Chapter 3: Regulus

Makino was falling and falling until he crashed into something metallic but wierdly, there is some hints of soil in the ground. A loud thud echoed through the place. Makino groaned as he tried to stand up but felt something is wrong. Wrong with him. He put his left hand on his face and he felt it quite cold and has rigid sides?!

Makino put his both hands in his head trying to feel what happened to it. All he could feel from it was that it doesn't have the quite soft, rounded shape of his head. He could feel his hair either. It's not there anymore. He is starting to have a feeling of panic but the next things that he will discover will definitely put him in that state immediately. He looked at his hands and he was filled with horror. His hands are now metallic. Black metallic hands that looked robotic when glanced carefully. Makino started to have an inkling of an idea of what happened to him from this but there is still fear within him hoping that it was not the case. He tried to stand up and sees a wall that was actually reflective. He looked himself through the wall and his fear was totally realized. He saw a Magistoid standing on the line of his sight. On the place where he is standing up to look at the wall. Black, bulky armor on his torso, with armor surrounding his lower arms akin to an arm guard. His lower body was sleek and rounded, its shape akin to someone wearing a spandex costume but it was also metallic and not a hint of imperfection that would be seen in a cloth no matter how it was tight on the skin. His waist is also has armor in it, akin to someone wearing a belt, only larger and wider. He looked into his head and it's not the familiar face that he has since he was born. A mechanical head with a dark blue visor that covers his eyes(??). The place where his mouth and nose(??) would be was covered with a metallic face plates that paired with bus visor can make a complete battle mask. The top of his head has a metallic plume that usually adorn Roman helmets and the place where his ears(???!!!!!!) would've been is equipped with something like an audio receptor that I would see robots would've had. It has even a sharp triangular points. Many wild streaks of green and a bit few rigid lines of blue lined his whole body, glowing in the dark and has a blue green scarf that covers his neck part that its torn ends dangles in his back.

"Everything is wrong. What happened to me!?"

"Wha-"

He found out that his voice also changed. It was a quite deep baritone. Not too deep to belong to a gruff man but deep enough not to be closely associated to a normal man. Everything in him now is wrong. He fell back and tumbled in his backside as he walked backwards in shock. The thud clued him that he was in massive size now. He tried to stand up again. He struggled to balance as he is still not used to his now huge metallic feets and legs, legs that is also covered in armor. The felt quite heavy as he tried to walk out of the hidden alley. After a while, he exited the alley and he is starting to get familiar in walking. The alleyway was quite long apparently. Then he saw something marvellous.

Tall buildings with some weird geometric shapes in them. Highways and trainways that hosts moving vehicles through them. Weirdly looking vehicles but he knows some of them being used in the war on earth. Some of them are also flying. Dazzling light illuminate them in all places. It was marvellous indeed. But when he looked down on ground level he saw a different sight. It was the opposite on the view above. The buildings are dilapidated and there's dirt and soil everywhere. The metallic coverings on the street dont encompass all of the earth below and it was quite dark. Not too much light everywhere. It was all quite here all things considering. But he could still see the place clearly. He didn't noticed it's dark here.

"What in the- did I have night vision or something?"

He started to walk again to see the area more. The streets has the looming darkness within it even with some lights that still functions here and even with the dazzling upper buildings. As he walked, he heard a sound quite faintly reverberating.

"Thud!!"

"What in the!?" Makino looked as he heard the sound.

Thud!!! Thud!!!

Makino heard it again.

As he looked around, he found out where the sound came from. As he approaches the alleyway, the sound is getting more and more louder and he also starting to heard a grunt within those thuds.

"Ugh!!!!"

Makino reaches the end of the alleyway and peeked his head there, he sees them. Four Magistoids. Three of them is beating the last one.

Thud!!!! "Ugh!!!"

"You really pushed your luck there, buddy. You should know that when you cross this territory, you should give us obligatory payment for entering. You just tried to push your way in with your weak magic, you Kaidel junk!!" The leader of the thugs said as beating up the quite smaller Magistoid that unfortunately cross to their territory.

"What a chump and he just shot a joke of a magic. Its laughable."

Makino was quietly listening to the conversation until he realized something: they are speaking in another language. They are speaking the mother tongue of all Magistoids and he can understand it. How? He was starting to have fear and anger at just mere the sight of the Magistoids, but these developments rocked him up to pile more questions in his head.

He was supposed to be dead. Why?
Why he became a Magistoid?
Why he can understand their language?
What is even going on?

All these questions compounded his head but heard something that snapped him out it.

"Just accept the fate that was bestowed upon you, Kaidel. That is the way of the world."

Those words mirroring the ones that Rex Reguluses given to all of his allies snap something within him and sees the bit smaller Magistoid. He was limping and kneeling in a ball from his injuries. Powerless and in pain, just like him and his allies. Then at that moment, he moved.

"Heh. What a pathetic junk. Give us now your payment."

Thud! Thud!!

"Huh?"

In a flash , Makino tackled one of the Magistoids, in a burning rage, the one that hurting the injured one. It flung onto the ground in a quite loud thud.

"What in the-"

"Wait! Look at him-"

One of them got cut off, as without a second thought, Makino punched him with his now metallic fists. He also flew falling the ground.

"Wait wait wait! Please noble sir, we- we didn't know that you were there or we have done something Ill on our actions now. We didn't mean to intrude upon you. If you upset you in some way, we apologise. Let us do your-"

Before he finished his last sentence, the last Magistoid was punched in the face and pummeled him into the ground. The three mechs are lying on the ground from the sheer force of his fists. Makino is figuratively steaming on his anger, by the passing of a second, started to simmer down and now starting to realise what happened. He looked on the three Magistoids lying on the ground and was asking to himself-

"Did I... did that?"

He looked down on his fists and feels it. The power that surges within him, it feels wonderful. He can't believe it. Even at the time of the war, he could not give a punch that could knock someone instantly, let alone hurl them high to the ground. It was great. It was incredible. It was... horrifying. That rush of power wasn't normal and it dawned to him: he was a Magistoid now and he has the same strength that crushed his allies into paste. That thought instantly flashed into his mind and it terrified him that he is starting to panic.

"Ugh~..."

A moan cutted Makino's thought on that as he saw the lone Magistoid that was lying on the ground near him, the one those three beating up. He stand up and he sees Makino with him.

"Wh-who-"

Before he finished asking, Makino quite reeling from what happened, runs away in fear from what he had done there. The down Magistoid started to stand up from the ordeal. This night, turns out, is still quite long.

-‐--------------

Makino walks around, he stopped running a while ago, a bit downtrodden from all the things that happened to him. Everything is now overwhelming hi and he doesn't know of what to think of next. He tried to peer back on what happened before all of this, he was in a black void after he blew up the Regulus Core-

"Wait! The Regulus Core- that maybe it! Ardugo said that it was where all of the Magistoids are born and the source of all of their magics. Could it be? When I destroyed it, it could unleash an insurmountable amount of magic and- to turn me into a Magistoid?" Makino was almost stuttering in his thoughts due to the revelations of the things that happened to him.

Then he remembered that when he wasin the void, he fell down to a burning blue light that grows brighter as he approaches it, he swear that he heard a word whispered to him twice, as he didn't heard it clearly at first. What is it? He asked.

"Altor."

"Altor? Is that it? That was it!" Makino reached a conclusion.

"But something is familiar about that name. I think I heard it before. Something I've read."

As he tried to reach something in his thoughts, he found it. Yeah, he read it online, in a fanfiction site. It was a Transformers fanfic. What was the fanfic all about? He asked. He tried to reach again in his memory and he reached it.

It was about the human protagonist who was friends with the Autobots, that got killed during one of their skirmishes. But through some mecha divine intervention, he was sent back and reincarnated as a mecha to the mecha planet's past.

"Is that what happened to me? This exact situation is almost similar." He can't believe the coincidence.

Makino thought thoroughly on this situation to know what to do next.

"So if this is true, then this place, from the looks of it- yeah that all makes sense. The strange buildings, the streets, those Magistoids, I must be in their planet. This must be Regulus, their home planet. And if the coincidence is really that high, this must be in the past! Right. From what I've heard from Ardugo and his crew, from some of what i really heard, their planet was quite prosperous before they entered into an invasion of other planets. By then, their planet was now totally stripped of its resources due to their exploitation of it."

"Huh, just like some other mecha planet I know." Makino thought.

From this information alone, he had an idea. A great flash of an idea.

"If this is really is what I think it is, then this could be chance. Yeah, a chance to change everything. If I'm in the past here in the home planet of the Magistoids, then I could do something to make the war, the invasion, never happened in the first place. A chance to stop from ever happening again. This is my chance. Everyone's chance to never feel that Hell ever."

As Makino was thinking he has the greatest idea of all, he started to have a thought.

"Wait. So what I'm gonna do first to prevent the war? Wait, the stories Ardugo and his crew have told us-"

As he tried to recollect them, he started to remember a crucial thing about: he was all quite in a corner in where they share their stories. He was occupied on something else when they share it on some occasions. He was occupied in his thoughts when it did happen. He didn't quite listened to them. He didn't listened to them because they are Magistoids. Apparently something slashed deep in his heart hardly more than he realized.

"No. What have I done."