several more billion years."
"I've simply been hard at work on preparing her for spaceflight, again. It was my aim to use the Axalon to help collect the necessary materials for the temporal engine."
"But... now that I think about it, I suppose I could use a crew."
Cheetor was taken aback by Botanica’s sudden outburst, wondering at first if he had said something unpleasant towards her. He knew Rattrap could be head strong and annoying, but he wasn’t that bad. But after a moment of watching the techno-organic femme pace back and forth, seeming out of focus from the news, he began to realize she wasn’t quite upset so much as caught off guard.
Smiling faintly, he stepped forward and rested a reassuring hand upon her shoulder, “Botanica take it easy for a moment. I don’t know about universal constants, but I do know it works out where I come from if that eases any worries.” At least, he hoped it might give her some encouragement to give her universe’s Rattrap a chance. He wondered if they were the same person in terms of personality and skills, that Rattrap being a sneaky, snarky rodent was a constant itself. Saving such a curiosity for later, Cheetor gave Botanica room once more as she seemed to pace for another reason, seeing her mind hard at work about his question.
Wait, a time ship? They didn’t have that already?
“You guys haven’t had that yet? It’s an every day thing for us, pretty much equipped to a majority of our exploration ships and battle cruisers.” It was clear now Cheetor was puzzled, baffled even. “We use transwarp technology to make space and time jumps all the time, so long as nothing goes wrong it’s easy to get to one time to another without a problem.” He rubbed his chin in thought then, wondering how far they were into Earth’s history. He could assume pretty far back if the technology they would require would take billions of years to occur, and who knew how long it would take to find those materials off world. But, there was always room to make it possible today if they could get those material in ah d. But even then, harvesting such material might be far more difficult here in comparison to what he was use to.
“Well, if you need a crew I’m your bot. I know this ship like the back of my paw, and if it has the same general layout I’m more than happy to join you.” Cheetor seemed quite enthused about the prospect of being aboard the ship after so many years of not seeing it in person. His team’s Axalon was destroyed years ago and they had only remenants of it left to use in their base when watching over the Ark. “Just tell me what you need done.”
Cheetor was rather giddy at the thought of working on the first ship he had ever been a crew member on, feeling as if he was the young teenager getting ready to go on his first adventure again. It almost seemed surreal to him in fact, yet he couldn’t think of spending his time in this universe any other way.