Chapter 1: Desperation
Chapter Text
His earliest memories were faint, blurry things, occasionally spliced with serrated edges that managed to wound him even in the present, yet they were still all soaked in an insurmountable flood of hunger and the sensation of drowning in its resulting fragility. They hadn't been able to access any of their memory files; he didn't know why, but he was thankful for it, nonetheless. He was sure the others were too. If the ones who rescued them had known, truly, what had happened to the rest, they likely would have sent them all back to that Primus-forsaken place.
Combatron, mockingly called the “Apocalypse Planet,” was a volatile place at the edge of the Autobot Commonwealth: dust-ridden, irradiated and subject to acid storms at a moment’s notice. It was a product of the Great War, but it hadn't been extended the restoration efforts that the Hub did to many others. It, instead, had its own…unique uses that he only knew the basics of. Combatron was his original planet. He never thought of it as his own, though. None of them had, not even their caretakers.
There weren't any other bots around his stage of development, so he never really had much company besides his fellow batch mates. In fact, there were not many bots there at all, and the few that were weren't up for conversation, especially not with a difficult-to-control group of rowdy sparklings. They forged themselves with much sturdier material—however haphazard and clearly nonprofessional—than Bumblebee had seen since. Not even Bulkhead stood a chance against any one of them. He wasn't resistant to acid like they were.
It didn't leave him lonely or anything. There were fifty of them at the very beginning—a piece of it all meticulously planned to get the highest odds of success, of course. He just…wanted something else. Something he couldn't identify. He never had the chance to find out what it was.
The happy—if they could really be called that—memories stopped there, and, after that, pure, simple chaos.
He hadn't heard much about the issue at first, just bits and pieces of a discussion between his caretakers about a “supply chain sabotage” while he had been eavesdropping alongside B-292, who he had urged into joining so the yellow bot wouldn't be the only one at fault. However, the information only became relevant when their energon rations got smaller by the orbital cycle, eventually withering down into nothing. A few of them, the more perceptive ones—B-127 was not among their fold just yet—put what he and B-292 mentioned together with the recently vanishing supply, coming to a conclusion that scared most of them to their core. All of them had been through difficult times: watching one of their own being eaten through by the acid rain during their earlier stellar cycles, thinking of himself to be fortified enough to withstand it, or another that was swallowed up by the ground itself when trailing behind the others, never to be seen again, but nothing to this grand of a scale. They ran out of energon, and nobot knew when it was going to come back, if it ever did.
They were trapped with nothing.
The panic from many of his batch mates managed to infect B-127 as well, viscous, dark and distrusting. Being informed by their caretakers of the situation—scarily close to what the others had predicted—only heightened the mass hysteria that had begun to permeate the atmosphere. The brightly coloured bot wondered if he was going to die like this, starving at the lack of resources beyond his own control, before he was able to do anything with himself.
Fortunately, a select few were saved from that cruel fate, him included, but it wasn't without major sacrifices. One of the most rambunctious of them, B-119—who B-127 had, in the past, gotten along rather well with—hadn't quite gotten the memo. The light blue mech continued to be just as energy spending as he had been before while the rest of them, for the most part, lied low, cautious and scared of what this new situation could bring and what terrors it could produce, only limited by their processors’ sheer capabilities. ‘Somebot’s simulation matrices clearly hadn't been fully developed yet,’ he sneered to himself, watching the light blue mech zip around and play as if nothing were wrong, mostly alone but sometimes with batch mates he managed to wear down enough, not a blip in his processor.
B-119 collapsed only ten stellar cycles—a pure guess on his part—into their energon drought, exposed, and what happened next was the true genesis of it all. They couldn't really be blamed for it. Desperate for any type of sustenance, and driven half mad from its lack, nearly all of the remaining charge units in the area converged on the blue frame. The scene was all blunt denta and clumsy digits trying their best to tear apart pieces for themselves and lap up any energon that remained, pushing and shoving the still living metal that got in their way, the frame below them losing more and more colour at every swipe.
B-119 might've pleaded with them, anguished cries or weak bids for mercy; he doesn't remember. Oddly enough, that part of the memory tends to buzz with visual and audial static whenever he's prompted to revisit it. They wouldn't have listened to him anyways.
From a distance, they were an undulating, screeching mass of mismatched plating vying for scraps and tearing apart one of their own ruthlessly, energon spilling from their intakes, covetous. Looking at it like that, he understood why the caretakers didn't corral them any further after that point. He probably would've run too.
Most of it spilled onto the dusty ground because of the sloppy work, but a small minority that had semi-followed in the excitable mech's pede-steps, ignorant of the situation’s true direness before, didn't let that deter them, scooping up the muddied substance and forcing it down their intakes with choked gags. They weren't going to be next.
It wasn't the best strategy, as they purged all the excess dust later, but the energon did seem to be properly siphoned by their tanks. After all, there didn't look to be much energon remaining in the clotted substance that came back up. Following behind them, he checked just to make sure, searching for any signs of pink, but, unfortunately, it was a boltless endeavour.
More importantly, it ticked up their fuel levels, from danger of shutdown to teetering on the edge, at least for the fastest of them. They stared at each other with wary optics, some set firm and resolute while others—the ones that refused to get their servos dirty or were too slow—reeled back, afraid. B-127 was in the former category.
In only the next few solar cycles, the location was a skeleton of its former self, silent and eerie. The caretakers had taken to barricading themselves in the main wing while his batch mates all scattered wildly around the area, and for good reason. A few of them were on the prowl, himself included. It wasn't enough.
The stellar cycles moved at a desperate crawl, help nowhere in sight and left to their own devices. Nobot had attacked yet, tension still thick as a steel cord, but, at this point, word of the “feral” charge units had made its way to the remaining inhabitants of the planet. It wasn't a good idea to go after the older bots anyways, B-127 thought, too experienced and tough, willing to take out sparkings for their own survival, and he was proven right again and again. A few of his now-dead batch mates—the arrogant, prideful ones like the victim to the acid rain—were found scattered around nearby buildings, holes blown through them and bled of most of their energon thanks to gravity, already soaked layers deep into the ground, unsalvageable.
Like that, they were so small. So weak. Pathetic.
It deterred the majority from even coming close, fearful of retribution, but B-127 was not one of them. The small bot knew opportunity when he laid his optics on it. He snuck by each area under the cover of darkness, dragging the dead frames as far away as he could get them from any potential stalking units that viewed him as an easy target. He was surely leaving marks that led directly towards the building they had all matured in, but the whole complex was vast and winding. If anything, he wanted them to try. Even if they did manage to find him, he would make sure they didn't spill to anyone else.
B-127 happened to be aware of something the rest of his batch mates weren't. After all, recognising things he shouldn't was one of the few benefits to being the resident screwloose of the bunch. He knew there were little pockets of energon that remained in their systems, closed circuit systems that hadn't evaporated just yet, but it was difficult to get through to them as he was now.
They might still be young, barely matured, but their plating had already solidified, and the padded insulation did no favours when trying to tear off sizable chunks in order to get at the more valuable insides. B-127 went through a bunch of scenarios in his RAM, staring blankly at his blocky digits, anger welling in his optics. The harsh blue lights reflecting off his servos dimmed as they narrowed, considering something downright dangerous. They could be…sharper. Harsher edges to more easily wedge beneath already damaged surfaces and inflict deep cuts to provide him with the appropriate leverage. He pulled at a weaker point on one of the frames, the sturdy structure ruined by the large hole-like gouge that marred his chest plate. It tore, and he tumbled back, almost tripping over another frame. He grasped the sharp piece instinctively as if it were something to steady himself, but it only served to slice unevenly through the first tiny bit of his plating, gasping at the barely-there sensation.
He clutched it hesitantly in his jittery servo, bringing it closer to his unoccupied one, digits splayed in a grim offering. It was slow work, amateurish in nature. B-127 had to manually shut off his voice box halfway through the process so he wouldn't give away his position. He filed and filed and filed. It hurt. His servos were shaking uncontrollably, vents coming out in shallow pants and the steam that had billowed out along with it curled around his intake, possessive and choking.
Finally, it was done. His sensors were rubbed raw and ragged, the pain dry and sharp, yet his sensation disappeared entirely in some areas, leaving behind a puzzling tingle that leached out from his broken sensors, corroding his processor with a mix of conflicting information. They had been abraded to rough, asymmetrical points, but they would do for now. He didn't have the luxury to polish his work. B-127 ignored the sting that constantly zipped through his frame as he pulled one of the dead frames closer to himself, heaving now after such a marginal effort, his plating rattling as if it were to fall off, like a mech about to join the scrapheap. He couldn't tell if it was the critically low fuel warnings or his escapade in self-modification that started it. It didn't matter.
Digging his newly sharpened digits under the gaps in the frame—he wasn't sure who this one was, his death robbing him of any individuality he may have had—he tore with desperation, tossing separated pieces to the wayside in his hunt for what he craved for, needed, even. The stagnant pink liquid, burbling with impurities, stood out starkly in the dull internals of his circuitry. His glossa flicked outward in anticipation, optics dim, yet empty of the hollow that had been present before, if only temporarily.
He dipped a single digit into the priceless resource, its disgustingly fluorescent pink sticking to it like melted metal. He admired it for a cycle or two, mesmerised, before shoving it near his intake without any further preamble, pouring it down the orifice, starved. He didn't care if it was safe or not. It slid down tantalisingly slow, the impatient charge unit swallowing in an attempt to get it to his tanks faster. It settled at its own pace, laden deeply despite the truly minuscule amount. B-127 churred quietly to himself, and, with a precision he didn't know he had, he tore out the entirety of the metallic organ that held it so carefully, its top jagged from his earlier ministrations. Guiding it to his intake with the little dignity that remained, its edges caught on his dermal mesh, splitting it like a knife to mercury, a few droplets of energon beading at the opening.
The thick substance followed the flow of gravity to its new resting place with unending grace, and B-127 hugged his midsection tightly in joy, compressing the sleek black mesh that coated it after he dropped the now useless vesicle, its clatter muted. A silent, manic smile rose to his face plates, unbidden, at this wonderful discovery. He gazed back down at the dissected, unmoving figure below him, scrambling to peel more swathes of plating off—care the furthest thing from his processor—finding every last hollow that contained energon that hadn't managed to escape, scavenging all that he could. Eventually, the oil deposits ran out of organics to exploit, and he knew he had to stop, no matter how starved he was. Energon would be hard to come by, and he needed to keep his energy levels up as much as possible, not greedily fill his tanks to bursting at the first sign of good fortune. He was out of the danger zone anyways, so he needn't go further until he reached that point again.
After exhausting every microlitre of the neon lifeblood in the span of a mere servo full of stellar cycles—he thinks—the small mech was at a loss. He hadn't seen a single living bot in so long—his chronometer had died on him early, one of many nonessential functions shutting down for his own survival—so he didn't actually know how much time had passed after those first few stellar cycles. His frame was demanding sustenance again, and he had no way to satisfy those cravings. The disemboweled frames scattered around him, a gruesome display, had nothing left to offer. ‘Maybe…?’
Without thinking any further, he snatched a torn piece off the ground—part of the pauldron, he believes—and attempted to force it down, biting hard. It was too large, and his denta were much too flat to do anything but dent it. A huff left his intake as he threw it petulantly away from him, clanking against the unshined wall. The minibot felt the sound reverberate throughout his frame, even the tips of his digits tingling at the disruption, and he froze, straining his audials to check if his tantrum had been heard by anybot else.
His vents hitched, wheezing as foreign pede-steps came closer and closer. The terrified bot shakily stood up, optics flickering around the room for a good place to hide, but he stopped after realising his action, disgusted with himself. He can't cower now. Not after what he did to himself to give him just that much more of a fighting chance. However, he still had to be smart about it. The thuds echoed around him, trying and failing to box him in, paralyse him even. Steeling his sensors, he settled himself just to the side of the entryway, lying in wait, claws flexed and trembling in anticipation.
The noise ground to a careful halt, only small shuffles remaining in an awkward attempt to stay hidden. It didn't work. At the first glimpse of pale green plating, the newly modified charge unit struck, a new claw digging deep into his side and filled with the terrible urge to bite, which he succumbed to. The other mech was screaming. He stuck a servo in his mouth to stifle the noise. The cool coloured minibot choked on the intruding digits, whipping his helm around wildly to dislodge it, but the sharp points had already pierced through the back of his intake, warm rivulets of energon leaking out as a result. He wanted to send his charge through his denta to stop the other from his irritating writhing right at the source, but he knew he couldn't pull it off; at least, not as he was.
The mesh was nearly ductile on his glossa. It wasn’t too terribly unpleasant, given the odd circumstance, and he considered doubling down on the foolish action for a nanoklik, the minute amount of pride he had left trying and failing to hold on. With a deep sigh, he relented, pulling his helm back with no hurry in his movements, denta having left an impermanent imprint, but nothing lasting to the deceptively tough material. B-225 didn't seem to notice or care, far too caught up in gargling unintelligibly around his digits, limbs grasping for purchase but unable to find a good angle to strike back. Both servos clenched further, drawing a tiny whimper from the pale green mech.
B-127 could feel the heated energon sliding down his digits stuffed in the other's intake, slowly coalescing into droplets and falling deeper into his tanks. He hungered to taste it, but haste would lead to waste, as someone said to him in the past—the face plate, voice and name attached to it something he couldn't recall. He wrenched the frame closer to him, their plating sparking against each other at the resulting friction, as he held the pale one up so his pedes were forced to dangle and sway, putting him at even more of a disadvantage, the concept of escape now a mere fragmented memory. The smaller bot's upper stabilisers twitched sporadically at the nearly unbearable added weight, but the yellow mech refused to back down. Pressing harder into the inside of the increasingly frantic minibot’s intake, his other servo unlatched from his side, digits retreating from where they had pierced plating. He dragged his pointed digits up the other's frame, scratching off agonisingly sheer bits of his plating, before settling on the outside of his neck cables, resting. A suitable threat.
He pressed down hard.
The yellow charge unit heard the telltale groan of metal emanating from the mech in his grasp, and he pushed further, sinking his claws in as well. The outside mesh broke easily underneath the newfound sharpness, exposing delicate circuitry that fizzled and sparked with a pink-blue glow to it. Could that also provide him with energy? His glossa tingled in anticipation and, finally, finally, he sharply twisted his servos in opposite directions, cleanly cutting the main energon lines to the processor.
Dropping the slowly dying frame unceremoniously and licking at the energon that lingered on his servo, now withdrawn from the gasping intake, B-127 bent at the knee joints to stare blankly at his batch mate, watching his optics sputter. The remaining functional bot, satisfied with the other's pitiful state, then reached for another sharp piece of metal from an already torn apart frame, clutching it tightly before turning it on himself, opening his intake hesitantly and stabbing brutally at his flat denta set, clumsy and wrong.
The light fizzled from B-255’s optics shortly after, face plate painted in horror.
B-127 sat, with crossed stabilisers, next to where B-255’s frame had rested, most of him entirely gone with only a few puddles of viscous black liquid—the unprocessed parts of the metal—that remained. A knee joint bounced intermittently as his digits tapped at the metallic ground in an eerie rhythm. His newly forged denta did exactly what he made them for, providing him with the ability to make use of all the dead had to offer, as long as there was some charge that remained in the frames.
The tapping shifted to erratic, processor becoming more frenzied. He had already tested his new weapon on the dead charge units that used to surround him, not nearly as sufficient at replenishing his depleting stores, a majority of the pieces coming back up intact. He needed to keep them running for longer.
It was clear his denta could pierce straight through their insulation, denta tending to clink against each other when he dedicates himself to biting down, leaving the highly conductive circuitry exposed for his own devices. He could go even further. It would make things easier for himself. He needed all the advantages he could get on this desolate, deteriorating planet.
Grasping at that same section of metal plating—one of the few things he hadn't at least attempted to consume, the other pieces too small to accomplish anything—he turned it towards himself once again. Placing it against the interior insulation that snugly wrapped the fuel lines and cables in his intake, he began to saw into the tough material. He made the first incision—uneven and crooked—as far down as he could, only stopping when the angle made it impossible for him to continue. Extricating the foreign tool from himself, he replaced it in favour of his own digits, delicately grabbing the newly made flap between a few of his clawed digits and pulling. Some of his actual fuel line went with it, energon pouring out in its wake. Panicked, he transformed his servo into one of his stingers and sent a bolt of electricity through, shoddily closing the wound and completely melting the sensors nearby, numbing the sensation. Bringing himself back to a moderate level of awareness, he continued on like that, tearing out portions of his lining and quickly welding the damaged cables and lines back into place until he was left with a pile of rubbery mesh on the ground, bits of jagged metal stubbornly holding on to most of the pieces, and no feeling in his intake.
B-127 ran his glossa over his newest self-modification, making sure he didn't damage anything through feeling for energon now that the location couldn't react to any stimuli. Additionally, he was unable to see his work accurately in the dull metal walls that surrounded him, as only the outsides of most buildings were plated with gold. He had no idea how many of his batch mates, or other bots, were out as of now. It wouldn't be safe to take such a chance.
He flinched as he nicked the sensitive appendage on the serrated edge of his denta with ease, the energon in him oozing out, viscous and dark. He didn't do anything about it besides shut his intake entirely. The tear was inconsequential enough. After all, there's no loss if none escapes.
He passed by yet another empty room, its furniture in complete disarray. His old refuge had worn out its usefulness fully, and, since he now has a missile locked on his back plates somehow—perhaps they heard the wails and pleas for the embrace of death after he lured the next three to his location—he had to keep moving. Not like there was anything in there anymore, anyways. Nothing of use to him.
He knew where the caretakers were staying. They all did. It was obvious, barricaded shut and locked tight. Nobot could get into it, though, at least, not the conventional way. The yellow mech looked both ways to ensure he wasn't being followed, then slunk to one side of the hallway, his servos sliding down its surface, checking for something, as his optics followed suit. Finding a defect between the layers of the walls, he brandished his claws and tore the extra metal off, revealing a grate hidden behind. A grin grew on B-127’s face plate; he had known it was nearby. He was the reason most of them were blocked off, caught too many times in those cramped spaces spying on his caretakers or simply falling into a light recharge away from his batch mates. At the time, he had wondered why they had made the ventilation system large enough for a charge unit to fit inside, but most of the buildings were made based on the average sized frame’s standard specs, so he didn't question it much further.
Using his sharpened digits, the second cover was no match for him either, the grated surface ripped off the wall in its entirety, now a useless piece of scrap, before he crouched down and crawled into the opening. The darkness comforted him, and he resisted the strong temptation to shut off his optics and lie there for as long as he was able, but he couldn't. He was vulnerable in this condition—unable to cover his lower half—and he had a mission to complete. That kind of reward would have to come later, when the danger was gone.
He would never be safe.
The thin metal surrounding him groaned under his weight, the path sprawling outwards as he creeped forward. A crude map he had begun before the whole ordeal took up a quarter of his HUD, the previously travelled paths highlighted in yellow and places of interest in green—his two favourite colours at the time—while the few lingering unknowns stayed a stark black, empty and unaccounted for. He ignored the latter part. It wouldn't be needed for what he wanted to accomplish right now.
He was operating on autopilot, his processor much more focused on the noise surrounding him, in case somebot was following him. So far, it didn't seem to be the case, his audials only picking up his own movements and the filtration system that kept the acid from ruining the building's interior, and its inhabitants, of course. A stark rumble rang out through the enclosed space, and B-127 went rigid the nanoklik it registered, stabilisers trembling the slightest bit even while he locked them at the joints, struggling to support his unmoving frame at such an off angle. The horned minibot cautiously tilted his helm upwards, extending his audials’ range that much more, scanning for enemies.
Nothing happened, and the bright yellow bot vented out a heaving sigh of relief, so weighty that both sets of stabilisers gave out from underneath him, a thud echoing out and lingering in his audials as a result. It left him collapsed in the vent, which shook, with his plating flared out and a servo coming to muffle the sounds of any laughter that might escape him. It was just a defect in construction. He knew that. He had experienced them before. The hysterics rose to a nearly uncontrollable level. It reverberated back at him at every angle, mocking his weakness. He was going crazy.
He continued onwards, focus snapped back into proper place. Just a few more bends and he would be right where he wanted. He hoped he'd get there before they fell. The energon is still mostly salvageable at that point. However, even if they did, at least that way their caretakers would have so graciously left their starved forms on display for their charges, providing them with one last potential lesson: how each different frame type fillets.
Hushed whispers rose to his audials, and B-127 pressed his face plate into the metal grate to his side, picking up tone and individual words. Five separate bots, the same as it had been since the start. B-127 frowned at the implication. How were they all still functioning? “…contact…lost…been stellar cycles!”
“…mission failed?”
“Who CARES about the mission!” The smallest in the group suddenly blew up, the hidden onlooker recoiling at the increase in volume, audials ringing. “What about US?! It's clear now that those-those FREAKS,” the slight femme gestured wildly at the blocked off door, anions practically pouring out of her incensed frame, “would never have worked! This was a failure from the start, and we ALL knew it!”
“Now–”
“Don't try to reason with me, wrecker,” she spat out, the title like ingested acid on her glossa. “You know I'm right.” Silence was the only answer that greeted her. Nobot wanted to admit it. “See?! You all–”
“Wait,” one of the standard frames piped up, pronounced audial horns—quite similar to B-127’s own—tilted in the same way the charge unit had previously. “Do you hear that?”
The room hushed, distant thuds echoing. The wrecker frame, who had been in the back, stilled entirely before marching in front of the rest of them, upper stabilisers unfurled in a protective manner, speech curt as always, “They've finally begun collaborating. Stay behind me. You've seen how they get when they’re near empty.” The largest caretaker’s voice box crackled at the end, gaining a grainier tinge to it.
B-127 remained stubbornly hidden. He would have no chance taking on the wrecker alone. It was better to leave it to the ones who managed to resist the hunger long enough to work together. He wasn't that strong. Instead, he could pick one or two off in the ensuing frenzy. They didn't even know he was there.
The door caved inwards shortly after in a melted, multicoloured pile, followed by angry currents of red-orange and yellow-pink electricity, the former lining the walls, successfully caging them in while the latter was aimed directly at the wrecker's spark. B-127 chuckled deviously, a single word running repetitively through his processor. ‘Chaos.’
Chapter 2: Perceptor's Intermission: Project CCU (Combatron Charge Unit)
Summary:
Perceptor himself had been the one to set up this experiment, as all high-calibre research mandated. He had made sure everything worked as it should while keeping within his standard guidelines. After all, minibots are simply the most efficient specs to create, especially since the AllSpark had been sent away, but how would one of their more volatile counterparts, the electrically gifted charge units, function outside of the normal, majorly controlled spaces? How would their electricity generation develop? How would they fare in harsher environments? These were questions Perceptor had asked in the beginning. ‘It is useful data to collect,’ he had argued at the time. Now, piercing through the haze of logic he had adopted for all these stellar cycles, he wished he never asked after truly seeing the finished cut of his gemstone for the first time.
Notes:
Sorry this took so long again I had a bunch of testing I needed to do unfortunately :/ I should be on a better schedule now but sorry if I don't lol
Cybertronian Sayings:
finished cut of his gemstone-fruits of his labour
on the swapped servo attachment-on the other hand
with his processor locked-with his mind made up
supplement their subspaces-fusion of "line their pockets" or "fill their bellies"
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Title: Charge Unit Development on Less Mechanized Planets (Reestablishment of Wartime Superiority with Non-Warframe New Sparks)
Authorization: Approved by Ultra Magnus
Assigned Planet: Combatron
Location: ~2 hics out of Electrum Reach, facilities will be established before with required necessities for early-spark rearing (ultra-filtered energon, rubber sheets, etc.), locals will be urged to keep their distance
Chief Scientist: Perceptor
Participants and Roles: Two (2) standard sized frames (managing, early caretaking duties), one (1) wrecker frame (training, later caretaking duties), one (1) femme (data collection, storage, simple medical procedures as needed), all outfitted with three levels above base insulation standard for usual charge unit caretakers
Caretaking Lean: Should fall in line with standard charge unit rearing techniques, with an added physical distance so the charge units aren't able to use the participants as an unintentional battery when energy is low, recommended to up basic training at 2,500 stellar cycles and increase intensity at 150 stellar cycle intervals, but ultimately is the caretakers’ choice depending on development progression
Sparking Procedure: Standard Split-Spark Procedure (Vector Sigma)
Additional Materials: At caretakers’ discretion, proper reports must be filed when requesting extra supplies
Hypothesis: If charge units are set to develop on a planet with less electrical outlets to siphon extra voltage, then those charge units will have both a higher output from the lack of restraint on their abilities and greater resistance to electricity-based damage to the frame because of said higher output
Measured Result(s): Development of the charge units’ electricity input and output capabilities, behaviour differences
Process: Send Vector Sigma to Combatron temporarily in order to properly spark the charge units. Ensure highest count possible to prevent skew (~50). Have the participants raise the batch sparked units as normal, the only significant difference being earlier training to develop their abilities even further. Record development and compare with the control group on Cybertron. Specs will be sent back and forth at a consistent rate established by the participants themselves.
Results: Failure
Data Collected: Incomplete
Conclusion: [REDACTED]
There wasn't much that still surprised Perceptor during these stellar cycles. The green and red bot had always planned every interaction with other bots and each pursuit into previously unexplored branches of the sciences down to the most minute of details. With that employed method, nothing could take him off guard. This recent experiment, however, had left him alarmingly baffled at its results, or, more accurately, its lack thereof.
It wasn't his first foray into experimenting on fully functional sparks and bots—he wouldn't have become the chief bot of the Autobot Ministry of Science if he hadn't, as Project: Omega was his most well-known feat after all—but this was a grander scale that may have been a bit too much to place on such small frame types. On the swapped servo attachment, the fault could have lied with him as well. He had never run an experiment at such a distance, much more accustomed to them being properly supervised in his own lab or at least at a distance that could be crossed at a moment's notice, should there be complications. The Autobot had only conducted a few of them on separate planets, and all of them were quite close to a working Space Bridge, making the distance truly negligible.
In fact, the planet Perceptor had chosen for this provided them little to no favours, not that he had much of a choice. Combatron was too far out of the way, bleakly orbiting Delta Draconis with no other habitable planets alongside it. The system was essentially a giant, floating scrap heap after the Great War, willfully ignored by the Autobot High Council for its lack of use to the rest of the Commonwealth and only kept around for appearance’s sake, alongside keeping it out of the Decepticons’ claws, of course. The resources it offered were pitiful after the war, so orders for Space Bridge construction that far out with no visible benefits could not be justified, and, therefore, did not go through. Unfortunately, there was simply no other suitable habitat in the entirety of the Autobot Commonwealth, the majority almost entirely mechanised for ease of comfort—often spearhelmed by the scientist himself—or guarded/infested with organic creatures that could disrupt or even irreversibly ruin the natural progression of the study, should things go awry. Perceptor had been made aware of all of these factors in advance, weighing the advantages and disadvantages rapidly in his processor to figure out the most optimal solution, but, as it tends to work out with field experiments, there was no one perfect answer to his quandary.
With the limited postwar resources, and an increasing focus on internal development pushed by the rest of the High Council, they hadn't the equipment to expand much further than simply reclaiming lost territory, so new environments would not be a possibility. Instead, he chose the option with the fewest opportunities for failure. That best shot just so happened to be at the edge of their reach; not ideal, but workable. Luckily, the scientist had a reputation for providing accurate results, no matter how high the failure rate.
Shortly after the location had been set and the proper permissions granted—not without consequence, of course, but in exchange for increased imports from Cybertron—he considered just which specs he should work with for the highest odds of success. His options had been limited somewhat after the loss of the AllSpark. It was irritating—scientific progress being set back thousands of stellar cycles as a result—yet essential in maintaining Autobot superiority. All they had left now was Vector Sigma, which, while still incredibly powerful, did not have the capabilities of the AllSpark, as it was merely an attempt at artificially recreating said ancient artifact. One of the most significant of its drawbacks compared to its original was the limited capacity Vector Sigma could work in, and what it could do with what it produced. Warframes were unable to be forged, and more complex battle machinery could not be implemented into the smaller forms it could still spark. It limited their options and left them without proper mech-power if the Decepticons ever elected to strike again, which they would. Decepticons never knew when to quit, and the Autobots, as always, would be forced to match them.
Regaining their advantage over their larger and stronger enemies was of the highest priority. Ultra Magnus, the Autobot’s last functioning warframe, himself had come to the yellow visored mech about the topic, which sparked the idea for this experiment in the first place. Under direct order to search for other solutions to this dilemma, Perceptor then began running through the different outlier abilities and mods Vector Sigma could grant, alongside which frame types they applied to, and eventually he landed on a particularly niche minibot subclass: the charge unit.
There were many obvious benefits that lied in choosing that specific subclass of minibot: they were well within the creation, complexity and size class Vector Sigma could work in, their general utility in many different sectors of Cybertronian society, their large numbers when sparked providing a multitude of data points, and much more. They would be the perfect foundation for creating more powerful soldiers, even with the limitations of Vector Sigma. With a higher output, they could even work as specialised medics, capable of keeping bots online through surges of electricity to prevent the spark from going out until energon could be properly administered. Such power levels could potentially keep bots online forever.
It would be revolutionary.
With his processor locked, he sent out a notice to the Elite Guard for potential applicants. With precision, he reviewed their credentials to a near-excessive level, with the aid of Highbrow Prime of course, to find the ones with the highest chance of success. He had required two groups of five: one for the control group—something Perceptor himself had pioneered, getting rid of the old, outdated standard of comparing against past information—and one for the experimental.
A mere stellar cycle passed and all the slots were filled, urged on by the potential notoriety such an important experiment could give and the desire to recapture their wartime edge over the Decepticons. Perceptor himself admitted the true significance—should it be successful—when debriefing his newly found participants. Such words from the stoic chief scientist stirred even more buzz within both the Elite Guard and the High Council, which was crucial for its continued funding to such an otherwise desolate area.
The progress at the beginning ran as smooth as it possibly could. Reports rolled in at consistent times and allowed Perceptor to compare the two groups properly. Additionally, his findings looked promising: the experimental group had consistently higher outputs of electrical energy, able to cause damage at a scale not seen before by charge units, especially as sparklings. Perceptor predicted based on the available data that, if they kept developing in this exponential manner, by 50,000 stellar cycles they could be strong enough to entirely disintegrate certain metals, or, if they managed to make it to 100,000, even power Cybertron itself in case of an emergency. A couple of the sparklings did go offline during the time—only on Combatron—but there was a reason he chose a subclass that produced such high numbers in the first place.
However, things didn't continue as the red and green bot expected. It started with a few sparse reports of Decepticon activity nearby from the bots in charge of the supply chain to Delta Draconis and the surrounding systems. Slightly concerning, but from the reports, there didn't seem to be any action just yet.
Their hesitation cost them. A supply ship’s wreckage was found shortly after, looted of everything useful and essentially stripped bare. The bots piloting the ship were left stranded and in pieces, violently taken offline. Not an accident in the slightest.
Regardless, they couldn't really do anything about it. The ships were required to pass through neutral territory in order to make it to Combatron, and they were ambushed during that window. A few more were sent in an attempt to reestablish connections and test whether it had been a one-time operation or consistent sabotage—the ships now piloted remotely to prevent more deactivations—but it was clear that the Decepticons remained in the area. Perceptor sent a communication to the caretakers on Combatron, detailing the recent struggle and advising rationing for the time being.
They had not answered him.
That was his final communication with the experimental group. There was radio silence from the experimental group’s caretakers; it was as if the entire network went down at once. If Perceptor still had the proper relays to panic, he would've been in a frenzy to bring the study back on track and to worry about the well-being of the members of the Elite Guard, but he knew it was all out of his servos now. Any additional support he could send would likely benefit the Decepticons stationed close by, and with no communication, nothing could be properly set up. The best he could do is attempt to wait it out. The standard frame could last, on average, 50,000 stellar cycles without refuelling if movement remained limited and in an optimal environment. The charge units would surely go offline far before that cutoff point—their energon-consuming frames their greatest drawback—which was frustrating, but, yet again, there was nothing the scientist could do about it.
Monitoring the supply route—that still hadn't gone on a repeat mission for fear of attack—Perceptor pondered whether the Decepticons knew of their plan. As a result, he urged Highbrow Prime to send an agent or two to gather intel. A few orbital cycles of observation passed, and when Agent Blurr, a new find specifically appointed by the prime, returned with his findings, resolutely negative, the scientist let the tension in his shoulder joints fall out of his frame.
100,000 stellar cycles passed. No communication. Little hope for what could possibly be left. The Decepticons had vacated the area—once again verified by Agent Blurr—understanding that nothing else would be coming through to supplement their subspaces, so it was safe now.
Immediately, a rescue team was sent to Combatron—more of a formality, as Perceptor didn't expect anybot to still be online after such an ordeal. Surprisingly, most of the natives were alright, forced into stasis but online, if barely, but the real shock was the charge units. Most of them, along with all the Elite Guard participants, were unaccounted for, likely taken prisoner—never to be seen again like all bots taken by the Decepticons—but a few of them had managed to hide, or so he was told. Perhaps they had fallen into stasis as well and that just so happened to keep them teetering on the edge of deactivation, but the evidence on their frames pointed in the other direction.
Unfortunately, the report on what had truly happened to all the unaccounted for bots was pure speculation. The Rescue Forces didn't actually know what happened, not having the parameters to check the survivors’ memory cores. The how, while important, wasn’t the main issue Perceptor was occupied with at the moment. After all, it seemed logical enough to the Autobot scientist, a reasonable assumption based on the situation.
No, what had confounded him so strongly was his first meeting with his experimental group, and how that made him feel. He hadn’t felt so…intensely since before the decision. Even looking at them tugged at his weak spark. His processor tried to send signals through his circuitry towards chunks that no longer existed, burning at the now closed off wires and redirecting them somewhere else, but the phantom sensation was still there. It tugged at his science-focused data tracks, pleading with him to feel something towards these pitiful bots. Without his consent, his optic ridges furrowed in worry and his optics dilated, taking in every little detail of these damaged mechs, his visor turned more opaque to hide his expression. It was still obvious. He hadn’t needed to use his face plate for much more than conversing and refuelling for so long, and the once practised control he had of it slipped through his digits, moving according to their own whims and with him helpless to stop it.
He opened his intake once, twice, but nothing came out. His words would not comfort them. He didn’t know how to comfort them.
The state they were in was deplorable, the base colours to their plating nearly invisible under the dirt and grime smeared all over their frames, dirty, neon energon wedged into barely visible seams. Their optics were alert yet frightened at this new space, as if anybot in the lab would be a threat to them. They were not designed for the frontlines, and nothing about their frames suggested that they were, yet they continued to cower.
In an attempt to ignore such a terrible thing, he instead observed their grouping patterns, hoping it would quell his uncharacteristically frantic processor. The majority grouped themselves together, finding solace in each other’s presence, but there was one that remained willingly and resolutely separated, and fought violently if he were to be put together with them. The small form stared at them as if they were strangers or even enemies, and the others matched his glare with just as much hatred dancing in their optics, dermal mesh pulled back in primitive growls. They all looked to be a nanoklik from ripping each other apart, and Wheeljack took control in the wake of his partner’s uncharacteristic hesitation, subsequently locking them into different containment spaces to prevent something drastic. They all remained visible to each other to observe if any recognition would occur, but it looked unlikely with the occasional scowls they still sent each other when they thought Perceptor wouldn't see. Something had clearly happened between them all, but they wouldn't know exactly what until the medics got to them. The monotone scientist wasn't sure if he could wait that long anymore.
He didn't know if he wanted to learn what went on during those stellar cycles that went unreported.
Perceptor fidgeted with his visor, considering his next move. Protocol stated that he should check their electrical output before anything else to see how far the caretakers had gotten, but he couldn't bear to look at them any longer. With a quizzical look from Wheeljack, he quietly sent them to the Elite Guard’s Medbay, giving specific orders that they should be cared for until the medics were sure they were alright. He didn't really care how long that took. The less time with them the better. The experiment had failed, and he knew when it was time to move on. Three charge units left was not nearly enough to continue, especially with the myriad of confounding variables they had found themselves in.
Disaster Report:
Rescue Force Identification: Rescue Force Sigma-17
Rescue Team Member Designations and Roles: Heatwave (Leader), Chase (Tracking and Info Gathering), Boulder (Excavation), Blades (Ariel Observation)
Method of Transport: Standard Rescue Forces Ship
Ship Designation: Sigma (V5)
Serial Number: 185193215-131451325
Summary of Events (Report by Heatwave): After successfully piloting the Sigma, we landed on Combatron, just outside of Electrum Reach (<.5 hics from its outskirts). Open communications were established to ensure clarity. Given the general specs of the planet, Blades and I took the lead in locating possible survivors. Buildings, while exhibiting the usual wear of a combination of acid storms and lack of general upkeep, did not seem to have been damaged much from outside sources, suggesting a lack of Decepticon activity, at least in that area. Supplied with emergency, medical-grade energon, we attempted to converse with the mechs inside, but, with no response, Boulder, under my own orders, broke down the barriers that had been set up and barred us from entry. Most of them barely had any colour left to them, online, but in stasis. Emergency medical infusions were given and the bots were directed, or occasionally carted, depending on the situation, back towards the ship, where Chase remained stationed to receive survivors, provide necessary maintenance and figure out what happened from their perspective.
After sending all the bots still online back to Chase, we made our way towards the exact coordinates Perceptor had highlighted on the map of the planet: where the highly-classified experiment had been held. He informed us that the charge units likely hadn't made it, and to prioritise finding the Elite Guard Members over identifying the frames of the charge units. Scouring the area for five (5) megacycles without break, nothing was found. Not a single frame was recovered, minibot or larger.
Then, a pair of charge units, designations unknown, attacked. They were remarkably coordinated despite the clear exhaustion, and Boulder, their first target, went down easily, paralysed by their combined electricity. Blades immediately took to the sky, remaining out of reach while attempting to subdue the two of them without bringing them harm, while I acted as a distraction. Eventually, he managed to trap the two up against a cliff, which allowed me the opportunity to apply stasis cuffs to them, successfully making them docile. They continued to snarl, but not much else as they were brought back to the main site. Boulder, having gotten over the temporary shock, volunteered to transport them back to the Sigma as Chase voiced his concern about the whole situation.
When the minibots finally went silent is when I felt uneasy, but, the nanoklik I attempted to inform the others of the feeling, we were attacked again: another minibot, solo this time. He was far more agile and fast than the other two, surely the most promising of his batch, and his electricity ran straight through the plating, burning delicate circuitry. Abandoning his two charges to apprehend this bigger threat, Boulder held down the thrashing bot, whose electricity poured out of him without abandon, singeing Boulder’s servos and arm guards in the process, while I secured the stasis cuffs, Blades keeping vigilant surveillance of the area in case there was another surprise attack.
No later than when they were put on, they had disappeared off the charge unit's arm guards, disintegrated to its base components, utterly useless. Chase had been silent after the initial attack, likely turning off our communication feeds so he could speak to the bots with him without outside distractions, so no back-up was available. Admittedly, I was in a panic at this time, and didn't think through my actions before I performed them, hitting him in the helm with such force that the manual override kicked in, knocking him into a forced stasis. Luckily, there didn't seem to be any permanent damage, but a medic should be consulted on that front, and many others, considering the state they were all in. Finally, we made our way back after a few more megacycles (3) of searching, finding nothing more, where we then decided to head back to the ship to regroup with Chase to share our findings.
Interview (Recorded and Performed by Chase):
[Beginning of Interview]
[Interviewer: Designation?]
[Interviewee: Uh, Airazor.]
[Interviewer: Greetings, Airazor. I am Chase, a member of the Rescue Forces, team Sigma-17. I am here to figure out the situation in as much detail as possible, both to ensure no repeats occur and to make sure all of you get proper care. Now, could you tell me what you remember?]
[Interviewee: Well, back when I was a sparkling…]
[Interviewer: Please, Airazor. I understand jokes are a potential coping mechanism for those that have gone through traumatic situations, but I politely ask for you to remain as serious and as straightforward as possible. I promise you will be able to have a much better audience when my colleges return.]
[Interviewee: Fine, but you Hub-bots are no fun at all.]
[Interviewer: I've heard that one a lot.]
[Interviewee: Ha! I bet you have! Anyways, the whole experiment thing that scientist proposed to all of us was interesting, but we weren't told much of the details. To us, it was an opportunity to barter for more goods to the place, as it was clear the stuffy mech had run out of other options. I wasn't a part of the agreement proceedings myself, but we all knew the jist of it. They wouldn't bother us, we wouldn't bother them, and we'd all benefit.]
[Interviewer: And did it continue like that?]
[Interviewee: Yeah, pretty much. The increased traffic is likely what drew the Decepticons’ optics to us, though. They had essentially ignored us after the war, which we were all more than fine with, but such a swift change definitely tipped them off in some way.]
[Interviewer: That would make sense. What of these… “Sparkeaters” some of your colleagues continue to insist on?]
[Interviewee: I personally think it was delusions brought on by the lack of energon and forced isolation—and, of course, the desire to place the blame on somebot else—but I'm probably not the best source. I went into stasis pretty early on compared to the others because of my generally high consumption rate, and I didn't want to take any chances.]
[Interviewer: Interesting…I will ask a few others of their opinions as well. Now, this question will be the most important one I will be asking of you, as your, and your fellow mechs and femmes, theories will directly contribute to how we move further with this mission. What do you think happened to the Elite Guard Members that are entirely unaccounted for?]
[Interviewee: Hm, that's a tough one. Here's what I think: the Decepticons, angry at the lack of new supply to exploit, decided to travel along the original route, ending up here. Since we're still part of the Commonwealth, they couldn't outright terrorise us all, but, having found an Elite Guard posting nearby, they wanted to take all of them out before their activity could get reported further.]
[Interviewer: And the charge units?]
[Interviewee: Unfortunate collateral, most likely. They either took them offline in front of their so-called caretakers or forced them to work for their own benefit, which they couldn't last long under, according to the stories.]
[Interviewer: …Do you think the Decepticons were aware of what we were attempting to accomplish with those young charge units?]
[Interviewee: Doubt it. They probably just saw it as a training site for new sparks, and I've heard that it's hard to tell a charge unit from a normal minibot even with more exposure to the differences.]
[Interviewer: Thank you, Airazor. Your insights are very much appreciated, and you will be rewarded for your cooperation.]
[End of Interview]
Recoveries: 77/113 Standard Frame Inhabitants, 3/50 Charge Units (MIA), 0/5 Elite Guard Members (MIA)
Conclusion (Reported by Chase): The missing test subjects and members of the Elite Guard were most likely taken captive by the Decepticons, considering current information. With no viable whereabouts, it would be impossible to send a search so far into the neutral spaces, considering they even lingered there instead of fleeing back to Decepticon-controlled space. If that were the case, they would be impossible to retrieve unless a bargain were made, which would have a high failure percentage with the volatile nature of the majority of Decepticons. The loss of most of the charge units is inconsequential, as the study can just be redone at a different location, and, while it's tragic to lose dedicated mechs and femmes, they had gone offline serving the Cause, which is what every true Autobot should desire.
Notes:
Y'all probably didn't expect the Rescue Bots to make an appearance haha!!!! I just thought it'd be fun so I hope it was a cute surprise!
Chapter 3: Medical Madness
Notes:
I'm going to try and keep these updates to be at max, two weeks apart from each other, but no promises, so please be patient!
Cybertronian Sayings:
more tightly than his own tolerance could handle-less of a one-to-one direct phrase, but it's mainly in reference to the machining term 'tight tolerance' if that helps at all
byte by byte-little by little
apply pressure on his sensors-getting on his nerves
cold shut caucuses-bad sides (cold shuts are weak joints when streams of molten metal don't fuse properly, so i felt it fit)
underneath welded sheet metal-behind closed doors
stepped off the brakes and straight into the boiler-out of the frying pan and into the fire
Additional Information:
Every single different frame type and mold have their own set of stereotypes connected to them, some positive and some negative, such as minibots being seen as unreliable and a 'last resort,' due to their fuel-efficiency while others, like femmes, have the bad reputation around petty criminal activity and coercion because of their information-seeking processors. While there have been efforts to fight against such prejudices against them, they are quite inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and, oftentimes, nothing is done about such comments or actions that result from these stereotypes, so the victims have a tendency to either ignore it all, or fall in line with what they're 'supposed' to be like, according to others.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Being in the presence of most of the medics in the Elite Guard was just as terrible as being stuck on Combatron. At least Combatron gave him some sort of space to roam, and, frankly, live his slagging life, but with the medics, it was simply not so, practically unheard of. “High risk” they said, a total load of scrap they employed in order to control him. They constantly asked how he was, wouldn't let him go almost anywhere unsupervised and could be invasive with their digits and tools at any given moment. Even coming close to those devices fostered a few new nervous habits that hadn't been there before, spurred by solely their proximity. None of their actions particularly shocked him, but what they did do was keep him strung more tightly than his own tolerance could handle, alongside the pain, of course, but the disparate pangs of hunger that he had experienced were far worse than whatever these medics could put him through, the comparison almost laughable, even.
That still didn't mean he could handle it, though. The situations were entirely different, and because of that he was floundering about uncharacteristically. He was being watched and assaulted from every conceivable angle, something that he couldn't prepare for. He was like a lone charge unit about to meet his gruesome end at B-127’s own sharp-tipped servos, stalked for solar cycles on end and turning a paranoid mess of scrap. He despised being on the other end of the sensation. He wasn't suited to be prey.
The charge unit had grown to hate much of the equipment they used against him, especially those Primus-forsaken energon infusion tubes. They kept him trapped in place—having him itching at his plating and begging for release—and, sure, he could just rip them out and escape while they weren’t looking—something he'd already done multiple times—but, without fail, they managed to drag him back, hooking him back up to the system no matter how stifling he told them it was. They didn't listen to him, until one…
The medic made officially in charge of his care and rehabilitation was called Gauge. The red accented mech was the sixth bot to take the role, as the yellow bot had been previously passed around by a whole host of bots who couldn't handle his more…unique problems. The first thing he did after being introduced to the minibot was make an attempt to access his memory files—something the others hadn't had a chance to try yet with the significant pushback the charge unit displayed every step of the way with them.
B-127 had panicked at the declaration as the medic tried to calm him, assuring him that the procedure would not set off any of his pain receptors, the process entirely in his code—like that was the main issue—but, thankfully, nothing came of it. His memories were almost entirely corrupted, layered wrong and cluttered, compressed and missing valuable data. The medic couldn't get anything. Later on, he had instead asked the newly recovered charge unit to share his experience in order to get some sort of viable data to explain his condition, because he figured that B-127 could still recollect the events based on his actions, but the minibot remained stubbornly mute, sensing that he'd be in trouble in some way if he told the truth.
He didn't totally understand the visceral feeling in his tanks about it, lurching and burbling whenever it came to the forefront of his processor. He hadn't done anything wrong, right? Was he not supposed to survive? What mistake had he possibly made?
The earliest of his stellar cycles in that sterile place were very clinical and professional, replacing smaller damaged parts that the ones before Gauge—that hadn't lasted more than an orbital cycle with him each—had missed, checking his reaction relays, cleaning out his dust-clogged joints and other such parts of him; treating him like he was the helpless minibot they thought he was. The medic had raised a few questions about the origin of the mess he had made in his intake, but the minibot deflected every time the topic came up, not wanting to admit the weakness he had to fix on his own. Eventually, the questions became fewer and farther apart, and he seemed to be successfully discouraged. When he was finally deemed sufficiently physically well, Gauge sifted through his code, cooly snipping out errors and malware that managed to make their way into his damaged processor while he had been unaware and starving, shutting down most of the spasms he had been having for the last fifty stellar cycles. He also put up useful firewalls that hadn't been properly installed during his later development stages so such mistakes couldn't repeat themselves in his code.
With his internals now—mostly—error-free and frame in moderate condition, the only thing left to fix was his behaviour, clearly the most difficult aspect considering how long he had spent not regulating it in any capacity. His lack of contact with other stable bots severely set back his social developmental progress compared to other bots in his age group, according to Gauge’s assessment, and he would thus need to be reintroduced into society, byte by byte, though only within the confines of the Elite Guard's Medical Ward for now, out of an abundance of caution.
At first, he remained almost uncontrollably violent. The minibot despised being in close proximity to any bot and snapped at them with no regard for what they were doing, drawing energon from their badly protected protoforms every once in a while with his servos and denta. He was getting rusty.
They hadn't been able to keep the sharp objects away from him long enough to prevent his own tools from dulling of their own accord—his subspace filled nearly to bursting with stolen objects: laser-scalpels, saws, wire strippers, and much more, silently replenished every time they found him out. The reason they had been able to fix him in the first place was because they tended to have him already restrained while they worked. Another tactic was to simply force him into stasis to keep the complaints to a minimum, but that was met with significant scrutiny on all sides, a step too far even with all the unethical things they had done to him in search of answers.
Shortly after, it became a discontinued practice of theirs, something B-127 was more than happy about. He still knew the face plates of the bots that had done that to him. It wasn't something he was planning to forget.
Obviously, such things did not lead to easy trust towards the other medics at the beginning, but Gauge was…different. He was delicate in how he treated the small mech, nice in a way the other medics weren't, asking for things like permission and if he was in any sort of pain. He wasn't used to the treatment, and it caught him incredibly off guard the first time he experienced it, allowing the taller mech to continue his routine checks with no further struggle, which he took complete advantage of. It was a first for the usually aggressive charge unit, and, from snippets of near-silent conversations of the other medics in the hallways, his reaction was apparently something celebrated throughout the entire sector of the Medbay.
The only significant medical issues he had now were the occasional falls into stasis after failing to refuel—the purging notwithstanding. He still hadn't gotten used to standard energon cubes again. He doesn't remember the last time he successfully made use of one, and it showed. The inexperienced mech was barely able to keep it down whenever he obliged to the medic’s orders, and, after purging it as a result of his eject reflex that he just couldn't seem to shut off, Gauge immediately went back to the previous method, the detested infusion tubes, marking each time he tried a failure. It kept him at low energy levels, leaving him with much less room to lash out at others.
Therefore, as the stellar cycles continued onwards and he had to rely on infusions for longer, B-127 became much more stable, if only in the optics of the medics. The small bot himself would quietly argue that he had not changed at all, just adapted to the circumstances as best he could like he had in the past, but he didn't particularly care for the semantics; he just wanted to leave as soon as possible, by any means necessary. Their nigh constant surveillance was starting to apply pressure on his sensors.
Intended to be a reward for his recent good behaviour—not attacking anybot in the past orbital cycle after they approached him from behind—the red-grey mech sometimes brought him with to watch him take care of other patients instead of leaving him with a bunch of less qualified medics who didn't know how to handle him properly. However, the charge unit was aware of the real reason for it: keeping an optic on him to ensure he won't get into trouble again. Within the first thousand stellar cycles alone, he had been the genesis of six separate security breaches and seven reports of missing parts—usually limbs, but once it was an extremely entertaining mod that allowed him to turn invisible—that belonged to the agents they were supposed to look after. He allowed the items to be retrieved, of course, his interest waning after the initial thrill wore off.
For some reason, the other bots the medic worked on almost never questioned his presence in the room with them, even when things had progressed to B-127 becoming an unofficial assistant, passing items along or patching superficial damage—unless they had specific problems with minibots, which was also a very common sentiment that the agents held closer to their sparks. The yellow mech had questioned Gauge about the lack of awareness surrounding his existence in these situations, and it was explained that charge units were a typical sight in Medbays. The only reason he hadn't seen one during his tenure was because of his own violent reaction to his batch mates, and because of that, they had moved all the working charge units to a separate sector until their safety could be ensured, lest they lose valuable assets to the Elite Guard.
His eventual increased involvement, while met with initial scrutiny from the medics around the wellbeing of potential patients, was argued to be good for his social development to follow orders and understand commands, which they eventually couldn't keep arguing against if they wanted B-127 out as soon as possible. He found the whole thing ridiculous; he knew how to abide by rules and regulations, he just didn't necessarily do it, but, whatever gave him more freedom. He could make use of it to up his credibility, at the very least, or find a gap of time where he went unsupervised that could be used to escape.
In a search for absolutely anything else to do besides the occasional gig as an assistant on Gauge’s whims, he had read up on everything he could get his servos on: medical reports, general specs, a list of Elite Guard Members and their feats, even the occasional sprinkling of news about these mechs and femmes he was now working on that were given to the civilian populations. A majority of it tried to lie out of his reach, however unsuccessful, something about ‘confidentiality,’ but B-127 scoffed at such a thing. If they wanted their stuff to stay private, they should keep them under better firewalls, more secure codes and, most importantly, not out in the open for just anybot to happen across. He's sure he knows all of the standard codes to the datapads the medics use by now—either the default assigned code found in the Medical Ward’s databanks or something equal parts boringly sentimental and easy to crack—and the amount of times he's spotted a bot’s entire medical history just laying by their medical berth while they were recharging felt like more than he could calculate, if such a statement weren't so ridiculous. It, at least, kept him from stripping the metal from the walls of his temporary space, desperately searching for something to occupy his time that wouldn't kill him on the spot.
Fortunately, being basically invisible to these Elite Guard Members made him privy to a whole host of new things to process and make sense of. It was mostly useless tidbits, like stories of why they landed in the Medbay in the first place, discussions surrounding the latest popular media—that B-127 had no exposure to whatsoever—and a million other inconsequential topics that kept him from teetering off the edge and into the scrapheap of insanity. However, easily the most interesting part was how they acted.
They were so much worse than how they portrayed themselves to the public: demanding, demeaning, arrogant and downright sadistic, amongst other negative behavioural traits. More than once he had caught sight of some poor medic being talked down to by their patient, not appreciating all that they did for their vain, narcissistic selves. He didn't like the medics either, but at least he could figure out their utility in the grand scheme of things, and was generally respectful after learning how to properly act around them, unless they annoyed him, obviously. It wouldn't do him any good to be on their cold shut caucuses, lest he be left to die, but he wasn't sure that those pompous bots really registered that they weren't simple drones. Even him, a fellow patient, not that they really knew his true role thanks to the classified nature of his existence, was not spared from their creepy stares nor the wrath they wanted to inflict on anybot in the vicinity. None of the medics ever reported anything for reasons B-127 couldn't fathom, and, because of that, those bots just went along unpunished for their heinous attitudes, and, sometimes, actions too.
“Hey, mini!” A boisterous bot called out, a brittle, metalloid-like practiced smile gracing her angular features as she grabbed his attention with her voice, waving him over to her berth-side and snapping him out of his reverie. He didn't flinch at the derogatory label, far too used to it at this point, and simply complied to her wordless demand. “What’s a femme gotta do to get some…proper service around here?”
“What do you mean by that?” He replied blankly, remaining neutral in order to see where her definitely inane requests lead to.
“No need to be so rude! It hurts my poor spark, you know.” She placed a servo on the centre of her specialised chest plate, feigning sadness, but, at his lack of reaction, she grit her denta tightly and continued, “Do you even know who I am?” She latched onto his arm guard and pushed herself into his field, trilling at its intensity.
The charge unit just stared at her, running her face plate’s diagnostics and characteristics through his files. It suddenly clicked into place as he found a match. He knew he'd seen her before: Elite Guard Forces Member Rust Dust, part of the aptly designated ‘Rust Renegades,’ a team of bots that came together after they had all individually survived the deadly Cosmic Rust, a contagion that had been concocted by the Decepticons as a debilitatingly frightening weapon; the chances of survival were quite slim: approximately 12.54% in the last record he had seen. She was unbalanced, impulsive, and did things her own way, not understanding the glyphs for ‘no,’ ‘stop,’ or ‘wait,’ but she was an accomplished fighter thanks to her agility and invaluable instincts for ambushes. The charge unit wasn't truly aware of what she was like underneath welded sheet metal, but it seemed like he was going to find out. “You're…” he paused deliberately, “Agent Rust Dust, correct?”
“Good job!” She reeled him in even closer like she had her own gravitational pull, gripping hard enough to dent. “I knew that my reputation still precedes me!” Her grin sharpened, optic shields crinkling at the edges as her expression contorted into something more…predatory. “Now that you've figured me out, you surely know what I'm asking for, right?” Her voice box lowered, garnering a grainy edge to it that sent static rushing uncomfortably through his systems, the feedback itself almost triggering a purge.
“I am,” he sped through his memory files, trying to find what Gauge told him to recite if patients wanted him to work on them, thinking they were entitled to immediate aid, “…new here, so I am unable to give you the individual care you deserve. If you would like, I could send for the medic assigned to you, if you could give me the designation?”
“Oh, poor stupid mini. I knew that part already. The kind of care I need is something only you can give me…” Rust Dust purred, voice box rumbling in B-127’s chest plate. He had to fight the urge not to squirm, face plate twitching from its base, stoic mask.
Now he got what this was all about. “Is your spark weakening, or are you low on energon? What exactly do you need my electricity for?”
“…Wow, you really are the perf–”
“B-127! There you are!” Gauge interrupted rudely, pulling at the yellow mech’s still free upper stabiliser and causing the femme with no sense of boundaries to release her own grip. “I've been looking everywhere for you! We need to stabilise a patient that just came in and our base equipment isn't enough!”
“Oh, come on–” Rust Dust tried to bring the attention back to herself, but Gauge intercepted with a deliberately practised ease.
“I'm sorry, Agent Rust Dust, but this is an emergency. Surely you understand?”
“…Fine, but have that-” They had left the area with a speed the charge unit didn't think the medic was even capable of. They moved down hallway after hallway before finally stopping just before a bulk group of temporary patient quarters.
“Why are we just standing here? What about the patient?” He didn't particularly care about the patient, but he knew Gauge, and he was the type to give up his very spark to prevent another from extinguishing, even if it only prolonged their existence by a mere fifty stellar cycles. Something was up here.
“There…was no patient, B-127,” he broached carefully, handling the smaller mech as if he were a frightened turbofox, peculiarly distinct from every other manner he had treated the minibot. The medic gently took one of his upper stabilisers into his own, the one that Rust Dust had held so insistently, and his optic ridges downturned at what he saw. The charge unit followed his gaze, finding a servo-shaped dent in the plating, leaving it uncomfortably warped and, honestly, unsightly. “Did you not know what she was trying to get you to do?”
“She was trying to get me to work on her, right?” Why was Gauge being so flighty all of a sudden? “She did insist a lot nicer than a lot of the others…”
“Oh, that's not good. That's not good at all…” The red-grey mech took the other's servo into his own, dragging him along behind, sparks flying as he was thrown off his pedes. “You're going to be sticking with me for the rest of the ‘cycle, got it? Please don't try to escape this time. After my rounds, I'll take care of those dents, okay?”
B-127 frowned, regaining his balance and trotting along behind him, voice hushed and entirely to himself, “Stepped off the brakes and straight into the boiler…”
Nothing else was said as the minibot trailed behind the medic, who had since retrieved a datapad—the required code regarding his hobby of strategy games—from his subspace and tapped away at it like it was the only thing on Cybertron worth his time, yet refusing to let him go. They had travelled a few additional rooms down before Gauge input the passkey for one of the shut doors, motioning for B-127 to join him in the room. They were greeted—without so much as a warning—by a rogue piece of machinery that had been seemingly hurled at the two of them the nanoklik they had entered the space, the reaction most definitely driven by the door’s hiss when it first unlocked. The mostly grey mech dodged it with a muted sigh from his intake, muttering something about the patient’s sour mood, and the minibot had already been out of the way, not the intended target. It was clear this bot didn't want any visitors.
“Greetings, Afterburner, I am-”
“It is AGEN’ Afterburner to you, me-dic,” The newly visible mech snapped back with concentrated hatred. “And who is the fraggin’ mini? He better not be wit’ you! I do not wan’ those weak-aft digit’ messin’ aroun’ in my circuit’! Get him out!” Something else had been thrown, this time directly at the bright yellow frame, who evaded it with a practiced ease, sending a scathing glare back that the trigger-happy mech didn't notice.
“Apologies, Agent Afterburner,” Gauge quietly seethed, the datapad he was holding glitching at the force he had exerted on it, “but I'm afraid I can't do that right now-”
“What do you mean you can not do it now?!” He threw his upper stabilisers up in frustration, face plate scrunched in disgust at his order being defied. “You shoul’ be showin’ us more respec’, you know? We are the ones keepin’ the res’ of you able to relax and slag!” He brought his limbs down in order to cross them in front of each other, helm turned the other way, with the mech grumbling something else heinous under his vents.
“We do respect you, Agent Afterburner.” Gauge switched gears startlingly fast, his tone now much more meek. “Every ‘cycle, we thank all of you for your service to the great Autobot cause, but, if you could please, allow my assistant to at least observe the process, so he can be a valuable asset in the future?”
Afterburner shifted his weight around on the berth, unsure, rolling his optics over to lock with B-127’s, who, for his part, attempted to make himself look as pitiable as possible so he could stay. “Ehhh, no. I do not trus’ the minis, and I am sure you understan’ where I am comin’ from, yes? Surely you can jus’ make him wait outside?”
The medic stood there, not too surprised at the lack of cooperation, finally relenting without an iota of fight left in him, “…Fine, B-127, please leave the premises. It is what the patient requires. Stay by the door, if you would.” Said charge unit didn't make another noise as he exited, utterly baffled at what he just witnessed.
He wouldn't have been allowed to do even half of what Afterburner did! Elite Guards Members were just allowed to act like that? With no repercussions, but accommodations, even!
…They were perfect. They were just like him. Well, he wasn't nearly as outwardly mean as they were, but B-127 did have a lot of undesirable behaviours along with the actions that could not get out to the general public. Unable to get used to the standard energon and not wanting to continue raising optic shields by continuing to rely on the detested infusion tubes, he had begun a habit of sneaking out when Gauge was in stasis, preying on the occasional bot that unfortunately crossed his path. It was a necessary part of his life, even if it was incredibly inconvenient. As long as he wasn't scrapped, he'd have to continue on either entirely dependent on the tubes or do what he had done on Combatron, the only thing that still felt familiar to him anymore after being ripped away from all he had ever known. So closely monitored, he would have to give up the latter habit soon for fear of being found out. They already had their suspicions, especially Red Alert, the main supervisor of their sector.
This, however, was a perfect opportunity that was just given to him! They would let him out eventually. They had to.
He could picture it vividly: a way to continue his life without worrying about being caught and dragged in for his perceived crimes. They wouldn't take him in if he was one of them, after all. It was clear there was cover-up after cover-up for these powerful bots, appearing good at their job while exposing their disgusting undercarriage when they thought they were safe. The charge unit would never be that sloppy, of course, but he enjoyed knowing that he could slip up every once in a while, instead of having to remain perfect like he had been.
Coming to his own temporary quarters, he numbly input his code, frame on autopilot due to his racing thoughts. Internally, he pivoted from his previous primary directive of escape to this new venture. He only had to continue acting the part of the perfect patient and assistant like he had been so they would just release him, instead of finding a suitable avenue to escape permanently. It would keep the charge unit out of their spotlights and lull them into thinking he had fully recovered from his upbringing on Combatron, which was the whole reason they still kept him around, as a visibly unstable mech—like he had been in the beginning—wasn't allowed to just roam.
After that, he could…apply to the Elite Guard, even if he didn't know how to do that just yet. Either way, he was going to be the best and most perfect Elite Guard Member they had for millennium. He didn't care what it would take.
Notes:
Bee's got a plan cooking...I don't think that's good for ANYONE really
Also sorry for using an OC here instead of an actual character for Gauge, I just couldn't find a character that would serve the purpose that I needed for this chapter (can't be Ratchet, Wheeljack's a scientist in this universe, First Aid is unfortunately ALSO a minibot, Minerva is more of a field medic than a standard one, and Red Alert is far too professional)
If anyone has any questions about the plot, confusing things, or just the worldbuilding I'm trying to solidify within the greater canon, please, don't be afraid to ask!
Chapter 4: Cheetor's Intermission: Investigative Report
Summary:
This was one of Cheetor’s first solo gigs after his demotion, and he was determined to NOT mess it up this time. It seemed pretty typical at first, reports of offlined frames in alleyways and other desolate places, almost as if they had been lured. There were no leads of a suspect just yet. However, the spotted mech had suspicions against a minibot he couldn't identify he had seen wandering about occasionally, but the only way to find out would be through confrontation, and he doesn’t know why he’s so wary about it…
Notes:
Sorry this took so long but I think I remained within the two week time-span I set for myself, so I hope it's all good! This chapter is a little shorter just to give myself some breathing room between this and the next chapter, and it's really more to flesh out the world itself and how it functions.
Cybertronian Sayings:
units-tons
draft reports on-write home about
holo-filing-paperwork
pre-revolution-old fashioned
tailing-hounding
tool-fool
platinum chance-golden opportunity
fuel station-comfort zone
toss you a connector-throw you a bone
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Summary of Events: At 19:33:52, I came across yet another offlined frame in a similar state to the ones that had been linked together already, suggesting that the same perpetrator had struck again. The frame, identified as S-55981, common designation Skids, was found in a similar manner to the others, drained of energon and missing a few limbs, his right stabiliser at the knee joint, his left servo and a bit of his additional kibble on his back plates, while his liquid nitrogen reserves and firing mechanisms remained entirely untouched, though the reason for offline still remains unknown. (I think it’s shock from the expressions I've seen on the bots, contorted violently in pain and terror, but I am not an expert in that department and will leave the diagnoses to the professionals when they come in.) The frame was found in a small alleyway about one (1) hic from the Elite Guard Headquarters (EGH), similarly close to the place like the other victims, which could suggest either a member or somebot who has a vendetta against them, even if verified agents only made up three (3) of the offlinings, which, unfortunately, makes the former a more likely scenario. A copy is highly implausible, as the details of the case have been kept incredibly private to prevent the public from panicking at such a violent criminal in their midst.
Investigator Designation (Colloquial, Formal): Cheetor, V-23118
Investigator Communications Link Frequency: 224
Investigator Communications Link Number: 36557
Case Number: 201811419
Case Type: Felony
Incident Number: Fifteen (15)
Investigation Process: As of now, the culprit has still not been found, and information regarding the case is quite miniscule compared to others due to the lack of evidence left behind. The bot behind all of this looks to be professional with the methodical way they take apart their victims without leaving a visible and obvious trail of energon, which is continuously missing from the victims. It originally suggested a femme or other detail-oriented frame type, but current hunches place it on a different frame type altogether. The motive still remains unknown. The mods of all the victims remained intact if they weren't a part of the limbs that had been removed prior, which helps to debunk previous suspicions about potential bounty hunting in the vein of Decepticon Lockdown. Current theories now lead to some sort of black market energon dealing, with how carefully the energon is siphoned out of the victims’ frames. The perpetrator seems to enjoy the quiet spaces, so I have taken to investigating every crevice and alleyway I come across within a four (4) hic radius from the EGH, but, unfortunately, I have not caught anything else so far besides a few suspicious civilians that I haven't been able to talk to as of now.
Suspect(s): Unidentified, suspected Decepticon infiltrator
Description: Appears to be a minibot in frame type, subclass unable to be determined. Suspect has a blue helm that has a pair of small audial horns on top, with an orange visor and his battle mask up. Inferior to the helm, the majority of the frame is black with yellow accenting alongside no visible Autobot brand, and what look to be Decepticon-like claws.
Witnesses to Events: N/A
Sideswipe had given him the reins on this investigation, and he couldn't be happier! Finally, he could prove his worth to the grouchy mech and get his old job back, even if he didn't really hate being partnered up with him. The Autotroopers in Iacon Central were just so stiff and rule-following, truly such a drag and definitely not his speed. Cheetor knew he made the right choice rejecting the reformatting. The Cybertron Police Defense Command needed some variety in their bot type, after all, or they'd get absolutely nothing done!
The case he had been handed, was, for lack of a better term, a bummer: a silent deactivator responsible for fifteen known offlinings with nary a trail in sight! The spotted bot had his suspicions that Sideswipe threw this case on him, in part, because he couldn't figure it out by himself. ‘Heh, I guess the visions of the Scrapheap ARE getting clearer to him!’
Unlike what the older bot thought of him, Cheetor had units of experience in catching perps, and was one of the fastest on the force, even before the demotion and transfer. On the street, it wasn't even a question. Sure, his record wasn't exactly something to draft reports on, but that wasn't the point! He knew exactly how to progress with this new task…after asking Sideswipe a few questions to make sure he would know what Cheetor would be doing, so he couldn't get mad when was out doing totally legit detective work instead of the monotonous holo-filing the older mech tended to stick him with if he was in a bad mood, which was often.
‘Mech, this is so boooring!’ The speedy mech thought as he fiddled with an audial in an unsuccessful effort to extend its range, resisting the urge to roll around on the surprisingly wide expanse of the building he was on out of a sheer lack of stimulation. The pre-revolution method—not Cheetor's usual style but he'd give it a go if it stopped Sideswipe from downright tailing him about protocol for even another solar cycle—of the stakeout was his current mission, strategically located within his optic range to the Elite Guard Headquarters, and the many labyrinthine alleys that seemed to almost spill out of its odd, hexagonal walls. There looked to be few to no bots in the area—a result of a strategic construction announcement for the immediate area to keep a majority of the civilians out of harm’s way—but the ones that did remain were immediately added to his list and subsequently followed at different intervals.
The mech at the top of the list, and had been since the thirteenth incident, was a bot he couldn't properly identify in all of the available records for Cybertronian citizens he was allowed into. That meant he had to be a colony bot, but, to complicate things even further than Cheetor wanted, there were no official records that matched the minibot’s description in any of the databases he, or Sideswipe, had access to, and he was pretty sure the older bot had, like, all the access keys and codes at this point, whether he was supposed to or not. His serial number—a side effect of something, the spotted bot not remembering the exact origin of that particular tidbit—was either scratched off or painted over, making him basically untraceable.
It was highly suspect, a mech who has no information on him, downright prowling around in a zone that had been previously cordoned off? That just screamed ‘serial deactivator’ to him, but, before anything else, he had to gather proof. The last time he went solely on a feeling in his tanks, the perp had walked free, brought in with next to nothing against him, even though Cheetor knew he was guilty. He wasn't going to make that mistake again, not after the grin that good-for-nothing slag eater gave him as he walked free, smug and overconfident. His destruction of property—two city blocks was a total exaggeration on his old boss’s part—and accidental terrorizing of innocent civilians weren't the only reasons he'd been taken off the TransTech force and shunted down to the dirty undercarriage of Iacon. It was one hundred percent worth it, though.
The first order of business would be to follow him silently, jumping down from his rooftop sanctuary to observe any strange happenings or behaviours. Unfortunately for the yellow Velocitronian, he seemed to have been caught when the smaller bot suddenly stopped, Cheetor realising in the same moment that the path the mech took included four consecutive left turns. He had just played the spotted bot for a tool without him even noticing. It forced him to change his angle mid-race, but that was more than okay with him. Stealth was never his forte—probably why he got caught in the first place—so conversation it was! He was great at talking. Every bot in the precinct knew it.
“Why are you following me?” The voice was garbled and muffled behind the battle mask, most likely purposeful so it couldn't be run through an audio recognition database, and his stance remained active and tense, awaiting a physical confrontation.
“Hey, sorry mech! I'm Cheetor of the CPDC,” he flashed his credentials for a nanoklik, a blinding smile rising to his face plate, an intertwined habit, “and I have a few questions for you!”
“…CPDC?” The mystery bot responded, sounding confused of all things, his helm tilted to one side. “…Fine but make it quick. I have places to be.”
“Perfect!” He leaned against the closest surface, nearly taking himself out as he misjudged the distance between his frame and the trash receptacle, but he swiftly recovered, pretending as if the blunder had never happened. “Oh-kayy, here's an easy one to start you off: what's your designation?”
“…Goldbug.” Obviously fake, but perhaps it was related to his real designation in some way. Oftentimes, when bots are put on the spot in order to come up with a lie, the usual output is something similar, yet distinct enough that it doesn't immediately raise optic ridges.
“Alright, Goldbug, now, where are you headed?”
“…Unfortunately, you don't have the parameters to know that, Detective Cheetor.”
“Uhh, well,” an odd way to shrug him off, for sure, but to be fair, the taller bot had been following him, surely sending him into a bit of a panic, “then what about where you're coming from?”
“You don't have the parameters to know that either.” He could practically feel the smirk from under the bot’s battle mask. A sassy one, then, instead of wary; he knew how to deal with those types.
“Well, then, what do I have the parameters to know?” The spotted bot shot back, servos placed confidently on his hips. He consciously eased his tone, attempting to appear the slightest bit friendlier to potentially ease the small bot’s worries and smother his flames into embers if he could.
‘Goldbug’ took a defiant step forward, a digit coming out of nowhere to poke him in the yellow of his chassis, leaving behind a small scratch and sending a twinge of pain through Cheetor’s systems, an optic twitching at the sensation. “Hey, you're the one asking the terrible questions, mech! Just ask better ones next time!”
“You got me there, Goldbug, but I'm afraid most of my questions would be in a similar category!”
The visored mech took the tiniest step backwards, his stance showing discomfort, so he tried to pivot the conversation to something else, “Hey, what exactly is all of this about? Is something going on?”
Cheetor wasn't going to waste this platinum chance. “Sorry, but you ain't got the parameters to know!” He chuckled to himself, watching intently for the resulting reaction from the aloof minibot.
“Slag, throwing it right back at me? Y'know what, I can respect that.” The Velocitronian was inwardly disappointed at its lack, yet his face plate’s features remained unchanged.
Cheetor perked up at the perceived building of rapport between the two of them, audials standing at attention. “Respect me enough to actually answer my questions?”
“Nope!” His laugh warped, distorted like melting metal, but it somehow held a rhodium-pure innocence to it that couldn't be denied, very minorly cracking Cheetor’s previously ironclad conviction surrounding this mech. “We aren't there yet, detective! Maybe next time you can find me? It won't be this easy though, promise!”
“What in the frag are you talking abou-” With a flick of his wrist joint that the taller mech could barely process, an assortment of dust and metal fragments—that the mystery mech had to have collected during the informal interrogation without tipping the taller bot off—was hurled with impressive aim, causing him to instinctively close off his optics—and intake, though a nanoklik later, which had been oh so generously filled with the airborne debris—for protection, but, the moment they came back online, barely another nanoklik later, the bot had disappeared without a trace. Cheetor had frantically searched the immediate area for any sign of him, but nothing. ‘Mech, just when I was totally onto something!’
Resealed with solder, his conviction returned with a vengeance. By the borderline coquettish mannerisms and that pivoting exit when he'd had his fun, it was obvious that this mech had something to do with the entire incident. Whether he was the perp or if he was just covering for another bot for whatever reason remained to be seen, but the latter was a far more common phenomena than bots often think.
He tried again, and again, and again. He couldn't find the minibot a second time.
It didn't matter how many recharge-less orbital cycles he spent watching for any possible trace that he'd returned, stuck at the watch point he originally saw him at. He revisited the scene countless times, pouring over every visual detail until it was a permanent image seared in his processor at the highest resolution, its every flaw telegraphed to the point of discomfort. The dust remained, every time in a different configuration because Cheetor couldn't help but kick it back up, no matter the perceived minuteness of his movements.
Returning to his depot after yet another failure to locate his prime suspect, he explained the entirety of the situation to Sideswipe, all but pleading for some sort of direction or aid to help him progress after this roadblock in his progress. “C'mon Sides, you're the expert at finding bots! Help a mech out here!”
“First,” the older mech vented a deep sigh, massaging his optic ridges with a pair of digits as he leaned back in his seat, “refrain from calling me ‘Sides,’ it's unprofessional since I am technically your superior, and second, I gave you this mission to make you drive outside of your fuel station. Your next partner shouldn't have to point you at the perp, instructing you to chase them down like a hungry scraplet hoard when they've finally been found. It should instead be an equal collaboration of your unique skills.”
“But I'm not cut out for all of that!” Cheetor whined, resisting the urge to stomp his pede—a habit he had been unable to break since he was a new-build. “Sides, sometimes bots just aren't built for that, and you should know that better than almost anyone else!”
He paused, sending a scathing glare the Velocitronian’s way before he continued his preaching, “I am well aware, but you'll never know what you can do unless you test the limits.”
“C’mon, I already know exactly what I'm built for: speed and efficiency, nothing more, and nothing less!”
“I swear to Primus, I'm going to write a deactivation report on you some ‘cycle, and I will already know it’s every detail,” he said, scarily monotone and itching to reach for one of his Cybertanian swords that rested against one of the desk’s stabilisers.
“Woah, big bot, no need to get so hostile!” He lifted his stabilisers onto his senior’s desk, crossing them as he leaned back in his own chair, teetering dangerously. “You can't be throwing out threats like tha- AHH!” Without another word, Sideswipe had performed what his designation warned of, sweeping the intruding limbs off his desk and sending Cheetor sprawling onto the ground, the cheap piece of gallium furniture shattering into countless conchoidal fractures.
“That's coming out of your credit bank,” he snapped with a truly devious smirk. “But I'll toss you a connector: broaden your horizons in this case, who knows what you might find…” And with that cryptic message, he left the room, most likely to put in an order for a new chair, hopefully one made out of sturdier stuff.
“S-slagging know-it-all…” he grumbled, shakily regaining his balance and using the desk to steady himself, “thinks a witty one-liner will make me like him even though he's a stick up the aft.” His processor dazed, he slowly made his way out of the room as well, the wall his crutch, contemplating Sideswipe’s glyphs and their possible meanings.
“What did he mean by that? Maybe, like, increase the search area, or see if any other bots know anything,” he groaned, cradling his helm with his free servo. “Ugh, I'll probably figure it out after a cube of high-grade, or three. I've been winding myself far too tight over this case…”
Conclusion: While the prime suspect has remained out of contact, I have taken to asking the other bots that were on my own personal suspect list, subsequently crossing them off as they all gave reliable, substantiated alibis during at least four separate incidents. After that, I decided to search for available witness testimonies, which hadn't been found yet, and I contacted those with nearby habsuites about anything they might have heard or seen when the incidents occurred and about the aforementioned prime suspect. So far, information remains continually and frustratingly minimal, so I will continue on with the Elite Guard to see if they know anything, as most of the incidents are very close to their headquarters. Will update report as information comes in.
Case Status: Ongoing
Notes:
Cheetor does NOT really know how to do his job as a cocky hot shot who doesn't know when to stop. At least Sideswipe is trying to set him straight (isn't it a little weird to anyone else seeing him in a role that's NOT the troublemaker??? I knew it was for me when I first read it lol)
Chapter 5: Infiltration
Notes:
I'm cutting it a little close with this one but it still counts for me! Hope you all enjoy as always!
Cybertronian Sayings:
spark planet-home world
shard in his optic-thorn in his side
site one to site two-point a to point b
melting some supports-burning bridges
connect servos-hold hands
higher servo-upper hand
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Longarm was a spy for the Decepticons. It was a fact as simple and concrete as the length of the solar cycles—800 standard cycles—and the hue of the atmosphere above them—rubellite on Cybertron, purple tourmaline on the Luna-1 base, and citrine on his spark planet. He hadn't even meant to listen in at the time, having followed Wasp instead, noting his schedule as best he could so he could be avoided.
Bumblebee, as he was now called thanks to the incompetent minor now in charge of him, had originally toyed with the idea of killing the irritating green blight so he couldn't keep correcting everything the yellow mech said, along with dispelling the icky wrongness that stemmed from being around another charge unit after so long. It fogged his RAM, catapulting him back to a time of constant chaos and fear. Only the uncharacteristically mechanical environment bathed in a demure purple that surrounded the minibot stopped him from pouncing and tearing the other apart when they first met. Shakily inventing the distinctly non-acidic scent into his olfactory system seemed to further clear the haze in his processor, allowing him to regain his bearings before he made a devastating mistake he wouldn't be able to hide. An obvious physical reminder of his past was, simply, a shard in his optic that he would prefer to do without.
Unfortunately, since they were in the same platoon, getting rid of him wouldn't be a viable option with the already built up animosity between the two minibots. If something happened, he would be suspected effective immediately, so evading him would have to suffice for now. Still, he was formulating a few backup plans just in case.
Piling on to his already amounting stress levels, hearing Longarm’s voice say, “Lord Megatron” more than once when, before, he wasn't even a blip on the yellow mech's radar was, admittedly, a shock to the smaller, especially after he had been so disgustingly kind on the first lunar cycle at Autobot Boot Camp, coaxing him back to the barracks, having previously stormed out in embarrassment. At this point, he couldn't tell hidden intent through another bot’s mannerisms, the Elite Guard patients more than comfortable with displaying their perversions openly around him, but, reviewing the files of every interaction they had obsessively, he could start building a model for differences in nonverbal language and voice box irregularities; since the grey bot would need to lie often, he would be the perfect training material. He had always been a stellar observer, him still existing a glass-clear testament to that, manifesting in a multitude of ways. Though, until his system worked with an above eighty percent success rate, he would need to be more careful of who to place his trust in, should anybot fit the criteria.
Similarly, Bumblebee had his own hangups, but he didn't know whether his or Longarm’s were worse at this point, all concepts of right and wrong a homogenous mixture in his processor. They were basically impossible to sift through with all the conflicting information he'd gathered from his own experiences versus what he'd been told. Really, with all he's seen in the Elite Guard, Longarm—not his common designation, if he even had one—would be a perfect addition to their fold, and while his outlier ability wasn't the most combat focused, his processor was clearly advanced enough to use it to the fullest in order to get by, perhaps strangling opponents into submission or grabbing them mid-flight while in their aerial modes, tugging them back to the ground. He didn't know how much fighting Intelligence Officers did, but it couldn't be that much, having never seen one in the Medical Ward during his long tenure.
The true puzzle was whether he should report his findings or not. The medics he previously coexisted with and worked under never did anything about the mistreatment and behaviour, a quirk of theirs he tended to also fall in line with, but mentioning the concerns could put him in the good graces of the higher-ups—a council of some variety, he didn't really know—and propel him to his goal much faster. On the swapped servo attachment, such a thing could also work against him, should he go through with it. Sadly, it's much more suspicious when a newly blast cleaned bot comes in and others suddenly start to go missing than if he had taken it slowly, building up possible relationships and rapport to have others cover for him, should the need arise. After agonising over what to do for an orbital cycle, the charge unit elected to remain silent to see how things would unfold, but, if things got sufficiently boring and he got what he needed, he might let something slip.
Improving his social skills right now was also paramount, and, while most of the Autobot Boot Camp was utterly useless to him, he couldn't afford to leave just yet. His first successful test subject in this field experiment of friendship was still here, and with Ironhide already taken in by that Unicron-forged fragger, he didn't have any other consistent options. Longarm, while a bit off like he was, wouldn't be good for beta testing with his intelligence being able to pick up his mistakes and lack of social queues, which could prompt further suspicions. Truly, he had no doubts the teal accented bot would sell him out the nanoklik he found a reason to do so, if only to keep suspicion off of himself, so he was out until his skills got more polished with his current test subject.
Bulkhead, though, was perfect: a dull wall of metal that immediately latched onto him because of his clumsy nature and desire for companionship that the others wouldn't give him. He couldn't ask for a better chance from Primus himself. All it took for the wrecker to look at him as if he were the AllSpark itself was to clean up a few of his messes and take credit for the ones that couldn't be fixed in time, little things he thought of as insignificant before. As he learned, Bumblebee found that those were the moments that truly solidified companionship. Sure, it harmed his credibility in the optics of Sentinel Minor, but he had no respect for the arrogant suck-aft anyways. Even with all of “Bumblebee’s” mistakes, they both knew that he was one of, if not the best, of his platoon, a fact he was cheerfully reminded of every time the incompetent minor grumbled—not aware he could hear all of it—about not being able to kick him out.
The wrecker’s physical size didn't hurt either, able to protect the smaller mech should any kind of planned misfortune befall him thanks to Wasp and his orange lackey, which tended to end up with a few of his limbs being removed and put out of reach, the irony not lost on him. Ironhide’s outlier ability made him frustratingly conductive and simultaneously almost impervious to his claws and denta, which gave the bulky bot the opportunity to keep him restrained while his fellow tormentor seared pain deep within his sensors and nodes with that Primus-forsaken tool, the wispy, plasticky scent of burnt wires and the agonising heat remaining even after they were reattached, stuck in a nigh-constant state of overflow error after overflow error for solar cycles on end after each incident. Not having to deal with that for the third time was a definite plus to their relationship, but they still got to him when Bulkhead wasn't around, which, thankfully, wasn't super often.
The dullspark was so genuine in his admiration of Bumblebee that he spent most of his available time with him, otherwise staying pitifully alone with the hatred he'd garnered from the other cadets in his incompetence, not as idiotic as Sentinel Minor to accept the charge unit being the culprit to the wrecker’s obvious failures. The smaller bot had to basically pry him off whenever he needed a cycle to himself, like scale clinging to heated metal, not that he usually wanted to. It was nice to have such a loyal companion by his side, but Primus if he wasn't needy.
Fortunately for him, Wasp without his own bulky shadow was nothing, barely even a registered threat. While the verbal spats were nothing he could really control—still unused to navigating situations where he was actually permitted to fight back and tending to go too far as a result—he posed no physical challenge. Bumblebee wasn't exactly the strongest bot around, something he had come to terms with the first—and last—time he hadn't caught one of his old batch mates by surprise, rapidly losing in the physical confrontation that ensued, but something else allowed him to survive in the end. He was devastatingly clever, strategically having the other pin him down during their scuffle as he crossed his stabilisers behind one of his opponent’s pedes, locking them together without him noticing and finally twisting at the midsection to send the stronger charge unit careening for the ground, knocked into a temporary stasis immediately that would soon become permanent, his helm made concave by a rock.
Each and every attempt from the green mech to follow him was amateurish in nature. He was spotted immediately and without fail. He honestly couldn't comprehend what Wasp was trying to accomplish, playing Bumblebee's game. Not willing to enable further action in that manner, he watched back, glaring, until the aventurine bot—painted black one time for some reason—had retreated permanently.
He stopped after a few orbital cycles, which was good. He had begun to starve, and he couldn't do anything with him watching. He didn't even care that they were removing his limbs at an increased frequency now, and, in general, getting more physical with him. The dents and continually welded over seams were inconsequential. The higher crash rates meant nothing. Everything went ignored when the pangs of hunger came crashing back, all consuming like a black hole.
Luckily, becoming one of his superior's least favourite bots was not without its strange benefits that he took full advantage of. Most obvious was being left alone—sometimes with Bulkhead, which wasn’t the worst fate—for megacycles on end, stationed at oil detail. It basically amounted to carrying drums from site one to site two, or draining it into specific reservoirs. It was truly monotonous work that didn't require even a megacycle most times, but, occasionally, there were special orders to travel into a separate sector to provide transportation for the drums. Their sector was the only one that had an oil surplus because of the few bots that resided there, the average usually fifteen to twenty, and, with the unique opportunity, it became a favourite of some of the other minors for disaster practice or terrain irregularities, especially Kup Minor, the most renowned of them all, in charge of around fifty from the last time the yellow bot counted. The cygar smoker loved that kind of servos-on training. Bumblebee even participated once or twice as a victim or obstacle.
Surely he wouldn't miss two or three of his cadets, right?
Playing the part of the dutiful minibot, he always brought the required drums to the correct locations, chatting with a couple of the other recruits he ran into on the way to their respective superior officer. With Smokescreen, he was similarly cocky and playful, matching his energy one for one and sprinkling in a flair for the dramatics. With Blaster he was vivacious, intensity levels cranked up to the max to keep up with his high energy. These bots, extroverted as they were, were easiest to crack, mimicry a simple solution that had them squarely in the palm of his servo. Of course, the less naturally friendly were more challenging, requiring a separate strategy rather than mirroring his target, but, after melting some supports with the most introverted bots from other minors that likely wouldn't report his oddities for fear of nothing coming from it, he more or less figured it out. Successfully putting it to the test with Gears, he was the weak bot that one couldn't help but pity, offering to push the load while on the way to Kup Minor, complaining all the way but vehemently refusing to let Bumblebee take the cart back.
Following such preparation, luring them to a secluded place was as easy as tearing apart a starved charge unit, everything sharpened until the sting traveled up through his numbed sensors, his upper stabilisers wanting to tremble at the pings of anticipation mixed with pain.
“I knew you couldn't resist–”
“Wanted to hang out solo? Fine by–”
“What was so important that you had to drag–”
He turned around, the centres of his optics dilated so much they nearly took up the entire space. Subtly, he hid one of his servos behind his back, transforming it into his trusty stinger, its charge kept low so as to not alert them. Keeping it out of view, Bumblebee motioned for the other to come closer.
“Aw, you want to connect servos or something? How ador–”
“We finally here or what–”
“Are you taking this seriousl–”
Once sufficiently close, the crafty charge unit struck, taking their nearest servo in his and yanking them further into his shorter range. They were too large to strike back effectively at such a small distance between them. Pulling his crackling stinger out from behind him, he jammed it between a joint that connected their helms to the rest of their frames, sending a harsh shock through their systems that had steam rising from their rapidly overtaxed systems.
“What are you–”
“Bee, wait–”
“What is the meaning–”
They tried to scream, but no noise managed to escape, meagre sparks their sole instrument of their fear as they weakly sputtered from their neck cables. Their voice boxes had been successfully fried, the decibels needed to reach such a register putting too much strain on the complex device now that it had been shorted out. Smokescreen, in a panic, activated his fancy outlier ability that he bragged about time and time again whenever someone would pay attention, his frame phasing through the minibot's iron grip as he fell backwards. Blaster collapsed immediately, yet remained active, for the moment, optics dimmed yet filled with hate. Gears, in contrast, opted to use his brute strength instead, yanking his upper stabiliser back and causing Bumblebee to stumble forward a slight bit, not taken down due to his sheer bulk soaking up some of the charge and dispersing it away from the most important components that kept him upright.
The arrogant, high-caste bot’s dermal mesh opened to, presumably, curse him out, but, again, nothing made its way out as he scrambled desperately for purchase on the rough ground, trying and failing to drag himself away, pebbles wedging uncomfortably in the gaps of his plating. Bumblebee smirked wickedly, stalking closer like he had all the time on Cybertron to do what he intended. Once again, Smokescreen made an instinctive bid for escape, barely managing to bring himself to his pedes, still mostly paralysed by the earlier shock. The smaller bot merely shoved him back to the ground with little force, which the terrified mech met with an aggressive crash to the floor, and pressed a pede into the other's chest plate, preventing him from escaping and bringing down his stingers—both this time—to take him out of commission for good, and stop him from using that pesky phase shifter again, however limited it may be.
The previously cheerful, loud bot had been silenced, and was lying there, stunned, his optics flickering and sparking with excess electricity. Bumblebee trudged towards his prone form, claws flexed and glistening in the low light of Alpha Centauri. The yellow mech took a step past Blaster’s stabilisers, and, suddenly, his back plates met the ground with a sickening crunch. Something delicate had clearly snapped, his cold frame making him dangerously brittle at times when the starvation felt like it would never end. However, the larger bot, aided by his momentum, swung himself back to his pedes after kicking the minibot's out from under him, face plate scowling as steps stuttered, the ground having soaked up the majority of the electricity since he stayed down and docile. It had taken too much concentration to pull such a stunt off, and, as a result, even though Blaster had the higher servo for the moment, it wouldn't last. The yellow mech merely smirked at his audacity, then winced at his newfound injury. He was going to make this hurt for the larger bot.
Bumblebee’s optics narrowed, watching quietly as the red mech shuffled towards one side of the alleyway, extending a servo to support his weight, his back strut turned towards the downed bot. Escaping to find support instead of finishing the job, a grave mistake. Perhaps Kup Minor wasn't as good at teaching his cadets than he originally thought, but it was of no matter to him. If anything, it was far better for his survival if his prey were inexperienced. Rising to his pedes, he shuffled silently behind Blaster, observing his desperate yet slowed movements with barely contained glee, and, once he made it to the opening of the alleyway the charge unit had led him down, a glimpse of hope in the red mech's movements, Bumblebee lunged forward, tackling him with everything he had and straddling his back plates and upper stabilisers to keep him pinned, limp struggles his only adversary. The low, eerie whine of electricity rang out through the area once again. There would be no chance of resistance this time.
The tough bot left him teetering on the tip of his pede, but he rocked back to balance easily, falling into a comfortable stance that betrayed nothing. Gauge followed suit, his form much more polished, but unfortunately predictable. His optics gave everything away as Bumblebee weaved through kicks and punches, carefully angling his position to be blocking the exit while he dodged. Once he noticed his newly disadvantaged state, Gears, oddly, shifted to a more defense-focused fighting style, a grand departure from his earlier strategy of attempting to overwhelm him. The mech must be proud of his endurance, but there were few left that could reroute power to essential areas and properly function on minimal energon like the charge unit could. Megacycles passed with the same song and dance between the two smaller bots, only one of them displaying any sort of visible fatigue. At any moment, Gears’ optics would short out—his frame already giving off obvious warnings on where his energon levels were—and that would be his moment to strike.
As expected, about five cycles later, his optics flickered to black for a nanoklik at most, temporarily blinded. That was more than enough for Bumblebee to work with, leaping towards the sturdy bot and digging his denta into an exposed stretch of mesh just below his chest plate, unleashing a devastating voltage into the conductive material. The ringing in his audials that lasted another megacycle was totally worth the effort.
They were all still alive, if barely, shocked into place and trapped within an immovable frame for the yellow minibot to do as he wished. Imprisoned within their own processors, a fate worse than death, but they would be granted that mercy soon enough, when he got his fill, at least.
First, bring them to an isolated location that won't be visited until far after finishing the task. Following that, find an access point to siphon energon from them—usually a stabiliser of some kind—and rip it off with precision, making sure to keep the resulting stump elevated so it wouldn't spill out. Next, refuel on the severed limb and devour it properly, nothing going to waste, and check their sparks to see if they'd gone offline in the resulting shock, and, if that's the case, disregard the following steps and move as quickly as possible to salvage all that is possible, the window being tiny as always for digesting plating. Fourth, strategically angle the frame so gravity can lead it to the access point, keeping a steady optic on their spark’s activity.
He heard somebot nearby while in the middle of refuelling on Smokescreen. The fleeing came naturally. The lying did not.
Repeat the second and third step for another access point and continue until they're all gone. The bot is usually offline at this point, which means prioritising the remaining plating that won't allow the energon to flow further. Finally, the energon rich pockets should be the majority of the remains at this point, a final reward for a meticulously well-done job.
Use everything that's available. It's the only way he can still live.
Notes:
Thanks for giving us such an informative step-by-step, Bee! You've really got this down to a science, huh?
Chapter 6: Blaster's Intermission: The Course of Friendship
Notes:
Y'all CAN'T keep letting me do this to myself I SWEAR. Edited 12/7/2025
Cybertronian Sayings:
down ‘suite-back home
oily digits-grubby mitts
get a scan in-take a peek
fritzing fluxes-crushing dreams
sinks your slag-floats your boat
chromium nitride in a meteor-a dime a dozen (chromium nitride was found in the most meteors that fell to earth)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hey mechs and femmes down ‘suite! It's me, Blaster (C-271, duh, if you haven't caught on yet, thinking ‘bout you here, Stripes), with more updates on camp (mainly for you, Eject and Rewind, as I know you two also wanna join the Elite Guard some ‘cycle soon). Kup Minor is a drag as always, and I'm growing to hate cygar smoke even more than I did before, but he is a good mentor. The rumours about him are certainly true, and I would try getting him as your superior officer if possible (work fast, he's getting older and rustier by the nanoklik, and there's talk of him retiring soon too).
Also, I actually met one of the bots from another minor—some new mech called “Sentinel” if I remember correctly. I sadly didn't catch his designation the first time we met, as he was on orders from Kup Minor about some sort of shipment from sector to sector. I don't know how I forgot to ask about something as simple as that! I feel so embarrassed about it, even now! I mean, c'mon! I picked up his boss’, but not his own?! Primus is really playing a trick on me, huh?
Anyways, he was cool, both in core temperature and temperament (hah, still got it! No, but seriously, that mech was freezing), and it was interesting to hear the differences in teaching styles. Being real, his minor sounds like a sadist to me, employing corporal punishment for any mistake, no matter how small, but it ain't my place to complain or criticise. He said he'll be able to visit every once in a while because of their oil surplus, which means, if I can catch him, I can see him more often, and maybe learn his designation.
Apparently, this new minor of ours only has five cadets, which is insane! I already told you how many Kup Minor’s got, but even the average is, like, twenty! They must get some real individual training, right? Well, when they aren't doing transform-ups till they drop, of course.
I'll have to ask him to teach me a few of the special tricks he totally learned so far, and then I can send them to you all to get you bots ahead of the curve on training, even if I know Playback wants nothing to do with all of the “Elite Guard nonsense,” as he constantly says. Don't let him get his oily digits on any future communications before the rest of you can get a scan in, alright? I don't want him fritzing fluxes on us ‘cause he's paranoid.
In other, more boring, news, Smokescreen is still as annoying as ever, but nothing can really be done about that. I swear, high-caste bots would actually refuel on acid if they thought it kept their plating shiny. Keep an optic out for those types and don't let them disrespect you ‘cause they'll keep doing it until they get bored and move on.
Hope you all are doing okay without me there! Let Rosanna know I'm online, at least, yeah? And make sure she's being responsible with her pets! Stay safe and rock on!
-Blaster
The second time he encountered the new bot was, oddly enough, during one of their training sessions. “Search and Rescue,” Kup Minor called it, setting the scene in that famously dry way. They were meant to be members of the Rescue Forces branch of the Elite Guard. They had responded to a distress signal from a distant colony world, tasked to rescue as many civilian bots as possible while simultaneously keeping them calm to “see how they worked under a different kind of pressure,” the emphasis loud and clear to even the dullest bulbs.
A few bots—two standard mechs, one minibot—in and the next one he scoped out was unnaturally still. The rest of them had seemingly been tasked to scream and wail, anything to fracture the already frayed attention of the cadets, but not this one he'd seen before. Weaving through the artificial debris, caution in every step so he wouldn't trip and make a tool out of himself, he came up to the familiar yellow bot’s side, sitting against a shattered wall, oil, or ‘mech fluid,’ everywhere. ‘Ah, so he's probably supposed to be borderline severe shutdown or something…What do I do here? Should I just leave him to be another bot’s problem?’
The other seemed to notice his hesitation, a small, denta-less smile rising to his stained face plates as he beckoned Blaster over. “Here's my datapad,” he said, succinct and stiff, as if scared of his own sudden movement.
“O-oh! Yeah, thanks mech…” he trailed off awkwardly as he grabbed it, scanning its contents before tilting his helm to one side, puzzled. “Huh, I thought you were supposed to be critical, but just a rupture with others’ mech fluid to confuse the issue? I know this is fake an’ all, but…why aren't you panicking?”
“I'm fairly sure the first thing you say should be more along the lines of, ‘You’re gonna be okay,’ but whatever sinks your slag, I guess.” Blaster stifled a tinny chuckle, even though it wasn't all that funny. “Nah, I'm just kidding! It's because I'm in real danger right now!” He finished, something catching in his vents as he laughed sharply, dragging it out in a strange, flat note.
“…what?”
“Yeah, I'm a charge unit, and, uh, you know how…not-well oil and electricity mix, right?”
The loud coloured bot paused for a nanoklik to process the implications. “Oh slag, you're probably a ticking time bomb right now then, yeah?”
“You got it in one, uh…”
“Blaster,” he finished.
“Bumblebee,” the new bot returned.
The taller mech extended a servo in a show of good faith that he immediately squandered the following nanoklik. “That designation is terrible. Did you give that one to yourself?”
“I will blow the both of us up right now.” Regardless of the words, he allowed himself to be pulled to his pedes, oil spilling messily off his previously prone form, leaving streaks in his plating and splattering on the already coated ground.
“Hey, you can't be the only one allowed to joke! Now, let's get you outta here and wash you off! I've been looking for an excuse to skip out on training, and this time it's for a good reason! I owe ya’ one, Bumblebee!”
“You actually owe me two, considering last time we met you held me up from completing the tasks your minor put me up to.”
“Hey, I knew you looked familiar!” He wanted to self-destruct from pure shame. “Guess I need my recognition scanners checked out, huh?”
“Probably. I thought you were being rude on purpose.” His optics slid to one side, upper stabilisers crossed tightly.
“I would never! Now, hop on?”
Bumblebee tilted his helm to one side like a turbofox, an optic ridge raised. “Why do you have to carry me?”
“‘Cause then it looks like I'm doing something important?”
“I'm not sure…” He shuffled backwards, his pedes somehow not slipping out from under him.
He carefully moved closer again, catching himself once before his face plate met pavement. “Oh c'mon! It won't take you offline or anything!”
“I guess not…” And with the totally legit consent given, he was hoisted onto Blaster's back plates with no further warning, the weight barely noticeable, the sharp digits in his pauldrons, though, not so much.
He hissed quietly under his vents in response to the pain, but tried to keep his volume level and cheerful, “N-now that that's all settled, let's go!” They made their way to the washracks slowly, dodging the occasional facilitator and even Kup Minor himself at one point, all while looking like Blaster was still doing his job. After he'd been properly cleaned off, they stayed hidden, making casual conversation about training and other frivolous things. Bumblebee didn't want to go back to his superior officer either, he guessed. His mannerisms were a bit off sometimes, cutting himself off weirdly and having a lack of volume control when he got especially emotional, but it was probably a result of bad caretaking practices, which Blaster sympathized with. Before his cassettes came into his view, he didn't talk to many others either, being his caretaker's sole focus for stellar cycles on end, and now he was starting to see his reflection in this similarly loud-coloured bot, even if the image shorted out every once in a while.
Things continued just like that. Bee—he’d started calling him ‘Bee’ because he didn't like the bitter flavour the first part of his designation left him with—visited on occasion, always with drums of oil, always waving shyly at Blaster as he walked by, which he obviously took as an invitation to join him without fail. They never ran out of things to talk about: their fellow cadets—and the gripes they had with each one of them—what they wanted to do in the Elite Guard and really anything that came to the forefront of their processors. The minibot even smuggled over an extra energon cube for him from time to time, something he didn't particularly need, but appreciated regardless.
Every subsequent conversation he paused less, kept his tone more appropriately steady, and got increasingly comfortable with friendly barbs instead of flinching and hissing. He was improving byte by byte, and it looked as if he recognised it, now going out of his way to greet the rest of Blaster's platoon when he saw them instead of keeping his helm on a jittery swivel, focusing far too much on each face plate that crossed his path, as if searching for something. The unnerving optic contact remained, but now he narrowed the centres more often, a much less threatening image.
Sometimes, when the larger mech saw him, he was already entertaining another bot with his witty banter. The red bot felt a sense of pride welling up, watching his friend get more confident in himself despite the initial flaws, but why did one of his companions have to be Smokescreen. He ex-vented a loud sigh at this new development, observing their snarky back and forth discreetly, ‘What's he gonna be using him for?’
Blaster had known Smokescreen for a while now, and he'd seen over and over the results of his ‘friendship.’ The lucky ones got off with being used for the high-caste bot’s own success and a dash of public humiliation, but what was much more common was blaming them for career ending mistakes, like putting another cadet—usually Smokescreen himself as the victim—in some sort of vague, catastrophic danger that left them heavily scrutinised or prevented from going into what they wanted to do, left with majorly limited options. There was one mech who actually got kicked out as a result of the arrogant bot’s stunt. It was an obvious pattern with him targeting those he knew were interested in the Intelligence Agency, and he couldn’t seem to handle any sort of competition. Unfortunately, he was rather crafty, the only trace left of any wrongdoing were the musings of other cadets, and, with nothing concrete, Smokescreen’s reputation remained intact with the higher-ups, even if all the other bots around him despised him and his pompous attitude.
Strangely, yet thankfully, after another stellar cycle, the high-caste bot just…disappeared off of Luna-1 entirely before he managed to hurt Bee. Rumours spread like they always do, gossip eating away at them like acid through a steel beam. Some said he ran away. Others say he was stolen by Decepticons. No evidence, just a hushed volume and repetition by their side. It was mostly nonsense. ‘Probably couldn't handle getting his plating scratched and slag,’ he joked to himself, the little bit of worry stifled and shoved to the back of his processor—Smokescreen had been doing well when he wasn’t stepping on others’ neck cables, as loathe he was to admit it.
Bee never asked about him, only ever tensing up whenever anybot else mentioned him. ‘He must've found him as annoying as I did but didn't have the tanks to tell him that,’ he thought. ‘Or, maybe he did but Smokescreen didn't take “no” for an answer like always…’ He ignored how Bee was more energised after the arrogant mech left, not affected in the slightest.
Another stellar cycle passed, and Bee had sent him a private ping, asking Blaster to meet with him in his sector right after curfew had passed. Happily, he sent his confirmation with a little too much zeal and breezed through the solar cycle, wondering what this meet up could possibly be about. ‘Mech, he reminds me so much of them sometimes…’
The time rolled around, and, with an uncharacteristic silence, he slipped out of his barracks, following the map the minibot had sent him, the red bot never having been outside of Kup Minor’s sector before. It took a servo-ful of cycles to get to the destination, but he thinks he did pretty well. ‘Now, all I have to do is wai-’
“Heh, you’re early,” the whisper came from his left side, the charge unit popping out of the shadows like he’d always been visible.
“And? So are you!” He fired back, volume up and hopefully masking his surprise. Bee didn't say anything else, merely beckoned the other to follow his lead as he led him even deeper into this unknown sector, quietly in-step, even lagging slightly behind, like he always did. The stars millions of light years away softly illuminated their trek down winding alleyways before the minibot stopped, Blaster walking a few more paces ahead before realising his companion had gone out of sight. He turned back, meeting the little yellow bot’s harshly lit optics, their centres unnaturally wide. He tried to strike up another conversation, a jilted laugh choked out of his system, “Wanted to hang out solo? Fine by me!”
The other continued in his silence, and only beckoned him closer, prompting another response from Blaster, “We finally here or what, Bee? You’re starting to freak me out. What’s all this even about?” His processor was screaming at him that something was wrong. He couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it was stemming from, so he just stepped into the minibot’s space like he’d indicated. His first mistake. Without any more warning, and no room to move, the charge unit pulled out his other servo from behind his back plates, transformed into its stinger mode and jammed it into his neck cables, piercing the rubbery casing yet melting it back together in the same instant.
“Bee, wait-” And then nothing. He couldn’t choke out another sound. Blaster clutched at his neck in desperation as he crashed to the ground, his frame stiffening as he was temporarily paralysed by the aggressive shock. His second mistake. ‘If he gets another hit in, I’m going offline for sure.’ His form remained prone as he glared at the newfound enemy, the excess charge shorting out his optics periodically, Bumblebee’s form growing closer every time things went black, appearing scarily larger with each nanoklik. The red bot’s optics flickered down to the dangerous claws the charge unit had, then back up to his face plates, where an eerie smile rose to his face plates, sharp denta filling Blaster’s processor and already feeling its bite. He could feel the charge beginning to drain out of his system, pooling at his back plates then falling through the ground to be disbursed. ‘I can’t go down like this…’
Everything went dark again, and now Bumblebee was just beyond Blaster’s stabilisers, his steps slow and methodical. He would have one shot at this. If he failed…he pushed that thought to the deepest recesses of his RAM. Aiming carefully, he kicked at the other’s bent stabilisers, sending him careening to the ground while he himself launched to his pedes. The sickening crunch that echoed through the space brought the tiniest smile to Blaster’s face plates, which then faltered when he realised the state he was in. His joints twitched and spasmed, optics going dark more frequently now. The damage wasn't just temporary. Hastily, he made his way to the nearest wall, it looking like a fuzzy, unfocused blob of muted grey-purple and leaning against it heavily, his plating scratching his pauldron as he adjusted himself.
The damaged mech stumbled towards the lighter colour up ahead, the entrance of the alleyway Bumblebee had led him down, and, as he got closer, his movements got sloppier, wanting nothing more than to reach it, nothing else coming to his processor. His final mistake. In his haze, he forgot the one thing he should’ve been looking out for constantly, even with his limited vision, and he once again met the floor, the delicate mesh on his face plates scraped and bruised upon contact, his processor swimming as everything unfocused and his audials switched to static. Blaster’s damaged audials picked up the devastating hum of electricity, and, before the panic could sleep into his system, nothing.
When he came to, his every node was alight in a confusing mixture of pain and numbness, unable to move a digit. His optics frantically took in the scene, the area darker than he had remembered, but, as he looked down, he registered the loss he barely felt before.
His upper stabiliser was gone! The sensation rushed back to him, searing and burning, but he had no outlet to express the excruciatingly sharp feeling of it all, nearly sending him back into a crash from the sensory overload alone, but the torture wasn’t over, not even close. His optics flicked back to the now moving form, and the minibot was holding the limb possessively—well, what was left of it. There were chunks of it missing, the tears jagged and uneven, like it had been pried off manually. Bumblebee's helm twisted obsessively from side to side, scrutinising every possible detail for a nanoklik before his attention went back down to what he had in his servos, opening his disturbing, ill-fitting maw and taking a bite.
Blaster felt the nausea welling up in his tanks, his eject protocol begging to function, but there wasn’t anything left that could leave his frame, much of his energon gone without so much as a trace. With no other options, he simply shut his optics off, the agony of his plating being torn off in swathes and limbs burned off his frame, the welds burning for megacycles after reached a point where it all mixed together, leaving him unable to discern up from down, the sick twinges robbing him of any coherent thought.
His optics didn't come online again.
Hey mechs and femmes, it's Blaster again. I miss you all a lot and my new friend just reminds me so much of y'all, the one I was talking about before, y'know. It inspired me to write this ‘cause I care so much for you bots and I've never said it enough and honestly–
What's going on, cassettes? It's me again. I really miss you all and I just wanted to say that–
So, how are things going with you all? Send me some of Rosanna’s music sometimes, see if she still remembers what I taught her–
I don't like being alone again. Starting over is so much harder than I thought it would be. Sometimes I want to ditch it all and come back, but I know this is something I need to do, for all of you bots–
It's hard here. It hurts to see others do what I can do, but better, and so effortlessly too. I thought I was original enough, but it seems like bots like me are chromium nitride in a meteor. I get it you've moved on without–
Notes:
Damn, Blaster went through the RINGER
kinda feel bad, kinda don't lol, what do you think?
Chapter 7: Exfiltration
Notes:
I keep doing this I'm so sorry I tried to lock in y'all but it didn't work!! My time management skills are TERRIBLE and I'm doing SO much other shit I know it's not an excuse but still!
Cybertronian Sayings:
grate on his nodes-get on his nerves (alternate version)
like a high-viscosity fluid-at a snail's pace
directing digits-pointing fingers
stare a steel trap in its jaws-look a gifthorse in the mouth
metal tester-scapegoat
nailing the fault-pinning the blame
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Bumblebee needed Wasp out. He wanted him dead and devoured—preferably by his own servos and denta—but locked away and tortured would have to do, if the rumours about the stockades were true, that is. The continued harassment and breaches of privacy while he was otherwise occupied were starting to grate on his nodes after the fog in his processor had substantially cleared enough to care about anything besides the churning gnaw that cannibalised his tanks and ached in his lines, energon crawling like a high-viscosity fluid.
He knew what they were doing. They were trying to find something to use against him while simultaneously hurting him in an attempt to force him to lash out. Either of those things would give Sentinel Minor the leverage he needs to kick him out for good instead of the corporal punishments.
It wouldn't work. There was nothing substantial enough to do so among his belongings without falsification of evidence. He made sure of it. His locker—not that they'd gotten into it yet—only contained a few full energon cubes he hadn't been able to give away yet, dirty rags, and miscellaneous useful items he'd had with him since his time in the Medical Ward, the more dangerous items—like his favourite laser-scalpal he'd stolen seven separate times—always tucked safely in his subspace. Unprepared bots were as good as dead, something he internalised so many stellar cycles ago it felt like watching one of those old history vids. They were all cut off from Cybertron as they were, so there was no way they could fake something that severe without raising alarms with the inspection units, if they were permitted to leave, an uncommon feature in their rigidly structured training regimens.
Still, Wasp was a dangerous figure that he should tread cautiously around—the meagre physical threat level notwithstanding—no matter how much he fantasized about slowly tearing him apart one gaudy layer at a time. Gutting him while he was helplessly online and weak, indulging in his innermost energon at his leisure and keeping him alive until he was thoroughly, utterly done was too extreme of a fix for now. After all, the green mech was much more advanced than Bumblebee on the social front, basically impossible to outsmart directly via pre-revolution means. He needed to be more strategic about it all. Patient. Careful even.
He was, without a doubt, the most slippery prey he'd encountered so far, but Bumblebee was never one to back down from a challenge.
The first crack was the admission to Bulkhead about the spy. With how protective his naive companion was over him, the wrecker would most definitely hone in on Wasp being the Decepticon in disguise without directly lying to the mech, which, otherwise, could get him in trouble later if he managed to figure it out somehow. From what he saw from following Bulkhead around shortly after, was that he was making attempts, though amateurish and with a clear misunderstanding of how to expose somebot of wrongdoing beyond mostly directing digits and begging they would take your glyphs over theirs, but the vid-cam idea had some merit, the charge unit had to admit. They looked far more like pranks than a genuine effort to expose a spy.
Besides finding the wrecker’s aptitude for tinkering and engineering with a wide range of materials—including ones considered non-standard—which had its potential uses, he wasn't particularly successful in his counterintelligence efforts. That was alright. It was meant to be a distraction anyways with the extra punishments that were tacked on when Bulkhead was inevitably caught sneaking around.
The second was getting closer with Longarm, previously friends in designation only, both quite trepidatious around each other. Shockingly, their camaraderie improved greatly when the teal bot came across Smokescreen’s battered, gray frame, having been moved to a nearby storage bay and subsequently abandoned for the time being after he detected others in the same area. He cursed himself for allowing such a slip, but the hook lift didn't seem to notice Bumblebee's odd behaviour at the time, likely too distracted by how he should react instead. They, weirdly, bonded over the interaction, and he couldn't be more thankful that the teal-grey bot was a Decepticon in disguise, else he would have been reported in an instant. It was not what Bumblebee had originally planned, but he wasn't going to stare a steel trap in its jaws.
Quietly, he pulled the taller bot in with the mystery of his past, knowing he was a curious mech by nature. Spies were good at gathering information, after all, but what could they do if there is nothing to find in the first place? Cementing Longarm’s interest decreased the likelihood of him being a potential metal tester, which left the rest of the platoon.
Due to the sheer idiocy of their sergeant, he likely couldn't even conceive that Bulkhead or Ironhide had the capacity for something so complex, which only left Wasp, who had already been reported by multiple mechs—Bumblebee, Bulkhead and even Longarm one time after a substantial amount of convincing and favours—to be violent, dangerous and have stalking tendencies, just like a Decepticon, even if they didn’t really get taken seriously because of his disgustingly aft-kissing nature towards their superior officer. It would at least be on file. Longarm also knew this about Sentinel Minor, and therefore wouldn’t plan around nailing the fault on either of the two tools, assuredly acting accordingly to the yellow charge unit’s predictions.
Wasp didn't have an excess of his own items, everything kept in his own subspace and protected like gold did in an acid rain, and, therefore, never checked his locker. Bumblebee knew it. The real spy knew it. Their sergeant did not. Putting the pieces together, the yellow charge unit figured that if anything were to be falsified against the rude minibot, his locker would be the prime location to do so undetected, their barracks completely barren for a majority of the lunar cycle.
The yellow bot could short out the locking mechanism with ease, so what was preventing him from…speeding up the process? He wasn't aware of Longarm's capabilities, but he'd surely appreciate some aid on this front instead of having to go through the process of trial and error in order to crack it. It wasn't as if anybot would notice how it was permanently unlocked, its owner uncaring of its fate and nobot else desiring the degrading moniker of "thief" on their back plates.
All that was really left was a moment to expose him in front of everybot, systematically destroying the little trust they had in him as an Autobot comrade and left to the ‘cons where he belonged. Taking an active role in such a thing would land more suspicions on his pauldrons, so he would instead wait until the time was right. He had far too much experience in being a shadow already, audials permanently up and alert to pick out anything useful.
Fortunately, Bumblebee didn't remain inactive for long, his perfect opportunity arising after just a few more stellar cycles, actions held with a perfect, poised restraint. He was always more reasonable with fresh energon in his lines, the old burning away instantaneously and with it, his troubles, left blissfully clear in his processor…for a few stellar cycles at most. Listening in on a couple of choice conversations—one between Longarm and their superior officer, stupidly informing their Decepticon double agent of his idiotic ‘tactic’ to discover any suspicious activity, another with the former and Ironhide of all mechs—he gathered enough information to make his move. Sentinel Minor was going to give them a ‘surprise inspection,’ and the yellow mech was sure there would be something significant to report.
When the conversation between the two cadets pivoted, Bumblebee silently slipped out of the refuelling station, unseen and unheard as always. Ironhide would be itching to relay this important information to Wasp, and therefore make an excuse to the teal mech to return as soon as possible, where Bumblebee would be waiting within audial range for the perfect moment, stoke the flame between him and the other charge unit for something minor until their commanding officer came in for the inspection. The rest would fall into place with the right combination of words and a pitiful, yet sufficiently suspicious, expression. He had been practising the correct amount of downturn his optic ridges would need in every reflective surface he passed by on his way, and he was confident he got it down.
Driving in his vehicle mode, he took a lap around the sector to give Ironhide sufficient time to return to the barracks where the green minibot was, then made his way back. His processor was barely able to focus on more than the current terrain and the buzz filling and corroding his audials, louder now that his internals were rearranged closer to where his helm resided. Approaching their quarters, he picked up the faint notes of conversation, the smooth, annoying diction of Wasp and Ironhide’s idiotically flat mutterings, but he couldn’t pick up any specifics.
Coming to a halt just after the entrance, Bumblebee elected to transform back, the rapid adjustment of parts sending him into a quick bout of dizziness, and, before he knew it, the subcompact’s aft hit the floor, sparks flying at the collision. His vision swam with static, denying his eject protocol in front of such an audience. Somebot had pushed him, and, while, at the moment, he hadn’t a clue who the culprit was, Bulkhead’s angry shout made things quite clear what happened.
“HEY!” The wrecker walked up to the perpetrator, his heavy pede-steps echoing through the enclosed area. “Leave Bumblebee alone, Ironhide! Pick on somebot your own size for once!”
The orange mech met his gaze, helm tilted to one side in challenge, “And what are you gonna do about it, huh, numbnode?” A greenish servo reached out in offering, and, without another thought, he took it, roughly brought back to his pedes, leaving him stumbling. He realised a nanoklik too late that Bulkhead’s servos were silver, not green, but, by then, it was too late to do anything, pulled even closer by the taller bot, his other servo skimming dangerously close to his subspace. Bumblebee froze, optics zeroed in on Wasp’s deft digits.
Meanwhile, the confrontation continued on in the background, sounding weirdly distant. “I'm gonna do what I should've done the first time I found out you were hurtin’ my little buddy. I'll–”
He found his voice again after the brief moment of panic, volume control the furthest thing from his processor, “HEY! SERVOS OFF, SLAG HEAP!!” The minibot shoved at the still blurry figure with all his might, falling backwards a few steps before he properly righted himself again, optics spinning.
Wasp wasn't given a chance to respond as the injured Sentinel Minor came barrelling through the door, the noise surely drawing him in, but nobot stood at attention for him this time, far too preoccupied with glaring at the nearest mech. Shattering the tension, the sergeant spoke with confidence, an optic ridge quirked in confusion, "What in Primus's designation is going on here?"
All of a sudden, everybot started speaking at once, the tones and pitches fused until they were unrecognisable to the average bot.
"Wasp here was bein' a real fragger just a nanoklik ago!"
"This little mech tried to BITE me!"
"Nothing, Sentinel Prime, sir!"
With a short cough, Bumblebee cleared out his voice box, preparing for his grand moment, "Wasp tried to steal my locker key!"
"What?!" The accused responded incredulously, staring holes through the smaller charge unit's face plate, which had contorted professionally into a look of pure innocence that he knew would rile up the green bot even more. "I would never do something like that!" Walking closer, it all but confirmed that Wasp had taken the bait Bumblebee set for him, using all his might to send the yellow mech to the ground once again, his stance intentionally weak so he'd hit the concrete with even more force.
Pausing for dramatic effect, he remained on the floor, one servo keeping him upright—that he added the slightest spasm to—and the other tweaking his audial, adjusting his balance back to normal. His voice box crackled slightly as he choked out his next line, derma wobbly, "Yes, you would!" The timbre seemed truly distraught. "You always hated me for no reason, like you weren't really one of us…" The pitch lowered, but remained audible, the final note hanging in the atmosphere like a death sentence.
Right on cue, their arrogant superior officer's expression shifted, a scowl taking up his features and the centres of his optics widening. “Cadet Wasp! Such actions towards our fellow Autobots will not be tolerated! Cadet Bumblebee, is this a formal accusation towards Wasp?”
He gasped softly, acting as if the thought hadn't occurred to him in the first place. “You know what? It is!” He tried to steel his demeanour further, but something clearly didn't hit right when, at the edge of his hearing, he caught a small "aww" that was unmistakably from Bulkhead. For a nanoklik, he considered reporting the wrecker as well, but decided against it. There was no meticulously built-up case for him, after all.
“Cadet Wasp, this behaviour is unacceptable, and your punishment will come in due time, but since you wanted to see what was in yellow jacket’s locker so bad, it's only fitting that we take a look at yours too!” Sentinel prattled further, moving to unlock the already opened locker. Twisting the exoskeleton key, he gingerly lifted the top, inspecting its contents with an especially critical optic. He hadn't noticed, the absolute tool.
Chancing a look at Wasp, their own optics met, Bumblebee sending a devious smirk that got lost and simultaneously burned into the other's blank optics. As if it never happened, his view casually shifted back to the focus, where the big-chinned mech pondered aloud, “What's this?” He dredged out the object, a genuine Decepticon transmitter placed snugly orbital cycles ago. The yellow subcompact had watched him do it, obviously, that false face plate of his sliding into an approximation of happiness when he discovered Wasp's 'fluke.'
Sentinel marched out of the room, frame tensed, with Wasp in tow, who was screaming every obscenity that had been preprogrammed into him, seething venom from his derma and trying to pull Bumblebee down with him, but to no avail. Their superior didn't hesitate for a nanoklik, tugging him along and leaving him continually stumbling. His official send off went the same way, warnings ignored and disregarded like cheap materials while they all watched him degrade like a case of cosmic rust.
He didn't know what pushed him to take the fall for Bulkhead. The set up was perfect, but he ruined it with a set of hasty words. Everything felt like it was moving far too fast for him. Bumblebee was insidious, patient by nature, and shooting up the ranks like that screamed at his every node that he was doing something wrong.
Maybe the distance, and easy exit strategies, were exactly what he needed to continue the charade. If he couldn't be an untouchable public figure, then he would be its shadow instead, picking off the forgotten mechs and femmes on far-off colony worlds.
Notes:
Wonder what Bee will do next?
Chapter 8: Omega Supreme's Intermission: A Tiny Yellow Bot
Summary:
Omega Supreme hasn't made contact with another bot in so many stellar cycles, everything blurring together in his eternal state of recharge, so when he comes across a small yellow mech in his fuzzy stasis, he almost can't believe it. Starved for interaction, he listens to the other bot's woes, ashamed he can't share many of his own, the words he wants to use having difficulty coming to his aid in any way other than simple comfort. Instead, he offers to help in any way he can, as long as he can keep seeing this one shining beacon in the infinite, empty ocean.
Notes:
I think I kinda cooked with this one ngl because I live for weird perspectives!!! Hope you enjoy!
Cybertronian Sayings:
warm me up-tide me over(specific to Bumblebee)
held him against emery paper-rubbed him the wrong way
conversing with a lead block-talking to a wall
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Things were dark. They always were. An inky crimson-black of the highest calibre. Omega Supreme had grown bored of the bland scenery stellar cycles ago, but at least it was peaceful. He had served his purpose, just like Ratchet had wanted him to, and now he could rest.
He sometimes wished he had more than just his processor in the endless nothingness, and Primus seemed to have heard him.
In one of these infinite dreams, dull things bleeding into one another in a stream of unconsciousness, he saw a flicker of another colour, somehow not distorted to the familiar scarlet hue. It was a bright yellow, one that hurt the optics yet simultaneously pulled him closer. He was utterly unable to look away, as if his optics had been welded to the anomaly so far below.
He didn't know exactly how he had gotten closer, the distance closed almost instantaneously, but the picture cleared immensely at what he was viewing. It was a bot. A tiny one at that. He didn't think he'd ever seen one so small before.
A speck of yellow and black, with the quiet, rotting grey undertones he'd sadly grown acquainted with during his tenure with the Autobots. This poor bot was going offline. Slowly.
Omega Supreme had never borne witness to something like that—he hadn't once seen the aftermath of the chaos he had wrought, nor had he ever thought about it—and it crushed his spark to see it right in front of him. He had to get a closer look. Kneeling down—at least, he thinks he kneeled—he took in the little creature with more detail: bulky plating, sharp extremities, the telltale Autobot insignia—that eased his processor immensely—and dim cerulean optics that held a stark defiance in them. He wanted to keep going.
Cradling the bot in the palm of his servo, he brought him to his face plate, voice quiet as he could make it, staticky from not ever using it since he'd been there, “Are you alright, little bot?”
The response was meek, the yellow bot's wide optics staring up at him in pure, unadulterated fear, “W-who are you?”
Omega Supreme smiled as best he could, optic lids creasing at the edges as he copied the expression his mentor had made when he tried–and often failed–to be comforting. “I’m Omega Supreme, little bot, and who are you?”
“Bumblebee…” The bot trailed off, gaze turning scrutinising, yet still encompassed with a terror he couldn't understand. “Are you…the ship?”
He paused for a nanoklik, then continued, slower than before, “I’d have to guess so.”
“You don't know?”
“I don’t really know anything right now.” He managed to tear his optics away from the striking figure he held, roaming over the expanse of nothingness he'd grown accustomed to. Not even a nanoklik passed and they were locked back on Bumblebee, a question burning a hole in his processor. “How are you here?”
The small bot stiffened, optics seemingly determined to search every bit of him that wasn't his face plate. Was he nervous? “W-well, I was running low on energy, and our next stop wasn't for another ten stellar cycles, so I plugged myself into the ship, which I guess is you, for a bit of a boost to warm me up. Please don't tell Ratchet!” He begged, the rambling coming to a sharp close at that desperate plea.
“Ratchet is still around? That’s good. I promise I will not tell him, little bo–I mean Bumblebee, not that I could if I wanted to.”
Bumblebee took a cycle to actually absorb the environment they were in, or lack thereof, then turned back to him. “You're in some sort of stasis, aren't you?”
“Yes, that must be it,” he spoke with finality. “You said you had low energy. Is Ratchet not fuelling you properly? I apologise for him. He’s never been good at taking care of others in any way that is not medicine.”
“Um, sure?” The little bot didn't sound confident. “It's just been a taxing voyage, and I haven't gotten what I needed in a long time. I thought you weren't alive. Does this hurt?” His voice was held clinical like Preceptor’s, though it wavered to a degree the sentinel couldn't identify.
Omega Supreme felt a slight tug at his systems, though Bumblebee hadn't moved at all, his plating gaining back a tinge of its natural colour. Whatever he was doing, it was working. Puzzled, he still moved to respond, “No, not at all. I’m more than happy to aid you in whatever way you need. Also, what’s ‘alive’? I do not think I have ever heard the term before.”
“You…want to help me?” The bot’s optics glowed like a distant explosion, a smile that he couldn't view the details of peeling back his derma as he ignored the latter half of his words.
“Of course. That’s what I was built for, after all.” He used his other servo to point at the Autobot insignia on his chassis that shone like a ruby beacon in an oasis of heliodor. “You are an Autobot, so it’s my job to do what I can,” he announced, keeping his pride in the declaration close to his spark.
Something hitched in Bumblebee's voice box, static tumbling out as a result that intertwined with his words, “Thank you, um…sorry, could you tell me your designation again?”
“You don't have to be sorry, Bumblebee. I’m Omega Supreme.”
“Omega Supreme,” he repeated dutifully, “for your offer. I'm sure I'll need to make use of your services again, but I have to go now, so…I'll see you soon?”
“If that’s what you want from me.” And, right in front of him, the vision began to fizzle out like a hologram, the once bold yellow turning transparent until it finally left, his servo empty. He clenched it into a fist, the chill of the little bot’s system—that had noticeably warmed in his hold as they spoke—slowly dissipating back to his own factory settings.
For a while, he almost thought his processor must've conjured up a false bot to keep him from tumbling off to the depths, but he didn't think he was smart enough for his processor to come up with something like that, and somehow pull it off without his notice. It had to be real. He just had to wait for him to come back, and he did.
Running through an almost forgotten battle simulation—that represented the Decepticons only by their telltale symbol—he almost missed the little bot popping back into his existence. He poked at the sentinel’s massive pede, making himself known. Deftly, Omega Supreme bent down and lifted the smaller mech into his servo once again, the grey more prevalent, yet only visible with a careful optic. “You look even worse than before,” he pointed out unhelpfully. “What’s going on?”
He blinked, his wide optics expanding further somehow. “Um, well–I, uh, have a weird way of getting energy?”
“Oh? How?” He tilted his helm to the side, mirroring his small companion sans the servo scratching at neck cables.
“I…can't really process standard energon like other bots can.”
Omega Supreme shuttered his optics once, twice, then three times, completely silent all the while. "Then…how’ve you stayed online?”
“I don't think you'd like my answer very much,” his tone held no remorse, but he retreated inwardly regardless, almost as if it were a learned reaction instead of an intrinsic one.
He made an attempt to placate the little bot in his palm, “I don’t believe I could think lesser of you if I tried.”
Bumblebee quirked an optic ridge in suspicion, the lights hardened inexplicably. “…really?”
“You are an Autobot, are you not?”
“Well, YEAH, but-”
“Then there's nothing you could do, besides defect, that would make me hate you.”
“I mean, if you say so, but don't say I didn't warn you…” He told his tale slowly, pausing to clarify often whenever the experimental mech looked confused—usually with his strange, archaic sounding manner of speaking. He had to admit, it disturbed him that such a small being could commit such heinous deeds, but nobot was without their sins. In a way, he even understood the desperation. After all, his creation was born from dire straits, a last resort to end the war, and Bumblebee's actions seemed to be something similar, though in the place of Decepticons, it was an encompassing hunger.
The one thing that held him against emery paper was his selfishness about it. He couldn't fathom being like that himself. He was altruistic at spark, at code. It was foreign to him, and, like many other things, Bumblebee explained it to him with care.
“Think of it this way:” he laid it out physically, his servos acting as a medium for his thoughts, “if I don't live through this now, maaaybe sacrificing a couple on the way, I won't be able to do more good in the future! It's a many over the few kind of situation, y'know?”
“No, I don’t know, but I think I get your logic? Thank you for telling me all of that.” It warmed his spark that another bot would trust him with something so intimate. “It couldn’t’ve been easy to go through it again.” Bumblebee grimaced at the mention, confirming his theory.
Things continued in a nebulous peace, biding his time until his little yellow visitor deigned to grace his presence. He treasured the meetings, replaying every single one of their conversations until he could act out every part down to the smaller’s motions. It was something he held dearly, something to look forward to in his bleak existence.
“Trying to explain this to you is like conversing with a lead block.”
“I've heard that one a lot.”
Again.
“Why do you describe Decepticons so…distantly?”
“How else should I refer to such beings?”
And again.
“At least we agree on not regretting our actions, right?”
“I did what I had to.”
And again.
Then, suddenly, he stopped coming. He didn't know how long Bumblebee disappeared for, time shifting and blending into itself until it was unrecognisable, but, in his absence, he felt something change within him, dizzier yet more cognizant in stellar cycles. A comforting chill had settled over him, its origin unknown, and forced his movements to slow even within his processor.
Quietly, he feared the worst fate had befallen his friend. Was he allowed to call the small mech a friend? He had never had one of those before. Though, rolling it around in his RAM like agate in a tumbler, it felt right.
However, Primus looked to have a different plan in store for the both of them, his environment changing back to the familiar lightness, and, shortly thereafter, that was when he returned, far worse for wear than he'd ever seen of the other before.
His vocaliser moved before his processor could catch up, “Bumblebee! Are you alright, little one?!” Deftly, he scooped the small bot into his grasp with a practiced ease, scanning his scarily still form, the sick grey spreading and multiplying across his plating like oxidised iron, the yellow barely peeking through.
“Yeah, I'll be alright,” his vents hiccuped unsteadily. “Just let me do this for a nanoklik, or a cycle, or a megacycle.” He sprawled on the wide expanse of Omega Supreme’s palm before going motionless once again, save for his dermal mesh.
“What happened?” He asked, tentatively, scared to upset him somehow.
“We're out of energon. I have nothing.”
“What?!” The sentinel panicked, directives refocusing on the group like they always did, even if all he really wanted to talk about was the well-being of the bot in front of him. “Are your crewmates alright? Is Ratchet still online-I mean, alive?”
“Yeah, they're okay. It's just me,” he hissed with envy. “They found a substitute. I can't handle it in any capacity. I also got injured. That didn't help my already low supply.” The laugh that followed was bitter, acrid in nature.
“Do they know about this?”
“No, I knew I had to get to you before I keeled over. They couldn't have done anything anyways.”
“What caused all this?” He couldn't help even if he knew every detail of the situation, so he shifted gears instead. “What can I do?”
“Just…stay like this. I need to focus for a while.”
“…Alright.” Things continued in a crawling silence, yet he comforted himself in the fact that Bumblebee's plating was brightening byte by byte, even if his digits shook more than usual during this little ritual of theirs. He looked down at the small bot with as much warmth as he could muster, though he didn't seem to notice, far too busy doing…whatever he did while he visited. Without another word, his plating back to its usual shine—still duller than the average bot—he faded out again.
He didn't see him after that. Not until he was pulled from his modified—previously thought eternal—stasis. Yellow greeted him in a small form, its shade wrong yet comforting all the same.
It hurt. He had to be okay, right?
He needed to reach out to his small companion. His speech was like shattered glass, even more broken than previously thought. He muttered out a designation as he arose once again, “Bum…ble…bee?”
Notes:
I tried with Omega Supreme's dialogue ok??? If things are wrong I SWEAR it's in purpose his time when it pertains to him!!
Chapter 9: Optimus Prime's Intermission: Damage Report: The Orion
Summary:
Something's been going wrong on the Orion, and nobot is telling him ANYTHING! They had dealt with a few stowaways, destroyed multiple scraplet nests in the storage bay, and even scraped space barnacles off the ship enough times to send him into an overflow error, so why does he keep finding damage with no known source, and why is Bulkhead being so cagey about it?
Notes:
I SWEAR I HAVE AN EXCUSE THIS TIME FOR THIS BEING SO LATE!! I've been moving into a new place for the past week so things have been suuuuuper hectic for me but I'm still trying to make time! This is another shorter one but don't worry, we'll be back to Bumblebee soon enough I just love writing other perspectives so sue me.
Cybertronian Sayings:
the fumes-cloud nine
fusion zone-sticking point
fuse hit the preload-at the end of his rope
welded to-saddled with
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Maintenance Issue Subject: Orion
Serial Number: 1513571-192116185135
Reported By: Optimus Prime
Handler Designation: Ratchet
Handler Communications Link Frequency: 136 Gigahertz
Handler Communications Link Number: 18124
Overseer Rank: Prime
Overseer Designation: Optimus
Overseer Communications Link Frequency: 172 Gigahertz
Overseer Communications Link Number: 157184
Priority: Med
Issue Number: 8
Issue Description: Panels (2 total) near the Storage Bay, solely on the inside, show signs of wear and damage, like improper reattachment and folds in the metal that were not present before the last voyage. Upon further inspection, some of the wires’ connections are severed with each other or rewired incorrectly, but there seems to be no significant damage to his processor or functionality as of now, confirmed by Handler Ratchet.
Comments: We have eliminated the possibility of a stowaway or any opposition to the Autobot Commonwealth as of now, but the identity of the perpetrator (if one exists) has not been found. However, our main Space Bridge Technician (Designation: Bulkhead) theorised that it could be due to small faults in the transwarp process, but that has yet to be professionally verified.
Resolution: Replacement parts will be necessary in order to keep up the structural integrity of the Orion, and I will be assigning Ratchet to do a full medical diagnostic just in case something was glossed over the first time around.
Necessary Materials: Standard Wrecker Plating (30x30 mechanometers), Standard Femme Wiring (ETFE and Type EE PTFE specifically, 5 mechanometers each), Mk 984 Cerebro-Processing Unit
Pickup Location: We will be stopping on Regulon IV’s sole moon, where its respective Space Bridge resides in wait for the materials while doing some routine upkeep on the bridge itself to keep the supply route online and as stable as possible.
Optimus groaned internally, flicking the blue brim attachment to his helm absently as he filed yet another report about damage to the ship. It had been happening more frequently since they had embarked on Sector #9 of the Autobot Commonwealth, which branched much further from Cybertron than any of them, bar Ratchet, had ever been before. The younger bots didn't seem to mind the distance all that much, though. Bulkhead—somehow—was still on the fumes, genuinely elated towards everything around him with a curiosity only rivaled by new sparklings, well, so he's heard, as Optimus had never encountered one on his own.
They are an increasingly rare phenomenon at this point, especially on Cybertron, as less bots have decided to be caretakers during such an expansion of other work opportunities, a strange decrease in protoforms and the AllSpark being sent away to keep it out of Decepticon claws. The red and blue mech didn't have much information on what actually caused such a decline, only having hearsay and secondary sources at servo—though Sentinel was more of a third source, if Optimus could say so himself. When he thought about it, if Bulkhead weren't so strong and clumsy, he'd probably be great with sparklings, always so caring and diligent.
The other younger bot in their midst, not so much.
Bumblebee was one of the most norm-defying bots Optimus had ever come across: oddly affectionate and touchy, the action stinging on the edge of setting off pain sensors, non-standard design specs compared to most others—also like the wrecker, so not entirely foreign—and calm. That was the real fusion zone. No matter what misfortune befell him—and it happened startlingly often with the minibot—he remained aloof, even bored on occasion whenever he came out of his most recent stasis lock. ‘Maybe that's what constant medical visits can do to a mech…’ he mused after speaking with Ratchet on his behaviour.
His resident medic, unlike the others, was as professional as he was grumpy, significantly clashing with the previous two’s more lax attitude towards things. He gave his reports—usually a few megacycles late—that were often interlaced with complaints about the young bots or his creaking joints. His main target was the aforementioned minibot, who, according to the older mech, hadn't visited the Medbay once of his own accord, dragged either kicking and screaming or carried while scarily still by Bulkhead, leading him to bug the yellow bot about proper self-maintenance.
These conflicting personality cores, alongside the already stressful burden of real responsibility following a colossal failure on his part, had his fuse hit the preload. He tried to command proper authority in the beginning, correcting Bulkhead and Bumblebee for their flagrant disuse of his designation and Ratchet's general lack of respect for…well, anybot, but he never had the spark to follow through with his pitiful threats of punishment. It didn't help that the minibot looked so similar to…her, that his tanks couldn't process harming him in any way. ‘Neither of them would have hesitated…’ So, eventually, he just gave up trying, electing to ride the sound waves and prove his leadership whenever the opportunity arose.
‘Boss bot' became a common, regretfully accepted reference to him, and now he tensed whenever the two young bots called him by his proper designation, afraid of yet another medical disaster from their smallest. He was sure they still thought well of him despite his non-confrontational core. ‘Right?’ After all, the wrecker did greet him warmly whenever he passed by and the minibot always looked him in the optics—no matter how unnerving that intense stare felt.
They had fallen into a discordant way of doing things, which was more than alright with Optimus. It was something, and the red and blue mech could work with something. Structure was the thing he needed above all else. However, like all things seemed to do around him in some way or another, it all shattered into proverbial fragments with the unexplained damage to the ship.
It started innocently enough: the occasional bend warped back into place or a stray wire peeking out of a panel. Nothing that warranted further action, but, soon after, things progressed to an unignorable degree that forced him into the optics of higher-ups he hadn't been in contact with since…before. They were cordial throughout, but Optimus knew they were judging him, his menial job notwithstanding, He felt it in how they looked at him, the standard cyan optics sneering and pitying in tandem somehow. His inability to find the source of the problem pried open his helm and practically displayed his incompetence for everyone's enjoyment. His unwieldy crew—that crashed his communications on more than one occasion, the culprit usually Bulkhead being the resident messenger of the group—didn't help on that front either.
Easily the worst part was seeing Sentinel again, now newly promoted, like they always wanted, together. It ached and pulsed like open circuitry, sorrow and resentment tangling up in its delicate pathways like dust and debris from the outside. They were of the same rank, but the other commanded more bots than Optimus thought he could physically handle, if they were all like the two he was welded to. The red and blue bot probably wouldn’t have been able to get past the minor phase, if he couldn’t deal with a meagre three. His fellow new prime demanded to be referred to by his new title and barked nonsensical orders at Optimus like it was his first ‘cycle on Cybertron. After that first—of unfortunately many—communications with the dark blue mech, he understood where Bumblebee was coming from in his blatant disregard of authority. It left the acrid tang of denatonium on his glossa. He knew what that kind of unchecked power would do to his already massive ego core, and he was already seeing its effects on him.
It seemed like everything was falling apart around him: the ship, his old connections, and his credibility.
He elected to focus on the one thing he could control at the moment, reeling himself back into the present, previously lost to memory files he'd rather not go through again. He had asked each of them whether they had seen anything off in the previous ‘cycles, like when they'd dealt with a recent femme stowaway, yet all of them, this time, responded with a resolute negative. It didn't give him anything per se, but it checked off an item from the eternally growing list of tasks and responsibilities, every removal automatically supplanted by at least five more.
He had his own theories—categorised from most to least likely and stacked with circumstantial evidence at best—but he still wanted an outside perspective, or three. Starting with the one who knew the ship the best, he went to Ratchet, who, unfortunately, merely grumbled about a nonspecific nuisance that he felt out of the loop on, frustrating and uncharacteristically vague. Bumblebee offered no assistance, as is common with him, vehemently denying any knowledge on the subject despite not being accused of anything, assuming aggressive intent from Optimus that would never be there.
It was Bulkhead that had the most to say on the topic, his vocaliser lagging and stuttering as it often did when he was trying to explain himself or for his friend’s sake. He had a multitude of ideas for the reason, from transwarp anomalies to a subtle form of sabotage from the occasional neutral colony they travelled to, almost as if he were giving Optimus options. He felt like the wrecker knew more than he was letting on, but the prime wasn’t going to press, not that he had the code or constitution to do so.
With nothing conclusive, Optimus just kept an optic out for additional damages and wrote reports when necessary, begrudgingly accepting his fate of constant talks with mechs that looked down on him for his continued failures. He tried not to let his continued frustration seep into how he treated his crew, but he registered that his tone was far sharper than normal, and it showed in the minibot’s hissed responses and the wrecker’s attempts for resolution. Things were regrettably tense, but he was sure they’d get through it with enough time, effort, and maybe solving the mystery of the damages.
He had wanted a fresh perspective on things, but, being entirely honest, Prowl was not the answer to all that was ailing him, so far off the mark that he entertained the idea that Primus was playing games with him. If anything, he made everything worse. They had finally all fallen into their dynamics with each other, as comfortable as they could get, and the cyber-ninja inflated the pressure way back to the danger zone.
Notes:
idk why but i feel like tfa optimus is like ONE bad day away from a total crash out, do y'all agree??
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