The wind howled across the high plains of Montana, where metal once sang with purpose and now screamed in pain. Shepherd Fox stood in the shadows of a rusting silo, watching through thermal lenses as black SUVs rolled in, bearing the markings of a ghost operation: Cemetery Wind. Their mission was clear—hunt down and eradicate the remaining Autobots.
He frowned. This Earth… was no longer what it had been when he first arrived. Fear and desperation had driven mankind to turn on their defenders. It wasn't the first time Shepherd had seen a world cannibalize its heroes.
But that wasn't why he was here.
Hidden in the wreckage of what used to be an Autobot safe house, the Rift Core inside his chest pulsed with direction. The Seed—an ancient Cybertronian relic capable of transforming organic material into raw Transformium—was on Earth. And KSI had it.
Shepherd needed it.
He activated Alix, now fully integrated into the Rift Core. "Lock coordinates. Pull live satellite feeds on all KSI assets. Prioritize movement toward the Southwest. Their convoy will carry it."
"Confirmed," Alix replied, her voice crisp and synthetic. "Secondary objective Lockdown identified. In orbit. Vessel on a stable geo-sync over Nevada."
"Good," Shepherd muttered. "I'll need a ship."
The heist was clean.
Shepherd intercepted the KSI transport outside Amarillo under cover of nightfall. A hacked Predator drone caused a momentary blackout. Smoke grenades blanketed the road. By the time the convoy's escort recovered, the trailer was missing—lifted directly into the sky by a stealth drone Shepherd had salvaged from a crashed Decepticon recon pod.
Inside the container, the Seed pulsed with raw, terrifying power.
"Hello, beautiful," Shepherd said, placing his hand over it. The Rift Core responded, feeding him data. Energy signatures… matter conversion algorithms… terrifying destructive potential.
Perfect.
He didn't plan to use it.
He planned to take it off the board.
High above Earth, in Lockdown's prison ship, chaos brewed.
Shepherd infiltrated it using the frequency signature embedded in the Cube's matrix energy. The ship, still linked to old Cybertronian command protocols, allowed him entry—just long enough for him to embed a Rift virus into its core systems.
When Lockdown returned from his excursion to China—Optimus's spark tracker still pinging faintly in the distance—he walked into a trap.
A burst of EMP from the Rift Core disabled his systems momentarily. Shepherd didn't kill him.
He reprogrammed him.
"You're too useful," he whispered to the Cybertronian bounty hunter, manipulating the data streams. "But your priorities need… adjustment."
Back on Earth, the climax unfolded in Hong Kong. Optimus Prime, sword raised, stood amid the ruins of the city, the Seed nearly detonated, and Galvatron in retreat. The battle had nearly broken them all.
Then came Lockdown.
The fight was ferocious. Prime was impaled. Cade Yeager tried to hold him back. Bumblebee fought through squads of enemy drones.
But what happened next changed everything.
As Lockdown lunged for the kill, his systems glitched. For a fraction of a second, his optics flared with violet light—the Rift signal.
He stopped. Looked toward the sky.
Shepherd stood on the edge of the ship, cloaked in bending light.
Prime looked up. "You."
"You're welcome," Shepherd said, then leapt down beside him. The Rift Core flared with energy as the Seed hovered behind him, locked in stasis. "I reprogrammed the dog. Figured he was more valuable alive."
Prime narrowed his optics. "What do you want, human?"
"I want what you want. To protect this world. But more than that… I want to stop what's coming."
"What is coming?" Prime's voice was low, wary.
"Cybertron," Shepherd said simply. "But not the one you remember. Something worse. Your creators—whoever they are—have begun to stir. I've seen the ripples across other dimensions. And this Seed is just the start."
Prime said nothing for a long time.
Then: "What would you have me do?"
"Find them. Stop them. Before they turn your home into another weapon."
Optimus stepped forward, slowly. "Why should I trust you?"
"You don't have to," Shepherd replied. "But you and I both know—this war is far from over. And Earth won't survive another invasion unless someone ends it at the source."
The Autobot leader stared skyward. Around them, the team regrouped—Bee, Drift, Hound, Crosshairs. Cade stood beside his daughter and Shane, watching silently.
Then Prime spoke.
"I will find them," he said. "I will make them answer for what they've done."
With that, he launched into the sky, the Seed in tow, using its energy to boost beyond Earth's gravity.
Shepherd stood quietly as Prime disappeared into the stars.
Behind him, Lockdown's ship powered up, Rift systems online. He had claimed the hunter's vessel. He had what he came for.
But he wasn't done.
Not yet.
Alix's voice broke the silence. "Scanning for the artifact designated 'T'. Traces of energy signatures match those encoded in Sentinel Prime's database. Suggestion: Begin next Rift transfer when ready."
Shepherd looked down at Earth. "Let's finish what we started."
The ship jumped.
And the stars bent with it.