Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Galactic Coordinates 74.149.50.76.134.233
Time-space Coordinates 34608.51237.451.323.300

The warship Nemesis hung over a now-deserted world in the far reaches of the galaxy. Three Seeker squads had had departed to investigate what had once been a Cybertronian colony; two of them had already returned, and Starscream did his best to try to maintain his composure at the reports.

It… it almost seems impossible.

The images that the returning scouts relayed back to their Commander were astonishing, to say the least. The Rileth colony had originally been neutral, at the beginning of the war, but as stories spread, the colony's sympathies began leaning toward the Decepticons.

And once word spread… not a single spark remains intact.

Apparently, based on the reports of the injuries suffered, he had come. Personally. Starscream's servos shuddered involuntarily, causing Soundwave, the only other Cybertronian on the bridge, to turn a blank face towards the Air Commander. She sent Starscream a quick inquisitive ping - no actual words, but her meaning could not have been clearer.

Starscream noticed that his entire frame was slumped over his station, and righted himself as he turned to face Soundwave. "Yes, it appears to be exactly what we had feared…. one only hopes that our esteemed general can keep a brave face for the Eradicons. Thank Primus that I insisted that we send out scouts first…."

Soundwave's response was equal parts sympathy and agreement. She was about to follow up when an anomaly on the ship's long range scanners caught her attention. Surely, this reading was erroneous. A quick diagnostic battery, however, indicated otherwise. But, for this to be true…

Starscream had ordered his final squad of Seekers back to the Nemesis when he received the ping from Soundwave, who had followed it up with data transfer request. Starscream routed the information to the console in front of him, and looked at it, puzzled.

"I don't quite think I see exactly…" his voice cut off as he spotted the energy surge.

"Oh. Oh Primus. You don't think-" he turned his head to Soundwave, who only gave a nod in response.

Starscream's optics widened as he opened the comm to his superior.

"General Megatron, your presence is requested on the bridge. Urgently."

---------

"And, of course, General Megatron, we still have no spark-chamber metal. I had hoped that, at least, this time, we'd be able to scavenge something, but from Starscream's reports? The 'bots cleaned this place down to the protoform before leaving," Knockout's expression dropped from its usual sardonic state. "I have two Eradicons in there. Dying. All because I don't have the supplies to save them!" The doctor slammed the wall, turning his head away from Megatron, and no words came to mind.

Megatron placed a single clawed hand on Knockout. "I know. I feel their pain. But, rest assured, I will do everything in my power to save both Quickgale and Breezeway. You have it on my spark, as the leader of the Decepticon forces."

Just then, Starscream's comm came through. Megatron made for the door, pausing at the threshold for a moment, just long enough to notice that Breakdown was already wrapping Knockout in his arms.

The warship was running almost on empty in every regard. It had been gigacycles since they had last encountered any Autobot hostilities, but even then, even the energon supplies were starting to run low, and it seemed like the Autobots knew it. Then again, the Decepticons had lost contact with this colony over a hundred gigacycles ago. It could be entirely possible that the last transmission from the colony occurred just before the Autobots set upon it. Of course, the colony had no Decepticon military presence - any shows of support were no more than that - and the world had almost no strategic resources. In fact, the colony had to import most of the energon that its inhabitants consumed.

Starscream and Soundwave both turned to face their leader as Megatron entered the bridge.

"Starscream - report." Megatron continued forward to the front of the bridge without so much as looking at either of the two.

"Yes, General Megatron - as you know, the search for survivors or any useful supplies at Outpost E-RW012 proved ultimately fruitless. However, we did find something… that, well, it would be best if Soundwave showed you herself." Soundwave silently pressed a button on the console behind her - and the results of her scan displayed on the main screen.

Megatron's optics widened. "Are we certain that the scan is accurate?"

A ping from Soundwave of absolute certainty.

"We make sure to verify the finding before we sent for you. It wouldn't do to have you troubled over a false reading, now would it?"

"Very well then. Starscream, set a course."

Chapter Text

Jasper, Nevada
Local Earth Time: 4:21 PM, GMT-8

"Welcome to KO drive-in, where every patty's a knockout. Can I take your order?" Jack Darby droned into the microphone.

"Yeah - two number 3 combos with an extra order of fries," said a woman - presumably the driver.

"Alright - Double three with one extra crispy." Jack muttered to himself, grabbing the meals out from under the heating lamps. Once he had all of the meals in place, he moved back to the microphone. "That'll be $8.37, ma'am, at the window."

The minivan pulled around the corner - Jack recognized the driver as Mrs. Cardin, his English teacher.

Jack tried to not make eye contact with her as she handed over the money. As Jack counted the change, he noticed that her car radio was playing a news report:

-repeat, once again, no survivors after the US attack on yet another Middle Eastern terrorist camp. The military again declined to answer any questions asked about what sort of weaponry was involved, but merely reiterated that no American soldiers were injured-

Jack handed over her change and the two paper bags of food. She smiled at him, and drove off with an all-too-cheery "See you in class!"

Jack waited until she was out of sight before rolling his eyes.

The last three hours of his shift had been the worst kind of uneventful - a few customers here and there and nothing much to do in between. Jack yawned and stretched as he pushed open the front door of the burger joint - it was only 4 in the afternoon, though. Jack rubbed his eyes as his phone buzzed in his pocket - it was a text from his mom.

"When does your shift end?"

"Typical…" Jack muttered to himself, as he dailed. One ring, two rings, three… once it was clear that she wasn't going to pick up, he slid the phone back into his pocket. The problem with having a nurse for a mother was that she often was called into work with only a moment's notice - which, more often than not, left Jack stranded across town with only two options for getting home - walking, or the sole bus that wound its way through the streets of Jasper.

Typically, it was faster to walk.

Jack was about to resign himself to his lot in life when a glimmer of blue caught his eye in the parking lot. There, parked in front of him, almost as though it was meant to be, was a flawless motorcycle, the metal shimmering in the sunlight.

"Hello beautiful," Jack said, taking a quick look over his shoulders before approaching the motorcycle. He walked a full circle around it, admiring every angle. He hesitated for a second, before running a hand down the smooth, soft seat. "Where have you been all my life?"

Jack swung a leg over the seat, climbing on. "It may take a few KO paychecks, but I am gonna own a ride like you some day."

The motorcycle sprang to life, the digital display glowing with a purple hue. Jack grabbed onto the handlebars as it shot backwards, turning making a sharp backwards turn out of the parking lot. The whiplash was strong, but Jack managed to keep his grip. The motorcycle shot straight into drive, and Jack's grip almost gave out from the force. The motorcycle raced through the streets of Jasper - ignoring every red light at almost triple the posted speed limit. Jack's knuckles slowly turned white, and any screams he made were rushed away by the wind. Within five minutes, they were on the edge of town, and Jack heard a voice snarl at him.

"You FILTHY, DISGUSTING organic scum! Get your grimy hands off of me!"

"Who- who said that?" Jack looked around, expecting to see someone in car next to him.

"Who the FRAG do you think? Primus, Cliff was right. All you organics are pathetic."

"Wh- but- you-you're a motorcycle?"

"No scrap, genius. Now, if you'd be so kind as to get the FRAG OFF OF ME, we can forget this even happened."

"Wh- bu- wha- fast! Going too fast!"

"Not my problem, rustbucket. Shoulda thought of that before you climbed aboard without asking."

The motorcycle weaved back and forth, making each shift in direction abrupt and forceful. Jack looked at the dashboard - it all seemed vaguely familiar, compared to his mom's car - the speedometer and tachometer were both clearly present, but after three passes over all of the different gauges, Jack realized that the motorcycle had no gas gauge.

Well, there goes that plan. Is this seriously how my life is going to end - Waaah! Fast. That was fast - thrown off of the back of a - Oh god, TREE - possessed motorcycle?

It's not even Halloween.

And then something exploded in front of them. The motorcycle threw on its brakes, and Jack held on for dear life, feeling the momentum carrying his body forward. His grip broke and he went flying forward - life flashing before his eyes - and landed. The shock was much less than he expected - his vision was shot for a few seconds, but he remained conscious. He took a moment to blink, and he felt the floor rise up into the air.

Jack looked around. He was - and this made absolutely no sense - in a plane's cockpit.

Or at least, he thought he was. But judging by what he remembered from watching Top Gun, he felt fairly confident in his guess.

"Well, at least I'm not dea- wait," Jack stopped his comment, realizing that the yoke was sitting in front of him. The plane banked to the left, and swooped back down towards the ground.

Oh god is this one possessed too?

The ground was coming up fast - too fast. Jack found himself looking desperating at all of the controls trying to figure out which one would be the one that would let him not die.

"Oh god oh god - um, erm, uh-"

"Oh, calm down; as if I'd crash on my first outing with a human." Somehow, after the voice from the motorcycle, that the plane could talk to him didn't seem all that surprising. "Just don't touch anything: sit back, relax, and you won't have to worry about a thing."

Jack froze, hands still in position to scan over the console. And, despite the plane's words (and much friendlier tone), they were still losing altitude very, very quickly.

"But! Ground - fast!"

The cockpit began shifting around him, and Jack found himself falling out of it - only to land on a small, hard metal platform.

Not again…

He looked around - at the scenery, and not through any windows either. He was in the middle of a dried up aqueduct - and his head was almost level with the top of it. The motorcycle was there, on the ground, motor revving and facing him.

And then it folded in on itself. And twisted some. Metal plates shifted around, and the motorcycle shot up into a humanoid form. Jack felt himself being lowered, slowly, to the ground and he jumped down as soon as he was close enough.

The motorcycle's arms shifted and blades emerged from its forearms.

Jack looked behind him - another giant robot. It had obviously been holding him - and probably had been the jet? It was hard to tell, but machine had a missile strapped to one arm, pointing directly at the motorcycle robot… thing.

"Hey!" Jack looked behind him - and was surprised to see someone human for a change. He couldn't remember the kid's name, but he recognized him from school - the kid was a like a child genius or something. Jack ran over next to the kid.

"Hey. This sure got crazy."

The motorcycle charged at the plane, and they began grappling with each other. The motorcycle swung it's arm-blades at the plane's head, and the plane ducked out of the way.

"Getting rusty, Arcee?" the plane said, mid-dodge. "I'd expect better from - what was it they used to call you?" It threw a few punches back, shifting the momentum of the fight a bit, "The Blue Ruststorm?"

"Go scrap yourself, Starscream," Arcee sneered at him (Jack was honestly quite impressed with how expressive the robot faces were) before flipping in the air and landing on the other side of the silver-grey robot. "And when you do? Say hi to Skywarp for me."

Another two planes - both colored dull grey with dark green accents - landed on the other side of Arcee, transforming into similarly human shapes. The two trained their weapons at the motorcycle. Jack took this as his cue to look around for a way out. The aqueduct went on for a while, but there was a drainage pipe twenty feet down the wall, big enough to crawl through. Jack grabbed the other boy by the hand, saying "Come on - let's get out of here," even as he started to break into a run. They both bolted for the pipe as Arcee transformed into her motorcycle form and drove under the legs of one of the new planes, transforming back immediately and stabbing it in the back with her arm-blade. The plane slumped over and Arcee turned around to look at where Jack had been standing only moments ago. Starscream took the opportunity to reach for the motorcycle's shoulder, but she swung back at him first, and the initial blow took him off-balance.

Jack froze, watching the battle. The other plane tried to intervene, but Arcee countered by picking up Starscream bodily and throwing the him into it. Jack whined reflexively as the two robots collided and fell on top of each other.

"What, Screamy, is that all you've got? I thought you Seekers were supposed to be some of Megatron's best fighters," Arcee gloated as she transformed her hands into, effectively, hand-pistols.

Starscream's head twitched back and forth, when he noticed Jack still standing there.

"Run, you fool!" the plane shouted, before launching a missile off of his arm at the motorcycle.

Jack's body jumped into gear, and he made his way down the pipe as quickly as he could, not once looking back.

----

Jasper, Nevada
Local Earth Time: 3:34 PM, GMT-8

The next day, after school, Jack saw the other boy sitting on the steps outside of the school - apparently, they had English together.

"Oh, hey, Raf," Jack said, as he joined Raf on the step.

"That was a pretty crazy yesterday, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, I'll say. It's not everyday you hop on a motorcycle that tries to kill you."

"Well, at least it didn't succeed?" Raf smiled at Jack. "Besides, this is probably the coolest thing ever - planes that turn into robots!" Raf jumped up suddenly, eyes beaming. "I did some searching online after I got home an-"

Jack put a hand over the younger boy's mouth.

"Let's… go over someplace a little less… open."

Jack walked Raf, hand still over the boy's mouth, over to the alleyway on the side of the school building. Neither of them noticed the girl sitting on the edge of the steps, with her headphones in and sketchbook out.

Once they were around the corner, Jack looked around - there was no-one else around.

"Look, Raf. I don't think it's such a good idea for us to talk about yesterday."

"B-but why? We need to tell people! What if it's like some alien thing that's turning motorcycles into murder machines?"

"I - well, I, look. Before yesterday, if I came up to you and told you that there was a motorcycle that turned into a robot and it was trying to kill people, would you believe me? Even for a second?"

"Well, no… but that doesn't mean we shouldn't say something!"

Just then, a whirling green vortex appeared in the alleyway.

Both boys felt their jaws drop as Starscream strolled out from somewhere inside the swirling energy, with the other two robots from the previous day.

"Hello again, boys. I must apologize for yesterday; it is truly unfortunate that you both are now irrevocably caught up in this. With that said - you'll need to follow so we can get you up to speed on what you're dealing with here."

Jack took a step back, hands waving in front of his face as though he were trying to ward off Starscream's words. "What do you mean, 'caught up in this'? I don't want anything more to do with this crazy murdering motorcycle madness."

"Unfortunately, young human, I'm not sure that's your choice. Were it up to me, I'd just leave you alone. But that motorcycle - Arcee - is not likely to forget your face. Or that you managed to escape her alive."

Jack gulped. "Okay. I think you've made your point. Raf, what do you think?"

Raf looked at Starscream, and then to Jack. "I think we'd better do what he says."

Starscream smiled. "I'm glad you agree. Now, if you'll follow me," the robot extended an arm towards the swirling vortex, and Raf started walking towards it.

Jack crossed his arms and slashed them forward. "Oh no. No way am I going in there. How do I know it's not going to kill me? I mean, look at it!"

Starscream ex-vented in a sigh. "Groundbridges are perfectly harmless to organic life. Now, if you'll come along…"

The party walked into the groundbridge, and Jack was stunned to realize that it felt exactly like walking inside of a tunnel - only a tunnel that looked like a mass of swirling green energy.

"General Megatron will be very pleased to see you - after all, you are the first humans to survive an encounter with Arcee."

Jack looked up at the robot. "General who?"

"You'll see."

The groundbridge ended after about five hundred feet, and opened into a large enclosed room. Jack immediately counted off five different, but nearly identical, robots walking around, attending to various tasks. The groundbridge itself centered in the middle of a large frame, with what Jack assumed to the be the controls next to it.

"Ah, yes. Thank you Soundwave," Starscream addressed the almost entirely white robot at the controls. Soundwave turned her head to look at the oncoming party - it was, much like every robot except Starscream, blank. The light blue screen where Jack expected a face to be flashed various symbols before returning to being blank.

"COOL! Can you do that again!"

Jack, Raf and Starscream all turned around to spot a girl staring at Soundwave and almost bouncing from restrained excitement.

Starscream flinched. "GRAH! Where d- where did you come from, little one?" He squatted down to look at her in the eye.

"Eh. I followed you guys. You really weren't trying to be sneaky." She shrugged as she smiled devilishly at Starscream.

"Miko! What are you doing here?" Jack knew the girl - an exchange student from Tokyo. Her host parents were friends of his mother.

"I said, I followed you guys." Miko shrugged, as a door shwooshed open behind her. "So, who's this Megatron anyway?"

She noticed that all of the robots immediately stood at attention, and spun around.

"That… would be me."

Megatron was by far the largest of the robots - while Jack had been impressed that he only came up to Starscream's kneecap, Starscream's head was barely higher than Megatron's waist. The robot's golden armor shimmered slightly in the room's lights, and Jack found himself quickly looking back and forth between the robot's face - a sharp toothed grin and eyes that seemed to cut through everything they looked at - and the giant, dull red cannon attached to Megatron's arm.

"Woah! Look at you! How much does all that armor weight? Does it come off? Can I wear it? How big a blast does your cannon make? Have you ever killed anyone with it? Have you ever fought off space pirates? ARE you space pirates?" Miko ran towards Megatron, who stopped walking to look, curiously, at the small human.

Megatron came down onto one knee to get a better look at Miko - even then, Megatron was still several times Miko's height.

"All of those questions will be answered in due time, young one. Though, in case you were wondering, no. We are not pirates." Megatron took the moment to stand back up.

"I am General Megatron, leader of the Decepticon forces of the planet Cybertron. For eons, we have been at war with the powerful and cruel forces of the Autobots, and their leader, Optimus Prime."

Jack found a comment on the tip of his tongue. He paused for a moment, considering, before speaking.

"Wait, wait. 'Decepticon'? As in 'Deception'? Is that just not translating right from whatever alien language you speak, or…?"

Megatron smiled, baring all teeth. "The name was given to us, back before our two factions were at war. Back then, we were rebels, protesters against an unjust and oppressive government. Back then, those who did not wish to hear the truth tried to slander our message - since then, we have worn the title a badge of pride. For, when the Decepticons are the ones speaking truth, where does that leave the rest of the world?"

"So, then, why are you here on Earth?"

"We are here, in part, because of the devastation that the war caused to our own world - devastation that I freely confess to no small part of. At the present time, Cybertron is currently uninhabitable." Megatron sent a short comm burst to all of the Decepticons aboard the Nemesis.

"The other reason we are here is two fold. The Autobot presence on your world is non-trivial, and while your species has its own history of cruelty, you do not deserve enslavement at the hands of the Autobots - or, worse, extinction. Our reports indicate that the Autobot leader himself is stationed here, for purposes that we have yet to determine. In the mean time, you three are some of the only humans that know of the existence of the Cybertronian race - and, because of this, you are likely next targets for the Autobots."

Jack started backing up. "Woah, woah. Okay. So I looked wrong at a motorcycle yesterday, and now I have to make sure that I'm not going to get killed every time I get into a car? That's brilliant."

"It is unfortunate, indeed. Which is why you three are going to stay here, aboard the Nemesis, until we have ended this conflict on your planet."

All three kids shouted in unison, Jack and Raf expressing displeasure and disbelief. Miko, on the other hand, just shouted "Cool! Can I live with you?" at Megatron.

Jack stared at Miko. "Seriously, Miko? Do you think that these robot things can take care of humans? Like, okay, maybe they can find you a place to sleep. But what are you going to eat? I doubt these guys eat burgers and salad."

Starscream and Megatron made eye contact, and exchanged a series of quick messages on their private channel.

Starscream looked back down at the humans. "Unfortunately, Megatron is right. While the accommodations might be… suboptimal, if we let you back out, there's no guarantee we can make of your safety. Besides, well, we already lost one of our own to the Autobots while protecting you yesterday."

Jack felt his heart freeze for a second. "Wait - you mean-"

Starscream's gaze pointed downward at a random patch of the floor. "Unfortunately, we lost contact with Galekite - he was shot down as we tried to make our escape yesterday. His vital signs were transmitting, so it's likely that he's still online."

One of the many identical bots spoke up. "U-unless they took him to that twisted Doc Bot."

The room was silent for a few moments. "We, we all have families too," Raf said, not making eye contact with any of the robots. "They're probably worrying about us, just like you're all worrying about Galekite."

Megatron paused, considering, before nodding. "Very well, young ones. However, I will be sending Eradicons to watch over you, in case the Autobots attempt to offline any you."

The groundbridge sprang to life, and three of the identical Eradicons lined up in front of it, transforming into cars as the humans approached them. Miko and Raf ran up to meet theirs, and the two cars sped through the groundbridge. Jack paused a moment before getting into his car, and looked at Starscream straight in the optics. "I - I just want to say, thank you for, well, saving my life. I- I hope you find Galekite."

Jack slid the rest of the way into the passenger seat and the door shut on him. The third Eradicon sped through the groundbridge, and the moment Soundwave deactivated it, Starscream looked at Megatron.

"With all due respect, are you sure the humans are going to be safe? The third one will probably be safe enough, but Arcee's already seen the other two."

Head shaking, Megatron replied. "I'm honestly not sure. But the humans are right - they need to stay with their kind. We just need to do all we can to keep them - and ourselves - safe."

Starscream approached Megatron, and put a hand around the larger robot as the two walked down the corridor back to the bridge. "I know. And I swear, if anything happens to Galekite…." Starscream's servos tensed up and the edge in his voice erupted into small bits of static.

Megatron wrapped her arms around Starscream. "I know. For now, we focus on rescuing Galekite. Revenge will come later."

Chapter Text

Autobot Base 7-A
Location: Earth
Coordinates: Unknown

Arcee sat back in a chair just outside of the Medical lab, sipping an energon cube. Yesterday had been eventful - and disappointing, to be sure. The first slagging human to escape after noticing her. Optimus would be displeased to find out that she had her cover blown. Not that she was worried about him finding out - she had more important news to share. Well, at any rate, Ratchet would. He'd probably take all of the credit, anyway, the kiss-aft. It wasn't as if his skills weren't already in high demand - back on Cybertron he had been one of the best medics on the planet.

At least, when he actually treated his patients. The rest of the time? You were probably better off dealing with whatever was wrong with you on your own.

The Doc liked to experiment.

A ping on her comm system told her that the sedative that she had jammed into the drone's system was wearing off. And really, what could she say?

She liked watching the good doctor work.

She entered the lab, door sliding aside as she watched Galekite struggle against the restraints that bound him to the medical berth. His optics widened as he noticed her in the room.

"Mornin', Deceptiscum. Enjoy your nap?" Arcee smiled as the 'con tried to transform any part of his body far enough to slip out of the restraints. "Tsk, tsk. How disappointing. Not like you could take me in a fight anyway."

Galekite glared. "Let me go and we'll see about that. I bet I wipe the floor with both your wheels at once."

Arcee recoiled in a sarcastic imitation of fear. "Oh no! The little drone's going to attack me! I'm so scared!" A laugh re-entered her voice. "Now, now, little rustbag. Believe me, I'd offline you in a heartbeat. But there's someone here with a very vested interest in keeping you alive, and I'd hate to disappoint him."

The laboratory doors slid open again, and Ratchet entered the room. The doctor was painted red and black, but even then the scars of poorly patched wounds all over his chest and arms were highly apparent.

"So, this is the patient?" Ratchet's face erupted into a grin as he glanced over the helpless Decepticon. "Good - I had hoped you'd gotten your hands on a Gamma frame. I'm going to enjoy this one."

Galekite gave a few final tugs at his restraints, in vain hope.

"Now, now, calm down," Ratchet said, cycling through the tools that he could transform his hand into. "If you stay still, it might hurt less."

His hand rested in the mode of a laser scalpel. "Now, for starters, I'm going to need direct access to your T-cog. So let's get started, shall we?"

Fifty kilocycles later, Ratchet stepped back from the medical berth. "I always enjoy watching that last moment before a spark extinguishes itself. That final puff out of existence."

Arcee circled her optics. "Great. Did you get what you need? Or am I going to have to hunt down another Seeker for you to rip apart?"

"Oh, no. Not this time. I think I've finally got what we needed." He beamed as he punched the data from the vivisection into the lab's mainframe.

Partway through, a transmission came over his comm. He didn't bother to read it, and, instead, left the room, heading directly for the spacebridge controls. Arcee followed along, until she realized where Ratchet was heading.

She transformed and sped off in the other direction.

Ratchet opened the Spacebridge, and stood at attention as a large figure made its way back through the intergalactic tunnel.

"So, Optimus, you've returned."

Chapter Text

Jasper, Nevada
Local Earth Time: 7:41 AM, GMT-8

Jack woke up a few minutes before his alarm, groggy and blurry-eyed. He forced himself out of bed, threw a shirt and jeans on, and stumbled out of his bedroom to the kitchen. His mom had already dashed out the door, but had left him a (now cold) fried egg, and a note saying that she'd be able to pick him up after school. And to tell the friend that dropped him off last night "thank you," but that he really shouldn't let friends sleepover without permission.

Jack set the note back down, not quite processing the last part.

And then he remembered the car… robot… thing that drove him home last night. Or, well, it had called itself Driveshaft, but Jack wasn't quite sure that it knew what the term meant. Nevertheless, the ride home had been… interesting.

Jack grabbed his backpack and headed out the door when he noticed the car sitting out in front of his house, passenger door sitting wide open.

"Oh, hey, good mornin' Driveshaft." Jack half-mumbled as he pulled himself into the car.

The car's engine hummed to life. "Morning, Jack. Did your recharge go well?"

Jack stared blanking and blinked. "Wha- recharg- you mean sleep? Yeah. Sleep. Good. Good sleep." Eight AM was much too early for any human to have to translate robot-speak into English.

"You don't sound fine - is something the matter with your vocalizer? I'm sure we could find a medic to repair it in no time."

Jack paused to gather his thoughts. "No, no. I'm fine… it's just, well, humans sometimes don't, um, function well in the morning."

"Why is that? Wouldn't you be rested and ready to go?"

Jack shrugged. "I guess that would just make too much sense."

The car's engine stalled for a second as Driveshaft bounced slightly. Jack's eyes shot open and he clung to the edge of the seat and the door handle. "Wha-what was that?"

"Umm… I guess the word for it was… laughter?"

Jack resolved to not say anything else for the remaining five minutes of the drive, and Driveshaft pulled into the school's parking lot next to two other identical looking cars.

The school day itself was absolutely unremarkable.

And so, Jack hopped back into Driveshaft without so much as a second thought. He ruffled through his backpack to find the novel he was reading for English class, pausing only long enough to say, "Hey, Driveshaft, how's it going?"

He was half-way through the night's reading when he realized that neither he, nor any of the other Decepticon cars had left the parking lot.

"Umm… Driveshaft? Are- are you there?" Jack asked, trying just enough to keep the fear in his voice from creeping out. Another half minute passed, and Driveshaft's voice popped up.

"Sorry Jack, I'm working on coordinating with the Nemesis at the moment - and there."

Jack had, once again, attempted to plaster himself against Driveshaft's door.

"Jack - is something the matter?" Driveshaft's voice approximated concern, but came closer to utter confusion.

"Just, just don't scare me like that next time," Jack gasped out, collecting himself. "Sorry, I'm not really used to this whole talking car thing yet."

"Oh. Sorry." Driveshaft's voice dropped as some of the lights on his dashboard dimmed.

"So, um… what'd the mothership have to say?"

Driveshaft pulled out of the school's parking lot, towards the alley on the side of the building.

"We're to bring the three of you straight to the Nemesis. No questions."

-----

The Warship Nemesis
Time-space Coordinates 34608.51237.489.123.019
Earth Time: 14:47:02, GMT-8

The moment that the first packet of data tagged with Galekite's signature appeared on the network, Soundwave contacted both Knockout and Starscream. Knockout sent a message back, saying that while his analysis of the data confirmed that it was Galekite's signal, there was something off about the data itself. He promised to update the Communications Officer as soon as he figured out what it was.

Starscream, on the other hand, elected to reply in person.

"Soundwave! Where is the signal coming from?" Soundwave turned her head, and with one motion of an extended digit, a spinning globe model of the Earth appeared on the main display. It stopped on the western hemisphere, then zoomed in to a location about 4.5 megakliks northwest of the human children's hometown, in the middle of what the humans called a "National Forest" - because they apparently needed to protect other forms of organic life from themselves. The Decepticons had had an energon mine there until several megacycles ago, when the Autobots took it over by force.

"Interesting. Why there...?"

As far as Starscream's reports indicated, the mine had almost been depleted anyway when the Autobots had attacked. Surely, by now, all of the remaining energon must have been extracted.

Starscream looked up to see that Soundwave had changed the display - it now showed radiation from the area, consistent with a large supply of energon.

"And just enough to interact with the vital sign transmissions. Soundwave, send orders for -" Starscream slipped out of his command pose when a transmission from Megatron came through, the General's face erupting onto the main screen.

"Starscream, Soundwave! Prepare a squad of Eradicons and Vehicons immediately. We depart from the main hangar in 10 cycles."

The video feed flickered out immediately. Starscream looked at Soundwave, sent a quick data packet to her, and strode out of the room, informing the two teams that he had already chosen of their assignments.

Starscream arrived in the main hangar just as the groundbridge carrying the humans and their escorts dissipated, two of the four Eradicons arriving moments later. The humans exited their respective Vehicons and congregated in front of the cars, all looking at Starscream for any sort of explanation.

"You three humans are going to follow Driveshaft to your temporary quarters. We are instigating an attack on an Autobot base, and your protection, in the mean time, is paramount." Starscream gestured to Driveshaft, who transformed, and starting walking down the hall, in front of the children.

"Come along, Jack, and you two." The Eradicon beaconed them forward with his claw, and the humans followed - Jack and Raf walking, with Miko trailing behind them.

"Aw, do we have to go? I wanna watch so awesome robot-on-robot action!" Miko sulked, looking up - first at Starscream, and then quickly changing focus to Driveshaft after she saw the expression plastered on the Air Commander's face.

Driveshaft looked at Starscream, before looking back at Miko. "Seriously? Are… you malfunctioning? Do you know what the Autobots do to us Decepticons?"

Starscream chimed in with "Young human, while your… enthusiasm is appreciated, a battlefield is no place for a-"

Miko's face scrunched up. "What? No place for a girl?"

Starscream froze a second, utterly confused. "What do you mea-"

"Look, just because I'm not a dude doesn't mean I can't fight!" Miko shouted with every bit of force she could muster. "I've been taking judo since I could stand! I've beaten up guys who were twice as tall as me!"

Starscream attempted to regain his composure. "Yes, but that really doesn't hav-"

"I mean, hell, even Megatron's a girl. So why can't I fight?"

Starscream paused to say something, and then stopped.

"So, young one, you wish to fight?" Megatron's face rested somewhere between a sneer and amusement. "You honestly believe yourself to be equal to even the weakest Autobot soldier? Very well. You may go," Miko's face brightened, "Provided you can get past me."

"Piece of cake!" Miko immediately charged at Megatron, who stood carefully still. She waited for the human to be close enough, and then immediately dropped to one knee, fusion cannon pointed straight at Miko's head.

Miko put two hands on the cannon, flipped herself on top of it, starting running up the cannon, and ran straight into Megatron's other hand. Miko jumped off to one side, but the hand still managed to wrap around her - it was an uncomfortable grip, but not painful.

Miko struggled, pushing and pulling and twisting against Megatron's fingers. "You see, Miko? I do not doubt your strength among humankind. But, if you wish to hold your own against Cybertronians, you will need much more than just strength."

Megatron set Miko back down. "I am willing to teach you to fight, but not now. Galekite's signal has been found, and I will not risk his life so you humans can spectate. Do I make myself clear?"

Miko sighed, loudly and dramatically. "Fiiiine. But you'd better tell me about it later!" Megatron set the girl back down and she scampered off to join the other humans, who were herded out of the hanger by Driveshaft.

Megatron turned to Starscream. "Are our soldiers ready?"

"We only await your orders, General."

Megatron turned and faced the groundbridge.

"Very well then. DECEPTICONS! TRANSFORM AND RISE UP!"

Chapter Text

Per her orders, Megatron exited the groundbridge 10 kilokliks away from the energon mine, her thrusters surging as soon as the bridge closed, pushing her through the sound barrier.

The squad of Eradicons scouted ahead of her, and the Vehicons were headed straight for the Galekite's signal - Soundwave reported that the lost Eradicon was on the ground, which could mean any number of things, considering the Autobots.

But, Galekite was online. That was more than anyone could have hoped.

Megatron veered left, away from the Eradicons, circling the mine. The Vehicons on the ground were less than a kiloklik from the signal's location, but Galekite had yet to respond to any attempts at communication.

Megatron's instincts - trained from teracycles of existence in the pits of Kaon - began favoring the result of "trap."

There was absolutely no reason that the Autobots would have allowed a prisoner to escape.

The first Vehicon to reach Galekite went offline before she had a chance to report anything.

The second managed to report that fact before his spark rejoined the Well.

Megatron barked an order: "All Vehicons, Eradicons! Retreat and regroup - Soundwave, when they're clear, send a groundbridge."

The reply from Soundwave was simply an audio file, Starscream's voice.

"And you?"

Megatron sent her Communications Officer a packet that conveyed equal parts "don't ask questions" and "you know exactly what I'm doing."

Twenty cycles later, Megatron landed, near enough to see the sparkless frames that once were Gearshift and Headlamp. They lay about a klik apart, in a gap in the forest's canopy.

Megatron bowed her head, hand held properly in respect for the now deceased. There was an old Cybertronian rite - really, a prayer to Primus - and though Megatron had never considered herself religious, the words filtered through her processor.

And then, movement. The slight sound of metal rubbing against metal. The sound - nearly inaudible - of the organic life cracking under heavy, unearthly tread.

Megatron slid her blade out from under her cannon, optics scanning the forest for any sign of movement, aural receivers tuned to their highest sensitivity.

It took a cycle, but Megatron had a fix on whatever was out there. She shifted her stance slightly, just as a gnarled heap of metal leaped out from the the tree line, straight at her.

She swung her blade, connecting with the thing and sending it flying sideways into a nearby tree.

"So, let's get a look at you, Auto-" Megatrons vocalizer abruptly shut off now that she could see what the creature was. It looked like Galekite, but his body was twisted and slashed up. Ratchet's work, no doubt. The other highly noticeable difference was the energon stains on the Eradicon's frame - some from wounds, some from… somewhere else. Megatron refreshed her optics, something was wrong about this picture, even beyond the heavy damage to Galekite's frame.

She side-stepped with practiced ease as the thing that was Galekite threw itself at her, dentae bared. This settled the matter - whatever inhabited that frame, Galekite was absent.

Galekite would never have attempted such a sloppy maneuver.

Megatron's vocalizer nearly crackled on, swearing oaths of vengence against the Autobots, but she stopped when she heard a high-pitched triangle wave sound, coming from the darkness.

It coincided with a message from Soundwave that an Autobot's signature had been detected nearby.

The waveform changed rapidly - the sounds resembling an old dialect of Cybertronian, but it was nothing more that gibberish to Megatron.

Galekite's frame jumped at Megatron, and she, distracted, didn't dodge in time.

The Eradicon's optic plate was chipped, and a section from the left side was, in fact, missing. Any intelligence, sentience that would have been expressed by the faint glow of blinking lights behind the plate was replaced with nothing but darkness and madness.

Galekite's vocalizer roared with static, and Megatron took the opportunity to grab the frame with her off-hand, tossing it to the ground.

In the same motion, she ran her blade through the creature, straight through the spark chamber.

On any Cybertronian, that would be a fatal blow.

On any Cybertronian, the spark chamber would attempt to resist damage - a direct blow would often extinguish a spark without actually damaging the spark chamber itself.

The blade passed through Galekite with hardly any loss of momentum.

Megatron paused for a second, confused, an Eradicon impaled halfway up her blade.

Galekite's optics and vocalizer onlined, and Megatron fired her fusion cannon reflexively.

Galekite's frame shook violently at the blast, and then went still.

"So, Autobots, is this all that you have to frighten me with?" Megatron roared into the night, while sending Soundwave the coordinates to send a groundbridge.

She walked confidently back to the corpses of Gearshift and Headlamp.

The groundbridge appeared almost a klik away - two pairs of Vehicons rushed out to grab their fallen friends, while Megatron covered them.

After all, there was still an Autobot around somewhere.

The recovery teams safely back to the groundbridge, Megatron herself backed up into the energy vortex.

On the other end, she was greeted by Knockout and Breakdown, the latter pushing an emergency containment unit.

Megatron pushed Galekite's sparkless frame into the ECU, Galekite's frame scraping loudly against Megatron's blade as the old gladiator retracted her weapon.

"Doctor. This was Galekite." Megatron's voice took on a forced distance from the situation. "I want to know what happened here before our enemies turn another of our number into these...husks."

Knockout looked at Galekite, at Megatron, back to Galekite and back again to Megatron.

"I'll do what I can. Expect a comm in, oh, a few megacycles with my initial results."

"Very well Doctor."

A packet from Soundwave - a still frame from her optic feed. Megatron looked down at her blade and saw what Soundwave pointed out - the energon covering her blade was differently colored - a deep purple rather than the typical blue.

Knockout received the same packet, and was already readying a sampling kit, when Megatron dropped to one knee.

Before her optics blurred out and offlined, she saw a light splatter of the same dark purple energon on her forearm.

Chapter Text

"How are the patients, Doctor?"

Knockout paused when he received the comm from Starscream, resting his frame against the med bay wall.

"Well, Air Commander, I have good news - Lord Megatron will make a very speedy recovery."

Starscream's "Thank Primus" was reflexive and almost inaudible, even over the comm.

"The contamination was solely external, and a quick wash took care of that. Then, well, I'm nothing if not generous, and so, I took the time to work on our esteemed General's finish. It took at least 100 kilocycles to fix the dents in her dorsal plating - if she'd just take the time to come in once every hundred megacycles or so..."

"As appreciated as your attention to our leader is, Doctor, I would hope you've made similar progress on your other patients before attending to cosmetic matters." Starscream's comm was backed with as much sharpness and venom as bandwidth allowed.

"Whoa, easy there. Who do you take me for, Pharma? Critical patients first. It's just..."

"Yes, Doctor? I'm waiting."

"There's nothing you can do for a sparkless frame. I- I'm sorry, Starscream. They were beyond help before they even came aboard." Knockout's voice affected an uncharacteristic rasp, all pretense and sarcasm stripped away.

Starscream felt his spark go faint.

"I understand Doctor. Thank you for your efforts. I shall inform the crew."

As the comm closed, both mechs felt their frames weaken involuntarily, simultaneously. Both held themselves up, but the weight on their sparks remained.

-----

"Ugh. I'm booooored. What do you robots even DO when you aren't shooting each other up?" Miko sat upside-down against a wall, feet up in the air, back on the ground, and a look of exasperation on her face.

The Vehicons looked at each other, confused.

"Ummm... refuel?" offered Breakline with a shrug.

Miko's face fell flat. "Uuuugh. Now I'm hungry too. You bots got anything to eat?"

The three Vehicons froze, silent.

"What. Did. You. Say." Driveshaft's voice was level, but clearly holding back a torrent of rage.

Miko sat up, blinking. "All I asked is if you guys have any grub."

Raf looked up from his laptop at Jack, just long enough to plead with his eyes.

Jack walked over to Miko and sat down in front of her.

"Listen, Miko...." Jack paused, trying to figure out the right words.

"I know, I know, it's for our safety." Miko used her fingers to put air quotes on the last two words. "But would it kill them to let us get a burger or something?"

"Miko, that's... look. These guys are the Decepticons, right? And they're fighting the Autobots. Right?" Jack looked at Driveshaft, who gave the human a nod of confirmation.

Miko's face lit up in understanding, and immediately transitioned into embarrassment.

"Sorry guys... it's just, well, you're robots - what am I supposed to call you? Cons?"

Driveshaft looked at Breakline, and then at Rimshine. "That'll work," he said finally, shrugging.

Raf popped his head up from his laptop again.

"Hey - Rimshine - can you send that bitstream again, same frequency as before? I think I fixed the bug in the audio parser."

Rimshine nodded, and Raf watched his computer with hopeful eyes.

After a second or two, he grinned.

"Hey guys! Check this out!" Jack and Miko gathered around Raf's computer looking at the screen.

"What're we supposed to be looking at? Your code? I don't speak C++," Miko snarked.

Raf chuckled. "It's just C, actually. But that's not the cool bit." Raf opened an audio file, and played it.

"Hello Raf. One, two, three, four." The voice was slightly tinny and pitchy, but it still was distinctly Rimshine's voice.

Raf's face lit up, and Jack and Miko looked at each other, slightly confused.

Miko spoke first. "Raf - what the heck was that?"

Raf was already back to work on his laptop. "Rimshine sent that to me, just now. The Cybertronians have an internal, well, radio system that they can use to communicate," he answered without looking up. "I managed to reverse-engineer an audio codex, and, well, you heard the results."

Jack blinked, trying to keep up. "Okay..."

Miko dug into her pocket, excitedly. "Dude! Can you hook up my phone?"

Raf paused for a moment. "Um, maybe? I'd have to look at it."

Miko grinned. "Awesome."

A few more minutes passed of Raf alternating between frenzied typing and careful contemplation.

"Okay, and we should be able to stream them live - Rimshine, if you wouldn't mind?"

The computer's speaker crackled and hissed for a few seconds before Rimshine's voice played over the speakers, "Hello again, Raf. One, two, three, four, five, six, sev-" Raf silenced the audio feed.

"Of course, this only works for the public channels - I could theoretically figure out the private channels, but I'm not sure what kind of encryption they use."

Jack scratched his head. "Couldn't you, you know, just, well, ask?"

Driveshaft chimed in. "Well, you just... well, you just link up, and it works? I'm not really sure how to explain it."

Raf sighed. "I tried - but it'd be like trying to explain how our brains work - and no-one's a neuroscientist."

Jack nodded. "Oh. Right... gotcha..." He rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry about that...."

Driveshaft shrugged. "It's better than what... Mike-o... said?"

Miko rolled her eyes. "Anyway, Raf - any cool signals we can listen in on? There's gotta be some good gossip on a ship this big!"

Raf looked at Rimshine, who shuffled through several comm channels internally.

"Try using 59.512.130.53 as the frequnecy band with a cycle-step of 128. That's the ship-wide public comm."

Raf clacked at the keyboard. "Alright, let's see what we get!"

The computer's speaker crackled as it looked for the beginning of a message stream.

An Eradicon's voice played first. "All hands, we will have an announcement from Air Commander Starscream in 256 cycles. I repeat, a ship-wide announcement in 256 cycles."

Jack, Raf and Miko all looked at each other, and then to the Eradicons.

Driveshaft shrugged. "Probably just a public debriefing on Galekite's rescue mission. Considering that it's this public, everything probably went well."

The speakers crackled again, and Starscream's voice came through this time.

"Attention all hands: It is with great remorse that I share the outcome of our rescue mission." The human's eyes went wide; the Cybertronians’ frames stiffened. "We lost three of our number today - Gearshift and Headlamp rejoined the Allspark so that we might merely recover Galekite's frame." A few moments passed. "General Megatron herself is also incapacitated, but we expect her to make a full recovery."

Raf pulled himself close to Jack, and Jack hugged him back. Miko merely curled up in a ball on the floor.

"In accordance with our rites-" Raf turned off the audio.

"I'm… I'm so sorry…" the young boy's voice trailed off, searching for the words.

Driveshaft bolted out, transforming and driving off as soon as he was outside the room.

Breakline looked to Rimshine. "I- I'll go after him," he said before hurrying after.

"So, um… is it alright if I ask…?" Jack paused, unsure.

Rimshine looked at the three humans, venting his air intake before speaking. "Driveshaft and… Gearshift were sparkbonded."

"What does that mean?" asked Raf.

"I think the closest human idea would be… marriage? Two humans, living close together?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah… that sounds about right… wow. I… I can't imagine."

Miko spoke, barely a whisper, inaudible to everyone else in the room. "I can."

Raf turned the feed's sound back on. Starscream had finished his report, and now an Eradicon was explaining the new orders for several of her fellows.

Raf moved his cursor to shut it off - when a noise like a siren came on over the comm.

"This is a distress call - Energon Mine 5FB2 is under attack - send backup immedi-"

The signal cut out to static.

Chapter Text

Location: Earth, Decepticon Energon Mine 5FB2.
Earth Coordinates: 341.129.189.118
Local Time: 11:32 PM GMT-6

Roadheader paused to scan the tunnel that his crew had just finished excavating. It hadn't been the richest vein of energon that he had excavated - even in this mine - but it was rich enough. The scan turned up small scattered specks of energon crystals - nothing worth digging out, at least until they finished addressing the two other large deposits that they knew of.

The explosion caught him completely off-guard.

Roadheader's optics onlined - or so he thought. His diagnostic protocols were returning that everything was functional, but all he could see was darkness.

He went to move, to stand up or transform, and felt the weight on top of him.

Ah. I'm under something. Of course.

At least he was probably safe for now.

-----

Breakdown checked his internal records of the mine as he rolled down the corridors of the Nemesis. It had originally been a secluded underground cave, but there was enough stability in the structure that no extra reinforcement had been necessary. Coupled with the sheer size of the energon deposit, this had been one of the Breakdown's best finds to date - on Earth or otherwise.

So, if Autobot scrap heads were attacking one of his teams there? It had moved far, far beyond personal.

He send Soundwave a comm as he approached the hangar room to have the groundbridge ready when he arrived. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened, and his main security team were on their way - by now, this entrance was timed down to the cycle.

Breakdown heard the engines of two of the squad as he finished the final turn to the hangar - both Vehicons stayed behind him, in formation. The remaining two joined up behind them as the door to the hangar opened up before them - the groundbridge, as expected was in the final stages of its activation process, and Soundwave gave Breakdown a quick nod of her head as the Mining Enforcement Squadron rolled on through.

Halfway through the groundbridge tunnel, Breakdown received a comm packet. He opened it without checking the contents - it was a message from Knockout.

"Be careful." The message was wrapped up in a heavy mixture of confidence, admiration and worry. Knockout always worried.

"I will." He replied, as he did every time before one of his missions.

The scene on the other side of the groundbridge was an absolute nightmare.

Something had detonated the large stockpile of energon cubes that had been awaiting pick up. A quick scan of the area told Breakdown that the walls were still stable - but only just barely. And that was the good news.

Several mining drills were scattered around the main cavern - obviously flung around by the explosion. A few Vehicon miners had parts of their bodies poking out from underneath the drills.

Those were the lucky ones. Others… well, Breakdown was sure that Knockout would be able to identify what the various pieces of the mechs were. Anatomy, especially damaged, disassembled anatomy, was not his area of expertise.

Breakdown's shoulder cannon whined as it onlined, and his warhammer emerged from his right arm. Breakdown's sensors scanned the area for any activity, and he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the rest of his squad's weapons were online as well. They moved as one, advancing slowly through the cavern, each watching a different swatch of ground for any activity.

A muzzle flashed from behind one of the drills and rocket flew past Breakdown's left side; he immediately charged while the rest of the squad offered covering fire. Breakdown closed the distance quickly, just in time to see a human scurry out from behind the drill. Breakdown swung the hammer at the human, who rolled out of the way, back behind the drill.

"Come back here, Earthling!" Breakdown roared, as he swiveled around to face the drill. A blow of his hammer was all it took to knock the drill back on its side, but the human had already reloaded his handheld rocket launcher. Breakdown reached for the human with his left hand, but before he reach him, the human fired his launcher. Breakdown twisted out of the way instinctively, but when he righted himself, his processor caught up with his core programming, and revealed that the rocket hadn't been launched at him at all.

A quick glance behind him showed that, now, two of the Vehicons under his command were down.

"Frag it all to the pit..." Breakdown grumbled, vocalizer at minimum volume. The human was already preparing to load his weapon again, and Breakdown's processor had a possible solution, but his spark was uneasy with it.

The rest of the squad had taken cover behind one of the drills and provided covering fire, forcing the human to run out of the way, back behind the drill. Breakdown slammed the drill with his hammer, sending it flying into the far mine wall. The human was still there, crouched over, back to Breakdown - but the instant Breakdown made a move to approach, the human wheeled around, pointing the weapon straight at the center of Breakdown's chassis.

"Checkmate, robot scum," the human looked Breakdown straight in the optics, with his own... optical balls? Something like that.

Breakdown fired off a single blast from his shoulder cannon, blasting the weapon out of the human's hands, and the human back twenty feet.

"You were sayin'?" Breakdown approached the human, a wicked grin plastered across his faceplates. "See, the captain isn't too keen on us killing humans. She says you're not worth the trouble." The human was on his back, trying to crawl away as fast as he could. "Me? Well, I don't always agree with the captain. Anyone who does this much damage ain't worth keepin' around. I've got my own code, though. So, 'fore we get anywhere, what the scrap are you called?"

The human gulped, and attempted to stand up, only to knock his head on the top of Breakdown's hammer.

"No, no you don't. You're gonna stay right there, and answer the question."

He replied, human eyes locked on Cybertronian optics. "Agent William Fowler, CIA. Also known as the eagle runs to freedom."

A single high-pitched tone rang through the mine. Five cycles after, an explosion of light.

Breakdown shielded his optics - the light wouldn't cause any damage to Cybertronian optics, but they would need time to adjust. It died out after a few dozen cycles, and when Breakdown's optics re-adjusted, the human was gone - the only signs that he was even there were the weapon, the destruction, and a weak green glow near where the human had been. Breakdown reset his optics when he saw the last one, and once they came back online, the glow wasn't there.

Probably after glow from the blast. There's no way.

Breakdown turned his squad. "Let's get a cleanup squad here. Fall back." He sent a quick comm to Soundwave, and she opened the groundbridge only a few cycles later.

Knockout was on the other side, waiting with the cleanup crew. Breakdown carried one of his fallen Vehicons himself, while two of the others in his squad carried their other injured squadmate.

Breakdown didn't need to say anything to his bondmate; Knockout knew immediately. The medic made a point of touching Breakdown's arm before a medical Eradicon wheeled off the gurney. Breakdown reached over with his other hand and placed it on top of Knockout's. The few cycles they spent like that felt like gigacycles, and Breakdown felt the critical warnings from his processor get resolved internally as false positive results.

Knockout pulled away, and followed his team through the groundbridge. Before he entered, he paused, glanced back at Breakdown, and sent him a comm before continuing to tend to the wounded.

"Thank you for coming back."

Chapter Text

The Warship Nemesis
Earth Time: 16:54:39, GMT-8

Knockout paused to recount the injured - the medbay was stuffed with more Eradicons than it was equipped for, but, luckily, most of the new patients could set sent back to their quarters after minor plating fixes - a few needed some welding, a few had minor joint realignments, and there were small fuel line leaks aplenty. Still, Knockout had two miners whose entire lower halves were crushed to the point of non-functionality, one armless, another with shrapnel in her optics, and another with a collapsed chassis that just barely missed her fuel tank.

There were also the two Vehicons from Breakdown's squad, Doorflap and Rollcage. Knockout paused for a moment - yes, the Vehicon was in fact called Doorflap. The tests hadn't finished running yet, but Knockout had a strong suspicion as to the cause - initial scans had detected a substance similar to what Megatron had found herself coated in earlier.

That was both good news and bad news. The good news was that, judging by Megatron's recovery rate, the two would be just fine. The bad news was the damage caused by the human's explosive weapon blasted some of the purple ooze into their vital systems. Cleaning it out... was going to take some work.

Then there was Megatron herself. Her processor had booted up, and her initial diagnostics looked good - but her higher level functions hadn't been restarted yet. Knockout was unworried - this was typical for mechs with Megatron's code base - and checked up on her every so often as he tended to the other patients.

Yet another comm from Starscream came through, yet another comm from Starscream was ignored. While the Air Command's worry was completely understandable, it was a distraction, and Knockout considered rerouting future inquiries from the Head Seeker to one of the low-ranking medical staff. One comm every 10 kilocycles was beginning to push it.

Another ping; one of the tests had finished. Knockout sent the order for a full-internal cleansing for Rollcage, and immediately heading over to the spectrum analyzer. The data was in the upload process; all information gathered while on board the ship was automatically backed up in the ship's internal network. Knockout, however, preferred the hardline connection when it came to reviewing information such as this for the first time. He pulled a small cable out from the medical array on his forearm, and plugged into the machine.

His optics offlined as he quite literally lost himself in the data visualization. The machine broke the purple substance - whatever it was - that was coursing through Galekite's lines into its component elements, and offered a reasonable prediction into the structure that the substance took on. As Knockout had originally predicted, the substance was fundamentally based on energon - it contained several of the core molecules that composed energon. There were quite a few others that were very similar analogs to other molecules in energon - sometimes these were seen in regional variations on the fuel, but never all in the same batch.

Those two categories made up nearly a tenth of the molecular structure present. The rest were molecular structures that Knockout had never seen in all of his teracycles as a medic. Some had their structures located after much searching through the ship's old medical archives, but the rest were entirely unknown.

Well, probably not entirely. The Archives of Iacon probably had had a catalog of every single molecule to have existed in the known universe.

A pity that the Archives had been the home of the now Autobot leader. The Decepticons never even came close to a single datapad from that collection.

A flash of inspiration struck the medic, and he called up a database of old files, cross-referencing against anything resembling the phrase "Dark purple energon like substance."

It didn't take long for results to appear, though Knockout was now prepared to treat the entire database as corrupted. Old declassified Decepticon reports, from the beginning of the Great War, and old religious texts from the Primus worshippers both returned hits, and all the files referred to the same phrase over and over again.

Dark Energon.

Several texts made reference to it as the "Blood of Unicron," in the same way that energon was itself was supposed to be the life-blood of Primus himself. Knockout skimmed those documents quickly, before returning his search to documents actually grounded in reality. The Decepticon reports contained notes from analysis of extremely small samples of the substance - if the information was correct, Knockout had orders of magnitude more than had ever been collected before. The results tended toward inconclusive, and none of them - scrap every single one of those scientists to the Pit - contained a molecular structure record.

But some information on its properties were there. And, most notably, one of the personnel involved with the project was actually aboard the Nemesis. Knockout rechecked the finding in case his processor had glitched. Typically, researchers reported to Shockwave - usually indirectly, but even then, Starscream was usually only in charge of actual military matters - troop movements and such.

Scrap. Knockout ex-vented dramatically to no-one in particular before replying to Starscream's most recent comm.

Starscream arrived at the medbay after one hundred cycles - Knockout was unconvinced that the Seeker hadn't been waiting outside of the medbay. Starscream's optics scanned the recovery berths, moving quickly from berth to berth, before they turned to the doctor, pleading.

"She's in the officer's recovery berth, and will be conscious within a few kilocycles." Knockout didn't bother looking up from the datapad; the Seeker was never subtle when it came to certain matters.

Starscream's entire frame relaxed, and his vents hissed as all of his systems came out of overdrive. Knockout fought the urge to rotate his optics.

"I also determined the nature of our esteemed General's current state." Knockout lowered the datapad and looked Starscream optic-to-optic. "Have you ever heard of Dark Energon?"

Starscream's frame tensed back up immediately. "Are you suggesting- but- there's no way so much could exist!"

"It's my leading theory at the moment, at least. Now, the records I have are scarce - mostly things I collected from Autobot leaks back on Cybertron, and some antiquated Primus mumbo jumbo. But nothing conclusive."

Knockout handed Starscream the datapad, and Starscream scanned over it, reviewing the CMO's results. "One moment," Starscream said, pausing to query several private databases. He came across several records of note, and loaded them onto the datapad.

"Doctor, would any of these make your search any easier?" Starscream handed the datapad back.

Knockout had hardly laid an optic back on the datapad when a comm notified him that Megatron was back online. He immediately turned around and started walking towards the room, pinging Starscream with a single command: Follow.

Megatron sat up on the berth, helm in her hand, optics sliding in and out of focus in diagnostic mode. The door slid open, and she looked over to see both Knockout and Starscream. Knockout strode confidently in the room, and Starscream followed, timidly.

"General Megatron!" The head medic exclaimed, his comment accompanied by an extravagent gesture, "Welcome back to the online world."

"Knockout." Her voice was low and staticy. "What happened." Her helm tilted up and Knockout took a reflexive step back at the sight of her optics.

Knockout sent her the data immediately.

Megatron took a few moments to process the packets. "Dark energon. You can't- are you certain?" Her optics went wide.

"The tests, as you can see, weren't entirely conclusive, but-" Megatron held up her hand, and Knockout stopped vocalizing immediately.

"Thank you, Doctor." Megatron cycled her vents. "You are dismissed."

Knockout bowed his helm for a moment, turned around, and left.

Megatron moved to stand up.

"A-are you sure you should- I mean, you just woke up, shouldn't you take i-" Starscream stutter-stepped forward to offer his chassis for her to lean on, but a certain look from Megatron held him back.

"Starscream. According to the Chief Medical Officer of the Decepticons, I am fine." Her optics narrowed at her second-in-command, but softened a cycle later. Starscream's expression was one that she hadn't seen in a very, very long time.

She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around the seeker, who immediately returned the embrace, his frame trembling slightly.

"I am fine. I swear it on my spark."

Several moments passed before Starscream replied. "I never doubted it, but... you weren't the only one."

"Knockout's report contained the data for all of the recent events. I know how many sparks were extinguished." Megatron broke the hug, and moved towards the door. "But, I fear we have only seen the start of these atrocities."

Starscream's pump froze. "No. You can't mean-" He followed Megatron down the hall out of the medical wing.

"But I do, Starscream. Consider just how many of our number the Autobots have captured in our time here on this planet. And if Dark Energon - or whatever this Unicron-tainted slag actually is - can turn a mech into a mindless beast..."

"Primus protect us all..." Starscream's vocalizer trailed off, and he sent comm messages to all patrol groups with updated orders:

Return to the Nemesis immediately. Do not engage any Autobot forces.

Chapter Text

"So what the slag does Doc Bot want with this scrap anyway?" Bulkhead grunted between steps, dragging two sparkless frames behind her.

"Can it, Bulkhead," Arcee was pulling an overly large frame by its legs. "Hey, Cliff, a little more help here?"

"What? And miss the opportunity to watch you in action?" Cliffjumper stood, leaning against the bottom of the canyon wall that surrounded the Autobots. An open groundbridge exit swirled behind them, on the ground as opposed to hanging vertically in the air, as it had been for the past few dozen kilocycles. "C'mon, 'cee, you should know me better than that."

"Frag you too," Arcee snarled at him, giving the corpse a hard tug in frustration. "You know, Ratchet's not gonna be happy if we waste too much more energon on keeping that 'bridge open."

Cliffjumper rolled his optics. "Fine, fine. Whatever you say, oh mistress. Primus forbid I scratch my paint job before you jump me in berth."

Bulkhead chuckled, her voice reflective of her frame - low and loud. "The way you're goin', Cliff, you're in 'fer a world a scrap."

Arcee grinned. "Yeah, I was actually wondering if you'd be interested in stopping by for a few cubes of highgrade later, Bulkhead. Just you, me, my berth obviously…" Bulkhead froze a moment and watched the relatively tiny two-wheeler circle around her.

Cliffjumper revved his engine. "Oh, is that a challenge?"

Arcee gave her corpse another shove and it toppled over into the 'bridge. "What? I thought you didn't want to get your paint scratched. I need a 'bot who isn't afraid to get a little messy." She sauntered over to the Wrecker. "Or maybe you two'd make the better pairing. After all, it's not like either of you could hold a headlamp next to me."

"Oh yeah? That's not what half the base heard you sayin' last night," Cliffjumper approached Arcee from the other side of Bulkhead, who promptly grabbed both of the smaller Autobots with one arm each, raising both of them several kliks off the ground.

"Will you two scrapheads knock it off?" the dull purple bot roared, swinging the two first into each other and then tossing them both back into the pile of corpses. " If Prime hears that you two've been fraggin'…" Bulkhead's voice dropped to a dull whisper.

Arcee was the first back on her feet. "Yeah, yeah. Processor ripped out of our plates and replaced with ground silicate and organic sludge. Ratchet made that one pretty fraggin' clear when we wound up here the first time."

Cliffjumper had to push a few of the bodies around to actually get back to his feet. "What's the big guy's deal, anyway? S'not like we haven't heard Prime and the doc goin' at it."

Bulkhead glanced blankly at Cliffjumper. "What'd'ya mean, what's the big deal? Like, me, I don't give a slag, but Prime?" Bulkhead let off a quick radar pulse, just to be safe; to be extra safe, she sent her comment as a private comm. "Prime's one of those older processor types - guess that makes sense, him bein' the Resurrected Prime and all."

"Yeah, and what the scrap does that have to do with us?" Arcee brushed some of the rust from the corpses off of her finish, and went back to dragging another one.

Bulkhead responded by sending a small packet of data to her; old by-laws and Senate reports, but mostly digital pamphlets and recorded news messages that came out teracycles upon teracycles before Arcee had been sparked.

All of them talked about the dangers of interframe sparking. Several mentioned how the known frame types could have their legacy traced back to the greatest of Thirteen, and how combinations there-of were the domain of Megatronus and Liege Maximo - in other words, a blight upon Cybertron itself. Several mentioned how cross-pairings between two radically different frames would often result in sparklings whose frames were unable to scan suitable alt-modes without radical surgery, or worse, frames whose T-cogs were simply incompatible with the frames that they were sparked with. Several featured highly intricate diagrams of the fusions of two radically different Cybertronians - usually a grounder and either a flyer or a specialist frame - and just how ugly and terrible the resulting child would be.

Arcee purged every last bit of the packet after getting about halfway through.

"Heh. Well, if 'His Holy Primeness' asks, it's not like I'm ever planning on sparking, anyway," she growled, optics locked onto Bulkhead’s.

Cliffjumper scoffed - he hadn't made it much further through the old documents than Arcee. "What a load of scrap," he vocalized softly, before grabbing onto a new corpse himself. "Anyway, how many more of these do you think the Doc needs?" he called out to Bulkhead.

"Oh, I don't think I'll be needed too many more, thank you very much." Ratchet replied, as he emerged from the groundbridge, somehow stepping out onto the ground without falling over, back into the 'bridge. "Our Prime has a new, glorious task for us to undertake."

Arcee smiled. That gleam in the Doc's optics meant this was going to be fun.

Chapter Text

The Warship Nemesis
Time-space Coordinates 34608.51237.542.389.216
Earth Time: 17:17:11, GMT-8

The Autobots were being quiet - no raids on any Decepticon bases, even known ones. No outings with the human military forces. Nothing.

It was frustratingly unusual. A squadron of Seekers had found what appeared to be a desecrated gravesite, but beyond evidence of the excavation, and what appeared to be twice as many graves as corpses, there were no signs of any Cybertronian activity.

So, if they were robbing graves only half way… what, then, was their leader up to?

A slight buzzing caught Megatron's aural sensors, and she reached across her waist, optics still offlined. Midway up her back, she found - and promptly grabbed - the source of the sound. Miko struggled as usual against Megatron's grip - but a glance at the floor showed her that the cattle prod that Knockout had both procured and modified for mock combat was a little bit out of reach at the moment.

Miko stopped squirming the moment her feet reached the ground, and as Megatron opened her hand up, the human doubled over for a moment, vent- no, breathing heavily.

Miko looked up at Megatron, an unmistakable look of determination in her eyes.

"One more round," she said, pausing her panting just enough to say the words. "Give me one more round and I'll get you for sure."

Megatron smiled, but shook her helm.

"I'm afraid, young one, that we are out of time for today. Never fear, though. You are improving quite rapidly."

"Ah, c'mon! I can totally take you this time," Miko shot herself up right for a moment, before doubling back over to catch her breath again.

Megatron bent over to look Miko in the eyes. "We are done for today, Miko. Your body needs rest." Breakline walked into the room, before transforming back into his alt.

"Come along, Miko. I think the others want to show you something."

"It's probably just one of Raf's silly little inventions," Miko said, as she stepped into Breakline. Slamming the door, she continued, "When's he gonna build something cool? Like a giant missile or something?"

They drove off, and Megatron was left alone in the room. She took a few moments to clear her processor - turning off the combat protocols (including the minimal force ones) and refocusing her processor on the situation with the Autobots.

Something was up. If the Autobots wanted to use the corpses as weapons to attack, they would have done so already. Leaving the exhumed bodies… in all her time, Megatron had never known the Autobots to be this careless.

Her musing was broken by a comm from Soundwave, marked as top priority; Megatron opened it immediately. It was a report of a massive spurt of seismic activity in the middle of the North American continent (in the human region known as 'Kansas'), along with the largest energon reading Megatron had seen since she left Cybertron.

Megatron transformed in order to move to the bridge faster.

-----

"Soundwave, any idea of what we're looking at?"

Soundwave made no verbal reply, but pulled up the best data they had on the location.

An area, a circle with diameter nearly twice as long as the Nemesis was at the epicenter of the earthquakes, and the human networks had no images of the location. Lazerbeak had already been deployed to survey the scene, though, and Soundwave patched through the symbiote's video field to the main view screen.

A large structure was rising up from within the ground. Laserbeak zoomed in, and Megatron felt her spark contract.

"By the All-spark…"

The door behind the opened and closed, and Starscream entered the bridge, just in time to see precisely what the structure was.

"M-my lord, is… is that?"

Megatron turned around to look at her second-in-command. "Yes, Starscream, it is. The Autobots have built a spacebridge."

"But, why? What possible purpose could they have wanting to fl- oh. Oh no."

"Air Commander?"

"You don't think… they intend to summon an invasion force?" Starscream's vocalizer went soft, and he took a step back.

"That would be the most likely possibility."

Soundwave motioned, and Megatron's attentions were brought back to the view screen. A comm to the Nemesis was waiting to be accepted.

"And the sender?"

Soundwave replied with an old recorded voice. "Unknown."

"I see," Megatron replied, processor weighing the options, before quietly exventing. "Accept it."

The transmission was audio only, but the voice that came through was the single most infamous on all of Cybertron.

"Megatron," Optimus Prime's voice boomed out, "as you can see, our spacebridge is operational. Surrender yourself, frame and spark, to the Autobots, and no further harm with be caused to your troops."

Starscream burst out laughing, but caught himself half a cycle after he started.

Megatron remained silent.

Soundwave turned to her lord, waiting.

"Open a channel for my reply," Megatron ordered. Soundwave complied - opening a one-way audio channel; the same properties as the message they had been sent.

"Optimus Prime. I have no intention of surrendering myself to you this or any day, regardless of the state of your spacebridge."

Soundwave tapped out the transmit command, and Megatron waited for the confirmation that it had been sent before speaking.

"I have no idea what Optimus is planning, but we cannot let the Autobots follow through on their plan. We attack at once."

Chapter Text

The Warship Nemesis
Time-space Coordinates 34608.51237.542.400.421
Earth Time: 18:43:45, GMT-8

"General. The Nemesis will be within firing range of the enemy spacebridge in under three kilocycles."

Megatron nodded at the Vechicon, before dismissing him and turning to the rest of her assembled troops in the Nemesis' launch platform.

"Fellow Decepticons!" Megatron's voice boomed out, amplified, no doubt, with Soundwave's help. All of the troops paused, and stood in formation, listening to their general.

"Today will be the largest encounter we have faced on this foreign planet. The Autobots - those outdated symbols of the old regime - have invested in their resources in building a spacebridge, for purposes unknown."

Megatron paused, processing the reaction of her troops. Many of them looked hopeful at hearing about the spacebridge, and Megatron felt the twinge of regret for what she had to tell them next.

"This spacebridge, so long as it exists on this planet, is a threat - not only to the inhabitants of this planet, not only to those of you whom are gathered here before be, but to all Cybertronians across the galaxy. Leaving it in Autobot control is not an option. The structure is of major strategic value, and we should not hesitate to destroy it if capture is not an option."

Some of the troops glanced at each other.

"I realize that remaining stranded upon this planet less than desirable. But, if we can take the spacebridge, we can return to Cybertron, victorious and triumphant. We can return to our home, knowing that we have struck a major blow against the Autobots. We can return home, and reclaim it for ALL CYBERTRONIANS."

Megatron watched and waited as the assembled crowd cheered. It always did her spark well to see her troops rallied up, especially before a large battle.

She wandered around, checking in with individual squad leaders, verifying that all of her troops had their proper orders, a countdown ticking away on her HUD.

A comm from Starscream ordered all troops to deployment positions, and Megatron waited until they were all in position.

The countdown finished.

"DECEPTICONS! TRANSFORM AND RISE UP!"

Starscream led the charge, jumping up and transforming to his alt mode, rocketing ahead of the rest of the troops. Row after row of Eradicons ran forward off the edge of the platform, allowing themselves to fall a short distance before transforming and soaring forward, all perfectly synchronized. The squadrons split off into three major groups and rolled around in the air, flying back over the remaining troops even as they charged.

A swirling mass of green energy appeared in front of the next row of troopers, and the assembled Eradicons ran forward in root, some shouting battle cries, but all with their weapons forward and energized.

Megatron waited until the last of her troops had been deployed, before stepping through the groundbridge herself.

On the other side, was a slaughter. The Vechicons had managed to overwhelm at least one of the Autobots - Cliffjumper, her memory banks said - but the troops were being quickly overrun by the rest of Optimus' solders.

Arcee and Bulkhead, always a terrifying duel on the battlefield, were cutting down row after row of Vechicons. Megatron fired a blast from her arm cannon at the pair, forcing the both of them to dodge, Arcee rolling out of the way. The femmes rolled back onto their pedes and returned fire at Megatron, who transformed into her alt and took off to better survey the battlefield.

The present Autobots were clearly getting tired, and Starscream's troops would arrive very shortly. However, Megatron's biggest concern was the spacebridge. Nothing had entered or exited it, yet, but the familiar green glow swirled at the entrance.

Moments later, a small object flew through the spacebridge, flying in an arc and landing in the middle of the crowd of Vechicons.

Half a cycle after, and the grenade exploded, blasting over a dozen of the Vechions in all directions. Megatron arced herself in the air, turning to watch the spacebridge as a familiar black-and-red femme strode out of the energy, casually tossing another grenade around in her hand.

"So," she said, pulling out her blade with her free hand, "Who wants to be first?"

Megatron fired a few quick energy blasts from her fusion cannon, one directly hitting the new Autobot directly in the chest. She landed, transforming back to root, and grabbed the Autobot by the helm cables.

"You made a poor decision in coming here, Autobot." Megatron snarled as she threw the new femme over to one side. Megatron stood over her, cannon charged and pointed directly at the femme's helm. "I hate to end your stay on this planet so soon after you've arrived, but your display there leaves me no choice."

"Hey, buckethead. You know who you're talking to?"

Megatron fell over to one side as Bulkhead swung her club arm into the side of her helm.

The femme swang back onto her pedes and jumped, landing with her blade lightly clinking against Megatron's armor, immediately above the warlord's spark chamber.

"Name's Wheeljack, and I'm the one who's gonna snuff your spark."

Megatron simply swung her cannon arm into Wheeljack, knocking her off. The two both rolled away from each other and returned to their pedes. Wheeljack turned to focus her attention on a nearby squad of Eradicons, and Megatron responded with a fusion cannon blast to the back, knocking the Wrecker unconscious, if not offline.

Just then, Megatron received a comm from the Nemesis - Soundwave. It was pure text - "Spacebridge lock located. Eliminating personally."

Megatron responded with a simple "Use caution." before turning her attentions back to the battle in front of her.

Chapter Text

The Warship Nemesis
Time-space Coordinates 34608.51237.542.400.421
Earth Time: 18:40:10, GMT-8

Soundwave stood at the helm of the Nemesis keeping tabs of data from the Vechicons in the battle, deftly coordinating movement. Despite the superior firepower of the individual Autobots, the Decepticons had always had the advantage of numbers. The Decepticons had learned long ago that coordination was the key to success on the battlefield, and even before Cybertron fell, rumors had spread that the Vechicons shared a hive-mind of sorts, owing to the speed at which information travelled through a group.

The answer, though, had always been that the Decepticons relied on coordinators during command - extra troops monitoring the situation, directing disengaged troops to where they would do the most good. And Soundwave was by far the best coordinator the Decepticons had.

It was a skill that she had trained since her days in the Pits.

The battle was less busy, less chaotic than the ones she'd been used to coordinating. The smaller numbers made for easier tracking, and it was easy to focus on maneuvering the troops around the individual Autobots.

Soundwave tilted her helm as the data from Hardline's team poured in. The spacebridge was obviously using external receivers to lock onto its destinations - the only question had been where those were located.

A quick cross-reference identified a small area in the southern section of the continent - it contained, according to information on the human datanet, a large array of radio antenna, typically used by human researchers to gather information about other portions of the cosmos. Under Autobot control, however, it gave them enough resolution on to target the spacebridge appropriately.

Soundwave sent a quick comm to one of her subordinates - disabling the antenna without being noticed would require a specialist's touch. The Vechicon at the station next to her sent back the comm-equivalent of a salute, and Soundwave activated the onboard groundbridge before transforming and shooting through it.

She sent a quick comm to Megatron just as she crossed through the threshold of the bridge.

The groundbridge deposited her a few dozen kliks away from directly over the installment. She flew over the base, once, releasing Lazerbeak to monitor the base. Soundwave dove down, landing just inside the base. A quick scan revealed no immediate lifeforms, and Soundwave crept slowly forward, taking care to avoid the artificial lighting that the human inhabitants had erected.

Unlike them, she did not rely on them to see.

Lazerbeak sent her a map of the base, complete with the control center for the control center for the antennas labeled. Soundwave called Lazerbeak back to her as she slunk through the darkness, steadily making her way closer to the control center.

One of the windows was open, near the roof. Evidently, the humans didn't imagine that another human would be able to climb up into the building from the ground, as the window was nearly twenty humans off the ground. Soundwave let her pleasure curl through her field at her personal joke - measuring things in humans. The window wasn't high by Cybertronian standards, though, but it was small - Soundwave guided Lazerbeak though it, navigated the corridors with practiced ease. The primary control panel was three floors down, but EM shielded. Soundwave loaded Lazerbeak with the software required for control as they rounded the last turn.

Their connection cut to silence as soon as Lazerbeak crossed the threshhold. Soundwave reflexively put a hand over her sparkchamber. It was always uncomfortable when Lazerbeak was out of immediate contact, like a part of her spark had vanished back into the Well. Memories flashed to the surface of her consciousness, and were quickly pressed back down. It was a routine operation, after all.

The cycles added up, but Soundwave pressed back the worry - the programs would take time to configure properly to interface with human systems, and while Lazerbeak was good, the symbiote was relying on what Soundwave had taught.

The minimum time for a completed upload passed. Soundwave circled the building, waiting for the ping from Lazerbeak indicating that the operation was a success.

Still nothing.

A memory crawled across Soundwave's processor before she could react - Ravage, lying on the ground, energon spilling from three blaster shots. An Autobot's laugh. Soundwave had fired, and hadn't stopped firing until Ravage had sent, with his last ounce of strength, a comm to Soundwave.

To anyone who could have accessed it, it would have been a howl. To Soundwave, it said infinitely more.

Soundwave pulled her field back in, and blasted the door open. From the ground floor, the control center was only a single floor up. Soundwave moved quickly, but not without caution, despite the pounding from her spark.

One door, two doors, three- Soundwave found the room, the door suspiciously unlocked - until she recalled at Lazerbeak had unlocked it.

With one of her tendrils, Soundwave grabbed the door, ripping it off hinges with only the barest hint of force. The barrier out of the way, and Lazerbeak's presence was back in Soundwave's consciousness.

Lazerbeak was online. Soundwave's spark almost bounced out of her chassis in relief until she turned the corner.

Lazerbeak was currently online, yes. But, one of his wings was currently shattered across the floor of the room, energon still leaking from the wound.

Before Soundwave moved her helm to take in the rest of the room, a comm hit her sensors.

Surrender or I fire again. One hundred cycles to decide.

She looked up. Bumblebee, the Autobot scout, held his blaster to the base of Lazerbeak, energized and ready to fire.

The data on the upload finished transmitting - a success. Lazerbeak reached out across their connection, offering every ounce of strength and courage her could.

Soundwave dropped to her knees, arms held straight up, helm bowed - a full, complete surrender. Bumblebee strolled up to Soundwave - slowly, drawing out the precious moments as Soundwave felt Lazerbeak's spark pulses grow weaker.

Soundwave didn't need to look to recognize either the sound or feel of stasis cuffs around her arms. The stasis wasn't engaged, and the Scout motioned for Soundwave to follow him into the hallway.

Out of the deadzone, Soundwave immediately transmitted all the go-ahead on the Spacebridge hijack to the Nemesis, followed by a personal comm to Megatron.

Spacebridge control enabled; self: compromised. The mission must come first.

A cycle after Soundwave finished the transmission, and a groundbridge opened. Bumblebee, with a rough shove, pushed Soundwave to her feet and shoved his blaster into her back, motioning her to walk through the bridge. Soundwave complied.

Chapter Text

The Warship Nemesis
Time-space Coordinates 34608.51237.542.421.227
Earth Time: 18:51:13, GMT-8

A cry rang up among the Decepticon forces as the spacebridge's hum rapidly died - they pushed forward, their force supplemented by the aerial support, the Air Commander himself flying in the middle of the formation. Megatron's blade was locked against Wheeljack's own blades, and the femmes exchanged naught but growls and glares as they fought back and forth.

The smaller Autobot was cunning, a clever opponent on the battlefield, but Megatron had teracycles of experience over her young foe, and Wheeljack was soon knocked back, flying through the air into the side of the space bridge.

Megatron turned her attentions back to Bulkhead, firing a few shots off, and knocking the large femme off balance long enough to save a pair of Vechicon's from the Autobot's mace.

Wheeljack jumped back up, transforming into her alt, and peeled out to join Bulkhead and Arcee as the Vechicons continued pushing them further and further away from the space bridge.

A ground bridge opened behind the Autobots, further back than would be necessary if they were to retreat. Arcee glanced behind her, confused and hesitant. She shared a glance with the other Autobots -

And Soundwave's comm arrived to Megatron. Megatron's spark froze a moment, but she turned back, shouting.

"DECEPTICONS, FORWARD!"

The Autobots, remained still - not pushing forward, not retreating through the bridge.

And just as the line of Decepticon forces reached them, they dodged to the side - and from behind them, a large grey mech was stampeding forward, streaks of purple running down its entire frame despite its clearly missing arm.

"No…" Megatron whispered as a second, then a third charged out towards the Vechicons - more and more of the Dark Energon puppets.

Just like Galekite.

Megatron roared, pushing forward through the lines, crashing directly into one blade first, bisecting it. Another approached, and a Vechicon stunned it with blaster fire long enough for Megatron to slice it's arms off in two swift strokes. Another approached from behind, but before she could react, Starscream had dropped from the sky onto it, shredding it with his claws.

The Decepticon general and her second in command backed up into each other, their frames touching for only a moment of tenderness before they charged back into the battle.

By now, she had lost track of how many of the abominations had come through the Autobot groundbridge - and, as well, lost track of the true Autobot forces. A quick comm informed her that they had retreated, but that the space bridge was re-enabling itself - the Nemesis had a lock on where it was aimed, but had no further control.

Megatron took a moment to process this, while driving her blade through the midsection of the nearest husk, blasting it at point blank with her fusion cannon.

She then gave the order for the Demolitions Squad to move out - and for the Decepticons to begin their retreat.

The wounded and those supporting them fell back first - no time now to gather the fallen - a small counter in the corner of Megatron's HUD kept track of their losses.

Even if no other Decepticons fell, this was already the single most costly battle they had fought on Earth.

The Autobot monsters continued advancing forward; the Decepticons weren't cutting them down fast enough. Demolitions kept Megatron updated - the cycles to readiness counted down and down.

Megatron took down two more of the husks, and the countdown finished - the explosive was in place, all that was left was her order to detonate.

Most of the Vechicons had retreated to safety - almost all of their remaining forces had aerial alt modes. "RISE UP!" Megatron commanded, her voice booming even over the roar of battle. The entire Decepticon force, in unison, transformed and shot up into the sky, the combined force of so many engines igniting knocking over several of the husks.

The husks surged forward, even then, clawing and grabbing at the Decepticons as they took off. Two Eradicons were grabbed, and the husks pounced on them, their death keens ringing in Megatron's aurals as she led the formation.

They had just reached their optimal altitude when Megatron's comm unit buzzed to life - Teardown, the head of Demolitions. The remote detonator on the charge had been knocked loose during the retreat; the explosion would now have to be triggered by hand.

"It may cost me my spark, but I'll stop this menace here and now, General"

Megatron turned around, heading back towards the battle, and replied: "No. Allow me."

She dove down, just out of reach of the claws of zombie force. On the other side of the space bridge, the destination was beginning to materialize - at least a dozen Cybertronians stood in formation, waiting for the bridge. Megatron's spark shrank as he recognized the silhouettes of the Wreckers - Optimus' elite crack team.

There was only moments before the femmes charged through and overwhelmed both the humans and the remaining Decepticons. Megatron fired, hitting the explosions directly.

She pulled up, shooting out of the way of the explosion as fast as she could - the cheering over her comm gave her strength and with a surge of energy through her engine, Megatron pushed herself up and away from the explosion, escaping the plumes of flame and smoke.

When she landed back on the Nemesis, the entirety of the Decepticon forces were waiting for her, cheering. Megatron put a servo up as Starscream came to her side, and a hush fell over the ship.

Megatron bowed her helm, optics looking down, down at where Primus was said to be located - at least on Cybertron. While her personal beliefs left His existence as a question, a sizable portion of her crew - including at least a quarter of the deceased, were devout.

As Captain of the Nemesis, and as General of the Decepticons, leading the Prayer for Those Fallen fell to her.

Megatron found herself stumbling over the words, vocalizer breaking into static every so often, but a hand from Starscream on her back brought the words back to her.

The prayer ended, and Megatron walked to her quarters, refusing to speak with anyone further.

Until Starscream came for her to refuel, Megatron sat at her desk, listening to Soundwave's message without stop.

Chapter Text

Soundwave's optics onlined into darkness. The room that she had been left in was coated in a non-reflective paint, rendering the illumination from her biolights useless. Gingerly, she released one of her tendrils out, reaching for the wall that surely existed in front of her.

Just before the end of her reach, she found it. Soundwave made a note of it, and reached out to either side, finding the walls there as well.

The angles implied a rectangular room - only slightly longer than wide, assuming she was still facing the entrance. It was empty, except for her, and silent, except for her. Her EM fields reflected off the walls, and gave her the full picture after one powerful blast.

No new news there; no surprises either.

A streak of pain shot through her spark - not from her, but from over her bond.

Lazerbeak. She had almost forgotten that her companion wasn't with her.

At least Lazerbeak was still online. The next burst of pain threw Soundwave back, flat on her back, clutching at the plating over her sparkchamber. Soundwave's optics scanned the room, looking for something to anchor onto, and found nothing. Soundwave's frame tensed, bending in ways that stressed her joints to their limits, trying to cope with the sensations.

In the moments between the pain, Soundwave called up as many small, useless HUD programs as she could manage - a chronometer display, an object that revolved in five dimensional space, an optical filter that overlayed a star field over everything in sight - and when the next burst came, focused her optics on those. They weren't real, but they were constant, fixed things that she could hold on to.

Her hands remained wrapped around her sparkchamber, and if her vocalizer still worked, she would have been screaming.

Eventually, the pain stopped coming, and Soundwave's frame relaxed enough to drop her into recharge almost instantly.

Over the bond, she would still feel Lazerbeak.

Luckily for the Autobots, they kept him online.

Chapter Text

The Warship Nemesis
Time-space Coordinates 34608.51245.243.422.233
Earth Time: 20:07:11, GMT-8

"ARE THEY EVER GOING TO LET US OUT?" Miko shouted, slamming her fists into the wall.

Raf and Jack looked at each other, and then to Breakline.

"C'mon, Miko, it's only been three hours."

"I KNOW! I'm losing my mind here. And SOMEONE'S refusing to tell us ANYTHING."

"Megatron's orders. You can take it up with the General when she gets here," Breakline replied automatically.

"Oh yeah? And when's that going to be?" As an answer to her question, the door behind all of them slid open.

"My deepest apologies. It appears that the Autobot presence is stronger than anticipated." Miko ran up to Megatron.

"You went to go kick some tailpipe? Ah man, that must have been AWESOME! I can't wait until I can come along!"

Megatron simply looked down at Miko, silent.

"What? Did I say something again?"

Megatron gave Breakline a look, and the Vechicon reverted back to alt, doors open. "You three should return to your families - it's getting late."

"We're still on for sparring tomorrow, right?" Miko's voice was hopeful, but a little on edge.

"Of course, little one." Megatron gave Breakline a quick pat that strained the car's suspension a little, and Breakline sped off through the corridors of the Nemesis.

Megatron shook her helm. Miko didn't know - it was better that way. She was still young even by human standards - and a human lifespan was infinitesimal compared to that of a Cybertronian.

And yet, the Autobots had already seen Jack - he had ridden on Arcee and lived. That alone was enough of an accomplishment. Who knows what sort of payback the two-wheeler would inflict on the boy? If nothing else, he needed to be protected. Driveshaft had reported that Jack only lived with his carrier - it would be simple enough to confine both of them to the Nemesis, and in fact, it would likely be in their best interests.

Megatron kept her mind as focused on the children as possible - it was all she could do to avoid thinking about the other thing that threatened to consume her processor.

Of all the foolish… Slag it all, Soundwave should have KNOWN better!

Megatron noticed that she was alone in the empty storage room, and immediately proceeded to charge the wall, shoulder first. Pain shot through her arm, and she punched with the other arm, savoring the sting that coursed through her servos. She pulled herself back, settling her stance, and then punched again and again. A low growl hissed through her vocalizer, and after a particularly solid punch, the growl exploded into a roar of anger.

One more punch, and Megatron's processor caught up to her. Her servos were damaged - nothing to trouble Knockout over, luckily. Fans running, Megatron's spark settled, and she dropped to a knee, helm dipping as the rest of her frame drooped.

"Stay alive, frag you."

"Yo, Doc Bot, we ready yet?"

"Aaaalmost, Wheeljack. And it would be a lot sooner if you'd shut your Primus-fragged vocalizer down!"

"You're just lucky I know how to talk to slagheads like this."

"Oh, yes. Your style of 'talking' nearly offlined the experiment!"

"Sounds like you need a demonstration of how it works."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Try me, Doc - you'd be mighty pretty squealing under my pede."

"ENOUGH. Is he ready for deployment, Ratchet?"

"Y-yes, Lord Prime."

"Very well. You may begin at once."

Megatron onlined again, in the same room. The first thing she noticed was the arm, draped over her - and then the other arm, wrapped around the other way. Lying next to her, propped up against her frame, Starscream was still deep in recharge. Megatron smiled as she stood up, careful not to disturb him.

As she moved away, the Seeker's frame slid down the wall, and Starscream jolted awake as soon as his helm reached the floor. Megatron bent over to offer him a hand up, which he took, still groggy.

"How are you? You were unconscious," Starscream said as he stood up.

"Better for having you here. Thank you," Megatron replied, heading for the door - and the bridge.

"It was the least I could - I was in no mood to be alone, either. The entire ship knows, and I fear it's done worse for morale than even those we lost - at least we know with the causalities."

"But I know, in the core of my spark - Soundwave is still online."

"Oh? How can you be so sure?"

"Because the Prime has not come to taunt me with the corpse of my first companion."

The two entered the bridge and the crew immediately snapped to attention. Megatron waved her hand, gently, signaling back to their stations.

"Any updates?"

"No, General," the Eradicons chorused - before one continued, "The Autobots have been quiet since the battle - granted it hasn't even been a full planetary rotation yet."

"Likely, still licking their wounds after their space bridge exploded. Keep a sharp eye out - especially for any signs of injured."

"Yes, General - wait, ma'am? I'm detecting an energon signature only a few kilokilks from the battle site."

Megatron's helm swung around to face the Eradicon's screen. "Can you get an identification?"

"One mom- oh Primus, is that?"

Megatron's intake hung open a moment. "Quick! Rescue squad to those coordinates, NOW!" Megatron barked. Starscream had already begun spiriting from the room, and Megatron's comm unit buzzed with her bondmate's orders.

Soundwave was going to be safe.

"And, there he goes. I look forward to this one, Doc Bot."

"It will be very interesting indeed, Wheeljack. I just hope Makeshift is, in fact, as cunning as you claimed."

"Oh, those Con scum will have their hands full with this one, believe you me."

"Hey - fragtoys. Prime wants to see you sixty cycles ago."

"Whatever you say, 'cee. Whatever you say."

Starscream landed just close enough that Soundwave was in visual range.

"Secure the perimeter," he said, edging closer to Soundwave, who lay prone in the middle of a forest clearing.

A chorus of Clear's came in from the Eradicons, and Starscream bolted for Soundwave, scanning her with his limited medical experience.

"Soundwave secure - bridge us back, now!"

The swirling portal opened, and two Eradicons helped Starscream carry Soundwave through.

Under his visor, Makeshift's processor sprang to life.

Watching.

Recording.

All hail Optimus Prime.

Chapter Text

The Warship Nemesis
Time-space Coordinates 34608.51245.244.002.415
Earth Time: 16:17:20, GMT-8

"Welcome back, Soundwave!" Knockout spun on his heels as Breakdown finished wiring up their returned Communications Officer to the medical computers.

"As you might remember, you sustained heavy injuries - not to mention energon loss - while under Autobot care. So far, there was nothing that was too lasting - which I honestly find to be a little surprising - but you just have one final scan to clear and you'll be on your way."

Soundwave's helm turned from side-to-side slowly. "Or maybe not. You might want to take a little bit of time to yourself - actually, no. Doctor's orders, you're to stay in your quarters for the next seven shifts; you know Megatron would never forgive either of us if you pushed yourself too far so soon."

Soundwave nodded, and extended one of her cables to the nearby data port. Waves of data flashed across her visor, and Knockout smiled to himself as Breakdown returned with energon for both him and the patient.

"Here, I know you're eager to get back to work - but you're going to need to drink up," Knockout said offering Soundwave one cube, and taking the other - sending Breakdown off to tend to the other patients with a quick kiss.

The scanner's results flashed onto Knockout's HUD. "Alright, Soundwave. Clean bill of health. All that's left is to wait for - ah, mech of the megacycle!"

"I trust the patient is well, Doctor?" Starscream asked before even looking at Soundwave.

"She's as well as even, Screamer. You here to take her back to her berth?"

"Yes, Megatron's orders." Soundwave's energon cube clinked against the endtable as she set it down, slowly getting to her pedes. Starscream stepped over to help her, and Soundwave supported her weight as she stood up.

The pair of them slowly made their way out of the medbay - Knockout staying out of the way, and watching. Something was… off, somehow. Probably nothing, and no time to worry - there was a Vechicon who needed a leg refitted.

No rest for the gorgeous, Knockout thought as he went off to the next medical berth.

Makeshift resisted the urge to smile, even under the opaque visor. The data he had downloaded from the computers when the medic hadn't been paying attention contained several key access codes - not to mention the comm frequency of every single Decepticon officer, and the tracking beacon frequency for the Nemesis itself - enough information to completely turn the tide of these last few key gigacycles of the war. Starscream, to his credit, remained silent.

Did he suspect?

Once they turned from the main corridor, Starscream spoke.

"I, for one, am quite relieved to have you back. The ship isn't quite the same with you gone an- and Megatron herself was worried paintless."

Sentiment. Filed under "possibly useful."

"As you might have known, we managed to carry the day, in no small part thanks to your efforts. Megatron, though, asked me to stress that you are under strict orders to NEVER do something like that again."

Makeshift nodded, and Starscream paused at a habsuite entrance. It took a moment to find the right code - Makeshift offered a silent prayer to Lord Prime that he had thought to download it off of the network - and Starscream stood back, waiting for him to in first.

Right on the other side of the threshold, Makeshift purposefully lost his balance - Starscream darted forward to pick up the fallen mech.

The door closed. Makeshift's tendrils released - two went for Starscream arms, and one of them connected, Starscream's claws slashing into the other one.

"The fra-" Starscream said, getting cut off by his legs getting pulled out from underneath him by yet another tentacle. It proceeded to tighten around his legs, pulling and dragging. Starscream scratched at the ground to try to gain enough friction to resist, but Makeshift pulled him straight up instead.

Makeshift held him upside down by the pedes - Starscream could feel the energon rushing to his head. "Y-you… you aren't Soundwave," the seeker growled as he fought to free himself. His arms were easily grabbed this time. The light of a T-cog's scanner washed over him and Starscream could only watch in horror as the mech's helm transformed from Soundwave's - the visor retracting and compressing into a decorative spine, the pigmentation morphing from black and purple to light grey and red. As the transformation spread across the mech's entire frame, the tendrils started to retract, and Starscream flew across the door into the door.

It took a few cycles for his optics to re-align - and when they did, he saw a perfect replica of himself standing over him. His doppelganger lifted him by the helm.

"Tell Thundercracker that Arcee says hello," his own voice echoed at him as a claw shoved straight the center of his chassis.

Starscream screamed out as his clone's hand retracted, the delicate sensors erupting in raw pain. He fell to his knees, and he could already see the energon pooling under him.

Not-him gave him one of his nastiest smiles and sauntered out of the room. Starscream tried moving, using every ounce of willpower he could muster - he was leaking fluid fast. His comms dropped offline - all non-vital systems were offline to conserve as much energy as possible. It was all he could manage to pull himself across the floor. Two pull, three pulls, four pulls, and he was up against Soundwave's berth. His HUD showed the extent of the damage - the only major system that was damaged was his main energon tank - and that was going to empty within the next five hundred cycles.

After that, assuming all of his line leakages were plugged up by the nanites, he had… a megacycle? Maybe? Thinking… thinking was getting hard.

Starscream's optics blurred out, his processor slowing to a halt.

Megatron…

I'm sorry.

Makeshift found the nearest washrack and smiled as the energon slid right off of Starscream's - his - claws.

They were actually quite powerful, the little points - not to mention the rest of his frame was rather sleek and easy on the optics. If this worked out, this was going to be a frame to hold onto - especially since, rumor had it, that several of the Autobots here had a thing for flyers.

As the official consort of the Autobots, Makeshift had always kicked himself for not scanning a flying alt sooner. Really, in hindsight, it was an enormous mistake. Makeshift had to forcefully shut off his own cooling fans - but the idea still raced through his processor.

And to have the frame of the Prince of Vos himself? Well, that would make for some fun times, especially with Arcee's interrogation kink. Makeshift's mind raced, coming up with all sorts of scenarios as the Vechicons watched him stroll by. Makeshift noticed a small group clustering behind him - the sounds of their chattering was unmistakable.

Makeshift spun around to face them "Well, what are you lot staring at? Back to work!" he shouted, and the Vechicons scurried off to do… whatever it is they do.

Drones. Disgusting. Best that he hurried up, then. The sooner he did, the sooner all those fakes would get offlined and he wouldn't have to think about them drinking energon that would better be used for real Cybertronians.

Makeshift consulted the ship's schematics, quickly planning the fastest route to the outer deck of the Nemesis, outside of the shielding that protected the ship from the Autobot scanners. Luckily, Soundwave's quarters were high in the ship, only four levels below. Makeshift grinned even as he passed a group of Vechicons, processor buzzing with myriad ways of using them - both as frag toys and as target practice.

He made it to the main stairwell, distracted by a pair of Eradicons, and was knocked prone by a mech rounding the corner. Makeshift focused on holding his form, resetting his optics and getting back to his pedes. "Watch where you're going, you slagging fraghead," he muttered as he pulled himself upright.

"Are you alright, Starscream?" Megatron stood with her claws outstretched to her bondmate. Makeshift forced his hesitation aside and took Megatron's claw, pulling himself up the rest of the way.

"Oh, very much so."

Chapter Text

Autobot Base 7-A
Location: Earth
Coordinates: Unknown

Soundwave did her best to keep aware of the passing of time, trying to piece together all of the information she had.

The Autobots had a Shifter, disguised as her, headed to the Nemesis. The Autobots had her, bound in stasis, in a cell, with Lazerbeak held separately. Lazerbeak was still in comm range, still online, but barely.

As far as they were concerned, the best option was to leave her to rust. She wasn't worth offlining entirely, otherwise that would have happened. She wasn't worth torturing further, otherwise that would have happened. Her only value, in the eyes of the Autobots, was as a bargaining chip, and that only came into play if their agent failed.

All this pointed to a relatively light guard at her cell, if any. No sound had came from the other side of the door since the pain had ceased.

It was time to move.

One of Soundwave's prehensile cables slid out from her chassis. The cuffs hadn't been calibrated correctly, and only her outer limbs were paralyzed. It was an oversight that the Autobots were going to regret.

The cuffs fell off easy, and Soundwave held them close, turning her attention to the door that held her. In the darkness of her cell, finding the location of the door was difficult, but Soundwave's scanners found the small indents where the door met the wall. She ran a tendril along the edge, trying to feel her way around the doorframe.

It was shoddy, human work, but it was effective enough for now. Any attempts to eliminate the door, by any means, would make enough noise to alert any Autobots in the general area.

This was a problem, but there was no good solution. The only correct move was to wait.

Soon enough, they would pay.

Soundwave amused herself by fiddling with the cuffs as time ticked on. In one corner of her HUD, she monitored her fuel levels - after dealing Lazerbeak's torture, they were lower than she had expected, and were approaching levels that would make escaping difficult, if not impossible.

The odds of an Autobot opening the door with fuel were less than the odds of the Autobots having abandoned the base. Now or never.

The door exploded off of its hinges with much less required force that Soundwave anticipated. No alarm sounded; silent alarms were still possible, and so Soundwave moved quickly, relying on her connection with Lazerbeak to guide her. The base was a relatively simple structure, and Soundwave found Lazerbeak on a medical berth crudely hacked to hold her symbiote in bonds designed for a larger Cybertronian.

A much larger Cybertronian.

Disabling the berth didn't take much effort on Soundwave's part, and Lazerbeak took to the air almost immediately after. The symbiote was still injured, but the cybermech had healed over enough that he wasn't leaking energon anymore. After a few quick aerial circles around Soundwave, Lazerbeak landed on her shoulder, nuzzling her gently and reassuringly.

They were back together, and now nothing stood between Soundwave and the exit.

Lazerbeak returned to his docking position on Soundwave's chassis as she reviewed the incomplete layout that they had mapped between the two of them. The groundbridge into the base was on the other side of the base from her cell, and Soundwave took off as quickly as she could, setting a timer counting up in her HUD. No point in not trying to set a speed record.

She landed just outside the room containing the groundbridge a little over a dozen cycles later. The door was closed, and Soundwave heard movement from inside.

"My Lord, I had not realized that-"

"Silence. It does not matter what you realized, Ratchet. What matters is that Makeshift acquires the Iacon Database as soon as possible."

"Yes, my Lord. Shall I check upon the prisoner?"

"No. Return to the main base and prepare the others for their next mission. I shall return shortly."

A pause, followed by the sound of groundbridge firing up. An engine - probably Ratchet's - revved up, and tired squealed into the distance. The groundbridge powered down again. Heavy footsteps marched steadily towards the door.

Soundwave glanced around - there were no good places to hide in the long, straight corridor. She settled for pulling her stance back, readying for a sneak attack.

The door opened. Soundwave's tendrils flew forward, each aiming for a different one of the Prime's limbs.

He jumped back, clearly surprised but in charge of his reflexes.

"So, the prisoner has escaped. This is a mistake that won't happen twice," he said through the now-closed battlemask. Soundwave pulled her tendrils back in close has Optimus' blades slide out, the short slashes just barely missing her.

"I see your found your pet. Now, I know where to aim."

Soundwave settled back into a ready stance.

"Come then. Let us see what you're made of."

Chapter Text

The Warship Nemesis
Time-space Coordinates 34608.51245.244.020.100
Earth Time: 16:57:00, GMT-8

Makeshift followed Megatron towards the bridge of the Nemesis, optics darting for any opportunity to transform and escape. Slag it all- this wasn't part of the plan. If it came to an all-out fight... Makeshift tried to not think about what would happen. Decepticon scum that she was, Megatron was a fearsome fighter, only rivaled by Optimus Prime himself.

The one benefit he had was surprise, and Makeshift was loathe to give that up yet.

They walked in silence, much to his relief. Scanning the Seeker had given him access to some of Starscream's comm channels, but not all. He was registering as the Seeker over all of the public comms, and most of the officer's comms. But, any private comms that Starscream had set up where out of Makeshift's access.

All he had to do was fool Megatron for long enough to escape. That was it.

Just one encounter, and then the scourge of all Cybertron would be regulated forever to history.

"Are you feeling alright, Starscream?" Megatron asked, still walking, not bothering to turn around.

"Yes, absolutely. Wh- why do you ask?"

Megatron paused a moment before replying. "No reason."

The silence returned, and continued until they reached the bridge. Vechicons saluted and took their leave in proper fashion, and Megatron turned to one who was holding onto a small stack of datapads. Makeshift turned his attention to a nearby workstation, logging in with Soundwave's credentials.

As expected, the Nemesis did have a copy of the Iacon Database, and Makeshift smiled as he scrolled past the files. This would do Lord Optimus' spark good to see. He continued perusing data (the Nemesis had Wrecker logs? Fascinating…) not looking for anything in particular, until he heard the crack of a vocalizer resetting behind him.

Makeshift turned his helm. "Yes?" Megatron was glaring at him.

"Are you quite finished with… whatever it is you're doing?"

Makeshift quickly logged back out. "Of course, I apologize. I was just reviewing some files, my liege," he replied, hunching down and bowing away from Megatron.

"As I was saying, we believe that we've eliminated all a number of potential surface bases for the Autobots. Do you have any input on the matter, Starscream?" Megatron held out a datapad with a map of the continent on it, covered in possible locations for Autobot installments. Makeshift almost had to stifle a laugh - several of the locations were woefully inaccurate.

But there was one that was right on the nose, and that alone was enough to be terrifying.

Megatron was waiting for an answer. "Given recent mining activity, I wonder if it wouldn't be prudent to try this one first?" He pointed at a particular possible base - it didn't actually exist, but it was near enough nearly-empty mines that it would make sense, and in fact if Arcee was to believed, it was a contender for a new outpost.

Maybe it was throwing her under the metaphorical truck, but Makeshift was willing to risk her unhappiness for the sake of the mission.

Megatron's faceplates broke out into a grin. "I see. Thank you, Starscream. You may resume your duties."

Makeshift hesitated - just a moment - and a glare from Megatron set his aft in motion. "Yes, my Lord!" he half shrieked, before ducking back over to the console, watching Megatron's reflection in the screen. One of her eyebrows rose, and her optics were fixed on him.

She knows. Deflect.

Megatron simply stood still, saying nothing - likely attempting some comm transmission. Her expression soured not long after.

Makeshift's servos gripped the control panel almost to the point of damage. Megatron took, slow, controlled strides towards him, ending with her standing behind him, looking down at him. He twisted his helm to look her in the optics. "Yes, Megatron?"

"Starscream," she said, her voice as controlled and even as the edge of a well-forged blade. "What was the one rule I imposed when I assumed command of the Decepticons?"

Makeshift hurriedly scoured the data they had pulled from Soundwave, and scanned the room. There were only a handful of Vechicons in the room, and Megatron was the only real Cybertronian present.

"Go on, surely you, my most loyal subject, can answer the simplest of questions."

"You asked to never be referred to by any of the titles given to the Primes," Makeshift said.

"Indeed. I am not your Lord. I am no-one's Lord. I am GENERAL Megatron and I command power only until this war has ended!" Megatron roared, wrapping a servo around Starscream's wrist. "And you of all mechs, Starscream, should know this." She dragged him away from the data terminal. "At least you should."

Makeshift lost his balance as Megatron hurled him forward into the middle of the room, falling down face-first. He managed to roll onto his back before Megatron was standing over him, optics scouring him.

"Tell me, then, Starscream, how is it that you have come to forget this."

"Apologies… I was startled, and my processor has been elsewhere as of late, with Soundwave's return and current condition…"

Megatron's faceplates were blank, unreadable. Makeshift moved to get back to his pedes, and Megatron offered a servo to assist. As Makeshift stood, Megatron pulled him close.

Makeshift's claws went straight for Megatron's sparkchamber.

Megatron reacted just as quickly, her servos wrapping around Makeshift's, crushing his clawtips. Makeshift caught the end of the shock on her faceplates as it settled into rage.

Makeshift swung with the other arm.

Megatron caught that blow as well, and flipped Makeshift over her back.

"You are not Starscream," she roared, stepping on one of his servos as she drew her blade, plunging it straight into the center of Makeshift's chassis. "Who are you?"

Makeshift merely laughed, taking the moment to scan Megatron's own form. His plating shifted and melted, his arm escaping from Megatron's pede and his frame from Megatron's blade.

Megatron fired a blast from her cannon almost immediately, but Makeshift rolled to dodge. He heard the ship-wide alert go out over the public channel, and smiled. "Oh, as if that was going to be enough to stop me," he sneered as he bolted for the door. Two Vechicons jumped up, placing themselves between Makeshift and the door, but Makeshift simply barrelled through them. Megatron gave chase, and they made it almost all the way down the hallway before a blast from her fusion cannon connected, knocking Makeshift off-balance long enough for her to close the gap. He blocked her strike with a blade of his own, and countered expertly.

Megatron's blows were powerful, more powerful that he could have expected. Makeshift was losing ground with every blow, but neither of them were able outmaneuver the other. The wall behind him was getting closer with every step. Makeshift dove toward a hallway opening, slashing out as he did so. Megatron's reaction was a moment too slow, and Makeshift's swing grazed her leg. Megatron jumped at him, and pinned him to the floor as her weight bore down on top of him.

He struggled under her pin. Megatron simply brought her fist down into his faceplates.

"And to think you passed as my bondmate for even a moment."

Makeshift shoved Megatron hard enough to free himself, standing up and wiping the leaking energon from his intake.

"Bonded? You mean the Winglord actually bonded himself to a slag-venting miner like you? You disgust me."

"Is that so, Autobot?" In one motion, Megatron grabbed and held the shifter by the neck. She lifted him from his pede easily in one servo, smirking as he struggled against her grip. With practiced ease, Megatron threw him into the wall. Makeshift's optics went dark for a moment, and when he came to, Megatron's pede was pressing hard on the center of his chestplates, coupled with the unmistakable hum of his fusion cannon charging.

"My troops have already contacted me to inform me that your plan to assassinate my spark has failed - he is already in the capable servos that repaired you." Makeshift groaned as he strained against the full force of her weight. "Now, shifter, you have two choices. You either offline here and now, or you tell me where I can find Soundwave."

Makeshift simply looked at her, and Megatron brought her fusion cannon up next to his helm after a few moments' pause.

"I'm waiting."

Makeshift smiled, and his shifting plates gave him just enough leeway to roll out from under Megatron's pede. He stood up, and he was in Soundwave's form again.

"Right in front of you, tyrant," he spat, before dashing off down another hallway. All he had to do was make it above deck before Megatron offlined him.

Megatron roared as she transformed, charging at him with every ounce of thrust her engines could muster. Makeshift narrowly dodged her, sidestepping and turning back around the way he came. Reverting back to root, Megatron threw her weight at Makeshift again. He sidestepped, sneering as she lay in a small heap on the floor. He watched her for a few moments, and when she failed to get back up immediately, he turned around, right into a fist. He staggered backwards a moment, by the time his optics refocused, his arms were bound in stasis cuffs.

The stasis dropped him to his knees, but it was impossible for him not to recognize the form of Soundwave standing before him, a crude image of a smiling face glowing on her visor.

"Autobots Inferior. Soundwave Superior."