#leinad

Dear Adventurous Asker,

When last we spoke, I told you of four legendary Titan Masters, two of whom were involved in the conflicts you mention. The other two you speak of, however, were well-guarded secrets indeed.

While these events were taking place, Arcee and her Titan Master partner Leinad took a ship with Cloudraker to the planet Caminus, in search of the Titan Master fabled to confer the ultimate intelligence boost. Relations with the colony world had been strained following the theft of space bridge codes by Galvatron’s infiltration cell, so they were forced to carry out the mission undercover. Scanning from the air, Cloudraker was able to track the Titan Master to one of Caminus’ universities. To gather information, Arcee ended up posing as a student, joining a sorority. It turned out that there was an urban myth amongst the student body: supposedly, a bot known as the Headmaster roamed the building after dark. He would punish lazy students for engaging in plagiarism or cheating in exams, but would sometimes reward a hard-working student by giving them a flash of inspiration, if he came across them staying up all night to meet a challenging deadline.

In her inexperience as a spy, Arcee struggled with the stress of feeling like an imposter, and came close to abandoning the ruse—but the students welcomed her warmly, and Leinad was able to convince her to persevere. Never in Arcee’s life had she been surrounded by so many other female Transformers, and she was surprised at how much of an impact this had on her. They attended classes together during working hours, searching the basements and closets during free periods for any sign of the Headmaster. She came to learn that many of her classmates had their own issues with feelings of inadequacy, whether in their academic ability, or in struggling to find an Amica Endura, or in having the wrong alt-mode.

They tried a number of schemes to flush out the Headmaster: designing fiendish puzzles which he wouldn’t be able to resist solving; deliberately putting off revision in order to allow for desperate last-minute cramming; Velocity even offered to try sneaking notes into one of her medical exams. In the end, they were truly stumped—but as Arcee looked at her friends, racking their brain modules to try and help her, she had a sudden realization: what if the Headmaster had never existed, and the urban legend was just a product of the imposter syndrome endemic amongst the students, a way for them to offload onto someone else the credit for their own achievements and breakthroughs? They didn’t need a legendary Titan Master to pass their final examinations—each and every one of them was smart and talented enough to succeed!

At that point, Proxima shrieked and pointed at the ceiling. A tiny robot was hiding in the roof, having just given Arcee her supernatural flash of insight! Everyone scrambled after him, chasing him through the halls, thrilled that all their hard work was about to pay off.

Unfortunately for them, Megatron had decided to take a more direct approach. He carpet-bombed the university, taking them completely by surprise thanks to his new camouflage and the radiation-dampening powers of his latest Titan Master partner, Kiloton. As Arcee scrambled to pull her classmates from the rubble, Megatron scooped up the Headmaster and placed him on his shoulders. His new face shifted to a smirk of triumph… then, to a snarl of disgust. For his plans of universal domination to come to fruition, he needed raw power—this new Titan Master, however, gave him nothing but a head full of trivia and factoids! With the Headmaster being of no use to him, he ripped his new head off and prepared to obliterate it, to prevent any Autobot from using the knowledge to their benefit.

Thankfully, the students had backup: Iron Apex, a massive suit of experimental drone armor piloted by Optimus Prime’s former Titan Master partner, the product of an entire semester’s work on a group project. Unprepared, Megatron was no match for the artificial warrior, and chose to retreat rather than prolong the fight.

The Headmaster thanked the students for protecting him, and offered to give one of them the ultimate intelligence boost to help pass their final exam. As Arcee had been on the brink of failing her classes, they all looked to her… and at last, she decided to come clean, explaining that she wasn’t a student, but rather a Cybertronian spy. To her surprise, it turned out they’d known all along, having worked it out almost immediately! She asked the Headmaster to accompany her back to Cybertron, to lend his knowledge to Optimus Prime, in the hopes that it would let the Autobot leader think of a way to end their war. Reluctantly, he agreed. Meanwhile, with Iron Apex having passed his first real test with flying colors, he too decided it was time to join the fight on Cybertron. Though Arcee’s new friends were sorry to see her go, they promised she’d always be welcome to return to her studies in the future.

As Cloudraker took them out of atmosphere, Arcee remarked to the Headmaster that he reminded her of a close friend of hers: Ultra Magnus. He was taken aback. Long ago, during Magnus’ days as a galactic peacekeeper, he’d met the Autobot by chance. Ultra Magnus left a strong impression on the Titan Master, and he decided he too wanted to become an agent for truth and justice in the world. Forced as he was to live in secrecy, the Headmaster admitted that he felt like a fraud, only meddling with students, not evildoers, and failing to accomplish any real good. He was just one tiny ‘bot, playing the role of Ultra Magnus, and trying his best to be worthy of the name. Arcee promised that, once all was said and done, she would set up a meeting between him and Ultra Magnus—as she knew they’d have more in common than he thought.

Arcana Magnus: for our first post, we thought we'd get some help from the Earth we post on! Transformers media in your world is to sell toys after all (aside from people wanting to tell a story) and we thought some the customs in this photo would help set the tone even though talking via toys won't usually happen (and well, the unofficial Ask Vector Prime 2 has done digibashes paired with prose storytelling, so not new ground really). Please feel free to send us asks, even for things canon hasn't answered! :3

We're talking about canon here besides touching on those two. Here's the alt text/dialogue so people can read it this way, its a bit lengthy because of the amount of dialogue:

Studio Series 86.07: Leader Daniel Witwicky

Danny got a growth spurt.

More like this:

Buzzworthy Bumblebee Core Class Bumblebee and Spike Witwicky

Titans Return Arcee with Leinad

Digibash: If you’re gonna ride, Dan-O, ride in style!