PROLOGUE--->
Texas, USA. Cade Yeager's ranch.
A warm breeze rolled through the open fields. The barn creaked in the distance. This land once hid titans of steel—giants who fought, bled, and vanished into legend.
Now, it was... quiet.
Cade Yeager lounged on his creaky wooden porch chair, boots propped up on the railing, a glass of sweet tea in one hand, and his phone in the other. He scrolled aimlessly, but his eyes weren't really looking.
It had been months since Optimus Prime left—gone to rebuild Cybertron.
And ever since, things hadn't felt right.
Peaceful, yes. But not whole.
In the yard below, two Autobots—the last ones still living with him—were in the middle of another pointless argument.
They weren't front-line legends. Just two worn-down veterans who didn't leave, maybe because they had nowhere else to go.
Their names:
Jolt – a wiry former combat technician, electric coils wrapping his arms like snakes.
Clampdown – a beat-up police enforcer-type bot, his body shaped like a tactical SUV with a cracked siren on his back.
"I told you that was mine, Jolt! I left it in the top drawer last night!" Clampdown barked, pointing a large metal finger at a cracked power core sitting by the tool shed.
Jolt hissed, sparks flaring slightly from his shoulder, "It was dead, genius. I rerouted it to power the satellite array. Try not whining for once."
Clampdown stomped closer, mechanical joints clicking, "You always mess with my gear! I was law enforcement, remember?"
"And now you're lawn enforcement," Jolt muttered with a smirk, one shoulder crackling.
"Guys," Cade sighed without looking up. "If you're gonna fight, do it quieter. I'm trying to find parts for my truck."
The two bots glared at each other like old dogs in a standoff, then reluctantly backed off, grumbling in metallic tones.
Beyond them, the remains of an old mobile command post—once filled with screens, weapons, and spare Autobot limbs—now stood silent. Just rusty beams and dust.
Cade's gaze drifted to it.
Bumblebee. Drift. Hound. Even loudmouth Crosshairs.
All gone.
And above all—Optimus.
Cade whispered under his breath, just for himself.
"If you can see this, Prime...
We're still here.
What's left of your war."
Brooklyn, New York. 5th-floor apartment.
Morning sunlight filtered through narrow blinds. Inside a small kitchen, Noah Diaz—now nearing 30—pulled on a sleek black jacket with a small insignia on the sleeve: G.I.
Global Intelligence—a shadow agency born from the chaos in Peru years ago.
He stood in front of the mirror, strapping on a tactical watch. His face had matured—his eyes more focused, weathered from battles most people would never know had happened.
On the worn couch behind him, Kris, his little brother—now a teenager, healthy and full of life—was half-curled up with a handheld game console.
"I made omelets," Noah said, glancing toward the stove. "If you got up earlier, you'd have fresh breakfast."
Kris didn't look up. "Did you use the eggs from yesterday?"
"Of course. The ones that weren't expired."
A pause. Then Kris said flatly, "If I die, I'm blaming you for first-degree murder."
Noah let out a dry laugh, short-lived. He looked toward the door—toward the outside world.
This apartment used to be chaos. Hospital bills, broken jobs, fear of eviction.
Now it was quiet.
Too quiet.
A few minutes later, he was walking through the back alley, heading toward a black unmarked vehicle parked near a graffiti-covered dumpster.
Inside the car, a young woman with a tight ponytail and a digital clipboard gave him a sharp look.
"You're two minutes late, Diaz. I'm officially watching you now."
Noah smirked as he slid into the seat. "Should I be scared, Agent...?"
"Valerie. Valerie Singh," she said. "New directive came in this morning. Destination: D.C. Not full deployment—just signal recon. Could be junk. Could be worse."
Noah leaned back in his seat, frowning slightly. "If it's a Spark signal... we've got a problem."
Valerie glanced over at him. "You still believe they'll come back?"
He stared out the window, up at the open sky.
"It's not about if they come back...
It's about when."
Silver Spring, Maryland. 7:12 AM.
Leandro Rowan DelaVega struggled to tie one shoe while holding a half-bitten peanut butter toast in his mouth. His shoulder bag was slipping off, and he was already late for his engineering class.
"Crap! Gonna miss the train again," he mumbled with a full mouth.
Outside—in the junkyard behind their old family house, a scrapyard that stretched nearly an entire hectare—the usual chaos erupted like clockwork.
CLANK!
"GET OFF MY HOOD, YOU GARBAGE MAGNET!"
"THAT ARM WAS MINE! YOU STOLE IT!"
"IT FELL OFF! YOU DIDN'T EVEN USE IT!"
Leandro didn't even flinch. Just another Tuesday.
From the back kitchen door, a woman stepped in, wiping her greasy hands on a rag. Her hair was messy, her face determined. Sofía DelaVega, Leandro's older sister, former military-grade mechanic, current reluctant babysitter of rogue Transformers.
She pointed toward the noise with a wrench.
"Leandro... I've run this scrapyard my whole life. But this is the first time I've had to deal with talking cars that argue at six in the damn morning."
Leandro grabbed a half-warm juice box from the fridge and muttered, "Sorry, Sofía. I'll train them after class, promise."
"Train them? One of them tried to build a skate ramp with my old truck hood last night."
Then came a booming robotic voice from outside.
"BROTHER, I TOLD YOU! NO RAMP BUILDING BEFORE TEN!"
Leandro peeked out the window. Three mid-sized bots were wrestling atop a stack of crushed sedans:
Patch, a glitchy medic bot with a British accent and a bad attitude.
Grit, a chubby junker bot who thought everything was recyclable—including friendships.
Snapper, an ex-Decepticon now trying to be a chef (and failing).
They looked like delinquent children in a playground made of scrap metal.
Sofía gave her brother a deadpan look. "Are you sure this isn't the apocalypse dressed up as a Tuesday morning?"
Leandro sighed and shrugged. "I told you. They're just looking for a home… a place where they can be themselves. Isn't that what family's about?"
Sofía scoffed. "Yeah? If your family sounds like a coughing diesel engine, then sure."
Backyard Junkyard – Behind the DelaVega Workshop.
The air rattled with clanging metal, spilled oil, and sparks from haphazard welding.
Three small bots were in full-on chaos, shoving each other on top of rusted car shells.
Snapper, a former Decepticon turned wannabe chef, hurled a frying pan at Grit, the round-bodied junk scavenger bot.
"That's my helmet! Not a salad bowl, you rust-bucket!"
Grit, chewing on a loose bolt, grunted, "You don't even eat salad! Admit it, liar!"
Patch, the self-declared medic, was throwing tools instead of peace.
"You're all suffering from a full-on neural dysfunction!"
The ruckus peaked—until a heavy THUD shook the ground.
Then another.
And another.
Out of the shadows behind the tarp-covered garage, two large Autobots emerged, towering above the chaos.
The first:
🔧 Ironhide – grizzled, broad-shouldered, voice like a tank. Once Optimus Prime's head of security.
The second:
🧠 Wheeljack – eccentric genius, with goggles that blinked with annoyance.
Ironhide stopped at the center, slammed his massive blaster into the dirt—
BOOM!
The vibration alone silenced everyone. Wrenches fell. Three little bots froze mid-bicker.
He scanned the trio slowly, voice deep as thunder.
"Done playing with your scrap dolls?"
Patch immediately stood straight. "Yes, sir! Apologies, sir! Grit started it!"
"No I didn't! He did!" shouted Grit.
"Doesn't matter who started," Wheeljack muttered, cleaning his lenses with a rag. "What matters is that last night, you almost blew up this junkyard. I found three batteries upside down, a plasma torch left running, and—somehow—a microwave that now speaks Cybertronian."
Ironhide folded his arms. "We may be discarded, forgotten… but that doesn't mean we don't have discipline."
The little bots shrunk a bit, glancing at the growing mess around them.
Wheeljack pointed at the heap of torn parts and crushed vehicles.
"You all promised to clean this mess by morning. Not turn it into Gladiator: Mini Edition."
The bots grumbled, then finally started working—grudgingly.
Snapper whispered to Patch, "Still hate you."
Patch replied, "Same."
Wheeljack rolled his optics and walked off. "It's like babysitting a kindergarten full of nuclear bombs."
Ironhide stood a moment longer, staring up at the blue morning sky.
Deep down, he could feel it—something was coming.