Elita-1's History
Long ago, Ariel admired Megatron, and looked up to him as a champion. Earthrise episode 2 However, war broke out between the Autobots and Decepticons; upon becoming Elita-1, she ultimately sided with her romantic partner Optimus Prime and became a member of the Autobot resistance. Centuries of civil war gradually reduced Cybertron to ruins and, eventually, pushed the faltering Autobot resistance to the brink of defeat. From their headquarters in the grounded Ark, Optimus and Elita hatched a plan to leave Cybertron entirely, and began searching for whatever energon they could find to fuel their vessel. When one supply run went wrong, Elita-1 wound up saving Optimus, Wheeljack, and a neutral scrounger named Bumblebee from Megatron and his Seekers, and detonated a bridge to aid in their escape. Elita scolded Optimus for his recklessness; despite her misgivings, Optimus convinced her to let Bumblebee go free. When the Decepticons took Ultra Magnus hostage, Elita-1 received an impromptu promotion and took his spot as military commander. The captive Magnus successfully broadcast a transmission from the Decepticon base and informed his allies of the Decepticons' plan to seize and subvert the Allspark; while Optimus was willing to trust his friend, Elita pointed out that the coordinates he'd transmitted could very well lead their forces into a trap. When the Autobot patrol blundered into the trap Elita had suspected, she raced to the battlefield and helped turn the tide before ordering a retreat. As the Autobots attempted to recover from this setback, Elita's worries were compounded when she realized that the Autobot leader had chosen to sink a considerable amount of energon into searching for the Allspark, potentially jeopardizing their ship's ability to stay cloakedTo keep the Allspark out of Megatron's hands, Prime hatched a new plan, to find the artifact and take it with them when they left Cybertron. To do so, however, they'd need a working spacebridge, and so Elita-1 joined the other Autobots as they travelled to Ratchet's impromptu clinic and eventually convinced him to aid their cause. Joined by the repentant Decepticon Impactor, the group returned to Autobot headquarters, and despite Elita's suspicions Impactor agreed to willingly deactivate his comms, although this action drew the attention of Jetfire and Skywarp. Siege episode 3 When Ultra Magnus perished in Decepticon captivity, Prime informed Elita that the Alpha Trion Protocols had been activated. As the Autobots prepared for departure, Elita, who'd been placed in charge of readying the ship for launch, worried that Prime's plan to take the Allspark off-world could have unforeseen consequences. When Jetfire approached the Ark and announced his intentions to change sides, Elita was part of the group that questioned the captive Decepticon over whether or not his change of heart was genuine. When Wheeljack finally located the Allspark in the Sea of Rust, Elita-1 criticized Prime's decision to trust Jetfire and risk his own life by sending a team to retrieve it, but ultimately relented when Jetfire allowed himself to undergo the core override procedure. While some of the Autobots travelled to the Sea of Rust, Elita was left to organize a way to obtain raw energon from Soundblaster, though she'd grown tired of having to cooperate with Decepticons. Elita-1 tried to contact Optimus when a computer virus created by Shockwave attacked the Autobot network and disabled Autobot outposts across the planet; unable to reach him, she instead ordered Wheeljack to ready the Ark for launch. Before she could do so, however, the virus reached the Ark, took down Teletraan I and shorted out the vessel's cloaking systems. As Decepticon forces began to surround the Ark, Elita managed to contact Optimus and realized that Megatron had figured out their plan. Elita-1 and Ironhide repelled the invaders within the ship's hangar while Wheeljack brought the ship's systems back online, until they could successfully launch the Ark and travel to the newly repaired space bridge. However, in the battle, Prime had no choice but to hurl the Allspark through the space bridge; when he and his followers announced their intention to leave Cybertron and retrieve the artifact, Elita and some of her allies--Chromia, Jetfire, and Red Alert--announced that they would stay on Cybertron and continue to fight back against Megatron's tyranny. Without the presence of the life-giving Allspark, Cybertron itself began to die. Earthrise episode 1 As the Decepticons began establishing a series of work camps manned by conscripted prisoners, Elita's resistance cell relocated to Ratchet's old theater, Earthrise episode 3, where they conducted a series of hit-and-run attacks wherever they could. After one such raid, which ended with them liberating the Decepticon Scrapface, Jetfire questioned her decision to free prisoners, although Elita remained adamant that they should fight for the freedom of all Cybertronians. The group received a tip from Steeljaw, who'd seemingly infiltrated a Decepticon prison in Kaon; although Elita suspected a trap, she and her team went anyways, only to be outmaneuvered and captured by Starscream's Seekers. Brought before Megatron, the Decepticon leader introduced her to "Project Nemesis", an effort to extract the sparks and energon of unwilling prisoners in the service of some larger scheme. A horrified Elita-1 expressed her surprise that Megatron would commit such atrocities, but Megatron deflected all fault by blaming it on Prime. Later, Megatron met with Elita-1 and tried to convince her to help lead the project; despite Megatron's intentions, however, Elita had no inclination to join with the Decepticon leader, citing their irreconcilable ideologies. Having learned nothing about why Megatron had begun harvesting his own men for resources, Megatron had Elita and her allies placed in the extraction tubes, to be fatally harvested... moments before Scrapface returned the favor he owed them by shutting down the power and helping them escape Megatron's citadel. The Decepticon guard Skytread, who'd developed a distaste for Megatron's ruthless actions, helped cover their escape. Earthrise episode 2 The Autobot-Decepticon alliance returned to Elita's base of operations, dodging Seeker patrols as they went and shooting down the fliers they couldn't avoid; when they returned to the theater, however, Scrapface received a Decepticon-wide transmission from Shockwave, who'd ordered all personnel to gather in Kaon Arena. Suspecting a trap, Elita announced that they would destroy the arena. The group arrived in the seemingly abandoned arena and began setting demolition charges; in doing so, however, Elita stumbled across a transmission from Doubledealer, revealing that the Merceanries had stumbled across the Ark in deep space. When she realized that Shockwave had been spying on her using newly-developed cloaking technology, she bluffed him into attacking prematurely by lying that she'd prepped the Guardians for a full-scale assault. In the ensuing battle, Shockwave, who'd boosted his strength by sapping the energon of his comrades, successfully overpowered the Autobot leader and strapped her to a table, ready to take her spark as well. When Shockwave left the room, Elita attempted to free herself; however, at that moment, the massed explosives finally detonated, destroying the entire arena and killing everyone inside. After catching up with Optimus's ship over Nebulon Station, Megatron casually admitted that Elita had probably died after refusing to join forces with him. While traversing the Dead Universe with Sky Lynx, Optimus had a vision of Elita dying later, while he and the Maximals searched for the Allspark on prehistoric Earth, the artifact interacted with Optimus by taking Elita's form. Upon returning to Cybertron many years later, Optimus discovered Elita's dead body in a snowdrift. Briefly overwhelmed by grief, Bumblebee reminded Optimus that the only way they could honor her sacrifice was by returning the Allspark to its rightful place within the Temple of the Allspark. When Bumblebee placed the Allspark atop its plinth, its activation summoned the spirits of many Cybertronians who had perished in the war, including Elita-1. Elita materialized in time to rescue Optimus, striking down both Nemesis Prime and Galvatron and banishing them back to the void from whence they'd come. As Cybertron returned to life and the various spirits departed, Elita took a moment to assure Prime that he'd made the best choice, and that she would always love him.
