Chapter 263: The Fleet Arrives

High above, the massive portal began to churn with an eerie haze. Threading through the center of the ring were razor-thin black fissures, through which flashes of jagged, dark-crimson rock briefly flickered.

From a distance, it looked like a gate hanging over the skyline.

To the people below, the sheer scale was overwhelming. Had it not been broad daylight, the phenomenon likely would have been visible across the entire state.

When Sentinel Prime had first assembled the ring, few had paid it any mind. People in the vicinity of the museum had spotted the hovering metallic rods, but brushed them off as advanced civilian drones or public art.

Only now did it dawn on the crowd that an apocalyptic event was unfolding right before their eyes.

Under normal circumstances, when something of this scale broke out, reasonable people would turn on their heels and put as much distance between themselves and the epicenter as humanly possible.

Yet the modern crowd, chasing spectacle above all else, reflexively did the exact opposite.

Flocks of onlookers sprinted toward the plaza, phones raised high in the air, shouting over one another as they jostled for position.

The access avenues leading toward the museum snarled into complete gridlock within minutes, while thousands more pressed in from neighboring blocks.

"Look up! Is that an atmospheric tear?!"

"No way, man, look at the field around it! I bet something is about to drop through!"

"I'm streaming this live right now! This clip is going to blow up my feed!"

"Too late, bro, I've had my camera rolling for five minutes!"

"Shut it down, man, I found the angle first!"

Eager for viral footage, crowds of young locals surged past the museum gates, immediately spotting Optimus Prime pinned beneath Sentinel's heel on the cracked pavement.

"Wait, look down there... that's the red and blue truck! The Autobots are running this?!"

"I told everyone! The military needs to kick these machines off our soil! Look what they brought into our city!"

Assuming the gateway was an Autobot engineering project, the onlookers grew even bolder, pressing closer against the decorative barriers.

The Autobots were supposed to be sworn defenders; surely they posed no threat to civilians.

While Optimus and the older red machine appeared to be in the middle of a brutal disagreement, onlookers chalked it up to an internal brawl. Friends and family fought all the time, and perhaps these giant mechs handled their arguments with heavy plating instead of words.

The delusion shattered in an instant.

Under thousands of watching eyes, a tapered, jagged prow pierced the shimmering light membrane of the portal.

A gargantuan warship, built of dark gunmetal and sharp predatory angles, slowly edged its way into Earth's atmosphere.

"Is that... a warship?"

The crowd at the base of the gate froze, their jaws slack.

Livestreamers forgot their commentary, and the swelling tide of pedestrians along the avenues came to an abrupt, dead halt.

"Look at the hull..."

A spectator pointed a trembling hand toward the forward plating, where a sharp, angular crest was stamped into the metal.

"It's the Decepticons!"

The name hit the plaza like a shockwave, snapping everyone back to cold reality.

"Decepticons! Run!"

A single scream fractured the silence, and the crowd dissolved into sheer pandemonium.

Though only a fraction of the population had seen the metal invaders in the flesh during the previous desert campaign, practically everyone on Earth recognized their sigil.

"Move! Get out of here!"

The crowd scattered in every direction with twice the speed they had arrived, trampling over fallen bikes and discarded phones in their panic. Only a handful of thrill-seekers lingered, diving behind concrete planters to keep their camera lenses pointed skyward.

"Look closely, Optimus. These are your precious allies. The fragile organics you sacrificed our world to defend."

Sentinel glanced toward the fleeing mob, a thin, mocking sneer on his faceplate.

"Cowardly, erratic, devoid of conviction. The moment iron approaches, they abandon their principles and scatter like vermin, looking only to preserve their own skins."

"Cast your optics upward! The legions of Cybertron are claiming this soil!"

High overhead, the primary cruiser cleared the spatial threshold, its shadow blotting out the midday sun.

Optimus Prime didn't look at the sky. He kept his optics locked onto his former mentor, his voice heavy with grief. "No, Sentinel. You are wrong."

"They have their flaws, but they possess courage, resilience, and compassion..."

"Enough, Optimus!" Sentinel snapped, cutting him off with sudden fury as he looked back toward the museum doors.

"Give thanks that I spared your spark today. Soon, you will realize how narrow your vision truly was."

"Now... clear the field!"

Sentinel drove his foot forward, kicking Optimus across the paving stones. Stumbling back onto his peds, Optimus cast a final, anguished glance at his former master before shifting into his heavy semi-truck mode and roaring off down the boulevard.

"Sentinel! Why did you let him roll?!"

The museum doors parted, and Megatron strode out onto the terrace, his faceplate dark with fury as he glared at the retreating truck.

"Why spare Optimus Prime?!"

Megatron had remained in the rotunda expecting Sentinel to sever his pupil's neck cables on the spot. Growing impatient when the execution stalled, he had stepped out to handle the kill personally, only to watch the prime target slip through their fingers.

Skygnaw, stepping out into the sunlight behind the warlord, understood Sentinel's mindset completely.

To Sentinel Prime, killing Optimus was never the endgame. It was merely an optional measure along the path. With the restoration of Cybertron finally within reach, terminating Optimus held little strategic weight to him.

Whether Sentinel held back out of lingering sentiment for his pupil or some deeper calculation, only the old prime knew for certain.

Hearing Megatron's accusatory growl, Sentinel raised his energized primax blade without missing a beat, driving Megatron back against the marble balustrade and pressing the edge inches from the warlord's neck, mirroring his stance over Optimus.

"Remember your place, Megatron!" Sentinel's optics burned cold as absolute zero. "I agreed to this accord to ensure the survival of Cybertron and the continuity of our race."

"You do not command me, and I will never bend knee to your faction."

"If you possess an ounce of cunning, you will keep the boundary clear between an alliance and servitude!"

Up on the third-floor balcony, Carly stood beside the glass, taking in the confrontation with sharp, calculating eyes.

Sentinel's sudden move caught the Decepticon ranks off guard. No one had anticipated the old Autobot would draw steel on their supreme commander after trading two sentences.

Skygnaw leveled his heavy photon cannon, aiming directly at Sentinel's flank. "Sentinel Prime, I suggest you step back."

In the original timeline, Megatron had taken a similar beating from Sentinel, having his faceplate slammed against stone masonry after boasting about their conquest.

Back then, Megatron had swallowed the humiliation in silence. With his chassis heavily damaged, his plating rusted, and his systems cobbled together with crude replacement parts, the warlord's combat efficiency was at an all-time low.

Sentinel was in his prime combat form, easily capable of dominating an injured Megatron. Furthermore, as the sole operator of the space bridge pillars, Sentinel held all the leverage.

Now, with Skygnaw on the field, the board looked considerably different.

Seeing Skygnaw and several heavy shock troopers raise their barrels in unison, Megatron found his voice, sneering back with cold defiance:

"Sentinel Prime, this planet is about to fall under complete Decepticon control. Neither humanity nor your remnant can alter that reality!"

"Once Skygnaw's orbital fleet completes deployment, the remaining space bridge pillars will be transported to their designated nodes worldwide. That was the victory I promised you on the Moon, and the foundation upon which we raise our home!"

"Without my legions to hold the grid, your grand bridge will shatter before it opens. Are you prepared to break our pact before the work is done?!"

"Hmph!" Sentinel let out a harsh grunt, eyeing the primed cannon barrels aimed at his chest. His optics lingered on Skygnaw for a split second before he lowered his blade and released his grip on Megatron's collar.

Skygnaw smoothly powered down his photon cannon, a dry smirk hidden behind his faceplate.

Before the Autobots were even dealt with, the fracture between Megatron and Sentinel was already widening. It was little wonder Megatron had turned on Sentinel in the closing hours of the old timeline.

The seed of betrayal was planted right here, the moment Sentinel laid hands on him to establish supremacy.

Megatron was obsessed with absolute rule; he had set their home planet ablaze rather than yield governance to the council. Swallowing another commander's orders was an insult his spark could never truly tolerate.

"Issue your ultimatum to the human leadership, Sentinel," Megatron rasped, dusting the stone dust from his chest armor. "And do not forget our terms."

"Optimus Prime must fall."

Sentinel re-holstered his twin blades, offering neither agreement nor denial as he turned his gaze back toward the atmospheric tear.

Megatron and the other commanders looked skyward alongside him.

The lead cruiser had cleared the gate, drifting steadily toward the lakefront as scout craft detached from its hangars. Behind it, the prow of a second heavy warship was already emerging from the spatial rip.

Across the horizon, a purple-gray strike ship banked sharply, joining the fleet formation.

A crushing, silent authority rolled over the metropolitan basin. The Decepticons had returned in force, and the opening movements of a global tempest were locking into place.

Skygnaw noticed that Sentinel showed zero surprise at the arrival of his Martian fleet; Megatron had clearly briefed him on the reserves.

Yet Sentinel had made no mention of the Autobots' secondary craft, the Ark.

Did the old commander genuinely not know of its survival, or was he keeping an ace up his sleeve to counter the Decepticons later?

Regardless of the answer, Skygnaw made a mental note to keep his reserves alert.

In the original sequence of events, Sentinel had used the pillars to summon a modest detachment of lunar scouts left behind by Shockwave. With an entire industrial army mobilized on Mars, pulling a handful of rusted lunar remnants was completely redundant.

Washington, D.C., The Pentagon.

Deep within an underground command vault, President Holdren sat at the head of a conference table, flanked by four key cabinet officials.

"Foreign delegations are scrambling transport to our airspace," an aide reported briskly. "Liaisons from the primary allied states have already touched down. Do we clear them for the briefing room?"

Word of the massive alien armada over Chicago had flashed across global news feeds within minutes. Defense readiness across the country was immediately elevated to the maximum tier.

Dozens of capital ships, each dwarfing a commercial airliner and some stretching thousands of yards from bow to stern, hung completely motionless over the skyline. Every leader viewing the satellite feeds was struck with the exact same chilling realization:

How does standard ordnance scratch a fleet of that scale?

Though the alien vessels had not opened fire since emerging from the rift, nobody in high command believed those battery arrays were intended for show.

Past precedent was written in ash.

The threat was no longer a localized border dispute; every nation on Earth was backed against the wall. Foreign defense ministries had dispatched their top technical advisers to the capital, desperate to determine what had triggered the deployment.

"We need a secure channel with the Autobots first," Secretary of State Ponce suggested, rubbing his temples. "We need an assessment directly from Prime."

Following Holdren's election, Klairie had stepped away from the state portfolio to settle into her public role as First Lady.

While no formal statute barred spouses from holding concurrent high-level cabinet posts, the unwritten rules of governance demanded a certain veneer of balance. Handing the entire administration to a single household would have provoked severe pushback from the opposition.

Following Ponce's input, the remaining cabinet secretaries traded competing viewpoints.

One faction pushed for a preemptive strike, desperate to avoid the civilian butcher's bill suffered in Egypt. Another argued for an immediate joint mobilization with the Autobots to establish a defensive perimeter around the Great Lakes.

A third faction quietly floated the prospect of diplomatic appeasement.

Public discontent demanding the expulsion of all alien combatants had been building across the country for months. If meeting certain demands could persuade the fleet to stand down—especially if the invaders eliminated or expelled the Autobots before departing—it might yield a tidy, bloodless outcome.

After all, unofficial backchannel arrangements with alien elements were not entirely unprecedented in these halls.

Sitting at the head of the table, Holdren knew perfectly well that the pointed comments were aimed squarely at his wife.

Secrets rarely remained buried forever; they merely waited for enough people to piece together the paper trail.

While Klairie's covert maneuvering in the past had been carefully shielded, Professor Hank's abrupt defection had brought much of the operational ledger into the light.

Had Klairie not managed to extract valuable alien materials from that transaction without blowing the operational budget, and had the couple not relied on their seasoned public relations machine to redirect the press, the fallout would have collapsed their political footing overnight.

Treason was an ugly word, and Holdren knew that one false move today would end his administration before the day was out.

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