Temptest didn't expect anyone to be gone for very long. Starscream was just scouting, the Knockouts were just looking for a makeshift wagon, and Megatron was in the room right over there. Despite the assumption, Temptest found herself growing wary as their absences built up. After the first fifteen minutes passed, she went to check on Megatron, but he wasn't around.

Now it had been an hour and nobody had shown their faces yet. Something was wrong.

Temptest leaned against the wall as she walked down the corridor. Megatron couldn't have gone far, and the Knockouts knew better than to wander too far as well. They weren't primarily combatants. Still, she searched the top floor of the building and found nobody around.

She had her servo transformed into a knife by now and her battle instincts were honed into every small sound that her audio receivers processed. She considered comming her team now that she was unsupervised, maybe even ask for help, but Megatron might actually throw her off the balcony for that. He'd consider it a betrayal.

"Knockout?" Temptest asked into her backup comm again. "Where are you?"

No answer. Not even static. The message registered to her as sent, so nothing was wrong with transmission, but he wasn't responding. Neither was Megatron. Temptest cursed and wished she'd gathered Starscream's comm frequency, or the other Knockout's. It was frustrating, worrisome, and her spark was starting to ache again.

Temptest searched the majority of the building, finding no sign of her missing comrades. Outside was a different story.

There were scorch marks tracing the outline of the building, and the metal beneath was still warm to the touch. Temptest's optics widened. Could this be the work of a predacon? How come she never heard the battle? Certainly the top floor wasn't high enough to strangle the road of a predacon.

The building across the street was also heavily singed with a large hole in it. Craters led a path of large pedes straight through the building, in a circle around it, and then further inland. Temptest slowly made her way across the street and glanced back up to their balcony. As far as she knew, someone might have returned by now.

Still, Temptest pushed on. If she went back now, she wouldn't have the energy to return and continue searching if nobody was there. If she was the one missing, they could easily take to the skies and find her.

The hole wasn't anything impressive, but it did work as a great way to see into the rooms on the bottom floor since it removed all of the east walls. It was too large to be caused by a bot, and the soot fluttering down from above was a clear indication of a predacon's presence, but Temptest doubted any predacon had a flame strong enough to cause this much damage. And if it did...

Further inside, Temptest could see lines of empty racks. It looked as if the building hadn't been used in eons. Perhaps the destruction was to blame, but she could clearly see the trashed and wrecked floors in every room. Whatever had gone through here, recent or not, had completely raided the place.

Temptest stopped short at the sound of a muffled voice hidden somewhere in the chaos. It was too warped for her to understand, but she knew from the tone it was someone she knew well.

Quickly, but quietly, Temptest picked up her pace, stepping over rubble until she was leaning heavily against a support beam, listening in on the voices that steadily became clearer. Her legs trembled and Temptest knelt, trying to regain some of her strength.

"...can't you? You already have one," Optimus's voice was finally identified, but Temptest wasn't sure which one. There was a hint of desperation in his words. That kind of emotional appeal wasn't unusual for her Optimus, but considering the last time she saw (TFP) Optimus...

Another Optimus answered, his voice unusually low and dark. Again, Temptest wasn't sure which Optimus was which. "You missed your chance."

"Noo," Optimus growled. "I can still do it. I can have it all, I just need everyone to get out of my way. Why do they keep trying to stop me? Don't they know what wonders I'll bring to the world?"

Temptest crawled forward, gritting her denta as she approached the edge of the broken wall concealing the two of them. What were they talking about? Were they at fault for this hole? For the disappearance of the other Decepticons?

"How can they know..." Optimus was starting to sound labored, "if you don't?"

"I do!" Optimus exploded. "I will be the greatest asset to exist! It is within my grasp. I've nearly defeated my enemies and soon Cybertron will be mine. All that is left to do is finish them off, find the Allspark, and build a family. That's all I want. It's not to much to ask for, is it?"

"Not too much?" Optimus repeated. "That's asking for everything."

Optimus hit something. "But I deserve it! After all this time, after all my suffering... I want to be happy."

Temptest grabbed the edge of the wall and dragged herself forward, searching the dark room for a red or purple paint job. She found them both standing near the north wall. Optimus, usually more red than blue, was leaking energon profusely. Dents, tears, and holes littered his frame, each followed by paint scraped away to gray. It looked as if he had been dragged out from under debris. He didn't seem to have the strength to get up as he stared up at his counterpart with undiluted attention.

The other mech's red optics were was bright as ever. He was entirely uninjured without a scratch on him, even after the fight with the predacon army. Something in his expression was raw with anger, but more than that, regret and sorrrow. Longing. Hope. Temptest's grip on the edge of the wall tightened.

(TFP) Optimus reached out, his arm shaking, and lightly touched the hanging servo of his enemy. "You're right. We all deserve happiness."

(SH) Optimus fell to his knees, helm down. "Then why... why does everyone else find it!? Everyone but me! Nobody loves me... I've tried so hard."

"You're trying too hard," Optimus told him. "Stop trying to make others love you. Be yourself, be open and kind. The right person will come someday."

Temptest gasped and flinched back, hiding behind the wall as her spark suddenly contracted tightly. Her optics widened and she hissed, pulling her legs in close as something horrible built up in her chassis. The pain was so much more intense than before, hitting her all at once, condensed but rippling through her spark chamber.

"Who's there!?" (SH) Optimus stood up and pointed his blaster at the door.

His broken counterpart, still wounded on the floor, pushed off the wall and attempted to stand. Optimus felt the influence he had on his darker self slipping right out of his digits. "Wait, Optimus. Lower your weapon, they may be friendly!"

Temptest panicked and scrambled to get up, but her digits refused to move. Her frame curled inward, overwhelmed and desperately trying to protect her weakening spark. Something was terribly wrong.

Optimus's blaster emerged over the corner, nearly blasting her to bits before he suddenly pulled back, his optics widening at the sight of her. "Temptest?"

(TFP) Optimus hit the ground after his knees buckled, but his helm shot up in surprise when the false prime uttered her name.

Temptest forced her optics to online again. She barely realized they'd shut down as she tried to overcome the stifling pain. Something broke within her, sending ripples of shock outward from her spark. She looked up at the warlord and the moment their optics met, the fate of their universe finally went back on track.

"Ultra Magnus's tracker hasn't been enabled since he left our base," UMS, a.k.a. Ultra Magnus Solider, told his leader dutifully. "Now that it is online, it indicates that he has spent the last year in Dimension SH87."

"How heavily have they been altered?" Stinger demanded.

"According to his logs, the Autobots there know nothing of our existence, but they believe they've found a relic that can transport them between dimensions. They haven't tested it yet, but the ramifications are obvious based on the spacial patterns in their time flow. Starscream will die."

Stinger gritted his denta. "Who is the warlord killer in this dimension, again?"

"Temptest, the bearer of destruction."

His optics flashed with recognition. "Right, that one. Starscream's death will no doubt impact how long it takes for her to succumb. The timeline will speed up."

"Yes, my lord. The UMS guidance crew predicts that the Decepticons will lose. He will help her kill some of them and the Autobots will likely finish the job."

Stinger rubbed his helm. "She's the only Temptest we have to study for comparison. How certain are we that this will come to pass?"

"100% likelihood," the UMS answered. "Without that pillar of social support, the Endgame Event will not occur at the right time. Other factors have been taken into consideration, but this is the final verdict."

"We cannot have this," Stinger decided. "Optimus has clearly defined himself as our Nemesis Prime here. He must be the one to perish. What is our Greatest Solution Strategy?"

"Now that we have the traitor in custody, we need to insert an UMS to take back the transdimensional relic. The guidance crew suggests we temporarily leave Temptest in the Prime Dimension to introduce counter influences to her spark."

"The Prime Dimension?" Stinger glared. "Our Shockwave advisors have it off-limits. It's our main stream. They have to study it, don't they?"

"They believe that the events there would not be effected so long as only three events do not take place."

Stinger nodded. "And they are?"

"The original Megatron cannot interact with Temptest for an extended period of time, nobody else from either dimension dies, and most importantly, you cannot have any direct contact with them."

"Why me?"

"The Shockwaves predict you would want to kill the Optimus there. He closely resembles your first Optimus."

Stringer frowned. "Fine. We can do that. Ensure everything goes according to plan."

"Yes, my lord," the UMS nodded. "And two more things. We will need to safely remove their Ultra Magnus until further notice. Once our agent does as he is ordered to do, we can send him back before they ever know he was gone. Additionally, we've planted a tablet that lets our UMS contact you directly in case something does go wrong. Here is your responder."

"Thank you," Stinger nodded. "Now let's go kill our Nemesis."