Chapter Text
Convoy drove most of the entire day cycle on this new world.
Other vehicles whizzed past them as they followed the road. If they kept moving, at least they’d have a higher chance of staying safe from whatever those little things were. Speaking of said little things, they seemed to be driving the other vehicles. It made sense in a way. They’re so small, and they couldn’t transform, so they were stuck just using their little legs to move around. It only made sense they’d find a more efficient way to travel.
The movement in his back end had eventually stopped and so had the arguing and questions. Convoy assumed they were recharging and huffed out a relieved vent. He’d been sure one of them would try something and get them all caught, but he’d been pleasantly surprised so far.
The next problem they’d need to tackle was fuel. They’d had to abandon the emergency energon with the pod when they’d landed, so their reserves were all they had. That wouldn’t last long with four sparklings and a warframe. At least his tanks were bigger than Blitzkrieg’s. He’d be able to hold out a little longer.
Oh Primus, Blitzkrieg.
He almost slammed on his brakes at the thought of his friend. Convoy had his siblings, but Blitzkrieg had been shoved into a pod alone. Who knows where he landed, and what might’ve been waiting for him.
His spark lurching, he pinged Blitzkrieg’s comm line. He waited for what felt like eternity for a ping back before he just called, completely ignoring the fact that he might wake his siblings.
All he heard was static.
No return ping, no soft familiar voice, nothing.
Like his channel didn’t exist at all.
Convoy felt like purging. Every instinct in his frame was screaming at him to turn around, to go look for Blitzkrieg.
Blitzkrieg wasn’t a fighter, not at spark. He wanted to do research with his sire and he loved watching and observing the creatures they shared Cybertron with. He was so scared every time he went out on assignment, but he still went because somehow he still held out hope the war would end and he could follow his dreams.
Despite it all, Blitzkrieg was so kind. He lived in a world not built for him and yet he was still so unflinchingly good. He was Convoy’s best friend, his only friend, and he was out there on an alien world alone.
And Convoy couldn’t get to him. Not this time.
He’d never forget the way his frame seemed to almost react on its own, moving faster than he ever thought himself capable to get to Blitzkrieg. His entire field of vision had narrowed to Skywarp’s servo around Blitzkrieg’s neck, and he’d simply acted.
Now? Now whatever those creatures were stood between Convoy and Blitzkrieg. He had no idea what they were or if they’d cause them harm. The tangle of little frames in his back end only complicated things. If he were by himself, he could charge through no problem. He could find Blitzkrieg and keep him safe until they made it back to the rest of the Autobots.
He couldn’t do that with four sparklings to look after.
Primus, he probably couldn’t even if it was just one.
He tried to keep his focus on the road ahead, doing his best to stop thinking about it.
Blitzkrieg was one of the smartest bots he knew. He was also much smaller than the rest of them, meaning it would be much easier for him to hide.
He just had to hope Blitzkrieg would be okay. That he’d make it long enough for him to keep his promise. He’d find Blitzkrieg.
No matter what.
———————
Mikaela looked around in frustration, nearly throwing her phone as she paced around the bus stop. She was supposed to be in Washington by now with Sam for Thanksgiving weekend. Instead, she was in Illinois, out of money and alone because she’d gotten on the wrong bus.
She’d been trying to get ahold of Sam, but he wasn’t answering his phone for some reason, so she was well and truly stuck. To top it all off, it was getting dark. She plopped down on the bench with a sigh, kicking her bag. At least there were no creepy weirdos, but she would’ve killed for at least one other person to be there.
As the sun went down, her eyes widened as she watched a military vehicle, an honest to god military vehicle, pull into the empty lot. What was a military vehicle doing here? And why was it blue?! She quickly hid behind the small shelter as she watched it pull behind the small building that housed the ticketing booths. She heard a strange mechanical sound and then hushed voices coming from where the truck must’ve parked.
There were two options here. One, there were actual people here that might help her figure out how to get to Washington. Two, she was about to get murdered, and no one would ever find her body.
She really only had one option.
Mikaela fumbled for her pepper spray, holding it tightly as she slowly inched her way around the building. She’d just check it out really quick. If the people were fine, great. If they weren’t, at least they wouldn’t surprise her. She slowly peeked her head around the corner and her jaw dropped.
They weren’t people.
She wasn’t sure what they were, but they definitely weren’t people.
The truck was gone. In its place stood a hulking robot that had to be over 15 feet tall. It looked to be communicating with the four smaller robots clustered around its feet. What it was saying she couldn’t even begin to tell, the sounds didn’t sound human let alone familiar. The other ones were various shades of purple, gold, and silver, clustered around the big blue and grey one. God the smallest one was her size, they were all enormous.
As she gawked and tried to figure out what to do, she missed her phone starting to slip from her hand. She fumbled for it, her shoes crunching on the gravel sounding like a gunshot in the quiet. Her phone clutched tightly in her hand, Mikaela slowly turned to see five pairs of glowing eyes locked on her.
The empty lot turned to an explosion of motion in an instant. The smaller robots made a series of horrible high pitched shrieks that had Mikaela covering her ears and stumbling back. The bigger one quickly moved in front of the smaller ones, the next tallest trying to shove its way forward with the large one.
She’d like to say she didn’t panic, but it was hard when something that large was moving toward you very quickly. She screamed and ran back behind the building, spotting a rusted piece of pipe and grabbing it. Was it perfect? No, but it was a better weapon than pepper spray.
Mikaela felt her body nearly vibrate with adrenaline, fully prepared for the robot to follow her and squish her into nothing. The minutes ticked on as she breathed hard. The longer she waited, the more confused she got. It wasn’t coming. Why wasn’t it coming?
Ignoring every ounce of common sense screaming for her to stop, she peeked back around the building at the robots, the bigger one was holding the smallest one now, rocking it almost like you would a baby. Two of them looked nearly identical, and they clung to each other and shook as the purple one looked to be consoling them.
Oh
Ohhhhh
The little ones were probably babies. If she looked hard enough, she could see some similarities with the big one. Mikaela took one more look at the empty lot before taking a deep breath. God, this was the stupidest thing she’d ever done.
She slowly walked back out, immediately catching the attention of the robots. They all quickly clustered behind the big one again. This time, she really looked at them, seeing nothing but fear on their faces.
God this was dumb, but she felt it tug on her heartstrings a bit.
She dropped the pipe, holding her hands up to show them she didn’t have anything as she slowly moved closer.
“Ummmm hi? I don’t know what you are but you’re not supposed to be here are you?”
———————
[TRANSLATION MODULE ACTIVE]
[LANGUAGE DATABASE UPDATED: ENGLISH]
Convoy watched the tiny thing with wide optics, trying to keep his siblings behind him. It didn’t look like it had any weapons, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Can you even understand what I’m saying?” It said. “God this is so stupid, why would you speak English, you’re a giant robot. That I’m talking to, god I’m going crazy”
Convoy looked back at his siblings and back at the little creature. It was trying to communicate with him at least. Maybe he could convince it to let them go, or at least to leave his siblings alone.
“I-I can. Understand you,” he finally said, watching as her? optics widened when he spoke. “We didn’t mean to cause any harm, I swear. We’re just lost. Please don’t hurt them.”
The creature looked between Convoy and his siblings, seemingly thinking hard. Internally, Convoy prepared for a fight. He’d be okay against one of these things as long as she didn’t have backup. Even if she did, he wasn’t letting his siblings get hurt.
“Where’d you come from?” She finally asked.
“Cybertron,” Destroyer answered before Convoy could stop him. “It got sick so we had to leave and go here and now we’re stuck because our sire was trying really hard to get us back-”
“Is that seriously what you think happened?!” Convoy said, cutting Destroyer off. “He had the Ark shot down, he could’ve hurt us.”
“He wouldn’t!” Destroyer argued, scowling and planting his pedes. “He was trying to get us back so we can be with him!”
“No he wasn’t you brat,” Convoy spat. “He was being an aft like always and trying to hurt our carriers. I’m telling Ratchet to check your vision when we get back, cause there’s no way you’re this blind.”
“I am not blind!” Destroyer yelled, crossing his arms as he glared at his brother. “You’re just stupid. You don’t know him like I do.”
“Of course I don’t know him! And I don’t want to, cause he’s a horrible sire and a horrible partner!”
“You take that back!”
As the two eldest argued, Typhoon and Stormsplitter slowly approached the creature, trying to figure out what she was. She backed up slightly, looking between them with mild worry.
“What are you?” Stormsplitter asked, squatting down slightly to be at the same level. “You don’t look like us at all.”
“Ummm human?” She said. “My name’s Mikaela, I’m not technically supposed to be here either. Got on the wrong bus by mistake, they swapped loading zones and I fell asleep after I got on.”
“I’m Typhoon and that’s Stormsplitter,” Typhoon announced, looking quite pleased with himself. “Our brothers are Destroyer and Convoy. The littlest is Singularis. We’re on our way to our carrier!”
Mikaela blinked up at them in confusion until Convoy realized what they were doing, quickly coming over. He nudged them away despite their loud protests, kneeling down to be closer to Mikaela.
“I’m sorry for them, they’re…little still,” he said, rolling his optics when Stormsplitter kicked his leg in retaliation. “But they are right. We’re trying to find our creators. If you could point us in the right direction, or to energon, that would be very helpful.”
Mikaela thought for a second, before meeting Convoy’s optics.
“I don’t know what energon is, but I can see if I can point you the right way,” she said, gesturing for Convoy to follow as she walked around the front of the building. There was a map posted there, with many different routes in different colors.
“Where do you need to go?”
Convoy studied the map. He had no clue where the others might be, only Singularis was connected enough to her carrier still to find them.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “But I know what direction we were going when we started going down.”
Pulling up his own personal navigation data, he projected it over the map. It showed the path they’d taken in the Ark and where they’d been jettisoned, along with where they’d traveled on land. Mikaela looked shocked for a moment, but then looked at the map closer. She thought for a moment before turning to Convoy.
“Okay, here’s the deal. You don’t know where you’re going, I’m not where I need to be. It looks like we need to go in the same direction. If you take me with you, I’ll show you which way to go.”
Convoy thought about her proposition. She was right, they had no idea where to go. Having a local guide would probably help a lot. If she could stand the constant yapping from the sparklings that is. Finally, he nodded, extending a digit to her.
“Deal,” he said simply. “You can ride up front so they don’t crush you in the back.”
Mikaela hesitated for a minute before she grabbed hold of Convoy’s digit with her own hand, shaking it as a way to seal their deal. Convoy stood with a smile, transforming back into his alt mode as Mikaela watched in shock.
“Back in brats!” He called, the sparklings all groaning as they piled back into the covered end of the truck. Destroyer helped Singularis in and boosted both the twins up before climbing in himself. The drivers side door popped open as Mikaela stared.
She thought hard for a moment before she sighed deeply. This was the weirdest day of her life. She ran back to the shelter and grabbed her bag, shoving it in the passenger side before climbing into the truck.
Mikaela slumped against the window as they started to drive away. They’d need to stop somewhere for a smaller map soon, and god only knew if these things needed to eat.
Well.
At least she had a ride.
Sam was not going to believe this when she told him.