Chapter 1
Notes:
Am I trying to get through writer's block by jumping into another fic and fandom? Maaaybe. I have a complete outline for this one and about 25k words written already, I swear!
I chose an original continuity soup/AU for the visiting Megs and OP because it has been quite some time since I had the chance to read the IDW comics, so my memories of the details are too hazy to be relied on to follow a more canon compliant verse. I have a few sketches I hope to clean up about what they look like eventually, but there are touches of the comics and TFP in there. What you should know about them up front... they made peace in their universe after an incredibly long war, they are Conjunxed (the word followed by a dozen asterisks and the caveat that "it's really complicated") and they have been stuck in this timeline for some time before they made it to Iacon and stumbled onto Dee and Orion.
The main PoV is D-16.
[These sections are from MegOP's private, quadruple encrypted text chat.]
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
D-16 has a sixth sense (or rather a dedicated analytical subroutine) to determine when Orion needs to be bailed out of trouble, which is not nearly as impressive as it sounds, because Orion is almost always in trouble or in the process of getting into trouble.
All the same, his rescue plan this time is excellent, if he does say so himself. He has Orion stashed away in the container and the enforcers distracted when suddenly one of them notices something behind D-16 and staggers backwards, knocking the container over with a careless kick. It sends Orion tumbling back out onto the ground, right in front of the enforcers.
“You—?!”
“What is going on here?”
A shadow falls over D-16 and when he dares to risk glancing back, there are two mechs behind him, both of them big enough to dwarf even the enforcers, bigger than anyone he has ever encountered in person. Their construction is strange, their shapes far smoother and more rounded than any transformer he has ever seen, the frames lit up by slowly pulsing biolights. One is a bold red and blue, lanky in the way that’s rare to see even in cogless, his face covered by a mask. The other one is shining silver accented with harsh, matte blacks, his biolights a fierce red. There is a thick, black cable thrown over his shoulder, originating somewhere in his back kibble; some kind of connector for specialized equipment, if D-16 can hazard a guess. Just as strange as the rest of their frames are their eerie, blank optics, the colored glass too opaque to make out the mechanical iris. It reminds D-16 of the visor upgrades some of his fellow miners opted into, the durable material sacrificing clarity of expression for a lower chance of injury.
“What is it to you? We have business with the miners, move along!”
“Miners?” the blue and red one rumbles, his voice calm. D-16 has a feeling that he’s being measured up. “What a coincidence. I am the new site overseer. If they have caused trouble, let me deal with them. I like making a strong first impression.” His facemask retracts, revealing his scarred mouth and his smile is promising all kinds of unpleasant things D-16 would rather not think about right now.
Darkwing still tries to muster up his usual level of authority, no doubt eager to pound Orion into scrap. He jabs an accusing finger towards the mech covering on the ground.
“That cogless cretin broke into Iacon library! It is our jurisdiction to punish him!” He clearly has more to say, but the silver mech takes a thundering step forward. He is massive, even bigger than his companion, and when he bares his teeth they are sharpened into fangs.
The enforcers take another stumbling step back. The blue and red bot simply places a hand on the silver one’s arm, as if that would be enough to restrain him. “Don’t mind him, he is easily agitated, but he is entirely under my control. He’s a new mining prototype, you see,” the mech goes on in a conversational tone. “The higher ups are not happy with the productivity of the cogless. If this test run goes well, one of him could replace hundreds of them.” D-16 can practically feel that unreadable gaze scan him. “I wonder what will become of them when they won’t even provide this much use to our society?”
The enforcers don’t have an answer, but the bot clearly doesn’t expect one anyway. He allows them to stammer out some excuse and then beat a hasty retreat, not convinced that the overseer can — or would — stop the giant miner mech from ripping them apart.
Which leaves Orion and D-16 alone — for a given degree of ‘alone’ that can happen in a public space, which is far more than you’d think and far less than you’d hope, depending on what is happening — with their new overseer and his… friend? Employee? Slave?
He’s not stupid, he can read between the lines and the silver mech is clearly not actually a mining model, lacking the heavy threads and frame-mounted excavation equipment that used to mark the miners of old, before their energon requirements made the specialized mining frames too inefficient and they were replaced by the cogless. A convict, most likely, someone pressed into heavy physical labor to cover his energon requirements until he has served his sentence and the red and blue one is his handler. He resists the urge to ask about it. It would not be his place. He cycles air through his vents to cool his overheating internal components instead and gathers his wits to make a sparkfelt attempt at groveling.
“Sir, please forgive my friend, he is—”
“Can it.” D-16 shuts up so quickly that his vocalizer makes an unpleasant electronic whine that leaves his throat stinging. It takes him a moment to kick the panic subroutine that started up at the hostile tone before he realizes that the deep, rumbling voice came from the silver mech. “You are not going to be punished. We stepped in because those two enforcers seemed eager to escalate matters and we can’t stand violent thugs. Isn’t that right, Optimus?”
“Right.” D-16 still can’t read those strange optics, but as he watches Optimus’ (?) expression softens, becoming kind and welcoming despite the gruesome scar that distorts the line of his mouth. As D-16 fights his confusion at the sight, he feels a wave of warmth wash over him, almost like the big mech is radiating a calming energy. “You don’t have to fear us, little ones.”
For some unfathomable reason his danger subroutines fall offline in an instant, relief flooding his systems. “Thank you, sirs! We are sorry that you had to step in, I swear it won't happen again.”
He helps Orion up, the most subservient smile plastered on his face that he can muster. He knows his place and just because these two new bots scared off the enforcers, it doesn't mean he can let down his guard and act overly familiar with his superiors.
“The enforcer said your friend sneaked into the archives,” Optimus says just as D-16 is about to drag Orion away.
Oh, here we go. Letting them get away without scrutiny would have been too much to ask for.
“Yes, sir.”
“It didn't sound like this was the first time that happened.”
“No, sir,” D-16 admits with some reluctance.
“You are not in trouble,” Optimus reassures them, his voice gentle and sincere. D-16 disagrees, but knows better than to say so. “But I do have to wonder why he would take such a risk, even knowing the possible consequences.”
Orion clears his throat, despite no debris obstructing his voicebox; a low-caste gesture that he wishes to speak. “Sir, I know Sentinel Prime is searching tirelessly for the Matrix of Leadership, but I thought— if there is one place where there might be a clue that Sentinel Prime has overlooked, it would be in the archives, and nobody is checking those old records so…” he trails off, at a loss for words for once in his lifetime.
The big mechs stare at him for a long time before the silver one finally asks:
“Why is it so important to you in particular that the Matrix is found?” He doesn't sound disapproving, merely… puzzled.
“Wouldn’t it be better for everybody if energon flowed free once again and we didn’t have to mine for it?” Orion asks in turn, his expression mirroring the overseer’s. Oh no, says a warning subroutine that immediately jumps to the forefront of D-16’s awareness and gives itself maximum priority the moment Orion starts opening his mouth again. Orion is about to dangerously overshare with two superior mechs!
D-16 kicks the back of his shin before he could go on. Hard. “We are, of course, very grateful for the opportunity to work producing the energon that feeds everyone in the city and speaking of, our shift is starting soon and we should be going now right Pax?”
Cycles of experience letting D-16 drag his skidplate out of all sorts of trouble conditioned Orion Pax to play along when D-16 is using a specific tone of voice. Today he weakly manages a “Right…” as D-16 starts bodily dragging him away.
D-16 keeps his peripheral sensors trailed on the big mechs until they get on the train, just in case, but they make no move to stop them. They head to a different compartment, clearly not invested enough to confront them over running away, but he only relaxes fully when the doors close behind them and the train takes off.
Crisis averted. He shoves the uncomfortable memories of the morning into his archives and turns his attention to Orion, who's complaining about the details of his rescue as always.
This is fine. This is familiar. A return to the norm and D-16 wants nothing more than for every day to be just the same: normal, boring, safe .
Except… he glances down at the Megatronus decal Orion got him. He won’t admit that Orion’s reckless trouble seeking might have a point, but he can be bribed not to keep harping on the subject and Orion always finds just the right thing to bribe him with. Thus placated, he turns his thoughts towards their upcoming shift, the big mechs all but forgotten by the time they disembark at the mine.
[Do you think I came on too strong?]
[What you said would have been perfectly possible on our Cybertron.]
[I know, but we don’t know how mechs work here.]
[They believed it, so I’m going to say that we are in the clear.]
[I hope you are correct.]
[I am. Anyway, the one that looks like you said that the Matrix will ‘make energon flow again’. Have you felt anything from your trinket?]
[Not even a twitch, but it might not mean anything. It has been inert since we used it to reignite Vector Sigma at the end of the war and for all we know, it could be a key that needs to activate something in a specific place.]
[Spare me the lecture.]
[...]
[...]
[Are you not going to comment on it that they are us at all?]
[I have optics, Prime. It was impossible to miss, but I admit I’m more preoccupied with their configuration.]
[I can understand that. It sounds ill-advised to force fragile mechs who can’t transform into mining.]
[That’s not what I mean. Have you not noticed it?]
[Unless you are referring to the morbid hole they have where the spark chamber would be on our frames, apparently not.]
[Their sparks are behind that empty slot. Not very well protected, but they are not soulless.]
[Really?]
[Really. They have spark signatures so strong it’s giving me a headache, even with my helmet on. I need to recalibrate my sensors when we get a calm moment. How are you such an idiot, Prime?]
[I try to live up to your expectations. Do enlighten me, I believe we are nearing our destination.]
[Their plating, Prime. It’s not forged and integrated afterwards like yours or mine. They are made entirely of sentio metallico.]
[Primus help me… even the enforcers?]
[All that I could see. So you can rest easy that if we do get found out, we can fight our way out without effort because they will fold like wet cardboard.]
[I know you meant that to be reassuring, but I’m letting you know that it’s really not.]
[Prime?]
[Yes, Megatron?]
[Shut the frag up.]
D-16 is back in his usual, productive mindset by the time he starts getting ready for his shift — checking in, picking up his jetpack, forwarding his report of the equipment he repaired during his downtime — so he almost forgets about the big bots until he spots them again. The mining mech is talking to some of the other supervisors, gathering information about their standard order of operation while Optimus stands in front of a recently destabilized ore channel, staring pensively into the glowing depths as it slowly knits itself back together, like a healing wound.
[Did our Cybertron do this? I don’t remember our Cybertron ever doing this.]
[No, Prime, our Cybertron doesn’t have an adaptable crust.]
[You still appear to be in your element, despite that.]
[Cybertron doesn’t, but it has moons that do. I worked on some.]
[Not Luna-1 or Luna-2, surely? I know we never authorized mining for fear of disrupting the hotspot generation.]
[Not the primary moons. The small ones.]
[Oh, you mean the Minoras.]
[I was stationed on Minora-44 while they were testing my model. Getting us deliberately crushed in one of those collapsing tunnels was the cheapest way to see how durable our plating was. Far cheaper than simulating our intended work conditions in a lab.]
[I somehow doubt that these little mechs can withstand the same pressure.]
[They are made of protometal, Prime. What do you think?]
[I think we need to remove them from these dangerous conditions.]
[I’m working on it.]
“What is he doing?” Orion asks, appearing suddenly next to him, and D-16 doesn’t jump, thank you very much. If his fuel pump stalls from the surprise it’s between him and Primus and nobody else needs to know.
He still gives Orion a shove, just because he can. “I told you not to sneak up on me like that!”
“All right, all right, but really, what is he doing?”
D-16 turns back towards the center of the prep area. The grey and black one — he thinks he looks a little bit like him, just a little, he even has that cool engraving of Megatronus Prime’s iconic helm which is honestly a next level of fandom even compared to him — had stomped to the middle of the chamber, dimmed his optics and then, with the hiss of hidden latches unlocking, took off his helmet. What unfolded from beneath the insulated metal was a crown of sensory panels the likes of which D-16 has never seen before and now the mech stands almost completely still with his optics fully offline, only shifting his head a little bit every other klik or so.
“Prospecting, I think.” It was possible to scan for energon — that was how it was initially determined where the mines should be opened, after all — but the instruments were so delicate and expensive that nobody ever bothered to do a scan unless an area ran completely dry, which hasn’t happened to their mine yet. He has never heard of mecha possessing a personal sensor array sensitive enough to get a decent read through the ever shifting sediment layers, but he can think of no other explanation. “Don’t stare or we’ll get in trouble!” He shoves Orion again, just for good measure. “Come on! If we hurry, we can help with inventory before the next ore channel opens up and Elita-1 might put in a good word for me in the next promotion cycle.”
Everyone knows Elita-1 is close to being promoted to supervisor (it would be difficult not to; she talks about it incessantly) and when that happens… Well, D-16 has somehow managed to maintain a perfect record, despite his association with Orion and his constant mischief. Let a mech dream, okay?
“Whatever you say, Dee. Let’s get some extra credits towards your promotion to team leader.”
They are returning to pick up their gear and join Elita-1 when they see the mechs again, this time surrounded by several team captains. There is a lot of yelling going on.
D-16, despite his better judgment, follows Orion and joins the crowd of onlookers.
“...I don't care if your buddy can dig out that hole all on his own, we are not going to start messing up a perfectly good prep chamber chasing a daydream!” Elita-1 is yelling at Optimus, undeterred by how much bigger the overseer is compared to her. “We don't have the right permissions to open up another layer until this one is depleted!”
“But it is depleted!” the grey mech growls from behind Optimus, his helmet securely on his head once again. “It's only unstable slag and what little energon the moving crust scrapes up from the static layers. If you keep to this sector as long as you find any energon, then you will be here forever because it's impossible to remove every fragment from a layer that keeps stirring itself up in perpetuity.”
D-16 should take Elita’s side on principle, but he can see the truth in the mining mech’s words. When he started out here there were still big pockets of energon to be mined, treasure troves that required every available miner because they had to be recovered before the channels closed and the shifting rock fractured them into small chunks that were much more time consuming and dangerous to mine. He hasn't seen one of those in… Primus, close to twenty cycles.
Have they been mining for crumbs in an empty layer all this time?
“I trust Megaton’s readings,” Optimus says, his voice washing over them like a wave of warm oil. “You have all seen his data. Following his instructions, in half a shift’s time you can reach a new, stable energon vein that would feed Iacon city for the next decacycle. Less, if you utilize whatever machinery you used to dig this chamber out.” Seeing that Elita is still not convinced, he lowers his voice to a conspiratory stage whisper. “Imagine how impressed Sentinel Prime would be if you presented him with such a bounty upon his return. An accomplishment like that could easily net an ambitious team captain a promotion, no?”
Elita-1 resists for a whole entire klik, but D-16 knows it was a lost cause the moment she heard ‘promotion’. “Very well,” she grits out. “Half a shift, not a klik longer! And if we don’t find that energon vein of yours, I will petition to have the two of you removed from this operation.”
Optimus, unphased by her threat, smiles down at her. “We won’t let you down. I promise.”
Notes:
I haven't written for TF in... almost a decade, holy shit. So I feel really rusty, but there is something comforting in returning to an old fandom. I would be delighted to know your thoughts on the story so far or if you have any questions at all; I have a lot of notes on background worldbuilding that won't make it into the fic proper that I'm thinking about sharing in the end notes, if there's interest in that sort of thing.
Chapter 2
Notes:
I was overwhelmed by the positive reaction the first chapter got, so here's chapter two a bit early. I don't have a planned posting schedule, so I will probably post the next chapters as I write/edit them. Please enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
[I can't believe that you convinced me to call myself Megaton. After all the time I spent to get it into people’s heads that I'm-]
[Megatron with an R. Yes, I remember. Where did you get your original designation anyway? D-16, I mean. I don’t think you ever told me.]
[In the mines. Where else?]
[Let me rephrase that. How did you get your designation? You are a bit too unique for it to be a serial number.]
[What, you can’t believe that they would create dozens of deep mining units with top of the line sensor arrays?]
[I’m not completely clueless about mining, you know.]
[Are you really?]
[...I asked Ironhide after you first showed me your sensor crown. He said they only ever kept one or two of your specialized frametype around, depending on the size of the operation.]
[We had two for each brigade. We took turns mining and scanning during our shifts to even out the physical and mental toll.]
[That sounds like a very big operation.]
[Five brigades of seventy mechs each, working three shifts, and we were still short on workers more often than not. I was number 16 in brigade D, hence: D-16.]
[How do you split up three shifts between five brigades?]
[Four brigades were underground. Three of them were active in a work cycle and one standing by in case a cave-in had to be dug out or one of the other brigades needed replacement mechs. The fifth was up on the surface for repairs, upgrades and to have their ranks filled before going back down.]
[Sounds like a miserable way to live, having to spend most of your existence underground.]
[Oh, spare me your pity. It wasn’t that bad. During our surface shift we could even go to the city and experience all the wonders of Kaon we could afford.]
[I really need to take up Soundwave on his offer to install those advanced text comms once we get home. Without the extended glyphs I can’t tell if you are serious or not.]
[It was hell, Prime. We were no more than living tools in their eyes. If we didn’t require frequent repairs they would have never let us up on the surface. Zeta Prime had us digging too deep and too fast to supply his technological expansion with rare materials and when the structural integrity got so bad that a bigger quake collapsed the primary access shaft, he simply cut his losses and didn’t waste his resources on trying to dig anybody out. Not that there would have been any point. Even my armor couldn’t have withstood if the entire mine came down on top of me. The only reason I hadn’t died there, buried under seventy layers of planetary crust, was because my brigade happened to be on the surface at the time.]
[I know this doesn’t make it any better, but for what it’s worth: I’m sorry, Megatron.]
[It’s all right, Prime. It happened a very long time ago.]
“We don’t use these much, because they run on energon,” D-16 explains to Megaton as they approach the excavation units, all parked neatly in one row in a side chamber. “They need some energon even when not in use, because the remote control unit is Pit to repair if it ever turns off, but they are worth it when we need to dig out new chambers.”
He steps next to the first massive green and purple excavator and gestures for Megaton to hand him a big canister of liquid energon.
“So they are nonsentient machinery?” Megaton asks, eyeing the excavator with open suspicion. His apprehension appears just as infectious as Optimus’ calm, enkindling a spark of anxiety in D-16. “Wouldn't it be safer to drive them manually, then?”
“We used to do that, until they trained Prowl to operate them remotely. I don't know how exactly that works,” D-16 admits as he starts pouring energon into the machine’s almost empty tank. “But I think they were always meant to function like that. The mech who led the team before Elita-1 said that it used to be someone called Scrapper who controlled them. He was the same color as them, almost the same size too, so I think they were made for him specifically. Then one day there was some kind of incident on the surface and he got sent up there with the construction machinery and never came back.”
Megaton doesn't look convinced. He places down the crate with the energon canisters and with one smooth movement hauls himself up into the cab.
D-16 can't tell what he's doing up there, but he doesn't turn the machine on so it's not his problem. Megaton hops back down before the canister is drained completely, his expression closed off, but D-16 gets it. Sure, there are nonsentient trains and heavy transports in the city that everybody is used to, but it's still unsettling to see this kind of specialized equipment and realize that it's not alive. Especially the kind that runs on energon. Something about them makes a mech feel like they should be alive, you know?
“Come on. This will go faster if we split up and the sooner we get ready, the happier Elita-1 will be.”
Megaton huffs. “Is she ever happy?”
“No,” D-16 admits after a beat. “But she's going to be ballistic if this doesn't work out and we miss the quota for the shift.”
Megaton pats D-16’s shoulder, his hand heavy and reassuring. “No matter what happens, I won’t let her yell at you. All right, kid?”
D-16 bristles. “I’m not a kid! I’m 37 cycles old, I didn't roll off the assembly line yesterday!”
Despite the opaque red glass, he can tell that Megaton’s optics have reset in shock. He gapes at D-16 for a long, awkward klik before he bursts out laughing. “Unicron smelt me down, you are younger than I thought!”
“Well, how old are you?” D-16 asks, a little offended that he’s being laughed at.
“Where would be fun in telling you? Guess, little one.”
D-16 doesn’t rise to the bait, but he can’t fully rein his curiosity in. “If you are that much older than me, then you have been alive before the fall of the Primes! Have you ever seen a Quintesson? Have you—” He catches himself before his enthusiasm could get away with him, forcing his voice to regain its calm. “Have you ever met Megatronus Prime?”
Megaton raises a brow ridge at him.
“Megatronus Prime? Where is this question coming from?”
“You are wearing his mark.” D-16 taps his own shoulder where Orion has stuck the decal. He still gets a sort of fizzy, bubbly feeling in his lines every time he thinks about it.
Megaton looks down at his own chest, brushes the hanging cable out of the way and traces a claw over the engraving. “Ah. I suppose I am. It has been part of my frame for so long that I find myself forgetting not everyone wears an insignia like it. He was quite the inspiring figure, wasn’t he?”
“The greatest Prime to ever live! I have watched all the historical holos on his battles and achievements multiple times. No other warrior can compare to him!”
D-16 is almost certain that his optics are sparkling with enthusiasm, but he can’t help it. This is the first time he’s met another fan of Megatronus. Not to say that others dismiss his achievements, far from it, but the bots in Iacon are much more likely to revere the regal Zeta Prime or the graceful, beautiful Prima Prime.
Megaton smiles fondly down at him and D-16 finds himself suddenly self conscious about his enthusiasm. “Anyway, yeah. I’m a fan. Have always been. I may have hoped that you share my appreciation for Megatronus, since… you know.“
“Let’s finish this first. Invite me for a drink during your next off shift and I will tell you all about how I came to wear this insignia,” Megaton promises, picking up the crate of energon like it weighs nothing.
“Yeah, I can do that. Sounds, uhm. Sounds good. Yeah…” It sounds like something friends would do — or, at the very least, like something mechs who might want to be friends would do — and D-16 doesn’t know what to do with the sudden tingling warmth he feels around his chest. Ever since transferring to the energon mines he only ever had Orion as a friend, so the prospect of having a second one is…
He shakes himself and shunts the entire thought process to the back of his processing queue. There is work to be done and he can’t be distracted, thinking ahead to his post-shift drink. He can’t. That’s the sort of thing that leads to distraction and distraction gets bots killed. It’s exactly what got Terminus killed and even now, 30 cycles later, that loss still stings.
He can't let that happen. He can't make Orion go through the same grief he did. So he focuses on the task at hand, on work, on staying safe. Let Orion be reckless and carefree, because D-16 knows better and he will keep them both safe.
It's the only way.
[Do not be alarmed.]
[I wasn't until you sent me that message. Now I am extremely alarmed. What did you find, Megatron?]
[The Constructicons are here. They told me some very interesting things, but…]
[But? Please don’t leave me hanging.]
[The Quintesson aren't gone, according to Hook. Casualties were so high that after the death of the other Primes Sentinel made some kind of deal to buy a ceasefire. Hook wasn't certain about the details, but the Quintessons still fired on Devastator and killed Scrapper when they were installing the solar generators we have seen on the way to the city.]
[That must have been a huge blow to the gestalt consciousness.]
[It was. Someone made the executive decision to install Prowl as a replacement when they started to really degrade, but the Cons are still alt mode locked from grief.]
[Primus… I gather they are the ‘construction equipment’ I requested?]
[Indeed. I'm telling you now so you don't get shocked when you see them. You might also want to go and work your charm on Prowl and find out for us if he knows that he's in a gestalt bond with living mechs or ate up the party line that he's remote operating a set of advanced drones.]
[Understood. I'll let you know what I find.]
It's not that D-16 expected Megaton to be wrong as such, but he still feels his shoulders sagging with relief when they finally break through the last layer and find energon — pure, vibrant blue crystals taller than him growing untainted in an air pocket, the atmosphere inside so thick with energon fumes that they have to withdraw and let the natural ventilation of the caves thin them out or risk overcharging from the air alone.
“Would you look at that, you were correct,” Elita-1 admits, eyeing Megaton and Optimus. Optimus has transformed into vehicle mode, turning out to be some kind of heavy transport despite his lanky root mode, and Megaton glances up from where he is loading Optimus’ trailer with crystal samples to give her a questioning look. “I owe you an apology. This haul was worth taking a risk for.”
“This whole operation was entirely by the books, I assure you,” Megaton huffs, energon fumes streaming from his vents. Being so much bigger than the nocog bots, he isn't affected by the fumes at all, the lucky fragger. “I have taken plenty of chances in my life, but in the mines every regulation was written with the lifeblood of mechs who didn't make it. This is neither the time nor place to take risks.”
He closes the trailer door and taps it twice to signal to Optimus that he can get going, then walks behind the hauler as Optimus starts slowly inching his way up the ramp of their makeshift access shaft.
D-16 stares after him for a long moment, feeling conflicted. Since they can't start mining until the new chamber is fully ventilated, the overseers gave them the rest of the shift off. He could remind Megaton of that story he promised in exchange for a drink.
His better sense, however, is telling him to let it go, to stay away from the big mech. Megaton went against protocol, rocked the boat, but he was big and he had a cog, so he got away with it. He simply turned his eerie eyes on people and crossed his massive arms and the people fell in line, intimidated. For someone like D-16, only ruin lies down the path of associating with someone like Megaton.
“New crush?” D-16 jumps and violently shoves at Orion who has appeared out of nowhere right behind his right shoulder. Orion stumbles, but he must have expected this reaction because he's still grinning. “You are staring at him very intensely, Dee.”
“I'm not! You are seeing things!” Orion’s smile grows a fraction wider. “I wouldn't want to date Megaton if he was the last mech in Iacon city,” he says with some vehemence.
“Okay, that's good, because you would look really weird together.”
“Yeah, sure. A nocog and a criminal together would go down great .”
“That's not what I meant. You two look…” Orion hesitates, his optics flicking from D-16 to Megaton in the distance and back. “You two look very similar.”
“Riiight. You should get your optics checked, Pax. You are seeing things.”
“I'm serious! Silver and black color, similar head shape, a tendency to glare and glover, Megatronus fans…”
“Does hanging out with a blue and red bot whose name starts with O also make us similar?” D-16 asks, completely unconvinced. “And you saw him earlier, that's just a helmet. My head is really shaped like this.”
“I'm serious here, Dee. The others have noticed too. If you had a t-cog you would be in the same weight class as him, too, you remember that quiz we took.”
“That quiz is just some funny nonsense with no grounding in reality, because bots like us don't get cogs.” A traitorous voice in his head reminds him that they technically can receive cogs. Prowl got a cog after he was promoted to his current position: the late Scrapper’s t-cog, because that was the only way to link him to the excavators. It was not a good change for the mech; he became strange and withdrawn, distanced himself from his cogless friends. He claimed that someone was talking to him on a private comm channel, but nobody could access it other than him, so it made him appear haunted or glitched whenever he snapped at thin air to shut up. “Anyway, it's not important. Come on; I heard that they opened up a tank of high grade for us to celebrate the new vein and I want a cube before only sludge remains.”
Orion lights up at the prospect of high grade, his earlier teasing quickly forgotten.
They are lounging around in the rest area of the barracks, discussing Sentinel’s announcement and slowly sipping very small, but very potent cubes of bittersweet high grade when D-16 hears the chime of a comm. Distracted, he accepts without checking the ID.
He almost drops his half-empty cube when a set of glyphs appear in the middle of his field of view.
[Hello, D-16. I hope I’m not bothering you.]
“Who- how?” He usually ignores his HUD altogether — the only important bits of information it displays are the current time and his fuel gauge, after all — so it takes him a few moments to will the message to the side where he can still read it, but it doesn’t fully obscure his vision.
[It’s Optimus. I’m going to make a guess that text based comms are not common here? They are considered more secure than direct voice messages where I am from.]
He must be making quite the face, because Orion abandons his conversation with Jazz and Arcee to check on him.
“I didn’t even know I could receive text messages. Or send them.” He gestures I’m fine at Orion before his friend can get really worried. “ Can I send text messages?”
[Probably not without a software update. It is of no consequence, I can hear you loud and clear.]
“All right… What can I do for you, Optimus, sir?”
[I called on Megaton’s behalf. He was looking forward to spending time with you in the off-shift, but I’m afraid I have a task for him today that can’t be delayed.]
[He wanted to tell you himself, but he missed his chance in person and his comm capabilities are limited.]
“I see. Thank you for letting me know.” Their shiftmates are starting to gather around him, curious. It’s not often that a supervisor bothers to directly call a cogless nobody, after all. The attention - or maybe the high grade - makes him a little bit reckless. “Sir, I was wondering about something.”
[Yes?]
“You are Megaton’s parole officer, correct?” It’s the only explanation that makes sense, between the limited comms, Optimus’ control over Megaton and the fact that he’s doing grunt work despite being a transformer.
[Not the expression I would use, but something like that, yes.]
“We will not get in trouble for talking to him, right? We are not breaking any rules.”
It takes Optimus longer to reply, long enough that D-16 is starting to feel anxious.
[I won’t let you get in trouble. If you feel like spending time with him, I encourage you to do so. I believe it would be beneficial for both of you.]
It doesn’t sound quite right, that answer, but D-16 can’t quite put his finger on why. So he does the same he always does in situations like this: shoves it to the far recesses of his processor and tries to roll with the situation to the best of his ability. “Thank you, sir. That’s very reassuring to hear.”
[Enjoy your off-shift, D-16. And I know it is easier said than done, but please try not to let that charming friend of yours drag you into trouble.]
Without tone indicators it’s impossible to tell if this is well-meaning advice or an unsubtle threat, so D-16 chooses to thread carefully.
“You too, sir! I’ll try my best.”
He cycles a calming breath through his vents after he terminates the connection. He doesn’t know what to make of any of this, not really, but he impulsively takes that last message and pins it to the corner of his HUD and keeps glancing at it even as he powers down for the rest cycle.
Try not to let that charming friend of yours drag you into trouble .
Might as well be the story of his life.
Notes:
Last chapter somebody asked why the miners are so casual around Megs and OP, so I thought to elaborate on that a little bit.
First off, even in the movie they aren't... exactly the picture of politeness to the transformers unless they are actively in trouble and trying to suck up/defuse the situation (D-16 to the enforcers) or it's someone they personally respect (Sentinel's hospital visit). Here in the fic there is also the limitation of the PoV at play; D-16 is busy staying in his lane, so he only notices Megs and OP in passing when they are doing something unusual. There was a whole introduction/conversation that happened between the two and the actual overseers and team leaders that he's not privy to because he was elsewhere or wasn't paying attention.
As for where Megs and OP fall in the social hierarchy... they lied to Darkwing that OP is a mine overseer because that was the fastest way to get them to leave D-16 and Orion alone, but that lie wouldn't fly in the mines proper where there's documentation and protocol around that sort of thing. So, instead, they are halfheartedly posing as a criminal out on probation and his parole/rehabilitation officer which would be rare, but not unheard of. The cogless are technically free mechs, which in theory places them above an inmate in terms of social rank, even one with a cog. In practice: they are considered bottom of the barrel and so are convicts, if Megs doesn't act like he's better than them then they will be cordial to him in turn.
OP is a little trickier, since he is a transformer in a higher position of power, but he only has direct command over and responsibility for Megs. He can put up an argument using Megatron's (demonstrable) knowledge and experience on how to proceed with the mining operation, but it's not his field of expertise and he has no actual control over the mine staff. They will be decent/polite to him, because he's a higher caste mech who is also very agreeable and polite to them, but they are not obligated to follow his instructions or even take anything he says into account. Imagine if any transformer could just waltz in - a clerk or a radio technician or a racer - and tell them how to run their mine. It would be a mess.
I hope that makes sense? Anyway, hi, hello, my middle name is Overthinking and I hope you are enjoying the fic! 💕
Chapter 3
Notes:
It would be smart of me to pace these, because writing a chapter is much slower than editing one and I will be forced to slow down with posting eventually, but there are a few already written bits I'm really excited to get to, so you will get a few more quick updates before that. Please enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Elita-1!” Orion waves and shoves his way through the crowd to their boss, dragging D-16 behind him. “I didn’t expect to see you here, captain.”
Elita turns towards them, annoyance flicking through her optics. “That’s supervisor Elita-1 for you, Pax.” She gestures at her new ID, all but bursting with pride.
“Congratulations, supervisor Elita, sir! If someone deserves that promotion it is you.”
“All right, that’s enough flattery. You are really bad at this, you know.” Despite her words she looks pleased like a turbofox with a plate of energon jelly. “Well, now that I have my well-earned rank, someone has to take over my previous role as team captain and I think I know the best bot for the job.” She gives D-16 a meaningful look. He has never been into femmes, but that look makes his spark flutter. “Optimus put in a good word for you too.” Elita gestures towards the side and D-16 follows the motion to two familiar figures. Just on the edge of the crowd walk Optimus and Megaton, the latter holding his head in his hands, his expression pinched and his optics offline.
They let the flow of the people carry them to Megaton and Optimus, the blue and red bot carefully supporting the other as they too drift towards the arena. The cable that usually hangs uselessly over Megaton’s shoulder is plugged into a socket that has opened up on Optimus’ shoulder fairing, linking their systems together. The connection seems intimate in a way that makes D-16 want to avert his eyes and give them privacy.
“Is he all right?” Orion asks, his concern overriding his sense for proper etiquette.
“He will be. He turned his sensor range up yesterday and being surrounded by all these spark signatures gave him a processor ache, but it will pass once we are out of the crowd.” Optimus looks towards them briefly to flash a lopsided smile and give a nod of acknowledgement.
“You cogless need better frame insulation,” Megaton mumbles, but his optics turn on to a low, smouldering red. It’s strange that he doesn’t have protective shutters over his eyes, but it’s just one of the many strange design choices on his frame.
Optimus gives him a gentle shake to stop his grumbling, then turns back to D-16 and the others. “Good day to you, little ones. Are you excited to watch the race?”
“It’s the biggest race in Iacon! Of course we are.”
Even Elita-1 seems at least a little enthused. “A few of us — that is, Knock Out, Prowl and I — poured together the bonuses we got for discovering the new energon vein and rented one of the cheap private balconies. It’s going to be quieter and much less crowded than the stalls, if you want to join us there,” she offers magnanimously. It’s the least she can do for Optimus and Megaton, since they were the ones who actually discovered the vein, but she also turns towards D-16 and Orion. “You too, go-bots. I want to talk with D-16 about that captain position and even I know that you two are inseparable.”
Orion looks at them, hesitant, before he shakes his head. “I need to go do something first. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
He slips into the crowd before D-16 could stop and question him, there one moment and gone the next, a small nocog bot easily disappearing among the transformers.
D-16 has a bad feeling about this, but short of running after Orion Pax and hoping to catch him without drawing too much attention, he doesn’t have many options. He glances up at Megaton, one hand still on his head and his optics powered to their lowest setting and decides against asking him for help. Chances are he wouldn't be able to track Orion in the crowd even if he tried anyway.
With one last, anxious sigh he follows Elita-1 and the others, kicking his worries to the back of his processing queue. It won't last long, but maybe it will last just long enough that he can enjoy the opening ceremony before Orion eventually comes crashing in with another stupid plan he needs to be rescued from.
[I admit, with how similar our others look, I didn't expect this Sentinel to look completely different from ours. Not even the colors match.]
[...]
[You are staring very intensely. What’s on your mind?]
[I'm trying to identify his alt mode. I have several analytical subroutines to assess flight frames and he's not anything I recognize. Those gilded attachments aren't even functional wings! No flaps, slats, ailerons or spoilers on them; they are purely ornamental.]
[How does he fly, then?]
[Heel thrusters and medium strength antigravs. I felt them when he flew past us. It's impressive that he can maneuver so smoothly in the air, but I don't get the point why. This is not a functionist society, what's the point of pretending to be a flight frame?]
[I couldn't tell you, but I agree that it's suspicious. Maybe we could go back to the archives tonight and- look, it's starting!]
D-16 never considered himself a particularly social mech, struggling to connect with the other cogless they shared a dorm with except for Orion Pax, but he has to admit that maybe he just looked for company in the wrong places. Knock Out is the cogless medic assigned to their shift, but, being the cautious, rule-abiding sort who didn't get injured often and almost never seriously, D-16 never had a reason to talk to the mech before. He's only discovering now that the medic and his Conjux — Breakdown, from one of the other mining teams, who couldn't make it to watch the race in person for reasons Knock Out refused to share — both love the race as much as he does.
Prowl also admits, with an endearingly awkward and embarrassed tilt to his doorwings, that he too has found himself enamored with racing, but only since he received a cog. His vehicle mode, so new that he still surprises himself with his extra appendages sometimes as they flutter up and down according to his emotions, is an enforcer class pursuit vehicle and watching others race stimulates the parts of his programming that would chase after fleeing suspects if he didn’t spend most of his days in a hole with all the other miners.
Knock Out sprawls over the edge of the balcony with a happy smile and compares the mechs lining up to race with their predictions one last time. “The only thing that could make this better is if we could join the race too, but alas…” He sighs, his joy cooling just a little. “None of us would be racers even if we had cogs, anyhow. But it sure is nice to dream.”
That sentiment seems to summon Optimus who was talking to Prowl in a quiet voice before. “How do you know that? I was under the impression that your alt mode can't be determined if you don't have a cog.”
“Not in exact detail, no. Some of it is determined by the cog itself anyway and the power output, but you can make educated guesses from context clues and weight ratings.” Knock Out waves a hand. He has a surgeon’s or a tradesmech’s hands, thin digits with an extra joint for precision and to house an added sensory suite. “I have all the hallmarks of a medical transport, I'm afraid.”
“I think you have the spark of a racer,” Megaton says suddenly without taking his optics off Sentinel Prime. The Prime has that effect on mechs sometimes when they see him in person for the first time. “I can even picture it in my mind: a high speed racing frame in a bold red. Darkened windows, gold rims, sleek and elegant.” His lips twitch with amusement. “Sassy.”
There are specifics in his glyphs that paint an almost precise silhouette of a red racer in their minds and D-16 hears a horrible screeching noise from Knock Out, the base components of his unfinished engine unit grinding against each other in surprise. The medic winces from the pain and rubs a soothing hand over his off-white chestplate and the peeling red tape of his medic markings, but his optics are nova-bright; he clearly likes the mental image a lot. “You think so?” he asks reverently, as if the mech could speak that dream into reality.
“I'm certain.” Megaton sounds certain all right, as if it was a done deal already and not just a nice daydream.
D-16 wants to know where that certainty is coming from and if there’s some similar pleasant dream he might be willing to share with D-16 as well, but Sentinel Prime announces the start of the race and there’s no time. There will be time to ask him later , he thinks, accepts a cheap energon goodie from Knock Out and turns towards the starting line.
Then Orion drops into the race in the most literal sense of the word and it all goes to scrap.
I really need a new best friend, D-16 thinks in dismay as Orion’s latest idiocy captures every optic in Iacon. His risk assessment system takes one look at the situation and returns an error; if Orion survives he’s going to be in unimaginable trouble. If he survives, the risk assessment system offers up in one last fit of spite before it turns off.
“He’s doing surprisingly well?” Knock Out suggests hesitantly. “He’s weaving around the hazards much better than many of the other contestants.”
“Of course he does.” D-16 is trying not to sound bitter, but his emotional systems offer a binary choice between resentment and terror and terror is never the right option. “He does this all the time! He has been chased by the enforcers all over Iacon city so many times I have stopped counting!”
It also helps Orion’s chances that he’s using a double jetpack, two units combined together that can lift even Lugnut who’s seven entire weight classes above D-16. For Orion’s relatively low weight it provides a speed that can almost overtake the flight frames jostling for the lead and the extra propulsion drags him through the early magnetic traps with ease, the obstacles barely slowing him down.
He brought two jetpacks because he wanted to drag me into this madness too, D-16 realizes and very quickly shunts the thought out of conscious processing, because calculating whether that would have been better or worse would short out his analytics subroutines and he can’t let that happen because at the end of this someone will still have to bail Orion Pax out of the trouble he got himself into and that someone is and has always been D-16.
There’s a sudden loud noise behind him that makes D-16 jump and spin around, staring at Megaton with wide optics. He can’t place the sound - he had enough up close encounters with angry enforcers thanks to Orion that he can tell it’s not an engine noise, at least - but it’s obviously an expression of frustration. “Megaton?”
“I’m not sitting by and letting that little fool get himself killed,” the big mech growls before he stomps away. He feels a flash of second-hand rage and frustration wash over him when Megaton passes him, like the mech’s emotions are leaking into the air. Optimus takes one look at D-16 and the others before he rushes after him, likely to stop him from doing something reckless and getting in trouble too.
The rest of them exchange a glance and stand on the edge of the balcony, staring at Orion's path on the screen with a mounting sense of helplessness. D-16 tries to ring his comm and so does Elita-1, but they are both summarily ignored as Orion Pax dodges and weaves his way through the obstacles and the grasping servos of other contestants with the expertise of someone who was never caught in a direct chase by even the most experienced enforcer, until it’s only the last long stretch to the finish line and Darkwing flying head to head with Orion, somehow, through some bitter twist of fate.
A straightforward sprint should favor a transformer over Orion, but he slams the combined jetpack into its highest setting, kicking wildly to maintain stability despite the sudden, uncontrollable burst of speed until his foot slams against Darkwing’s nosecone. The jet staggers for a moment before he comes back swinging, clearly aiming to knock Orion down by violently slamming into him at an angle when-
The screen shorts out as the camera drone is swallowed by an explosion. D-16 watches numbly, his world narrowed down to the static on the screen, the announcer frantically calling for medics and the sound of distant sirens.
Someone breaches the finish line, a grounder that’s neither Darkwing nor Orion and immediately pivots back to where she came from, rushing back to render assistance too and D-16’s head is filled with one glitched, looping thought even as Elita and Prowl try to shake him awake, get him to move from the spot where he’s collapsed on the floor, they need to go to Orion, they must, D-16 get up!
Primus, this can’t be happening again.
[You have miscalculated.]
[I have not. My targeting subroutines are second only to Perceptor’s.]
[Perhaps, but you usually shoot to kill.]
[Not this again…]
[All I’m saying is that it’s not without precedent for habitual combat subroutines to take over in a stressful situation…]
[I’m fully in control of whether I shoot to kill or shoot to maim. If I had any problems with my crisis protocols or my habitual combat subroutines, you would be dead.]
[...I’m not sure I follow.]
[Oh for the love of— this is not the time, Prime.]
[We are waiting in line at the hospital because you exploded a mech. Do you see us going anywhere any time soon?]
[FINE. We’ve been enemies for so long that I can’t internally flag you as ‘friendly’. I tried after the ceasefire. Repeatedly.]
[OH.]
[Don’t OH me, Prime. This shouldn’t be a shock.]
[But then… your nightmares. How come you never attack me?]
[Because with my kind of built-in firepower, the first thing my crisis protocols do is turn off my emotional processing and do a fresh threat analysis before my weapons initialize. No matter how distressing my nightmares are, as long as I don’t logically evaluate you as a threat worth firing at when I wake up, you are safe to recharge with me.]
[That sounds… rather horrible. And unhealthy. There’s no way disabling your emotional centers doesn’t interfere with trauma recovery.]
[Be that as it may, it’s a necessary safety feature, unless you fancy getting your head blown off next time I relive some of my many, many traumatic memories.]
[...so you didn’t shoot him dead as an involuntary stress response. Then why did he explode?]
[If I knew the answer to that, it would not have happened now, would it?]
The sense of unreality lingers as they are ushered into the medical ward, Knock Out’s status as a medic (albeit a low ranking one, being nocog and all), combined with Optimus’s and Megaton’s intimidating statures expediting their way in. D-16 thinks they might even have been allowed into a part of the hospital not usually open to visitors, a feeling that's further reinforced when two medibots wheel in Darkwing’s charred corpse and just stand there awkwardly, waiting for the elevator to take them down to the morgue.
D-16 stares at the pile of scrap that used to be Darkwing, fighting the urge to purge his tanks. The body is stuck in a half-transformation, its joints melted and preventing it from ever completing its last transformation sequence, the chestplates open and bending outwards as if they were melted and warped by a great force coming from within.
It would have been the most gruesome, morbid sight he'd ever seen if not for Terminus. It's unclear who was at fault for the accident — the supervisor who neglected taking scans, Terminus who was the captain of the crew and should have recognized the signs of an unstable passage or the overeager miner who caused the tunnel collapse in the first place — but the end result was catastrophic all the same: an acid pocket burst into the tunnel and drenched everyone who happened to be in there. Even worse, when the acid came into contact with the titanium ore they were mining for, it combined into a kind of sticky, highly corrosive slag almost instantly, creating an adhesive layer that was still concentrated enough to melt vital components and impossible to remove without special solvent to render the destructive chemicals inert.
D-16 unconsciously rubs his forearm, the sense memory returning so clearly he can almost feel the burning all over again. He was just getting off shift at the time, so he was part of the team who desperately tried to recover the miners caught in that collapse. Terminus was near the start of the tunnel, so he was one of the unlucky ones who didn't immediately die. D-16 found him lying in a pool of acid with his legs crushed under the rubble and carried him out of the tunnel even as Terminus melted alive in his arms. He remembers the numbness that spread through his chest when he placed Terminus down on the first patch of clean ground where he wouldn't get underfoot, right in front of the arriving overseer. Strika, her name was, and she took one long look at Terminus, then pressed her gun to the still intact half of his head and pulled the trigger. A mercy, in hindsight, but in the moment it felt incomprehensible to young D-16. His crisis management module perceived the events as failure - his failure - and promptly overheated. His memories of what followed never integrated well enough for him to recall beyond the occasional flash or distorted sound.
His first mostly clear memory was from the hospital a few days later, when a nurse very gently told him that they had to strip most of his paint because the acid that got on him from carrying Terminus ruined the top layers of his plating. He remembers staring down at his arms, at the unfamiliar, naked silver where the yellow and black hazard paint used to be, but he couldn't really see them. It didn’t feel real, at the time. Nothing did, not the officer telling him that he would be redirected to a different mining crew, not the nurses reassuring him that he would eventually make a full recovery, not the orange little therapist trying to help him make sense of a world that didn't have Terminus in it… he lost three whole cycles of his life to grief before he found his way back again.
It could have happened all over again, he thinks, staring at Darkwing’s body. If Orion was just a little closer to Darkwing when the explosion happened… cogless are made of the same metal as transformers, but not really , because the advanced self-repair that hardens their plating only initializes in the presence of a t-cog. His processor has no problem merging his memories of the dying Terminus, the dead Darkwing and Orion to cook up a vivid image of his friend melted into barely recognizable slag.
“Excuse me.” He has taken a step towards the medibots without conscious thought and there has to be a harrowing expression on his face, because they both look at him with open concern. “The nocog miner who sneaked into the race, he was close to Darkwing when- do you happen to know if he’s still alive?”
“Friend of yours?” asks the one on the right. Their expressions relax when D-16 nods, which soothes his worst fears before they even provide a proper answer.
“He got really lucky, that one,” the other medibot says. “Got away with a few dents and some surface level scratching. A new paintjob and he’ll be good as new.”
“I see. I—” D-16’s plating never took to new paint after the incident. The surface was compromised, there was nothing for the new paint nanites to bond to. He wants to thank the medibots for the information, but relief that Orion wouldn’t have to lose his colors like he did tangles his processes. Too many things queue up in his vocalizer at once and he can voice none of them as a result.
Suddenly there’s a big, reassuring hand on his back.
“Thank you for telling us. That is great news,” Optimus rumbles, inserting himself seamlessly into the situation. “If it’s not too much trouble, could you tell us where we might find him?”
The medibots direct them down a corridor and they end up crowded into a waiting room while doctor Ratchet tends to Orion. The waiting reawakens D-16’s anxiety in full force until Megaton sits next to him and bumps his shoulder with his elbow. “Chin up, little one. If this Ratchet is even one tenth as good a surgeon as the one we know, then Orion Pax is as good as fixed already. Isn’t that right, Optimus?”
Knock Out perks up at the mention of the doctor. “You know chief surgeon Ratchet?”
“Ah. Not this one, no,” Optimus says a little awkwardly. “It just so happens that my Amica is also a medic called Ratchet.” After a moment he adds, just a little hastily. “But we have heard quite the tales of the doctor’s skills and unbending ethics. I don’t doubt that young Orion Pax is in excellent hands.”
It’s not the same, of course. Just because two mechs are called the same it doesn’t mean they are anything alike, but somehow he can’t feel worried when Optimus and Megaton are certain that things are going to be fine.
Notes:
Well, this turned out to be a more... eventful chapter than the first two. I'm running on the assumption that if you a fan of the robots who do the ungodly long, very violent civil war then I don't really need to put up warnings for things like minor character death or violent imagery, but if it bothers anyone please let me know and I'll think of something.
Chapter Text
Chief Surgeon Ratchet turns out to be a stocky, grumpy transformer a few cycles younger than D-16, despite his well-earned title. The medic actually recognizes D-16 when he steps out of Orion Pax’s treatment room, stopping mid-grumble to stare at him. “You are that titanium miner who survived the acid burst.”
“Energon miner,” D-16 corrects automatically, falling back to a habit that has been dormant for decacyles. When he first transferred to his current mining crew he had to correct people all the time. “And I wasn’t in the acid burst.”
“Of course you weren’t. You would not be alive if you were.” Ratchet impatiently waves the topic away. “D-16, correct?”
“Yessir.” D-16 tries to identify Ratchet from his memories, but he wasn’t paying much attention to the medical staff at the time. “I admit I am surprised that you remember me, sir.”
“You were one of the first mechs I have ever treated.” He clears his primary air filter with a loud harrumph. “My mentor blamed it on your lack of responsiveness that my patient-facing personality modules never integrated properly, just so you know.”
D-16 is taken aback, uncertain what to make of this… accusation? But Knock Out bursts out laughing. “As if someone of your caliber needed to waste processing power on bedside manners.”
The comment reminds Ratchet that D-16 isn't alone and he slowly looks over the ragtag group. “Who are you people and what do you want here?”
Optimus clears his throat. “We are Orion Pax’s friends, concerned for his well being.” It would have been more believable if he wasn't a transformer claiming friendship with a nocog, but Ratchet narrows his eyes and scans the several (most likely illegal) modifications on Optimus’ frame and wisely decides that it's not his problem.
He rounds on Knock Out instead. “And you? This is not your usual crowd; they look far too upstanding to hang around you.”
The cogless medic spreads his arms in a dramatic shrug. “I’m just their ticket in. After all, I am a certified medic.”
“A sorry excuse for one, aye.” When Knock Out flinches Ratchet softens his voice and adds, “Through no fault of your own, I understand. Don’t take it to spark.”
The damage is already done, however. For a brief nanoklik Knock Out appears genuinely hurt before he covers it up with a lazy half-smirk and another shrug.
Out of guilt, or perhaps as a means to escape the sudden awkward silence, Ratchet allows them in with only a handful of half-sparked threats if they don't follow hospital protocol and then hastily excuses himself.
Orion is fine, considering how close he came to getting blown to slag. Most of the color was stripped from his legs by the explosion, but his paint nanites have already started to reapply the pearly white protective underpaint to the damaged areas. One of his arms was severed by the force of the blast, but it's still in one piece, laid out on the side table. A new shoulder joint and nobody would be able to tell that anything happened to it. There's a big dent on his head that has to hurt like the Pits, but it's not quite bad enough to threaten his brain module. D-16 has seen him walk off much worse.
The only details that fill D-16 with concern are the various feed lines connected to Orion’s open chassis; energon, lubricant, coolant and two insulated cables he doesn't recognize. He turns to Knock Out with a question already queued up in his vocalizer, but cancels the prompt when he sees the medic’s lack of concern.
Luckily, Megaton voices the same question he wanted to ask. “What are these extra cables for?”
“Supplemental energy for his primary fuel pump and self repair systems,” Knock Out answers primly, running a hand along one of the braided cables. “An exploding t-cog often causes electromagnetic reactions that can knock a mech’s primary reactor into reboot mode. Nothing life threatening, I assure you, but he will recover quicker with some extra energy in his systems.”
Megaton stares down at Orion’s unconscious form, his optics unreadable. “Cogs can explode?” He sounds doubtful.
“Of course? They contain a microreactor, among other things. It's why we can't artificially replicate them; nobody has the means to create a reactor of the same size and power output.” He unconsciously fingers the edge of the slot on his chest, expression turning a little strained. “The wonderful mysteries of creation and all that.”
D-16 sees Optimus and Megaton exchange a glance — he is getting better at reading their eyes and expressions — but before they could ask anything else Orion groans. Their chatter caused him to stir and look at them with unfocused optics until he zeros in on D-16, his entire face lighting up in delight.
“Dee! Have you seen it? I almost won!” He tries to sit up, still too uncoordinated to actually achieve anything, but Optimus places a broad hand on the undamaged part of his chest to pin him to the medical berth anyway. D-16 is grateful for this; Primus knows the kind of chewing out they’d get if they allowed Orion to accidentally sever the various cables and tubes connected to his frame, but D-16 isn't strong enough to restrain his friend without risking further damage.
“I saw all right! I saw you almost die ! What were you thinking, Pax?!” D-16 asks, the fear and anxiety and frustration of the day all condensed into a near-shout.
Orion winces, but his mirth doesn't cool one bit. “I told you: if I came in ahead of even one transformer, then I could prove that we cogless are worth more - worth just as much as them!” He looks at them proudly, his smile a little loopy from the painkillers mixed into his energon feed, but his optics are clear and his gaze determined.
D-16 glances at Elita and Knock Out, but they don’t know what to do with this declaration either. Somewhere along the way, he’s not certain when, they have all lost their hope that the caste system could be changed and have accepted the current state of affairs. Orion still hopes against all reason that proving himself would upend the world and rearrange it into something fair, something kinder to the nocogs and D-16 doesn’t know how to disabuse him of this notion if even the enforcers couldn’t beat it out of him.
“You almost died out there, Pax,” Elita reiterates, perhaps sensing the rising despair in D-16. Her voice is firm and a little harsh, “You got lucky so you might feel that this stunt was worth it, but have you thought about it for a moment how your friends would have felt if you got killed or maimed or even just jailed for disrupting the race? Has it even crossed your mind?”
Orion is taken aback by the question and turns to D-16, as if he could help provide the answer. He can, in a way. Orion never thought about how this nonsense would impact his friends on the sidelines, because he planned to drag down with him the one person whose opinion he cared about, D-16 thinks bitterly. Isn’t that how this always goes? Orion Pax jumps headfirst into one scrap-brained scheme after the other, confident that D-16 will be there to catch him when he falls.
Before Orion can muster up an answer, Megaton snaps at them from his place next to the door. “We don’t have the time for this right now. Knock Out! Disable his vocalizer!” It’s an order, his voice ringing with easy authority, and Knock Out already moves to obey before D-16 even comprehends what Megaton has said. “The rest of you: if you care for the little fool’s life, don’t you dare repeat any of that. Got it?”
D-16 feels his head jerk in a nod before he can question it, which leaves his mind reeling. He never had an issue keeping his cool in front of enforcers, even going so far as to misdirect and lie to them for Orion’s sake, but Megaton’s orders brook no quarter. It reminds D-16 a little of the old holovids of Megatronus Prime commanding the high guard.
Before he can fully shake off his stupor, the door opens and an armored, strangely modded femme folds herself carefully inside. She takes a klik to scan all of them with her many eyes until she finally steps off to the side, apparently satisfied with what she sees. “It’s clear.”
D-16 isn’t sure who or what he expected, but his processors stall completely for a moment when Sentinel Prime ducks through the door, even bigger and shinier in person than he looked in the holos.
“Orion Pax. That was the craziest thing I have ever seen.”
It feels like a dream and D-16 has to reboot his reality matrix three times before it accepts this scenario as reality. Sentinel Prime goes on one knee to get on their level without a nanoklik of hesitation and beams at Orion Pax. “I’m so grateful that you survived! What an unfortunate incident, it would have been a true tragedy to lose such a brave spark…” he trails off, finally realizing that Orion has been silently muting words at him, unable to reply. He looks around at the gathered bots, his eyes lingering on Optimus and Megaton who have withdrawn to the back of the room. “What happened to his voice?”
“The EMP surge from the accident has shorted out his voicebox, Lord Prime.” Knock Out is quick to lie, bowing his head respectfully. Among the cogless present, he has the most experience talking to transformers, which makes him the ideal bot to misdirect their Prime. “It will be some time before his voice can be restored.”
“What a shame… I assume you are his friends, yes? Colleagues in the mines?”
“Yes, Lord Prime.”
“Has he confided in any of you about what spurred him on to try his luck in the race? No other cogless mech has tried before, after all.”
The answer, surprisingly, comes from Optimus. “He wanted to impress his dearest friend, D-16.” D-16 immediately wants to hide away from the sudden attention, but a clawed hand lands on his shoulder, support and restraint to prevent him from running away from Sentinel’s bright gaze in one. “Young mechs do crazy things when they try to woo the one they love, after all.”
Is he seriously saying…?? D-16 goes rigid in surprise, feeling put on the spot when Sentinel looks at him again, this time lingering well beyond a casual glance. He’s almost certain his optics have to be burning bright with embarrassment.
“I see,” Sentinel Prime says, suddenly a lot more sombre, his voice taking on a pensive quality. “D-16, right? You look like a smart young mech — I can see the rank marker on your chest, you must be a very diligent, hard worker. — What do you think of Orion Pax’s attempt at impressing you?”
D-16 stares at Sentinel, but doesn’t really see him. The best lies straddle the harsh edge of truth and the only way he can make his answer convincing is if he pretends, just for a few kliks, that it’s true. Even if entertaining that fantasy hurts almost as much as Orion’s near death. “I love him and I know he loves me, I really do, but he almost died today and I wish…” Without conscious thought his optics drift to Orion, still restrained on the medical berth, one whim of fate away from death. “I wish he showed his love in ways that didn’t hurt me this much.”
Sentinel Prime’s optics flash in surprise, then something in his face slackens, the ever present smile slipping away for just a moment. His face looks better without the artificial cheer, D-16 thinks, the soft, sorrowful expression a dead ringer for gentle Prima. “Yes, I understand that feeling completely,” he says, softer than before. He reaches out with one shining arm and gingerly takes D-16’s face in hand, turning it up so he’s forced to meet Sentinel’s gaze. “Chin up, D-16. I’m sure your beloved has learned his lesson now. I would, if I were in his place.” D-16 stares at Sentinel, mesmerized. The Prime’s optics are the standard round configuration, but they are such a pale blue they almost seem white. D-16 can see the way they briefly flicker through a few off-hues before settling on the standard issue blue when Sentinel collects himself. It must be a filter, he thinks, watching the cheerful artifice return to the Prime’s demeanor when the moment has passed. Sentinel stands and looks at Megaton who is still hovering behind D-16. “I don’t believe I’ve seen modifications like yours in the city before. Are you newcomers?”
“We have been in stasis for a long time and have just recently returned, after running afoul of a strange mech out in the wastes,” Megaton says, removing his hand from D-16’s shoulder and brazenly holding it out to Sentinel. “You might be familiar with the name ‘Tarantulas’.”
Sentinel twitches. Behind him his bodyguard flinches violently at the name, her many eyes suddenly glued to Megaton.
“Yes, we had the displeasure,” Sentinel admits with a touch of bitterness and clasps Megaton’s hand to swap call frequencies with the mining mech. “That answers everything I wanted to ask.” After a nanoklik he turns to Optimus and clasps his hand too. “Let me officially welcome you back to Iacon City! I hope you will find a home here once more.”
“We hope the same, Lord Prime.”
They exchange a few more pleasantries, but the Prime is a busy mech and much too soon it’s time for him to leave. He graces them with one last only slightly artificial smile from the door.
“Sorry that I can’t linger, friends, we are preparing our next trip to the surface. I hope young Pax recovers smoothly. I’ll put in a word to keep doctor Ratchet on his case; only the best care for such a brave spark!” He winks — winks!!! — at them on the way out and even his bodyguard allows for a terse nod, which is probably as good as they could get.
D-16 keeps running through his recent memories over and over again even after Sentinel has left, still in disbelief. He touches his chin where the Prime touched him, runs his scratched fingers over his faceplate as if he could find a sign that it was real.
He almost jumps out of his plating when Optimus pats him on the shoulder, his hand heavy and overly warm, just like Megaton’s. “Good work, all of you.”
D-16 isn’t certain this was ‘good work’, but Optimus’ hand feels nice and his smile puts D-16’s spark at ease, so he decides to accept it today.
He’s fine and Orion Pax is fine and that’s all he has ever asked for. That is all he needs.
OPtimism and MiniMegs have joined the chat
OPtimism: [Oh, nice coding on the comm channel. Fit for a Prime all right.]
STN-MRK-37: [Haha, really funny, never heard that joke before. If I was a legitimate Prime, Soundwave would have given me admin rights to change my own nametag.]
MiniMegs: [I thought I recognized his code. His encryption style is very distinct.]
STN-MRK-37: [This used to be one of the official channels for the Primes and assorted support staff, but it’s only us now, so I have commandeered it for personal comms.]
STN-MRK-37: [Speaking of: Airachnid, say hi.]
AIR-MRK-14: [hi]
OPtimism: [Hi🕷!]
AIR-MRK-14: …
AIR-MRK-14: … …
AIR-MRK-14: [💜]
MiniMegs: [Far be it from me to ruin the mood, but you are very forthcoming all of a sudden.]
STN-MRK-37: [About being a sham Prime? I scrubbed my existence pretty thoroughly from the archives, but you two are pre-Fall mechs. You knew that already.]
MiniMegs: [Yes, we did.]
STN-MRK-37: [I assume you want something for your silence? Everyone does. Whatever your price, I’m certain we can come to a satisfactory agreement.]
OPtimism: [Information, if you are willing to spare it. Our memory banks of the events near and following the fall of the Primes are lacking. Things seem very stable here, considering the situation on the surface, and we don’t want to rock the boat without good cause.]
STN-MRK-37: [Okay, short version: we were losing the war, then the Primes walked into an ambush and perished. The high guard packed up and left to play guerrilla warfare on the surface because Starscream refuses to follow anyone not called Megatronus. We were facing an extinction crisis, we had no Primes or warriors left and barely any civilian frames to speak of, so as the next mech in the line of command, I took charge and negotiated with the Quintessons.]
MiniMegs: [Tribute paid in energon in exchange for postponing our eradication.]
STN-MRK-37: [And a few more restrictions on our new population - not forging any more mechs over weight class 7, no enforcer frame is allowed any weapons stronger than a stunner and some other nitpicks - but that is the gist, yes.]
OPtimism: [Ah. So that is why they fired on Devastator.]
STN-MRK-37: [You catch on quickly. I like that in a bot.]
OPtimism: [And the cogless?]
STN-MRK-37: [We needed a new workforce to resolve the energon crisis after Zeta Prime died and the Matrix was lost. If the cog is removed from a newspark before the frame boots up for the first time, their energon requirements are a fraction of a fully initialized transformer, which was an unexpected bonus. We scan the new sparks and remove the cog from each one that has the output to support a heavy frame or high-power internal weaponry, so they come online as nocog workers instead of construction mechs or warframes. Two Qints with one shot.]
MiniMegs: [That is a smart solution.]
OPtimism: [Ruthless, but smart. I agree.]
AIR-MRK-14: [it’s better than killing them. no point in wasting workers]
OPtimism: [I suppose that much is true, indeed.]
MiniMegs: [You realize this is only delaying the inevitable. The Quintessons will keep draining you of energon until the mines run out, increasing the demand until you can’t supply any more, and then eradicate all of us anyway.]
STN-MRK-37: [Obviously.The primary mine under Iacon can handle demand for another five hundred cycles if we open up deeper layers, but I started withholding some of the energon and stockpiling it when output on the current operational layer started to decline. Just enough that we barely can’t make quota, as if the mine was running dry. They haven’t tried to increase demand since and I’m currently in negotiations to reopen the mines under Velocitron and Polyhex.]
MiniMegs: [Establishing a mining operation would be a good foothold in repopulating the other cities. The more areas the Quintessons need to monitor for activities breaking the conditions of the ceasefire, the easier it is to slip below their notice. Much easier to hide a new battalion of warriors among a million mechs than a few thousand.]
OPtimism: [You are much smarter than you appeared on the holivids, Sentinel.]
STN-MRK-37: [Why, thank you. It’s what I was made for.]
STN-MRK-37: [So, mechs, what will it be? Can I count on your cooperation?]
Notes:
taps the tags Sentinel Prime can be a little complicated, as a treat. He's still going to be an ass tho, don't worry.
I have most of this fic planned out in detail already, so the connections and crumbs are very clear to me, but I would love to hear if you have any theories about what's going on here.
Chapter Text
[Shanix for your thoughts?]
[He’s hiding things, that is easy to see, but much as it pains me to admit it, what he is doing really IS clever. I have run the parameters through my tactical subroutines a few dozen times, but I can’t come up with a better solution with his resources.]
[That doesn’t mean much. You are a tactical imbecile, that’s why you kept Prowl around for all these millenia. You are too emotion-driven and never manage to do proper value-assessments in situations that require sacrificing your mechs.]
[Do you see a better solution?]
[A few. None that you’d find acceptable, but it would have been remiss of me not to mention it.]
[I don’t know how to assess this Sentinel. I have known our version too well and that one was a short-sighted, power hungry idiot; I keep conflating the two and running into contradictions. What is your read on his motivations?]
[Personal survival and retaining his position of power, probably. Your dives through the archives have confirmed that he’s not exaggerating about how close they came to extinction, but if he had a vision that benefitted more than himself, then Soundwave would have stayed by his side rather than leave with Starscream.]
[So he might be smarter than our Sentinel, but he’s just as selfish. His neck was on the line and decided to do something about it, but his every plan also serves to keep him safely in power.]
[As far as I can tell from one meeting and some state propaganda, yes. So, what are we going to do now?]
[Nothing. We need more data about him, his people, the high guard and the Quintessons, not necessarily in that order.]
[I will leave the information gathering to you, then. The nocogs are a gossiping bunch, but I don’t think I can contribute anything of value to your investigation. Unless you want to try breaking into the Primal Archives again…]
[No, thank you. The last time was too close for comfort already.]
[Come now, it was only two enforcers and they didn’t even catch us. It would have been a much more entertaining evening if they did.]
[Good to know that if all else fails, you are always eager to fall back on senseless violence to solve our problems.]
[Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Prime. Violence has served us well so far on this strange trip, after all.]
[Agree to disagree, Megatron. No, I am going to do this the safe way.]
[Which is?]
[I already submitted my application this morning: I’m going to become an archivist.]
Ratchet kicks them out of the treatment room when he discovers that they have meddled with Orion’s voicebox, but he doesn’t report them, which is probably a win. They have missed the last train back to the lower city, so Optimus offers to take them back to their dorms in his trailer. Any other day D-16 would be excited, but most of his processor capacity is still tied up in sorting out his emotions, so he numbly allows Megaton to pull him inside and ends up sitting next to the big mech in the end of the trailer, lost in thought. He is vaguely aware when Knock Out gets out (“Breaky, you wouldn't believe what happened today!”) and musters a weak nod when Elita leaves (“Listen, D-16. I know tomorrow is supposed to be all hands on deck to crack the new vein, but you need rest. Take the day off and I'll mark you up as ‘away on errands’ instead of absent. Do a few extra defrag cycles, get your emotions sorted out and come back the day after with your head in the game, because I will be real here, I would not trust you around heavy equipment the way you are now. Say ‘thank you, Elita-1’!” “Thank you, Elita-1.” “Good mech.’”) but in the end it's only him and Megaton left, barely a handspan apart.
Until Megaton nudges him with his arm, the touch of overly hot metal interrupting the looping replay of the day’s events that his mind still tries to mark as a negative recharge flux every other loop. “What are you thinking about, little one?”
“It's freaky that I can't hear your engine, even this close,” D-16 says, the thought tumbling through an unexpected gap in his content filters with the elegance of an overcharged dockworker.
“It's because I don't have one,” Megaton answers absent-mindedly, which is a wild enough claim to jolt D-16 back to the here and now. “I have undergone an experimental reformat. My alt mode is not a vehicle.”
“Had to be one hell of a reformat.” Even nocogs had engines, although usually unfinished ones; it was one way to guess what their alt mode would be if they ever got a cog, because there were clear differences between the engine of a speedster and a jet even in this half-assembled state. “What do you run on, then? I saw you drink energon yesterday.”
“Two quantum generators and a black hole.” It would sound like a strange inside joke, if not for the grimace Megaton makes. “I don't want to talk about it.”
D-16 mouths ‘black hole’ a few times, as if that would force it to start making sense, but eventually gives up. He returns to the other question that has been occupying his thoughts instead. “Why did you make us lie to Sentinel Prime?”
Megaton regards him silently for a klik, his optics a low, smouldering crimson. “Some sentiments echo farther than others. Even if the Prime himself is trustworthy, all it would take is a careless comment to the wrong mech; there are many transformers who would take offense if they knew Orion Pax did it to challenge the notion of transformer superiority. It was too risky to let him speak honestly.”
D-16 wants to argue, but he can’t. For every Sentinel Prime, there are a dozen Darkwings in the city who could — and would — retaliate freely if they knew why Orion got into the race.
“And you couldn't think of any way other than suggesting that Pax and I are—” He bites off the end of the sentence, unable to say it.
“ Forgive us, D-16. ” Dee almost jumps out of his plating when he hears Optimus’ voice echoing through the trailer. “The two of you are very close. Implying romance felt like the simplest way to explain Orion’s actions without disclosing the truth. It was not our intention to make you uncomfortable.”
D-16 stares at the roof of the trailer, noticing the intercom built into the corner for the first time. “Can you hear everything we say in here, Optimus?”
“ Yes. It can be considered an external frame modification, but the trailer is, in fact, an integral part of my body. ”
“I see.” D-16 can't even begin to imagine how that works, so he deliberately kills that thought thread before it can get stuck too.
“It appeared to us that the two of you might be working up to something more than friendship,” Megaton says, thumping his fist lightly against the internal wall of the trailer. “You would make for a cute couple. Were we wrong?”
D-16 clears his vents with a long, slow exhale. “He is very likeable, isn’t he? Daring and optimistic and charismatic… Sometimes I feel like there’s something glitched in me because I don’t want to love him.” He stares down at his hands, bracing for confused or outraged questions, but Megaton only leans lightly against him and waits for him to go on, the contact surprisingly grounding. “He’s not selfish or anything, it’s just— his ideas are so much bigger than any of us, he just doesn’t think twice about risking his life for them and doesn’t stop to think how that makes others feel. He never thinks about how his actions affect me .” He cycles air through his vents again, his filters rattling. “It’s hard enough to be his best friend, but I could love him so easily,” he whispers. “If he ever told me he wants me too— I would . He would break my spark a dozen times before the first shift each and every day, but I would love him. So I don’t want to. I’m relieved that he never even thought about loving me the same way I love him. What does that make me?!”
Selfish. Foolish. Glitched.
“Honest,” Megaton says, understanding.
It’s somehow worse, that he understands.
[You are sulking, Prime.]
[I’m not. I’m simply… contemplating.]
[Don’t tell me this, of all things, made you reflect on your flaws. You are a far shot from young Orion Pax. Your sins are entirely your own.]
[I know that. I have grown past this sort of self-sacrificing heroism long before I met you.]
[They made it a point to beat the idealism out of young enforcers during training, didn't they?]
[Something like that.]
[So, what’s got you in such a melancholy mood today?]
[Remember when Rung said that we were a matching pair in every timeline he was privy to?]
[I keep everything he says when he’s acting as the Incarnation of Primus in triple-encrypted memory archives so the information creep can’t erode the data. What about it?]
[I was just wondering… do you think there is a world out there where we don’t hurt each other? Even when we don’t mean to?]
[...]
[Megatron?]
[We have ever honed and shaped ourselves along the sharpest edges of each other. It took us eight million years to wear those edges down into something that fit along the seams. It is how we are. If there is a world where that doesn’t hurt, I can’t imagine it.]
Things return to some kind of routine. D-16 starts working again two days later, as a group leader, and the novelty of the position helps take his mind off Orion Pax, still detained in the hospital. Recovery from almost being exploded isn’t something that can be rushed, but Knock Out diligently brings updates on his recovery, since D-16 can’t visit his friend in person and the hospital is too far for comms.
Megaton is there too, on most days. Sometimes Optimus joins him, an exhausted, colorful shadow hovering near the sorting area, reading a different datapad every time, but usually it’s only the big mining mech, drudging away along the nocogs with an efficiency they couldn’t possibly hope to match. There’s no need for him to be there each day, since he gets triple of the daily quota done in half a shift then leaves, but for that half-shift he shows up like clockwork and D-16 can’t make sense of it why until one day he catches Megaton shoving a chunk of corrupted energon crystal into his mouth like it’s some expensive energon treat.
“What do you think you are doing?!”
Megaton stares down at him with an air of amusement, still crunching away at the crystal. It fractures like glass under his fangs. “What does it look like?”
“Raw energon is poison! It needs to be processed before it can be consumed. You are killing yourself!” D-16, like every young miner, has tried a small crumb of raw energon when he first started out in the mines. The taste was sharper than anything he ever experienced and afterwards he was laid out for three days while his tanks recovered, because that little crumb stripped the protective lining from his entire fuel processing system.
“It’s not. Exceedingly unpleasant if you don’t have the correct filters or the right internal chemistry, but you won’t die from it.” Megaton swallows with a strange grinding noise and a grimace. D-16 feels vindicated for a moment, but then Megaton opens his mouth and reaches in with two claws to adjust something near the back of his denta and — what in Primus’ name?! — the back sections of his dental plates form some kind of grinding apparatus, clearly designed to break down solids. D-16 watches numbly as Megaton yanks out a broken gear from his mouth, a nasty, serrated thing straight out of some kind of horror holo. “I was built to function off of any kind of industrial slag available and I don’t need much supplemental fuel with my generators, so this is straight up luxurious for me.”
“Wouldn’t processed energon be better, tho?” D-16 asks, still trying to recover from the shock of how strange Megaton’s body is. He said he was reformatted, but… “Wait, wait, hold on ! What do you mean ‘built’?!”
Megaton shushes him and looks around to see if anyone has overheard them. “Not so loud. Meet me for drinks after your shift is over and I’ll tell you. Until then, however…” He produces a small cup from somewhere, then pops open a spigot on his forearm and pours just a finger’s width of brilliantly pink liquid out. “Here.”
D-16 takes the cup and stares into it. He can feel his left eye glitching in something approaching hysteria. “High grade. You can process high grade from raw energon inside your body .”
“If you don’t want it…” D-16 knocks it back before Megaton can finish the sentence. It’s good. Clear, with a distinct richness that usually gets overshadowed by the impurities in regular energon. Probably the best high grade he ever had. Even better than the taste is the burst of energy that spreads through his entire body; freshly processed and undiluted, that mouthful of fuel had more energy than his weekly allotment of mid grade energon.
“You are unbelievable,” he mutters when he hands the cup back. Megaton has the gall to laugh at him and pat him over the shoulder.
“You are not the first and won’t be the last to say that. Later, little one.”
D-16 thinks he might hate the big mech, after all. Orion gives him a headache every time he gets in trouble, but that’s always routine, understandable trouble. Meanwhile, every time Megaton opens his mouth, it feels like something in D-16’s understanding of the world gets upended and turned inside out and he really could do without that feeling, thank you very much.
Bless the claxon marking the start of the next shift. He doesn’t have the time to wonder about what Megaton said — what Megaton is — when there is work to be done. When there are mechs in his group relying on him to be vigilant and make the right calls; mining intact, charged energon crystals is a very different beast from mining for dregs in the shifting sediment and it’s his duty to keep them safe the way Terminus kept him safe, once upon a time.
It’s the least he can do to preserve Terminus’ memory.
[How is the new job treating you?]
[...What is on fire and why did you do it?]
[Can’t I comm my Conjunx for small talk during a boring shift?]
[You don’t find mining boring, you don’t do small talk and I’m only your Conjunx when you need something. Try again.]
[...I might have committed a miscalculation.]
[Who did you explode this time?]
[Never mind, I will solve this on my own then.]
[You really are a petulant sparkling sometimes, you know that?]
[...]
[...]
[I let it slip to D-16 that I’m not a forged mech.]
[Go on, I don’t see a fire yet.]
[It’s not something I could just discuss there in the mines, so I invited him out for drinks, to talk about it in private.]
[Oh. That’s it?]
[What.]
[That’s great, actually. He’s been through a lot of stress lately, so much so that I was considering staging an intervention. Oh! We can turn it into a movie night. I found this fascinating collection of recreational holos in the archive and Froid latest study shows that...]
[...]
[?]
[Nothing. I don’t think I will ever fully understand what goes on in your head, Prime.]
Megaton and Optimus are waiting for him at the entrance when his shift is over. He overhears a snippet of their conversation as he approaches, something about Optimus’ new job at the Primal archives. “...they haven’t had a trained archivist since the fall of Vos , can you believe that? Not even someone without the proper programs or qualifications. They simply put the new datapads in unmarked crates and leave them there in the sorting room!” He sounds truly aghast and D-16 can't blame him. The flying city of Vos fell hundreds of cycles ago; little wonder Pax never found anything useful in the archives if nobody has been curating them since.
“You don't look like the kind of bot who would sign up to be an archivist, Optimus, sir,” D-16 says, his curiosity getting the better of him. Optimus immediately turns towards him with a grimace and it takes D-16 a moment to comprehend that it was meant as a smile; the big mech is tired and exhaustion has compromised the fine motor controls of his mangled face.
“Ah, well… I was always interested in the subject, but I’m an enforcer class mech. Someone of my frame type didn’t have the luxury to pursue an administrative role.” He rubs a thumb over the scar bisecting his lips, something D-16 has categorized as a sign of discomfort. “I opted into installing a few relevant archival and analytical subroutines on a whim once, but I admit, I haven’t seriously thought about finding an opportunity like this for a very long time.”
“I’m glad you have the chance now,” D-16 says and finds that he means it. Enforcer he might be, but Optimus appears to be a genuinely compassionate, decent mech.
Optimus’ face lights up, radiating fondness even when his expression is still closer to a grimace than a smile. “Thank you, little one.”
Not long after that Megaton takes a step back to allow him to transform and pull his trailer out from his subspace. “We are renting an apartment a few streets from the hospital,” Megaton says as he gestures for D-16 to get in. “We only moved in a few days ago and it’s due a housewarming party. You can spend the night and tomorrow morning we can pick Orion Pax up when they release him from the hospital.”
“You heard about that?” D-16 sits down in what is becoming his usual spot at the end of the trailer.
“They assumed you were our employees, so they notified us of his pending dismissal.”
Megaton gives the wall of the trailer a fond pat to signal that they are ready and Optimus starts up his engine. After a few kliks he says, in a much more serious voice. “Now then. I assume, based on your earlier surprise, that cold construction has fallen out of practice since the end of the war?”
D-16 needs to cross reference the new term with their earlier conversation, but it’s not difficult to guess what Megaton means.
“I have heard about mechs being reformatted into combat frames when we still needed warriors to fight the Quintessons, but I didn’t even know it was possible to custom make a transformer,” D-16 admits. “How does that even work? Where did your t-cog come from?”
“From another dead miner, I assume.” Megaton shrugs his wide shoulders like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “A lot of my original parts came from dead miners. Possibly everything, except my spark.” He taps his chest. “My spark was harvested and then placed in a manufactured body that mimics your living metal in most of its practical functions.”
“It was never a widespread practice, according to archival data,” Optimus adds, his deep voice thrumming through the speakers. “Cold constructed mechs are defined by their construction schematics, rather than their t-cog. It was considered controversial at the time, bordering on blasphemous, even. Many thought it was going against Primus’ will for us mortals to determine the capabilities of a newspark, rather than allowing the cog to shape the mech.”
“I don’t think I understand. This is all a bit too much…” Weird. It’s all a bit too weird, but he doesn’t want to offend Megaton.
“Well, what would happen to you if I were to install a t-cog in you?” Megaton asks, gently scraping one of his claws along the edge of the empty socket in D-16’s chest. It’s an unexpectedly ticklish feeling.
“It would read my frame-type data and reconstruct me into a transformer that’s compatible with its energy output.” The answer comes automatically, from an old info packet he installed not long after coming online. There were still some unclaimed t-cogs going around then, gruesome inheritance from the transformers who fell to the Quintessons, so it wasn’t impossible for a hardworking cogless to get one. By the time Orion Pax came online a few cycles later, however, spares became so rare that they phased out the educational uploads about them altogether.
“And if it was then removed?”
“I would return to this shape. It’s considered an energy conservation mode, that’s why nocogs only started appearing after the energon famines started.”
“Correct. If you removed Megaton’s cog, however, he would be inconvenienced and lose the ability to transform, but wouldn’t fundamentally change. In cold construction, the cog only governs and supplies energy for the process of transformation. His energy requirements, his size, his shape, even most of his peripheral systems would be unchanged.”
There are many things D-16 finds tedious about interacting with Megaton and Optimus, but there are some things he can’t help but appreciate. Like now: they are not rushing him to formulate an opinion, instead waiting patiently for him to integrate the new information, compare it to his existing databanks, conclude that yes, it does match his preexisting knowledge of the world and then generate a new internalized world state from the fresh, expanded database.
Even if said new world state immediately produces an incredibly wild observation that surprises him so much that he can’t help blurting it out.
“Do you think Sentinel Prime is cold constructed?”
Notes:
places hints on top of each other until they form a wobbly tower of Mystery This is going to either build up to a satisfying reveal or an absolute flop, after which I will find a nice comfy rock and hide under it until the end of time.
This is my favorite kind of Megatron, btw: freak of nature overloaded with every bell and whistle you can cram into him and then some, with a light sprinkling of the Horrors.
Chapter 6
Notes:
D-16, holding half a picture, upside down: "I connected the dots? Some dots. It's either a turbofox or ar aeroplane, I think?"
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s a testament to Optimus’ calm and collected nature that he doesn’t immediately swerve off the road when he hears that.
“That is an… interesting theory. What made you come to that conclusion?”
D-16 is aware how outlandish that suggestion sounds, but the facts have aligned too neatly in his mind and he can’t take it back now. “It would make sense, if you think about it. He never transforms — he said it’s to show solidarity with us nocogs, but what if he can’t ? If he is cold constructed, then it would not be obvious if he doesn’t have a cog, right?”
“Right. Or he could be honest about showing solidarity,” Megaton suggests. “What else? You are too smart to jump to conclusions from just one thing.”
“He is a unique design, bigger and shinier than other flyers — a proper Primal frame — but he isn’t in any of the old holos about the Primes. Not one of the historical ‘Thirteen’, so it's always been a popular theory that he must have been a late addition who had his official introduction delayed by the war.” There were certainly proponents who argued that the Primes were all born at the dawn of Cybertron and ruled the transformers as one since, but if you paid more attention to the historical holos it became clear it wasn't true. Megatronus was one of the younger ones, in fact, Amalgamous died and was reborn at least twice… It had not happened for a millennia or more, but there was precedent to Primus birthing more Primes to meet the needs of his people. “And... It’s more conjecture than proof, but he looks eerily similar to Prima Prime. So I think…” D-16 stalls, a little bit terrified to voice the conclusion hovering on the tip of his tongue. Megaton gestures for him to continue and D-16 goes on, emboldened, but the theory still comes out bit by bit, fragmented from his better sense questioning every sentence. “I think what happened is that the Thirteen Primes… died. To secure victory against the Quintessons. Nobody knows how or where, but we know that the Matrix was lost along with them. But we needed leaders — we needed the Primes — to guide us during the energon crisis. At least one Prime. Without the Matrix, Primus has lost his connection to us and couldn't know of our need, so… So someone constructed a new one instead.”
“Sentinel?”
“Yes. Fashioned him after Prima Prime — the most beloved, the most beautiful of the Primes — and set him to lead us. To stand vigil over us while we pick up the pieces of our civilization.” D-16 stares at his hands, but in his mind’s eye he can see the connections light up. “They made Sentinel bold and beautiful, but they couldn’t manufacture him a t-cog fit for a Prime. Nobody can. So until he finds the— the remains of the other Primes, until he recovers the Matrix, he won’t be able to transform.” He clenches his hands into fists, glances helplessly up at Megaton. The big bot is staring at the ceiling, his fingers playing over the flexible segments of the cable slung over his shoulder, deep in thought. “I understand that this is just a wild idea, but the pieces fit so neatly…”
“It’s plausible enough,” Megaton says, although he doesn’t sound really convinced. “We don’t have any means of confirming it, however, short of asking him. Or manufacturing a situation where he is forced to transform, if capable, but I don’t fancy being jailed for the attempted murder of a Prime.”
“Oh.” He hasn't considered that. “Oh no, I would never… please, forget I said anything.”
“We are not going to tell on you, Dee,” Optimus reassures him. “Let’s agree to keep this conversation among the three of us. After all, it was Megaton who brought up such an obscure topic.” It might just be his imagination, but he detects some disapproval directed at Megaton.
“Yeah. I can do that.” Looking for a way to change the subject, he lands on the first thing that springs to his mind. “You know, Megaton, now I know about your construction, but I still don’t have any idea what your alt mode is.”
He says it lightly — after all, asking about one’s alt mode is considered a polite topic among transformers — but Megaton’s expression darkens and becomes closed off almost immediately. The usual furnace-warmth of his frame seems to disappear too, enough so to make D-16 shudder from the sudden drop in temperature.
“For your sake, I hope you will never find out.”
“Sir?”
Realizing that his sudden brooding has scared D-16, Megaton forces himself to relax with a tense exhale. D-16’s surface temperature starts rising almost immediately, slowly creeping back to that cozy warmth he has grown used to around Megaton. “You must have realized that my frame features many modifications that are not exactly… legal. For your own protection, I won’t reveal my alt mode unless it’s a matter of life and death.”
“Ah… plausible deniability?” Megaton nods. Plausible deniability can go a surprisingly long way to keep someone safe, that much is true. “So, uh. What's a safe topic of discussion that will tide us over until the end of this ride that won't make me feel like I inserted my foot straight into my mouth again?”
“Fuel preferences?” Optimus suggests, clearly relieved to steer away from risky topics. “I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of toppings and flavorings available even at the cogless barracks.”
D-16 gradually relaxes when the discussion stays firmly in the realm of energon additives. There’s a heated, but good natured argument between Megaton and Optimus about the merits of magnesium sweetener vs mica flakes that goes almost exactly how it goes between Orion Pax and D-16 (Orion likes his energon sweet as sin and D-16 craves mineral additives ever since he lost his paint nanites), except it sounds like it has happened a thousand times already, so well-trodden they only argue for the sake of familiarity and only make a token attempt at convincing the other. “How long have you known each other?” he asks when they disembark, because Optimus made a wistful comment about jellied treats and Megaton called him a stupid glitch with the kind of fondness that only comes from long cycles of acquaintance. He has already figured out that there is a deeper connection between them than a convict and his handler, but he’s still not sure what to make of them.
“Way too fragging long,” Megaton says, absent-mindedly catching D-16 when he stumbles, his legs having lost hydraulic pressure from sitting for too long. He can’t help but notice that Megaton’s dark forearm panels have a strange, rough texture, similar to the non-slip grips of the hand-drills they use in the mines. “We’ve known each other for so long it feels like an eternity.”
“We first met at a poetry recital,” Optimus says, transforming and slowly stretching his limbs. “In that speakeasy in Kaon, by the river.”
“I remember the place. I used to hold all my early recitals there.”
“The proprietress was quite the character, as I recall. Almost scared me away at the door.” Optimus laughs, raising one hand to cover the way his scar distorts his smile.
“She was a minicon-carrier. Have you ever met one that isn't some combination of weird and terrifying?” Megaton laughs too, but his joy soon cools into something much less pleasant. “Anacrusis, her name was. She died of sparkbreak not long after her minicons…” Megaton sighs, his shoulders slumping from the heaviness of the memories. “She simply faded away from grief, like many others.”
Optimus steps up to him and bumps his shoulder against Megaton’s in silent support, and D-16 can almost picture as the choking, gloomy atmosphere around Megaton disperses a little, like a gas that’s allowed to expand into extra space around Optimus. He feels like he's intruding on this old grief, but Megaton is still holding onto him, so he can't leave to give the mech space. “My condolences.”
“It's all right, little one. It was a long time ago.”
The stairs up to the mechs’ shared apartment are sized for transformers, so instead of placing D-16 down on his feet, Megaton hauls him up to sit on his shoulder. Usually D-16 would voice his displeasure at being treated so casually, but he doesn't want to potentially offend Megaton when the mech is in such a low mood. He looks to Optimus, hoping that the enforcer might notice his plight and intervene, but Optimus appears to be just as lost in old melancholy as his friend.
“That is the true tragedy of war,” he says, his blue optics burning with a ghastly, pale light. “No matter how righteous the cause, no matter how noble the intentions, it always takes the best of us — the kindest, the gentlest — and the most vulnerable first.” He sighs, thin streams of vapor and smoke rising from his smokestacks, his systems still cooling down from the drive. “There are some casualties even the strongest shield can’t protect us from.”
D-16 thinks of Terminus, melting alive. Of the Primes, their bodies lying on some far away, unknown battlefield. “Sentinel used to say that the reason why the Primes risked everything in that final battle was because if they didn’t then there would have been nobody left to save.” As the cycles passed, the remembrance for the Primes has turned into a day of games and contests, of feats showing off the brilliance and skill of the transformers, but it wasn’t always like that. D-16 was sparked during the mourning period and the first few remembrance ceremonies he attended were still quiet, sombre affairs. Silent vigils to commemorate the Primes’ ultimate sacrifice, their last, desperate gambit.
“A reasonable sacrifice against an unreasonable enemy,” Megaton rumbles, finally placing D-16 down. “But not every conflict is so simple and clear-cut. There might come a time when it falls to you to decide where the limits of reason lie; to draw the line where compromise becomes unacceptable and violence becomes the only answer. When that day comes, I want you to remember what we talked about today.”
D-16 stares up at them, hoping to find even the slightest hint that this is some kind of jest, but Megaton is completely serious.
“I’m just a dime-a-dozen nocog,” he says helplessly. “I’m a nobody. You can’t be thinking of me.”
“D-16.” Optimus goes down on one knee to put himself closer to his level, his eyes gentle. “You are more special than you realize. Even if you find it hard to believe now, your friend Orion Pax has the mark of fate on him. I have a… certain sense about this kind of thing.” He places a hand on his chest with a serene smile even his scar can’t ruin. “And if there is one thing I’m certain of, it’s that when the world turns upside down, one of you will be in the very middle of it and the other won’t be far either.”
There is some prophetic quality in Optimus’ words; in the serene conviction and the spark-deep feeling of certainty that seems to radiate from every bolt of his frame and D-16 finds it much easier to imagine than the suggestion that he could become important enough to make such devastating decisions. If a nocog winds up changing their world, of course it will be Orion Pax. And where else would D-16 be than tagging along, guarding his back. Catching him when he falls.
Having said his piece, Optimus slowly stands and, for the first time, D-16 takes a good look at him from up close. With his more reserved mannerism and slightly more conventional frame, it feels almost inevitable to overlook him when he’s standing next to his much more assertive and outlandish looking friend, but now D-16 finally looks and almost immediately does a double take. He hasn’t noticed it before, because unlike Megaton’s engraving, situated boldly in the center of his chest, the symbol Optimus bears is on his shoulder, elegant pearlescent lines on shining red paint.
Just as Megaton carries the mark of Megatronus Prime, Optimus is branded with the visage of Prima.
The heavy atmosphere dissolves the moment they set foot in the apartment; there is something about the eclectic décor and homey, hand-me-down furniture that can’t sustain such brooding. D-16 tries to allocate some resources to untangling the many complicated feelings the mechs awakened in him again, but he can’t manage to hold onto the background processes when Megaton shows him around in the incredibly well-stocked energon prep area of their flat (they even have titanium shavings and spicy barium drops that pop in your mouth) and Optimus flicks through the catalogue of rentable holos to find one that would suit everyone’s tastes.
They end up watching something that fits exactly nobody’s taste; a hilariously bad comedy-romance about a cogless dock worker accidentally fishing out the Matrix of Leadership from the Sea of Rust, his adventures in becoming a Prime and his fond-exasperated relationship with a sharkticon treasure hunter who’s determined to win his spark, Prime or not. It’s horrible and D-16 laughs so much that he ends up shorting out his vocalizer by the end of the night.
He might be just a little tipsy too, he concedes in the privacy of his mind. He realizes that he’s tipsy from the sudden bout of harsh sobriety that overcomes him when he returns from the energon-prep area with a glass of spicy midgrade that took forever to mix — he has never seen so many different additives he could choose from, okay? He miiiight have been paralyzed by the sheer number of choices for a little bit — and finds Optimus and Megaton entangled on the couch. They are kissing, which is not nearly as shocking at this point as D-16 would like to pretend, and Megaton is plugged into Optimus again with that thick primary cable D-16 still can’t make heads or tails of, but they haven’t stopped there, oh no. Megaton’s chest is partially open, the semi-dark of the room painted a soft pink from the high grade filling up his internal energon refinery and Optimus is hooked right into him with a medical fuel line, syphoning energon straight from his systems, which is a very intimate act in a completely different direction than kissing and very possibly a sign of madness.
He must have made a noise of distress, because Optimus breaks the kiss with some reluctance, gently shushing Megaton’s grumbling before he addresses D-16. “Dee.”
“Ye—es?”
“You can use the guest room to recharge. It’s soundproofed.”
D-16 gracefully takes the offer and flees to blissful silence. The room is furnished with the same kind of eclectic collection of second-hand furniture as the rest of the apartment, the berth an old, heavily padded model with raised contact points in the mesh. It’s designed for a middle-sized transformer, so he can only make a couple of the contact points work at a time, but it still feels decadent compared to the utilitarian recharge stations of the cogless barracks.
He sinks into the comfortable padding, allows the warm current to run through his frame, amplifying the light buzz from the high grade and thinks that this is well worth the mortification of having witnessed Megaton and Optimus doing… whatever that was.
Before falling into recharge, his thoughts turn towards Orion. There is a simmering anticipation curling in his spark, an eagerness to get his friend back once again. He feels like a part of him is missing without Pax there, like he’s half a mech waiting for a severed arm to be reattached, systems pinging absent sensors over and over again. He already knew how to keep the feeling at bay, directing it through old, worn subroutines — it was easier than he thought it would be, but the relief that this absence is only temporary seemed to do wonders for softening the urge. He had to block Terminus’ comm number to prevent himself from calling it over and over again, grief ringing out into dead silence — but nothing can compare to having his friend back by his side, where he belongs.
Tomorrow morning he will reunite with Orion Pax and everything will be set right in his world.
[What are your energy levels at?]
[?]
[Optimus. Energy levels.]
[Oh. Let me check, it will be just a klik.]
[Why are we even doing this if you are not taking it seriously? I should just let you drain yourself into stasis lock from the inadequate fuel of this idiotic timeline.]
[I’m sorry, Megatron. I find myself distracted.]
[By what? What’s more important than you slowly starving to death?]
[I think we might have traumatized young Dee.]
[He’s an adult, he will get over it. I have experienced much worse horrors by the time I was his age. Is that all?]
[Yes. No. I don’t know.]
[Well, do let me know when you figure it out. At the rate you are draining my reservoir we’ll be here until morning anyway.]
[If you are in too much discomfort then we can stop. I’m not in danger of stasis lock anymore, I can make it through the day if I plan my energon intake carefully.]
[I’d rather not risk it. I need you as close to full capacity as you can get in case something unexpected happens.]
[Very well.]
[What made you think this was causing me discomfort? I admit, patching the old software to even start on my current systems gave me a headache, but this is an intended function of my frame.]
[You are very testy today. And I assumed it would be similarly painful for you as having my auxiliary batteries drained is for me.]
[...Run that by me again. I think we skipped a step or five in this conversation.]
[The reason why my energy levels are dropping so fast is because the Matrix is charging itself from my auxiliary batteries. It wasn’t designed to be recharged while inside a living mech, so it’s a very… ‘unpleasant’ is not a strong enough word for the sensation. ‘Distressing’ or ‘agonizing’ might be more fitting.]
[...]
[Megatron?]
[Disregarding that you are only telling me this now — I will get back to that eventually, don’t you dare think that I won’t — isn’t the Matrix integrated into your systems? Fused to your spark chamber, even?]
[Well, yes. But you know how it is. There is only one Matrix, but there can always be another Prime.]
Notes:
Anacrusis is an OC I have a lot of fondness for - a satellite-based minicon carrier who opened a mostly-legal bar after she was scrapped from the government. I have tentative ideas for a pre-war one-shot related to the continuity soup MegOP come from, so if I ever end up writing that she will show up there to mother hen the not-very-violent-yet revolutionaries. She died before the war proper broke out; the ruling autobot regime destroyed her cassettes in an attempt to extract information about the revolutionaries and she never recovered from the loss.
It was not intended to be a big part of the Mystery, but it took my friend by surprise when I told them, so: can you guess Megatron's alt mode?
I mentioned in the comments once or twice (btw if you've commented: hi, I love you, I hope you are enjoying the story 💕 Same goes to all the lurkers too, I appreciate all of you.) that the reason behind the quick posting schedule was to prevent me from overthinking myself into rewriting things. Well, the next section will end up being rewritten anyway, because it ended up really confusing my beta reader, so from this point on chapters will be much slower. RIP
Chapter 7
Notes:
New chapter, yay! I have only read through it for typos once, but I'm excited to post it so here it is. Might do some minor editing on it eventually, once I got some sleep.
Also, I wanted to let you all know that now there's a... I guess you could call it companion fic to this one, but since it's pretty standalone and isn't required to enjoy or understand this fic, I decided against putting them in a series. It's called Sky Ballet and it's all about universe Megatron and Optimus came from. 20k words, all finished, you'd make me a very happy writer if you read it, but fair warning that it's a more depressing and more... condensed experience. It adds a little context about why Megs and OP are the way they are, but like I said, if struggling against The Horrors infesting your society is not your thing then you are safe to skip it, you won't miss out on much.
Chapter Text
D-16 wakes up more refreshed than possibly ever since he first came online. His excitement to get back to Orion Pax burns just as bright as the day before, which is something of a problem because one look out the window confirms that it’s much too early to get his friend.
Lacking anything better to do and a little afraid to venture out into the common area of the apartment and run into Megaton and Optimus doing something weird again, he lays on the comfortable berth for a while and tries to organize his thoughts instead.
He thought, just for a moment when he discovered the marking on Optimus, that perhaps they are the Primes returned, reborn into new frames and not remembering their past. It's a fascinating idea, but one he rejects immediately, his logic systems flagging multiple inconsistencies in the theory. Unless they are lying about their entire personal history, then Optimus and Megaton have too much past baggage to be Prima and Megatronus reborn.
His next theory appeals more: they could be primal acolytes, chosen supporters and friends of the Primes. It would make them not simply pre-Fall mechs, but pre-war , from an era so distant most can't even imagine it. It would explain their weird, almost alien construction and strange quirks. The Primes themselves have always tried to keep up with the times, reformatting themselves over and over again following Zeta Prime’s directive that they can't be good leaders of the people if they aren't like them, but obviously they couldn't have asked their acolytes to do the same. A regular transformer can only survive two, at most three major frame reformats during their lifetime and each one raises the risk of crippling processor failure. It was a popular topic for drama holos for a while.
He tries to cross reference what he knows about Megaton and Optimus with his knowledge of other acolytes, but there's not much to compare. The most prominent acolyte surviving into the war was Shockwave, but he was a controversial figure. A scientist, allegedly, one whose brilliant work filled Amalgamous Prime with fascination and jealousy so he took Shockwave as an acolyte despite the mech’s wishes to the contrary. Shockwave, modified in the image of his Prime like all of Amalgamous’ acolytes, never confirmed or denied the rumors, but many found it telling that he almost exclusively worked with Megatronus and never again with Amalgamous.
Ruling out Shockwave as a clear outlier doesn't leave many other points of comparison. Most of the acolytes were noncombatants and perished in the first cycles of the war and there is very little information to be found on the others. There was someone called ‘Rodimus’, but sources couldn't agree if he was Zeta’s acolyte or a young Prime that perished in the fighting before he could be officially introduced to the people; all of this makes him a very popular subject for semi-historical adventure holos. Some argued that Starscream was an acolyte of Megatronus, but in the one interview D-16 could recall of the young Winglord of Vos he vehemently denied the suggestion, insulted that the reporter steered the topic to baseless rumors when the fall of Vos was so recent that the mourning paint hasn't event dried yet on the Vosians.
There were others, he knows that much, but he is not quite the history buff that Orion is. His knowledge is compiled from adventure holos, second hand information and whatever he read when he was memorizing Megatronus Prime’s history and deeds. He allows himself a moment of frustration that he didn’t pay more attention, but it can’t be helped now and despite his lack of excessive evidence, he feels confident enough in his theory.
As a small reward to himself for figuring it out, he decides to sneak out and treat himself to a nice cube of energon. Optimus already gave him permission to take from their stock the night before and he only feels a spark of guilt at taking advantage of their kindness; after all, a cogless frame requires much less than a proper transformer.
He opens his door as quietly as he can and tiptoes through the main room. Thank Primus, but Optimus and Megaton have retired for the night too. He doesn’t know what he would have done if he found them there. Last night was mortifying enough.
Thus, he almost jumps out of his plating when he flicks on the lights in the energon prep area at the lowest setting and finds Optimus sitting next to the window; it seems like he was watching the night traffic when D-16 intruded on his peace and quiet. Despite being visibly surprised to see D-16 there, his expression is quick to turn into a smile.
“Good morning, Dee. I hope you recharged well.” Before D-16 can answer, Optimus raises a finger to his lips. “Please, keep your voice down. Megaton is still resting.”
“I’m fully rested and ready for the day,” D-16 says, feeling just a little awkward. He has spent some time with Megaton in relative privacy before, but this is the first time he’s alone with Optimus. “I’m surprised to see you up already.”
“I felt too restless to sleep.” He taps two fingers together and when he draws them apart there’s an arc of electricity between them. “I’m still processing the high grade Megaton made for me.”
D-16 sputters something that hopefully doesn’t come across as offensive and turns quickly away, busying himself with energon prep.
“It’s all right.” Optimus doesn’t sound particularly bothered by his reaction. If anything, D-16 would call his tone apologetic. “I understand that method of sharing energon must have appeared quite strange to you.”
D-16 internally debates confiding in Optimus about why he found it so jarring, but decides that it’s going to clear the air faster between them if he’s honest. Something about Optimus’ open, honest aura makes D-16 feel guilty about keeping things from him.
“I have only seen anything like it in the history holos. From before the energon mine opened…” He can tell when Optimus makes the connection from the way his optics flash, lighting up the room for a moment.
“Ah. Syphoning energon from the dead is always the last resort in a famine. Rest assured that this is nothing like that.” D-16 glances towards Optimus to show that he’s paying attention, even as he starts mixing his energon. “Megaton is from someplace where energon was often contaminated with industrial runoff. It was commonplace for heavy production mechs that had robust enough filters and filtration systems to opt into having energon distilleries built into their frames and offer fuel to more vulnerable mechs. I’ve been struggling with a… malfunctioning component, let’s just say, that has completely depleted my auxiliary batteries before I realized what was happening, so he was kind enough to make me enough high grade to recharge my reserves.”
Okay, that is much less weird than D-16 expected. “That does make sense, but syphoning…?”
“I suppose I could have just drank all twelve hundred astroliters of high grade the normal way, but then I won’t be able to take you to see Orion Pax today.” D-16 stares into his cube and tries to rapidly calculate how much that would be in his regular fuel. What’s the exchange rate again? An astroliter of mid grade contains as much energy as a hundred and twenty seven astroliters of low grade and an astroliter of regular quality high grade— “Using a medical uplink and direct fuel connection it’s possible to bypass my nervous systems and my primary fuel tank and avoid the ill-effects of overcharging. At least most of them.” Optimus wiggles his fingers and watches arcs of electricity dance over them. “I sure am glad that my trailer is properly insulated or this would be rather awkward.”
“Yeah. Awkward.” D-16 drinks his energon and tries not to think about the fact that twelve hundred astroliters of high grade could probably keep his entire mining crew running at full energy for an entire month. He’s mostly successful. “Do you know what time it is? I want to be there for Pax as soon as they are willing to release him.” He realizes that he must sound desperate and quickly adds, “That way I will still have time to catch him up on all that happened while he was recovering before our first shift and-”
Optimus makes a noise and it takes D-16 a moment to realize that he’s trying to cover up a chuckle. “Forgive me, Dee, but you are quite charming and seeing your friendship with Orion Pax brings a weary old mech like me joy. Please, don’t ever feel like you need to make excuses for it.”
D-16 averts his eyes with a huff. He’s thinking about mixing another cube of energon just to have an excuse to keep avoiding Optimus’ smile. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me charming. Pax? All the time, he can charm the plating off even some of the enforcers. Me? I’m just… me. People don’t listen to me.”
“From what I heard, charming your way out of trouble is more your skill than Orion’s.”
D-16 thinks back on their last couple of run-ins with the enforcers, each incident caused by Orion Pax’s inability to stay out of trouble. Almost all of them ended with D-16 getting punched or shoved or yelled at. “I think you are mistaken.”
“Orion would have been jailed at least once or twice already if not for your quick thinking and clever words.”
“I don’t know where you are getting your information, sir, but you are incorrect.”
Optimus relents, but D-16 doesn’t like the sudden scheming look on his face. “Very well. If you don’t feel confident in your charisma, who am I to pretend that I know better than you? However” —oh no, here we go— “have you considered that practicing your words might give you a confidence boost in your speaking skills?”
“Maybe, but the last thing I want to do is annoy my coworkers by practicing on them, you know? They have better things to do than listen to me anyway.”
Optimus smiles, as if this was exactly the answer he was hoping for. “I might have a better idea, then. Wait here for a klik.”
He leaves, patting D-16 on the shoulder as he goes. D-16 stands there, wondering about the direction his life has taken until he comes to the conclusion that he might as well go along with it and knocks back his energon. After a glance at his fuel gauge - higher than usual, but still only 62% - he decides that he might as well top off with something that doesn’t taste like a scorcher tailpipe now that he has the chance and pours himself another cube.
He’s contemplating trying Orion’s preferred flavorings — there are more kinds of sweeteners here than he has seen in one place before, this is probably his one chance to see if he can find one he actually enjoys — when Optimus arrives back, followed by Megaton. The silver mech is clearly still going through his morning boot sequence; he walks straight to the table, sits down and props his head up on his fist, optics offline. Optimus pats his friend on the shoulder, eliciting some minor unintelligible grumbling (honestly, D-16 can relate. He also doesn’t like it when Orion wakes him up before the end of his natural recharge cycle) before he turns back to D-16 and holds out a datapad.
“This is rather old, but I think it would serve you well. The casing is near indestructible, the battery will last an eternity and if it does run out, you can recharge it with a few drops of energon here.” Optimus points at various parts of the datapad as he speaks, but D-16 is too distracted to pay much attention.
The datapad is heavy in his hands, made for much bigger mechs and an old — almost ancient — model besides. The casing is scratched and worn, but it’s clearly maintained with love. There’s Megatronus Prime’s mark etched into one corner, the lines uneven enough that he can clearly imagine someone — a young Megaton, perhaps? — drawing them there with a handheld laser cutter.
It turns on easily when he presses the buttons — they are all mechanical, likely for longevity and easier maintenance, and they have a very satisfying click. The internal storage — hundreds of books, most of them with titles written in very archaic and strange glyphs that immediately fascinate him because he’s not familiar with any of them — is about a quarter full, leaving plenty of space for him to fill.
He almost drops it in surprise when Megaton suddenly reaches over and with the tap of a button reveals a text editor, already set to a template. It looks basic, unable to handle the sort of multimedia attachments that are popular among modern poets, but it can encode glyphs three layers deep in any way he could possibly want to arrange them. Some of the most revered pre-war poems were written in this format, but it’s familiar to D-16 for a different reason.
D-16 hasn't heard miner-poetry since he got reassigned from the titanium mines — energon is still close enough to the surface that they commute from Iacon rather than establishing rest stations deep in the underlayers, so Orion Pax and the others haven’t developed the unique culture that made the other miners so strange to the city folk yet -, never dared dabble in it himself, but he knows the rules. They come to him from the hidden depths of his archives without conscious thought and his spark aches with something he can’t name as he looks at the cursor, flashing patiently as it waits for him to input the first glyph.
“There is an internal dictionary you can program to help you decipher the older collections if you need inspiration,” Megaton explains, his clawed fingers lingering over the etching of the Megatronus sigil. “But I think you will do just fine writing from your own spark.”
D-16 opens one of the files marked the most recent at random. It’s a collection by ‘the Voice of Tarn’ and appears to follow the progression of a revolutionary gladiator in a fictional uprising, the poems raw, evocative and a little scary. He opens the next file instead and finds a compilation of golden age poets from Velocitron writing about the joys of speeding along the highways or the thrill of racing their fellows; elegant words describing freedom in motion.
“It’s not much. The collection is a bit eclectic,” Megaton says. He sounds a touch awkward, which more or less confirms that the datapad belongs to him. “And you should probably number or date your files manually because the internal clock is busted-”
“I love it. Are you sure I can have it?” D-16 isn’t sure what he would do if they said no after all, if they changed their mind about it and asked for the datapad back. He can count on one hand how many possessions he actually has and none of them are this precious.
Megaton looks at him for a long moment, then smiles. “Yes, of course. There is nobody who deserves it more than you, D-16. Please, take good care of it.”
D-16 is much too distracted by the gift to pay much attention to the conversation going on around the table while Megaton drinks his energon and Optimus skims the weather forecast and the traffic report. Despite the violence of some of the poems, he keeps going back to the Voice of Tarn and their collection, the preface stuck in his mind.
I am the Voice of Tarn. I’m the mistake you couldn’t bury. You have shackled me for your entertainment, to delight you with death and violence, but heed my words:
When these chains break, it will be your heads under my fist, your neck at the edge of my blade, and I will only have as much mercy for you as you had for me.
D-16 is not a violent mech. He never gets in brawls, never acts out against their higher ups like Orion Pax does, keeps his resentments in carefully notated and isolated subarchives so they can’t taint his day to day thinking, but something about these poems resonates with him. It must have been a relief for the poet, he thinks, to take all their mundane, daily bits of pain and frustration, amplify them and project them onto this fictional gladiator who can take that righteous anger and turn it into catharsis.
He’s not sure he likes how much he likes them, actually, but they definitely make him think about what he wants his own poems to be about. He’s lost in thought, absently typing in the poems he learned in the titanium mine when they arrive at the hospital. So close to being reunited with his friend finally snaps him out of his pensive mood and he starts pinging Orion’s comms as soon as they get in range, but the hospital must be blocking personal signals because he can’t get a call to go through.
The nurse at the main counter appears really confused when they ask about Orion Pax and becomes supremely unhelpful when they clarify that yes, Orion is indeed cogless. Optimus uses his disappointed crew captain voice to get her to call upon another nurse, then another, until eventually Knock Out comes trotting in from somewhere.
“Oh, they would never call on me. I was refilling my supplies when I heard the commotion,” he says cheerfully, then he turns towards the latest unhelpful nurse. “Is Ratchet still in? Stupid question, of course he is, the good doctor only goes home to have some proper rest when Director Pharma yells at him. Go and fetch him, these good mechs are looking for one of his patients.”
The nurse appears doubtful, but he obeys and not 5 kliks later Ratchet staggers out of the staff break room. “What is it and why couldn’t it wait until I had more than 15 kliks of recharge?” he grumbles, leaning heavily against the counter to stay upright.
“We have come to take Orion Pax home. The hospital staff, however, has been reluctant to share with us where he is or when we can see him.”
Ratchet stares at them for a very long time, then stomps over to the main computer and starts furiously typing. “It says here that he was discharged and picked up… this doesn’t look right, we are not open to visitors that early. Fixit!” The first very unhelpful nurse flinches and tries to flee, but Ratchet grabs her before she can get far. “Care to explain what happened here? Because something looks rotten here, the kind of rotten that will get you demoted back to lab tech if you can’t explain it.”
The threat seems to scare some sense into the nurse, because she stops struggling to get away. “He said it was protocol! That he was picking the nocog up and bringing him straight back to work!”
“Who said that? Did you even try to get his name? Even if it’s the Prime asking, we don’t release patients without proper documentation, you know that!”
“I don’t know! It was an enforcer — one of the flying ones? Standard mold, they all look the same to me. He was in a hurry and getting agitated, so I didn’t dare to ask too many questions.”
D-16 stares numbly ahead, the sounds of the world fading into the background of his processing even as Ratchet gives the nursebot the most vicious chewing out of her whole life.
Someone took Orion Pax and if it really was an enforcer, then knowing his history with them, it couldn’t have been for a good reason.
Chapter Text
MiniMegs: …
MiniMegs: … …
MiniMegs: … … …
AIR-MRK-14: [?]
MiniMegs: [Airachnid. Good morning.]
AIR-MRK-14: [morning]
MiniMegs: [Do you know where Sentinel is? I’ve been trying to reach him, but he’s offline.]
AIR-MRK-14: [in decontam getting the organic gunk soaked from his frame]
AIR-MRK-14: [he’ll be in there for another two days at least]
MiniMegs: [Did he give an order to have that miner from the race removed from the hospital? Orion Pax?]
AIR-MRK-14: [lover boy? no, that one found his soft spot]
AIR-MRK-14: [somehow]
AIR-MRK-14: [i never knew him to be big on romance but here we are]
MiniMegs: [You are very talkative today.]
AIR-MRK-14: [i’ve been staring at him floating unconscious in a hot vat of industrial solvent for three days]
AIR-MRK-14: [i’m bored out of my mind]
AIR-MRK-14: [what’s up?]
MiniMegs: [We came to take Orion home, but an unknown enforcer already took him away.]
MiniMegs: [Optimus checked the mines and the barracks, but nobody has seen him there.]
MiniMegs: [We are trying to identify the enforcer from the security footage, but this system is… something.]
AIR-MRK-14: [it wasn’t us]
AIR-MRK-14: [sentinel is a temperamental glitch, but he doesn’t walk back his decisions often]
MiniMegs: [Custom constructs and our many neuroses, amirite.]
AIR-MRK-14: [you don’t know the half of it]
AIR-MRK-14: [alright. i’m coming up to help. sit tight]
MiniMegs: [...Wait, what?]
D-16 stares at his hands, the world around him reduced to a buzzing blur. Supposedly he’s sitting there to direct Optimus to the security office when he gets back, but D-16 is too distraught to pay attention to his environment. It almost feels like all his nonessential processes are fighting over which one can imagine the most harrowing scenario about where Pax is now and he’s starting to debate asking for a shot of that sedative someone injected into Fixit to stop her from twitching uncontrollably after Ratchet was done yelling at her.
Someone taps the top of his head suddenly and he jolts upright so fast that his head hits the wall behind him and leaves a dent.
“The other lover boy,” Sentinel Prime’s bodyguard purrs, clearly amused by his reaction. “Where did your big bots go?”
It takes D-16 a moment to overcome the ringing in his head and decipher what she means.
“Megaton is at the security office. Optimus is not back yet.”
She hums in acknowledgment and then grabs him by the neck, lifting him up like he weighs nothing. “To the security office, then.”
“I’m supposed to be waiting for Optimus!” D-16 protests, not really because he feels like he was doing a good job, but more because he wants her to put him down.
The bodyguard ignores him, carrying him off like he’s a misbehaving turbopup. He hears snickers around them, the nurses and doctors apparently finding his predicament hilarious. At least the mortification makes it easier to stop catastrophizing about Orion for a while. D-16 hides his face in his hands and tries to pretend that he doesn’t exist until the big femme finally drops him in Megaton’s lap, which leads to a completely different flavor of mortification. “What is the situation?”
Megaton gives D-16 a reassuring squeeze before placing him carefully back on his feet. “Good morning, Airachnid. Inferno has been trying to make sense of the camera footage, but the timestamps are encoded and he can’t isolate any specific cameras, so it’s taking a while.”
“I told you, this is a pre-war system. It’s designed for a kind of security frame type that doesn’t exist anymore,” says a very exhausted looking red mech sitting in front of a wall of screens, tapping cautiously away at the keyboard. “Red Alert knows how to get some things out of this mess, but he’s away on a mental health break.”
“Amateurs.” Is all Airachnid says before he unceremoniously tips Inferno out of his chair and sits down in his spot. “Do you have a timestamp?”
“Sometime this morning, before the hospital opened to the public, but that’s how precise it gets.”
Airachnid nods in acknowledgment, then pops open a panel on her shoulder. It looks just like the standardized connectors some of the specialized equipment has, D-16 thinks, and the similarity becomes even more eerie when she unspools a pair of standard issue cables and plugs them right into the console.
“You won’t need a specific location to find the right camera?”
“No. I will be looking at them all at once.”
For a moment it looks like Inferno wants to say that it’s impossible to process the visual data from more than three hundred cameras at once, but then she turns her head slightly and very deliberately blinks her eyes at him one after the other and he thinks better of it.
“I see they spared no effort to make the Prime’s security director compatible with any system in the city,” Inferno says instead, sounding just a little jealous.
D-16 watches the screens speed through the footage recorded that morning and wonders if Airachnid’s ability really is a modification, like Inferno seems to imply. Could she be a special, custom-made bot like Megaton? Or she could be a rare remnant of that extinct security frame type that was mentioned earlier.
“Even if you could find a surgeon to give you these modifications, I would advise against it,” Megaton says, his voice taking on a tone of firm disapproval. “Suddenly gaining the ability to perceive so many things at once would either cause you great stress or leave you in a constant state of understimulated restlessness, because you couldn’t possibly feed the extra processors with enough data to satisfy them.”
“Oh.”
“I like people watching,” Airachnid says, which is the first indication that she is paying any attention to their conversation at all. “It takes off the edge. I found your mech, by the way.”
She pulls up a short clip on the primary screen of a winged enforcer dragging Orion away. Even after she adds the view from the other two cameras in the reception area, he still remains mostly unrecognizable; the same masked seeker frame as all the others, painted mostly blue.
D-16’s eyes are glued to the image of Orion Pax, being dragged roughly along by the enforcer. The camera quality leaves something to be desired, so he can’t say it for sure, but from one angle it looks like the enforcer’s grip has left dents on Orion’s arm, which fills him with renewed dread.
He glances at Megaton, but the silver mech either hasn’t noticed it or doesn’t want to draw attention to the dents for fear of setting D-16 off.
“Thank you, you have saved us a lot of time.”
Airachnid unplugs and does a luxurious stretch with all her many spindly limbs. “You can pay me back for the favor later. I sent the footage to you in private.”
“Sweet of you.” Megaton holds out a hand to help her to her feet, like a true gentlemech. “Do you know who that enforcer is?”
“Not a chance. Civilian enforcers are not in my jurisdiction.”
“It was worth a shot. Before you leave… Inferno.”
“Yes?”
“Do you think you can give Airachnid here an exemption from the hospital’s signal blocking? As the Prime’s personal security chief, she deserves the privilege, don’t you think?”
“Uuuh, sure. I can do that. This way, ma’am, I need to register you at the main counter…”
AIR-MRK-14: [what did you send me? if it’s a virus so you can get rid of me before i can come collecting on this favor i will find you and dismember you before you can say ‘frag’]
MiniMegs: [Unlimited access to the archives. Including, but not limited to, their media collection.]
AIR-MRK-14: [oh]
AIR-MRK-14: [that’s one way to repay a favor]
AIR-MRK-14: [i guess]
MiniMegs: [Not good enough for you? I thought you were bored.]
AIR-MRK-14: [i’m going to binge watch the first 200 seasons of ‘csi: praxus dark files’ and be really pissed that i haven’t thought of this before]
MiniMegs: [I suppose we are even, then?]
AIR-MRK-14: [yeah]
AIR-MRK-14: [but don’t push it]
MiniMegs: [I wouldn’t dare.]
“So. What are we doing now?” D-16 asks, trying to keep pace with Megaton as the big mech strides outside to catch the arriving Optimus.
“Obviously we are going to find Orion Pax.”
“How? We don’t know where to even start! There are hundreds of near-identical enforcers in Iacon!” D-16 stops on the sidewalk, watching the road unfold and connect. Optimus is impossible to miss, but much to D-16’s surprise, he’s not alone.
“It would be a hassle for you or me to look through the entire roster of enforcers who could potentially have kidnapped Orion, but there is no reason for us to do it when we already know someone much more suited for this kind of investigation.”
D-16 watches, astonished, as a very familiar black and white vehicle pulls up and stiffly transforms. Prowl looks supremely uncomfortable, still unused to traveling in vehicle mode and Optimus has to gently take him by the elbow and draw him up on the sidewalk to prevent him from getting overrun by an ambulance.
“Optimus said that you require my aid with something,” he says right away, never one for wasting time on pleasantries.
“That’s correct. We suspect that an enforcer kidnapped Orion Pax for unknown reasons.” Megaton reaches out a hand to Prowl, no doubt to transfer the video files to him. “We thought that you would be the perfect person to help us chase the perpetrator down and save Orion.”
Prowl’s eyes flash, his expression turning strange. “You want me to hunt this transformer down?” If D-16 didn’t know better, he’d say that Prowl looks almost excited.
“Yes,” Optimus confirms. “We cannot trust the law enforcement, in case they are also involved. We will check the precinct, of course, but I don’t have much hope for that endeavor. I believe I don’t have to tell you that we don’t know what the kidnapper plans for Orion, so time is of the essence.”
Prowl appears to internally debate if he should get involved in this or not, but in the end he gives a firm nod.
“Very well. I’ll keep you updated if I find anything.” He transforms without another word and speeds away, although D-16 can’t even guess where he’s heading.
He turns to Optimus and Megaton, but unlike Prowl, the big mechs don’t seem to be in a hurry. “What are we going to do next?”
“I have every faith that Prowl will find the enforcer before we do, but I meant what I said. The only place we might find a clue is at the enforcer headquarters.”
D-16 feels his spark drop.
“...I was afraid you’d say that.”
The visit to the precinct starts exactly as bad as D-16 expects it to. The enforcers are supremely unhelpful and seem more interested in interrogating D-16 about how much he knows about Orion’s usual shenanigans than addressing the very clear clip of one of their number dragging a nocog away against his will. They claim that the jet’s individual markings are not visible enough to identify him. When Optimus steps away to make a formal missing person report — he really is a former enforcer; when Megaton and D-16 run into a wall of barely-polite dismissal, Optimus knows exactly what glyphs he needs to chose for his complaint to fit the official lingo, so they reluctantly let him make a report — one enforcer with a rotorcraft alt tries to loom over the stressed D-16 and attempts to intimidate him into claiming this is all a prank until Megaton inserts himself between them. “If you want to pick a fight with someone, I will gladly indulge you. But you will leave my cogless friend alone.”
“You can’t talk to me like this! This is our headquarters, we will have you detained in a klik if you raise a hand against me.”
“Are you certain?” Megaton lazily lifts one hand and starts pointedly inspecting his claws. “I feel confident that I could take on all your colleagues without problem, but that wouldn’t matter to you anyway. I could flatten your head into a novelty hubcap before your friends could reach me.”
The enforcer quickly evaluates the wisdom of irritating a mech that had to duck to get through the door, decides that he’d rather live and flees back to his desk.
In the sudden deadly silence the raspy laughter coming from the direction of the evidence room sounds incredibly loud. There’s another enforcer leaning against the doorframe, watching them with open amusement, an evidence box held lazily under one arm. He appears to have a similar pursuit vehicle mode to Prowl’s, even sporting a black and white color scheme, but built much heavier.
Like he was forged specifically to ram into other ground vehicles and drive them off the road.
“Barricade.” The mech’s mouth twitches up in a smile when Megaton recognizes him.
“I see my reputation precedes me. Come on, leave the small fry to shake in their plating and come to my office. I want to hear what my idiots have done this time.”
Megaton doesn’t seem concerned, but D-16 can’t help nervously taking stock of every possible escape route as they follow Commissioner Barricade into his office. The head enforcer has a reputation and D-16 has always considered it very lucky that Orion never ran into him on any of his outings before.
“So,” Barricade starts, dropping the box of — D-16 does a double take — severed hands on his desk and sitting down in his big, comfortable chair. “A little spider called ahead that I should be helpful because you know how things roll here. Don’t make a liar out of her, alright?”
“Why am I not surprised that someone in your position is friends with Airachnid?” Megaton pushes the box away and sits down opposite of Barricade. D-16 is left awkwardly hovering behind Megaton, but he’d prefer if the Commissioner kept ignoring him, so he stands there quietly and tries his best not to draw attention to his presence. “This is a small city, after all.”
“Hey, none of that now! I got this position because I was the only cop at the end of the war still alive who could find his own aft without a navcom.” Barricade shrugs, unconcerned by the accusation. “That the Chief of Security and I share an appreciation for dumb, overproduced golden age police shows has nothing to do with it.”
“Ah. So that’s what this is about.” Whatever that means, it makes Megaton relax, so it’s probably a good thing. “One of your enforcers stole a nocog bot from Iacon hospital. Any idea what he wants with the mech?”
Barricade idles his engine and pushes a few spare datapads away until they reveal the built-in commlink. He insistently taps the edge of the palm scanner until Megaton compiles and a nanoklik later the recordings from hospital appear as crisp holo projections above the desk. Barricade leans forward and inspects the clips for a klik before he bolts upright in surprise.
“Wait, that’s the miner Sentinel took a shine to. Frag. I told the guys to ease up on the little scraplet, not worth getting one of us scrapped over troubling Sentinel’s new favorite.” D-16 doesn’t think there was that much favoritism going on when Sentinel visited them, but if the misconception gives Pax any amount of leeway or protection, then he’ll take it. “The flier is Shadowtag. He was buddies with Darkwing. I didn’t think they were all that close, but he was all mopey and depressed after the race, so I put him on leave and haven’t seen him since.” Barricade’s mouth twists into a grimace. “Now that I think about it… he hasn’t been back to the barracks, not that I’ve seen. No idea where else he might be.”
“This is useful information already. Thank you.” Megaton stands. Barricade remains seated, still looking at the footage with a troubled frown.
“Don’t mention it, mech. If you find him, tell him to haul his aft back here, okay? And I do hope you recover your cogless in one piece.”
“Yes. So do we.”
They end up sitting on the stairs of the precinct for another ten kliks while they wait for Optimus and the only thing preventing D-16 from having a complete meltdown is the steady aura of calm that Megaton radiates.
It doesn’t do much for his mental state when Optimus comes running, even though he’s bringing good news. “Prowl called. He found the mech — in the sublevel 5 hub, of all places — but Orion is nowhere to be seen. I told him not to engage, but I don’t think he’ll wait for long.” He transforms midstep, not bothering to get his trailer. “Hop on. We have no time to waste!”
D-16, intimately aware that there are a lot of ways to die very painful deaths in the sublevels, clambers on without hesitation.
Turns out that hanging onto a speeding transformer is something of a harrowing experience, even with Megaton there to keep him steady. It probably doesn’t help that Optimus drives like a maniac, with the same reckless abandon as any enforcer in a hurry. He barely slows down as they go skidding down the ramp to the sublevels and only stops when they almost run over—
“Elita!” D-16 stumbles over to her, his legs feeling like jelly. “Have you seen Prowl? It’s important!”
“D-16?! What’s going on here? I-”
“Elita, please, there is no time! Pax is in danger. This could be a matter of life and death!”
Elita-1 is still clearly confused, but she is nothing if not reliable in emergencies. She gives a firm nod and gestures towards the side chamber. “This way!”
The sound of heavy machinery in the main work chamber hid any outside noise, but they can clearly hear heated words and hissed threats as soon as they step into the storage chamber and it only takes a nanoklik to find Prowl and Shadowtag. The enforcer has Prowl pinned against the side of one of the construction machines, holding him in place by one of his doors. “...listen here, you little snoop. If you tell anyone about this, I will make you wish you—”
“What are you doing?! Let him go!” Perhaps they should have filled Elita-1 in a little more after all, because her voice makes the enforcer stumble away from the machine, dragging Prowl along by his - now visibly dislocated - doorwing.
“Stay back!” Shadowtag takes a look at them — two very big, clearly hostile transformers, especially Megaton who looks ready to pounce on him and rip him apart if he gets the chance — and yanks harshly on Prowls door, ripping it halfway off. Perhaps reacting to Prowl’s pain, several of the construction vehicles flash their headlights, but Shadowtag is too busy backing up until his wings hit the side of the biggest machine to notice. Realizing that his grip on Prowl isn’t as secure as before, he shifts his hands and lifts Prowl up into the air by his head. “If you make one wrong move I’ll rip his head off!” Shadowtag threatens. He has lost his visor in the scuffle before they arrived and his optics are flashing wildly with mania.
D-16 watches, helpless to do anything, as Prowl kicks his legs and claws at the hand gripping his head, but all his struggling achieves is making Shadowtag grip him harder until his red chevron starts bending under the pressure. He is aware that Optimus is saying something, but the words sound too far away, so distant they barely even qualify as noise.
All of D-16’s processes stall out, a moment stretching to an eternity. Is this really it? What kind of curse is this? This morning it seemed like the world could be set right, that he could finally reunite with Pax and now he might end up losing not just Orion but Prowl too. He feels the same numbness overcome him that swallowed his world after Terminus died, color bleaching from his vision, sound reduced to meaningless noise-
Sound and color come rushing back with the noise of transformation, the shape behind the enforcer and Prowl shifting. A giant hand closes around Shadowtag and lifts him into the air so suddenly that he drops Prowl, who falls to the ground with a startled yelp.
D-16 stares up at the blazing visor of an inconceivably huge purple and green mech that shifts Shadowtag in his giant hands like he’s debating if he should just crush the enforcer or pull the limbs off him one by one first. There are errors crowding the sides of his hud, his processors unable to keep up with this... with this...
madness.
Optimus takes a step forward, fearless.
“Long Haul,” he says, his voice bizarrely calm. “I understand that you want to pay back tenfold the pain this mech inflicted on your foreman, but you can’t rip his head off yet.” D-16 drags his gaze away from the giant and looks at Optimus, but the mech appears exactly as calm as he sounds, his face and his aura both serene. “We need him to tell us what he did to Orion Pax first.”
Chapter Text
The giant construction machine — Long Haul?? Has it… he … been alive the whole time?! — considers Optimus, then very slowly shifts Shadowtag so Optimus can look the upside-down jet in the optics.
“What do you want from me?” Shadowtag whispers, his voice barely more than static from the terror he no doubt feels.
“Just some information. If you cooperate, then we can forget about this entire misstep. Nobody needs to know about this blunder.”
Optimus sounds calm and understanding, his aura is full of reassurance, but D-16 can’t help but notice that something is off about it. It takes him a nanoklik to realize: for the first time since that initial meeting when they scared off Darkwing and his other buddy, Optimus has engaged his battle mask.
“Get fragged!” Shadowtag is surprisingly quick to recover his wits and tries to wiggle out of Long Haul’s grasp, but the giant mech starts to tighten his grip in response until Shadowtag’s chassis begins buckling with a horrific creaking noise. “I’LL TALK I’LL TALK STOP STOP STOP!!! ” After a very long few moments of internal debate, Long Haul eventually eases his hold again and Shadowtag goes limp. “Wha— what do you want to know?”
“That miner you took from the hospital. What did you do to him?”
“I wanted to throw him in the smelter — as revenge for Darkwing; the little glitch doesn’t deserve to live after humiliating him like that — but they haven’t ignited them for the shift yet. So I threw him down a trash chute where he would be incinerated with all the other garbage.”
Whatever pity D-16 felt for Shadowtag or his discomfort at seeing a fellow sentient threatened instantly evaporates when he hears that. There are very few deaths more gruesome and painful than being melted alive and this overgrown fly wanted to condemn Orion to such a fate for outdoing Darkwing at the race?!
D-16 sees red. His hands clench into fists without conscious thought and his hud is literally flooded with red; in answer to his anger his frame is starting to initialize combat protocols and filling his vision with blaring crimson errors when it lacks the t-cog to actually access the internal weaponry he apparently has, locked deep inside his frame. It doesn’t matter. If Orion Pax is dead then he will rip Shadowtag apart with his bare hands if he has to, doesn’t matter if Optimus promised him that he could go free if he cooperates.
“Which trash chute?” Optimus asks, just as cool and collected as before.
“Don’t remember. I heard mechs coming so I shoved him into the first one and rushed to join the shift.”
“That is unfortunate, but you sound truthful. I don’t have any more questions for you.”
“That’s it? Will you tell this fragging scrapheap to let me go now?” Shadowtag, made unwise by relief, tries to kick Long Haul’s wrist, but very quickly stops when the giant rumbles his engine in warning.
“Thank you for your patience and cooperation, Long Haul. We are finished with Shadowtag.”
The red visor flashes so bright it bathes the entire chamber in crimson for a moment and Shadowtag realizes what’s going to happen the exact same moment that D-16 does.
He doesn’t have the time to look away. Enormous fingers clench and twist. Metal tears like it’s wrapping tape. Shadowtag makes a haunting groan that pitches up until it dissolves into static. The sound of bodyparts hitting the ground is the same as dropping any heavy equipment, loud in the sudden silence. Shadowtag’s expression is frozen in open mouthed shock that would look really funny if it wasn’t on half of a greying corpse. D-16 can see the white light of his t-cog blinking through the gap in his twisted chest plates.
He stares at that light for what feels like an eternity before Elita-1’s voice shakes him out of his stupor.
“Hey, get away from him!”
The same energon stained hands that reduced Shadowtag to scrap are reaching out for Prowl who is still on the ground, stunned or possibly even rendered unconscious by pain. D-16 is too numb to move, but Elita jerks forward to stop Long Haul or drag Prowl away or something - only to be stopped by Megaton catching her by the shoulder and holding her back. “Let me go! He’s-”
“Boss?” Long Haul’s voice is shockingly normal, if a bit loud, soft with concern. He scoops Prowl into his hands with the utmost gentleness and lifts him up to his face to take a closer look at his injuries. “Boss, are you alive?!”
“I’m fine, Haul,” Prowl croaks out before the giant could start panicking. He opens his eyes with a groan and when he sees how close he is to Long Haul’s face he weakly reaches out with a hand and rests it against the mech’s mask. “I knew you wouldn’t let him kill me.”
“Never!” Long Haul stomps to give his word extra weight and it makes D-16 flinch away. He’s not close enough for the giant mech to stomp on him, but his mining sensors interpret the vibrations as the sign of an impending tunnel collapse, sending his panic subroutine into a brief uproar before he can manually shut the stupid thing off.
“He’s going to require a medic,” Optimus suggests, kneeling down to examine Shadowtag’s remains. “And we need to figure out what we want to do with this… scrap.”
“Are you crazy?!” Elita yells at him, finally finding her voice again. “We need to report this right away, we need to- oh Primus, we killed an enforcer, we are done for.”
“No,” Megaton says firmly. “You are not reporting what happened here. We get rid of the body, we get a medic to treat Prowl and then we go find Orion. Nobody gets in trouble.”
“I know a medic,” Long Haul rumbles, carefully transferring Prowl to one hand, spreading his fingers wide to keep supporting the injured doorwing. Then he brings down his now free fist on top of the crane parked next to him with enough force to make D-16 jump again. “Hook. Wake up.”
There’s a weird buzz in D-16’s head; a conversation going on in a barely encrypted channel until the crane finally transforms, unfolding into another big mech, although much smaller than Long Haul. The first thing he does once he gains full control over his limbs is punch Long Haul in the shin. “What did I tell you slagbrained moron about moving injured patients?! Lower him back down, right now!” He sports the same garish color scheme as Long Haul, although it is broken up by a faded set of white medic markings that weren’t visible in his vehicle mode. He also possesses the same volume as Long Haul, but in his case it seems to stem from bossiness rather than the lack of volume control that sometimes comes with oversized frames. “Bonecrusher, Scavenger: stop standing around like you took root, take this stupid piece of slag” —he spins on his heel, gives Shadowtag’s remains a good kick and then turns right back towards Long Haul to help him ease Prowl onto the ground— “ and load it into Mixmaster. I want it gone before anyone can come and check the commotion.”
D-16 isn’t even surprised when the other construction machines also transform, except for the mixer that starts to concoct something foul smelling in its — his? — drum.
“Glad to see that we are on the same page on how to handle this incident,” Optimus says pleasantly and offers a nod when Hook glances in his direction. “I am Optimus. I must thank you and yours for your swift involvement.”
“Yeah, you Conjunx already told us about you.” Despite being much bigger than the average medic, once Hook starts working on reconnecting the torn wiring and mending the torn plating, he works with just as much precision as any surgeon. “Well met. Now shut up, I’m concentrating. Oh, and go grab anything you want from that frame before we cut it apart, there won’t be anything left when Mix is done with it.”
D-16 glances up at Megaton, just so he can look away from Optimus who has started to pry open Shadowtag’s chest plates. “You knew the construction machines were alive?”
“I had a hunch and I confirmed it when we refueled them.” Megaton says quietly, still holding onto Elita. “They are a bonded group; a gestalt. They were struck by grief when they lost their previous foreman and it blocked their ability to transform. It seems like seeing their new foreman in danger was enough to break them out of alt form lock.”
D-16 looks back at the mechs again. Instead of doing what Hook told them, they are clustered around Prowl, asking about how he is feeling, getting in the way of the repairs because they can’t seem to keep their hands off him now that they have hands again. Prowl, for his part, seems a little overwhelmed, but he is touching them almost as much as they are touching him, as if he needs to reassure himself that they are real.
It dawns on D-16 suddenly that these must have been the voices Prowl started hearing after he got his t-cog. Five others bound to him, unable to act or speak aloud because they were trapped in their vehicle modes.
“So they would listen to Prowl?” Elita asks, clearly seeing an angle where she might steer this whole mess back to something that won’t get them all locked up for the rest of their lives if anybody finds out about it. “Prowl! Are you just going to let them smelt an enforcer down?!”
The mechs all freeze and turn to stare at her, Prowl included. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” he says in a measured tone after a longer pause. “He kidnapped Orion Pax with the explicit goal of killing him in a gruesome fashion. He assaulted and tried to kill me. I don’t believe we should risk punishment for reporting his death, even if we can argue that our case was self defense.”
She looks around helplessly for someone to take her side, eventually landing on D-16.
“I’m sorry, Elita-1, sir,” he says with some reluctance. “But I agree with them.”
This makes her deflate and when she tries to pull her arm away, Megaton allows it. “You can walk away, you know. Pretend you were never here.”
Elita drags a hand down her face and rallies herself. “No, I can’t just walk away and pretend I didn’t see anything. This is… something is wrong here and I can’t let this go, not until…” She falters for a moment, then she squares her shoulders. “Not until we find out what happened to Orion.”
Optimus stands. He’s holding the t-cog and a long-ranged signal booster mod that (D-16 is almost certain about this) is considered illegal. “That is very responsible of you, Elita.” He nods towards the waiting constructibots. “Thank you for your patience, I am done with the body.”
“Your friend might still be alive if he got thrown in the trash before the shift started,” Hook says, not looking up from his work. “There used to b— hey, watch it! ” he snaps at one of the others when they move to cut up the body and accidentally nudge his shoulder. “ As I was saying, there used to be an entire floor of sorting stations down on sublevel 50 and the incinerators run off the same circuit as the smelting furnaces. Someone could have picked him out of the trash or he could have climbed out on his own before he got got.”
“But there are only 40 sublevels,” D-16 says, not daring to hope just yet.
“The bottom ten levels are all maintenance,” says one of the other constructibots (possibly Bonecrusher). “The main sorting floor used to have one of these big pre-war semi-sentient computers handling it all by itself, before Sentinel ordered all of them retired except for the ones that couldn’t be replaced with drones or regular laborers.”
“Yep. Guess it has to be all drones now, if you don’t know that they are there,” says another (maybe Scavenger), casually throwing Shadowtag’s disembodied head into the mixing drum and shaking stale energon off his hands. “But even those should be able to pull a living mech off the disassembly line, living metal is too valuable to the medics to leave it in the trash.”
D-16’s spark swells with hope, but he can’t help but notice the concerned look Megaton and Optimus exchange.
“What do you mean by ‘semi-sentient’ computers?” Optimus asks, subspacing the salvaged components. “I have heard the term in passing before, but I didn’t pay it much heed at the time. Now, having discovered you, I find myself in doubt of the origin of anything that is described as lacking in sentience in any way.”
That is… actually a very good point and D-16 suddenly starts to have some very concerning questions about the transport trains he takes to work every day. At least he doesn’t have to worry about the sentience of his tools; he has taken them apart enough times for repairs that he is certain he’d know if they had a spark.
Hook actually puts his welding tools down for a moment, gazing into the middle distance before he answers. “Semi-sentients are… I’m not sure how they are made, frankly. I think they are just computers so advanced that they seem sentient, so they got personified by the media. They were developed as starship computers, initially. I’m a structural engineer and Scrapper was an architect, neither of us were directly involved in the Teletraan project. The first few were widely reported on and had names of their own, but eventually they got so common that they stopped naming them around… hey, anybody remember which ship was the first running off the standardized mainframe? The Damocles or the Ordnance ?”
“The Ordnance ,” Long Haul says, nudging Hook until he gets back to working on Prowl. “The Damocles wasn’t even in the first line of mass manufactured ships, you only remember it because it was such a nice blue that Mix spent three months trying to figure out how to make paint in that color.”
“Oooh, you are right!” Hook puts his tools away and smears a line of nanite gel over the weldline. “Anyway. Once they figured out how to mass produce them for the starships they started quietly implementing the technology on the ground too. Traffic control, weather forecasts…”
“Sorting garbage?”
“Yeah, that too.” Hook rolls his shoulder and then reaches a hand out to help Prowl up. “Not sure why Sentinel Prime decided to remove them, but that’s so far above my paygrade that I don’t care to ask either.”
“That is perfectly understandable. Thank you for telling us what you know and for your help.” Optimus steps forward and one by one clasps hands with the constructibots. He is taller than most transformers in the city and D-16 has grown used to seeing him tower over people, so it’s strange to see him among bots who are as big as him or even bigger. “What are you going to do now?”
“We are going to wait for Mixmaster to finish cooking those medical metal slabs, then I’m going to go and report to Sentinel Prime,” Prowl says, shifting this way and that as he tests the new welds. “I’m going to tell him what happened to Shadowtag, but leave your presence out of it. I’m certain that he will be understanding.”
Elita-1 doesn’t seem fully convinced. “What if he throws you in jail or worse? Sentinel Prime is benevolent, but…”
Prowl smiles at her and it’s a cool, calculating thing. “You know that I’m too pragmatic to count on the Prime’s benevolence alone. Hook and the others are the most brilliant builders and engineers in Iacon. Having them back at full capacity to finish those rebuilding projects that have been stalling since the end of the war for lack of capable mechs more than outweighs the life of a dime-a-dozen enforcer. Please, trust my judgment on this.”
Eventually they manage to say their goodbyes and move on. D-16 honestly doesn’t mind. After Hook mentioned that Orion might be alive — he actually has a reasonably high chance to be alive, in fact — he was ready to leave and go look for him and leave the entire mess with the dead enforcer to Prowl and his friends. They seemed to have it well in hand already.
If he is honest, the stress he’s been under since the race and everything that has happened today is culminating into a hellish headache, his extra processes lagging from the strain. When they find Pax — and he refuses to entertain the idea that they won’t, for the sake of his sanity — he’s going to shake him really hard for being a stupid glitch who gets in trouble all the time and then he’s going to very nicely ask Megaton and Optimus if he could use their guest room again please and sleep for a whole month to give himself time to process everything that happened.
It takes them an obnoxiously long time to find someone who can direct them towards the shift manager in the waste management sector who then has the authority to lend them an access card to the elevator down to sublevel 50. The main sorting area is big and loud from dozens of drones sorting scrap, overseen by two mechs D-16 has seen in the barracks every once in a while: Swindle and Rattrap. They don’t know anything about Orion (and they continue not knowing anything about him even after Megaton bribes them with some high grade) but their eyes light up when Optimus shows them the access card. “Well, we haven’t seen your mech, but if he’s down here then he’s going to be in one of the side chambers,” Swindle says with a wide gesture towards the far wall. D-16 can just barely make out the outlines of locked doors on the metal. “Except we can’t open the dividers without that beauty right there. So, if you would be so kind…”
Most of the smaller side chambers are manned by drones, which are immediately integrated into the workflow of the main room at large. Some of them have mechs inside, usually one or two, most of them upset to realize that there was a greater sorting area with a semi-decent dormitory and enough space to stretch their legs just on the other side of the wall, but they most of them also insist that they haven’t seen anyone drop down the trash chute.
Until they find the single most annoying bot D-16 has ever met in his life. B-127 is small, yellow and chronically incapable of shutting up in the way mechs get when they have been alone long enough that their social protocols start to degrade. It takes even Optimus, who has a Primus-blessed ability to charm mechs, a while to get a word in edgewise between B-127’s ramblings about something called ‘Badassatron’ and his imaginary friends. “That is all very riveting, but we are in something of a hurry, as it happens. Have you happened to see a mech drop down to your level today?”
B-127’s eyes light up and D-16 is fully expecting him to get into another tale about a pile of scrap he mistook for a mech and fashioned into a friend, but what comes out of the mech’s mouth is:
“Oh, oh! You are the friends Orion talked about!”
D-16 lunges for him and grabs him by the arms, ready to shake any information out of his glitching head if he needs to. “You have seen him?!”
“Oh, well, uhm. He dropped in, yes. We talked a bit, some things happened, long story short he’s, well.” B-127 tries to shrug, but can’t quite manage with D-16 holding him. “Then he left and told me he’d be back to get me out of here when he found the Matrix.”
He looks around, taking in the variations of shock and despair on their faces and tentatively offers: “I’m sorry that you have missed your friend.”
Notes:
Goddamit Orion
Chapter 10
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
D-16 thinks he’s going to crash. The world swims around him, his sensors suddenly unable to tell up from down. “What do you mean he left?!” he croaks out, stepping away and reaching out for something to support him and finds Megaton, as steady and warm as he always is, huge hands winding around him to keep him upright when his legs give out. “Why did he leave me?” he tries to ask, but he’s not sure he actually manages to make any sound. His headache spikes, his processors overheat and darkness swallows the world as his systems hard reset.
When he comes to, he is warm. The world is moving in a way that he’s starting to associate with Optimus driving when he’s not in a life or death situation. When he opens his eyes there’s something bright and purple near his face; it takes him a few nanokliks to identify it as Megaton’s Megatronus insignia. From afar he thought it was painted with something that glows in the dark, but this close it’s unmistakably a biolight, the purple brightening and dimming with the rate of Megaton’s sparkpulse.
D-16 straightens with a groan and takes a moment to identify where he is (in Megaton’s arms, held safely against his warm chassis) and what’s going on around him (they are sitting in Optimus’ trailer, Elita-1 huddled in the far corner with a shaken expression and next to her B-127 rocking where he sits, muttering to himself).
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Megaton rumbles, helping him to move off to the side. “You gave us a scare. How are you feeling?”
D-16 squints at his hud and the long, looooong list of error messages crowding it. “My head hurts.”
“That’s to be expected.”
D-16 dismisses all the nonessential errors, then manually gets rid of some more, except one keeps coming back. “One of my emotional subroutines is stuck,” he admits, a little spooked.
“You are anxious over Orion. It will take a few dedicated defrag cycles for it to go away unless we find him soon.” Megaton pulls him close and D-16 goes strutless against him, leaning his head against that blessed warmth that makes his head hurt just a little less. “I’m sorry, little one. You will have to bear with it for now.”
D-16 nods. The error gives him a jolt of anxiety every time it pops up again, but there isn’t much he can do about it. “Where are we going?”
“To our place. After you crashed, Bee started panicking so we thought it best to take him somewhere less stressful where he can calm down before we question him in detail about what he has seen. He will give us more reliable information when he’s less… excitable.” D-16 feels a tightness in his throat, like something is stuck in his filters, but he nods. Megaton puts a big hand on his helm and gently coaxes him to lay his head back down. “Rest. We will be there soon and I will mix you something special for that headache.”
D-16 is about to go back to recharge, lulled by the warmth and the feeling of comfort radiating from Megaton when Elita-1 calls him over. “D-16, could you come here just for a moment?”
So he reluctantly gets up and trudges over to sit next to her. “Yes?”
She sends a glance towards Megaton, then says, as quietly as she can manage: “Listen, what is your relationship with these mechs? Because Megaton is treating you with far too much familiarity for someone who has only met you a few weeks ago. I don’t want to imply that they have questionable intentions or that you should be alarmed, but you must agree that this appears strange, right? I worry for you.”
D-16 nudges his aching processors to run their recent interactions through a social filter and can sort of see her point, at least in a vacuum. “It’s not like that. They are old mechs, Elita. Very old.” He doesn’t bother to keep his voice down. Optimus can hear anything happening in his trailer anyway. “And Optimus acts very mentorly to everyone . Megaton is less social, so I think he just picked me out of the crowd because we both like Megatronus.”
“Keep it down!” she hisses, glancing at Megaton who is pretending (badly) that he’s not listening. “So maybe they don’t have ill intentions, but I worry about what kind of influence they could have on you. After what happened today…” She looks at B-127, but the yellow mech is still rambling to himself about being excited to see the sky again. “And even if it wasn’t for that, Megaton is still a criminal. We don’t even know what he committed!”
“As it happens, he has been pardoned.” Elita-1 jumps and looks wildly around. D-16 taps her arm and points up at the speaker in the corner. “Megaton has been absolved of his crimes by the ruling Prime. We came to the city to ease his rehabilitation into society. Mentoring young bots is considered a good way to start the process.”
Elita-1 stares, bewildered. “Fine,” she says at long last, throwing her arms up. “D-16 is too old to be coddled by a mentor, but I see that you have me outnumbered. Go on, baby an adult bot like he’s a squeaky-jointed newspark, what do I care?!”
In the far end of the trailer, Megaton tilts his head to the side. “D-16 is still well within mentoring age by my standards, but I admit the customs around mentorship have likely changed a lot since I was young.”
“I am a little old for it by ours,” D-16 admits, settling back down next to Megaton. “Even in cases where mentors are imparting specialized skills, like with medics, they usually move on to a new protege after 30 cycles.”
This seems to puzzle Megaton further. “Why? I understand that after the devastation of the war the current generation is overwhelmingly young, but why are you trying to live life in such a rush? How long do you think we live?”
“Oh, I know this one!” D-16 almost gets a crick in his neck, he turns towards D-127 so fast. The yellow mech is beaming, one hand raised as if he wants permission to speak at a briefing. “According to war-time data, obsoletion usually sets in after 700-1200 cycles, depending on frame type and general maintenance!”
Megaton stares for a long klik, his calming aura slowly saturating with anger. “What” —he starts, his voice clipped— “kind of functionist nonsense is ‘obsoletion’?!”
D-16 pulls away a little from the discomfort of the second hand emotion leaking from Megaton (he’s still not certain how the two bots are doing it, he has never experienced anything like that before meeting them).
“Well, you know. Obsoletion?” Elita-1 tries to explain, stumped that they don’t know. D-16 suddenly recalls a throwaway comment that Optimus and Megaton have been in stasis for a long time; could it be that they were put into stasis right at the start of the war? “Before the fall of the Primes, energon was plentiful, but frame-metals were just as rare as they are now. Rarer, comparatively, when there were more of us alive. So when too many parts start wearing out or get too damaged and someone starts struggling with day to day chores or can’t work anymore…” She makes an abstract kind of wave, as if that would make the concept easier to grasp. “Obsoletion.”
Megaton stares at her with an intensity that’s almost scary and makes a noise — the same angry noise D-16 couldn’t identify before that his newly activated combat subroutines are very helpfully flagging as the sound of an energy weapon starting to charge up — before he takes a slow, deep vent to calm himself and exhales a big shimmering cloud of exhaust, the overcharged dust particles practically sparkling with restless energy.
“Okay. Walk me through it, step by step. On the way here, we walked past two active hotspots with overflowing protometal geysers - that’s where the newsparks are harvested, correct?” D-16 nods, not trusting his voice to speak. His analytical subroutine is struggling to make sense of it that Megaton has a built-in energy weapon hidden in his frame somewhere, one that activates reflexively when he grows agitated. “We have also seen several inert ones, with plenty of metal built up. What is preventing you from harvesting excess protometal from there to use for delicate repairs?”
“Hotspots are sacred. It would be blasphemy to take sentio metallico unless Primus forges it into a frame.” Elita-1 squirms a little before she reluctantly adds. “It’s why the medics usually get medical metals from recycled bodies.”
“Okay. Very well. It’s stupid to leave easily accessible, plentiful resources lying around, but you can’t argue with religion.” Megaton growls the last word with clear disgust.
“You don’t believe in Primus?” D-16 guesses, as unlikely as it is.
“The existence of Primus is undebatable. I’m disillusioned by his church.”
“Primus loves his children and sentio metallico flows from Primus, just like energon,” Optimus pitches in, his voice soothing. “He does not want us to suffer and live in pain. If there is a plentiful resource that can soothe our ills and mend our frames, he would not deny us relief.”
D-16 wants to believe it. Optimus sounds so certain of it that he makes it easy to believe. “Even if that’s true, access to the surface is restricted. Only Sentinel’s expeditions are allowed up there. He always takes a detour to gather up the newsparks when he returns.”
It was overshadowed by the Iacon 5000 this time, but the big announcement upon Sentinel Prime’s return usually includes the name and number of newsparks that have been born since the last harvest.
“Okay, that much makes sense. What about other metals, then? Tungsten, chromium, titanium…” Megaton trails off when he sees their blank faces. “You didn’t know those can be assimilated into a living frame.” It’s not a question.
D-16 exchanges a look with the others, but they seem just as lost as he is.
“We mine some titanium, but it all goes towards rebuilding the infrastructure. There used to be a tungsten vein to the south, but it dried up before I came online. Never heard of anyone who tried to use them to fix an injured mech.” He eyes Megaton, trying to guess what he is made of. He said his frame was artificial, so it must be something other than Primus-blessed living metal. He has a lot of unadorned silver plates, but they don’t have the right shine to be titanium and that’s the only metal D-16 would recognize at a glance.
“I know my metals and I would bet my t-cog on it that Sentinel’s plating is made of trinium,” Megaton says, crossing his arms.
D-16 has never heard of trinium before, but B-127 gives a disbelieving chuckle. “You mean, the thing they used to make starship hulls out of? It hasn’t been mined since the start of the war. The Quintessons bombed every known mining site until they all collapsed.”
“How do you know that?” Elita-1 asks, eyeing B-127 suspiciously.
“Oh, me? I’m just a huge fan of history, believe it or not! I lost my first 3— no, my first 4 jobs because I kept reading historical datapads and watching all the holos when I had a free nanoklik. Not to brag, but if there is anything there is to know about the history of Cybertron during the Quintesson era, I know it! My special interest is the high guard, but come on, how could I not remember something this interesting?” He looks at them with a broad smile that’s almost endearing.
“Wow,” is all Elita says, speechless for once. “That is quite the upgrade Sentinel has if it is indeed true.”
In the privacy of his mind D-16 adds one more point to his list of ‘reasons why Sentinel is likely cold constructed’. When he tunes back into the real world, B-127 has started a rambling recollection about the fall of Vos that has captured Elita’s attention. Megaton seems to have settled down too, his expression pensive and his energy still shimmering with a low note of frustration, but it smooths out into the usual welcoming warmth when D-16 leans against him. He spends the rest of the ride half-listening half-dozing.
[Megatron.]
[Don’t talk to me. I’m trying to keep my EM field calm to not aggravate Dee’s headache.]
[Is that why you are pushing all your frustration into our Conjunx bond?]
[...Apologies.]
[I understand and I don’t resent you for it. Just letting you know that if you keep this up I will block the bond until you calm yourself, because you are starting to give me a headache too.]
[I’ll make it up to you once we have found our little runaway. I don’t think we will get the time for a satisfying frag until this is dealt with.]
[I’m looking forward to it. It’s your turn on top.❤]
[...]
[...]
[Still, I just can’t wrap my mind around it. Little more than a thousand cycles… I had arguments that lasted longer than that!]
[It sounded like an unfortunate combination of war-time rationing and religious dogma. Or perhaps a fear that if they disturb the inert hotspots then they won’t reignite when it’s time. It’s difficult to tell for sure.]
[If they work anything like our hotspots- but we can’t take that for granted, can we?]
[We can’t. But it might still be worth bringing the topic up with Sentinel. He didn’t sound like a very religious mech.]
[We can always appeal to his pragmatism. If the population is in better health then he will be able to put more bodies in the Quintessons’ way when he eventually tries to take back the planet.]
This time Megaton doesn’t insist on carrying him up the stairs, thank Primus. He would not have ever lived that down if Elita saw. B-127 is especially enthused by the prospect of climbing the tall stairs, taking them three at a time despite being shorter than D-16, relishing in running up and down until one of the doors opens and he slams full tilt into a morose looking transformer.
“HEY! Watch where you are going or I will rip out your spinal strut and beat you to death with it!!” the mech roars, his eyes flashing a bright crimson, promising death — he has the same hexagonal optic design as D-16 — and he lifts his fist threateningly towards B-127 until Optimus and Megaton both step between them.
“Blitzwing, please calm yourself,” Megaton says, reaching out and resting a hand on the mech’s fist. “It was a harmless accident. You are not in danger.”
“Oh. It’s you two.” Blitzwing seems to shake off his previous rage like it never happened. The fiery disposition is gone from one nanoklik to the next, like a welding torch getting turned off. As D-16 watches the mech’s eyes flicker a few times then abruptly change from red to blue, followed by a hiss and a painful grimace. “I have done it again, haven’t I?” Blitzwing asks, suddenly lethargic, raising his free hand to rub at his head. “I think I burned out my stabilizing chip again,” he groans, clawing at the side of his head until Megaton nudges his hand away.
“Let me.” It takes him less than a klik to pop open a hidden insert slot and pry out a mood modifier chip that has, just as the mech predicted, completely melted into a charred, useless piece of scrap.
“Frag.” Blitzwing looks down at the melted chip with a familiar dejected helplessness that D-16 has never seen on the face of a cogged mech before. “I was supposed to have a job interview today.”
“And you will nail that interview,” Megaton reassures him, placing his hands on Blitzwing’s shoulders and steering him back inside. “You just need to rest first and call the hospital to have them send you a new chip. I know you can do it.”
Blitzwing doesn’t seem convinced, standing there with dull eyes, one hand still rubbing his aching head the other clawing at the seam of his chest plate. This must be a common occurrence; his chest is full of scratch marks, the purple paint streaked with black from his hands. “Yeah, I will try. I’m going to call Nickel about a new chip, she doesn’t take it personally when I yell...”
Then the door closes behind him and both Optimus and Megaton breathe a sigh of relief.
“He’s getting worse,” Optimus notes, herding B-127 past the door.
“He’s been cooped up in there all alone, of course he’s getting worse.” Megaton shakes his head then looks back at D-16 and Elita-1. “I hope he didn’t scare you. It’s not his fault that he can’t control his emotions.”
“What’s his problem?” Elita asks, giving the closed door a wide berth.
The only one not disturbed by the scene is B-127.
“That was Blitzwing! He used to be one of the high guard’s aces! He’s a triple changer, Amalgamous Prime modified him himself! He can turn into a jet and a tank.”
“How does that work?” D-16 asks, a little curious despite the awful impression Blitzwing left on him.
“He has two t-cogs,” Megaton says, fishing around in his subspace for their access card. “But they are incompatible with each other. Depending on which one is active, his mood swings wildly between explosive rage and depressive apathy and every sudden switch causes him crippling pain.”
“Oh.” D-16 recalls the way the mech was clutching at his head and shudders. He picks up the pace to put as much distance between him and Blitzwing’s flat as he can, but he almost runs into B-127 who lingers on the landing, looking back towards the closed door.
“Could we… check on him when we leave?” he asks, rubbing at his neck awkwardly. “I wanted to ask him for an autograph because he’s just… he’s really cool, all right? But also. I really want to make sure he’s okay.”
Megaton and Optimus exchange a glance, before Optimus allows himself a smile. “Yes, we most certainly can.”
Notes:
whistles innocently as the Horrors start to creep in
Since the TF1 bots don't have a framework for parenthood or children, Optimus' dad energy gets translated into this 'mentor' vibe. It's not quite the same, but it's as close as it gets.
Fun fact: Blitzwing's introduction was initially planned for the first time when they visit MegOP's flat (as a sort of introduction that they have managed to find a place to rent, but only one full of weirdos because they themselves are extremely unusual by local standards), but it ended up getting moved from there because it didn't fit the mood of that chapter. Ultimately I think this ended up being a better place for it.
Chapter 11
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
They end up sitting in the main room, everyone nursing a cube of… something. Elita opted into a kind of mineral dust that turned her energon fizzy and green. Whatever B-127 has is such a deep, calming blue that D-16 can practically see the sedatives in it. Megaton is lazily stirring a drink that’s almost more solids — iron flakes and titanium shavings and tasty copper nuggets — than energon. Optimus’ cube looks deceptively plain at a glance, but his energon has a certain kind of shimmer to it that hints at an oil-based sweetener.
D-16 isn’t certain what Megaton mixed together for him, but it has titanium flakes and some kind of chewy mineral and it actually does help his headache a little. When B-127 has drunk enough of his sedative with energon in it that he stops squirming in his seat and settles down, Optimus clears his throat.
“Bee. Could you please recount your meeting with Orion Pax? As many details as you can recall.”
“Huh, Oh! Sure, I can do that!”
The story that follows is a little disjointed and maybe a touch rambling, but it’s much more coherent than B-127’s previous retellings.
Orion Pax landed on the conveyor belt just before the shift, startling the then still dozing B-127 awake. They hit it off right away, according to B-127(doubtful), and he found B-127’s trash sculptures really cool (unlikely), but when he tried to examine one of them up close they discovered a recorded message inside.
“It was just this little recording chit — standard issue from long range military communicators, that’s why I built into the sculpture, I didn’t even think to check if it had anything on it — but it was an emergency message from one of the Primes, asking for help in an ambush and a map to their location.”
“Do you happen to remember the details of the map?”
“I couldn’t really get a good look at it. Orion was so eager to go, he immediately swiped it into his subspace. So I showed him how to climb up the trash chute to the sorting area and off he went, no hesitation in that guy. Heh, real heroic type, isn’t he?”
“Riiight. Heroic.” Elita-1 stares into her drink with a grimace, as if it suddenly turned into bitter sludge. “There is one thing I don’t understand: why did he leave you down there when he ran off to the surface to chase after the Matrix? That’s not…” She briefly glances at D-16 then turns her gaze away, looking guilty. “That’s not like him.”
“Oh, well, you know. I really, really wanted to go too — seriously, the Matrix? Finding the resting place of the Primes? Hell yeah! — and it looked like he was going to agree, but after a while he got this really sad look in his eyes. Then he told me that it would be better if I stayed there, because he finds trouble everywhere and he doesn’t want to hurt any more people.”
There is a shattering sound in the sudden silence, but D-16 can’t identify where it is coming from, the noises of the real world drowned out by the tinnitus in his audials.
Pax left without a word to him. Again.
He tries to lift his cube to drink — maybe the energon will help soothe his overworked processors — but his fingers grasp at thin air.
Pax cared more about some random annoying bot than about whether he hurt D-16 again or not.
He stares at his sticky fingers, stained bright blue. Like Long Haul’s hands.
Why do I keep doing this to myself?
Claws fold into the gaps between his fingers, a hand encompassing his own.
Why do I keep chasing him?
There is motion. There are voices, too. But his world is narrowed down to that singular point of contact, the hand holding his own.
He will never change.
The naked metal is almost the same silver as his own, but he has never been this shiny. When he squeezes, the silver fingers squeeze back.
He will keep doing this, just like always.
Dark, then light, at quarter strength. More movement, more voices.
Again.
Lights move around him, blurry red and purple. But the hand never leaves him.
Again
The smell of solvent. The quiet gurgling of cool liquid filling old pipes.
And again
It feels strange, but familiar. Soothing. Like soft taps over his frame. It feels like they echo where they hit the top of his head.
And again and again
A soft cloth, worn micromesh. Purple. It’s nice. The hand is nice, too.
And—
D-16 blinks. He is in the maintenance room, standing under a low pressure solvent spray with Megaton. There is — was — spilled energon staining his chest and his hands, but not anymore.
“Little one?” Megaton asks, his voice so soft it’s barely louder than the shower. He makes a noise, a startlingly loud burst of binary; a mining call D-16 hasn’t heard since Terminus. Passage stable, all shored up.
D-16 keeps staring ahead, absently following the path a drop of solvent takes over Megaton’s curved chest plate, but some of the tension eases from his frame. He makes the call back. All stable, everyone accounted for.
As if.
“It hurts,” he whispers.
“I know,” Megaton whispers back. “Love often does.”
D-16 feels much more centered after they return to the others, even if it is almost immediately overcome by sheepishness when he sees Elita pacing anxiously. “Hey, guys.”
“D-16.” She is suddenly there in front of him (his senses must still be glitching because he hasn’t seen her move), looking him over. “Do you feel better? What is happening to you? I have never seen you so out of sorts before.”
She would not have. She was only assigned to their mining crew after D-16 had mostly recovered from Terminus’ death.
“I feel better,” he says, trying for reassuring and failing. “I’m not sure.”
“If I may.” They both look up at Optimus who is hovering a few steps away. “I am not an expert on the subject, but I have seen similar symptoms on others before. To me this appears to be an incomplete bond breaking down from the strain of recent events.”
D-16 thinks about Pax and feels like someone stabbed him in the spark again. Ah. Yes, that sounds about right.
“An Amica bond or something more…?” Elita-1 asks tentatively.
“Nah, that’s not how that works,” B-127 says, surprising everyone. “Amica Endura and Conjunx Endura are both based on a resonance between sparks. The way I was taught, one isn’t ‘more’ than the other. A platonic sparkmate is still a sparkmate.”
“Well said, Bee.”
“Well, what are we going to do about it, then? We can’t stick D-16 in the shower every time he has a breakdown — no offense, Dee.”
“None taken.”
“And I’m still not certain why that even worked!”
“I can explain that much at least.” Sometime while D-16 wasn’t looking Megaton got himself another cube and completely abandoned any pretense of adding energon to his snack. He’s eating a mix of iron flakes and copper nuggets with a measuring spoon. “In the deep mines where I worked, one of the most structurally sound areas of the midway miner barracks was the maintenance room. It was more stable than the med bay or the dorm. They didn’t want seismic activity to damage the filtration system or cause any leaks, because pumping solvent down to that level was expensive, but still not as expensive as replacing a miner if the corrosives ate through our plating. When we pulled someone out of a tunnel collapse we let them sit under the solvent spray for a while, so they could center themselves without any fear that the roof would come down on their head again.”
Somewhere from the depths of D-16’s archives, a memory comes unbidden, bittersweet. Standing under the high pressure solvent spray, his hands shaking and his paint scratched, distant figures moving around him obscured by the hot steam.
Terminus, anchoring his mind in the moment with a smile, drawing him away from the crushing pressure of rocks and the tortured rumbling of unstable passages.
All stable, everyone accounted for.
“I haven’t thought of that in a very long time,” D-16 admits, silently willing the memory to fade again before it can overheat his emotional processing. He could not bear the humiliation of crying in front of people. “It’s fine. I’ll be better once we find Pax.”
Elita-1 is giving Megaton a scrutinizing look, as if she didn't even hear what D-16 said. “Wait, you are actually a deep miner?”
“No, I have a scanner array fine tuned for geological analysis as a fashion statement. What did you think I was?” Megaton huffs.
“Don't know, some kind of nutjob. This explains a lot, at least. I have never met a deep miner who had a sense for acceptable personal space — except you, Dee, you are almost normal.”
D-16 quickly reminds himself that she probably doesn’t mean it that way, but he can't keep all the offense out of his voice. “What is that supposed to mean?!”
To Elita’s credit, she realizes very quickly that she said something she maybe shouldn’t elaborate on. “It's not important. So, we gotta find Orion Pax and get him back. How are we doing that?”
“We will start at the Archives,” says Optimus, visibly relieved at the change of topic. “According to what Bee remembers about the recording, it is a standard issue emergency message without any special encoding that probably went out to all receivers with military access. The Primal Archives have an unmanned receiver apparatus that automatically records all frequencies. If the signal reached this far, then it should have a copy somewhere in the database.”
“Not that we have a better idea,” D-16 starts, determined to take part in the conversation. If he is suffering from this bond breaking down, then Pax shouldn’t be much better off either. He has to save him before something happens to him again. “But if the signal reached the city then wouldn’t more people know about it?”
“Not necessarily,” B-127 says, fidgeting restlessly. “The message was breaking up, so the signal strength wasn’t great. Possibly not something you can pick up on with civilian radio equipment. That leaves only the Primal Archives, which haven’t had staff in centuries and the Primal Palace, which dispatched the high guard. It’s a small miracle anyone caught the message at all!”
D-16 exchanges a look with Megaton.
“That’s the best direction we have, unless we want to involve the Prime.”
They each take a klik to envision the possible results of such a decision. D-16 shudders and forcibly reboots his secondary processes before any of the horrible outcomes can get stuck in his mind. “Right. Archives it is.”
They pause to ring Blitzwing’s doorbell on the way out, but nobody answers. “He’s probably already gone to that job interview,” Optimus suggests, patting the dejected B-127 on the shoulder. “You will have the chance to talk to him later, I’m certain of it.”
Orion Pax never dared to try and break into the Primal Archives. He always targeted the much less strictly guarded satellite installations, storage facilities hanging from the roof of the cavern like gilded stalactites.
D-16 has to admit that the main archival building is just the right kind of intimidating and imposing to make his vents stall too when Optimus opens the main door to let them inside. The centerpiece of the main atrium is a group of statues depicting the Primes around a mech-form of Primus.
Optimus walks right past the statues, heading towards one of the offices, but Megaton lingers for a while, scrutinizing the depiction of the creator god.
[Do you think this was based on anything realistic or just the sculptor’s imagination?]
[I have no idea. It looks nothing like our Primus, but we both know that doesn’t mean anything.]
[Our Primus can’t be depicted in three dimensions.]
[There used to be an installation that experts considered a reasonable approximation in the Hall of Primes.]
[You mean the one that looked like someone turned Soundwave inside out and spread him all over the walls and most of the ceiling? I saw it once during an open Senate hearing.]
[It was actually bigger than that. Only the main room was open to the public, but the sculptor filled several side rooms with ornate circuitry to signify the auxiliary brain modules in their subspace pockets.]
[All that work trying to reduce something incomprehensible to a gaudy icon of worship.]
[That is bold criticism from someone who once wrote a poem that was one word long and 1827 sublayers deep to try and capture the essence and complexity of freedom from the point of view of a disposable.]
[Hush.]
[It took the average literary critic three entire days to process it!]
[Hush, I said!]
[I am teasing. You know I adore your poetry.]
[...Well, I’m going to take a few good recordings of this gilded piece of nonsense, just because. Rung deserves a nice laugh.]
[I’m sure he’s going to appreciate the thought.]
With Optimus’ access codes as new head archivist and B-127’s keen memory for history, it takes hardly any time to find the fragmented emergency message, filed between a call for any willing, off-duty medics to report to the high guard barracks and a reminder for scavengers to always turn on their signal jammers and travel in groups of at least three when going to the surface. They are already in the process of examining the map by the time Megaton is done admiring the statues. “What is the situation?”
“Good news: we have a place,” B-127 says, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “Bad news: it’s pretty far.” He pulls up a wider map and overlays the emergency coordinates over it. D-16 doesn’t know much about the surface, but even he can tell it’s somewhere far away.
Megaton leans closer to the holo display, dragging it this way and that as he orients himself on the map. “If this is the Rust Sea and that’s the start of the Hydrax Landbridge… then this” —he jabs a claw at a jagged, dark area Northwest of their coordinates— “is Polyhex. That’s almost a whole day away when driving. Has to be at least a week away on foot.”
The anxiety subroutine that has been refusing to drop out of processing all day very helpfully reminds D-16 that Orion is good at many things, but forward planning has never been one of his strengths. “There is no way Pax brought enough energon to last for a week on the surface.”
Optimus leans forward too, looking at the map over their heads. “There is a hot spot halfway between Iacon and Polyhex. There are guards patrolling the immediate area, so if he can make it that far there’s a good chance they will spot and apprehend him.”
“He’s not going to let them,” D-16 says bleakly. “Even if he’s starving, he’s going to try and make it to the Matrix on his own.”
“What are we waiting for, then?” Elita-1 asks, slamming a hand down on the holo table so hard it makes the projection flicker. “He’s only half a day ahead of us - if he made it out to the surface at all. Without a vehicle mode, the only way he would be able to get up there is on one of the automated trains.”
Optimus and Megaton look at each other, silently communicating something. “I’m afraid that’s a variable that further complicates things. Do we know where these trains are going?”
“Well… to the Rust Sea? I think?” She looks at D-16 and B-127 for help. “Do any of you remember the briefing about the waste management techs?”
“Sorry, all my briefings have been about mine safety.” “I just sort garbage, I have no idea where they are taking the useful scarp.”
They fall silent and stare at the map again, dejected.
“Unless we find proof about what train he got on and where he was headed, we can’t start looking for him at random. He could be almost anywhere,” Optimus says, his voice measured. “So I suggest—”
He is interrupted by an incoming call that makes them all jump, the map replaced by the Prime’s elegant downward pointing sword sigil. It’s accompanied by an ominous jingle that D-16, having been dragged to far too many of Jazz’s movie nights by Pax, vaguely recognizes as the opening theme of a pre-war space adventure holo series.
Before D-16 can even really comprehend what’s going on, Megaton lifts him and Elita-1 bodily up and hastily retreats to the side, where they can see the holoscreen, but the camera can’t pick up on them. “Be quiet,” he orders, authority crackling over D-16’s sensors.
At the table, Optimus places a soothing hand on B-127’s shoulder. “Listen to me, Bee. Pretend that they are not here. It’s only you and me, training you for an archival assistant position. Got it?”
B-127’s eyes light up. “Yessir!”
“Good. Accept the call.”
The screen flickers and Sentinel Prime’s unmistakable face appears, smiling like always.
“Optimus, my mech. Please forgive me for calling you at work. I hope this is not a bad time.”
Notes:
It's not really important what exactly Sentinel's silly ringtone is, but when I was writing I was imagining the Farscape theme, mostly because it's been living in my head rent free since I first heard it. (I can absolutely recommend checking Farscape out if you like early 2000s sci-fi, it was a really good show).
Chapter 12
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
D-16 can’t help but notice that the Prime is looking rather sickly. His wings and shoulders droop visibly even in the holocall and his optics keep flickering on and off.
“Lord Prime,” Optimus says, bowing his head in respect. “This is an unexpected pleasure. I was in the process of training a young assistant archivist when you called.” He gives the slightest nudge to B-127 who swiftly picks up on the hint and bows too.
“An honor, Lord Prime.”
“It’s always great to see citizens hard at work.” Sentinel makes a sound somewhere between a sniffle and a wheeze. “Optimus, I’m looking for your Conjunx, but he’s not picking up his comm.”
D-16 glances up at Megaton. When the mech notices him looking he simply shrugs his shoulders, briefly lifting D-16 and Elita off their feet with the motion since he’s still holding them.
“Ah. Megaton must be down in the mines. The reception down there leaves something to be desired.” The energon mines don’t go down deep enough to disrupt personal comms, but there’s no way the Prime would know that. “If you send him a text message, I’m certain he will answer you as soon as he’s able.”
“There is just one problem with that.” Sentinel taps a finger to the corner of a flickering eye. “I have contracted an organic contaminant up on the surface and my optical center is currently on the fritz. I can’t process visual input beyond blobs of color, including my own hud.” He makes another painful wheezing noise, like there is something stuck in his vents, and grimaces.
“An unfortunate situation. Is it contagious?”
“No, thank Primus for small mercies. But the treatment is a precisely sequenced regime of chemical baths which unfortunately takes a few days. I have already started it once, but it had to be disrupted so I could deal with a high security incident.” That has to be Prowl reporting on the death of Shadowtag. “So I will have to start over.”
“I wish you a swift recovery, but I don’t see what we can do to help.”
Sentinel looks a little shifty, biting his lip as he thinks about how much he should say in a semi-public call, but after a short internal debate he admits:
“Listen, keep this on the down low, but I need Megaton to stand in for me in an operation that I don’t want to delay if at all possible. Our population is finally recovering enough that we can start repopulating other cities and I need someone to do geosurvey in Polyhex and Velocitron to decide which one to start with.”
D-16 blinks, stunned. He didn’t realize there were so many people in Iacon already, with many of the most luxurious towers standing empty, but at the same time…
At the same time the cogless barracks are filled to capacity and the workers’ quarters have been complaining about overcrowding for a while now. There are not enough high caste layabouts to fill every glittering palace-tower, but there are more than enough working mechs to warrant expansion.
This is exciting news! It means more space, more resources, more promotion opportunities… it’s almost enough to make D-16 stop worrying about Orion for a few nanokliks.
“I didn’t realize you can do geosurveys, Lord Prime,” Optimus says, keeping his voice politely surprised. Sentinel just waves a hand in answer.
“I don’t have built-in scanning hardware, but my processing power is quite impressive when I…” Both of his optics flicker off and he trails off, shaking his head with a frown. When his optics remain unresponsive, he slams the palm of his hand against the side of his head with enough force that it clangs. D-16 winces in sympathy, but it does make Sentinel’s optics regain some power. “Owww. When my circuits aren’t caked with Quintesson goo.”
He rests his chin in his hand, looking miserable and in pain. “Please forgive me that I am not my usual charming self today, but even a Prime isn’t immune to the organic poisons of a derelict Quintesson ship.”
“You are still very charming, Lord Prime!” B-127 blurts out all of a sudden, making Sentinel jolt upright in surprise. It seems he forgot that B-127 was still there. “Any mech who likes Distant Star Adventures can only be charming, in my book.”
“You recognized it.” Sentinel sounds astonished. After a moment his lips turn up into a small smile that looks almost shy compared to the dazzling smiles he anyways gives on the holos or in crowd events. “It’s kind of you to say. This is my private comm frequency and as you might imagine I don’t make personal calls often. For the sake of my public image, I hope I can trust you to keep my choice of call signal between us. I am just as much of a mech as anyone and while it hardly speaks ill of me to enjoy the occasional holo-adventure, I would like it if my private matters remained private.”
“Of course, Lord Prime! My vocalizer is sealed!”
D-16 tries to imagine Sentinel Prime sitting at one of the golden tables in the Primal residence with a cube of energon and watching an episode of Distant Star Adventures — perhaps even watching it for the first time, if D-16’s theory about him being constructed after the war is correct — laughing at the jokes, rooting for the crew at the dangerous parts and celebrating when they come out of an adventure victorious… he can see it why Sentinel wouldn’t want that image of him to spread. Even if he is just a younger Prime, the others were ancient, almost five million cycles old. Myths made metal, wise sages from an age before such frivolities as holo dramas even existed. It almost feels like it would diminish the grandeur of the Primes if they were people like anybody else.
“Thank you for your discretion.” Sentinel tilts his head and squints at the holoscreen he has to be sitting in front of. “Optimus, are you still there?”
“Yes. I talked to Megaton and he said he can do an advanced geological survey.”
Sentinel’s relief is palpable. “That is exactly what I wanted to hear.” He looks to the side, clearly distracted by something outside of camera range. “Yes, just one more klik… I need to go. Airachnid will brief you on the rest, she’ll be waiting for you at the rail yard after the first shift tomorrow. Sentinel, out.”
The call ends abruptly, Sentinel’s sigil lighting up the screen again before that finally fades too and the map returns.
They all breathe a sigh of relief that it's over.
“What just happened?” Elita-1 asks, pointedly putting space between herself and Megaton when he finally lets her go.
“Sounds like a way to quickly get to Polyhex just dropped in our laps,” Megaton says, his tone strangely flat. “As if by divine intervention, when Optimus finds himself stuck, Primus delivers.” Unless D-16 is imagining things, Megaton is giving his Conjunx a very resentful look.
“Would you stop?” D-16 didn’t think Optimus could sound genuinely annoyed, but by the Thirteen he is fuming . “We already talked about this a thousand times. Primus doesn’t work like that. He does not intervene in the lives of His children…”
“Sure, sure. But you have to agree that the timing, as usual , is uncanny—”
Elita-1 loudly clears her throat to make them stop. It’s almost funny to see the two giant transformers look aside, chastised by a cogless. “We have a bot to rescue, if you have forgotten. I don’t care if it’s a stroke of fate, pure coincidence or divine intervention: What are we going to do with this opportunity?” After a moment, however, she does direct a suspicious frown at Optimus. “Since when are you this buddy-buddy with Sentinel Prime anyway?”
Optimus appears devastated that she’s glaring at him like that. “I would not describe our relationship as ‘buddy-buddy’ with the Prime. He simply recognized us as pre-war bots with unique skill sets that have become lost during the conflict and chose to utilize our abilities where they are the most useful.”
D-16 can see the shock on Elita’s face as she takes in the implications. The war against the Quintessons lasted for a million cycles and some, which makes Optimus and Megaton unbelievably ancient - not as ancient as the Primes, but a million cycles is such a long time that at that point does it really matter if it’s one million or five?
B-127, as usual, blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind without thinking. “Oh! You are from the 5000, then! Never thought about meeting one of you guys in the metal, that’s so coo- why are you looking at me like that?” To his credit (just this once), B-127 notices the alarmed looks Megaton and Optimus are directing at him almost right away.
“Bee. What is the 5000?”
“Well… you know! Everybody knows!”
“By my estimation we have been in stasis for the last third of the war,” Megaton drawls, his arms crossed and his energy seething with something ominous. “And catching up on what we have missed has been difficult. Assume that we do not, in fact, know.”
D-16 takes a calming vent. He is no history enthusiast, but he knows this one. “At the end of the war, the high guard departed in shame for failing to protect the Primes, casting themselves into exile to hunt down every last remaining Quintesson on Cybertron. At the same time, Sentinel Prime called home every surviving civilian to Iacon, to mourn together and start rebuilding our civlization as a united group rather than as disparate, competing factions of a handful of bots each. 5000 surviving Cybertronians signed the first census after the war, give or take. It’s why the memorial race is called ‘Iacon 5000’: because for the first few cycles it was just the survivors driving a circuit around the city as part of the memorial event.” He jerks his head to the side, towards where he thinks the memorial plaza has to be. “Their names are recorded on the Pillar of the Resilient. You must have seen it coming into the city, it’s to the West surrounded by—”
“-sparkflowers,” Optimus finishes in his stead, his gaze distant. “A monument to the survivors and a field of sparkflowers to commemorate the dead.” He feebly reaches for a chair and can barely pull it out in time to collapse onto it, his head in his hands. “So few left… What were the Primes doing ? How could they have let this happen?” Grief rolls off him in waves, the emotion so strong that D-16 can almost see it, his spark clenching painfully with the ebb and flow of Optimus’ sorrow.
He resets his vocalizer and then resets it again to find his voice, wrecks his processors to find something reassuring to say - they are still here, aren’t they? The war is over, they have won, they are here, it will be fine. “Optimus—”
Before he can figure out what to say, an almost bestial roar echoes through the Archives, followed by what D-16 can only describe as a fog of unfettered rage that washes away Optimus’ grief in an instant. The big mech sits up straight, suddenly alert. “Megatron.”
He rushes out to the atrium to meet that rage head on, battlemask snapping into place. D-16 exchanges an alarmed glance with the others before rushing after him, but Optimus shoves him back into the office before he can take more than a step. “Stay behind cover! Let me calm him down!”
D-16 has some opposition queued up and ready — Megaton is a friend to him too! He can help!! — but then something gets launched at the wall next to them and he staggers back on reflex. It takes him a klik to identify that the misshapen shiny lump now lodged into the wall is the ripped off head of one of the primal statues.
They peer out of the office (much more carefully this time) and find that in the matter of kliks, Megaton has turned the atrium into a warzone. Zeta Prime’s statue appears to have melted from the waist up and the others are not faring much better against the silver mech’s rage. The glittering metal can’t stand a chance; silver claws gauge and tear at golden limbs, rip the gilded plates apart, tear the statues as easily as if they were made of aluminium foil - and when Optimus steps within range those claws turn on him, unrestrained.
“Optimus!” D-16 jerks forward as if he could help, as if he could do anything — is he really going to have to watch Megaton tear his Conjunx apart in a blind rage?! — but then Optimus meets Megaton with a brutal left hook that sends the mining mech stumbling back a few steps. He is still watching with wild eyes simmering with rage, chest heaving with vents to keep his systems cool, but he has stopped, for a moment. He is watching Optimus — listening to him, more than likely, in their shared comm channel or through the Conjunx bond. D-16 cycles a vent, relieved; this is the moment when Optimus talks sense into his temperamental partner and they all settle down and talk calmly about why Megaton’s reaction to distress is always anger…
But then Optimus shifts his weight into a fighting stance, raises his arms and transforms his hands into glimmering swords. Megaton’s optics flash. He bares his fangs — in a grin or a snarl, it’s difficult to tell —, transforms his left arm into a blade (unlike Optimus, he doesn’t lose use of his claws when he does so, D-16 notes almost incidentally) and lunges at Optimus, holding nothing back.
D-16 has seen holos of the Primes fighting Quintessons and on one very memorable occasion he could attend an exhibition spar between two retired members of the high guard. What he’s witnessing now is nothing like either of those things. Optimus and Megaton move with the same fluidity as the show fighters, as if they could predict every move the other makes before it even happens; every opening is immediately capitalized on just as surely as every attack is deflected. They know each other so intimately that the fight looks almost coordinated, but unlike the high guard mechs, they don’t look like they are playing.
When Optimus’ sword slides off Megaton’s armored forearms and bites into the flooring, it slices the stone like it's grease. When Megaton gets a good grapple and throws him off enough to gain a moment of breathing room, he uses the opening to rip up a floor panel and smash it to bits over Optimus’ head and then deliver a follow-up punch whose clang echoes through the building. When a stray slice actually nicks the connector hanging from Megaton’s neck, forcing him to take a few steps back with a hiss, Optimus transforms his blade into a military grade blaster, after two failed tries that go wide and melt some of the still miraculously standing statues stuns Megaton by shooting him straight in the face and reveals a grappling hook that he uses to drag Megaton straight back to him and ties one of their legs together to prevent him from getting out of range again. Most of their fight happens there, up close and personal; weapons transformed away and hands grasping at each other, legs tangled, brawling on the floor like wild beasts.
D-16 wants to look away, but he keeps watching, captivated. Deep down he finds the spectacle thrilling and his recently activated combat subroutines are drinking in all this new information, delighted.
“What are we going to do?! They will kill each other!” B-127’s panicked voice drags him back to the present.
“No,” he says, puzzled by Bee’s fear. There is a certainty crystallizing in him that he can’t quite explain yet that this is nothing more than a very wild spar. “Can’t you see? Can’t you- yes, can’t you feel it?” The rage that filled the room before with an almost physical pressure is dissipating. “They are almost done.”
Elita-1 and B-127 look at him like he has gone mad, but he turns his gaze back towards the brawl, sure that he is right.
Megaton has Optimus pinned flat on the ground, straddling him at the waist, his claws around his neck. He is breathing heavily, expelling clouds of overcharged steam through his vents, his biolights overbright.
Optimus is also a little winded, wisps of steam rising from his smokestacks, but he looks completely unconcerned by their current positions. “Better?” he asks Megaton, folding back his battlemask to smile shakily up at his Conjunx. When he reaches up to cup Megaton’s face, the big mech easily melts into his hand, allowing himself to be guided down into an embrace, tucking his face under Optimus’ chin.
D-16 can’t make out what Megaton answers, if anything, but he doesn’t have to. He can guess it easily enough.
Notes:
Roughly half of this is Sentinel being miserable (they fished him out of his healing soup to deal with Prowl and now he has to go and start marinating all over again, rip him) which I gotta say, he probably deserves. I enjoyed writing that part a lot, ngl. "Duplicitous charmer unable to put on his usual act because he's sick and feels like death warmed over" is a fun scenario.
I'm not so confident in the second half, because I don't often write fight scenes, so I can only hope it turned out okay.I'm slowly chipping away at a cover for this fic, but just for fun: this is how I imagine Megatron to look.
Chapter 13
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“I apologize if we have scared you, little ones,” Megaton says later, when they are sitting in one of the reading rooms. He’s using the fine points of his claws to pick apart a stubbornly tangled knot in Optimus’ grappling cable while Optimus applies healing nanite gel to the nicked segments of Megaton’s neural connector. Other than a few surface scratches and the occasional bits of paint transfer, it’s impossible to tell that they have been beating the slag out of each other not an hour earlier.
“Do you do this kind of thing often?” Elita-1 asks, her voice still a little strained.
“Not as often anymore,” Optimus says. “I suppose you could say that we used to be rivals.”
“Wow. If that’s what your rivalry looks like, I don’t want to see you fighting for real!” B-127 says from where he sits cross legged on the floor, holding the grappling hook to make it easier for Megaton to detangle the cable.
“That is unlikely to happen. We have spent a long time at odds with each other and worked hard to find common ground. It would be a betrayal to the bond we have forged and the people who look to us for guidance to reignite our previous animosity.”
“That fight looked like it was full of animosity to me,” Elita says, crossing her arms and regarding them suspiciously. Especially Megaton.
“That’s because you have not seen war mechs before.” Megaton finishes untangling the knot and smooths out the grappling cable, running his fingers along its length to see if there are any other kinks left in it.
“I have seen plenty of enforcers.”
“Enforcers are civilian frames. They are a little more durable than the average transformer, but anyone can install and run an enforcer-grade defense protocol.” He taps the side of his head. “You need internal combat hardware - something like a targeting module, a tactical computer or a hacking suite - to be considered a war mech.”
“It’s preferable if you are born with these additions,” Optimus says, taking over almost seamlessly even as he starts to retract his grappling hook. “Because installing them later in life can fundamentally change a mech’s brain architecture and personality.”
“Well, that’s terrifying. Imagine getting an upgrade that changes your… you . Couldn’t be me.”
“It’s considered a frame-type reformat, even if you don’t outwardly change much. If you were to be changed from grounder to flier, you would fundamentally need to change your thinking, no? This is similar.”
“I guess, yeah… but nope, still terrifying.”
It should be terrifying, but D-16 is only listening with half an audial, because something in what Megaton said is bothering him. “Would an analytical subsystem qualify as a ‘tactical computer’?” he asks hesitantly. “I usually use it for risk-assessment and to keep track of when it’s time to bail Pax out of yet another bad idea.”
Megaton and Optimus exchange a look. “It could be the sign of some kind of combat hardware, yes.”
D-16 internally debates for a moment if he should say more — he trusts Optimus and Megaton, but he doesn’t know enough about B-127 and he doesn’t want Elita-1 to judge him — but he’s not certain if he could ever bring himself to breach the topic again if he lets this opportunity slip away, so he reluctantly admits: “I have also been seeing errors from a weapons system. I don’t know if I even have weapons or not, but the errors have been persistent since this morning.”
He can see Elita’s eyes on him immediately, no doubt having connected the weapons errors to their encounter with Shadowtag and the construction crew.
“That, at least, is easy to check,” Megaton says, unconcerned, and holds out a hand. “Can I see your right arm?”
Megaton takes his wrist gently when D-16 extends his arm, turns it this way and that with a hum. “This will sting a little,” he says without a warning, just as he hooks the fine points of his claws into a previously invisible transformation seam on D-16’s forearm and digs in. The pressure builds — and it does sting, a lot in fact, his systems blaring alarms at him about structural chassis damage — until the entire panel pops open all of a sudden. There's a strange tingling feeling when the microservos that are meant to fold and unfold his frame during transformation are briefly activated and the pain cuts off abruptly when his body realizes that it is not being ripped apart.
“Hmmm.” Megaton is regarding the jumble of internal components with a critical eye. “You have the contact points for high powered weaponry. A fusion cannon, if I can hazard a guess; the connector for the energy converter is very distinct.” D-16 can't see what Megaton is pointing at, because he's too busy trying to process that he could have had weapons. He could have been a warrior! If he was born with powerful weaponry like that during the war then he could have been one of the elite - one of the warriors Megatronus Prime personally trained! He can barely hear the argument they are having over his head and almost doesn’t catch it when Megaton says “Well, there is a way to see it for sure.”
He is giving Optimus a meaningful look. It takes D-16 a moment to realize that he means the cog , Shadowtag’s t-cog — if he took it, he would become a transformer, he could gain access to his weapons, he could…
But energon freezes in his lines when he thinks about it. The memory of Shadowtag being ripped apart — being cut to scrap, thrown carelessly into the mixer’s drum to be reduced to spare materials — invades his mind, filling him with renewed terror. He looks to Optimus, trying to communicate with his eyes alone that he doesn’t want it, that he can’t take it, he can’t…
“That is true,” Optimus admits slowly, pulling the t-cog and the signal booster from his subspace. Elita, just like D-16, flinches away when she sees it. “But I have a more fitting place for this t-cog. B-127.”
“Yessir?” B-127 is staring mesmerised at the serenely pulsing white light of the cog.
“Your aid in our search today has been invaluable. I find your knowledge a great boon and your enthusiasm charming, which is why I want to extend an offer to you.” He holds up the two items. “Archival positions can only be filled by cogged mechs and I’m willing to bend the rules a little to have you trained as a proper archival assistant, if you are amenable. This is a job that would fit your enthusiasm for history perfectly, I believe.”
B-127’s disbelief is very relatable.
“That would be a dream come true! But you just met me! Why not give it to Elita or D-16?”
D-16 stiffens a bit, running through every possible thing he could say that’s not the truth. It would be unfair to ruin this for B-127 by telling him about Shadowtag.
Fortunately, Elita beats him to the punch.
“Are you kidding? I just got promoted to supervisor!” She points at her rank marker proudly. “I don’t need easy handouts. I will climb my way straight to the top and get a cog of my own and live out the rest of my life knowing that I have earned it with hard work and grit!”
“Yeah,” D-16 says, not quite as convincing, but after a moment he finds his momentum. “We have good jobs going, Bee. Friends, promotion opportunities, our own place at the barracks… this could be your one chance to get out of sublevel 50. I think you should take it.”
B-127 looks at them, speechless for once, his eyes overbright and sniffling slightly, like he’s on the verge of (hopefully happy) tears. “Thank you, guys! I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a glitch, but this really means a lot to me.”
It looks like he might want to hug them in gratitude and that’s really a step too far for D-16. “All right, enough of this! Take the cog already. I want to see what you turn into.”
Installing a t-cog for the first time doesn’t come with a supernatural lightshow, but D-16 feels that if the world had any sense for drama or style it really should. It’s still a little bit mesmerizing to watch as B-127’s frame activates, plates unfolding and slotting into place, shinier and more vibrant than before.
It wouldn’t be B-127 if he could stay silent for long and he’s babbling even before his frame finalizes its new configuration. “...oh Primus, this is so cool, I can’t wait to feel what driving feels like! Do you think I have any native mods? I sometimes found some of them in the scrap, you could always tell from the energon stains and the rust - oh wait, I won’t be able to go back like this, where am I going to sleep?”
“I have an idea where you can find lodgings,” Optimus says, offering the signal booster too. B-127 almost absently opens his chest plate — without conscious thought it seems, still hanging on Optimus’ every word — and clips it into one of the internal mod slots, his frame immediately integrating it, still under the influence of his new cog. “It is my understanding that Blitzwing has been looking for a roommate with no avail for some time now. He enjoys reminiscing about his time in the high guard; I’m certain he would appreciate the company of someone who has as much interest in history as you.”
B-127 looks like someone just presented him with the Matrix of leadership. “For real?”
“I don’t have the faintest doubt about it.”
“But,” Megaton takes over, making a passing attempt at hiding his amusement and failing. “You can’t go by ‘B-127’ as a cogged mech. You will require a new name and I think…” He glances at Optimus with something almost playful in his optics. “Bumblebee would be a fitting name for someone as energetic and nimble as you.”
B-127 stands frozen for a time, mouthing the name to himself. D-16 can almost imagine his internal debate about whether he should insist on the silly ‘Badassatron’ moniker he came up with or accept the new name, but finally he grins, his expression radiant. “I love it! A whole new name and I can still keep my nickname! This is awesome!”
Predictably, the newly renamed Bumblebee immediately floods Optimus with approximately a million questions. D-16 examines his feelings about the matter and finds that he is genuinely happy for the bot. He would not have been able to accept the cog without remembering Shadowtag and as annoying as he found Bee, he would not wish the solitary confinement of that little sorting room on anyone.
It was the best possible outcome, really.
“I still can’t believe you gave Bee a dead mech’s cog,” Elita-1 says later, clearly having more trouble processing the events of the day than D-16.
They have decided to split up, with Optimus staying behind in the Archive to teach Bee how to access the features of his new frame and how to drive and Megaton, D-16 and Elita-1 setting off on foot to ask around at the trainyard for any clue about what train Orion could have gotten on.
“Every cog you are not sparked with comes from a dead mech,” D-16 tells her absent-mindedly, his attention turned mostly inwards to the many, many error messages that keep bombarding him for hardware access that he’s unable to grant.
He doesn’t notice that she stops dead until half a klik later. “Elita-1?”
“What do you mean every- that can’t be right.”
“Knock Out said it too. We can’t make cogs from scratch. Every t-cog that’s given to a nocog comes either from someone who died in an accident or something the scavengers collected on the surface and was restored to working order by the medics.” He frowns at her. “This was part of the coming-online briefing packets.”
“There was nothing like that in mine!” she snaps, clearly shaken. “Wait, when did you come online?”
“13 post-war. Why?”
She stares at him with clear bafflement. “I was forged in 18 post-war. I can’t believe you are 5 cycles older than me!”
D-16 doesn’t really understand why it’s such a big deal — down in the titanium mine they had a handful of old bots forged during the war, big tunnelers who never came to the surface who were nearing a thousand cycles — so he glances at Megaton for a clue. He finds the big mech staring into the middle distance with a disturbed expression. “Megaton, sir? Are you alright?”
“When my Amica was getting Conjunxed, it took his Conjunx-to-be two vorns to decide on what color he wanted the bonding paint to be,” he says in a grave voice. “That’s a hundred and sixty eight cycles. You kids have no concept of how time should pass for Cybertronians.”
D-16 reaches up and consolingly pats Megaton’s forearm. Today, it seems, is a day full of disturbing revelations for the old mech.
The trainyard is a busy place, but Megaton’s easy confidence soon leads them to the person in charge of surface operations, an unbelievably large purple and white mech by the name of Astrotrain. Even Megaton has to stand on the catwalk to meet him optics-to-visor.
Strangely, his apprehension seems to saturate the air around him, similar to how Megaton’s and Optimus’ emotions do.
“Hmm. A stowaway, you say? Is it one of the shinies that wants to try and sneak back to the hot spot because they are certain they have left their cog there?” He rubs his chin and looks over the three automated trains getting loaded with a critical eye. “Can’t say I have seen anything…”
“Astrotrain.”
“Yes?”
Megaton holds up three claws. “How many fingers am I showing?”
The mech bristles. “Who told on me? It was that glitch Blitzwing, wasn’t it?! I knew I shouldn’t have told him…”
“Nobody told me anything. If there ever was a competition about which frame type has the worst short to mid-range vision, trains and shuttles would be tied for second place. Since you are both, it was an easy guess.” Megaton lowers his hand. “If you point us towards someone who could see which train our stowaway took, I’m not telling your superiors that you can’t tell a seeker and a stack of crates apart if they are within a megamile of you. How does that sound?”
Astrotrain grumbles, but he nods. “Alright, just keep your trap shut.” He roots around in his storage compartment for a while until he produces his personal access key and holds it out to Megaton so the mech can scan the code from it. “Straight up the stairs is the main control hub. Sentry controls all the automated trains, she should know where your newspark has ended up. But don’t tell anyone I let you in, or I can say goodbye to this gig.”
“Thank you for your cooperation. My lips are sealed.”
They are halfway to the stairs when Astrotrain calls after them one last time. “Wait. You said there’s a frame type with worse vision than shuttles or trains. Which one is it?”
Megaton’s mouth twists into a smile that might be just a little bitter. “Scanner-tunnelers.”
“How did you know that he was a triple-charger?” D-16 asks when Megaton stops at the landing and waits for them to climb the stairs.
“Blitzwing told me a thing or two about his good buddy Astrotrain, but you can also tell by looking at him. His size, wing-shape and name all say shuttle, the industrial-strength magnet arrays on his legs and arms say freighter train.” He taps his helmet with a claw. “This ugly bucket dampens signals enough that I don’t have a constant headache, but the only way to turn my panels off fully would be to surgically remove them. I have a constant passive scan of my environment.” He grins a little. “Makes me difficult as Pits to ambush from behind.”
“So, what you said about tunnelers…”
“I had my optical capabilities upgraded multiple times, so now I see as well as you do, if not better. When I was first deployed, however, I kept my optics offline more often than not because they were useless. I told my companions apart by their spark signature and by what kind of residue was caked onto their plating.” He laughs, his gaze softening with nostalgia. “It made for a very good party trick on the rare occasions when we came up to the surface. But enough about me; let’s see about this Sentry.”
He lets them into the control room. It’s both barebones, missing any kind of amenity or sitting arrangement and crowded with screens and computers. The center of the room is dominated by a big, expensive looking holotable that looks like it was repurposed from the Primal Palace, its gilded surface studded with several projectors.
The room is also notably empty.
“Where is she?” Elita-1 asks, walking a slow circle around the room to peer behind some of the blockier computers, in case there’s a door or a hidden nook behind one of them. “Do you think she stepped away for a break without Astrotrain seeing?”
“I don’t think so,” D-16 mumbles, examining the screens. “Someone or something is controlling the trains.” As he looks at the dozens of trains all being managed simultaneously, far beyond the capabilities of a regular traffic control mech, something occurs to him. “Do you think this might be one of those semi-sentient computers the constructibots talked about?”
“Excuse you! I’m as sentient as you are, you underdeveloped drillbit!” D-16 almost jumps out of his plating when he hears the offended voice, looking around wildly for the source of it. There is a long stretch of silence that's finally broken by the same disembodied voice laughing at them. “I’m right here, bub.”
The holotable activates and the semi-transparent image of a femme appears, leaning forward on her arms as if she could really feel the shiny surface under her palms. Her frame is lightly armored and free of any embellishment, her plating some uniform shade of green that’s hard to pinpoint from the projection. “Standard Mainframe Operator Mark 44, Designation: Sentry, at your service,” she says in a formal voice, before a grin splits her face again. “Oh, you should have seen your expressions! This never gets old. Well, what can I do for you, folk? I don’t have all day!”
Notes:
I don't plan on introducing too many OCs in this story, but I don't know any canon characters who could have fit this role, so Sentry gets to sneak in and be a menace.
Chapter 14
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sentry’s holo image sits on the edge of the projector, nodding along as Megaton explains what they are there for. She asks to pause twice, holding up her hand and her optics going distant for a klik or two before her attention returns. “Sorry ‘bout that, bub. There was an impact event at the Rust Sea yesterday. We had to scrap the entire seismic report and the weather forecast, so I gotta allocate extra attention to nudge the trains out of the way when the surface gets frisky. I hope your mech isn’t out on foot in this weather, because we have the entire plateau bristling like an angry turbofox from here to Thunderhead Pass. ” The lights flicker and her holo glitches for a nanoklik. “Oh and we have a heavy storm front rolling in.” She casts her eyes up towards the ceiling as if she could see through the walls from wherever her real body is. “I will have to halt city traffic if the power grid keeps struggling like that. I don’t want to run someone over because of a badly timed fluctuation.”
“Does this happen often?” Megaton asks, examining the monitors displaying the weather information. The storm is outlined in a harsh red, right on top of the city and there’s another line moving slowly south from the Manganese Mountains. D-16 and Elita-1 have been directed to a pair of screens that now replay the various views of the loading area starting from the start of the first shift, but even at five times speed it’s taking a while to check all the footage. The main chamber is so big that you need seven different camera angles to see every train getting loaded and there were a lot of them leaving that morning. So they stare at the footage and listen with half an audial, because otherwise it’s mind-numbingly boring to watch Astrotrain and his swarm of nocog subordinates haul cargo all day.
“Power outages?” Sentry shrugs. “Not so often since we got the second solar farm up and running. Usually we can tell in advance when a storm is forming and ‘Train will set up the backup generator to smooth out the hiccups.”
“I meant the impact event.”
“Oh. Those are pretty rare, but I think they will pick up more over time as all the derelicts the Quints left up in orbit fall apart and come crashing down.” She waves a hand vaguely upwards. “Sentinel Prime is pretty good at calculating exactly when and where they will happen, but I have no clue. I dumped all my non-essential physics modules when I took this gig. Calculating what the frag the planetary crust is doing is kind of important if you want to run anything on the surface and that’s pure quantumgeology. ‘That mountain wasn’t there 10 nanokliks ago’ is not a good excuse to crash a train into a mountainside full-speed, y’know? ” Another flicker runs through her holo and she frowns, disturbed. “It’s strange that he missed this one, he usually gets all the big ones down to the hour.”
“How can you tell that this is a ‘big one’?”
“Cybertron has weathered a lot of organic trash since the Quints attacked us, it stopped reacting to the smaller bits of organic debris. There are some days when you can’t even tell that something has dropped, neither a twitch in the crust nor a stray gust of wind.” She clicks her fingers and the main screen zooms in on the calculated impact point somewhere in the Rust Sea. The surrounding waters are marked with a virulent green color. “Whatever this was, the planet is really unhappy about it. We have the whole circus going: the sea’s basicity is through the roof, we have acid storms rolling in from several directions, seismic activity all over the place…” She folds her hands in her lap. “My guess would be a medium-sized cruiser or a chunk out of one of the very big ones.”
“Wait just a klik!” Elita exclaims, slamming pause on her seemingly endless footage of crates and trains to turn towards the holo. “Is that why the surface is so dangerous? Because Cybertron is— it is—” She can’t finish the sentence. The conclusion is self-evident, but it sure does sound silly.
“Allergic to all the old Quint junk that’s stuck in orbit? More or less.”
“It has to be the fuel,” Megaton says, thumbing the segments of his neural connector as he thinks. “The Quintessons were made by Unicron, allegedly. Their technology runs the best on tainted energon. It is hardly surprising that Cybertron, having been made from Primus’ material body, would react negatively to the presence of tainted energon and its by-products.”
“I’m not certain if I believe in that old tale of Primus, but—” Her voice gets lost in static when the holo flickers off for a few nanokliks before it stabilizes again. Her expression, when the glitching clears from it, is not amused. “Just a klik.” She holds up a finger and her expression turns distant again. When she speaks D-16 can finally place her voice as the train announcer, her words directed at the passengers in the city. “Due to unexpected technical issues, city-wide train service is temporarily suspended. Please disembark and unload at the designated stops in an orderly fashion. We apologize for the inconvenience and issue an exemption code to every worker affected by this outage.” When she’s done she shakes herself, her previously overbright white optics dimming a little. When she next clicks her fingers, it's to open a personal comm channel. “Train, please be a sweetspark and send up a nice big cube for me. Oh, and tell your minions to close the roof before the rain gets really going, the forecast looks horrid. Thx!”
She seems to relax once that's all done, but D-16 can't help but feel like something or someone is suddenly watching him with an uncomfortable intensity, the attention on him so heavy his frame is sending false reports of rising external pressure. A lot of external pressure.
“Operator Sentry.” Megaton’s voice sounds distant. “Please rein your field in, it's affecting my young friends.”
The feeling of being watched disappears so abruptly that D-16’s sensors reboot in a confused attempt to make sense of the sudden lack of pressure and he finds himself kneeling on the ground, leaning heavily against the console from the sudden vertigo.
“Sorry, sorry. I don't get regular bots in here often, I forgot.” She sounds a little sheepish. “Train has another big spark like mine and Sentinel is… well, he's a Prime.”
There is a big hand on D-16’s back, warm and familiar. “Little one?”
“‘m fine,” he says, even though he doesn't quite feel fine yet. He tunes out Sentry’s rambling and focuses on Megaton and his comforting energy instead.“What was that?”
“Her EM field — the aura of emotions her spark projects, you could say — is very strong. She doesn't have a traditional chassis to dampen it and cogless are very badly insulated, so you were affected by it far more than I was.”
He helps D-16 up and after a klik turns towards Elita-1 and offers her a hand up as well. Just this once, she graciously accepts it.
“Is that why I feel you so keenly? You and Optimus?” D-16 closes his eyes and lightly dips his fingers into the empty slot in his chest, trying to feel out his spark where it pulses in its tight confines. He knows where his spark chamber is, has seen it on his own medical scans before - a little reinforced pocket formed by the strongest materials in his frame, squished right between his spinal strut and the empty slot of his cog, just right to fit snugly around his spark - but if it projects any energy, he can't feel it.
“Yes. A big, strong spark projects a bigger field and my spark is very strong. I keep it somewhat restrained, but I admit I'm a little lazy about how much control I keep over my field.”
D-16 recalls Megaton’s outburst earlier, when his rage was so potent D-16 could practically taste it halfway across the Archives. “I think you are doing a good job.”
He briefly reviews the last few kliks to see if he has missed anything important and one thing sticks out to him. “What do you mean she doesn't have a traditional chassis?” He glances at Sentry’s holo again. She seems to have sat down on the edge of the table, watching them with clear concern. Her frame is a little plain, but looks normal enough to D-16.
“Haven't you realized? You guessed right the first time.” Megaton takes a big step towards the center of the room and gestures all around them. “All these computers and auxiliary systems are Sentry and her spark is right here” —he places his palm gently down on the spotless surface of the holotable— “imbuing them all with the kind of sentience only a living soul can provide.”
To their horror instead of denying it, Sentry just chuckles. “Ah, scrap. Looks like I got found out.”
D-16 has plenty of time to digest this information, because Astrotrain comes lumbering in with a stack of smaller cubes (for them) and a very big one that he uses to top Sentry’s backup energon generator up with the utmost care, forcing a pause in the conversation. “Thank you, Train! You are a lifesaver.”
“Any time, Boss.” Astrotrain mumbles something more that D-16 can’t make out, then lumbers back out, moving with the sort of exhausted sluggishness that makes D-16 wonder if the big shuttle is in need of an energon break of his own.
“Sooo… You have questions, I’m guessing.” Sentry’s projection gestures with the natural fluidity of any living mech; no wonder he didn’t suspect that there wasn’t a real body behind it. “How about this: since I have all my lovely little trains parked safely out of the rain, like a row of cute petroducks, I have processing power to spare to look through the camera footage. I’ll find your stowaway mech and while I do that, I will answer your questions if I can.” She pauses for a moment. “Who are you looking for, anyhow? You haven’t said.”
“His name is Orion Pax. He’s about this height…” D-16 trails off. Sentry’s holo has dimmed a little and she’s staring into the middle distance with a very flat expression. D-16 has seen that expression more times than he can count. “You know him.”
“He keeps jumping on top of the trains, of course I know him.” She mimes a sigh. “So. Questions.”
D-16 and Elita-1 look at each other, neither of them knowing where to start. Elita finally settles on a very eloquent: “How???” It makes Sentry break out into a long fit of laughter before she gathers her wits again.
“Well, as you have gathered I’m a bit weird. I’m classified as a ‘non-standard configuration monoformer’ - NOT a semi-sentient. They lump me in with them in some of the datawork, but those things don’t have a personality,” she presses. “Imagine this big, bright spark bobbing in the protometal soup of the hot spot, most of a nervous system attached to it and absolutely refusing to form the rest of the body! The priests kept getting tangled in my loose wiring, or so I was told. Solus Prime couldn’t bear to see such a bright spark full of potential extinguish, so she took pity on me and tried to use her divine relic, the Forge hammer, to make me a frame. It, uhm. It exploded.” She laughs awkwardly, posing her image to sit cross-legged on the table.
“They tried a few more things, until through the process of elimination they figured out that my spark doesn’t want a normal body. I had dozens of neural connectors for auxiliary brain modules, but a substandard number for ambulatory systems. I don’t even know if I had a t-cog or not. So they took my spark to the Primal Palace and installed me there. Kept adding extra computers onto my systems until my spark was stable and my personality module finally initialized and I came online as I am now: Sentry. I think. I don’t really remember.” She shrugs, seemingly unbothered.
“I used to run the defensive systems at the Primal Palace, but after the war Sentinel tried to have me reframed into a more traditional independent body - so I could live a normal life instead of being a glorified weapon, he said. Sweet of him, but for all the smarts crammed into his head, he didn’t think that one through. Second verse, same as the first. BOOM!” She spreads her arms wide. “The explosion wiped most of my memory banks. Still, since I was technically out of the Palace and the city desperately needed someone to operate public transport, he offered me this job. I had no reason to refuse, so here I am, doing weather reports and playing with trains. Not a bad life, if I’m honest.”
It is not. It could be said that it was a better life than what some of the nocogs lived, even.
It’s still a lot to process and D-16’s only solace is that Elita appears just as floored as him.
“Wow,” she says, stunned and unable to form anything more elaborate than that.
Megaton doesn’t seem shocked, but D-16 has given up on trying to make sense of what does and doesn’t surprise the big mech. “Thank you for sharing your story with us.”
“Thank you for listening! I don’t get to talk about myself often.” D-16 could guess that from the eagerness with which she dumped her entire story onto them at the slightest excuse. “Train is good company and he has killer taste in audionovels, but- OH I FOUND YOUR MECH.” Sentry switches tracks with alarming swiftness and volume.
She pulls up a screen and true enough, there is Orion, lurking behind a crate while some of the cogless workers load up a train with long bundles of rebar, various other construction materials and big cubes of energon. When they look away for a klik he sneaks into the wagon and disappears from the view of the cameras.
“Where was that train going?” Megaton asks.
“Checking database… to Polyhex. According to the on-board sensors, someone opened one of the roof access hatches shortly after the train reached the surface, but he didn’t jump off until... … … until the train stopped at the Nova Cronum substation to wait out an upsurge in seismic activity.”
Another video feed pops up, this one much lower quality, from one of the train’s side cameras. D-16 can easily make out the ruins of the old station and hints of buildings on the side, but he can’t see Pax yet. He bites back a panicked shout, however, when the camera starts to shake violently and a black wall of something approaches suddenly from the distance — spiky rock formations, tall as a tower, growing rapidly from the ground at a moment’s notice, closing in with alarming speed until they stop , cut off at an invisible line. The camera keeps shaking until the spikes slowly recede back into the ground and a few kliks later the train takes off again, first slowly and then rapidly gaining speed.
The moment the train starts moving is when Orion throws off a big cube of conserved energon from the roof of the train and jumps after it, disappearing from the sight of the camera. Sentry very helpfully winds back the footage to a freeze frame of his jump, where Orion is the most clearly visible.
Despite the terror that gripped his spark when he saw the approaching wall of spikes, D-16 exhales a sigh of relief that Orion is alive and appears to be unharmed.
Or at least was alive and unharmed a few hours ago.
“Did I see that correctly? The seismic shift stopped at the boundary of the ruins.” Megaton wears a troubled frown, but D-16 can’t even guess what he’s thinking about this time.
“Yep. The foundation of every settlement as well as certain landmark geological formations have been locked in place with the Matrix.” She pulls up a general map that has certain areas — including the mountains, the shoreline, Iacon and what D-16 now recognizes as Polyhex — marked. It flickers briefly when the power fluctuates again, but they can make out the important parts. “According to my data, the crust didn’t use to do sudden violent shifts like that before the Quints came and contaminated everything, but Zeta locked the building sites anyway, because nobody wanted to build on a hill only for it to turn into a valley the next cycle.”
“Understandable. It would be a construction nightmare if the ground kept constantly changing.”
“This is good news!” Elita says, just as relieved as D-16. “If Orion stays in the ruins to wait for the crust to settle down — and he’d better do that, he knows how dangerous it is —, then we can pick him up there tomorrow on the way to Polyhex!”
D-16 feels a heavy weight roll off his shoulders. Yes, even Pax isn’t stupid enough to risk going out onto unstable ground, they have both seen people getting crushed to death in the matter of nanokliks in collapsing ore tunnels before.
Then he looks at Sentry’s face and his relief turns into dread.
“I’m so sorry,” she starts, deeply apologetic. “I don’t think you understand how bad things are on the surface right now.” She points up towards the ceiling, at the flickering lights, and when she goes on her voice is gravely serious.
“Until this storm passes, nobody is going anywhere. Even if the Prime himself ordered you to go to the surface, I cannot allow it. If he asks, I will tell him the same I’m telling you now: going out into the acid rain is suicide.”
Notes:
You know, this chapter was meant to move the plot forward, but then Sentry started talking and refused to stop. Girl needs a few more friends, she's clearly lonely.
Chapter 15
Notes:
Along with the new chapter, I have cleaned up a formatting quirk around the chapter notes that has been bothering me for a while, fixed a few typos that I spotted here and there (on that note, I'm my own proofreader and I'm not exactly good at it, so if you spot a typo in the wild, please let me know) AND I finished the cover illustration. If you hop back to chapter 1, now you can see Megatron and Optimus in their full, continuity-soup glory. ✨
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
For lack of better options they end up joining the crowds slowly meandering towards the barracks, all the nocog workers forced to walk home since the trains are down. Elita makes a snide comment that maybe Megaton should stop being so cagey about his alt mode and carry them, since he insisted on tagging along while Optimus gives Bumblebee a driving lesson somewhere on the outskirts of the city, but he just laughs at her.
“Trust me, my alt mode would make us slower, not faster.”
“How could you be slower than walking speed?”
“Easily: by being completely immobile.”
To distract himself from his worries about Pax, D-16 adds that tidbit to his list of things he knows about Megaton’s alt-mode and tries to make a few guesses about what it could be. He doesn’t have a lot to go off of, but it gives him something better to do than imagine various horrible ways Orion can die before the storm passes and they can go get him, so it will have to do.
Megaton has very little visible kibble; he has no-slip surfaces on his arms that could form some kind of grip and D-16 suspects the neural connector is part of it, but that’s about it. There’s something on his back that looks vaguely reminiscent of a fusebox that Dee thinks might be a modified subspace compartment, so he could have anything in there. He has a lot of vents, so his alt mode must generate a lot of heat. It’s immobile, so it could be some kind of handheld tool — a plasma cutter or a drill — but Megaton is much too big. You’d need a mech as big as Astrotrain to lift a tool that big and D-16 has never seen a mining mech in that size class, not even the tunnelers.
Thinking about tunnelers, however, gives D-16 an idea. “Do you turn into a 50-50?”
Megaton startles and resets his optics a few times when he looks down at D-16. He must have been deep in thought, because it takes him a few nanokliks to parse the question before his optics light up in recognition. “ Oh . You mean a sonic borer?”
“Is that what it’s called?” There were a few names for the machines, but down in the titanium mines the only mechs who needed to know the official names of things were the shift leaders who had to requisition replacements and spare parts.
“A sonic what now?” Elita asks, looking at them like they started speaking a completely different language all of a sudden.
“It’s not something used during the shifts, because they are big and dangerous, but you might have heard one before. It sounds something like—” The grating, fluctuating whine Megaton makes is loud, horrifying and almost spot on for one of the machines when it’s charging up. Several passers-by look at them, startled by the sound. Elita-1 cringes and rubs the side of her head to soothe her ringing audials
“Yes, I had the misfortune.”
“We also used to call them 50-50s, because when they are operated by someone inexperienced, then there’s an equal chance of blasting open a new tunnel or blowing your audials out and bringing the existing tunnel down on your own head.” Megaton sounds strangely nostalgic about the concept of being buried alive, but that’s just how tunnelers are. “I haven’t thought of those in forever. No, I don’t turn into a sonic borer.”
“Oh.” D-16 can’t quite hide his disappointment. “Then I’m out of ideas.”
Megaton reaches down to pat his head like he’s a shiny newspark that needs consoling, but the emotion he projects - his EM field - is full of warm fondness. “It was a good guess.”
The storm doesn’t let up for the next day or the day after either. Train traffic eventually starts up again once Astrotrain puts together an old, beat-up generator for Sentry (or so Bee claims. Being a trainee archivist in a closed library is not the most taxing job and Optimus is not a demanding mentor, so he bounces around between the train station, his new apartment and the miners’ rest area in sublevel 5 when he’s free, basking in the company of his many new friends), but most of the city is still dimmed to conserve energy and growing dimmer every hour as more non-essential systems get turned off, even with the miners working double shifts to make up for the deficit.
“I had no idea that the city is this reliant on solar power,” Megaton notes during a longer break. He’s been joining them for the full workday and if not for his borderline absurd efficiency and the rich new energon vein, then they might have been forced into a third shift as well. “Or that our energy reserves are this low. Shouldn’t there be a planetary generator somewhere under the city?”
“All the generators turned off when energon stopped flowing and we don’t know how to turn them back on,” D-16 admits, rubbing his optics. Pits, he’s so tired. At least the backbreaking work helps to keep his mind occupied. “Last I heard from Elita-1, Prowl is down there with his new crew trying to coax something from it, but it looks like they can sooner draw energon from the sky than get any energy from that generator.”
“Is that why the others are so worried?” D-16 follows Megaton’s gaze to the other miners, sitting hunched in dejected groups, tiredly hanging their heads or whispering anxiously amongst each other.
“We had much worse and much longer energy shortages than this, but Sentinel usually makes it a point to reassure everyone and keep us updated on the situation.” He recalls how miserable the Prime looked when he called Optimus. “Do you think he’s all right?”
“I’m fairly confident he is fine. Quintesson secretions aren’t lethal, just very unpleasant.” Megaton gives him an inscrutable look. “Does his well-being really mean that much to you?”
“He’s the Prime. His well-being is important to all of us,” D-16 says defensively, crossing his arms. “He might not have found the Matrix or the Primes’ remains yet, but he has already done so much good for us...” he trails off, too embarrassed to finish.
“Go on. You know I won’t make fun of you for your passion,” Megaton coaxes in a light tone, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
D-16 resists for two whole kliks before he relents.
“Terminus - my first mentor - was born in the first wave of newsparks. He said that things were really bad then, at the beginning.” He looks down at his hands, flexes his fingers as if he was checking them for damage or debris just to avoid Megaton and his preternaturally observant eyes. “There were times when he felt that the only thing keeping his hope alive that things would get better — could get better — was Sentinel Prime’s certainty that they could do it. When there were only a couple hundred newsparks he used to come down to the barracks in person to keep people from succumbing to despair, did you know that? Terminus recorded all his early speeches into his personal memory and used to replay them to keep him and the other miners in high spirits when the work was hard.” D-16 has never talked about Terminus at length, not even to Pax; remembering him hurt. Recalling him like this, however, with his face all lit up as he told young Dee about his recordings, made the hurt sting just a little less. “After Terminus was… after I was transferred to the energon mine, I looked up all the official recordings of Sentinel’s speeches on the holonet. There was a very early one — the archives sometimes label it ‘Star Monologue’ — that I have listened to so many times I learned the words by spark.”
“What, really?” D-16 flinches when Jazz’s voice invades the little personal bubble around him and Megaton. He completely forgot that they weren’t alone anymore. “Man, I have only heard the Star Monologue once. They pulled all of Prime’s early speeches into restricted access by the time I figured out that you can watch stuff on the public net.”
Jazz is a great friend, but he is one of the loudest bots D-16 knows. His voice soon draws the attention of others.
“What’s going on?” “D-16 says he knows the Star Monologue.” “Wait, for real? Never heard it personally, but my mentor used to reminisce about it often.” “Is that the one that made Arcee crush on Sentinel like crazy for a whole cycle?” “It was no—” “Yes, it was. ” “Was not!” “Hey, Dee, do you have the recording saved into internal by any chance?”
D-16 wants to disappear. Why can’t Primus stir from his slumber and make the ground swallow him whole? He’s not Pax, he can’t deal with this kind of attention.
“I don’t.” He cringes a little at the disappointment appearing on several faces. “But Megaton’s Conjunx is the new head archivist. I’m sure he can get you a copy from the database.”
Approximately three dozen optics turn towards Megaton, pleading.
“He might be able to find it,” Megaton concedes. The miners light up with faint hope. “But they cut energy from the media archives until the storm passes, so it will have to wait.”
“Aww, man. I needed a pick-me-up today, this storm sucks slag.” Jazz flops down on a bench, dramatic as always. A few nanokliks later he bolts upright again. “Dee, my mech. You said you know the speech by spark, yeah? You could recite it for us!”
“Wha- nononono no! I can’t do that, I—” He looks around at all the hopeful faces. “Knowing the words is not nearly the same experience. You’d be disappointed.”
That doesn’t seem to deter the others. They have him surrounded until he has backed himself into a corner against the wall of the rec room. Finally he looks at Megaton to back him up on this, but he finds no ally in the big mech either. “We still have time left from this break and I would very much like to hear this famous speech. Even if it is not quite the original rendition, encouraging words are always worthwhile.”
“I’m not a good public speaker. Pax is always the one doing the talking, lifting everybody’s spirits…”
“Public speaking is a skill that can be cultivated like any other,” Megaton says, the traitor. “You have a good starting point — a good voice and a lot of familiarity with the source material as well as the way the speech was originally performed. You will never get a better chance than this to practice.”
“Come on, you can do it! Just pretend that you are Sentinel Prime!” someone shouts and D-16 cringes away; no, he can’t do that, that would be the height of disrespect.
“No.” Megaton doesn’t need to speak up. He silences the others with his sheer presence and a singular, quiet word. “You know the words by spark, but you are not Sentinel Prime. You are D-16. Let us hear the speech as you would have said it, had you been in his place.”
D-16 stares at him, finally relenting. The idea of performing in front of his fellows is daunting, so he allows his awareness to narrow down to Megaton. The big mech’s optics are smoldering in the half-light of the room, his complete, undivided attention set on D-16 like a weighted tarp. The other voices fade away, the watchful faces blur into an indistinct backdrop of colors. He cycles his vents slowly, steadily until his systems sync up to the rhythm. He can do this.
“When Primus, fleeing from His wicked shadow, birthed the first sparks, it is said that He set them in the gentle cradle of Luna I for safekeeping while He, the greatest architect of Fate, sculpted us a world where we could prosper, over ever-shifting gentle hills, on the shores of abundant rivers of energon. They say this is why the oldest among us had grown so tall, their sparks yearning to touch the sky once more, even while they lived in paradise.” He pauses to let the words settle for a moment. He is vaguely aware of movement from the corner of his eye as more bots gather around him. “Then came the Quintessons and poisoned our paradise. The land bristles with old agony, the skies weep bitter acid. While they are gone now, they have left us with rusted monuments of pain and decay. And as I stand here, watching my kin huddle in the haunted husk of our once-greatest city, I find myself yearning for the stars again.”
Sentinel has given a lot of speeches over the cycles and D-16 has watched every holo he could find, but this one — one of the earliest, barely more than a rough draft, wrought by the shaky hands of an inexperienced orator still finding his voice — was his favorite. “I wish to tuck you away into the sparklit chambers of my chest and take you away from this pain, to slip away on quantum currents in the fraction between two moments, faster than light, and find us a new beginning on one of the many worlds Primus has touched on His celestial pilgrimage.
But I can’t . These gilded wings can’t bear me to the sky. I can’t shelter you in my chest when it barely feels big enough to fit my spark. I’m not fast enough to slip the shackles of gravity. In the great eye of the cosmos, I am as small and feeble as you are. My kin, my Cybertronian family; our survival is pyrrhic victory, but we did survive. So hold onto hope. The war is over and this pain shall pass too, in time. This, I swear upon my very spark.”
It’s not a long speech and once he has said the last word, D-16 can’t linger in that transcendental space he made for himself for too long. Slowly, full awareness of the world returns; crudely carved walls and uncomfortable benches and dozens of mechs, watching him in awed silence. There are fifty nocog miners in this specific shift and at a glance it looks almost like they are all there, hanging on his every word.
“Holy Primus, mech,” Jazz says, always the first to find his voice. “That was amazing. You sure you haven’t practiced before?” There are murmurs of agreement rising from the crowd, now that they are starting to shake off their stupor.
“Where would I have? I live in the same dorm as you, you’d have noticed if I was monologuing at the wall!” D-16 laughs it off, maybe just a little defensive, but despite how terrifying that moment was when he realized how many bots were actually listening to him, he feels… good. It feels good when Jazz pats his shoulder or when Arcee comes up to offer him praise. There is a weight to the attention on him, yes, but now that the moment has passed and his anxiety has run its course, it’s not stifling like he expected it to be.
He wishes that Orion was there to see him, to share this rare moment when it was D-16’s turn to be cool, but deep down, in the selfish corners of his spark, he’s glad that it was only him. Orion Pax, the most brilliant troublemaker of Iacon, shines brighter than the sun and D-16 is usually happy to bask in his light and ward off any danger that might extinguish it, but sometimes… sometimes it aches, just a little, that when they are together, nobody takes note of D-16’s light, so much paler in comparison.
He looks around for Megaton when the big mech is the only one left who hasn’t offered any feedback on his performance and finds him standing off to the side, leaning against the wall, one hand resting lightly against the side of his head to signify that he’s talking over his internal comm — probably to Optimus — and doesn’t want to be disturbed.
Something in D-16’s chest seizes up painfully from envy. He knows it’s unfair and he still doesn’t quite know what to make of the relationship between those two, but he has seen enough to know - to feel it in his spark - that they are a matching pair; true Conjunxes straight out of an old tale, twin stars orbiting the same point in perfect balance, mirrors and equals in every way.
He wants to have something like that too. He’s tired of trailing after Orion Pax, who only looks ahead, eyes set on matters so much bigger than either of them. He wants Orion to stop and turn back, to finally see him too. Maybe they could never be equals like Optimus and Megaton, but binary systems seldom are; he could be content like that, he thinks. To walk a lopsided orbit in the cold emptiness, only to meet up with Pax over and over again, to brush up against his brilliance and know that they share a center of gravity…
He’s startled by the clarity of that mental image. He doesn’t quite know what to do with it, but it has settled in the forefront of his mind and it’s not leaving. He can’t easily put it into words, the standard glyphs are too restrictive to describe his vision, but he feels like he has to mark them down somewhere before the feeling slips away from his grasp.
He excuses himself and hides away in one of the side chambers where he can pull up Megaton’s datapad without anyone seeing, intending to just quickly jot down a few things so he can find this idea again, but in his hurry he accidentally opens up one of the poetry collections.
STARLIGHT
One, singular word, its glyphs harmoniously spaced, sits inconspicuously on the page, easy to overlook. D-16 is struck by its strangeness so he looks at it again, carefully and almost drops the pad when the depth of the poem unfolds, dozens upon dozens of sublayers nestled into each other in a bewildering web of concepts and emotions that feels endlessly complicated and elegantly interconnected, like the celestial motions of an entire galaxy.
He is startled when he hears the siren announcing the end of the break; he has no idea where the last 20 kliks have disappeared to. He has a hunch and very carefully glances at the poem again, only long enough to ascertain that it was written in the same kind of limited editor as the one on the datapad; the strange structure of the sublayers is as much a result of technical limitations as artistic choice.
He feels strangely giddy, his mind abuzz with new possibilities when he returns to work. He finishes his last half-shift in a daze and doesn’t wait around to see if Megaton is still there or not; he walks back to the barracks following the crowd, drinks his energon without tasting it and when the other miners settle down to recharge he climbs the stairs up to the roof. It’s the closest thing one can have to privacy in these crowded dorms, but it’s all he needs.
There are no simple words that could describe how he feels, but words don’t have to be simple. That night, sitting on a rusty crate, D-16 writes his first poem about binary stars and oblique love.
Notes:
D-16, resident chairman of the Complicated Feelings club. He's also picking up Megatron's worst poetry-writing habits. At least there's a fun contrast between Sentinel, who almost exclusively does public speaking (the speech loses much of its message when transcribed, because the speaker and their performance are an intrinsic part of the speech) and Megatron's poetry (much of which is impossible to recite aloud, because the formatting is part of the poem and can't be conveyed verbally).
Forgive me if I geek out a little bit about my language headcanons. I only have a vague idea about what would make poetry complicated to a robot's brain that can process things much faster than us squishy organics (and their language doesn't really come up at all in practice, because it would make for a very obnoxious experience if I tried), but I imagine it as something like... the primary spoken or written words can have small tags of clarification or extension (layers) attached. Imagine it like a baked-in footnote, but it's generally experienced simultaneously with the primary text.
When speaking, the layer would be limited to short, very simple concepts (someone griping about Screamer might say: Starscreambastard) or omitted altogether depending on the language and dialect. Soundwave's speech pattern is considered peculiar, because it takes a dialect that's already considered a little weird (Tarnian Formal that takes mostly complete sentences and then puts specific parts, like the subject or the object, in one or two layers over the whole thing - Stop sleeping on keyboardRavage) and ditches the layer structure and just says the original layered words out loud (Tarnian Basic has simplified glyphs and no layers at all - Ravage: stop sleeping on keyboard).
In writing, however... you can use as many layers as you want and put anything in there, as long as your display device of choice can handle it and the intended reader can process it. It can be text, pictures, the collected discography of a musician set to play in a precise order, the transcription of a subroutine that produces certain sensations 10 minutes after reading... Whatever wild thing you can imagine, basically. Megatron's poetry (and the text editor he gave Dee) only operate with text (font, formatting, spacing etc. are also considered important) and a very basic layer structure (you can only put 3 footnotes on one glyph, but it doesn't stop you from putting footnotes in your footnotes) and it's considered a distinctive style of poetry that would never go out of fashion due to how accessible it is. You can't attach your heartbreak playlist to your work without the right technology, but you can write a text with multiple footnotes with pen and paper and some creativity.
And this was Gremlin's overly long musing on robot languages.
Chapter Text
STN-MRK-37: [Question of the day: what do you know about Nova Generators?]
MiniMegs: [They are big as a Titan and take an ocean of energon to activate.]
MiniMegs: [Are you hiding an ocean of energon somewhere? Because we could really use some to turn the lights back on.]
STN-MRK-37: [If I had an ocean of energon at my disposal, I would have already used it to bomb the rest of the Quintessons from orbit.]
MiniMegs: [No need to be snippy. The morale is in the dumps out here and turning the lights on would do it a world of good. Are you out of the soup yet?]
STN-MRK-37: [Out of the soup, but still at the hospital. I’m going under in three hours to get rewired. Half of my motor relays have dissolved from being in the chemical bath for so long.]
MiniMegs: [Ouch. So, what do you want to use to kickstart the generator if not energon? It doesn’t play nice with quantum and you’d need a fuel quill the size of the Primal Palace if you tried to use nuclear fusion.]
MiniMegs: [...it would also irradiate the entire city and half of the plateau, but I feel like that’s not really a concern when you can’t build one in the first place.]
STN-MRK-37: [Try a harvester quill five times the size, drawing power straight from Cybertron’s core.]
MiniMegs: [If you already have a solution, then why are you asking?]
STN-MRK-37: [Because the quill is out of position and the control mechanism is locked down without Matrix access. If we could manually nudge it back into place and get even 0.01% production going…]
MiniMegs: [You could shut down the energon mines and move the workforce over to material production.]
MiniMegs: [There is also a nonzero chance that Primus will smite us all for poking Him in the spark with a pointy stick.]
STN-MRK-37: [I’m willing to take that chance.]
STN-MRK-37: [Where is your Conjunx, anyway? I wanted to ask him to look into the archives, in case the Primal access codes were saved there.]
STN-MRK-37: [I already scoured the database at the Primal Palace, but most of it is locked too. If there is a backup somewhere, it’s not here.]
MiniMegs: [Up on the surface, helping Astrotrain and Airachnid put a tarp over the solar panels so they don’t melt from the persistent rainfall.]
MiniMegs: [The storm is interfering with comms, but Sentry can probably patch you through.]
STN-MRK-37: [Who?]
MiniMegs: [...Your train operator.]
STN-MRK-37: [OH.]
STN-MRK-37: [I didn’t know STN-MRK-44 ended up picking a name. I’ll talk to her, then.]
MiniMegs: [...]
MiniMegs: [Was it common for the Primal staff to not have traditional designations?]
MiniMegs: [I recognize a manufacturing code when I see one.]
STN-MRK-37: [Yes, well.]
STN-MRK-37: [If you have a shiny calculator that speaks, you don’t give it a name unless you want to pretend that it’s a person.]
D-16 spends every free moment of the next three days working on his poems, unable to rest until they feel — not as good as the others on the datapad, but at least decent enough.
“Have you recharged at all?” is the first thing Elita-1 asks the next time they meet, walking to the same morning briefing.
“I have.” Somewhere in the ballpark of 20 kliks last night, which is just enough that he doesn’t feel like he’s lying, strictly speaking. He is so tired that he’s bordering on useless, but he has, in the most technical sense of the word, recharged.
“Right. You do realize that I’m not letting you anywhere near the mine like this, right?”
“Elita-1, sir, you can’t—”
“Oh, I can and I will. You can’t even walk in a straight line, look!” D-16 looks where she is pointing. Without noticing, he has stepped in a puddle of spilled energon and left a well-defined, meandering trail of footsteps that paint a very damning picture of his current state. “You are fortunate that Prowl requested a team down at the generator. You, your team and I are going to go there and I’m going to be overcome by an unbearable nostalgia to act like a team captain while you go and take a nap somewhere out of the way and we will both pretend that this has never happened. Understood?”
D-16 stares at her for almost a whole klik before he absorbs everything she just said. “Oookay, what’s going on here? You don’t usually stick your neck out like that for anybody!”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
D-16 doesn’t believe her, but he doesn’t actually know what her angle is, so he lets the matter go. It all starts clicking into place soon enough when he notices that Jazz has sneaked his way into his team. D-16 still doesn’t quite know where he stands with Elita-1, but he knows for certain that she is friends with their resident loudmouth. Bots born from the same spark harvest often are. “Jazz, you know that I like you, but this is not your shift.”
“I traded with Ironhide.” Jazz grins at him, as if acting casual would make him overlook the breach in protocol. “Come on, Dee, you know I’m a good worker, don’t send me away.”
“No can do! You know if anything happens to you, it will be my responsibility!” D-16 would usually feels confident enough in himself to handle if a member of his team swapped places with someone else — it changes the group dynamics, but Jazz is right in asserting that he is a very good worker — but they are doing a different assignment today and as much as it pains him to admit it, he’s not quite here enough to spot in time if something is going wrong. “Oh, why am I even trying? It’s not like I can stop you. If I say no, you will just sneak after us anyway.” He sighs when Jazz beams up at him, as good as confirming it. “Be honest with me, Jazz. What’s this about? Elita is coming too and she sure as hell isn’t hovering like a malfunctioning weather drone because she’s worried about me.”
It’s remarkable how quickly the smirk wilts off Jazz’s face. “It’s about Prowl. He’s been avoiding me.”
“What, again?” D-16 tries not to get too involved in the private matters of his fellows, but it was impossible not to know about the falling out between Jazz and Prowl. There were betting pools on when those two would get Conjunxed, for Primus’ sake! Until Prowl was picked for the promotion to get a cog and started avoiding everybody, Jazz included, for what felt like ages. “I thought you two got together again once he worked through all the—” D-16 cuts himself off suddenly, realization striking him like a bolt of electricity.
Prowl started avoiding his friends because he started to hear voices after the cog update and thought he was haunted. It doesn’t take a big leap of logic to figure out why he might be avoiding Jazz now.
Except, apparently, Jazz has no idea because he goes on, looking abjectly miserable. “Yeah, so did I! We were working through things just fine, I thought we found our groove again, the ‘facing has been amazing since I got this new adapter—” “Jazz, I really didn’t want or need to know that.” “—and then he got this new team and he cancelled our next date without explanation and he refuses to pick up his comm when I call! I worry, Dee. Something’s wrong here, I feel it.”
D-16, curse his soft spark, can imagine exactly what Jazz feels. He would be just as desperate if this was happening to Pax and him instead. “Alright. But stay on protocol, you hear? No shenanigans!”
Jazz grins at him and places a hand over his chest. “I swear it on my spark! Thank you, Dee. I owe you one, my mech.”
D-16 sighs. He’s too tired for this. “Don’t mention it.”
D-16 is almost unsurprised to find Optimus waiting for them at the elevator to the generator level. It seems that whenever something of note happens, those two bots find a way to get involved. There is also that medic bot from the hospital - Ratchet.
“Sir, what are you doing here?” D-16 asks, sidling up to the red and white mech to get away from Elita’s persistent glaring.
“I’m here to supervise the constructicons. Never hurts to get a medic on site who can de-escalate things when dealing with a gestalt.” Ratchet huffs. “Especially this gestalt.”
“I thought one of them was a medic?”
“Trust me, it’s not going to matter when they do their thing.” When D-16 just looks at him blankly he shakes his head. “You will see.”
They are interrupted before D-16 could ask more questions by Prowl’s arrival, the mech already wearing a frown before he even spots that Jazz is there. “What are you all doing here?”
“Supervisors’ office said you wanted a nocog team,” Elita says, crossing her arms and glaring at him. They are, to D-16’s knowledge, something approaching friends, but Elita is not the sort of bot who will give others a pass for acting like a glitch. “So here we are.”
“I need one or two bots small enough to get into the gaps in the machinery and reliable enough to follow precise instructions.” Prowl’s frown deepens as he looks over the gathered team, his foot tapping in annoyance. “D-16 and Elita-1, stay. The rest of you can go.”
“Jazz is staying too,” Elita interjects before he can turn and stomp away.
“No, he’s not.” Prowl grits his teeth so hard D-16 can hear it. The rest of the team, wisely, starts slinking away before he can direct his ire at them too.
“D-16 is only here because of a scheduling mistake. He is not fit to do precision work. Jazz is staying.”
“I can’t have him distract me or the team. Especially not today!”
“Jazz knows how to behave in a work environment!”
“His very presence is a distraction!”
Just when it looks like they are about to start yelling in earnest, Optimus clears his throat and they both flinch apart like chastised newsparks. “Prowl, I believe it would be beneficial if Jazz was allowed to meet your gestalt. For everyone involved.”
Prowl stares up at Optimus, his face twisted in a grimace and his doorwings quivering; if D-16 didn’t know better he’d say that he was terrified of something. “Optimus, sir, with all due respect—”
He freezes, going completely rigid, when Optimus places a soothing hand on his shoulder. “It will be fine, Prowl. Jazz knows how to keep a secret.”
“This isn’t what I had in mind when I came here this morning.” Jazz sighs and rests his head on the safety railing, looking morosely down through the glass observation window at the floor below where the constructicons are working. D-16 can’t help but agree. It feels like their presence is entirely superficial, but he can’t say he minds it much. Once they got off the elevator, Prowl deposited them in this room, ordered them not to touch anything, then went out into the main chamber to join his crew. With nothing better to do, D-16 started up a program that put him into a half-sleep, so he could at least recover some of his mental faculties in case they needed them after all, but looking at the size of everything, he somehow doubts it will be necessary.
“I can’t even tell what they are doing!” Jazz goes on, unperturbed by his silent audience.
D-16 has no idea either. He’s not even sure that they are doing anything at all, in truth. Every part of the generator is so massive that his tired processors are struggling to take them in; Prowl seems so small in comparison that he can vividly imagine picking him up and holding him in the palm of his hand. Ratchet, who has parked himself in vehicle mode next to the access elevator so he can reach any of the working mechs in case of an accident, is a dead ringer for a medical toolbox from afar due to his boxy ambulance mode. The constructicon team looks like a pack of purple and green scraplets, crawling all over the impossibly big open shell of the central structure and the giant mechanical arms that are holding an immense slab of red something that could dwarf any palace-tower in Iacon, centered in a hole that seems to be endlessly deep. There are cables rooted in the red thing, thicker across than three cogless standing on top of each other, disappearing into the impenetrable darkness that hides the ceiling somewhere above. Giant crystal cylinders protrude from the floor of the chamber whose purpose D-16 doesn’t even dare to guess. The room they are in appears to be some kind of control room, but the computers are so ancient he can’t even see a way to turn them on.
“I can explain it, in general terms.” D-16 flinches awake from his half-doze and looks at Optimus. The big bot has several holo screens fanned out in front of him, showing various schematics and other incomprehensible data. “The constructicons are repairing minor structural damages that accumulated while the generator was inert. Routine maintenance, you could say. The red apparatus is a ‘quill’. When the generator is in operation, those big arms lower it into the outer corona of Primus’ spark to harvest energy that the generator then transforms into forms that can be utilized by the city, mainly electricity and high purity liquid energon.”
D-16 sits up, his exhaustion forgotten. “The generator creates the energon?”
“It’s technically the by-product of the extraction process.” Optimus points at one of the ominous crystal vessels. “According to these records, there are other chambers below with cylinders ten, twenty or even fifty times this big that all gather energon when the quill is fully immersed, which powers Cybertron’s internal systems, and release the excess through a series of immense valves. The energon that used to make it to the surface in the form of rivers and lakes is simply… spillover.”
D-16 stares at the crystal cylinder, so big that the entire mine, every last miner in the city, would need to work day and night without a break to fill it. He tries to picture one fifty times as big and his processor spits back a computation error.
“So… what are we doing here?” Elita asks and isn’t that the million shanix question.
“As you probably already know, the generator shut down when the Matrix was lost, along with the apparatus that moves the quill. Without the Matrix Bearer’s access codes it is impossible to turn them back on the intended way, but on a purely mechanical level the generator is operational. If I can use some of these backup access codes to turn the controls on, then you get to sit back and relax. If not, however…” Optimus frowns at one of the screens, then flicks it away in favor of a different one. “There are heavy locks in the way of the quill to prevent it from falling into the planetary core in case of a mechanical error and to hold it in position when it’s submerged. You will need to climb down the secondary access shafts, crawl into the locking mechanism of each lock through the maintenance tunnels and locally open them to allow the quill to pass while the constructicons manually lower it into place.”
D-16 looks at Elita and Jazz, but they appear just as flummoxed as he is.
“This plan is insane.” “It would take weeks to climb down to the planetary core.” “Do we know if the access shafts are even open all the way?”
Optimus chuckles, amused by their outrage. “That is not inaccurate. It would take at least a couple of days, if you ride the moving arms down part of the way. And we don’t know.” He looks at them with a half smile. “There is also a small chance that Primus might mistake an unauthorized quill-activation as a Quintesson operation and close the entire channel, crushing us all in the process. Which is why I am going to try my utmost to get this system operational so we can tell Him directly that we are not the enemy. Any other questions?”
D-16 looks down at Prowl and his crew, skittering around the enormous machinery. Optimus is a kind mech; if they ask nicely and promise not to tell anyone about it, he would probably let them leave. Prowl and his mechs, however, don’t sound as easily replaceable as three random nocogs. If something goes wrong, they will be right here in the bowels of Cybertron, waiting to be crushed or disintegrated or Primus only knows what else.
And D-16 would have to live with the knowledge that they died while he stood by and pretended not to know about it.
He turns back to Optimus. “None. I believe in you, sir.”
Jazz nods too. “Yeah. I had some rocky times going with Prowler, but I can’t leave him behind.” He glances towards the window too. “Even if he has picked these new mechs over me.”
“Oh, Jazz.” The only time D-16 heard Optimus’ voice go so soft and sad before was when he talked about those he lost in the war. “Please, believe me, that is not what is going on.”
“Yeah, I keep hearing that, but that’s not what I see down there. Like, look.” Jazz hops onto the safety railing with the sort of agility D-16 could only dream about and opens one of the window panels to the echoing main chamber. “I know Prowl, I’ve worked with him a bunch and when he’s coordinating a team, he yells. A lot. Sounds pissed as frag, too, even when he doesn’t mean it. I’ve been watching him today and I can see that he’s coordinating — I recognize the way he gestures — but listen here: you can’t hear a word from down there. And don’t tell me it’s because the room is big, I have a sense for good acoustics. You could drop a screw and we would hear it all the way up here.”
Now that it has been pointed out, D-16 can hear it too. He can hear the echoing sound of footsteps and the growl of heavy engines, but there are no words exchanged on the floor below. He has never seen laborers who worked in complete silence before and what makes it even more eerie is that as he watches, he can clearly see from their body language that the construction mechs are talking, silently through an internal comm channel or—
—or through a sparkbond.
D-16 can’t blame Jazz for being upset and jumping to the worst case scenario. Hell, he would be pissed too if he found out that Orion ran off to get bonded for life to five mechs he has never seen before.
He’s internally debating whether he should say something or not — he doesn’t like seeing Jazz in distress, but this is really not his secret to tell — when the door of the control room opens.
“What is going on here?! You there, get off the railing right this instance!” Ratchet stomps up to Jazz and lifts him off like he’s a misbehaving turbopup. “Can somebody sane please fill me in?”
“We were talking about Prowl and his… situationship with the constructicons,” Optimus says diplomatically.
Ratchet gives him a flat look. “Is that what we are calling it now? Well, it’s going to become very clear in a klik.”
“They are starting already? I haven’t finished checking all the access codes yet.”
D-16 has a sudden, very bad feeling. “What are they starting?”
Before either Optimus or Ratchet can answer a command rings out, harsh and exacting. Jazz was right, the acoustics of the room are excellent; they can hear Prowl as clearly as if he was standing next to them.
“Constructicons! Transform and combine!”
Chapter 17
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It takes D-16 an unreasonably long time to realize what he is seeing. He has seen transformations hundreds if not thousands of times in his life, but not one like this. Bodies twisting in unnatural ways, being drawn together by an invisible force, slotting into place to form—
“Is that a mech?” Elita asks, voicing what all of them are thinking.
The hulking figure appears to be even bigger than the sum of his components somehow, his limbs and body made from the already giant construction mechs and the head unmistakable as Prowl, sporting the same face, the same frown and the same bright red chevron.
“Take him in, because this is probably the only time you will ever see a combiner in action,” Ratchet says, dropping the limp Jazz on the floor, safely away from any ledges he might fall off of in his shock. Without preamble he snatches a holoscreen away from Optimus and flicks it over to a comm channel. “Devastator, status report. Your head component reported elevated stress levels before combining, I want to make sure it won’t cause an issue.” He waits for the giant to make a loud rumble that means that he probably understood the request and mutes the channel. “That should do it. If you have any questions, you have a few kliks to ask them now. Combiners are not the fastest thinkers when it comes to complex tasks.”
“Is Prowl okay?” Jazz asks in a small voice, staring out the observation window in horror. His visor is over-bright and if he has eyes underneath (you can never know with some mechs) D-16 expects his tears to start flowing soon.
“He will be fine.” Ratchet’s harsh demeanor softens just a little bit when he realizes how scared Jazz is. “He's not present right now — when a gestalt assembles, it's not just their bodies that combine, but their minds as well, and the gestalt consciousness — Devastator — takes over. Prowl has combined with this team before and handled the experience as well as anyone can be expected to, considering the circumstances of his addition to the bond.”
D-16 doesn't need it spelled out: Prowl received Scrapper’s t-cog and with it he was forced into the bond Scrapper shared with the others before his death. Whether that second part was intentional or not D-16 can't say for certain, but based on how Prowl was acting after his upgrade, it was extremely distressing to experience all the same.
“So I can't ask it — them? him? — how Prowl is?”
“It would be ill-advised.” Ratchet squints at the screen in front of him, displaying data about Devastator that D-16 can't parse. “A combiner can't acknowledge his component mechs as autonomous individuals when they are combined, it would be disastrous. If you direct his attention to one specific member — if you remind him that his components are alive—, it will cause disturbance in the bond cohesion and he might end up mentally suppressing whoever is being too individualistic to prevent them from prematurely uncombining. Now that would be bad.”
“How bad are we talking here?”
Ratchet looks a little queasy and busies himself with the data instead of answering.
“According to the records” —Optimus takes over, leaning over the railing to close the window panel— “the reason why Amalgamous Prime abandoned further pursuit of the technology was because a combiner caused permanent damage to three of its components during a routine sortie. The mechs in question have never regained the ability for autonomous function and the potential loss of soldiers in return for inconsistent gains was considered too costly to keep the project going during wartime, when resources were already scarce.”
“Devastator has a track record of being tolerant of his components’ quirks,” Ratchet says immediately, but it doesn’t come quickly enough to dispel the mental image that D-16’s predictive subroutines conjure of Prowl, looking at them with empty eyes like a sparkless doll, his cutting words and clever mind silenced for good. “He’s not going to hurt the mechs, especially after what happened with Scrapper.”
“What exactly happened to Scrapper?” Elita-1 asks, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I don’t know the exact details,” Ratchet presses, still scrolling through the status report Devastator is sending him. “I didn’t have the clearance yet to be informed of the incident at the time, so this is only going off what is on the official paperwork. According to that - wait, one moment.” He flicks the comm channel on. “Looking good over the board. You are cleared to proceed, but if you experience anything out of the ordinary, stop at once and report it.”
“Devastator understands.” The combiner’s voice feels heavy and it’s deep enough that D-16’s subroutines warn him about an increased danger of tunnel collapse, mistaking it for the distant rumbling of unstable sediment layers. He also definitely sounds slow, every glyph formed with intent and with a barely-perceptible delay, as if he needed to deliberate on them beforehand.
It’s a startling contrast when he starts moving with a speed that, D-16 thinks, should be impossible for a body that large. Devastator moves with clear intent and single-minded efficiency, not even a twitch of motion wasted on anything but his task, which appears to be reassembling and closing up the generator.
Satisfied, Ratchet flicks the comm to mute again. “So, as I was saying. According to the report, they were installing a set of solar panels up on the surface when Devastator stepped on a previously undiscovered Quintesson explosive. Scrapper, who was the right leg component at the time, was incinerated by the bomb and died almost immediately, before they could uncombine and seek emergency medical help. His passing devastated - pun very much not intended - the gestalt consciousness and left deep scars on the psyche of his surviving teammates.”
Ratchet tries to seek Jazz’s eyes, but Jazz is not looking at him. He has returned to the safety railing, gripping it so hard that the metal is starting to bend, and silently stares at Devastator. It’s surreal to see the giant’s face, so much like Prowl’s, severe mouth set in a frown and eyes narrowed in concentration as he works.
“Your friend was brought into the bond on an… experimental basis,” Ratchet admits with some reluctance. “Devastator’s consciousness doesn’t fully stop existing when he decombines, just like the components don’t lose their awareness completely when they are combined. In his incomplete state he started unraveling and what affects Devastator, affects the constructicons as well.
Director Pharma and assistant-director Mesothulas theorized that replacing the deceased… the destroyed component with a mech who possessed the right mental attributes to introduce a stabilizing effect could prevent the gestalt bond from deteriorating any further. If not for Prowl, we suspect that Devastator’s consciousness would have completely dissolved and the constructicons all would have died from the mental strain.”
That is a lot to process. D-16 is tangentially aware that Optimus strikes up a conversation with Ratchet (“I had no idea Mesothulas still works at the hospital.” “Can’t say I have ever met him. He spends all his time on the surface, doing Primus-only-knows what, but Director Pharma sometimes consults with him on special cases.”) but he directs the entire audio stream right into temporary storage for later review, because he can’t spare the thoughts to pay attention now.
He tries to imagine what it could feel like, to be so intimately intertwined. To be completely connected, body and mind, until you are subsumed by — by something other, made of you, but an entity all of its own. One limb of a giant, one subprocessor of a mainframe, one component of many, but not fully without awareness. What does a hand feel when it’s lifted? Does it know why? Can one part of the mind see the shape of a thought the whole is forming? Does it still think of the whole when it’s apart, no longer robbed of autonomy and will?
The longer he thinks about it, the more the horror overwhelms him. He feels sick. He needs to stop thinking about this now or he will purge his tanks and he would never live that down. At least one glance to the others confirms that the others are struggling with this concept just as much as he is. Jazz has half-collapsed on the floor, held up only by slackening grip on the railing, his cheeks stained with coolant tears. Elita sits on a crate, her head in her hands and staring at a rusty spot on the floor with a faraway expression.
It makes it even more stark how unfazed Ratchet and Optimus are about the entire situation. “How are you not disturbed at all?” D-16 asks, maybe foolishly hoping that they can impart some wisdom that makes the entire concept just a little less nightmarish.
They both look at him with open surprise. “I have seen many things that were much worse than Combiners,” Optimus admits easily. “It is a unique situation, to be sure, but having met gestalt teams, both as individuals and in their combined form, I don’t believe it to be a particularly harmful state of existence.”
Ratchet takes a little longer to answer. “I suppose I found nothing unusual about the concept because I have known a mech who was born a combiner for most of my function.” He taps away at the screen, almost idly. “The Reflector gestalt - made up of components Spectro, Spyglass and Viewfinder - shares one primary consciousness over three bodies that combine into a shared alt mode. He’s our scanning specialist. The component parts are capable of individuality and autonomous actions, but being born as an interlinked consciousness, he prefers to be seen as one self with three parts rather than three people—” He is interrupted again by the comm going off. “Excuse me for a moment. Devastator, status report!”
“All proposed tasks are finished.”
“Good. Expedient work, as always. Upload the datalogs through the usual connection and uncombine whenever convenient.”
“Before that.” The sudden interjection makes Ratchet do a double take and move the screen to the side so he can stare directly out at the combiner. “Devastator is concerned about the status of… Jazz?” The giant forms Jazz’s name with more uncertainty than the rest of his glyphs, like he needs to sound out if he’s pronouncing it right.
“Devastator is concerned?” Ratchet echoes in disbelief. “Is it not just anomalous feedback from your head component?”
“Devastator is concerned.” The combiner presses, meandering slowly closer to the control room. “Devastator’s head component is not in complete sync yet, but it does not resist,” he adds, rubbing at the transformation seam where the boundary of Prowl’s body has to be. “Devastator wishes to speak to Jazz.”
Ratchet stares, speechless, for so long that Optimus gives him a nudge out of concern that he has crashed. “Let me double check the regulations on that one, please stand by!” He presses the mute with enough force that the holoscreen keeps flickering for a few nanokliks afterwards. “Well, that’s… something.”
“What does that mean?” Jazz asks, slowly pulling himself up, scrubbing his free hand over his face to wipe his tears away. “What does that mean for Prowl?”
“Nothing bad, keep your gears cool. Give me a klik to gather my thoughts.” Ratchet rubs the sides of his head, like he’s trying to ward off an oncoming headache. “Devastator borrows much of his primary processing from Prowl - that’s why he was made into the head component, it eases the assimilation because the others know how to subordinate themselves to him to a degree - but it’s not just him, it’s all of them. Their combined processing speed is slow, because most of Devastator’s complex thoughts - not all of them, but most - require consensus between the components. So if Devastator wants something specific, it means they all want it.”
“So they all want to talk to me.” Jazz glances out at Devastator, standing placidly at what has to feel like a polite distance to something that big. “Why?!”
“We won’t know until you talk to him.” Ratchet huffs. “Do you think you can do that without causing a scene? Whatever the reason, it has to be important to the gestalt consciousness if he brought it up.”
Jazz chews on his lower lip while he thinks, but he eventually manages an only slightly hysterical: “Sure, why not.”
D-16 and the others lurk just inside the door while Jazz waits on the raised walkway for Devastator to approach, radiating the sort of casual confidence that D-16 envies greatly because he knows it to be entirely fake.
Jazz even manages a warm smile when Devastator stops in front of him. “Woah, mech! You are even bigger up close!”
The corner of Devastator’s lips twitches, his frown easing just a little. “Is Jazz… fine?”
“Fine as can be! You needn’t worry about little old me, I was up here all along, staying out from underfoot for a change.”
Devastator hums in agreement. Then he holds out his palm for Jazz and waits patiently until the smaller bot evaluates the potential danger and decides to step onto it.
He raises his hand to eye level and simply looks at Jazz with great seriousness for an uncomfortably long time before he speaks again. “Jazz doesn’t need to lie. Jazz is unnerved by Devastator.”
Jazz’s confident facade fades, just a little. “Yes. I suppose I am a little.”
“Devastator understands.”
“You do?”
“Devastator isn’t completely ignorant of his components. But…” he trails off, frown returning. He exhales a vent that almost blows Jazz away.
“But?”
“Devastator’s head component is new. Doesn’t fit right yet.” He raises his free hand and massages his chevron, just like Prowl does when he gets a headache. “It doesn’t resist, so it is fine. It will learn. But if Jazz rejects Devastator - if Jazz rejects… Prowl,” —the frown twists into a grimace before it smoothes out again— “for being a component of Devastator, it won’t be able to fit. Even if it tries. Does Jazz understand?”
Jazz is silent for a long time. Devastator, if nothing else can be said in the combiner’s favor, is a very patient mech and doesn’t rush him to answer. “Yes, I suppose I understand,” he says at last, so quiet that D-16 can barely hear it.
“Can Jazz accept Devastator?”
“I’m… not sure. This is all kinda sudden, you understand?” Devastator nods. “I don’t know you, I don’t know your components and I definitely have no damn idea how I’m going to feel about this once it stops being so new. I need time to think.”
“Is Jazz willing to try?”
“Listen here, I- Prowl is the love of my life, mech. I want us to work out, even if he’s weird and stuck up and I just learned that he comes part and parcel with you and all your bits. So I guess I am willing enough to try.”
The combiner makes a deep rumbling sound that might be a chuckle. “Good enough for Devastator.”
D-16 feels like he has become an unpaid extra in a weird holodrama when the elevator rattles to a halt and a tense Prowl shuffles out, followed by his sheepish team. Jazz is waiting for them with his arms crossed and his mouth set in an ominously cheerful smile. “Look who the turbofox dragged in!”
“Jazz, I didn’t want to spring this on you,” Prowl starts. He tries to stop just one step outside the elevator, but his team ‘helpfully’ pushes him forward until he’s standing right in front of Jazz. “But I didn’t know how to tell you. Not when—” “—this is still a little—” “—new to us too.”
Jazz takes a step back, then another, his visor flashing bright. It’s not that one of the constructicons has finished a thought when the other trailed off, bots who knew each other well did that sometimes. The sentence started with Prowl and then continued, unbroken, through the vocalizers of two others, like they all shared the same thought.
“What in the Pits was that?!”
The constructicons shuffle uncomfortably around Prowl. “When the bond is active,” says the one D-16 recognizes as Hook. The mech has cleaned up his medic markings, but they still look a little bizarre on the purple and green paint. “Memories and thoughts can be freely shared between us. So, especially between us” —he gestures at his fellow constructicons— “when we are synced up after combining—” “—it’s sometimes easy to forget—” “—where the thought originated in the first place.” “So somebody—“—anybody—” “—will just say it out loud—” “—before we forget.”
D-16 has once witnessed a communications bot perform a party trick where he manipulated his voice to sound from different places, giving the impression that he was moving around despite sitting still. This is not quite the same - it’s about ten times as bizarre, to start - but hearing the sentence meander around five different bots and arrive back at Hook creates a similar audio effect.
“Our minds will separate eventually,” Prowl hurries to reassure Jazz. “But after combining it takes a while for our processes to fully untangle from each other.”
Jazz makes a long, low whistle. “Alright, that’s… a lot. How about we start small and you introduce me to your crew?”
Prowl’s doorwings rise a little, his expression turning hopeful. “Are you not mad?”
“I’m furious. But I meant what I said: I want us to work out. Even if you have hitched yourself to a whole truckload of weirdos and didn’t tell me about it.”
Prowl chuckles awkwardly and D-16 will never be able to unhear how similar he sounds to Devastator. “I suppose that is the best we can ask for.”
Notes:
I'm thinking about adding some updated tags to this fic, but I will be honest, I'm not sure what they should be. Prowl has appeared enough times now to warrant a tag, Bee definitely does, maybe Ratchet... but as far as content tags go, I'm a little stumped.
Look, we can all see the Horrors slowly creeping in, but "Canon Typical Horrors" sounds a bit silly and not at all helpful. So if anybody has a suggestion, I'm all ears.
Chapter 18
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Ratchet breaks up the relationship drama by directing the entire gestalt up to the higher floors to go through a medical. Jazz follows them, trying to stick close to Prowl rather than the constructicons, but it’s a lost cause. Elita watches them all get into the elevator, Jazz trapped between the two biggest bots and looking increasingly on edge from the way they appear to be leering at him.
“You can join them, if you wish,” Optimus says with an encouraging sort of smile. D-16 is almost certain that he practices all his expressions in front of a mirror, considering that the right side of his mouth doesn’t move quite right. “Combining does not rewrite somebody’s personality, but it noticeably leaves a mark. It would not surprise me if Prowl found himself with a new appreciation for architecture sooner or later or suddenly felt like his frame had shrunk, because he unconsciously internalized the memories of his much taller gestalt-mates. In the other direction, it appears clear to me that the constructicons have acquired Prowl’s… fondness for Jazz. They might end up treating him with far too much familiarity without realizing where the impulse comes from.”
Elita’s optics go wide. She glances briefly at D-16 — probably internally evaluating the chances that Optimus would get him in trouble if she looks away for a klik — before she bolts after the others, getting into the elevator just before it closes.
D-16 waits for the lift to move before he turns back to Optimus, one brow plate raised. “So, is there a reason why you sent her away or…?”
“I genuinely believe it would be beneficial for Jazz if someone stood up and enforced his personal space,” Optimus says, unwinding a thick cable of sorts from his subspace. “But I would also prefer not to have her and her prying questions here while I work.”
D-16 isn’t quite sure what the implication is supposed to be - that he wouldn’t ask prying questions or Optimus wouldn’t mind answering if he did - but he’s not sure he likes it either way. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Just stand back.” Optimus does something with the cable which makes one end split into two. The singular end he plugs into an outlet in the wall that D-16 hasn’t noticed before. One half of the split end goes into the neural socket in his shoulder and the other… “I might flail around a little and I don’t want to hurt you.”
D-16 has exactly one nanoklik to realize what Optimus is doing and jump back before the big bot plugs the other end of the cable straight into the cranial port on the back of his neck.
The room goes dark and deadly silent.
Optimus doesn’t flail. Instead, he stands frozen, his optics and his biolights all turning a brilliant cyan so bright that D-16 struggles to look at them directly, bathing the darkened room in an ominous glow. Kliks pass like that, the silence so oppressive that D-16 thinks he can hear his own systems; the stuttering noise of his engine, the uneven hum of his cooling fans, the rushing of fluids in his lines, and then—
D-16’s ventilations stall as the ancient computers come alive one after the other, diluting the cold blue with warm, comforting yellow lights.
He almost jumps out of his plating when the giant arms in the chamber start moving, sluggishly going through an initiation sequence after not being in use for 50 cycles.
“I can’t believe it.” D-16 feels lightheaded and giddy. One of those codes must have worked because the ancient systems are turning on one after the other, brilliant, golden safety lights dispelling the oppressive darkness. “You did it! Optimus, you did it!” Throwing caution to the wind he reaches out to pat Optimus on the back.
As soon as his fingers touch him, Optimus comes back to himself with a harrowing scream and stumbles backwards, ripping the cable from his ports so suddenly that the plugs spark. He blindly scrambles away from the computer, his field pulsing with visceral terror that grips D-16’s spark in a cold vise and forces him to his knees, his joint locking and his vision swarming with error messages.
He's not sure how long it takes him to dismiss the errors and regain control of his body, but by the time he takes in his environment, Optimus is gone. The only signs that he was even there are the systems slowly winding down and the abandoned cable, still halfway plugged in.
“Have you seen Optimus?” D-16 asks before he’s fully out of the elevator. The bots in the corridor — Jazz, Elita and probably Scavenger — all shake their heads.
“We just came out here a klik ago to not get underfoot while the medics look ‘Crusher over. He doesn’t like medicals,” Scavenger explains. As if the universe wanted to illustrate his words, there’s a noise coming from the room next to them that could be either a wild brawl or somebody trying to restrain an upset construction bot. “What happened?”
D-16 tells them as succinctly as he can. He must have managed to convey the direness of the situation, because barely a klik later the door next to them is slammed open with such force — thanks to the combined strength of the outraged Ratchet and the livid Hook — that it halfway falls off its hinges. “What do you mean he cracked those systems through a direct neural link?!”
It’s a slight bit of relief that the others are treating the situation seriously. They are quick to plan a course of action; even a transformer as sturdy as Optimus can cause himself injury in a blind panic.
“If he really was as scared as D-16 describes him, then he would most likely have sought his Conjunx out,” Hook says, his frown disturbingly identical with Prowl’s. “Where would Megaton be at this time of the day?”
“Either at the mines or at their apartment. I don’t think he goes out much.” D-16 tries to think of any other place the miner talked about visiting often, but even the places he mentioned once or twice — the store where they bought the energon additives and the communal showers he sometimes visited — also fell between those two points.
“I know where they live,” Elita-1 offers immediately, before D-16 can. “Ratchet and I can go and check on them there.”
“Good. Jazz can swing by the mines and alert the medic on duty,” Prowl says. Then, before Jazz can object, he adds “You said you wanted to talk to Knock Out about something anyway. It’s only efficient for you to go.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true enough. I wanted to ask him to swing us an early download for the new antiviral update, because the public queue is slow as grease.” He gives Prowl a pointed look. “Heard there’s a cuddlebug going around and you are the only mech I know who manages to catch it every time just by being out in public.”
Prowl’s mortification or Hook’s sudden alarm would be funny any other time, if D-16 wasn’t so worried about Optimus. “Someone should stay here, in case he comes to his senses and returns.”
Prowl immediately jumps on the opportunity to steer the conversation back to the more important topic. “We don’t have authorization to leave and Hook is a certified medic. If he comes back, we can treat him here.” He glances at D-16 for a moment. “It would still be best if someone he knows a bit more was here to greet him if he returned. We won’t know what mental state he’s going to be in when we find him.”
D-16 reluctantly agrees. He’s itching to go and find Optimus, but running off on foot to catch a distressed transformer is an exercise in futility.
“Here.”
D-16 looks up from where he’s been staring at the main entrance of the complex, slumped over a crate. Prowl is holding out the neural cable Optimus was using, coiled up neatly. “Mixmaster found it in the control room. This kind of adapter is rare - and illegal. I’m certain he would want it back.”
“Thank you.” D-16 doesn’t have a lot of internal subspace — they don’t waste those kinds of upgrades on nocogs — so he has to remove a few things to make space for the cable. Prowl watches with mild fascination as D-16 removes the various knicknacks — his eyes linger particularly long on the few cans of emergency paint in Orion’s colors — and produces a box from somewhere for them all.
“I’ll drop these off for you at the barracks.” Prowl, despite his awkwardness and often cold demeanor, is a good bot deep down.
“I’d appreciate that.” The cable is much heavier in his hands than he expected. When he twists the end and examines the connector up close, he is stunned by the length of the central pin - that has to stab very deep into the protoform - and the almost barb-like retaining latches around the circumference, a crown of wicked-sharp edges like the mouth of a scraplet.
It had to hurt a lot to yank it out of a live socket.
He puts it away very quickly, before staring at it gives him sympathy pain. “What’s the situation down there?”
“We are proceeding cautiously, since we don’t know what scared Optimus so much, but whatever access codes he used to activate the systems have been saved to the internal buffer. The controls will need to be translated to avoid user error, but the generator is ready for use.”
A flicker of warmth returns to D-16’s chest. “He really did it.” The generator is ready. They have the means of creating energon again at the tips of their fingers. This means— it means so much to the city he can barely imagine all the possibilities.
“He did.” Prowl allows himself a terse smile, clearly pleased. “I will have to ask him about which archives he found the codes in. Who knows what other useful information is hiding in there?”
The archives.
D-16 bolts upright. “I forgot the Primal Archives! He could be there too.”
He bolts towards the door before Prowl can grab him. “You shouldn’t go alone! Let me go with you at least!”
“No, it’s fine. It’s not far — if I see him there I will comm you!” he promises, feeling just a little bad about lying. He doesn’t hear if Prowl says anything, he’s already out the door and rushing down the shining walkway connecting the energon well and the Primal Archives.
He meets two familiar faces at the entrance of the Archives, but not ones he wanted to see today. “Commissioner Barricade! Chief Airachnid!”
The two of them are just exiting the main building, carrying boxes full of… entertainment holodiscs? They both give him vaguely bemused looks when he skids to a halt in front of them. “Lover boy. What brings you here?”
“I’m looking for Optimus. Have you seen him?” D-16 takes a better look at them. Other than the holos, Barricade also has a crate of snacks stamped with the marker of the most expensive treat manufacturer in the entire city magnetized to his doorwing, too big to fit into his internal storage. “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t say we’ve seen him today.” Barricade’s visor is retraced — probably to signal that he’s off duty — so it’s very obvious when he looks at Airachnid and silently communicates something with her. “Airachnid’s Amica is laid out at home from a work injury, so we planned a movie night to cheer him up.” He jostles the box of holos. D-16 can only make out some of the titles, but they all seem to be old pre-war adventure shows. “Checking out an official copy is always better than somebody’s internal recording, but the archives have been inaccessible for so long that we might have gone a little overboard.”
They all give the haul a critical look. There has to be at least a hundred seasons of various shows in there.
“He will chew through these in three days and ask for more,” Airachnid says with a shrug before she gives D-16 a very intense look involving all of her eyes. “Why are you looking for Optimus?”
D-16 aborts a thought process that’s calculating the likelihood that Airachnid’s Amica Endura is Sentinel Prime — there has to be a conflict of interest in working for someone you are that close to, right? — and returns to the much more pressing issue at hand.
He needs to answer a few extra questions about what they were doing down at the generator, but when he’s done both of them are regarding him with complete seriousness.
“I don’t know what happened, but he ran off in a blind panic,” he says helplessly. “The others haven’t called either, so he’s probably not at the mine or their apartment. I thought he might be here, but if you haven’t seen him then I don’t know where he might have gone. He could be anywhere in the city.”
Airachnid hums, then turns to Barricade and drops her box on top of his. “You remember the rules.”
“Yeah, yeah. Keep him distracted, give him the nice engenx until he stops worrying about work and don’t link cables unless I want to be laid out with a dead battery for the next week.” Barricade flashes a cheeky grin when Airachnid glares at him. “I’m not forgetting that one any time soon. Worst lay of my life, even if he kisses like a god.”
D-16 forcibly drops - and then blacklists - the idea that they are talking about Sentinel Prime. There’s no way the Prime would interface with someone as brutish as Barricade. He’s not even acknowledging the implication that Sentinel can’t give as good as he gets, a flight frame that big has to have a powerful engine.
Airachnid hisses at Barricade to shut up, but the enforcer laughs him off. “Well, I’m off. I hope you find your mech soon, but this sounds above my paygrade.” He nods to D-16 then does a flashy transformation sequence - it might involve a handstand at one point - to transfer the boxes from his hands to his interior without spilling the contents all over his insides.
Airachnid glares after him until he disappears in the traffic and then clicks her tongue. “Come on.” She turns and stalks back towards the Primal Archives.
“Wait! You said he’s not here!”
“He’s not. But there’s an uplink to the city mainframe in the atrium.” The doors automatically open to her and D-16 hurries inside after her before they could lock him out.
The atrium still shows some signs of damage from Megaton’s tantrum — the statues have been all removed except for Primus and some of the floor panels have been replaced with new pieces that are just slightly off color — but it’s only noticeable if you know that something happened here.
Airachnid either doesn’t notice it or doesn’t care. She heads straight to the staff access point, popping open her own panels and unspooling three cables at once even before she gets there.
“When did he leave?” she asks courtly, jacking in without a flinch. Her optics shift from the usual indigo to a virulent pink when she connects to Iacon’s surveillance system — every camera available in the public grid, according to the display.
“About 3 or 4 hours ago.”
She doesn’t verbally acknowledge him, but her eyes flicker and shift as she sorts through the data. “He left in a hurry, just like you said. Then he drove…” She makes a confused noise that must be unique to surveillance frames. Maybe because they were talking about adventure holos earlier, but it reminds D-16 of the sound effect they often used when a starship’s weapons systems lost target. “The Primal Basilica?”
She disconnects and gives D-16 a questioning look, but he’s just as stumped as she is. The Primal Basilica, just like the Primal Archives, has been shut to the public for a long time. The few priests of Primus that remained have all moved to the surface to oversee the hotspots, so there is nobody left in the city who can tend to the Basilica or direct worship. “I didn’t even know that he observed the religion,” he admits awkwardly.
Luckily, she seems to believe him and gestures for him to follow with a sharp jerk of her head. He scrambles after her, his own legs much shorter than hers, even with their unique construction. “Are you afraid of heights, lover boy?” she asks when he catches up.
“No, but wh-oaaah!” Without preamble she transforms and catches his seams with the pointed hooks of a set of tow cables, dragging him painfully off his feet and up towards the sky. “A little warning would have been nice!”
She chuckles at him and it might just be the shock of their sudden liftoff, but she sounds a little mean-spirited. “Don’t wiggle too much or I’ll drop you.”
D-16, smartly, shuts up and clings to the cables for dear life, locking his joints despite the sharp points digging painfully into his usually hidden sensors. At the speed of a flight frame - even one carrying a passenger; D-16 might be a good size for a cogless but he has to weigh barely anything to Airachnid - the shining dome of the Primal Basilica appears in front of them in barely five kliks. Instead of lowering him to the square in front of the building, she drops him into one of the internal gardens without any warning.
D-16 lands in an overgrown bed of sparkflowers with a loud yelp and immediately sits up to see if his voice has attracted any attention. There is nobody in the garden — a memorial, he realizes a klik later, the statues of old heroes almost disappearing underneath the softly glowing flowers, but he can make out the distinctive face of Commander Cyclonus who was the first acolyte Megatronus ever honored with his friendship — but there are voices coming from inside the building.
Airachnid lands gracefully next to him and D-16 scrambles to his feet before she can ‘help’ him get up. He takes one look at her overly sharp smile and decides that it was the right call.
The interior of the Basilica does strange things to sound. He’s almost certain that the voices he hears are Optimus and Megaton and also that they are not talking loudly, but the sound echoes around the pillars and the bolted ceiling until it turns into a loud cacophony of noise. He thinks there might be some trickery with the soundscape, because the only words he can sort of make out are “Primus”, “Prime” and what might be “Megatronus”.
The main chamber of the Basilica is bathed in colorful lights, the window mosaics lit up with an internal glow that casts the depicted pictures onto the floor; there are fantastical scenes from the creation myths and Primus’ pilgrimage through the cosmos everywhere D-16 looks.
Optimus kneels in front of the central altar and the great statue of Primus, his sobs echoing back to them as if they were the mourning wails of an entire congregation, hundreds-strong. Megaton stands near him, one hand reached out, but afraid to approach, which is so unlike the mining mech that it gives D-16 pause too. He realizes, in that moment, that the Basilica doesn’t only work on voices; fear and grief weighs heavily on him, turning his limbs leaden, and neither emotion is his own.
“Optimus!” D-16 calls out, but the same effect that multiples Optimus’ voice swallows his own so even he can barely hear himself.
Megaton says something, but his voice is reduced to unintelligible rumbling too and only the tone reveals it to be a question.
Optimus snaps at him in answer, his words bolstered by the mournful echoes until they turn into a spark-chilling cry that vibrates through every plate and every bolt, exactly like what D-16 always imagined divine proclamations to sound like:
“Primus is dead!”
It echoes from the walls and inside D-16’s head, in the imperfect caverns of his chest, finds a tinny resonance in his spark chamber, and when the echoes fade
only silence remains.
Notes:
Well. I bet you haven't seen that coming.
Not to distract from that cliffhanger with a silly side detail, but please imagine Prowl as that one guy who somehow always manages to catch a herpes virus every time it goes around despite never being involved in anything that people negatively associate with it.
Chapter Text
D-16 feels the power go out of his legs. Impossible. Primus can’t be. There’s no way, no possible way Optimus is right. Their god can’t be dead. It’s not-
There are sharp fingers on his neck, lifting him back to his feet — even higher, holding him off the ground. He cranes his head around to tell Airachnid off for treating him like some pet she can pick up whenever she pleases, but notices her other hand on her comm and decides to hold his tongue for now.
“Is Barricade there yet?” Her voice sounds strangely distant, but he can understand her fine. “Yes, I know, something came up. I’ll send you a memo. Thank you.”
When the call is over she glances down at him.
“Can you put me down?”
“Will you fall over again?”
He thinks about lying, but if she puts him down and he collapses again it would be far more humiliating than telling the truth. “Probably.”
“I thought so.”
It might be for the best that she carries him, because the moment D-16 turns his eyes back towards Optimus and Megaton, his knees turn to jelly all over again. During his brief crisis of faith, Megaton has moved to embrace his Conjunx, holding him tight so Optimus can sob freely into his shoulder. D-16 can’t see Optimus’ face, but if the way his frame shakes is any indication, then the mech has to be crying his spark out.
When they get closer — close enough that even the peculiar acoustics of the Basilica won’t swallow the sound — Airachnid clears her throat and revs her engine for good measure to catch their attention.
Predictably, Megaton raises his head immediately, his eyes flashing dangerously before he recognizes D-16 and Airachnid. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to hear the news.” Airachnid finally places D-16 down on shaky legs and nudges him forward. He takes one step, then another towards them before he can’t go on, pinned in place by the weight of Optimus’ sorrow.
“Optimus, sir,” he tries. He resets his vocalizer, then tries again, a little louder. “Optimus. I was really scared for you.”
Optimus' shoulders still shake with sobs as he turns slowly towards D-16, his optics and his biolights bright with emotion and his face streaked with coolant. “Oh, Dee…” He reaches out with a hand, grief mingling with longing, and D-16 goes, as if dragged on a chain. He allows Optimus to draw him into the hug, the big bot’s sorrow easing a little when he has D-16 squished between his overheated chest plate and Megaton.
“Are you going to be alright?” D-16 peers up at Optimus, trying to make sense of his expression, but he thinks Optimus must have been quite the ugly crier even before his facial injury, because D-16 can’t read his grimace at all.
Optimus sniffles. “I will be.” He tries for a smile that only succeeds in turning his grimace even more ghastly. “I have bounced back from horrible news before. I will be fine.”
“We will be fine,” Megaton corrects, leaning over D-16’s head to press a kiss to Optimus’ crest. “Whatever this is, we will overcome, as always.”
Outside of their little bubble, Airachnid revs her engine again. “Not to interrupt, but this is still a public area and you are loud. You should move.”
D-16 feels Megaton’s arms close protectively around them. “Any suggestions?”
“Of course.” D-16 can’t see Airachnid from where he’s trapped between the big bots, but he can hear the amusement in her voice. “Follow me.”
D-16 braces for Optimus to let him go, for the possible humiliation of not finding his feet in time and collapsing, but instead he finds himself lifted once again; Megaton has scooped him up along with Optimus, standing with absurd ease despite bearing the weight of a mech almost as big as him. D-16 clings to the first solid thing he can find: Optimus’ bright red forearms, which soon shift to cage him securely against his scorching hot chest plate again. He’s tucked halfway under Optimus’ chin, his cheek pressed against a tire made of- is that rubber?? It feels much more flexible than the synthetic polymer tires commonly in use. It had to be expensive even before the war; organic fuel products weren’t native on Cybertron and could only be procured from other planets in their system.
At least D-16 is resting his head on something comfortable. If he closed his eyes he could almost pretend that this situation - Optimus clinging to him like a newspark to their favorite comfort toy, as if the world would fall apart if he lets go - wasn’t completely mortifying, but he finds himself quite distracted by the murals in the corridor Airachnid leads them down.
Megaton must feel the same, because he slows his steps to take in the pictures, almost stopping completely in front of one that depicts Primus and Unicron, face-to-face, hand-in-hand, their bodies framing a flare star with its corona licking over their bodies. “Where are we?”
“The path the Matrix Bearer is supposed to walk from the Primal Palace to the Basilica and back.” Airachnid doubles back to join them and scoffs at the mural. “The most sacred panels of the Celestial Pilgrimage. Zeta Prime hated these. Would have had them removed if the priests wouldn’t have cursed him out for it.”
“If it wasn’t the Primes who authorized the making of these, then who did it?” Megaton asks, picking up the pace again.
“No idea. There were no old priests left by the time I was brought to the city.” She scratches her extra appendages against the wall, annoyed, but she stays clear of the murals. “They took their pre-war secrets to the grave protecting the hotspots before they fully trained their replacements.”
“An honorable death, but short sighted.” The way Megaton’s voice rumbles through their frames and the steady rhythm of his steps is soothing. Despite the madness of the situation, D-16 finds himself drifting, almost lulled into recharge. Optimus must feel the same; D-16 can’t see the bot’s eyes from his angle, but his systems have started cooling down and his biolights have dimmed to a lazy, rhythmic blinking, matching the pulse of his spark.
The exhaustion of several sleepless nights and the drain of experiencing a lot of intense emotions is suddenly crashing over D-16. Despite trying his best to stay awake and take in the pictures, he finds himself drifting off from one moment to the other.
D-16 has experienced medically assisted defrag before. After Terminus died he was haunted by nightmares that made him go days without proper rest, so Ratchet begrudgingly signed him off on the process. Being plugged into the hospital’s mainframe felt like his brain had been expanded, all his internal processes running at five times speed; paired with the high energy output of the medical berth charging his internal battery at a fraction of the time of what he was used to, he could recover from several sleepless days in just a few hours. It also helped that the hospital’s systems filtered out his anomalous recharge fluxes — his nightmares — so they couldn’t disrupt his rest.
So when D-16 comes to with that very familiar medical defrag program running in his primary processes, he expects to see a hospital room and maybe Ratchet’s disapproving face above him. What he sees instead is a gilded ceiling high above and two familiar and completely unexpected faces.
“I’m sorry sirs!” D-16 tries to bolt upright, uncertain what he is even apologizing for (he’s sure there has to be something, apologies are always a safe bet with higher class mechs), but he’s pinned down by a hand on each shoulder, Sentinel’s on one side and Barricade’s on the other.
“Stay put, scraplet. You don’t want to rip the cable out.”
Hearing Barricade say it brings D-16’s attention to a slight itch in the back of his neck, the familiar feeling of live neural access. He can feel the soft, padded surface of a recharge berth beneath him — a very high quality berth at that, his body is positively saturated with energy despite not feeling any direct contact points — so he expects to be plugged into some kind of private welfare system, but when he follows the coiling cable with his eyes, it’s plugged into-
“Sentinel Prime!”
“Not so loud.” Sentinel still looks worse for wear, to put it mildly. His eyes have recovered, even if he has yet to reapply his color filters, but he looks incredibly tired and all the gilded plates have been stripped from his frame — for ease of repair, if D-16 can hazard a guess — revealing an almost absurd number of ports. The sides of his head, his shoulders, the backs of his hands, his chest… if the rest of his frame follows the same pattern, then he has to have a full set of deep-neural connectors on each leg and multiple on his back too, which is fascinating and highly unusual when a regular frame has on average one low-priority access port on each limb and a medical deep port on the back. The high-bandwidth neural cable connecting to D-16 is plugged into the back of the Prime’s left hand which is another point of oddity, but D-16 can’t think too hard on it right now because finds himself captivated by Sentinel’s face. Without the golden plates framing and partially covering his cheeks, his resemblance to Prima Prime is even more striking.
Even disregarding that open ports are considered somewhat erotic in some contexts, a bold invitation to interface nobody would have ever dared to associate with the ever unattainable Prima, Sentinel is beautiful.
“When have you recharged last? It took almost 20 kliks to wake you up.”
Being hooked up to what has to be some kind of advanced tactical hardware is an alarming experience while awake. With the added processing speed of Sentinel’s systems, in less than a nanoklik D-16 realizes that Sentinel Prime is talking to him, then manages to speedrun the drawing mortification that if they are connected then Sentinel can probably hear his thoughts loud and clear and D-16 just had a not-entirely-chaste comparison between him and Prima Prime.
Some of that mortification must appear on his face, because Barricade bursts out laughing. “Oh, that face! Everyone makes that face the first time.” The enforcer swallows the rest of his mirth when Sentinel sends him a withering glare, but his face is still stuck in a grin that’s threatening to transform right back into laughter at any moment. “Don’t worry, scraplet, he can’t read your mind. That defrag program has more privacy filters than a cabling house.”
“Commissioner, why don’t you go and bring my young guest a cube of mid grade,” Sentinel says icily, his frame tensing up with barely restrained anger. “Before I start considering finding a new chief enforcer.”
Barricade isn’t cowed by the threat, his grin barely fading as he smartly salutes his Prime. “Yessir, be right back.”
Sentinel’s shoulders sag with a sigh when the enforcer is gone, his anger just as quick to fade as it flared up. “I don’t know why I tolerate him. I really don’t.”
D-16 sends the appropriate thank you protocol to the medical interface and gingerly unplugs the cable from his neck when his systems have fully disconnected. He immediately feels the loss of the extra hardware, even if it was only a temporary connection. “Everyone deserves to have at least one embarrassing friend, even the Lord Prime.”
Sentinel is startled into a laugh before he can stifle it. “Friends, huh? Can’t say I ever thought about him like that, but you are not incorrect.”
He holds out a hand for D-16, who allows the Prime to help him sit up. He wouldn’t dare to refuse; even if the other Primes were still alive, Sentinel would be his second favorite after Megatronus - a very close second - and being allowed to be around his idol is a privilege unlike any other. “Thank you, Lord Prime.”
“A polite little thing, aren’t you?” D-16’s face heats up at the unexpected praise. “And quite sweet, too. I have half a mind to steal you for myself, but Megaton might take offense.”
D-16 looks at anyone except the Prime. He doesn’t have much else to look at; the room is spacious, but sparsely furnished and partially shrouded in darkness. The Primal Palace observes most of the same energy restrictions as the rest of the city. “Where are they? Megaton and Optimus?”
“Hmmm.” Sentinel’s gaze turns distant for a moment. Without the filters on, his eyes are pure white. “Having a comfort frag in my private oil bath.”
D-16 sputters. He said that so casually! “They would- would dare to—”
“I gave them permission,” Sentinel says, waving away D-16’s outrage. “I want to know exactly what Optimus has seen in Cybertron’s systems and for that he needs to calm himself completely. I allowed Megaton free rein to soothe him by any means necessary.” He turns a sharper eye towards D-16. “They were very concerned when they couldn’t wake you up.”
Oh. So that is why Sentinel went out of his way to help D-16 fast recharge. “I apologize for inconveniencing you, sir.”
“Well, my plans for the day have already been ruined. A little inconvenience hardly matters at this point.” Sentinel stands and stretches. His heavy wing panels have been removed too, the connector wires hanging from his back in tightly bound bundles, and without them his balance is just slightly off. D-16 will take it to his grave that he witnessed Sentinel Prime stumble to regain equilibrium after his stretch. “How about you join me for a cube and tell me what you have seen?”
D-16 doesn’t want to seem too overeager, but he’s on his feet before that thought even fully forms. “Yessir!”
Luckily, Sentinel seems to appreciate his enthusiasm. “Eager! I like it.” He waits for D-16 to fall in line with him and keeps his pace leisurely so D-16 doesn’t have to run to keep up with him.
How is it that today feels like the worst and best day of D-16’s life all in one?
[Is your Conjunx capable of words yet?]
[A private call from the Prime himself! I’m honored.]
[Haha, I’m not in the mood.]
[He is. We finish drying off and we are ready to report.]
[About time.]
[How’s the kid?]
[He skipped recharge for a few days and got his processes tangled from the stress, but he’s doing fine now. He’s beating Barricade at Praxus Fold ‘Em.]
[Thank you. I owe you one for taking care of him.]
[Yes, yo-]
…
…
[?]
…
[Sentinel?]
[Let me correct myself. He’s beating Barricade AND Airachnid at Praxus Fold ‘Em.]
[If you let her harm him, I will rip all of you apart, limb from limb. Just for the record.]
[I’m not letting her kill your protégé, don’t worry.]
[Good. As long as we understand each other.]
[...get in here before Airachnid flips the table and I will consider us even.]
D-16 is thinking about what would be the best way to start throwing the game without provoking Airachnid any more. Barricade is still laughing without a care in the world and Sentinel practically radiates a kind of infectious contentedness that has managed to keep everyone calm enough to prevent any altercations, but D-16 is not blind. He can see that she’s losing her patience, both from the twitching of her extra appendages and the way Sentinel keeps glancing at her. It has been Barricade’s idea to start up this round of cards after D-16 finished his report and honest to Primus his winning streak is a matter of pure luck. He already tried to play up his confidence when he had a bad hand and it almost worked (Barricade won that round), but he’s starting to realize that Airachnid is really bad at perceiving the kind of subtle body language these kind of games thrive on. Would going all in and then folding without even looking at his cards be too obvious?
He’s saved from his dilemma by the return of Megaton and Optimus. Barricade takes one glance at the suddenly serious expressions on everybody’s faces and rises from the table, gathering up his deck of cards. “Well, I guess this is when I leave. Wouldn’t want to stick my wheels in matters that are none of my business.”
“Thank you, Barricade. Please, see to it that our guests have something to drink and then you are free to go.” When the enforcer passes him by, Sentinel reaches up and catches the lower edge of his doorwing; if he grabbed the sensitive appendage tight or digged his fingers in then it could be a warning, but Sentinel’s grasp is loose enough that it mostly speaks of casual familiarity between them. “But not too far. I might need your help with some heavy lifting later on.”
“Yessir.”
Megaton and Optimus take a seat on the side of the table that Barricade vacated and D-16 happily pushes the pile of energon goodies he has won to the center of the table so everyone can partake. Airachnid, mollified, snatches up a handful of sweets, stops glaring quite so fiercely and reluctantly accepts a glass when Barricade passes out their drinks: good quality mid grade for D-16, some kind of monstrously strong quadruple distilled high grade for Sentinel and engex for everyone else. Earlier they offered a glass to D-16 too, but he declined as politely as he could. The additives that turned regular high grade into flavored engex during distilling hit a nocog’s system much too hard and he didn’t enjoy being overcharged - an explanation that, surprisingly, garnered both Sentinel’s and Barricade’s approval.
Optimus accepts the glass, but doesn’t drink. He stares into the pale blue liquid for a long time before he finally sighs. “Thank you for your hospitality and your patience.”
Optimus’ field is still almost oppressively sad, which makes the previously cozy half-light of the room feel unpleasantly gloomy all of a sudden and D-16 is not the only one affected by it either. Discomfort creeps into the body language of the others, causing them to shift restlessly in their seats.
“Of course.” Sentinel makes a gesture with one hand and the rest of the lights turn on. Surprised by the sudden change in brightness, D-16 blinks at the gilded surface of the table that is now reflecting warm golden light everywhere. There are so many things in the Primal Palace, even here in the private areas, that are embellished with gold that just a few more lights manage to bathe the entire room in welcoming brilliance. There is a distant hum coming from the corridor; Barricade taking the elevator down to the lower levels. “Whenever you are ready.”
Optimus cycles his vents a few times, then nods. “Down in the generator control room, I soon realized that none of the codes I have found in the archives would be useful. So I decided on a riskier approach and used direct archival access to the logs. Cybertron’s automated logging system documents every change it can detect in the state of Primus, the Primes or the Primal artifacts.”
D-16 sits up straighter, his processors latching onto a number of possibilities this presents - They could find the Matrix or the resting place of the Primes! They could find out what happened to them! - and Sentinel has to see the possibilities too, because he stares at Optimus with singular focus, his eyes turning nova-bright as he waits for for the mech to say more.
“I have managed to extract — to steal, for lack of a better word — Zeta Prime’s personal access codes from the logs and save them as part of my own personal ID. With them, I had a complete overview of Cybertron’s currently active systems, that is how I discovered a grave truth.” Optimus cycles his vents a few more times; resets his eyes to stop his tears from spilling. Next to him Megaton pulls his chair closer so he can wrap an arm around Optimus’ waist in silent support. “Primus’ physical shell, aside from severe reactions to organic contaminants, is fully intact. His engines are dormant, but eager to return to function. The Allspark is brilliant as ever, bursting with generations of newsparks waiting to be born and an endless wellspring of energy that would fuel our civilization for millions of years to come. His mind, however…” Optimus’ voice weavers. “His mind is gone. In Vector Sigma, the great chamber that is meant to house His brain module, there is nothing but yawning emptiness. Any active function of Cybertron, any reaction from His body, is nothing, but the instinctual twitching of a beheaded, immortal cadaver.”
This is the tipping point; Optimus is crying again and D-16 is moments away from joining him, his throat tight and his eyes stinging. He feels the same crushing hopelessness overcome him that he felt in the Basilica.
Optimus, however, is not done speaking.
“Our God is dead, for all intents and purposes, and I believe—” He voice breaks on a sob before he fortifies himself. “I believe that it was a deliberate act of deicide, committed by our own hands, before the Quintessons ever set limbs on Cybertron.”
Chapter 20
Notes:
I ended up changing the summary of the fic, because I felt that it was misleading. In the initial draft, Orion was meant to have a much bigger presence from start to finish, but since he ran off to go camping in the rain, the whole 'complicated friendship' bit I have planned is now hopelessly lost until we catch up to him. Goddammit Orion, messing up my plans with his shenanigans.
It's blink and you miss it, but it was notable enough to bother one of my proofreaders, so chapter specific warning for attempted self-harm.
Chapter Text
Stunned silence blankets the room, Sentinel and Airachnid struck speechless just like D-16. Airachnid’s eyes dart back and forth, looking lost.
Sentinel is frozen in abject horror, his optics dim and unseeing, until he suddenly comes alive, slamming his hands on the table. He is terrified and his terror feeds right into disbelieving anger.
“This is beyond impossible!” He rises from the table, hands gripping the edge. For a moment D-16 is certain that he’s going to flip the heavy table, before Sentinel lets go with a frustrated shout, the shapes of his fingers leaving intents in the decorative edge. He grabs his cube instead and starts pacing along the length of the room, gesturing wildly. “If his depictions are even remotely accurate, then Primus’ brain module has to be— even at a low estimate, it could easily be 1000 megamiles in diameter if not bigger! How do you make something that big disappear?!”
“Dismantle it for parts.”
Sentinel turns around so fast that the wire bundles hanging from his back whip through the air and slam into one of the high-backed chairs, causing him to flinch in pain, but his eyes are pinning Megaton with an intensity that makes D-16 really glad that there’s a whole table between him and the Prime. “What did you say?”
Megaton meets Sentinel’s eyes calmly, undaunted. “Primus, while beyond our understanding in many ways, is still a machine-based life form, just like us. If one were to lose access to other sources of raw materials or wished to use His components to kickstart an early technological revolution, it is possible to rip even such a sensitive component apart for parts as the brain module.”
What a horrific idea, presented as matter of factly as a traffic report. D-16 hears the strangled whine of a straining vocalizer and for a split second he thinks he’s the one making the noise, until Sentinel clears his throat with a staticy cough and D-16 realizes that it was coming from the Prime.
“No, no, no nononono, that’s not- that can’t be right, even if Zeta or— or Amalgamous, of course it would have been Amalgamous, this sounds like something he would come up with…” Sentinel knocks back his cube and reaches for Airachnid’s engex without looking. She helpfully nudges it into his hand so he can down that glass too. “Prima, Megatronus, Solus; they would not have allowed it. Nor Alpha Trion, but that old beast worshiped Zeta almost as much as Primus himself, he could have been misled…”
He stops and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes with a groan. “I need to think,” he says, voice small and terrified. “I need to— I need to think, this doesn’t make sense.” He blindly paws at his chest for one of his built-in connector cables, unspools it with a harsh tug that has to hurt and-
“Don’t.” Airachnid catches his wrist before he can connect it to the port on his other hand. “Don’t short-circuit yourself.”
He looks devastated, but he doesn’t fight her hold. Airachnid taps her communicator. “Get the generators running, all of them. We need the Mainframe. Yes, the whole thing. Good.” She takes Sentinel’s other wrist, maintaining eye contact — his hands are shaking, ever so slightly — and holds onto them with a tenderness that D-16 would have never expected from her.
Some of her secondary eyes turn towards Optimus and Megaton. “Go help Barricade. Come back when you are done.”
Megaton nods, then helps Optimus to his feet. D-16 doesn’t wait around to see if she meant him as well or not and joins them as fast as his legs can take him. Optimus draws him against his side as soon as he gets within arm’s reach and keeps a protective hand on D-16’s shoulder until they reach the elevator.
It can’t ward off the horrors that he has learned today, but D-16 is starting to find familiar comfort in the touch of overheated plating against his own.
[If you want to leave, I’ll make up some excuse for you. Just so you know.]
[Thank you, Megatron.]
[Are you sure you can handle it?]
[Very sure.]
[I have never seen you cry before. Hell, I think I have cried more during the war than you.]
[Really?]
[Tears of rage usually, but my point stands.]
[When I was remade by the Matrix, it installed a set of emotional regulators to prevent me from making an unbecoming spectacle of myself in public. I’m incapable of crying under normal circumstances.]
[Robbing His chosen of tears doesn’t sound like something Primus would do.]
[No, it works on any kind of extreme emotion. Rage, sorrow, euphoria, fear… it’s meant to help the Prime stay rational under duress, because unlike you, I can’t turn my primary emotional center off on a whim. Anyway, it doesn’t work when the Matrix itself wants to cry, it seems.]
[I take back everything I said. If that was you crying for the first time in eight million years, then you handled it admirably. Shockwave burned out his optic, busted his vocalizer and drained all his coolant reserves bone dry when they turned his emotions back on.]
[It was a little overwhelming, I admit. But now that it’s finally passing, I feel… relieved. More relieved than I would usually be.]
[...when we go home, do you want to try and have the regulators removed?]
[...]
[This isn’t meant to be a difficult question.]
[I’m not certain it is possible, but I would like to try, yes.]
[We have Rung and a cartload of bored neurosurgeons who don’t know what to do with themselves now that Shockwave has been fixed as much as he can be. I’m sure they can come up with something.]
[Do you honestly think so? I function just fine even with the regulators. I don’t want to burden them with this.]
[Prime.]
[?]
[The neurosurgeon who can fix your stupid, repressed brain so you can cry your optics out with joy at the next spark harvest will go down in history as one of the greats of their field. We will have a line of volunteers stretching from your door to the Hydrax Spaceport.]
[Well, if you put it that way…]
[You are such an idiot. Why do I even love you?]
[Because I love you too, Megatron. ❤]
D-16 finds himself sitting with Optimus and it says something about the day he’s having that he honestly can’t tell if he’s comforting Optimus or the other way around. They sit on the stairs leading down to the main chamber of the generator room, watching Barricade and Megaton haul fuel cells taller than they are around.
“This is a very powerful generator,” Megaton comments offhandedly when he shoves one of the fuel cells into place. They need almost three dozen to get the thing working at full capacity. “It could power half the city with ease.”
“That’s right.” Barricade struggles a bit with his load, being much shorter than Megaton with much less reach. “These fuel rods don’t sprout from the ground, though. You need pre-war tech to make them, so we don’t use this baby for the sake of turning on some lights.”
“What is it for, then?”
Barricade waves a hand towards the ceiling, somewhere so far above their heads that D-16 can’t make it out at all. “This tower isn’t just the most fortified dwelling place of the Primes, you know. Sure, there is the private quarter of the Primes up top, all their other Palace-y spaces and the barracks for the high guard, but the rest of it is one biiiiiiig tactical supercomputer.” He puts the next fuel cell down and stretches with a mildly concerning creaking sound. “They used to say that when they tapped into the full potential of the Palace Mainframe, it could predict Quintesson movements a week in advance, but I don’t know how true that is. It took Amalgamous Prime the entire war to build it and by the time it was finished, we didn’t have enough engineers left to service the stupid thing, so they only used it sparingly.”
“Are you chatting or working?” Megaton grumbles, snatching the fuel cell away from Barricade. The enforcer blinks at the miner for a few moments before he shrugs it off and meanders over to sit with Optimus and D-16.
“You have it handled, big guy, I’d just get underfoot.” He rubs his chin, expression turning cloudy for a moment. “I haven’t seen the whole thing turned on since the war ended. Not since the energon shortage started. Sentinel sometimes uses individual modules, but those can run just fine off the regular grid.” He narrows his eyes at Optimus. “What did you tell him?”
“Do you really want to know?” Optimus meets Barricade’s eyes with a challenging smile. It only takes a klik for the enforcer to avert his gaze.
“No, not really. I got where I am by knowing my place and not asking questions that can get me in hot acid and I’m not going to start now.” He sighs and props his elbow up on his knee and rests his chin in his hand. “But Airachnid is my buddy and Sentinel is her whole world. He’s kinda alright on his own too.”
D-16 can’t stifle his chuckle in time. “You did not just call the Lord Prime ‘kinda alright’.”
“Hush, scraplet, you know what I mean.” Barricade reaches over and gives D-16 a rough (but probably fond) pat on the head. “My point is, I care about them. If whatever this is” —he gestures towards Megaton who’s slotting the last fuel cell into place— “is going to hurt them, I want to know about it. Even if it’s going to frag my nice, comfy, uncomplicated life up. Gotcha, mechs?”
“Yes.” Optimus’ relaxes, his field spreading around him with tones of melancholy and fondness, his eyes lingering on Megaton. “I understand completely.”
Barricade, predictably, takes them up with the elevator and not one step farther. He does, however, exchange comm frequencies with both Optimus and Megaton. “I’ll be one level below, catching up on reports. If you need me for anything, I’ll be here in a klik.”
“Thank you, Barricade. We will keep it in mind.”
Sentinel and Airachnid are gone from the common area of the living quarters, leaving no indication where they have gone. They meander through the golden corridors almost aimlessly until D-16 starts recognizing certain places — like the circular room with the ornate table and the heavy, gilded chairs where the Primes always gathered to record their holo messages to the people or meet with civilian representatives — and despite the situation, he starts to feel a thread of excitement as he takes in the various statues and rooms. He can’t help but compare what he sees to his memories of old holos, hoping, just a little bit, that he can come back here one day and see the Palace in its full, sunlit glory.
They eventually do find Sentinel in the War Room. It wasn’t featured in the historical holos as often, but D-16 recognizes the dark dome with the embedded diamond-shaped projectors. When the Primes were planning their next battle or surveying troop movements, a golden holo-table used to rise up from the center of the room - the central interface for the tactical hardware built into the foundations of the room, so any of the Primes could freely manipulate the system - and filled the entire room with holo screens and 3D battle replays and whatever else they needed.
The holo-interface has been removed from its place, the system gutted and its various cables dragged out into the open, many of them fraying and repaired with strips of reflective electrical tape. Sentinel stands placidly in the center of the room where the control table used to be, his arms held loosely with their palms up, barely even twitching while Airachnid meticulously plugs the loose cables into each and every one of his open ports.
“Sentinel,” Megaton calls out to him. His voice isn’t as gentle as when he talks to D-16, but it is noticeably softer than usual. The Prime turns his head towards them, his eyes dim and his expression so lifeless he could be one of the statues lining the halls. “Please reassure me this is not some overengineered ploy to fry your brain module and get away from this nightmare.”
Sentinel keeps looking at him silently, expression unchanged except for the miniscule tilt of his head. Airachnid, who is currently behind him and busy cursing at three fragile cables that she's trying to untangle, is none the wiser that her boss — her Amica — is acting strange.
Concern gripping his spark, D-16 steps forwards. “Lord Prime? Sentinel, sir?” Sentinel seemingly follows him with his eyes, his head tilting ever so slightly to keep his stiff gaze on D-16 while the miner makes his way over to him, but that's just baseline programming every Cybertronian possesses. D-16 reaches out to touch Sentinel’s wrist and keeps his hand there until the Prime comes fully back to himself, blinking down at D-16 in confusion for a nanoklik while his conscious self catches up to the changes in his environment.
“Little scraplet. I must have let my mind wander too far while establishing the connection.” He musters a smile that is almost convincing and encouragingly pats D-16’s upper arm. “I will be fine. I have done this before.”
His gaze catches on something and he brushes his thumb over D-16’s shoulder — over the Megatronus decal. “I haven’t seen one of these in a long time. Are you a fan?”
“Yessir. Of Megatronus and you too, sir!” Sentinel raises a brow ridge and D-16 immediately wishes the ground would swallow him there and then. Riiiight. Because that’s so very believable and doesn't sound like D-16 is trying to save face over liking one of the dead Primes more than Sentinel. D-16 wants to take the words back and rephrase them almost immediately, but luckily Megaton comes to his rescue.
“Dee is a big fan of your public speaking style. He watched every holo he could find of your recorded speeches, some of them so many times that he can recite them by spark.”
Sentinel’s face lights up, just like Jazz when someone compliments his remixes. “Is that so? I—”
“Brace for it,” Airachnid interrupts him bluntly, plugging the last three cables into Sentinel’s back in quick succession. Sentinel closes his eyes on reflex and his jaw clenches so hard his teeth make a grinding noise, but he doesn’t flinch away from the sting. “All done.”
“Thank you, Airachnid.” He turns slightly to nod at her, then he turns his attention back to D-16. “Please, step back. A little cogless like you could easily get injured if any of these cables came loose.” He taps one of the shoddily repaired cables plugged into his left shoulder — not a data cable, like D-16 initially thought, but a high voltage electrical one — and D-16 hastily retreats to the far wall to stand next to Megaton. On the opposite side Airachnid does the same, withdrawing to the very edge of the room.
Sentinel vents in, then slowly out, and as his eyes close, the lights in the room dim to an ominous twilight.
They wait like that for what feels like an eternity. Several kliks pass while Sentinel stands motionlessly in the middle of the room, eyes closed and his expression blank. Standing face to face with the Prime, D-16 can really take in the number of cables plugged into him. They hang off him in barely-organized, tattered bundles, distorting his silhouette so much that D-16 could mistake him for a many-tentacled Quintesson.
D-16 doesn’t see where the primary holoprojector is, can’t tell which one of the many shiny diamonds lights up first, but from one moment to the next there are lights and colors filling the room, using the semi-darkness as a canvas — dozens of holo screens appear around Sentinel, just like in the old recordings.
“System check. Primary Operational Module ‘STN-MRK-37’: online,” Sentinel drones, his voice flat and lifeless. His eyes are flickering even as they stare unseeing into the middle distance and his face is set in a tense, emotionless mask. It’s terrifying to see him like this, stripped of his grandiose gesturing and animated personality, so similar to a sparkless drone. His internal tactical hardware must be top notch if it’s capable of analyzing the onslaught of data flowing into his mind from the Palace Mainframe, but it clearly has to be right on the brink of its capacity, cannibalizing resources from the personality module to handle the throughput. “Initializing tactical modules… modules STN-MRK-01 through STN-MRK-36: online.” D-16 can see the list of modules on one of the floating screens, going green one after another. There are noticeable gaps in the list, especially among the lower numbers denoting older components, but by the end more than twenty modules light up.
D-16 doesn’t know much about military mainframes, but this is supposed to be some kind of tactical and/or analytical computer and he recently discovered that he has something similar in his head, so he tries to follow the status reports scrolling by on the various screens, but the entire system is too elaborate, too interlinked and haphazardly constructed to keep track of as it goes through its boot sequence. Everything about the supercomputer speaks of it being a wartime project, operating system and hardware both cobbled together from any resource they could spare and made into something wondrous only through Amalgamous Prime’s brilliance.
He finds it easier to watch Sentinel instead. The tension incrementally seeps out of the Prime’s frame, his expression relaxing as the auxiliary modules come online and the massive system stops using his hardware exclusively. His eyes flicker, going almost fully dark for a nanoklik before they light up again, in a brilliant gold that’s startlingly close in hue to D-16’s own eyes.
“Primary Guidance Mainframe ‘Censere’: now in operation.” His voice is still flat, but it has regained some of its natural rhythm already. His fingers twitch in a telltale pattern as his mind regains connection to his body; D-16 has seen it happen a couple of times back in the titanium mine when their old tunneler got caught in a tunnel collapse that temporarily displaced her brain module. “Please stand by until we return control to Primary Operating Entity, designation: ‘Sentinel’.”
Chapter 21
Notes:
These last few days have been awfully busy irl, so I haven't quite had the time to read through this chapter for typos more than once. If you find one, please let me know so I can catch it and release it back to where it belongs (my first draft). Typos are an invasive species, they do not belong in finished chapters.
Chapter Text
Sentinel sighs when he regains full control of his body, his shoulder sagging. “Alright. Let’s make this quick. Maintaining full system control is neither comfortable, nor easy.” D-16 always imagined that using a big computer had to be like operating one of the holo interfaces that the educators used to instruct the newsparks, but Sentinel doesn’t so much as twitch a finger to manipulate the system. “Optimus, can you send me the access codes?”
“I can, but they are tied to my personal ID.” Optimus warns.
“Irrelevant. I’m acting as the system operator, not as the main user. I will set up a puppet for you and…” He falls silent, eyes shifting to red as he turns a glare at them. Optimus’ data pops up on the screen next to him and his ire is suddenly very understandable.
‘Optimus Prime’, the ID file reads.
“If this is your idea of lightening the mood, it has fallen flat.”
“It must have added it to my name because of Zeta Prime’s access codes,” Optimus says a little awkwardly. “No disrespect meant, Sentinel.”
“That’s not the only nonsense data in this set,” Megaton points out. “Just look at that forging date.”
He has a point. D-16 has dismissed the numbers as gibberish or some kind of ID code, but if it’s meant to be his age and the date he came online— “According to this, Optimus will be born 170 million cycles in the future and is currently almost 10 million cycles old.” D-16 can barely stifle a laugh; it’s ridiculous. “Why didn’t you tell me that you are time travelers?”
“We are not.”
Placated, Sentinel returns to his task, but he’s still clearly on edge, his eyes more orange than gold. “Whatever caused the issue, the code functions as intended. I have access to Cybertron’s internal monitoring systems and most of the logs.”
D-16 isn’t sure if the 3D holo of Cybertron appearing in front of them is Sentinel feeling at least a little accommodating after all or just an intended function of the system, but it gives him something to look at that isn’t one of the rapidly scrolling encrypted archives Sentinel is paging through. Looking at their planet like this, with most of the internal structures outlined on the diagram, it’s suddenly so much more obvious that it’s a mech. “I knew about Primus all my life, but it never really sunk in that he is real,” he marvels. He follows the transformation seams with his eyes to all the core components you would find in any one of them. “Could we look at how Primus looks in his root mode with this model?”
The scrolling displays slow just a little as Sentinel directs his attention towards D-16. “We could, but I don’t see much reason for it beyond inane curiosity.”
D-16 wilts. That’s fair; they are not here to play around and gawk at their god.
Megaton gently nudges D-16’s shoulder until he looks up at the miner. “Let me teach you a little something about public figures who can’t always directly say what they mean.” He nods towards Sentinel. “He didn’t say that he wouldn’t do it. He told you to give him a reason.”
D-16 glances at Sentinel, who is very blatantly reading one of the displays and not denying anything.
Huh. What would be a good reason for them to look at Primus’ mech form?
“Primus works mostly like us, right? Status reports are logged at localized nodes. It would help identifying which internal archives are the most relevant to our search if you could see where they are situated in Primus’ body.”
He thinks for a moment that he said the wrong thing, because Airachnid cackles, sounding just like some wannabe villain in an adventure holo. Then Sentinel says, “I was fishing for a ‘please’, but that is a good point” and D-16 realizes that she’s laughing at Sentinel’s expense, not his.
The model of Primus shifts, planetary shell folding away to reveal— a mech. D-16 glances at Sentinel, but the Prime is staring into the middle distance, likely occupied by the data, so he carefully walks closer to the holo model, watching his feet so he doesn’t touch the cables sneaking all over the floor.
Primus has a rough-hewn face and a serious expression, but other than great generators embedded in his frame and the components lining his back that D-16 can’t identify, he looks just like any other transformer. “I don’t know why, but I expected something more,” he admits awkwardly. “At a glance he could be just another transformer, just much bigger.”
“Not quite,” Optimus rumbles, gesturing at Primus’ chest. “His spark chamber is immense. It fills out most of His chest cavity and His cog - my apologies, His cogs - are down here.” He gestures at Primus’ hip area.
“Why two?” D-16 asks, puzzled, but he can see it too. Primus has two symmetrical t-cogs, bracketing an internal component he can’t identify.
“He has two alt-modes.” D-16 flinches when he hears Airachnid’s voice right behind him; she can move silently when she wants to, it would seem. She pokes him with the pointed end of one of her extra appendages and smirks when he jumps away with a yelp. “You have not seen it, but there is a mural of his Wayfarer mode in the Basilica.”
“A planetary mode and a mode that can travel the stars…” D-16 looks at the holo again, trying to imagine their god journeying through the cosmos. “I suppose that makes sense. I can’t make sense of this component here, however…” He points at the area of the pelvis between the two cogs. “I have looked at some medical diagrams before and never seen anything like this.”
“Whatever it is, it’s partially in subspace,” Megaton notes, gesturing at the fuzziness surrounding the part and inserting himself between Airachnid and D-16. “It could be the component of a space bridge or a quantum-based hyperdrive, those notoriously don’t like existing in normal spacetime, but I don’t see any of the typical support structures around it.”
Airachnid hums, then reaches over with a limb and nudges Sentinel.
He blinks and focuses on them with an annoyed frown.“What?”
“You have the schematics. What is this bit?”
Sentinel stares at her expectantly, as if he’s waiting for the joke to land, but when it becomes clear that she’s serious his expression turns distant again. “It’s something labelled ‘forge’ on the status reports. I have no idea what it does, however, because the log files are locked even with the Matrix Bearer’s access level.”
A forge? “What could it be forging? Is it part of the self repair system, do you think?”
“Living metal for the hotspots,” Optimus says. “I remember some of the maps from the archives. It struck me as strange that all the hotspots concentrated in a relatively small area of the surface, but with this in mind…”
Megaton examines the holo again and gives a firm nod too. “That is an ingenious design if we are correct. The raw material storage is in subspace that goes god only knows how deep and the mixing and imbuing happens in real space to avoid the complications of phasing living material between dimensions.”
D-16 doesn’t know enough to ask about the more complicated parts of mechabiology or dimensional physics, so he latches onto the other detail that has been bothering him. “Wait, most of the old accounts describe Primus as Cybertron’s core. First the Allspark envelops his body and the planetary shell forms after.”
“It was an early theory that proved to be a misconception,” Sentinel says, gingerly lifting a hand and rubbing his eyes, careful not to tug too hard on any of the cables. “Early on, people found it difficult to believe that a being can be as big as a planet, even Primus. So they created a theory that would make Primus a more believable size, based on their knowledge at the time.”
Megaton and Optimus exchange a look. “Have you found an answer already?”
“As close as I can get to one, I think.” He makes a complicated, nonsensical gesture with one hand. “Give me fifteen more kliks to compile a timeline and run an in-depth analysis to make sense of the data.”
D-16 is only listening with half an audial, too overwhelmed by shock. “So all this time, we have been drilling into Primus’ body?!”
“Not directly, no,” Megaton reassures him, squeezing his shoulder lightly. “The outer planetary crust is a regenerating protective layer. It’s why it reacts so wildly to Quintesson debris, I suspect; Cybertron automatically tries to incorporate them into its shell, but they contain too many toxins and it provokes an allergic reaction. What I wonder about, however” —he carefully rotates the hologram using the flats of his claws— “is where the raw materials used in His forge come from. Primus is not traditionally associated with going out of His way to gather resources and I find it unlikely that He would lack the means to refill the raw material storage if it ever runs out.”
They are quiet for a while, everyone trying to think of a solution. D-16 recognizes this for the distraction it is — a way to keep everyone from overthinking the current big problem they are facing until they drive themselves into another breakdown — but he can’t help but be curious about the answer now that he started to think about it.
“Oh.” Airachnid makes a noise of understanding and touches the side of her head. Suddenly there are other images added to the holoscape; copies of the murals from the Basilica, far more numerous than just the ones they have passed on the way here. “It’s Unicron.”
D-16 doesn’t immediately see what she means, but Optimus seems to catch on much quicker than him.
“I have read about the Celestial Pilgrimage in the archives. Let me see if I interpreted the files correctly…” He walks a slow circle in the room until he stands before a group of three murals. “Primus was born at the dawn of the cosmos, along with His counterpart, Unicron. Their sparks — all of Their vital energies — were antithetical to each other, so while Primus stayed behind in the place of Their birth and basked in the radiance of the primordial star, Unicron left to seek something that could fulfill His endless hunger.”
He moves on to the next group, hand hovering over the holograms. It strikes D-16 as strange that he uses the same archaic glyphs to refer to Unicron and Primus, placing the two as equal in divinity.
“To mitigate the wear and tear of His body, Unicron cultivated a semi-organic species, the cruel and resourceful Quintessons, to maintain His shell and scout the next targets of His hunger. For untold cycles, They lived Their lives in separation, yearning for Their opposite half, but unable to meet again. Then… I’m not sure what happened after that,” Optimus admits. “There was a falling out between Them, one that resulted in Primus banishing Unicron from this dimension and fleeing to the other end of the cosmos so He may never find Him if He ever returned to this dimension, but it has not been recorded what caused Their conflict.”
That matches up with what D-16 learned from the orientation packages when he came online. He looks over the murals again, his attention caught by one specific one. “If Airachnid is right, then they had to meet again at least once before Unicron got banished.” He nods at the picture; it’s the same one that captivated Megaton back in the Basilica. “They met up… somehow. And Unicron gave Primus some of the raw materials he collected in exchange for… something.”
Megaton hums, then spreads a hand out over the image. “I believe I got it. If I wanted to depict celestial radiation, I think I would do it like this.” He points at the delicate lines painted in concentric circles around the central star. “They meet up when the star flares, because the solar radiation balances the opposite polarities of Their sparks, so They can stand to be close to each other. Unicron collects solids, which He passes to Primus so He can fill His forge with life-giving metal. In exchange, Primus gives Him energy — energon or pure spark energy, I can’t tell from these pictures alone — having spent all that time harvesting solar power from Their primordial star. Then They had a disagreement — perhaps over Unicron’s tendency to consume inhabited planets, who knows — and Optimus has already said the rest.”
D-16 looks at the mural again, noticing the title on the top right corner; Celestial Reunion. If he imagines Primus and Unicron to be simply characters in a story, he could almost call the mural romantic, the two gods depicted with their fingers entwined and leaning towards each other. “Is that why the Quintessons attacked us? Over two gods having a lover’s quarrel?” he asks, feeling almost hysterical.
“No.” The firm denial comes, surprisingly, from Sentinel. “We have captured communications that prove that the Quintessons curse Unicron’s name. They fear that they will be pressed into his service again if he returns.” Ignoring the stare directed his way, Sentinel starts slowly unplugging some of the cables from his frame, likely to lessen the strain now that he’s not using the Censere System at full capacity. “I am done, by the way.”
Airachnid moves behind him to help him disconnect from the broader mainframe while Megaton, Optimus and D-16 return to their spots facing Sentinel. “Well, let’s hear it. We won’t be solving the mystery of Primus and Unicron any time soon, but we might be able to figure out what was done to Primus.”
Sentinel nods and closes his eyes. A new screen appears in front of him, projecting a timeline with references and various files attached. “Roughly a thousand cycles before the war the Prima Ark left our solar system to test a new kind of hyperdrive that could expand our interstellar travel capabilities a hundredfold, finally allowing us to make contact with other inhabited worlds. It was controlled by Teletraan-0, forerunner of the Teletraan Project. Its mission was to jump to the edges of our already discovered territories and take deep space scans to determine where would be the ideal direction for us to expand.
Due to an unknown cause that was suspected to be a system error, on its return jump the Prima Ark overshot the coordinates of Cybertron and teleported straight into the outer corona of our star. Before it and its crew of 276 bots perished, they managed to transmit a warning about the threat of the Quintessons.” D-16 shudders in horror. That was one hell of a system error. “Following the destruction of the Prima Ark, citing the loss of a loved one, Solus Prime stepped down as lead of the Teletraan Project and handed it over to Amalgamous Prime. The fine details of the Project have been redacted from the Palace Archives, but he produced several successful prototypes in the next few centuries, including Teletraan-1 and Trypticon, of the Ark and the Nemesis respectively. Despite this success, the Teletraan Project was temporarily suspended for reasons redacted.”
Sentinel slowly cycles his vents and opens his eyes. If D-16 didn’t know better, he’d say that the Prime looks uncertain. “Cybertron’s systems don’t keep exact track of the Primes’ exact location, but they do document it when one of them uses their personal access to visit the more… restricted areas of Cybertron. This includes the times when Zeta Prime traveled to the inner sanctum of Vector Sigma to have a personal audience with Primus.” A longer timeline appears on the screen, stretching back a few more millennia before the war, marking Zeta Primes visits with crisp blue dots. “Before the discovery of the Quintesson threat, Zeta Prime conferred with Primus at regular intervals twice every century. He broke this pattern when he reported on the Quintessons and then, about a century after the Teletraan Project was suspended, his visits have picked up in frequency. There was a period, right before the logging of Primus’ brain functions ceased, when he visited multiple times in a cycle.”
The display zooms in to highlight the period, blue dots clustered together until they cut off all of a sudden, followed by nothing. “It is only conjecture, but I have processed most of the Primes internal correspondence — semi-private messages sent through the internal comm system of the Palace — and found references to something called ‘Project Mímir’ from the time, but whatever that project entailed was never officially logged in the Palace Archives. It could be nothing, it could be a code to cover for some kind of personal project not important enough to be officially archived, but the timing is suspect and the messages reflect a split opinion I would expect from the other Primes.”
“Mímir…” Optimus says, rubbing his chin with an unsettled frown. “I have heard that name before, but I can’t remember when. I will need to consult my personal archives. Is there anything else?”
“Not much, unless you want to read through the private message logs,” Sentinel admits.
“No, thank you. I trust your assessment of the situation and do not wish to intrude on the affairs of the dead.”
“How very proper of you.” Sentinel sighs. He shifts uncomfortably in place, tugging at one of the cables without intending to remove it. “There are logs — localized archives, as D-16 suggested — that recorded Primus’ emotions. Coinciding with Zeta Prime’s visits, there was a steady decline in his mood and his last recorded state is that of overwhelming guilt and sorrow, paired with an odd note of determination.”
Optimus looks up sharply as soon as he hears that. “Do you believe that for some reason, Zeta Prime pressured Primus into removing His own brain module?”
“This is only conjecture,” Sentinel repeats, but he doesn’t look convinced. “But it would not be the first or the last time when Zeta Prime utilized emotional manipulation or guilt trips to get what he wanted.” Sentinel crosses his arms. In the half-light, it almost looks like he’s hugging himself. “After the last log entry, the records were corrupted for a time, until the backup systems adapted to the lack of a brain module. There was some seismic activity reported near the Well of the Allspark that could correspond to the Well opening up and serving as an exit point, but the data is inconclusive. That said, I have restored the access logs for Vector Sigma to the best of my ability and they show no logged visitors after Zeta Prime left. There was one attempted access from someone with a priesthood ID at the start of the war, but without Primus actually present they were not granted admittance.”
“So we can rule out my idea that they dismantled the brain module, unless they transported it elsewhere and shipped the components back to Cybertron,” Megaton says, the only one present who appears completely unfazed by the topic. Even Airachnid appears a little uncomfortable, her eyes darting all over the place. “When did this all happen?”
“A hundred and thirty cycles before the first recorded Quintesson attack, give or take. We lost our ability for safe space travel in the first decades of the war and there was no anomalous starship movement in that time. I checked.” Sentinel rubs his eyes again, swaying lightly on his feet. “There are more archives that lack even the most basic sorting that I could check, but not today. I need” —he claws at his chest, eyes flickering— “I need to stop. This is getting—” There is a thin stream of smoke rising from his vents. “It’s getting too much.”
Megaton closes the distance between them with two steps and catches Sentinel before he could collapse. “It’s alright.” He allows Sentinel to slump against his chest plate, holding him up with one arm so the Prime can’t rip the cables out by falling over. It’s startling to realize, now that D-16 sees them side by side, that Megaton is more than a solid head taller than Sentinel. “You did well.”
Chapter Text
After making sure that Sentinel has disconnected from the system and there is no specific order the cables need to be removed in, they each pitch in to unplug him from the mainframe. Optimus handles the big electric cables up on his shoulders, Airachnid tends to the many sensitive sockets around his spinal strut and D-16 works on his legs.
“Forgive me,” Megaton rumbles, still supporting Sentinel. “I have known enough data analyst frame types in my life, I should know better than to prompt one that's already tired.”
“They can never resist the allure of examining the problem from a new angle, can they?” Optimus concurs with a kind of exasperated fondness that has to have a story or five behind it.
Sentinel makes a hum, but he appears to be quite out of it, so D-16 isn't certain he actually understood any of that.
“Is he going to be alright?” He asks Airachnid when she hands him a big tube of nanite gel. Some of the cables are clearly meant for equipment rather than living mechs, pronged and ill-fitting, and have tore into Sentinel’s ports in a way that has to be painful.
“He will be.” She works quickly, slathering an almost wasteful amount of repair gel over the damaged areas. “He overtaxed his primary brain module trying to talk and think at the same time. He’ll be good as new after defragging.”
Sentinel regains some awareness by the time they finish unplugging him and administering first aid, but he still wobbles precariously on his feet when Megaton steps away. “‘m fine,” he insists, his glyphs slurred and uncertain. “I'll just go back to my room and— Aaah!”
Megaton clearly doesn't trust Sentinel to get back to his room on his own, because he scoops the Prime up the exact same way he's picked Optimus up earlier.
“Put me down,” Sentinel insists, but he rests his head against Megaton’s shoulder and curls the fingers of his free hand into Megaton’s collar faring, holding on weakly. D-16 can barely catch it when the Prime mumbles, “‘tronus, I can walk” before he fades into unconsciousness again.
The horrible thing about having tactical hardware, D-16 is finding out, is that it never turns off. Usually that's not a problem, Orion keeps his subroutines occupied enough, but he can't currently think of Orion without going into panic mode, so he is forced to keep himself busy with any other mystery he can find.
Sentinel is a tantalizing mystery, but the more pieces he finds to this puzzle, the less he likes the picture that’s unfolding. He ends up lagging behind, caught up in his thoughts while Megaton and Optimus take Sentinel back to his room.
“Don’t get lost, little scraplet.” He is startled out of his thoughts and looks up at Airachnid with wide eyes. She is getting entirely too much enjoyment out of trying to scare him. “Who knows, something might eat you in the dark.”
“Is that something you?”
Her smile widens. “Maybe.”
D-16 huffs and looks around, trying to remember where he is and how he got there. They are standing in the corridor leading to the private chambers of the Primes, all the doors closed except for the one marked with— “Sentinel lives in Megatronus Prime’s old room?”
Airachnid hums and lowers herself to sit in an alcove that D-16 hasn’t noticed before. The scratches on the floor indicate that it has been her regular spot for quite some time. “All the other rooms have locked down when their occupants perished, but Megatronus would not deny Sentinel a place to stay if he needed one, not even in death.”
D-16 feels his throat go tight. One more piece; one more corner to anchor this puzzle. “He’s not actually a Prime, is he?” he asks before he can think better, the words tumbling out as soon as he thinks them. “I think I suspected it for a long time —tried to rationalize it away, thought that maybe they constructed him as a replacement for the fallen, you know?— but if he had known the Primes…”
Airachnid shifts just a little bit —so little that he would not have noticed it otherwise— and his analytical subroutine immediately recategorizes her from ‘mean, but non-threatening’ to ‘dangerous’.
“And if I said yes, what would you do with that knowledge?”
D-16 is quiet for a long time, trying to get his thoughts into something resembling order. “Nothing,” he says at last. There is no way he’s the only one who figured this out and even if he was, the members of the 5000 had to know that Sentinel wasn’t a real Prime. He was just a nocog; even if he wanted to do something, Airachnid could kill him without effort and drop his body down the dried out energon well and none would be the wiser. “Feel disappointed and foolish, I guess?”
“Foolish, I understand.” She relaxes, extra limbs folding in more comfortably behind her back; her status shifts back to ‘non-threatening’. She is watching him intently, fascinated by his reactions. “Why disappointed?”
“Well, if he’s not a Prime, then he’s… just a person, right?”
“Let me tell you a secret.” Airachnid chuckles and leans forward; D-16, uncertain of her intentions, takes a step back. “The Primes were also ‘just people’ too.”
A hologram lights up the shadowed corridor; he didn’t know that her extra eyes could function as projectors, that would be a really cool discovery if he wasn’t completely captivated by the scene she’s projecting.
Four big figures move through the corridor: Solus Prime and Liege Maximo trying to drag the unconscious Amalgamous Prime towards one of the rooms while Alchemist Prime trails after them, wringing his hands.
“I’m sorry,” Alchemist says, his voice tinny and slightly distorted. It has to be an old recording that Airachnid has decompressed on the fly. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“You should really know better by now,” Liege Maximo grumbles, yanking on one of Amalgamous’ limp arms.
“If I had known he would make him drink the whole thing, I wouldn’t have made it so potent!”
Solus Prime’s hand slips and Amalgamous drops to the floor with a clang. They all wait expectantly for a moment, but the unconscious Prime doesn’t stir. “Alright, this is not working.” She abandons the others and goes to bang her fist against Megatronus’ door. “Megs, I know you are in there! We need backup!”
It only takes a klik of banging before Megatronus appears in the door, maskless and rubbing at his eyes. D-16’s spark skips a beat, despite knowing that the Prime is long dead. The Megatronus in the recording has a gentle face, despite the scar covering half of it. “What is going on here?” A nanoklik later he notices Amalgamous on the floor. “What happened to him?”
“Zeta happened.” “As usual.”
“Elaborate.” Megatronus steps outside, casting a critical eye over the unconscious Amalgamous. “I’m not moving him until I know it’s safe.”
“Can you at least get him into his room? This will be a little long. ” Solus turns big, pleading eyes towards Megatronus, but it’s no use.
“Not a chance.”
“Fine. You know that briefing earlier today that you missed? Screamer called Zeta’s proposed plan stupid.”
“It is a stupid plan,” Megatronus says mildly. “That is exactly why I refused to take part in the briefing. Zeta either needs to get the tactical software to go with his axe upgrade or step back from military planning. We don’t have the resources anymore to squander on inefficient offensives.”
“Yes, yes, you know it, I know it, we all know it, but Starscream was still out of line. So anyway, Zeta took that badly.”
Liege Maximo scoffs. “Does he ever take it well when someone questions his decisions?”
“Shush, Max, I’m the one telling the story. Anyway, he decided that he was going to prove that he was as good at tactical planning as you dedicated military frames” —Solus waves a hand towards Megatronus and Maximo— “by beating Amalgamous at a game of Fulstasis.”
D-16 has never played Fulstasis before —after a day of draining physical labor, most of the miners don’t pick an intense strategy game as their go-to form of relaxation— but he knows that it’s not an easy game to learn and it’s hellishly difficult to master.
Megatronus sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Looking at poor Amalgamous here, I’m going to guess that you have not reminded Zeta that he is our spiritual leader and even Primus Himself didn’t expect him to be good at everything.”
“We only heard about it after the fact. Anyway, you know how Amalg is, he won’t throw a game just to soothe Zeta’s bruised ego, so Zeta made ‘Mist here to mix up a little something for Amalg—” “I swear, it was only supposed to get him a little drunk to level the playing field!” “— and got your favorite little tactical powerhouse to give him a little processor boost.”
There’s a clang as Megatronus Prime’s armor plates clamp tight to his frame, combat subroutines activating in alarm. “He did what?!”
“He hardlined with whatshisname… Watchman?”
“Sentinel.”
“Ah, that’s right. Not that it helped much, now that I think about it. He still lost the game.”
“Of course it didn’t help! Sentinel’s tacnet isn’t linked with his primary brain module; if you don’t have the subroutines to interpret the data yourself, then all you get out of his tactical processors is junk!”
“Oh. That explains a lot…”
Megatronous takes a deep vent that rattles his plating.
“Very well, that is bad, but not the worst. Where is he?”
“Zeta? Still back in the conference room.”
“Sentinel.”
“No idea. Probably still there too.”
“YOU LEFT HIM THERE WITH ZETA AFTER ALL THAT?!” The recording couldn’t capture the sudden increase in volume right, muffling and distorting it, but D-16 still flinches at Megatronus Prime’s outraged yell —and again a moment later when the hologram of the giant Prime comes barreling towards him.
The recording cuts off a moment before Megatronus could reach D-16, returning the corridor to gentle half-light and leaving D-16’s mind spinning.
He’s standing there numbly for so long that Airachnid gets up and gives him a nudge. “Did you crash, scraplet?”
“Just processing.” First thing first; he needs to find a way to order his thoughts in a way that they don’t terminate and circle into each other. “How did you get that footage?”
“I was on duty right here.” She jabs a limb towards her little alcove.
“And you didn’t try to help?”
“Staff was not allowed to directly interact with the Primes unless they acknowledged us first.” She shrugs when D-16’s eyes go wide. “Palace Tower rules. Like in the old romance dramas.”
“Yeah, Arcee loves those, but…” He looks at the empty corridor, as if he could catch a glimpse of the ghosts of the Primes again. “I really thought the Primes were better than that.”
Airachnid tilts her head to the side. “Most of them were, but protocol is protocol. My supervisor would have docked my rations either way if he found out, so it didn’t make a difference to me.”
D-16 never in his life would have imagined that he’d find himself relating to Airachnid, but that is a sentiment he’s intimately familiar with. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You belong with those two” —she jerks her head towards the room; towards Optimus and Megaton— “and Sentinel likes them. He likes you too, a little. If you last, there will be a cog in it for you sooner or later.” She smirks when D-16 gapes at her; that’s not an angle he considered at all! “As his chief of security, I need to take your measure before that happens, hmm?”
D-16 tries to imagine a world where he had a cog, but Pax didn’t have one (yet). Maybe they wouldn’t work the same shift anymore, but he could be —he could be a supervisor, he could protect Pax so much easier! And the others too; no more Darkwings in the mine, harassing the nocogs when he was there. He can see it in his mind’s eye; Orion fawning over his new frame, happy for his success —just this once, he could be better than Pax in a way that nobody could deny.
“Why pretend that Sentinel is a Prime? That’s the thing I can’t wrap my mind around. Nobody can deny that he’s a good leader, so why…”
Instead of answering directly, Airachnid asks, “Do you think Optimus is a Prime?”
“What!? Of course not!”
“The Primes weren’t special because they were the creations of Primus. Every forged mech is. Aside from Zeta and his Matrix, the Primes were notable because they were old, big and uniquely capable.” She flicks her eyes towards the room. “Optimus is old, big and uniquely capable. So, is he a Prime?”
“No, I— I never thought about it like that.” He wants to argue with her — the Primes were more than that! They had to be! But when he thinks about what else set them aside from ordinary Cybertronians, he comes up blank. They carried the artifacts of Primus, but other than the Matrix of Leadership anybody could wield those; there were plenty of stories about the acolytes borrowing the relics to bail their Primes out of trouble. The acolytes themselves weren’t anything unique as such either; simply powerful followers and comrades of the Primes or bots who were reframed to match the Prime that chose them, like Amalgamous and his collection of scientists. And, if he thinks rationally about it, many of the acolytes weren’t that far below power or uniqueness compared to their Primes. Wasn’t there a story about a bot smaller even than a cogless taking on a frame as big as Megatronus and fighting the Prime to a draw to get into the High Guard? What was his name again…
He surfaces from his musings when Airachnid pats the top of his head. “Sentinel was crafted to be the Principal Aide and chief tactical advisor to the Primes. To manage calculations only Amalgamous Prime could before. He had every qualification to stand among them and when they died, he stepped up to stop the people from falling to despair.” She settles back down on her spot and regards D-16 with an unusual seriousness. “He’s a willing and capable leader. That, if nothing else, makes him as good as a Prime, don’t you think?”
D-16 is still turning that conversation over in his mind when they leave the Primal Palace. He considers sitting down away from Megaton when they get in the trailer, but the bot’s warmth is too tempting and he had a very tiring day. Pride be damned, he snuggles up to Megaton’s side and closes his eyes with a sigh when the big mech wraps an arm around him. “Are you alright, little one?”
“Long day.” He sighs again when Megaton starts rubbing soothing circles into his back plating. “Much to think about.” The hand migrates up to his neck, sharp fingers reaching under the overhanging plates of his head to reset a set of sensors that he didn’t even know about, but have been causing a low current of ache that he has been subconsciously ignoring all day. “Oh, that’s nice…” He manages a half-purr with his engine that elicits a chuckle from Megaton. “I’m still mad at you.”
“What for?”
“You didn’t tell me Sentinel wasn’t a Prime.”
“You had most of it figured out and it wasn’t our secret to tell.” Megaton looks up towards the ceiling of the trailer. “Anything to add, Optimus?”
“I have something, actually. Dee, do you remember the tale of how Zeta became the Matrix Bearer?”
D-16 looks up, trying to recall which story Optimus could mean. “He was one of Prima’s acolytes, I think?”
“Yes. Prima Prime, born first and most beautiful among all of Primus’ children, had grown prideful in his position as first leader of the Primes. His pride made him shun the counsel of others and drove a wedge between him and his brothers and sisters. Seeing that the situation was causing grief for His favorite creations, Primus chose Prima’s most humble acolyte and bestowed upon him the Matrix of Leadership, elevating him to be the new leader of Cybertron.”
“So your point is… what, exactly? That anyone can become a Prime?”
“I’m sure there is a world where Sentinel is a Matrix Bearer and everyone wishes he— OW!” Optimus suddenly slows down, making Megaton’s helmet clang hard against the wall of the trailer.
“Apologies. That said: yes, anyone can become a Prime, if Primus wills it so. In His absence, however, Sentinel is far from the worst person who could act as Prime.”
That’s the element D-16 forgot to consider: the Primes were special because they were Primus’ chosen. Without Primus or the Matrix, however… yeah. Yeah, he can accept this. Without divine will behind it, ‘Prime’ is just a title anyway. Who knows, if the Matrix carries any remnant of Primus' will, it might elevate Sentinel when he finds it and then D-16's doubts would appear really silly in hindsight.
This realization doesn’t make his head hurt any less, though. His thoughts are chasing each other restlessly and he would give a week’s worth of energon rations to have someone reach into his head and untangle them.
That does give him an idea, however.
“Optimus, can we stop at the hospital? I want to check in with my old therapist.”
“We can. Are you certain, however, that this is a topic you can discuss with them?”
“I’m sure. He’s a pre-war mech; you might even know him. His name is… his name, it’s…” D-16 stares at the wall of the trailer, drawing a blank. “I went to him three times a week for trauma and grief counseling for two whole cycles and I can’t remember his name,” he admits, his face burning in shame.
“Rung?”
He turns his head so suddenly that Megaton’s fingers get caught between the plating of his head and the segments of his neck, causing both of them to cringe in pain. “How did you know?”
“There are not a lot of bots who manage to be as unique and as forgettable at the same time as Rung.” Megaton gestures for D-16 to lean forward so he can make sure that his claws haven’t caused any damage. “Does he still wear that horrible orange paint job?”
“Yes! Obnoxiously orange and wearing silly glasses; that’s Rung all right.” D-16 allows himself a smile. He hasn’t thought about Rung in a long time, but he finds himself looking forward to meeting the bot again. Recent events aside, he has come a long way from the broken mech they had to carry into Rung’s office because he lacked even the will to walk all those cycles ago.
This time it’s different. He has Megaton and Optimus and in a few days when the rain passes, he will have Pax back with him and he can handle anything the world could throw at him when Orion is there with him. He just needs to hold on a little longer and everything will be fine.
Chapter 23
Notes:
Mild warning for discussing a minor side character's potential suicide.
Also, I have updated the tags and (with a little reluctance) added one of the 'missing' relationship tags. I wanted to wait a little longer, until we hear more about them, but I want to have that out there: even as we pivot over to Orion soon, Sentinel is still a major character; he and his relationships, past and present, are important to this story.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
D-16 is barely surprised anymore when he runs into Knock Out as soon as he steps foot in the hospital. The cogless medic, despite often being the target of his colleagues' derision, is one of the better surgeons when judged on individual skills rather than the capabilities of their frame-bound medical tools.
“I have wondered about it before, but why aren’t you on the list to receive a cog?”
“I am!” Knock Out says cheerfully, waving his half-empty glass of middle grade. He dragged D-16 off to a supply closet with a lock on the inside (what the frag) so he could get all the new gossip out of him in private. “I’ve been next on the list for basically my entire function, but medics can only get medic-grade cogs, otherwise some of the frame-bound equipment doesn’t form right.”
“And you can’t install those later, like any other frame upgrade?”
“You can, but there is a stigma on it. Everyone swears that forged equipment is better —more reliable, more precise— so they don’t let you skip over to the general donor list even if you ask.”
That sounds like a load of scrap to D-16, but he doesn’t say it.
“So, what brings you here today? I have heard that you got involved in something messy again.”
D-16 sighs. Of course Knock Out is fishing for gossip. “I’m not going to tell you anything about that. You can go and needle the details out of Ratchet.”
Knock Out puts a hand dramatically over his chest. “Ouch, you wound me! I would never.”
“Uh-huh. You are a newspark with a spotless conscience who has never done mischief in his entire life.”
“Exactly!” They both laugh, some of the tension coming loose in D-16’s chest. Spending time with Optimus and Megaton is always nice, but it’s not the same as spending time with one of his peers.
“I came to check in with Rung. These last two weeks have been insane. It made me remember that he told me to come back if I’m struggling again.”
“Rung, Rung…” Knock Out taps his fingers on the side of the glass as he thinks. “Oh! The therapist with the eyebrows! He’s out right now.”
“Out where?”
“The surface. Sometimes a newspark wakes up early, still in the hotspot, and freaks out. They usually call him up to calm them down and talk them through the shock of coming alive outside of a controlled environment before they can harm themselves, the priests or the other newsparks.”
D-16 doesn’t remember much about coming online —it often varied among bots; some had memories starting from the first hour of their existence, some only started remembering at the end of their first week depending on how quickly their primary memory archives initialized— but he knows from the orientation packages that it can be a very confusing and potentially distressing time, especially for nocogs.
“So he’s stuck out in the rain too somewhere…”
Knock Out consolingly pats him on the shoulder. “Sorry, Dee. Do you want me to call you when Rung gets back?”
“It’s fine. I’ll just figure something out.”
D-16 ends up going home with Megaton and Optimus. He needs some time to think and privacy is still a rare commodity in the barracks. Their little apartment is cast in shadow too, this area hit hard by the energy restrictions, but when they arrive Megaton takes one long look at the way D-16 is dragging his feet, weighed down by exhaustion both mental and physical, then grabs one of their portable generators and disappears into the maintenance room without a word.
“What is his problem?”
Optimus chuckles. “I suspect he has picked up some mother hen tendencies from his Amica. Apropos of nothing, have you ever had an oil bath?”
“A few times, when I was hospitalized after— wait, why do you have an oil bath here?”
“It was a criteria I insisted on when we were looking for lodgings, because it’s one of the comforts of post-war life that Megaton can never resist.”
D-16 recalls Sentinel’s comment from earlier and very quickly terminates that thought thread. He doesn’t want to think about what Megaton and Optimus get up to in the bath.
It turns out he had nothing to worry about. The bath is barely big enough to fit Optimus; Megaton isn’t that much bigger than his Conjunx, but all of D-16's internal calculations say that he shouldn’t be able to fit into the tub. That slight issue aside, it’s a very nice setup. The tub has its own heating unit and a very sophisticated (visibly brand new) filtering attachment, so the oil can be reused a few times and it can run off the portable generator.
“Are you certain you want to waste your energy on letting me languish here?” D-16 asks, doing his best to resist the urge to sink completely into the hot oil; at least not until he has coaxed his systems into opening up his frame so the oil can get to his internals, where it’s needed the most.
Megaton doesn’t look up, too engrossed in picking out debris from the narrow seams of his hands with an awl, but he does answer. “Absolutely. You deserve nice things and I know few things nicer than a hot oil bath after a stressful day.”
D-16 can’t disagree with him, even if there are certain aspects that he finds less pleasant than others. “Hey, do you think you could lend me a hand?”
Megaton sets his tool aside and ambles over with a curious noise. “What do you need?”
“Just a little help with this one transformation seam. If you could get in there and help open it up a little…” Megaton doesn't need much explanation. He follows the line with his eyes, then gently slots the flats of his claws in there and shifts his hands just so. It doesn't even hurt this time, his frame already aware that this is a seam that's supposed to split apart. Just a little pop of pressure, the light itch of confused microservos and the satisfying jolt as D-16’s entire chest loosens.
“I love your claws,” D-16 says dreamily, biting off a groan when glorious warmth floods his insides, tripping every neglected sensor with liquid pleasure.
He realizes a moment later how he must have sounded, but Megaton only smiles at his mortification and gives his head a fond pat. “You only say that because you haven't seen me type or hold anything that can be easily sliced, even with the cutting edge retracted.” He must notice D-16’s look of confusion, because he proffers one hand. “Here, look. They are a little sharp as is, but when I seriously need to cut something apart, there's an even sharper edge tucked inside…”
It's a microtransformation, the bladelike claws splitting minutely apart to allow the extra sharp edge to extend. D-16 would not have noticed it if Megaton didn't show him, but when Megaton skims two claws over his plating he can certainly feel the difference. With the edge retracted, the sensation is a dull scratch, almost pleasant, only a threat if Megaton were to put any strength behind it. The extended edge makes him flinch away almost right away, the same featherlight pressure carving a thin silver line into his plating.
He stares at the scratch for a very long klik. It's a little startling to realize that Megaton could rend him apart without any effort if he so chose. “How do you live with these?”
Megaton shrugs. “I had them for so long that I would have a difficult time getting used to standard hands now. I can hold most things if I pinch them between the flats” —he demonstrates by tapping two claws together, his joints far more flexible than D-16’s hands— “and I type with my knuckles.” He turns his palm over and tucks his fingers in to show how. “But for the sake of everyday practicality, your hands are far better than these.”
D-16 takes Megaton’s hand, ignoring the startled noise the mech makes when he gets warm oil all over it, and traces over the many delicate seams and flexible plates of it. “Maybe, but I still like your hands.”
There is something here that tickles his analytical processes just right. Danger, crafted into one’s very being, tempered by gentleness; strength harnessed to protect his beloved and bolster the weak. He wants to be like Megaton so very badly his spark aches. “Are you certain you are not Megatronus Prime in disguise?” D-16 asks, only half joking.
“I’m sure.” Perhaps he’s imagining it, but Megaton’s smile seems to take on a sorrowful edge. “I was never cut out to be a hero.”
Next morning D-16 sends Elita a message to let her know he’s okay. She messages back that Sentinel cancelled all shifts for the day and he’s a fragger for letting her worry all night, which makes him feel just a little bit guilty, but not guilty enough to go back to the barracks when he could spend the whole day resting. Is watching Distant Star Adventures with Megaton all day productive? Hell no. But his worries weigh a little less when he’s snuggled up to a warm chassis, so it’s fine. He can imagine Orion joining them without even needing to think too hard about it; not quite joined in the cuddle pile —Orion doesn’t have his systems tuned to the heat of the underground, a remnant of the past D-16 refuses to change, so he doesn’t crave warmth like he does— but he would sit just off to the side, his hand on D-16’s legs to keep in contact, Optimus milling around somewhere behind them, ever restless.
Speaking of Optimus, the mech leans over the back of the couch to give Megaton a quick kiss on the cheek and look at the holo screen. “Is this the show Sentinel likes?” Megaton makes a vaguely affirmative hum. “Is it any good?”
“The first dozen seasons are a bit dated —the first five don’t even have depth data, they are just flat image captures, can you believe that?— but the story is pretty good,” D-16 says, when Megaton shrugs in response and flicks his hand to pause the episode.
“Truly ancient technology then.” Optimus sounds like he’s trying really hard not to laugh. “And what is it about?”
“It’s about a fictional Prime called Rodimus who wants to prove that he’s the real deal by getting a small crew together, stealing a ship with an experimental hyperdrive and going on a quest. Except after the jump they find out that they have no way back because the hyperdrive breaks and the ship —the Deadlock— is actually alive and the ship’s ‘AI’ —they didn’t have semi-sentients when this was made I think so they don’t call him that, but that’s what they initially assumed him to be, anyway his name is Drift— is a nonstandard transformer like Sentry.” He pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts. “Arcee only had the last two seasons, so I thought the story was a little bit insane —at some point they unlocked a titan mode for Drift and he and Rodimus get Conjunxed in the last episode; can you believe marrying your starship?— but watching from the beginning makes it all fall into place.”
“Sound like a happy ending all around.”
“A cliffhanger, actually. At the end of the last episode they activate the hyperdrive to jump home, but we never know if they get back or end up on another adventure.” The scene frozen on the screen is near the end of an episode, Rodimus and the crew arranging colorful crystals around the bridge because Drift believes they can connect his soul with the crew, the actors smiling broadly. “It was a little strange, because every other adventure ended on a conclusive high note. It’s a very optimistic show. It had a dedication to that note too, but I don’t remember exactly how it went.”
“Interesting.” Optimus pulls up a smaller screen, no doubt intrigued enough to look up the ending. “There it is. ‘To Solus Prime, who never forgot that we are more than meets the eye and to all our dedicated viewers, who joined us on the journey through this distant daydream. I hope the joys of this adventure eased the sting of mundane nightmares for you just like it did for me. T’.”
“That is uncharacteristically somber,” Megaton notes, craning his neck around to look at the smaller screen. “Who is T?”
“The lead writer. Sounds like they wrote the story to cope with some unpleasantness in their daily life.” Optimus dismisses the screen with a flick and sits down on Megaton’s opposite side, leaning into his mate. “I believe I could use a break and a joyful adventure through the stars sounds delightful.”
Megaton makes a doubtful noise, but he wraps his arm around Optimus anyway and starts the episode again. “I think you will enjoy it. The chief medical officer is almost as cranky as your Amica.”
[MEGATRON!!]
[What.]
[Keep your field in check so we don’t alarm Dee, but I looked at the extended credits. The lead writer is listed as ‘Teletraan-0’.]
[...]
[It could be a pseudonym, but—]
[—but we both remember how many petitions and pamphlets I wrote against the depersonalization of transport frames. Hells.]
[So you are thinking the same thing I do.]
[I think so, yes. It fits too neatly. The upper castes often conveniently forgot that their luxury transports, their shuttles and trains were people. Same with beastformers. I can picture it with ease how much worse that would have been for someone who didn’t have a form that immediately registered as ‘sentient’ or even ‘alive’.]
[A daydream to get away from mundane nightmares… A starship can hardly socialize or participate in many hobbies, so if Teletraan-0 was a mech, stuck with a crew that mistreated them, then writing an escapist fantasy holo serial was likely their only outlet to cope. If I’m guessing the timeline correctly, then the serial ended not long after they had started planning to test the Prima Ark’s new hyperdive.]
[I found it peculiar that the ship could send a warning out about the Quintessons before it was destroyed, but if it was premeditated rather than an accident then it makes much more sense. Their work was wrapped up, everything tied neatly in a bow and they had an opportunity… flying into a star is not a painless death, but it is the fastest way to destroy a starship. And they took their tormentors down with them.]
[I’m sorry for ruining your fun. The show really does look like a good time.]
[Don’t apologize. If we are correct, then I find their actions admirable. Let’s pay homage to their memory by enjoying their work the way it was intended: as a joyful daydream, a getaway from the stress and worries that plague us. If I can judge at all based on how this story is written, that is exactly what they would have wanted.]
It takes Optimus a little time to warm up to the show, but by the time they get to the seasons that were filmed with modern technology he’s smiling and laughing along with them, his smiles lopsided and imperfect without anybody to pretend for. They are in the middle of an action-packed episode —Drift became severely damaged to save the crew from a group of hostile aliens, his spark severely weakened, and now Rodimus is risking his life to get him the specialized parts so he can recover— when someone starts hammering away at the door, liberally using the doorbell as well. Megaton and Optimus exchange a look before Optimus goes to answer the door and as soon as he opens it, Bumblebee comes barreling in, full of energy and talking so fast his glyphs start to crowd together and slip into multiple layers.
“Hi guys—hi Dee!! So nice to see you, didn’t expect you, you are looking good!— turn on the news right now, Sentinel Prime is going to make an announcement and Sentry told Astrotrain who told Blitzwing who told me that this is going to be something big!”
“Hello, Bee, please try not to fry your vocalizer.” Optimus smiles down at his apprentice and with gentle firmness pushes him down to sit next to D-16 on the couch. “I will get you a cube. Megaton, can you…?”
“Already on it.” It’s a matter of moments to pull up the public feed and the transmission is already on, Sentinel standing idly around in front of the camera because the technician forgot to notify him that he was already on air again. It gives D-16 a good moment to take him in, both his spotless shining plating —he has recovered quickly, at least at a glance— and his body language. The way he rubs at the gold covering the backs of his hands looks almost bored, but knowing that he has primary access points under the gilded covering —not just that, but the access ports he prefers to use most often, based on D-16’s limited data— it’s not difficult to read the motion more as some kind of nervous fiddling.
It’s a little cute, if D-16 is honest, that Sentinel still has a few jitters before a public appearance even after all these cycles.
Finally he looks up and notices that the broadcast is on and he breaks into a brilliant smile.
“Hello Iacon city! I greet you today with great news, but before that, let me take a moment to thank the hardworking miners who kept us from losing all power during the storm. Our city would not function at all without them and they deserve our thanks for their tireless work.” Sentinel bows his head in respect for a moment. This has been a consistent part of most of his speeches; even if words are much cheaper than actions, the regular reminders have done much to prevent (most of) the transformers from looking down on the nocogs too much. “Our meteorologists have reassured me that the rain is going to pass by sunrise tomorrow, so in conjunction with our other bit of good news, I can tell our miners this: all shifts are cancelled until the end of the week. You have earned your rest.”
D-16 can feel his brows rise until they disappear under the dark plating of his head. That is a very generous rest period; one he’s not sure they have the resources for.
“Which brings me to the other bit of good news: thanks to a lucky find by our new head archivist and the expert work of the city’s most seasoned construction crew, we have restored the Iacon Planetary Generator to function. While this is a small step towards returning our planet to its former glory, it is one of huge significance for the city.” Sentinel spreads his arms wide; it’s the cue for the technicians off-screen and suddenly all the lights come on, the electric grid restored to full capacity once more. “After today, darkness and hunger won’t have a hold on us ever again. The days of energon mining are over!”
Sentinel says something more —about the energon depots distributing extra fuel for anyone who asks from now on, something about requesting volunteers for the survey team to settle in another city and prepare it for expansion— but most of it is drowned out by loud cheering. Out in the streets, through the entire city, loud enough that it even makes its way into the studio (perhaps through the work of a mischievous technician) and startles Sentinel into stammering to a halt in the middle of a sentence, eyes wide in naked astonishment. Then he smiles, soft and genuine and it is definitely somebody’s work behind the scenes because the camera zooms right in on his expression and D-16 would bet his left arm that Arcee is going to be head over heels crushing over him all over again. Just for a moment, the old Sentinel who visited the miner barracks and pleaded with his people to hold onto hope when the future was bleak has peaked out from behind the practiced mask of the leader, and he is as radiant as any Prime.
Notes:
Posting is probably going to slow down for a bit. I'm still aiming for at least one update a week, but we will see how that works out. Long story short, there are ongoing renovations in my flat and I'm in a bit of a tight financial spot, so I took up regular drawing again on top of that. All in all, my writing time is a bit more limited right now, even though this fic is still filling my head all the damn time. If only I could draw and write at the same time... 😅
Chapter 24
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Have you seen Dee?]
[Elita and Bee took him to the plaza to celebrate with the others. They are handing out free high grade to the miners.]
[Good. He should spend time with his friends and Elita will keep him out of trouble. That’s one less accident-prone youth I have to worry about tonight.]
[Who else are you— No. Megatron. NO.]
[?]
[I caught that thought through the bond. You are NOT allowed to adopt him!]
[Please. I’m not Soundwave who adopts every orphaned turbofox and lost sparking he comes across.]
[No, you are worse than Soundwave. Soundwave wouldn’t try to adopt Sentinel!]
[I wouldn’t be so sure about that…]
[You are not even denying it anymore!]
[I’m not ‘adopting’ him. We are not staying long enough for me to adopt anybody, but I can be a reliable adult they can turn to while we are here.]
[I understand the sentiment, but Sentinel IS an adult himself… is he?]
[He said he was around 3000, but he sounded a little shifty as he said it. I’m almost certain he was lying and he’s younger than that.]
[...]
[Did that render you speechless?]
[When I was with the enforcers before the war, our training period was ten times as long before you could join the force as a full-fledged enforcer.]
[Amazing how young they all are, isn't it? He's holding things together remarkably well for someone his age. I just give him a little personal support from behind the scenes.]
[And what does this support look like?]
[Talking to him like a person over the comm, mostly. He treated me to a 70000-word-dissertation about why DriftRod is peak romance today.]
[DriftRo— OH. From the show? 70000 words??]
[I don’t think he has many friends.]
[It’s not easy to grow close to new people when you are in a leadership position.]
[I never had any problems with that, but I have also never shied away from getting down and doing grunt work with my subordinates.]
[Shush. Have you learned anything about him other than his taste in entertainment during your chats? I still don’t quite know what to make of him.]
[Yes, there is something there, but I’m not quite sure… I still don’t know what he is, but I’m almost certain he has some kind of bastardized governor-coding.]
[I believe we would have noticed if he was a cityformer. Titans are not exactly small.]
[Does it make you feel smart to state the obvious? You don’t need to be a titan to install the coding.]
[What makes you think he has it? I haven’t seen any sign in the archives that this Cybertron ever had titans.]
[Not titans, but they have sparked mechs as part of the infrastructure and had at least one living spaceship. They could have copied it from or developed it for any one of them.]
[Very well, let’s say you are correct. Governor-coding prioritizes population preservation and civilian wellbeing over victory. It is a very unusual thing to install in a military analyst and we have found plenty of proof that the Primes have not been overly concerned whether the people outside of the high guard lived or died.]
[Perhaps they had a change of spark when they realized how close they were getting to extinction and tried to pivot towards tactics with less casualties. This is more of a hunch than anything I can prove with definitive evidence.]
[Something to investigate later, then. I had my fill of speculating for today.]
[Likewise. I have a few much more pleasant ideas we could fill the rest of the day with. I don’t expect we will have much privacy up on the surface, after all.]
[Yes, please. I need something uncomplicated and nice before my emotional subsystems crash again.]
[Alright. One thorough and uncomplicated frag coming right up, as soon as you get back here.]
The moment D-16 wakes up after the party he’s ready to go and get Orion, almost vibrating out of his plating in his eagerness. Someone mistakes his excitement for a glitch (or perhaps the less than healthy aftereffect of a circuit booster) because he’s intercepted by Knock Out before he can sneak out of the barracks.
The medic looks him up and down, one hand on his hip until he finally declares that he’s healthy. “Not even a little hangover! Oh, how I envy you.”
“Envy me from afar, because I’m in a hurry.”
“And where are you hurrying off to? The worker teams are not leaving for another two weeks.” Right. Once they started posting the upcoming schedule, the reason for the long rest period suddenly made sense: by shutting the energon mine down, now Iacon has a surplus of unemployed former miners who need to be shuffled over to other jobs. So that needs to be organized and they need at least a hundred volunteer construction workers to join the more specialized transformers on the rebuilding team that will travel to one of the other ruined cities, which will take even more time…
D-16 internally curses himself for his slip up. Knock Out is too tuned in with the rumors and goings-on, he’s not going to let the subject go. “Swear to me you won’t tell anybody about this!”
“My lips are sealed! So, what is this about?”
“Megaton and Optimus are going to the surface early —as in today— to start the preliminary survey of the possible sites. I’m going with them.”
Knock Out’s brows shoot up until they disappear under his head plating. “Why are you— wait, is that where Orion has disappeared to?!”
“Shh, not so loud!” D-16 looks around in alarm, but thankfully nobody seems to have overheard them. “Yes. We have an agreement with the train operator. She will drop us off where he was last seen and then Optimus will drive us the rest of the way once we found him.”
“My word, what an adventure. Life is never boring when Orion is around.” Knock Out absentmindedly picks at the stickers of his medic markings until one of them peels off altogether, sticking to his hand instead. “Say… if Orion has spent the last weeks on the surface all alone, then the assistance of a medic might be helpful.”
“If you want to come, you will have to discuss it with Megaton, he’s the one in charge.” Something feels amiss, so D-16 takes a step back and examines Knock Out for a klik. The medic is looking unusually rough, his plating dusty and lacking its customary shine, and most of his markings are either in the process of peeling off (more than usual, that is) or missing altogether. “What’s going on? You are usually the last one to volunteer when there’s a chance you could get dirt on your finish.”
Knock Out refuses to meet his eyes all of a sudden. “We had an argument with Breaky.”
OH. “I’m sorry, Knock Out. What happened?”
“He got an opportunity to join one of the rebuilding teams as a demolition specialist; he would get a cog, a raise and his pick of which one of the new apartments he wants in the newly resettled city.” Knock Out’s mouth twists into a grimace. “But as a nocog medic, I can’t join him. They have already assigned First Aid and Ambulon to the new area and they don’t need anyone else. So I decided to resign.”
“What are you going to do if not medicine? You are one of the best surgeons in Iacon!”
“If I resign I will be transferred from the specialized cog waiting list to the general one. Right at the very top, considering how long I have been on the list already.” He starts picking at another one of the medic stickers. “Depending on what my frame turns out to be, I could work as a courier or a construction worker. Not ideal, but we could stay together and he wouldn’t have to give up a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“I see…” That is a tough situation. One D-16 can’t see a clear way out of either. “So, are you giving each other space to calm down and think things through?”
“Yes, something along those lines.” Knock Out sighs, then shakes his head. “Sorry, Dee. I shouldn’t bother you with my relationship problems.”
“No, I understand.” He internally evaluates the pros and cons of telling Knock Out more, but decides that the mech is trustworthy enough, even if he’s one of the biggest gossip among the nocogs. “Megaton and Optimus are close to Sentinel Prime. If you explain the situation to them, maybe they can help you somehow.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
Getting Megaton to agree to bring Knock Out along takes barely any effort. He seems almost happy that the medic wants to come; at least he asked. Elita-1 just showed up at the train station and invited herself along.
“I asked Bee to tell me when you are leaving,” she says, gesturing towards the yellow bot with her head. Bumblebee is in a deep discussion with Optimus and Sentry, fine tuning the long-range communicator mod so he can keep in touch with them from Iacon and update them if anything happens while they are away. “I know you trust them, Dee, but there is something that’s not adding up with those two.”
“Is it because they ignore protocol?” D-16 hides a smile. “They are old and weird and full of secrets, but they mean well.”
He feels more than hears the chuckle, more just a crackling in his internal comm. It takes him a moment to identify who it is. “Sentry. Do you eavesdrop on everyone?”
“Only the people I care about.”
“Please very kindly stop.”
“No can do, sorry.” She chuckles again and if he didn’t know she doesn’t have a mobile body he would swear she’s standing right behind him. “But I have something that might make it up to you. I was bored out of my mind during the storm, so Airachnid helped me untangle the codes that connect me to the surveillance and announcement systems at the surface stations.”
A holo screen pops up between D-16 and Elita-1, flickering slightly because the loading station’s general holo projector is old and not used often. Give a smile for D-16, boys! Sentry’s voice echoes through the grainy footage of two familiar mechs waiting on the platform, one red and blue, the other bright orange.
Rung smiles the same reserved, kind smile D-16 remembers from his time in therapy, but Orion grins broadly and waves in the direction of the camera. Can’t wait to see you again, Dee!
“Your boy is waiting for you. All's well that ends well.”
D-16’s spark swells with relief. It’s hard to tell from the footage, but Pax can’t be in too bad of a shape if he’s grinning like that, which makes a nasty tangle of anxiety and worry come loose in his chest.
He’s safe. Orion Pax is safe and it’s only a matter of hours until they reunite.
D-16 can’t appreciate the novelty of the surface, the picture of Pax playing in a loop in his mind. He looks out the window, watching the ever shifting plains and hills fly by, but he doesn’t really see any of them. He’s aware that there’s a discussion going on among the others, something about the organic contamination and dynadeer, but he doesn’t even bother to save it into temporary storage so he can skim through it later. He’s almost certain Megaton can guess his mood right and will fill him in on anything important later anyway.
He only comes alive when Sentry’s voice crackles over the internal comm, in her usual professional cadence. “We are approaching Nova Cronum station. If you are not part of the pickup group, please stay seated, we will continue to Polyhex in 15 kliks.”
He flies out of his seat and is standing in front of the door before the train even starts to slow. He feels, vaguely, when the others come to stand behind him, Megaton’s and Optimus’ fields mingled together and enveloping him in fondness, but his world is narrowed down to the sliver of the outside he can see through the glass panel of the door and his vents stall when Pax comes into view, grinning just like he was grinning at the camera.
The nanoklik the door opens he is out there, crashing into Pax without even trying to slow his momentum, heedless that it sends both of them tumbling into the organic growths behind the platform. All that matters are his arms around Pax, the scuffed red and blue plating under his hands, Pax’s laughter in his audials, the relief as his spark reaches out and the half-formed bond reconnects, souls finding resonance with each other.
“I missed you too, buddy,” Pax murmurs, returning the hug when the shock wears off, his fingers fitting just right into the grooves on D-16’s back. “I missed you a lot.”
They hold each other like that for what feels like an eternity, the pain and anxiety of the last weeks ebbs away —there are voices behind them, Rung and Megaton and Optimus, but they are unimportant, reduced to white noise outside of this bubble of joy— and D-16 has to bury his face in Orion’s shoulder to prevent himself from kissing his idiot for inflicting all of that on him.
“I’m so mad at you,” he says into the red plating, tightening his embrace until Orion groans and tries to fruitlessly push him away; Orion has never been quite as strong as D-16. He has to hold tight because if he let go, it’d be a tossup if he would kiss Pax or punch him. “You stupid glitch. Never do anything like this ever again, you hear?!”
“I’m sorry, Dee.” Orion pushes him more firmly until D-16 relents and they both sit up, face to face. “I had a lot of time to think in the hospital. It made me realize that if we both raced like I wanted us to, then you would have been right behind me —I lived just fine like always, but you would have been caught in that explosion, you could have died — and I just couldn’t bring myself to endanger you like that. I know you said it many times before, but I finally got it, I realized that you are too precious to me and I can’t keep dragging you into danger.” He smiles, like that makes it all right, like that somehow justifies the hell he put D-16 through. “I can’t believe you are actually here! This is amazing! If this pans out, and I can feel it in my gut that it will, then this is it! One last adventure and we can return to Iacon victorious and present Sentinel Prime with—”
The rest of Orion’s words blur into static, the joy of reunion dissolving like a popped bubble and the pain returns in full force. Nothing changed, nothing at all. D-16 swallows down the urge to weep and in the pit of his stomach it turns into bitter rage; his fist shoots out before he can consciously think about what he’s doing. Pax’s surprise when he’s punched in the jaw is almost enough to soothe his anger; almost.
“That was never the point! Have you— did you pay any attention to what we told you at all?!” D-16 is up on his feet and he looks down at Orion still on the ground, shellshocked and one hand cradling his aching jaw. “It was never about you putting me in danger —I swear to Primus I worry less when I’m already there to save your aft when something inevitably goes wrong like it always does— but about you putting yourself needlessly in danger, and for what?!” He gestures at the decrepit station and the untamed wilderness around them, pressing on before Orion could form an answer. “You always run off with no plan or foresight or preparation, flying blind through the first plan of action that has popped into your head, and each time it’s a high stakes gamble with barely any chance to win and everything to lose!”
“But the Matrix—”
“The Matrix doesn’t matter! Your life matters —it matters to me and you left me behind with no way to know if you lived or died and no way to help you if you needed it— and you risk it each and every time without even considering that there might be another way!” D-16’s vents are cycling rapidly, his shoulders heaving, and Pax is still staring at him with wide eyes, uncomprehending.
It tears a sad, hiccuping laugh out of D-16. “You still don’t get it, do you? Every time you run off on a new whim, chasing after whatever daydream caught your fancy that day, it’s a gamble waiting to be lost and the worry that I wouldn’t be able to prevent it is killing me, Pax! What do you think will happen to me if you die in a stupid way, out in the middle of fragging nowhere, because you just had to try that gamble again? There is only one of you, Pax. Only one and it’s going to kill me when you die, because you are the most important person in my entire life! Why is this so difficult to understand?!” He swipes a hand over his face when he feels something on his cheek and oh, he couldn’t avoid crying after all.
It doesn’t matter. All that matters is Orion Pax, rendered speechless and still looking lost; Orion is looking at him like D-16 has become a stranger in these past few weeks, incomprehensible and foreign.
“I had no idea you felt like that, Dee,” Orion says, slowly climbing to his feet. He tries to smile, but it falls short, turning into a grimace. “But you must see it too that this is bigger than either of us. It’s the future of Cybertron! What else could be worth the risk if not the Matrix?” Pax pulls himself to his full height, finally fixes his smile and offers D-16 a hand. “It will be worth it! I can feel it.”
There is a chorus of sounds from the direction of the station. A soft, disappointed sigh that sounds like Rung. “For frag’s sake…” coming from Elita, exasperated. “Not the sharpest scalpel in the toolkit, is he?” from Knock Out, his distaste clear in his choice of glyphs. “Thank Primus you were never this stupidly oblivious,” from Megaton, directed under his breath at Optimus, who answers, “Oh, I was. I just hid it better.”
The unanimous support helps soothe the sting a little, but D-16 still has had enough. He throws his hands up with a wordless shout and stomps away; he hears Orion call out to him, but he ignores it. He needs time to himself to cool off and maybe have a good cry in peace.
There are days when he hates Orion Pax so fragging much.
Notes:
For fuck's sake, Orion.
Chapter 25
Notes:
Only did a cursory proofreading on this one, so I might come back and do some minor editing when I have a bit more time and energy. If you spot any egregious typos or formatting errors, please let me know and make my life easier.
Chapter Text
D-16 ends up curled up in the shadow of a building on the edge of the ruins, so far that he couldn’t even see the station anymore. He doesn’t like crying, but he lets his tears flow freely for a while; it leaves his head feeling blissfully empty, like all his thoughts have been washed away.
He’s not sure how much time has passed before someone comes for him; he can’t hide his disappointment when he senses movement and looks up to see Rung instead of Orion.
“Your friend wanted to come after you right away,” Rung says mildly, reading his expression. “But Elita-1 is still yelling at him.”
D-16 feels his lips curl into a small smile, despite still feeling thoroughly wretched. That sounds like Elita all right. “She has a low tolerance for fools.” He glances in the direction of the station. “Do we have to go back already?”
Rung smiles and sits down on a bit of rubble, just close enough that he’s clearly sitting with D-16, but not so close as to make it feel like he’s intruding on his personal space. D-16 has noticed that about the therapist even when they first met; for someone so unassuming and hapless looking, Rung was not beyond applying a bit of carefully calculated manipulation. “Not unless you want to.”
They end up sitting there for a while longer, until D-16’s overtaxed personality module finally cools down. He doesn’t feel quite ready to go and face Pax again, however, so he says, “Rung?”
“Yes?”
“How’s the newspark?” Due to his glasses, Rung’s expression isn’t the easiest to read, but D-16 knows him well enough to recognize his surprise. “Knock Out gossips.”
“I see.” Rung looks off to the distance for a moment. “ Do you want me to tell you about him?”
D-16 considers it for a klik. “Yeah. You could tell me on the way back to the others?”
“Of course! This way; they have moved to the camp I shared with Orion during the rainfall.” He reaches out and helps D-16 up. When they are standing D-16 is about a head shorter than Rung; it puts his eyeline in level with the opaque glass covering the space in Rung’s chest where the mech’s t-cog would be, if he had one.
D-16 hasn’t pried —it’s none of his business, after all— but in a bid to establish trust and pique the interest of young, traumatized D-16, Rung has admitted that he ‘lost’ his t-cog and most of his memories sometime around the start of the war. He was found in one of the holy sites near the Well of the Allspark, completely alone, cogless, lacking memories and any personal identification except for his name and a halfway-erased serial number that denoted him as part of the priest caste. It’s almost like his very existence was partially erased; he forgot and became forgettable, likely as a result of a failed divine ritual. Not seeing much of a future as a cogless, amnesiac priest, Rung has left the clergy and dedicated himself to psychology instead, although the aftereffects of his incident are slow to wane.
D-16 stops mid-step, a thought occurring. “Rung.”
“Yes?”
“No, I mean. Rung. I remember your name. Optimus had to remind me yesterday, but I have not forgotten it again.”
“Oh.” Rung pauses too, just for a moment. “I suppose it was only a matter of time now that it wore off completely.” He turns and smiles at D-16. “I’m glad you are the first one to remember me in full.” D-16 can’t help but return his smile. “Do you still want to hear about the newspark?”
“Sure.”
“He was quite fine when I left, but he was quite distressed when he first came online. He chose the name ‘Tarn’, I believe. Unless something unexpected happened since I left them, he should still be with Damus —ah, the young priest overseeing the newsparks— back at the hotspot.” He gestures towards the horizon, in the direction of the hotspot. “I believe he might find a calling in the clergy; he came online when he heard Damus sing, before his frame even fully finished forming.”
“That can happen?”
“Very rarely, yes. It often leads to unfortunate glitches, however. We had to coax Tarn to give up his cog, because he was compulsively transforming, so much so that his body was breaking apart from the strain.” D-16 shudders. That means the bot probably won’t ever get his t-cog back. Even when someone earned the rare privilege for one of the spare cogs, the medics sometimes vetoed the promotion anyway.
“Is he going to be alright?”
“I believe so, but Director Pharma promised to come and check on him.” Rung sighs. “If the Lord Prime doesn’t require him for anything else, that is.”
D-16 thinks back on Sentinel who has spent the better part of the last month laid out for one reason or another. “I think Barricade and Airachnid will sit on him if he tries to get out of berth.”
Rung hides a chuckle behind his hand. “Yes, they work quite tirelessly to take care of him when he forgets to take care of himself.”
D-16 has a suspicion, but he decides to ask anyway. “Do you know Sentinel well?”
“I would hope so. I have been his therapist for the last 3000 years or so.” He gives D-16 a look. “I’m taking patient confidentiality very seriously, so I would rather not gossip about the Lord Prime.”
“No gossip here! You know I’m not the gossiping type.” That does confirm D-16’s suspicion that Rung is definitely in on the secret that Sentinel is not a Prime. “He is quite different in private than in public, isn’t he? Much less artificial."
“Indeed. Although you could argue that most people are.” Rung looks at him for a long klik and D-16 gets the impression that he’s being measured. “You have gone quite far if you have spent time with Sentinel in private.”
“No, nothing of the sort. I just got dragged along with Optimus and Megaton. They work with Sentinel.” It’s mostly true; true enough that he doesn’t feel guilty for downplaying his presence. “And you spent the rainstorm camping with Pax.”
“Yes, more or less. There is an old shrine nearby where one can see the moons cross the night sky. I often go there to feel close to Primus when I’m on the surface.” D-16 bites his tongue; they don’t know for sure if their god is truly gone for good or not, so he can’t bring himself to ruin this for Rung. “I was on the way to the station when Damus called me about the rain. Then I spotted Orion Pax leaving the ruins, dashed after him to warn him that there’s a storm coming and we ended up staying together until you arrived.”
“So. About what he said when I— what do you think I can say that would fix this?”
“Hmm…” Rung slows down, tilts his head up and watches the clouds float by as he thinks. “I don’t have an easy answer for that. I have talked quite a bit with Orion this last week, but I have not realized that the situation was this extreme. He has played down quite severely the danger he puts himself in; or, alternatively, has not realized that he is facing deathly peril.”
D-16 huffs. “Come now. He’s not an idiot. The statistics speak for themselves. If I wasn’t there to intervene every time, there is a 87.1715% chance that he would have already gotten himself scrapped.”
Rung brightens up all of a sudden. “Ah, there it is. You are always there to save him, correct? You have dedicated a few processes or even a subsystem to him, so you can go about your daily matters and only show up to save him when he needs it, a knight in shining armor showing up when he most needs you.”
“Yes? We have been friends for more than 40 cycles; I had his escapades averaged into a predictable format ages ago. ”
“And you can do so because you have some kind of tactical hardware, if I can hazard a guess?”
“Megaton seems to think so. I, uh. I also have weapon contacts, apparently.”
Rung just nods along, not bothered by the fact that if not for his lack of t-cog, D-16 would have been born a warrior. “And you have never directly told any of this to Orion Pax, right?”
“Why would I have— it was obvious!”
“Not to Orion Pax it was not!” Rung is elated, having cracked this mystery, although D-16 can’t see yet what he’s getting at. “Orion Pax doesn’t have any tactical hardware. Imagine how this looks from his perspective: every time he sets out on one of his adventures, he can only guess how dangerous it’s going to be. He can’t evaluate the risk with the same accuracy as you do, the fact that you always come to his aid gives him a skewed sense of safety —he believes himself to be extraordinarily lucky, because you have protected him from the worst consequences when he miscalculates— and the promise of a high reward tempts him into taking the risk even when he does realize that the plan is dangerous.”
The connection is crystal clear when it's laid out like this in front of him and D-16 groans, appalled that he hasn't thought about it before. Not that he would have considered this angle; he never thought his ability to plan ahead and analyze situations was anything special. He can't imagine how stressful life has to be without the ability to evaluate a scenario before committing to it.
He presses the heels of his hands over his eyes. “This is such a damn mess…”
“It is.” Rung pats his shoulder gently. “But it is far from unsalvageable. You are a resourceful young mech; I trust that you figure something out, but if you need help, I’ll be there with you.”
The place Rung and Orion used as shelter is the upper floor of a warehouse; safe from the elements and any creatures roaming the surface both. The argument is still ongoing as they approach; D-16 can hear Optimus’ voice, gently but firmly disapproving, as they climb the ladder up. “Even if your goal is noble, to pursue it without paying any heed to the ramifications it has for the people around you is also a form of selfishness, all the more painful for its insidiousness.”
“Selfishness? I’m sorry, I’m not sure how much Dee has told you about me, but I don’t take kindly to being called selfish!”
“I was very much like you in my youth.” D-16 stops behind a heavy crate twice as tall as he is and peers into the room; they are standing in a loose circle around a battery-powered heating unit, Optimus’ face set in a deep sorrow. “I was always drawn to great feats of virtue, hoping that one day I could make a change big enough that it would set everything right in one fell swoop. As a high ranking enforcer, I had insight into matters that others did not, and feared to lose my position to someone who might be less inclined to act with the good of the people in mind.”
D-16 shifts a little to catch a glimpse of Orion’s face; the bot appears doubtful, but he is listening for now.
“One day, Megaton and his more openly outspoken friends were erroneously connected to an attack on the Matrix Bearer. I knew them to be innocent and resourceful and the mechs leading the investigation to be incompetent, so I held my tongue to avoid compromising my own position. I had a lead on the true culprit and pursuing them felt like the greater good than sending a warning to a group of bots who would be fine like always. It would not be the first or the last time they would be investigated in such a manner; what difference would my warning have made? How wrong I was.” He takes a deep, fortifying breath. “Anacrusis was a minicon carrier, the proprietress of a quiet little bar by the river in Kaon. A gentle and nurturing presence in the lives of mechs who had very little joy to find otherwise — miners and other manual laborers, much like yourselves. She was not involved in any outspoken action or radical movement, but she was a friend and mentor to many in Megaton’s group. When the investigators couldn’t find the radicals they sought, they took her instead. They were incompetent investigators and even worse interrogators, but incompetence kills just as surely as malice. Her minicons —bonded younglings struck from her very spark— were mistaken for remote controlled drones, beloved tools like a miner’s favorite pickaxe, and destroyed during the interrogation. Not long after she faded from grief as well.”
D-16 shudders. Even without Optimus’ regret and sorrow blanketing the room in a heavy veil, he can easily imagine the agony that would be. He remembers what happened to Sunstreaker; the mech was split-spark twins with Sideswipe, who died when one of the tunnels collapsed much sooner than anticipated. Sunny was a shadow of his former self for cycles, refusing fuel and rest until he worked himself into early obsoletion in less than a dozen cycles. He appeared relieved when the medics offered to take him offline to spare him any further pain.
“That is nothing like what I do,” Orion insists, but he shifts in place uncomfortably. “The only person I put in danger is myself! The two situations are nothing alike!”
“They are, Pax.” D-16 steps into the circle, seeing a good opening to interject. “You don’t see how dangerous the things you get involved in are. Just because nobody died or got injured before, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen next time. Pits, when we were trying to find out where that enforcer disappeared you to, he almost killed Prowl and would have killed Elita-1 and myself as well to cover his tracks if we were on our own!”
Orion spins around to stare at him in disbelief and —is that betrayal? Hurt?? For frag’s sake, Pax.
“Why were you looking for me? I was fine! I would have been fine, like always! You should not have put yourself in danger for my sake, you don’t have my luck!”
D-16 sighs and can hear it echoed by many others around the room. “First of all: of fragging course we went looking for you! You are our friend and we had missed you.” To prevent his temper from rising and sidetracking his thoughts, D-16 takes a step forward and smacks Orion over the head. It lands with a very satisfying clang. “Secondly: you are not as lucky as you think you are. Think back on all the times your life was in danger and I was there to save your stupid aftplate. Do you think that’s a coincidence, that I just happen to be there at the right place at the right time?”
“Yes?”
“No! I have your stupid escapades down to a formula; every time you sneak off to the archives, I wait an hour and a half and then go looking for you because on average that’s how long it takes for you to break in and then get so engrossed in your reading that you trip over security! There is nothing accidental about it!” D-16 cycles his vents and tries to ignore the way everyone is staring at him. “At any given time, I have 5 plans ready to go if I have to distract the overseer from something you’ve done, 3 in case you say something monumentally stupid that would get you demoted or thrown in jail and 3 more if you somehow incapacitate yourself enough that you are late or can’t show up to work at all! Primus knows if I didn’t have to dedicate this much processing power to keeping you safe, then I might have triangulated where the frag the Matrix is just to keep my brain occupied!”
It feels good to finally have this out in the open. It hurts a little that Pax has been so willfully blind about what D-16 has done for him —what he’s capable of— that he chalked this all up to luck, but maybe now that he knows, he will start to appreciate him more. To see D-16 as he is.
Orion looks to the others, at a loss for words. “Wait, is that— is that possible? Can a mech even do that?”
“Of course,” Knock Out answers with a dramatic shrug. “Pretty normal for a higher tier military frame to have a tactical component. You can see it on his eyes too; he’s always been in analytics mode every time I met him.” He jabs a thumb towards Megaton. “And unless the red is a weird fashion statement, the big guy here is in permanent combat mode.”
D-16 glances at Megaton’s red eyes; he’s almost certain the mech’s eyes don’t work the same as theirs, but it doesn’t really matter as such. He can see Orion glance helplessly between all of them, trying to reevaluate what he knows of the world, no doubt.
“Okay, so maybe it wasn’t all luck, but if I don’t take risks then you guys never will! Someone has to take the initiative!” He turns towards Elita-1, the last one here who hasn’t openly voiced anything against him yet. “Remember that vein in sector A27-1007? We lost out on it because geoanalytics took too long to get back to you and another mining crew called dibs! If we do everything according to protocol, we let the greatest opportunities of our lives pass us by!”
“True, we did lose out on the vein,” Elita admits begrudgingly. “Except they got two very good hauls out of it and then the entire operation exploded. It’s the reason why Swindle got sent down to sublevel 50 to sort scrap for the rest of his life: because he forged a report that the vein was stable and it got half of his crew killed. Protocol is there for a reason, Pax!”
Orion takes a step back, eyes wide. “Is that true? I— I didn’t know.”
“It is true, Pax. You don’t read the miner message boards, so you missed the announcement, but I was at the wake.” D-16 didn’t personally know any of the mechs in that crew, but that didn’t matter. He was a miner through and through and miners held a wake when their fellows died beneath the crust. It was part of the culture.
“We went too,” Knock Out says with a nod and a slight grimace. “Breaky started in that crew before Onslaught tempted him away to a more careful group. They all knew that it was risky —that’s one thing you can’t blame on Swindle; he always told his mechs that they were taking big risks for rich rewards— but knowing the risk doesn’t matter if you die for it anyway.”
Orion is left standing in the middle of the circle, small and alone and dejected. D-16 wants nothing more than to go and hug him, to reassure him until his cheer and optimism returns, but this needs to happen. Orion can’t keep drifting through life, from one dangerous scheme to another, because one day D-16 will be just a klik too late and then— he can’t even bear to think it. “What am I supposed to do, then? I get you guys, —I think I do, at least— but this is important too! Should I just give it all up, betray my values and dreams and drudge away forever without ever trying to make a difference, because that’s safer?”
“How about this,” Optimus says, gesturing broadly at everyone present. “You have your friends here —and us too— who have come all this way to get you out of trouble and help you. Who can see things from perspectives that you can’t and could offer solutions that come with a significantly lower chance of death and mayhem. You can’t do this alone, so start by talking to the people you can rely on so you can do it together. They are all very sensible bots, so perhaps they won’t set out with you on a mad dash through the surface to retrieve the Matrix of Leadership based on nothing but an old, damaged emergency message, but millennia of personal experience has taught me that achievable goals with a reasonable risk will take you much further on the long run.”
D-16 feels a touch of warmth that he is the first one Orion looks at for support and offers his friend a smile. “We’ve got your back, Pax. We always will. You just gotta talk to us first, okay?”
It takes a few impossibly long nanokliks, but eventually Orion returns his smile. “Okay. I trust you, Dee.”
Chapter 26
Notes:
It's 4 am and I really should be sleeping, but this chapter was eating my brain so much that I couldn't fall asleep, so... Here, have fun. I'll come back and proofread it/finish answering comments once I manage to catch some rest.
Chapter Text
The atmosphere improves by leaps and bounds once the argument is over. D-16 sits next to Pax near the heating unit, their shoulders brushing every once in a while while Orion tells them everything that has happened to them since they have last seen each other. Aside from the kidnapping and getting slightly burned by the acid rain —Knock Out immediately dragged him off to the side to examine him as soon as Orion said it, but Rung had done an excellent job treating him with an emergency medkit, so the burns aren’t even visible anymore— it was a really uneventful time.
When Pax is done, it’s D-16’s turn to speak and the mood plummets again as he fills Pax and the others in on everything that happened to him, because they each have been present for different parts of the story. He glances up at Megaton and Optimus for permission before he divulges what happened with Primus, but after Optimus gives him a somber nod he finds himself retelling the whole harrowing tale from beginning to end.
A somber silence settles on the group while everybody takes their time to process the revelations.
“So many things have happened to you,” Orion says, his voice full of sympathy. “I'm sorry that I wasn't there with you, Dee.”
But I wasn't alone, D-16 wants to say, but the words get stuck in his throat. He glances over at Optimus and Megaton, but they are looking troubled as well.
“Optimus, a word.” Megaton nods to the others and pats D-16’s shoulder as he leads his Conjunx away. D-16 isn't sure what they could possibly talk about that can't be discussed over their silent comms or through the Conjunx bond, but it could just be that they don't want to discuss things with the cogless watching. It's always a little awkward to see a conversation happen that can't be heard by anybody else present; doubly so if it's an argument.
“Having it all summed up like that, it really just struck me how many harrowing things have happened to us these past couple of weeks,” Elita says.
“It wasn't all bad!” D-16 protests. He thinks of the time he spent with Megaton and Optimus; getting to play cards with Airachnid and Barricade; getting to meet Sentinel, so much nicer in person than he ever imagined him to be; the new friends he has made, all the things that he skipped over in his retelling because they were only meaningful for him, even if they were all the more precious for it. “Energon flows again, at least in Iacon, and there will be so many more opportunities opening up for us nocogs once Polyhex is ready for resettlement! We found out about some stuff that wasn't great, but if you think about it, none of that is new. The things that have actually happened were mostly good.”
The others are reluctant to accept his reasoning, but he knows he's right. Sentinel has never been a proper Prime and Primus has been absent all along. These were true all their lives, they just didn't know about them.
“Say, is this area marked for resettlement too?” Knock Out asks, indicating one of the big storage containers with a nod. “I recognize that emblem with the sword; it's Sentinel’s personal sigil.”
Now that the medic brought it to his attention, D-16 can see it too. There is a faded emblem on the side of the container: an elegant, downward pointing sword, just like the engraving on Sentinel’s headcrest. “I don’t think so? I don’t think there are plans to resettle any of the surface areas yet.”
“Ah, I can see the misunderstanding,” Rung says, unfolding from his depressed slump and walking to the container. He rests a hand against the emblem, tracing the edge of the sword absently. “These are from the Damocles. Sentinel adopted the sigil, because he also bears the same marking, but based on the wear and tear these have been here long before the end of the war.”
“Damocles?” D-16 rifles through his database until he finds when he has heard that name before. “The starship?”
“Have you heard about it?”
“Only in passing.” From the corner of his eye, D-16 can see Megaton and Optimus quietly return. “The Constructicons mentioned that it was an unusual color; very memorable.”
“Damocles is a curious name for a ship,” Megaton notes. “Very ominous.”
“Indeed it was. The ship was a gift to commander Cyclonus from Megatronus Prime and it was the commander who chose the name. He was quite fond of myths and found the implications in that particular tale humbling.”
“A myth?” Elita-1 perks up, then immediately crosses her arms and averts her eyes when they glance at her. “What are you looking at? I have hobbies too!” Her eyes flash briefly in embarrassment. “There are not a lot of myths available on the net and the archives haven’t opened to the public yet.”
The old bots exchange a look.
“Showing interest in old mythology is a wonderful pursuit,” Optimus says with a warm smile. “I have quite some fondness for it myself. Rung, if you would be so kind?”
“Of course. It’s not a long tale.” Rung rejoins them, sitting down on a smaller crate. “According to the story, Damocles was the first Winglord of Vos, a bot who was revered for possessing wisdom on par with the Primes themselves. During a gathering, one of his pupils —one of the young seekers competing to become his heir— tried to garner favor by flattering the Winglord, praising his enduring power and wisdom and how fortunate he must feel to be surrounded by the fruits of his leadership, having transformed Vos into a magnificent jewel that could rival even shining Iacon. Damocles listened to his pupil’s words and made him an offer: let them swap places for the rest of the gathering, so the young seeker could experience what it felt like to be in his position.
The youth agreed eagerly, thinking that it was a sign that he was being considered as heir, but before he could sit in the Winglord’s seat, Damocles took his sword —the divine relic bestowed upon him by Primus himself, the symbol of his right to rule— and hang it above the throne with a nanofiber thread that was so thin as to be invisible to the eye. The youth had to sit there, beneath the point of that divine blade, until the end of the evening; this was the Winglord’s way to teach him about the burdens and anxieties of leadership. From this tale, the Sword of Damocles symbolizes the ever looming peril and judgment faced by those in positions of power.”
D-16 looks back at the storage container again; although faded by the cycles, the image of the sword is crisp and clear, etched into the metal. What a strange symbol for Sentinel to wear; perhaps he too thought it was humbling.
“Thank you for sharing. I admit that is not quite how I remembered the myth, but it has been a long time since I have last heard it told,” Optimus says with a laugh. “That is the nature of myths, I suppose. Over time and through many retellings, they change shape and become something new.”
“That is true indeed. I do find myself wondering, however…” Rung trails off, tapping his fingers against the side of the crate as he thinks. “The Damocles was shot down in battle, covering the retreat of the Nemesis from the siege of Praxus. That’s on the other side of the continent. Why are these containers here, then?”
“There is an easy way to find out.” Megaton stretches his struts and walks over to the container, easily prying the weakened doors open.
D-16 doesn’t know what he expected —some kind of cargo, maybe old spare parts— but what fills the storage container is, “...are those somebody’s personal belongings?”
Stacks and stacks of datapads, old tins of polish, colorful crystals, faded polishing cloths; the knicknacks of somebody’s life piled haphazardly into storage compartments.
“Oh,” Rung says, his easy smile fading away as he peers into the container. “Oh, now I know what this is.” He gingerly picks through the trinkets until he finds a handheld holoprojector. When he flicks it on, it projects an image of the crew posing on the bridge. Cyclonus, as captain, stands in the middle, but there is only one other face D-16 recognizes: Minimus Ambus smiles awkwardly at the camera, sitting on the shoulder of his Magnus armor. “You might know that commander Cyclonus and most of his mechs were lost in action, presumed dead after the battle of Nyon.”
Even if someone was a sheltered newspark who knew nothing else about the war, they have heard about the fall of Nyon. It was the most devastating attack in the first half of the war: the Quintessons managed to sneak an explosive underneath Nyon, detonating the main generator. The ceiling over the city caved in from the force of the explosion and those who didn’t die immediately from being crushed by the falling planetary crust then melted alive in the molten hell of the burning city. Of the 600000 mechs trapped in Nyon at the time, unable to evacuate in time, only a few dozen survived.
“Without enough people left in the crew to operate a starship, the Damocles was handed over to a new owner and the belongings of the deceased were…” Rung almost drops the projector when it lets out a loud crackle, the static picture flickering into motion. A recording rather than a still image, but the old technology needed time to finish loading the video.
“Captain, I advise that you indulge him,” Minimus Ambus says, looking fondly at the red and orange bot practically vibrating out of his plating next to Cyclonus. “You know he will not let the matter rest until you do.”
“Come on, Cyclonus! It will be good for crew morale! You know it will.”
Cyclonus crosses his arms sternly, but it has very little effect on the mech. “Very well, Hot Rod. One silly picture, but after that we will do a proper crew photo.”
Hot Rod does a triumphant little jump; he even punches the air. “Hell yeah! Hey, ‘Cles, are you recording this?”
“Affirmative.” D-16 shudders at the sound of the ship’s AI. It uses an old fashioned vocal processor; sparkless, emotionless, entirely unnatural. “Every recording from the internal cameras is saved into deep storage for later review.”
“You heard the mech, everybody.” Cyclonus turns to his crewmembers. “Let’s look ‘fierce and cool’ so Hot Rod will let us proceed with the agenda.”
He unsheathes his sword —a one of a kind gift from Solus Prime, a double-bladed weapon that can retract or extend each side as needed— and brandishes the transforming blade until both edges are fully extended. “On the count of three. One… two… three!”
That’s the moment where the recording stops; about fifty mechs, heroes of their time, smiling and striking a pose to indulge a young crew member. A snapshot of happiness from millennia past, recorded for eternity, although each and every one of them is long gone now.
For some reason, D-16’s throat feels tight when he thinks about it.
At least he’s not the only one affected. Next to him Orion reaches out and touches the wall where Hot Rod’s smile is projected. “They look happy,” he says wistfully.
They return to the main area in a somber mood.
“I will talk to Sentinel. It’s a shame for the belongings of these mechs to be left here to be forgotten,” Rung says, the projector still clasped in his hands. “I have a feeling there might be people left in Iacon who had known these mechs who will be happy to see some of their items preserved.”
That makes D-16 feel a little better. Yes, the mementos of these heroes should be back in Iacon — back with people who cared for them and lacking that, where others might learn about them through these items.
He feels a wave of anxiety brush against him when Optimus sits down next to him. He glances up at the big bot. “Optimus?”
Optimus averts his eyes, clearly troubled by something. Nearby Megaton clears his throat. “We agreed that we will tell them. Don’t change your mind now.”
D-16 looks at the others but they all look puzzled, even Rung. “What’s going on?”
Optimus takes a deep vent, then another, before he starts speaking. “I wish we could tell you under different circumstances, but we decided that it’s best that you know the truth. The fight that killed the Primes did not lead to the defeat of the Quintessons.” That one sentence is enough to send D-16’s tactical hardware into overdrive; it starts demanding extra resources to calculate more efficiently, almost in a panic, and he rubs a hand against his forehead, the resource drain manifesting in a headache.
“Dee? Buddy, are you alright?”
The care is appreciated, it really is, but right now Orion grabbing onto him and sounding worried is not helping him keep a clear head. D-16 squeezes his eyes closed and tries to wrest back some control; yes, he could probably figure out how or why that happened, but Optimus is right here and he will give them extra information that will make the calculation much less draining… “I’m fine, Pax.”
There’s a tap on the top of his head and when he looks up, Megaton is holding out a cup of his self-processed high grade for him. “Here. It’s best not to fight your hardware unless you have medic-grade overrides.”
Orion, bless his spark, glances at the glowing pink high grade —an almost full cup this time, not just a taste— and tries to draw D-16 away. “I don’t know where you are from, but here we don’t treat headaches with high grade.”
“It’s fine, Pax. I trust his judgment on this.” When D-16 tries to take the energon despite his friend’s worries, Orion almost knocks the cup out of his hand when he turns to the others for help.
“Back me up on this! Knock Out, you are a medic. This can’t be right.”
To D-16’s relief, Knock Out simply shrugs. “I would suggest knocking it back quickly —one big jolt of energy to shock his analytics hardware back into behaving— but giving misbehaving extra components some energy so they stop draining the main systems is the recommended course of action here.” He pops open the subspace compartment on his arm where the cogless usually keep their emergency rations and produces a softly glowing lilac orb; engex-infused candy. “I’m partial to these, personally. When I started working in the mines, I had a constant migraine because my medical scanner kept turning on every time one of you dusty lugnuts got a scrape or twisted a joint. It took me a few cycles to get used to it.” His expression softens. “That’s how I met Breaky. He saw that I was suffering and started making these candies for me, like the big softies he is.”
Elita nods too. “I get that the big bots don’t have the most trustworthy faces” —next to D-16 Optimus startles, looking stricken like Elita punched him— “but they don’t mean harm to D-16.”
Thus placated, Orion allows D-16 to take the energon, but he is still watching him with barely hidden anxiety. D-16 decides to follow Knock Out’s advice and knock the cup back just to get over it quickly so Pax can stop worrying sooner.
The relief is instantaneous. He makes a mental note to ask Pax why the high grade made him so worried later, but for now Optimus’ information takes priority. “Apologies. You were saying?”
“The Quintessons are not gone. In fact, they still pose a significant threat. After the death of the Primes, the high guard’s chances of a decisive victory plummeted to nothing, so Sentinel bargained for a ceasefire so they would not wipe the remaining survivors out.”
“Bargained with what? What could the Quintessons even want from us?” D-16’s mind is running a megamile a minute, trying to puzzle out what Sentinel could have offered to the Quintessons in exchange for their lives. The ‘Prime’ himself and his analytical hardware could be used as a bargain chip, of course —in fact, it suddenly puts Sentinel’s recent injuries in a much different light if he regularly gets connected to some revolting semi-organic computer to do ongoing calculations for the aliens— but that couldn’t possibly have been enough…
Elita-1 is the first to realize the answer that has been staring them all in the face. “Energon! Quintesson technology also runs off a kind of energon. They take our fuel, taint it and use it for their ships.”
Megaton confirms it with a grave nod. “Yes. Roughly 40% of the energon produced by the Iacon mine is paid to the Quintessons as tribute.”
D-16 feels something dark bubble up in his tank. It shouldn’t change anything, not really, because the energon they mined still went towards their survival, but something about giving it to their enemies is not sitting right with him.
“That is not all, however.” Megaton is less visibly anxious than Optimus, but there is a tension in his frame and he keeps toying with the loose end of his neural connector. “The Quintessons reproduce at a much slower rate than us Cybertronians, which made them fear that Sentinel would construct an army before they could mount a defense and overwhelm them. So they have made stipulations about what kind of newsparks are allowed to come online during the ceasefire.”
A horrible truth is starting to form in D-16’s mind. He doesn’t want to believe it, but it is the only solution that makes any sense.
“But— how?” Orion asks, confused and unable to see the connections yet. “You can’t influence what frame a newspark will take! It’s all down to the spark and the—”
D-16 can see it when Orion arrives at the same conclusion as him, his eyes going wide with shock.
Even if he wants to deny it, he can see the truth written clearly in the way Optimus can’t meet his eyes or the way Rung hangs his head, the very picture of guilt.
“I was part of the inspiration, I’m sorry to say,” Rung says, placing a hand on the glass over his empty cog slot. “Rossum’s Trinity dictates that a spark won’t bring a frame to life unless it has access to a brain module, a personality module and a t-cog, but through trial and error it was discovered that once we come alive, we are much more flexible than we ever imagined. The brain module can be replaced and expanded; the personality module can be suppressed… and the t-cog can be removed without significant impact on a newspark’s health if the procedure is performed before the bot comes online for the first time.”
With a rattling sigh he takes off his glasses, for the first time since D-16 has met him. He can’t project his emotions like Megaton or Optimus, but his sorrow and regret are so clear in his eyes that D-16 can feel them like they are his own all the same, mixed with a strange sense of determination. “I can’t beg for your forgiveness, but please, believe me when I say: I was there when the decision was made. We have debated day and night for weeks before coming to this solution. This compromise, cruel it may be, is the only path left to us that would let you all live. And I cannot speak for Sentinel, but having lived the horror of our war from beginning to end, I would do anything —anything at all in my power— if it meant that I didn’t have to watch another one of Primus’ children die.”
Chapter Text
D-16 feels numb, his hud crowding with error messages. There is a shift in him, something snapping into place that he never realized was out of alignment before and the next thing he knows he’s standing in front of Megaton, Orion’s alarmed call ringing in his audials. He can’t grab and shake a mech so much bigger and stronger than him, not like he wants to, but when he grasps the neural connector and yanks on it hard, Megaton makes a low grunt, which is good enough for now. “How long have you known?” he demands, voice so rough that he can barely recognize it as his own. “How long have you known that Sentinel has been mutilating us?!”
“We only learned about it last week.” There’s a red light reflected off Megaton’s shining silver plating that’s a slightly different shade than his biolights. It takes D-16 an infinitely long nanoklik to realize he’s seeing the reflection of his own eyes. “There wasn’t a good time to tell when we were in the city. It would not have been safe.”
D-16 tightens his grip, but just for a moment. His analytical subroutine concurs; it cools some of his animosity towards Megaton and Optimus.
He rounds on Rung next; this is a much more painful betrayal, because he has known —and trusted— the orange mech much, much longer. “But you have known it all along.”
“Yes.” He can’t bring himself to shake Rung, but he stands in front of him, hands clenched into fists, plating rattling with anger.
“Who else?! Who else knows?”
“Not many,” Rung says quietly. “Sentinel, Airachnid, the senior medics. Maybe Barricade, but he’s adept at avoiding getting entangled in secrets like these.” He slumps further down. “The priests tending the hotspots. I taught them how to take remote readings of the t-cogs, so they could remove them on time from the frames that would grow too big or too powerful for the criteria of the ceasefire.”
“With what? Those handheld toys the non-medical frames call scanners?” Knock Out asks, his voice sharp with derision. “Inactive t-cogs barely emit anything yet and they are too dense to scan. You might as well look and guess which one of them will be a heavy duty frame.”
“They are advised to err on the side of caution —generously so.” Rung nods towards Elita-1 and Knock Out. “It is possible to return the cog to a cogless, but we cannot raise the dead. If the Quintessons discover a newspark that breaks the regulation when they inspect a spark harvest, they are executed on the spot, before they could even get a chance at life.”
D-16 winces and presses a hand against his head; his analytics subroutines are pinging him with approval of this course of action —the logic is solid and the brutality of the punishment is in line with what he knows of the Quintessons’ habits— but his emotions are a churning tempest of anger and pain at the the injustice of it, so fierce that he thinks he can feel the way his overworked personality module is burning in his head. They were robbed! Kept ignorant and deliberately diminished by the very mechs who should have looked out for them!
The two components are in conflict and he feels a stab of pain every time one or the other thought runs a full course, bumps up against the conclusion of the other and starts a loop again, as if that would lead to a different result.
“I hear what you are saying, I get your reasoning,” Orion says somewhere behind D-16, much closer than he should be. He presses hesitant fingers against the back of D-16’s neck, inexpertly rubs the heated metal around his closed primary medical port. It doesn’t do much —it’s certainly nothing like Megaton’s claws were the other day— but Orion’s fingers are cool and gentle and that helps a little. “But, if you really do this horrible thing to protect our lives, why did you make us work in the mines? Why put us in grave danger each and every day of our lives?”
That’s an excellent question and D-16 feels his anger suddenly supplanted by the urge to kiss Orion.
“At first it was a matter of necessity,” Rung admits with clear reluctance. “Your fuel consumption is a fraction of ours and we needed bots who were capable of doing heavy labor even on rations that would leave a transformer too enervated to even lift their tools." That much rings true, at least. D-16 has seen the old holos of the opening of the first energon mine, barely more than a hastily shored up tunnel, medics rationing energon for the miners —and them alone— from too-empty containers of cloudy energon syphoned from the dead and filtered many times over to make it at all palatable. “By the time the situation stabilized, the new social hierarchy had already settled into place and it was too late to change things. And while it’s true that a dedicated mining mech is much more efficient than a cogless, an unsuited transformer is not. The city council voted in favor of keeping the cogless, our most efficient workforce, in the mines.”
“You know this is not right,” Orion says, his voice gentle and disappointed. Rung flinches when he hears it; the softly voiced disapproval cuts him much deeper than D-16’s anger. “Deep in your spark you know it.”
“I am very much aware. Efficiency triumphed over our regard for the most vulnerable among us and this is a sin we will need to atone for.” Rung cycles his vents and squares his shoulders. “Despite this, I stand by my decision to take part in this scheme. The war has whittled us down from almost a billion strong to a sparse handful. With barely any of us left, no Primes and Primus beyond our reach, this was the only course of action left open to us and we have not made the decision lightly.”
D-16’s processes stall, his mind struggling to comprehend the scale. His anger fizzles out for lack of resources to fuel it, every jolt of energy redirected to his tactical unit that’s trying to fruitlessly recalculate everything he knew about the war and its casualties. “A billion lives, lost.” He was, of course, aware that the war had decimated their planet, but the population numbers were never made public. He assumed, perhaps naively, that they might have reached a population around a million before the Quintessons attacked, and now his brain is desperately crunching through some of his old calculations about the losses they have sustained, factoring in a grave error three orders of magnitude big.
He leans on Orion, his legs too weak to hold him up. He desperately wants to deny it, but shifting the starting population to this new variable makes the estimated losses from the battles that do have rough statistics available align much more neatly.
“No, that’s impossible,” Orion says, leading D-16 to a crate and collapsing onto it along with his friend. His eyes are flickering between a deep blue and a vivid cyan, clearly in shock. “Iacon was our capital city before the war; that means it had to be big, right? Millions big, possibly. Where would we have even put that many people?”
“Good thought, Pax!” Elita-1 says suddenly, springing to her feet with a concerningly frantic energy and starting to pace the length of the room. She is not faring any better than them; it’s not just her eyes that are flickering, but there’s a microservo in her face that seems to be twitching uncontrollably. “Let’s think about this logically, because no offense to —Rung, was it?— Rung, but it sounds to me that living through the entire war might have scrambled his processors a little. All the trauma of the war and then the— the guilt of what he has done to us; it would get to anybody, right?”
“I’m sorry to say, but I believe that Rung has the right of it,” Optimus says softly, almost apologetic that he has to shatter their hopes. “I have found a few pre-war maps of Iacon city and they depicted the capital as multiple times its current size.”
“I concur.” Megaton places a supportive hand on the shoulder of his Conjunx. “Have you never wondered why you were digging downward for energon when it once reached the surface? There have to be multiple crystallized veins in easy reach of a much safer excavation.”
“What are you implying?” D-16 asks, although he has a suspicion already. He did wonder, actually, eventually chalking up the matter to their overseers wanting to keep the mine within the bounds of Iacon city.
“I have wandered Iacon quite a lot since we arrived, including the demolition zone outside the inhabited areas and the solid wall to the east. Although it’s hard to discern with an uninitiated eye, I am a miner. I recognize an artificial rock face when I see one, rubble carefully reinforced with liquicrete.” His claws toy with the segments of his neural cable, catching on the edges with a rasping sound as he drags them up and down the length of it. “I couldn’t get a good scan to confirm if there is anything on the other side of the wall, but it would not surprise me if the ruins of the old city were still there.”
“They are,” Rung confirms in a rough voice, his expression flat and tired. “There was a period in the war when the Quintessons were targeting Iacon —targeting the Primes and the high guard— and most of the civilians fled the city. After Nyon, there was an understandable concern that Quintesson infiltrators could sneak in through the deserted streets, so Zeta Prime ordered the wall to be put up to limit the area of the city that needed to be patrolled and monitored. When the last survivors of the war sought shelter in Iacon again, there were so few of us left that we fit easily into what once used to be the tower district, the opulent home of only the richest noblemechs and their servants.”
That, too, fits much too neatly. D-16 remembers from the first few cycles of his life that there were multiple towers getting demolished to build a district of practical, low-rise buildings for the cogless and other laborers. The building where Megaton and Optimus rent their lodgings used to be a lesser palace tower that was rebuilt to accommodate more residents by sectioning the luxuriously sprawling apartments into several much more reasonably sized ones.
D-16 idly wonders that if there is so much space right there on the other side of the wall then why Sentinel decided to expand to other cities instead, but pushes that question to the back of his queue, because there are far more important things to figure out.
He’s trying to decide on what to ask next, what piece of information could help clarify the situation —he suspects that Pax is doing the same based on his expression of mild consternation— when Knock Out suddenly speaks up. “There is just one thing I want to know.”
D-16 startles when he hears the medic, Knock Out’s tone eerily calm with an ominous edge to it. He almost forgot that the mech was still there. “I don’t care about the war or the history or what came before. I’m a practical bot; not much use in dissecting the past when we should be looking towards the future. So I have only one question: what have you done with the t-cogs?”
Rung blinks owlishly at him. “I’m sorry?”
“The cogs. Surely you haven’t destroyed them.”
“No, of course not! We never intended to leave you cogless forever! They are safely stored in the Grand Temple of Primus by the Well of the Allspark, to be returned to you once the Quintessons have been dealt with once and for all.”
Okay, so there is a long-term plan behind this madness. This knowledge fills D-16 with a strange mix of relief and worry.
Knock Out’s expression, however, turns downright stormy when he hears this. “Then the waiting list was a lie all along. There was no ‘scarcity of specialized cogs’ at all, no reason to keep stringing me along all these cycles.”
“Ah.” Rung fidgets with his glasses, clearly uncomfortable. “That is not quite correct, but you are not going to like the true reason.”
Knock Out crosses his arms. “Enlighten me, then. Why was I left waiting, mocked and humiliated every day of my life, when the cogs have been safely ferreted away in that temple all along?"
It takes a long time for Rung to collect his thoughts, so long that Knock Out starts impatiently tapping his foot. “Medics are put on a separate waiting list because we have a desperate need of medical professionals; it is meant to fast track you to gaining a cog so you could do your work with more ease and more efficiently. However, as the director of Iacon Hospital and the highest ranking senior medic, the distribution of t-cogs falls under Director Pharma’s jurisdiction. You no doubt know it as well as I do that the Director, while quite the brilliant medic, is not above pettiness and bouts of jealousy. Even those who disapprove of your lackadaisical work ethic can’t deny that you are a very talented surgeon, so…” Rung spreads his arms helplessly. It doesn’t take a tactical genius to connect the dots.
There is tense silence for a few moments before Knock Out explodes in frustration.
“That overengineered, stuck-up aft!” Knock Out’s outburst is very relatable. His frame is shaking with indignant rage and his eyes are so bright there’s a danger they would burn out from the intensity of his anger. “I should have known! He has hated me since the day I came online! Argh!”
He throws up his hands and stomps away without another word.
They all stare after him for a long, awkward klik, until Orion tentatively asks, “Should we go after him? He isn’t as tough or careful as Dee, he could get hurt out there.”
D-16 is almost touched that Pax trusts him to take care of himself — the keyword being ‘almost’. Where was that trust in his abilities when Pax had run off all on his own without him??
“We should give him some time to cool off,” Optimus suggests. “He is quite resourceful in his own right, so I don’t doubt that he will stay safe. We will find him when we leave to scout out the location from your map.” He glances at Elita, who has started pacing again, and then at D-16 and Orion, huddled together on the crate. “I believe it would be for the best if we all took some time to collect ourselves.”
D-16 rubs the side of his aching head. Maybe because of the (frankly alarming) frequency at which he had to recalculate his worldview in the past few weeks, but now that his flare of anger has run its course, it only takes a few kliks to fit the newly acquired information into his understanding of the world. That’s not to say it isn’t a mildly alarming feeling. It’s almost as if he had been working on a small bit of a puzzle before, but then found a bunch of edge pieces that suddenly revealed that the whole picture was infinitely bigger than he thought it was and that’s both daunting and a little disorienting. This new perspective has revealed the scale of his ignorance and a part of him is itching to go out there and fill those holes, to pick at those tiny, interconnected pieces until the entire puzzle is laid out in front of him in its entirety.
Another part of him, however, bristles with bitter anger that his easy, simple life was so ruthlessly shattered. He was happy when he knew only his little piece of the puzzle. He was proud to work towards something bigger and he had Orion Pax with him, who was an endless source of joy and frustration both, keeping his days interesting. He didn’t want to see the true scope of the world or the scalpel-marks where Sentinel had cut them all down to size so they could fit neatly into some master plan. They have always ached —the empty slot of his t-cog, the glitchy subroutines lacking the corresponding systems, the countless errors he compartmentalized away and buried as deep as he could so he didn’t have to think about them— but somehow knowing the cause behind the ache makes the sting much worse.
“Dee…” Pax places a careful hand on his shoulder, as if he would shatter if he pressed too hard, drawing him back to the present. “Are you alright?”
What a question.
“Yes. No. Maybe?” He cycles his vents and rests some of his weight against Pax, who lets out a charming little huff in surprise. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just need a nice, long night of recharge to process all this in full once we’ve found your Matrix and returned home.” When Pax still appears uncertain, D-16 nudges him with his elbow. “Come now. I’m holding on at least as well as Elita-1.”
Not a very high bar to clear, in honesty, but it does get a chuckle out of Orion.
“Okay, good, that’s good, it’s just… your eyes are still red.”
Without thinking, D-16 reaches up and touches the corner of one of his eyes, as if he could feel the color that way. “I don’t feel any different,” he says, puzzled. “Knock Out said red was combat mode. Shouldn’t it have turned off when I calmed down?”
“It doesn’t have to be an active, direct threat,” Megaton says, ambling closer and kneeling down to inspect D-16. “You are still on edge, so there might be something aggravating the subroutines. Doesn’t even have to be anything you are consciously aware of, in truth. Combat protocols can be complicated.”
D-16 stares helplessly at his reflection in Megaton’s chest plate; the way the curved armor distorts his image makes him look angry —dangerous, even— especially when paired with the harsh red of his eyes.
What is happening to him?
Chapter Text
“Can’t you do something to fix it?” he asks Megaton, obediently tilting his head up so the bot can examine his eyes. He’s not pleading —he’s not that desperate yet— but the suggestion that he might be stuck in ‘combat mode’ is not exactly reassuring.
Megaton makes a deep, soothing hum. “I’d rather not meddle with systems I’m unfamiliar with. At any rate, I don’t believe it’s anything worth worrying about.”
“You don’t think this new protocol will influence him?” Orion asks nervously, still holding onto D-16’s arm in support.
“It’s an optimization subroutine, not a personality override. It can’t compel him to do anything against his will,” Megaton says with a huff. He sits back on his heels and calls over his shoulder, “Rung, what do you think?”
D-16 would much prefer if Rung stayed out of this, but they don’t have anybody else here who might shed light on what’s happening to him and whatever else the mech may be, he is a competent psychologist.
“Megaton is correct. Modal subroutines are more common than people realize and they are perfectly harmless. The two primary modes of warframes have only become so notorious because they come with a clear visual indicator.” Rung stands awkwardly behind Megaton, watching D-16 from afar. His expression is once again partially obscured by his glasses, but he doesn’t appear worried. “Red usually indicates that a mech is on edge, bracing for a threat that might require swift action, while yellow marks a more passive, contemplative resting state. I expect that given time and a return to the safety of Iacon, D-16 will return to his usual functioning.”
D-16 doesn’t feel really reassured. He averts his eyes from Rung, casting the mech from his mind, and looks back at Megaton. “Please. Is there really nothing you can do to make this pass sooner?”
“I’m afraid not. We’d first need to identify what ‘threat’ is putting you on edge, but blindly guessing would only make matters worse by presenting you with several new things to worry about.” Megaton runs his fingers down the length of the neural cable, the motion slow and deliberate —considering— but eventually abandons whatever it was that he was thinking about. “Can I try something? It won’t harm you, I promise.”
D-16’s gaze flicks over to the neural cable, the biolights pulsing lazily. The easiest way to find out what the issue is would be to plug into his systems —and somehow he doesn’t doubt that Megaton knows his way around combat programming— but he’s not sure he even has a port that would fit that cable.
“I’m not going to touch you,” Megaton assures him, as if reading his mind. “You don’t even have to move from where you are.”
Orion squeezes his arm in support. It's enough of a reassurance that he manages a nod. “Go for it.”
Megaton’s EM field spikes with authority and he makes a noise —a series of noises?— that doesn’t really register in D-16’s memory, because some kind of subsystem that has never before reacted to anything in his life seizes it in an instant and immediately acts on it without consulting D-16’s conscious processing.
By the time he manages to get a grip on reality again and reorients himself —without any conscious input he has stood up and moved, so suddenly and with such determination that Orion couldn’t hold onto him and was sent sprawling when D-16 jumped to his feet— he’s standing in front of the broken window, blinking up at the… sky? He feels like something is missing; there is something he should be looking at here. “What was that?”
“Shortform order for ‘locate hostile target’. I admit, I didn’t expect you to react so intensely to it.” He can feel the floor vibrate as Megaton leisurely walks up and joins him at the window. “What are you looking at?”
“The sky?” No, that doesn’t sound quite right. “Something in the sky?”
“The Quintessons, perhaps? That would be a reasonable threat to be on the lookout for.”
D-16 shrugs. The subsystem isn’t cooperating when he gives it a mental jolt, so all he can tell is that whatever is causing him to be on guard is not currently in visual range. “Could be. I’m not sure.”
“Hmmm.” Megaton ducks down slightly to look out the window over D-16’s head and whatever he sees out there makes him freeze all of a sudden, his hand on the windowsill clenching until his claws become embedded in the metal. “...what is that?”
Confused, D-16 tries to follow his gaze, but he can’t see anything out of the ordinary. The endless expanse of the sky, painted in fading gold and pink hues from the setting sun far to their left; abandoned, decrepit ruins all around and a bright moon rising slowly above the horizon, the whorls and tall spires of its surface geometry lighting up with flashes of cool blue from the endless, deadly ion-storms that compose its atmosphere.
“Do you mean Luna 3?” he asks, flabbergasted.
“Luna… 3?”
…Surely Megaton has seen Cybertron’s moons before.
“Yes? You know? One of the three moons of Cybertron?” Maybe Megaton only knows them by their names rather than by number. “Hecate, Artemis and Diana?” he tries, but the big bot’s expression remains blank.
He thought everybody knew this. He has only ever seen the sky in old holos and even he knew it, although he could only identify Luna 3 at a glance; that overcharged, deadly atmosphere is impossible to mistake for anything else.
Megaton places his other hand on the windowsill too in an attempt at regaining his equilibrium, unintentionally boxing D-16 in between his heavy frame and the wall. Being so close to the big mech, he can feel the vibrations of Megaton’s plating before they manifest into sound: hysterical, unhinged laughter that sounds like it’s being ripped out of the mech against his will.
There is not enough space under Megaton’s arm for D-16 to duck out, so he stays where he is, pressing himself against the wall and staring apprehensively up at the big bot while Megaton fights to gain control of his laughter, his shoulders shaking and his vents wheezing with labored breaths, his eyes so bright that for the first time, D-16 can make out the unfocused iris through the opaque glass.
What in the Pits is going on?!
“Megaton!” D-16 can just barely see Optimus’ finial over Megaton’s shoulder, but he can feel his EM field almost immediately. It envelops Megaton —and partially D-16 too, due to how close they are to each other— in a bubble of serenity that feels almost oppressive. Megaton’s EM field flares up weakly against it —a confusing jumble of relief and frustration and several other emotions D-16 can’t identify quickly enough— before it gets fully smothered by that enforced calm. D-16 has to grab onto the wall to stay upright; it’s almost like all his energy was drained away or his limbs have become a hundred times heavier from one moment to the next.
Megaton’s laughter sputters out into a painful burst of static. His shoulders slump. His eyes darken.
Then his knee servos give out and he sinks down to the ground with a loud crash, despite Optimus’ best efforts to ease his fall.
One of Megaton’s arms has flopped down to the ground, so there is a clear path D-16 could take to get out from between the window and the heavily armored mech, but he finds himself rooted to the spot. He reaches up with a tentative hand and touches Megaton’s cheek; the big bot’s eyes flicker a few times before they turn on to a low, crimson smoulder. “Are you all right?”
Megaton stares at him for an uncomfortably long time before he gives a tiny nod. D-16 doesn’t dare to move, uncertain what prompted that outburst, but a few nanokliks later Megaton clumsily shifts to the side, helped by Optimus’ hands on his shoulders, and sits with another heavy clang, legs stretched out and his back propped up by the wall. He takes a rattling breath and overcharged steam hisses from his vents, blanketing them in a thick, glittering cloud.
Optimus is hovering above them, like an anxious teacher over his most accident-prone newsparks, and hastily tries to wave the cloud away. “What happened?”
Megaton makes a noise, too static-y to be understood. He works his jaw and resets his vocalizer three times before he manages a distorted, noise-filled chuckle. “I have found God,” he finally says, the words barely discernible from the grating of his busted vocalizer.
Optimus and D-16 both stare at him, speechless.
“This is not a good joke,” Optimus chastises weakly, trying for a stern tone but only not quite hitting the mark.
Megaton gestures with one hand towards the window. “See for yourself.”
Optimus hesitates for a nanoklik, but eventually he too looks outside. From where he sits, D-16 can see crystal clearly when the bot’s eyes go wide in shock. He lifts a hand to his mouth, but he can’t quite stifle an almost hysterical chuckle. “Holy Primus… I can’t believe it.”
He tries to blindly feel for the windowsill with his other hand, but misses it by a handspan; he ends up falling to the floor in an awkward heap of limbs on the other side of the window. D-16 is only saved from being bonked Optimus’ flailing limbs by Megaton, who has recovered enough of his reason to draw D-16 safely against his side.
D-16 finds himself pinned between the two of them, Megaton on one side with his plating rattling from the force of his cooling fans as they try to dump the sudden heat and excess energy from his frame and Optimus on the other, staring blindly into the middle distance with one hand still covering his face and the other clawing at the seams of his chest.
And he still has no fragging idea what’s going on.
He hears the clanging of rushed steps and a figure cuts through the fading cloud, swearing loudly.
D-16 watches Knock Out wave his arms wildly in an attempt to clear the rest of the steam away and makes a mental note that the medic is much more reliable in a crisis than his attitude would suggest.
“What in Unicron’s name happened here?! I barely left for 5 kliks! I couldn’t even get a good sulk going when I heard that infernal laughter.” He squints down at them, his eyes taking on a bright green color as he swaps over to his medical scanner to really examine them. “Please tell me you are neither dead nor insane.”
D-16 glances at the bots, but neither of them seems inclined to answer. “I don’t know about sane, but I can confirm that we are alive.” He wiggles out from Megaton’s hold and stands, his legs still a bit wobbly after that thing Optimus did with his field. “I have no idea what set them off. They looked out the window and then…” He gestures at Megaton to demonstrate.
Knock Out appears skeptical, but he steps towards the window eventually. “If this proves to be some kind of Quintesson doom machine I—” He stops mid sentence, then resets his eyes a few times, flabbergasted. “...why is there a brain module in the sky?”
“What?!” D-16 elbows him out of the way to look, but he still sees the same thing: ruins, sky with stars, Luna 3 casting its cold blue light from the distance. “Are you glitched too? That’s Luna 3!”
Knock Out shoves him in revenge. “I’m not glitched! I’m a trained surgeon and I have assisted in brain surgeries before; I recognize a brain module when I see one!”
D-16 stares out at Luna 3 —its surface carved with deep, geometric groves and sporting uneven spires jabbing into empty space, each spike contoured by deadly arcs of lightning— and tries to imagine the size of the head that could hold something that big.
…wait a fragging moment.
“I can’t believe this. I— this can’t be real! This is too stupid to be real!”
Megaton snickers again, but he appears to have calmed down. “It sure is. The stupidest thing I have encountered in the last millenia.” He slowly picks himself up from the ground and ambles over to help Optimus up too.
“So…” D-16 turns around to see Orion, Elita and Rung hesitantly approach them, clearly unnerved again. “Are you guys all right?”
“Yes, Pax. We are fine.”
Orion’s frame slackens with relief. Elita-1, however, only gives them a sharp, judgemental look.
“Can somebody sane explain what the hell that was?”
She probably meant D-16, but much to his relief Optimus beats him to the punch. “It would appear that we have discovered the results of ‘Project Mímir’: someone has moved Primus’ brain module into orbit and disguised it as a moon, hiding it in plain sight.”
Elita-1 gapes at them. Orion silently mouths the words to himself in the hope that maybe they will start making sense with repetition. Rung, however, makes a soft “Oh” sound and joins them at the window, gazing reverently at Luna 3. “So that is why I felt Primus’ presence so strongly when I was stargazing. This is… this is wondrous news!”
“Is it?” D-16 asks, too tired to untangle his feelings on the matter. He has a hunch that if he starts thinking about this, it will just reignite his migraine all over again.
“If they had the means to put His brain module in stable orbit, then there has to be a way to call it back down and return it to its proper place,” Megaton suggests, his voice still rough with hints of static. “I still can’t understand why anybody would do this — or why Primus would agree to it, for that matter.”
“You said Primus was allergic to organic gunk, right?” Knock Out asks, standing on his tiptoes so he can lean halfway out the window and examine Luna 3 better. “His brain is very well protected from any kind of contaminant right now. That storm evaporates anything that gets within 5 megamiles of Luna 3’s surface, which, I’m going to assume, includes the Quintessons too.”
Optimus perks up immediately. “So, in your opinion, could this have been some kind of protective measure?”
Knock Out tries to shrug, but gives up on the gesture because he’s still leaning precariously out the window. “I’m not certain. It’s a sterile enough environment, but in my medical opinion a brain module is the safest where it belongs: in a mech’s head, protected by cranial plates.”
He shuffles back into the room and taps his forehead once he is standing firmly on the ground. “I don’t know about Primus, but on our frames these are some of the toughest, most durable pieces of plating, along with the spark chamber. I personally believe that having the brain module out in orbit where the Quintessons could have freely fired on it at any time was a bigger risk than any kind of allergic reaction, but I’m not going to try and make guesses about what the Primes were thinking when they came up with this idea.”
“Ah. That is indeed a fair point.” Optimus dusts himself off and cycles his vents until he fully regains his composure. “I suppose we may never know, but it is a relief that this mystery at least has reached a reassuring conclusion. Is the brain module undamaged?”
“Yes, from what I can tell from here.” Knock Out shakes his head. “I still can’t believe nobody noticed it before.”
“You haven’t noticed it either,” D-16 points out. “Luna 3 featured in plenty of holoshows, you must have seen it before.”
“I don’t make it a point to look at the background when I’m watching a soap opera!” Knock Out snaps back vehemently, but his expression becomes uncertain after a moment. “You are right. I should have noticed it before. Even if the common bot doesn’t know what a brain module looks like, all of my colleagues should have noticed it. And you, Rung.” The orange bot jumps when Knock Out calls his name. “You were alive when this… whatever this was, happened. How come you haven’t noticed that Cybertron acquired an extra moon?”
Rung tilts his head to the side, puzzled. “That’s… I am not sure, actually. I suppose I might have just… forgotten?” He spreads his hands with a lopsided, awkward smile. “I have forgotten so many things that it didn’t occur to me to question it.”
“So, to the best of our knowledge, countless people have seen Luna 3 depicted in various entertainment and historical media, not to mention those who might have seen it during a visit to the surface, yet nobody recognized its true nature.” Optimus says. “This is a fascinating riddle.”
“But hopefully not one that will lead us to another buried tragedy or hidden horror. In any case, we don’t have any lead on where to start looking if we want to find this particular answer.” Megaton nudges Optimus with his shoulder. “We should get moving. We have some distance to drive and we have wasted enough time.”
Orion, who has been more subdued than usual, suddenly lights up. “Maybe when we find the Matrix, it will give us a clue about this too.”
“That’s the spirit! Let’s go, before Sentinel starts wondering where we have disappeared to.”
D-16 suppresses a smile. On a whim he seeks Orion’s hand out and entwines their fingers. Orion flinches in surprise, but when he realizes that it’s D-16 holding his hand, he breaks out in a wide grin and gives D-16’s hand a little squeeze.
Things are… not good, not really, but they are good enough. He has Pax back by his side and he has Megaton and Optimus here too to handle any danger that comes their way. Whatever else happens on this harebrained adventure, he finally feels confident that they will get through it just fine.
Chapter Text
Optimus’ trailer feels a little crowded with five nocogs and Megaton all traveling inside, but D-16 is secretly thankful for it. He doesn’t have to choose whether he wants to sit with Megaton or Orion or make excuses to get them to sit near each other.
“It’s going to be a long drive and we don’t know what to expect once we find the site of the message,” Optimus rumbles through his speakers. “You should rest while you have the chance.”
That’s all the encouragement D-16 needs. He snuggles up into Megaton’s comfortingly warm bulk as usual and it takes only a little coaxing before Orion settles down next to him, using D-16’s legs as a makeshift pillow. The others settle down, too; the Cybertronian brain processes information the best during an idle, resting state, so he has no doubt that everyone will be a little calmer when they wake up.
D-16 would usually be able to sleep like the dead anywhere, at any time —Orion teased him about it plenty of times in the past— but he finds his sleep unusually light today. This is why he’s still aware when Orion and Megaton start talking in hushed voices.
“You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Your friend trusts me just fine.”
“Yes, and that’s strange. Dee doesn’t usually take to strangers so quickly. Or at all.”
“I have no intention of hurting your friend, Orion Pax.”
“But it’s not always the matter of intention, isn’t it? You were surprised when you commanded him and he moved without thinking.”
There is a short beat before Megaton answers, “A miscalculation that won’t happen again.”
“Can anybody else do that to him? Make him act against his will?”
“You need a very strong spark and a very strong will —and knowing how to impose that will upon others— to pull it off. A Prime might be able to do it, if one of them survived by some stroke of miracle.” There’s a lapse in the conversation; Megaton runs his claws soothingly down D-16’s arm, although he’s certain that the big bot hasn’t realized that he’s awake. “When he has a cog he won’t be susceptible to such commands anymore.”
“When?”
“He already caught Sentinel’s eye. It’s only a matter of time before someone as smart and hardworking as D-16 gets a cog. Or do you doubt that he’s capable enough?”
“No, of course not. It’s just… Elita and Knock Out might fit the criteria of the ceasefire, but Dee definitely does not. Knowing what we know about the cogs now, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that an exception would be made for some and not others, all based on favoritism.”
“What do you suggest, then? The Quintessons, however many there are left, are up in orbit, beyond our reach. Even if we had stable population numbers —which we don’t, for the record— giving everyone their cogs back and breaking the agreement won’t get us any closer to victory. It would, however, make continued growth and expansion into other abandoned cities —locations we need if we ever hope to restart our industries and eventually create some means of fighting back— a hundred times harder.”
“I don’t know! It’s just… it doesn’t feel right to me. Who knows how long it will take to beat the Quintessons —is Sentinel even working on a plan against them at all?— and all we are supposed to do is keep our friends in the dark until that happens and trust that the people who have misled and crippled us will find a solution?” Orion drops his head back down onto D-16’s legs, drained by the argument. “This is not how things are supposed to be.”
Megaton takes a deep vent and lets it out in a long sigh. “Do everybody a favor and don't ever get involved in tactical planning. Leave it to D-16, who has the right mental framework to process reality as it is, rather than how you wish it to be.” There is something in his voice, a rough edge, that makes D-16 wish he could look up and see his face, but that would give away that he has been awake all along. “There are times when keeping an idealized version of the world in mind —one where everyone is happy, safe and possessed of equal rights and freedoms— will lead you to a better outcome by reminding you that that is the final goal and you should not settle for less. Those, however, are few and far between and you can’t sacrifice forward momentum in favor of grand, heroic acts that —in an ideal world— should set all the injustices right in an instant. The realities of war do not favor the blindly optimistic.”
“‘Blindly optimistic’. Is that how I appear to you?”
“I could choose much less flattering words for it, if you want.”
“No, thank you. It is strange, though, that your friend is called ‘Optimus’, but his opinion appears to be quite in sync with yours.”
“His stance is quite a bit more complicated than that, but I should hope that he has learned the merits of my methods by now. I had several million years to beat some sense into his head. He would truly be a hopeless idiot if he still couldn’t compromise on his high ideals for the good of his cause.” Orion must make a funny expression, because Megaton chuckles warmly. “Go back to sleep. Whatever we find will determine our next step and I will gladly revisit this argument when our respective partners can both contribute their own opinions on the matter.”
Orion sputters in surprise. “Dee is not my— is Optimus your—?”
“Optimus is my Conjunx, yes. Why so shocked? Do you not have any warmer feelings towards D-16?”
“I— he’s my best friend. The most important person in my life. But that’s not— that’s not a romantic attachment.”
“Are you certain?”
“I have watched more than enough holo serials to recognize a romance as it happens, yes.”
D-16 risks giving himself away by burying his burning face in Megaton’s side. Pax, for frag’s sake, why are you like this?? Megaton chuckles again, then pets the back of D-16’s head to lull him back to restful sleep. “Ah, the folly of youth. Now I see how it is. Have you considered that perhaps the love depicted in serials is not the only kind there is, only the easiest to portray in a dramatic fashion?”
“Can’t say I ever thought about it like that, no.”
“Optimus and I... we have been friends for a long time and rivals even longer. We have only come together as a couple a few hundred years ago, but I say it with complete confidence that during all those cycles since we first got to know each other on a deeper level, we have always been in love, at least a little bit. Even when we were most diametrically opposed, in every sense of the word.” D-16 tries to imagine Megaton and Optimus at odds with each other and can’t. If there has ever been a couple that was made for each other, bots straight out of some ancient myth from the dawn of Cybertron, it was them. “If nothing else, this trip might be fertile ground for self-discovery. Think about what D-16 means to you without the preconceived notions of popular entertainment and when you have figured it out: tell him. Do you think you can manage that much?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. Now, go back to sleep before we rouse the others. We will have much to do tomorrow.”
Orion puts his head back down on D-16’s legs and Megaton’s hand eventually settles on his shoulder, two extra points of warmth and safety. It’s comfortable enough that he soon finds himself drifting off —for real, this time— before he can finish analyzing that conversation and deciding how he feels about it all.
It’s fine, probably. He will have plenty of time to think about it later.
They end up stopping a good distance away from the coordinates, because the terrain starts sloping sharply upwards and Megaton doesn’t want Optimus to exhaust himself driving uphill.
“This looked much closer on the map,” Elita-1 notes, whacking a group of flexible tubes aside that bar her path. “And what’s with all this… weird… nature?”
“Technoorganic vegetation.” Optimus pokes a different kind of tube, fascinated. “They don’t appear to erode the crust layer, so they are harmless to Cybertron. Symbiotic, rather than parasitic, which is rare for a machine planet like ours.”
“Do you think they are contaminants that came with the Quintesson debris?” Megaton asks, glancing around at the various colorful bits of vegetation covering the mountainside.
“I don’t think so. The Quintessons prefer to cultivate algae and kelps, not grasses and moss.” He spots something up ahead and lights up. “Oh, and definitely not these!”
Enthused, he rushes over to a group of bigger… things and breaks off a piece of one. Much to D-16’s chagrin, he immediately sticks it in his mouth, his grin only broadening. “Evenly spaced, in straight lines… trees don’t grow like this on their own. These are the remnants of a plantation!” He breaks off multiple small bits and returns to the group, offering each of them a little stick. “Taste it! It will make sense right away.”
D-16 takes the piece, noticing that there’s a kind of sticky liquid flowing from the breaking point. When he glances around, there are mixed reactions. Rung and Megaton try the sticks without hesitation; Knock Out scans it with his medical scanner first, but eventually relents; Elita-1 and Orion are both just as hesitant about putting unknown organic material in their systems as D-16.
He decides that if Knock Out deemed it safe enough —and the medic is currently chewing on his organic stick with surprising enthusiasm— then it’s probably not going to kill them and gives it a tentative lick.
He almost drops it in surprise.
“It’s sweet!” He gives it another try. The taste of the liquid bursts on his tongue, comfortingly sweet and familiar. “This is… I know this taste.”
“It’s organic latex,” Megaton confirms, no doubt having run an analysis on it. “Not the kind that you can easily turn into tires, but it’s a good fuel additive if you enjoy the sweetness.”
“Yes! Now I remember.” Rung is taking his time with his piece, his expression set in a gentle, nostalgic smile. “It was mentioned in the Songs of Origin: Hymns from before the Pilgrimage. Primus witnessed the luscious mantle of forests the Quintessons have cultivated on Unicron’s shoulders and found Himself enamored with the idea of plants. Thus, during the Celestial Pilgrimage, He sought out technoorganic planets and asked them for seeds and saplings to decorate His shell with a pantry of colorful treats and then He created small beasts to tend to this ever-growing garden until His children could discover it and partake in its bounties.”
“That is quite the deep cut,” Optimus notes, gathering a couple more sticks for everyone. “I have seen references to the Songs in the archives, but never any direct quotes.”
Rung averts his eyes bashfully. “Well, I did use to be a priest of Primus before I lost my memories. I know this much. I assume I must have read them in one of the hidden archives.”
He had to have been quite the high ranking priest to gain access to such ancient text, D-16 thinks, but then he remembers that he’s still trying not to think about Rung too much, so he puts the matter from his mind.
Thankfully, there are plenty of things to distract him from the therapist. Optimus doesn’t recognize anything else that he would willingly try to eat without identifying first —thank Primus for small mercies— but he happily teaches them the words for the different plants and their various parts. So they learn about grasses and moss and trees and bushes, about leaves and trunks and bark and flowers and many, many other things. It’s vocabulary that they might never need in practice ever again, but D-16 drinks it in anyway, because there are poems on his datapad that were written by mechs who have traveled to organic worlds (or at the very least imagined what it would be like to travel to organic worlds) and this new knowledge makes deciphering their imagery much easier.
They keep talking about vegetation and later about various animals until they come face to face with a wall they have to scale and the conversation peters off, everyone focusing on where they are placing their hands and feet to avoid falling back down. Megaton, despite being the biggest among them, climbs up ahead, using his claws to carve handholds into the cliff face for them, which makes the climb much less taxing than it would have otherwise been.
“How did the Primes even get up here?” Knock Out wheezes when they finally reach the top, stretching out on the first bigger flat shelf they have encountered for the last hour. “That climb was horrible.”
“I assume the same way they got everywhere else.” Orion flops down next to Knock Out, not really because he needs the rest, but more out of solidarity. “Most of them could fly and those who could not were carried by the fliers.”
“What were they even doing up here?” D-16 asks, spotting what appears to be their destination: a cave with multiple spiky protrusions, about as welcoming as a giant scraplet’s toothy maws. “Charming.”
Megaton steps forward and briefly takes off his helmet, flaring his scanner panels. After a few kliks he refolds them and hides them away again with a displeased grunt.
“Do you feel anything?”
“The cave is stable, but I can’t get a good reading of the inside. The structure of the cave prevents scanning.” He exchanges a look with Optimus. “Be on your guard, everyone. If anything dangerous happens, run to Optimus and he will protect you.”
Elita raises a questioning brow ridge at him; she’s the only one of the nocogs who appears perfectly energized and collected despite the long climb. “To Optimus? Not you?”
“Not me,” Megaton confirms, flexing his claws. “Because I will be launching myself at the source of threat as soon as I identify it and I don’t want you to get caught up in that.”
“Ah. I see.”
At least the interior of the cave isn’t as dark and hostile as the entrance suggested. Their headlamps easily light up the way and when they reach a collapsed section —one that the cogless could easily climb through, but would be too tight for the big mechs— Megaton effortlessly shifts the rubble out of the way before D-16 can even suggest trying to find another way.
The sight that greets them on the other side, however, is one out of D-16’s nightmares.
Huge bodies lie in the sunlit chamber, frozen where they have fallen in death. The mosses that have conquered most surfaces on the mountain got to them as well, but even under the soft carpet of green, their brilliant colors are unmistakable.
“The Primes,” Orion says, his voice soft with grief.
“We’re here.” Elita sounds disbelieving, her voice lacking its usual confidence. She isn’t immune to the somber scene either.
They walk into the chamber in silence, taking in the carnage. The Primes have fallen in battle, that much is clear, not just from the state of their bodies, but the countless empty Quintesson carapaces littering the cave, their organic parts long decayed, leaving only the hard, metal shells.
D-16 holds onto some misguided sliver of hope, despite the decisive calculations of his analytics subroutines, until he spots the iconic helm. It lies severed from the body, but the bright purple almost makes it appear alive until D-16 goes to his knees and touches a reverent hand to the cold, dead metal. “Megatronus Prime.”
Despite his grief, his tactical processor is restless, chewing through the data from the environment, tallying bodies and the scene of the battle and D-16 feels a sense of wrongness break through the grief. These odds are not right; even if there were dozens more Quintessons in this ambush, in this cramped cave they should not have been able to take out the united force of the Primes. How did they know to find them here anyway? Something is not right, something is terribly amiss here and he feels a wave of frustrated anger overcome him because he can’t make sense of it. He needs more —more data, more information—, anything that can lead him to the culprit so he can kill it, kill the bastard Quintesson that plotted and pulled off this trap.
He looks around to see what the others are doing. Elita and Knock Out are meandering among the dead, speechless and overcome by the suffocating atmosphere. Rung is standing over Solus Prime’s body, head bowed in prayer, administering last rights in a whispered voice. Megaton and Optimus are the only ones not terribly affected by the sight, regarding the carnage almost clinically, but they have more than likely experienced similar scenes during the war.
Orion, as if dragged on a chain, has walked straight to the fallen Zeta Prime and is jolted from his quiet reverence when he really looks at the Prime’s body. “The Matrix! It’s gone.”
He kneels and peers into Zeta’s chest, just in case, but whatever has pried the Matrix Bearer’s chest open has ripped the Matrix of Leadership out, leaving its place barren.
“Is it only the Matrix that’s missing, or have the others’ cogs been taken as well?” Optimus asks, leaning over their heads to inspect the empty chamber. “Knock Out?”
“I’m not certain.” The medic looks around frantically, scanning over the fallen. “I feel some faint energy signatures, but not from every Prime. Some of them, however, have died with their cogs destroyed. I can’t draw a conclusion on the fly.”
“Let’s take tally, then,” Megaton rumbles, lifting Amalgamous Prime’s body from beneath a pile of rubble like it weighs nothing. “Rung. You are the closest thing we have to an authority on this, being a former priest of Primus. Can we proceed?” Just to make it blatantly clear what he means, he sets his claws against the dented silver plating on Amalgamous’ chest.
Rung hesitates for just a klik. Then he squares his shoulders and cycles his vents, pulling himself up into a pose that would benefit a figure of authority, if only he was not a thin-limbed, fragile nocog. “Give me another few kliks to finish their last rites. Their sparks have already joined Primus in the Allspark, but they were all devout believers of Primus, so it is only proper to send them off with a prayer. After that…” He glances over the glum tableau set in front of them, Primus’ greatest children slain and abandoned. “After that, you may remove their t-cogs, if they are still functional.”
D-16 thinks for a moment that he has misheard. He rushes to differ, his voice blending into a cacophony when Elita and Orion do the same.
Rung holds up a hand, his mouth set, and waits for them to quiet down. “Once upon a time, it was commonplace for one among a deceased bot’s friends and family to take their cog as their own, to honor their lives by carrying a piece of them within their chests, warmed by their spark until they could be rejoined in the Afterspark.”
He spreads his arms wide as he gestures at Orion Pax, Elita-1, D-16 and Knock Out. “Before me I see four young bots who I believe to be honorable, kind and determined to see our people into a better future. Perhaps it was Primus who led you here today, perhaps not, but I know this: the Primes would be deeply honored if you took their cogs as your own and carried their memory into this new era.
After all ”—his mouth twitches into a small, sorrowful smile— “they have fought this long, grueling war so that you may live life to the fullest, free from the threat of the Quintessons. So, please, honor them today. Accept their sacrifice and their legacy so the day when we all can be free again might arrive just a little sooner.”
Chapter 30
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
[Shanix for your thoughts?]
[Something smells fishy here and it’s not the dead Quintessons.]
[Yes. Do you want me to say it or can you see it too?]
[Those wounds were made by blade and blaster. Unless this is a needlessly elaborate setup, then they were betrayed.]
[Obviously. And it’s not hard to guess who did it. The question is: what are we going to do about it?]
[You won’t give Sentinel the benefit of the doubt?]
[Why would I? I tried to kill you for less. I don’t see anything wrong with cutting down a cadre of overblown fools who were leading their people to ruin. Do you?]
[...no. But we don’t know why he did it and I don’t want to cast judgment when we know so little about his motivations and what the Primes were actually doing.]
[Back to the waiting game, then.]
[So it seems…]
[I must say, it’s a relief that they look nothing like our Primes. I’m not sure I would have stopped myself from flattening Zeta’s head if he did, already dead or not.]
[Yes, they are quite different. Our Zeta would have never shown his face in public with lips like these. He was much too vain.]
[Since we are on the topic of comparisons: do you think this Quintus Prime was a Quintesson plant too?]
[I don’t believe so. They felt entirely mechanical when I checked them over. They are also as dead as one can be: they were bisected at the torso, through the t-cog and the spark chamber.]
[Damn. That would have been an interesting twist.]
[...]
[What is it?]
[I wonder what our Quintus is doing, that is all. We don’t know if time passes the same in our universe and this one; he might have already run my reputation into the ground.]
[If I had to make a bet: he’s too busy getting the runaround from our respective high commands to do anything actually harmful. Besides, what could he possibly do to your reputation at this point? Two thirds of the galaxy already thinks you have lost your mind when you married me.]
[I suppose that is true…]
[If he actually manages to restart the war in our absence, I’m going to make him my new second in command, Quintesson infiltrator or not.]
[Really??]
[Yes. I like collecting people who can pull off the impossible. But I doubt that will happen. If he was any good at his job, we would not have pegged him for a technoorganic abomination within 5 kliks of landing.]
[Yes, that was quite— wait, I think I can sense a spark signature.]
D-16 can’t help but feel apprehensive, even as they watch Rung whisper prayers over the bodies of the Primes. Megaton and Optimus are moving them into the middle of the cavern, arranging them in poses a little more dignified than where they have fallen, but it still feels much too little to honor the greatest warriors and leaders who have ever walked Cybertron.
He almost jumps out of his plating when Optimus calls out. “Knock Out! Come here for a klik, I believe I have found a survivor.”
They end up crowding around the big bots while Megaton and Optimus pull the purple mech —Alpha Trion— out from beneath a pile of debris and bring him to the middle of the room, just far enough away from the dead to not make it completely awkward.
“If Alpha Trion survived, there might be others…” Orion says, his eyes bright with foolish hope. He’s kneeling next to Knock Out, holding up a half-full cube of midgrade while the medic scans over the stasis-locked Alpha Trion and starts setting up a makeshift energon-drip to bring him back online without stressing the Prime’s already strained spark.
“No.” Megaton places Megatronus Prime’s severed head down next to his body, lingering for a klik with a complicated expression. “We have found all of them. They all died quickly, from decisive wounds dealt to the t-cog or the brain module. Alpha Trion only escaped the same fate because the way he was buried made it seem like the falling debris had crushed his head.”
“Strange…” Rung has finished his prayers and now he walks around each of the fallen Primes, cataloguing their lethal injuries on a small, battered datapad. “The Quintessons like it when our death is drawn out and torturous. I wonder if they feared that the Primes’ fabled self-repair might make them survive any wound that wasn’t immediately lethal.”
“I sure as Pits would love to get a sample of their repair nanites,” Knock Out pipes up, frowning down at the energon line he has pierced to set up the infusion. Even after adjusting it, the flow is worryingly sluggish, as if Alpha Trion’s body was reluctant to accept the energon. “It’s eerie that they still have color after death.”
D-16 finds himself agreeing. His eyes keep drifting over to Megatronus Prime and his spark gives a painful lurch every time he looks at him.
“I believe there might be a simpler explanation for that.” Optimus is kneeling next to Solus Prime, examining something about her pierced chest plates. “This color does not come from paint nanites. It’s simply… paint.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” Megaton, having shaken off whatever emotion overcame him at the sight of Megatronus’ body, has set about prying open the dead to remove their t-cogs. “I suppose Primus, in the common habit of creators everywhere, did not waste His time on giving tedious and finicky cosmetic upgrades like paint nanites to His prototype creations, no matter how successful they turned out to be.”
D-16 looks over the fallen bodies again —many of them only sporting sparse bits of color, most of it gilding— and the logic clicks into place. “They painted themselves. So they would not look like walking dead and be more approachable to the common mechs?”
“That sounds like solid reasoning to me. But you can ask Alpha Trion when he…” Megaton falls quiet, his eyes flashing in surprise when he opens Megatronus’ chest plates. “Megatronus Prime’s cog is missing.”
D-16 feels an alarm bell go off in his head, but he can’t place the bad feeling. “Was it destroyed?”
“No, the casing is intact. It was removed.” He runs his claws along the plates, examining them with narrowed eyes. “All the other t-cogs are accounted for. Out of our twelve dead, we have 5 cogs destroyed, 5 cogs intact and, if we want to count the Matrix as one, 2 cogs missing.”
“Which cogs are still operational? Maybe there is a connection there.”
“Let me see…” Rung gathers up the still active cogs one by one, marking them as he does so. “Prima, Onyx, Alchemist, Micronus and Vector Prime’s cogs are intact.”
“Five cogs for five coglesss. You could almost convince me that this really is some kind of act of fate,” Elita-1 says, but despite her flippant tone, she is visibly tense. She doesn’t take her eyes off the infusion or Alpha Trion, not even for a nanoklik.
“Ah… I will not take one of the cogs,” Rung says, even as he starts to hand them out to the nocogs one after the other. Prima’s to Orion; Micronus’ to Elita; Vector’s to Dee… “Call it the foolishness of the devout, but I have a feeling that it is not time for me to take a cog again and none of these, hmmm… none of them ‘speak’ to me, you could say.” He stops in front of Knock Out, his head tilting slightly.
“Curious… these both resonate with you, my young friend.” He holds them up for Knock Out to see, one in each hand.
“Why is that strange?” Orion asks, tearing his eyes away from the cog he was handed.
“The cog doesn’t always determine someone’s alt mode, but they each contain a different database of schematics. Alchemist Prime’s cog would most certainly be a good fit for a medic. Onyx Prime was known far and wide for his speed and agility, so I expected it to fit a more nimble mech, but it very well could be that it contains hidden depths.”
D-16 isn’t surprised at all when Knock Out, after just a moment of hesitation, reaches for Onyx’s cog. It was a done deal the moment Rung said ‘speed’.
D-16 looks at the cog in his hand. It’s warm, the light within pulsing steadily; he could almost believe that it matches the rhythm of his spark. Vector Prime couldn’t compete with Megatronus in terms of raw power, but he was still an honorable warrior. There is something in its energy that feels almost right.
“We should wait for Alpha Trion to wake up before we install these,” Orion suggests, forcing himself to place Prima’s cog down on a rock —carefully, making sure that the surface is clean and the cog can’t roll off by accident— and lifting the cube higher, as if that would make the energon drip flow faster. “It changes the situation that he’s alive. We should hear what he says before we go about taking the cogs of his dead siblings.”
That sounds reasonable, if a little torturous to have the cogs in their hands and not be allowed to take them yet, but D-16 reassures himself that it’s only for a little while.
It still feels fragging awkward to sit in a circle around the unconscious Prime and wait for him to wake up.
“Wouldn’t this go faster if we just gave him one of our emergency cubes?” Elita-1 asks, rolling her cog between her palms.
“You mean those bite-sized little emergency rations filled with all kinds of circuit-boosting additives? Oh, he would wake up right away,” Knock Out confirms. “But there’s no telling how he will react to the circuit boosters afterwards. They are not recommended for mechs who are already in stasis.” The medic frowns at the energon drip again. “Although Primus knows he might just shrug the effects off altogether. His frame is triple filtering the energon I’m trying to give him and it’s going straight into his primary fuel line.”
Elita makes a face, clearly regretting the question.
“It was a reasonable thing to ask,” Optimus tries to soothe her, which earns him a nasty glare and another grimace. “We have no reason to rush. Let’s follow the recommendation of our medic and err on the side of caution.”
“Wait, there are circuit boosters in the emergency rations?!”
D-16 sighs. “Yes, Pax. That’s why you are not supposed to eat them outside of an emergency. They push you into an overdrive for a few hours until your reserves run out to increase your chances of surviving whatever the Pits is threatening your life at the time, then you crash for anywhere between a week and a month because you don’t have any reserve energy left.”
“Huh. I never knew that.”
“It’s what makes life worth living, even as the centuries go by: we learn something new every day,” Rung pipes up, effectively killing the conversation there and then.
It takes Alpha Trion another 15 kliks to stir, his frame twitching through a sluggish wakeup sequence until he suddenly bolts upright. “Quintesson ambush! Attack! Don’t let them—” the rest of the words fizzle out in a garbled mess as he collapses back down onto the ground. “—message—” He tries to sit up again, but he’s easily pinned in place by Optimus’ hand.
“Please, stay calm. You will worsen your injuries.”
“I— the others— what happened to the others?”
Optimus hesitates, but his expression tells the story long before he commits to the words themselves. “I regret to inform you that only you have survived the ambush.The other Primes are all confirmed dead.” He gestures towards the bodies, laid out as if they were asleep, waiting for… D-16 isn’t certain. Any ordinary bot would be taken apart for spare parts and the sections of their core systems not suitable for recycling would be melted down, but surely they won’t do that to the Primes.
Perhaps once the bodies have been cleared of the moss and grime, they could be interred in the Primal Basilica.
Alpha Trion’s eyes flicker, taking on a determined expression as he pushes himself up to stand —despite Knock Out’s shout of alarm— and stumbles over to Zeta Prime’s body, placing a hand over the mangle chest.
“I failed you, old friend,” Alpha Trion says, the very picture of dignity even on his knees, in the grip of grief. “You deserved so much better than this end.”
Perhaps this is the difference between Primes and regular bots; D-16 can’t imagine anybody he knows reacting so… sedately to the death of those they were closest to, not even the old bots. Megaton would roar and rage and Optimus would likely weep, if not with physical tears then with his EM field, sorrow overflowing.
“No, you didn’t fail.” Orion steps forward, perhaps intruding on the moment just a little, in an attempt at reassuring the last living Prime. “We heard your message. We’ve come to find the Ma—”
Alpha Trion interrupts him, “Your transformation cogs. What happened to you?” He narrows his eyes, regarding them with suspicion. “Who are you?”
Before any of the cogless could answer, Optimus steps forward, giving D-16’s shoulder a light squeeze. “That is quite the long story. One, I feel, that is better left after you had a proper cube and regained your energy.”
Knock Out immediately pipes up, “I concur! As the only medic present, I insist, Lord Prime.”
Alpha Trion, somewhat predictably, doesn’t take kindly to this suggestion, springing to his feet. “I am perfectly fine! I can—” Megaton catches him before his knees could give out again, holding him upright with just one hand hooked into his back kibble.
“Listen to the medic, before you embarrass yourself, Lord Prime.” He guides Alpha Trion to a rock so he can sit and hovers behind him, arms crossed, while Knock Out mixes medical additives into a cube Optimus produces from his subspace.
“While we are on the subject, however,” Optimus says in a soothing voice that D-16’s starting to recognize his conflict-diffusing tone. “Rung suggested that the young bots could take on the cogs of your fallen comrades. With your permission, Lord Prime?”
Alpha Trion regards them evenly for a klik before he acquiesces. “Yes, of course. Primus did not mean for any of us to be without a cog and such gifts are no use for the dead.”
D-16 wondered why Optimus delayed explaining who they were earlier, but maybe this was what he was paying at all along: Alpha Trion likely would not approve of Sentinel’s agreement with the Quintessons (good. D-16 doesn’t agree either) but if they install the cogs before the explanation, then Alpha Trion can hardly ask for the cogs back even if he gets angry at them, can he?
D-16 eyes the others —he doesn’t want to appear too eager and be the first to take a cog— but Knock Out has no such worries. He cycles his vents just once, determined. “Here goes nothing.”
He almost slams the new cog into place, with far more force than necessary, but D-16 thinks he gets it. He’s eager too.
D-16 doesn’t wait for Knock Out’s frame to finish settling —if anything, having all the others stare at the medic takes some attention off him and lessening his anxiety— before he pops the cog into his own chest. He's only vaguely aware that the others are doing the same, too caught up in the sensation to pay much attention to his surroundings.
The feeling is indescribable. There is a sense of rightness, the strut-deep relief of components stuck out of alignment for a long time finally snapping into place, but it also, unexpectedly, stings. D-16 is unprepared for the pain —plates unfolding and rapidly remolding themselves with sharp little jolts, repair nanites crafting news circuitry and wiring on the fly, a deep, throbbing ache as his engine finishes forming and floods his brand new systems with a too-high burst of charge— and it's over before he can really even comprehend it, leaving only satisfaction behind. The world goes dark for just a nanoklik as his primary systems reset and when his vision returns his hud has expanded, now giving him clear data from his tactical systems and a currently incomprehensible readout of his weapons systems and his alt mode.
He feels heavier than before, bigger —oh, definitely bigger— and brimming with power; a tank, with heavy plating and treads and weapons, multiple weapons systems all pinging him urgently to go shoot something so he can calibrate his brand new targeting module.
He glances at the others to see if they are feeling strange too, but gets caught up in trying to guess their new alt modes instead. Elita-1, who was already slimmer than them before, is some kind of streamlined speedster at a glance, all long-limbed slender grace, lightweight and nimble.
Pax is something heavy, almost as big as D-16 —which feels right, in a way; it warms his spark that they can see eye to eye with ease— but not nearly as heavily armored. His colors have brightened, almost the— D-16 resets his eyes to double check, but he sees it correctly; Pax’s colors are the exact same red and blue as Optimus’. The color distribution isn’t quite the same, but it’s a strange coincidence and as he watches, he can’t help but catalogue the familiarities between them; the shape of their helms in particular, the delicate finials and the biolights on the side of their heads… he is suddenly certain that Pax is some kind of heavy hauler, just like Optimus. So certain he would dare to bet his life on it and his analytical subroutines —much more active now that he has an engine that can supply them with enough energy— are going wild trying to puzzle this unlikely coincidence out.
He’s jolted from his thoughts by Megaton’s voice. “Oh. I forgot…”
D-16 glances at the mech —still so much larger than them, it’s unfair— and follows his gaze to Knock Out who has… wings? Knock Out is still very obviously a medic frame —even more obviously, in fact, his medic markings having become part of his paint, stark white lines on brilliant red plating— but the wings and the cockpit are unmistakable. “It seems your guess that he would make a good speedster was off the mark, after all.”
“Yes, but not by much,” Megaton admits. There is something strange in his expression that D-16 can’t read, a strange tension around his eyes. “They are the same archetype of frame —at least they were considered as such, where I come from— so if a light flyer sustained severe enough damage to their wings that they lost the ability to fly, they could be reformatted into groundbound speedsters with minimal risk.” He shakes himself and turns his eyes towards D-16. “Anyway. You look good.” He reaches out with a hand and traces a claw gently around the contour of the Megatronus decal. The sensation is much duller than before, likely due to the increased thickness of the plating. “And your sticker is still here too, if a little worse for wear.”
“Yeah.” D-16 brushes a hand over the decal too. Working in the mines is not the sort of job that allows for this sort of decoration to last long, despite his best efforts. “It won’t last more than another week or two, but I’m glad it’s still here. I was thinking about getting a replacement —one that’s not quite this rare— once we are back in the city.”
They stopped manufacturing Primal merch after a certain point in the war, but especially small things like decals or posters aren’t that hard to come by if one takes the time to look for them and is willing to settle for cheaper reprints. “The Primal Palace used to hand these out during practically every event and gathering. Maybe I can ask Sentinel if he has any left—” Before he could finish his sentence, he gets interrupted by a loud shattering sound; Alpha Trion has crushed his cube. His moss-covered, beat up frame combined with eyes bright with anger and his clenched fist dripping with energon make him look like some vengeful revenant.
“Sentinel” —Alpha Trion hisses the name like it’s poison on his tongue— “still lives?!”
Notes:
I wanted the Big Reveal to be in this chapter, but that's not how the pacing worked out. 😅
Chapter 31
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The hostility in Alpha Trion’s voice makes the newly cogged bots hesitate, just long enough that Optimus steps between D-16, Pax and the Prime, voice gentle and his field pulsing calm.
“He is, indeed, alive. He took up leadership after you were assumed dead an—”
“He would dare?!” Alpha Trion snarls, getting to his feet again. Elita and Knock Out hastily get out of his way as he stalks towards Optimus and Megaton, paying no heed to the smaller bots.
Something turns steely in Optimus’ expression, his carefully manufactured smile freezing on his face. “If you wish to hear what we know, do not interrupt me again, Lord Prime.” Behind him Megaton shifts his weight just slightly; not quite a combat stance, but D-16’s tactical systems cheerfully inform him that the big mech is posturing as if he was readying for a fight, which is just one step removed from actually starting to throw punches.
It’s bewildering; is Megaton out of his mind to try and subtly threaten a Prime, even an injured one??
Alpha Trion notices it too.
“Hah! You think you could take me on?”
“Bluntly speaking? Yes. Yes, we could.” Optimus’ smile drops. Megaton grins instead, his sharp teeth bared and his eyes flashing with something that is dangerously close to anticipation. “But we are not in the habit of beating up infirm old bots and we do not want to be responsible for killing the last Prime.” Alpha Trion comes to a stop barely a step away from Optimus, who meets his eyes unflinchingly. Standing face to face, both Optimus and Megaton are taller than Alpha Trion, even when the Prime pulls himself out of his awkward hunch to stand as tall as he could. “I will, however, not allow you to treat us or the small bots as your lessers. You shame yourself and you shame Primus with such conduct.”
Alpha Trion flinches; then very slowly takes a step back. “You are… correct. Primus would weep if he saw what has become of us.”
Megaton lets out a rude huff of air through his vents, but he relaxes back into his neutral posture.
“Respect is gained as it is given, Lord Prime. You will regain the habit soon enough.” Optimus says it lightly, but D-16 can’t help but feel like it is still a veiled threat. “As I was saying: Sentinel took up leadership after you had fallen and the Matrix was lost. Without it, energon no longer flows freely, which left the survivors facing the dual peril of death by the Quintessons’ hands or death by starvation. To alleviate the more pressing threat, Sentinel struck a bargain with the Quintessons for a ceasefire.”
Alpha Trion’s mouth twists into a snarl. “Is that what he told you?”
“Is that not what happened?” The question comes from Orion, who peeks out from behind Optimus.
“No. It is a pretty lie, one that suits Sentinel’s duplicitous nature, but I have seen the truth with my own eyes. Come. I will show you.” He gestures with his head and lumbers away, back towards the center of the cave where he kneels, one hand placed on the ground.
They stand around him in a loose circle, waiting to see what he plans to do. D-16 almost jumps out of his plating when Alpha Trion starts speaking and a fine cloud of metallic particles rise up with his voice.
“For thousands of cycles, the war with the Quintessons had been a brutal conflict.” The cloud swells and washes over them, forming into the colorful, easy-to-recognize shapes of the Primes, clustered around a long-range holocomm. The comm showed an image of Sentinel, his expression earnest and serious, explaining something to Zeta. “Until Sentinel, the Principal Aide to the Primes, intercepted an enemy transmission. There was going to be a secret gathering of Quintesson commanders. Their elimination could end the war.”
It’s not what Alpha Trion is focusing on, but D-16’s mind gets stuck on that sentence. If taking out a few commanders would have been enough to end the war, then the Quintessons couldn’t have been much better off than them. Megaton said the Quintessons reproduce much slower than Cybertronians, which means that they might still have the edge if hostilities started up again… ugh. He needs better data, more accurate numbers, more information—
An overly warm hand lands on his shoulder, claws scratching gently against the thickened plating, and all his thought processes come into a crashing halt. He glances up at Megaton, but the mech is looking firmly at the image Alpha Trion is projecting, pretending that nothing of note has happened, but his hand stays and that spot of heat on his right shoulder keeps D-16’s thoughts from wandering.
“It was a mission so important, we Primes took it on ourselves. We agreed to meet Sentinel for his sensitive intel in secret, here in this cave.”
D-16 feels a sudden blast of hot air from Megaton’s abdominal vents. The mech’s EM field brushes against him with a brief burst of amusement that’s immediately suppressed and the fingers spasm on his shoulder; Megaton is trying very hard not to laugh and D-16 can understand why. One does not need to be a specialized tactician frame to see the red flags in that scenario, especially having seen what this cave actually looks like. He’s certain even Pax wouldn’t have agreed to meeting anybody here.
It gives him a sudden, unwanted understanding about why the Primes required the help of tactical advisors to not lose the war completely.
His amusement cools swiftly, however, when Alpha Trion goes on, “But we were not alone.”
Chittering loudly, a horde of Quintessons descend from the hole in the ceiling, raining down fire from their bioblasters upon the Primes who huddle together in a defensive formation. It takes just a few nanokliks for them to assess the ambushing force —only the lowest ranking cannon fodder, no champions or commanders, thus not posing any real threat— before the more specialized warrior frames break formation and launch a counterattack with fierce battleshouts. It would have been a long fight, based on the numbers alone, but the Primes have won against much worse odds many times before.
“We were outnumbered, but stood as one. Our victory was near.”
Without really meaning to, D-16 seeks out Megatronus Prime in the crowd. Befitting the greatest warrior among the Primes, he single handedly carves a path through the assailants, first with his rocket salvo, then, to conserve energy, throwing himself into the fray to skewer the beasts with his spear.
A pained, cut-off grunt catches D-16’s attention; an odd noise even in the heat of battle when the Quintessons don’t have claws strong enough to pierce a Prime’s plating.
“Until we were betrayed.”
With a shower of red particles, a shining silver blade pierces through Nexus Prime’s chest —clean through his spark chamber and his t-cog, instant death even for Primus’ most beloved children— and when the blade withdraws and the body collapses there is a bot behind him, unmistakable with his blue and gold plating, even if the hateful twist of his mouth renders his face almost unrecognizable.
D-16 watches in numb disbelief as Sentinel stalks the battlefield, sword in hand —the transforming blade that was once bestowed upon Cyclonus; a Primal relic, one of the few weapons that could breach even the heavily reinforced armor of a Prime— and cuts down their leaders —their protectors— one after another.
Megatronus is one of the first Primes to fall. Several Quintessons hang from his limbs to bring him to his knees, but they can’t completely immobilize him. For an infinitely long nanoklik, Megatronus looks up, meets the burning blue eyes of his killer, before the sword descends in a brutal swing, Sentinel throwing his full weight behind it to manage a clean cut.
Sentinel’s path through the carnage is meticulous and calculated. Instead of braving the superior reach of Solus Prime’s hammer —even armed with a powerful relic, he isn’t a combatant and he stands no chance of challenging a warrior-Prime up close—, he shoots her with Nexus Prime’s plasma blaster. The shot sends her flying into a pile of Quintesson corpses, almost accidentally impaling her on the cruel spikes they wield as melee weapons, her plating easily pierced after the overheated plasma has weakened it.
He shoots Zeta Prime too, sending the Matrix Bearer to the ground. While not lethal, the blast is devastating enough that Zeta can’t fight back when Sentinel stomps on his energy axe and stands above him, silently regarding the leader of the Primes over the barrel of the blaster.
“Sentinel,” —Zeta’s voice is weak, from the pain of his wounds or the pain of betrayal, D-16 isn’t sure which— “why?”
Sentinel takes just a beat too long to answer, his face set in an emotionless mask. “For all the power of Cybertron.” He says it with the same cadence he used to use in his first public speeches, heavy and a little stiff; recited. Did he practice this line before? Did he plan this all? How long and why?
The questions chase each other in D-16’s mind, producing a million answers and unable to settle on any one that makes sense, that fits the mech he had met just the other day, joking drily over cards or smiling shily into the camera, overcome by the cheers of his people.
Who called out to Megatronus in his delirium, clinging desperately to Megaton when he mistook him for the Prime. It can’t possibly be the same person who beheaded Megatronus without so much as a blink.
For a moment, he holds two conflicting truths of Sentinel in his mind, trying desperately to match them together, but they don’t compute. They can’t be both true, so one has to be a lie and he can’t deny the reality of the dead around them, so that other Sentinel, the one he was growing to like, despite all the— Primus, all the other lies, has to be another lie, fabricated through and through.
He presses a hand against his chest, as if the pressure could soothe the sharp ache in his spark. It hurts. It hurts more than any other truth he has learned.
He almost misses when Alpha Trion goes on, when Sentinel lowers the blaster with a lopsided smirk and peels Zeta Prime’s chest apart and lifts the Matrix up, his expression shifting to one of awed reverence as he holds the most precious artifact on all of Cybertron in his hands.
“But Sentinel never understood the true power of what he desired. The Matrix of Leadership can only be wielded by one that Primus himself deems worthy and Sentinel most certainly was not.” It takes just a moment; awe turns to greedy delight which is immediately shattered by terror when the Matrix wretches itself free of Sentinel’s grasp and crumbles to dust before his very eyes.
That’s the last moment of memory Alpha Trion has preserved: Sentinel frozen in a desperate shout, reaching for thin air where the Matrix was just a nanoklik ago.
The particles fall, the spell broken. Next to D-16, Orion falls to his knees, overcome with shock.
“Wait. Hold on.” Pax claws at the ground, trying to make sense of something that doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense, these pieces don’t fit together— “You’re saying that the Matrix of Leadership just vanished?”
“No. No, no, no, no, I don’t believe this.” D-16 starts pacing, agitated, still desperate for something that can link these all together. “This doesn’t make sense!”
“Right,” Elita concurs and D-16 spins around to stare at her so quickly he gets dizzy. He has known her for cycles and she never bought into the hero worship surrounding Sentinel, so she's the last person he'd expected to question what they've just seen. “Why would Sentinel do that?”
“To gain power,” Alpha Trion rumbles. “Just like he said. He bargained our lives —and the lives of all Cybertronians— away so he could play at being a leader under the new rulers of Cybertron.”
“For all the power of Cybertron.” Optimus tests the phrase on his tongue, as if he was uncertain what to make of it. “I have heard this somewhere before, I’m sure of it… Something about this doesn’t sound right.”
“Power. Riiiight.” Knock Out’s engine makes a strange whine when he tries to rev it, but he pushes past the momentary mortification and crosses his arms. “Some power it is, with the price he pays for it. The guy spends more time laid out in medical than up and about! It’s a good season if we only have him in decontam once or twice. He shows up with some kind of damage so often that there’s an unofficial betting pool on when Director Pharma will throw him in the incinerator instead of fixing him, because it would be less of a headache.”
D-16 was somewhat aware that Knock Out could be, on occasion, really casual about his irreverence of the transformers, but he didn’t know that the same attitude was shared by the hospital staff at large or that it extended even to Sentinel.
Nonetheless, there is some merit to what Knock Out said; Sentinel does risk his life and health every time when he bargains with the Quintesson. Or… so it seems, at least. D-16 doesn’t know if he trusts anything anymore, unless he can see it with his own two eyes.
“So his new masters abuse him? Hah! Serves him right.” Alpha Trion seems darkly amused by Sentinel’s misfortune. “He has always been short sighted and impulsive.”
…that can’t be right.
“Let me see if I understand this: your primary tactical advisor, the mech whose entire job was to analyse and improve upon your battle plans, was ‘short sighted and impulsive’?” That entire suggestion is so laughable that D-16 forgets that he was pacing and stops dead in his tracks. “Why was he allowed to stay in that position, then?!”
“Yeah, that’s right!” Pax is quick to back him up, trying to find a throughline of logic in this tangle of contradictions, same as D-16. “I read about this before. The Aides were Zeta’s personal acolytes before the war. Why would you bestow a position like that on someone who’s obviously not suited for it?”
“One would think” —Megaton says in an ominous rumble— “that you were trying to lose the war.”
That’s taking it too far, in D-16’s opinion, but he’s starting to get the impression that Megaton is deliberately provoking Alpha Trion for some reason.
“Of course not!” Alpha Trion takes a threatening step towards Megaton, but it doesn’t have much effect on the silver bot. “While having advanced tactical capabilities of their own was desired in an Aide, it was not a dealbreaker; Sentinel’s frame houses a one-of-a-kind tactical system of Amalgamous’ design that is only surpassed by his magnum opus.”
“The Censere System.”
“Correct.” Alpha Trion shakes his head. “Sentinel was a capable enough secretary and public relations mech, but we found his natural judgment… unreliable. His priorities did not align with what we needed in our tactical advisor. He was immature and greedy, his desires far outpacing what he could handle.” Alpha Trion harrumphs. “Despite his flaws, he was Zeta’s favorite. Like all of us, he mistook the pleasant front Sentinel put up in front of us for his true nature.”
Fabricating a persona to hide his true colors behind… is that not the exact same thing Sentinel does now? Playing the part of the Prime, covering his hunger for power behind stolen valor.
Optimus makes a low humming sound, his brow plates pitched down in a troubled frown. “I have worked with a fair share of tactical analyst frames, both ones who were born with their tactical system and ones who received one as an upgrade. Regardless of his priorities, Sentinel doesn’t act like someone who has special tactical hardware. Unless…” Optimus freezes, staring into the middle distance for a long klik. When he finally speaks again, his voice is faint with horrified disbelief: “short-circuit.”
Orion and Elita are looking from Optimus to Megaton to Alpha Trion, waiting for one of them to provide some kind of context. “Could somebody fill us in?”
D-16 is just as lost. He skims through his memory archives, trying to find the last time he heard the term in any kind of context that might be connected to Sentinel…
Megaton growls before he can find the relevant memory.
“Sentinel’s frame houses the tactical systems, but he can’t use them freely.” His EM field lashes out with a low kindling rage that feels much more dangerous than his outburst in the Archives. “They are not connected to his brain module— his primary brain module, is that right? You can’t make this kind of top of the line hardware with lifeless components; you need neural circuitry, living or dead, and among a billion dead I’m certain Amalgamous Prime could find plenty of brains to cup apart that would suit his needs.”
Alpha Trion staggers back a step in shock, as if Megaton punched him. “You dare—?! I don’t presume to know the details of Amalgamous’ work, but he would have never used our people for his experiments!”
The memory finally comes to him, of the day when they told Sentinel about Primus; the mech trying to plug into himself before Airachnid stopped him. There was a popular rumor about self-interfacing that way, so the medics warned everyone to don't even try it; a mech’s systems got confused when you were both the source and the receiver of charge or data, interface protocols became tangled and glitchy, and someone could burn out their entire neural net in a matter of kliks if the error war severe enough.
Optimus takes a step towards Alpha Trion. “Would you bet your life on it? The lives of your people, your kin?”
Alpha Trion hesitates just a moment too long; it feels like a condemnation, even though he eventually does say, “I am certain. Zeta directly oversaw every major project Amalgamous worked on to ascertain that he did not lose sight of our values in his pursuit of victory. He would not have allowed the desecration of our people.” Alpha Trion squares his shoulders. “No, he would not have allowed that; it would have made us no better than the Quintessons.”
D-16 believes him. He— he must believe Alpha Trion or he feels like he’ll go crazy. The Prime was always painted as wise and benevolent in the old holos; he can't be wrong about this.
“Where does this leave us?” Orion asks, shifting around so he's sitting cross-legged instead of kneeling on the ground. “Even if he wanted power, even if he resented the Primes for the results of his rebuild, there is no way Sentinel could have been stupid enough to think that he would be in a better position under the rule of the Quintessons than under the guidance of the Twelve.” He's looking at the cracked ground rather than at any of them, as if he was trying to convince himself the most. “No bot can be that stupid. Right?”
Alpha Trion growls —not an engine noise, but an actual, deep growl coming from his beast alt— and looks at the dead, gaze lingering on Megatronus Prime’s severed head. “There was once a time when I might have tried to theorize on his motivations or apply logic to his madness, but Sentinel’s thoughts are beyond my comprehension. I cannot fathom the mind of a mech who would slay his own lover —a doting, adoring lover who would have fought the very world for his sake, who had begged Zeta Prime for the unprecedented permission to Conjunx him once the war was over— with cold, calculating indifference."
Notes:
The play-by-play of the Alpha Trion's recollection took up so much of this chapter that the meat of the conflict got pushed to the next chapter. Again. RIP
In other news, however, I have finished a drawing the other day of Sentinel having a nightmare. It was bit of an unplanned adventure to draw this thing, but I think it turned out quite neat. If I ever get around to finishing this fic and writing that prequel fic I have knocking around in my outlines, I plan to use this as a cover for it.
If you happen to be on tumblr and want to share (or look at the picture in full + the closeup, because this thing is huge, no account needed) you can fine it HERE on my blog.
Chapter 32
Notes:
I will finish answering the comments and the previous chapter and come back and look this one over for typos/minor edits later when I had some sleep, but I really wanted to have this chapter out today.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
D-16 feels like the ground has dropped out from under his feet. “Megatronus wanted to Conjunx—”
It makes sense, he can see how it makes sense, but he still can’t believe it.
“How would that even work?” Elita asks, grimacing. “The power differential between them would have made interfacing impossible.”
Orion gives her an incredulous look. “Elita, why is that the first direction your mind goes to when we hear about a Prime falling for the bot who eventually killed him?”
“Because it’s important to make a relationship work! I have spent no small amount of time in the last seven cycles listening to both Jazz and Prowl bemoan how awkward and strange this aspect of their relationship has been since Prowl got a cog and Jazz didn’t. Sentinel doesn’t strike me as the type who would want to stop at chaste handholding if he was in a relationship with someone, so they had to make the interfacing work somehow.”
It says something about D-16’s current mental state that he almost bursts out in hysterical laughter at the look of mortification that appears on Alpha Trion’s face.
“Regardless of the private details of their relationship, I do not believe there was ever any genuine sentiment on Sentinel’s part,” Alpha Trion says, directing the conversation firmly away from the topic of interfacing. “I suspect he seduced and led Megatronus on only so he would have someone who’d take his side in our strategy meetings.”
That sounds like altogether too much effort just to get someone to support your plans, but Alpha Trion no doubt knew them better than D-16. Besides, the facts speak for themselves: unless they had a truly horrendous falling out leading to a breakup… but no, Alpha Trion would have known if that happened. So there is no way Sentinel returned Megatronus’ feelings. He would not have been able to kill him if he did.
“That’s a bold claim,” Megaton says, eyes glowing ominously. “Do you have anything substantial to back it up or are you basing it on hindsight and your current feelings alone?”
“I would assume that the facts speak for themselves.” Alpha Trion glances at the body of Zeta Prime before he flinches, so brief D-16 almost believes that he imagined it. “I can’t imagine what kind of wicked spark would slay someone they once loved, even if that love had faded.”
Megaton snorts. “It has nothing to do with wickedness. Each and every one of us has a limit, a line we would never cross; a line we would not allow our beloved to cross, even if only death could prevent them from falling so low.” He pins Alpha Trion with a smoldering glare. “There are plenty of things about the war and the choices the Twelve had made that are suspect and Sentinel had better insight into your plans than any other bot alive. If I were in his place and discovered that you have squandered the trust I and all of our people have placed in you” —Megaton smiles; all sharp teeth and cruel, wicked glee— death would have been a kindness compared to what I would have done to you.”
D-16 gapes at him. He has seen Megaton act prickly or even a little menacing before, but in that moment the bot looks downright evil. “You can’t possibly mean that! You are taking this joke too far!” he snaps at Megaton, but the big mech looks unrepentant. “If it was you in Sentinel’s place and Optimus was a Prime, would you seriously kill him?!”
“Yes.” The answer comes without hesitation, casual like D-16 asked him if he wants more iron shavings in his energon. “If I thought that Optimus Prime, divinely anointed leader of all Cybertronians, was shunning his duty to protect our people and was complicit in the near-extinction of our species, I would cut him down where he stands, even if it meant crushing my own very spark.”
Madness. Pure madness. He imagines what he’d do if it was— if it was him and Pax instead. He can’t conceive of a scenario where Orion would ever do something that endangered Cybertron, but he forces himself to imagine the scenario anyway. To his horror, his tactical systems start immediately supplying him with various methods to stop him and their projected success—
No. No no no no no, he would never— he could never hurt Orion.
“Optimus?” Aghast, D-16 turns to the other bot, but finds no support there either.
“There are few tasks more sacred than a Prime’s Primus-given duty to protect our people. One where failure is unacceptable.” He regards Alpha Trion evenly, but there is a cold edge to the twist of his mouth. “I have led soldiers in battle and was responsible for the protection of civilians before. Learning the intricacies of war when lives are at stake is a gruesome affair. It’s not unusual for untested commanders to sustain severe casualties, but even if the Primes were wholly inadequate to the task at the beginning of the war, I find it suspect that in a million years, with military bots and tactical advisors at their disposal, they have not learned better. If the war was really as close as Alpha Trion seems to believe, then I find the excessive number of casualties even more mystifying.”
He can sort of see the shape of what Optimus is suggesting —what he accuses the Primes of— but he can’t believe it. “What are you saying?” he asks in a faint voice.
“An army is only as strong as its supply chain.” Megaton makes a nonsensical gesture with his hand. “Ideally, you need civilian support —medics and manufacturers and engineers to service the equipment— to keep your combatants fueled and repaired, so they can return to the fight over and over again. Even if we boil it down to the most cruel, utilitarian viewpoint, those who do not contribute directly in material ways still add to the morale and contribute in other, less easily defined ways.” He taps the side of his head. “Run it through your tactical module and you will see it too. This is the most basic logic there is.”
“There are, of course, strategies that work without preserving the civilians," Optimus takes over again, his tone even like this is a theoretical lecture and not a dissection of the war that almost destroyed their world. “Funneling all your resources into your combatants can massively accelerate a conflict, but at the cost of exponentially higher losses. If the only thing that matters is victory, if the casualties are a non-factor, then it is possible to keep throwing your forces at the enemy in an endless, relentless assault that would prevent them from establishing their own supply network. If I very generously estimate that a million Quintessons came to conquer Cybertron, hoping to quickly establish dominance through their superior technology that they would later fuel from our planetary energon, then I can see an angle where such a crude strategy would eventually wear them down through numbers alone.” He shakes his head gravely. “Even in a brutal war, you do not lose a billion people by accident.”
D-16 makes a strained noise, a high pitched, off-tune whine escaping his vocalizer. He can see it. He can see how the pieces could fit together and the picture that forms is vile.
The Primes would never— Megatronus would never stand for that.
“Lord Prime.” Is he pleading? He might be pleading. “Please say that it is not true.”
Alpha Trion growls, his eyes flashing— then he deflates. “I— do not know.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW?!” Pax is on his feet in a moment, his expression wild with outrage. “How do you not know if we— you are one of our leaders! You were there when— whatever the decision was was made! How can you not know?”
D-16 can practically see the shattered pieces of Orion’s faith; he praises his dubious fortune that he has already steeled his heart against surprises like this.
“You have to understand, we were not warriors before the war. Zeta, Megatronus, Maximo and Micronus, yes, but not the rest of us. We hardly ever met up to strategize together until the very end, when both sides were already worn down to their last resolve and we were pushed back to Iacon. Before that… Zeta Prime coordinated our war efforts from Iacon, but he left the more immediate minutia of command to Megatronus and the others.” Alpha Trion refuses to meet their eyes. All of a sudden he looks very old and very tired. “My duty was to teach and archive our history before the war. I was not suited to leading armies, so I was kept away from the worst of the conflict. I went into battle when there was nobody else close enough to provide support, but I didn’t have much insight into what went down elsewhere.”
“So the only person who had a complete overview of the war was Zeta Prime?” That sounds ill-advised.
“Zeta Prime and his Aides, yes. He used to have a whole team of them at the beginning.” Alpha Trion’s face twists into a painful grimace for a moment. “I suppose I should have realized that something was amiss when the number of Aides was reduced to only one and Amalgamous started to construct the Censere System to make up for their absence. With our people so diminished, there weren’t enough volunteers with the right tactical abilities to fill the place of those who resigned due to the strain anymore, so Zeta had to settle for only one who had to be upgraded and reformatted to be able to fulfill the role to begin with.”
Megaton and Optimus exchange a glance, but D-16 doesn’t even try to guess what they are thinking.
“Surely at some point you have realized that something was amiss, right?” There is something in Megaton’s voice that suggests that he’s not ruling out the possibility that Alpha Trion remained blissfully ignorant of it that their people got precariously close to extinction until now.
“When Vos fell. They held on the longest, but eventually the Quintessons besieged the city and brought it to ruin. If not for Megatronus personally intervening, we likely would have lost every last seeker, including the high guard.” Right, D-16 has watched the holos about the fall of Vos. The Vosian high guard used to be an independent force, not belonging directly under any Prime’s command, until the destruction of their city. Megatronus Prime abandoned a less critical battle so he could rush to the siege and dueled a Quintesson commander and its personal elite troops to win them time to evacuate anyone who could still be saved, so after the battle they all swore fealty to the Prime. “That was when we took stock of our situation, all of us together for the first time in centuries, and realized how dire things were. We barely had a few hundred thousand people remaining and we were trapped in Iacon, lacking the means to establish safe footholds anywhere outside of Iacon Plateau.”
Alpha Trion slowly cycles his vents, stalling for a whole klik before he finally manages to make the words form. “That was when it was decided that the war must end, as soon as possible, by any means necessary.”
“Ah. There it is.” Alpha Trion jerks around and pins Knock Out with a glare, but the medic takes it in stride with a shrug and feigned casualty. “You might be a teacher, Lord Prime, but you are not a very riveting storyteller. It was obvious there was a ‘but’ coming from the very beginning.”
“Yes, but that makes no sense.” Orion shakes his head and starts pacing to try and make sense of the retelling. “If so few people were left, then why would you— the right thing to do would have been to double down on protecting them, no? What is the point of winning a war if you had to sacrifice every last one of your people to achieve it?”
Alpha Trion is silent for a long time, guilt hanging off him like a tattered cloak. “Before Primus created the first priests —the first of the common people— we lived alone. We were there at the start of our civilization and it was deemed that as long as we, the Primes, survived the war then we may start all over again. Everybody else was expendable.”
D-16 thinks he must have crashed and started hallucinating, because it can’t be possible that Alpha Trion really just said that.
“The brightest and most blessed of Primus’ children.” Megaton’s voice is dripping with disgust. “What a joke you are.”
“You can’t possibly imagine our situation!” Alpha Trion tries to pull himself up to look taller, more confident, but after a nanoklik his shoulders sink like a punctured balloon. “A million years, filled with death and destruction. It wore us down to the very core. We just wanted it to be over!”
“If you are looking for pity, you won’t find it here."
“Megaton, enough.” Optimus places a soothing hand on his Conjunx’s shoulder. “At least we have found out what aggravated Sentinel so much. He was advising a slower, more careful campaign to close out the war, is that correct? He is currently focusing on population growth in Iacon, even at the cost of population happiness and quality of life.” He nods towards D-16 and the others. “So it’s not difficult to extrapolate that he would have advised against strategies that lead to an excess loss of life. Advice that was then ignored, yes?”
“By his own estimate, if we followed his advice then the war would have been extended by several thousand years,” Alpha Trion admits with some reluctance. “We wanted to put a swift, decisive end to the conflict, so his suggestions were dismissed more often than not.”
“Our natural lifespan is in the millions. What does a few thousand years even matter?”
“Megaton.”
“I’m right and you know it.”
“Yes, but it hardly matters now. Reiterating that the Primes were wrong and selfish won’t help us find out what happened. Although ”—he glances at Alpha Trion— “this seems like a strong enough case why Sentinel would resort to murder. Based on our previous interactions we theorized that he might have some stray governor coding and governor mechs do not tolerate it well when someone tries to eradicate the population they have staked a claim on, whether directly or through negligence.”
“Even if what you say has a kernel of truth to it, I find it difficult to believe that Sentinel would care about the people.” Alpha Trion narrows his eyes. “I can accept him feeling slighted because we did not take his suggestions into consideration, but even when he pretended to be nice around us, he could never feign being empathetic.”
D-16 disagrees. He has plenty of archival footage where Sentinel showed genuine care — or seemed like he did, anyway. D-16 doesn’t dare to trust his memories anymore. It could very well be that Sentinel just got better at acting over time.
“You shouldn’t think of it as empathy, strictly speaking. It’s more that he is… territorial. But over a group of people rather than a section of land.”
“Ah.” That makes no sense to D-16, but it seems to make perfect sense to Alpha Trion. After a while the old mech says, “No, I’m still certain that you are prescribing a moral high ground or reasonable motivation to Sentinel that he does not possess. He would have had no reason to kill Megatronus if he did; Megatronus opposed the plan from the very beginning. Many of us did, but after Zeta had the last word only Megatronus had the tenacity to keep arguing about it. It was a severe point of tension between them— everybody knew it! There is no way that Sentinel, close as he was to both of them, could have claimed ignorance on the matter.”
Yes, that fits the Megatronus from the historical records and the old holos; he would have never stood idly by and allowed their people to be sacrificed, not unless there was no other option. So it all came down to Sentinel and what he knew and what he believed he knew and D-16 can feel a brand new migraine coming on because there are dozens of potential solutions to this riddle and he doesn’t have all the information to even guess which one is true.
Elita concurs. “Great, so it’s Alpha Trion’s word against Sentinel’s, and from where I stand they both seem to be bastards right now. I would not trust anything either of them say and we don’t have anybody else who might pitch in, so we are just walking in circles.”
Yeah, she’s right. It’s all just guesswork and conjecture. Even if they found somebody who knew both Sentinel and the Primes during the war, they would be biased in favor of one or the other and would be no more trustworthy than—
“Rung!” Orion says all of a sudden, his expression lighting up. “Rung was the therapist of the palace staff during the war. If Sentinel talked to anyone about whatever was bothering him, it would be him!”
That’s an excellent idea and D-16 mentally kicks himself for not thinking of it first.
Except…
“Where is Rung?”
Notes:
I can't believe I have to say this, but please do NOT feed any of my art or writing to genAI and don't create genAI 'fanart' of my fic.
Chapter 33
Notes:
Whew, it's been a while. I was quite busy this month and I had a side project that took quite a bit of my time as well. 😉
Since this fic recently hit 1000 kudos (thank you so, sooo much, you guys are amazing! 💕) I wanted to do something for the occasion. That something ended up as a bonus side-story with Barricade and Sentinel, set not long after the fall of the Primes: Hardware Failure.I have organized all the connected fics into a series under the collective title Seeing Double, so you can find the extra story there along with Sky Ballet.
Anyway, thank you for your patience, I hope you will enjoy the chapter!
Chapter Text
They agree to split up to increase their chances of finding Rung. Knock Out and Elita-1 stay behind to monitor Alpha Trion’s state and to fill him in about what happened in Iacon city since Sentinel took over and the rest of them form two teams: Optimus and Orion search the plateau to the left of the cave entrance while D-16 and Megaton search to the right.
It soon becomes evident that Rung couldn't have come in this direction; there is no way down short of scaling a wall that's much steeper even than the one they climbed to get up here. Going up towards the peak poses the same challenge.
D-16 stops in front of the reflective mountainside and uses a section with relatively little distortion to take his new looks in. He likes what he sees, especially the red accents. It makes him resemble Megaton, just a tiny bit.
Perhaps because the observation about Orion’s colors matching Optimus is still fresh in his memory, but he can't help but linger on that thought, comparing himself to the blurry blob of Megaton reflected in the mountainside. “Do you think we look similar?”
Megaton ambles over and stands next to him; up close the similarities are much less pronounced, Megaton’s frame built with bold, alien shapes, shining biolights and much brighter reds than D-16. “A little bit. We might look more alike if I was still in my original frame.” He runs his claws down the length of the neural cable, thumbing the segments lightly. “I was a show fighter for a time; a gladiator. During that period I was modified multiple times to be as eye-catching as possible without courting public indecency.”
D-16 follows the biolights running down the hollow of Megaton’s throat with his eyes and yeah, he can see that angle.
“This is not how I originally looked either,” D-16 admits, rubbing at his unpainted silver chest plates. “There was an accident in the mines. Acid burst. It ruined most of my paint nanites. My plating used to be dark grey with yellow hazard stripes.”
“Standard miner configuration. I'm familiar.” He gives D-16 a gentle nudge. “If it's any solace, I think the paintless look works on you, even if it is a little bit macabre.”
D-16 turns back towards the makeshift mirror. It is a good look; fierce, like a warrior should be. Looking at his reflection, however, inevitably draws his eyes to the decal on his shoulder and his mood plummets. “I suppose I should take this off.” He should just rip it off, get it over with quickly… He runs his fingers along the edge, but can't quite bring himself to grasp the flimsy foil. “If Megatronus was really deserving of death, then I don’t want to wear his mark anymore.”
Megaton places a hand over D-16’s to stop him. “Don’t be hasty. We lack crucial information and you can always remove it later if what we learn proves to be damning after all.”
“Do you honestly think there is a chance that Megatronus was innocent, after all?” That would almost be worse, somehow. That would mean that Sentinel cut his lover down for nothing, executed the greatest and most honorable warrior in Cybertron’s history over false claims or, even worse, for some selfish, personal agenda.
It is safer to hate someone who is already dead. You can’t drag their souls back from the Afterspark to face the consequences of their crime; they are beyond retribution, beyond the reach of this dark thing boiling inside D-16’s lines, demanding that justice be carved into their rusting frame. There is nothing actionable about hating a dead mech, so D-16 could let this bitter feeling burn itself out safely in a hidden corner of his soul and sweep the cooling ashes from his mind afterwards, never to be thought of again.
He’s not sure what he’s going to do if Megatronus was innocent. If Sentinel had some rotten reason for killing the Primes, for all that he stepped up to lead with passion and conviction after their death. He can see the shapes of some dangerous thoughts forming when he entertains the questions for too long and doesn’t dare to look any closer at them.
“I believe the situation was more complicated than that,” Megaton says quietly. “But I also believe that it’s completely irrelevant if Megatronus was a saint or a monster. The Primes were living people once, yes, but now they are only myths; symbols. The mark of Megatronus Prime is the symbol of a righteous warrior and the failings of the mech who lived and died are already too far removed from his mythos to matter at all.”
Without meaning to, D-16’s thoughts drift to the Iacon 5000, to the many tales of the wise, benevolent Primes he heard all his life, the resonant rallying cries that spurred them on when things got hard. Look at these heroes, Sentinel said, raising the Thirteen high above them. The brightest, the wisest, the kindest Cybertron ever had and they gave their lives for us. For this chance at a new beginning. They would not want us to despair and fade away in grief. They would want us to live, to thrive. So let us build the best world that we can to honor their sacrifice.
It has been a lie all along and that makes Alpha Trion’s words all the more infuriating, but it’s a pretty lie. A lie that the people needed so they had the strength to claw their way out of the pit of despair they found themselves in during the energon famine.
It doesn’t matter who the Primes were in life; Iacon needed hope, so Sentinel fashioned them into embodiments of hope, talked them up until only their myths remained, scoured the archives free of all their mortal faults. If Sentinel could bow his head in honor to this mythical Zeta Prime, knowing full well that the real mech decreed that the survival of the Primes was worth the death of every other living Cybertronian, then D-16 can hold onto the mythical Megatronus as well; the one he knows so well, who only ever existed in the stories.
“Yeah, you are right.”
“I know I am.” Megaton gives his shoulder a firm pat. “You should go check on Optimus and Orion. I’m going to climb up to the peak to take a wide range scan of the area and I don’t want you scaling vertical walls until you are more comfortable with your new frame.”
D-16 wants to argue, but truth be told, he does feel heavier and a little off-balance. Besides, Optimus coached Bumblebee through his first transformations and helped him become comfortable in his vehicle mode. D-16 is a tank rather than a regular road vehicle —he managed to decipher at least this much from the almost incomprehensible data stream reporting on the state of his new alt mode— but the basics should be the same, right?
He ends up wandering down a long pathway hugging the other side of the mountain, not wide enough for anybody’s alt mode, but walkable enough that he feels secure on the path. It terminates in a sharp corner where it breaks off into what’s probably another plateau. He can hear voices just up ahead, but when he hears what they are talking about he stops out of sight, just before turning the corner; he doesn’t want to intrude.
“Dee said that you are religious, but you seem so unshaken by what we heard. How do you reconcile your belief with the knowledge that Primus’ chosen were— that they were—”
“Annointed monsters?”
“Yes.” Orion sounds so dejected that D-16 can clearly picture him in his mind's eye: arms crossed, shoulders slumped, eyes cast miserably to the ground. “I thought that finding the Matrix —or even better, finding any of the Primes— would set things right. That they would, I don’t know, snap their fingers to bring energon back and make our lives easy again, like in the pre-war stories. Instead the Primes didn’t even try to save us. How am I supposed to believe the stories about the Primes, knowing this? The stories about life before the war?” Orion falls silent for a klik before he adds, in a faint voice, “How am I supposed to believe in Primus, knowing these are the people he made to lead us?”
D-16 clenches his hands into fists to stop himself from rushing out there and giving Orion a hug, because this is not his moment. This moment is for Orion and Optimus, a chance for Orion to find the same kind of mentorship and guidance that D-16 found in Megaton —that he has begun to take for granted, he realizes with a start— because these are not questions that D-16 has an answer for. He believes in Primus as much as the next bot and he is (or was? He’s not sure anymore) a notoriously big fan of Megatronus, but he never expected the Primes, the Matrix or Primus himself to ever provide a solution to any of their troubles.
So he leans against the mountainside, grits his teeth and hopes that Optimus might have some kind of answer or guidance for Pax, because it hurts to hear his closest friend so distressed.
“I did not realize that you were religious.”
“I spent my first cycle of life as an apprentice to one of the priests— Dion, if you might know him? No? Anyway, he thought I might be a good fit for the clergy, but when the medics evaluated me for a cog they said no. I’m guessing because my alt mode is too big, but at the time I had no idea why they rejected me. Nocogs can’t join the priesthood, so he tried to get me situated as doctor Sunder’s secretary instead, but… anyway, it didn’t last for long. Then I ended up in the mines and I had too much going on to really observe the religion, but I still believe. Believed.”
“I see.” Optimus makes a soft hum while thinks of an answer. “I believe that Primus is a wise and benevolent creator who loves us dearly, but while His thoughts are beyond our comprehension, He is neither omniscient, nor infallible. Furthermore, just as we struggle to comprehend the scope of His thoughts, He in turn might not understand the intricacies of our minds.”
“So you think Primus made a mistake?”
“I think that just like any other loving parent, He wants to assume the best of His creations. He entrusted Zeta and his siblings with guiding and protecting us and they failed in their duty. That does not indicate that Primus loves us any less or that any other bot He might choose in the future will fall short in the same manner.”
“I never understood that part. About parents,” Orion admits quietly. “I mean, I understand logically what it means that we are children of Primus, but it lacks too much context to make sense.”
“Ah, yes. The concept hardly appears outside of religious discourse, doesn’t it? The practice has too many complicating factors to have ever caught on. The bond between parents and a child struck from their spark, at least when it comes to us ordinary bots, could be likened to a mixture between an Amica bond and extended, often lifelong, mentorship. If you wish for a more practical demonstration, Megaton is acting quite parental towards D-16.”
“You mean a bond like—”
“It does not have to be a literal sparkbond, although it’s common for one to form over time.” That must not have reassured Pax as much as Optimus hoped it would, because he quickly adds, “And by that I mean over the span of several cycles. The two of them are quite similar and their sparks resonate clearly, but no amount of kinship would form a permanent bond so quickly.”
Pax says something, too quiet for D-16 to hear, but it makes Optimus laugh. “He’s not going to steal Dee away from you, you need not fear. D-16 belongs with you, just like Megaton belongs with me. That is how things should be and Megaton knows it too.”
They fall quiet, the conversation petering out into comfortable silence (as much silence as the surface can afford, at least) and D-16 waits around for a few more kliks so it doesn’t become obvious that he has been eavesdropping before he steps forward and finally shows himself.
“Hey guys. Megaton went to scale the peak to get a good look around. Have you found anything over here?”
Orion immediately lights up as soon as he sees D-16 and bounces over to stand by him, abandoning the bush he was examining before. There are a few bushes and a scrawny tree growing out of the few cracks in the ground, but otherwise this plateau is almost completely bare.
“Nothing yet,” he reports, nudging D-16 with his shoulder. D-16 nudges him back, fighting a smile. “But if I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what we are looking for.”
“Footprints or other signs of passage, but the terrain has us at a disadvantage. Rung could have passed here with ease and we would never know.” Optimus picks up a rock that looks the same as all the others strewn around, examines it for a nanoklik, then places it back down. “Hopefully Megaton will have more luck than us.”
“Should we head back to the cave, then?” D-16 isn’t eager to be around Alpha Trion again, but it would be more practical if they haven't stayed separated for too long.
Optimus stares silently into the middle distance for a bit before he says, “Megaton only just now reached the peak of the mountain, so the scans will take a while longer. I’m confident that the others can entertain the old Prime without us, so I see no reason to hurry back.”
D-16 glances at Pax, who can’t suppress a grimace at the mention of Alpha Trion. “I knew you were bothered more than you showed in the cave.”
“I have a lot of experience maintaining a neutral face, but I readily admit that I have struggled to do so today. I find the events that went down here atrocious beyond words.” Optimus’ expression turns stormy and he keeps unconsciously flexing the fingers of his right hand. D-16 has not seen that particular tick from him before, but then again, he has not seen Optimus angry before either.
This calls for a diversion and isn’t it lucky that D-16 already has an idea.
“Since we are staying out here, do you think you could show us how to transform?” D-16 lifts his arm and tries to transform it. His plates twitch, one transformation seam opening halfway before it slams itself shut again, but not much else happens. “It’s not as easy as you guys make it look.”
The big bot’s anger evaporates in an instant. “Oh no. It is much easier than we make it look.” He looks around the plateau and walks to the area where the ground is the most even. “It’s only the first time that can be strange. Once you have discovered how to do it, transforming will come naturally to you. Now, first off…”
Despite what Optimus claims, transforming is a very strange feeling. Not bad —the farthest thing from bad, actually— but D-16 still feels strange in his tank mode, even after managing to transform a handful of times. Orion’s alt mode is much less complicated, a simple hauler lacking any weaponry or even specialized attachment, so he gets to drive in happy little circles when D-16 is still struggling to make sense of all his new sensors and his built-in weaponry.
He’s trying to puzzle out the controls of his cannon when they all hear a shrill sound, made all the more grating by the way it echoes off the cliffs. Optimus startles for just a moment, then pulls an old handheld communicator out of his subspace. “I left the contact information of this device with Bumblebee, in case of an emergency,” he explains as his fingers fly over the interface, silencing the shrill ringtone in short order. “I wonder what could have happened.”
When he pulls up the holoscreen, however, it only shows an error message. “Ah. It would seem that we are too far away. I hoped that the signal booster I gave him would be enough, but it appears I was incorrect.”
“Does that mean that we can’t contact Bee?” Orion folds back into his root mode and D-16 would never admit it, but he envies how steady he is on his feet as he does so. When D-16 transforms he still ends up almost falling over, his frame immediately missing the steady support of his treads.
“No, but we need Megaton. He can boost the return signal and connect us without problem.” Optimus sighs and turns off the communicator. “I have a booster mod as well, but I have a specialized component that has been giving me trouble as of late. It has rendered most of my other modifications inoperable and I haven’t had the chance to see a medic about them yet.” He rubs his chest plates and flashes them a sheepish smile. “I must apologize, but we have to cut this lesson short.”
D-16 has a sudden, mortifying flashback to the night when he stumbled upon Optimus and Megaton sharing energon —allegedly that was also the result of that mysterious malfunctioning component— and hastily terminates that thought, because this is definitely not the time for that mental image to haunt him. “Let’s go, then. You said that the connection was for emergencies, so we shouldn’t keep Bee waiting.”
Megaton is waiting for them in front of the cave, chatting amicably with Knock Out. He cuts himself off when he sees them approaching, meets them with a few wide steps and wordlessly reaches out for the communicator. “Do you have any idea what causes the issue?” he asks tensely even as he transforms the plating of his arm to reveal a connector panel and starts sorting through a bunch of loose cables (D-16 suppresses a shudder of horror at the sight) to find one that would be compatible with that obsolete device. “Interference or something else?”
“Only distance, I believe.”
Megaton accepts that assessment with a low grunt. He finally finds the cable he’s looking for, swiftly plugs the communicator in and then secures it to his arm by clamping it between the plates of his arm. When he is certain that the device won’t fall off if he holds his arm horizontally, he extends a thick antenna from the boxy attachment on his back and then activates the communicator.
Orion makes a startled noise that he hastily muffles when the holoscreen flickers on and D-16 doesn’t blame him one bit for it. They are very fortunate that they are well outside the view of the camera, because while Bee is definitely there on the screen, relief writ large on his face when he recognizes Megaton, he is not alone.
Sentinel looms over Bee’s shoulder and he hisses with barely contained fury, “Where the hell have you run off to?!”
Chapter 34
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Lord Prime.” If Megaton is surprised to see Sentinel, he hides it well. “I did not expect you to call.”
“Yes, I gathered that much.” Sentinel leans closer to the screen, eyes narrowing. “Are you in the mountains? Explain yourself!”
“We have been sidetracked a little by something that is… Bee?”
Bumblebee sits up ramrod straight, clearly nervous. “Yes?”
“Thank you for putting the Lord Prime in contact with us, but it would be best if you left now. Take Blitzwing out for a drink or something.”
Bumblebee glances up at Sentinel who gives him a terse nod and a firm pat on the shoulder. “Thank you for your help, champ. Take the rest of the day off, I can handle things from here.”
“Okay. Stay safe, guys.” Bee slips away with one last nervous glance.
Sentinel watches him leave, then sits down heavily on the vacated chair and props his chin up on his hand, his expression darkening again. “Well?”
Megaton glances at Optimus through the semi-transparent holoscreen, communicating something silently.
“Orion Pax sneaked out to follow a clue about the location of the Matrix in an attempt to impress D-16 and earn your esteem. We went to fetch him and investigate the transmission he followed here.“ He shifts slightly so the menacing cave becomes visible in the camera’s view. “We found the battleground where the Primes have perished and plenty of Quintesson remains, but the Matrix is missing.” Sentinel visibly tenses, his eyes dimming slightly. Megaton waits for just a beat, in case he has something to say, but then continues, “Optimus suspects that a relic like the Matrix had to have some kind of failsafe in case the Matrix Bearer fell and likely returned to Primus in some fashion. We can’t confirm or deny until Primus is restored somehow, but I think it sounds plausible enough.”
It’s not a lie, but it’s a very strategic omission of the facts. All the same, Sentinel relaxes a fraction. “I will have words with you about going off without consulting me first when you are back in the city. Have you tripped over any kind of trap or anything unexpected during your investigation?”
Megaton is visibly taken aback. “Not that we noticed. What happened?”
“Something stirred up the Quintessons. I got a courtesy warning that they will be scanning for ‘a maximum profile target’ in the area, but that’s all they cared to tell me.” He clenches his jaw and drops his fist on the table with a heavy thump. He makes a low growl, tinny and quiet through the speaker of the communicator. “Get out of there, now. You might be able to evade them if you move quickly. I sent Airachnid and a squadron to check what the fuss is about, but—” Sentinel abruptly cuts himself off and sits up straight, his eyes going wide. The growling doesn’t stop. If anything it’s getting louder, gaining a slight echo and—
D-16 realizes what is happening the moment Alpha Trion comes hurtling out of the cave, his anger carrying him with enough momentum that he almost knocks Megaton over when he collides into the silver mech. “Traitor! You are a disgrace! Primus will—”
Optimus is by their side in a flash, dragging the old Prime bodily away, but the damage is already done, their deception impossible to hide. Sentinel’s mouth thins in a seething rage, his eyes flashing a ghostly white. “I see how it is.”
“Sentinel, wait—!” Before Megaton could try to explain himself the connection cuts off.
After a chilling moment of silence Megaton rounds on Alpha Trion, fangs bared. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t rip your head off right this instance!”
Optimus swiftly puts himself between Megaton and the Prime, keeping a hand on Alpha Trion’s shoulder. “We don’t have the time to waste, if the Quintessons are really coming. Also” —he turns a cold glare towards Alpha Trion— “if you kill him then he won’t be able to tell us what he did that alerted the Quintessons. Assuming, of course, that he is the ‘maximum priority target’ they are looking for.”
Alpha Trion growls again. “What makes you think I have done anything of the sort? If there is anyone here who is possibly a Quintesson spy, it’s the two of you!” He shakes off Optimus’ hand and backs away slowly, his entire frame tensed; to lunge or to flee, D-16 can’t tell for sure. “I have lived since the dawn of our species and I have never seen Cybertronians like you. Show me your t-cogs and prove to me that you are not Quintesson constructs sent to infiltrate us!”
Megaton matches Trion’s growl with one of his own and tries to dip around Optimus to grab him, but Optimus doesn’t let him. “Oh, I will show you—!” “We don’t have time for this!”
Optimus shoves Megaton back, but it’s too late; the old Prime transforms and leaps away, barreling into Knock Out and then bounding away down the mountain path, disappearing before any of them could even try to catch him.
Megaton shakes himself with a loud clattering of armor plates and glowers after him. “Good riddance.”
D-16 exchanges a look with Pax and together they move to help Knock Out up. One of the medic’s new wings is bent at the edge where Alpha Trion trampled on him.
“Is everything alright out here? I heard yelling.” Elita-1 peeks out the mouth of the cave, clearly cautious.
“No, but we will fill you in as we go,” Optimus says, his battle mask snapping closed from the rising tension in his frame. “The Quintessons are coming.”
[Megatron, I—]
[Don’t. Your reasoning for leaving the old beast alive is sound, despite this setback.]
[I still regret not giving your suggestion of disarming him more thought. He appeared reasonably fond of Knock Out and Elita-1, so I did not expect him to endanger the young bots like this.]
[I believe the word I used was ‘maiming’. Or possibly ‘dismembering’. Maybe next time?]
[If we are not facing an imminent Quintesson attack, I will give it due consideration.]
The descent down the mountain is tense and slow. They settle on taking the mountain path despite it taking longer than climbing down the same way they climbed up, because this way they have at least some fighting chance if the Quintessons catch them on the way down.
D-16 is on edge, his attention turning to the sky every nanoklik when he doesn’t need to watch his footing; that’s how he spots the colorful shape between the clouds just as they are reaching the foot of the mountain. “There’s a jet up there.”
“Is it Airachnid?” Orion asks as the others turn to look too.
“Can’t be her. She’s a chopper, not a jet.”
They watch the colorful jet until it dips behind the clouds and disappears. “Looks high guard to me,” Megaton says at last, giving them each a gentle nudge to get them moving again. “It’s looking for something, not just passing through.”
“I believe that solves the mystery of what drew the Quintessons’ attention to this area.” Optimus lingers for a few moments longer, looking at the sky with a troubled frown. “I suspect that they monitor the high guard’s old comm frequencies. If Alpha Trion tried to contact them, then the Quintessons would have discovered his survival.”
Megaton acknowledges him with a low grunt, but his attention has already returned to the task ahead: scanning the overgrown plains ahead of them for some kind of shelter. “Getting down here took longer than I hoped. We won’t be able to put enough distance between us and the mountain, not even in vehicle mode.”
D-16 looks around and sees various degrees of badly hidden despair creeping into the body language of his friends. Megaton said out loud what they were all already fearing.
“What are we going to do, then? Fight?” Elita, as she discovered when Knock Out examined her upgraded frame, has some kind of integrated weaponry (fit for a lightweight enforcer or a scout-class military bot) and an apparent eagerness to try it.
“Not unless it can’t be avoided. I strongly suspect that the Quintessons will send an elite force to capture Alpha Trion and you are not ready for that kind of confrontation,” Optimus says and Megaton grumbles in agreement. “I believe I have seen an old outpost in this direction as I was driving here. If we can get inside any of the intact buildings, then with a little luck we might be able to avoid the Quintessons’ scanners.”
D-16’s combat protocols rail against the idea of hiding from a fight, but he knows that this is the wisest choice. He still hasn't managed to fully activate his weapons and who knows if Pax or Knock Out even have anything to protect themselves with.
He keeps glancing up at the sky, but he doesn’t spot the jet again.
They are just reaching the edge of the overgrowth when the first Quintesson ships appear. Despite D-16’s vigilance, Megaton is the first to notice them coming. “Do you hear that? Everybody, get down!”
They huddle in tense silence beneath a jutting rock formation, fairly well-hidden by the nearby plants as they wait, not daring to move. Soon D-16 can hear the ships too; a dozen of them sweep their scanners over the plains in a loose V formation, doubling back at the first line of trees. They can see the outpost from here, barely 40 kliks of walk away, but that distance has just become impossible to bridge.
“This is bad,” Orion whispers. “Those are only scouts. There has to be a command ship nearby.”
“Make that several,” D-16 corrects, also in a whisper. “The average cruiser only carries four scouts. The Quintessons really came out in force to find the Prime.”
“We won’t make it to the outpost under surveillance like this,” Optimus notes at his regular volume. It makes D-16 jump, but after a nanoklik he realizes that there is no way the Quintessons could hear them up there regardless of how loudly they are talking. “However, it appears that the plants disrupt their scanning technology, which provides us with a degree of safety. Megaton?”
Megaton makes a displeased grunt instead of answering first. He’s standing just outside of cover, glaring out at the plains with a troubled frown. “Yes, we should stay here for now. That said, something here is not— there’s Airachnid and her squadron.”
He’s right. Airachnid and a group of identical golden fliers come sweeping in from the mountains towards their left, landing in organized rows in front of the outpost.
[I’m going to call her.]
[Are you certain this is wise? We are very close to the Quintessons.]
[I haven’t caught any wide-range scans and they won’t be able to locate us if I use my own personal comms. Our encryptions are quite literally millions of years more advanced than anything here.]
[You know just as well as I do that she believes us to be traitors. There is a high probability that she would give us away herself.]
[I know. But I have to try. For the young bots’ sake.]
[Alright. I trust your judgment, Megatron.]
Framed by the last rays of the sun, the Quintesson cruisers descending from the clouds appear almost alive, like a pack of hungry sharkticons. One, two, five, nine… D-16 counts fourteen of them total, arranging themselves in a loose circle around the outpost, plus two more in the distance, gathering up the scout ships.
“We are lucky we haven’t actually made it to the outpost,” Elita notes when one of them breaks formation and lands next to the outer wall. She’s holding onto the rock so hard that the edge is starting to crumble under her fingers, her gaze glued to the group of Quintessons leaving the cruiser to talk to Airachnid, alien figures moving in the rapidly falling darkness.
Initializing… … Connection secure
Participants: CF113-D16 ; AIR-MRK-14
[[lover boy. who gave you my frequency?]]
[[Wrong paintless miner. This level of encryption doesn’t allow for personalized tags.]]
[[megaton? don’t waste your time if you called to beg for your life]]
“Indeed it is.” Optimus carefully peels Elita-1’s hand off the rock and holds it gently among his palms. “No matter what happens, we will protect you. I swear.”
“How can you promise that?” Knock Out snaps. His voice is shrill with barely restrained panic and his left eye is twitching uncontrollably. “With so many Quintessons here, how can you promise to— we are going to die. We are going to all die!”
“You will not.” Since he got his cog D-16 can’t feel the big bots’ EM fields clearly anymore, but the unsaid command in Megaton’s bark is crystal clear: be calm, be alert. “Stay with Optimus and no harm will come to you. I will rip to shreds each and every Quintesson that dares to come near us.”
[[That’s not why I called. Get Sentinel to join us. I know you can. I need to talk to him.]]
[[he won’t talk to traitors]]
[[We haven’t betrayed you.]]
[[right. and i should believe that because…?]]
[[I don’t have the patience for this. Put him on the line. It’s important.]]
Optimus is less fierce, but his quiet, calm determination is a much needed balm for their frayed nerves. “Both of us are seasoned warriors who have fought and prevailed in much worse odds than these. Besides, you are not without defenses yourselves.” He shifts his hold on Elita’s arm who takes the cue to transform her hand into a blaster. “I hoped to spare you this lesson, but the fastest way to learn the capabilities of your frame is in battle. Your spark will act before your mind and you might discover things about yourselves that you never thought possible.”
He lets go of Elita and takes a step towards the rest of them, regards them all with an infectious sort of certainty, like he could turn them into warriors with words alone. “I believe in our capabilities and I believe in yours too. We will survive tonight.”
[[tell me where the prime is and i’ll think about it]]
[[No idea. He ran off on us.]]
[[how unfortunate for you]]
There’s a fine tremor in D-16’s limbs. Fear? No, he doesn’t feel afraid. Anticipation? He pokes his combat protocols and finds them on standby, so that’s not it either. Then what…?
[[I’m not afraid of the Quintessons.]]
[[you should be]]
It only clicks in his mind that he’s not the one shaking, but the very ground itself, when the plants around them start to shiver violently too. “You guys feel that? What’s hap—?!”
His words get drowned out by the strut-rattling sound of engines — giant engines from an impossibly giant ship that slowly creeps over the mountain range, its running lights painting the jungle and the entire plateau a deep, ominous red.
[[i would run if i were you… but there is nowhere for you to go]]
“What kind of ship is that?!” Elita asks, doing her best to shout over the deafening noise. “It’s ten times as big as the cruisers!”
As more and more of the ship comes gliding over their heads, D-16 realizes that she massively overestimated the size of it.
“Ten? More like a hundred!” Even as he says it, D-16 struggles to believe that this is a real ship, that it’s not just an audio-visual glitch brought on by stress. This can’t be real. There is no way this is real. There is only one ship in the Quintesson fleet that’s this big and it’s—
“Guys, that’s the flagship.” Orion’s voice reflects the same disbelief that D-16 is feeling. “That’s the Quintesson flagship!”
[[Airachnid.]]
[[?]]
[[Since you refuse to get Sentinel to answer me, I’m going to ask you instead.]]
[[What would you do if we destroyed that ship?]]
“So this is why the scanning pattern was wrong.” Megaton, just as calm as before, is still speaking at a normal volume and can barely be heard from the strut-rattling noise. “They weren’t scanning for a target. They were securing a landing zone.”
[[...]]
[[you serious?]]
[[Completely.]]
Initiating file transfer: d-cide_gun/./sch
File received
D-16 doesn’t understand how he can stay so calm. They just lost even the faintest chance that they could get out of this slag alive and Megaton looks almost giddy. He lightly pats D-16’s head as he moves past him to put a hand on Optimus’ shoulder, his thumb meaningfully pressing over the plates that hide the connection point for Megaton’s neural cable. “How is your trinket?”
[[CLESGETINTHEFRAGGINGCALLNOW!!!!!]]
Optimus rolls his shoulder. In the red light, their strange silhouettes make them look almost as alien as the Quintessons themselves. “Fully charged and ready to go.”
Megaton abandons any pretense that he’s not full of excitement and allows a wild grin to split his face. “Good! Let’s change our plans accordingly.”
[[Are you still with me, Airachnid?]]
[[sakjghdfk]]
[[I’ll take that as a yes. Can you do something for me?]]
[[what why when?]]
[[In order: take the young bots to safety, because they will die if they stay too close, as soon as you can manage.]]
[[the quints will be suspicious if they see me fly off to pick them up]]
[[Let them. That ship is going down either way.]]
Orion slowly backs away from the two bots, unnerved by this bizarre behavior. As the gargantuan ship slowly turns around to land, its thrusters are not facing towards them anymore and he doesn’t have to shout to ask, “What’s going on?”
“The presence of the flagship changes things,” Optimus says, still trying to be reassuring, but his battlemask is firmly in place and his eyes burn with a feverish brightness. D-16 realizes with horror that in his more subdued way, he is just as excited as Megaton. “It’s enough of a threat for us to utilize some rather… extreme measures that we otherwise wouldn’t have.”
A new participant has joined the call
Participants: CF113-D16 ; AIR-MRK-14 ; STN-MRK-37
[[Airachnid has been yelling incoherently at me to talk to you, what the hell is going on there?!]]
[[Not much yet, but I have a question for you. I’m looking at what is, allegedly, the Quintessons’ flagship. What would you do if we destroyed it?]]
[[????????????]]
“Guys, Airachnid just took off!” Elita-1’s shout of alarm draws their attention back to the outpost and just as she said, Airachnid and her drones have taken to the air and they are heading right towards them. Her direction is too accurate to be a coincidence and the most obvious solution as to how she had found their location almost breaks D-16.
“Have you betrayed us?” He rounds on Megaton, desperately searching his face for an answer.
“No.” D-16 almost allows himself a sigh of relief, but then Megaton goes on, “But you cannot stay here. What we plan to do is much too dangerous and I would never forgive myself if I brought harm to you, so we made a deal. Airachnid will take you to safety and we will cause a distraction that the Quintessons won’t be able to ignore.”
[[It’s a serious question. What would you do if we destroyed that ship?]]
[[Check my reality matrix for glitches, kiss you on the mouth, idk, that’s NOT POSSIBLE.]]
[[Oh, how I look forward to proving you wrong.]]
The pieces rearrange in D-16’s mind and the new picture forming is somehow even worse. “Have you bargained your own lives away for ours?”
“Oh, we are not going to die.” Megaton laughs, warm and confident and D-16 saves the sound to his primary memory archives because he doesn’t believe him. He can’t.
He doesn’t even flinch when Airachnid and her lackeys land around them. “You’d better not make this difficult,” she hisses, but there is something off in her tone. “This place is going to be crawling with Quints in the matter of kliks.”
“Just get them out of the blast zone and we will handle the rest.” Megaton gives D-16 one last reassuring pat and pushes him towards the drones. “Get a good vantage point and don’t you dare blink. We will make our way to you when the show is over.”
D-16 doesn’t have the will to fight off the soldiers as they wrap him up securely in a makeshift carrying harness made of tow cables. It takes all his willpower not to collapse under the weight of knowing that Megaton and Optimus decided to march to their deaths with a smile for their sakes. He twists around after they take off to watch as long as he can, until Megaton and Optimus disappear in the darkness.
They are taken to the far side of the plateau and unceremoniously dropped on a different mountainside, Airachnid landing gracefully next to them. “Let’s see if those two can put their money where their mouth is.”
D-16 scrambles to the edge of the cliff and looks down, straining his eyes to try and pick out Megaton and Optimus. They aren’t as far as he feared, but everything is dark and there is an indistinct black mass of Quintessons swarming into the jungle. They have clearly taken notice about where Airachnid picked them up. He thinks he might be able to pick out the flashes of blaster fire among the trees, tries to will his eyes to work better, see more—
He should not have worried about missing them in the dark. Megaton and Optimus practically explode out of the jungle, the flash of their blasters and their brightly burning biolights contrasted starkly with the dull hides of the Quintessons and their plating shines in the light of the rising moons. Any Quintesson who gets too close is cut down, ripped apart or blasted to pieces and it swiftly clears a growing circle of empty space around them, giving them just enough breathing room for Optimus to reach out to Megaton who leaps towards him, twisting in the air and he—
—transforms.
D-16 watches, mesmerised, as silver and black plates shift and shrink and form a gun, a heavy rifle longer than Optimus is tall, still trailing the neural cable as it lands in the bot’s hand. Optimus harshly jams the connector into the socket on his shoulder and gets into a firing stance with an elegant twist, raising the gun up, up and even higher up, aiming past the heads of even the Quintesson champions now swarming to stop him and at the flagship itself.
It feels so much like a dream that later on D-16 won’t be able to recall all the details of it. He can’t recall the sounds, if there were any, but he can recall the sights:
The barrel of the gun splits apart, cradling a mote of brilliant light that doesn’t so much grow as it becomes somehow even brighter until it tips over into an impossible spectrum. All around Optimus the Quintessons, the ships and everything else crumble under an invisible force, get ripped apart and ground into dust under the maelstrom of energy getting condensed all into the gun — all into Megaton.
D-16 can’t look away, feels drawn towards the brilliance like the poles of a magnet; literally, he realizes when Pax yanks him back from the edge before he could slip off. He misses the exact moment the shot is fired, but it’s probably for the best: he thinks that searing flash of light will be burned into his eyes forever and he wasn’t even looking at it directly.
From one moment to the other, it’s over. The light fades and in the darkness, no trace of the Quintessons remains.
Notes:
BANG
Chapter 35
Notes:
Oh hey. It has been a while. I've had a bit of a rough month —I had signed up for a writing workshop that turned out to be a very, very expensive scam pushing genAI as a 'creative writing tool' and some other scummy things, so that was a pretty horrid and stressful experience that turned into a whole mess along the way— and the start of the new semester is always busy, but here's hoping that things will settle down soon.
Shoutout to AnonMax for helping to proofread this chapter.
Chapter Text
The silence after the shot is suffocating. It has a strange, almost physical weight; a presence that flows around them like liquicrete, pouring in through every little crack and clogging D-16’s very thoughts. He can’t hear anything beyond the sound of his own overworked internals. There is only dull pressure where Pax clings to him and he clings to Pax; they have fallen to the ground together, he thinks. He can barely see, his brain refusing to update his perception, filling the darkness of phantom shapes because there is no rational way they could be gone just like that. Erased from reality as if they never existed at all.
But that is exactly what happened. Nothing remains, but the metal surface of the plains, perfectly smooth and mirror-shining like a puddle of mercury; a pool of polished moonlight and in the middle of it stands Optimus, untouched by the destruction they have wrought. He hauls the rifle up over his shoulder and waves to them, the gesture just one more surreal thing in this whole mess of impossibilities.
When he hears the sudden, loud crack, D-16 is certain that it’s the sound of his brain module breaking. It’s an abrupt noise, there and then gone in a moment, so D-16 could almost believe he imagined it, if not for Knock Out’s shrill, “What was that?!”
D-16's awareness of his surroundings returns in a snap, so sudden it almost makes his head spin, every system on high alert and scanning for this new source of danger that threatens his friends.
The second crack comes after a whole klik of delay, but the ones after come faster and faster; D-16 can finally see the cause, a spiderweb of fault lines spreading from the plains, crawling up the mountainside too.
“We need to go!” he yells, just as Airachnid barks a command to her drones and flings herself into the air. She throws out the tow cables almost without looking, the sharp hooks finding purchase and dragging D-16 and Pax up into the air together, still clinging to each other. The startled shouts behind him reassure him that Knock Out and Elita-1 have been lifted up just as abruptly, so he can turn all his worrying towards the bots down in the valley. He wraps his arms around Orion more securely and cranes his neck to see what’s happening with Optimus.
The bot is trapped in the middle of the trembling web of cracks, gripping Megaton’s gun form tightly in one hand and pressing the other against his chest plates. Did that weapon drain his spark somehow? Why isn’t he trying to flee?!
“We need to go get them!” D-16 tries to yell over the now constant rumbling of the ground and the noise of Airachnid’s rotors.
“They are too far and too heavy! The drones wouldn’t be able to lift them high enough in time,”Airachnid shouts back; until she said it D-16 hadn’t realized that they were ascending almost vertically, trying to get as much distance from the unsettled ground as possible. “We will dig them out if they survive the crunch.”
D-16 silently curses himself; if he was thinking like a miner and not a barely trained soldier, he would have recognized the signs much earlier. Crunches happened all the time in the energon mine, unpredictable crust movements after explosions and tunnel collapses; he had no idea they could happen on the surface too, but the signs are unmistakable.
He looks back down again, his spark tight. The chance of surviving a crunch alive is one in a million.
It’s because he’s looking back at Optimus that he sees the jet as they come barreling out of the last few clouds dotting the night sky, diving full-speed towards the bristling ground. Fortunately Optimus spots them as well; he takes an improbable leap off a spiking bit of crust to gain more momentum towards the sky and reaches up, just barely catching the very end of the neon-bright emergency tow-cable as the seeker jerks sharply upwards and drags him out of the maw of spikes forming where he stood just a nanoklik earlier.
[Starscream, I presume? Thank you for the timely rescue.]
[You can thank me by telling me what the frag that was!]
[I have a better offer for you: if you agree to hear Sentinel out for an alliance to deal with the Quintesson threat once and for all, then we will hand you over the schematics of this weapon.]
[…Do you take me for a fool? Why would Sentinel give up such an advantage to me of all people?]
[No civilian frame can handle a weapon such as this and there are no military bots left in Iacon fit for combat other than us. We need more if we are to end this conflict for good.]
[Well, if you put it that way… but if that treacherous wretch can’t convince me to tolerate his presence, I am taking the weapon and destroying the Quintessons myself.]
[Of course. I expected nothing less.]
D-16 might let out a shout of relief, might not; either way, nobody can hear it over the deafening rumbling of the ground rising up in sharp waves of spikes, like some angry, bristling beast. Sharpened points merge with razored edges and even more jutting protrusions, climbing higher with every nanoklik. If they hadn't been halfway up a slope when it started then it would have been a really narrow escape, D-16 realizes as the valley turns into a new peak before his very eyes, towering over the mountains encircling it.
The seeker has no issues escaping the rising ground, much faster than the drone choppers even while carrying Optimus. They take a wide, arcing flightpath around their group; D-16 gets the impression that there’s some communication going on between them and Airachnid. After a few kliks the seeker takes the lead at a more reasonable speed and Airachnid and her fliers line up behind them in formation.
“Where are we going?” Pax asks, adjusting his grip on D-16. He has been holding on so tight that his fingers got locked in position, so he has to shake his hands out as he prepares for a flight that’s going to be Primus-only-knows how long.
“Your friends got us an audience with the high guard.”
The flight is tense and silent, but not as long as D-16 expects it to be. Or maybe it just feels shorter when he has Orion there with him, so comforting and familiar despite the changes to his frame. At some point, following a deluge of errors and warnings, D-16’s tactical processor had decided that he must be experiencing some critical error in his reality matrix and had started a slow reboot, the absence of its cold logic leaving only his turbulent feelings to fill him to the brim. Thinking about the events of the day is a confusing, bitter cocktail of relief, awe, and an unexpected twinge of betrayal, so he focuses on what’s close at hand: Orion, pressed up against him chest-to-chest, so close that he can feel their sparks syncing up to each other.
When Airachnid lowers them to the ground —much gentler than before, for reasons he doesn’t care to examine up close— they stay clinging to each other for a while longer, both of them reluctant to be the first to let go.
“Are you alright?” Orion asks, gently bunting his crest against D-16’s sturdy helmet.
D-16 is tempted to kiss him. His slowly stirring tactical system reminds him of all the reasons why that’s a terrible idea right now, but after what they went through today, he doesn’t have it in him to care.
He angles his head just so for a fleeting, shy kiss, barely more than a chaste brushing of lips.
“As long as you are here with me, I will be.”
Orion startles, his eyes turning nova-bright for a moment, but he doesn’t flinch away. “I would never leave you for long,” he vows and D-16 has never wanted to believe him more about anything than in this moment.
When they finally separate, it’s just in time to see Megaton transform back, the smooth plates of the gun twisting and expanding in a series of strange, rapid jolts until he stands in his root form once again. The big bot stretches his limbs with a groan, his plates flexing and flaring before they relax into their usual position.
“Finally. I hate staying in alt mode for so long.” Despite the complaints, he can’t keep a grin off his face and playfully bumps his shoulder against Optimus’. “Ah, but we should do this more often. It’s a rare pleasure to be wielded so expertly.”
Before Optimus can say anything, the seeker elbows his way between them, visibly annoyed. “Enough flirting or I will kick both of you out!”
The threat would carry a little more weight if he wasn't so much smaller than them, glaring up at Megaton from the height of the big bot’s hip joint until he gets unceremoniously yanked backwards by Airachnid.
“Starscream. Just once in your life try not to be a jealous glitch.”
The seeker —Starscream? This bot is Megatronus Prime’s famous right hand commander, Prince Starscream???— snarls and tears himself out of her grasp with an infuriated yell. “Unhand me!”
Airachnid lets him go, but it’s writ clear on her face what she thinks of his dramatics. “Where are we? This is not your current base, unless you managed to drive even your hangers-on away.”
Now that she mentions it, D-16 finds it strange too that they are alone. The base appears to be an old, gutted Quintesson cruiser that’s more than big enough to house a couple dozen bots at least.
Starscream crosses his arms over his cockpit and sneers at Airachnid. “You and the traitor might have been living it up in Iacon, but I’m not well-fueled enough to carry an oversized truckbot all the way to the Nemesis. We will rest here until morning and fly the rest of the way tomorrow.”
She accepts his claim about the fuel easily enough —unless there is another mine somewhere, closer to the surface, then Starscream and his mechs must have very little access to energon— but she narrows her eyes at him all the same. “If this is your idea of a trap, then I will shoot you dead before the Nemesis can.”
Starscream bristles, his lips pressed together into a tight line, but he doesn’t correct her.
“Can somebody fill us in too?” Elita-1 asks, eyeing both fliers suspiciously.
Starscream startles, apparently having forgotten that they are still there. Airachnid scoffs at him and says, “The Nemesis has been off limits since it went down in battle, because its governing mech is out of control. Trypticon shoots at everything and everyone in range he doesn’t recognize as part of his fleet, which the Vosian high guard is not.”
“How would you even know that?!” Starscream snaps, then goes on before Airachnid could answer. “Anyway, Soundwave isolated a comm channel the ship AI uses to communicate some time ago. He’s been trying to convince it to let us on board and now that this base got compromised, it finally agreed.”
“He.”
“What was that?” They all turn towards Optimus, the source of the calm, but firm interjection.
“Airachnid clearly referred to Trypticon as “he”. It would be uncouth to treat to somebody as an object, don’t you think?”
“Are you for real?” Starscream gapes up at the big mech and D-16 silently agrees. That’s a very strange point to make a fuss about when they are talking about a nonsentient warship. “The Trypticon was one of the early semi-sentient prototypes, back from when they tried to incorporate crew-facing personality protocols to make the AIs less unnatural to interact with. It’s not a person just because it can talk like one. Only a gullible idiot would think that it’s actually alive.”
Megaton and Optimus exchange a look that D-16 can’t parse, but they drop the subject. “Are we safe to approach the Nemesis?”
“Yes. I called ahead and told the others to expect us. And the traitor too,” Starscream adds, shooting Airachnid a glare. “As much as I would be delighted to see Sentinel explode, this weapon of yours is more valuable to me. I can always kill the shiny glitch later.”
Airachnid jabs him with one of her sharp appendages, too fast for Starscream to dodge. It draws a startled yelp from the seeker. “You are welcome to try, if you think you can get through me.”
“Oh, just you wait, you—”
“Alright, that’s enough!” Megaton steps between them and pushes the bickering pair firmly apart so they can’t reach each other anymore. “You are acting like immature newsparks. Starscream, have some energon and go rest. Airachnid, can I ask you to take first watch?”
They send each other one last heated glare, but they acquiesce with only quiet grumbling. Airachnid takes the drones outside to set up a patrol and Starscream directs them to a dorm area before he disappears down a corridor to his own room, leaving them alone in this decrepit, unfamiliar place.
D-16 stands next to one of the spongy, organic berths, testing the makeshift recharge cable plugged into a central outlet in the middle of the room —it’s completely dead; when the high guard left they must have turned off whatever generator supplied this base— when he feels Megaton hover behind him. “Little one?”
D-16 squares his shoulders. “I’m not talking to you.”
He feels the fine edges of dulled claws on his chin and resists for just a moment before he gives in to the gentle pressure and tilts his head back to look at Megaton. “Why not?”
Megaton’s eyes are so bright that D-16 can clearly see the iris-light behind the glass. It makes the big mech’s gaze feel uncomfortably piercing.
“You let me worry about you and all along you could— you were—”
“I’m a weapon of mass destruction.” He says it so casually, yet the words make D-16 twitch away. His sensors register a sharp twinge of pain where he nicks his chin on one of the claws, despite how gently Megaton holds him. “You can use a weapon to save someone, but that is incidental. I am, first and foremost, a tool of murder; violence molded into metal. And it is infinitely selfish of me, but I did not want you to judge me for it.”
“That’s a grotesque way to think about your alt mode.”
“Is it?”
“I have weapons too. Would you say the same things about me?”
“Having weapons and reducing yourself to one are different matters altogether.” Megaton’s free hand skims over D-16’s right arm, the fine points of his claws dipping into the seams and scratching pleasantly against the hidden components they believe to connect to D-16’s so far inaccessible fusion cannon. “The same circuits that support your guns could just as easily work with mining equipment, if you ever desired to disarm and live a different life. If there comes a day of peace when the world no longer needs weapons, you will not find yourself diminished without them. That world, however, would have no place for old monsters like me.”
He sounds so honest, that’s the worst part. Megaton believes every word he says and it makes D-16 wish he was big enough to grab the bot by the shoulders and shake some sense into him.
“I wish you could see yourself the way I see you,” he says quietly and leans back against Megaton’s chest. He’s not sure exactly where all the others are —Knock Out was talking to Starscream about flight protocols earlier and only Primus knows where Elita-1 has sneaked off to— but he can see Optimus and Orion in the far end of the dorm room, picking through a stack of heavy, worn tarps to find something they can use to cover the strange, organic sponges. They are not as close to each other as D-16 and Megaton, but the same kind of inexplicable draw seems to exist between them as well, Pax slowly gravitating towards Optimus. It makes D-16 feel a little less strange about the easy kinship he shares with the silver bot. “You have been nothing but kind to me since we met. Nobody has been this kind to me since Terminus died. If that’s what a monster looks like, then I’m afraid what I will become, because I don’t think I could be as kind and understanding as you are.”
D-16 doesn’t think he said anything funny, but Megaton chuckles and shifts his arms around to hold D-16 in a loose embrace. “Give it some time; you are still very young. If there is justice in the world, you will be like me, but better in every way.”
D-16 is not sure he believes he could live up to those expectations, but if Megaton believes that he has what it takes, then he will try his best.
CF113-D16: [[Has Airachnid filled you in?]]
STN-MRK-37: [[Yessir.]]
CF113-D16: [[…]]
STN-MRK-37: [[Lord Megaton?]]
CF113-D16: [[Don’t you start with the— Just. Nothing has changed, do you understand? Nothing.]]
STN-MRK-37: [[I don’t know what you want from me.]]
CF113-D16: [[I want you to drop the formality and go back to treating me like the overqualified lackey I am.]]
STN-MRK-37: [[I would rather not.]]
CF113-D16: [[What has gotten into you?]]
STN-MRK-37: [[Earlier tonight, when that bright flash lit up the sky, Cybertron’s systems detected an unprecedented surge in Matrix energy originating from your position.]]
CF113-D16: [[Oh, for the love of— Let’s make something really clear: I’m not a Prime. Never been one, never will be, would sooner die than let anybody stick the Matrix in me. I don’t want to steal your position, especially when you are doing a much better job leading these people than I ever could.]]
STN-MRK-37: [[And your Conjunx? ‘Optimus Prime’ has a nice ring to it.]]
CF113-D16: [[That’s a bit more complicated. Too complicated and too important to talk it through over comms, but if you come here tomorrow, we WILL explain everything. I swear to you, I will personally answer any and all questions you have.]]
STN-MRK-37: [[…as you wish.]]
Chapter 36
Notes:
The start of the new semester is kicking my ass, but I will try to at least keep some kind of schedule going.
There was supposed to be more happening in this chapter, but then Starscream opened his mouth.
Chapter Text
D-16 wakes alone, which fills him with a few nanokliks of panic, because he clearly remembers going into recharge curled up with Pax. Then the logical parts of his brain finish initializing and he takes stock of his environment —everyone else still present and sleeping, except for Optimus, who was scheduled for the morning watch; the low light indicating it's still before sunrise; a deep indent in the spongy berth slowly returning to its natural shape, which means that Orion was there not long ago— to decide that Pax can't be far.
He sneaks out of the dorm as quietly as he can, silently congratulating himself that he manages without waking anybody else up and almost jumps out of his plating when he nearly walks into Airachnid in the corridor.
“Lover boy. Where are you sneaking off to?” She sounds unexpectedly subdued, which makes D-16 take a closer look at her; she doesn't seem like she got any rest last night.
“Just checking in on Optimus,” he says; a half-lie, because he expects Pax to be somewhere near the big bot. “Why are you awake? It's not your turn to stand guard.”
Airachnid regards him silently for a long time, evaluating something, but finally she sighs and rubs a hand over her chestplate. “I can't sleep when Sentinel is worrying himself sick.”
Oh, right. She's Sentinel’s Amica; even if he tries to keep his feelings from the bond, some things will still leak.
“Does he have a reason to be so worried?”
“I don't know. You tell me.” Her gaze sharpens, a little bit of danger returning to her body language.
“I think,” D-16 says carefully. “That it depends on whether he had a good reason to kill the Primes or not.”
“Yes.” This time, she doesn't hesitate at all. “He had a good reason.” She doesn't elaborate.
“Even Megatronus Prime?”
Airachnid’s eyes flash and she rises up on her extra limbs to tower over D-16. “If he hadn't killed him, I would have,” she growls with a low rumble of her engines. “Megatronus was the worst thing that ever happened to Sentinel.”
D-16 startles at the vehemence in her words. “Alpha Trion said that Megatronus loved him; that he wanted to Conjunx Sentinel after the war.”
Airachnid tilts her head to the side, her many eyes glowing ominously in the low light as she snarls, “If that’s true, then a Prime’s love is toxic acid. Their relationship was killing Sentinel and he was so enamored with Megatronus that he would have let it.”
D-16 flinches back. He’s not certain she knows about his history with acid or the choice of words was simply coincidence, but it invokes images from his worst nightmares.
Airachnid uses that moment of weakness to storm past him, disappearing down another deserted corridor, and he doesn't have the will to go after her.
D-16 tries to put it out of his mind, but as he slowly climbs the ramp leading to the top of the wreck her words keep popping back into his primary processing. She made it sound like the relationship was harming both of them —or at the very least it was harming Sentinel—, but how could that be possible if they both loved each other? Could this be the reason why Sentinel decided to kill— no, that makes even less sense.
It could be a lie, he tells himself, but he can’t find a good reason why she would say that if she was lying. If she was lying, it would be far easier to suggest that Megatronus was abusive or rotten in some other way and claim that Sentinel killed him in self-defense. Why would she make up such a nonsensical, confusing explanation?
Only one thing seems certain: the relationship between Megatronus Prime and Sentinel was far more complicated than Alpha Trion thought.
D-16 finds Pax exactly where he expects to: stargazing with Optimus on the top deck, leaning against a rusty storage container. He doesn't mean to sneak up on them, but Orion is so engrossed in whatever the big bot is telling him that he startles and falls over when D-16 pats his shoulder.
“Pax, really?” D-16 reaches down to help Orion back on his feet. “At least one of you is actually standing guard, right?”
Optimus doesn't even try to hide his smile. “I am paying attention to our surroundings, yes.”
“What are you talking about anyway?”
“Orion asked me if I could explain the difference between platonic and romantic love.”
D-16 almost drops Orion —almost— when he hears that. It doesn't take a genius to guess why Orion asked, but it still makes both of them feel just a little awkward when they end up standing side by side, looking at Optimus for an answer. “And? Could you explain?”
“I believe I have provided Orion with a suitable answer.” Optimus smiles innocently; he knows exactly what he is doing, the fragger. “However, as I was telling him when you arrived, the lines can blur easily and one’s concept of romantic love is often informed by one’s cultural background. It complicated things between Megaton and I to realize that some things I deemed to be in the realm of romance, like the desire for regular interfacing or hardlining with deep system connections, fell comfortably within his parameters of a deep friendship.”
D-16’s experience with interfacing is limited to say the least —only a few fumbling, overcharged hookups with near strangers to try it— but as scandalous as it sounds, there is something in the idea of sharing that intimacy with Pax even if he doesn’t return D-16’s feelings that he finds deeply appealing.
Unexpectedly, someone makes a derisive snort somewhere behind them. “Of course an Iaconi truckbot would be prudish about interfacing. Are you going to start imposing moral limits on handholding next?”
Orion cringes away when Starscream literally elbows his way into their midst, his hands full with faded energon cubes, but Optimus is unfazed by the seeker’s rude intrusion.
“Starscream. I don’t believe I have invited you to join this conversation.”
Starscream wrinkles his nose at Optimus; he has a very expressive face and a dramatic disposition that makes full use of it. “If you have a problem with that then you should have talked in private. Not that there’s much privacy to be had with that hundred-eyed creep and her horde of puppets around.”
He brandishes a cube at D-16 with silent menace until he gets the hint and takes it, then goes and does the same to Pax and Optimus. Optimus inspects his cube with unmasked fascination while D-16 and Orion chew through their portions —stiff gel, more preservative than actual energon— and hands it to Orion without even taking a bite. “Thank you, but my fuel level is still over 70%. The young bots need this more than I do.”
“Suit yourself.” The seeker splits the remaining fuel evenly between D-16 and Orion, then sits regally down on a rusty crate. “So, what were you saying about interfacing?”
Optimus regards him with a disapproving frown for a long klik, but seeing that Starscream has invited himself into the conversation and shows no inclination of leaving, he eventually acquiesces. “I noted that Megaton, coming from a social group where prostitution was a very common profession before the war, has a far more practical view of interfacing and other forms of physical intimacy than I do.”
That’s not the direction D-16 expected this comment to go. Neither did Starscream, if the startled flickering of his eyes is anything to go by.
“That mech is a slumbot? Where is he from; I don’t recognize his accent. Rodion?”
“Tarn, then he lived for a long time in Kaon.”
Starscream makes a show of thinking about it, but eventually admits, “I have no idea what either of those sound like. All the industrial centers had been long bombed into the ground by the time I came online.”
“Do you have anything against bots from a lower social class than yours?” D-16 might be imagining things, but Optimus’ voice sounds just a few degrees chillier than before.
Starscream makes an amused snort. “No. Don’t believe what Airachnid says, I’m not that much of a hypocrite.” He doesn’t plan on elaborating, but then Pax turns his wide eyes brimming with curiosity and well-practiced admiration at him and eventually relents. “Jetfire —the previous Winglord— adopted me out of the slums of Vos after his twin died in a raid. He wanted to take his time training a successor, in case anything happened to him.” Starscream’s eyes dim, overtaken by the shadows of the past. “Of course, he assumed that there would still be a city for me to take over— and we all know how that turned out.”
Vos’ destruction was brutal and complete. After several weeks of siege, the airborne city of the seekers was dragged by a fleet of Quintesson ships from where it was anchored over the mountains out to the sea and was sent plunging into the corrosive depths. Only the high guard and a handful others survived, their retreat covered by Megatronus Prime himself.
It’s only now sinking in for D-16 that, while he has doubts about Iacon or if he would ever get to return knowing what he knows now, the city is still there. As long as Iacon remains standing, he can always hold onto hope that one day this madness will be over and he will return home.
Starscream has no home left to return to. Neither does Megaton. Barricade, when he dealt them cards the other day, proudly talked about being Praxian; his city is gone too, levelled to the ground by orbital bombardment.
Only Iacon remains. All the other cities —their unique, vibrant cultures, their millions of people— are all gone, deemed an acceptable sacrifice by the Primes and their singular focus on a swift victory. He can’t imagine what that has to feel like, knowing that your home and everyone you ever loved died because they were disposable in the eyes of your leaders.
D-16 can’t read Orion’s mind, but he seems troubled too; he can’t even remember when was the last time he’d seen his friend frown so deeply.
“Does anybody know,” Orion starts, hesitant, as if he’s searching for the words, even as he says them. “Where Sentinel is from?”
Starscream’s gaze drifts to the middle distance somewhere to his left, but eventually he shrugs. “Iacon, I presume. Not everybody in the city was a refugee, not even at that stage of the war.”
“But you don’t know for sure?” Orion presses.
“I hated that shiny glitch from the day Zeta Prime foisted him on Megatronus. I never cared to ask where he was from.”
D-16 perks up; nobody has mentioned how Sentinel got into Megatronus’ good graces, so maybe Starscream can shed some light on that. “How did Sentinel even get involved with Megatronus? He wasn't one of his acolytes — was he?”
“Of course not,” Starscream scoffs. “The Aides were Zeta Prime’s acolytes; Megatronus had higher standards than to bring those duplicitous scraplets into his inner circle.” He frowns so fiercely that the metal of his faceplate creases. “Your medic friend told me that you have heard of Zeta’s Directive: the war had to be won with all swiftness, no matter the cost. The plan was made on Zeta’s request and he fully approved of and endorsed it, but the details of it were crafted by his Aide.”
Pax’s mouth opens in a shocked O and only his dignity prevents D-16 from doing the same. “Sentinel made the plans?!”
The question startles Starscream out of his frown. “What? No, of course not. He doesn’t have the ball-bearings for a campaign like that. It was his predecessor, Suntaker, who charted out the details. She was…” —Starscream fishes around for a suitable word— “a monster. The perfect military advisor without a shred of doubt or empathy, dedicated entirely to Zeta’s service. I hated her almost as much as I hate Sentinel.”
Optimus makes a deep hum and leans forward, his brows drawn together in an intense frown. “I have come across Suntaker’s name in the Primal archives and I had the impression that she was diametrically opposed to Sentinel both in her strategies and her personality. Thus, I find it strange that you loathe both of them with equal ferocity.”
“I’m perfectly capable of hating things that are polar opposites!” Starscream snaps. “I find glacial cold and volcanic heat both equally loathsome and I don’t think there’s anything strange about it.” With nowhere else to channel his frustration, Starscream gets up and starts pacing the length of the deck, his wings flicking occasionally.
D-16 takes a big bite of his lackluster cube to resist making a comment about flight frames and their well-documented tendency for exaggerated dramatics.
“Suntaker might have been the one who planned the campaign, but Megatronus Prime would not have allowed such butchery to come to pass while he was in command: he fought Zeta over it every chance he got. Without consensus among the Primes, the campaign stalled, which was to our benefit: there was only Megatronus’ High Guard, Liege Maximo’s Leonine Battalion, and the Nemesis fleet left of our military force, and for a few precious centuries we were allowed to fight according to our directives, cooperating under the direct guidance of our Primes. The siege of Praxus; the battle at Thunderkeep; retaking the Rodion hotspot; we were seeing military success unlike anything in the last millennia! There could have been no better proof that we could win the war without excess sacrifice!”
D-16 feels a tightness in his chest. Starscream’s pride in Megatronus and his fellow warframes is clear as day from the way he talks, with broad gestures and his wings raised high. When D-16 looks over to see what Pax is doing, his friend is hanging on Starscream’s every word, his untouched energon cube all but forgotten, held halfway to his mouth. D-16 can’t blame him, if he’s honest; how often do they get the chance to learn of history from one of the heroes who experienced it in the metal?
“Then one day Suntaker disappeared and was replaced by Sentinel. That was when everything started to fall apart.” As bright as it was just a klik before, Starscream’s mood sours swiftly. His hands slowly clench into fists, his entire frame practically shaking with that old, festering anger. “Megatronus had never paid any attention to Zeta’s lackeys before, but something about Sentinel captivated him right away. He became distracted, absent from our briefings. He still argued, sometimes, but all Sentinel needed was to claim a processor ache and he’d abandon everything to dote on him.”
This is the third variation of events D-16 is hearing and it is already shaping up to be different from both what Alpha Trion and Airachnid said. He resists the urge to rub at his temples and starts up a simple subroutine to record everything the seeker says; Starscream’s bitterness rings genuine and it's obvious that he’s been waiting a long time for a sympathetic audience so he could air these grievances.
“We could all see what was happening, but Megatronus was completely enamored with that shiny piece of shareware and would not listen to reason!”
D-16 almost drops his cube at the sudden outburst; he glances at Pax and finds him equally baffled. Shareware? he mouths silently, but Orion is just as stumped as he is; wasn’t Starscream the one so vehemently criticizing Optimus over what he perceived as prudishness? Before they could question the seeker about his apparent hypocrisy, however, he moves right on with his rant and they lose the chance to interject.
“Without facing constant pushback, Zeta soon talked Liege Maximo around to agree to the campaign, and the other Primes either fell in line, trusting the Matrix Bearer’s wisdom, or were absent from the vote, which was considered tacit agreement with the majority decision. As soon as he knew he had majority, Zeta Prime put the new campaign plans to vote and pushed the decision through before Liege Maximo could have second thoughts —four in favor, four against and the rest absent, with the final decision falling to Zeta— and once the consensus was made, their oath demanded that the dissenters follow the will of the majority and keep their doubts to themselves. In this, as in everything, the Thirteen had to present a united front.”
D-16’s head spins from all this new information. He had no idea that the Primes were divided to this extent, but then again, just like Starscream said: in every recording that remains, the Thirteen had always acted as one, in perfect harmony. It was said that as long as the Primes maintained unity, Cybertron would continue to thrive as well.
Seems like it was just another lie.
“You believe that it was a deliberate ploy to distract Megatronus.” The way Optimus says it, it’s not a question.
“What else could it be?” Starscream allows himself a bitter bark of laughter. “It was obvious to anyone with working eyes and Sentinel never denied it either. ‘If it pleases Zeta Prime to lend me to the leisure of his siblings, I am only eager to serve. Above all else, I am beholden to his commands.’ That’s what he told me when I tried to scare him off at the very beginning. He’s not stupid, for all that I wish he was. He has more than enough smarts in that pretty head of his to know exactly what was going on —what Zeta was using him for— but he never had the guts to disobey his master.”
“Until he killed the Primes.”
For the first time today, Starscream appears uncertain. His wings sag, his voice turns hesitant and his eyes turn towards the horizon and the slowly rising sun, lost in thought.
“Until he killed the Primes…”
And that’s where this all falls apart, isn’t it? The picture Starscream paints is an unpleasant one, but it makes sense, in the broad strokes. A loyal servant, an underhanded ploy; seduction driving Megatronus to distraction so he couldn’t put his whole attention into opposing Zeta. It’s straight out of some old palace drama, but it makes sense.
Until Sentinel killed the Primes. That couldn’t be explained with a simple shift in loyalties or even a falling out between Sentinel and Megatronus. There had to be something else, something more under the surface, and if Starscream, who was present for all of this, couldn’t see it happen, then D-16 will have no way of figuring it out, even if his analytical subroutines are in overdrive trying to come up with a logical solution.
Next to him, Orion buries his face in his hands with a groan. “My social protocols are not good enough to untangle all this scheming. I need to stop thinking about it before I crash.”
D-16 doesn’t know how to ease Pax’s headache and awkwardly rubs his back, hoping that if nothing else, it will bring his friend some comfort.
“We will have the opportunity to question Sentinel when we meet him today,” Optimus says quietly. He reaches over and pinches one of Orion’s new finials between his fingers, rubbing it carefully. The relief that appears on Orion’s face is instantaneous. “If you are still willing to talk to him, that is.”
“Oh, I am.” Starscream’s mouth twists into something that’s either a very nasty smile or a grimace. “I want his head on a pike, but I’m feeling charitable today: I will take that weapon of yours as a consolation prize and if I can’t have it, at the very least I want answers. But be warned: if he fails to deliver either to my satisfaction, then the beheading is back on the agenda.”
Optimus doesn’t rise to the bait.
“Don’t worry, Starscream. One way or the other, I guarantee that you won’t be left wanting.”
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