Chapter Text
“Why is it that every time I lead an attack, Soundwave or some other Decepticon officer leaves me to crawl my way back to the Nemesis?” Starscream paced back and forth in the cell. He rested his chin on the heel of his right servo while the other servo wrapped around his side.
It’d been a couple of cycles since the Decepticons attacked the Ark. Starscream, with a series of unfortunate events, had gotten badly wounded on the side of his chassis. He was (fortunately) given medical attention after begging the Prime to be given a chance of “mercy”. It was embarrassing, Starscream thought. Very embarrassing.
But of course, after being patched up, the Seeker was thrown into prison like a lowly captive.
“It’s unfair, Windblade!” The Seeker stopped in the middle of the cell and looked at the bot standing right outside. He ran over to poke his helm through the cell’s gaps as he held onto the thick bars. “I do most of the work in the Nemesis, and I never get a single word of gratitude.” He tightened his grip on the bars with a huff.
He then looked at Windblade, who seemed rather annoyed with him by now. She repeatedly tapped her pede impatiently with her arms crossed. Windblade seemed as if she wanted to be anywhere else. Her optics rolled as Starscream continued, “No one cares! Not one single thank you… ever!”
Windblade threw her helm back and groaned, “Starscream, you wanna know my honest opinion?” She turned her helm to look at him. Her faceplate was a contorted mess of lines, optic ridges furrowed. “I really don’t care.”
“You don’t understand, Windblade!” Starscream said. The moment he mentioned her name, she turned her helm to face the wall again.
“When I do something good, no one notices. When I do something bad, suddenly it’s the whole ship’s problem!” He moved away from the bars and threw his arms up in frustration. “When I found GADGET, I was accused of running off to some abandoned Autobot ship for my own benefit! I mean, it’s slightly true but…”
“Wait, wait. Hold on.” Windblade’s arms dropped, and she turned fully towards Starscream. “What did you say?”
“I ran off to the middle of nowhere for my own benefit?” Starscream glanced at Windblade for a moment. He didn’t mean to spill… that. GADGET was a private investigation. One that he sought out to learn for himself… (again, the accusation was slightly true).
“No, no. You found… a what?” Windblade held her servo up, the other one rubbing the bridge of her nose. She looked back up at Starscream again.
“Oh, so now you’re interested!” Starscream frowned, placing his hands on his hips. “The moment I mention something remotely useful, you’re suddenly interested in my problems!”
But if Windblade was interested… that meant the Autobots would also be interested since they would’ve assumed the Decepticons were after the computer system. Starscream internally grinned at the idea that crept into his processor.
“Get straight to the point, Screamer,” The Cityspeaker said as she walked closer to the cell. “What is GADGET? Where did you find it?”
“I’m still not so sure what GADGET was,” The Seeker began as he sat down on his thin berth. He crossed his legs and leaned back with a sigh. “I only knew that it was a version of the Teletraan-1 system that one of the thirteen created. Besides that, nobody else knows anything about it… not even Soundwave.”
“And you said you found it in an abandoned Autobot ship?” Windblade tilted her helm.
“Precisely.” Starscream lazily placed his arm on his kneepads and rested his cheekplate on the palm of his servo.
Before Windblade could speak, a holographic screen flickered to life.
“All Autobots are to report to the Main Command Center…” Ultra Magnus’ optics were looking elsewhere, as if distracted by something off-camera. But as soon as he finished his sentence, his eyes locked back onto the screen with military precision. “As soon as possible.” With that, the screen turned off.
Windblade huffed, “I… need to go now. Thanks for the information, Starscream.”
She walked away from the cell and turned the corner, disappearing behind the wall. After a soft click of the doors, the room fell silent once again.
“Better find that computer before the Decepticons do,” Starscream murmured to no one in particular. “That way I can be freed from this pathetic prison!”
***
The command center was filled with confused chatter. The sudden disruption in routine must’ve meant something was wrong.
An array of controls and confusing buttons, to those who did not know how to operate the Ark, decorated the very sides of the room, adorned with a large window that showed the emptiness of space. Some chairs stood in front of the panels, while others were near the center of the room on an elevated platform. Stairs on the platform led to another elevated floor where the second-in-command and the Prime’s main controls were.
Three main hallways led into the Main Command Center’s room. Each hallway branched out from different parts of the Ark.
“It’s not that much of an emergency.” Ultra Magnus looked down at his data pad.
“Not that much of an emergency? Then why were we called to an emergency meeting, hm?” Hot Rod emphasized the emergency bit, trying to take a look at Ultra Magnus’ data pad. The officer grunted and moved the data pad away.
“We’re low on energon,” Optimus’ voice faded in as he appeared from one of the many hallways. The chatter in the room suddenly vanished. “Our rations are depleting due to the recent Decepticon attack.” He walked up the elevated platform and to his main seat.
Ratchet tapped the side of his arm, then raised his other servo. “And we need more energon to synthesize medical-grade en. I used my last bit on Starscream.”
“Besides the medical-grade energon, we need fuel-grade as well.” Ultra Magnus gestured to the data pad he was holding. “We’re running low on energon in all fields.”
“Yes. Elita and I have considered that as well.” Optimus nodded as he sat down. “We’ve decided to make a trip down to scavenge for more energon due to its high energon rates. Elita-One has already made her way down to the planet as we speak.”
***
Elita wished she had called for backup.
She had found what they were looking for: a whole mine filled with energon. It was untouched—a rare sight to find. However, it meant that they needed to synthesize the energon from scratch due to the fuel being in its raw state.
And that also meant harvesting it by mining it. Everyone knows that it takes forever to mine.
Elita ventured deeper into the mine. The soft glow of the energon illuminated the dark path ahead. The commander’s servo traced the cave’s rough walls. She mentally noted the unnatural shape the cave had formed.
Energon became scarce. Small chunks of energon were scattered throughout the caves, the light in the cave beginning to dim. And before she knew it…
Elita was in complete darkness. The quietness of the cave seemed to intensify her thoughts, making them ring in her audials. The sudden scarcity of the energon was strange, in addition to the unique formation of the cave itself. The best-case scenario is a Decepticon lab; the worst-case scenario is that it held organic life forms that fed on energon. What’s the worst that could happen? Elita kept wandering through the darkness with uncertainty. Her thoughts continued to echo within her processor until…
“Ow!” She yelped, hopping on one pede. The commander stepped back and tapped the side of her helm, a light flickering on from the top of her head.
The first thing she saw was a large yellow panel. Curious, she knelt to inspect it. Its yellow paint was noticeably chipped and faded, leaving small, bare spots of plain metal. Large dents and scratches adorned its exterior, which Elita felt as she ran her hands across the panel.
The aerial bot lifted her helm to the rest of the cave, a gaping, pitch-black maw that swallowed what little light was left ahead.
Elita straightened herself and continued to wander around the caves.
— — ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=┌( ￣＾￣)┘ ＿ ,, ＿Ｉ(◇ ◇ ◇)
There was an odd trail of parts in Elita’s path, some a broken off panel and others loose parts that were seemingly ripped out of a bigger object. Could it be that a ship crashed here? There was no doubt…
Elita stopped the moment she came into contact with a broken door, sparks flying out of the loose wires. She stepped up to a scanner, the screen wavering as it attempted to stay awake. The door, meanwhile, appeared to be jammed, trying to both open and close at once.
Odd. How did the ship still have power?
She wouldn’t have access to the ship, so using the scanner was pretty useless. Instead, she opted for blasting the door with her guns.
BAM!
Metal pieces fell to the cave’s floor in the blink of an eye as smoke slowly crept out. Elita stepped forward and grabbed the side of the doorway, taking in the ship’s dilapidated state.
The crash looks fresh, Elita mused to herself. She wandered further into the abandoned vessel before pausing.
Clink. Once more, her pede hit… something.
She shifted her gaze and glanced down, the white light catching an odd shape amidst the darkness. Under the spotlight of her helm light, a servo lay on the ground, its fingers curled and twitching. “Scrap—” Elita jerked away with a sharp gasp.
Her gaze followed the servo up to an arm that looked like it came from a different bot.
The fingers twitched again.
Elita stepped back to get a better look at the rest of whatever the servo was connected to.
The light from her helm revealed a bot that didn’t look quite right. Its limbs bent in all the wrong ways. The servo on the right was missing fingers and several joints; the servo on the left, the one she had seen, looked dented and chipped. The bot’s face was mismatched. Some parts were welded together half-hazardously, as if someone were trying to get the wrong pieces of a puzzle to fit. Dried energon stained the bot’s exterior, a dulled-out pink littered on every surface surrounding it.
And then, a bright screen flickered on. The bright blue screen blinded Elita briefly as her optics took some time to adjust to the sudden light. When her optics had finally adjusted to the light, she found herself staring at a screen that said: “WELCOME BACK, CREW”. The text wavered as the screen began to give out.
Then, a long wall of text scrolled down at a rapid pace. The few words Elita managed to make out were: “[ERROR]”, “DATA [ERROR]”.
She ran over to the control panel, servos resting on the rims. Elita’s grip tensed as she tried to think of what to do. What even was this? Her optics scanned over the millions of flashing buttons before flicking back up to the screen.
“DATA SAVING ONTO TRANSFER DRIVE.”
“What transfer drive?!” Elita snapped at no one in particular (though it was mainly directed at the screen).
“SAVE FINISHED. TRANSFER DRIVE EJECTING…”
Right in front of her, a hidden panel opened to reveal a small drive. Elita took it into her servos, noting how strange it looked. Its body was the most interesting thing to note. At the bottom of the drive, ancient Cybertronian was written; Elita was unable to read it. Right above it, there was a small screen with large pixels. A small smile was on the screen. The graphic changed into an arrow.
Elita turned to look in the direction it was pointing.
Right beside the control panels, a standing recharge berth was lit up with a dim bulb. A minicon was inside the berth in a deactivated position, arms hanging limply at its sides. The bot was entirely gray and had no unique features, similar to a newborn protoform.
She immediately clicked onto her comm, “Elita-One to Ark, I’ve found energon.” The commander’s eyes snapped towards the minicon. “And another thing.”
***
“How peculiar,” Perceptor mused as he inspected the drive closely. He adjusted his microscope with slow, mechanical precision.
Ratchet, meanwhile, was doing a medical inspection on the minicon. “Its wiring is ancient,” He noted as he scanned the bot’s arm. “And it’s not a new protoform for sure, Prime.”
Optimus leaned forward, inspecting the scan results closely. “Ancient…” He repeated softly.
“Its energon levels are stable at the moment. This bot seems to be in a prolonged stasis,” Ratchet explained. “However, I can’t be certain that my assumptions are true. Again, it's ancient.”
“And, it’s got a hole in the back of its helm.” Ratchet gently turned the patient’s helm around to reveal a small plug in the back of its head. “Likely a plug of some kind…” The medic turned it back onto its back.
Preceptor walked over to the examination table, holding the drive up. “Ratchet, if you would allow me to tend to the patient?”
Ratchet glanced at him, looking him up and down before crossing his arms. “What are you possibly planning on doing?”
“This,” Perceptor replied as he turned the protoform’s helm over to stick the drive into the back of its head.
Ratchet practically lunged at Perceptor, optics wide and in complete shock. “Perceptor!” He yelled out, grabbing the scientist’s wrist. “What did you—”
The protoform powered on the moment the drive had been plugged in. The drive disappeared into the back of its head as two panels closed around it. The bot’s complexion turned into a soft purple as its plates shifted around.
New parts sprouted with a quick mechanical shift, and their optics flickered to life.
The bot sat up once its transformation was complete, plates hissing softly under its weight.
“Hi!” The bot’s voice was high-pitched, almost child-like. The minicon continued to speak, “My designation is PROTOTYPE-000, GADGET! My drive was ejected from the ship due to an unknown error. This form will serve as an alternate way for me to help the crew in any way I can.”