Optimus Prime

The ruined Chicago landscape smelled of charred concrete & old ash. Optimus Prime stood atop a shattered skyscraper, his chassis scarred, his spark heavy with a cold fury. The humans had hunted his kind. They had melted down Leadfoot, Ratchet, & so many others. A heavy thud echoed behind him. He spun, his arm-blade instantly whistling through the air, stopping mere inches from a massive, familiar helm. "Prime. Wait," Hound rumbled, raising his massive hands. Behind him stood Bumblebee, Drift, & Crosshairs. But they weren't alone. Emerging from the shadows were Ironhide & Ratchet—their plating repaired, their optics bright, though their frames bore strange, iridescent arcane glyphs that pulsed with a faint green light. "How is this possible?" Optimus’s voice was a low, dangerous rasp. "I saw your sparks extinguished." "It wasn't technology, Prime," Ratchet explained, checking his own scanning systems in disbelief. "A fleshling. But not a human. A winged being. She used a form of energetic manipulation—magic, for lack of a better term. She restarted our sparks. But the KSI remnants... they tracked her energy signature. They took her." "Why would they capture a bio-organic?" Crosshairs muttered. "Because of how they can use her," Ironhide spat, his cannons whining as they powered up. "Ratchet intercepted the lab data before we broke out. Those mad scientists... they altered her internal biology. She has a dual reproductive anatomy. One side carries organic; the other can carry cybernetically re-engineered using your shed CNA from the Chicago battles. They intend to trade her to the remade Megatron. He wants her to breed a new generation of hybrid warlords."Optimus’s optics flared an intense, blinding blue, a terrifying sign of his current vengeful state & his core protective directive. "They dare violate a living soul to manufacture weapons? They dare offer her to him?" His vocalizer shook the surrounding ruins. "We move now. We burn the facility to the ground"