Smoke still curled from the shattered desert battlefield, the wreckage of Decepticons lying broken under the Egyptian sun. Optimus Prime stood tall again, his blue-and-red chassis scorched, the Matrix of Leadership newly restored and pulsing with a faint hum in his chest. He gazed silently at the horizon where the last of the enemy forces had fled or fallen. Around him, Autobots regrouped, weary but alive.
A short distance away, hidden by the slope of a dune and an active camouflage cloak generated by Rift energy, Shepherd Fox knelt amid metallic corpses. His gloved hands sifted through mangled parts, pulling circuits and cores from both Autobots and Decepticons. Bits of armor, scorched servos, even fractured voice modulators—each piece fed into a collapsible fusion tank. It glowed as it churned down the fragments into raw Transformium.
Alix's voice flickered in his mind, sharp as ever."Refinement rate at 78%. Recommend shifting to higher-integrity frames. Seek ancient Cybertronian chassis for optimal Transformium quality."
Shepherd responded silently through thought, sweat on his brow. Keep scanning. We'll strip this desert if we have to. But we need intel, not just scrap.
"Affirmative. Cross-referencing fragments of Matrix code with ancient Prime records. Partial match found in long-lost texts—coordinates suggest a hidden vault in Petra."
The 'T'...?
"Unknown. But all signals point to a Prime-level artifact."
Shepherd's jaw tightened. The "T" had haunted the Rift Core's residual memory since he arrived in this world. No visual data. No historical timestamp. Just a letter—single, ominous, and marked with galactic significance. Whatever it was, it wasn't just Cybertronian. It was dimensional.
Far above, the sunlight caught a gleam of silver: Jetfire's shattered frame, left half-buried in the sand. That one had history—ancient, rich, possibly infused with the kind of old Cybertronian code that could unlock what they needed.
Shepherd climbed up the dune, slicing through the fuselage with a Rift-forged blade. Bits of ancient circuitry pulsed dimly inside, still alive. He extracted the spark casing, pulling it free and holding it up. Faint pulses moved through it like dying neurons. He stared at it, wondering how close this alien life had come to his own. Another step, and this might have been his fate.
He slipped the casing into a Rift capsule and stood. Behind him, the desert wind whispered. Optimus Prime stood not far off now, watching the battle-scarred horizon. Shepherd stepped out of his cloak—just briefly—and nodded.
Prime's optics flickered.
"You were not part of the battle," Prime said, voice deep as thunder. "Yet I sensed your presence."
"I wasn't meant to be part of it," Shepherd replied, casual but steady. "But I was watching. Learning."
"You stole the Cube before it could destroy me."
"That wasn't how your story was supposed to end."
Prime stepped closer. "Who are you?"
Shepherd stared up at the Autobot leader, a being of legend. He'd faced gods and machines in other worlds—but this one radiated power, leadership, purpose.
"I'm not your enemy," Shepherd said. "But I'm not your follower either."
"And yet you carry something older than even the AllSpark," Prime said, optics narrowing. "The Rift… I've heard whispers across the stars. You are touched by forces beyond Cybertron."
"I'm trying to stop something worse than Megatron," Shepherd said. "And I'll need more than the Cube or the Matrix to do it."
Prime was silent for a long moment, then nodded once—just enough to acknowledge something unspoken.
"You will walk a dangerous path."
"I already do."
As Prime turned and returned to his team, Alix chimed back in."He's watching us. Analysis shows he suspects your non-native origin."
Shepherd sighed. "Good. Let him. Maybe one day he'll understand why I had to take the Cube."
He turned toward his parked Charger—its frame now modified with alien plating and Rift-enhanced propulsion. Inside, a hidden compartment held the stolen AllSpark, stabilized within a field of Rift energy. It pulsed faintly—still dangerous, still powerful. Too much for any one world to hold.
"Status on Petra?" he asked.
"Scans indicate subterranean caverns—Prime-tech residue detected. Something ancient is buried there. Possibly a resting place. Possibly a vault."
"Or a tomb."
He climbed into the car. Dust flew as he accelerated away from the remains of the battlefield. The Rift Core in his chest pulsed in time with the engine—like it was alive, eager. As he drove, memory fragments sparked in the Rift Core—old echoes of the original Shepherd Fox, the man who'd built the Rift Engine on Earth. Dreams of engines, of impossible speeds, of breaking barriers not just of physics, but of dimensions.
That man had died testing his prototype. And yet… he lived again.
Two days later, beneath the cliffs of Petra, Shepherd stood before a cracked Cybertronian seal etched into the sandstone. His hands hovered over the ancient glyphs—Prime language, yes, but older than anything recorded. The Matrix data he had copied glowed faintly in his portable scanner, matching segments.
"This is it," Alix confirmed. "This vault once held Proto-Relics… objects used by the Thirteen Primes. Maybe even weapons or tools predating the AllSpark."
A hiss of steam, a rumble of shifting stone—the seal opened.
Inside lay a massive chamber, circular and filled with stasis pods, long-dead. In the center, atop a plinth of black metal, rested a crystalline shard shaped like an elongated spike, etched with unfamiliar symbols.
Shepherd stepped closer.
It wasn't the T.
But it was a key.
The shard resonated with the Rift Core in his chest, vibrating lightly.
"This was once a part of a Rift Gate," Alix whispered. "The same kind used to open corridors between dimensions in ancient times. This is a forgotten component—stolen from another universe and hidden here."
"So the Primes knew about the Rift?"
"Or someone they fought did."
Shepherd took the shard, and the chamber dimmed around him.
From the shadows, something stirred.
A figure. Humanoid. Covered in ancient armor, barely functional.
A guardian?
No—an echo.
It looked at him but said nothing.
"Memory projection," Alix confirmed. "This vault was visited before. By someone else with Rift energy… long ago."
Shepherd stared at the fading vision. Somewhere out there, across time and space, others like him had walked this path. Maybe even died on it.
The Rift Core pulsed again. Faster now. Urgent.
"The T is still out there," Alix said. "But this key will bring us closer."
Shepherd turned back toward the entrance, the desert wind screaming outside. His time in this world was coming to an end. He had what he needed.
Soon, the Rift would open again.