POV Rio
Sentinel Prime tried to fool the Autobots and made it seem like Starscream was a defector from the Decepticons, but that was ultimately their undoing. Instead of getting the drop on the Autobots, it was the other way around. Starscream was ripped to pieces from the attacks from all angles despite Sentinel Prime's protests. But that changed when it was made clear that his ruse had failed.
"At the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall," Optimus threatens.
"I offer to rebuild Cybertron, your home, and you chose to waste it!" Sentinel yells back.
"You're the one who taught me that freedom is everyone's right!" Optimus yells back, and they clash blades.
Clang
Optimus seems to be holding his own, but despite what they might think, I wasn't about to let Optimus lose this fight. Honour be damned, I like Earth staying alive, thank you very much. But it didn't seem like I would have to involve myself as Optimus was slowly gaining the upper hand.
Sentinel's shield took blow after blow, and Sentinel tried to respond with his own strikes, but it was proving to be very difficult as Optimus was constantly on guard for counters. However, eventually there was an opening, and Sentinel took it.
He hooked his sword into Optimus' axe, causing it to become pinned, except that was exactly what Optimus was waiting for.
SLICE
Optimus let the axe detach from his arm, causing Sentinel to become overextended, and Optimus used that chance to cleave off Sentinel's sword arm.
"AHHH! No wait! Don't!" Sentinel yells and uses the shield to block the continued attacks.
But his defence was a desperate cornered animal's defence. He had no way to attack back, and it was showing. The shield kept taking hits until it couldn't anymore and he had to discard it and scramble to use his gun at close range. But he was swiftly disarmed and left prone on the ground.
"Optimus, all I ever wanted was the survival of our race. You have to see why I had to betray you," Sentinel pleads.
"You didn't betray me... You betrayed yourself," Optimus says while slashing down into Sentinel.
"NO!" Sentinel tried to struggle away, but Optimus' sword found its mark in Sentinel's chest.
He looks up at Optimus and weakly reaches towards him, then his arms fall limp, and he dies.
"It is done. The war is now over," Optimus says with a tired voice.
"What will you do now?" I ask.
"We shall return home, or what remains of it, and rebuild what we lost," Optimus say.
"Good to hear it," I say while taking out the Allspark and handing it to him.
"Thank you. For everything, you will be an ally to Cybertron for as long as it exists," Optimus says while kneeling before me.
"You're welcome, and I truly hope you can rebuild. Though to help with that, I can help you return home quickly," I add.
"Then I will request help with that," Optimus says and doesn't even question how I can do it.
I take them to the Watchtower and to a lab that I had set up several of the pillars in. I had studied them and researched the log Sentinel Prime left behind, which helped me figure out how to use them. For now, I could only transport people to and from Cybertron, but with time, I would have a viable teleportion device.
"Stand on the platform in the centre and stand by," I order.
They do as I ask, and I power on the pillars.
"Space-Time Bridge opening. Wait a moment... And it's stable, you can go now. And take this communicator with you. Even from as far away as Cybertron, as long as you use it, I can receive the call instantly," I say while tossing a replicated Star Wars comms device.
I could thank the Eirtama Ballory template for making that really easy to do. To her, it was common knowledge how to make such a device.
"Thank you once again, Rio Pines. You are always welcome on Cybertron, and if you ever need help, just send the word, and we will come running," Optimus says firmly.
"I will. I might even come visit with some friends, but I'll call you a few days in advance to give you time to get the house clean," I joke.
"Until we meet again, Rio," Optimus says with a smile as they enter the gate, and I close it soon afterwards.
Once I was done with that, I headed home, and then I went to the room I had made a Nether Portal in. I turned the Nether into my smelting facility. I was going to melt down all the Decepticons I had gathered. I wanted to make sure that they never got a chance to be revived. Though for safety, I rarely left the cave network in which the portal was found. The only times I made an exception were when I went out to collect some Nether Wart and Soul Sand. Thankfully, there was a Soul Sand Valley near my cave, so it wasn't that hard. But it was still an absolute crap shoot. I got attacked by a lot of Ghasts, as apparently they can see through the Cloak of Invisibility.
In either case, it would take a while to finish smelting down all the Decepticons, but that's why I had a massive lava lake to use as fuel. The speed of smelting was very slow, with it costing about one lava bucket per Decepticon, but I was decently sure that the Nether was infinite. Possibly.
I had fortified the cave I was in immensely. John Constantine's knowledge came in handy for how to make an area an absolute nightmare to get through. Sure, something strong enough could break through it all, but it should last long enough for me to escape. From my testing, I was 98% certain that nothing could enter the Nether portal. Not certain, but really darn close. I had tested it with some of the local wildlife.
It was actually this testing that brought something to my attention. There is a severe lack of certain mobs in the Nether. Or at least there is in very specific areas. Skeletons, both Wither and normal, are seemingly non-existent outside of a particular area that I've since labelled The Skeleton Kingdom. Then the Piglins are the same as them, only appearing in an area I call The Piglin Kingdom. I call them kingdoms because they seem quite organised. They have homes, farms, armies, and even a possible society. I don't know for certain, as I had to spy on them from a distance, though they also, on occasion, would travel into the lands they don't control. Which sort of looked like a patrol of sorts. There was a pattern to them, and they didn't seem to do much beyond looking before they went back to their lands.
Speaking of those lands, they have a fairly strong border defence, and they might be hostile towards each other. Or at least not friendly. It was fascinating to observe.
Regardless of the situation, I kept low and out of sight to avoid being spotted. I didn't know if they were friendly, but given they were at best neutral in the game, I didn't feel like taking the chance. Though I did notice something interesting while observing them. They avoided the Warped Forest. Another odd thing. The Warped Forest was massive. Like larger than I can even measure. And that could be said for several biomes. They are far less spread out than in the game. Here they are mostly clumped together, which I suppose made sense when you think about it. But that led to things being a bit of an annoyance to deal with.
The Piglin Kingdom seemed to consist mostly of Crimson Forests. The Skeleton Kingdom was mostly found in the Soul Sand Valley biome. And they both bordered in the East, I guess, the massive Warped Forest. And with the seemingly endless size of the Nether, I have no idea what is in the West, South or North. Unless you want to count the Crimson Forest, which I suppose could take up most of the North. I also suppose you could classify the South as Soul Sand Valleys. Though I was in a very small mini-biome, if you will, where the Nether Wastes are. In terms of enemy mobs, I encounter most of the usual suspects. Magma Cubes, Blazes, Ghasts, and the occasional Enderman.
Enderman in particular were a menace to deal with. I could easily kill them if they came into the cave, but they seemed to learn this quickly after I killed 37 of them using spells in my cave. Now, instead, they will on occasion randomly ambush me or steal my stuff. Turns out Endermen can be extremely petty. I've had them steal things I was mining right in front of me and then dropping said items into the lava right while I watched them. They would even stare me right in the eyes without attacking while doing so.
The reason they don't attack all the time seems to be that they learned that I can and will escape when I need to, thanks to the 19 Ender Pearls I have. I haven't figured out why they can seemingly counter Apparition, but I have confirmed they can. They were able to intercept and destroy a golem I sent through Apparition. I will say getting that to work was not easy, but I was glad I tested it. Now I just wish I knew why that happened.
'Maybe it has to do with their ability to teleport so freely. Maybe they can interact with space more effectively. Though that doesn't explain why I can still teleport using other methods.'
Beyond using Ender Pearls, I could also teleport using the Nether Portal and a Teleportation Ritual. Though that last one was a real pain in the rear to build and is a very static spell, meaning I can't use it all that well in combat unless it is for running away. I was really confident in my ability to run away. In fact, it was likely John Constantine's best skill, avoiding consequences notwithstanding. Of course, none of that really helped me deal with the Enderman Problem. It just avoided the problem.
'Maybe I should go buy a pumpkin.'
Sure, the idea was sort of dumb, but maybe it would get the Endermen to stop harassing me. I tried other methods, but none of them worked. I theorised that they might see the world differently from anyone else. Possibly, with them only seeing in terms of spatial fluctuations. Though that was a theory. (A GAME THEORY! Thanks for reading!)
'Huh? Now that I think of it, maybe I should try to look for MatPat if he even exists in this reality.'