Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Image description: Arcee, Anode, Aileron, and Lug sharing an embrace. Lug's head is resting on Arcee's waist, optics tightly shut, while Anode leans on Arcee's shoulder, her helm touching with Arcee's, who Aileron is looking up at. Those latter three are smiling, Arcee's optics nearly shut. The background is a mix of soft orange, yellow, pink, and purple. Underneath the image of the four bots is the title Addendum in a bright blue pink bordered Harlow Solid italic font, with dark purple words below reading: written by Pluralsword (AO3/Tumblr). End image description.

Art by @thenamesblurrito (tumblr) this art brings to life prose from a moment near the end of the story, we really loved this piece for a lot of reasons. And now, the story:

Crystal City, Cybertron. 7 Million years ago.

The torn metal thread shreds of the Crystal City Messenger newspaper fell from my hands. My body shivered and I felt bellows build up in my voice box unreleased.

“We have truly entered a world of madness- we are dead, dead peoples,” I muttered at my doorstep in the empty residential hallway.

The front-page article and first two sentences ran over and over in my mind. THEOCONOMIST FORM-ESSENTIALISM MADE LAW AFTER TAMPERED PUBLIC POLLS. Nova Prime endorses the theoconomists favoring form over aesthetic and orders the demolition of all aesthetic archives, programs, and organizations in the name of ‘freedom,’ and ‘moving on.’ We write with urgency – because of our reporting over the millennia against the reactionary rise, and for the maintaining of records and projecting of voices of the decreasing population that still connects to gender or anything like it, we are among the news groups hereby outlawed-

As far as I got before I tore their beloved work apart. Always ruining everything- I seethed quietly and clenched my fist as loneliness hemmed my thoughts in, no one here to tell me that I could do anything about Cybertron’s fall except myself stuck between rage and resigned despair.  That bloody harshness- I slammed my fist into the wall next to me – You are a relic of a dead world – because you did nothing – could do nothing – except to kill. The harshness in my mind, naysaying me and encouraging violence, inaction, loneliness as long as I could remember. Something else should be here instead of you… I don’t feel whole.

And no! I am more than that! I turned and shut the door behind me. I know in my spark – that I carry memories others have forgotten. This government declaration was a declaration of death- I didn’t want to acknowledge how things already were for the last twelve millennia. I turned inside. I need to process.

I walked into my stark bronze walled apartment, and strode as anxiety filled me. I’m going to have to find somewhere safe for my stuff. Immediately, I grabbed my direct marksbot rifle from the mantle, rectangular and silver, and quietly loaded it with a plasma fuel cell canister through the grip, slung the rifle on my back where it magnetized at rest, and pocketed my remaining ten canisters into my lanky singular back stack. 

I stared at my sole set of bookshelves. How do I know  these aren’t the last copies, or will be shortly? I let out a loud, frustrated growl. I reached the shelves, thought that perhaps I could steel myself softly by retracing through a particular text, and then grabbed everything one by one to stow in my back stack as I continued to fume. Books like We Danced Our Realizations, A History of People Through Protohexian Gender, The Conduits of Ourselves Together, and two favorites of mine: Errant Links of Love and Mood, and The Wandering Librarian. I picked up an old framed photo - myself and two dozen more fellow bots with arms around each other from a now-defunct convention on aesthetic celebration of sparring and martiality. I was smiling, so were the rest- most of you died in the Civil War I abstained from, dears, I’m so sorry. I was a fool, I should have made my mark- done something. I clenched my jaw- and saw a few visages there whose deaths and funerals I was not aware of having occurred - a pink blocky flyer, Twirl, and a large rounded red crab bot, Rampage. I remember talking with you two - finding kinship in intrepidness with both, with roar and grace and rush with Twirl, and in might and patience with Rampage. Maybe you can help me-

I turned to my last item, the one that might bring solace- my journal, a simple book of green lined with cyan and blue swords I had drawn myself when I was much younger- the reveled moments of having access to books within the fold of Megatronus’s army after my liberation stirred my bravery. What did I write last?

I opened it, from the beginning where I wrote - My forging is uncomfortable, but there is solace in my kinship with the linkage of genders - the maleness I know is not alone, I feel the closeness of the vast iteration of galness, of agender folks, of those immersed in alt-modes, of agender aesthetic vibes, of itinerant experience of body, word, act, and soul- sketches laid of different body shapes and words encircling an image of myself. We are one. I will have an answer in time. 

I was relieved of feeling my body for a moment, mind instead immersed in my drawings and words, at peace. 

TURN THE PAGE- SEE WHAT WE ARE GOING TO LOSE, my brain rumbled thoughts of discordance and worry, and I was back in my uncomfortable body again, thoughts of possible wheels, wings, or repulsors along with robust vaguely roundedness instead of treads and burliness ebbed away.

I flipped through the pages of increasing sadness and worry - 600,000 years ago: the last she/her Omega Sentinel died of old age - I was one of the few at her funeral. The government said nothing… 200,000 years ago: News says classes on gender are almost empty, people are having to find other jobs - there’s only the subaltern and archivists now. Reformatting is at an all time low- I feel so alone. 500 years ago: I know barely anyone with other pronouns than he/him anymore- I barely bother to talk to people. Bodyguard duty and quest contracts feel empty. Can barely keep up with rent - but therapists don’t take me seriously - they say I need to move on. Yesterday: The harshness in my mind is intolerable- tells me I’m worthless, I feel it too. I am lost with the world.

I closed it with a sigh- expected my mind’s intrusive thoughts to taunt me, but all was still in that heavy spot where the harshness weighed down my mind. I turned to look out the window. Fires billowed up into the morning sky block after block- but not of the gold and blue spires and halls of Crystal City itself, instead rising flames from between the buildings. The streets- everywhere- they must be-

“NO!” I stared, unable to process for a moment. “These diode aches better not be doing what I think they are,” rage boiled through my frame, and I ran out the door. Past the edge of what had been my home, I transformed, head tucked into my torso, arms and legs folded and limb treads extended. Now in my cargo treaded vehicle form, I rolled down the bright silver hall, commed and elevator, and waited. Maybe I can do something for my sisters and siblings, and for all of us, to save what we have. 

The elevator came, doors swished open with a chime of notes.

“Thank you for being one of the few reliable constants of my life these last million years, elevator,” I rolled in and asked, “Ground floor, please.”

The elevator plummeted down with my spark. I was still, in the calm before the bloodshed. Galvatron, brother- why didn’t you do something from your lofty position in the government?!

The elevator opened once more- and I rushed out through the lobby and onto the streetside. I stopped short on the edge of the sidewalk at the immediate smell of burning. I stood and got a look around, my singular back stack wiggled fiercely with rage at what I saw.

Large gatherings of people taking in their hands particular belongings - and throwing them onto flames. 

“No…” droplets streamed down my cheeks.

Paintings, photos, sketches, ornaments, countless dataslugs -

“I can’t…”

And - mounds and mounds of books.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU ALL WOULD DO THIS WILLINGLY! WHO ARE YOU!?” I drew my thermal swords, and ignited their energy blades. Killing as all that I am I don’t want, but to take down people opposed to aesthetic variety and autonomy and seek to destroy imagination, that’s easier to get my head around. Practiced wrath poured through me, millennia of time as a gladiator and later a soldier leaving me with a ready stance, one blade over my head, the other forward, waiting for a response rather than leaping into the fray. 

Yells and gasps ran through the crowd around me immediately. A crowd of people I once thought valued knowledge more than the average Cybertronian, with their gathered teachings, theories, and arts leftover from when it had been the capital of our world during the Age of the Primes and unsullied by the war that had ended the alliance of authoritarian primacies. Their optics bore down on me, tense, a handful of blades and pistols drawn from a dozen of the bots, and muttered words along the lines of ‘no surprise the loner is stuck in the past.’ 

Nothing I can’t handle, for now. 

“Easy there, old brother,” a gold and blue winged and bulky bot walked up to me as everyone around stared, doubtlessly the local Functionary. “You’re one of the old Civil War veterans, right? This must be difficult for you - you saw the world die and be reborn.” 

My lip curled and I squinted as I processed the word brother being used for me - never felt quite right but now it’s so much worse. 

“It’s all old stuff to us, we weren’t using it anymore, Arcee,” a curvy blue car bot strode up to me. “We are joined in brotherhood without worrying about our genders now - they said to throw out our journals- to trust the state, they’re patriots of freedom you know, the Theoconomists. She pronouns resonate with me- but why bother? That world fell into war and strife- you were among the few who survived.”

“I didn’t survive, Blueblaze! I’ve always been struggling to live at all!!” I stared at Blueblaze in shock. “How- can you say something like that- I may have a more prominent gender as I know it that is different from yours, but I know femaleness in me too, along with alt-modus, iter-exper, agenderness, and so many more; that of our world once joined in celebration, not this tragedy of abandonment! We used to sit and talk- about how we felt- about the road trips we took- about the daily senses of life…”

Blueblaze shuddered, and turned away from me to look down at the fire, face scrunched up: “I don’t have the will for it anymore. No one here cares. Except maybe you. I’d rather just live peacefully in our new terms of freedom.”  

“Brother, please-” the winged one started again.

“Don’t call me brother, I don’t like what you all mean by it anymore!” I bared my teeth. “I would prefer sibling right now.”

“Nonsense- we are one as brothers, it is the theoconomist term of choice,” a colossal green truck bot walked up to me with tightened fists- Highhaul, who I had never liked since I heard him call the late Solus Prime a he for the last century onwards. “Now put those swords away- you are scaring this Functionary and the lot of us.”

I pointed my swords towards him, growled, and considered taking him down and the Functionary after- until I remembered I was, in fact, alone in a city full of animosity against people like me, and I lowered my sabers with a hmph. I can’t start killing people here, I’ll end up slaying mob after mob until someone bombards me. There are other people I need to help, and I need allies. “My efforts are better spent elsewhere,” I sheathed my swords, and held my hands out to Blueblaze. “Never forget when we were all one in our multiplicities of signification and assemblage, transforming together.” 

She at first was silent and still, and then walked up to me and took my hands, and leaned in near my right helm audial:  “I won’t, but they will. Leave before you get me killed. I just want to live out my days quietly.” Then she stepped away. “You have your function, I have mine.” A crease that was barely a smile was visible on her lips.

I tried to hold her gaze, and held back from trying to talk her out of it, and simply stepped away to face the towering center of the city in the distance instead, finding no peace from the flames, my spark stuck between sagging in its chamber with sorrow or bursting with rage. 

“Goodbye. ‘Til all are one.” I transformed and rolled away down 44th North street, now a road of immolations of our imagination, towards the Crystal City Libraries Campus at full speed, Galvatron if you have any sense- be there. And you are my twin brother, but I think I am not yours, why do I feel like we’ve talked about this before-

Vague glimmers and traces of reminiscence were dashed away by pain across my frame, the harshness. YOU ARE ALWAYS TRAPPED IN YOUR LIMINAL CYCLE-

I screamed, veered, and turned off-road into a corner between two buildings- five blocks away from my goal, as I put the breaks on. Pain seethed through me. “No- no…”

You are meaningless- do nothing- 

“No- no I mean something, I mean something because I live… even though I’ve done awful things… I have to hope… to find the truth… to keep transforming…” I muttered.

The pain and harshness fell away for the moment. Biding your time, doubtlessly.

“Someone screamed? He rolled over that way,” I heard someone call out. 

The presumed ‘he’ exploded uneasiness and frustration in my mind as much as a stab in the thigh- searing, debilitating, and deeply unwelcome.

“Really really hate that we’ve forgotten how to use they/them pronouns for people we don’t know because a bunch of theoconomists said so-” I rolled off again into the next street and continued on, and sighed under the roar of my engine.

I had a view of the colossal Libraries now - several were burning and broken - a great mass of figures struggled and argued loudly with each other beneath the shadow of the domes and towers of the ancient archives older than living memory.

So much worse than the usual disdain. This I can maybe help with, for once in my life, to stop being afraid. If I live- I should find Twirl and Rampage. Get to a comms hub.

I decided to help the closest group of  hundreds of bots attempting to keep epithet spewing people out of the half sphere hall in front of me - both sides armed with unreadied melee weapons, but one desperately trying to make a push out of the mob for a dozen bots in wheeled alt-modes or on foot with books stowed or in their arms.  A few flyers soared in and out of the roof from and off into the distance- they’re slow- they must be loaded with cargo. Odd- why hasn’t someone fired a shot at them? Surely someone reactionary enough would be willing to start a gunfight- my optics fell on a tall blocky rounded red and blue, wheel shouldered, and backpack winged bot with a large and long photon burst cannon in her hands - ah, Road Rage would be why. They don’t want to mess with a Crystal Guardian. Why there’s no melee weapons drawn either from the mob’s side- and the librarians know they don’t have the numbers. 

Despite all my training to focus in a tactical circumstance, tears trickled down my optics then. Learning about how we made stories- visiting the Transformative Library Expanse in the Tagan region of Cybertron as soon as the alliance of the Thirteen formed and I could take leave from Megatronus’s army- I found a beauty there in the construction of realization in a much more complete picture than what I tried to put together in the gladiator arena of the late Septimus Prime… people forming contexts together, some about all of us and our changes, trans or not, reflecting on them, how to further affirm each other, finding new modes, naming in new ways- communities of trust… and for a part time loner like me, knowledge and story to turn to…

That most of the planet seemed to have up and thrown away- burning the bridges by which I linked myself to some respite and meaning from my past- to imagine myself.

I have to do something. Maybe goad the rioters into fighting me, take some of the weight off the librarians. I sped in towards the riot and rolled around to the most contested point- where the two groups shoved with their mass upon each other. I transformed, taking the few seconds to think, if I… as much as it would be satisfying to bring down these people who hate us, if I don’t kill anybody, we might avoid guns… I stepped up, raised my fists, and ducked down to swing my leg at a bot’s ankle and hook around it, bringing the bot down to the ground. 

I swiftly stood in front of them as the clamor of the crowd immediately around me turned and faced me, and quieted looking upon me. “The archivists may not be able to make you go away, but I Arcee of Protohex, slayer of Septimus Prime and once a vanguard of the Darklands, demand that you do! Unless you all want to get the worst clobbering you’ve ever been given- force my hand with melee weapons, and I’ll have to kill you all.” 

I smiled and felt my ferociousness sing in every circuit of my frame.

More and more of the nearby mob turned towards me, while the one at my feet scampered away and ran, Then more than a hundred angry glares met my face, and started to yell countless words about my betrayal. 

I don’t think I like some of the things they’re saying- absolutely gross, I felt my body tremble, and urged it to relax and keep that combative grin. I can’t show them that discomfort, unless I want to release fury right now. Right now- taunting is the name of the game.

Road Rage caught my optic for a moment, and she mouthed talking sounds and then gestured slamming motions with her gun. 

I gave the slightest of nods and stepped back and brought my fists into a defensive stance- forearms in front of my chest. “Well?” I inclined my head, grin still present. “I’m waiting. Leave or fight me.”

The crowd muttered amongst itself, and began to break up in order to encircle me.

Easy. None of you have the skill.

“We know your name- you’ve been a historical blip for a million years-” the largest one started, a bulky spaceplane with large wings and a sheathed greatsword over the back. “You’re rusty at best and at worst horrendously outdated-”

“Then why did you all stop short of trying to mob me the moment I announced myself?” I laughed- and spotted Road Rage run in to slam into the group with the help of her two dozen colleagues already present. 

The bots they faced hit the ground or stumbled from the force of the charge, leaving an opening in their numbers. In the chaos, a little orange one-wheel legged bot sped by into the street with books in hand, followed by a truck and a few more text carrying runners.

“WHY, YOU!-” the spaceplane bot leapt at me, and I dodged under them- grabbed their legs, and tossed them back into the crowd, knocking down five bots who yelped with surprise and pain. 

I was promptly swarmed by a stampede of limbs- I kicked and tripped in front and behind me, blocked blows and punched lights out of optics, while taking a small number of punches and kicks to my frame- every bot I knocked out drew away more of the mob from attacking the library, allowing more bots to enter and leave to help with getting library items out.

Some of the gun carrying rioters noticed too, and turned towards the now continuous stream of runners back and forth, and raised pistols and rifles. 

Dammit. If this escalates much further Nova’s military will show, and I know who they will favor, and I don’t want any more people who care to be lost. “You idiots! You want a firefight?!” I drew my thermal swords and ran towards the gunners, knowing I’d have to push through, likely wounding-

 RUN! HE’S GOT THERMALS!” someone shouted in the crowd, and the rest backed away, some running outright as more yells about a swordsbot with thermals carried through the mob.

I dashed forward, and leapt, landing between two of the bots to slash their rifle barrels, and putting my blades to the necks of the gunners, finding the other five pointing guns at me. “Would you like your blood spilled today? For shooting some aesthetic librarians? You people are destroying yourselves and us all, me putting a sword through you all is merely a notice of death.” 

The two bots, a heli and a car, shivered for a moment across their frame. 

I heard a rush of steps behind me, so I immediately ran forwards, and turned to see a mace swing down in the hands of a truck bot, striking where my back stack had been. 

“Scrap you and your honor, and your agenda!” they snarled at me.

I held my ground in front of the line, seeing more of the crowd draw firearms. “Like I said, this is a death warrant, what you all are doing. A waste of my time and mental state, and certainly yours.” 

“Nice moves stranger , that bought some time before they start shooting against Nova Prime’s orders,” Road Rage  ran up to join me, and brought her gun up on the portion of the mob to her right. “HEY SCRAPHEADS, SCRAM! I KNOW THIS ONE’S MARTIAL RECORD, ARCEE’S SLAIN MORE PEOPLE THAN YOU’LL EVER MEET!”

“Ouch,” I grimaced. “Not all of those are ones that I had good reason to kill.” The burning hills and cities of Antilla threatened to come to mind. Hegemony enables abuse of power- no surprise we ended up here after that. 

“You’ve chosen the past over the future, derelicts! Get ‘em! Kill him and you’ll be famous!” A red curvy tank bot aimed their side-hip cannon at me while I was vaguely aware that our group faced droves of bookburners in a charge on our position.

War and military practice memories flowed through me- joined with the utmost of my module honed computing precision-

The cannon fired a fusion blast that screamed across the road directly at me. 

I stood with braced legs and struck the purple blast with the flat side of my left thermal sword in a downward slash, the fused plasma energon exploded backwards into the torsos of two of the bots who closed on me.

They screamed, full of melted holes, and stumbled into the helping arms of their fellows. The mob stopped short of us. I barely caught sight of Road Rage volleying a burst of yellow hardlight  through the tank bot’s gun barrel.

“Don’t you understand?” I laughed, feeling the hunger in me, that it was in the right at the moment, that we were being careful in our awful violence, and laughed too out of the absurdity of the situation. Me- actually doing something, when everything is already burning. Way to go Arcee. I should have killed Megatronus, Liege, Nexus, and Onyx myself and unseated all of the Thirteen, then we wouldn’t be here. “Anything you throw at me, I can turn back at you a hundred fold.” The more they believe that I am too much trouble, the less of a chance that I get hurt more than I already am by bombardment, as much as I would like to take down these awful people myself. I tried to ignore the dents in my armor across my torso sides, aching and angry.

“Brute force is enough,” a lanky green and gray mono-optic bot who’s alt configuration I couldn’t discern drew a grenade launcher from their back. “You want to try blocking impact grenades, barbarian? Your time is over.”

“Try me, I’ve faced down artillery and won,” I chuckled again. “Or should I regale you with the tale of the Siege of Praxus? Your numbers are less, now- several dozen of you realized this wasn’t worth it.” 

The bot aimed the cylinder barreled launcher at the ground in front of me- and then the sound of hundreds of descending thruster engines screamed close.

An amplified voice called out from above: “BY ORDER OF MYSELF, SCIENTIST DIRECTOR OF THE CYBERTRON PRIMACY, CEASE FIGHTING! The knowledge here and the people of it are under protection via eviction by me, Jhiaxus, for research of the State!” 

Many feet thudded landing booms into the ground behind me.

Ugh- Jhiaxus sounds just as underhanded as he is in the news and my own snooping. 

“You dare oppose theoconomy, the true path of the sciences of the future?” A bot in the crowd hollered among shouts and lobbed insults.

I scrambled away from my opponents and stood- to see a squat orange red flyer beside fifty flyers of varied shapes armed with heavy rifles and two sheathed swords each- with more landing among the other conflagrations in the district.

Definitely Jhiaxus- but where’d he get all these guards? 

I saw a big blue and yellow jet with a longsword land by the next burning building. Ah. The militant pacifist Dai Atlas lent a hand. No doubt Nova Prime knows of this- gods dammit, mixed myself up with the government again.

“I do not oppose Nova Prime’s rule! How do you propose we understand where we are going if we forget what and who we are leaving behind?” Jhiaxus stared down the red car bot who had hurled the question. “You destroy, and forget, and leave yourselves open to repetition. Trust a hand of the Prime, to keep you free. You will gain nothing by destroying the ancient past, save for a loss of reference that we will all regret. There is no Function in book burning! The end of institutions? Fine- but the parts that compose it? Forget it. You will destroy the assembly of who we were, with no sense of how to say who you are now. We must expand freedom, not squelch it!”

My optics opened wide, and I gazed at him, at his stubby red helmed visage of his hunched face.

“I can’t believe, I can’t believe someone as high up as you today would speak to the importance of gender this way,” I whispered as quietly as I could, and used the red biolights lining my shoulders to signal my internal comms frequency.

He replied in turn using his yellow bridge window down his chest, and added =”Though I was not around for the end of the Age of the Primes, not all of us have forgotten that the world was once much bigger within our own number, Arcee. I am pleased to finally meet you in vital defense of the gender worlds you grew up in.”=

The mob quieted, and he continued to speak. “LEAVE! Medical attention will be provided, and all harms caused overlooked- but no more violence here, or anywhere on this matter. Let history move at its own pace- reintroduce yourselves to what we have wrought and weep.”

Road Rage sighed, her shoulders sagging as if weighed on heavily.

She put a hand on my shoulder as her wing pack wiggled, and her mid torso windshield gave me a frequency. “This is the worst it’s been in a long time. Breaks my spark to see people genuinely hate aesthetics and transformation therein or to join up with the hate because it’s what’s being pushed down our exhaust pipes. Glad you were here,” she murmured. “Road Rage, she/her, I’m sure my reputation precedes me.” She looked over at Jhiaxus with a frown. “Best we stick together, us who remember, to try and recover, and be watchful of the guy who brought education agencies like mine under his wing.”

=“Happy to help, and duly noted,”= I commed back experimentally with two fingers to my audial out of habit. Cybertron never changes for the better. Then I murmured: “Do you think, at least, maybe he did that because he saw this coming?”

“I’d like to believe that,” Road Rage lowered her rifle as the rioters began to disperse with angry grumbles, epithets, and some indeed letting out cries, while bots with medical equipment tending to wounds became the most common moving sight besides more archivists scurrying to put out fires and haul out artifacts.

“But, it’s all in the name of progress. I worry his idea of preserving our records and lives is to try and curate us, per se.” She stowed her rifle. “Come on, let’s go help save what’s left of our memory here- we can only hope some people around the Hadean are trying to do the same.”

We ran up towards the doors, where Jhiaxus was headed too in a rush.

“Dears,” Jhiaxus looked over when we crossed paths and smiled. “The definition of evicted sanctuary I got with various classified clauses of the executive order covering this is a mobile one- if you want to go help elsewhere after,” he turned to delve into the library with us. “We will try to give you safe passage.”

I followed the two towards the doors, and seeing Road Rage move with such grace and sureness, I asked suddenly. “Jhiaxus, I- there probably is not a safe place, now, for me to explore figuring out what I - want to do with my body. Should I ever ask whoever survived in the affirmation profession for help, do you have facilities to lend?”

He stopped suddenly for the briefest of moments in front of the halls dotted with roaring fires, and the three of us plunged into the halls where bots ran, rolled, hovered, and flew with precious works in hand. My spark pounded at it’s casing as I  briefly saw many of the large paintings and tapestries on the walls of transformation, sparring, dance, banter, love, and rest aflame. 

=”Oh… Arcee… switch to comms calls, shall we?”= He relayed to the two of us as he darted forward.

I turned left, and Road Rage right. 

I grabbed a wayward book cart in hand, =”Certainly.”=

I hurried down the shelf and stowed in the cart every tome I could get my hands on, in what appeared to be the aesthetic mutuality attraction section.

 When my cart was nearly full of dozens of books, Jhiaxus messaged again: =”Regarding what you asked me about for affirmation help, please, everything you need that I have is at your disposal, and I am trying to work on some new procedures that would allow people to get closer to what they desire from the spark at present understanding. Do you- do you know what gender you are trying to actuate?”= 

=”Just one gender, or even a gender at all? And what of the links we feel to the rest?”= Road Rage commed to me privately, and I tightened my jaw.

=”It is concerning phrasing, yes.”= I replied to her, cart almost full, as a semi truck bot rolled by carrying four minibots with fire hoses, who opened up gushes of completely desaturated energon on the flames  ahead, rapidly dousing them.

=”I don’t know yet. Still trying to figure that out. I’ve only really been able to come to terms with it today, of all days… but the feeling of discomfort with how my frame was forged and maleness assigned to it has always been there.”= I stumbled and cried out in a loud, screeching howl. The irony was too much.

I heard jet engines roar close, and a thud of four feet landing. “Oh dear, you haven’t had anyone to confide in for a long time, have you? Too scared after the war?” Jhiaxus’s voice had a soft slowness. “May I hug you?”

I looked up to see him and Road Rage.

“Sibling, whatever you are trying to work out, I’m here for you. It wasn’t my journey, but I know people who’ve done it all my life- a lot of us stayed dedicated to keeping things going, I know people you can talk to.” she extended hands. “I also offer a hug.”

At least, at least these two care for me, even if one is likely to stab me later and the other to die in some act of heroics. It’s not like things can get any worse for me.

“Yes, please,” I stood and wrapped one of my rotund arms around Jhiaxus, and the other Road Rage. “I’ve always been watching- I felt this moment would come. But I didn’t think I could do anything about it, for the world or for me- thank you for giving me hope.” I sobbed wordlessly.

“There’s always hope in our iterations. We and my Director have much work ahead, and I hope we find friendship,” Road Rage gave me a squeeze around the waist. “What else can a gal like me do in times like these? I ought to take up the sword like you- there’s something errantly stoic and graceful about it, poetic.”

I nuzzled my head on her shoulder, comfortable as if I’d melt on her frame, aware of her sturdy curvature in my arm and pressed up with me, reminding me of some graceful errant warriors and sages of millennia past, and of some of my own drawings.

“I think- I think you gave me the beginnings of an idea, that maybe there is a galness I can find alongside my blade,” I squeezed back. “Thank you.”

Chapter Text

Nyon, Cybertron. 7 Million years ago.

=“You see them?”= I commed to Twirl and the rest of the extraction team beside me, and looked up at her large triangular pink flyer mode visage in the sky. 

=“Yeah, they’re holed up in the abandoned metro station three klicks northwest, no Functionists or anyone armed in sight, you’re all clear.”= Twirl replied.

I looked over at Road Rage, along with my newer acquaintances: the three car bots Crasher, Minerva, Vibes, and the tiny orange motorcycle gal from the library, Lickety-Split, all armed and with cargo trailers behind them, just like me. “Let’s dance, folks.” I transformed and backed into my trailer, which made a satisfying magnetic clamp clunk and click sound after I opened and backed my car hook onto it, and then darted off out of our underground tunnel cover into a street of the vibrantly colored and many shaped cityscape of Nyon, full of bots who milled about peacefully. 

Five engines roared behind me, and we drove in formation through the streets surrounded with music and in-progress works of art, winding our way to the pre-war metro section. 

“You were here right, before the Demolishment?” Vibes asked with the loud whisper residue of our open comms chipset data exchange signals.

“Yes,” I flashed my rear vehicle lights softly. “Nyon, though still a center of story and social emergence- it’s lost its shifting plasma-like spontaneity and esotericism I remember, I moved out after that. You would have liked it.” 

“And when there is reflection, there’s a dialogue we love, in these purple and green fields forever, a little of all of us building on each other…” Lickety-Split sang the first lines of Purple and Green.

My spark swooned quietly, remembering the dancing, the caring and emotive chatter here, the few casual trysts I had, here in Nyon where I secluded myself from the fall of the world until it was gone.  “Where’d you hear that song? It’s very pretty, was a favorite of mine.”

“I grew up here,” she chirped slowly. “Worked in the neighborhood archive, specialized in the aesthetics of science, and helped run the energon hub attached to it. When the polity started to go to scrap from the inside, I left for biggest library I could find. But I’ll never forget the laid back fervor of the dance of life here.”  

“Interesting that you all mention that,” Minerva chimed in as we got close. “It seems that, even before the wars, we were always trying to iterate some reveling that is the stuff of life, no? Wonder what it was like in time of the Knights…”

A haze of a thought of lost discussions and meetings in my youth arose in my mind, come on, why am I drawing a blank, and why is it that what she’s saying hits something deep in me besides the philosophy? “‘Til all are one,” I toned as we pulled up to the ruin of a metro station, a sweeping place of faded canopies, embracing statues, and rusted train tracks. Among the wreckage in the maintenance shed, I saw the agreed-on mark for the rendezvous: a cyan-pink infinity loop with two golden cylindrical hammer ends stylized after Solus Prime’s Forge hammer on each side of the loop.

The chosen transformations of spark and blood… Trans-Mutate sure is good with symbology. I rolled up around the tracks on my treads, stopped at the door, and laid out a tide of slow notes from my car horn.

“Who goes there?” A pointed voice asked from behind the door.

“The acolytes of lost knowledge,” Minerva uttered the code phrase. 

The door opened, a large bulky red crab plane bot looking over us from behind the beige and teal firmly curvy cycle bot looking at us, door handle held in one hand. 

I detached from my trailer, and transformed, my optics meeting their green and red ones respectively in turn.

“You must be Trans-Mutate, pleased to finally meet your sibling, Rampage old pal,” I smiled. “We’re your extraction team, I’m Arcee. You have a lot of people and items to move?”

“Greetings, warrior scholars, and Arcee,” Rampage rumbled, arm claws snapping once as he hugged me. “Yes- we have thirty seven bots from the surrounding region who want sanctuary and to share what they know, your trailers will be useful for hauling the media from the library my sister and I used to run around here.” 

“Please, come in siblings,” Trans-Mutate gestured with an extended arm towards the inside. “So we can talk about route plans.”

We made our way in, and I saw heaps of books and artworks piled neatly among energon cubes and metal thread bedrolls, and a makeshift wash-rack box. Among the objects were thirty seven bots of different shapes and sizes - though none were animal formers like Rampage, all vehicle or item bots. I waved, and gave a salute with a left hand over the center of my chest where my spark would be, typical of our resistance.

I twinged and pressed my hand and dipped my head as others returned the gesture. My chest feels uncomfortable- this shape isn’t what I want. I gotta think about making some design files to reformat to, but honestly- Jhiaxus’s offer of drawing on CNA research for new protoforming is very tempting… more than what reformatting might do…

Vibes’s hand reached up to my upper arm. “I know that gesture,” xey whispered. “It’s how I feel too, can’t stand the flatness of my boxy car mode, even though it protrudes significantly more than yours does. I just haven’t found or made the right shape to scan.”

I smiled at xem. “Yeah, I get that. Thank you Vibes,” I turned to face the group, and saw they had several trailers laying around as well. “Friends! You need not fear any longer, our team can provide back-up to get you to a more permanent sanctuary. If you’d all gather around, we’ll exchange comms and discuss what route we plan to take.”

“I won’t be coming with you,” Rampage met my optics. “Don’t want to be too close to the state, even if it is in a pocket of resistance. You know the rumors, animal-formers disappearing every once in a while during big accidents, no proof of anything, but our population has dwindled, and Arcee’s brother has no love for us. But I will help you make your move, and have contacts to turn to,” he flexed his claw cannons. “Let’s talk strategy.”

I nodded at him as blocky black white and orange wheeler Crasher stepped forward into the gathering circle of bots, laid down a circular holoprojector on the gray metal floor, and activated it with a button press on the side. A cyan grid emerged from it, a map stretching from here to Crystal City, and the map levels fell to metro lines, and past them, to the regional Undergrid we had mapped out in the last year and drawing on Crystal City records.

“You all know about the Undergrid, right?” Crasher asked.

“The what?” A rounded blue scraptruck bot shook their head.

“The Undergrid?” A green laser pointer minibot walked up to the map. “Thought that was a myth, and I taught geography!”

“It’s older than the Dark Age, from the time of the Knights, if not older or even a part of Cybertron’s formation,” Road Rage stepped forward. “I know the way, us Crystal Guardians kept the secret,” she turned to look at Rampage. “You’ll find no better location in the Hadean for a base and hiding out than this unless you want to take to an oort cloud asteroid.” 

“I’ll be sure to scope it out and would be glad for your charts,” Rampage smiled with his side mandibles and mouth rising. “Thank you, Road Rage.”

“So, the tricky part is making it down and up, right?” Trans-Mutate twirled her hand. “Highest chance of detection besides the surface here.” 

“Correct,” I grinned, showing my teeth. “That’s why we’re going to take the maintenance passages for the abandoned L line metro here.”

“You mean, Smuggler’s Fairway,” a jagged pink tank bot spoke up. “You have payment for the band of rogues who run the place?”

“We were provided funds by our- wayward ally in the state, yes,” curved and boxy Minerva spoke quietly, her shoulder stack wheels whirring. “We will be fine.”

“Your dubious patron is Jhiaxus, yes?” Trans-Mutate spoke up. “What exactly are the terms of our sanctuary?”

“Secluded free lodging and supplies across his facility network on the planet, access to his archives and research,” my optics narrowed. “At least, what he is willing to tell anyone but himself and his closest agents about, what he withholds he claims to be matters of planetary security. We also have free access to medical facilities of his and to help with whatever we need- and even have the opportunity to help others with navigating aesthetics in secret.”

“Given no other real option that wouldn’t leave us scrounging for resources,” Trans-Mutate bowed her head, optics shut and energon rushing down her cheeks as she wrapped her arms around Rampage, “I am willing to accept. Let’s put it to a vote, Delta League.”

Every one of the bots save for my team raised their hands, including Rampage.

Trans-Mutate gave me a stare. “Uh, folks, we need a consensus, and you may as well be part of us now. Do you have a reason to dispute?”

“Certainly not, dear actuators at arms,” Vibes chuckled, and we all laughed while the rest of us raised our hands.

“Transformative puns are our lifeblood, aren’t they,” Trans-Mutate wiped her smiling face with a hand. “Once we’ve said our goodbyes to Rampage, let’s move.”

“Remind me, what’s the meaning of the Delta League’s symbology?” Vibes stared off into the maintenance metro tunnel from our car cabin, speeding by scrawls of simple paint flows of once bright colors, now faded. “Reimagining Solus’s hammer as a sort of reclamation?”

“Yeah, that is what is,” the tall green winged  flyer archivist Codexa looked up from her book. “We wanted to show that possibilities of realization- whether forging, reforging, expression, creation, and so forth, are infinite and beyond the claim of a ruler. Trans-Mutate dreamed it up, and we all chimed in.”

I laughed from my post ahead of our group, watching the front of the tram. “How fitting! Of any of the Primes to pick, Solus was the most honest and least authoritarian, but still a Prime. She was concerned with preserving gender knowledges during the alliance, aesthetic understanding and practices grew with her policies backing iterative celebration and reflection. Were you alive back then?”

“I was, yes,” Codexa got up and stood next to me, a hand on my shoulder. “I remember the glory, and the Contextualist revolts against Pax Cybertronia and eventually primacy. I was surprised you weren’t among our number then, sibling. You’ve had it hard, haven’t you?”

“My infamy precedes me, I see,” I dipped my head. “I- after my deployment on Antilla, I felt more lost than ever. I should have cut down Onyx, Liege Maximo, and Megatronus then and there, I don’t know why I didn’t. I felt so hopeless, thinking that they'd just be replaced.” I hugged myself, and found no relief in my unwanted shapes while trying to watch the tracks, looking for the Smuggler Menagerie checkpoint stop. 

“Oh, Arcee...” Codexa put an arm around me, and my spark warmed, as murmured and hummed sounds of sympathy rose among the quietly talking group.

Do I actually feel trust? Or do I just want to hold her and be held to get away from my misery? “Folks, what I did was awful. It wasn’t enough that I ordered my unit to cease assaults and to then hamper our logistics line including by supplying the Antillans, and make covert attacks on Cybertronian units. I still have Antillan blood on my hands from defending invasive positions.”

“Arcee, I think our empathy comes not from your time as a soldier, but how alone you’ve been,” Minerva’s voice trailed from the rear of the tram. “Any help you can give now is welcome. You’ve rejected hegemony and are trying to do something about it while you find yourself. No easy task.”

I put my arms around Codexa, aware of her blocky curves, and her gentle touch that encircled me. “It’s nice to have allies I can actually trust-” you cannot trust them, you are alone, they don’t understand you-

No, they do, and even if they don’t, they mean well. I have no other home, leave me alone!

“We can drop this if you want, your face is all scrunched up,” Codexa rubbed my back softly in circles. “If you just want to cuddle, I can do that. How touch starved you are is very clear.” 

“Let me think about it,” I smiled and gave her a squeeze around the waist, pressing my chest on her passenger pitted one, and enjoyed every bit of her chuckle as she squeezed back. The dysphoria of my shape slipped away, for a moment. 

“We’re here, folks,” Crasher pulled a lever next to me, and we slowed to a stop by a simple narrow station racked with maintenance gear, and full of sidearm carrying or unarmed bots milling about between the escalators on the metal floor. An empty tram sat in front of us. “Road Rage, good luck on the bargaining.”

“Thanks dear,” Road Rage turned to face the trams opening doors. “Coming, Arcee? I could use a swordsbot on point who knows things I don’t.”

“Be right there,” I let Codexa go, a hand tracing her waist’s side as I stepped away, and joined Road Rage and Trans-Mutate.

A short boxy projector bot stepped towards us as we put feet down on the station floor, and they stuck out a hand. “Zurescreen, they/them, pleased to meet you, I’m our parlay-elect’s captain. What brings you down here…” their one optic peered at our tram full of books and art. “Ah, academic and aesthetic refugees, I gather? Thanks for what you do.”

Road Rage shook their hand. “You’re quite astute. I’m Road Rage, she/her, my pals here are Trans-Mutate, she/her, and Arcee- tentatively they/them.”

“You folks here to trade, or seeking passage? It’ll cost you,” they bowed their blue cylinder head. “Prime targets of a lot of people right now. I figure you couldn’t enlist help from sympathizer muscle in the government for this part of the journey.”

“Spread too thin,” I sighed. “It’s like trying to pull people out of the gravity well of a growing black hole. They’re tackling bigger groups who are mostly less rooted in our linked past. So yes, we need safe passage to the Undergrid”

“Our linked what?” Their head turned on their long neck. “You mean the old aesthetic system stuff? Wow. Uh, if I could have an overview text, that’d be great.”

“Done. What else is part of your fee?” Trans-Mutate grinned.

“Er, 12,000 shanix. We’ve got people to support too, you know. Consider it solidarity.”

I tried not to balk at the massive number. You can buy a battleship with that kind of money!

“I can do 9,000,” Road Rage shrugged, while Trans-Mutate turned and stared at her. “And I can promise a safehouse network to retreat to when you need to.”

The bots around us pulled out pistols on us, including Zurescreen. “This a government set up or something? Nobody takes in our kind who reject the economic order. Prove to me this isn’t a trap!”

“It’s not!” I knelt, and clasped my hands together. “Please, you have to understand, we’re outcasts! If you need collateral, you could collect the bounty on my head. I took down fifty Functionists at the start of the Fall, and have cut down over three hundred more in the last year, trying to save our dying world.”

“Arcee, don’t do this-” Road Rage reached out to me.

“Hey, Thornback, check that for me,” Zurescreen called out, and a round spike covered minibot nodded at them. “We’ll have to go through with that, but we’ll take some of your friend’s pay to make sure you get busted out. Won’t let a fellow expansive stay in their clutches.”

As if I need the help. Youngster doesn’t know who they’re dealing with.

“Checks out,” Thornback handed Zurescreen a datapad. “Yeah, it’s not a government bounty, it’s circulated on the reactionary net, most of the populace wouldn’t know. Posted by some scraphead called One-Over-Zero. He’s offering 20,000, and has a long tirade of wanting to make an example out of a traitor before execution.”

“Well, fancy that, some abusive favoritism,” Zurescreen handed the datapad back and got on their knees and took my hands in theirs. “I’m so sorry dear, but without you this is a no deal.”

“I’ve been through worse, used to be a gladiator growing up, before all this,” I cackled. “None of the chauvinists are any match for me.”

Road Rage started crying on the spot, head in her hands. “I can’t believe this is what things have come to…”

“I’ll be okay,” I got up and hugged her. “I promise, Twirl will watch over me.. Command the squad in my stead while I’m gone. And you’ll hold Zurescreen to their word, yeah?”

“I think so,” Trans-Mutate transformed her hands away to reveal forearm cannons. “Greedy sell out. You ought to have some more ethics about stealing.”

“Hey hey,” Zurescreen raised their hands. “You think I’m doing something our own crew hasn’t done already?”

“But we’re not your crew, are we? You didn’t trust us until now.” 

“Look, we won’t even take all the money from the bounty. We’ll repay you 10,000 from half of it. My second in command Shatter can handle facing the Functionists, you can hold me at gunpoint until you reach your destination and get Arcee back. Deal?” 

“Okay Arcee, we’ll do this, know that we love you,” Road Rage embraced me gently and then let go. “Deal, on my part. The League needs to put it to a vote.”

The four of us walked inside slowly, while guns stayed on us, while our own had arms raised. Dispute and outcries rose when we explained the negotiation, but the vote was unanimous after my plea and testament to my prowess. 

My squad hugged me close after.

“Do us proud, Arcee,” Vibes touched my cheek with her hands. “I, I always wanted someone to look to for wisdom like you. I didn’t know anybody in the stories of old, quite like you and Road Rage.” 

“We’ll have to talk more sometime, I know more to tell you about,” I patted her head.

Codexa tapped my shoulder. “Can I kiss you? For good luck.”

“Sweetie- I” don’t trust - no I will trust her. “I’d like that.”

Codexa cupped my face in her hands, and placed a kiss on my lips, pulling my lips with hers before she brought her head away, still close to me. “We’ll be waiting, warrior of hope, never forget how special you are, like every lifeform and part of the universe, but also in your own way. See you soon.”

I kissed her back, softly, and nodded. “This last year- been hearing things like that more often, really liked how you phrased it, I feel more in touch with what I want for myself,” for a moment, I could feel a sense of a shape I had been trying to figure out if I wanted that my body was not- more rounded, curving, a slope in the chest, wheels or repulsors, and a magnificent pair of back stacks behind my back. “We’ll talk soon.” I rubbed her back and then walked out of the train car, mighty and vivacious in the spark in a way that had only been fuzzy or fleeting in my mind before.

I smirked at the pistoleers around me on the station, while Road Rage followed behind me, digging out from her wingpack a mix of rectangular coins of silver, gray, and gold shades and six of bright red - rodinyaum.

A broad chested and dextrous winged bot of red and gray with two toed feet stepped forth from the group with an open hand extended. “I’m Shatter, she/her. I’ll make sure your friend is fine.”

“Hmmm,” Road Rage slid the coins into her hand, her boxy head looking towards me. “You better.”

Shatter handed off the money to Thornback, and nodded at Road Rage, and stepped back.

I turned to Road Rage, and held her close. “Sorry for intervening in your bargaining, and thank you for trusting me.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll let Twirl know what’s going on, when you have a rendezvous point with the totalitarians, be sure to update her.”

“Will do, see you soon.” I let her go, and turned to face Shatter. “So what’s your plan, exactly?”

“We use one of our front orgs as a meeting place, bring out our heavy weapons to make a show of it due to your record,” her gray face smiled. “The binds we put on you will be easily breakable, either by force, or using a chirolinguistic impulse with your hands. They won’t bother taking them off you to replace them if they are suspicious while you’re conscious anyway, given how likely it is you could kill them yourself. If they decide to knock you out-” she dug out a tiny cube from a side compartment on her hip. “I’ve got a one charge reboot cube that you’ll have to swallow so it can sit opposite your neural cluster on the inside of your neck in case it’s needed. EMP weaponry is rare right now, I doubt that they would have any on hand. Surely you know the spinal cord risks-”

“I wouldn’t mind a second, I keep one on me when I’m not eating by mouth,” I held out my hand.

She laughed. “You really don’t take chances, do you, besides your physical health?” she handed it to me, and I dry swallowed the cube- whose tiny repulsors guided it to below the back of my throat alongside the other that had been there all week.

“Somewhat of a do-or-die kind of bot, yeah,” I chuckled, and then sighed. “I’ll have to hand over my weapons, won’t I?”

My back rested seat in the old warehouse being comfortable was about the only good thing about the situation that I could immediately feel. The absurdity of the cuffs on my ankles and wrists as I waited to be thrust into unwelcome hierarchic violence that at the very least would be structural, emotional, a violation of agency, and involve the physical threat of death ate at my patience among the cargo crates and Shatter’s crew. Her, and ten bots with rifles and blades, herself with miniature rotary blaster scrapmakers hanging from her folded wings, and my swords and pistols on her thighs.

She also sat, opposite to me, halfway to the door.

=”Twirl, you got an optic on their transport yet?”= I stretched my neck idly.

=”I think so. Big silver hover-hauler with the gear and wings emblazoned on the roof. I don’t think the transport is a bot. Oh and, a medium tank-bot at the front and back too. They just rolled down a Torus State ramp a few blocks from where you folks are.”=

“=Copy that, thanks Twirl.”=, this’ll be a nice challenge of blood. “Shatter, my friend in the sky says they’ve got a heavy militia transport inbound, non-transforming, guarded by two tank-bots. Whoever this is is making a big deal out of me,” I grimaced. “I hope this isn’t someone I know… to most people my history is a blip and misunderstood legend.”

“We’ve got your back anyway,” she smirked. “Intercept team has some armor penetrating proton missile launchers. We should be okay.”

“Thanks,” I smirked. “I could probably do this on my own but with these odds, I would probably pick up an injury or two.”

“Yeah, there’s a benefit to working together. Personally when Road Rage offered a safe house network, I was relieved, and thought you folks were trying to cozy up a long term agreement,” she sighed. “Unfortunately, my captain and many of our crew are not used to trusting anybody on turf that isn’t ours. I hope we can make that change with this deal- because we’re going to run out of hiding places, and you all clearly need more friends.”

“As long as Zurescreen and the rest can grasp that the transactional framework isn’t everything, I think that will go well,” I nodded. “Er, you ready to deal with the weird freedom in function scrap that is going to come knocking?”

She inclined her head for a moment, “Lookout says they turned on a street corner towards us. Yeah, unfortunately I am. Have to pretend that he/him pronouns being used for me aren’t repulsive to my spark.”

A knock came at the side door to the big warehouse gate. 

“They’re here, a whole platoon of car and truck bots and a hoity-toity telescope,” a rotund teal wheeler looked through the side-door porthole. Groans and curses circled the room.

I got up, and six of the bots inside raised their guns to me. I shambled towards Shatter, who grabbed me by the wrist behind my back, gently.

“I appreciate you being polite about this,” I grunted as we walked forward.

“I’m a professional rogue, dear, it comes with the territory,” she nodded, and her crimson optics turned to the door. “Let them in.”

The teal wheeler unlocked the door and pulled the knob, hand to their sheathed sword as they did.

Five squarish car bots bearing blue and gold geared wing insignia filed into the room and spread out, carrying shotguns. 

Ugh, definitely going to get injured.

After them came a lanky cylinder shaped bot, a longsword and rifle over their back, and a golden Matrix sphere shaped helm flanked their faceplated blue opticed face, while fifteen more car and truck bots poured in after them. 

I was disgusted even further when they waved at me, and I spat immediately. “You dishonor the memory of Knights by bearing a Matrix helm for the cause of Functionism!” I attempted to step forward while signing with a firm grip to Shatter’s hand with electric pulses: /stop me./

She grabbed me firmly and drew one of my own swords against my throat.

I stopped moving while I burned my best death stare into the telescope bot, who froze, optics dilating randomly, and stepped back.

    “Don’t move, Arcee,” Shatter growled. 

    I patted her hand with more pulses, and she returned the gesture. 

The telescope bot laughed. “Wow, you really got a wild one Shatter, he gave me quite a scare. I’ve heard stories, but I didn’t really believe what One-Over-Zero had to say about this old-timer’s ferocity. Let me tip you all for your trouble, and the five bots you lost serving our nation, bounty hunter.”

Shatter’s face twisted for the slightest moment, and then she laughed back. “We are just cogs in the machine, thanks for showing our place some respect. Move it,” she brought the sword away and pushed me, and I stumbled forward, managed to right myself and walk steadily.

“Ha, you think you’re real transformative, don’t you, I see your pride,” the scope crossed their arms. “I’m Therpact, he/him, you know, the only pronoun choice. These good brothers here are part of Fellowship Duty, right hand enforcer of our ascendant patron One-Over-Zero. Give us a few millennia and we’ll run things, but your pretty face won’t live to see that.”

“Get fragged,” I strained as four of the truck bots grabbed my arms tight and pushed me to the ground, out of Shatter’s grip, and a pistol barrel pushed up on my head. “I’ve seen tyrants with more cunning and less self-debilitating pompousness fall time and again in my life. Your empire will die too.”

“Now, why would a man with such a nice tricrest on his head say something like that?” Therpact put a bag of coin in Shatter’s hands, which she opened to peer into as he prattled on. “Calling us imperialists? We are interested in extending peace and fraternity as aggressively as possible, it’s us before any other lifeform or understanding- and you would willingly abandon your place among us for love, sweetness, whatever The Pit siblinghood and sisterhood are, rustheaded gender knowledge and more redundant scrap; we’ll have a lot talk about, traitor!”

The word “traitor,” and taunting became cacophonous. I blocked them out, not really processing, between fear and rage, not wanting to go along with the ruse even though it was in our best interest for me to wait. I focused on Shatter’s transfer of my weapons- Therpact holstered all of them on his hips.

The idiot has never held a thermal energy blade before, has he.

“Hey man, I just came to get paid, can you clean your act?” Shatter patted my head with slowness I read as deep sadness. 

“Right, sorry brother,” Therpact pointed to the door. “Let’s move!”

I shoved and pushed and growled as I was shuffled along, testing them my captors to understand their responses- mostly slow, all their force in, quick to anger, no grasp of close quarters tactics beyond being a brute. 

“I could have you shot right here, you know,” Therpact glowered at me as I faced the hauler’s loading ramp after I had knocked one of the militia-bots to the ground with a body slam. “If you’re too much trouble.”

    “You won’t,” I laughed. “You’d lose your clout. I know your type. You know enough to understand why I specifically am at the top of the Functionist kill list and that such a thing would be handled carefully, but you don’t grasp why people like me infuriate you so much.” 

“You all have an unhealthy mode-attachment or social practices, that’s what,” he nodded towards the hauler’s inner seating. “Come on, you can pull him the rest of the way.”

“You bet boss,” the truck bot on the floor got to a stand. “We’ll deal with this.”

Having collected the data I needed, I didn’t put up a fight, and was quietly seated between two of the truck bots, opposite Therpact and two more truck bots, while the rest took up positions around the cabin, whose cargo doors shut. My back and wrists were up against the wall. Fantastic. Guess my first kills will be around the back and with my legs.

The hum of the repulsors came on, and we were presumably off. I was silent, listening for the  ambush squad to report in.

=”We see you moving, we’re shadowing you with Twirl’s help, two blocks out. We strike at the Torus ramp leading up to Iacon. Maximum chaos, reduce the chance of Functionist deployment into the traffic. We should be able to evade State enforcers, too, Nyon’s pretty light on that kind of thing. We’ll keep you posted. Hang in there.”= Discharge, the fire truck bot in charge of interception, reached out right on schedule.

“You know, I used to look up to you, war hero,” a blue van bot squinted up at me. “You’re Galvatron’s brot-”

“Sibling!” I humphed.

“Sorry, sibling-” they yelped when Therpact ran over and grabbed them by the neck.

“You’re letting him in your head, idiot,” he bared claws in his left hand. “Don’t you know these bloody radicals use words as their greatest weapon? They can’t beat us honestly on a battlefield.”

“That’s scrap, boss,” a green rounded truck bot watching the door called out. “You do realize he can kill you barehanded, right? Trained for that longer than you’ve been alive.”

“Hmmm,” Therpact let go of the car bot and withdrew his claw, and turned towards me, taking off his faceplate to reveal a mouth.

“I really don’t like your leery smile,” I growled. “It shows a lack of respect for you and for me.”

Kill him now. NOW NOW - not yet, I agree with you, harshness, but not yet.

=”One block away. We’re getting into position. Twirl is above you, Shatter’s blowing her cover against my advice, and I believe a crab bot friend of yours showed up.”= Discharge chuckled. =”This’ll be quick.”=

Therpact stepped closer. “I’m thinking about giving you the mercy of kisses and caresses as I please before your demise, warrior man. Was going to anyway, but might as well make it sweet for you. You should be thankful.”

Fury swam through my ducts, sensors, and wires. “Even the threat of that is harassment!” I tore the chain of my wrist binds apart in the swift motion of grabbing the two militia next to me and slamming them into the onto their opposite number in front of me, as I tossed myself in a run breaking my leg binds onto Therpact, pinning him to the floor as I drew my swords from his hip. 

In my wordless scream of frustration and his of terror, I severed his head from his neck and immediately charged towards the door, deflecting the shots and cutting down the handful of bots in front of me, while taking scatter blasts to my back in yells of pain-

Blasts that fell silent as the hauler’s metal screeched and tore from rocket explosions at the front, spinning us wildly. I stood alone, legs bent and jumping about, while the rest tumbled.

I was about to run- Don’t run- and instead began to bear down on each with my blades in rapid succession while I bled. Four stabs through sparks by the time the remaining eleven stood back up in the back corner gravity had left them in, near me, and I sliced through the group’s torsos in four blows with a triumphant yell, as all fell to my blades beyond their experience or technology.

Then, I collected my pistols, picked through the compartments of Therpact for dataslugs and papers, and ran for the cargo door, grunting and huffing at the pocked pain dotted across my back. I cut the door open to find Shatter wrestling the orange tank bot that tailed the hauler earlier, stabbing them repeatedly with a knife, their body already covered in cannon wounds. Her scrapmakers have been busy. 

I took in the immediate sight- bots gathered around the lanes, standing in bot mode, staring, while four wheelers with missile tubes rolled up next to us, followed by a red crab whose claws were covered in blood. 

I laughed briefly. Victory so sweet and immediate, a rare treat in all the scuffles I’ve had recently. Maybe we can hope to take them all down someday.

I leapt out of the hauler onto the ground, met by Twirl transforming to land. 

I hugged her wide winged pink visage, and she chuckled before gasping as she felt the holes on my back in her embrace.

“Arcee! You need medical help!” She clonked her head on my waist. “Wish I hadn’t flunked med school or I’d help you-”

“It’s okay, they aren’t deep. I’ll make it. You came to tell me something?” I looked down at her flat white helmed green opticed face.

“Yeah,” her orange faceplate creased. “Had to shoot down two flyers already, we should go.”

One of the launcher carrying wheelers, Discharge, who had been hosing down the hauler, honked after that. “She’s right! Let’s go folks!” 

“Coming, had to make sure he died,” Shatter got up from the wrecked and graying tank bot, and ran over to us.

Those of us in bot mode transformed, and we followed Discharge’s team off the highway and onto the street. The crowd made way for us with gasps and shouts, and I heard a few people whisper my name. Ugh, that can’t be good even if they like me.

=”Good to see you at arms again, Rampage,”= I drove near him as we headed for the tunnel Discharge was leading us to. =”Wouldn’t mind wandering the road with you again someday.”=

=”Someday, old friend, and yes, I think the violent path will weigh on us for a long while, given how cornered we are.”= he soared ahead. =”I think I know where we’re going. Discharge, we’re going to the river port?”=

=”Yeah! Quickest way to the Undergrid from here is by submarine. We’ve got an old submarine-train model around. Pier 472. Take point for us?”=

=”Can do,”= Rampage became a blip in the distance down the city streets.

=”Hey, can I call you ‘Cee?”= Shatter flew closer to me, engines roaring.

=”Sure,”= I paused. =”I quite like that, I think.”=

=”Tell me you got all of them.”= She ducked under a sky bridge.

 =”I did.”= I blazed past a stoplight, honking loudly, despite passerby rushing towards where we had departed. =”Are Nyonians this unused to violence?”=

=“Yes, and I’m glad you did. What an awful lot. We’ll get you home soon, look forward to working together more, I cut down a handful on the day of the Fall when they came after my partner and I smooching while using our pronouns. Show me around, will ya?”=

=”Sure will, and I hope they’re doing okay, they’re lucky to have someone like you.”= Home… what even is home? Hiding in the State doesn’t feel like home.

Chapter Text

[Image description: Codexa and pre-reformat Arcee sharing an embrace. Arcee's head is resting on Codexa's chest, since Codexa is taller. While Arcee's body resembles the one she shares with her twin body Galvatron, her paint scheme by this point has much more pink, and her singular back stack has a cyan biolight. Codexa of course is in her usual shades of green. End image description.]

(Arcee and Codexa having a moment, by @artoni-arts on tumblr! We were so happy with this piece. They do have lewd stuff in blog-posts but it's all tagged.)

Crystal City, Cybertron. A week later. 

“Thank you Minerva, for seeing to my wounds and patching up my pink paint. I really appreciate you checking up on me to make sure everything is okay and that I healed correctly,” I smiled at her shining orange face under her tall crested red trimmed helm of white, and felt soft seeing her smile back, blue optics on me. “I don’t know, it’s nice to actually be able to trust a doctor and a friend with understanding a body of a linked person, and that of a trans- trans…”

I sputtered, exhaust fumes coming out of my transforming seams in nervousness in my chair in her brightly lit office.

“You can say it, you know it as I do, and we’re here for you, just like people were for me,” she got up from her chair and stood in front of me, her sturdy shoulder stacked frame’s firm graspers towards me. “Can I hold your hands? Would that help?”

“Yeah...” I reached out and held her own, feeling her fingers gently find an easy grip around me. “It’s nice to actually be able to trust a doctor and a friend with understanding me and my body, that of a linked trans gal.” 

“See, you got this,” she let go to hug me instead. “We’re so proud of you. I’m so proud of you. Do you want to talk more about your gender stuff? How is your linkage feeling? I’m sure there is some context I’ll be missing since I wasn’t around for the Thirteen’s rule.” 

“I would like to talk about that, yeah,” I hugged her back. “Thank you Minerva.”

“Of course,” she disengaged to step away, bringing her chair over to sit close, in front of me. “I know that you eventually processed your galness as the primary component of your gender assemblage in the last year. Do you want to start there?”

“Sure,” I grinned widely, that’s rare. You should be sad, dejected, that the world will not love you-

Stop that. I’m doing this anyway out of an absurd freedom and deep want, and my friends love me.

“I… when I worked together with Road Rage for the first time, I was reminded of the gal mutuality I adore,” my mind rushed with words of wisdom and kindness from women warriors, laborers, parents, and sages I had known in my long life, their vast shapes from stout and shorter than me to robust and towering over most of us, to the lanky ones near my height… I swooned quietly, a murmur of love, a momentary tremble of admiration across my frame. Memories of former partners who I confided my past gender unsureness in, of our touch, our dances and spars, reading and working together. Focus. 

“Her shape too, reminded me of my want for my chest to be different, of my thighs to be larger near the hips relative to my body, and I thought that over, went back to my sketches, and got the feeling that what I wanted were wheels or repulsors, not my…” my treads spun slowly on my forearms and in my legs, and I held the ones on my arms gently to still them. “treads. Being a tank is beautiful and I sure think women who are one are lovely, but it’s not for me. I want the focus of the wheel, a graceful rush I already do my best to embody with my mind. Started getting phantom frame sensations and playing around with that, how my circuits would rather be and ache for. My back stack too,” I felt it wiggle at being mentioned. “Feels lonely, wants a counterpart. But galness- the word woman feels like a good approximation for how I feel, which is different for all of us. I’m more a gentle strength kind of person with ferocity and compassion in equal measure, and savvy for both. Like you.”

“Aw, you flatter me, but you’re right,” Minerva laughed. “How do you feel about the other genders you hold closeness to by linkage, and the broad expanse?”

“Well I think because of the times,” I hugged myself around my waist. “I’m struggling to connect to agender, gendervoid, and male stuff I used to find comfort in,” I grimaced. “It all feels… so sad. I’m here for people who realized maleness for themselves like Rampage and Thornback’s vibes of just being a spiky round bot and how they get euphoria from they/them pronouns, I still feel kinship, and think their lived moment stuff- the plasm, is beautiful, but it just… I don’t really get as much out of it as I did before the space bridge network collapsed and we lost contact with the colonies. Sometimes I wonder, without the Cybertronian State and rising Functionist ideology, did they preserve the old ways and make new things? Or are they lost too?” I sighed and leaned my head on my right raised fist. 

“I think,” Minerva’s now long expression found a tiny cheek push up from her lips. “I think they remember and transformed. Caminus had the best chance: they took up celebration of creation and remaking as a core part of their society. A lot of trans folks moved out there.”

“Ugh, on imperially stolen Antillan resources and blood,” I looked away. “You’re talking about the pro-Thirteen monarchists of our lot, and everybody who either was swayed by State endorsed enthusiasm to ‘remake ourselves in the beyond’, or saw Cybertron worsening and wanted to get away instead of fight and was able to leave. Sometimes I think,” I held my head in my hands. “Sometimes I think Nova Prime wanted to softly and conveniently get rid of us and anyone who didn’t fit his vision, before sabotaging the space bridge network, to sever us generationally, cut off our knowledge and collectivity.” 

I looked back at Minerva, and saw droplets coursing down her cheeks.

“Oh Minerva, I’m sorry, I upset you with all this-” I stood and held her close.

“No, it had to be said. You’re hurting too,” she rubbed her head onto my shoulder, my downward waist curve clutched by her arms. “We’ve been trying to recreate and hold on to new and old things since before the start of our recorded history, what we’re all doing here now, under the auspices of someone who has a more rigid idea of what we are,” she went still. “It sounds like you spoke to something similar to alt-modus and iter-exper stuff, earlier. Are those two gender-aesthetic umbrella terms… of equal importance to you as transness and womanhood?”

“Yes, they are,” I smiled down at her, and she met my optics. “They all roll together, and yet have their own meanings. It is a galness, but also more than and not that. I don’t know how to phrase it better. Something to do with soaring…” 

“I know the feeling, I really do,” she chuckled. “If only he’d understand… you’re sure you don’t want to do a tried and practiced reforging surgery? I’ve seen how your drawings are coming along when you’ve shown us, I love the robust wheeled back stacked shape.”

“I really appreciate that, Minerva, and am sure you and your staff would give me what I wanted as best as you can,” I let go of her. “But I want to see- I want to see if- accounting for things I want, how I otherwise would have protoformed.” Our gaze remained shared as she stood apart from me. “Don’t you get the feeling in your spark that protoforming was supposed to be a bit more deliberate? Not just something that happened to you.”

    She held her chin with one hand, optics dipped in thought. “In the deepest scraps of medical archaeological records from the olden days of the Knights and before… I’ve found bits and pieces about ‘infinite varied shape’ and ‘one in choice,’ but we’ve never really gotten more than that and people debated the meaning until nobody cared anymore. You’re older than me, does any of that ring a bell?”

    Nothing. There is nothing to look for! You have-

A gray haze pressed up on my mind.

    I have something, don’t I? I tried to focus- and in the brief first year memory of a myth; ‘the secrets of transformation of the Knights of Cybertron within every spark’ came a wave of remembered blood and screams from the armies’ worth of entities Cybertronian and Antillan alike I had ended at the sword. The Matrix helmed face of Therpact rose at the head of the torrent of pain, bleeding and laughing you silly warrior-man, you are tainted beyond compare with bloodthirst, you will not find love in here-

    I curled up on my seat, holding myself tight, desperately thinking of Codexa instead, her light green face and bulky curvature who shared more kisses with me when I finally got ‘home,’ resting in her adoring arms and her in mine, recharge sleeps that were no longer lonely, her shared passion for story a delight to my spark… “There is always hope to be made in being alive, creation when we least expect it, from questioning held dear, and why I love you,” a whisper of hers in my audial last night I now grasped tightly in my mind.

    “I can’t find anything,” I looked up from my knees. “Just hazes of an old story, that the Knights knew something about all of us.”

That’s more than any of the historians ever discerned!” Minerva touched my forearm with a hand. “If you really think this path is right for you, to rebuild what has been lost in the dreams of a man trying to restructure something he is too young and ‘progress’ driven to have had a good glimpse of, then I will help however I can. We’ll be there for you.” She stepped away, towards the door, and opened it to the silvery hall shining with soft cyan ceiling lights beyond. “I know there’s a strategy meeting today, don’t want to make you late.”

“Aw, Minerva, thank you,” steadying my mind on her and Codexa’s words as best I could, I stood, and made my way out the door into the cozy brightness. “You coming along?”

“You bet I am,” she shut the door behind her.

We walked onwards together, waving or sharing brief words with passing bots- but most of us were headed the same way down the winding corridors out of the medical wing, to the main library hall, which loomed ahead after a short while, giant doors wide open, chatter inside from hundreds within who we had helped give sanctuary here from all over planet, along with Jhiaxus’s own science staff. 

I smiled, seeing people look up from their talk standing or parked around shelves or sitting at tables turning to greet Minerva and I. I put my hand over my spark in reply and despite myself, blew a kiss with my other hand. Maybe I’ve found a home. But it’s not enough for folks like Rampage.

“Arcee, Minerva! Good, we can start, you know what our discussion agreements are,” Trans-Mutate waved at me, standing alongside the rest of my extraction squad, Shatter and Zurescreen and some of the Smugglers, Trans-Mutate’s own group, and Jhiaxus, who gave me a grinning nod while Trans-Mutate spoke. “Please, join us.”

Minerva winked at me. “See? Proud of you, dear.”

“You’re right,” I nodded back. Something must be amiss, my body tensed up. “Be right there!” I strode over into Codexa’s arms, and after a brief embrace with an exchanged kiss and head nuzzle, we stood beside each other holding hands.

Jhiaxus raised his hand, and the gathering nodded around, so he stepped forward. “Today, Trans-Mutate has given me the honor of being the introductory speaker to a new and remade chapter in Cybertronian history,” Jhiaxus stood as tall as he could, optics shimmering. “I’ll keep it brief, this is really your show-”

Laughter and chuckles broke out, including from myself and him.

“But suffice to say the last year has been a consolidation of the magic of the ancients, some still among us,” he stretched out his arms. “And more than that- in this time of resistance, we have had a reckoning with how powerful aesthetics are, the fire that continues to emerge no matter what tries to deny it and our existence! As a forged man, I am honored to see this unified freedom grow once more, and take a small part in it, a humble squire to the sages, rogues, and knights of gender- and with that, I give the floor to Trans-Mutate!”

Cheers rose briefly, Jhiaxus sat down in a chair, and Trans-Mutate stepped into the center of the room: “My dear friends and colleagues, welcome one and all! My thanks to our friends in the government, to our elders, and our imagination. Long have we tried to consolidate and survive abandonment, but no longer do we sit on defense and holding actions! Today- I wish to expand the revolutionary praxis of my own group, the Delta League- to be an umbrella and solidarity front for all our praxis and knowledges, and to begin to take back our home!” She raised her left fist, arm blade unsheathed, met with clamoring praise. 

The group's volume dropped after she waved lowered hands. “We, like a lot of you, are collectivist anarchists, and even if you’re not, we’re in this together. I invite you all to join our consensus and form strategy groups- I want us to spread word, give hope, and fight back against the rising reactionary tide.” Her red optics shone with her teethy grin. “In these regards, to show our seriousness as our first order of business on the military side I would like to nominate four commanders to answer to our consensus and executive staff we will form, all out-of-the-box veterans in their own way- Arcee, Shatter, Codexa, and Road Rage!”

Everyone around the room raised a hand immediately, and for my fellow warrior’s sake, I did too. Thrusting me into a command position again is a bad idea-

“We’re gonna do great, sweetspark,” Codexa put an arm around me and smooched my cheek. “A warrior librarian and an errant vanguard in love is more than our opponents know how to handle.”

“We barely handle each other, always learning,” I chuckled, and missed Trans-Mutate’s next words. 

“And you like it that way, I do too-” 

“And I’d actually like to ask the two old lovewings and Road Rage to speak about how gender was in their day, and organizing too,” Trans-Mutate smirked at me, and we all guffawed a little.

“Ah, um, though I may have clawed into the halls of power, fought them, and abandoned them, the revolutionary through and through back then was Codexa,” I tapped her back wing. “You go first dear.”

“Right,” Codexa faced the group. “I’m from the Tagan Heights, which were later absorbed into the Forgefire High Primacy of Solus Prime. The Tagan Federation started as villages home to all sorts of craft- the arts, metallurgy, electronics, weapons, vehicles, tools, you name it- out of ancient belief from the time of the Knights in the celebration of both activity and form; we even had a Festival of Remaking where we would deconstruct our works and make them into something new. Our autonomous interactions grew into a larger collection of polities, ruled by democracy and elected Majors.” She smiled. “This was not the only source of our fame in the olden days, among others there is also the famous mutuality metallurgist Rivetsong, but she’s a story for another time. In any case- I grew up before Solus came and invited us to join her federated monarchy system, preserving our local system under her rule and joining our spirit with the Forgefire people. I reveled in learning about societies of Cybertron, dancing freely and happily in our knowledges and sharing it with the world…” 

Here it comes. Our downfall in hubris, and some of my loneliest years.

Codexa looked down, then clenched her fists, meeting the optics watching. “Then I saw our industrial base under Solus be used as the privileged backbone for empire of so-called ‘enlightenment’ in league with other autocrats. We became part of the Thirteen’s military industrial complex. Though gender and orientation knowledges continued to iterate by trade and collective play with other peoples on equal footing, and aesthetic education became widespread, we fueled the military and economic annexation of all the Hadean. Eventually, the growing number of reactionaries or sell-outs among us of Tagan built planet burners and all manner of other imperial tools in preparation for expansion for the likes of Onyx Prime and Megatronus. I was devastated by the amount of betrayal of free spirit we had inured ourselves in, seeing how the celebration of transformation in love was replaced by a mission of enlightenment by people who forgot the value of gender expansiveness. Half the other Primes talked and attempted to push a united, simplified front of aesthetic language when we started to go to other star systems, and I couldn’t stand any of it!“

She drew her longsword from its hip scabbard. “So I took up arms for the old ways and to reimagine them for something new, myself and millions of other bots who were the first Contextualists, and our protests and direct disruptions turned to open revolt during the Cybertronian Civil War. We have left our mark! By our hand, multiple Primes fled our world… Though many of us who fought settled for the promise of peace and undisrupted locality by Nova Prime, I knew it wasn’t over.” 

She gripped her sword tightly before bringing its blade towards the ground, hilt held at her chest. “I was one of the architects of the aesthetic library systems during our time of peace, biding my time and trying to consolidate what we lost. Though I do not have the spirit of transness like many of you do, I have not forgotten my many connections to aesthetics of our world as one in many iterations, and I can simply say that if Tagan could celebrate transformation during the Dark Age, then so can Cybertron once more during this time of plight!”

Soft hollers of agreement flourished, and I hugged her close in my arms, warm from her fiery free loving soul. “I love you, you know that?”

“I do,” she hugged me back.

“Might I ask a question?” the orange wheel footed courier Lickety-Split raised a hand. 

“Please,” Codexa nodded at her.

“Back then, how did you connect disparate fighting groups? Our potential allies are scattered all over the planet, we have a big challenge ahead of us,” Her helm’s cylinder tails wagged and her blue visor widened. “I’m a little scared, to be honest, of the oceans of apathy that enable the hateful.”

“Good question,” Codexa wrapped her arm around me. “We relied on subterfuge and friendly populace, deliveries of supplies and messages. We stayed off long range comms unless we could guarantee sturdy encryption, and had a guerrilla war of hit-and-run. That is what is at hand here, and from my understanding Shatter and Arcee excel in this area, while Road Rage is a defensive expert. Anything you three want to add?”

“Well,” I grinned. “One of the key components is to learn enemy movements and positions, find security gaps both physically and with social engineering. It is a bit of a waiting game, patience, before striking. Information gathering in any conflict is key: for us, we have the advantage of our unique vantage point and knowledge of forgotten places. Our roguish friends here will be a great help- Shatter?”

“Zurescreen and I and our pals have cultivated contacts for the last 200,000 years,” Shatter laughed. “We are more than ready to lend a hand, and Road Rage knows old military folks in the capital here. We’ll give it our best, and gladly teach.”

“That’s good to hear,” Lickety-Split practically bounced in her seat. “I actually feel hopeful, for once, that my motowheel understanding will live on. Thank you.”

“Of course, and it is exciting,” Road Rage shifted her footing. “Any other questions? Else I move that we vote on the rest of our leadership structure.”

The day carried on, deciding on much- we formed an elected term executive council of Trans-Mutate, Minerva, short stoplight minibot Signal Lancer, Zurescreen, and Path Finder, and decided on our first objectives: connecting to other aesthetic hold-outs in the region, striking at local Functionist bases, drafting up physical media to spread a hopeful message to the civilian populace, and also expanding our provision of under the table aesthetic services to help people. Using the code phrase ‘group automatization’ to discuss Rampage’s cell to avoid State knowledge, we also planned supplying his band in the Undergrid.

When the meeting concluded, Jhiaxus put a hand on my upper arm. “Darling, my team and I have something to discuss with you. Would you sit down with me for a while?”

“Sure,” I found an empty table, and took a seat in its simple chair. Jhiaxus sat down opposite me, along with white and green burly missile tank medic Mindset, teal van engineer Steelhide, and stout purple wheeler blacksmith Eep. 

“I take it you’ve all had a breakthrough?” I locked optics with Jhiaxus. 

“Hehe, yes,” Jhiaxus’s red optics smiled with glee, bright and sharp. “Show her, Mindset.”

“We’ve finished the compiling and congealing of archival samples and ones from forged and trans gal volunteers here and around the planet for the project,” Mindset took out a large cylinder of blob-like gray cybermetal floating in pink energon. “We can derive CNA from here for a reprotoforming of the body in full- Jhiaxus risked his own life by putting his spark close to sentio metallico that we added the CNA gestalt to to prove that it works- we got a different frame shape each time. We haven’t edited it yet to respond to the spark and ‘translate’ as it were, but we’re a week out from achieving that, according to our projections. Is there anything you want different compared to the notes you last gave us?”

“One moment, Mindset,” my optics dribbled tears. “Jhiaxus, get up, so I can hug you, you didn’t have to do that.”

“But- but I did,” he laughed and stood, and I leapt to hold him close and tight. “It’s science, Arcee, if I’m not willing to subject myself with the help of my team so I can help you, what am I doing? So what if my spark could have disconnected or split- the survival and reconstruction of your gender is more important.” 

“You’re a good friend, Jhiaxus,” I rubbed his wings. “Even if you don’t fully get me, I’m honored to trust you. Thank you all of you.”

“Aw sweetie…” Jhiaxus patted my back stack. “That’s why I give you all space, you know yourselves better, and I’m honored too, to be trusted by the finest and most woman I know, a shining beacon of your gender. You’re going to help a lot of people in being that and the cause of actual freedom, just as you have for years, this time to give people who experienced Functionist intervention in their forging a second chance, too. You should trust yourself more.”

“Yeah, yeah- you’re right,” I slowly let go, I’m not all that and not just a woman- and I’m just as real as Trans-Mutate or Shatter . “I don’t have any new notes or designs to give. Is there anything I should know about the procedure from the experience you all had?”

“Well, they did have to strap me up to keep me from convulsing away, and it was painful the first time, I had myself knocked out with dampened sensors for the other trials,” Jhiaxus rubbed his helm. “We’ll make sure it goes okay for you, and of course you won’t be forging any metallico, but instead your own body.”

“Ah,” I reached out to his hands, feeling the harshness in my mind completely receded. Odd, maybe I’m just really happy right now. “Thank you, thank you so much. My friends want to be there for it, waiting, is that okay? I don’t want us to get spotted.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Eep chirped. “We’re going to use one of the undercover labs for this, though, so they’ll have to wait at the nearest rail station. We need a lot of machinery to pull this off and don’t want too much movement in and out- the safest way passes through government facilities, so...”

I slumped. “I- I understand. It’s the times.”

“Mmhmm,” Steelhide stood. “I should go get some rest before the all-nighter. Good night folks, and always a pleasure, Arcee,” he shook my hand and strode out.

“Why is he so clinical?” I leaned near Jhiaxus’s audial.

“Oh, he means nothing by it,” Jhiaxus chuckled. “He’s just a man of science- and doesn’t want to waste your time. I’m sure you could get some rest too, dear. Keep your body and mind fit for the surgery.”

“Right,” I squeezed his round forearm. “Thank you, be well.” I waved at the lot and headed out, to go upstairs, and rest. =”Codexa? Do you think we can cuddle tonight, or will you be busy?”=

Codexa: =”I’ll be there before you recharge, I just need to hammer out some details for our foray this week. See you in a couple hours- will you be okay?”=

=“Yeah, yeah I’ll be okay,”= I clambered up the nearest staircase, not quite believing myself. =”Just, kind of frantic about the fact that I’m really going to get what I want, and feeling clingy because of it.”= I went up the next flight, the next, the next, the next, and the next, to exercise my legs rather than take the lift. She must be busy, hopefully I wasn’t too needy. Keep quiet until she replies- =”Codexa?”= Dammit.

Codexa: =”Sorry sweetie, had a chance to call Rampage. That’s totally understandable, and I promise to stick with you as much as we can. Maybe you should call a friend over while I’m gone?”=

=”Yeah, that’s a good idea,”= I walked up into the recharge room hall, past the green gray wheeled fighting vehicle guard bot Vesper, giving him a nod. =”I might call Vibes, she just had her reformatting surgery and can probably relate.”=

Codexa: =”That sounds wise! Love you, smooches for you”=

=”Right back at you”= I opened the door to our room, with three shelves worth of books, and a single bright painting hanging of bots mingling and dancing during a Festival of Remaking under the starry night sky, with a shaded window to the lights and towers of Crystal City opposite me. I headed towards our large square green recharge slab and immediately stopped short and shut the door when I spotted tall, bulky and curving purple Galvatron in the room’s nearest right corner.

"Sibling, you shouldn't be here," Galvatron crossed his arms and leaned on the wall. "This is far too dangerous, not in a combative sense, but that of you against the world," He frowned. "Including danger from your supposed patron and protector."

"You mean, the only person who has done right by our kind with any sort of power to protect us?" I stared back. "You showed up now to tell me that? No hug, no gladness to see me?"

"Of course I'm glad to see you!" He growled. "But you don't understand, I think he deals in dark magics of the horrible age we left behind, he is using all of you for his own ends! He doesn't actually care about you getting what you want."

"I can't believe that, accept that, when he is trying to give me what the ancients and the aestheticians and scientists of our day thought impossible! The chance to see how I would have protoformed had my genome been different!"

"I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!" He sneered. "This doesn't sound like you- what happened to the fiery spirit you used to have that had she been in this situation would have just sought what she wanted for her euphoria of her own design? Did you not speak of such to me, dear sibling Arcee, when you tried to sway me against the pursuit of power over and over? And for what? For you to beg a hierarch worse than me to shape you in his own vision? What is he even basing the CNA sequence on?"

"He - with the help of my friends and myself, compiled CNA sequence archives from gals across bodies and experiences present and past... to ascertain what genes to activate to change every aspect of my body to more fit my spark's current wants as I know it. It's not perfect, but it's something... I can't know my full self, but my spark does-" I stopped mid-sentence, the words were hollow. Not even my spark can know itself fully, nor my mind. They merely talk and flow into each other beyond comprehension. But what am I supposed to do? “does know something in a different way, perhaps, what with how mind and spark inform and grow each other.”

"Is that all he is doing?" Galvatron hmphed.

"He keeps going on about how true I am to female ontology, he sees me mostly in that light. Which is a bit insulting- he dismisses my gender linkings and that I prefer an aesthetic understanding of gender. I'm not sure what he means by that, and I don’t like it." I looked down.

"This is suspiciously sounding like eugenics. Erasure. Please, let one of the people with you reforge your body from the ways you've drawn yourself on occasions..." he stepped closer; arms outstretched.

"Don't you get it!?" I sat on the floor and curled up. And aren’t you the one who would love to cull our own kind in your own way? "I know the risks! I know he's crazy! But I have to trust what we've worked on openly, because whatever happens to me, it will open up an entirely new future for people after me! I've copied every damn thing we've all written on it, and I want to do something constructive for once in my life! He actually is trying to help me, even if he doesn't understand me, and you'd have me skip this and leave behind possibility." My singular back stack pressed on the wall of my bunk and I sobbed quietly. "I can't- can't keep standing by doing nothing, while you, Dai Atlas, and Omega Supreme let the world die because Nova wishes it."

After a long moment perfectly still, Galvatron asked: "Would you want me to call you sister?"

I met his optics with mine. "That would be nice, yes. I appreciate that you didn't presume, though."

He finally smiled. "Of course." He extended his hand. "Sister, we don't see optic to optic, but I trust you more than any of the fools and tyrants in government- you know the score, the long reach of history and imagination, better than I do. Please, join me, and help me cut down Nova Prime and the Functionist rabble that turns his words into an order of oppressions they find righteous. We can bring together knowledge under our rule, and assure that your would-be surgeon does not meddle with you in a way you didn't agree to, I'll even acquiesce to a parliament of the people to balance our rule, as you would want."

"I have no interest in becoming the regime, tempting as the offer is," I smirked. "We would have all the power, and no autonomy at all. I prefer to work directly, you know that, and I am not well enough right now to overthrow anything. Fighting reactionaries who want to become the government and have their permission to be de facto tyrants is bad enough."

That's right, you're not, and it wouldn't make a difference if you did. You'd become the tyrant, and your brother would not let the democracy you envision become a reality. The harshness and my mind were for once in unison. You can't trust him. Anyone. Even yourself.

"But- after my surgery, I will consider your offer," I stood, and stumbled, as every movement felt wrong. "Stars my body really hates itself," I sat on my bunk and teared up again.

To my surprise, I found purple arms around me, and I looked up at my brother's face, full of softness I had rarely seen. "Brave warrior, better than me, I will trust you on this. Do what you have to do. I love you, sister. If he hurts you, I'll run him through with my ax. It'd be best if I leave; I understand you and your friends are intended to be a well-kept secret beyond my right to know." He chuckled. "Be careful." He started to let go, and I held him, not because I trusted him, but because I had so few people to hold who had been a constant in my life like him. Maybe Codexa will survive all this too. 

"I will, dear brother." I let go. And I have the feeling I will have to kill you one day.

He headed to and clambered out the window, a quiet blow in the wind. 

“I will swear a vengeance deeper than yours if I end up lonelier after this.” I shut the window behind him, and collapsed in the chair near the recharge slab, curled up, head in my knees, treads running fast. Why is everything so hard. Why can’t I have a moment of trust?

I didn’t call Vibes. I don’t want to bother her. I waited, eventually uncurled, and grabbed a book, Tetrahexian Vibes, opened it, not reading the pages, just needing something to look at, and I sat back down for a long while. I’m really just a bother.

I heard the door open. “Arcee?” Codexa strode over. “Where’s Vibes?”

“I didn’t call,” I shut the book. “Galvatron paid me a visit unannounced and pointed out the problems with everything I’m doing regarding my aesthetic by teaming up with Jhiaxus, and made an offer for dual autocracy with me by unseating Nova Prime. I don’t know what to think. Everybody our age except for a handful of people including you that I know besides my brother-” 

I put the book on the windowsill and stood to meet her slack jawed face. “Is dead. I’m a relic, and a transgender disaster of a person in the twilight years of Hadean aesthetics. I, I’m so scared.”

“Hey, easy,” she slipped her arms around my slight torso curves to hug me, and I shivered from her touch. “Heh, you do like that, don’t you.”

“Makes me feel more of how I want to be…” I nestled my head on her shoulder. 

“Of course it does,” she bonked her head softly on mine, and came to rest there. “Darling, none of us are perfect, and you have limited resources at present. We’re all cheering for you. I gave my own CNA for this. We make do how we can, and I’m proud of you for turning your brother down to instead try and build a horizontal future with us. I know it’s hard to trust permanence after all the violence you’ve lived, and I’m sorry you’ve been hurt so bad. But I promise, even if things don’t go well with this, there’s always love to hold onto, to find one happy thing in the day, and your connection to the universe, okay? That sense of strength you see things through.”

“Yeah, thank you,” I pecked at her cheek guard.”I think I know how I want to connect to the universe and find a happy thing right now.”

She cackled and cupped my helm in her hands to smooch me on the lips, nice and long. “Mmm, you do huh? Well, sit down dear, so I can touch you more and bring some euphoria out of your soul and mind into your frame.” 

I walked over in her arm and sat on the recharge slab, and she tightened her grip on my back while leaning in to kiss back and forth with me. I held a wing and rubbed her waist, hearing her coo as lips opened and closed on each other. Her free hand wandered along the length of my torso to my thigh furthest from her, and caressed the outer curve that I found too slight, leaving me warbling with lit up sensors and circuits across my body, across shapes I didn’t want but felt her touch where I had expressed wanting change. I could imagine them in my mind, a torso that curved a bit more, whose mass was recycled and moved elsewhere, to my thighs and chest… thighs sturdy while dexterous, more engine power in them, and a chest that can proudly form the front of my car mode I want so much… 

The touch of her hands at the hip height of my thigh made my legs feel larger there than they were, the way she stroked in a circle on the side. I was in flow with time and space, not so disjarred. More curving on the inside and out, more sturdiness under the rounded armor so desired, and her hands on my waist again, squeezing around the mid sides and then running down the length, bringing out a sense of a more tapered waist… though fear of the moment being dashed or lost was there and anxious, I chose to ignore it.

“You’re very good at this,” I clasped her chin in my hand and softly pulled a kiss, feeling her quake with joy.

“You are too…” Codexa straddled her legs around my waist and held me with her arms around my chest and back, continuing to kiss me, until she scooched over to the back of my shoulders, legs still around me.

My back panged, feeling the two stacks I wanted but didn’t have. “Would you rub the back of my shoulders or kiss me there, please?” 

“Thought you wouldn’t ask,” she traced a hand across me as she pivoted to rub me there, and lay osculations with her lovely lips. My shoulder circuits surged with euphoric joy, feeling the phantom sensation of the tall bulky stacks I wanted so much, made real in the mind just from my partner’s touch at where they would meet my back. 

I shuddered, and pressed around her ankles, squeezing and caressing, feeling her laugh. “You know, nobody’s ever paid attention to my big ankles like that, thank you love.”

“Hehe- oh,” my circuits sang happily from her touch, and hearing her wings flap. “This is what I wanted, sweetspark…” 

“Soon I’ll be able to kiss the ones you want, darling…”

“Yes, yes you will,” I felt my grin grow, and I laughed, harshness out of mind. “And you already have.”

She kept up the rubbing, I practically lost track of myself beyond the shape I wanted feeling so real, and eventually wanting to return that to her again. I turned around, and ran hands around her waist, and kissed her there softly while touching her wings. She laughed and cooed and sighed, still rubbing my back, and then my arms, particularly the sides of my forearms, where I had thought about door panel plating… I shuddered with joy, and brought myself back up to touch lips again, cupping her helm in my hands, exchanging smooches optics shut, her arms running from my back to my waist and thighs and back up again, until she simply held me around the shoulders, our osculations our focal point for a long while. 

My frame ecstatic in every circuit and sensor, tired and relaxed too, I finally parted from her face to gaze into her optics, our smiles soft and eased. Codexa patted the bunk portion behind her and started to lay down. I joined across from her, still gazing at her, and our limbs found each other in embrace, spooning closely. At gentle rest and calm, I felt the urge to slip into recharge and dream, and I could still feel the shape I wanted from her recent caresses. This is so lovely. 

“It’s really nice to open up with you, and I’m glad you get a kick out of me massaging your wings,” I met her droopy optics. “You look cute like this, you big lovely librarian warrior.”

“Hehehe, you do too, lovely errant warrior strategist,” she met my gaze with hers. “Yeah, you give me euphoria when you do that, I love to fly, and your love makes me feel like I’m flying.”

“Mmm, yeah,” I shut my optics, my spark aflame with steady, steely warmth that danced from our passion, from her and all my beloved contexts to say: this is me, and I love her . “My want to hover close to the ground or roll on it feels right there when you touch me too. Good night love, sweetspark.” I might be scared out of my mind and sad- but at least there is trust.

“Good night, transformative starlight.”

Chapter Text

One more week later.

I shook and smiled while Vibes, Twirl, Road Rage, Minerva, Crasher, Trans-Mutate, Shatter, and Codexa hugged around me or touched my arms, in the small internal use Science Directorate metro tunnel station with simple blue lights above, a tram waiting for me a few footsteps away.

“Oh, dears…” I chuckled. “You’re all so sweet, thank you for showing up and being willing to wait.”

“Of course,” Shatter gripped my hand firmly while patting my forearm. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world, dearie. Go do your thing, see you in a few hours.”

“You’re going to kick some ass when you get back, I can feel it,” Crasher grinned, baring teeth. “Just like I did after I reformatted.”

“Hahaha, I’m sure I will,” I caressed her dome-like head. “You know, if I didn’t want audial buns, I have to say your helm shape is fairly appealing.”

“Flirting, are we old iter-modus-gal?” Crasher guffawed and hugged me close. “Keep being you, wherever that goes in marvelousness and love.”

“I will,” I turned to Codexa, cupped her helm in my hands, and shared a kiss. “Look after them for me,” I kissed her audial ridge after.

“Of course, dearest spark,” she held my face in her hands and kissed my forehead, before holding me around my curves again. “Can’t wait to see you as you want to be.” Then she let go, droplets in her optic. “Go before I insist on coming along.”

I clasped her bulky shoulders, and walked onto the tram, waving and sighing at the cheers and see you agains. I blew one more kiss to the lot, feeling it was right, and received the same in return. Then I sat down by Jhiaxus and his team of three bots, and waved alongside them as the sleek golden Crystal City tram departed into the tunnel.

“You’ll see them again soon,” Jhiaxus elbowed my own arm and laughed. “A new future awaits, a better fit for you, and for Cybertron.”

“Jhiaxus-” I tensed at his wording. “You realize that, while there is a radicality to the constructed knowledges of trans people, my way is one that only some people will share an iteration for?”

“Oh yes of course,” he grinned. “I just mean that the CNA editing opens up new possibilities of self actuation. We can choose from any gender population and give people what they want.”

“What about multigender folks? Like me, like nearly all the old people?” I looked down. “That’s my one worry- gender is an assemblage. It’s not as simple as being a category, even if a person is singular in that sense.”

“Then, I suppose we can tailor new CNA gestalts to people’s needs,” Jhiaxus gripped his forehead. “You still want this, right? This is what you actually want to do?”

“Yes- yes I do,” I put my arm around him. “It’s okay, I get what you’re trying to say. You want to highlight my womanhood, and I kind of admire that,” what am I saying? “Since you’ve let me be the primary author of all this, I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah, I have, sorry I got defensive,” he didn’t meet my optics.

“Something else wrong?” I listened for a moment to the thump of the wheels on the train tracks, and looked out the window at the large hangar we passed full of more trams running about between underground towers of Statefolk walking and laboring, a few turning to look at us go by. Trains… they’re so lovely, I patted the thick tram wall. Thank you, metro tram. 

“It’s just- your brother,” his mouth tightened. “He thinks I am meddling in dark ancient magics that are best left alone. The fool. Doesn’t he understand that science can make peace?”

“That sounds like Solus Prime, I didn’t realize you admired her,” I turned my head towards him.

“Of course I do! She did so much more than I will ever do,” he brightened up immediately. “The woman scientist after my own spark, Prime though she was. I would have loved to work with her. Pity her science was not about revolutionizing our way of life, merely building on what came before.”

What? What is he getting at? The wheel thumping slowed, and I saw that we came to a stop by a dimly lit station with two bots with rifles in front of the door beyond. 

“Is there some other project you’re working on?” I stood with the four, and we walked out of the opening doors of the tram. My optics didn’t fall away from Jhiaxus.

“Trying to find a reliable energy source, you know as well as me that we’re over-urbanizing and that energy is being misused for affectations of grandeur by the rich,” Jhiaxus shrugged. “Among other things. Some of what little Nova Prime and I agree on, my lady.”

Hunched over, he whispered with the guards, and one opened the door, revealing an elevator and stairwell. 

Then Jhiaxus turned to us. “This way, please.”

“Thank you,” I walked onwards, joining him, and he called an elevator while the door was shut and locked behind the four of us. “Well, I suppose that takes up a lot of your time.”

“Besides practically running our public utilities, civilian interstellar program, and hampered educational efforts, it does, yes.” He stepped inside the elevator, and we followed. “It’s sad. I used to preside over more reformatting surgeries back in the day, I really enjoy them.”

“Well today’s your lucky day, eh?” I smiled at him as the lift rose. “What about you three? What do you usually do?”

“Honestly this last decade has involved the three of us being aides to this project even before you showed up,” Eep crossed his arms. “It’s been a real honor. Before this I uh, was on the blacksmith advisory board for the State. That’s why Jhiaxus tapped me in for this.”

“Aww, have to admit I always thought about doing stuff like that,” I shifted on my feet. “Nurturing protoforms is something I’d love to do.”

“Well, someone’s going to have to look after the protoforms whisked out of Functionist watch,” Steelhide shrugged. “We could use a hand.”

“Hmm, I’ll think on it,” I stepped out of the opening lift into a surprisingly dim gray, and jagged tool covered counters and lines of cabinets, with glass cylinders across the room. 

“Uh, what the scrap,” I stopped short. “I’ve seen your medical offices you give us, and been to some of your larger labs, they don’t look like this.”

This is what you get. This is what you geeet- stop that.

“Ah, sorry, we had to try a lot of things, operating room and other patient rooms looks a lot better,” Jhiaxus patted my forearm. “Sorry my lady, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No- it’s okay,” I sighed. “You must have worked really hard. Where are we exactly?”

“Repurposed general services office,” Mindset stepped in. “We’re twenty blocks out from the main administrative complex, southwards.” 

“Gotcha, thanks,” I followed Mindset to the next door ahead, into its hallway, and the room on the right.

My circuits buzzed and my jaw tensed, looking on at what sat in the center of the room, what I had never seen for a simple or extensive reforging surgery in all my years: a series of clamps and claws in a circle, around a flat operating table with more clamps running along it, with grooves for where my back stacks would be, and tube holes across it, along many more lines of gray cables wound up and waiting. The room otherwise was a soft purple-blue, with unobtrusive yellow lighting, with scanners and computers positioned around the central area.

“Right, you said the CNA has to be delivered all over the body to get this to work, why there’s all- this,” calm down, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay. I clenched and unclenched my fists over and over. 

“It’ll be all right, we’ll put you under for this,” Steelhide’s boxy head looked up at me. “Jhiaxus ran a test run with a body simulation frame, everything’s gonna be okay.”

I nodded. “Okay, okay. Let’s do this. Hook me up- you don’t want to put me under first?”

“We need your spark and module conscious to get an initial scan and ensure everything is aligned, prevent sensory problems,” Jhiaxus looked off into the distance. “This will likely affect your brain too, so having a most recent mapping of it will help to ensure we stick with your core engrams. Wouldn’t want to mess up your sapient experience.”

“Ah,” I strode forward, eager. “Thanks for the heads up.” I stopped short of the clamps. “Jhiaxus, I wish Codexa could be here to hold my hand through this, but I get why she can’t. Would you-”

“Certainly,” he turned and gave a half smile. “Anything for you, my lady.”

I laid down between the clamps and claws, and saw Mindset step up to a computer terminal, powering it up. The graspers took hold around me firmly, holding my arms out to my sides, and my legs slightly aloft, torso firmly stuck.

Hmm, they have an adjustable grip , do they actually expect me to get a lot smaller? I definitely don’t want to be conscious for that. I looked over at Steelhide and Eep, who picked up the outlying tubes- which I saw had sharp edges.

“They’ll only prick a little,” Jhiaxus grabbed my right hand with his orange claw. “Be strong, darling.”

I winced as tubes pushed into the lower ends of my waist and into my shoulders, into my blood ducts. “Aah…”

“Think about your happiest place,” Jhiaxus smiled at me.

“That place is a person, Codexa…” I whispered, feeling tubes magnetize along my back. I shut my optics, thinking of her soothing touch, her kind words, her bravery and strength, our deep trust-

More pinches ran up my back from tubing running in me.

“You have a scan- right?” I whimpered, not from the pain, but an overwhelming sense of having to trust these four men when I couldn’t reach my swords.

This was an amazingly bad idea, Arcee, you’re gonna get us killed-

I hate that you’re right.

Fluid started to flow through the tubes affixed to me, and Jhiaxus finally responded. “We need to know how you’ll handle this-”

“I DIDN’T AGREE TO THAT, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!” I struggled against the clamps holding me in desperation. Pain started to build and sear across the points of contact of the CNA tubes, rapidly flowing across my body. With what little grasp on tactical wisdom I had at that very moment, I made the most useful choice available: =”CODEXA HELP-”= my call was promptly cut when my mind and body were left with wordless screams, and I lost sense and track of myself, barely catching Jhiaxus finishing his words while he let go of my hand to rest his on my helm I could barely grasp existing except for sensors suffering with every second.

“I’m curious what constructing someone solely as a woman as I and she understand herself to be will do to introduce a new order of gender as inserted code from her own modified metallocells, spreading as rapidly as rust. I don’t- I don’t really think we’ve touched on what gender could be, before today…” his words were distant and distorted to me, but still infuriating, burning me up inside alongside the excruciating suffering until I eventually lost consciousness from the feedback, alone among awful people.

I came to. My leg sensors reported being on fire, my torso ached with a deep chill as if frozen over, I couldn't feel my arms at all, and my helm throbbed with the worst headache I’d ever had, along with my back stacks- two… felt stabbed all over. I promptly screamed and tried to run, and opened my optics to see my legs kicking in the air, clamps and claws loose, no fire or ice on me, nor any stab wounds on my back stacks I turned to look at but didn’t even get to enjoy at the moment. 

“My sensors have gone to smelt!...” I sobbed, and pulled myself out of the clamps, fell off the table, and crumpled on the floor, tubing now loose from me, the opened injuries splattering my blood on the floor. “I DIDN’T SIGN UP TO FIND OUT WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO ME UNDER SEVERE PAIN AND SOME BODYBASED CANNIBALIZATION OF GENDER! THAT’S CALLED TORTURE, YOU UTMOST DIODE ACHE POPPET VALVE, JHIAXUS! WHERE THE SCRAP ARE YOU SO I CAN TEAR ANSWERS OUT OF YOU!?”

No answer came, I was alone with the trickling sound of my dripping pink blood and cyan tears.

I curled up, not feeling myself bleed, and tried to make my next move. =”Codexa… can you read me?”=

Codexa:  =”Arcee!?! Arcee where are you?!? Are you okay?? I heard you yell over comms and had been calling you for hours and searching for you”=

=”No… no I’m not…”= this is what I get. I can’t trust anyone. I’m on my own. They all made this happen. They didn’t know better. I should have. Galvatron did.

Codexa: =”Oh darling, you’re crying, what happened? Tell me where you are and we can pick you up. Most of us are in hiding at our back-up safehouse in Old Town, had to evacuate because Jhiaxus’s facility was compromised, Functionist militia showed up. I got all your research notes you copied, and all our books… including your favorites, Errant Links of Love and Mood, and The Wandering Librarian… ”=

=”Blast! It’s always like this. We’re always falling apart! Thank you for taking care of them and saving our stuff. I’ll make my way there. I need to be alone for a while.”= I tried to push myself up on my left hand and it immediately opened up, revealing a grenade launcher tube inside now pressed up on the floor. =”Why the scrap do I have a grenade launcher in my palm? Is this part of Jhiaxus’s ontological definition of a woman?!”= I rubbed my palm as my pain kept up.

Codexa: =”He didn’t ask you if you would want to have one? I’m so sorry dear, that’s awful. Arcee please, don’t pull some loner scrap, you’ve told me about your stints on your own-”=

=”I won’t, don’t worry, just need to gather myself.”= I sat up. Focus.

Codexa: =”I’ll be waiting in the skies.”=

I waited for the pain to ebb. And waited. My tear ducts ran dry. Finally, when I got tired of shaking and realized how hungry I was, the pain seeped away slowly. Sensors went back to normal- except for feeling off kilter, brain fogged up, it’s hard to think. 

I clambered up, pulling myself with the operating table. I stumbled towards the hallway door, falling on my face and my jutting chest. “Ugh! Can’t even enjoy my body for a moment!” I crawled, and pulled myself up to lean on the wall. “I’m not getting this door open like this…” I reached into my left back stack, tall and angular, patted it, not believing that it was there. “Oh… I love this shape- but time for that later.” I drew my sword, ignited it, cut a wide hole in the door, and stepped through slowly. I measured every step, feeling my thighs move differently with their heightened rounded curve. This is nice… but why are they lighter?!?! I looked up at the door frame, and realized that from the head down I was a whole head shorter. 

“No wonder that was painful- SCRAP YOU, JHIAXUS!” I cut my blade into the wall, and realized there was a door at the end of the hallway opposite of where we had entered. 

“Scrap this,” I raised my left palm towards the door, unfurled my grenade launcher tube, and fired three rounds that my body claimed were energon based high explosive. If I can recalibrate to APHE sometimes that would be nice, will have to play around with that later. 

The round grenades flew, THOOM, THOOM, THOOM, followed by a shamfing sound of the door torn to pieces in an exploded bloom of blue weaponized energon.

I shambled forward, and sheathed my blade. I kept a hand on the wall, just in case I was going to fall over again.

I finally made it to the blasted doorway, and saw a short blocky black and blue minibot run across the building covered street beyond. 

“Hey, you okay?” they rushed towards me. “Name’s Phreaker, I can help you out- you’re bleeding! What happened?”

“I- medical malpractice,” I collapsed on the ground as I stepped into the night sky outside.

“Didn’t catch that,” Phreaker reached me and turned around, waving their arms. “Hey! Somebody! Get a medic over here, she needs help!” Phreaker called out before transforming into a blocky long range comms unit stand and dialing.

An immediate sense of euphoria washed over me Probably calling emergency services- wait, what pronoun did he use for me?! My mind clouded with confusion. 

“Hey, Phreaker-” I smiled at the blocky bot.

“Hang on m’am I’m messaging a medic named Safety he’ll be right over with his team-” Phreaker replied.

I was flabbergasted. “Phreaker!”

“What? Just finished talking to him, sorry about that lady,” Phreaker transformed back and extended an arm. “I’m way smaller than you, but you can barely stand, and you need a friend. Lean on me.”

“Why did you use she pronouns and gender terms that some have associated with women? I haven’t told you my pronouns or my gender or terminology therein,” I stared at their cube of a face.

“Well- I didn’t think anything of it, it just felt right, sorry if I offended,” They looked away. “I dunno, we’re all supposed to use he pronouns now or somethin’ but as soon as I walked up close I felt as if you were a she.”

“Was it my body, or something? Plenty of he pronoun folks share my shape,” I squinted.

“No ma’am- oh dagnabit, what should I use-” He clutched his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry.”

“That would in fact be okay, I do use those and she pronouns,” I touched his shoulder softly a few times. “I do know myself as a woman- but linked to all the other genders of my communities and experiences of my lane, that of Cybertron past and trying to survive in the present.”

“Okay, Arcee, I’ll use those. I’m he/him, I guess. Doesn’t matter much to me, I like all pronouns,” he smiled at me. “You give good pats.”

I chuckled, and stood. “I do know a thing or two about touch, I’m quite old.”

“Ah, I’m only in my 130,000s,” she sat down. “It wasn’t how you looked or talked or anything. It was just- you when you came close. It just seemed so clear, and I dunno why-”

I heard and saw a white orange blocky van roll up joined by a green rounded car and a blue ridged one, who stopped in front of us, and transformed, into blocky, curvy, and robust short bots respectively.

“Hey, you must be the injured bot, heard you were having some sensory trouble, not walking well,” the orange and white one knelt next to me. “I’m Safety, these are my assistants Silo and Pylon. Could you tell me ma’am what happened?”

WHAT THE PIT DID JHIAXUS DO TO ME?! I curled up immediately, feeling exhausted because of the unasked affirmations. “I’ve gone from living in a nightmare world of androcentric genderlessness that made he pronouns feel disgusting for me to use for myself to a nightmare world within that where I am the only person who has my pronouns that aren’t and that are still used by strangers, but they/them remains dead in the water.”

“Isn’t they a plural pronoun or something? That’s what the theoconomists say-” the green one started.

“It wasn’t only that in my day!” I yelled and stood with my sword drawn at the green bot. “We used it when we didn’t know somebody’s if we couldn’t avoid a pronoun altogether, and some people still use it! Bloody garbage brainwashing propaganda of today would have you think that there’s only one pronoun-”

Everyone had backed away from me a few steps except Phreaker.

“Wait, you said you used to use he pronouns,” Safety stared while his red head’s blue optics squinted and refocused a few times. “You’re… trans?”

“Someone hand this bot a Matrix of Leadership,” I cackled with bared fangs.

“Ma’am,” Safety knelt on both knees. “I know this is a hard time for you folks right now, and sorry about Silo, he hasn’t learned up on gender,” he pulled out his medical tools. “Please, just let me help you, or at least help you find people who can help you, and I need to treat your wounds.”

“Go ahead and patch me up-. ” My legs had a sudden perception of falling from my sensors while my torso screamed signals of being crushed with deep water that wasn’t there. I fell to my side and de-ignited my blade as I did so, and expected droplets to run across my nose, down my cheek, and off my helm guard, while my back stacks wiggled erratically in pain, but my ducts were still dry. 

“I wanted this… I still want it… but why does it have to hurt so bad!?” I moaned.

“Something happened with your surgery?” Safety’s voice was close, and I looked up at him with my out of focus vision, patching my waist and shoulder wounds. “That’s odd, I thought reformats only caused aching and any sensory stuff would be manageable by medication.”

“You are correct. This wasn’t a typical procedure,” I spat out as the sensory overload dulled. “We edited my CNA, and for some damn reason I was conscious, not put to sleep, for the whole thing until I blacked out from the suffering. I would have felt if it was rushed and sloppy, but…” no he said he wanted to see how you’d respond- maybe he wanted to see how he could mess around with you. “It was on purpose… it was too horrific. A cruel joke of torture to get euphoria.”

“I’m so sorry,” Safety clasped his hands together, head knelt. “Whoever did that is a traitor to the medical field.”

I could hear Phreaker crying dial up noises and ring tones close to me. 

“You sound so alone, don’t you have any friends? Or can you get the doc to give some answers?” he squeaked.

“I know some people. Minerva, Road Rage, Lickety Split. Not names you’d know. But we have a hideout. All I need you to do is take me to Crystal City’s Old Town. I know the rest of the way-”

“I get it if you don’t trust us,” Safety toned. “But take Phreaker with you, at least. They’re a kind soul.”

I saw Silo’s jaw drop, and I chuckled in spite of my aches. “Okay, doc, I’ll do that.”

“Do you mind if I look you over first? I won’t take you to a hospital- the walls have audials. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Go ahead, a multi-spectral scan couldn’t hurt,” I tried to sit up, and Phreaker pulled at my right arm with all their tiny might to help.

“Okay,” Safety pulled at a scanner tube on the pack on his right thigh, and projected blue light on me. “I’ve never seen this in my life- readings tell me you just protoformed, but it’s clear you haven’t-”

“Actually, I did,” I smiled. “CNA edit was responsible. Just my second time protoforming.”

“No wonder your body is a wreck,” Safety’s jaw dropped. “A pretty one, though.”

I shuffled on my feet, and wrapped arms around myself, unsure how to feel about the compliment I agreed with in a different way than I had before. Should I be concerned? So hard to think . “Thank you? I am happy with the general shape… shorter but maybe it’ll grow on me. I sure as blazes don’t want another surgery right now.”

“What- what side effects are you dealing with?” Silo pressed his hands together.

“Sensory issues- they’re really bad, not anything I’ve read in the medical literature about reformatting,” I met his optics, that seemed to have softened. “And uh, brain is all fogged up in here-” KILL. KILL KILL KILL- “NO I DON’T WANT TO KILL ANYBODY!” I started shaking again.

“You’re having thoughts about murder, ma’am? Can I ask your name?” Pylon reached out.

“My name’s Arcee, of Protohex and the Darklands, maybe you’ve heard of me,” I met their optics, desperately pushing away thoughts of all the ways to stab them. 

“I- yeah,” they rubbed their head, “You’ve killed a lot of Functionists in the last year, I hear.”

“I have,” I smirked. “Rather proud of that.”

“Right,” Pylon looked away. “You have good reason to fight them. We should go.”

I tried to transform. I put my legs and arms to the side, folding them and dipping my head under my back stack’s rear visual system that doubled as my ventral armor, my stacks folding around my arms. Cozy. I started a hover off the ground, and honked at Phreaker. “Hop on, and I’m going to call my girlfriend to meet us on the riverside near the old plaza. She’s a big green plane.” I opened my passenger deck’s windshield cover up.

“Easy does it, come on Phreaker,” Phreaker clambered onto me and then the seat within. “This is comfy, thanks.”

“No problem.” I closed my windshield. =”Dear, I’m rolling out to Old Town, meet me by the riverside near the plaza. Some medics are in tow, only one sticking with us probably is a comms box bot.”=

Codexa: =”Oh thank the forge you commed in. Okay, I’ll be there, see you soon.”=

“Let me go first, put a buffer between you and crashing if your sensors or engines go haywire,” Safety rolled forwards, and  I followed him through the street, with little traffic on the way. We were silent, until we went down the side street, to the river, and I saw all my friends who had been waiting for me this morning, no longer having to wait.

“I think I should step out for this bit, Arcee,” Phreaker tapped my window.

I opened up, xey climbed out, and I ran into Codexa’s arms, shivering. “I got stabbed in the back. I got used- I should have realized I was just an object of curiosity-” I held her close. “I don’t ever want to let go.”

“Hey hey, I’m so sorry dear, but we’re here now, we’re here for you.” Codexa smooched my helm’s central crest, rubbing my back stacks. “And I’m glad you’re here, that I get to feel you. I love you Arcee, you’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. You transform yourself with your soul far more than anyone can to your body.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say…” I rested my head against her chest. “But I did need some form of this- I am happier with my body, my wrecked, messy body.”

“Of course you do,” Trans-Mutate touched my shoulder. “We all want euphoria, contentment, or at least a peaceful rhythm. I want to write a song for you, from all of us, would that be okay? Sing something in your honor soon.”

“Aw, you don’t have to do that-” I patted her head, watching her smile. 

“I want to though,” her optics welled up. “From one trans person to another, instead of this awful day you’ve had at the hands of a bunch of forged men who think they can write the world to their will.”

“Then,” I hugged her with an arm, my circuits soothed by Codexa’s touch where I had wanted it so, until my sensors started screaming again about heat and cold and falling and getting hurt. “Then- urk,” I tried to hold in the pain, I’ll never be able to enjoy Codexa’s touch like I once did reliably again… “Then please, for something different, transformative, I’d love to hear you sing.”

Chapter Text

At dawn the next day.

“Did you hear, my lord?” orange blue blocky chopper Ro-Tor’s yellow visor met my optics. “Scout watch just reported in to me, Jhiaxus’s subterranean facilities here in Crystal City were raided by Functionists last night-”

“WHAT!” I leapt forward over my command desk to stand in front of my general. “Any survivors? Any word of where they went?”

“Bits and pieces, sir!” Ro-Tor stepped back and gave me a salute. “Something about aesthetic hold outs, largely a bunch of women including an overlap with also present trans and expansive folks, is my understanding-”

I tried not to show all my rage in front of my underling, he doesn’t need to know why I’m angry . “What a tragedy,” I dipped my head. “Where did they go?”

“They scattered through the underground into the wider polity. Some are probably trying to leave, would be my guess,” Ro-Tor sneered, faceplate narrowing. “Something special about them to you?” 

“You have no idea- you whelp,” I drew my battle ax. “You wish to challenge my honor? I have lost the world I used to know to this Functionist drivel! It’s disgusting, it weakens our species, keeps us from ourselves! What would you know of the wonders of manhood and to share with another gender the marvels of friendship, love, and honor in battle?! ”

“Nothing, sir, I’m of a newer generation,” he knelt. “Strike me down, if you will. I know you want to. Let out your rage and prove you’re a barbarian.”

I tossed my ax into the wall and raised my forearm mounted fusion cannon to his head. “Why do I even tolerate you?”

“Because, I remind you of yourself,” Ro-Tor laughed. “Though I am but an imitation of the genuine article.”

“Hmmm,” I lowered my cannon. “I do appreciate that you put up with my ‘barbaric’ warrior ways, soldier. ”

“I share your concerns for the world in a way,” he stood to face me. “I have no interest in answering to a Functionist regime, they seem on their way to stratification of everything. On the other hand, if I ruled in your stead, I’d have to deal with Nova Prime, and I have no interest in doing that.”

“What a blessed life you live,” I grumbled. “Good joke, just in a bad mood,” I went to grab my ax, pulling it out of the wall with ease. This was the night of Arcee’s surgery. Fragging blast, I should have been there. “Leave me. I need some privacy. General, if you wish to show some honor,” I saw him nod, and I smiled. “Then deploy your troops to aid the good fleeing folk in finding safety. Indirectly. It's all I can authorize on my own.”

“It will be done, my lord,” he bowed and scurried out of my armory-office. “I did hear one other thing- Jhiaxus is nowhere to be seen, either. Movor has taken over in his stead.” 

“Thank you, Ro-Tor,” I scrunched my fist, and looked over my walls with weapons hanging across them, wondering how many I would need today. “Be careful.”

He shut the door behind him, and I immediately pressed a hand to my audial. =”Arcee? Arcee can you read me? I heard what happened to your group, I’m sorry about the distance between us, truly. If you still want my offer…”=

Arcee: =”I hear you. Brother, I can’t really go around fighting, right now, even if I wanted to take up your offer for autocracy, which I don’t. My surgery, my surgery had bad side effects, and I’m still reeling from the trauma of having been kept conscious -ah, agh- and having had shaping I didn’t entirely want…”= 

Crying carried over the comms, and I immediately hacked away at my desk with my ax in fury while I waited, what link I felt to womanhood enraged, how dare he, how dare he do that to her! That was supposed to be a special moment!

Arcee: =“There are things I’m happy about, but I want answers out of him. If you want to help, help me fight the Functionists, and find him.”=

=”At the very least, I will track him down, and deliver him to you! Sister, I wish I could do more. My barracks aren’t a safe place for your folks. I-”= I got off comms to scream, and struck another blow to my desk, tearing it in twain. =”I will do my best. Be well, you have friends, no?”=

Arcee: =”Thank you. Assuming they live through this, yes. I have friends, and a lover.”=

I smirked. =”You’re dating another woman, aren’t you? You always had a fondness for them, like I do. I’m happy for you.”=

She chuckled over comms. =”You are correct, and she’s a linked gal at that, so we share some other aesthetics too. I’ve got to go, be careful.”=

I stared down at my desk, imagining Jhiaxus’s body bisected where I had cut the table. I will have you dead if Arcee won’t do it herself. 

I picked up a blocky 150mm railgun rifle from the wall and its ammunition canister, holstered them on my back, and jogged out the door and took the elevator down, turning into my tank mode. When I reached the ground, I rolled out of the round hall, soldiers around saluting me, and went out the gates into the bright palace plaza, and caught sight of towering white and black and winged Nova Prime striding towards me, flanked by a squad of halberd carrying Elite Guards.

“Military Chief of Staff Galvatron, a word,” Nova Prime stopped a dozen meters from me.

“Of course, Prime, I’m just busy at the moment,” I unfolded myself to a stand, and walked up to him. “What is it?"

To my surprise, he hugged me, and I stood still, not knowing how to respond beyond saying, “This isn’t like you. We don’t have a friendship like this, you’re not the touchy type.”

“Sssh,” Nova put his faceplate near my audial. “Hug me back so I have a moment to talk to you. Don’t need more people hearing this.”

I awkwardly put my arms around his waist. “Er- this is important?”

“I’m sorry about what happened to Arcee,” he whispered, and I immediately recoiled for a split second before I remembered his order, and stayed in the embrace.

“What the frag do you know about what happened to my sister?” I stared him down.

“I have listeners too, you know, and do you think Jhiaxus’s projects to save gender were ones I had no interest in? It is a worthy test of will, the fate of our people and Pax Cybertronia. What he did- testing her reactions, didn’t have my approval,” he bowed his head, before glaring at me. “But you are forbidden from hurting him. I will reprimand my minion properly, but you are to do nothing. I need his genius to ensure we don’t starve. Am I clear, Galvatron?”

“Eugh,” I did my best to keep droplets from falling down my cheeks, my face stiff. “I can’t believe this. You stand in the way of justice.”

“Kill him and I will end you, and your sister,” Nova’s faceplate rose as I froze in place. “You do respond to threats, after all, don’t you, warrior.”

“I… I do,” I bowed my head and let go. “Thanks for the talk, Nova! I appreciate your condolences over the logistics hassle!” I boomed loudly.

“As you were,” he nodded, transformed into his truck mode, and rolled away with his guards.

I put my head in my hands. This is a nightmare. How dare he. Traitor.

Dai Atlas: =”Galvatron, I believe we have a common interest. Meet me and Omega Supreme at the Reliquary, my meditation chambers.”=

“Grrr, it seems there is no shortage of young men who want to tell me what to do,” I crossed my arms. =”I’ll be right there. Tell me this is to fight the stench of weakness pervading our people.”=

Dai Atlas: =”Something like that.”=

Making my way through the Reliquary’s massive wall paintings of imagined bliss and dance of forgotten bots among Omega Sentinels of the time of the Knights, far too tacky, and bots quietly talking, meditating, and constructing sculptures, I turned towards the large hangar on the left and stepped inside, to see hulking the yellow, red, and gray Omega Sentinel, Omega Supreme, as tall as my tower, standing inside the open roofed room, next to the flyer Dai Atlas, sitting at a table.

“Come in, brother! Join me in this time of reflection,” Dai Atlas waved.

“Hmph,” I walked in and gave a half smile. “You talk of bloodletting, monk? Let’s talk about solutions.” I stood in front of the table, not sitting in the teal chair in front of me, and nodded at Omega Supreme, who slightly dipped his massive rounded helm in reply, his curved back stacks still.

“Galvatron, I have to ask you to do nothing direct to associate with the noble aesthetic resistance honoring the ancients and our deepest nature, like that of all sapient life in the universe: change,”  Dai Atlas’s face fell to a frown. “I’d like to do something too, but we can’t risk another direct civil war, even if the casualties of the fight already raging are disheartening.”

“Great, so you all have spies. Wonderful, my position is redundant,” I tightened my fists. “And how can you say that about Arcee!? She, she needs me! She and her friends are all alone against a world that hates them or doesn’t give a damn, a world that would hate me too if I was open about my manhood being a gender and aesthetic experience,” I slammed my fist onto Dai Atlas’s table. “How can you two, supposedly the most ethical of us, not help?”

Omega Supreme stared at me, and said nothing, but his expression was one of a clenched jaw and drooped optics- the same look my sister had when the fighting was underway on Antilla.

I wavered a moment, trembled, and whispered to Omega Supreme, my head near his leg, “You were there, weren’t you Supreme. To you this is another genocide. So WHY DO YOU DO NOTHING?!?”

“We must preserve what we can. For when we are ready. And I do not trust you. Your sister I trust to find the way. Eventually.” His gaze bore into me.

I sat down uncomfortably, and looked to Dai Atlas, who rose calmly from his chair.

“Am I missing some context? I don’t know what happened to your sister,” Dai Atlas offered a hand. “Is everything all right?”

“It’s not your business, really, if you won’t help her,” I didn’t take his hand. How does he know that she’s my sister, not only a sibling?

“All right,” he looked down. “And what other genocide?”

Don’t mention Antilla. “Er- the Cybertronian Civil War. Loads of people were slaughtered categorically,” does he know I did that too? This highborn bolthead lad probably has no fuel tank for it. Fool.

“Ah, I see. Galvatron, it moves me to see you so upset for someone you care about, she must be having a hard time,” Dai Atlas extended a second hand to clasp with me.

I did not return the gesture.

He withdrew his hands. “You must understand, if we aid her, we expose ourselves, and betray the freedoms Nova Prime is trying to guarantee. Peace.”

“There is nothing peaceful about the rampant policing terrorism of Functionism,” I sneered.

“I know,” he sat back down. “But it is the inevitable result of your war. Nova Prime did not will it into being, he spoke to something already there. A reluctance, recalcitrance, to variety and variation side by side that we frame the days of old as. He is trying to hold back the tide. Your sister is strong, and brave- and has help. She will strike where we can’t, get to the truth of things. And there will always be more iterations of people like her with their quests, we can’t protect all of them directly. We must prepare, for the eventual war, strata against everyone else.”

“Why would you trust me with such a thing?” I laughed. “It is well known that I enjoy the power I have, and I have no love for headmasters or beastformers, variety be damned.”

“Because you are a usurper of tyrants, even if you wish to be one,” Dai Atlas said flatly. “I have use for you. To cement the deal- I will give you command of my forces beyond Crystal City. All the warrior sages and martial artists and errants of my order- trusting you. Strike where you will, sabotage, slow things to a crawl. I care not. Only that you answer the call when we give it.”

A new army. I tried to keep my face from showing my glee, pressed my lips shut. The glory- but surely meant to keep me in check. It’s not as if they are loyal to me or likely ever will be.

“Deal, Dai Atlas and Omega Supreme. On that note, Omega,” I looked up at him. “Do you not care what happens to your Crystal Guardians, warriors and librarians both?”

=I weep every day for having abandoned more innocents,= Omega met my optics, and then turned, lumbering away, legs stepping over the wall with ease.

I extended my hand to Dai Atlas. “Well, it seems we are brothers in trust-”

A tiny part of me, remembering some happiness I couldn’t put words to, a forgotten conversation after sparring with my sister, sat on the edge of my mind. This is wrong, I should help her, don’t I care about her- haven’t I seen her do this dance before? Weren’t we closer when we were young…

I smashed that thought. No, I haven’t. Wishful thinking, there is only the brutality we faced together, that she still hasn’t learned the lessons from. Take power and use it, not share it.

That tiny part of me that had grown lonelier with each cycle howled in sorrow as Dai Atlas shook my hand, a smile meeting me, and then a puzzled widening of optics.

“Something wrong, Galvatron? You were going to say something…” Dai Atlas took my hand and shook it.

“Nothing’s wrong, a false memory, of a time that never was,” I smiled back. “I’d like to meet your commanders and staff, so we can strike back.” Maybe I can help the resistance buy a million years, maybe we can even win, even if I can’t get Jhiaxus.

I pressed two fingers to my helm to signal to Dai Atlas that I was making a call. =”Sorry, Arcee, I can’t take down the man who hurt you, been ordered against it on the pain of death. But I can offer an army in common cause, we just can’t work together.”=

Arcee: =”I understand. Thank you, and be well. I know we probably won’t see each other again for a long time. Don’t die on me, and don’t you dare come after any fauna formers or I will end you.”=

=”I won’t.”= I finally started to let silent droplets down my face, and tried not to respond with some quip about her reducing herself in the defense of beasts. Dammit, sister. “This, this isn’t the life I wanted. The power yes- but the end of the world, no. This is a living death.”

“We will make it through together. I have word about a base to strike, let me show your new team of commanders, first,” Dai Atlas got up and patted my shoulder, and I slowly stood, face drying.

Chapter Text

6.9 Million Years ago. The Undergrid around Iacon, Cybertron.

“Path Finder, give the Tesarus team the signal, it’s their turn to strike, the Functionists have left an opening in their fortress in the region,” I sat in front of a battle map of Cybertron, unit pieces strewn about across the table to demarcate our and their forces. Shatter sat next to me, on comms with  Ser-Ket, and bots rushed about the white glowing blue room covered in charts and file cabinets.

“Aye aye ma'am, I’ll get on it,” rounded blue space-saucer Path Finder saluted with a hand to her chest, and ran off to the door, limbs coming around her torso to form her saucer shape, and flew off. Wonder how long it will take for a more conventional military tendency to seep in and people start calling me sir... would I actually mind?

“Rampage, old friend,” I smiled at the tall crab bot, his green optics meeting mine. “How goes recruitment of new generations?”

“Rather effective, my outreach team reports we have 303 new sign ons of armed fighters or aid givers in the last month, as of today,” his mandibles grinned around his faceplate. “I presume you want to oversee their training when you take a break from command next week?” 

“I do,” I clonked elbows with him. “Teaching is an old calling I definitely enjoy. Do we have anything else of note right now-”

“Arcee!” I looked up to see Road Rage burst through the doorway, bots turning to salute her as she entered. She briefly returned the gesture as came up to the table. “I’ve got news!”

“Why, if it isn’t our triumphant recon hero and commander of the Simanzi Defense,” Shatter got up and was the first to hug her, with Rampage and I quick to follow. 

“What news do you bring from the front?” Shatter’s hand lingered on Road Rage’s shoulder.

“Well, on my way back, my unit patrolled the Undergrid, good and bad news,” her optics softened looking at me, and she inclined her head. “Functionists are operating in the tunnels now, though they get lost easy. We didn’t reveal ourselves, so they don’t know we’re based here, I hope. But- I also spotted Jhiaxus, linked up with your scout tracking Science Directorate movement, Deep Blue Glimpse, and she figured out how to cross paths-”

“Where,” a wrathful voltage ran through my circuits, and I gripped her rectangular forearm firmly. “Tell me so I can get to the bottom of this.”

Road Rage bit her lip, optics briefly widening, before unclenching her mouth. “Er, um, near the Translucentia Heights that are under construction. He was flying top speed, and saw some Functionist flyers after him. You know, same old thing we’ve seen whenever we glimpse him. Always on the run.”

“I see,” I let go, and Road Rage crossed her arms, and looked away from me, seemingly very focused on the nearest corner of the wall. Whoops. “Sorry Road Rage, I didn’t mean to-,” a sense of falling seared across my back, and I wobbled, nearly losing my footing.

She grabbed my shoulders. “Easy, we’re right here. It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” she smirked. 

I nodded, and steadied myself, doing my best to ignore the false sensor data. “We move out today, link up with Deep Blue. You, Rampage, Vibes, Twirl, Crasher, Minerva, Lickety-Split, and myself. Codexa and Shatter can hold down the fort and keep up command with Trans-Mutate and the rest of the current council.”

“Arcee, are you sure this is wise? We know your sensory overload stuff is stress related,” Shatter’s red optics fixed on my yellow ones.

“If I don’t, I will crumple up all day feeling it all by doing nothing about it,” I dipped my head low. “I have to. He abandoned me, after claiming to put so much value on me, and then using me for whatever his grand plan is. I have to get it out of him, and at the very least get compensation by getting him to finish his work under our supervision , so we can help the poor new bots the Functionists are meddling with at forging.”

The other three were quiet for a moment. It’s not a nice thing to think about, their interventions for ‘mode conformity,’ and removal of what they consider ‘gender redundancy.’ I remembered the blood I had spilled over millennia near hot spots, trying to whisk sparks away, those places now fortresses guarded by Nova Prime's armies. “I never thought, I never thought when I was young that I would one day spill the blood of a blacksmith…”

“None of us did,” Rampage put an arm around me. “Old friend, someday that will be over, I promise. The Functionist Code of Form will be put to murderous rest. Let’s take a moment to gather ourselves and then prepare to move out. You should go see Codexa.”

“Right,” I nodded, and walked my way out, letting the pain of gunshots that were not occurring across my body fuel me, as I staggered out the door. I need to get my act together or Minerva won’t let me go. One foot in front of the other, balance, slow, not charging right now… I stepped carefully, balancing myself down the tunnel, saluting with passing bots, and finally making it to the nearest medbay entrance, and walked in.

On my way down to the end, I nodded at the resting bots with patches and missing limbs, shared words of comfort, until I reached Codexa’s recharge slab, and sat down in the nearby chair, and held her hand that stretched out to meet me, kissing it, taking in the sight of her crumpled leg and the patch across her chest, for the sword wound that had barely missed her spark.

“Arcee… my dearest love,” she squeezed my hand, and put down the digital tablet she had been holding, wings flapping softly against the slab. “I hear you’re going out. I’ll be cheering you on. Please be careful… I sense treachery. It’s odd that he’d be near a place of such wealth while in hiding.”

“I know,” I rubbed her fingers with my thumb, and she did the same to my hand, my circuits relaxed and soothed. Please let me enjoy this moment. “I’ll be careful. If I can bring him back alive, I will. I don’t want what happened to me to go to waste…”

“It didn’t, don’t say that,” she sat up slowly. “Come here.”

I sat on the bunk, and she put her arms around my curvy waist, and I gasped quietly from her gentle touch, and rested my head on her big shoulder.

“I love you…” I ran a hand up her wing, and saw her smile, before I scrunched up in pain of burning plasma all over me it’s not there, it’s not real- I screamed, only barely able to feel her holding me.

“Focus on my words, dear,” she gripped me tight. “Think of all that you love, how beautiful you are…”

Don’t listen. She can’t help, she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t love you -SHUT UP. I tried to picture all my friends, alive and dead, and counted them, while hugging my chest I adored so much for its presence in my daily life. “All that I love, how beautiful I am… all that I love…” I turned and kissed her lips in my agony, and simply stayed there, holding her face. “I want it to stop. I want to have it healed. None of the historical medications work,” the pain slowly receded, and I shuddered. “But you’re right that it wasn’t a waste, I just wish it had been different, I should have listened to Minerva…”  

“Yes you should have, but don’t guilt trip or shame yourself. You know better now,” Minerva’s sturdy hand came to rest on my left back stack. “And in my medical opinion I can’t see you go on like this unless you find some closure. You’re going, and I’m helping you, as you ordered, even though I can pull rank on your health.”

“Pretty sure you pulled rank to affirm her choice,” Codexa rubbed my lower back, and we both laughed.

“Ssh, you’ll spill my secrets,” Minerva chuckled. “I’m giving you thirty minutes, and then we move out. Don’t want to miss this opportunity.”

“Copy that,” I looked up at her. “Thanks doc, you’re the best.”

“So are you, and never forget it,” she smiled, and walked away.

She can’t actually mean that. That’s a lie. A friend’s lie to comfort me.

We moved swiftly through the tunnels in alt mode, following Road Rage to Deep Blue’s temporary outpost. I barely processed the beautiful tunnels with sparse script I didn’t understand, focused on the road ahead. Empty. Curious. The ancients before my time… I already missed our base as soon as we left it’s halls not entirely dedicated to war; where instead many navigated affirmation, talked, rested, and worked, laboring over goods to trade with rogues and friendlier portions of the outside world, and to give to our other bases. I had smiled within my armor after we passed by bots engaged in one of my favorite things to do when I wasn’t fighting and my mind had enough stability- sharing moments of learning and play between older bots and recently forged we had rescued or offered shelter to alike. Maybe we are living up to the memory of the Knights…

Onwards we drove and flew. Road Rage turned right into a side tunnel, and I followed. We pulled up inside an alcove, seeing a heavy blue motorcycle tucked away near the wall. She transformed, standing tall, dextrous with purple running across her back winglets and her crests, a massive sword in her right hand.

“Solidars, welcome to my latest hiding spot,” she saluted us, and put her sword on her back.

“Hmm, I like that, rewording solidarity to refer to people in common cause,” I transformed, and returned the gesture. “Good to see you, Deep Blue Glimpse. Anything new to report?”

“Thank you, I’m a bit of a poet. Just one thing, ma'am,” her silver face and yellow optics looked on sternly, as was typical of her. “Jhiaxus turned back around and disappeared into the open doors of a big room close to here, and a bunch of Functionists followed in, including one of the higher ups, One-over-Zero. I think Jhiaxus is in some serious trouble even if we don’t go looking for him.”

“Ah yes, the blasthead who sent a team to harass me and is currently making a play to be the autocratic head of the Functionist factions.” I growled, letting the old moments of fear and rage resolved by killing everyone involved pass. It’s okay, I’m alive, I’m here now, and I can do what I did again. “I can’t let Jhiaxus’s research and his brain fall into the hands of the Functionists, much less for them to understand what he actually did to me at all and to try on their own,” I went back to my hovercar form immediately. “Show the way. Twirl, you’re on point with the breaching charges.”

“You got it, solidar, ” Twirl chuckled and lifted off, following Deep Blue back into the tunnels. We took a few turns, and Deep Blue stopped in front of closed circular doors.

“This is the spot. Tunnel winds for hours the other way out of the room. Do we blast now?” She hopped onto her feet and scurried up against the wall, sword in one hand, a stubby energon pistol in the other.

“No,” I leapt into a quiet step up to the door. “First I want to know what’s happening. Twirl, prime the charges.”

I put my round helm audial up against the door while Twirl worked, and turned up my hearing sensors as sensitive as they would go, hearing my team's engines hum next to the walls. Vibes, Twirl, Crasher, Minerva, and Rampage were beside on the wall to my left, weapons ready.

“...you understand, yes? We look the other way at your other heresies, and you speak to the truth that there is only anatomy, not gender, and destroy your foolhardy waylaid project- ideally getting it to recant and disavow first on record. After you share with us how you made the reformatting surgery so painful.” the voice of One-over-Zero I had heard on propaganda casts and vids of late was barely audible.

“If such is the path of progress, then I agree. My agents can handle this- if not I shall act personally.” The unmistakable groveling in his voice was clear as day to my module.

My blood ducts practically boiled, and my fangs tightly clenched in my mouth. “I can’t believe this. He’s turning on everything he believed in for his own life! Commiting to lie about everything, to sell out, and take us down?! I was such a fool- we move now on three.”

My teammates whispered their acknowledgement and readiness.

I backed away from the door where Twirl had stuck the breaching charge, and drew my energy blade linear sabers. “One, two, three, breach!”

Twirl ignited the breacher with a click of a remote in hand, and we barreled in, weapons brought to bear. 

As I sprinted into the smoke I screamed: “You fall today for your atrocities against history, against our very own transformative nature of all of us, of you! Jhiaxus, stay here if you want to live, you have no one else to turn to, and you know it!” My blades quickly found a spherical Functionary’s spark in his armor as gunfire broke out, and I saw my one-time confidante and surgeon stare in fear, and turn to run out the doors on the opposite side of the room, as gunfire and clashes of weapons filled it. Dammit.

Seeing another Functionary raise a cannon towards me, the other two dozen busy desperately fighting my squad, I leapt with my back stacks jet thrusters into his boxy face, and stabbed him through to the other end of his head cleanly, through the module, and hopped down his back to come face to face with bulky, flat chested, and winged One-over-Zero, who had two cutlasses in hand, blades of pitch black. The dark steeliness- ununtrium ore. It’s either Jhiaxus or the rising Functionist hegemon- it’ll have to be him, he’s the bigger threat.

I waved one of my blades towards me, and smirked. “You content to just mock my fighting style, or do you want to face me, gender deprived poppet valve?”

His gear shaped head stared me down with narrowed golden optics. “You die today, wretch!” he sneered, and charged towards me. 

“You are out of your league by millions of years,” I laughed and strode towards him, and clashed my blades in blocking attacks to his opening strikes, leaving tears on his shoulders just after I pushed his blades away with my swings. 

He yelped, just as I did when false data readings of heat, cold, crushed, caressed, and falling seared through my body. 

With all my will to hold together I struck his center chest, and felt the soft plasma of his spark give way past the metal armor and frame.

““Hrrk-” his face dropped down.

“No erasure of history can change that as long as people exist aesthetic iteration like mine will be with them- that there is something remarkable about the collective trust and vastness.” I grinned, and savored the moment… before rushing in alt mode after Jhiaxus. 

=”When you all can catch up, do so! I’ll leave a trail!”= I switched out HE grenade generation and fired longlasting flare rounds in periodic bursts out of my aft facing grenade launcher fixed turret on the top of my car mode, leaving a glowing orange trail across the walls I left behind.

Road Rage: =”We’ll get through them soon! Rampage and Crasher took a hit but we’re doing okay. Go!”=

I raced on, following the energon thruster fuel exhaust I could smell, and went up a ramp into the upper subterranean: dilapidated old Iacon, ancient abodes run through by piping. Over four kilometers away Jhiaxus flitting haphazardly in his shuttle mode near the ceiling, looking for a way out to the surface, probably. 

I roared towards him at full speed, repulsing as fast as a propeller flyer and yelled. “JHIAXUS! Get down here and face the inevitable! You are fixing what you did, and we let you live outside of Functionist clutches!”

He didn’t answer me, and instead soared towards the closest door, yelling. ”Nova Prime, my master, it’s done! Get me out of here!”

Dammit, he’s on comms, I leapt on my back stack thrusters, drew my sniper rifle from my back, somersaulted to a crouch, and quickly aimed at Jhiaxus’s left thruster, and fired.

A sharp bolt of ionized energon lance particles tore a streak into his thruster, which promptly exploded. He tumbled to the ground, crashing and burning.

I revved towards him once more, jumped onto his back, kept him down by pinning his lower back with my legs, and drew a sword to his neck, the other close enough to his right wing for him to feel the heat, and I snarled: “You should listen to me more often, you worthless traitor, and maybe you’ll learn something about how trans women actually feel about unconsented medical fragsmelt.”

“Behind you, Arcee. Rampage, Road Rage, and I are taking point, everyone else is making their way,” Twirl landed next to me. “Nice job. And she’s right, talk, your life depends on it.”

“Ladies, please! Please don’t kill me! Have mercy…” Jhiaxus whined a wordless sound. “I was a fool to do what I did so soon. You didn’t have the results either of us wanted.”

“Really? What else did you want?” I brought the sword closer.

“Arcee, this is information under violent duress, interrogation, it’s not right,” Rampage put a hand on the small of my back. “Please stop. This isn’t how we do things. He’s not going anywhere, he can’t outrun you, or us.”

“He called Nova Prime, we don’t have a lot of time, we need to get him out of here,” I sighed and got off Jhiaxus, and stood over him. “Sit up, you imperialist scrap.”

“Uuuuh- my thruster, it’s all torn,” Jhiaxus pulled himself up. “Would someone put out the fire, please? It hurts. Ow ow ow-”

“Got it,” Crasher rolled into view, hopped on her feet and pulled out a fire extinguisher from her her thigh, spraying a white cloud onto Jhiaxus’s injury. “Better?”

“Ye- yes… stings,” Jhiaxus looked up at me. “What did I want? I wanted the key to will. You have so much of it- it makes you so strong, that is part of the womaness I admire in you-”

“Pah, you mean a variable to experiment on,” I bared my fangs, and pulled out my repulsor tow clamps from my back stacks, starting on his wrists. “You disgust me. What were you going to do with that, deprive people of will?”

“That’s classified information,” the rumble of Nova Prime’s voice came down the underground, and he swerved around a passageway in truck mode, and transformed into his hulking winged shape, his tricrested face looked down on us all with a faceplate and yellow optics. “You’re lucky the Elite Guard and I aren’t here to kill or arrest you.” Dozens more bots across alt modes piled out of the tunnels, aiming heavy rifles and halberds at the lot of us. “But one can’t be too careful with radical guerrillas. I should thank you, though, you dealt with the biggest threat to my rule today, and have eliminated hundreds of other overly zealous contenders for Cybertron over the millennia.”

I froze, meeting his optics a good sword’s toss away. “And just how do you propose to kill us all and get out alive? None of you can stop me from shooting or lopping your head off before battle breaks out. This was foolish, even for you, Nova.”

“On the contrary,” Nova laughed. “You’ve been played like a fiddle. You see, I couldn’t bring Jhiaxus in while the most extreme Functionist leaders still held sway, but now he won’t leave my side, the rest won’t dare to touch him near me, and will eventually forget about his insistence on theory based science, gender, and well, his history with affirmation reformatting. And you- you will do nothing, because my orders to my staff are that if he goes with you or if either of us die here, governance is to be handed over to the Functionists.”

I undid the binds on Jhiaxus’s wrists, and slid them into my back stacks, and spotted Minerva and Deep Blue behind me. At least they’re alive. ““You realize that makes you one of them, right? Even if we ignore your vain attempts to destroy gender iteration among our species.” I gave Nova Prime my best death stare, fangs bared.

“Everyone will find their function in pax cybertronia, and you all best stick to yours. We’re having to pull out quite the spin on this whole debacle of a Science Director missing for a hundred thousand years on the run from Functionists, I think you’ll appreciate the story.” Nova Prime’s hand idly fell on his hip’s holstered multi-barrel rotary autocannon. “He was persuaded out of pity and by your collective sensuality to do something medically inadvisable-”

My team groaned, myself included. “That is absolutely the least inventive thing you could say! It’s violent, plays out a stereotype they like to put out of us being very bodily-”

“Even if people outside of hardliners and the ignorant don’t believe it, it will at least hamper your efforts to turn the populace against the march of peace and progress,” Nova’s optics narrowed. “You could have worked alongside me, you could have followed the wiser men of the Thirteen’s path and raised gender simplification as a rallying banner for primacy, what you are instead is a disgrace to your own and to transness.” 

“To make hegemony from transformation debases it, parasite!” I leapt towards him, and promptly plummeted to ground, tackled by Road Rage and Rampage’s thick arms and heavy bodies. 

/Think carefully, Arcee. I’m sure you can figure this out. I vote survival./ Rampage’s hands communicated through passed charge with careful grabs and pokes across my back stack and arm as we strained against each other.

/Survival./ Road Rage clasped me in her grip.

I stopped struggling. 

"You can shut it Prime, I didn’t ask you.” I thought for a moment while he chuckled, his words churning over in my mind, and I realized that there was another way. He relies on us to do what would lose him popularity and would doom his regime to collapse if he turned it over to the Functionist factions. There is a different path here. I can’t get closure on my research, but we can give this regime The Pit and build a utopia in defiance of them .

“Okay, Nova, you have your deal, you two can let me go,” I sighed as they eased pressure and stood, and I joined them. “We leave you and Jhiaxus alone, and we do the fight you’re too afraid to do. Until such a day when justice can be visited upon you.”

“Thank gods,” Road Rage muttered. “I thought we almost lost you and everything hearing this guy prattle on one gender hatred after another.”

“Pax Cybertronia,” Nova Prime turned back into his truck mode, hooking up to his gray trailer, and swung around, the back of it opening. “Come along, Jhiaxus.”

“Yes, my master,” Jhiaxus hobbled over, and then looked at me, standing at the edge of Nova’s trailer, while an Elite Guard medic with tools in hand stepped up behind the scientist. “I’m sorry, my lady, I really did think the world of you. I got the data I wanted, and you weren’t the success I was looking for. Goodbye.” He shut his optics and dipped his head, and clambered inside the trailer, the medic following him.

“The universe has a funny way of showing its causality and brutality to people who deal it, you know!” I called after him. “If I can’t get you, someone else will!”

The trailer shut, and Nova Prime rolled away, followed by his soldiers one by one down the largest passageway.

“Eugh-” I turned to face my group, while my legs insisted they weren’t there. I promptly collapsed towards the ground until Road Rage caught me, and cradled me with her arms around my thighs and back. “I’m sorry. I almost ruined everything. But I see- I see a different way now. We don’t have to get them, we can just- disrupt what they do by building a different vision for all to see. Risk visibility. They already lie about us, we may as well try.”

There were nods, and Twirl spoke up first. “Oh finally, we can show the people what a trans centered party is all about. Good gods. I call dibs on the planning!”

The cackling in the group started in spurts, and then erupted, chaotic and disjarred. It took us a minute to quiet. 

“See, my life in comedy wasn’t a total waste,” Twirl put her hands on her hips. “I know you mean something more serious, Arcee dear-”

“Well, it’s not completely inaccurate, my idea of society is decidedly more festive than the boring production hammered down psyche drab that we live around,” I smirked, and then grimaced. “Gods, I still can’t feel my legs, this is the worst.”

“I’ll carry you the way back,” Road Rage patted my back with her fingers. “I don’t mind. If I get tired Rampage can carry you.”

“Hmm,” Rampage looked into the distance. “Arcee, what you said- you’re really willing to let all that go?”

“I have to,” I felt my blood ducts simmer again. “I still want to run a sword through somebody, but I have to. Thank you for stopping me from torturing Jhiaxus further, I’m ashamed of- oh gods I actually-” my mind swam with confusion and doubt you are what you hate- you produce your own suffering- you’re why everyone is hurting- that’s not true, I know it’s not, I just messed up really bad- I blacked out, the sharp memories of my wordless suffering of my surgery returning to the front of my mind, my senses running it through all over again.

“Arcee, Arcee sweetspark, can you hear me?” A green hand waved in front of my face, as my vision slowly sharpened. 

I looked around, injured bots, recharge slabs, Codexa sitting in a chair with a cane and a new leg, Minerva standing next to her. The medical bay. 

“Hi love. What the scrap happened me?” I sat up, and leaned my back stacks against the wall.

“Crisis of ethics, I think, or trauma replay cued by what you did, probably both,” Minerva sat down on the slab near my ankles. “You did good, save for the interrogation, but your response shows you haven’t lost yourself. I’m putting you on leave, effective immediately, with therapy- and Trans-Mutate is going to have you do deescalation training and logistics work when you get back… everybody here took a vote on this while you were out. Crasher will do just fine while you’re recovering.”

“Gods, again,” I held my head in my hands. “Can I not learn? I've broken from operation parameters before, killed out of mission purview Functionists to the point of endangering not just my life but my team's. I’ve been a violent person, but after my surgery, my ability to control it got worse… and you've all come close to paying the price one way or another.” I’m so awful.

I thought back on when I had gone after a State  governor openly aligned with the Functionist cause last year when we were simply trying to aid a prison break from his opulent governmental palace, and the sobs on my cheeks knowing I was endangering the whole operation by doing so, but I could not bear to let him live after I learned he had harbored Jhiaxus. And for all that, Trans-Mutate lost an arm, and Codexa got torn up taking a light artillery shell for me. I'm losing it.

“We’re still working on that, and that’s part of why we haven’t, you know, thrown you out,” Minerva winced. “Your agency has been messed with, and you don’t have a consistent pattern on this. This is the first time you’ve tortured someone, though. I think there’s a link there to something else going on, but I don’t have the resources to figure it out easily. I’m sorry, I’m not good enough, you’re so hurt and I can’t help you enough-” she started sobbing. “Oh gods, why must the world be so cruel to us?!”

Codexa and I clambered over to hold her, and I finally put the recklessness of mind by focusing on Minerva. 

“Hey, hey, that’s not true, you and your team are doing great,” I rested my head on her shoulder stack, and after a moment of indecisive anxiety running through my body, plopped a single kiss there. “That first century, I almost got myself killed wading into a fortress by myself. You helped me work myself back up to a grasp of reality from there, after you put me back together. And- someday this will be over, and you won’t have to worry about me-”

“I want to worry about you!” Minerva gripped my waist and stared. “Don’t you understand? We’re in this together. You’re my friend, my sometimes murderous friend, but I still see all of you in there, fighting so hard to be yourself. It’s beautiful. Someone has to be there for murderers, and I happen to be fragging qualified and don’t treat it as only a job. Your Conjunx isn’t, but she gets a lot of advice from me.”

“It’s true,” Codexa touched my cheek. “I know it’s a risk, but I’m amply prepared, and I happen to love you. You’re still the person I remember, and trying to be someone new, too, fighting against the personification of brutality stuck inside you of no accord of your own.”

My optics welled up. “I think that’s the nicest and most honest thing I’ve ever heard either of you say. Thank you both. Can we just sit a while? And forget about the world a bit.”

“Fine by me,” Minerva nuzzled her head into my shoulder as Codexa took hold of me, and I shut my optics, at peace, together.

Chapter Text

6.81 million years ago, the Undergrid around Helex, Cybertron. 

“Shut your optics, and focus on your circuits and blood cycling across your frame,” Minerva was seated cross legged opposite me on the gym floor, and shut her optics, her face a bit slack with ease. “Listen to the flow, don’t worry about the senses unless you want to.”

I followed suit, shutting my optics and turning off my back windshield ones as well, and tuned in to the charge flowing from my brain module and spark into my back, arms, and legs, keeping me upright and still, my legs happily snug around each other on the hard floor. The bustle of electrons also poured in and out and around my audials and nose, attuned to the quietness of the room, itself an ancient steely smell. 

This is nice, but I don’t want to lose this to a sensory data problem- best to let it go. I turned back to the cycle of charge, and felt pressure and speed of my energon blood at a relaxed slowness in my ducts in my limbs and torso. Not needing to fight, to go anywhere, even though people are dying and hurting, I have to be here right now, or I’ll fall apart too.

Blood, and charge. Around and around circuits and ducts, everything was quiet enough to almost hear my engine running, waiting to move. 

Blood, and charge. Peace in motion inside. 

Minerva’s voice stayed close and calm, like the cycle of my frame. “When you’ve anchored yourself, I want you to join me in a blank canvas exercise, letting yourself construct a place of comfort- you remember, of course.”

“I do,” I did my best to let positive imagery cruise in of its own accord in my mind, from my own contemplation on moments when my spark was warm, when my body found respite or happiness, when my mind felt safe or full of a peaceful rush. I tried not to focus on a single word or idea to push one, instead letting the thoughts unfold as they came forth: a vague yet vividly colorful image of a hill, overlooking a stubby and wide city mixed in with solar panel trees and silver meadows, under the evening sun and first stars to shine the night. Giant melee weapon and tool statues stood run through the ground, alongside metal carvings of figures embracing, kissing, and holding hands…

My spark expanded with heat, mind dreamy, wanting to share the place with someone- the remembered excitement and trust of the many times one of Codexa’s arms was around my back and hand on my waist side came forth to give my sensors a buzz there, and in my mind’s optic to see her resting her deep green helmed head on one of my back stacks. A blurry  assortment of friends sat around on the hillside, along with robust tread legged and shoulder wheeled Broadtire with her swords and a hand joined with short beaked and winged terminal bot Statalurge with xeir books and pistol, two of my favorite characters from Darklands author Core-Vitte, eir’s stories now folklore. 

How lovely… Peace rested in me, all warm and close, and suddenly pushed up against by memories of a pistol to my head and surrounded by insults, of my blade around Jhiaxus’s neck, of nameless pains all over my body, of the thousands I had slain since taking part in the fight against Functionism- know they are there and let them be there, focus on your love- I tried to hold the warmth and peace and memory, that clashed with the torrent of pain that exacerbated with memories of the gladiator arena, of fighting my own who were forgotten except my brother…

That is there, it does hurt, embrace that, and embrace the love you built anyway. The tainted hugs I had with my sibling in our youth. The wandering friendships and closeness while societies came and went, the quiet moments and storytelling among my sparkbroken soldiers after countering a fellow Thirteen military unit on Antilla, the writing for and about myself, the hopeful joy among fellow revolutionaries and friends, and amorousness shared with dear Codexa. Her words flowed from a lovely night when I was more hopeful. “Darling, none of us are perfect, and you have limited resources at present. We’re all cheering for you… We make do how we can, and I’m proud of you… there’s always love to hold onto, to find one happy thing in the day, and your connection to the universe, okay? That sense of strength you see things through.”

I love you too, I thought. I love you so much, and can hold onto myself as much as I hold on to you and the world. My lips practically lit up with joy as a constellation of our kisses condensed in our mind into a thought of sharing one with her, back and forth.

And I love you for who you are, dearest starlight, and I know that you will be happy one day, fully able to trust yourself in tandem with community and loved ones. My mental amalgam of her thought something to me that I imagined she would say- had more or less already said in different ways, a sort of acknowledgement that we were sharing time at the moment, and wanting the best for me if I parted.

I- you’ve always been one of the kindest to me in that sense, not expecting me to stay, truly wanting my happiness.

The awfulness subsided into the background, and I had my hilly sanctuary of hope and love overlooked by a city of dreams.

I felt myself smile, all warm in my frame from all the love I had and shared.

Minerva: “What do you see?” 

“I see… people I love and trust… on a hill near a low lying city mixed in with trees. Codexa has her arm around me, and you’re there with our pals… and there’s a lot of the awfulness from my life around, but I’m trying to recognize it’s there and not fight it, as you say, just turn my focus elsewhere.” I held my knees in my hands, a bit tense, a little plunged into my mental depths and heights. I am my blade, my text, my patience, my love. “I feel more at home- but there’s the worry I’ll lose it.”

“Good. You’ve been getting better at this. And we all have our dips- mental health isn’t linear. But what does track is practice, of prioritizing what you need to do, of that getting easier relative to the outer world difficulties you face. I remember you recently mentioned that beyond your intrusive thoughts and the harshness, sometimes you draw on loved ones and friends to make sense of things and make up for loneliness,” I felt her hand touch mine on my knee, holding me there gently, and I opened my optics to look into hers, shining and soft. 

“Is that what you’re experiencing right now? All of them are your voices, as you call them?” her gaze stayed on me, and I dipped my head with a smile. 

I’m so glad to know you, Minerva… “I always liked that about you, Minerva,” I put my other hand on hers. “You do your best to stick with the terms people use to understand their mental and aesthetic experiences.”

"Yes, the voices are an occasional part, besides the harshness. Sometimes I know in the case of people who hurt me cropping up, they're just intrusive thoughts- but sometimes it's me desperately holding on to a good memory or something said to me, thinking about how someone I trust would handle it. But it's mostly me, memory, and the lessened harshness in here, right now I hear the love there is for us from all of you and myself…" I held my helm while looking at Minerva…

The comfort of every hug around each other's bodies and every soft word exchanged with her over the last 150,000 years engulfed me in waves. You can say it, you know it as I do, and we’re here for you, just like people were for me… you have value from being alive, never forget that… I can’t see you go on like this unless you find some closure… I want to worry about you! Don’t you understand? We’re in this together. You’re my friend, my sometimes murderous friend, but I still see all of you in there, fighting so hard to be yourself. 

My warmth stayed steady, looking again into her optics that crested her deep sea of her care. "Then there's this lifelong sensation that some part of my mind is buried, talking with me in dreams I can't remember. I- don't think of myself as plural- it’s mostly just me in here, but I do know that I have a lot going on in my head." 

She nodded. “Aww, how nice. Glad you’re happy in there. You do, in fact, have a lot going on in that module and spark of yours,” she laughed, and I joined her chuckle. “  You’re a rather acutely observant person with a knack for getting a sense of and comfort from people you trust and do a lot of reflection. Do you need to work off your intrusive thoughts? Don’t want this to be like four days ago where you walk off all fine but holding back on the immense hurt you have.”

“You want me to- acknowledge my hurt, to focus, fight, and heal?” I pressed my lips tight. “I don’t know- I’ve brought rage into my fighting before and it’s always out of control.” All the blood. The screams. “But- it’s just as bad when I try to shut my feelings out- I’m not considerate, I just kill, and I worry I will only define myself by that and respond to everything with it.”

“Your emotion mind is hurting, heavily,” Minerva nodded. “You’re trying to hold on to your nexus of how to feel, about friends and loved ones, about you, about the world, about random people, about our ways of life. Reason can’t operate alone either- there are qualitative contexts that are missed if you shut out values you understand even if you don’t have the energy to feel them. I want to try exposing you a little, so you can bring both together- that’s when you do your best, your wisdom pours out of you. Like when you encouraged us and moved our consensus to vote for sharing our knowledge and lending support to towns and villages distant or estranged by the reactionary movements. We have a substantial expanding surface power base now and allies to count on, because of your analysis and love.” She let go of my hand and was quiet.

I turned her words over in my mind, briefly remembering the group gathering and comms chatter over my proposal shortly after we had confronted Jhiaxus and Nova Prime. My wisdom… when I turned to camaraderie of fellow gladiators when I was young and saw there was a chance to hone skill and one day get out by blade, when I refused to fully accept the power structures of Megatronus and the Thirteen into my spark and kept thinking for myself and everyone’s lot, watching. When I made my journeys to Tagan to ponder my gender and embrace there would always be more than I knew and to be more confident in not solely being a man as I knew myself then, looking upon artworks still and performed of, and by bots in love and friendship in aesthetic mutuality and transformation. When I moved myself out of wallowing and decided to do something to save variety, when I shared all that I knew to do and not for making war, when I kept learning, that I kept trying to love myself and the world, to trust. That I knew my bearings, that my rage and love and reason together danced to make sure I knew what good and bad my path would bring.

“I think I’m ready,” I got up, and walked towards the rack of blunt practice weapons-

“I actually want you to let off some steam before we spar,” Minerva changed to her car mode and rolled over to a target pylon, hooked herself onto its anchor, and dragged it back to me. “We’re going to run through punches and kicks, as much for your safety as mine.”

“Ah, right,” I lowered my head. “I don’t want to hurt you in my rage.”

“You won’t-” she untethered herself and stood up to touch my shoulder. “This will help you process…”

I lost the rest of her words as the harshness surged KILL HER. SLAY. YOU ARE HOLDING BACK-

I screamed, and held my head by the audials, optics shut. Awful images circled of running my blades through my friend, no I will not do this, no I won’t hurt her- I turned to thoughts of our trust, and hugged her, crying in her shoulder.

“Oh Arcee…,” Minerva held me softly, rubbing my back’s windshield. “I’m so sorry. We don’t have to do this today-”

“No,” I pressed my lips tight. “No, I have to do this,” I let go of her and turned to the round target pylon, gray and metallic. Minerva let me go.

“All right, I’ll let off some steam,” I leapt forward into a standing bent knee battle stance, delivering the first punch with my jump, denting the metal. CLONK. I stayed light on my feet, hopping around, throwing blow after blow with one fist and then the other, backhands, knife hands, elbow strikes, and kicks too: a satisfying barrage of thuds and bending metal as I screamed out my pain, until I felt my sharp focus of battle calm slide in, observing that the pylon was crumpled. 

Silently, I stopped, and stepped back. My rage at lost friends, a lost world, and lost and hurt self bubbled and boiled- but it was met with careful observation beyond just a warrior’s awareness: love was still in me, guiding me to dance, and I pitied the metal. “Thank you pylon, and I’m sorry.”  

“Good, Arcee,” Minerva stepped up to me with two practice sabers in hand with hilts pointed towards me, a shield on her forearm, and a broadsword sheathed on her hip. “You see, you still feel more than anger when you fight even when it runs through you. Ready?”

“Yes,” I smiled, and took the sabers from her, holstering their scabbards to my back, and drew the blades inside. “Let’s dance.”

I paid attention to little else as I hammered shape into the still heatedly soft aglow red and white metal mold of the Neocybex glyphs of the pronoun ‘xey’ on an anvil in our bases’ foundry, giving the edges a sloping shape on one side. Again and again, I struck with my simple gray hammer in hand, until I was satisfied with the varied angles across it, and put the hammer down on the tool covered table next to me, grabbed a pair of tongs to flip the metal over, and went back to striking.

I kept on, until angling was had in part of the middle and underside of where I struck before, and, then grabbed the tongs again while keeping the hammer in hand to hold it sideways, to strike around the central edge of the starting glyph in small blows to give roundedness, put the hammer down once more, and carried the metal word into a barrel of cold energon, and let go. I smiled, watching  whizzing steam rise from the liquid afterwards, the fused metal glyphs cooling within to a blue-gray. 

I put the tools down. “Xey… xey rolled across the landscape with xeir laughter, knowing happiness that was xeirs, embracing loneliness with xemself while sharing love with others close to xem…” my spark quivered with warmth, and I hugged myself around the waist. “You do have an appealing sound, don’t you,” I chuckled. “If it weren’t for this blasted subconscious pronoun default I’d try you out along the other pronoun set I favor.”

I shut my optics, thinking of the CNA samples I had taken of myself before my surgery to compare with what Minerva extracted from me after, and my copy of the amalgamation of CNA code from volunteers, myself included, all stored away in a miniature black freezer box in my and Codexa’s current quarters, tucked within a bunk shelf. “Someday… I’ll have an answer to what happened to me, and we’ll work this out.”

I grabbed the tongs again, and a plasma welding torch in my other hand. Grabbing the pronoun sculpt by its end, I walked over to the intricately arched, side domed, and buttressed cyan, gold, green, and pink tower sculpture nearly my height with thousands of cable-like branches, each with pronouns including noun pronouns along the cable, or with gender or alt-mode terms. I found the last empty space of the sculpture that the dozen of metallurgists on this project and I had labored over for the last three months, and started up the orange plasma jet to join the pronoun to the cable by one end. Gentle, fine movements around the starting glyph, and holding it in place with the tongs after for a few moments until the welding settled in solid.

Then I let go, hearing cheering behind me, and turned to my coworkers applause along with the gathered bots from around the base taking a break- and the shades of pink and red squarish and long shouldered dataslug bot Rosanna looking up at the artwork all teary, curvily sturdy red and black motorcycle bot Flamewar with arms around her, grinning at me.

Phreaker and stoplight bot Signal Lancer were the first to run up and hug me, the other ten metallurgists including lanky shark bot Hammerstrike following after, and I returned the group embrace, laughing. Joy filled every inch of me, many hours of labor finalized in love.

“Thank you so much…” Rosanna’s blue monovisored helm turned to us. “The townsfolk will love this, especially the youngsters- I myself just seeing this am getting more of an education and questions than I had before… I think I like she pronouns- they fit well.”

Awws and congratulations were her reply, along with Flamewar nuzzling heads and whispering with her before facing us again. 

I felt young and old and timeless again all at once- something about the contextual emergence and collective mirth dug at my spark and module, fuzzy with a dream and wanted memories. “I know what you mean… sometimes it takes seeing, feeling, and thinking all together to know. I’m happy for you.”

“Aw thanks,” Rosanna blew me a kiss with her mouthless faceplated face through a gesture of her hands. “You’ve all got such a gumption for this stuff. Going to think of you all when I see this in the town square.”

I blew one back with just my lips, hands occupied still in an embraced clump with the people I had worked with.

“We’ll guard it with our lives, screw the Functionists,” Flamewar bared her fangs. “An open act of defiance they can’t destroy as much as my own or anyone’s realizations, always there to be learned and imagined by someone someday.”

“Oh, we’re glad to have done this,” Hammerstrike bowed her head. “It was- it was a way of healing, and hoping for a lot of us, you following up with wanting a visual after sharing dictionaries was exciting, I’ve never worked on something quite like this before that was so large.”

“We’d like it if you all could present it back home with everything else you’re sending for us to autonomize ourselves,” Rosanna clasped her hands together.  “You know the- personal context, meeting people who are the way they are that’s different from what the big institutions and their networks tell us.”

My fuel tank wrenched in fear, not wanting to go out and risk things. Don’t want to lose myself- but I won’t. I have done one of the things I never thought I could do for more than myself, to do aesthetic art that even the sages of Cybertron old would be proud of, but more importantly, that I really love to show to the world. Guess I’m still that sentimental. Codexa would be proud, too… she’s said so already. My spark delighted instead in panging over finally having a chance to have a meal with her today again, returning home from a successful defensive operation of civilians on the outskirts of Altihex who had faced centuries long assault by Functionists for practicing democracy locally. 

“I for one would love to!” Phreaker practically leaped on their feet. “It’d be so nice to chat with them.”

Everyone else agreed, and I eventually let myself, “I’ll go. I would love to. Been too much of a shut-in for too long.”

“I think you’ll like Glowspark,” Flamewar nodded. “We’ve got a lot of aspiration for simple joys and a few of us more complex things. And we have too many swords.”

Laughter carried out in the foundry room, and after some more chatter we eventually dispersed. As I walked down one of the tunnels towards one of the dining rooms to make my date, hope continued to surge in every step of my stride thinking of conversation, kisses, and embraces, and for me the currently lived enjoyable, self-assuring swing of my hips as I walked… until pain of frozen energon in my ducts seized up all over my body, even though I wasn’t cold, and my limbs lost locomotion, leaving me to stumble and fall to the ground, shudders across my frame. 

I cried out, frustration filling me at the interruption of my reverie, and tried to calm instead of letting the rising urge to lash out kick in. “Blood, and charge. Peace in motion inside,” I repeated to myself while footsteps came and hands lifted me to a sitting lean on the wall. Two smaller pairs I didn’t know well, but the other pair, large and firm that had been all over my body for millennia, I knew. “Codexa…” I looked up to see her tightened face, and Flamewar and Rosanna beside her.

“Arcee sweetie…” she leaned in and hugged me around the waist, head on my shoulder. “Oh darling…”

“Do you need anything?” Flamewar sat down on the ground. “Surprise slam floor time is no fun.”

I smirked. “No, it’ll pass. Floor time. Never heard someone call it that. You take time to lie on the floor-?”

“Helps me relax and disassociate from the world a little, or I wouldn’t keep my wacky energy,” she returned the expression. “Can’t be Rosanna’s minion without floor time.”

“Oh darling please,” Rosanna cackled with an arm patting Flamewar on the shoulder. “Your love is always adored, minion or no.”

The guffawing grew infectious, I joined in, and was eventually able to move my arms to hug Codexa back, freezing sensations gone. 

“I love you,” I kissed her helm, and gripped the lower edge of her wings, and smiled at her sigh. “I have a trip to take accompanying our art and industrial tool shipment, and you’re on leave. Want to join me?”

“Love you too,” she kissed each of my audials in turn, and traced the length of my crest with her hand, and her optics glowed at my murmur, while I felt lit up inside again at her touch. “I would love to.”

High in the cragged Thunderhead Mountains, our group driving in alt mode on the winding road with our artwork and tools in tow in a trailer sang along with Codexa flying overhead closeby, singing Trans-Mutate’s song she had written for me many tens of thousands of years ago: 

“Every actuation,

pondering the meaning before during and after,

Unending transformational context,

Yours and everyone else’s,

From any part of life!

The harmonies of ancients lost and remembered,

Cherished and reflected on,

Alongside imagination of the living old and young!

The universe is one,

The universe in that way is many,

Every actuation,

pondering the meaning before during and after,

Unending transformational context,

Yours and everyone else’s,

From any part of life!

Sometimes we need to take more time,

Sometimes we are scared,

Sometimes it doesn’t work out on our nonlinear path,

Sometimes we learn something new after,

But it’s always worth it to try to be yourself,

To stave off truncation,

To be curious and find love,”

Have I found love? Do I really believe in any of this? Why do I feel like I don’t for me? 

But often we find meaning and joy,

When in regards to aesthetic,

Or more varied in result in many other parts of life whether daily, uncommon, or rare! 

Sometimes we need to know we are not alone,

In loneliness, 

That we all have some part of us that is alone, 

Even to us, and unknown to us too.

That we cherish and embrace that,

And embrace and ease our pain and struggle with ourselves, causality, and hegemonies,

With our love and growing wisdom,

With our curiosity and immersion,

It is enough, to dream and act,

Against all hurt,

In absurd freedom!

All sapient life has more than one mode in the soul,

Most of us cybertronians are just lucky to exhibit more than one in the body,

Make both and more good ones,

Knowing that we are part of the sapient condition,

And will be here as long as there are people!

It is one of our greatest strengths,

Trans or no,

To keep transforming in kinship of loneliness,

Of sadness and joy and ambivalence,

We are just as real with all our doubts as we are with our sureness,

Every actuation,

pondering the meaning before during and after,

Unending transformational context,

Yours and everyone else’s,

From any part of life!

That even if you can’t love yourself old spark,

You can still know that love loves you,

And keep trying to find your place in the journey,

Of the universe as one and many.”

I slowed down to a stop at the head of the group, turned on rearward stop signals, and halted my hover, and looked on at the metallic mountain range from my windshield, my head tucked inside my fuselage smiling and wet, spark warm, and though the sense of wheels on the ground wasn’t there as I had none, the folded shapes of my frame felt right, my back stacks helping to form my forward hull. “This song, it always fills me with the feeling that I tried to do the right thing, even though I don’t- I don’t know if this is really the me I want, and am too scared to try something else. It fits enough, though my sentiment for it is always intruded on by- by the effects of what happened to me.” I waited for the next sensory overwhelming or deprivation of my body to come, while my companions gathered round, Codexa landing close next to me with a wing over my hull.

 No intrusion came.

Hammerstrike hovered over in her t-headed shark form to me, and nuzzled a fin on my side, before setting down. “I struggled with senses not aligning in my reformatting, too, tactile sense has been hard when I’m down, but also when I just want to enjoy myself sometimes. At least you always feel in your soul, your spark, and can find peace there, never forget that. It helps me to remind myself my feelings in the world are real, even if my body doesn’t communicate it.”

I had never felt my spark so expanded in all my life, it pressed up against it’s casing, all heat and dream, as I finally recognized it was my inner sanctum. “Where’d you learn that?”

“You know the old Taganian Rivetsong, the metallurgist of gal mutuality and linked symbiosis art and her lovers? We used to be partners, she told me that bit of wisdom once when I was really sad post-op, that she was always trying to shape what she saw in the universe closest through her soul, and the many forms and lives she appreciated and accompanied her mind wherever she went because of how she experienced the world so vividly wherever she went, helping her dream. They together were always trying to wrangle not being able to express everything they wanted in one body.”

I couldn’t forget visiting her home nearly a million years ago, rendered a museum, a memorial, after their death among the Contextualist forces opposing Megatronus. I had been too scared to knock when she was alive, worried that the doubt in me might spill into an uncomfortable infodump upon meeting. “How sweet. She’s right, I’ll have to keep that in mind, the spark as a sanctum, flowing with the mind.”

“I didn’t realize you were also an old spark, Hammerstrike,” Codexa lowered her wing to rest it on me. 

My circuits and sensors across me pulsed with charged gladness, feeling her age shared with mine in the simple embrace.

“I don’t mention it much,” Hammerstrike’s sharp toothed jaw let loose a chuckle. “There’s so much more for me to do.”

“Are you folks like this all the time? I hope to be someday,” Rosanna leaned on Flamewar’s handlebars from her sitting position on Flamewar’s motorcycle mode. “It’s- poetic, existential, sensuality and strength of the dreaming soul.”

“I’ve always been a lightning rod to depth and heights of social structure and aspiration alongside the theory of sword and force, even if I’m not much for wordplay,” I started my hover again to turn around under Codexa’s wing to face the two Conjunxes. “The first obligation of a prisoner is to escape, no? Understanding the prison- and what life is like or could be without one, has been on my mind a long while since my gladiator days, but even more than that, some early part of me always wanted to believe in a free harmony. To piece together getting there for myself and anyone else whose life I touched. I still try to believe in that, the autonomous dream, where we can all tell our stories.”

“You were a watcher, sounds like? Kept track of what was going on even if you weren’t ready to act,” Flamewar’s yellow headlights came on at the softest, smallest light that I had seen from a cycle bot, what I imagined was her lights on their lowest setting. “I have to respect that, and I kinda get it- I hope you hold onto it.”

“I will,” I started my hover again, and Codexa lifted her wing off me. “Shall we? We’re almost there, just fifty kilometers out.”

“Let’s,” truck bot Coldwheel’s engine revved up, thon’s windshield wipers swiping across thon’s front windows once. “Emptying this trailer would be nice.”

We kept on again, chattering occasionally around the bends, and followed the trail to a large gated cavern, which opened up on our arrival, revealing a round tower running up to the inside of the tip of the mountain, and ramped ring streets of simple sturdy buildings whose outer walls were decorated with light bulbs across shades. A large gathering of bots waited within around the tower, a few ten thousand by my estimate as we pulled in.

Greetings and quiet cheers erupted, and Flamewar and Rosanna pulled into the gathering, hugging bots around them. We stopped near behind, and everyone except Phreaker and Signal Lancer changed modes to stand, waving. Coldwheel stepped around the trailer to open it, and we followed, first pulling out the tower cable term artwork: Growing Actuative Branches , and then the heavy foundry and fabrication gear. The crowd looked on, and a short blue gray laser pointer bot stepped out from the number towards us, stopping short in front of the industrial forges and assembly arms, along with dozens of book shelves lined with texts.

“This is quite impressive,” their yellow optics fixed on the crates of soft-metal re-shapeable casts Rampage and hundreds of our engineers had labored over inventing for the last century to reduce space and waste, and then at the ridged energon molecule collector. “We’ll certainly be able to build more on our own, thank you so much, we can only hope that we might repay you by building provisions and arms in time. My name’s Clicker, he/him, I’m the appointed town governor of Glowspark, pleased to meet you all. May we- install this lovely marvel you made?” He pointed at the metalwork I had helped out with. “What did you name it?”

“Certainly,” Signal Lancer leaned on his spear. “ Growing Actuative Branches was the title we gave.”

Clicker made an approaching gesture at the crowd, and a few hundred bots came forward, filling the space around me including Rosanna and Flamewar. Some of them gave me smiles and nods, and a few others glanced with lips or faceplates tight, frames tense. Part of my spark sank, and I gave a small smile and then bowed my head, the expression gone. What I’m used to outside, even among our own, if that’s what this is. 

Rosanna and Flamewar were among the four who picked up the piece by the base, and started to carry it over followed by the bots who had joined them. The rest of the crowd parted, as the fifteen made their way to the base of the tower, and laid it at the base of a wide, colorfully veined metal circle with benches around between sculptures. 

Then Flamewar looked squarely at me with a smirk, and called out, “Hey, Delta Leaguers! Wanna come over and bolt this down here so it’s hard to take out? Please? It’d mean the world to us before we throw you a party.”

“We’d be honored!” some part of me recognizing her friendliness and intent blurted, my spark no longer heavy. 

We gathered up a powered screwdriver, brackets and screws from our supplies, and made our way over. We each took a turn while the crowd nearby murmured about it, us, and everything else we had brought. I went last, taking measurements, made two holes, and laid the right angled bracket between the tower base and the floor, before I finally put the screws in, all in the mechanical flow as if I had been flitting about with my blades, practiced and honed, my frame relaxed with assurance in myself. 

Then Codexa leaned down next to me, and picked me up to kiss me on the lips- and I returned the osculation in the fullness of her touch around me, her hands rubbing my back stacks, leaving me feeling real once more.

There were awws in the crowd, and when I looked around after my partner’s lips backed away, arms around my waist, there were no stern faces anymore, only people who stepped forward thanking us, thanking me, and a few with bouquets of metal rods tipped with light bulbs of different shapes, some given to Codexa and I with words of admiration, and I grinned, finding only the capacity to say that I tried my best to be part of something larger than myself in my own way. One bot, with back stacks of their own with wheels in them, a robust shape and a color scheme of teal and white came up, their own arrangement of bulbs in hand, the rods decorated with metal sculpts of flaming sabers and metal longswords like mine and Codexa’s. 

“I just wanted to say that… what I hear about you two, mostly legends about one of you since you haven’t been out and about recently, reminds me that the world isn’t so lonely, and helped me put words to my frame. My name’s Lifeline, she/they/ey. Bless your sparks.”

My optics promptly welled, though no tears fell as I gazed into her purple optics. “Oh, Lifeline… thank you so much. I’m glad, and know that your life has that effect on others too, and the cosmos.” I gently took the bouquet from her hands, seeing tears stream across her grinning face. “Oh dear- do you want a hug?”

She nodded, and I gently took hold around her, and Codexa joined us, and began to sing Trans-Mutate’s song, Transformation Together in Loneliness , and Lifeline’s face dried, resting between us. 

The rest of our group picked it up, and the crowd sang the chorus, and started to dance hand in hand, and another song with recorded instruments came from a boombox bot, The Hymn of Found Lights I hadn’t heard since the Age of the Primes for the Festival of Lost Light. 

I offered the metallurgist a hand. “Care for a dance?”

“Will you fight for us again, do some of what you do unlike anyone else?” she asked, and I nearly shuddered until I remembered Minerva’s wisdom- that I could fight with more than anger. My actuators eased, and I nodded. “I’ll be ready again one day, on my way there.”

She took my hand, and over the course of the evening among feasting, strategy, and stories, I found her to be another friend very dear to me.

Chapter Text

6.8 million years ago, Vespertinsen Forest, Greater Uraya, Cybertron.

Amongst the metal trees and vines, I was lost in a bloody forest of thought.

Come on, maybe you won’t hurt or kill somebody today because of something they said. Recent pummelings and killings outside of missions or defense of others that the resistance took no issue with beyond risking operations weighed on me. Each and every one was from some comment by a presumed civilian nearby while I was on mission or just trying to enjoy some time outside. Remarks or conversation about me or people like me- ‘she looks so lonely, with that angry glare, who does she think she is’… ‘her shape ought to be gender redundant… strutless fool… transformation is just mode change, not who we are’… ‘look at how she hugs herself and smiles, some people take it too far with enjoying how they look and caring for each other through it, function is what matters’… ‘look at them kissing, it’s just gross, so emotional, someone should let the Functionaries know.’

More often, to keep a low profile, I would run or try to ignore it. But sometimes it was too much.

Structural collaborationists spewing the kind of talk that worsens lives of everyone and especially aesthetically attached folks, a viciousness that had led to suicides in our number, leaving me enraged that the collaborationists could wipe their hands clean and act like they weren’t responsible. My blood practically boiled, thinking of people I brought down or injured by blade, fist, grenade, or pistol fire by my hand. At least there was immediate survival to worry about whenever there’s a threat of calling enforcers, and I haven’t broken from mission parameters while on operation in the last hundred millennia.

Arcee, you have a job to do. Get your head in the game. I looked over the green and orange paint all over my frame, and then looked up at my recently re-elected commander, Crasher. 

“You think this will be enough?” I ran a hand down my ridged, dexterous forearm’s added rounded mass-shift bracer. “Hmm, maybe I should permanently bulk this out later when I’m brave enough to reformat again, the old fashioned way…”

“Oh yeah,” Crasher chuckled. “You’re not the only lanky back stacked bot around, you’ll be fine in a different paint scheme, even more so with temporary armor add-ons. And hey, if you decide to put on some more sturdiness, I have to say you’ll look fabulous, I think.” She rubbed my back stack with fondness. I smiled, taking in the stroke of her fingers and palm on my shape I loved, and then turned with her to the rest of the three Delta Leaguer squads with us in the metal tree shade who had volunteered for this mission.

“Okay, let’s move, solidars,” Crasher took on her speedy finned car mode.

“Copy that,” Twirl flew slowly ahead in blue and gray rather than her pink and purple. “Nothing like the infiltration steps for the liberation of a polity.”

I changed to my hovercar form, and the lot of us followed Twirl through the hexagonal solar paneled plants and thick ground tube vines of the planet, passing metal avflux birds, a shuttle unicorn, and sleepy turbofoxes who watched us from a distance when we drew near. 

Uraya came into view when the thick treeline cleared up when we reached its edge. Tall skyscrapers ringed and dotted the outer urban sprawl of the massive city. What a waste and social hassle. =“Everybody got their aliases down?”=

Lickety-Split: =“Aye, I’m ready. Bullspin, accountant to Cyclonus Holdings.”=

Everyone else chimed in, and I smiled inside my altform. =“Good. I, Byline, am more than glad to join you college friends doing diginet archiving while working on my book.”=

Phreaker: =”I am definitely excited about the revolutionary historical text we all helped you make, glad you and Codexa are doing the final draft together. It’s sweet.”=

=”Heh. Yeah, working with you all and the love of my life to share the world is more than I ever expected.”= Watch them all die, I thought, as we got onto the road, joining traffic into the city, heading for the bronze twist tower shaped high rise ten blocks down.

=”Okay, I got this, time to work some magic,”= Twirl hummed a merry jingle over comms before landing in front of the building when we reached it, and we all changed to bot mode to join her. She went up to the windowed door with a skip in her step and rang the bell.

A thin green laser pointer bot shuffled up into view alongside an orange truck bot, and opened it. “Hi, how can I help- oh, Agatia! So pleased to meet you,” they shook her hand. “Name’s Pinpoint, I’m the porter here with my Conjunx Turfpeace.”

“Hi,” Turfpeace waved. “Welcome. You must be the Crystal City collegiates who moved out here for work.”

“Yeah that’s right! I’ve heard Uraya is so much fun, a city man’s dream,” Twirl hopped on her feet, and pulled her suitcase off her back. “Please, show us the way. I’ve got to hear about the magna march scene, if you happen to know.”

Turfpeace and Pinpoint laughed, and the laser pointer clasped their hands together. “I see capital folks are still cultured and hip, gosh there’s so much to tell, there’s this speakeasy that’s where all the upcoming artists test themselves, Treble Forum, it’s all experimental. I’ll tell you on the way up to your quarters. He scurried to the elevator alongside Twirl, and we followed into the simply decorated lobby, which I didn’t take in too much detail for.

“Oh I’d love to hear!” Crasher jogged to catch up with them. “I came out here for music-”

The three got deep in conversation as we stepped into the lift, the rest of us joining in, discussing the music scene and lamenting the passing of music sensation Hearksong.

“You know, people misgender her all the damn time, it frustrates me,” Pinpoint’s cylindrical head looked around the corner as we stepped out of the turbolift. “I know I’m not supposed to talk about it, but you seem like good people.”

I grinned. “It’s nice to see Uraya is still cultured and hip to aesthetics, neighbor,” my back stack wiggled happily, until a sudden pain of electric shock ran down my spine.”Aah…” I know it’s not there.

“You okay?” Turfpeace stepped towards me as I leaned on the wall. 

“Oh, I’ve got periphor bursts,” I grunted, both at the pain and the lie. “Had them all my life. I’m okay, it’s why I do sedentary work and write out my feelings.”

“Aw, lady,” Turfpeace nodded. “I know what you mean, my Amica Endura has that too. You should be proud of trying to make happiness with it. He paints. If you need anything, just call us.”

Stars dammit I’m just going to live with people assuming I’m just a woman for the rest of my life, aren’t I! I tried to smile. “Thanks, it means a lot. I’d be happy to collaborate with him on a project.”

“I’m sure he’d love that,” Pinpoint walked up to the nearest room’s door. “This is yours, Byline, and Agatia’s, Bullspin’s, and your Conjunx Decitext’s.” He knocked on it. “Decitext? You’re roomies showed up, I’m sure you know already.”

“Be right there!” Codexa called out, and opened the gray door, and walked up to hug me, putting a kiss on my cheek. “Hi love, good to see you.”

I hugged her back and returned the smooch, “same to you darling. Help me unpack?”

“Of course,” she waved at everyone else. “Hey friends, we’ll talk later, let’s all get moved in first. Always a pleasure to see you, Pinpoint and Turfpeace.” She went inside, holding my hand along, and our roommates joined us. Twirl shut and locked the door, and we settled down in the living room, and unpacked our suitcases and packs full of missile launchers, sniper rifles, along smaller arms and our alias’s belongings. 

“We’ll have to hide these,” Lickety-Split ran her hands along her photon burst rifle. “You got something for that?”

“I do have a safe, yes,” Codexa nodded. “Under the spare tire closet. We’ll get it sorted. And you, Arcee- when you have a chance, I want to see your draft of On Ancient Truths. ”

“It’d be my pleasure,” I put down my sniper rifle and laid my hand on her knee, giving it a squeeze. “I do like it when our mouths exchange reflections and we bring affirmations out of each other, roomie.” I- I’ve never sounded like this- what is this, trans wordplay irony out of my depressed mutuality aft-

Laughter filled the room, and she dipped her face onto mine to share an osculation of lips.

Sitting at my desk I stared down the text on my pink-blue datapad facing me with the keyboard folded out. My hands were still upon it, un-moving. “What am I doing with this…” KILL- later, when it has purpose. I tried reading the writing aloud. “...Cargohold et all’s theory about the growth of peace from equal continuous variation aside, I on my own can attest from the fall my life has taken alongside the world’s that it is brighter from affirmation and care, even if kinship wasn’t always desired, even if I cannot find stable happiness yet, it helps to get through it…” I held my head by the audials as a searing pain of heavy flamers scorched all over me, even though when I gritted my teeth and I looked around from my chair, no one had fired on me. Instead, outwardly boxy and rounded Vibes sat near the window on the floor, rifle in her lap, book in hand, and Lickety-Split typed away on her terminal, muttering about duplicate financial data and outdated software.

“You okay, Arcee?” Vibes looked up at me. “Sensory pains?” She got up, rifle slung on her back, and walked over to me, laying her big hand on my shoulder. 

I grunted, and nodded, before letting out: “I also feel like my writing is too personal at this part- ACK,” deep frigid cold set in around my helm, centered on my crest. “I’m showing how much of a mess I am in it… every draft I’ve done over the last few months has something like this.”

She hugged me close, head resting on my nearest back stack.

I shut my optics, trying to focus on her arms, her hands that clasped the side of my waist softly. 

“We’re all a mess dear, right now. Us folks clinging on to gender and aesthetics. Just in different ways. That’s something I find very powerful in you trying to speak to that- that we still make joy and build things together despite what the world has dealt out to us.” she rubbed the side of my waist up and down. “Why do you think Rampage likes you’re writing so much? Or Phreaker or Lickety-Split? Or your partner? We’ve all been abandoned in some way- and those three like most of us want no part in the system of empire responsible.”

“I think I-” I sighed as the pain finally rolled away, and I hugged her back. “I want to take what you just wrote and put it in here- can I credit you on that?”

“By all means dear,” Vibes held on while I typed away, editing the passage, and I saw Lickety-Split in the corner of my optic walk up to us, nodding.

I smiled at her briefly, and then read out the paragraph. “Cargohold et all’s theory about the growth of peace from equal continuous variation aside, I on my own can attest from the fall my life started tossed onto and has continued to plunge into because of and alongside the world’s that there is hope in resurfacing from organizing on affirmation, compassion, and solidarity. Even if kinship wasn’t always desired, even if I cannot find stable happiness yet, it helps to get through it, as it does for many more as already recounted. To paraphrase my friend and trans woman guerrilla Vibes, ‘we are all a mess, those of us who cling to gender and aesthetics, in a different way than those who do not.  We’ve all been abandoned in some way- most of us want no part in the system of empire responsible.’ And so- we try to make a home in ourselves, and each other. In the ancient past, celebration of kinship without pain of the same kind of hierarchy was more common- and that varied spirit we carry now is ultimately inextinguishable, part of the sapient condition.”

“Oooh, I love this,” Lickety-Split clasped her hands together. “Feel like it’s building towards our group’s main point while laying out the pieces.”

“Heh, I do feel it has improved, thank you” I tensed my shoulders when the sensation in the arms below suddenly disappeared. “Scrapping mess, my circuits…”

“How’s the treatment Minerva is giving you going?” Vibes let go of me to pat my back stack, and I retreated my focus into that spot of touch, finding refuge in being able to enjoy it for the moment.

“The weapon practice and sparring exercises and meditation stuff? They help,” I looked up at her. “It’s also helped keep me from- hurting people, and learning to use my pain as a drive carefully. Because I can release that elsewhere.”

“That’s really good to hear,” Vibes grinned, her head tails wiggling. “You do have that warrior spirit in you. Speaking of that, remember the League’s got that meeting with the dock workers today.”

“Ah- that,” I saved my file and turned off the tablet before standing. “You mean, me keeping watch while our diplomatic team makes inroads,” I sighed. 

“You’re welcome to talk to them, if you want to-” Lickety-Split smiled up at me.

“No, I don’t want to deal with my pronoun debacle and us introducing ourselves at the same time, don’t have the energy, thank you though,” I walked towards the door out of the study. “Thank you both, I’ll see you when Stiletto and I get back.”

“Of course, Arcee, we love you,” Vibes waved, and I merely nodded with a half smile, struggling to understand why she did love me, why they all did, and headed out the door into the living room, past it and Deep Blue, and out into the hall, headed straight for the elevator, focused on my walking, trying to keep myself together. 

=”Meet us in the port plaza, Stiletto,”= I leaned back during the elevator ride, and drove out into the street after, into the traffic, where at least I could hide in my alt-mode from chance reactionary insults.

Stiletto: =”Copy that, Arcee, I’ll be there, Trans-Mutate and Thornback are en route. I’ll keep up in the sky.”=

I made my way through the lines and sprawl of the metropolis past low roofed old town and to the cargo box filled and terminal dotted port- blocky hauler craft both aerial and descending from space made their way in and out, loading and unloading on the airfields towards the southeastern edge of the city. 

So, it was nice to not deal with people, beyond driving alongside them on the road, and holding myself back when I saw people brazen enough to bear the Functionist gear and wings in alt mode. Disgusting. Your time will come. That aside- I lost myself in the crowd, not having my pronouns said to me without introducing myself, not having to deal with people commenting on my facial expression or my shape. I immersed in the flow of movement, weaving through lanes with signals and without disruption- until a green blue high speed car cut in front of me without signaling just a few kilometers away from the Central Dock Plaza-

I immediately braked and flashed on my rear lights, and honked loudly, not wanting to say anything-

“Hey lady, I had the right of way, I’m a higher mode than you! Thanks for not crashing into me,” the bot in front of me cackled and sped ahead while people around muttered, driving by, while the truck bot behind honked at me. 

I didn’t hear what they said- rage was flush in my engines- can’t shoot or stab him or I’ll blow my cover even though he- they almost got me killed, but I can give a good punch across the windshield, dammit. How dare they act like that! I rapidly accelerated ahead on my thrusters, reaching over 300 kilometers an hour, and leapt up with the speed, transforming and crashing into the robust bot who had cut ahead, leaving a deep dent in their roof from my impact. I hopped off after, to the side while their yelling started and they slowed to face me.

Maybe I don’t need to punch them, unless they come after me .

“Hey you, bucket of bolts!” I pointed at them, feeling the rush of the moment in and around me. “You can’t treat people like that! We have to observe common decency towards each other on the road, or we get hurt or die! I don’t recognize you as some despot of the wheel! Knock it off.”

Traffic around us came to a halt, and the bot transformed, a tri-crested blocky bot who sneered at me. “Yeah? Your days are numbered, crankcase! Someday alt mode hierarchy will be law- and I’ll be sure to tell the Functionaries to write people like you out of the books!”

I stepped up, a fanged grin on my face, with ready fists, “Oh yeah? You want me to hurt you more for being a total nightmare? I pity you.”

They froze. Completely still, for five seconds, while everyone nearby watched.

“That’s what I thought,” I pointed ahead. “Go on, get. Maybe think about how ridiculous hierarchy is- it only creates pain and deprivation.”

“You’re nuts,” they looked away swiftly towards the road, turned around, and ran away. A few cheers rang out- otherwise there was only the sound of wheels and thrusters firing again at higher speeds.

I strolled on towards the large metal fountain in the center of the plaza, ignoring everything else said in audialshot about me, keeping a smaller smile. Well, showed my intentions, but not entirely cover blowing to leave a good dent, if I say so myself. Just might get hassled by enforcement…

The harshness did not bother me in my pride, but the pink and yellow rounded and stout car bot with alarms sounding cruising in behind me did.

Scrap.

 They stepped up on boxy legs carrying a wide sloped chest alongside my walk, a datapad in their hands, a pistol on their hip. Hiding any other guns, officer? Like in your shoulders, perhaps? 

 “Citizen, halt! Byline is it? You understand that you assaulted someone?” their purple optics looked up at mine, and I did my best to flatten my mouth instead of scowling at them when I turned to face them. “Care to explain yourself?”

Vehicle mode bots around us started slowing down again, and some bots near the fountain were watching, among them purple and winged Stiletto landing and striding towards us.

“You heard him, didn’t you?” ugh, I hate that it helps me here to assume the pronouns of the blasthead. “I had to stop when he pulled in front of me without signalling, and then he told me off as if it was my fault with alt-mode discrimination.” and gender discrimination, too. 

“Ma’am,”

For strength’s sake. Why do they all do this while hating me.

“Protections from altmode discrimination haven’t been on the books for years, your admittance-”

“I didn’t admit anything,” I tried to stay calm, don’t tense up . “He made himself an enemy of the public good and tried to justify that. You don’t have a case.”

“You were also speeding- you escalated,” their optics narrowed, a hand nearing their pistol grip. “I’d recommend you cooperate.” 

You can kill him before he draws- no, that’ll mess up everything.

“Why don’t we talk this over at the station-”

“I can vouch for her,” Stiletto reached us, her own blue optics and a smile towards the officer’s face. “I was flying above. He basically threatened her life. It looked deliberate- he slowed down to a bit above her speed when he came close. Or would you like to contradict a city guard’s record, traffic cop?”

I tried not to laugh as the officer’s optics practically bulged out. Stiletto enjoys her cover far too much.

“Give me your name and military identification and I’ll drop it after talking with your commander, sir,” they looked down and scribbled furiously on their notepad. 

“Platferm, Warrior Sergeant, J10-7742-467. Commander is Captain Novastar,” she grabbed my forearm. “May my friend and I get on with our day?”

=”Station, can you verify records and visual of one City Guard Warrior Sergeant Platferm, J10-7742-467…”=

Their optics dimmed, and they gave Stiletto a nod.  

“Yes, fine, go,” they took up their car shape and rolled away.

“Aw, bolts,” I hugged her. “Glad you saw me. Everything was fine until-”

“I know,” she hugged me back briefly before letting go. “This is why they team me up with you. Let’s go.” 

We walked across the plaza, and Stiletto pointed at a marketplace side road ahead through dockyards, near the closest Undergrid entrance, and I nodded and followed. It was bright and soft with lights and painted storefronts, full of people who we had to budge our way through slowly, some tall enough to block my view of the plaza when I looked around. Good cover, thankfully, Uraya Dock Association chose a good spot. 

“See, this is a part of cities I actually like- besides the sales quandary,” I kept close behind Stiletto, and pointed to a bronze tube stand where bots sitting on stools chewed down on bowls of metal and energon, and then I gestured with an open hand to the shelve filled and text overflowing arch framed bookstore next door. “People bring their talents together- talk and share time and work with each other en masse.”

“Yeah, besides the alienation from labor and the lack of flora, it’s very pretty,” Stiletto looked up at me as we stepped out of the way of a gigantic train bot walking through. “So you are a city bot, huh? Is there somewhere in particular you want to live, when this is all over?”

I met her wide optics, seeing the hope in her, and didn’t want to take it away directly. I don’t think this is going to be over. The numbers don’t add up of support for them and apathy versus us. I- “When the current troubles are over? I don’t know- I like what we’ve done with the Undergrid, but that’s because it’s the safest place for me right now. Maybe Tagan, or up on the Luna polities… “ As I looked up towards the sky, I glanced over at the train bot’s ridged back going down the street, calculating how I’d leap, climb, and deliver a blow to the neck- stop that. If I must do something, look out for Functionaries. I peered around- no one was sporting the winged gear in the throng. 

“Let’s go,” I stepped back into the street, Stiletto following me. “How about you?”

“Maybe Hyperious,” Stiletto kept up with my careful steps. “One of the oldest recorded democracies, and one of the last forested cities… and I can say from my visits that the sparring is delightful.”

I guffawed and nodded thanks to the plane bot who stood aside as we past through, “Ha, that much is true! I tourneyed there for many a decade by blade and unarmed combat before and after the Thirteen. Though I was one of the quieter participants, the trust and friendly spirit was nice…” my memory churned back to then, to the dance of celebrant nonlethal battle, limbs and minds clashing in tactics against each other before drinking in cheer and clutching each other at rest and confiding feelings and trust under starlight… and I eventually felt lost when the aesthetic variety largely collapsed into stuffy, stilted spaces of he pronoun bots in denial about gender, pushing everyone who hung on out. And I did nothing. I left. Sparkbroken. “Maybe it will be truthful to our iteration again by your hand, Stiletto.” I spotted a puzzle piece sphere drop out of a short car bot’s hands towards the ground, their optics ablaze with shock. I immediately leaned and caught it, handing it to them. “Here you go.”

“Aw thanks old lady,” they grinned and took the hand of the larger car bot standing next to them. “Father says you can always count on gender folks to be kind- wait- how did I know-” he gave me a look, and then followed the tug of the bigger bot’s hand, who raised an optic and muttered a thank you to me before the two walked on.

“Thank you for remembering us…” I waved and turned away, and tried not to cry, suddenly lost among brethren who had alienated Stiletto and I. Come on, walk, Arcee. You’re almost there. 

“Arcee…,” Stiletto laid a hand on my back car hood armor, “you need a moment?”

“When we get there,” I crossed my arms, my spark drowned in discordance with the world. “I am making it.”

“Okay,” she put her arm around me and walked on through the slow moving thick crowd. “Come on, old one. You got this.”

I chuckled, “Nice deferral on noting gender there,” I followed her footsteps, the old round maintenance shaft lift gate at last in view to the left.

“What can I say, I wanted to give you a reprieve,” Stiletto smiled, and I did too. 

 Before long, we reached the lift doors. I watched the street while Stiletto got on comms: =”Trans-Mutate, we’re ready to receive your team, everything’s clear out here. Minor scuffle on the way that was solved easily, the usual.”=

Trans-Mutate: =”My spark goes out to you both dear solidars, we’re on our way up.”=

The buzzing of the rising turbolift started to approach, and I kept my grin. Finally in the clear… to make the best of what we can here and now without hampering. Just need to keep my optics sharp. I leaned on the nearby wall, optics passing over the crowd and to the windows above of the dockyards, and the sky. Looking for anything pointed at us- finding nothing in the hubbub. 

“It’s nice, the relative lack of physical threats,” I looked over at Stiletto. “Had more of that lately out in the open. Choosing Uraya was a good call by command.”

“Indeed, it is a nice break from the usual in big cities or unfriendly towns,” Stiletto looked on into the crowd as well. “I think Arcee, having pondered what you said, even if we lose, someone else will win, and it was still worth it to try.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” my spark blossomed warmly, sadness and love joined with gusto in my frame. It’s all worth it. No matter how hard it gets, it’s worth it to try to be happy and free.

The elevator came to a stop behind us, and the doors opened to the sight of Thornback and Trans-Mutate, who stepped out into a hug between the four of us.

“Arcee, Stiletto, how are you two? I’m so glad to see you both in person again,” Thornback’s snout sniffed, sharp back spikes bristling in the wind. 

“All is well in the Pit, frankly,” my optics creased with joy before we let go of each other. “Aside from occasional harassment and my side effects, I’ve been okay, busy writing and attending covert expansive meetings.” 

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Trans-Mutate’s hand brushed across my forearm with firm gentleness. “You seem happier, getting what we can from life. And you, Stiletto?”

“Oh gods, my er, job , in the City Guard leaves me wracking my brain at the cognitive dissonance and dysphoria, but it’s nice to provide my duty, shall we say. Especially to help out our inextinguishable unconscious pronoun pal here,” she patted my back stack with a chuckle before clasping me there. “I really appreciate you helping me map who the die-hard reactionaries are around here more effectively than the rest of us can.”

“Hey look, might as well do something with it,” I laughed, and elbowed her wing lightly, playfully. “If I can use it for the cause, that makes it easier to live with.”

“That’s a good reclamatory attitude,” Thornback gestured towards the street. “We should get going, glad we aren’t far.”

“Aye, let’s move,” Stiletto dove back in first, Trans-Mutate and Thornback followed, and I took the rear, through the crowd once more, onwards to the end of the street, where the designated storage tower for the meeting loomed, light blue and hexagonal. Eight bots gathered at the doors waved at us, and four of them bots from the League’s own ranks that I knew: Deep Blue Glimpse, Lifeline, Path Finder, and Coldwheel. The others, three wheelers and a heli flyer were unknown to me. 

We walked up, and I shared a hug with my fellow camouflaged solidars. 

“It’s nice to break comms silence with you all,” Lifeline ran a hand across my arm. “It definitely helps to see some friendly faces.”

I remembered in that touch, teaching her ways of blade and history, and herself helping me learn more first aid, when we deployed together to the Lithium Flats millennia ago to build contact and disrupt Functionist incursions, her first operation. I smiled, seeing the thermal sword hilt on her hip, in the moment before the eight of us chuckled at her quip. 

Coldwheel parted to gesture towards the four waiting. “I’d like to introduce you all to the Dock Association. These four are among the few dozen inside who want to hear more about the pluralistic autonomy we want to build and what that will mean for them.”

An embargo probably, a war, maybe. Access to rogue trade networks and cutting out the megacorp overhead, though, will be a plus to them. I nodded. “You all do your thing. We’ll take the roof, keep watch,” I elbowed Stiletto. “Should be fine.” 

Our watch for the next three hours of the busy streets and airways was quiet, uneventful. I intermittently sat and strolled the flat roof, keeping optics on the city while in conversation with Stiletto about the current start of State extrasolar expansion after we exhausted catching up with our cover lives. 

“It’s interesting that they refuse to make colonies not devoted to resource extraction or scientific study, not counting our embassies and the new Primal Vanguard ‘peacekeepers’” Stiletto crouched to start our next seated watch. “Feels like they want to keep everyone else here.”

I joined her behind the roof railing. “Nova probably doesn’t want to allow anyone beyond carefully supervised civil service, soldiers,  and contractors to form a power base off Cybertron. Can’t cut off local star systems and quantum engine vessels, and probably doesn’t want a societally divergent colony situation again.” 

“Yeah, would seem so. Control of space travel would help keep dissidents from getting help from other mechanicals and sympathetic organics and inorganics too, as we know,” she sighed. “You’d think galactic communities would be unified by diversity, but no, more hierarchies and fear mostly.”

Trans-Mutate: =”Hey, we’re done here. The dockers agreed to join up on the promise of technology and liberation from the police state. Meet you and wish you good luck before we go back to our routines?”= 

Stiletto and I grinned, sharing a glance, and got up, headed for the stair-ramp door. 

She patted my elbow, =”sure thing, this is a really good sign! Transit workers and crafts sectors want out too, and I’ve certainly enjoyed underground aesthetic meetings, I think in a few months we’ll be ready to roll. Byline has her meeting tonight, you’re still going yeah?”=

I winced, openning the door and following Stiletto down the winding stairs parallel the ramp and lift. =”Still nervous, but I’ll be there.”

Lifeline: =”You got this. I know you’ll move folks, you’re good at the teaching thing.”= 

My spark warmed with calm =”Thank you dear, maybe I’ll take that up when this is all over.”=

“...before the Age of the Primes ended, I knew a variety in the world around me that flourished with plasmic celebration of our differences and commonalities in our stories of self. It was touching, comforting, to see the strength of iteration with billions of different assemblages, whether opposed or aligned in other parts of life,” I sat on the floor talking with dozens of gathered bots of different shapes and sizes in the softly lit tap room we had rented out for the evening from a downtown energon bar, Codexa with her arm around me beside me, Stiletto with her arms crossed at the door. Lifeline sat to my side with Thornback. 

Everyone else was quiet while whirring and chorded music from the hall beyond played, their optics on me. 

“I felt connected, like I had a place, even though so much else was wrong with my life and our world. I could turn to a gal and share a good sparring or trust and mirth of friendship, to have an endearing embrace with anyone so inclined, to share stories and fabulousness together, to hang out with another alt-modus bot in alt mode for a day or a journey, a break from our bot modes, enjoying another part of ourselves. That plasmic aspect of aesthetic, mutuality, and symbiosis has died out in favor of ‘freedom’ in apathetic, hierarchic, fearful, hateful Functionism that divides us all against each other and life in the rest of cosmos more so than the Primes ever did. It left me increasingly alone and despondent, until I trusted myself to join the resisting sparks, with whom I found love and transformation, a dream of a harmonious collective world. You all came to hear about it- and I can tell you it has brought so much joy to smaller polities and folks holding on in big ones to be part of what we do. We don’t just war- we build. We love.” I kissed Codexa cheek guard, and nuzzled my head on her shoulder.

“Byline,” one big green and gold shuttle bot raised a hand. “So you’re saying- that this variety of old- inspired the Delta League’s socioeconomic basis? How do you plan to do that ib the open somewhere like here?”

“When the time comes, I will speak our truth and my actual name plainly in the streets, which is when we will also strike with the help of the people here. The Functionists are outnumbered here by our count- installing a new power, democracy, when we have enough traction by year’s end will not be hard. Nova would be a fool to attempt to besiege us- both for our hardy experience in defending our positions, and because he’d be highlighting a successful defensive pacifist revolt. He’ll wait until we’re out of public memory, and we will make sure we’re not.”

“So, we’re, or at least you all, will bring arms to bear,” a stout rover bot blinked square optics. “You’re sure we’ll be safe?”

“We’ve had a battle strategy in hand for Uraya for years,” Codexa squeezed the side of my waist. “That’s not as important as our success in building something together, overcoming the complacency of the population. That’s where you all come in. Spreading the word, helping folks understand. Starting small things, to care for one another, to keep sharing our magic as you’ve already been doing.”

There were nods among the gathering. 

“You have my word that we will do everything to assure civilian safety,” I smiled. “It’s what we do. We don’t inflict collateral damage, and we prioritize reducing enemy capacity to do so. We will not shield ourselves with you-”

“If you all go out and say your bit,” a tiny flyer stood up. “We will stand with you. You need the impact of public support, no? What can Functionists do against active masses? I’ve read about what’s happened in other places, like the Isletower Archipelago, where teachers and mentors, not resistance fighters, pushed out Functionist stratification. You need that help- we can’t just kill our way out, as you said yourselves.”

My spark lit up with calm, sensors at ease across my frame. I leaned on Codexa, taking in the words. I hope we’re right. 

“Wise words!” Lifeline clapped her hands together. “I look forward to these next few months. Any other questions?”

Chapter Text

Several months later, 6.8 million years ago, Uraya, Cybertron.

“You’re sure you want me there?” I looked to Trans-Mutate on the bench across from mine in my apartment. “Novastar reads a lot of history according to Stiletto, but we don’t know what she thinks of well, me.” 

“We’re ready enough to move, even without the planned protests and sit-ins that start up tomorrow,” Trans-Mutate to idly flex her curved blades in and out of her forearms. “We need to know if you, the capmetal of all this, will not face a challenge by the head of the military here. I’d rather test that where you can cut her down if the meeting goes awry than out in the streets where we already know Functionists are likely to take a shot at you and a number of us when we take off our extra armor and change our paint back. You’re a soldier- and you’ve moved soldiers against empires before.” She smirked, baring her teeth. “You can do it again.” 

I wonder how much we have in common that she holds back. I looked around the room, at Lifeline, Vibes, Lickety-Split, Stiletto, Crasher, Shatter, and Thornback seated around us, and gave a fanged grin, looking forward to the risk and having a chance, and thinking on a line of the book they had all helped me reach the final version of, that would be released this evening. When it comes to who we are, gauging whether someone really values that sometimes takes showing yourself, and for that, be light on your limbs, keep your wits and defenses about you, and your soul, carefulness, curiosity, bravery, and love closest.  “Okay, let’s do this.”

Trans-Mutate, Vibes, Stiletto, Lickety Split, Crasher, Lifeline and I made our way to the ground floor and into the street, and we traveled in alt-mode through traffic towards Eldest Tower, in Urayan old town. 

Stiletto got on comms on the way there flying above the rest of us, =”Called Novastar about ‘security concerns we spoke about before’, she agreed to meet at her residence in the Tower. She has a guard unit of course, but they won’t cause us trouble.”=

=”Good to know,”= Crasher changed lanes, and we chatted about our civilian work and absurdities that occurred in daily life the rest of the way.

=“...so then, I tell the ship captain, what do you mean your freighter engines are on strike?”= Lifeline laughed as we approached the bronze and pink hued pentagonal Tower.. =”Apparently the engines had started pinging complaints through the computer systems and refused to take off again, I dug around and found a seemingly comatose bot hidden away in the floor hotwired with the engines, asked them if they wanted help, and she just said eir ship body should be treated nicer during planetary burn. Apparently this was her way to get around opposition to alt-mode changes lately, and nobody knew e had snuck on board. I set up her voice into the intercom and a pseudo-AI e could pretend to be to outsiders, and gave her navigation control. E was very happy and um, asked me to lean in so she could smooch me, and well, I did. Was my first kiss from someone outside of family. E took off after with her crew, eir name was Sidearm.”=

We burst into exclamations and aws at her story as we transformed onto our legs on the sidewalk under tall ten story building full of terraces-

“Oh my gods, really!? That’s bolts, getting that kind of happiness that way, and that you helped her with it, adorable,” Lickety-Split practically hopped on her feet. “So cute.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t had a smooch with someone before, you’re very sweet,” Crasher smirked, red optic visor brightened.

I laughed immediately, patting Lifeline on her nearest back stack, and the rest all joined in on the chuckling. It’s true… she is very sweet, unafraid to love… maybe I could- I don’t know, try to get my head around that.

“Aww, you’re all going to make me explode with joy,” Lifeline’s face shone with her smile. “Guess we have work to do though…”

“That we do,” Trans-Mutate nodded, jaw tight. “Stiletto, if you would lead the way.”

“Happy to,” Stiletto strode forward up the ramp to the big silver doors, and we followed. I gave the surrounding area a look before going in- some of the small buildings had a reddish-gray round or square look to them, like those of my youth. No surprise people who live around here are easy allies- they have a direct line to history everywhere. 

Then I filed in behind Vibes, and Stiletto took us to an elevator inside the painting covered walls. We got off on the eighth floor, and stepped through the softly lit hallway beyond until we reached a simple red door with two bots leaning on the wall with a rifle, and a sword and shield respectively. The rifle bot flapped their wings slightly seeing us approach, and gave Stiletto a nod, while the swordsbot got out of their lean, wheels whirring.

“Warrior Sergeant Platferm, these are your contacts who needed to speak with Novastar?” The rifle bot met my optics and blinked, before looking at Trans-Mutate and then back to Stiletto.

“Aye,  Dis-End,” Stiletto gave a salute, which the two guards returned. “They’re also witnesses to Functionist terrorism in the surrounding area, and they spoke to me about it, I helped map out the incidents. In particular,” she touched one of my back stacks gently. “Dear Byline here has been through the most due to people assuming her gender and not liking it.”

I looked down, trying to not think about all the insults, harassment, and threats on my life in the last year, less than the average in my experience in other big polities on the surface. Ugh,  and kept my voice small: “I came here to get away from- from all that, heard stories it wasn’t so bad compared to other places, and it still persists here. Though less now with the spread of aesthetic understanding and defensiveness leading to people looking after each other more against hatred.”

“I’m so sorry to hear sweetie,” the swordsbot dipped their head to meet my gaze with their red optics. “People say there’s change afoot, as long as there’s no slaughter I honestly wouldn’t mind if Functionism was ejected from our home.”

“If-Vee, careful! Some of the State interprets that last part you said as treason,” the flyer grumbled and looked down both ends of the hall quickly before sighing. “He- I mean, she’s right though, about how it’s wrong that you went through that, even if the law is starting to defend that.”

I let a smile creep on my face, and looked up to see If-Vee’s face shining with her grin, easing the tide of remembered epithets and physical altercations. 

My smile became a smirk. “I’m glad you two understand, and it’s always nice to hear someone else using those pronouns,” I pressed my hand over my spark. “I gave all my recollections and records to Platferm…” 

“Yeah, if you want the testimonies and military data from all of us and other contributors in Uraya I have it all here,” Stiletto pulled a data slug out of the side of her hip.

“No need, Novastar will want that,” If-Vee winked at Stiletto. “It’s good to know more of us are around, and I hope you all have a good meeting.” She sheathed her sword and pressed two of her fingers to her squarish audial. =”Novastar, Platferm and her friends are here to see you.”= Then she opened the door. “The commander will see you all now.”

“Thank you both,” Trans-Mutate waved, and we walked into what looked like a hybrid living room and office. Benches and bookshelves flanked the sides with a few simple paintings on the walls, and a large terminal with computer displays sat in the middle, where a bulky red and orange bot with pistols and swords on her hips was getting up from their seat, returning the salute Stiletto gave them, no other people in sight. Must be Novastar.

“Please, come in, sit yourselves down by the table there,” she walked up to us. “I’m Commander Novastar, she/her in circles I trust, can I get you anything to tide you over?”

Everyone else asked for just mid-grade energon, cold, while I wanted warmth at the moment, with everything. “I… I’ll have a warm chrome-energon mixture. When I let myself I have a bit of a sweet intake,” I offered a hand towards Novastar, with my chest armor unfolded to show my spark glowing in it’s chamber just as my optics did with my half-curved expression. “You already know about our troubles here, and rather than build this up gradually, I’d rather tell you right now: I’m Arcee of Protohex, vanguard of the Delta League. Your sergeant has been helping to de-escalate conflicts around me, and some of our leadership is here to ask for your help in a better peaceful tomorrow.”

Novastar’s jaw dropped, closed, and opened again, the rest of her body completely still before rubbing her gray helm crest. “I um, okay. Guess this was going to happen sooner or later, but I wasn’t expecting you. I’ve heard you changed… but how am I supposed to work with you when you’re known for your death toll?” 

She started to glance at Stiletto before looking back at me, me with my hand withdrawn, frame  wobbling, head full steam with memories of all the blood and corpses, the whispers and fearful stares. I knelt onto the floor, spark armor still unfurled, back stacks itching with my sword hilts inside them. “If you think I’m in the way but you’re otherwise on board, then you’ve got a clean shot-”

“NO. No I don’t,” Novastar knelt down in front of me amid the gasps of my friends, and reached out to my hands, her optics expanded and trembling. “I can’t. Yes you’ve done things that are made to out to be politically inconvenient, but I can’t bring myself to throw you under for that, or I’d be perpetrating Functionism myself more than my job already makes me. I’m not going to ask you to leave. I am going to ask that whatever you all are going to do, even if that means taking up arms, that you in particular don’t do that. I can’t help you otherwise.”

I folded up my armor around my spark, and held her outstretched palms. “I can agree to that. My primary tool for the fateful day is going to be a book, not my swords.”

“While we’re being candid, I’m Trans-Mutate, reelected chief executive councilor of the Delta League,” Trans-Mutate sat down next to us. “Let’s talk strategy, what you get out of it, and what your limits are on helping us. For starters.”

A week later.

I woke from recharge in my room to a clamor coming from the streets that had gone on in increasing volume and longevity on and off all week. I sat up, looking out the window, to see the sun had risen slightly, our Luna 2 still glowing reddish-brown in the blue sky. How pretty.

I listened to the sounds of the people below, and looked out into the streets beyond, where gatherings of dozens of bots sat and stood about, talking, the larger crowd a sea of colors many blocks down, in old town, at the center of Uraya, beyond what I could hear. 

“...we cannot go idly by while we destroy the world and ourselves! The extortion, the surveillance, the hierarchy, the violent assignment on pain of death for an empire’s clenched bloody fist, all of it must stop! The past, and thoughts of those who imagine love today for tomorrow, show different ways!” 

“For a hundred thousand years, the cause of peace, the cause of love, has been taken up in literal terms to place word and solidarity and institutional occupation, over violence against a false equality! If the bloodiest resistors to hegemony can show that dignity and community are more intact in their projects that are not for war than that of our regime, that kills in a banal, terrifying scale, then what are we doing?!”

“To fear each other, to hunt each other in endless bouts of policing, rather than love each other, to wisen each other, that is what this is about!”

“By the transforming Forge of Solus in all of us, I DARE TO SAY THAT I WILL HOLD BACK NO MORE MY PART IN THE VAST SPECTRUM OF WOMANHOOD AND FEMMENESS AND MASCULINITY BOTH AND ALT-MODUS TOO ‘TIL I EXPIRE!”

My spark warmed almost as much as the sun, ignoring for a time the cold fear and discomfort inside my mind. “Some of these words from last week… I haven’t heard en masse in a city since before the end of the reign of the Thirteen… we’re really going all in.”

Codexa stirred next to me, her massive green frame rising to surround my waist with her arms, and plop her head over mine. 

“I feel younger, or rather timeless, waking up to this… it wasn’t so different, a little over a million years ago, the stakes are just higher, now, in some ways,” Codexa stroked the armor plate ridges of my waist and then gripped them tight, almost causing me to double over from the pressure, and certainly bringing a laugh out of me.

“I’m glad to share it with you, now, that you are ready to take part in the cause, Contextualist,” she hugged her arms around my chest, and sat a moment longer while I kissed her forearms, my frame all abuzz and calm.

Then she let go, and got up. “Come on, Arcee, we should eat and check in with Crasher, Road Rage, Shatter, Thornback, Novastar, Trans-Mutate, and the rest to make sure everything is ready.”

“Right, my love,” do I love her? Am I just going through the motions? What am I really going to do when I’m out there? The cold harshness crept out, and I ran into her surprised arms, holding her close. 

On the tips of my feet, I kissed her cheeks, my optics streaming cyan. “Please, please don’t go. I’ve been left by so many, sometimes I think it’s my fault… I’m trying to do all that I can-”

“Sweetie, sweetie, it’s okay, I’m not going anywhere, I think you’re the love of my life and you’ve given me no reason to leave, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she grasped my back and smiled down at me. “I know you have all this doubt about belonging, and facing up against one of the biggest terrors of the era head-on without being able to draw your swords must feel really scary. But I’ll be right there-” she let go of one side of me to pick up her sheathed sword on the wall, and affixed the scabbard to her hip. “And I am willing to die to defend you, as you are risking for me.”

My optics widened, and my mouth hung slack, and the harshness diminished in the glow of passion that filled every sensor, circuit, and thought. “You… you really love me… I already knew that and don’t let myself believe it sometimes, but you do…”

“I do,” she leaned in and clasped my lips with hers, and we stood there, our lips simply hugging each other as our arms did, before she let go. “Come, I think Vibes is treating us to something, smell the air.”

I sniffed, catching a sweet metallic odor and- bluish rust. “She brought rust sticks?! Wonder what the sweet thing is…” I stepped past Codexa and opened the door out of our small bunk room, and made our way into the small kitchen and dining area, where Lickety-Split sat at the table and Vibes stood smiling beside her, near the counter and stove. Both were in full combat gear, disguise paint washed off and exo-parts removed, Vibes with her plasma rifle and arming sword, and Lickety-Split with her sleek neutron assault rifle. 

“Good morning you two! Please, eat up, made two of your favorites,” Vibes gestured at the plates on the table- one had a circular silver-brown metal crust upon it with holes poked in showing goopy pink energon inside with cobalt metal flakes mixed in, and another had a pile of cyan sticks.

“Oh my stars… you made rust sticks… and the cobalt bronze-aluminum energon pie Codexa loves,” I strolled up and hugged Vibes, laughing. “Thank you! For being so thoughtful.” 

“Aw, just doin’ something for my friends,” Vibes embraced me in turn, and I sat down next to a merry-faced Lickety-Split, and the other two sat next to us.

“You didn’t have to wait for us Lickety,” Codexa picked up a rust stick and started to nibble on it, murmuring happily.

“Aww, I wanted to, today’s going to be heck, thought it’d be nice to share this,” Lickety chuckled before cutting me a piece of pie that she plopped on my plate. “Here, tell us how Vibes did.”

I picked up my fork and knife, cut in, and brought a piece to my mouth, chewing in the sweet and soft chewy flavors, and something else, an intense fuel fired through it like a warm longing spice. Another meal with people I share care with. I’m lucky… I wonder if Galvatron has this, now, since we split paths…

“Mmm-” I tried to focus on the now. The taste, and swallowed, letting it spread down my throat to my fuel tank, lighting me up inside, “it’s so delightful. Vibes I can tell you made this with all your spark- wait- the energy this gives off,” I turned and stared at her. “You- you used innermost energon for this dish?” I felt a droplet fall down my face again, and the other two turned to look at her with optics practically round.

“Heh, yeah, I did…” Vibes glimmered. 

 “Oh Vibes, I really appreciate that, I think we all do,” I blew her a kiss, feeling my frame shiver with wanting more from my shape, something different, than what I was swindled into… something I fully design next time… “Is this a declaration of wanting an intimate relation friendship, or-”

“It’s a number of things, eat and I’ll tell you while there’s time,” Vibes picked up a piece of pie for herself, and the rest of us chowed down on our own.

“Us folks of Helpful City had a tradition that’s less common now with economic stratification and more dire times;” Vibes chewed on a rust stick briefly while I felt myself grow all fiery with the energy of her meal. “When a big challenge was ahead, be it a last stand battle, a final conclusion or climax of a difficult quest or job, a natural disaster, or the parting of a family in order to care for each other, and so on- it was typical for people involved to give a bit of their energon from around their spark casing to signify their love, and for the practical purpose of a boost in the face of difficulty. So for me it’s… honoring our memories, our battles and work and friendship together, and because I do love you amicably, just as dear friends, but…” droplets fell from her visor as she fell silent to eat some pie before speaking again. “But each of you- helped me to understand my gender better, too, so… whatever happens, you’ve touched my spark for all time, and I only hope to do the same....” she started to quake. “I don’t want any of you to die…”

Lickety, Codexa, and I exchanged a look, those two getting up from their empty dishes to hold Vibes.

“Hey hey, I’m going to be fine, we all will,” I reached a hand out to Vibes, every piece of me ready to soar. “We have a game plan, which I should check in on. I’ll be okay, and you’ll be looking out for me, you’re a good shot, aren’t you?” 

“Yeah… that’s true,” she smiled again, holding my hand, and stopped shaking.

I nodded, and put two of my fingers to my audial calling the comms of the three around me, and the several dozen people involved at the entrusted head of command and delegation today, who beyond Urayan civilians included Novastar, Trans-Mutate, Crasher, Shatter, Road Rage, and Thornback. =”This is Reader-One, reporting in. Will be ready to roll in a few minutes, just ate, going to get the armor and paint off. Are the counter offensive positions around the outer city rim ready? Over.”= Hopefully sniper and armor-piercing cover fire and jump and flyer troops will be enough for whatever the Functionists bring about against folks on the ground. 

Shatter: =”We hear you Reader-One, this is Mama Wing, checked in with overwatch teams a few minutes ago, we are all green on that front, and just the vanguard and emergency units you requested on the ground, as you and Guardian One asked, besides her units on the ground keeping the enforcers from instigating something. Your second guard unit is at the rendezvous, dear. Someday we will just do this with a consensus or compromise for a vote, and not preparation for someone to carry out yet another murder on our number and anyone who cares…”= 

=”Good. The less fire we put out on the street the less civilian casualties we risk there, and it’ll be nice when that day finally comes, when Functionism and autocracy no longer has people to stand for it. I’ll be there soon, going to wash up now, Reader One out.”= Hope Novastar is right. I let go of Vibe’s hand and stood, headed for the miniature wash rack in the washroom between our two bunk rooms.

I took my exo-part bulk off neatly in a pile next to the wash rack box, missing the more robust shape the parts had given me but wanting something different than their design, I shivered again, clutching myself, trying to soothe, and then simply walked into the wash rack and grabbed a paint removal torch, and Codexa followed in, doing the same.

I flicked the torch on, holding it inward, starting with the green paint on my chest, burning it off to show my typical deep pink. We both kept at it for several minutes until we were done, quietly, focused, not wanting to hurt ourselves with the plasma.

“I think I might want more cyan on me again someday.” I looked myself over, and then put the torch down to pick a nozzle to briefly hose myself down with low-grade extract energon, and did the same for Codexa, gently pressing a hand on her as I did. 

“I think that would look lovely, the color contrast and symbiosis,” she patted my head. “Your copy of On Ancient Truths is still in the living room. I presume that’s the one you’re taking with you?” She took my hand, and we walked out together, through the kitchen to the living room by the floor hallway door, where Vibes had just closed the door, with Stiletto, Deep Blue Glimpse, Lifeline, Path Finder, and Coldwheel carrying melee arms and just inside talking with Lickety-Split, our weapon cases open and empty in the center of the room. Hope the team in this building has everything they need.

They waved at Codexa and I and we exchanged good mornings with hugs. I stepped over to the bench table after to pick up the book so many had helped me draft, and looked over the metal cover of the half-palm thick book for a moment. It was lined with the color of Cybertronian tears and blood, detailed with orange flames in between and full of black text lines of different pronouns, the title squarely in the center beneath the image of bots of a vehicle, animal, structure, and item mode sharing an embrace and nuzzling heads, ringed by hammers, swords, lightbulb-flowers, and t-cogs. 

The innermost fire Vibes had given me erupted across my body again as I contemplated reading the text aloud in the plaza four kilometers away our apartment had line of sight on, filling my sense of purpose with strength, everything felt aligned for once in strong softness. Better not become an innermost energon addict, as amusing as such an intimate consented vampirism is. I stored the book in my back stacks, and took my swords out, which I handed to Lifeline.

“As the medic on the team, I think you could use some armor piercing blades if you need them,” I smirked.

“It’d be an honor,” she laughed, and stowed them in her own wheel whirring stacks before plopping a kiss on my cheek. “You’re gonna do great. Your first page is a literal flame of transformation.” 

We turned to Vibes and Lickety-Split, and gave a left hand on spark salute.

“Good luck, dear friends, aim of the people and strength be with you,” I dipped my head slightly.

They returned the salute, and Lickety sang a few lines from Trans-Mutate’s song in my honor:

“It is one of our greatest strengths,

Trans or no,

To keep transforming in kinship of loneliness,

Of sadness and joy and ambivalence,

We are just as real with all our doubts as we are with our sureness,

Every actuation,

pondering the meaning before during and after,

Unending transformational context,

Yours and everyone else’s,

From any part of life!”

We all joined her, and then she said, “you should get going. We’ll overwatch you, solidars.”

Lifeline opened the door, and we headed downstairs, changing into alt-modes on the ride down, and stopped in the lobby where Novastar and her retinue were waiting for us, putting on emblems of the Forge of Solus hammer head with an infinity loop in between, alongside the telescope blossom that was the symbol of Uraya, before joining us in alt-mode.

“Aw scrap. I should have known, but at this point I don’t mind,” Pinpoint stepped out of the lift behind us. “Don’t get my building wrecked, y’all soldiers and guerrillas both.”

“Don’t worry,” Novastar rolled out ahead to the opening doors. “If the Functionists start a fight, folks will jump in to keep it close to them.”

We made our way into the streets. Bots around quieted as they saw us, whispering of cheering moments after when we passed, dozens joining alongside us, to where a larger gathering was loudly rallying in the plaza with a mix of signs and banners emblazoned with calls for democracy, autonomy, and aesthetic liberation, while more city guards and melee weapon carrying Delta Leaguers had uneasy staredowns with a sparse number of taunting armed Functionists and law enforcers who had taken up the geared wing symbol of their reactionary allies. 

When they saw us, hollering and swears reached screeching levels, that I blocked out by focusing on the absurdity of their hatred.  I broke into laughter over it as I changed to bot mode by the fountain, laughter that spread through my group infectiously. The onlooking crowd and friendlier folks joined in. One of the Functionists with an exasperated expression leveled a pistol at me, and one of our vanguards, purple car bot Shadow Striker, promptly twisted the gun out of their hand with an arm grab and whispered some words that left the belligerent scrambling away. Nice job, Shadow. It was an honor to teach you. 

I pulled my book out, and noticed a number of bots had video cameras trained on us. I upped my voice box volume all the way, while my ground team and the inner part of the crowd turned to me.

“Denizens of Uraya and the worlds and people listening! It is an honor to speak before you now, to bring forth words hundreds of thousands helped me write and the resistance and hope of billions more made possible! It is no accident or personal feat alone that led to an old person like me surviving, but the community and inner peace I have been so lucky to share, even when I struggled to love and accept my trans womanhood alongside and part of the links closest to me!” I clenched my hand on the book cover, and opened to the introductory chapter, and read adding exclamations. 

“Even now, with my bouts of doubt and chronic trauma, I see the strength of love and transformation in all of you, trans or no! Whether strength brought out in solidarity or waiting to blossom, it is part of sapient life! When I was young, the world was full of common knowledge of thousands of names for genders and aesthetics, whether of spectrums masculine, femme, agender, alt-modus, iteration, experiential, fluid, trans, launch, ascribed, pronoun, polygender, orientation, expression, xeno and more. All were embraced on equal terms in systems varying from linkage to relation, esoterism, spirituality, martial and civilian orders, our way of life! Even when other things were wrong, even when the knowledge wasn’t implemented in ways that would have helped someone like me with a male-ascribed forging, it was and still is a story that we are joined with! Whether a deeply held value of the departed Knights of Cybertron or a font of imagination for a new society today, we all try to make stories with ourselves! To have variety, regardless of language structure context, is the way of the universe and sapient life! To be simply lived, considered in passing, studied with care, celebrated, pondered, embraced with layers of irony, to realize and transform us, is what putting words and actions to ourselves does!” I then ad libbed: “Let me hear your fire, your words, if you wish! Let the world hear it!”

My companions and the people roared their words and declarations- a vast galaxy of terms, as did others in nearby blocks and cascading with more voices as far out in the city as I could hear even more varied than the pronoun sculpture I had helped make. Though man and woman were the most common overall, I heard many of those same voices declare others in kinship like my own linkage would, filling me with a new closeness to the world. For now, I have a home. 

When they largely quieted after, I waited until I heard only cheers and opposed threats, and carried on: “See? Isn’t that beautiful? Even if it’s just a few words or a feeling or unsureness, that is still lovely, because it’s you. Some today have attempted to extend the evils of hierarchy to replace this variety, whether the declared Functionists themselves or structural support by the likes of Nova Prime and complicity by fear and internalization! Form essentialism and the further rise of alt-mode discrimination that was sure to follow thinking conquest, punishment, and empire honor transformation, that they make us free. This is not freedom! It is a disavowal of our will, of a core part of what makes us think and feel, the thought, feeling, and act of context as reflection, acceptance, question, rejection, creation, expression, experimentation, and realization! As a warrior, as an artist, as a teacher, I have found more peace in being part of socioeconomic dignity and autonomy of personhood than in all the violence by my hand necessary or no! It is that sustaining with more than brutality, to have the ferocity of compassion means capacity to love and live daily life, that is the magic I try to embrace in all my pain, that is there for all of you too! On this basis, I reject Functionism, authoritarian rule, and hierarchy!”

I was about to sing Trans-Mutate’s song while cheers rose more when a barrage of rockets streaked down from a four story building across the street towards me.

My team scattered away from the incoming strike while Codexa and I hugged each other, leaping on thruster feet and back stacks, shaking as exploding bombs hit amid shouts and cries.

Battle broke out, full brawls between the Functionist aligned and the rest of us, while flyers by the building the launch had come from throttled up to crash through the fourth floor windows. 

Codexa pushed me down as we cut thrusters to land in the crater, wrapping her big body around me, sword drawn, while lines of plasma fire streaked occasionally overhead. Vibes. I took a look around, seeing the soldiers given deferral by Leaguers on engagements, and looked to the out skyscrapers to see flyers and jump pack equipped bots moving from roof to roof and window to window making their way down each building nearby. The fire and harshness in me both felt the urge to join battle, my ducts pumping energon rapidly, my back stacks aching from sword emptiness, my fists and feet wanting to strike. But the rest of my mind and spark stayed with Codexa. I have to trust, I have to turn this over to the people-

“I can’t believe I’m sitting this out,” I sighed. “People are going to die.”

“And if you do get involved outside immediate defense of your life, to the people who are scared of you, you’ll have forfeit to the imperial establishment, and we’ll have people die that way too because of bad faith apathy. Let me sing with you.”

We both sang Trans-Mutate’s song twelve more times among an eventually victorious denizenry and talked with them until Road Rage ordered us to retreat when reports came in of an artillery battery in use by Functionist defectors. We waited things out at Shatter’s command post at the central train station, the ancient main terminal shaking with every thundering heavy blast until they finally fell silent two hours later, small arms fire disappearing shortly after.

=”All available units supplement city guard aerial squadrons, artillery, and anti-aircraft positions. We wait for the other wheel to drop from the State,”= Shatter looked up from her mobile terminal on the hall floor near Codexa and I, into the distance crowded with civilians sharing energon, wounded of their number and fighters alike seen to by civilian medics, and squads watching the doors and windows out of the cyan and orange building. “Here goes nothing…”

Novastar’s voice came in on intercom:=”Governor Tre-boon, do you accept the popular petition terms to observe and aid the creation of an autonomous federated provisional delegation? There are no penalties if you refuse, but the people I am charged to protect will ignore your governmental capacity as more than a denizen here-on out otherwise, and we are asking or have already gotten the support of your agencies.”=

Everyone was quiet for the next twenty minutes except the doctors and some of those in pain they cared  for on medical benches. I took the time to calculate how badly things would go if Nova Prime decided to put our rebellion down directly. It would be an awful siege that would probably end in evacuating as much of the population as we could, and the towns and villages working with us would be next on the hit list. And Nova’s armies and expansion would be significantly dwindled and slowed, he has to see we are too much of a problem to be dealt with that way for now…

=”Commander Novastar, and all belligerents,”= Tre-boon’s voice came on with a practical scowl. =”I have been instructed by Nova Prime to tell you that Dai Atlas’s warrior scholar 5th through 10th detachments will be instituting a blockade of our city so that we may learn peace and free equality of the State and strata. I and everyone else who wants no part in this revolt will be leaving.”=

I smiled, as joyous mirth, crying, dancing, and kissing broke out across the building. Codexa cupped my face and kissed my lips, and I joined her in our own dance of mouths, myself a bit slower, distracted by memory of how the Contextualist Revolution had shattered from hegemonic response post-war, of the increasing hostility I endured whose worst point had been my mistake to seek out a reintroduction of my gender by surgery- I parted my face from Codexa’s tears down my optics in a deep sadness, my sensory pain starting to wrack my body with the excruciating echoes of my suffering. I screamed, over and over, blubbering quietly in between: “what if it ends badly… what if we lose… what if I was wrong… I’ve fallen far from what was needed before…”

=”Spacewarp, take command for me, I need to see to a friend,”= Shatter got up from her seat and wrapped arms around my waist thatI could barely feel. “It’s okay Arcee, it’s okay…” 

Codexa merely rested her tearful head on mine, holding my back stacks, humming songs and whispering I love yous, as I tried to anchor around her in blood and charge, in her physical presence among my mind's repeated attempts to reach a peaceful hill of friends by a city of dreams, as had come to mind with Minerva's help many millennia ago, while I was barely able to grasp knowledge outside of my fear and suffering and acknowledging it, to love myself, until the pain went away at dusk.

“We won. We actually won something big. Even if it doesn’t last,” Shatter moved around to look me in the optic. “You should be proud, you did your part to make this real. I think maybe we will see both Nova’s rule and Functionism cease in our lifetimes.”

I nodded, circuits heavy, deep in memory of all the blood I had spilled for Megatronus to oppose some of the worst of Primes before the Alliance of the Thirteen. “Perhaps, and I certainly have done my part, you’re right, and we should make the best of it,” I hugged her, hands on her wings. It won’t last. “I’m proud of you too dear friend,” I laughed, trying to ignore my analysis, turning instead to the mountain of strategy meetings, battles, and shared commands with her flowing through me, trust in mettle and spirit. “And bless your spark Codexa, for taking leave from command for today…”

“You’d do the same for me, in fact done the same,” Codexa smiled at me, pressing a hand over my spark. “Even though you went back to fighting and surface operation stress tested your limits and brought more pain, you giving up command to focus on your health more helped us to be happier together. I hope you can take another break from fighting now, even if you still teach it. And, I want to take you out on a date, just the two of us. The sculpture gardens and libraries would be nice…” 

I pressed my hand over her spark, my own finally warm again from the two’s love and mine for them, even though mine for myself was exhausted. “I’d like that.”

Chapter Text

6.7 million years ago, Uraya, Cybertron.

=“Jinkies! Well, that was an Afterspark of a book, I don’t think I’ll look at a city or a glacis the same way ever again,”= Flamewar cackled with Rosanna through the small comms radio box on the table between Codexa, Vibes, Lickety-Split, Rampage and I.

The five of us were enjoying morning tankards of medium grade energon in the apartment four of us shared. Codexa was carefully pouring through council logs, Vibes and Lickety-Split simply had arms around each other, and Rampage and I were quietly picking through instruction and drill notes for today’s exercises, and some of Rampage’s plans for this year.

We chuckled with smirks at Flamewar’s remark as we sipped on our fuel, the morning sun shining through the window, the usual hub-bub of flyer engines quietly rumbling by outside.

Rosanna: =”Yeah, I can’t believe we did an eight hour review of Camo Nebula! ! It was so full of little facets and questions anchored together by the plot and the world beyond it. I think I’m going to lay off literature for a bit, my brain is far too absorbed in the characters right now,” a cytar string twanged through the radio. “Care to join me for a song to decompress before we turn things over to Editor and Zizza’s news segment?”

Flamewar: =”Heck yeah I do! Are you on strings this time while I sing, dear?”=

Rosanna: =”That’s the plan, you know the song, Amicable Endurance . Seeing as you’ve already got the mic, we’ll start on three- ”=

Flamewar & Rosanna together: “A- one, two, three:” Flamewar burst into song while someone, presumably Rosanna , plucked away on the cytar, and I checked the time on my internal chronometer.

Nearly 7. Enough time to show up early for leading class. “Rampage, ready to head out?” I tapped his elbow. “I think you’re right about doing more feigned retreat exercises combined with flanking to not tip our defensive and offensive capacity’s hand too much this metacycle while keeping units close to practicing defense in depth and rapid deployment." I picked up my paint-pen and signed the first page out of the metal word engraved pile. “I probably can’t make it to the strategy meeting to give my input, I have a student who needs extra help, you know the one. Upbeat, sassy, pensive, and who I’d like to keep from getting sent away through the Undergrid to a distant front until she is in tune with her fire, like mine. I want them to have what I didn’t at their age.” Her yellow opticed tricrested cyan face came to mind. I hope you’re doing okay since your last upset…  

“Ah yes, Wheelsent,” Rampage nodded. “You’ve got the right idea, giving them more help. Primus knows she needs it.” He brought his files together in a few hand motions and shut the folder, and stored it in his back. “Let’s move.”

We got up said our ‘see you laters,’ and I shared a kiss with Codexa. 

“Be careful dear, Nova’s regime and the Functionists have been particularly quiet in their desperation this last decade with all the recent mass protest polity breakaways into the league,” she cupped one of my cheeks with a hand, her optics soft. “We’re overdue for them to make a move.” 

“I know,” I ran the inside of my fist down her own cheek slowly, and got light on my feet, remembering the blades in the night from the last assassination attempt on her I had prevented. “You be careful too. You’re more of a target than me these days, back in executive leadership again.”

“I will,” she smiled. “Transformation be with you.”

And so Rampage and I left, into colorful streets full of bots chatting, commuting, and meandering, a few dancing and singing, with bots at arms about near anti aircraft batteries dotting the cityscape, and my friend and I rushed northwest in Uraya’s outer rim in alt mode. We split paths as the towering  hexagonal westward military base and banner filled sparring fields came into view in the upcoming neighborhood. Rampage instead departed towards the center of the city, and I pressed on into the nearest field, changing modes onto my feet upon the beige metal ground marked in cyan and green. 

I strolled towards the only other bot on the field, a blockly curvy wheeler jet of blue shades, her tricrested head focused towards the air ahead of the swings of their pink blade and green knife, legs a rush of leaps back and forth and around- until they  caught my optic with a glance of her own, stumbled to a standstill, and sheathed her energized metal blades in hip scabbards. 

“Arcee! Good morning!” She smiled, and gave a hand over spark salute and walked up towards me. 

I returned it, and stopped in front of her looking up at their face. “Good morning and good form, Wheelsent, but the staggers from surprise are something to work on turning into other movements or energy you can still use,” I smiled. “You doing okay? I heard yesterday was tough on you.”

“Thanks,” she dodged my gaze for a moment, their optics instead looking out to the outer high towers before meeting my optics again. “I don’t know. We were doing our air defense drills and someone said something about how trans people who don’t live with the movement are complicit and dumb, and I flipped out.” 

“I’m so sorry, that’s awful,” my fuel tank wrenched up, and I reached out my arms to offer a tentative hug.

They embraced me, my head resting on her boxy chest, and so I put my hands on their back, still looking up at her. 

“Don’t people realize that people get trapped economically, like by poverty?” Wheelsent’s optics shuttered, their body still. “Or the dangers in trying to get to the Undergrid or here? Or that places like Uraya are a giant potential target we’ve all gathered at? Or that some people want to fight on where home is for them, or can’t join because of health issues? It just unnerves me: the peace we have here is bought by the blood of guerrillas and smaller polities and that of natural disruptions against oppression in Functionist territory.” 

“I know,” I sighed. “It’s good that you spoke out, but you have to build up a rhythm to deal with it and care for yourself. Your squad ceased drills to instead argue with you, which isn’t your fault, but it can happen in the field, and you stepped out of practice, understandably. If you can, when something like that happens,” I gave her a squeeze. “Try to be firm and calm with saying that it hurt to hear or to table it, and save doing something about it beyond that if possible for when fighting is not ensuing unless people bother you anyway.” I let her go, but didn’t step back. “I’ve been where you are, my hurt or thoughts or concern tends to bring out all the discordance that is hiding. That’s a tool, not a hindrance. You have to learn to live with it.” 

They squinted, and then grinned and brought her arms back. “That makes sense, I’ll do that. You’re so wise, Arcee, I’m glad you get me and so many of us. You’re one of the smartest people in the room because you already know so much history and analysis to discern motives, meanings, and practices, and the limits of your knowledge. Wish you didn’t have to get hurt so much on the way.”

“Oh, I don’t know about all that,” I chortled, rubbing my arms. “I don’t think of things as ‘who’s the smartest,’ we all have different tendencies, skills, and ways that give us unique things to contribute. But I tend towards trusting people who, whatever their backgrounds are, are understanding of how transformation is not always easy but is vital and continuous.” I stepped back and put my hands on my hips. “And you’re one of those, and if I can make your journey easier, that makes me happy. You liking your pronouns still?” 

“I do!” she stretched their arms out, angular back wings flapping. “She and they work so nice together in my mind, there’s a neat inner plurality taganitist appeal to phrasing it that way even though I’m nominally a singleton, but both parts of me, both of those pronouns, love each other so. It helps me feel so strong and happy with my frame. Every sword swing and gentle touch is a statement to me of who I am.” She beamed at me. “Thanks for helping me learn the sword and calm better to do that. Should we do some sparring before the rest of class shows, or do you have something else in mind?”

“A bit of both,” realization of needing to care for our shared vulnerability with strength dawned on me, and I drew my thermal swords from my back stacks. “Live weapon exercise in battle meditation, and I want to urge you to acknowledge difficult feelings that are turbulent inside you, and use them with wisdom. Draw your sharps.”

“Okay,” she nodded, and unsheathed her blades.

“In debriefings for when you’ve hit the drill fields, you’ve said you sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the hurt you know is happening, how painful our history has been, how uncertain and scared you are for our present and future.” I dipped my head, still holding her gaze with mine. “Since we know intrusive thoughts can still happen, even if one has worked to decrease them with positivity and wisdom cycling of the mind as I have, I’m going to ask you to so see if it hurts less to confront this on your own terms, before you do battle- before someone or something falls, so that when the pain hits, you’ve already faced it. A bit different from just stepping into the moment with awareness and not dwelling things with typical battle meditation. Does that make sense?”

“Y-yes,” their jaw tightened, optics falling away. “But not every time, right?”

“When you need it,” I smiled. “I’m going to guide you through the rest of the steps. Minerva and Rampage taught me the pieces- I put it together. It’s a bit of an exposure technique, and war is already something that exposes awfulness. What I want you to do when you do this- is acknowledge your fear, your hurt, and let it be there while you focus on your love and the task at hand instead, okay? Build up the ability to respond. That’s why I don’t want this to be something you use every time- because then you might make exposing yourself to your pain essential to calming.” I smiled, inclining my head to the side. “Got it?”

“Got it,” she smiled back. “Expose myself to what I fear, but don’t dwell on it, turn to my knowledge and love instead, like turning to you,” her optics widened with a soft light. “You make me so proud to be a trans woman and to feel my links to the rest, Arcee, and I’m glad to learn from you, to share the time that we do.”

My mouth opened, my circuits buzzing around my frame, spark warm, the same awe and endearment as when Lifeline had spoken to being inspired by me. “I, that’s very sweet, Wheelsent. I have a lot of admiration for you too, the pulse you have to goodness in the world, and to the want for mirthful joy in life that flows from you as well, in tune with your growing unique prowess as a warrior and theorist. Your own gender assemblage is very beautiful, if I’ve done anything to help, I’m glad.” 

I beamed at her, and she seemed a bit flush in her green biolights accompanying their grin back at me. 

I took one more step back. “So, now, let’s try: face your fears in your mind, what you can bear without sapping all your scoops.”

She nodded again, and then a cringe ran across their body, and a grunt out of her mouth, optics tight, vents audible.

“And draw on your connection to the world around you in your senses, and in your spark- let awareness, readiness, and love flow...” I brought both of my swords up facing forward ahead of me.

 “Love give me strength…” she whispered, and her optics opened up again, face loose, legs finding a front stance, blades rising-

And I barreled forward, “try to strike me!” my blades slashing to the side to push her blades away, my right leg delivering a kick towards their torso.

She sidestepped rapidly away from the blow, and her right hand, holding their dagger, swept away under my left blade, a stab accelerating towards my forearm while her sword was across their shoulders ready to parry or strike.

I leapt back, swords forward, and started to step around her clockwise, and they circled as well for a moment, before stepping forward to slash her sword that I knew would fall into the air in front of me, not hit me.

I didn’t move, and smirked.

“Tsch,” they smiled back, bringing her sword back up.

Then we both stepped towards each other in a sensory rush of movement. I slashed downwards left, she parried and stabbed towards me simultaneously, I blocked their stab and hit her head with the pommel of my blocked sword, and they kneed my waist, leaving me at a stumble, and brought one blade towards my inner forearm and the other in an uppercut towards my torso. I knocked the upper cut down and twisted my forearm around to meet her knife with my blade, and moved to slice sidewards at their waist with my left hand while running a stab just above her shoulder-

They scampered back, weapons raised defensively.

Some of the other students had made their way onto the field, so far around two dozen carrying their melee arms of all sorts, and they stood by watching us.

“You’ll have to try again next time, brave warrior, well done, you got a hit in,” I saw she was still tense and standing on the tips of their feet, so when I deactivated my swords, I slowly raised my arms to put the hilts away in my back stacks, “Class is about to start-” I lodged them in.

She roared in on their short jet engine heels, blades aimed for my torso sides, her short arc up quickly falling, she’s going to crash if they doesn’t tackle me . 

I dived in under her at full speed with my back stack thrusters, and grabbed their big ankles while under her, the two of us tugging against each other, their mass and thrust pulling me at a slower speed, “CUT YOUR ENGINES WHEELSENT-”

“GOT IT!” she did, and I kept us level for a few moments until their large weighty frame collapsed onto me. 

I barely had time to let go of her ankles and curl my legs in before we hit the ground, smooshing my torso under theirs, and I grabbed my swords from my stacks and put their heat against the back of her knees. “Because I had to see to your safety, this is a draw, but had I not cared, I could have brought you down. Good moves though, you did manage to hit me, so congratulations!” I laughed, a rush of data from the thrill across me, and she/they did too.

Then I turned off my blades and put them away, and heard her sheath their swords, and they got off me. 

“Oh Arcee, I’m sorry, your back stacks are all dented in, and you’re crying!” She picked me up in a hug, optics teary, and I held them, unable to feel the streaming energon down my cheeks that Wheelsent said was there, nor could I feel the pain, because all the sensory excitement was now gone, I couldn’t even feel her frame and the ground. Panic and remorse erupted through my mind.

NO NO NOT DURING CLASS AGAIN WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF, WHY COULDN’T I JUST BE A MAN WHO SURRENDERED GENDER-

“You’re crying, I really hurt you…” Wheelsent shivered constantly.

Anchor in that, in her care, and mine for them, you do matter Arcee, your transness is real, you are a gal and alt-modus and iter-exper, please don’t let go or give up- it almost felt as if Minerva and Codexa were speaking to me, and the harshness did not rise to challenge. “No no Wheelsent, my brain isn’t processing the pain, or anything, that’s why I’m sad. Put me down please so I can sit, I can’t feel anything tactilely. If you want to sit with me you can, we can see to my injuries later.

“But-”

“You’re medically trained, yes? Do I look seriously injured?” I looked up at her.

She wiped their cheeks, optics refocusing. “No- bad bruises. I didn’t bash you in. You’ll heal.”

I smiled. “Good.”

She kept an arm around my back and a hand on my arm while I looked at the floor, carefully kneeling, and bringing my legs crossed together at the ankle, and they sat next to me.

I looked up at the fifty armed bots who had approached near us, whispering and wishing me well.

I gave a half smile. “Students! I can’t lead exercises today with my frame right now, but I can still instruct until I recover, whenever that is. So, let’s begin, building on the basics again before I bring you out weapon group by weapon group to teach you some advanced moves. Stand apart and give me some parries and strikes, counterblows, feints, and ripostes!”

“YES SIR!” resounded from the lot who started to disperse and ready arms. 

I chuckled, finally feeling happy relief in my cheeks. “That’s a nice thing about the nightmare that is the military- some terms are genderless and get past this bloody unconscious gendering I deal with.”

“I believe you can find a way, Arcee,” Wheelsent stood, drawing her blades. “Thank you for continuing to help me to find mine, I think I’ll join class today.” 

We both laughed amid the whooshing, whirring, and zooming sounds of weapons and bodies in motion. 

I nodded. “Go on, join your peers, sir Wheelsent.” Why did I use a Knightly formation of address?  

Even after the practice portion of the class was done hours later, the students waited with me until I got feeling back in my sensors, not wanting to abandon me, taking the time to meditate around me.

It felt peaceful, to be in part appreciated as I am, and not for what people want me to be or fear me for. My spark warmed softly at rest, and sensation came back to my body at last.

In the quiet, I tentatively stood with some clanking sounds, and people opened their optics and got up after me, smiling. 

“Now that I can move, we should go see the surface front for your field surveillance practice, if it won’t make you all late for your other duties or schedules, show of hands for who’s coming-” 

Everyone raised their hands.

I smiled, chuckled, and changed modes to my hovercar mode. “Let’s go.”

The class and I were in the outer treeline behind trunks and bushes, watching. A small outpost village, Thyrene, a few kliks to our right, armed Delta League platoon patrols on the surface and in the air around us. We were crouched, optics zoomed in and binoculars and scopes leveled at the sight ahead, myself through my binoculars in hand: 

The large four story blocky mobile hangars set up lining the border, blue and white banners emblazoned with the Matrix of Leadership flapping in the wind, many thousands of bots moving about in formation or loosely front and behind thick barricades. The Circle of Light. I quickly took in the various tower and dome complex hubs around and between the hangars, spotting the three with radar dishes and comms poles upon them, and then attempted to assess how many guns were pointed at the forest- several hundred along the barricade lines. Not that it matters- they let us or packages slip through when we need to as long as we can make it look like they didn’t detect us. Every movement- every step, gesture, soar of wings, gave off the appearance of a calculated display, weaving through each other with ease, all too harmonious with a certain ‘this is what it is’ attitude.

“Pay close attention,” I brought my binoculars down. “The Circle of Light are a scholarly bunch when it comes to war- what do you see in their movements?”

“They’re mostly light on their feet and alts, but relaxed, as if not wanting to show their hand and to give an air of readiness,” the thin dataslug bot Filestroll to my left noted peering down eir telescope. “Whatever internal unit conflicts they have or rowdiness is subdued beyond our notice.”

“Very good,” I nodded. “Strategic analysis?”

“The purpose is layered,” spry avian Flittersea looked over at me. “For one, it tells us they are constantly drilling mentally and prepared to not show all tactical and logistical intent beyond basic routines we can pick up, and to the Functionists it is exactly what they would expect from the Circle of Light at the ready, so, situation normal, which suits the Lighters and us just fine.”

“Correct,” I chuckled. “Would someone like to propose how an attack against our friends in the State would be best carried out? Talk it over, don’t need to answer right away.”

“Well, they have no heavy guns outside of their alts, that’s something to keep in mind-” Wheelsent stumbled for a moment. “Arcee, you should look. The rear hangars are empty.”

“What?!” I snapped up another look, and saw that the rear layer was in fact empty of bots: and that they were zooming away into the distance deeper on their side of the borderline. “They don’t have a reason to make a false retreat themselves, this must be genuine or-” I quickly scanned the front, and saw a stubby motorcycle rushing towards us at full speed. “I suppose we’ll find out.” My fuel tank lurched. “I have a very bad feeling about this. Be ready to pull back or reveal arms when I give the word. Everyone in alt mode and carry those who aren’t as mobile in alt.” I stood up, and waved at the approaching bot.

“Salutations, Arcee, honored folk,” the motorcycle stepped up into a squarish and angular form, a hand whisking a dataslug out of one hip, a sword resting on their other hip. “I have grave news. We are being moved out- Nova Prime signed and handed a city charter this morning to the Functionist Council to rule Uraya as they see fit so long as they follow laws of the State, and an executive law is to be passed today officially delineating animal and plant formers from the rest of Cybertronians, so- it’s starting.”

My body tightened up, and I nodded, while gasps, yells, and cries broke out from my students. The dataslug is probably going to be useful. 

I extended a hand. “So, the Functionist Council is going to send their Functionary Legions, eh? They want to pull off replacing you in a day? That gives us time to shore up defenses more than you’ve already turned a blind optic to.” I chuckled. “That dataslug has their battleplans, no?”

“Yes,” the cycle bot nodded. “One of your brother’s spies, apparently, got their hands on it.” They handed me the sleek purple and gray cylinder and then changed back to alt-mode, rolling away. “Good luck! ‘Til all are one, the Guiding Hand and the Knights be with you.”

“Heh, we are the Knights of-” my memory fuzzed over a Titan’s hall I didn’t recognize, a sword… and then it was gone. “Of our time. Be well, fellow bot.” I turned to face my class, and hopped into my alt mode, plugging the dataslug into my neck as I did. “We move out top speed for home. I’ll code-signal command, and I have my vanguard unit to see to.” I revved my engine and roared off through the metal trees.

=”Are we going to be okay?”= Wheelsent caught up in her jet mode.

=”We’ll do our best to be okay, you have my word. They can never destroy our transformative fire.”=

By the time we reached the series of thick walled and turreted domes of City Central Command near Urayan old town, only Wheelsent was with me when we changed modes at the gates of one of the domes, soldiers everywhere already jogging and sprinting about, flyers all over the skies above. A familiar sight to me, while my mind was elsewhere- the dataslug data on the entire artillery platform legions being moved out to shell and blast Uraya, and their attempts to foray into the underground with mining machines. We will have to move quickly, and through the Undergrid to get close… while infantry and anti-projectile defense holds the front above. We’ll be dependent on rapid strike units making it to take out the artillery once they’re set up. If anyone is going to lead one from the front, I should.

“Wheelsent, don’t you have family or a unit to join up with?” I reached a hand out to her after saluting the guard squad in front of the dome gates. 

“I have family, and yeah there’s my squad…” she met my optics, hers ablaze. “I want to serve with you. Please. I know that if you deploy it will be important.”

“We’ll see what command says about what to do, I have to show them the plans,” I passed through the gate, Wheelsent followed. “But Wheelsent, if I’m right, and I deploy on the front… where I am going is somewhere you’re not ready for. But I will need you to do something critical that you are ready for, that I would only trust a few to do.”

Her frame sagged down for a moment before standing tall again. “What is it?”

Walking through the office, armory, and bay filled hall, I smiled, trying not to think about all my 2,026 students who had died on fronts across Cybertron since I had started teaching, “You know they’ll deploy elite forces to try to cut us off at the head. I need you to defend command, alongside Road Rage, if you won’t join your squad- of course, your commander already gave me authorization to vouch for you.” I smirked. “We have thought about this, you know, Rampage has taken notice of you.”

“Really?!” Wheelsent’s face lit up and she bounced on their feet a moment. “That makes me so happy to hear. Okay Arcee, I’ll join up with Road Rage.” 

Her smile lingered and my spark worried while we walked and while I commed her squad commander to let them know about her transfer, receiving a chuckle and agreement in reply before we reached the two bot guarded door I was headed to; the high command strategy room.

“Ah Arcee, and fellow warrior,” the halberd carrying truck bot guard saluted, as did their rifle-bearing crab counterpart. 

“Password of the day is Trebuchet,” I stepped up to the door.

The crab bot nodded and put a claw to their audial, “Door op, we’ve got two bots cleared for the command room, Arcee and a pal of hers.”

The door unsealed with heavy cathunking sounds, and Wheelsent and I strode through while booms sounded in the distance.

“It’s started,” Trans-Mutate clenched her fists seated at the strategic projection table at the end of the room, a table shared with Rampage, Road Rage, Codexa, Shatter, Path Finder, Novastar, Spacewarp, and Thornback. “The long range bombardment, that is. They used shuttles and ships for rapid transport. Good to see you Arcee,” she gave a glimmer of a smile. “And you must be Wheelsent who I’ve heard about, glad to see you here.” 

“It’s an honor, exec,” Wheelsent sat down next to Path Finder.

I joined her, next to Minerva, and put my hands on the table, looking at the jumble of unit report movements dots on the map display around and in Uraya, a jumble of the last of Circle of Light units pulling out mixed in with Functionist Legions scrambling to set up under our own artillery and sniper fire. 

I frowned for a moment seeing the dots of their scouting parties in the underground, and then my fangs grinned at the readouts of already heavy casualties of their front line. The blood, spilled so we can live. They can’t take away what we have, we won’t let them. “So, we should expect the first assault waves once they have defenses ready to hold their encirclement. Now is the time to strike then, yes, or are we waiting for them to get comfortable and play their hand?”

“The ones they sent aren’t well trained, but we know from past experience that the elite troops are very zealous, high morale, the ones we need to break are the rank and file forces, the support network,” Spacewarp said. “They tend to fragment when we have resounding victories, so our decisive counterattack should be when their shock troops are already committed to the attack.”

“Aye, I already ordered defense in depth to be carried out so we can keep them separated,” Novastar added. “In about four hours they’ll be in too deep and we’ll wipe them while vanguard units handle the artillery, too much antiaircraft and flyers for us to get flyers in. Any suggestions?”

“Yes, our rapid strike units ought to move through the underground, which the enemy are least familiar with, and burst up in the midst of their artillery. Thruster units and alt mode groups will maximize our ability to respond quickly when the time is right. I should take the head of the 1st Blade Commandos as part of our shock forces. They trust my gut, they’ve all gotten training from me on some level, and I can minimize losses for them while we draw attention away from the other units.”

Everyone around the strategic map table stared at me. 

“Arcee…” Trans-Mutate shook her head. “Gods dammit. I hate that you’re right. I don’t see another way out, a surface counterattack would decimate us.” Then she stared squarely at me, red optics aglow. “Keep. Your. Head. Understand me? Do what you need to survive, but don’t lose it.”

“Understood, Trans-Mutate,” I pressed my left hand to the center of my chest. “I will give it my all. I should get them ready. Give us a start point and we’ll be there.” I turned and ran for the door before anyone could hug me, about to hop on comms. 

“I’m going with you,” Codexa caught up with me with a rapid sprint, and grabbed my hand. “Novastar can handle it.”

“Me too,” Shatter rushed up. “Signal Lancer can cover for me. We should link up with the stalwart line-”

“You two don’t have to do this,” I stopped still, trying not to cry. “It will be bloody. Like nothing you’ve ever fought in your life. I don’t want to lose either of you, Road Rage, or Minerva.”

“And what would you have us do? Leave you and your top teams of die-hard commandos to face this down and absorb the brunt of the assault when it's put on the defense? No way.” Codexa crossed her arms. “I know you’ve been feeling lonelier- you need a reminder that you’re not alone, Arcee. I’m with you to the end, and so are your friends.”

While I took her words in, sharing her gaze, Wheelsent got up and hugged me.

“Please be safe, Arcee…” her face was soft with her wide opticed smile down at me. “I know you can do it. We’ll see each other again.”

2,026 people like you have told me that out of tens of thousands, 2,026 I eventually never saw again. Please don’t be 2,027. “Same to you, Wheelsent,” I hugged her back. “Now I have to go. Take care of Road Rage.”

4.5 hours later.

My Blade Commandos and I rushed through the underground on wings, wheels, tracks, legs, and repulsors, towards our jump points. I reached the autocannon squad nest ahead with my fireteam, and somersaulted up into my bot mode behind thick barricaded metal cover, where ten bots fired away bursts through their barricade’s gun ports, and ten more waited with rifles and blades.

“Sargeant, it’s time, I need your team to load high explosives and smoke-” I stepped up to the blocky cyan and lavender backpack bot blasting away with their big scrapmaker mounted gun, my swords drawn and ignited. Can I remember their name? “Provision, he/they, right? Honored to meet you.”

“Aye aye Arcee, one second!” He stopped firing, cleared a round from their scrapmaker, and unloaded the ammo belt. “Team Overheat, switch to HE-smoke alternate belts and energon configurations! Fire on my command, and halt when our vanguard gives the word!”

What a fiery down to business bot. I think I like them.

Clicks and clanks of setting changes and ammo loads carried out in a handful of seconds. I held my blades close, looking over my squad around and behind me. How many of us will survive this?

“Fire!” Provision volleyed a dozen rounds down alongside their gunners, leaving booms and smoke down the tunnel passage, yells and shouts of confusion carried out in the distance from the other side.

I dipped my head out for the slightest of moments to see multicolored smoke had filled the end of the bend of the corridor. “Keep firing! Fireteam Lance, through the hatch!” 

“Transformation be with you, brave souls,” Provision quietly thumped their hand against his rounded chest, mouth quivering, as he ran for the hatch on our left and opened it. “You better make it back.”

“I will,” I smiled, and rocketed ahead through the side tunnel, alongside my squad, shotguns, pistols, and melee arms pointed directly forward while we barreled forwards on thruster packs and engines or turbines usable in robot mode. We went around the two right turns that brought us to the false wall ahead, which I landed to kick down swiftly, and then launched ahead again into the smoke, having switched to heat visuals. I found a lanky enemy dead ahead, still turning to face me. while the other thirteen came about towards the noise of the crashed wall.

Oh you poor fool. I kept my silent grin as I ran my blade clean through the head of the lanky one, and then headed for the squat one to the left readied one sword ahead to block, the other extended to stab-

They fired purple plasma bolts at me, plasma that a swipe of my left sword deflected back at their face, and my rightwards sword ran through their spark. I cut my thrusters and immediately sliced down the two bots at the back of the line across the waist, the rest of the attackers falling in mere moments after among the screams of metal torn by clanging strikes and booming blasts.

*BLAM* “Confirmation, all enemies eliminated,” Shatter stepped up near me. “Any injuries?”

Everyone except Stiletto replied no.

 “Just some scratches, I’m fine,” Stiletto pressed a hand to my back.

“Good,” I looked through the smoke ahead to the tunnel bend, finding no one around the corner. “They must not have another squad ready, let’s go!” I leapt once more, on the roaring streaks of my thrusters, and turned around the bend, turning off my heat vision. =”Provision, raise cover!”=

Provision: =”Raise cover aye!”=

The kilometers long floor ahead opened up in a spaced out zig-zag pattern with gunport walls rising on each side down the tunnel hall. We jumped in the same pattern, stopping to glance to see if anyone was ahead before each jump. By the time we reached the end, yells of surprise of Functionist troops coming through the next bend were close, and we gunned them down while safely behind our raised walls, my pistols in hand to do so. The torn parts of twenty bots and their joined pool of pink blood covered the floor. I found my grin again, taking in the sight, rage both quenched and hungrier. Our love cannot be stopped, I embrace myself, in my messy state, and rejoice at what I can still do. Just need to keep my cool… 

“Well done, wait,” I said. 

There was only silence.

“Okay, here we go, they probably have a base under their artillery position. Switch to explosives.” I holstered my left hand pistol and readied my grenade launcher palm with a growl, loading in an APHE configuration. I’d like to show you Jhiaxus’s idea of being a woman, Functionist scraps. My medicalized suffering blasted into yours. A little thank you.

“Explosives aye,” Coldwheel pulled out a long autocannon and switched the gun’s mode to APHE as well. “We’ll tear them a new one.”

“How you feeling, Arcee?” Lifeline sheathed her claymore and pressed a hand to my back stack, while pulling out a grenade launcher. 

I dipped my head, grinning, feeling her touch along the shape that was better than before, and turned to look at her, seeing the style of wheeled back stacks I wanted, on her back, and met her optics. “I’m okay, just zoomed into the thrill of battle. Anger simmers along with pride in who we are.”

“Just remember our operation; once we’ve taken the artillery and scattered the enemy into retreat, we’ve won the fight we’re here for, reinforcements will handle the rest,” Codexa smooched my other back stack.

“Of course,” I switched my right pistol for a sword and ignited it. “Let’s move. I’ll take point. Thunderhowl, Hammerstrike, with me.”

“Aye, fellow knight,” claw footed and snout chested Thunderhowl stood beside me with a spiked ridged shield and a grenade launcher in hand, his words warming me deeply, why do I like that word so?

“Here,” Hammerstrike leveled her blocky railgun. “Let’s do this.”

We walked forwards quietly, the rest of the squad close behind, and I peaked around the wall corner. Down the hall, the ramp upwards was surrounded by a dozen crewed gun emplacements behind barricades, with twenty more bots with rifles ready, and one bot in tank mode with heavy cannons pointed forwards.

“A dozen guns, twenty rifle-bots, heavy tank,” I ducked back behind the wall. “Thunderhowl, Codexa, Lifeline, and I will establish cover with our shield and blades, everybody else, tear through the barricades or shoot over them, Coldwheel, take out the tank. On three,” I hunched ready to run, “One. Two. Three!”

I ran forwards, blade ahead ready to block, and fired a trio of APHE grenades from my palm through a barricade, blasting the head of the gunner behind apart, and immediately proceeded to swing my blade with all my engine speed to block and deflect incoming blasts. Thunderhowl was ducked behind his shield firing rounds away, and Lifeline and Codexa stood by us with their own swords and firearms. Between the four of us, the barrage of fire was manageably divided for the moment.

Then the rest of the group joined, and a heap of explosive rounds sang across the room from our side to theirs, leaving blooming booms among screams and pink blood everywhere. I missed a block of a tank round, the enemy guns fell silent, and Hammerstrike stumbled down next to me, her torso torn through, spark chamber splattered on the wall behind.

“NO! Hammerstrike…” I turned off my blade and hugged her close, looking into her rapidly dimming optics, my circuits and sensors in a frenzy of rage, of tactile desire kill, I will kill for them taking her, for dwindling us. “I will avenge you, I promise…”

“Not, not vengeance,” she croaked, putting a hand on my cheek. “Just… hope and rage. There will be freedom again, I know you will make it, even if we falter, my knight-friend… love y-” her hand fell away, red optics now without their light, body graying.

They will pay. They will all pay. My now haywire tactile sensors were the least of my concerns. I could still calculate my movements. “We will give her rites when we have the chance. Now we finish the job. Let’s move.”

I ran onwards through the ruined fortifications, followed by my team, my spark and module simmering without a care for my body not knowing where it was, making the movements all the same. Functionists, disgusting androcentrists, cutting us all down, THEY WILL DIE. I slowed going up the ramp, looking ahead for guns pointed down, seeing none, and creeped up the rest of the way. I peeked around the surface, seeing a fireteam of four bots splitting from a line of massive artillery platforms, anti-aircraft guns, and smaller cannon bots, the fireteam running in our direction. Turning my head around, I saw the bots of the next artillery group were a kilometer away. Poppet valves took this long to respond. Never ceases to amaze. “We have the jump on them, four gun-bots approaching on our left, marks-bots, take them out, we seize the guns next!”

Lickety-Split, Vibes, Boater, and Phreaker popped up beside me and poured bursts of rifle rounds downrange center mass on the approaching Functionists, who dropped with a distant clatter.

“Jump!” I rocketed out and around on my thrusters, both swords ready, while one of the artillery tank bots turned towards us, and a dozen bulky bots with guns and polearms came our way out of the closest heavy artillery treaded platform’s doors. 

We closed in on them and their cruel epithets of gender redundancy and degeneracy in a matter of seconds, my blades busy blocking fire, and then plunging into two of the halberd bots with counterblows knocking away their stabs, most of the rest of my team upon the bots remaining. I turned around to glance, seeing Coldwheel, Vibes, and Shatter busy offlining artillery bots with gunfire, and flyers descending down towards us, and swarms of bots from the Functionist defensive line to one side and from the hangars near the guns. 

We have intrinsic value like all life that they’ll never understand, how dare they-  

They split in confusion as the next artillery group down the line was marauded by another commando team, a fast moving alt mode group of wheelers, hovercraft, and faunabots with heavy guns on their frames blasting everything in the vicinity while two bots clambered up a platform’s treads. The confusion of the enemy left my fangs bared. Good.

Rampage: =”Arcee, status? The other commando teams are hitting their targets.”= 

The last bot defending the door fell, and I chuckled. =”Good. We’re taking the nearest platform now.”= I commed my team. =“Now the fun begins! We need to take this gun quickly! Fireteam Shield, get in there and take out the platform sitting next to us, I want the rest of the battery dead! Fireteam Lance, we hold the line!”=

“You got it boss!” Phreaker dove into the door, sword and pistol first, and was followed by Boater and Thunderhowl, clashing of blades and chooms of guns following along with yells. Shatter, Coldwheel, and Vibes moved in on the now decimated antiaircraft lines, crewing three autocannon turrets and turning them on enemies above and to our sides with shredding, excruciating efficiency. Stiletto, Lifeline, and Lickety-Split rounded one side of the platform, and Codexa and I rounded the other, near the defensive line, coming across four bots with scatter blasters ready.

I cut two gun barrels with quick slashes and swirled those strikes into stabs through the spark chamber, while Codexa cleaved down from her height onto the two bots behind the ones I had slain, and took scattered plasma blasts two her waist, yowling in pain as her blood spilled, and the four bots fell.

“Codexa!” I yelled, and moved to stand between her and the other side of the platform and the defensive line down the way to our left, while the heavy tank-wide artillery gun above my head turned rightwards and let out a crackling boom into the next platform over, destroying its gun. My blood was practically boiling, focus sharp on defending all I loved.

“I’m okay…” she dropped her weapons to start to patch her wounds while I blocked the brief salvos of sniper fire from the defensive line, which quickly turned away to face the surge of bots on the ground through the treeline opening fire on them.

“Just hold on, we have company,” she pointed behind her before picking up her sword, and I looked up at the twenty flyers forming up to strafe us.

“Easy,” I cackled, aligned myself with a fighter blasting at me and launched forward into a leap on my thrusters, deflecting their blasts into their two wingmates before cutting across their pilot bridge and engines with my blades in my leap. I hopped off their falling flaming frame full of a thrilled rush and thrusted back to catch the engines of the bot above them, and landed myself next to Codexa, who was no worse for wear, grinning.

The rest of the wing broke up, fleeing into the distance. 

=“YOU BETTER RUN! REACTIONARY SCRAPS! YOU’LL PAY FOR ALL THE DEAD AND TRAUMATIZED AND HURT! I WILL MAKE SURE OF IT!”= I yelled on all frequencies, Hammerstrike on my mind, all my lost students’ faces haunting my thoughts, the sheer brutal scale of the billions of lives effected by Functionist cruelty, all the hurt I had been through, too. I let out a wordless scream, agony quaking through me before I turned and ran around off the platform, headed for the nearest hangar, already wrecked by another boom from our commandeered gun. There were maybe fifty bots still there moving, crawling or running away, while a surge of thirty tanks came towards us from the hangar behind, a hangar that promptly exploded with another boom from our cannon.

Slaughter them.  

“Arcee! Wait!” Codexa howled from behind, her voice rapid, perhaps with worry.

I landed on the ground, knocking away every tank round that came my way during my sprint, cutting an opening into the largest tank under his two barrels, plunged into his screaming bleeding frame, and fangs ready, and bit, cutting tubing, pulling out and spit out his round spark chamber with my jaw, the chamber flung overhead out of the bot’s corpse. I leapt back out, onto the next tank, dripping his companion’s blood on him, slashing cleanly through the entire frame ahead of the turret, and quickly hunched behind the first one I had killed, deflecting more blasts to whittle the four around me.

I cackled: =“You want to assign us roles as ‘genderless’ men de facto, divided by frame hierarchy! Well, I’ve lost my taste for men who didn’t have to realize themselves! All of you will know my wrath, for what you’ve done to me, to all of us, even to your own number who want to hold onto gender, to aesthetics! There are no monsters, only people, and you are the most atrocious of us! DIE!”= 

The rest, fourteen in number, promptly turned around and sped away at high speeds, screaming and crying, and I tore after them on my thrusters, soaked in blood that matched the color of my frame, innermost energon of the one I had bitten firing up my fuel tank, bringing me close enough to the slowest tank to cut them down.

“You’re a monster!” the nearest tank yelled. “You’re everything wrong with the old world, barbarian!”

“Civilization has burned down before in the face of harmony, and it will again! You cannot destroy our beauty!” I laughed and started to leap towards him. =“You running?! I will tear across Cybertron to end your hegemonic ilk, as I should have long ago!”= I bellowed, my tactile senses completely awry, but my movements practiced and known to me- I sprinted and thruster-hopped, deflecting panicked shots that came my way with my two swords, into a handful of swordbots who rushed to defend the fleeing tanks, a few landing flyers joining the swordsbots. 

Leaving blue thruster streaks behind me I leapt from one fighter to the next, plunging and slashing my twin yellow blades in rapid, merciless brawls, lopping limbs and heads until all lay dead, and I crouched to make my next jump towards the now distant tanks. Only then did I notice my right thigh cut deeply and my left shoulder armor missing the outer half. I was bleeding in the first wound, and pain seared along a scratch in my back. 

“ARCEE, WAIT! We won! Stop before you get yourself killed!” I looked up to see Codexa landing me in her plane mode and transforming. “We beat back this army, don’t go brawling out to where we can only support you underground! Look around you! Their divisions are gone!”

I sheathed my blades and grabbed some cybermatter patches to put on my thigh, while Codexa’s hands applied some to my back. Looking around, I saw the defensive line of Functionists running, dead, or surrendering to our forces who had overcome their barricades, and the hangars and most of the artillery guns behind them smashed apart as far as my optics could see. The sky was clear of flyers except our own firing celebratory flares across the color spectrum. I half-smiled, at that.

“Thank you for stopping me…” I knelt my head, and felt her come around to embrace me, engulfing me in her frame, a kiss on my forehead. “Any more casualties?” Hammerstrike…

“Lickety… Lickety was hit squarely by a bomb.” Codexa trembled. “Everyone else is okay.”

“They had to take that sweet linked alt-modus too,” I pushed my head against Codexa’s chest. “Bolts dammit.” The memories of Lickety’s kindness and love over the millennia along with Hammerstrike’s was strong in my mind.

We’ll always be here, in memory- Lickety’s voice rang in my mind, not as if heard, but as if in thought, on my precious peaceful hill of repose I turned to internally… we love you.  

Transmutate: =”Arcee, your team’s job is done, you’re being recalled from the front for a debriefing and reprieve. Transports are on the way to take you home. I’m afraid this victory had a cost.”=

=”Understood,”= I looked up at Codexa, and pulled myself up her frame to kiss her lips for a long moment, finding hers holding mine in reply before we let go and I stood on the ground once more, still hugging her. “Do you know what this is about?”

“No, but I suspect it will tire me,” she gave me a squeeze. 

As we rolled back inside a bus bot, Lickety-Split’s shattered and in alt-mode parts bundled together cradled in Vibes’ bawling arms and Hammerstrike’s body held between Codexa and I, I couldn’t bear the silence or tears in the streets we passed by. The stares from bots at me through the windows, at us all. I shivered and trembled, remembering the video Phreaker said she’d received just as we started to head back and thought I shouldn’t see, the latest line of Functionist propaganda.

“As the 1st and 2nd Battles of Uraya and conflicts across the planet show, over the last 200,000 years, the so called ‘transformative’ revolution of the Delta League has been training it’s elite forces in the rampaging barbaric rapid strike engendered commando style and tendencies of a pitiable mass murderer forced to be a woman. Arcee, also known as the Lost Slaughterer, is an experimental mistake admitted by Intellectual Jhiaxus that we forgive due to his contributions. She was already a lost, succumbed radical-”  the squarish propaganda bot in front of a backdrop of Iacon and a banner Functionist gear and wings had declared before I asked Phreaker to turn off the display, the squad’s faces heavy.

Now, as we approached our military headquarters in Uraya, I wondered if I had done anything different, if I hadn’t been brave enough to admit that I was a linked trans gal who wanted to use she pronouns and take up a different shape, if the current situation would be as it was. Or if I had kept lying to myself, if I had been lying at all, if Functionism would be dead by now. 

“I just… I want you to know, it’s not your fault,” the bus bot came to a stop. “They would have pulled something like this no matter what. I want to thank you for the time free of them you did give us, I might go underground after all this with you lot, if that’s what you do.”

“Thank… thank you,” I lifted Hammerstrike’s legs up, Codexa lifting her torso, and we walked out, followed by our squad. “Take care.”

“Will do,” the bus drove off, leaving us in front of an adhoc sea of mobile medical bays and gloomy bots gathered together around ones depigmented to gray. In front of us, at the gates Wheelsent and I had passed through this morning, was the military command Trans-Mutate along with ten more bots from the executive council, and Road Rage and her team of Guardians, with four dead among them… In trickle cheeked Road Rage’s arms, was Wheelsent, all gray, not a single light in her.

I gently tapped Shatter, asking her to hold Hammerstrike’s legs, traded places, and stumbled into a fall onto the ground, the hopeful and daring and sweet face and realized spark of Wheelsent, now lost from this world forever, just like me, just like everything we’ve done, weighed down on me like the weight of Spacewarp’s next words, confirming what had already been reported an hour ago:

“Our observers, space scouts, and agents in the State Navy confirm that multiple capital ship naval elements in orbit have defected from the State directly to the Functionist Council and are closing on Uraya with the ultimatum of our surrender or departing of Uraya and all surface polities.” Spacewarp walked up to me, and knelt, hugging me with her massive rounded arms. “There’s nothing you could have done, Arcee. Even if you hadn’t deployed, even if you hadn’t taught us, we would have figured it out from Road Rage, Codexa, Shatter, or countless others. It just came from you. There’s no blame here-”

“How did she die?” I, quaking, pointed at Wheelsent.

 “She went down saving my life from elite shock troops, there was this one Functionist general who deployed personally with his guard retinue,” Road Rage met my optics. “Her last words were, ‘I want Arcee to know I wouldn’t be me without her.’” Road Rage broke into a quiet sob. 

I nodded, face expressionless, frame unmoving. I should have been there for her. I don’t feel real. I’ve made other people find their reality… but me- is this another lie? No, I am just in deep pain, a deepest of pains, over my veracity.

“Uh, Arcee, should I give you some space?” Spacewarp started to move her arms away.

“No no, it’s okay,” I hugged her for a short while, my cheeks still wet, and then I stood to face Trans-Mutate.

“I… Arcee… …all of you…” Trans-Mutate stuck her face in her hands for a moment and then looked up at all of us again. “I received a petition from the people of Uraya… they want us gone. Not out of hate or regret, but just because there’s no other way. It’s what we were going to do anyway, now that there’s naval assets capable of planetary bombardment to worry about. We’re trying to use Dai Atlas and Galvatron as an intermediary through proxies to negotiate a week’s time to pull out. But that’s not the only thing… Arcee…”

She slowly walked towards me, face streaming with silent tears, and reached out to my hands, and I held hers in return.

“Arcee, because of recent events… we’re changing our name to the Anti-Vocation League, we’re going to have the principal political face of policy to the public be about labor and alt-mode liberation, not gender and aesthetics as a whole… and I think it would be best if you take a long break away from all this, from us, too.”

My squad cried out or sat, trembling and shaking, holding each other.

“Trans-Mutate, how can you tell her that-” Codexa’s hands dove for her sword, leaving Shatter scrambling to hold Hammerstrike’s body in entirety. 

I gave my partner a stare, shaking my head, and she left her blade in its scabbard.

“Believe me Codexa, I’d accept that for handing down this request, it’s an atrocity of me to do-” Trans-Mutate got down on one knee. “Please forgive me elder, friend, gender-kin, love therein, Arcee… and if you don’t forgive me, that is more than fair. I feel horrible. I don’t feel like a real gal, doing this to you-”

“No, I understand, and you are real, you must hold onto that! If I’ve taught you anything, it’s to embrace your assemblage, not how the world alienates you from it.” I smooched her helm’s tall crest, and hugged her close. “I’m alone, too much for the times, even if not for all of you,” I grimaced. “How dare they try to make a monster out of me… all I have done of late is to carefully embrace myself- if that is too much for the cause, and for them, our cause is lost.” I let go and started to step away, about to change modes.

“You’re not too much,” Trans-Mutate moved in front of me, a hand on my shoulder. “I just know that it’s not going to be safe for you anymore, people might feel aggrieved and be looking for someone to blame. They’re trying to break us up and turn us against each other, and I’m trying to keep them from winning. I’m sorry we aren’t doing better by you.” Her jaw wrenched tightly, optics almost wobbling. “We will work this out, we will push until we can welcome you back, and you’ll have had more time to work on yourself. I will always hold you in my spark. Anyone who really cares about what we go through will. I want you with us at least until the dead dear to you are honored, and then we’ll arrange for transport to Luna 2 for you. And I imagine Codexa will be with you all the way.”

“You got that right, I will, you are never lost to me,” Codexa helped Shatter set Hammerstrike down softly, and then walked over and hugged me, Shatter following her to do the same. “You help me hold onto who I am, your transness… your transness reifies the launch of my gender in a way I will never be able to put fully into words. I have hope because there will always be people like you.”

“I second that, the reification,” Shatter nuzzled her head on my shoulder.

I had no words, and held the two as gently as I could, while everyone around slowly joined our embrace, and Trans-Mutate sang her song once more, the rest of us joining as best we could, crying and quaking when words were too much, which they were for me through all of it. My spark broken, feeling I was not the person the song was meant for anymore, the song she had made in my honor, and was probably singing for me while I wrangle this betrayal and casting out forced on us all :

“Every actuation,

pondering the meaning before during and after,

Unending transformational context,

Yours and everyone else’s,

From any part of life!

The harmonies of ancients lost and remembered,

Cherished and reflected on,

Alongside imagination of the living old and young!

The universe is one,

The universe in that way is many,

Every actuation,

pondering the meaning before during and after,

Unending transformational context,

Yours and everyone else’s,

From any part of life!

Sometimes we need to take more time,

Sometimes we are scared,

Sometimes it doesn’t work out on our nonlinear path,

Sometimes we learn something new after,

But it’s always worth it to try to be yourself,

To stave off truncation,

To be curious and find love,”

Have I found love? Do I really believe in any of this? Why do I feel like I don’t for me? 

But often we find meaning and joy,

When in regards to aesthetic,

Or more varied in result in many other parts of life whether daily, uncommon, or rare! 

Sometimes we need to know we are not alone,

In loneliness, 

That we all have some part of us that is alone, 

Even to us, and unknown to us too.

That we cherish and embrace that,

And embrace and ease our pain and struggle with ourselves, causality, and hegemonies,

With our love and growing wisdom,

With our curiosity and immersion,

It is enough, to dream and act,

Against all hurt,

In absurd freedom!

All sapient life has more than one mode in the soul,

Most of us cybertronians are just lucky to exhibit more than one in the body,

Make both and more good ones,

Knowing that we are part of the sapient condition,

And will be here as long as there are people!

It is one of our greatest strengths,

Trans or no,

To keep transforming in kinship of loneliness,

Of sadness and joy and ambivalence,

We are just as real with all our doubts as we are with our sureness,

Every actuation,

pondering the meaning before during and after,

Unending transformational context,

Yours and everyone else’s,

From any part of life!

That even if you can’t love yourself, old spark

You can still know that love loves you,

And keep trying to find your place in the journey,

Of the universe as one and many.”

Chapter Text

Colossia Mountain Range, Luna 2, 6.5 million years ago.

Reddish craggy rock towered and heaped everywhere as far the optic could see. Codexa and I hovered and flew close to each other along the heavily treaded path, headed downhill, alone, a simple boxy building filled town at the base of the mountain thirty kilometers ahead, and a few spaceships and flyers coming and going from there at a sleepy pace.

“Do we really have to go into town again?” I tried not to think about the previous visits, the stares, the whispers, the common refrain of ‘crazy gal and her Conjunx’ that angered me deeply. 

“We need to pick energon and your meds dear, and I don’t want you to just sulk alone. We’re meeting some friends from the planetside, remember? We’ll take care of vaulting things today if we can.” Codexa flew closer to me as we continued downward. “I can play music on the way, if you want, all the stuff you love.”

“Okay, I guess so, and that would be nice love,” I’ve dulled myself again. Just subsisting. This isn’t thriving, except in what we can do for ourselves. I drove along downhill with her, listening to her onboard dataslug music of a slew of conjunxic and gender and mode liberatory songs now illegal by Functionist endorsed codes. We didn’t care; we laughed and cried on the way down, what could the hateful locals do about it, if they were aggressive enough, willing enough to face the monstrosity they made me into? 

Copper-red dust and wind of the mountains behind us, Codexa turned the music off when we reached the flat lunar ground, and we changed modes, walking hand in hand towards the low roofed town, passing by a neon sign reading Welcome to Apoforohex. Hmmph, used to be Glacis’s Modslope before Functionism, suppose they found that too aesthetically obscene, archaic, or ‘redundant’ - I barely thought as I always did when I saw the sign. “The shock of the erasure from the announcement of our ship’s destination and arrival when we fled Uraya has never quite worn off,” I muttered, blood simmering slightly. “They throw a fit when we change our names for euphoria, but they’ll happily destroy history for their puritan hierarchy.”

“I know,” Codexa squeezed my hand, small in her large palm and fingers. “The only good thing about the flight was having privacy under the freighter’s cargo hold, and that we’ve been able to look after some of the folks who don’t fit in here. You gonna be okay?”

“I’ll try my best,” my mind turned to some of the friends here we had made over messaging; the young Highlite, processing his experience of womanhood and his altmodus he calls seekpoint, the cassette duo Decibel, and rebel blacksmith Cathode… they’d want me to keep from getting into too much trouble. Not that I can help it if someone harasses or assaults me.

We kept walking into town, on the rightward sidewalk, my sense of steps dull and distant. Block by block, bots around on the road or the same walkway who saw us stayed away from the curb near our footsteps, crossed the street, went indoors, stared, or stepped around us. 

Whispers and mutters came from some of them; “Oh look, it’s the crazy murder hermit and her sparkmate,” “please don’t kill me,” “those two are redundant,” “stay away from her and him,” “what’s he doing bewitched by Arcee,” and on and on.

Fogged anger and exhaustion flared through my circuits with each word, especially at the misgendering of Codexa, my only solace being her hand’s soothing grip around mine, and my stride's steps on the ground. When I could focus, I gave my best fanged smiling death stare to the ones who said such who were ahead of us as we walked by, and they’d shutter, freeze, or scurry away, or curse quietly. As usual, none of the conflagration was about my anti-Functionist history, merely knowing me as a murderer. 200,000 years of propaganda that found it easier to separate me from revolution...

Codexa carried on with a tight face, waving at the few bots who gave us the courtesy of a wave or greeting and nothing more. I couldn’t bear to engage, and just focused on her hand, our footsteps, any hint of a weapon in the town around us, and keeping track of getting closer to the silver square building my doctor’s office was in.

When we crossed the last two blocks to be in front of the suite building, having held myself back the whole way, exhaustion and rage seethed in me, wanting so badly to loudly or violently defy the way of things. Hold on to love when things are hard, even if it’s love I can’t openly revolt with right now. I turned and hugged Codexa, hands on the side of her waist, until she faced me, hands around my back.

“Oh darling, I know this was hard,” she smooched my forehead. “If you want to go back to not taking trips out here once a month-”

“Maybe, but either way I wouldn’t want you to be alone,” I nuzzled my head into her chest before looking up at her optics, my rage contrasted by warmth in my spark for her. “I love you…”

“I love you to dear…” she rocked me gently for a little while, and then asked: “You ready to go in?”

“Yeah, I am,” I disentangled from her, pivoted towards the simple gray and blue doors, and marched in through the doors as they slid open, Codexa beside me. 

Two floors up later and with no further encounters, I opened the simple gray door of Cogwheel’s waiting room, and sat down in one of the chairs, holding Codexa’s hand, and then leaning on her big arm. A sense of comfort and safety from her, from us, contrasted the loneliness and sadness that permeated me chronically. I almost dozed off between the counterpoint of the four feelings, until the door to Cogwheel’s office opened. 

I sat up, waving at Cogwheel, a slenderly blocky bot with six boxy lavender spider legs arched behind her back, one shoulder mounted arm holding the door open, the other gesturing towards us. 

Her three green optics on her ridge crested face winked at us: “Arcee, Codexa, welcome! Please come in.”

We got up, and followed her in. I nestled down upright on the medical bed, Codexa sitting near, Cogwheel standing in front of us.

“So, how’s the current dose of dissolving packet circuit soothers treating you?” Cogwheel pulled out a small multispectral scanner and started to run its blue light over my frame up and down.

“It’s okay, better than nothing,” I rubbed the back of my neck, thinking back on it, brain a bit hazy. “My senses are kind of dulled and I feel foggy but it reduces the sensory side effects when they happen. So that’s good- less severe retraumatization.” 

“Your frame seems okay on metrics besides circuit fatigue,” Cogwheel put the scanner away and patted my arm. “I take it you don’t want to try a higher dosage again right? We can try adding in a brain module stimulant to deal with the fogginess, if you would like.”

“Yes, yes I would,” I reached out and held her hand, my spark brimming with excitement. “I’d like to be more cogent.”

“I’m glad,” she gave my hand a squeeze. “We can try some neural cluster cortical infusions then, that would have the least chance of affecting the rest of your frame. I’ll add that to your prescription for the year, you have the stuff you need to manufacture it yourself but I know it saves you all money and resources if I give them to you...”

“Thank you. How are you doing on the research of her condition, with the notes we gave you?” Codexa met Cogwheel’s optics.

Cogwheel looked down: “I… the CNA edit stuff I understand, but how to undo the side effects; it seems like you’d have to protoform all over again, and I don’t know another way than-”

“No,” I curled up, arms around my ankles, shivering with just the thought of false signal haywire sensor episodes I had daily. “I can’t do that again, I can’t take that risk. I’ll make do.”

“I understand, and I’m so sorry, I’ll keep trying,” Cogwheel smiled at me. “I’m glad you’re going to put this stuff in a vault, in case someone can figure it out in the future. The de facto Functionist society we live in- are the coping mechanisms Minerva taught you helping combined with the meds you’re on?”

“It’s hard,” I grunted. “I have more tools than ever but it’s hard, especially with how small the number of friendly faces around is. I’m depressed— wandering the mountains and plains is nice though, away from people, and just doing things with Codexa at home when she’s not working.”

Cogwheel nodded. “Yeah, I can try and work some circuit euphors into the infusions. I’ll start fabricating them to add on with the supply of your soother meds I already have here,” she gestured at the small simple gray backpack on the counter behind her. “It’ll take an hour or so. You’re all welcome to wait here if you like, there’s a recharge room in the door behind us, and I can give you some energon, or if you want to go out to town…” she tensed up, looking away.

“No, I’d rather rest, a break before going outside again,” I smiled at Codexa. “Want to cuddle for a while?”

Codexa sighed, and grinned, “Of course dear. Let’s rest.”

My strap sling backpack loaded with my meds, I walked down the street feeling a sharpness to perception of my surroundings, a zooming rush in my focus that gave me a stride and a beaming glare at all who were disgruntled with my presence, and a softer expression for those who acknowledged us kindly. “That cortical infusion was really good, by strength,” I squeezed Codexa’s hand, and she smiled at me, chuckling.

“I’m so glad luv,” she squeezed my hand back, before pointing at the food hub a block ahead. “Let’s go meet our pals.”

We made our way over, and passed through the doorway into the softly neon-lit hall with tables about and a counter of energon and metal foods, wafting to my senses ecstatically. My fuel tank rumbled, and I laughed, hugging Codexa close before waving at our six friends at a table near the window.

Highlite, Decibel, Cathode, Lifeline, Crasher, and Minerva waved back, and got up to meet us halfway, sharing a big embrace between the eight of us, with greetings before sitting down, leaving Codexa and I to grab sustenance, a scant few other bots around, all unarmed from what I could tell at a glance. We simply moseyed over to the simple beverage section and poured out two blocky tankards of medium grade energon, pink and cold. I scooped some heated igneous rock fragments out of a spice warming tray to give my drink and Codexa’s some heat, and after paying a car bot at the register with some coin who only grunted and nodded at our presence. The we joined our quietly chattering pals, who had similarly simple meals.

“It’s been so long, and we’re glad to see you have some good friends” Lifeline met my optics after slurping some of her iron ingot stew. “Lunar mountains treating you two okay?”

“Oh us two in the mountains have been all right,” Codexa put a hand on my shoulder. “We have what we need to take care of ourselves physically mostly, and the view is lovely. We’ve had many  nights with only the stars and rock for company besides our humble home- so we’re thankful for our three friends you met. We don’t come into town much.”

Her hand kept me steady, while I shivered, holding back words I didn’t want to say in public, the frustration and loneliness burning up in me. But our friends saw, dipping heads with what I could only imagine was solemn empathy. When my body started to lose track of where I was and I was feeling, I tried to ignore the pain in my spark and frame alike reduced by a soother med Cogwheel had given me. I put my hand where Codexa’s was, even though I couldn’t feel her fingers beneath mine, even though my loneliness away from the cause burned more than the heat my body thought it was enduring. Come on, hold on to love. “Lifeline, the medicine you taught me… it’s come in handy for us, and for helping wayward travelers, which is how we earn our keep now besides ensuring safe passage or updating maps. I get confused thanks usually, but such is our hermiting life.” Aside from helping people find hideaways of their own. “How is work for the rest of you?”

“I’m glad that it helps you, truly,” Lifeline clasped her hands together before smirking. “Ah well, you know our clients, there’s always too much work to do and not enough pay, but there is still family, at least.” 

Laughter broke out among the lot of us, and I took a swig, feeling a nice iron fire down my fuel intake.

“We three are holding together,” Decibel placed their empty tankard back down. “Thankfully I haven't had to overwork myself with electrician duties.”

“That’s good to hear,” I grinned. “No reason to get too exhausted.”

“Blacksmithing is what it is, hard work,” Cathode’s wings and shoulder wheels flapped and whirred softly. “I try to console myself over doing the good that I can.” 

You do plenty, giving kids a real chance to know themselves, I put my hand over my spark. “It’s honorable, what you do. Makes me glad.” 

Minerva tentatively touched Cathode’s shoulder. “Arcee and Codexa have told us about all of you in letters. You all contribute to your community a lot.”

“Aww,” Cathode smirked. “That’s so sweet. Glad to hear we’re known planetside, heh.”

“It gives us a reprieve, frankly, and reminds us of what we work for,” Crasher sighed. “And you Highlite?”

“Haven’t had to close my bookstore yet, so I’m happy,” Highlite’s laser pointer button head clicked a few times. “Fiction this year has got my interest, lot of good obscure titles.”

We chatted lightly for the next hour before heading out towards home in the mountains on foot, bots about looking with agape surprise and keeping quiet near me. Once we out of the town’s sight, we all started using each other’s pronouns in conversation and transformed save for Highlite under the afternoon sun, Decibel splitting into dataslug sauropod Noise and cassette pteranodon Graphy, while Cathode turned into a small tandem wing plane. Codexa opened her plane hatch to let Highlite aboard, and we were off along the mountain path, myself with mixed feelings of euphoria and joy to hear my pronouns used casually and to use those of my friends, and saddened at thought that seeking use of xey/xem pronouns for myself would likely go nowhere if I asked. That bloody surgery. 

I focused on showing the way home. We left the winding path three mountains in, onto the side of an equally towering crater, the six of us on the ground slowing in the rough terrain, the three above us cutting speed to keep pace. Codexa and I led the rest to a cliffside, and I changed to bot mode, and tugged on the hidden handle groove of the tall reddish brown rock laying along the crater wall, pulling the disguised door open. 

“Come in,” I smiled, holding out a hand. “Codexa can show you around, I’ll get the door.” 

Codexa stepped inside the room and flicked on the lights, and after our friends followed in I shut the door behind us, and I lef out a grinning sigh. Home, with no one to bother me. Lucky to have that. 

I strolled over past our adhoc medical bay and kitchen to my chatting pals and beloved approaching the benches on the other side, with a long rectangular window to the crater outside beyond. Codexa opened the shutters, bringing in the purple-black starry evening sky.

“You have a pretty view here, how’d you find this hidey-hole?” Crasher hummed briefly after, looking up at the stars.

“Oh, long ago this was an operations hiding place of mine during the First Cybertronian Civil War, when I helped coordinate Contextualist involvement in the war against Megatronus and passed intelligence around. It’s older than that though… it was originally a vault for rare texts. There’s some stuff from the time of the Knights here,” Codexa put her arm around my back.

I leaned on her, all warm in my spark, thinking about all the millennia we had spent reading and sparring here. “The historical texts here- they talk of a harmony of stories that we both find so beautiful… there are some glyphs I don’t understand, like an often green one related to the t-cog and transformation, both of alt mode and of aesthetic realizations, but it makes me glad to know that, long ago things were better, much more so than my memories. I try to hope we’ll get there again.”

“That makes me so glad- I’d love to have a look, and speaking of that,” Minerva smiled at me. “We need your help, and the Anti-Vocation League is at a point where it would be safe for you to be around again. I get if you only want to be involved for a short time-”

Excitement flared through me, and I turned, my jaw open with a grin, and took her hands in mine. “Darling, I’ll be there as long as I can. What do you need from us?”

“We are making an appeal for aid and intervention from the Galactic Council,” Minerva looked out to the stars for a moment. “Twirl went in person to appeal to a representative running for office who shared sympathies for our plight. We know it’s risky- but we are hard-pressed against the much increased industrial base of our opponents of late. We want you both to be there to speak to xem- as two of our elders and those of the galaxy, we thought you could provide much needed perspective alongside those of us who came later.”

“Ah, the Council,” I grimaced, thinking of the dozen times I had gone to space before and after the invasion of Antilla, of the massive fleets and organic enforcer armies armored in gray that dotted their outposts and worlds and largely looked upon mechanoid life with revulsion, hate, and fear, looking for any reason to harry and obstruct our travels and lives near them or their imperial development resource extraction and military industrial complex interests. 

I remembered the blood, Cybertronian pink and a spectrum of colors of slain GC contract mercenaries sent to stop us, both bloodied sides and their thousands of torn and burnt corpses splayed across the plain of a barren energon crystal rich rock of a planet called Gorlam Secundus we had deployed to in order to supposedly acquire resource redundancy, while forbidden from making contact with the organics of Gorlam Prime who to our knowledge had yet to invent fire. A poor excuse for fueling our own war machinations for our first invasion of a different organic world that had yet to travel to space. 

I let go of Minerva’s hands, and mine tightened to fists. “I am a little behind on galactic affairs, but is there no organization outside of the Galactic Council to turn to? Fleets and networks of well-meaning rogues? The organic and inorganic alliance of the Plurapolitaeum? Or even the Eminence Traders like those of Troja Major, if we must attach ourselves to extremely dubious unregulated markets?” How could we even get this close to a deal with a Councilor?

“The Plurapolitaeum is locked in a terrifying cold war arms race with the Galactic Council,” Lifeline grimaced. “They’ve found it easier to render their star systems into patrolled fortresses to ward off the GC than to keep up an offensive force against far more numerous navies. They express solidarity and have occasionally shipped us arms, supplies, or even lend leased spacecraft, but… they cannot overreach to get more involved in our resistance. Galactic rogues and sellswords see us and war with Cybertron as too much of a risk, as do the Eminence Traders. The Council, on the other hand… is in desperate need of softening the appearance of their rampant mechaphobia so to win over less openly prejudiced potential member states, and our plight in regards to gender makes the GC helping us ideal propaganda to some of them.”

Cathode, Graphy, Noise, Highlite, Codexa and I groaned. 

“So, we’re potentially making a deal furthering our own kind’s oppression, that must have been a hard choice,” Noise snorted out of her nostrils. “I don’t envy the work planetside AVL does.”

“Yeah, we’re not happy about it,” Minerva reached to my fists, holding them. “But, we know we’ll wrangle our way out, and it will inadvertently put the Plurapolitaeum in a better light, since they support mechanoid revolutions locally when they can. We plan to declare ourselves a member polity nexus of that alliance after getting the Galactic Council’s politically convenient help.”

I laughed, and hugged her. “Glad to know the fighting spirit never lets up, but I suspect there’s more to this…”

Minerva hugged me back, resting her head on my shoulder.

“Yeah, there must be cables attached to this potential deal, from what I can tell, if the GC oligarchy is anything like that of the privatized service polities here in the Hadean,” Cathode gesticulated wildly with eir hand. “Do we know what kind of agreement they’re looking for?”

“No,” Crasher shook her head. “We only know that Twirl was able to convince them of the ‘marvelous profit margin’ that no one else in most people’s eyes has the resources to attempt,” she grumbled. “Supposedly the Council Intelligence and Defense Committees got bought out to look into this by our ‘friend,’ Councilor Zarfell Jerdoth. We’ll hear about it when we get in touch.”

“When do you need us to leave?” I thought about the vault below us, and my extra copies of the notes surrounding my surgery, along with Minerva and Cogwheel’s own work to help me, and all the related CNA samples, none of which I had been willing to seal away, to leave for later… now who knows when I’ll see them again, when work will start again. “I have something to take care of first… I get why you didn’t want to say all this in a letter.”

“We have a week. Made sure to come up here with enough time for you two to decide,” Minerva patted my back stacks gently. “You four Lunars are also welcome to come along, even if just to visit...”

“I’ve always wanted to see the heart of the resistance in the Undergrid,” Highlite nodded.

Inside the cube silver-white vault full of stacks of old books, scrolls, and dataslugs, I slowly set down five of my own beside copies of fiction, history, and poetry texts dear to me. Crouching, I ran my hands over the three notebooks of research I had been privy to leading up to my surgery, and two more of Minerva and Cogwheel’s work with me after. “The fact I am traveling with my own copies as well doesn’t shake the feeling that we’re not going to get any further, that right now, we’re trying to survive flooding typhoons of apathy, hate, and fear.”

Codexa sat down with me, placing the small box containing the smaller globs of CNA samples I had, one a regrowth copy drawn from different gals I had managed to convince Jhiaxus to give me before my surgery, one of my own CNA prior to modification, and one after. 

Then she put a hand on my nearest backstack, leaving me warm and fuzzy by rubbing there. “I know, darling Arcee. I believe in my spark we’ll get an answer, your persistence to live inspires me… helps me to be strong for you, and me. I think I’d be lost without you…” she ran her fingers down my helm guard, and then leaned towards my face, plopping a kiss on my cheek.

I embraced her, and smooched her lips back, not saying my thoughts: I hold you down, we both know it. I’m a deadweight in the cause. 

“Dear, what’s wrong? You look like you’re going to cry,” her optics welled, meeting mine.

I paused, and smiled slightly when the arms of our friends here gathered around the two of us, heads resting on our frames. Noise and Graphy’s snouts on my back, Lifeline and Minerva’s helms on my shoulders.

“I… I want to do better… but I’ve let my pain and mistakes consume me…” I buried my head in Codexa’s shoulder. 

“Dear, I’m sorry if you took what I said years ago the wrong way, if my words were inadequate,” Minerva gave me a squeeze around my waist and back. “It’s not your fault. And you took a risk for yourself and others. You did a hard thing, a noble thing. You should be proud.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” no I shouldn’t be proud, but I don’t want to break your spark, dear friend. “Perhaps we should celebrate the peace we have here tonight before departing, no?”

“I think that’s an excellent idea, starlight,” Codexa osculated on my lips, and we all spent the night trying to simply enjoy each other’s company, singing songs, dancing, and falling asleep together watching the stars. Maybe this isn’t so bad. I ought to always find a special spot to take in the world, wherever I am, shether a city of lights in the sky, or one of buildings nearby… 

Chapter Text

Glowful Spark, Cybertron, one week later, 6.5 million years ago.

I swiftly parried Flamewar’s jet black and red ax strike with one of my thermal blades, sidestepped away from her erupting fiery blast from her buckler shield bearing forearm, and in the same motion while pushing against her ax I stabbed towards her with my right hand saber, about to stop short of her waist when she kicked my arm into hers. 

So I bodyslammed her. As she fell back, I brought my right blade to her throat. “Think I got this round.”

“Did you?” she gave a lopsided smile, and I felt her wrist thermal thrower’s circular tip tap my helm. “More of a tie.”

We smirked at each other, and broke out laughing. 

I disentangled from her, and stood while I put away my blades before offering her a hand. “A tie it is. Well fought.”

She took my hand, and got up on her feet beside me, looking down from the high street ring we were on down at the smaller low light bulb covered buildings’ block loops winding down to the main plaza, where our term leafed cable artwork Growing Actuative Branches still stood, encircled by light bulb bouquets and with two passerbys looking at some of the glyphs that stood freely with the town gates ahead welded and barricaded shut. 

“You ever think we’ll use a way out besides secret passages and the Undergrid again?” Flamewar yet held onto my hand. 

I gave her grasper a squeeze, keeping myself from saying probably not . “I just try to hope. I know we can keep on- and that the autonomy you are able to preserve nourishes many more people who seek to open doors again one day, Skirmish Captain Flamewar. You and Rosanna and the people here have done an exemplary job.”

“We try our best,” Flamewar smiled before she hugged me. “I missed you. I hope the rest of your stay goes okay, however long it is.”

I embraced back: “I think it would be good for me to keep a step back from the public optic but help out here. Shall we go to the meeting?” 

“Yeah, we should,” Flamewar nodded before she let go, turned and leapt into her heavy motorcycle mode, and revved her engine in a chuckle. “It’s nice to roll with you again, old-timer, just another normal day for sure!”

I somersaulted into a hover beside her, laughing. “What prank are you hiding and teasing me with, Flamewar?”

As we headed off down ramps towards the center of town, she softly honked and replied: “oh nothing, just a little something.”

“Sure, guess I’ll find out, you liegelin” I honked my horn back at her, and we made our way to the plaza cackling, and stepped up into our bot modes headed for the tower doors (check colors), saying hi to bots nearby on the way. 

“Please, after you,” Flamewar opened the door to the four way hallway within. 

“Why thank you,” I smirked at her and strode through headed for the faster-than-light communications room on the right. Here goes, facing up against the largest reprehensible institution in the known galaxy besides the Terradores. Frag.

When I stepped inside, I saw Clicker, Trans-Mutate, Rampage, Codexa, Road Rage, Twirl, Crasher, Rosanna, Zurescreen, Deep Blue Glimpse, Thornback, Lifeline, and Shatter all waiting on their feet by the entryway, the blocky button covered comms terminal behind them. 

They were all holding books and bulb bouquets, grinning from audial to audial: “surprise!!”

“Aww,” this doesn’t change that we’re losing, but the absurd love is nice… I trembled trying to smile. “I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s okay, we have plenty of words, “Flamewar stepped around me and offered a dataslug. “I spent the last year compiling written and voice messages of thanks and admiration from across people in AVL who remember you- I think you should give it a listen when you’re resting with us or on your own.”

“Oh…” my optics welled, and I held her close. “That’s so thoughtful, thank you all of you for reminding me I’m not alone…” for now, and in a way I am, because of what I put myself through, what I did to myself… “I’ve really messed up…”

 “No, you haven’t, if you’re talking about what I think you mean,” Flamewar leaned her pointed crest on my chest. “You have a lot to handle and are finding your way. It is because of that that we wanted you here, I think. I’m kind of hazy on the details of all our votes, but you’re a good person, Arcee. That’s what my fuel tank tells me.”

“Hahahaha, that’s very sweet,” I patted her head lightly while people reached out their hands to touch us. “Your point of view means a lot pal. I really admire you. Shall we make the call?”

“Think so, though I don’t look forward to latent mechanoid hatred…” Flamewar winced.

“We’ve got to try something, mechano-hatred or not,” Road Rage sighed. “The non-Council worlds don’t have the spare resources to safely support us and we can’t risk our preciously small fleet going out to collect arms and personnel. We should probably hit up the Lithonians anyway as a matter of courtesy. So yeah, I think it’s time.”

We and our group in attendance sat down around the comms terminal, after everyone piled their gifts besides Codexa and I. Gods, they’re all so sweet… I don’t want to lose them…

“Lithonia is in its own struggle as the de facto black ops colony of the Galactic Council and shady oligarch deals. But yes, it’d be nice to at least get a statement of solidarity from them,” Trans-Mutate typed at a whirlwind’s pace on her datapad synched up with the holo display. “My team and I finished masking our signal to be near the galactic core earlier today, that should stop any quantum protocol bans on the Hadean from keeping us from calling the Councilor’s office. I hear some of the interns this century are pretty friendly to us inorganic lifeforms of late. We sure we got the right Councilor?”

“Positive,” Twirl hummed. “I went to their big fundraiser gala for galactic education reform and their election-”

“So that's one of the places where you were last year on your intel hunt,” Zurescreen cackled. “You’re a real party gal, you know that?” They nuzzled their head on Twirl’s shoulder.

“I know you love it,” Twirl stroked their neck, and I couldn’t help smiling a little. Then she looked up at us again: “Anyway, I had a chance to chat, Zarfel Jerdoth was very excited to hear that we actually have gender-”

Groans lamented from our group.

“Xey should read a history book or something, by Primus,” Codexa rubbed my waist, and I did my best to reduce imposter panic by leaning into her lap instead. Even if I don’t have the genders I know myself by, Codexa seeing me for who I am helps... 

“Yeah, I know,” Twirl laughed. “Still more than I expected. Anyway xey said they wanted to be honest and say xey couldn’t promise anything since they hadn’t been elected yet, but xey would do their utmost as xeir first priority to argue for us privately and get de facto help, they just asked I speak for xeir election campaign-”

“Twirl,” Crasher held her head in her hands. “You got tokenized, dear, hate to tell you that.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Twirl grew quiet, crossed her arms. “It was that or I got booted by people who were “uncomfortable” with my presence. It was hard enough to bribe my way onto the capitol planet. I didn’t want to die that night.” she started shivering and sobbing. “I just wanted a normal life…”

I nodded, mourning in my circuits. I wanted that too, a normal, radical, and remarkable life… that’s the autonomous dream. Two out of three at least.

“Hey hey sweetie, it’s okay, we’ve got a backup plan if you need to call quits. We’re here for you…” Zurecreen held her close.

“I’m sorry, Twirl,” Crasher uncrossed her arms. “I owe you an energon shake. Okay? All fizzy and bubbly. And I would have made the same play you did.” 

“Really?” Twirl’s green optics’s streams dried, brightness wide. “The grizzled warrior Crasher you are would have?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I know it was a hard time out there and that’s why you’ve struggled to open up since you came home last week. You’re a hero dear.”

“Aw honey, you’re the best,” Twirl looked to me. “What do you think, Arcee? You’ve hung out with politicians the most.”

“Well, it sounds like xeir uninformed sympathy is our best shot. What I’d give for the Plurapolitaeum to be the main alliance organization in the galaxy instead…” I smiled, softness across my face.

General murmurs and nods resounded among our small gathering. 

“You should do the honors, dear, let me introduce you,” Twirl clasped her hands, sighed, and then brought her chair over to me. “Ready when you are, Trans-Mutate!” she put an arm around me.

“All right, calling now,” Trans-Mutate’s words were joined by a flickering of the holodisplay, the light taking shape into a visage of a green long necked amphibian wearing a purple jacket and a polyhedral cloth helm.

=“Councilor Zarfell Jerdoth’s office, my name’s V’tia, she/him, how may I- OH MY RIVERS HI TWIRL!”= Her yellow-black eyes bulged. =“It’s an honor to meet you… and your associates? Friends? What can I do to help you and-”= his gaze fell on me, and there was an audible gulp. =“This is really unprofessional of me, but, Twirl passed along the video of your ancient speech that was in uh, Uraya,- we weren’t able to broadcast it due to how certain parties would respond to it, but it was very moving, Arcee… I hope you all can have your liberation one day. What can I do to help?”= Her long tongue licked his left eyeball idly.

My back stacks wiggled involuntarily with the energetic radiance my spark was flowing with. I never thought I’d see the day that a person in a galactic institution valued what I have to say. “That makes me so happy to hear, V’tia. Aside from reading up on our actual history from our non-Functionist texts and spreading knowledge of who we truly are and getting aid directed towards us, we need to speak with Councilor Jerdoth.”

“Yeah, I’m calling in xeir promise, we’re in dire need of help,” Twirl’s faceplate rose. “If you check your logs there should be something about expecting a call from mechanoids in need of aid…”

=“Ah! Zarfell promised to help you? How splendid,”= V’tia smiled. =“Ah yeah, there’s a note in here about this, let me patch you in, I’ll put you on hold while I reach them. Best of luck, and I’ll make good on your asks.”=

V’tia’s visage shimmered away and we were left with the sounds of upbeat string instruments and slow wordless singing.

“I don’t remember the last time I got put on hold for a call,” Rampage chuckled. “Long time ago.” 

We all chuckled a while, then chatted lightly about our day as we waited, not revealing any sensitive information until the holodisplay came back on to the head of a different alien, a lenret of teal hue, with head frill flagellas arced back highlighted in bright colors, and purple irises on xeir round visage’s eyes. Their jaw smiled widely. I wonder if that’s genuine. 

=“Greetings, gender kindred cybertronians, my name is Zarfell Jerdoth, xey/them, as you know Twirl and I are already acquainted,”= xey bowed their head slightly. =“It is an honor to be speaking with you, I recognize some of you from the temporary liberation of Uraya, including some elders in the galactic community. You are seeking aid, yes?”=

Among the nods I tried to give a surprised grin while my mind grumbled internally, an oligarch like xem being so nice means they want something unless xey are somehow sincere. “Why yes, that is what we are seeking, Zarfell, I’m Arcee, she/her, a linked altmodus iterexper gal and I appreciate you honoring my age, young one. May I ask- are you from a tool carrying aesthetic collectivity, and if so, what do you carry? I bear blades and tomes.”

=“Ah, Arcee, how very polite, you honor me with your open ended attentiveness. Yes, I partake in the popular tool-gender expression,”= the sound of a blade unsheathing and swishing came from their end, and a broadsword was leveled upwards beside their face. =”I too bear the blade, blade sage. Sparring rituals and time on the front are from my early career after I figured this out. Were things different, I would love to learn from you.”=

I chuckled, as did many in our group as I spoke. “I would hope we get the chance, dear broadbladene. We are giving it our all in our fight for gender and aesthetic liberation but could really use outside help, and the Galactic Council is the best positioned to give it. We hope it will make a lasting peace between us as well across species, as we have no interest in having a war spill over onto your worlds as the Stentarian’s civil war continues to do. Thankfully Nova Prime’s regime has held back from far-reaching expansionism thus far, but we both know what reactionary autocracies with an energy deficit tend to do.”

They frowned, and sheathed xeir blade. =”Yes, there is a ticking clock on your longer lived scale that we all have to worry about someday, but you need not downplay the real devestation of the genocide against you and mechanoid variety that will leave your society stale, regressive, and repetitive, carrying out empty motions. It pains me, which is why I have labored for much of the year to find different solutions. I have two. I presume I am speaking with people with authority to make decisions on your- collective’s behalf?” 

I tried not to squint. Do I hear disdain for our democratic decisionmaking where hierarchy doesn’t matter much?  

“Yes, I was reelected as the chief executive councilor of the Anti-Vocation League recently,” Deep Blue Glimpse nodded, face at rest. “In fact, multiple members of the council are here. Our group has entrusted us with deciding on these particular matters. What have you put together for us?”

“Well, in terms of what can be done that has no expectations on our part, there unfortunately isn’t much,” Zarfell’s flagella drooped. “We can’t do anything for mechanicals in that regard beyond offer safe passage to non-Council worlds. If I exceeded my authority on that, I’d be expelled from office on constitutional grounds for non-act aid and intervention. That is one of the two options, and I know it will not save your world from routine monotony. I’m sorry.”

Us bots all exchanged downcast glances, and I hugged Twirl close. 

“Zarfell, what is the other option?” Twirl met xeir eyes. “Is it any better?”

“Well on the whole yes, and it does satisfy your noble intent to not cause us harm,” Zarfell smiled.

I don’t like the sound of that. I curled a hand into a fist outside their eyesight. 

“Let’s hear it,” Lifeline extended hands. “Pacifism is something we honor highly.” 

Zarfell blinked with a bow of xeir head. “Very well. I negotiated the best I could with the Intelligence and Defense Councils to make a plea for your ‘organic likeness’ in aesthetics, as they understood it,” they frowned. “I apologize for the lack of understanding of my colleagues. They were nonetheless moved and are prepared to put forth a classified bill on the Council floor for full naval and marine intervention following your intelligence, military, and civilian direction for the liberation of your world-”

My frowned discomfort at having my gender experience be dissociated from my mechanoid heritage turned to a dropped jaw as cheers and murmurs of surprise came from my lot. They must want something big in return. 

“-if the new regime of yours agrees to our standard mechanoid protectorate tax and to the norms of Council galactic law, including dissolution and forbiddance of any military fleet assets on your part, establishment of further extra-solar habitats beyond star systems you already live in, and exclusive technology sharing with the Council. I’m sure you will find the aid in degrowth agreeable, what with your energy deficit. We are more than prepared to ensure your preservation with economic help-”

Whispers and grumbles came from our group, including myself. I felt my ducts beginning to boil.

“So we only get help ending our crisis if we agree to be subject to Galactic Council colonialism,” Trans-Mutate stated deadpan. “How is that fair?”

“Your people are in a battle with your own nature,” Zarfell replied with a chirpy tone. “It is our duty to help with enlightening. You seek to be closer to how we are with your own uniqueness, and to ensure that we can all live peacefully. It is better than what the Rock Consortium party wants, which is, well, terminal.”

“A battle with our nature? Do you realize how insulting that is?” Rosanna crossed her arms. “There is no way we can accept such a deal. How long is your guarantee of safe passage good for? We aren’t prepared to quit yet.”

“Given your timeframe- 500,000 years until renegotiation,” Zarfell shut their optics. “I will not live to see that, but I will try to pass on my values to ensure this continues. Please reconsider. I would hate to see you idealism turn to another permutation of autobotic tendencies and the loss of your home.” 

“I thought maybe you’d understand that we are equals,” Twirl blubbered. “I thought even if you didn’t have any good options for us you’d get that we need help not because we are mechanoids but because we are struggling with a long history of autocracy that has enabled reactionary sentiment. Organics and multispecies umbrella societies have had this too, you know that. We will take your offer for safe passage when we need to but please, if you pass anything down, have it be the remarkability of our experience, not some wrong body struggle or stereotyping us as too enamored with ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with our mechanoid nature that many of us adore, and with all your power you too wield great capacity for violence.” She started to have droplets course down her faceplate. “Please choose love instead, be willing to risk for us.”

I rubbed her big wings gently, letting her rest her head on my chest, while exhaustion hit me with memories of all the younger dead I had taught who I had hoped would outlive this conflict, and fellow elders gone. Wheelsent, Livkety-Split, Hammerstrike… so many, for us to end up here. “Do not let the sacrifices we have made be in vain, Councilor, the deaths and traumas so many of us have bought time with. You were a soldier once, surely you understand.” 

“I’m sorry Twirl, Arcee, all of you,” Zarfell didn’t make eye contact. “I may not understand as well as I should and have been hurtful, but that doesn’t change that right now the rest of the Council is not willing to budge. I will do what I can. I can send you all the contact information for refugee transport within my resources, and give you some space, if you prefer to leave off discussion of that for later.”

“I think that would be best,” Twirl looked away. “Thank you for understanding. We’ll talk later.”

Zarfell nodded. “Until then.”

The holodisplay dimmed off.

“Gods fragging dammit I did get used,” Twirl gripped onto me tight. “They weren’t as bad as xey could have been but it still hurts to know they probably were okay with what Intelligence and Defense proposed until we called xem on it if that even changed anything.”

“You still did good,” Rampage put a hand on her shoulder. “You got us things we wouldn’t have had. Knowing we won’t be fired on by the Galactic Council if we have to leave is a big thing. Paramount even for a strategic retreat. It will let us coordinate with the Plurapolitaeum and Lithonians easier.”

“He’s right. Autobots? Our home is doomed? Well xey better learn. Calling us autobots- because we’re on automatic or something, because we love who we are, and a jab at our mechanical nature?” I scrunched my hand into a fist and slammed it on the holo display dashboard. “Entitled arse!”

“We should reclaim that, it’s actually interesting,” Vibes put a hand on my shoulder. “Something like…”

“Autonomously iterative bots,” Rampage chuckled. “Wonder how fast the status quo of gender deprived society will take that and forget the meaning.”

All of us in the room laughed, on my part, deliriously, tearfully. “It’s the moment and memory that counts. We will remember.”

“You two lunar darlings going to stay with us? Thornback’s back spikes prickled. “You’re more than welcome to.”

Codexa nodded at, and leaned on me, and I smirked, meeting the gaze of Thornback’s wide opticed snout. “Yeah, we’ll stay. But I’m done going on the front for a long time. I’d rather stay behind the scenes. I don’t want to deal with more bolted scrap than I already do, and the legacy of martial and historic knowledges is carried by all of you, and given to me from you in turn. I’d like to make sure more people have that.”

“For gender celebrant autobots, I think we’ll be just fine holding onto each other,” Codexa smooched my shoulder, and the room broke into laughter.

Chapter Text

Image description: A chapter cover drawing with three parts: at the top, the metal polity covered world Cybertron and starry space are in the background, with ships flying forth to the left: vessels based on G1 Marvel Fortress Maximus's rocket, Kup ship and a Decepticon shuttle from the same series, the Exodus and Autobot frigates from Armada, and a blocky gray and blue carrier-library ship the Everbright. In the foreground is bulky rounded purple shuttle bot Spacewarp sitting in a chair with her hand raised ahead as if giving an order, and in front of her are five floating heading of Trans-Mutate in her BWU stylization, her brother Rampage, and Dai Atlas, all sad, a pensive pre-empurata Shockwave to his right, a sneering Proteus past him. At middle is text: Addendum Chapter 13: Gender Diaspora By Pluralsword. At bottom is Delta Magnus handing Arcee the Matrix which she is refusing. Near her is an astonished Road Rage and pensive Codexa. In the back are two shadowy flyers, who are depictions of Sturvius and Hierofont the Secularist and Statist Senator party leaders. By @VansZero (discord) Also, Delta Magnus bears an Autobot insignia, while Arcee, Road Rage, Codexa, and Spacewarp all bear the symbol of the Delta League: a Forge of Solus Prime Hammer head split by a cyan and pink infinity symbol with a with a white interior to the loop. End image description.

6 million years ago, Iacon, Cybertron. 

“I still think this is a bad idea,” I took in the morning sun-lit sight at the towering  golden, red, and silver spires and halls of Iacon’s regional administration all around us, filled with people coming and going in between on the cyan and gray streets, many carrying tablets, books, pushing carts, hauling cabinets, terminals and trailers with haste into the governing complexes. 

No one bothered Codexa, Road Rage, and I beyond stares from some bots passing by towards me. That at least is better than it used to be.

“I agree, but I don’t think we have any other options,” Road Rage elbowed me lightly with a lopsided glimmer across her face. “I honestly didn’t expect consul pro tempore Delta Magnus to accept hearing our plea. Something smells off about the whole thing, but what else can we do with how things are now?” 

“What else indeed,” Codexa put her arm around me as I shivered. “It’s not like we can keep up the fight much longer. But we always have hope, and each other.” 

Thoughts rose to my mind clogged with memories of ceremony after ceremony for fallen refugees, resistance aids, and fighters in the last five hundred millennia. Hundreds of thousands of mangled bodies or when not recoverable, lightbulbs planted in their honor. The sealing off of the Undergrid and near complete decentralization of our network last year to keep the Functionists off our tail. The loss of my home, again. The collapse of community, again. I am not enough. I am not enough of a woman, of a trans person, or a linked alt modus iterexper to stop this. “I know war and love better than any of our enemies, and we are still losing. We all know more than them. Maybe we truly no longer have Cybertron as a home, since that isn’t enough.”

“All empires fall,” Codexa smiled. “And I know you’ll live to see that for this one, dearest. You’re indefatigable.”

My spark warmed, and I embraced them closely, trying to put worries about her dying out of mind. “Relic for relic, I love you.” 

“You two are so fraggingly cute,” Road Rage chuckled. “Makes me want to ask out Trans-Mutate…”

My circuits flared attentive focus, remembering Trans-Mutate telling me about how much she’d like to dance with Road Rage, and I turned and gently touched my bulky friend’s wheel shoulder. “You should. While there is time. I think she likes you too.”

“Really?” Road Rage gaped a little. “What makes you say that?”

“She trusts you with so much, and she’s told me some things about what she’d like to do with you,” I smirked. “You two are just so busy you haven’t put energy into this, but I think you should.” 

“I’ll act on that, after this, thank you,” Road Rage touched my shoulder pauldron in turn. “I suppose we should head in to the Senatorial Convention, no?”

“I suppose,” my hand found Codexa’s and after we grabbed on to each other, I started to stride towards the large dome on our right. “Hopefully Dai Atlas or Delta Magnus are good to their word.” =”Dai Atlas? This is Arcee. We’re ready to head in,if you’d like to meet us?”=

Dai Atlas: =”I hear you, on my way to meet you.”=

We made it up to the large doors, where two truck bots with halberds waited, alongside two smaller bots with rotary scrapmaker cannons in hand. 

“Documents for entry to the Senatorial Convention?” the green truck bot asked, sticking out a hand.

“Ah, right,” Road Rage nodded and pulled a metal slate out of her wing pack, while Codexa and I sought our own document slates.

We handed them to the guard, whose optics went wide, almost circular. “You three are living Progenitors? It’s an honor, sirs, ma’am.” 

“Actually um, ma’am is fine for all of us,” Road Rage smirked. “Best to ask that kind of thing even if it’s out of fashion to now, it’s the way of the Knights.”

I pressed my lips tight to hold in my cackle as the guard’s jaw dropped with a stammer: “Um right- er- go ahead in, here’s your docs back, la- ladies.” They handed them back hastily, and the four guards saluted us before opening the doors.

“This is really weird,” I leaned up to Codexa’s audial. 

“Yeah, absolutely bolts that Nova’s Constitution is set up to favor people even older than him as worthy of the attention of the Senate or deciding the composition of that body by lineage no less,” Codexa chuckled as we headed into the glyph walled hall, where tall bulky and winged blue white and red Dai Atlas waited for us alongside hulking boxy blue red Delta Magnus. 

Delta Magnus, carrying a staff bearing the symbol of the Matrix was beaming, while Dai Atlas attempted a half smile. 

“Elders, thank you for coming,” Delta Magnus bowed. “It’s about time these stale Senatorial hearings were lit up by the presence of people with different pronouns. I would have tried to bring trans members of the Primal Vanguard, but none of the Vanguard besides me had Progenitor lineage. I may be able to get them in for testimony though.”

“Young man,” I extended my hands to clasp with his. “What can we actually expect from this meeting? Nova Prime leaving for the stars doesn’t mean he won’t come back, making the Senate regent government defunct once more. And there are certainly members of this body of lawmakers like Proteus who know enough of the past million years to want us dead.” 

“On the contrary, the stars have aligned for your sakes,” Delta Magnus laughed before letting go of my hands. “Proteus seconded your presence on the floor on the grounds of your lineage and arguing you are a candidate for the Intellectual Class, primordial vanguard , as are your dear companions.”

I stiffened. Did this peacekeeper cop just compliment my entire military career as a predecessor and example to his unironically? And I don’t believe for a second that reactionaries would recognize wisdom from us without planning to mystify, demonize, obfuscate, appropriate, and destroy it. 

“That’s definitely suspicious,” Road Rage crossed her arms. “The three of us, last we knew, were last classified as gender redundant in dusty Functionist files, including the shapes of my friends here.” 

“Well yes, it is not a friendly recognition,” Delta Magnus shrugged. “On the part of the Functionist and Statist factions, it is fear. The fact you are still alive, and have sewn permanent doubt of their movement scares them. But from the Circle of Light, the Secularists, and the er-” Delta Magnus scowled.

“Who else thinks themselves friendly to us?” Codexa smiled. “It’d be best for us to know all our supposed allies.”

“You won’t like this,” Dai Atlas muttered.

Delta Magnus looked away. “The deciding votes were the Jhiaxians, led by the prodigy Shockwave, the former foremost student of the bot the faction is named after-”

Rageful heat practically permeated from my spark across my entire frame. “EXCUSE ME!?!!” I bared my fangs while trying to work myself down. Focus dammit! You’ve got one shot right now, don’t blow it! “Is this a joke? Is this some experiment of his ? What does his proxy intend to do to my love and my friend?”

“To the knowledge of my agents, nothing except gawk and support your ‘forceful will of history.’ I believe he calls it ‘great woman theory,’ or something equally absurd,” Dai Atlas extended a hand to my quivering shoulder. “I never liked Shockwave. He’s a nightmarish progressive utilitarian monarchist like his former teacher.” 

“Eugh, I’ll do my best to ignore him,” I frowned. “We should go to the meeting, yes?”

“Aye, elder, I’ll show you your seats, you’ll have the floor soon,” Delta Magnus turned around towards the inner hall beyond, and we followed in. 

“We’ll look out for you,” Codexa squeezed my hand as we crossed the threshold. “Like we always do.”

“Thank you, dears,” I took in the sight of the hundreds of bots seated around the circular meeting floor. No one at arms in sight, most of them chattering, all watching us. A great deal I recognized: industrialists, former governors, scientists, and aristocrats, including orange red and blue Proteus bearing Functionist symbology, and white blue and gold flyer Shockwave, who smiled upon seeing us enter. 

I stiffened, and tried not to look at the latter, and simply followed Dai Atlas to sit at a desk bench near him and Delta Magnus, myself between Codexa and Road Rage. 

Delta Magnus remained standing, and tapped his staff upon the floor loudly. “Fellow Senators and esteemed guests! Today we begin the laying out of the provisional constitution of the Cybertronian State in the absence of Nova Prime and with no determined successors! While I understand many of you wish me to be the Matrix bearer, I must plead that we will not have us set the tone of the next government with absolute primacy! In the spirit of Nova Prime keeping counsel and making policy with his department heads, so to must we carry on in agreement not by my will alone! This is the Golden Age, we are all equals in freedom in the optics of Primus and procedure of our law, which demands that this Senate of Progenitor descended share in power as the public does and trusts us to do!”

Cheers erupted all around, and I chuckled quietly. “Clever wording to please everybody while making a case against Functionism.” I revved my engine quietly to show approval.

“Order! Order please!” Delta Magnus laughed, gesturing a downward hand, and the rest of the room slowly grew silent. “Now, first of all I propose a motion to review legislative procedures and the structure of the executive, legislature, and judiciary…”

The talks of the structure of government dragged on for hours, resulting in a constitutional parliamentary elected primacy with an oligarchic legislature... ...with back-up laws for election of a Senator should a Progenitor or descendant not be available for a polity’s representation, in part thanks to the passionate argument for such on Codexa’s part referencing elected local governance under the Thirteen’s rule. 

“I’m astonished they listened to you,” I smooched her cheek after the motion passed, and we and Road Rage laughed while much of the Senate gawked or grumbled at our affection, while the Senators from the Circle of Light and Secularists awwed and smiled. “Maybe there is hope after all, with Nova Prime gone.” 

“Maybe so,” she held me close, and raised her hand when Delta Magnus called for choosing the next discussion. 

“Yes, Codexa?” Delta Magnus nodded.

“I think it would be apt to move for constitutional rights of persons by law, and I wish to begin with the right to privacy, public associations, to housing and economic dignity, to health and accessibility, to freedom from discrimination, to education, to autonomous expression including speech, to autonomy itself, all listed prior part of the most important ache we are experiencing: that of the lack of recognition for and protection on the basis of gender and aesthetics.”

As murmurs picked up around the room, she stood: “For far too long, our rich and beautiful history and sapient reality of having iterative assemblage contexts has been ignored, forgotten, or under fire, destroying who we are and leaving us at a disadvantage in galactic politics in the precise era where we have prepared to reach across the stars once more. It is a matter of military security, surely you all can see that, know that from the three aesthetically cognizant gender embracing veterans who have addressed you today, far older than everyone else gathered here.” She sat back down. 

Mutterings and whispers continued to ensue around the room immediately, and a lanky Secularist flyer Senator, Sturvius, raised his hand.

“Senator Sturvius?” Delta Magnus nodded. 

“Excuse me,” Sturvius stared across the room at us. “As enthused as I am for this, isn’t gender something that has only been introduced to us by extrasolar contact with aliens, including by genetic surgical implementation upon our esteemed guest Arcee by Jhiaxus to show that we could have gender, though it is not in our typical nature? I-”

I growled loudly, rising to full height, crossing my arms, staring back, face scrunched up. Codexa and Road Rage got up to put arms around me.

“I’m sorry if I mispoke, Progenitors,” Sturvius looked away. “I know it is a sore point, a heavy thing. We have not been kind to trans folk, I think. I am just surprised you did not address rights to racial egalitarianism regarding alt modes and cold construction.”

I raised my hand, my circuits simmering. This gender deprived bot has no idea, does he?

“Arcee, you have a reply?” Delta Magnus extended his hand.

“I do,” I laughed. "It's not a race thing! This is clearly a gender and anatomy issue. Assignment to a body and function not their spark's own iteration, no choice in shape after either when a modular body could be provided, and the lack of research to make the bodies as articulated as forged ones, it shows an unconsensual disdain at creation!" 

I reached out open hands to the Senator, smiling. "But you've been denied knowledge of what gender is! I can't blame you for trying to piece this together, but I can blame those of you who don’t share Sturvius’s knowledge and opposition of our mistreatment for ignoring the cycle of gender based ostracization, harassment, and murder! You all have some idea something is wrong. Why else does the Primal Vanguard come home with different pronouns and aesthetics, even reformatted bodies in that sense? It is not contracted from fellow species.”

I clenched fists. “ It is because we are part of the sapient condition, because storytelling of realization and experience of variety is part of all of us. Sentient lifeforms all transform. I, Arcee of Protohex, still remember and understand myself through the linked gender systems from ancient times, still experience multiple genders and kinship to all of our planet in that way gender or no, as does my dear friend Road Rage of Crystal City, and Codexa of Tagan. Jhiaxus did not make me a woman, I sought his help to affirm myself and he abused me! My two friends here aren’t trans like me! I remind you today that among other genders, Solus Prime was primarily a woman who used she/her pronouns! That the Knights of Cybertron celebrated our variation and expansiveness, that the Matrix of Leadership knows all this to be true!” 

Gasps, shouting, and arguing broke out, largely over Solus’s pronouns. Functionists and statists shouted blatant lies at me, including: “Lies! Solus forged our path to our civilization’s pronoun of choice, he/him, devoid of gender!”

“How dare you bring such revisionist history before this august body!”

“You would push upon us non-Cybertronian ways as better than our freedom-”

“ENOUGH!” Delta Magnus slammed his staff down. “If you are going to disagree with the only three here old enough to remember it all, or support them, do so following the procedures we agreed to this morning! This raucousness is beneath you! ORDER!” 

Proteus, Shockwave, the Statist Hierofont, Sturvius, and Dai Atlas nodded, raising their hands, and the room quieted, glaring tension thick in the air. Proteus raised a palm once more.

“Proteus, state it,” Delta Magnus sighed. 

“For once, I must agree with my colleague Sturvius! Gender or anything like it is not something we have from our own time before extrasolar contact. Theohistorians have verified this countless times, despite what older folks may say out of understandable sentiment…” he smiled softly at me.

My back stacks loomed over my shoulders, and I pressed my mouth together tightly. I don’t like where this is going.

“These three’s transfeminine fabrications and that of their er, radical group are understandable-” he grinned as Codexa, Road Rage and I fumed and muttered quiet curses. “Because it is true, amazingly so, that I and Sturvius and them agree we have abandoned them. Their infocreep affecting their venerable memories are showing what they want so dearly: belonging…"

Sturvius put his head in his hands and flapped wing-speak: =I’m sorry.=

“This is defamation, slander, gaslighting,” Road Rage cupped a hand towards Delta Magnus. “Grounds for censure.” 

My back stacks ached for me to draw and ignite my blades from them. 

“Against a slim Statist and Functionist majority? No, Proteus will need to finish making a fool of himself if you want that.” Delta Magnus groaned.

“…to have a home, enfranchisement in our hierarchy of racial harmony of alt mode. And why should we deny them? The trans Vanguards have been good, model soldiers and mediators to our trial stages of enlightened galactic peacemaking, deeply immersing themselves in the alien and able to connect to them in ways most of us cannot, and bringing home that crucial understanding for the security of our genderless society …”

“He’s twisting my own damn words,” Codexa nearly leapt forward before I got in her way, and gestured across at the Senators watching Proteus. 

 “They are as intended by Adaptus when he divided us by holy transformation cog: a class of transformation apart from alt mode, that of the mind and spark adapting to contact beyond ourselves in our quest for divine order for all. Such is personality at large, we cannot fault some people for being enamored with ideas of those who will be under our care-”

“You dare use us to justify imperial goals? Is it not enough to have erased and murdered us for over a million years?” I found myself revving forward, before Codexa and Road Rage grabbed my arms to hold me back. 

“Arcee-” Delta Magnus sighed. 

“Please excuse her, consul pro tempore, Matrix bearer to be,” Proteus extended open arms. “I know I’ve upset her, added to her woes, and I’m sorry for that, I’m only trying to help. I am more than happy for gender embracing persons to have their right to live that way be protected by law de facto by protection of personality, but we cannot and must not support associations, practices, gatherings, and institutions that revise our history, or would disrupt our racial hierarchy by allowing people to change alt mode classes on the ill-conceived notion that alt-mode could have anything to do with gender, with choice! Everyone has their place under Functionism, and it is no different for the few women among us, who hold the enviable honor whatever their alt mode and vocation therein as guardians of the State, of society! An eternal testament to the pronoun of choice not being alone in a vast universe that is ours! So thank you, Road Rage, Codexa, Arcee, and all your companions and wards, for your sacrifices for the Expansion!”

The other Functionists clapped with confused looks or laughter on their faces, while the Statists loudly clamored in favor, and the rest of us glowered. 

“I think I’m going to be sick, our peacekeeping isn’t about whatever this is,” Delta Magnus put a hand to his forehelm.

Keep telling yourself that, glory-man. You get more funding than our embassies do. I shrugged. “If you don’t want to be a tool for them, oppose them.”

“Trying,” he pointed at Shockwave in a daze. “You have something to say?”

“Oh for strength’s sake,” I put my hand to my forehelm.

“Yes, thank you, Delta Magnus. Proteus is engaging in his usual bout of reactionary theocratic militaristic twisting of words and blatant slander, gaslighting, and defamation in the name of Functionism because of how much he fears the truth about gender. I will not have it, nor should this Senate!” He raised his arms high. “What Arcee, Codexa, and Road Rage say is true! Gender has been with us since nearly the beginning, and aesthetics has always been with us! But you don’t know that because the Functionists defunded or destroyed our sources of knowledge, and Nova Prime inspired this and collaborated because he was afraid of variation itself as a threat to his hierarchy! And what did we get for it? A vast waste of time, money, and energy on a civil war between two de facto regimes the State turned a blind optic to while we overurbanized and began to run ourselves dry!-”

“You think he maybe understands?” Codexa smirked.

 “-This is not the world Solus wanted! This is not the world Jhiaxus wants, nor I-!”

“No,” I frowned, trying to let the burgeoning memories of torturous surgery pass by letting them be there and focusing on love instead. “I don’t think so.” I kissed her shoulder. 

“What we need now is a wake up call! A strength of will against every obstacle thrown our way! We already have someone in this room who has lived and embodied that all her life, Arcee, just like her many fellow freedom fighters, who are each as true of a patriot as you or me or the rest of us! This last million years…” Shockwave pressed his hands over his spark.

“I am not a nationalist,” I whispered as I bowed my head. “We only want the autonomous pluralistic good.” 

“This last million years has been a trial of the will of the people, and of leaders, warriors, and sages from their number. I published a thesis earlier this morning positing who has won, existentially, who holds the critical hope of Cybertron: the Anti-Vocation League, and their deep pink trans champion right here in this room is both crucible and catalyst,” tears flowed from his optics while he still smiled, and several Jhiaxians seated near him started to pass metal thread files around to the rest of the Senate.

I smiled back, slightly, while my fuel tank wrenched up, if I’m about to be coronated I won’t be happy , aware that all the other Senators' optics in the room had moved from Shockwave to me or reading about me through Shockwave’s lenses.

“They and she fight for love, for hope, they do not seek to force or oppress, and a version of their and her message forms even without contact, because that want is in all of us. That is the power of contextual transformation. Those two and the Circle of Light have been the main agents through which the Golden Age has remained a period of relative equals. For all she has gone through, all the empires she has survived, all the love she has grown, all the ferocity with compassion, I posited that Arcee is the greatest among us, the greatest woman of our time, of all time! She is a Prime without title, she has done what Nova could only dream of, and she knows she cannot do it alone! For this reason, I contest the appointment of the honorable Delta Magnus as the Matrix bearer, and propose that Arcee be appointed instead, as a full Prime! Jhiaxus foresaw this day, it is for that reason he installed a Matrix receptacle in her! And that is all I have to say, I am but a forged gender nonconforming man heralding a new age.”

I cackled. “That’s very sweet in intent, in your own way, young man, but your teacher who harmed me so deeply did no such thing! There’s no Matrix receptacle in my frame, if I must be elected to something executive councilor suffices-” 

I felt my midriff plating open up, and the searing pain of a Matrix sized accumulation of solid superstructure, cables, energon ducts beneath plop out in a bleeding mess at my feet before the wounds around the hole sealed. 

“Well, you won’t get any complaints from me for you to get a chance to change the world,” Delta Magnus reached out towards me. “Do we have a second to this motion-”

As the room rose in uproar and cheers and arguing I promptly screamed as loudly as I had during my surgery, all the pain and guilt rocketing back. I keeled over onto the desk as supernova heated rage flowed from my spark to fill every bit of me, locking optics with a still smiling Shockwave, my fangs bared. “He did this to me, and you activated that! My idea of my altmodus iterexper womanhood euphoria has nothing to do with bearing a connection to all our sparks and a tool of incredible power even us elders here don’t fully understand, because that wonderful relic has been misused as the crowning jewel of autocracy! By all rights, I should slay you here-” I drew my swords and somersaulted forwards, and was suddenly bodyslammed by Delta Magnus onto the floor, crushing my left back stack and shattering the floor around it. 

“Arcee, don’t do something I can’t save you from,” his blue ion cannon in hand was pressed up on my chest, and he immediately gulped after a knife was put to his throat and above his spark chamber’s armor by Codexa and Road Rage respectively. 

My spark panged amicably and conjunxically for the two to hug me, to leave this place full of younger men corrupted with power who didn’t understand us. I started to sob.

“Hurt my Conjunx again and you die, Delta Magnus,” Codexa somehow was still smiling. “There are other ways to help her than violence. Stand down.” She turned to me. “Sweetie, turn off your swords. We can talk this out, we have a chance to end the fight for our survival.”

I nodded, still crying out my exhaustion and pain, and turned off my swords. 

Delta Magnus, looking at the floor, withdrew his cannon, and after Codexa and Road Rage withdrew their knives and flipped over my despondent bleeding frame to patch my wounds, he stepped back. “Given the medical situation, I move for a recess and to reconvene to have the arguments for and against the two sides of the contesting vote in three hours, enough time for her injuries to be repaired and some therapeutic relief-”

“You see?” Shockwave chuckled. “Even now, she does not care for power, she and her allies act on behalf of autonomy, which I did violate in the public interest. There is no better ruler-”

“SHUT. UP. Shockwave,” I let the remembered pains pass, and stood in Codexa’s embrace. “If we are going to do things our way, more directly, then I have the right to and second the move for a recess before reconvening. I beg of you all to consider the policies we asked for to live with dignity, not to put me on a pedestal.”

“Motion carried-” Delta Magnus started.

“All right you dissidents, that’s enough,” Proteus stood. “This farce to appease the sensibilities of traitors has gone on long enough. I didn’t want to do this, out of respect to Delta Magnus, but I remind this Senate that under Nova’s rule for which we are regents in his absence, these three are wanted for countless of millennias old charges of treason, abduction,  rebellion, terrorism, grand conspiracy, and in Arcee’s case, common murder! Even if we ignore today’s incident, she and her companions are not fit to be among us, much less be a Prime! They ought to stand trial! If they do not, we cannot pretend this senate honors Nova’s constitution, precedent, or legacy, that we are anything other than a conspiracy of our own! This is why the proposal for the Functionist Council as a bicameral body must come first-”

“Oh, you mean the charges your patsies in the State exagerrated and then hid at your request when they were inconvenient? Charges that my lawyers have dug into with evidence that she was only responding to a repeat pattern of harassment and violation of autonomy?” Sturvius bellowed. “Or do you mean the multiple genocides you and the State have committed against our kind considered redundant or lower on the taxonomy, and against them? Continuing that is illegitimate!”

“You and what majority?” a gold and red microscope Functionist sneered. 

“Senators please-” Delta Magnus sighed. 

“I have just been informed that my Statists are no longer voting as a bloc,” rounded shuttle bot Hierofont put his hands on his hips. “We will not have sufficient votes to expulse these alleged enemies of the state.” 

Dozens of Functionist Senators charged into the Secularist and Statist benches, unarmed brawling breaking out with fury.

“Finally,” I smiled, and frowned again seeing Proteus slowly leaving out the hall doors. Odd. Is this staged? If the trap is simply keeping us here, as targets for what- oh no.

“Codexa, Road Rage, we have to go now,” I changed to my hovercar mode, crumpled on the left fore side. “Proteus left, the longer we are here the higher chance we get blown sky high.”

“But we’re so close-” Road Rage took on her bulky curving car mode next to me. “And yet we’re still so far. I see your point, but for the Functionists to be willing to kill so many of their own higher ups-”

“The threat is credible,” Dai Atlas leapt into his massive plane mode, hovering above us. “I’ll make sure you make it out alive, but we have to go now, into the open and to where trusted point defenses can protect you from bombardment.”

“You knew?” Codexa snarled through her engines in plane mode. 

“Now is it not the time to discuss my wrongs, you can grill me later,” Dai Atlas sped towards the hallway. “Come on!”

We left the rest of the Senators in the midst of the bloody bludgeoning combat behind, Delta Magnus in the thick of it swinging his staff clobbering anyone near who wouldn’t cease fighting, while other Senators watched, chattered, aided the wounded, or quietly took their leave, stepping out of the way of our rapid retreat. 

My injured back stack ached at the high speeds on the crowded early afternoon street beyond, following Dai Atlas towards the spaceport? 

=“Found out from reliable sources, yes,”= Dai Atlas turned a corner. =“But if this had gone any other way besides what you want then a sparkbroken Delta Magnus would have abdicated and the Functionists would get what they seek by appointing Proteus or if they decided to wipe us away with orbital bombardment anyway, install the Functionist Council as the sole body of the new regime. I’m sorry for using you, makes me as bad as the rest.”=

=“Nevermind that, focus on what you can do to help us now,”= I watched as best I could for anyone following or aiming at us, spotting four heavy Functionaries tailing ten cars behind. =”We have company, four bogeys to our rear. Why the spaceport? You finally going to help us fight directly?”=

=”Noted, I’m afraid not,”= Dai Atlas soared towards the piers holding hundreds of ships ranging from Codexa’s size to kilometers long. =”I am trying to ensure you all get safe passage. The vote for the Functionist Council to be installed as a bicameral body already has the number needed pledged as part of a deal to leave State capacities purely under the purview of the Senate. When that motion is carried by nightfall, the Council intends to make open siege warfare against the League with full cooperation from the military for the Council ‘defending themselves.’ Contact your people. There will be a time that is yours, of all life and the cosmos, but right now Cybertron is lost, and you need to survive us by leaving. I am being foolishly emotional and arranging for my entire civilian light ship fleet to be coincidentally near your bases of operation known to me to take volunteers on a ‘mission to find the Knights’, along with all the out-of-date military ships I could spare. I need only your help to save the living aesthetic history and intergenerational libraries of our people. I hope my old flagship will be some respite.”=

I slowed down to the ship dock Dai Atlas landed on his feet in front of, out of hundreds of Circle of Light warriors a dozen were standing armed with swords and pistols standing about near him and the blue gray carrier covered in reconstructed glyphs from many lifetimes of retrofits, the memory of the original hull sailing over what must have been Protohex when I was young faint in my mind. 

As I processed Dai Atlas’s words, I made a half turn and leapt into robot mode to face the bots who had tailed us, my swords drawn, face dripping with my resignation. “Old Everbright… I still can’t believe this day would come, even though I knew it would, in the back of my mind, for most of the last million years.”

The Functionaries turned around after rounding the block.

“Dai Atlas, please, you can’t give us this ship,” Codexa put her arm around me. “We know the stories, the wisdom, it’s hull holds, at least anything people could decipher. You all need it more. It’ll break our sparks, to take the last publicly known not underground library of aesthetics from Cybertron, protected by it’s military scholastic status. The Last Knight of that first generation that left us so long ago.”

I screamed again, burying my head in her chest, not knowing entirely why I was crying, feeling fog pervade my circuits deeply, starlit metal halls just out of reach of my frame’s recollection. “There’s something in me, pushing at my mind… more than that I know this ship, I think I was on it. But that can’t be true, I never left Protohex before Megatronus came…”

“Maybe you have, dear,” Codexa brushed her hand across my helm. “And maybe someone else has something to answer for. Did you know this reaction would happen, Dai Atlas? Are you or some elder eminence responsible for tampering with Arcee’s memories and faculties?”

“Are you calling me crazy?” I stepped away rapidly, “I can’t believe you would too- does everyone think this?” and tripped on myself into Road Rage’s arms before scrambling away to sit on the floor. 

“No Arcee, no no I would never, I’m so sorry-” Codexa drew her dagger and faced Dai Atlas, “BLAST YOU AND ALL GATEKEEPERS AND COLLABORATORS! WHAT IN THE PIT IS GOING ON!?”

I ignited my blades and stood, focus sharp on the potential fight. “At least you don’t think I’m crazy, love.”

The warriors around us quiveringly leveled pistols at Codexa, until Dai Atlas raised his arms to his sides and gestured for them to put their guns down. 

When they did so, he knelt before my Conjunx. “Please, Codexa, Road Rage, Arcee, I meant no harm, I knew nothing, I only seek to do good now that will make a more concrete difference than anything I have done for you before. The Functionists will destroy or defile this vessel for their own ends, and if I don’t surrender the ship to them, even if I kept the ships I am giving you the entire Circle of Light will be put out or hunted to ground by the Navy and Functionist militia, and with the reprisal of the Secularists around the corner, you will have no friends in the regime to help the later bloomers, stragglers, and younger folk, besides yours who stay behind to do so. But if killing me would give Arcee peace of mind, then I beg that you let her. I plead, because she is in dire need of vengeance. There is a deep hurt in her that is beyond all my knowledge-”

“Oh gods Dai Atlas, if you had just helped us coup Nova from the beginning or even  before the Fall and we had grinded up the planetary surface of Cybertron in conventional warfare it would be over and the Functionists would be dead,” Road Rage scoffed, hands on her hips. “At least the misery would be over instead of building up in everyone. You know your delaying actions are just that, right? That planet burning war is now going to happen with certainty in the next, oh, two million years or less, with more powerful technology and more stratification desperation, and without our presence the Functionists will turn it into a hierarchy versus hierarchy disaster. Let’s get this over with. I’ll call our folks now.”

“What have we done…” Dai Atlas’s cheeks streamed, looking up at me. “I’m sorry… I’ll help you all in a moment. Please take care of the Everbright.” 

“Now you know a bit of how I felt about Antilla.” I holstered one of my blades and offered a hand. “The first thing you need to let go of is getting a guilt complex and any patronizing presumptions, and then help out from your lane. You have our comms, join our call. Road Rage, the floor is yours.”

He took my hand, nodding, and I thought to myself, this is my fault. I never should have trusted Jhiaxus. We wouldn’t be here right now were it not for that.

=“All hands and fellow loved ones, friends, solidars all, aboard with us,” Spacewarp’s voice boomed softly through the Everbright’s intercom. “Your honors, the Delta Anti-Vocation League fleet in exilium is prepared to launch in T minus 600, now that we are all aboard, please prepare accordingly by taking seats or parking. As the elected admiral of our voyage to protect ourselves, I shall remind you of our plan. We intend to enter orbit and jump away from the Hadean until the day we can return, leaving deep cover volunteers behind to help our world in the coming years and help people find us. We will carefully and defensively make use of the safe passage dubiously guaranteed by the Galactic Council to go towards Plurapoliteaum space for sanctuary. We have to cut across to the other side of the galaxy around the rim to avoid galactic hegemonies and prowling mercenaries, but we will do so with hope.”=

Sitting next to Codexa in our small crew hab’s bench, my spark glowed listening to Spacewarp’s words, gently hugged by Codexa’s hand just as I held hers, all warm and soft in my gentle touch, the two of us leaning on each other.  Spacewarp will do marvelously, I think.

Spacewarp: =“For my part, as a trans woman who has fought and shared mirth, sorrow, and imagination alongside the variation’s cause for nearly a million years, I have learned this: we keep fighting, we keep loving, we never give up, we transform. As the Knights before us embarked with the hopes and dreams of the best of us, we now do the same, having forever left our mark on the world, and with full plans to carry on. I love and appreciate all of you. Prepare for launch. All combat and ship elements, you will receive your shifts shortly. We will take up a sphere and screening formation in orbit onwards to protect our relatively unarmed civilian craft, and all jumps will follow the range and and recharge time of our slowest ship in the fleet, the Unitrex-0. ”=

Transmutate: =”Arcee, Codexa, if you would join us at the bridge, I want you to see and hear something with the command crew.”=

I nodded at Codexa, and she leaned down and smooched my helm. 

=”We will be there,”= Codexa let go of my spark, and I hers, and we folded up our armor and headed out of our hab full of our books and other belongings, and once in the word covered halls, we jogged to the nearest turbolift and took it up to the bridge. “What do you think they have in store?”

“Knowing Trans-Mutate, something special,” I grasped her hand in mind, entwining fingers, shaking. “I still- the fact we’re leaving for a very long time… I feel at a loss.”

“We will come back, either us or those who follow in our path,” Codexa booped my nose with her finger. “And we can have dates across a fifty year trip around the galactic rim, with the best pals and traveling polity along we could ask for and seeing and experiencing wonders through our love unlike anything else,” she beamed. “I’m excited, frankly, for the new future we will build in relative safety.”

“You’re such a conjunxic,” I threw my head back with laughter before gazing with her into the depth of each other’s optics, standing close. “I’m glad I made vows with you…”

The doors opened to the command bridge, and as we stepped off my frame shook again as the overlay of an image of the place when it looked brand new with older tech fluttered at the back of my mind before slipping away, the crew’s blurred visages turning to Spacewarp, Trans-Mutate, and much of our old teammates still alive. They all turned and saluted with a left hand over their spark before swarming Codexa and I with tearful embraces, as we cried saying our goodbyes to Cybertron. 

“T minus sixty to launch- we should all take our seats,” Spacewarp stepped away and people disentangled to let her through to the teal boxy captain’s chair unfolded for her massive size, where she gestured for Codexa and I to sit to her left. 

We did so, while Trans-Mutate and Rampage sat down to her right. Everyone was quiet as Spacewarp counted down to zero. 

“10... 9... 8... 7…”

Codexa curled her fingers around mine, and murmured, “I love you.”

“Love you too,” I couldn’t shake the image of her and our friends hugging over a mountain of the solidars we had lost and enemies slain, Wheelsent’s corpse holding up my feet. I felt deeply cold, and looked at the visual screens and windows of the bridge at the towering skycrapers of Iacon far larger than our ships, finding no respite from dead friends who had died for our cause in part to slow the overurbanization of our world. Droplets ran down my cheeks again and I shut my optics.

“2… 1… Launch to low orbit, and take up our jump formation.”

“Launch aye,” Rosanna ahead of us at the helm pushed and pulled a few buttons and levers on control panels while Thornback did the same before Path-Finder grabbed the two joysticks near her and angled them back, flipping engine safeties. We soared upwards, leaving the skyscrapers behind gradually, passing other ships and flying bots, and then with exponentially higher speed through the evening atmosphere with dozens of smaller and variably old and out of date ships around us, into the starry void, the rocky red-orange moon Luna 2 ahead of us, and we slowed into a low orbit, as more ships from around the planet joined up us in a spherical formation with us at the head and old combat ships in squadrons sprinkled around us hundreds of kilometers away, including eight sleek Plurapolitaeum leased blockade runner frigates and corvettes with more modern cannon and defense arrays along their blocky hulls.  

The grandiose, desperate scale of what we were doing hit me, looking upon images of a fleet that brought only comfort and hope, who I have not done enough for. I love all that I can, for them and I, but we are here now. I’ve got to do what is best for us… I shook tearfully. “For the first time in my life,” I smiled. “For the first time, I look upon a fleet and do not feel fear, because I know we have no intent to conquer or harass. And I am sorrowful too, for what we are leaving behind, for the people who will die tonight that we cannot save. What was it you wanted us to see?” I stood, walking between trembling faces towards video visuals across the wide command screen, looking between the fleet strategic map and glittering gray-gold tower filled Cybertron there, Codexa entwining her arm with mine on my left.

“Not so much see as hear, old friends,” Trans-Mutate walked up next to me, Road Rage holding hands with her, and with Rampage and Spacewarp behind us. “May I touch your spark, and you mine? That we all share this moment exposed to one another, not knowing when the next will come when we leave?”

“Trans- Trans-Mutate, I-” I ran a hand softly down her tall crest and around her cheek guards, that brought a deep joy to me though they were not what I had decided on, nor what I got. “You know- if I had gone for being a big motorcycle, your frame is rather close to some of the thoughts I had about that.

“You are such a direct and honest person it sometimes comes off as flirtation, not to mention the aesthetic compliment you give me every few centuries, I never get tired of hearing that,” Trans-Mutate laughed, and the rest of us did too.

I knelt next to Trans-Mutate, opening up my spark armor, grinning at her bared shimmering green spark, a sudden fear running through me as sensory haywire rumbles mixed with the harshness churned in my thoughts- KILL HER, KILL EVERYONE HERE, YOU ALREADY HAVE CONSIGNED THEM TO DEATH IT WOULD BE A MERCY- No. No none of that is my doing. I only haven’t done enough. Go away.

She put her hand on mine, my warmth fluttering around her cool metal hand, her wide red optics sweet with a smirk. “I’m not scared dear. Not after all this. Reach out if you want. Transform with me as we all have ever since we met, look around you.” 

I peered about, seeing that the crew at their stations and our friends in here were doing the same, holding each other’s sparks.

“We have taken our lives in each other’s hands, you have every right to hover with my roll since I want to and you do,” she rubbed my pulsing plasma in her hand gently, and the haywire harshness fell away.

“I suppose you’re right,” I reached out slowly, putting my hand around her spark in her sloped chest, my hand practically taking up the whole chamber. “Someday I will get wheels though, I like how you and many others live with them. I meant every word.”

“Oh sister, you’re not the only one,” Rampage chuckled. “Arcee has told me a few times about having had thoughts about skittering around with claws. She says it fits her loving personality and I agree,” he snapped one of his claws for emphasis before putting his arms around Trans-Mutate and I. “Exchanging assemblage across gender and aesthetics is such a nice thing… ‘Cee, I’m so glad you suggested the crab mode to me all those years ago when I was trying to put words to the feeling.”

“It was an honor-” I stretched my head with a sigh at the sight of him letting go of Trans-Mutate to hold Spacewarp’s spark, who sat was holding his in turn, while Road Rage and Codexa with their height reached over Trans-Mutate and I to touch each other’s. 

“The heat of our words in trust,” I patted Trans-Mutate’s spark gently, feeling her intense as an inferno One-Percenter warmth, wondering what her spark was trying to say to mine that we hadn’t already said. “Dear, best friends.” Friends I have wronged. But I will try to share this night.

“Now, Spacewarp, give the order, before we decide not to leave, or Dai Atlas’s authorization with the ports comes into question,” Trans-Mutate smooched my cheek gently.

“Aye,” Spacewarp nodded. “Thornback, if you’d light up the music, and patch us in.”

Thornback: “Aye aye admiral! Patching relevant freqs through ship intercom now. Codexa and Arcee- welcome to our last hurrah across the planet.”

Songs and speeches and conversations came through the comms, the one in focus in volume changing every dozen seconds, Trans-Mutate’s song and thousands more gender and liberation hymns and instrumentals, speeches of mine at Uraya and elsewhere and that of many of my friends and people I had never met, journalism reports, historical accounts, radio-plays, more and more from all our years and before the resistance-

Awash in affirmation of the vast collectivity I knew to be true, every circuit in me felt right save for the fact my shape was still needing, that it needed more robustness, it needed wheels, it need to keep curves and add onto them- I held on to Trans-Mutate as tightly as I could with one free arm. “Never lose this, please, this fire you have, this hope and clarity you have. It helps me to know. All of you. That you are doing this.”

“I thought you’d like it, we all did,” Trans-Mutate hugged me back. “We couldn’t have done it as well without you, and you deserve to be free and happy and navigate love and community regardless. We all do.”

The comms started to cut out one by one. Sadness weighed on me with a Titan’s heaviness. I nearly crumpled down, Trans-Mutate bracing her knees to hold me. “The Functionists must be shutting down the relays you set up. Now is the time to go.”

Spacewarp let go of Rampage and stood, =”Thornback, is the fleet ready to jump?”=

Us five near her let go of each other to follow suit.

Thornback: =”Aye, we’re all spooled up.”=

Spacewarp headed back to her chair. =”Next stop, Vaine of the Capilla system! Embark!”=

Chapter Text

Image description: Chibi versions of Road Rage and Trans-Mutate are sitting on a pink background and light pink bench lovingly clasping one hand each with each other while facing each other. Road Rage is blushing, Trans-Mutate is smiling, with a red heart between the two's heads. Road Rage's cute insignia is a gold rimmed half pink half cyan heart, in reference to the symbol of the Delta League in this fic. End image description.

This beautifully cute art is by @zxid on tumblr!! And back to the story...

5.999,978 million years ago, the Everbright , deep space near the Tyroxene star system on the galactic periphery. 

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” I smiled at the small blocky machine gun bot Vollayflame as I patched xeir deep cuts with metal over ceir rejoined energon ducts and circuits. “You were very brave today alongside me against the Vestial Imperials, and just as brave right now enduring repairs only semi-conscious.” I patted xeir faceplated helm after fitting in the last metal wound casing. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got slammed by an airhammer, but your firm and gentle touch and manner helps a lot, Arcee.” Ceir red optics shuttered. “I think I’ll sleep on this medical bay now, unless you need to open it up for someone. I wish all this fighting would just stop...”

I chuckled. “Need to let your repairs settle in a while before you start moving again, and you've got a break now, treasure it, we'll get a reprieve from the fight. You should stay, Vollayflame. I’ll let Lavend know you’re ready to be seem briefly, even if just to accompany you?”

“Yes, please,” Vollayflame sighed. “Thank you dear sage.” 

“Of course,” I nodded, and stood, stepping awak from the flat medical berth and into the main thoroughfare of the bay where medics moved about working on and seeing to dozens of patients. I passed by Lifeline on the way to the door, who hugged me close. 

“End of your shift dear,” she let go. “Finish what you’re doing and get some rest before command inevitably calls you up to the bridge for something.” 

“Hah, it’s true all right, I’ll go rest sweetie,” I patted her back stack once and turned to leave, going through the bay doors, turning to face some of the bots waiting on benches in the glyph filled hall. One with light purple petals around her head and solar panel leaves along her arms got up to meet me.

“How is my love doing?” they asked, violet optics on me.

“Ceir are healing nicely,” I smiled. “Xey can see you now, though Vollayflame is quite tired and will likely recharge soon, but cey are happy to have your company.”

“I’ll show you in,” Lifeline stepped through the doors. 

“Thank you both of you, all of you,” Lavend hugged me, her head on my ridged belly. “Stay strong, Arcee. I want to tell protoforms I want raise about you one day. and have you teach them or tell stories.”

“Awww,” I clasped her in return. “I would love that.”

Her petals wagged, and she stepped away to follow Lifeline.

I waved at them and took on my car mode, headed for the turbolift, to which I simply said: “Good evening, turbolift. Deck One, Observation Arboretum please.”

The turbolift chirped in reply, and I nudged it softly with the front of my car mode before it propelled me along the turbo shaft and later upwards. 

When the doors opened announcing arrival to the arboretum, I drove off towards the entrance, “thank you, turbolifts, for your help these last twenty-three years.”

Inside, I stepped onto my feet, briefly contemplating only transforming my legs to walk my car mode around. Maybe when I have kids. I took in the sight around me, beautiful large metal solar panel plants about as old as me from around Cybertron towering over me. I walked over to a pink and black trunk whose long blue solar panel branches’s pink-white flowers were in full bloom, and smelled one blossom at head level, taking in a sweet beryllium fragrance. I hugged the low-lying branch gently, as I often had at least since joining Megatronus's army, the tree a strong anchor in my memories.

“You were always fond of the zalia tree, weren’t you?” Shatter walked down from deeper in the arboretum, starry light shining softly upon her crimson and gray frame from the thick round armored window above. “Pity it’s so rare today back home.” 

“I was, yes,” I let go and turned to face her. “It and my original colors, white and red and gray, along with that of our blood and tears is how I chose my main ones before well, they were chosen for me. Now the only cyan on my frame,” I grasped the Delta League symbol on my chest, “is my devotion to all of us, to the autobot dream.” I stuck out my tongue and she I laughed. “Maybe I’ll change that someday, add some cyan lights. Maybe when we kiss under a tree again, like our first smooch, here…” my spark swooned, buzzing with remembered clasping of one another as we admitted how much we’d do to look after one another, after all this time, after battle after battle, crisis after crisis.

She embraced me, nuzzling her head on my shoulder, “I’m sure you’ll look beautiful, darling autobot . Glad you could make it.” 

She locked elbows with me and we started to walk deeper into the growth. “How are our survivors?”

“Thankfully nothing we couldn’t fix besides trauma,” I sighed. “But as you know, we’re going to have to mine or otherwise acquire resources again soon, we’re preciously low on medical supplies, if we manage to keep casualties low we have one more fight or disaster in us. Maybe the Tyroxene system will have something, or if there are locals they’d be willing to help us to be on our way.”

“Maybe so,” she gently pulled me onto the leftwards trail we both knew well. “We’re awfully close to mercenary client space, if we have to make another jump I wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, have to hold through for another five hours,” I waved at our friends in view on benches around a table among multi-hued lantern trees and green and copper chip and board engram bushes. 

“Arcee! Glad you could join us!” green holo-faced gold and beige framed lanky Editor waved while holding hands with Rampage, while Shatter sat down next to blue boxy and sloping Dropkick. “Twirl and Zurescreen got called for gunship screening duty, so they can’t make it. Shall we start?”

“Aww, that’s too bad,” I sat down next to and leaned on Codexa, and put my hand out to clasp Road Rage and Trans-Mutates across the table briefly and to Rampage and Editor, and then to Dropkick’s palm before drawing a hand of five metal tablet cards from the starry deck on the table. “Yes, let’s start. Been looking forward to some Journey Hand, Dropkick’s turn to go first yeah? To a beautiful story.”

“Indeed,” she smirked, wheels whirring and heli blades flapping, and drew a hand. “To a beautiful story.”

Everyone else drew a hand in turn and repeated the phrase, while Dropkick looked over eir cards for a short while, and then placed one on the table, revealing an illustration of levers and pulleys growing alongside simple waterborne organisms with the beginnings of fins, tails, and tentacles. “Broad Evolution seemed like a fun way to start.”

“Ah, I see we’re going very macro first, interesting,” Rampage chuckled. “I think I’ll respond with Old Ruins,” they placed a card down mostly over Dropkick’s, showing different landscapes; metal, grassy, desert, mountainous, and more, all dotted with ancient structures.

Murmurs and hums emanated around the table, and Editor chirped: “Ah! Perfect for me to place Aesthetic Exchange.”

I slipped into a sort of calm warding off harshness berating me for ‘wasting my time’ as my friends played cards around the table in turn; Democratic Dawn, Continental Split, Reaching for the Stars, leaving me next.

I looked over my hand, containing Refuse Crisis, Partners in Dissent, Century Stagnancy, Anchoring Home, and one of pictures of persons studying, writing, drawing, repairing, meditating, and practicing blades, which was the card I put down. “I think I’ll have us go micro with Humble Student(s).”

“Hehe,” Shatter placed the card Stellar Rival. “I sense chaos ahead, can’t wait for someone to piece together a story from these.”

We made two more rounds until the intercom came on, Spacewarp’s voice stating: =”All emergency hands, report to your stations, a fleet just jumped in 1,000 klicks out, unknown configuration, corkscrew shaped ships and seemingly arthopoid organic living ships. If you have any information, please let us know. Repeat, all emergency hands in the fleet to your stations, fleet of unknown intent inbound.”=

My circuits stirred with old memories, and I put my cards down over the deck, “Quintesson ships? But they disappeared from the galaxy before I took to the stars. No one’s seen a Quint since outside of chance sightings of solitary ships on the… the rim.” I scrunched my optics and leapt into my alt mode to speed out at rapid acceleration to half my full velocity to head out of the arboretum, with everyone except Editor following at a rapid pace while alarms sounded over the intercom, and more bots scampered around us, some carrying arms. 

=“The who?”= Codexa soared ahead through the doors, =”I’ve never heard of them.”= She slowed to a stop and somersaulted down to summon the turbolift with a button press. 

“I don’t know much,” I hovered in and parked next to the squad of winged and thruster pack carrying bots inside. ="Spacewarp, Omniwheel-One here, the ships sound like of Quintesson make or design basis. All I can tell you is that the Quints disappeared from the galaxy around 7 million years ago, ships of theirs only being briefly spotted out on the rim every few dozen millennia, and that before that time... they were known as a commercial slaving scourge of the galaxy with a vast privatized network of clients and protectorates, it’s suspected their model was the basis somewhat for the Galactic Council. Where do you need me?”=

While I was talking, Codexa had directed the turbolift to move towards the hangar bay after the squad was dropped off.

Spacewarp: =”Thank you Arcee, I think I need you on the bridge to command our breach marines in case we have to board these ships.”=

=”Roger that,”= I stepped up into bot mode. =”Elevator, bridge please after the hangar. Friends, loved ones, I wish you the best in the field.”

We hugged in a huddle briefly, all quiet until Trans-Mutate said: “I know you’ve got our backs. Show us your fire.” 

“I will,” I stepped apart as the doors opened to the massive hangar full of corvettes, shuttles, and gunships, and fliers readying for takeoff. 

 Codexa kissed me on the lips before leaving with the rest, “I love you so much, more than anything. We’ll be strong for each other, and vulnerable when we need to.”

She stepped off, and I blew a kiss as the doors closed, and with my circuits warm I ran through possible tactics needed on the back of my mind. 

The turbolift dropped me off at the bridge, and after I thanked it I stepped on to see it quietly busy and tense. “Any contact?”

“No,” Thornback shook their head. “We think they are trying to bring their weapons into effective range first. We’ve taken up an arrowhead formation to minimize hits to civilian ships we haven’t retrofitted with arms and armor yet.” 

“So they don’t have large railguns or long range fusion or beams, or aren’t firing them,” I headed for the marine co-command console station where Deep Blue Glimpse was already seated, and settled down next to her, and after noticing all the squads marked green on the console’s screen, I spoke into the microphone attached to the console while unfurling my forefinger’s cables to connect with the console. =”Fleet breach marines, I will be leading your overall command for the duration of this encounter. I see you’re all ready, hold until we get word of needed action, over.”

They all affirmed back to me over comms. 

“Glad to be working with you again,” Deep Blue patted my shoulder.

Spacewarp: “Try hailing them again with the universal greeting.” 

Thornback: “Got a reply in the same! Patching their comms through now.”

A raspy voice came on:= “Yes, we know the greeting your Knights devised. Cybertronians, you are infringing on Quintesson Remnant deep space of us Tyroxians. My name is Omsbud Ryzax, we are giving you a one-time special offer to except our permanent protection at a minimum monthly APR of 19% of total raw and refined materials for our services as defined by our contract we can send to you now.”=

I’d like to cut out 19% of your total raw and refined materials from your body. I thought as I typed to Thornback through my finger cables: =Pass me enemy formation visuals and weapon analysis, I need to plan our assault.=

Thornback: =Visuals aye.=

Spacewarp: “Oh gods, more protectorate absurdity. I can try to stall them with negotiations until we can all jump away. Not sure that will last long. Patching in to broadcast to them now…  Greetings your honor, Omsbud Ryzax, my name is Admiral Spacewarp of the Delta League Fleet Polity. We are deeply grateful for your offer in this dangerous galaxy, and have to think over our finances, if I may regale you with a counteroffer of greater value to both of us… specifically, a trade of technology from both sides as part of the fee to maximize cooperation and mutual fleet standardization…” 

Ryzax: “I’m listening, your idea pleases us. Let’s discuss the details and hammer things out. For starters, the technology we most want…”

I looked over the formation data Thornback sent me. The screen showed five Cybertronian  battleship sized corkscrew ships at the front in a four edged arrow formation, with thirty corvette/frigate seeming bug craft in a circle around them from side to side. Before I even looked at the weapon analysis, I already knew the lighter ships were intended to be or masquerade as a point defense network and provide supporting fire and flanking capability. The weapon scan details confirmed my thoughts, with no heavy payloads on the living corvettes, and the corkscrew craft geared towards releasing light craft from hangar bays, and heavy guns along the spirals and in the central spine. =Spacewarp, I think any sort of boarding assault on the Tyroxians would require firing off all transport countermeasures to move in, and preferably through the the edges of the front with point defense corvettes eliminated by our medium and light guns, and may require combat wing cover from defensive fighters.=

Spacewarp typed back while negotiating: =I concur. Relay to your teams, having Coldwheel adjust naval strategy parameters now.=

Ryzax: =“Spacewarp, I begin to suspect that you have been buying time, enough bargaining, take our one time offer. You have no other options and do not want to be salvage.”= 

Spacewarp: =”Open fire!”= 

=”First wave boarding teams, launch after assigned salvos!= I held onto my seat as we rolled suddenly. I stayed focused on the tactical display: the Tyroxian fleet held relative formation while we spread out, their corvettes relying on rolling and flanking turns to dodge our fire, a tactic leaving them easily exposed to our fleet’s few dozen long range heavy beam weapons. 

As the corvettes were quickly decimated and the Everbright’s bridge bustled with reports and commands, hundreds of smaller insectoid craft poured out of the sides of the corkscrew ships, barreling towards our dozens of transports approaching their capital ships weathering our normally withering fire. Our space fliers, gunships, and interceptors entered into intense sorties with them, giving our transports time to dive inside hangar bays or breach docking tubes.

Stiletto: =”Breach One to Actual reporting hangarfall, heading for primary target. Enemy is much larger than us on average but few to no AP weps, over.”=

Good, they should be able to take the bridge. =”Roger friend, proceed, over. Use tight quarters to your advantage.”=

Spacewarp: =”Omsbud Ryzax, I believe you should consider surrender.”=

Ryzax: =”Not likely, we haven’t played all our cards, Cybertronian.”=

Thornback: =”Reporting over five hundred jump signatures inbound-”= 

Spacewarp: =”All boarding and fighter elements, return to our hangars! We only have twenty to go to jump together! All units, cease fire”=

Five hundred blips popped up behind our fleet, radar and visual reports quickly giving them shape: Galactic Council standard hulls, bulky and tall, 400 cruiser class ships along with fifty lighter ships and fifty heavy capital ship hulls.

=”Cybertronians, we are the Rock Consortium Special Force, you have attacked a valuable trade partner who as such have salvage rights to you-”

My fuel tank attempted to scrunch up, and vapor came out of my seams while Thornback announced that they had locked on to us. All my thoughts were on the slowest ships in our fleet not ready to jump, and the boarding and fighter teams scrambling to return, my abandonment and fear of it poignant as I raced in my mind for a solution. “Spacewarp! Overclock our rear engines to project energon plasma streams!”

Spacewarp: “Arcee that will fry our normal space movem- damn you’re right,-” =”All ships at the rear, overclock normal space engines with more energon and release the build up on fire at will trajectories! Flanks, turn about to cover rear!”= “Damn, our recently expired Galactic Council ‘safe passage’ is sure proving helpful.”= 

Stiletto: =”Breach One returning, over.”=

95% of the boarding teams reported back in, with 5% logged by their fellows as KIA or recovered by other teams. I sighed. =”Welcome home, and may passed souls find harmony, autobots. Report to defensive command with Deep Blue, over.”= 

The long blazing engine burn trails of our rear cut hundreds stabbing strikes, taking out fifty hulls with gaping holes or power core explosions before shutting down to keep our own drives from doing the same.

Thornback: =”1000 jump signatures incoming.”=

The Consortium voice came on again: =”Are you people insane?! Do you know how much debt and Consortium reprisal you’ve incurred? Open fi-”=

A voice with an accent reminiscent of Zarfell Jerdoth’s came on=”Cease hostilities, Consortium bruisers, and all combatants, by special order of the Galactic Council - Anti-Vocation League treaty extension clause activation. This is Admiral Lezia Jerdoth. These mechanoids are refugees from gender genocide and the threat by the Remnant to push into exploitative labor along with the Consortium going beyond Council mandate, again, established grounds for their continued protection. Repeat, cease all hostilities. Leaguers, we will provide by my command executive decision whatever aid you need, just as we will give aid to the belligerent parties. If you prefer, jump as soon as you can, and if you give us the coordinates we will follow to help.”=

Sighs of relief and cheers carried through the bridge, and Deep Blue hugged me close, her wheels whirring. =”Status report, marine teams?”=

Bots replied with reports of returning or having returned to their ships and taking to ship positions or delivering wounded to medics.

Spacewarp: =”Are all surviving starships still jump capable?”= 

Captains across the fleet all affirmed with green pings to their ships on screen, except for ten reporting needing hull repairs to be jump-worthy. 

Spacewarp: =”Then we stay and help out our damaged fellow ships.”= =”Lezia, we have repairs to tend to for ten ships and need to tow two that are no longer operational. Send help when you can.”= 

Then she walked over and tapped my shoulder, “Arcee, you’re relieved of duty for now, thank you for your help. Get some sleep, I’m going to chart a course to a star system far away from known solely organic systems for our next jump. I’ll need you to protect our scouting team looking for materials and hopefully energon.”

“Got it, thank you Spacewarp, I’ll bunk near the bridge in the rapid deployment berths, let Codexa know if she wants to come by.” I hugged Spacewarp and Deep Blue, and walked out of the bridge into the command deck hall, and opened a nearby door, stepping inside to a communal bunk room filled with two dozen bots sleeping on close quarters recharge slabs. I quietly headed to an empty bunk with enough room for Codexa and I, flicked on the recharge switch, and shut my optics to let the soothing electric feedback lull me to sleep. My dreams were fitful, of endless battles across space resembling a disassembled Cybertron, with my friends dying over and over one by one no matter how many ships I tore down at a Titan’s size with my swords- until I blearily woke to Codexa wrapping her arms around my waist to be the big scoop, and kissing my neural cluster once. I slipped back to sleep, with dreams of when we had seen air hammers pass through a beautiful nebula from the rogue space station we had docked at a decade ago, and the dream turning to passionate lovemaking across changing scenery, including a silver circuit mossed and solar panel tree surrounded town that felt familiar to me but whose name I did not know, seeing a young Galvatron and myself there. 

=“All systems green, we are ready for launch,”= Stiletto flapped her feathery wings in her pilot seat of our sensor console filled dingy science shuttle. =“Command, are we good to launch?” Over.=

Thornback: =”Roger Scavenger Five, you are good to go. Safe travels.”=

=“Thank you. Scavenger Five taking off.”= Stiletto looked over at the rest of us; myself, Vibes, Codexa, Trans-Mutate, Shatter, Minerva, Coldwheel, and Phreaker seated at consoles or passenger chairs. =“Hopefully the promising scans turn out to be true. Disengaging hangar locks.”= Then she eased us out of our docking bay, and turned the ship gently to bring our forward windows to face the stars, half of our hodge-podge fleet and the reddish pink planet below with light blue oceans more than 300,000 klicks out. 

She pushed the throttle, and we picked up acceleration steadil, rapidly approaching the cloudy world beyond, passing by mostly paint dulled bulky cargo and passenger liners and multispectral array covered science/scout vessels, many retrofitted with a dozen or so simple light and medium barreled  cannon turrets along their hulls. 

I leaned back in my gunnery chair, looking over at Vibes on sensor controls. “I dunno, what do you think Vibes? We going to put swords through some deniable asset elements with some nefarious forward base building or black ops site plan.”

Her head tails wiggled with laughter. “Based on the last twenty years crossing the void? I dunno, 5% chance, which means probably.”

We all cackled at that.

“It is concerning,” Coldwheel’s tires whirred. “Boggles my mind that organic powerbase building is working on a millions year scale like us and but exchanged from regime to regime much more frequently, and right now a lot are aiming for territorial competition. This is what, the 27th Galactic Council now after their last civil war?”

“27.5,” Phreaker chimed in alt mode plugged into the comms console cable. “They are in a beta drafting round for their new constitution with earmarked microtransaction committees for member states to buy ‘equitably randomized privileges’ or something in the Council or in each other as an international wealth fund is currently on the floor for debate, is what I heard talking with some of Lezia’s personnel over comms. Really hope they get over their hyper-monetary phase and go back to high level barter.”

“Oh, they’re on that again?” I smirked. “If they don’t figure out that they need to quit they’ll crash their economy again when people get fed up with lackluster standard defense or not necessarily useful premium forms of  ‘protection’ from the likes of us. Give it a century or two, maybe some dedicated legislative historian or aide will dig up what happened 6 million years ago. It seems to be the nature of empire to iterate woeful inefficiency, at least, that is a universal rule I still believe.”

Codexa in her passenger seat closed her journal, and started to walk over to me. “And what is the other one you know? I know your overall belief system is strength is what matters most, including that of love,” she wrapped her arms around from behind me, forearms resting on my chest, tingling my sensors sweetly, while my mind grew distant as the mountain ranges’ worth of slain persons across my life came to mind, towering over me while a pile pushed me upwards over them, the two sides locked in competition. 

“Whatever the game… the easiest way to win is to kill all the other players,” I shook, trying to think of the silver grassed hill I found comfort imagining my loved ones on, but the solar panel leaves turned to limbs. “But it is a hollow victory without there being a loving peace, and easily trails into viewing everyone as an opponent.” My sensors ran cold, with the internal visage of Nova Prime leering at me from above the serially destructive animal former composed combiner Monstructor he had Jhiaxus make recently, save for the fact that the torso parts and the head were replaced with my own frame and the limbs formed from parts of Trans-Mutate, Minerva, Vibes, Flamewar, Rampage, and Rosanna. “A test of will…” I held my audials in my hands. “That’s what he wanted, that’s why I was put through so much. He wanted Jhiaxus to make Monstructor and find a way to control them, but why? Was his so called quest for free will seeking the capacity to control wills of others directly?” 

Trans-Mutate: “That sounds like Nova to me, he tried to play everybody. May he never resurface from his lost voyage.”

“I would tear them both apart limb from limb, and then grind them to dust and toss the remains in a black hole for what they did to you if it would keep them from hurting more people,” Codexa’s hands tightened into fists so clammed up I thought her servos would burst. “You know that right? It’s what you’d do for me, for all of us.”

For once, she seems like a good partner for you, encouraging violence. This is what you are. A warrior from life to death. Listen to her words. Get your vengeance- the harshness rumbled inside every circuit in my body, as the thought of cutting Jhiaxus and Nova Prime down and ensuring they were dead tantalized my jaw to open fangs bared while I curled up completely, unable to shake how much relief I found from thinking of them bisected by swift accurate strokes of my blades, mercifully quick, before ensuring they would not rise again. The odor of warped protoform CNA rushed in my memories from my surgery, the odor the region that used to be Crystal City had stunk with after Omega Supreme and Monstructor’s battle. Hunt them. You know Monstructor will get free from Omega Supreme’s snare, and you know they will seek their perpetrator, whose violative work leaves its own trail. Empire cannot hide misdeeds forever. The harshness spoke with Codexa’s face in my mind, and I screamed. “Codexa… please, don’t ever say that that way again, at least for now. If you want to kill them, I get it, I want it so badly… but you touched a very dark part of me that I never want to think of as you…” My body quaked all over, the bleary medicated fog that unfortunately reduced my reminiscing clashing with my violence hazed unified desire to cut down the scheming scrapheads who enabled our people’s downward spiral. As voices rose and Minerva’s hands rushed to brace me my vision shuttered, terrible headaches pounding at my helm and my energon ducts across my face, while my reserve erupted out my fuel ports in my right leg and chest, and my mouth. “I’m not just a warrior- I didn’t choose to be a war-” my head clonked down onto my console, and I lost track of thoughts, senses, and surroundings.

My reboot cube in the back of my throat kicked in with a pulsing jolt of charge across my frame, and I woke up to find myself being dragged from my chair by Minerva and Vibes, with the sound of Codexa sobbing, wailing, louder than I had ever heard her nearby.

My spark sunk to the bottom of its chamber. “I’m such a fool…” my head panged worse than ever, not the kind of pain that I had endured at the most terrifying point of my life, but the pain of complete tension that left one feeling they would burst apart and go on a tear.

“Arcee? Arcee? Can you hear me?” Minerva caught my optics while I was laid on the shuttles tiny med bay. 

I scrambled up towards the sound of Codexa’s cries, until I got pushed back down by Minerva. “No, sparkfriend, you’re not well, you’ll hurt yourself-”

My circuits searing and brain fogged with betrayal, my helm and shoulders sick from the remembered claw on the former and Minerva’s hands currently on the latter. I held back the immediate impulse to grab and twist her elbow and neck, and instead seethed with the same wrathful terrible pain on my mind from my affirmation surgery without yelling as I had then, “I won’t have patronizing hands on me again. I thought you cared about medical consent, Minerva. Get. Out. Of. My. Way. If I die for a loved one then so be it. I’d rather not lose two today. Codexa dearie, I’ll be right there, I’m so sorry-”

Minerva’s hands immediately backed off as she whispered. “Please… I’m sor-”

“WHAT THE PIT HAVE I DONE TO MY CONJUNX!? I’M SUCH A SPARKBREAKER, A LINKED LAUNCH GAL IN OVER HER HEAD TO THE SENSITIVITIES OF THE TRANS PERSON OR PERSON AT ALL SHE’S BEEN THE CLOSEST TO IN HER LIFE! I’m a morally bankrupt person putting my rage before xei-her-xe-her needs DAMMIT I’d like to honor Arcee’s second set of pronouns just once dammit damn the scrap that was done to you… please don’t hurt Minerva dear I can’t bear it GAAAAAH” Codexa went back to wordlessness. 

I processed the threat I had just given in my mind I’d rather not lose two day, “oh my scrap I’m such a diode ache…” and drew my swords and bundled them in a pile with the pistols at my hips and handed them to her. “Minerva, please keep these away from me, I don’t trust myself, frankly you should bind me-”

“I would never do that,” Minerva’s optics streaked wetness down her face as she took my weapons, while the rest of the crew stood around watching us, save for Stiletto who remained at the helm, and Shatter who hugged Codexa close. 

Minerva trembled as she stowed the arms in her shoulder stacks. “It would kill me, to do that for any reason other than needing to operate on you. I want you to be free and happy. I need you to be the one regulating yourself in ways that suits your health and everyone’s autonomy best. Your request is otherwise pointless, so either way, no.”

Vibes rapidly leveled a pistol at my head, shaking as she did before kneeling down crying. “She’s right, and even if I shot you that wouldn’t stop you, or it would stop all of us, and I… can see how Minerva was scary to you just now. The former I don’t really care about. I don’t care about feeling safe. I want us to be okay. This million and half and twenty years of being downtrodden is too damn much and you’ve had even more.”

Trans-Mutate went over and held her, not making optic contact with me except for only briefly, with a scrunched, pained expression that left me hollow.

“No one bloody understands, but that you’re right about,” I laid back down. “Your pains aren’t all the same as mine. You don’t know how terrible they can be. Codexa is only facing it now close to what I have and it’s threatening to break her-”

“Oh, can it Arcee luv!” Shatter seethed. “You thinking I haven’t thought about torturing a Functionist? Actually, correction, you think I haven’t done that, before I met you? You think I haven’t contemplated killing everyone around me just because the violence I’m put through is too damn much? You think that I, that us, don’t feel like we’re all on the edge of losing control of ourselves?! You think I haven’t knifed people for how they treated Dropkick when she’s kissed me in public over the years? Why do you think I had my own leaves of absence? I stepped down before it needed to come to a vote! It’s a bloody act for me, you know that!” 

Her optics softened. “That if one doesn’t have the energy one needs to step away. I really only hold myself together because I have a community that loves me, and I have some wisdom and self-love to draw on… …but I both have a different scope than you do and do not have to be trans with a traumatic surgery to be so deeply enraged that I’m desperate for sweet gentle might to be more prevalent in society! So godsdammit Arcee, find that in yourself again, as we are all trying to do from ourselves. I know you feel frightened, threatened, and scared, like the world is crashing down on you and all of us, and while that’s true, we don’t need to crash down on each other too and finish the job.”

I froze, the tension in my helm an afterthought, as it hit me that I had almost attempted to attack a fellow trans friend of mine not just because of a trauma response, but because I thought Codexa was in danger because of me that only I could solve. My spark panged, coursing with Shatter’s trust and honesty, with the love I felt from everyone here. They must be crazy too, to not have abandoned me. 

“Believe it or not Shatter, but you have once again demonstrated as you have over the years that I have a lot of reason and feelings to trust you… Oh frag. I’m really close to a savior complex. I already have a guilt complex. Minerva,” I looked up at her deadpan, dipped down face. “I’m sorry. I’ll let you check up on me if you still want to, but you don’t have an obligation to talk to me, to do anything for me, and I’m willing to trust my fate to the fleet’s decision-”

“NO,” Minerva hugged me close, “No. If we tell the fleet about this, morale will crumple. You and I both know we aren’t the first family or team in the fleet to go through this, and certainly not the first in our million year fight. That we haven’t had a quarrel like this until now is a miracle and testament to you all taking your therapy whether from me or anyone else seriously. And I saw the tension run across your cheeks and hands, hands you kept from balling into fists or striking me even though in that moment I seemed just like your tormentor.  And you’re my friend. Maybe that’s dumb of me but you’re one of my dearest friends.” 

She kissed my cheek, and my face rained in her gentle cuddle. “The dumbest thing is that you threatening my life out of vengeant fear and in a desperate, idiotic attempt to save Codexa because all your wisdom felt out of moves and your mind was screaming that you were cornered… …you didn’t want to give up while you’re brain is going through what we now all know is some sort brain module editing that you’ve been fighting so hard, made me love you more, dear friend. 

Her hands pressed up on my backstacks. “Jhiaxus could never hope to break you… the only person who can do that is you. What you have with us instead is trust, something deeper than coercion. By all rights, I should be disbarred for, as you said, violating your consent the way I did, patronizing you, not because there isn’t an issue of case by case ambiguity, but because of it, because for you specifically, I shouldn’t have at all. Shatter, could you help Codexa over here please? I don’t see another way to resolve this.”

Codexa stumbled to a stand and walked slowly, reaching out feebly to me, leaning on Shatter, who sighed when Coldwheel came over to help her walk Codexa the rest of the way to sit next to me. 

Stiletto: “So you all know, we’re most of the way through planetary burn, do we need to step outside or should we just collect low atmo readings-”

“By the power invested in me as the medic on this mission I am issuing a medical emergency override and saying you need to land so we can stop being cooped up in the space where we all thrashed out against each other or witnessed it,” Minerva let go of me slowly, and tentatively took Codexa’s reaching hand to place near mine. My headache still throbbed, but I didn’t care, seeing her hand near anchored me, bending away pain with the might of ejection from a quasar.

“Please… forgive me… for setting off programming that was shoved inside you…” Codexa’s sad optics pulled at me like quasars, leaving me feel as if I’d be spaghettified with sorrow. “I know it’s not you… at least partially… some of it is your learned cavalier attitude, though, but I have that too, we all do, having fought so long for something that feels almost impossible at full scope but doing it anyway and seeing results that changed the course of history forever. We are drunk on our own heroic liminality and capacity to survive. Something you needed to survive for so much longer- something that consumed your brother long ago when the two of you were young gladiators, if that even was the beginning.”

“Wise as always. It’s not your fault, but I forgive you anyway,” I took Codexa’s hand while Minerva started scanning me, and I embraced Shatter with pats on her back with one arm as she clung onto my waist. 

“No, it is my fault,” Codexa shuddered with a smile. “You didn’t need to hear my grisly thoughts about what I want to do to them, you didn’t need more than me being there to help you, and for me to be emotionally honest. I could have just said I want to hurt them badly, to kill them. I got in your lane, although to be fair to myself, Nova wants my understanding gone too. But that’s… I don’t know how to say it, more than I already have but there’s something about the suppression of the magic of transformation that you literally embody in a different way than me that really upsets me… it was celebrated when I was young at home, remarkable without threat. I wish you could have had that back then…”

Warm feelings fluttered over me whose places in me I could not put words or images to, save for Galvatron. Why do I feel the need to trust him? He betrayed me! Why is he lodged in there? Why do I like silver grass so much? I’ve never seen any on Cybertron, only in old photos and paintings... 

“I think, Codexa,” I squeezed her hand. “I think you and Shatter and everyone have helped me to give my youth another chance in my old age. I’m not organic, there’s no hormones to replace or produce, but I think the sociological and psychological component of reliving life in a new understanding… that’s something all sapients share, and it’s a special thing for us expansive folks.” 

“Your chest is warmer than usual,” Shatter looked down at me. “Your spark stressed out? Need some-”

“Stress is only the half of it,” Minerva sat down beside us, multispectral scanner in hand. “Your spark is taking on and producing another type again. Something about your episode today may have dislodged something deep inside… would you open up your chest please dear? It’s hard for me to get a reading on what’s going on, the new type and its bonding to your metallocells is mostly inert, but it is making your spark more solid and run hotter.”

“I haven’t had a new spark type since Galvatron and I parted ways completely, we both would change at the same time from age,” I sighed, and then chuckled looking at the three of them peering over me. “Well all right, if you three really want to get a look at the inside of the slope I adore, you’ve all seen it plenty-”

While Shatter slunk off me, the four of us cackled, the rest laughing as well.

“My life and everyone’s near yours is a taganite opera that eases seamlessly across emotions,” Phreaker took on eir bot mode. “The stuff of life, wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

“Aw, glad you think my existential foolhardiness is so regenerative,” Minerva brought her scanner plugged into her hip over my spark, emanating cyan light on my chamber. 

“I’m sorry did the brilliant Minerva not deny being a taganite who is so dedicated to helping her friends and a humored professional about exposed sparks ,” Trans-Mutate grinned while rubbing Vibe’s back, and we all laughed again, the continuous mirth easing my circuits to an exhausted calm.

My fuel tank lurched, and I felt the cavernous growing emptiness inside, oh, after I spilled so much… “I think I’m hungry… and I made a mess…”

“We’ll clean up the fuel for reuse, don’t worry,” Vibes stood. “Let me get you an energon cube while the good doctor gets a prognosis.” She turned towards the cargo containeds.

“Your frame is pumping some innermost energon as if you were on a last stand,” Minerva put her scanner away on her hip. “And it seems your primarily vitreous spark with secondary ferrum and isometric has formed an igneous outer shell from the core and into your cells, but they haven’t activated or anything.”

“Igneous…” vague memories of a brusque doc checking up on a younger Galvatron and I in the Protohex arena barracks in a stand-offish manner to assess combat readiness surfaced. “Galvatron and I both had some inert igneous qualities long ago when our sparks were otherwise ferrum-positive, back when we were gladiators, but they disappeared shortly after. Doc Curveline didn’t know why.” 

“That would match it coming from deep in your spark beyond detection thanks to being inert,” Minerva rubbed her chin. “That’s very odd. Igneous is a spark type usually acquired during dire circumstances or in moments of extreme euphoria and inner peace, never heard of someone starting with it. Most bots only have a single spark type in their lives anyway unless they get a medical supplement kickstart to reinforce easing a frame change, a reformat, or aging. If I had to guess, your realizations about what was done to you kicked off an emergency sense in your spark, but why they wouldn’t be active is beyond me.”

Vibes came back and handed me a cube, which I enthusiastically chomped into, murmuring at the delight of the simple medium grade flavor, eliciting glee from my friends around me.

“Remind me, does an igneous spark type do anything if active?” Coldwheel asked. 

“Well,” Minerva tapped my shoulder, and I folded up my chest armor while she continued. “Typically it helps mind and frame out with the two states I mentioned, that is, it reinforces the frame against pain, helps maintain coherence, and is very soothing and self-assuring. It’s a sort of anchor, like all spark types. It also er, tends to heighten protoform raising desires when in a euphoric state.”

“That is something I want to do one day anyway, not that we have any hot spots around…” I attempted to sit up, and crossed my legs. “So effectively the reactionary translation would be that I’m producing progesterone or lithoid metageogens or have ZW chromosomes and liable to hatch an egg and grow feathers.” 

Stiletto was the loudest in humored sounds at that. “Oh my gods, don’t get me started in how many microaggressions I got asking if I could lay eggs and incubated them because my feathers must be from WZ chromosomes of organic birds. So glad to not be dealing with that anymore. If y’all are done, we’ve landed by the way, and I’ve been taking readings, this place is rich with energon that seem to be part of gas - ice - liquid - snow cycle. So as Minerva said, time to get out and stretch legs.”

“What if we- extended that idea? What if we stayed here, and built a home? Easier than resource extraction where we’re going.” Phreaker started to stroll out to the exit doors.

“But Phreaker, the Galactic Council knows we’re here, and already has elements that want us dead. What do we do if they blot out the sky with warships? Build a fortress world? That will take far more mining and metallurgy!” I pu my hand on my forehead, feeling another headache. “I have a bad feeling about this…” they don’t get it, and a lot of people in the fleet will feel the same because we are tired of running, because we want something like Uraya again, to proudly live openly without trying to flee and hide. The cause is lost. 

Codexa, Shatter, and Minerva huddled around me, resting heads on my shoulders, saying nothing. I figured they didn’t need to, likely thinking the same thing I was. Vibes and Trans-Mutate touched my shoulders, tearfully in Trans-Mutate’s case.

“I have led us to our deaths…” she whispered. “Unless I can get people to prepare to leave at a moments notice. We’ll need a whole new kind of jump drive that can leave from the surface, maybe if we turn our ships into buildings… we have the engineering capability, it saw us through an industrial miracle to challenge the powers that be, and kept most of us alive this far. I’m still dreading us having to report our findings.”

“I wonder, if I bore the Matrix, if things would be different, if we’d be likely to keep on. I should have stolen it from Nova or the Senate. Damn this brain fog,” I reached out to them, resting a hand over the armor covering her spark.

“That’s not fair,” Trans-Mutate shook her head. “When you learned that you could without a reformat by the Matrix talking with your spark, you were repulsed by why.”

A few hours later, Everbright hangar bay A.

=“While I agree with Arcee, Codexa, Shatter, and Trans-Mutate’s strategic assessment that staying here is suicide without proper preparation,”= Novastar stepped forward from the crowd of over a thousand of bots in the bay, some with video cameras to transmit to the rest of the fleet. “I think with how terrible morale is, we have to stop for at least a while before we start tearing each other apart out of stress. Trans-Mutate’s proposed jump drive engineering solution is the only way we will survive. So, I move that we vote on this now, unless there are any rebuttals.” 

Spacewarp raised a hand. “Yes. If I want to continue onwards to the Plurapoliteaum, I can’t take the Everbright with me right? I’m just the admiral and captain elect, not some landliege, and the ship is home to a lot of people. But it’s my home, too… How do we work out who moves where when we figure out who wants to stay and who wants to go? Consensus is moot at this point, continuing onwards because we don’t have a 100% vote would be pressing people further in this crisis point, or giving them what we could spare to stay and most likely die without our resources. I won’t have that on my conscience.”

Soft exclamations of sympathy and appreciation rang out, bots reaching out to hug Spacewarp, some tearful. 

I sighed. “They aren’t going to dedicate themselves to saving Cybertron, they’re just going to try to survive,” my wheels I wished were part of me whirred out of sync, I don’t want to be here . “Codexa, Shatter, dears, we should go with Spacewarp. We can still reach the Plurapoliteaum and come back with a liberating fleet one day en route to Cybertron to inspire…”

Codexa and Shatter exchanged a glance next to me before bowing their heads.

“Arcee, we have a duty to guard and lead our people. You know that war will likely come here long before the Plurapoliteaum can field any significantly large force. When things scatter- we need to make sure we don’t all die and can stay in touch.” Codexa reached out to touch my shoulder. “You could-”

“No no no not you two too I get why but no I can’t do this I can’t keep burning myself with my pain I want it to be over you all have to know it won’t end if we go this way this is my fault for not wanting to be a Prime and for getting that stupid surgery-” my sensors went haywire and I turned and leapt on my thrusters out of the crowd, ignoring glances, and jumped into hovercar mode to speed towards the turbolift, hearing beloved thrusters and jet engines behind me followed by heli blades as I wept inside my car armor. 

Codexa: =“Arcee! Sweetie, where are you going? I’m sorry I keep hurting you, I can keep traveling, I don’t need to stay…”=

No you’re right, you’re needed here, I’m not. And I won’t lead an army without you. I got in the lift and asked for the quarters our bunk room was on, moving at full speed through the empty hall when the lift doors opened, breaking into a run for my door. I need to leave, I am too much. 

Dropkick: =“Arcee! Please! Where are you? Come back and talk with your loves and I.”= 

Swinging the door open I scurried inside. “I can’t be here anymore! I’m not good enough for them, I’m why we’re here now even if I don’t fault myself.” The fog around my mind heightened save for a sharp frantic frenzy to LEAVE.

I grabbed my two favorite books and one of the original copies of On Ancient Truths , and stashed all the research copied notes on my surgery and post-op healing in an extra stack-pack that I filled with my meds and repair tools and spare ammunition, and put it on between my two stacks. 

Shatter: =“Starlight, you don't have to do this. Are you just needing some time alone, or are you going to leave?”= 

I took my sniper rifle off the wall and hoisted it on my back, grabbed and stored my six back up thermal swords, and then hauled out a hover cargo crate of energon.

Codexa: =”PLEASE DON’T RUN I’M SORRY!”=

I flipped into car mode again and hitched the crate onto me, and sped back out, leaving the door open, headed for a turbolift further to the rear of the ship, called one when I reached an entrance, and waited. I didn’t reply to any of the comms or one’s that followed. I broke their sparks. I disappoint everybody. I don’t deserve them.

The turbolift came, and I parked inside. “ Everbright, take me to Hangar Gamma. Command Code 13-Zeta-442_Beta, open the hangar bay as soon as I am inside my ship, and prepare the heavy-fighter-freighter Claymore for launch. Goodbye, dear old knight, thank you for caring for me as one of-” hazy images of the inside of the ship with blurred faces surfaced again, “your own. I have to go errant again.”

The turbolift doors opened a bit after, and I sped through the hangar where among the dozens of light craft, Shatter was waiting in the middle of the bay.

=“She came to Gamma, get over here.”= She walked to me and I turned away as I continued to speed through, sensors gripped with fear at how I had threatened to hurt Minerva.

Feeling cold and hot and high strung, I went full speed towards the sleek blocky rose gray gunship. “Stay away from me! I only bring trouble!”

I was still ignoring increasingly alarmed comms. The pain of ignoring loved ones seared through every bit of me. “This is the best thing for everyone, including me!”

I heard Shatter’s engines fire, and she swooped over me in bot mode, getting between me and the Claymore’s open cargo bay chute with open arms, and optics welled.

“Scrap it,” I slowed, unhitched, stepped up and reached out to hold hands, unable to bear a hug, trembling. 

“So you’re going to leave Codexa with me? In shambles? You’re going to hurt yourself more? You must be really hurting to do that, you literally almost killed Minerva from your trauma firing off. You’re really lucky Minerva’s not cutting ties with you. She has such a sweet and wise spark.”

“Shatter, please…” I had no more tears to shed, ducts dry. “I’m not good enough for any of you, and you can’t help me more than you already have… let me go before I break sparks further with my problems.” I squeezed her hands. “I mean it, I fear for my life if I stay.”

“Arcee, you don’t mean-” Shatter’s optics went wide, droplets flowing quietly. “Please, you’ve told me that with everything you’ve been through it goes against everything you are to-”

“No no, not like that, not that way,” I shook my head. “Just becoming miserable scrap to the point I make a decision that gets me killed or I feel so awful I can’t defend myself, which scares me more than death. You could argue my dancing with death is a way to not end up like that.”

“Oh…” Shatter was still for a moment, before gently sliding her hands over mine and grabbing my wrists firmly, still with a wet face, smiling at my warble from the snug sensation from her. “I trust you so deeply, as you trust me, if you know you need to do this - we’ll let you go alone.”

I smiled, relief and grief flowing in my quivering circuits and frame sweetly anchored by her touch, as many memories of mine flowed through me in succession and blurred together, of loving touches from friends and partners, disputes, all the words of kindness and worry and mirth and more, the dancing and sparring, the shared meals, living and dying for each other, all their happy faces in corners of my mind.

The harshness for now was away.

I twisted my arms around to grab Shatter’s own wrists, the two of us staring at each other in each other’s grip for a long moment, before I broke out of her fingers and thumbs, and let go. “Thank you, we’ll meet again,  I will always love all of - “

She leaned in, embracing me, hands on my outer back stacks, while plucking her lips very slowly on mine.

Between the recent memories, touches, attentiveness, and kindness, I was abuzz and wishing we could just hold each other and our partners, letting our pains go, at least for a while.

She pulled her face away, still close, gazing deeply with her crimson optics. “To remember me by, dearspark Knight of Cyb- of Transformation. Now go before I insist on you waiting so our family can come with.” She stepped back, arms falling away.

I nodded, shaking again, and grabbed the crate and headed inside, pulling the lever on the wall to shut the cargo bay behind me. I knelt and fastened the crate onto the wall, sighed, and ran for the pilot bridge, sat down, and slowly pulled the joysticks to launch the already prepared ship off, and flicked a rearview camera own to watch Shatter wave as I flew the ship out of the opening hangar bay into the the starry void the Delta League Fleet was at rest in.

As I left, I caught a glimpse of Codexa, Dropkick, and many more bots dear to me pouring into the hangar, also waving, Codexa doing so on her knees, with Shatter embracing her.

The Claymore’s comms started to fill with allied signal traffic from ships and bots across the fleet, while I typed coordinates for the jump drive to launch to a star system further into the rim.

=“We love you Arcee”=

=“Be well, be careful”=

=“Take us with you in your spark!”=

Minerva: =“If you are to learn anything from me and find anything on your journey, it is to love yourself. I would give my life for you to do that, but that won’t do it. You’ll figure it out. You always do. I’m so proud of you.”=

=“Please don’t go”=

=“You inspired me to be here, remember who you are when you wander the stars”=

Codexa: =“There is no finer knight among us than the one who carries our fire and rage so well for so long, for love, trying to give shape with wisdom from us all. She would say we are all equals to that tested, tired temerity in our own ways, and she would be right. I will never stop loving you, Iteration Endura, you have transformed my life so much I think my understanding of myself and my genders are more now - a sort of eternal changing sparkfulness. Thank you.”=

My navcomp screen scrawled out cyan words reading : COURSE LAID IN, DRIVE GO.

=“I will always love you, and my transness has only grown your love too, dear poet librarian and rogue strategist, Iteration Endurae to me, and to all you dear people of love. I will do my best to let yours encompass me more, not mainly the increasing pains we all feel. ‘Til we meet again, and ‘til all are one in pluralistic autonomy.”= I hit the launch button, and after the ship leapt into the bright blue of quant space which streaked around as the Claymore sped on, I got up up, found the nearest wall, and spent the rest of the trip curled up in a corner, laughing, moaning, and screaming, before I finally said: “Goodbye, Cybertron.”

Chapter Text

3.999,901 million years ago, aboard Hexima Rose Courier-38 Wandering Star , in quant space.

I leapt up from where I had been welding some inner hull plates together, moving towards the boxy quantum drive towering over me when I saw the large cube on its side crumple with a terrible creak of a groaning sound, fiery sparks flying. 

=“Grandpa, Lug, the jump drive is tearing itself apart again!”= I pulled my smelting cutter out of a torso compartment as I knelt down next to the two drives, and pulled and held the trigger of the large guarded hilt tool, firing an orange-yellow heated beam-blade forward, boring into the metal, melting it slowly. I kept my optics on the incision, and started to cut downwards through cables and tubing as more creaks and groans continued. =“Cutting the connections to the aux drive now!”=

The ship lurched, and I grabbed onto a drive rail, half expecting to be thrown about or torn apart into quant space. I’ve got this I’ve got this I know the universe will come through at least don’t let Lug and Stratosphere die-

Stratosphere: =“Do what you got to do dearie! We’ve moved cleanly into normal space, seems the FTL drive power is gone, but at least we’re alive. Lug’s on her way to help ya. Checking for hull tears on sensors now, nearest star system is Traujor, but we’re about four years out. I’ll set up an emergency beacon, and we’ll have to take turns going into stasis. We can share another solar cycle all up without risking rations I think.”

Lug: ="Oh heavens, we’ll make do somehow.”=

=“Yeah that’s a good idea,”= I kept my hand stable, avoiding thinking about the possibility of starvation by focusing on wanting to care for my family, channeling that into attention on the melting cut I was making, slicing further down. Halfway now. All the focus on the work with my hand, I was able to happily ignore my frame. Just focusing on dragging downwards, ‘pushing’ against smelting metal..

The creaking sounds of the supplementary drive died down, and I sighed in relief as footsteps came near.

“Nice job darling,” blocky stout mostly red and gray Lug sat down next to me. “Mind if I watch before I have to seal things?”

“Please, I love it when you watch me work,” I chuckled, and she laughed too. I kept cutting down against the pressure of the metal.

“There’s something about seeing you work, and with fiery blades, that I really like, I don’t know how to fully say it,” Lug put an arm around me gently. “The dancing with danger, the bravery and knowledge, careful and daring. That’s part of it. It just seems like you.” 

As I finished the cut, and the aux drive fell to the floor simmering orange on one side. Lug patted my waist, and the touch on the middle of my lack of curve instead gave a sensory actuation. 

I murmured, and shut off my cutter. “Could you squeeze me there? I really liked that. It felt right. Like the words you said, careful and daring, dancing with the cosmos and fire. Very poetic, dear…” I smooched Lug’s capped red helm, the cyan biolights on the sides of the crest dilating at my lip’s touch to the brim.

“Hehe, thank you, I’ve been working on my aesthetic poetry,” Lug gave me a squeeze on the sides of my waist, and I keened hazily holding onto the sensation of her seeing to me there and making me feel curvier, before she leaned up to smooch my cheek, and then let go, cyan biolight lit gray chest opening up and then reached inside to pull out metal plates, a sealant spray, and two welders. “Want to watch me work a while before helping me?”

“Yeah I do,” funny, Lug’s interest in aesthetics… 

Sitting on her two big kneed ankle armor, Lug sprayed sealant, and sticking plates around the hole I made, and welding them together, one by one. Seeing Lug’s ridged waist plates and robust curve below a jutting chest move and stretch as needed to repair with a focused, amused face occasionally glancing at me made it harder to ignore my frame’s relative flatness. I smirked at her, thoughts turning to the aliens of different shapes and personal understandings we had met, organic or mechanoid or cyborg or neither, with collective galactic iteration having some across different shapes sharing a pronoun I had not heard often back on Cybertron, often linked with bots who… who want what I want? That can’t be. That’s not how gender works for most of us. I wasn’t part of that. It must just be curiosity, and wondering if it is something Lug wants. 

I scooted around to Lug’s back, and wrapped my arms around Lug’s frame, hands on softly rustling waist armor, my head resting on a big shoulder, torso pressed on a round back with dials and buttons. 

“What’s wrong luv?” Lug kept working. “Am I too stunning to your spark?” 

“Lug…” I laughed, while my my brain fumbled half remembered thoughts. “I… don’t you think it’s strange that Cybertronians largely don’t have gender or aesthetics, supposedly, but everyone else in the galaxy largely does? Even other mechanoids, like the Catharsians, like that engineering collective of- what’s the word…”

“Oh, Emerald Crafters, back on Parthus? Yeah they were sweet,” Lug chuckled. “Emerald is an ancient color of desire for them, one told me, Institude. It ended up being a symbol of similar gender love aligned, adjacent, or linked with gals like herself. I do think it’s strange that we ‘don’t have this…’ …but the Primal Vanguard records I got my hands on as an off-world geologist suggested that we used to have it, something to do with various Knights, Adaptus, and Solus-”

“That’s impossible,” I gripped Lug tightly, quivering. Lug welded the last plate and turned around to hold me as I went on. “The Thirteen, Adaptus, Solus, they’re all he-pronoun figure myths the Functionists wielded to justify their rule as divine succession. As an atheist, I can’t reconcile that with how trans members of the Guard and folks sharing understandings back home in Nyon were treated, sidelined, by society. Sure I don’t get it, but how can I blame people for reclaiming myth for a place for themselves?”

“Dear,” Lug’s chin rested on my chest, optics peering up at me.

 I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to swoon or crumble into an amorphous pile of liquid metal. Why is this so hard?

“I’m an atheist too,” Lug rubbed my back softly, briefly. “I have a critical optic to all of it, but myth tends to be based on history to some degree. I wasn’t around for it, but I understand that in your youth, a different kind of Knight than the Knights of Cybertron was among us before departing for safety to one day return. I couldn’t get their actual name, with all the censorship, but some people called them the-”

“The Delta Knights, the Golden Knights, the Last Knights,” I grumbled, headache searing through my helm, remembering stories Stratosphere told me, and crying the day Functionism was made an official part of the government, the slaughter in the streets of suspected enemies of the state, the loss of my father Dirig in a construction accident shortly thereafter- “Yes I know. Stratosphere was drummed out of academia even before Functionist rule for telling those feel good fables and they were ignored from others for good reason even after the Functionist Council was overthrown. It’s an absurd story.”

I shook my head, ache worsening to sharp pains. “That the Knights of my time, having fought a million year war of resistance against Functionists before, creating the pivotal balance that kept anything of the Golden Age good at all, working on principles reimagined, transformed, from ancient days? Amassing near popular support early on through mutual aid, guerrilla tactics, industrial miracles, and pacifism, defeated only by a propaganda war and defeatist apathy and the threat of orbital bombardment by the Navy if they didn’t go back underground? The- that ancients who remembered gender formed a crucial part of them, and one a living testament to surviving against ‘transmed-’ er-”

“Transmedicalism.”

“Right, thank you. Transmedicalism and violations of bodily autonomy! How? Nova Prime was a champion of equality and freedom of bots, as was Jhiaxus! It just doesn’t add up.”

“Then,” Lug gave a lopsided grin. “How do you explain the Functionist Code of Form that you as a blacksmith were supposed to follow, and refused to do, whisking away protoforms targeted for redundancy not because of just alt mode but ‘redundant shapes,’ trusting them with the Circle of Light, proto-Decepticons, and then the Autobots? How do you explain Monstructor? How do you explain Galvatron’s own farewell speech starting with: ‘We have lost much since ancient days, including my sister, and I hope to find who we are in the stars and show you all with just rule?’ Why did you bring up all this from looking at me? Besides that, who is the survivor of transmedicalism you’re talking about? I’d like to know.”

“I…” I looked into Lug’s deep and bright optics and sighed, hugging close, remembering the half-formed bots I had snuck out from hot spots to be raised by people I thought could be trusted. “You’re right. My understanding doesn’t fit the facts. Nova’s regime was responsible for Monstructor, that I was asked to intervene in shaping to remove shapes like-” I shuddered thinking of the mostly pink lanky back stacked sloping bot with two swords I had seen on an awful reactionary propaganda vid older than me long ago. There’s no way she’s real. “Like ones of opponents of Functionist rule. And- seeing you navigate yourself and things about your shape that I find endearing, I had to wonder if you were seeking gender yourself. Maybe we should talk to my grandpa…” 

Lug’s optics widened, and then gave a lopsided grin. “Endearing huh? So because you’re so in love with me, dear Conjunx Anode, you find my shape endearing too, and wondered if there was any other meaning I was seeking? I guess I am, trying to figure out what my gender is, but am I the only one wanting?”

“I-” I laughed, and she did too, before I leaned down and slowly plucked at Lug’s lips with mine. My Conjunx kissed back after I let go of those lips, and we osculated a little while longer, my spark fluttering and circuits abuzz, before I rested my head on Lug’s shoulder. “Let’s go ask him now. I owe him an apology, I think.”  

“Sure darling, I think that’s a good idea,” Lug got up, lifting me gracefully to my feet. 

I smooched Lug’s helm again. =”Hey Stratosphere, we’re done with the drive, hull is otherwise sturdy back here and supplies are low, so we’ll head back to you. There’s some things I eant to ask… about the old stories of the Knights. I think I was foolish to toss them out. Lug and our travels in exile helped me realize.”= I started walking, grabbing Lug’s hand, headed down the small ship’s main hall towards the cockpit. 

Stratosphere: =“Oh Anode, I’m so glad. I’d be happy to tell you both everything I know.”=

Reaching the end of the hallway, I slid the door open to the pilot bridge, and Lug and I stepped inside to a view of streaking bright lights of stars and planets beyond, while passing a ringed blue gas giant. In the pilot chair was Stratosphere, large, round, and green with yellow streaks, two propeller engines and wings on his back, the back of his goggled brown helm visible over his shoulders. 

I sat down in the copilot chair, and Lug nestled in my lap between my arms, as I got a good look at grandfather’s gray face decorated with wearable white brows and a beard, bright blue optics turning towards us with a grin. 

“I’m sorry,” I reached out a hand, patting his shoulder. “I… it’s hard for me, to accept that the past was more rich and full even though I didn’t get to live it, to be part of the fight you and Lug say happened. And we both realized we need to explore ourselves. Who were the Delta Knights, grandpa?” 

“Fantastic! So happy for you both, I’ll help as much as I can-” Stratosphere smile turned to a furrowed brow, and he flicked the autopilot on on the ship dashboard,while he rested a hand on my wing while digging around in his thigh compartments. “Ah right, you want the story first. I accept your apology Anode sweetie, I know it was hard for you during the Interregnum. You were so sad… but you did fight in your own way, you know. The knightly names we gave the League were to protect people who spoke them… the real names, the Delta Vocation League and it’s temporary face name, the Anti-Vocation League, were heavily censored-”

“Wait, the Anti-Vocation League led by the gladiator Crasher that pledged loyalty to Megatron’s counter-revolution?” Lug’s arms crossed. “They were leftovers from the resistance of the rise of Functionism?”

Stratosphere nodded. “Crasher was one of the knights who stayed behind, to watch over us, help out, and inform the League and prepare for their return… I met her once, she was distraught at not having heard back after the blockading of non-State extrasolar transmissions. She wanted to take up the banner of one of her old fellow trans linked friends by going into the arena, to fight in her honor…”

I clutched the fore of my helm, circuits tender. This can’t be real. Galvatron said he and his lost sister were gladiators, and that she always doubted the perpetuation of violence and assignment and empire being all that we are. The same  transformed sister who allegedly inspired him to take down ancient corrupt nobles. Crasher knew a trans Anti-Functionist who was a gladiator, and in her honor Crasher dedicated herself do or die to finishing the job of destroying the Functionist regime, at the cost of leaving us with the awful Autobots and Decepticons… 

“...but her willingness to cooperate with rapidly expanding hegemony is part of why we are here now, in the void, seeking safe haven- ah finally found the old thing,” Stratosphere pulled out a small cylindrical dataslug and plugged it into a console dashboard port, and typed away on the keyboard. “The Delta League, who formed to oppose the rise of Functionism and the abolishment of aesthetic services, rights, and knowledge archiving, was an anarchic collective of democracies with frequent leadership turnover, but there were quite a few bots turned to as nexuses of hope and transformation. This video I'm going to show you is from the start of their temporary 100,000 year liberation of Uraya 2.8 million years ago, recorded by a journalist, Cassiopeia, an old gal I once had the honor of interviewing to try to bring together the truth and spread it. I thought it might give you both hope, in these difficult times.”

A video projection started up on the short dashboard screen, of thousands of bots cheering, singing, and whispering bots, some with banners of cyan-pink infinity loops between golden hammer ends stylized after the Forge Hammer of Solus Prime. The bots varied massively across shape, my jaw dropped seeing non-cassette animal and plant formers with or without vehicle or tool or building parts, seeing car and tank bots with prominent tall stacks, and various supposedly purposeless chest and torso shapes among the lot.

“Half of these bots have shapes considered redundant today…” I gasped. “I wasn’t even allowed to see anatomy examples of a full frame. They’re so beautiful…”

“You have an optic for detail, both of you,” Stratosphere whispered. “See if you can figure out what it all means.”

I did notice several other details: this was happening in a city plaza of incredibly ancient design in old colorful simple style from the Age of the Primes in Uraya’s region 8 million years ago, some of the bots were carrying melee arms, standing alongside city symbol bearing guards, up against a small number of slur flinging Functionists and – law enforcement?

“Sweet Solus, how did a bunch of trans anarchists team up with the public and military to oust cops and aligned reactionaries?” Lug leaned forward.

“You’ll see a bit of how, I’ll share more files later and tell you as much else that I know,” Stratosphere chuckled. “Suffice to say that they weren’t just trans folks, but fighting for the aesthetic autonomy of everybody.”

At least a hundred bots made their way into the center of the plaza freely, including at the head a very large green flyer, a red and orange robust car bot, and, two back stacked car bots, one cyan with wheels and a headlighted chest and a tcog resembling audial bun crested helm, the other holding hands with the flier, lanky mostly pink, unmistakably the bot depicted in the Functionist propaganda I had found on my own depicting her as a rampaging murderer struggling with her own transformed ‘organic’ gender. She had no swords, in fact the cyan bot had hers. The pink bot was smiling, with a peaceful hopeful depth in her optics, to me.

“Wait, Arcee is real?” I hugged Lug tightly. “I thought she was just a fabrication of Functionism to give Cybertronian gals and trans people a bad time.”

“More than meets the eye is very literal with her and what people say about her story, from what I understand,” Stratosphere bowed his head. “After she speaks, I’ll tell you.” 

The Functionists reached screeching levels at the sight of the group, and to my utter surprise, Arcee laughed at them, a response that rapidly spread through the large number of  Anti-Functionist bots around. A Functionist leveled a pistol at Arcee, only for it to be promptly twisted out of his hand by a purple car bot, who then whispered to the Functionist and let him go, to promptly run away.

Tears welled in my optics, as memories bubbled in me of song and joy and proclamations on the evening of a terrible day I tried to forget. “They are nothing like Decepticons… they want peace.”

Arcee pulled out a book, and her voice boomed as if a megaphone blaring:“Denizens of Uraya and the worlds and  people listening! It is an honor to speak before you now, to bring forth words hundreds of thousands helped me write and the resistance and hope of billions more made possible! It is no accident or personal feat alone that led to an old person like me surviving, but the community and inner peace I have been so lucky to share, even when I struggled to love and accept my trans womanhood alongside and part of the links closest to me!”

She opened the book and then read while still looking at the crowd when she could: “Even now, with my bouts of doubt and chronic trauma, I see the strength of love and transformation in all of you, trans or no! Whether strength brought out in solidarity or waiting to blossom, it is part of sapient life! When I was young, the world was full of common knowledge of thousands of names for genders and aesthetics, whether of spectrums masculine, femme, agender, alt-modus, iteration, experiential, fluid, trans, launch, ascribed, pronoun, polygender, orientation, expression, xeno and more. All were embraced on equal terms in systems varying from linkage to relation, esoterism, spirituality, martial and civilian orders, our way of life! Even when other things were wrong, even when the knowledge wasn’t implemented in ways that would have helped someone like me with a male-ascribed forging, it was and still is a story that we are joined with! Whether a deeply held value of the departed Knights of Cybertron or a font of imagination for a new society today, we all try to make stories with ourselves! To have variety, regardless of language structure context, is the way of the universe and sapient life! To be simply lived, considered in passing, studied with care, celebrated, pondered, embraced with layers of irony, to realize and transform us, is what putting words and actions to ourselves does!” 

Looking on, she asked: “Let me hear your fire, your words, if you wish! Let the world hear it!”

I heard so many more pronouns and other gender and aesthetic terminology roared out in reply from the crowd than I had ever heard in my life before. Droplets poured out down my cheeks freely. 

When things largely quieted from her supporters, Arcee went on: “See? Isn’t that beautiful? Even if it’s just a few words or a feeling or unsureness, that is still lovely, because it’s you. Some today have attempted to extend the evils of hierarchy to replace this variety, whether the declared Functionists themselves or structural support by the likes of Nova Prime and complicity by fear and internalization! Form essentialism and the further rise of alt-mode discrimination that was sure to follow thinking conquest, punishment, and empire honor transformation, that they make us free. This is not freedom! It is a disavowal of our will, of a core part of what makes us think and feel, the thought, feeling, and act of context as reflection, acceptance, question, rejection, creation, expression, experimentation, and realization! As a warrior, as an artist, as a teacher, I have found more peace in being part of socioeconomic dignity and autonomy of personhood than in all the violence by my hand necessary or no! It is that sustaining with more than brutality, to have the ferocity of compassion means capacity to love and live daily life, that is the magic I try to embrace in all my pain, that is there for all of you too! On this basis, I reject Functionism, authoritarian rule, and hierarchy!”

A barrage of rockets raced down towards her group from a nearby four story building across the street, and most of the group scattered, Arcee and the big flier instead leaping upwards in an embrace on their thrusters, while fire plasma sped overhead amid a full brawl on the street between the two sides, flyers and jump pack bots crashing through windows the launch had come from. After the two bots touched back down, the green flyer was huddled over Arcee, and shortly after they began to sing, the song catching on in the crowd:

“Every actuation,

pondering the meaning before during and after,

Unending transformational context,

Yours and everyone else’s,

From any part of life!

The harmonies of ancients lost and remembered,

Cherished and reflected on,

Alongside imagination of the living old and young!

The universe is one,

The universe in that way is many,

Every actuation,

pondering the meaning before during and after,

Unending transformational context,

Yours and everyone else’s,

From any part of life!”

I squirmed out from Lug and started to run out of the bridge, holding my head in my hands trying to not hear the remembered song I had heard when I saw hundreds of bright lights of distant ships streak up across the night sky, staying in orbit while songs and speeches and declarations and mourning and dialogues played out over building comms around me:

Sometimes we need to take more time,

Sometimes we are scared,

Sometimes it doesn’t work out on our nonlinear path,

“Anode! Wait!” Lug put a hand on the side of my waist.

Sometimes we learn something new after,

I stumbled, howling, slowly crumpling to the floor.

But it’s always worth it to try to be yourself,

Lug’s arms wrapped around me, Lug’s weight at my side, helm resting by mine.

To stave off truncation,

To be curious and find love,

But often we find meaning and joy,

When in regards to aesthetic,

Or more varied in result in many other parts of life whether daily, uncommon, or rare! 

Sometimes we need to know we are not alone,

“I’m so sorry sweeetie,” Stratosphere sat down next to us. “Did you hear this song that night, when the League mostly left 2 million years ago?”

In loneliness, 

That we all have some part of us that is alone, 

Even to us, and unknown to us too.

That we cherish and embrace that,

And embrace and ease our pain and struggle with ourselves, causality, and hegemonies,

With our love and growing wisdom,

With our curiosity and immersion,

It is enough, to dream and act,

Against all hurt,

In absurd freedom!

“Anode?” Lug smooched my helm. “Take your time, you’re always beautiful to me, however much you change.”

All sapient life has more than one mode in the soul,

Most of us cybertronians are just lucky to exhibit more than one in the body,

Make both and more good ones,

Knowing that we are part of the sapient condition,

And will be here as long as there are people!

It is one of our greatest strengths,

Trans or no-

A memory similar to now arose, of me in my father’s and grandfather’s embrace that night, as I wailed, and swore to never figure out my gender, that it all had to be a lie, that such goodness I had never been part of wouldn’t abandon me.

“Why- why did they leave, why couldn’t they stay?” I wrapped my arms around Lug. “They were losing, right? What about the rest of us? Me, or someone even younger, like dearest Lug who was forged into the Functionist regime?” 

“They feared putting you and us all in danger by staying, if they were made an example of when the planetary military was fully turned against them when they were low on numbers and morale, far from their numeric and living openly peak. I don’t really ‘know’ how they got their fleet, it was an exploration fleet of old ships gathered by the Circle of Light to allegedly ‘seek the Knights of Cybertron,’ including an ancient library ship that was the last public aesthetic library, the Everbright said to be of the original Knights. I’m sure that explains itself. But they did not intend to abandon you or Lug or me or the rest.”

“Yeah, that does explain a lot,” I grumbled. 

Stratosphere ruffled his beard. “My understanding is that they were seeking to train and lead a liberation force from sympathetic folks from the other side of the galaxy: a regional power called the Plurapoliteaum. But, it’s been 2 million years, and no word from them, save the trail they left with signs to find. We charted out to Codiscin One not just to find work and mechanoid friendliness, and I’m sorry for holding back; I also wanted to go there because Codiscin is a galactic keystone in archaeology- and I thought I might be able to put together some of the possible leads that are out there with help. You two are welcome to join of course, and deep in my spark I want you to, but Anode I know you-”

“No, I want to,” I stared at his optics and smirked. “I have a strong belief in adventure for good cause, after all, that’s part of why we’re here. And if I can get answers, maybe I can lend a hand, and find more kinship on my journey.” 

“Oh thank wisdom,” Lug smooched my cheek. “I only wish my siblings had lived to be here too…” Lug quaked and shivered. “But at least I have you two. Should we share another meal together? Same ol’ energon and more stories?”

“Yeah, I can join you two once I make sure the ship can autopilot and has power prioritization in order in case anything happens. You two should rest, I have to check that we don’t have some scrap hunters trailing or intercepting,” Stratosphere handed me the dataslug. “But maybe pour over this, it has almost everything I’d have to say about the Delta League.”

3 months later.

I stirred from the patched up berth slab of worn metal, my electric recharge cycle fading through the back of me as I sat up groggily in Anode’s arms. “Wha- oh time for the shift change.”

“Yes dear,” Anode smooched my lips gently. “Can you move okay? I checked your vitals, everything seems in order.”

“Yeah, I’m all right luv,” I swiveled around, fuel tank lurching at half full, gently nudging Anode. “Get a good rest okay? I’ll keep watch, hopefully somebody finds us.” 

“Okay,” Anode laid down slowly, their engine on their back splitting in half to accommodate lying flat with their big ankles. “Be careful, love you.” They shut their optics.

“Love you too, sweet dreams,” I caressed their cheek with my hand slowly, seeing her smile, and stood up, looking over at  Stratosphere dozing before heading towards the door, picking up the metal thread journal there, and pouring through the pages on my stroll towards the pilot bridge. 

Anode’s notes say everything’s in working order, except the FTL drive, of course. 

I made it to the bridge, shutting the journal, and sat down in the piloting chair, taking hold of the liquid pink energon clear flask in a chair socket. I glugged it down, it only had the slightly sweet mostly savory steely flavor of unmodified energon. It had been years since I had had much else, but Anode making it made it sweet, and it was food. Not that we’ll have enough if something happens. 

I put the flask down, body tense. “Don’t cry, you need the energy,” I pondered their hands flipping buttons to turn a solid energon cube into liquid, poured into the flask, getting every drop for me, and the tension left my body. 

I took a look at the navigation dashboard. “Still on course for Traujor, no response to emergency hails yet. Hope those folks are okay…”

I linked the Wandering Star comms to my helm speaker phone and comms with a flick of a switch and matching my helm neutrino frequency to the ship’s, and declared on all frequencies: =”This is neutral Cybertronian refugee vessel Wandering Star, my name is Lug, my family and I are requesting aid for repairs to our FTL drive and sustenance resupply to continue our journey to a safe haven. Repeat, this is neutral Cybertronian refugee vessel Wandering Star, my name is Lug, my family and I are requesting aid for repairs to our FTL drive and sustenance resupply to continue our journey to a safe haven.”=

After that I had the ship play the recording of those same words I had said three weeks before, on a loop, and got up to head to the rear of the ship to check the main thrusters still making full burn. 

Once I got there, I took a look at the energon thruster drive. At a cursory glance it seemed fine. I opened up my chest storage and dug out a multispectral scanner, small, squarish, and rugged. I plugged its cable into the side of my hip, the scanning info feeding into my circuits to my brain module. I started walking around the drive, scanning it slowly.

“Intakes look okay… energon fusion reactor intact… main thrusters look okay… guiding thrusters - “ I started to check each fuel line to the thrusters of one half of the ship and then the other, walking the length of the hull interior and back. All lines were intact. 

I holstered the scanner magnetically on my hip and flipped through Anode’s ship log, noting current test passes, and that I was going to test the thrusters from the bridge. I strolled there, say down, and pulled the joystick to do a leftwards barrel roll. 

The ship didn’t turn, continuing straight ahead.

“Oh no,” I quickly grabbed my scanner to look at the wiring from the joystick to the thrusters - 

they were crumbling with rust, starting to spread through the front part of the hull I was sitting in.

“SCRAP!” I hit the emergency hull disconnect button on the dashboard. 

=”Time to partition pilot bridge?”= The ship computer queried through comms as I picked up the energon flask. 

I started to run to the door =”10 seconds, code Solus,”= and made it across by the time the ship countdown reached 7.

=”6…”=

I closed the door, engaged all the locks, and pulled the switch to heat up the outer forward armor of the hall section. 

=”5…”=

I ran to the berth room. “We’ve got rust! Wake up!”

=”4…”= 

“Wha… Stratosphere stirred and pushed himself up. “What section?”

Anode sprung to her feet.

=”3…”=

“The bridge! About to be severed.” I stepped away from the berth door.

=”2..”= 

Stratosphere sprinted out towards the storage room across from the berth room. “Aux steer’n still broken yeah?”

=”1…”=

“Yeah, we could hotwire you or me  in though with a finger or neural cluster. Probably you since I’m the only doc on board.” Anode headed after him.

=”0, separating.”=

 A large clunk sounded through the hull, and creaking. Stratosphere sat in the auxiliary pilot chair while Anode scrambled to grab wires from a nearby box.

“You got this dearie,” Stratosphere smiled. “Finger will do, we’ll steer away from the rust easy.”

I sat on the floor next to him, looking on as Anode crouched and pried the piloting wire access panel open, and fused the spare wires on with a small welder from a hip compartment. Then she brought the wires up to her grandfather’s forefinger.

“Sorry about this.”

“Do it.” 

I turned away, enamored and terrified, hearing the welder tool screech and Stratosphere grunt. 

A moment later, there was a soft thunk from the front of the ship. I peeked to look at the video feeds on the auxiliary displays, and saw that the separated front hull was gone, while Stratosphere’s jaw shivered and jammed. 

“Any ru- st?” He gritted his teeth, finger still sizzling while Anode hugged him, optics teary, like mine coursing with worry. 

“I’ll go look,” I went back into the hull, and scanned the front of the ship, and did the same everywhere else walking through the rest. =”None, we’re clear”= I said from the engine room.

=”Thank the stars,”= Anode sighed.

Stratosphere: =”Guess no point in shif- ts now, too much to take care of.”=

I walked back to the storage room, all of us quiet, myself contemplating the meaning. While I pondered scanning and drives, and then smirked, putting an Anode level desperate plan together. 

“We won’t have too long then. Which gives me a really bad idea,” I strolled over and put an arm around Anode, and one hand on Stratosphere’s arm.

“You sound like Anode, suits you,” Stratosphere smiled. “Go - go on.”

“We should blow up our reactor in a galactic S.O.S. pattern.” 

“WHAT- why would- wait!” Anode twirled around, and picked me up in a tight hug that made my waist ridge plating’s circuits pulse as they smooched my helm. “You darespirit genius! The heat signature would be big enough to be picked up across the star cluster!” she nuzzled her cheek with mine. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” I nuzzled back. 

“You two are so cute, good thing we don’t need the sublight drive to keep our speed, blessed lack of gravity. P - ut on a good show.” Stratosphere smiled at me.

“We will,” I smiled back. 

Anode put me down, and raced out the door and right towards the engine room.

“Anode, wait!” I sprinted in pursuit. “We haven’t talked about how we’re going to do this!”

“I can handle it, not too different from our own engines and fuel tanks!” Anode chuckled, pulling out tools and in the engine room. “All I have to do is get it to belch in sequence before exploding!

“How are we going to get it outside??” I clasped my helm with both hands. “Gods, when you’re like this-”

“You love me for it even though you hate the moment. I can tone down,” Anode smirked. “Can you find me a simple tablet to run a hotwired pattern countdown? What I think we should do is section off the rear of the ship, since we won’t have a primary drive anyway.”

“Yeah I got one to spare, the old one I nabbed at the market last year,” I opened up my chest and pulled out the simple gray plastic cased device, and cradled it for a moment. “Thank you for letting me read my book files on the go, dear old thing.” 

I handed it to Anode, who took it in hand gently, putting their hand on mine for a moment.

“Thank you, both of you, we’ll get you another spare,” she sat down by the drive, hotwired the tablet to it, and started typing. I sat with them. 

When she was done, she set a countdown for separation by voice command, and we both walked out of the engine room, and shut the door behind us, and watched it separate a minute later, pushing on guiding thrusters in the opposite direction of our ship hurtling on previously gained velocity.

Then far in the distance, a speck to my optic, it exploded several times sharply and for long periods in succession in bright pink blooms.

We walked over to sit with Stratosphere, and waited. And waited, only twenty minutes or so until voice comms came on through the dashboard: =”This is Constellation Rescue Ship 274, we detected your innovative S.O.S. signal, en route now and picking up your distress calls-”=

The three of us cheered, hugging each other.

=”You need a new engine room and piloting bridge and sustenance and spare parts right? Anything else? Can we transport you somewhere? Traujor’s comms and astronomy network is currently down from some sort of sabotage, that’s why they didn't notice you.”=

=“Hi! Thank you so much! I hope they’ll be okay,”= I replied. =“We need transport to Codiscin One.”=

=“Certainly, and we can talk about what you can expect from there. We don’t have energon… but that world has some access to it.”=

Anode nuzzled up on me, so softly: =“Thank you so much. We’ll try to fire our back-up forward thrusters to slow down. You tracking our location?”=

=“Yeah, we’re 4 hours out. My name is Captain Risalka Tullumel, she/eir, see you all soon.”= 

“We’ll get these wires off soon,” Anode got up and smooched Stratosphere’s cheek before sitting back down with me. “Thank you for everything, grandfather knight.”

Stratosphere grinned with a chuckle. “Good, good, good job both of you,” he patted Anode’s helm and then mine. “And of course, tried to give you a place of your choosing in the world best I can.”

“Now we wait…” I shut my optics, and leaned on Anode’s chest.

4 hours later.

A blocky orange-green tug spaceship came into view out of a brief bright blue jump wake on the dorsal dashboard video feed, docking clamps on the ship’s bow, and matched our slow speed above us, a ventral hangar opening above our ship.

=“Can you park inside our ship?”=

=“Yeah- plenty o’ experience, no problem”= Stratosphere winced, and our ship started to ascend into the tug’s hangar, slowly.

“Easy grandpa, you got this,” I murmured.

We pulled into the hangar and made a full deceleration while an internal docking clamp grasped the remaining central half of our tiny ship, and a boarding tube extended to our port side door. My spark burgeoned warmly, and the exhaustion of the last few months eased a little, a soothing sense in my dysphoric frame.

Lug got up to go meet the tug crew, and I stood to look at the hotwiring I had done to Stratosphere’s finger again. Could have taken it off, but grandpa’s circuits are old… “Why’d you pass your upgrade allotments to me old man? You know I had enough when I was a blacksmith for a while…” I met his optics, sighing, holding his wired hand, already knowing some of what he was going to say but having to ask anyway. “We’re both so stubborn…”

“Anode sweetie, I want to make sure you had everything you needed for all the risks you took for those kids you whisked to relative safety, you know that. Plus when your father died… didn’t want to lose you too.” Stratosphere’s wings flapped gently.

The hazy image of my rotund flyer father embracing me in the curvier shape I was contemplating sprang to mind.

“Stratosphere…” I nodded. “I miss Dirig too, do you think he would understand me?”

“Yeah, he’d be proud of you,” Stratosphere ruffled his heirloom mustache, and took it off, turning its wavy strand shape over in his hand. “He was never big on masculinity, you know. I wonder about him.”

Charge surged through my frame as I rapidly processed Stratosphere’s multiple implications; “And you-” my optics widened-

Lug came through the door with two mechanoid folk and three sleekly spacesuited organics, all carrying engineering tools and supplies with them. 

Lug gestured their hand towards me: “Hey - Anode if you could show them what to do-”

“Right,” I waved at the tug crew. “Hey what we need is to cut the wires from the wires from the ship-side and then surgically remove the wires from Stratosphere’s fingers and seal them. Can you all do that?”

“Sure thing,” the tall curvy teal reptile with a metal arm stepped over, pulling a pair of medical-grade sharp cutters out of a tool belt on their spacesuit. “I got this, Ziphul and Blazestone, can you handle the ship end of the wires?”

“Yeah,” the hairy leafy one gave a tightened fist, and then head headed over with the four wheel footed bot to the access panel.

The one with the cutters strode over to me, took the lightest of firm holds on the wires fused to grandpa’s forefinger, and then looked at me with their snouted scaly face. “Anode sweetie, where do I cut? At the base? Taking the smelt off too?”

“Y-yeah,” I recognized the voice, and my frame pulsed, taking in her towering glory. “Risalka where you should cut is at the base, yes, grandpa will heal the rest, faster with some sealing." 

Eir’s yellow-black eyes found mine with a nod. “Got it, will do. You two ready?” She moved her cutters next to the wires, blades over and under.

“Yeah, ready when you are,” the wheeler bot nodded from the access panel.

“Stratosphere, you ready?” Risalka asked.

“Pleasure to meet you captain, and yeah, I’m ready.” I put a hand on Stratosphere’s unwired one, Lug did too.

“All right… on three,” I counted down. “3… 2… 1… cut!”

I heard the snips and plops of cutting and sealing wires, saw Stratosphere bristle, and then Risalka cut, and the wires and fused metal came off grandpa’s finger.

Stratosphere grunted, held my hand tightly, and sighed as Risalka patched his forefinger with a metal cover.

“There we go, you doin’ okay?” Risalka’s nostrils flared.

“I’ll be okay, thank you captain, my circuits feel all right,” he up at em. “Am pretty hungry though, so if you have convertible fuel…” 

“Yeah, we have some rudimentary capacity to do that, we can get you all some, and Codiscin’s got a shipyard we can help procure new parts from.”

“Thank you so much,” I stepped over and hugged Risalka, feeling all warm and soft. “Really means a lot.”

“Aw of course, it’s what we do,” Risalka hugged me back. “We’ll show you the place and we can talk about your travel plans if you have any pertinent files-”

“We all keep charts on us, you got that dataslug?” Lug asked.

“I do…” I met Stratosphere’s optics, thinking about his sensory discomfort, pondering my own dysphoria and sensory medical difficulties, loneliness, grief, and hope of another bot. “Do you know anything about the Delta League?”

All the tug crew members looked down, and Risalka shut her eyes before looking at me. “Yeah, standard in our own org to learn about the pro-gender liberation Cybertron refugees scattered by a particularly aggressive Galactic Council a million years ago. My ancestors helped people fleeing to escape, and we do have some contact with a haven where you’re going, but otherwise- they’re scattered to the wind for safety.”

I slumped. “So they’ve been through hell too…”

The wheeled robot rolled over and put a hand on my shoulder. “We all have. Outside the Plurapolitaeum now locked down by the Existential Cold War with the Council, most of us mechanoids and cyborgs live in the shadow of the Galactic Council’s consolidation and the general rise of mechanophobia. But we still have hope- and to us, the Delta League’s persistence that many of us aid when we can is a rallying cry to keep on, that love and life are worthwhile. Name’s Blazestone, she/he.”

“That makes me glad, Blazestone,” I bumped my helm softly on her computer screen head, he chortled. “We’ll find a way.”

“I suspected they’d be scattered, glad to know I wasn’t totally wrong about the direction we were headed,” Stratosphere stood, stretching his fingers on his formerly hotwired hand. “Let’s eat and celebrate what we have, shall we? And catch up. We are sure you all will want to know about the awful war spiraling out from Cybertron…”

“Ah, Cybertron’s internal wrath is contained no longer…” Ziphul’s leaves curled. “Yes, we would like to know, and I for one would like to celebrate that things need not be that way!”

Among our lovely heartfelt meal of alloys and rudimentarily energon converted hydrogen fuel that was briney and light in taste while the crew feasted on organic foods and electricity, I found myself sitting next to Risalka and Lug in the small mes hall, listening to her the and the rest of the crew’s stories. I also found myself gazing briefly at Risalka’s metal arms of beautifully ornate robust rounded design, and her torso plated in ridged curvy armor, until the curiosity and relation I felt compelled me to ask.

“Risalka, if I may-” I asked after chugging down my last drink. “How did you decide on your gender stuff? You mentioned being a gal.”

“Hmm, well…” she stuck her large tongue out to lick her mouth, before eyeing me. “It took going into the stars and meeting Catharsians to understand. The way they could so easily configure their bodies across a vast variety of forms, the hard solid feel of most of their frames… …it connected with me, reminded me of armored gal-loving women of my people’s history… and because I wanted to be more robotic on the outside myself. I actually got help from a Cybertronian surgeon, Minerva… of the members of the Delta League. Such a sweet gal…”

I sighed, clutching my waist all the dysphoria in my frame roaring through me, having a better image of the sloped curvy shape I wanted and the biplane mode I wanted it to encompass-

“Well stars,” Lug blurted. “That resonates with me in an inverse way. Always liked what few stories of gals I could find digging through the history and fiction of my own species even before I grasped the idea. I think I want to - because of the sound and written word- use she/her.”

Soft cheers and congratulations arose from the two dozen crew, and Stratosphere had a big audial to audial expression on his face. “That’s so awesome, granddaughter-in-vow.”

I put my hands over my spark, as it practically sang to my circuits and frame with realized want. “I think I will too, and I’d like to meet that surgeon if they’re alive.”

“She is, last I heard,” Risalka smiled. “Very happy for you Anode, and Lug, please feel free to talk with us about your journeys and ask us things, and I can try to provide texts. Regarding Minerva… she and her haven set themselves up where we’re going, so they could keep watch on Cybertron in case your homeworld’s reactionary politics took up the sword against other worlds, which now seems to be the case… so I think they’d be hoping to help you more than ever.”

“What of the mechanoid majority world on the other side of the sector, Lithone?” Stratosphere asked. “I’m a little surprised they wouldn’t use the resources out there.”

“Lithone…” Ziphul sighed. “My home once… its long been the de facto colony for illicit business and black ops operations of the Galactic Council, in return for them not expelling us to take our resources, and getting to use us for propaganda about mechanoids being immoral- covering up their own atrocities. Dangerous place, but Cybertronians have operated out there for years, a bit of a rogue’s den, easy to get odd jobs.” 

“Well, I’ll have to keep that in mind after connecting with the Delta League,” I smiled. “Always fancied myself a bit of a rogue.”

A day later, Codis City, Codiscin One.

“Wow…” I stepped out of the boarding tube in the small reddish pillared open air spaceport with this moss and flowered plains beyond surrounding the low-roofed colorfully painted town with a massive tall crane armed shipyard hanging over the horizon.. “This planet is so lovely. I grabbed Anode’s hand.

=“Yeah, we must stick out like a sore thumb here with how few people there are. Managed to contact Minerva, Risalka?”= Anode commed.

“I did!” Risalka walked up to us, head frills flapping, alongside Stratosphere, Blazestone, and Ziphul. “Our rendezvous is in the hills, near the shipyard her group got night shift work in.”

“Mind taking us there?”

“Sure,” Stratosphere rolled into his big rotor cargo plane alt mode, and opened his rear bay doors. “Hop on in.”

We made our way inside, Risalka headed to the cockpit while the rest of us sat on our near metal benches. Anode and I curled up on the floor.

I leaned my head on her and hummed, “So happy the you will have a new body, dear wife.”

She chuckled and clasped my cheeks in her hands, and smooched my lips once. “Same to you love for your new understanding as you are.”

Stratosphere’s engines rumbled after his doors shut, and Anode I dozed our way through a short rickety ride.

Forty minutes later.

Stepping out of grandpa’s cargo bay and around his hull, we were greeted by eight waving bots, a simple rusty overgrown airfield and hangar bay behind them.

Lug and I waved back, and I took in the sight of the lot briefly: a short gold-white winged bot with a hololight face, a big orange red crab bot, a tall green flyer, a shorter red and gray one, a svelte beige and blue motorcycle bot, a cyan and teal blocky rounded and audial-bunned backstacked car bot, a curvy winged wheeler red one, and a robust red and white shoulder stacked bot stepping towards me.

“Hello friends, new and old!” The shoulder stacked bot put out palms in front of me to clasp, wheels whirring, cyan biolights on their pelvis and forearms bright. “My name’s Minerva, she/her, local engineer and aesthetic affirmation specialist for organics and inorganics alike. These folks are part of my family. You three who are new to us, what are your names?”

I paused, and found a want soar in me to have a sloping shape as some of the bots here had.

“I’m Lug, she/her,” Lug clasped Minerva’s hands. “We’re neutral refugees from Cybertron’s newest war. I’m a field geologist, good in a scrap. Over here is my Conjunx, Anode, she/her as well, and Stratosphere, he/him, her grandfather-”

“We’re far away enough from Cybertonian androcentrism for me to correct you, dear Lug,” Stratosphere knelt, drawing a glyph engraved violet sword hilt I had never seen out of the folds of his back armor, and ignited it, lighting up the gathering with orange light. “I am a historian, and yes I am Anode’s grandfather, and her grandmother, grandparent, and grandplanar too, for I have embraced the ways of old to contextualize my linked gender self. Codexa, I believe you know this sword-”

What?! He had that all this time?! Wouldn’t have gone for much on the non-Cybertornian market but at least we’d have more energon… but then he didn’t think we’d end up close to dying…

The green flyer and winged car bot stared jaws dropped, and the flyer knelt, tearing up. “Yes! Yes I know this blade! Rivetsong’s legendary sword, the Sensory Ferocity, how could I not know? Where did you find it?”

Who is Rivetsong…

“I snuck into Crystal City’s ruins before Omega Supreme plunged the place underground. Went into Nova’s government palace, found it stashed in an ununtrium safe that took me a million years to crack-”

Oh that. At least he sold that.

“Had to fly it here.”

“That bloody diode ache keeping a taganian and taganite relic from the people. Probably more intergenerational severance and being petty,” the shorter red flyer hugged Codexa.

“What’s a taganite, as different from a taganian? Just want to know because um, we were close to going hungry a while ago while having this treasure,” I looked over at Stratosphere, who turned off the blade. “Not judging, I just don’t get it.”

“In another life Anode,” Codexa looked up at me. “You would have known the word, and might even use it yourself. Rivetsong was an ancient taganian metallurgist when she and I were both young, who made abstract art to honor her lovers on gal and mostly non-guy spectrums. They got so famous the term taganite was coined for bots like us. This one… this one was made for me, I wielded it during the First Cybertronian Civil War, dueled and drove away Megatronus from Cybertron, but I lost it in the bombardment during his flagship’s retreat.” Tears started to “If only Arcee would get over herself for a while and visit so she could see this…”

“I know sweetie, I know, wish Dropkick was here too-” one of the red flyer’s wings embraced Codexa’s own.

I stared and pointed, “wait so- you’re taganites-” I pointed at myself. “And Lug and I are too…” and I remembered the pink warrior revolutionary they named who looked so much like the teal-cyan bot nearby holding Minerva’s hand, but lankier and without wheels. “...and Arcee is too?”

“Might as well be synonymous, made a whole thing out of it as a battlefield declaration at Uraya all those years ago,” the shorter flyer’s chuckled, crimson optics bright. “Not that the rest of us are far off.”

Everyone from the group laughed with an absurd smiling cacophony, it was moving to my circuits and sweet in my thoughts, I cackled too, so did the rest of us.

“May I hold it-” Codexa reached out.

“Please keep it,” Stratosphere handed it over to her. “So close and so far, the three of you…?”

I sat down, feeling sky-rocketingly dizzy and bemused. “I um… I guess the reality that men aren’t the main part or shaping of our world actually is only hitting me now.”

Lug nestled on me and kissed my cheek. “I guess not, it’s true.”

“Proud of you dearies, truly, glad we can be honest with each other now.” Stratosphere scooted over to me.

Lug’s optics grinned at me, “Sweet how you found your way out of that and to sharing a freer journey with me.”

“Yeah,” something fiery lit in my spark thinking of these bots and organics around, and Arcee, and more who I had glimpsed or only heard of who had fought for our liberation and retreated. What I could barely grasp before my mind now rushed through, taking it all in- the transformations of the cosmos, from the Big Bang to my surgery to be, dust to dust, love to love, a newly found self, someone would help shape that on my own terms that Arcee had sought literally. Had sought to be reforged by her own processes over again-

“Wait a minute…” I unfolded my palms to show blacksmith energon projectors. “Arcee literally sought to protoform a second time right? What if the sensory mayhem is partially unfinished forging? I could help with that, after I  have my own reforging surgery, if you could do that, Minerva.”

Everyone went quiet, leaving only the sounds of chirping creatures and the wind among us.

Minerva crouched down in front of me. A wide opticed smile on her face. She extended hands again. “Anode, that’s brilliant. There’s no literature on this, but I think it could be done. I always do everything I can for folks, but Anode, if there is anything else-”

“Teach me to fight. To scout, to strategize, make war and peace as you did. The Great War is going to catch up with us sooner or later, and the Galactic Council sounds terrible too. I want to be ready, building on my knowledge of boxing.” I held her hands in mine.

“Now there’s a reluctant warrior,” the crab bot chuckled and clacked their forearm claws. “Means you’ll be one of the best.”

“I will gladly teach you, we all will, fellow realized sister of mine.” Minerva gave my hands a squeeze, and I cried laughing with joy flying through every bit of me. 

Chapter Text

Two months later, Codis City, Codiscin One.

Minerva looked over my drawing and schematics in her hand in a tablet, comparing with the anatomy data on her computer screen showing my current frame. “This is lovely, love all the compartments, the skirts, the goggles, the fold-up ankle wings, and the crest tail.”

“Hehe, I was inspired by organics I’ve met and looking at your pre-Golden Age archives. It felt right.”

“I’m so glad,” Minerva hummed. “I can do this for you. Just need some shaping metal along with giving your TCOG the data.”

“Wonderful,” I clasped Lug’s hand in mine, and she leaned on me, lighting me up softly just like the soft lighting of Minerva’s little office. “Can she and Stratosphere be there for it?”

“Of course!” Minerva nodded. “Waiting or watching is fine. Having other people around to support you is best.”

“Good,” Lug gave my hand a squeeze. “When should we have the reforging surgery?”

“Well, I was able to haggle with the shipyard for alloys to make spare cybermetal, so we could start today!” Minerva smirked. “I can do this afternoon, if you need time, otherwise I’m free thus morning -”

“Now would be good,” I grinned, circuits pulsing.

One hour later.

Standing next to Minerva and Stratosphere, I held Anode’s hand in a brightly lit medical bay, gazing at her as she rested along the surgical berth grooved for her shape and for space her back would need. Anode had a single cable running up to the back of her neck from the embedded terminal, and she was smiling at me.

“I love you,” she blew me a kiss with a hand. “I love you so much. Thank you for being here for me, both of you.”

“Of course, you’d do the same for me, and did regarding my gender and pronouns.” I leaned down and smooched her lips. “You ready?”

“Yes I am,” Anode looked up at Minerva. “Go ahead and get me slumbering.”

“Will do,” Minerva flicked a switch in the blocky terminal. “Think about something that makes you happy and cozy.”

“My family…” Anode grinned at Stratosphere and I, optics flickering and then shut.

“Oh, I think I need to sit, she’s so beautiful, that spark of hers, I’m so proud of you both,” Stratosphere sat down in a chair, teary. “Thank you again Minerva.”

“Happy to, and I know what you mean, that’s how my mentors felt too,” Minerva put a hand over her spark. “Okay, you two, Lug,” she smirked at me. "I’m going to start taking some of Anode’s plating off, also resphape through her TCog, and replace whatever we can’t reformat from just her cog or shape directly. You two going to be able to watch that?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Stratosphere nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” my spark soared inside me, my circuits and mind aglow with joy.

“Good,” Minerva picked up a laser cutter from her shoulder stack and walked over to Anode’s left side, and then cut a long square around the side of her waist. Then she took the severed plate out gingerly. She stuck her fingers into the jumble of fuel lines and what few metal organs that were around Anode’s fuel tank, including her grooved golden round TCog. Minerva took hold of Anode there, and used her free hand to plug into the TCog with a cable from the tablet on her hip. She took her hands out after, wiped what little pink blood had come out with a metal sheet, and picked up her tablet. 

I stood in awe, spark pulsing rapidly, taking in every detail. “She’s so lovely…”

“Okay Anode sweetie,  let’s see how close to lanky curvy biplane I can get you without more tools.” She typed slowly, and “In autonomy and agency’s love, please…” She pressed on the tablet again, and the metal of Anode’s frame softened and shifted, metal masses of more moving from her waist and from her cheeks to a lesser degree to her chest and her hips and now more rounded thighs. The ankles stayed the same size though, and her chest was more curved, but not sloped in an angular fashion as Anode wanted. 

“Okay, looks like I have to do some by hand shaping,” Minerva put the tablet back on her own hip. Minerva picked up a cybermatter hose and a gunlike energon projector grasper from the table, and turned the grasper on, extending an energon field of bright blue around Anode’s chest pulling and pushing there to bring out a more sharp shape, and carving out the side biolights into compartments with a finesse visible in Minerva’s steely intent optics lit with fiery dedication. I almost thought I could see her spark glowing through there and her slight smile.

It was then I noticed how curvy especially out to the hips Anode’s waist was. I stared, watching as Minerva dragging living metal out of Anode’s now large thighs, making them narrower, to shape engines armor half circle skirts on thigh armlets, laboring slowly to have identical to the optic shape with three external compartments each, and perhaps more than my untrained in medicine sight could spot, perhaps not. Anode’s green and gray started to flow into them as Minerva moved on to the ankles.

“You do gorgeous work, I’m amazed…” I put my hands together while Anode’s back wings shortened. “How old is this technique?”

“Shaped reformatting, rather than reforging with more parts, is something the archaeological record suggests is from 8.5 million years ago by the Disciples of Adaptus. When the historic gap between their era and the Dark Age happened, the technique survived across multiple regions of Cybertron.” Minerva pushed a button on her tablet, and Anode’s ankles unfolded into large beautifully blocky beige wings. “Most of my friends have helped with at least one. Lug, would you like to give her her helm tail?” 

“I…” I grinned. “Show me what to do. I don’t want to mess up. I never imagined my geology studies being handy for this,” I laughed, and Minerva and Stratosphere did too. 

One more hour later.

I woke up with a dull pain all over my body, and a sleepy perception. The first thing I noticed was my sloped chest, with softly lit yellow-green side compartments. I blearily tried to pay attention to my cycling circuits, and raised my arm to see my big rounded forearm- everything felt right. 

“Oh my gods…” tears trickled down to the sides of my grin, and I slowly sat up, seeing Lug, Stratosphere, and Minerva smiling at me.

“Hi beautiful, Lug put her arms around me and smooched a kiss on each of my helm guards, then once on my lips. “How do you feel?”

“Deeply soaringly euphoric,” I kissed her lips back.

“I’m so proud of you, granddaughter, and thank you Minerva and Lug-,” Stratosphere sniffed. “You’ve blessed our family, helping with Anode’s happiness.”

“Aww, thank you,” Minerva embraced him and me. “It’s an honor. When you’re up for it Anode, I’ll teach you reformat stuff to draw on to help Arcee, I won’t share her health data though until she agrees.” 

“That’s fair, “ I smiled. “I think she’d appreciate that.”

Two years later.

“Oh wow Rampage, I love what you did with the ship,” I  looked at the Wandering Star’s berth room, with proper recharge slabs, a small storage rack. “Really made this short flight shuttle more homelike.”

“Aw thanks, happy to, I pulled in some favors with the recycle yard,” he chuckled. “Got some old point defense guns too, so you’ll be able to fend off smaller threats and missiles.”

“Ooo, hopefully we won’t have to use them against anything other than space rocks,” Anode patted his back. “Thank you, will make daring escapes easier.”

“Dear,” I smirked. “Are we planning on escapes?”

Anode giggled. “If we’re hanging out with Arcee it’s a given.”

Editor, Codexa, Shatter, Trans-Mutate, Lifeline, Road Rage, Minerva, Stratosphere, and Road Rage cackled, and Rampage put an arm around Anode, side mandibles and mouth chuckling. “I like you, rebel spirit. Arcee will too.”

“I sent her a message, speaking of her,” Trans-Mutate crossed their arms. “She replied the whole thing terrifies her but she’ll hear what you have to say.”

“Good,” my frame cycled warmly as I thought of meeting the old warrior who had defied all attempts to squash us that came her way. I had never forgotten the ferocity and sweetness on her face and actions, the fire- she’s rather like Anode in some ways… I- hm. “Anode will do her best. Suppose we should go. Where are we meeting her?”

“Outside Lithone’s capital, where need for rogues abounds and are sought from around the galaxy,” Trans-Mutate smirked. “The closest thing Arcee has to home right now.”

Six months later, in quant space near Lithone.

I looked out the bridge window as we jumped out of quant space over Lithone. I took it all in, the view of the massive rocky mountains and canyons, largely covered in cities, with hundreds of ships smaller than ours or gigantic in comparison coming and going. Stratosphere and Lug gazed on too.

=“Wowee,”= I commed patched into the ship, to Trans-Mutate and Road Rage’s ancient sleek fighter-freighter. =“You two been here before?”= I noticed some parts of the planet were carved out deeply, with what I thought were cities instead more resembling oversized mining complexes.

Road Rage: =“A few times, when the economy’s bad and we desperately need a job. I would like to do something about how the place is, but we don’t have the resources to make it more free of the Council.”=

=“If Arcee wanted to get away from Cybertron, why would she come here? This place is suffering too,”= I frowned in my seat, and Lug rested her head on my shoulder.

=“There’s always someone to help, and the violence isn’t inured in a Functionist setting,”= Trans-Mutate chimed in while Stratosphere chatted with planetary flight control. =“And it’s a nexus for looking for leads on medical help for mechanoids.”=

=“I hope she’s found something to get by,”= Lug squeezed my wing.

Trans-Mutate: =“Based on what she told me, I’m sure.”=

When we landed and disembarked in the small airfield of a scrapyard hill that was scarcely built on with a rounded one story hall to one side, I spotted a lanky backstacked bot in deep blue with secondary colors of black with pink with copper trim, leaning on a hangar wall, arms crossed.

“Hi, let’s go somewhere a little more private, follow me,” Arcee somersaulted forwards into her hovercar mode. 

Stars she’s flexible, I dove forward, Lug leaping on me as I flipped around and stretched my legs over my back wings and took off, hovering above Arcee, myself humming happily thinking of her tenacity, Lug stowed away in my cargo bay in backpack form. Stratosphere, Trans-Mutate, and Road Rage, Minerva, and Lifeline caught up in airplane, motorcycle, and car modes, Arcee’s four friends tentatively booping Arcee with a front wheel each on her bow. 

She nuzzled them briefly in turn from side to side before heading off to the next scrapyard hill with no buildings on it, and we followed, stopping behind her when she drove onto the largest scrap piece, a wing of an ancient craft, and unfolded to sit on it, looking at the massive city beyond that breached the starlit clouds with its height and the horizon with thousands of towers, complexes, and stone parks. 

I parked next to her, and after Lug got off, I sat into my bot mode, legs over the edge, and looked at Arcee’s smiling face between her helm guards and crest, yellow optics soft, fangs slightly visible. 

“It’s beautiful isn’t it? A big forest trying to survive, still searching for shape with all its creatures,” She looked at me as Lug sat between us. “You must be Anode and Lug. My congratulations to both of you.”

“Yeah, it’s an honor,” I stuck out a clasping hand, my body shining with charge taking in the tactile intensity of her persona in her frame, the sense of her sensory vivacity in every movement and stillness.”And the forest is as beautiful as you, arcane and everyday, adoring and daringly ardent.”

Lug smirked at me with a lopsided grin. 

Arcee cackled as if revving in song, “Well, you hardly know me.” She clasped my hand, and Lug’s.

“I spent most of my life thinking you were made up by Functionists,” I smiled. “Then we saw a recording of your speech for liberation, love, and peace in Uraya, we’ve read historical files, we’ve heard of you from your family, you’re - you’re a good person. You give me hope, but even if not -” I squeezed her hand, watching her optics widen, “I want to help you heal.”

“And I’ll help make sure you two are okay,” Lug patted Arcee’s back stack briefly and slowly.

“You two are so kind, we’ll revisit this,” Arcee squeezed our hands back and then let go, and got up to hug her pals, clasp hands with Stratosphere, and chatting with them.

I felt giddy, head in a warm rush, my hand so sensitive and remembering, craving, Arcee’s gently firm touch.

“Um, Anode,” Lug put her hand over mine, making me murmur, her optics still smiling. “You flirt, you already have feelings for her-”

“Don’t you?” I booped her nose with a finger. “I think the sort of hope she gave me even when I only knew her as a hurtful myth is radiating through every bit of me now that I’ve met her.”

“That’s fair,” Lug chuckled. “Yeah I think I do too.”

“Good, we’ll just have to see because the whole medical bit-”

“Hey you two, you should join us!” Minerva waved. “We need to talk about what you can offer and the living here thing.”

“Sure thing,” Lug got up and I followed, joining the circle.

“So,” Arcee crossed her arms again. “You want to use blacksmithing techniques to heal my sensory mayhem. While I’m conscious so I can shape myself. I don’t think I’m ready. I need to get to know you, trust you. I want to work together to help people, and to share energon. I actually have a job to act on soon, that would be a good chance to test our combined metal.”

I want to combine my metal with yours and Lug’s… Anode get a grip , I nodded vigorously to shake off my fervent desire. “I’m fine with that. And you, Lug & Stratosphere?”

“Fine by me, as long as we are discussing ethical boundaries,” Lug put her arm around me. “We want to make you feel better, not cycle through more trauma.”

“I will gladly join your quest, sweet knight,” Stratosphere put his left hand over his spark. “And where these two go, I go.”

“As long as you all know I don’t know when I’ll be ready, sounds good to me, and no I don’t torture people, so nothing to worry about. You know my ideals,” Arcee returned the salute, smiling at Lug.

“Good,” Lug put her own hand over her spark. “Not too different from us.”

“Arcee - Lifeline or I can stay-” Minerva reached out to her.

“No, you and our friends who remained with you shouldn’t be split like that, and being around all of you will lead to me making bad decisions again, I’m not ready.” Arcee’s face hung loose with a sadness that made my spark plummet in my spark chamber, ready to cry its own tears.

“Arcee, please-” Road Rage sighed.

“No, it’s what she wants, it's what she can do. It’s okay. I trust Anode, Lug, and Stratosphere.” Lifeline hugged Arcee close. “She’ll be ready when she’s ready, and has three good people to look after her.”

“That is true,” Minerva bowed her head. “We will always be around if you need anything. Can we help them move in at least?”

“Oh, I stay on my ship, parked near where you all did, so that’s sorted. Never put down roots here, and it’s cheaper. BUt if you could-” Arcee trembled. “Stay the night? Maybe adventure with us on this next op?”

“I’d like that,” Minerva hugged Arcee with glee, and smooched her cheek.

How pretty- I couldn’t help thinking of Lug and I doing the same, and I joined the embrace. Arcee and Minerva hugged me back as the rest joined.

Arcee signed chirolinguistically with electric touches and strokes with her hand on my wing: “You’re so gentle and unassuming. That’s a good sign. I look forward to our time together, Anode. Your Conjunx is very sweet too…”

I tried not to yelp with joy from the sensation and smirked back at her while tracing charge on her backstack. “I’m glad. You’ll show me the way. That is how blacksmithing is supposed to work, and a two way street for closeness and care.”

Authorial aside: and now for a comic adaptation of part of this chapter in the works for a while by @thenamesblurrito (tumblr), specifically of the text above regarding Anode, Lug, and Arcee meeting up close for the first time, the post for which you can find here on their tumblr or ours:

Chapter Text

One day later, aboard the Claymore. 

“So, how’d you get this ship?” I leaned over Arcee’s pilot chair. “It looks new, but a lot of the hull is ancient.”

She looked up at me, optics briefly passing over my slowly flapping wings, and then smirked. “Oh, xey’re about as old as me, a gunship from the library ship Everbright I left on. I’ve modified xem over  the years for upgrades and repairs- xey’ve been through a lot.”

“Personifying a ship with pronouns you want? Very clever,” I booped her nose. “I’ll affirm xem in all xeir glory.”

She stared for a moment and then laughed. “You are such an endearing mechlin of joy.” She reached up and booped me back. “Yes, I like those pronouns a lot…”

I noticed Trans-Mutate, Road Rage, Minerva, and Lifeline in conversation about the upcoming quest, pretending not to notice us but peering at our interactions with smiles. They want this to happen, it would seem. Hm.

Arcee’s fanged face seemed so lit up and soft, and her audialbun vents facing me, yellow optics as aglow as her smile, so trusting and gentle, wanting a friend. And so pretty - not because of what she was put through, but because of herself. 

“Anode, you’re staring, or lost in thought,” Arcee turned her head a little, smile wavered between a smirk and crestfallen. 

“Oh, it’s just that I like seeing you happy,” I grinned. “I like knowing I can bring that out of you.”

“Oh! I see, that’s very sweet of you,” Arcee beamed and opened her mouth for a moment before shutting it, optics framed with a half smile. “I hope I can do the same, you should get ready for the op.” She turned away to look ahead at the dashboard.

“Right,” either she missed the context or is thinking it over. My spark and circuits raced, barely contained by my frame, my chest sensors so ardent to be pressed up against hers. 

I patted her back stacks once. “Sure will luv. If we have a chance after this, could you teach us some more counterblow martial maneuvers and tactics?”

“I’d love that,” she chuckled.

I walked away, mind soaring with excitement, giddy in my slopes, helm and face lit up as Lug could make me, and the fantasy of her and Arcee making out with me foremost in my thoughts as I headed towards Lug and Stratosphere in the armory on the side of the hallway, and noticed Lug standing at the pilot bridge door, arms crossed, smugness all over her face with a lopsided expression. 

“You really are a gallant rogue, aren’t you,” she made a finger booping motion towards my nose as I approached. “Are you hoping to smooch before navigating medical stuff? Not that I blame you…” she glanced over past me, and sighed.

“Would be ideal yeah,” I leaned down and kissed her helm. “Less messy than the other way around. Given what Codexa and Shatter said about how she is about devotion with perceived trust, I don’t want to get medically intimate and leave her feeling paralyzed between desires.”

“You’re unbearable,” Lug before plucking her lips on my chest. “She’s got so many weapons. I think you’ll find your style from your child saving days. Or whatever else you want.”

I let my hand dangle over my forward left skirt compartment, where a guarded thermal shortsword sat inside, that Arcee had given me.

“Yeah, I’ll have a look,” I stepped inside, joining grandma and Lug, taking in the arsenal around me. mostly melee weapons, usually one hand blades at that. Several rifles and a half dozen pistols were on one wall. 

I headed over towards the firearms, and picked up a double action battle revolver, and stowed two boxes of 30mm AP-plasma rounds after loading eight rounds into the cylinder. “Haven’t seen one of you in a long time.”

I put the revolver inside my right skirt compartment and the ammo in my left skirt compartments. 

“I hope we can do this quietly,” Stratosphere sighed, grabbing a long rifle and guard hilted cutlass.

“I hope so too grandma,” I hugged him close. “We’ll be okay.”

“I feel like two years training combat total aside from experience in brawls is going to be a tough test against soldiers with more experience.” Lug stowed a blocky rifle on her back.

“You’ll do your best. Our opponents don’t have the same kind of knowledge my family who trained you does,” Arcee strode in. “We’re going to enter normal space in two hours, I’ve made contact with our client, and gotten tactical data, let’s go over the plan if you’re ready.”

Her face wasn’t smiling like earlier, a grim frown looking on instead. “Also, the supercruiser we’re commandeering uses a large quantity of energon in its core systems. I worry we are going to encounter something or someone from ancient history.”

We soared in low orbit of Opulus IV, headed through civilian ship traffic towards the moon-sized ringed tower space station nearby. 

I saw a message on the ship dashboard from Glacier-3: =We see you Errant 1. Meet us at bay 4E.=

=Copy, we’ll be there, Errant 1 over.= I typed back and then brought the ship into the available hangar near the ‘top’ of the tower.

“It’ll be nice to aid a revolution again,” Trans-Mutate patted my shoulder. “Glad you let us stay around.”

“Indeed, dear Trans-Mutate,” I slowly maneuvered us between the other ships, and parked next to a long bulk freighter where some spacesuited organics were standing nearby, about Lug’s height, some waving at us.

My pals and I waved from the bridge and we got up to disembark. Guess they got help from security to let us in.

My team and I walked towards the rear exit, I cycled my palm grenade launcher configuration to coilgun APHE sabot, ready to extend a barrel. Love that I have a break my arm firing configuration option, Jhiaxus. 

I held in my grumble and smiled at my teammates - friends still and new friends? I hope so. “Ready when you are, glad we brought a small team. I have a feeling Cybertronians are expected.”

There were nods all around as the freighter rear doors opened.

“Aye, would make sense. But who…” Stratosphere followed from the rear.

“Maybe one of the two factions are involved,” Anode stepped up next to me as we approached the spacesuited pulosian organics.

“Maybe,” Minerva stuck out a hand to clasp alongside me to the two legged pulosians, which they pressed on in greeting.

“Thank you for signing on with us for this,” one of them, with an eyepatch over their green fronded face, Captain Glacias, nodded towards the large hangar airlock into the station. “Our security cover is still good, so if you all are ready-”

“You got it,” I stepped into my alt-mode and opened my pilot windshield to let Glacias in, while the rest of our Cybertronian team took up altmodes as well to fit the rest of the group in, and headed for the airlocks, which opened after Glacias commed in through their helmet.

“You not going to take that off? You’re expecting heavy weapons then,” I parked at a hover between the airlocks, and when the outer ones closed and inner ones opened, I sped onwards through the glittering halls of the vehicle thoroughfare, following the map that had been provided to us prior, headed towards the Optract Conglomerate hangar section. 

“Indeed, you’re as wise as they say,” Glacias cawwed with their beak. =”We know that this ‘Neofreedom City’ supercruiser yacht is, now that we’re on secure short comms, built over an ancient Cybertronian capital ship, which I do not think is an accident. No one in the resistance ever saw it before the retrofit though, the corporate part is a lucrative license cover for government special operations within. We think most of the military industrial complexes leaps in technology are from this ship.”=

=“A capital ship? Hmm…”= Lifeline rolled into formation next to me. =“This supercruiser based on the info you gave us is certainly the size of one of our destroyers… to me the question is, if the Cybertronian vessel is most of the ship or not. I suppose we will find out.”=

Lug: =“This is the part where you tell us your own planet and other Polusian holdings are destroying themselves for energon to fuel this thing, I’m guessing, based on Lifeline’s description and what I read. A real gas guzzler since your government and corps either haven’t set up proper energon refineries and recyclers or chose not to.”= 

=”That would be our geologist, I think you read her file,”= I chuckled. =“I assume the amount of stock trade and treasury holdings aboard are not an accident. The question is if Cybertronian software is behind this or… a brain module.”=

Everyone was silent on comms after that while we slowed at the ‘corporate’ security checkpoint composed of rocket launcher and machine gun carrying armored pulosians. Likely actual military. Here’s hoping they’re with the democratic resistance…

=”Approaching convoy, please stop for security inspection,”= one guard on all frequencies waved at Stratosphere and pointed at the ground repeatedly.

=”Not necessary, we have expedited response passes for in person trades that will expire otherwise, provided by the Grand Architect,”= Glacias pulled out a keycard emblazoned with a symbol older than High Cybertronian that I recognized from a haze of youthful memory from somewhere beyond my conscious faculties: a bright chartreuse green cog interlocked with three circles between the teeth of the cog, and one in the middle. 

“Infinity of shape… you-” I slowed down in front of the guard who had been waving to get Stratosphere to land.

“Pardon?” Glacias asked, staring st my dashboard. 

“Later,” this is quickly starting to sound like a Cybertronian reclamation mission funding a popular revolution. I opened up my windshield again to let Glacias hand the keycard to the guard.

They grabbed it slowly, looked it over with wide eyes, blinked a few times, ran it on a tap reader, and handed it back. =“My apologies xeram Glacias, thank you for obliging me this, you and your party may proceed, by autonomy’s light.”= 

“By autonomy’s light,” Glacias warbled. 

The guard handed back the keycard, with a slip of paper underneath. I shut the windshield, and we drove through as the doors opened, into the boarding tube of the long shiny blocky pearl white supercruiser studded with bright blue gold rimmed portholes.

Glacias meanwhile unfolded the paper, which listed phone lines, and started to call them one by one and repeated what must be a mission activation code phrase, “autonomy’s light,” while he readied a round barreled pistol that reminded me of a tiny fusion cannon.

 We reached the ship’s airlock, going over the plans: Glacias and I would take point alongside Trans-Mutate and her pulosian teammate, while Anode and Lug and their crew would make up the science team in the middle, and the rest would form the rear and flanks. As we traversed the mineral decorated halls towards the middle if the ship, passing platinum and gem robed pulosians chatting over glasses of nectar and trading consoles who didn’t seem to notice us, I started to hear gunfire in the distance. Which the wealthy did notice, running towards escape pod decks or towards the entrance from which we had boarded.

That was when I heard something I had never wanted to hear again in my life fill the halls, weighing my frame with dread from the voice: “Omega Upsilon, operational post mortem. Mission: terminate other cybertronians and rebels aboard.”

=“The ship is built around a dead Omega Sentinel your oligarchy hacked into!?!”= Minerva pulled up next to me. =“Arcee, please tell me you have a plan.”= 

=“I do,”= I rapidly drew on my memory of the last and only time I had taken down an Omega Sentinel, at Antilla, to stop her from destroying the extragalactic escape vessels that Onyx Prime had deemed a threat. The Omega Sentinel who had killed all the soldiers under my command trying to save the escaping population. Perhaps the only Antillans who survived what happened before the rest stopped being Antillans. =“We are thankfully close quarters inside a ship, which gives us the advantage of a lot of cover. You all can act as a diversion, don't risk getting hit. I just need to close in and sever the head, put OU out of eir misery and lay em to rest.”= At least now I know some of what happened to you, your colonial expedition was ill-fated, as all are. I hope the titanmaster who steered you is dead. I know you didn’t want that voyage, or this…

=“Arcee, I am not sanctioning that without backup,”= Trans-Mutate honked their horn at me. =“I’m going with you.”= 

=“Deal,”= I saw the doors ahead to the central hull closing, and leapt into bot mode, Glacias still seated inside me, now on my back, while I drew my blades and cut down the middle of the shut blast doors, and kicked the simmering edged metal down, to see a division of pulosian spacesuited troops with heavy rifles and launchers quickly taking up cover behind barricades on the ceiling, walls, and floor ahead.

“I HAVE NO DESIRE TO SHED PULOSIAN BLOOD, Step aside! Leave while you can, to join your loved ones and special places, while your world finally shakes off the shackles marked by mine,” I held both my sabers forward while Trans-Mutate formed up with me, forearm blades ready and pulosian partner on their shoulder with a rifle, Minerva with her pavise shield-blades and her infantry crew, the rest of the team formed up behind us, all the bots with melee arms only drawn.

=“Why should we trust you? Your people are the scourge of the galaxy! It is only right that we assemble empire in turn to stop you!”= a pulosian with an orange beam saber and pistol gripped in shiny bronze gauntlets matching their armor streaked with green and purple. 

The commander, most likely. Or one of the oligarchs themselves. I opened up my windshield, and Glacias clambered out to stand beside my head, leaned on my audialbun, and tossed a holo emitter that started to display my track record of operations against the Galactic Council and cleaning up Nova Prime era holdouts, along with several skirmishes with Decepticons, and lastly- the million year long resistance for aesthetic liberation and democracy on Cybertron.

This is not what I expected their appeal to be… I held in my surprise.

“The bots you face know what their people have done, Director Termquill,” Glacias put a hand over their hearts. “They are all refugees from cybertronian atrocities themselves, and they merely wish to end the long imperial shadow cast over us or by anyone else, including ourselves. It is for that reason I want to make a counteroffer to how the corps have bought our government: I can offer an unending supply of cybertronian technology and of others from around the galaxy from a benefactor interested in us changing for the better. Surely your intelligence service and the military are tired of contract haggling leading to design stunted equipment that in turn weakens our capacity to fight what everyone here knows is coming. If you don’t believe me- pick up the holoemitter and check what its made of.”

Termquill holstered their pistol and raised an open hand, and then started to walk towards the emitter while their agents lowered their guns.

“Very impressive,” I sideyed Glacias, who certainly would be smirking if their face could do that, instead their fronds were open to their full height and spectrum of red-green color, eyeing me back. “So you are aware your benefactor is some shadowy technology broker transformer? That symbol is older than me and untranslated, that some historians think has to do with the people who came before me- and I’m over 8 million years old.”

“Yes, I know,” Glacias turned and put their helm against my audial, “and he is very impressed with all of you, thinks you’re exemplary of the cybertronian spirit. The Grand Architect regrets never having met any of you.”

“Does he now,” I watched Termquill reach the holoemitter.

They kneeled to pick it up, turn it over, take off the cover on the bottom, and stare back up at Glacias. =”Energon wiring. But- not even the Omega Sentinel has that. That’s new technology!”=

Not even we have that. Who is this Grand Architect?

=“You have a deal, Captain Glacias. I know you want democracy, I will back it, and I think the chiefs of staff would be very interested in what you’re offering. Agents! We are to aid the rebellion! Arcee, given your record, if there is anything you want us to do about the Sentinel…”=

“Can you shut em down?” I smiled. “E would not want to be used like this, insult to injury since ey were sent off to keep em from rebelling, enforced by a titanmaster.” 

=“Ah, you mean the bot our size? Crumpled and torn when we found them. Was reverse engineered in order to run Upsilon. The actual controls are handled by a rich suit who fancies himself some sort of hero of enterprise. He is inside the bot so…”= Termquill turned towards the doors ahead of us. =“That may break your not killing organics rule.”=

“If it comes to that, I’ll settle for being an accomplice and not wielding the blade, Glacias can pull the trigger,” I started to run for the door, Trans-Mutate following, our pulosians immediately turning on mag boots and crouching. “Termquill, where’s Upsilon now?”

=“Tearing towards the bridge after the main rebel diversion, shredding billions of opu-creds worth in the process. Wentrell was never good at business.”=

=“Team Gamma, pull back and scatter, we have this handled!”= Glacias readied their ?fusion? pistol.

One of the agents at the door hit the keypad, opening it up to the sight of melted and burning tunnel through six decks.

“EVERYONE WHO HAS POINT DEFENSES AND SHIELDING, READY THOSE NOW! I expect a missile barrage…” I switched on my thermal sight in my jog to catch the heat signatures of dozens of launching missiles from Upsilon’s back several kilometers away. “Give us the fire you can until I tell you to break off, clear? Reading 48 missiles inbound!”

“Clear!” was the resounding reply.

“I thought this was my command!” Glacias cawwed loudly while patting my helm. “You’re doing great.”

I turned off thermals while the missiles screamed towards us, and laughed under the streaks of intercepting anti-missile missile fire from our pulosian colleauges and shots from Minerva, Road Rage, and Lifeline. I can hear Galvatron calling me crazy right now for what I’m about to do. I started up my back stack thrusters while the missiles closed in, Upsilon now almost fully turned around to face us. “Break! Break!” I leapt up, and cut through one missile after the next as I spun a flittering flight through the ones around me, while Trans-Mutate kicked off her own foot thrusters, shooting any missile that came near her with her forearm blasters.

Necro-Upsilon’s forearm cannon was aimed at me, and fired. I dove out of the way, out pacing the trace of the massive orange beam.

Termquill: =“Wentrell, are you off your nest?!? You’ll tear a whole through the ship and the station!! Stand down!”=

Wentrell: =“Traitor! I don’t care what happens, its not like this wealth will matter to the Opulenty movement if they win! These bot witches who turned you will die with you!”=

=“If you could actually aim, scraphead,”= Trans-Mutate snarled as she and I came within leaping range of Upsilon. =“That’s what you get for hijacking a giant corpse’s cannon.”=

=“I- impudent autobot!”= Wentrell brought the claw to bear, and fired the grapple beam at Trans-Mutate- she looped out of the way, and the beam grabbed the cannon arm, pulling it into the claw’s grip. =“Curse you!”=

Erstwhile I soared upwards and onto Upsilon’s shoulders, and brought my sabers to bear at the neck. =“Rest with your spark, old friend, from dust to dust,”= I cut as I ran full circle, and then bodyslammed the fully helmed head off, and leapt down after as Omega Upsilon’s body fell knees first to the ground before finally collapsing.

A gold robed pulosian clambered out of the side of Upsilon’s head, and aimed a pistol at me, and opened fire with a burst of three blue bolts I deflected with ease while I landed in front of them, Trans-Mutate next to me.

“By the accords of the Opulenty, you are to stand trial and pay reparations and reconcile for the damage you’ve done to our people and our worlds, Wentrell,” Glacias aimed their own pistol. “Even if you end it here, your corporate assets will be seized and redistributed anyway. It is just a question if you will go with dignity.”

Our fellows started to gather around through torn parts of the decks, most of the pulosians disembarked from Stratosphere. 

“Captain Glacias, you and your movement claim to favor independence, but you will deliver us into Cybertronian colonialism! I will not cooperate!” Wentrell aimed his gun at Glacias, and was shot in the helmet and head by his target, and his head engulfed by violet light and gone to ashes, he crumpled to the floor.

Good riddance.

“Wentrell, I assume you’ve coordinated some teamwork between our cells and your forces,” Glacias eyed the Director.

“Yes, the ship is in hand, all the assets aboard should make your- our revolution easy-”

The ship rocked with loud SKOMPs, artillery fusion cannons, that can only mean… I and all the other transformers stiffened immediately, pulling out ranged weapons. I traded one sword for a pistol.

“Wentrell, bring the station and planet to full alert. We are likely experiencing a cybertronian raid, whether Decepticon, Autobot, or the old Cyberimperials or Neofunctionists I do not know, but we will find out shortly. Which way is observation? I suspect your bridge is gone.” I aimed my pistol forward, waiting for special forces to teleport in.

“That would be up, but no need, I’m getting reports of a Decepticon cruiser assaulting the space station.” Wentrell shivered. “You will stand with us?”

“We must,” Road Rage sidled up to me. “What’s the plan, commander?”

“They want Upsilon’s body, otherwise bombardment would have continued. We hold here until the body can be- how many detonators do you all have?” I smirked. “I think e would appreciate their body going out this way.”

“No can do, Grand Architect wants the body, or he cuts support,” Glacias shook their head. “There’s auxiliary steering at the rear, we just need time to get the ship out and make the jump. Already messaged my team there.”

“I didn’t sign up to bodysnatch my fellow soldier’s body for research e didn’t agree to!” I stared Glacias down. “We bring the body, but I know most what e would have wanted, so I’ll have final say.”

“This bot better be able to put pay where his mouth is,” Anode scoffed, and Lug nodded with her.

“He wouldn’t expect anything less from you Arcee, and he can, especially for bots like you who still remember-” Glacias immediately fired at one of the hundred purple shapes of teleporting transformer bodies standing ahead of us, causing them to burst in a chain reaction that engulfed their dozen strong squad-

the rest of us immediately fired after, and felled the entire company.

“And this is why non-innate teleporter technology is still not worthwhile for non-stealth military applications,” Road Rage shook her head. 

That was when the radio lines filled with screams about Decepticon boarders, and hundreds of bots of mostly vehicle modes, bearing the pointy usually purple Deceptibrand, started to rush towards us from the decks to the sides bearing rifles and melee arms, those with the former blasting away at the pulosians, who fired off several shots into some of the Decepts before Road Rage and Stratosphere dove over them to shield them from the fire while the rest of us tore into the Decepticons who quickly surrounded us just as I was ready to boil over with precise rage into my blades-

“THEY’RE NOT AUTOBOTS! HOLD YOUR FIRE! I SAID HOLD YOUR FIRE, EVEN IF THEY ARE IN THE WAY! ONE OF THEM IS TOO DANGEROUS TO FIGHT! DID YOU ALL MISS HISTORY?” one particularly long and large cannon folded up out of the hands of a spaceflyer and into a stout claw-fisted lavender and black boxy shoulder wingleted frame with an orange crest behind a flat round head, and pointed a claw at me. “That one is Arcee, she’s a survivor and warrior of the Age of the Thirteen, sister of Galvatron, and fought against Functionism before you and I took our first steps! Have some respect!”

While I glanced at Lifeline, Minerva, Anode, and Lug rushing to aid blood gushing Stratosphere and Road Rage, I processed the body shape of the one pointing at me and his familiarity with my history fit together all too well with what my intelligence gathering from contacts and on my own had gleaned of the last known Jhiaxian: Shockwave, and his lieutenants.

“Fistfight, digging up cadavers to make a Monstructor Sentinel, or to do en masse to some poor trans folks what your masters did to me, are you?” I pointed my sword at him, holstered my pistol and drew my other sword. “I somehow don’t think your courtesy will show any respect for me unless you can deliver me Shockwave’s head on a pike, as a warning to the next billion years that some research and all empire is too depraved.”

The stubby bot laughed, and extended an open claw. “Dear Arcee, Jhiaxus is dead or lost. My commander bears no ill will towards an auteur of history such as you, in fact he says it is written that he needs to make sure you live. Most of your friends on the other hand…” Fistfight shrugged. “You might be able to get a few out alive, but face it old darling, most of them will die here if you try to fight. More blood on your hands. And to answer you, no, Shockwave has no interest in using the dead for combiners or… idealized transition.”

“How dare you,” I beared my fangs, every last ton of me rearing and heating to tear Fistfight apart. “You have no idea who you’re messing with, and I don’t mean just me.”

“Indeed,” patched up Stratosphere brandished a tiny detonator switch as he stood with the help of a weeping Anode and Lug and a sorrowful Lifeline. “You let us go, or I blow Upsilon’s corpse apart and you with us. If you’d bother to pay organics with respect, they can be quite helpful- they helped me rig this up as I figured this was how things would go soon as yer guns went off.” 

“Stratosphere…” I kept my optics on Fistfight, as painful as it was to not run to Stratosphere and hug him close. “You don’t have to do this…”

“Tell you what, Stratosphere,” Fistfight crossed his arms. “You stay here and hand over the detonator after they leave, and we’ll let you go. I think you value their lives more than taking us out.”

Anode and I screamed, only stopping from rushing at Fistfight when Stratosphere raised his hand. “Dears please… let me do this for all of you. It is the way of the Knights, is it not, to lay down life nobly so others may live? What you Delta Leaguers did time and time again?”

“What’s a Delta Leaguer, old man?” Fistfight’s rectangular optics rose slightly.

“Seems Shockwave didn’t tell you everything,” Trans-Mutate growled. “And Stratosphere is not just a man. He walks the world of linked genders and aesthetics, as I do.”

“I’m sorry, habit,” Fistfight nodded. “All right, you all move out for the station. If Stratosphere delivers us the body, I’ll let him join you."

“Give me a moment please,” Anode hugged Stratosphere close. “He’s my grandma.”

“Of course,” Fistfight raised a claw. “Hold your fire, and if the medics haven’t done it already, tend to our wounded.”

Glacias, Wentrell, and the pulosians were quiet, oddly quiet. Something’s up. That detonator isn’t really a detonator or just a detonator, is it? Their world is hinging on that body, and Stratosphere knows it. I walked over to embrace Stratosphere, leaned on his waist, and put a hand on Anode’s quivering back while the rest of the bots on our team joined the hug. Did they actually miniaturize-

“Old wing, I’m so proud to be your kid,” Anode reached up to the armor covering Stratosphere’s spark. “I… you were always the history I thought was a myth. Thank you for showing me- that magic is not in gods or prophecy as I already knew it wasn’t, but in strength, in love, in history. What we make of ourselves. You better be right behind us.”

He won’t be. Anode, forgive me…. I know you won’t except that he’d want me to-

“Anode, Lug, I must plead something of you,” Stratosphere saw my steely neutral gaze. “Whatever I do in this life and Arcee does with that in mind, forgive her. She wants the best for you two, as you do for her. As our lives have shown, things are hard, we all have our pains. Trust her for me, please, as her friends and lovers have.”

“I promise, I promise,” Anode leaned into my touch. “I know, I look forward to the two of you getting to know each other better.”

Anode please, you sweet dear please I wish it was me instead of him but that would break your spark too- my spark squirmed and faltered. I could feel droplets swell at the edge of my optics.

“I promise that too,” Lug smiled. “You sweet saps, the lot of you. See you soon.”

And you Lug, so trusting… I would melt were someone dear not about to die… I hate this. This is my fault… I had no way to know…

“Aye,” Stratosphere picked up the two, and kissed their cheeks in turn before setting them back down. “Go on.”

We all started to walk away, except me, I lingered, and flew up a little on my thrusters, and placed my blade over Stratosphere’s shoulder, before putting a kiss on his cheek. “You were a better parent to them than mine were to me, Knight of Cybertron. I’m glad we met.”

Stratosphere quietly teared up, and nodded, smiling. “The highest honor you could give me, what I wanted for so long. I think you already know this, but those two care about you more than I’ve seen them care about anyone except each other.”

Glacias finally cawwed what sounded like a death mourning song, to my audial familiar with pulosian song, the notes long and warbling, slow.

“I know,” my spark wanted to warm at the words but the circumstances wouldn’t let me. “I’ll do my best to meet them on that. They’ve got tools others haven’t that have opened me up. Strength to you, solidar.”

“Strength to you, solidar,” he waved. I landed and jogged up to the rest, to see Wentrell had apparently called a turbotrain further to the starboard side.

“Go on,” Fistfight loosened his claws. “You’ll all be together soon, get far enough away I won’t have you all tearing swords down more of us.”

We stepped onto the cylindrical train, the organics taking seats and the rest of us held onto railings or sat on the floor. We were all watching the Decepticons and Stratosphere around Upsilon’s corpse in the distance.

Suddenly the Sentinel corpse glowed cyan and start to wink away as if into elsewhere, knew it , Stratosphere was promptly riddled with plasma fire, and then explosions went off as the corpse disappeared, annihilating all the Decepticons I could see in the vicinity.

“GRANPA!!” Anode pressed her face against the window as more Decepticons who had escaped the blast made their way around the hall and opened fire on the train, which took off towards the rear of the ship while Anode sobbed in Lug’s arms. “Granpar Stratosphere… you really died like a knight, if only you could have lived longer as one! Augh! I- I-” Anode lost her words as she curled up and cried more.

“He gave his life for our world,” Glacias pressed his hands over his hearts. “We are all deeply thankful. The detonators Wentrell had were experimental teleportation emitters to ensure lethality, but I sent coordinates for dropoff of Upsilon instead. The Decepticons have no reason to stay here, they will find the Sentinel is gone. We will meet a go between when you’ve had time to process and grieve. I’m sorry. He was a good person. One of the best.” 

My spark sunk, and I felt cold, stony, my head hung low. This was not how I want things to go.

“You damn bet we’re going to meet this go between,” Anode stared Glacias down with a livid fire that reminded me of myself. “This chain of events has lead to wronging Upsilon and Arcee, and getting Stratosphere killed, and leaving dear Road Rage in an injured state. I want answers. I want compensation from this rich doohickey. Buy out a home on Lithone or Codiscin One, and more for people like us-”

“Sorry to say that you probably don’t want to buy homes there right now,” Wentrell shook their head. “I just got word that Lithone and Codiscin are under siege by the Decepticons, and the Autobots are responding.”

“We… have to get to the ship… go home… first, before this Architect,” Road Rage sat up, holding herself around the metal covered gash on her torso, Trans-Mutate tenderly at rest on her side. “Can he wait? We have more people to ensure safety for.”

“Yes, he can wait. He just wants to establish a long term relationship, ways to contact, that’s all. Doesn’t have a new job right now that I know of,” Glacias sat down on my shoulder. “You know how to reach me, and I know how to reach you. That will suffice for now, and- I will leave the card with Arcee.”

We reached the hangar bay airlocks we had boarded through, and quickly sprinted across them while Wentrell hailed for the doors on the other end to open.

I helped Road Rage across, and we parted ways with the pulosians, what with no Stratosphere to carry most of them and not wanting to get in the way of them acquiring transportation, and headed for my ship. The whole way, I felt trapped between wanting to sink away or to leap into a flurry of rage.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Anode asked me while we sat down at the bridge of the Claymore. “You knew that he was going to sacrifice himself for this world and for us. And you had to keep from saying anything. That’s why he asked me to forgive you.” Her optics drooped, and she held tight onto Lug in her lap, who looked on at me with a soft, somberly downturned face.

“Yes, dears, I knew,”  I met their gazes. “I knew as soon as Glacias and Wentrell didn’t say anything about the detonator jeopardizing the supply from the Architect. And I couldn’t say it in front of the Decepticons or-”

“Until it was said and done,” Anode glumly reached a hand out to me. “I- I don’t know how to feel. I know he probably figured that out, based on what he said, but that doesn’t mean I’m not hurting right now. I just want you to know I care, even if I- can’t express it right now, more than saying I love you, and giving my hand. Anything else and I’ll shortcircuit. I just need time to grieve”

“That, is all I can bear too,” I finally let myself cry, and held her hand, and Lug held ours while our ship jumped towards Codisicin One.

Chapter Text

3 months later, aboard the Claymore in quant space nearing Ember Rogue Station.

“Arcee…” I stared again at the large debit line of shanix from Glacias on my tablet screen and the credit chit for the sum Arcee had printed out for me. I didn’t want to be able to take care of myself by losing Stratosphere… I  could still feel and ached for Stratosphere’s embrace. “I… it still…” 

Arcee got up from the pilot’s chair to hug me in the copilot seat. “Darling… I know it’s hard. I know that- sometimes celebrating the life isn’t enough, that the grieving can take a while, and the pain never fully goes away,” she ran her hands over the bottom of my wings and my back, gentle and firm. 

A hollowness still suffused me despite her attention that I had craved for half a year before meeting her. The sense that a sweetness and storytelling and vivacity that was my grandparent was gone from my life and this world.

“Sometimes it helps to focus more on what one left behind for you, and not what resulted from a loved one’s death,” she pressed her head against mine.

“You have a more complete knowledge of history than he ever did,” I hugged her back. “And he didn’t have much, at the end.”

“False, he experienced things I don’t know, and he had a different kind of love for you,” Arcee smiled and smooched my cheek. “There are local and regional things I missed in my time away from Cybertron, an espionage network only does so much.” 

A little warmth grew in my chest at her words. “I suppose that’s true,” I kissed her cheek back. “There is that, he kept track of what was going on in the world around us, knew Nova Cronum like the back of his hand. I think I saw some documents on that in his files… and there’s all the books he collected over two million years.”

“See,” Arcee beamed. “You have plenty to teach me, dear.”

I laughed, tearfully, and kissed her lips once. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you and Lug…”

“It’s not about deserving,” Lug’s hand played around with my shoulder armor. “It’s about us trusting each other, wanting each other, caring for one another.”

“That’s true, sweetspark,” I reached out to pat her head, Stratosphere’s last words that Arcee had told me still fresh on my mind. “I am amazed at how astute he was about our feelings for you, Arcee, and that he wanted us to act on it.”

She stiffened, and then sat on my thighs between my skirts as she scooped up Lug into her arms. My slight squirm and happy murmur at the weight was met with a smirk from Arcee and a chuckle from Lug.

“Stratosphere wanted you both to be happy,” she clasped my chin. “That was his wish, in the end, I think. And me, too-” she shivered and quaked, groaning, and held on tight to Lug, who pecked kisses on her neck and held her back stacks with soft squeezes.

“Oh dear-” I ran my hands up and down Arcee’s waist, smooching her shoulder. “Your sensory stuff…”

“Yeah-” she squinted in pain. “I- should probably do something about that… I think I’d be open to you helping, once we meet up with our pals. Once I- talk to Sh- Shatter and C- Codexa…” she started to cry. “I don’t want to face them. It’s so painful. It’s hard enough being onboard with Minerva. Dropkick is dead… I want to stop feeling like my life is spiraling out of control, that’s why I ran- I had to carve something out without hurting people I cared about…”

“I know,” I swayed her slowly in my embrace, and her quivering petered out. “I know. They’ll understand if you can’t talk long. They know how painful it is for you. Codexa told me if this happened it’s… okay if all there is a hello, if even that.”

“I’m glad…” she smiled at me, and bit my helm ever so softly, not leaving marks. “She and Shatter are so sweet…”

1 hour later, Ember Rogue Station.

I stepped out of the Claymore hand in hand with Anode and Arcee, standing beside Lifeline, Minerva, Road Rage, and Trans-Mutate, under the ember orange light of the station’s blocky hangar, the portholes to the outside past the dozens of other parked ships showing a starry brightness of the galaxy around us that one could only see in the void between star systems.

And of course, there was the ship that looked like Road Rage and Trans-Mutate’s and Arcee’s own craft, another millions years old gunship freighter, with the words Tagan’s Shadow on the side of the hull, and standing next to it, Rampage, Editor, Codexa, and Shatter. 

All the older bots ran towards each other for an embrace while passengers and dock workers of many different species came and went. I saw Anode tremble a smile, and put my arm around her.

Codexa saw her as well. “Come here you two, you’re part of this too.”

Anode stumbled forward, I held her steady, and we made it over to the clump of our friends, who opened their embrace to encircle us, Shatter, Codexa, and Arcee holding us closest.

“Anode, Lug,” Shatter’s optics shone softly, her antenna slightly drooped. “It is only right that given your loss, you decide our next course. Arcee has agreed to that, even if it means- even if-,” she looked to Arcee’s trembling gaze. “Being together again, at least for a while.”

“Even though we have the money for a home in another sector, it won’t cover our lifespans, won’t save us from mechanophobia or the war getting in the way of a stable job. And Arcee wouldn’t be happy to settle down because of that. As much as Lug and I want it, having security isn’t possible.” Anode wrapped her arms around me as I shook, knowing what she said was true, leaning into her chest, hoping all the pain would go away for all of us, but knowing we had to keep trying, just wanting a reprieve. “So I think we should take a page from Arcee’s book, and do jobs that do good when we can, whatever the risk, since it’s all the same. Even if that means crossing paths with the war, or trying to save people from it.”

 “I…” I lifted my head, mind whirring with worry and exhaustion. “I respect that, Anode, but I think we should consider what risks we take. And I think you’re being too hard on yourself in your pain and everything you do to take care of us. But yes, we ought to pool resources together.”

“You’re right,” Anode smooched the top of my helm, leaving my head buzzing. “We’ll be careful. Maybe find something reliable.”

“There’s always the Rimward Run for guard work across it or digging up lost things,” Arcee smirked. “It doesn’t pay much but it has low risk of intrusion by the various hegemonies we’re dealing with out here. Expanding to the Rim goes counter to their military policy. Road Rage, doesn’t your bodyguard duty take you out there sometimes? That might meet our needs more…”

“Yeah,” Road Rage grinned. “For honest people looking to get away from the more coreward systems for various reasons. I can reach out to my contact. Before we leap to space though, Anode, is there anything we can do to honor Stratosphere?”

“Mhmm,” Anode put a hand to her chin. “Collecting history. Tell me about this place.” 

“This station is part of the decentralized Rogue-series network of, er, rogue space stations, that is ones that don’t orbit a star, to evade detection from whatever empire or unwanted organization happens to inhabit nearby star clusters, hard to calculate jumps to,” Rampage gestured a hand towards the inner bay. “They date back to even before the Stentarian War or Cybertronians likely taking to the stars. As such, since many of the founders were mechanoids, there is no distrust for our kind. The Galactic Council doesn’t like them but being bothered to find them is too expensive for them. Only problem is, residences, docking, and orbit allowances are temporary except for the crew. They don’t want too much capital buildup or they become valued targets.” Rampage sighed. “So that's why we can’t stay. They do collect intel on safe havens though.”

“A glorified pitstop,” I nodded. “Right then, I think we ought to take what rest we can while looking for a job aimed towards the Rim.”

After discussing what we wanted, Trans-Mutate led us out of the hangar through the busy hallways beyond to the interior plaza ringed with plants organic and metal alike from piney to paneled to succulent to bulbous, with a round information desk in the middle with a sign posted above stating that was what it was in interGalact and dozens of other languages. including lithonian…

Sitting there under the sign, typing at a trawler’s pace, was a mono optic rounded gold and green bot with bladed forearms whose alt mode I couldn't discern, who waved at us: “Hello travelers! You can call me Sulphite, How may I help you?” and in lithonian which my translation module mostly got: <“if you are from my home-rock, I hope you find brivovoluz as I try to in this difficult time”>.

“Greetings, <rockshift soul>,” Trans-Mutate placed her hands over her spark. “My name is Trans-Mutate, we are transformers from Cybertron, originally, but one of us stayed on your world a long while. We seek lodging for a few standard cycles at most, and are looking for a guard job aimed towards the Rim. We are deeply sorry about what the androcentric imperial conflicts of our world are doing to yours, we’ve all fled after fighting it for so long.” 

The lithonian’s orange shoulder and chest biolights lit at the word ‘Cybertronian’ and dimmed slowly as Trans-Mutate went on, brightening at the apology, and then spoke in interGalact. <“Yes, it is clear from your phrasing that you are a different lot at least by word, another that you are here, and thirdly I do recognize Arcee yes, our network is familiar with some her operations for autonomy’s sake on and beyond my homeworld. It is good that our rocks were tossed in the same direction, it’s why I’m out here of late, looking for a team for a somewhat difficult job-”>

Anode tensed up, wincing.

I held her hand. “We do this in his memory, we’ll be okay.” 

She shrugged, and nodded.

The informant peered over at me. “You lost someone recently? I’m so sorry.”

“My grandpar, he died being what he wanted to be, a knight reflecting and defending the beautiful expansive aesthetic variety of transformer life and that of the cosmos.” She shook. “I don’t want to lose anyone else, but I figure you feel that way too. We helping people escape?”

“I’m sorry to hear, he sounded like a good bot, and very astute,” the informant smiled. “I need you to guide and protect a Lithonian refugee convoy headed for the Magistracy of Femax. A lot of our best warriors are fighting holding actions and dying bravely against the Decepticons, and those protecting the civilian outflow could use some veterans. I’m told that the route also passes a lost Cybertronian outpost, which may be of interest to you…” 

“Yes,” Anode said immediately. “That would be good, may I speak with my group for a moment?”

“Go ahead.”

Anode stepped back, and we circled around her. “This is our chance to give something to the Grand Architect he might not be expecting.”

“I concur,” Rampage clacked his claws. “And we might make some allies. I’ve heard Femax is a gender equitable society for multiple species organic and mechanoid alike, they tend to have women rulers either as the gender therein or as a role adopted upon election and if only for the term. Economically they are scarce on material resources they don’t get by trade, hence why they haven’t been targeted by major powers.”

“We could operate from there, perhaps,” Codexa grinned. “Should be safe for a long while.”

“I like that idea,” Shatter, Arcee, and I said at once, and we laughed, joined in by the rest of us.

Trans-Mutate turned around. “Deal. We’ll only take a fair sliding scale pay, don’t want to dry you out, and just need lodgings for the night before heading out. What's your name?”

“Er, Sulphite,” the bot beamed. “Thank you so much. Regarding lodgings…”

“So, Arcee, Anode, Lug,” Shatter smirked, clasping her hands together, “if I’m not being too forward, I just thought I should ask, are the five of us recharging together in the same bunk?  Are you all doin’ that with each other?”

“Er, well,” I smiled cyber-ovisly while Anode chuckled, as I thought back on the months long journey, of Anode and I cozying up to Arcee, of us holding each other as we rested in the last two weeks, simply out of the assurance of being near each other. “We do rest together yes, when our ship watch shifts match. Haven’t really smooched or caressed much, given…” 

“Given my mood of late,” Anode bowed her head, and Arcee and I immediately extended hands to her back. “I haven’t felt up to much but being held close, but I… I wouldn’t mind some gentle affirmation…”

“Well,” Codexa reached over and touched her shoulder. “We danced a few times before your voyage seeking our mutual love, why don’t we talk about what you two like?” 

“Well,” I took a seat at the simple table. “I enjoy smooching, and affirming caresses, and bathing my head in the light and warmth of another’s spark or them in my own… touching anywhere is okay. I also love cuddling, and wrapping myself around someone…”

Anode sat near me, an arm on my back, optics brightly gleeful, and I smirked, “I tend to encourage Anode with her wants flirtatiously. You like that, don’t you darling?” I traced a finger down from her neck to her midriff, and then to the side to clasp a wing. 

She laughed softly as she shivered. “Oh blimey, I do! Usually… if it weren’t for…” Her face scrunched up, quiet for a moment before she clasped my cheek with a half smile, the transport plane amount of weight she had been carrying around still clear on my face.  “I like what Lug does as well- I particularly like her taking charge but I still have my wits about me to be cheeky.”

“Mm, that is true,” I hugged her back. “I wouldn’t mind seeing how dynamics would change with you two involved, but just at the pace Anode is comfortable with. With Arcee, it has been…” I smiled, and blew a kiss to her. “Sweet and intense, fervency held back out of respect to Anode.”

Arcee blew a kiss back with a fanged grin. “I’m okay with this, I think. Tired of being apart. I just want to keep things light if we can…”

“Of course,” Codexa nodded, and sat down next to Anode, resting her hand on the engine halves on Anode’s back. “Shatter and I can meet you three on that, we can discuss other variations another day. I wouldn’t mind seeing how your partners affirm you and you affirm Lug, so I can get an idea.”

“Mmm, all right,” Anode gave a roguish smirk, pecked Codexa’s cheek, and tugged slowly me along over to the bunk, and Arcee followed, as did the other two, sitting near us three.

Anode sat, and clung to me around my waist, gently caressing the ridges of my lower to mid torso plates on my back and belly, tracing each ridge from one slight curve to the other. 

I grinned at the lovely sensation reminding me of the shape I loved, that I trusted with her. “I was thinking you could put your weight on my legs and kiss me…”

I chuckled, kissed her lips once, and sat over her thighs, my ankles on the outside, hands on her waist as I leaned to smooch with her lips. We met opening and closing on each other as I squeezed her waist up and down, smiling at her mumbles, and then clenching her tight there with my arms, smooching her every moan and returned kiss from the tension I knew she liked, both to feel me so snug around her, and to be so in touch with her shape. I in turn pulsed constantly from where my arms and chest pushed on her, the boxy shapes I had since forging that I now knew in the gal context I had longed for, feeling so right. Oh sweet canyons and mountains of joy-

“Arcee, if you would come over and see to her wings…” I let myself stretch out across Anode while Arcee clambered over beaming, then kissing Anode’s helm before running rubs and pats up and down her wings.

“Oh…” Anode had a bemused delirious expression, optics droopy and ablaze. “This is so nice…” 

“Anode, may we touch your armor skirts and ankles?” Shatter reached over to hold Anode’s hand.

“Please…”

Codexa, with all her towering size, reached both of Anode’s ankles with ease, and Shatter rolled her hands around Anode’s half circle armored skirts, kissing occasionally, and between Anode’s warbles, looked up at me from my  rectangular thigh. “May I kiss you here? You’re quite seductive, you know.”

“Yes you may,” I chortled and patted her head briefly before touching her wing, reveling in her grin before she started to smooch the length of my outer left thigh.

I sighed, oh so deeply happy with the small area of attention on that flat boxiness of my shape I had kept as how I understood myself as a gal, until Anode’s arms pulled me down, out of my sensitive reverie, my lips onto hers, the two of us dancing briefly there, my focus linked between the sensation on my thigh and lips, anchoring me to myself and my loves the way one looks with wonder to the stars, the constellation of circuits and sensors we were shining upon one another.

“Oh my stars, by sweet strength,” Arcee’s hand reached over to my cheek, and I looked up at her about to laugh given the coincidence of the word she had chosen, until I saw that fiery focus on her face I was enamored with a bit slack jawed, back stacks wiggling, thrusters rumbling. “I… could we hold and kiss each other, and bask in each other’s light after as we rest? I want to cuddle up with you all. It’s just what I’m feeling, sensory thing.”

“I’m okay with that,” Anode reached up to hold her shoulders, giving a squeeze. 

Shatter sat up, and I got off Anode, and nestled myself between Shatter and Arcee as the three of us scooted back to make room for Codexa and Anode to join us.

They did, forming a circle with us, Anode between Arcee and Codexa, who laid on her side to bring her head more level with the rest of us, resting her thighs on Shatter, who embraced her there with her wings. 

Anode wrapped her arm around Codexa’s big upper arm, and smooched her cheek. “You’re so sweet. My ankles are very happy.” 

“Heh, I’m glad,” Codexa smirked while my hands found Shatter’s and Arcee’s, and Codexa reached out to caress my helm from the back of my audial to my helm guard. “I’m happy to, you two are so adoring and adorable, and it’s nice to see you with Arcee.”

“Aw thanks,” I blew her a kiss. “I um, how does this work with five people compared to three? Do we just take turns or…”

“You kind of feel around with your face,” Shatter chuckled. “Leaning in, turning to someone, kissing, waiting and enjoying the smooch your other partners are having, and so on. It’s very sweet.” She turned towards me and dipped down, optics shut, to pluck my upper lip with both of hers.

I kissed back, and our lips wrestling playfully with each other, tugging at upper and lower lips in turn, while I saw Anode passionately osculate with Arcee, my optics nearly shut from the sensitivity and pressure of the dueling exchange between Shatter and I.

Her lips that could bite, just as well as mine could, until Arcee pulled me gently by the chin into a triangle of kisses while Codexa and Shatter smooched with each other.

I took hold of Arcee’s waist and flurried my lips on her and Anode’s helm guards until Arcee met her lips onto mine, and Anode wrapped her arms around me and kissed our helm guards in turn-

After a while of exchanging kisses, Codexa leaned towards me, an arm easily reaching around me to clasp my back and side of my waist, tracing the plated seams, and her mouth engulfed my lower lip gently, cliffs of endearment descending to meet oceans of admiration. 

I tugged hard enough on her upper lip with my smaller pair to try to have a grip, and at her chuckle I ran my hands up and down around her upper torso and shoulders within reach as I took to kissing in alternation with the same strength, the way Anode liked so much-

Codexa’s transforming seams on her torso and arms steamed vapor on and past my hands, and she let out lovely deep coos as she let weight down at my feet, wings flapping.

I got on my knees and held her head in my hands as we kept smooching, her hands focused on the heated grooves of my back while our partners clambered around to kiss each other on our left, Anode and Shatter’s hands achored on my thigh and leg-

Until we stopped from exhaustion and on my part at least, deep satisfaction from the kissing, each of us a petal of the flower of our love unfolded around each other. We ended up leaning on each other with our spark chambers open and our cyan plasma light within shining, myself between Shatter and Arcee, and Anode between her and Codexa. I felt sleepy, and for the first time in months, things seem like they would be all right. Arcee has finally opened up to her older partners, and what pals are around and aware of us are helping us out. I never imagined- “I never imagined being in love with four other people together,” I ran my hand down Shatter’s cheek, clasping her chin lightly, grinning at her murmur. 

“Love is a community and appreciation of the universe and beyond at its best, in love’s many different forms,” Shatter kissed the point where my thumb met my hand. “I am glad to have shared friendship with you both for two years before this, for our worlds to converge and dance together, we all are. Never forget the beauty of moments and trust shared for what they are as life keeps changing. It’s part of what kept us four alive, apart from each of us tending to our own resolves and working in solidarity beyond us four.” 

“Mm,” Anode’s spark light shining past her chest oscillated in brightness in a slow rhythm that my optics fixed upon softly as she spoke: “Amazing what the universe and the actions of the many can bring good or ill to individuals, who both can do so much and so little. I am glad history brought us together, and that we did our part in getting there.”

“Now that’s a philosophy of thermodynamics I can get behind,” Arcee, turned on her side facing us, pressed her hand over the light of her spark and extended her hand towards us, as if a blown kiss of her soul, shining upon us, her pink, white, gray, and gold features lit with a cyan glow both hers and our own.

“I certainly don’t mind being between the thermal heat you bear so vulnerably as lover and a sparrer, my love,” Codexa gripped the ridges of much of my waist lightly, her nearby spark and Shatter’s adding soft warm sensitivity that highlighted my frame, and I was stuck between a sigh and a laugh that joined the humor of the rest.

“You are such a tease,” Arcee and I both said together, and chuckles abounded again. 

“We should rest yes?” Shatter asked after her laughter stopped. “We have a big day tomorrow, I have an old story we can listen to.” 

“That would be lovely,” I nuzzled her knee with my ankle, shutting my optics. “Good night, beloveds.” 

They said their good nights, and Shatter started playing an ancient existential space story through her speakers, Rockhopper Stargarden Groves. I didn’t need to follow the words to feel safe on my journey with my family, in this moment. 

3 months later, aboard Tagan’s Shadow, in quant space near Lithone. 

=“We’re ready on our end, are you prepared, my friends?”= I held Editor’s golden hand in mine as we sat in the pilot and copilot chairs in front of the dashboard of our old heavy fighter gunship freighter, emptier than usual, what with everyone else aboard dear Arcee’s ship. I’m so happy you decided to join us again, fellow old warrior… all of my gender linkage’s missed affinity with all of yours.

Editor gave my hand a squeeze that I returned while Arcee’s voice came out of my ship’s dashboard from the Claymore flying alongside us. =“Aye, Rampage, my colleagues on Lithone still managed to keep our ships safe, follow me into the breach, once we get clearance from the Lithonian Navy and Autobots thanks to Sulphite. I’ll connect us to the call in a moment.”=

I chuckled, clacking my claws. =“Like old times! Good, good,”= I smirked. =“We’re ready when you are.”=

=“Indeed, old friends, good, patching now, turn on your holodisplays if you like.”=

“Right,” Editor flicked it on, and the emitted blue light buzzed into a spectrum of color showing the faces and most of the shoulders of Arcee, Codexa, Shatter, Anode, and Lug close together with Minerva, Road Rage, Lifeline, and Trans-Mutate clustered around them while the other two holofeeds on the dashboard started to take shape.

My spark panged for the missing Stratosphere in that moment, he was a good man, woman, person, plane, iteration, a sunset in the starlight of the visages of my dear friends, my family still here, and our different forms of love.  

And then the round green head of the golden mono-optic bot Sulphite came on in the second feed, alongside the third display of a tricrested blue helm gray faceplated head with blue optics on broad red shoulders, ?Optimus Prime? This is a joke right? Why is he bothering with us? 

I kept my face as neutral as possible beyond smiling mandibles as I rapidly typed: =This could be dangerous.= I messaged to the Claymore with my fingers patched into nav controls. =We shouldn’t tell this pseudoreformist cop about our hand in the formal resistance to Functionist rule. Bots like him still think Nova and the Golden Age was the best thing that happened to Cybertron, and he probably is deeply wounded and fragile of ego over Megatron’s revolution he ‘believed in’ turning into a reactionary empire.=

Optimus’s optics bulged almost cartoonishly for an instant from what I could only imagine was seeing Arcee. Oh gods, what kind of propaganda and made up conspiracy theories in police files has he been exposed to about her… 

His optics returned to such a soft look I could not believe someone in the force could have and he bowed his head slightly at our smiling appearances while Sulphite made introductions: =“I presume you all know of Autobot Supreme Commander Optimus Prime. Dear mechanoid kindred, I feel extremely lucky to be able to bring together some of the most experienced bots of your kind. Optimus, let me introduce you to these errant warrior sages and specialists who have humbly done good for the galaxy for years, veteran, leader, and logistician Trans-Mutate, sentinel knight and mediator Arcee, consular blade-librarian Codexa, bodyguard and guerrilla expert Road Rage, infiltrator vanguard Rampage, medical officer and diplomat extraordinaire Minerva with a specialty in reformatting, blacksmith and archaeologist Anode, geologist archaeologist Lug…”=

Trans-Mutate replied erstwhile: =Agreed. We should be vague, the only ones who can speak to full detail about their lives prior to learning the truth and meeting us are Anode and Lug, Arcee has an extensive record of good deeds beyond Cybertron to speak to.=

=“...and last but not least, violence prevention specialist and medic Lifeline, and multispecialty  journalist Editor.”=

=“It is my honor, allies of good happenstance, to be working with you for the rights of all sentient beings. You are from what I read of your group’s file much more experienced with dealings with the galaxy than most of the Autobot’s personnel, I have no doubt you could give the Primal Vanguard a run for their money especially with…”= Optimus’s faceplate seemed to grin in curvature. =“the higher degree of agency you operate with compared to our old valiant peacekeeping forces. I understand you have ships to recover before helping the convoy depart? Could you tell me what exactly they contain that we will be covering you for?”=

Ship-shuddering sounds came from his end, along with sounds of crew talking rapidly at each other in the background, and I nodded to contain my surprise, exchanging a glance with Editor, who gave an almost imperceptible shrug, their purple face on. So he’s already at Lithone, and he’s doing this whole thing on his bridge, probably as if it’s normal to call up an entire team of mostly trans bots who clearly don’t fit in with your military to- do a joint operation? You almost had me until you complimented the colonial police who you clearly also mentioned out of guessing some of us are primarily gals. Who is this guy?

=“They are our homes, with all belongings we hold dear that are not persons, and not just that. We are picking up the current generation of multispecies Lithonian contacts I’ve worked with for much of the last two million years,”= Arcee inclined her head. =“People who have a better grip of how the world works out here right now. All walks of life can come together in solidarity to survive hierarchy and empires. It is the only way.”=

She grinned, beared her fangs a little. =“They are family to me, just as we here are to each other to survive a world that did not understand us. I know you may have heard strange things about me, I’m sending you a copy of the Lithonian Mica-istries of Interpolity Affairs and Defense’s files on my missions and psychological profile since departing Cybertron, along with the files my colleagues have with them for legitimate galactic standing.”=

=“It’s the only way we questers can prove our reputation to more reputable or cautious clients, that we aren’t just mercenaries and brigands,”= Lug sniffed. =“You won’t find much on mine but that’s because Anode and I departed during the Great Exodus. Functionist circumstances forced our older friends to leave sooner.”=

I did my best not to laugh at how Optimus went wide-opticed again and his shoulders couldn't seem to decide whether to bend to keel over or sag to kneel. This is priceless. He’d give me the same look if I tried to explain Cybertronian transmasculinity to him. I can almost see the hoops he’d buckle through as he grasps further how deeply androcentrism has damaged our world.

=“I- of course, I’m sorry I did not mean to question your legitimacy, I just need to know what strategic value we might be able to add to the Lithonian’s escape.”= Optimus sat up. =“Since you are as a group excellent in the vanguard and mediation role, I and the Lithonian Navy thought it best if you would be added to the Lodestone Convoy command staff, alongside Autobot allied special operatives I appointed, Rosanna, Flamewar, and Shadow Striker.”=

=“THOSE THREE ARE ALIVE?!?!”= Arcee spoke what the rest of us older bots were thinking as we grinned tearfully, hugging each other in our respective ships, my spark warm remembering the hacker artistic humorous pair and their highly-professional down to business partner. “Oh… this is good news…”

=“You know them?”= Optimus and Sulphite spoke together, and Optimus continued. =“Rosanna was a prominent pacifist advocate and later Zeta-era public face of trans networks during my time, we had some heated conversations from time to time before I finally turned on Zeta. Shadow Striker and Flamewar ran guard and intel ops for her is the most any of us knew before we found common cause against the Decepticon Empire.”=

=“Yes… they’re old friends… they took care of me when things were hard and I them…, we all used to be part of a- network together,”= Arcee brushed some teardrops aside gently. =“I guess they went back to Cybertron after we had to split in the face of a harsh galaxy…”=

=“I hate to butt in, but Autobot procedure does require us to have some sort of account of what you all did on Cybertron-”= the red bicrested white helmed head of a broad monochested car bot came around by Optimus- 

oh, this is the infamous strategist Prowl. Ugh. My fuel tank twisted up while I noticed his chin armor was flatter than they were in news photos and Autobot propaganda media of him, helm guards taller and showing more of his face, and especially, his round audials were much larger in diameter than I had ever seen him depicted with, reminding me quite a bit of Arcee or Lifeline if they had simply taken the volume of her audials out and added a bicrest. What the frag? The second-in-command of Sentinel Prime looks up to Arcee and is the scraphead he is at the head of a faction run by savior cops? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? I fumed quietly as my friends' faces also lost their grins. 

=“-you know, the obvious anti-government operations you all did. We need to make sure you’re not Decepticons or were already extorted into working for them-”=

=“Listen, pig-iron,”= Sulphite narrowed his optics. =“You think I’d sell out my own people through a bunch of fellow trans people to the Decepticons? Are you out of your mind? Do you take them for a bunch of Soundwave-Megatronists? Do you really? Can you not see past a world centered on the thoughts of cybertronian forged and constructed men?”=

Prowl growled, Optimus raised his hands as if to try to calm the situation, and I couldn’t hold in my laugh anymore, and started cackling. 

Trans-Mutate shot me a glare while typing, =I’m glad you’re getting much needed catharsis out of this, dear brother=

Editor rested their now blue hologram face on my shoulder as I replied. =I think I’d be sobbing if I wasn’t laughing. Thank you, dear sister.=

=“Why don’t we cool our jets a bit and take some time to rethink this?,”= another bot stepped between Optimus and Prowl, shoving the latter gently in a way that I wasn’t sure if playful or a threat until I noticed the left handed salute towards us with the hand that had shoved Prowl before it closed into a fist. The bot was slightly taller than Optimus, a bulkily rounded in a boxy way with turrets, lining the train car ankles, with a blue - gold and white color scheme. Dawnlight? The head of Autobot Intelligence knows at least something about the Delta League and Optimus is oblivious? Oh this is rich. 

Arcee: =Dunno how much more solidarity we’ll get from this Primal Vanguard veteran, but this is something.= 

Prowl’s jaw dropped with a groan.

=“Prowl, you and I both know that all we need for the investigative issue you’re contending with is at most personal testimony. This is a combat situation, not a debriefing, we already have common cause and Arcee has provided more than ample examples of off-Cybertron records that the Lithonian government can attest to. I am sure any one of these bots can speak to having done some good back home.”= She gently put a hand on Optimus’s shoulder and smirked. =“I mean, people are dying as we argue about this. Rosanna had the right idea back in the day protesting for equality.”=

=“I concur with you,”= Optimus nodded. =“Go on. Any of you.”=

=“Optimus, do you have access to all Autobot files aboard your ship?”= Anode asked, voice a little higher than usual. 

=“I do, Anode? Is that right?”=

=“Yes,”= she nodded. =“Cross index my name with records of blacksmiths who helped young protoforms escape interventionist anti-redundancy surgeries by sending them to either side. You’ll find that when the Decepticons became corrupt and totalitarian, I switched to sending them only to Autobots, despite my deep misgivings about how you do things.”=

=“Certainly.”=

=“See what I mean,”= Dawnlight smiled with a nod. =“These are good people with a more wizened moral compass.”=

=“Oh please,”= Prowl sighed. =“We had to make the tough calls they couldn’t. Otherwise this war would be over by now.”=

Before we could holler at him, Arcee’s voice emanated with a heavy sharpness. =“Prowl, be careful, I went toe-to-toe with the hundreds of different Functionist factions before they were made official governance, and lived to tell the tale.”=

She paused briefly and then rattled off:  =“WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR A LITERAL TANK STEREOTYPE OF AN IDEOLOGY AND IDEOLOGUE AND IT’S EVEN WORSE THAT YOU THINK SO. I didn’t go from a tank to a car to hear this nor did people I know who became tanks ever imagine that someone like Megatron would appear, who I can only imagine was socially engineered into the role by the Senate and Functionist Council. How I don’t know, but I bet you do. My contacts and my own digging tells me you’re the current head of Autobot Special Operations using a certain corps for cover, and you had Sentinel’s audial during Megatron’s rise…”=

Prowl’s face froze up, door wings flapping erratically, while Dawnlight and Optimus exchanged a long glance.

=“You made your point, Arcee. I underestimated you, I’m sorry. I won’t make that mistake again,”= Prowl held his forehead. =“Clearly you’ve been playing a much larger game than me for… longer than I’ve been alive, I suspect.”=

She smirked again in the silence, and I recoiled a little at Prowl’s intent optic blazed grin that she didn’t seem to acknowledge. Oh no. I sense something I can’t put my finger on beyond a desire to use, in a way the spy cop he works with won’t go along with. I really hope she never has to work for Prowl, who probably joined this mission anticipating Arcee would be one of the hires-on. I feel sick.

=“Anode, you have quite the record,”= Optimus shook a little. =“You had the bravery to do what many of us did not, long before I started doing anything like it. I will make sure that there is no reason to dig into whatever it is you had to do to survive. Trans-Mutate, are you the leader of your group?”=

I could practically see Trans-Mutate wanting to say, = “We’re anarchists, I just end up in that role a lot,”= and I smiled, as they replied =“Yeah, I lead this collective, Arcee and I have the most naval command experience. We all read up on the Decepticon forces, is there a particular role you need from us?”=

Optimus bowed his head again. =“Yes. I need you to spearhead the ascent to low-orbit for the jump while my flagship fleet takes the brunt of the fire. You will be the first point of contact alongside the Wreckers and Lithonian Avalanche Naval elements for Decepticon reserves that will doubtlessly try to jump in between us. You will likely face a brutal assault of drop-pod boarding parties and breacher capital ships that will necessitate some of you being spread out across Lithonian civilian vessels for defensive operations.”=

=“I’ll do you one better, Prime,”= Trans-Mutate gave a sharp steely grin. =“Most of my team will run a counter-boarding run on the Decepticon flagship, which I understand is commanded by the Decepticon false ex-Functionist admiral, Legonis, while Arcee counsels the Avalanchers in successfully repelling what forces remain, and Anode and Lug ensure that Lithonian relics are accounted for. We are very experienced in dealing with super-heavy vessel hijackings, and know the kind of ship well. Theo-Vanguard class ships are overengineered monstrosities that are easy to sabotage enough of the ship to steal if you know what they’re doing. They won’t have replacement parts, and the Decepticons will sorely miss one of the latest of Worldburners. They will chase us for a quite a while.”=

=“Trans-Mutate, please…”= Arcee had a pained look, and my spark sunk at the thought of leaving her again, and of how she’d feel over the explosive boarding methodologies. =“There has to be another way…”= she started to tremble, and Codexa, Shatter, Anode and Lug nuzzled their heads against her.

Gods, now I might actually cry. 

=“You know there isn’t, if we’re all going to live this, if we want to reduce the conscription rate of Lithonians by Decepticons,”= Trans-Mutate put a hand on Arcee’s spiky shoulder. =“Can you imagine what the Decepticon torturers would do with the intel they could get out of us? Or if they got their hands on you and learned about… things I don’t want to risk saying?”=

=“I’m sorry, Arcee, sparkfriend,”= I shuddered, nerves lighting up remembering the millennia of sparring and dancing together near the end of the Age of the Primes and afterwards when we were reunited in resistance to Nova’s rule, and three months ago, when we sallied aboard Ember Rogue Station. When she met my six-legged side crawl with her hover-mode with just as much vigor in celebration of our forms and journeys together, the joy through all the horror, the pain she beared beyond my imagining that kept me up at night at times. I’m sorry… = “It has to be this way. We will meet again, we are always with you, spark to spark.”=

She blew a kiss at me, and nodded. =“I concur with the analysis. This is what we must do.”=

=“What’s left of the Lithonian government is in agreement, and I have to agree, it will allow the Wreckers to operate in a defensive manner.”= Optimus nodded. =“I’m terribly sorry, it’s very clear you all have a beautiful history. I’ll give you Rosanna and Flamewar’s comms now. When you jump, an Autobot destroyer, the Axiom , will guard your descent. Be well, ‘till all are one.”=

=“Thank you, for everything,”= Sulphite smiled. =“My people are beyond thankful. I do not know how the Autobots will remember you, but we will gladly help to make sure you all end up back in contact if we can.”=

=“That is much appreciated, Sulphite,”= I clacked my mandibles, and put my left hand over my spark. =“‘Till all are one. Let’s take a moment to steel ourselves, and jump in.”=

=“Wait,”= Optimus’s optics flared. =“Codexa… do I know you? I have the strangest feeling you’ve touched the Matrix.”=

Codexa looked puzzled, her face above Arcee’s back stack clouded and optics wide, mouth a little ajar =“You’re the Matrix bearer, how much of our history have you seen from it?”= Before her optics narrowed. =“Ah, Nova Prime probably corrupted the poor thing. There isn’t enough time right now, Optimus, if you can get it fixed you will see all who have touched it, just as I know that you feel the sparks beyond of the worlds lost to us, if any survived. Worlds that doubtlessly have all the variety and more that we are an example of that your people and the Decepticons are largely so ignorant of.”=

Optimus’s helm brow and optics furrowed. =“I see, I find it hard to believe the noble freedom-loving Nova Prime of our Golden Age was responsible, but I will look into it,”= Optimus imitated my salute, leaving me deeply perplexed, and gave me the grandest fire of hope I had had since we liberated Uraya for a time so long ago. =“Know this, all of you, you and other outcasts are not alone, if what Codexa says is true. Forever since I took up the Matrix in depths of the Undergrid I feel sparks whether many or massive or both consistently spread across seven worlds. I do not want to involve them in this conflict, but one day, I would like to bring us back into contact.”=

=“In that, Prime, we have common cause as well,” Shatter nodded. =“For the future, then, and thank you, Dawnlight, for your honoring of us.”=

=“Oh, well,”= Dawnlight seemed to fumble their hands, to my surprise, and grinned. =“I always cared more for ways of life than the badge, Shatter, and I think if we had remained a mere police force I would have gone back to retirement. I made it a point since my youth to learn as much as I could about who we and the worlds beyond are and not assume anyone is the center of it all. I have an uneasy feeling that the structure of Autobot leadership is going to have consequences down the line. ‘Till all are one.”=

The Autobot connection signed off, and I typed to Flamewar’s ship comms: =Hey Flamey I guess you heard who’s in town, we’re going to be down in a moment in one piece -Rampage.=

Flamewar: =!!!For real!! I did just hear from OP, even if it’s only brief you better believe that after I’m done shaking I’m going to wrestle you all into a hug. On a more serious note we have an ample supply of breaching weapons repurposed from mining charges and tools from this lovely little rock. I um, reached out to Arcee’s folks and we should be able to coordinate an underground flight to link up with us, so you can just head our way, sending coordinates now. Exhaust-easy compared to that time we smuggled a Plurstellate destroyer into the Undergrid to protect the Isletower Archipelago. Lemme talk to Editor, I think Arcee is going to need you.=

=Hah, you’re right it will be and she does, talk to you soon= hasn’t lost her sharp mechlin wit.

Editor smooched my shoulder with their pink face, “I got this love, go on,” and turned to the dashboard, bringing up Autobot and Lithonian naval scans of the massive battle of hundreds of ships raging in orbit of Lithone.

=“Arcee, blade and tome of our sparks, dear friend who I have missed so much,”= the swift movements arm in arm, feet striding how she spun me dexterously with what remaining might she had even though she was now shorter than me… I looked into her optics, and exposed my green spark. =“We will always be with you. I love you. We love you. You know it in your thoughts that keep you company.”= 

She winced while smiling, the uncontrollable back stack tremble and back shudder a sign of her sensory mayhem pain. Sometimes I wonder how much of it has linked itself to psychological trauma, or was supposed to, to intrude on her trust. I tried to repress my grimace.

Codexa and Shatter immediately moved their hands to her back stacks until Arcee shook her head. =“No, dears, I will miss you more if you do that. I can manage for now.”= She pressed her left hand over her chest. =“I’m ready. I am always with you as well, tomes and blades of my spark. I am honored to have you as family, Galvatron doesn’t know what he’s missing, if he’s even still alive. Let’s go, see you on the ground.”= She cut the holofeed but kept comms going. =On three.”=

I grasped the flight controls again, and Arcee and I spoke together while Editor managed radar and communication systems and put up a nav chart for me below the observation port:  =”One… two… three… jump to normal space!”= 

I pulled the trigger to jump and we dropped cleanly a few tens of kilometers from a blazing firefight between a gold-orange half round half rectangle Autobot Vanguard-type heavy cruiser and a purple daggerlike Revolt class Decepticon destroyer, both ships in a battered condition, flyers tearing through each other around both ships while Arcee and I maneuvered behind the Autobot ship, attempting to go unnoticed or at least not get shot and followed on the way to the landing zone, as planned.

=“Unknown cybertronian vessels, identify yourselves or be destroyed!”= someone from the destroyer declared on all frequencies. 

Trans-Mutate: =“We are merely here to help Lithonians survive the war, Decepticons. We have no quarrel with you save for the threat you pose to our allies. You can find that I, Captain Trans-Mutate, have long been recognized by the Lithonians as a strategist and rescue operator before you trudged out here.”=

There was silence for a time as we sped ahead until laughter broke out over all frequencies from the destroyer. =“Neutral bleeding sparks, mm? And a femme-bot at that with a team mostly of such. Delightful -”=

=“Hey fragwit that’s gross to say about a gal or anyone, scrap off,”= I growled. It really is like fighting the Functionists again with some of these Decepts. I brought us closer to Lithone.

=“I merely jest. I was briefed on your file by our infiltration team, all the command staff was made aware regardless of our opinions on your- transformations, I am just surprised that you declared yourselves, foolhardy. Autobot spirit but smart enough not to be one. The revolution needs you. I will happily make arrangements to keep your preciously rare lot out of Legonis’s claws.”= 

Arcee: =“We only declared ourselves to avoid having to commit war crimes later in plain view of Galactic Council observers. You- you do know they are watching all this since this is a colony of theirs and I can provide them with a record of this conversation, don’t you? Would you like a bounty on your head for misogynistic extortion, which they list as a crime against organic and adjacent life?”=

Two plasma railgun artillery rounds tore silent flaming paths  after Arcee’s ship. Her Claymore dodged cleanly as we neared the long gold-white Autobot destroyer Axiom , and the Revolt -class destroyer’s comms went off again: =“Get fragged, she-traitors to Cybertron! Our species will reign supreme as is our destiny and birthright!”=

= “Most of us are transfem, yes, but we’re all sorta polygender and we have one sparkousity gal, one fluid bot, and I’m a transmasc taganite, thanks. Goodbye.”= I laughed. Everyone on the Claymore and Tagan’s Shadow did too, and I checked the rearview detection systems and veered to the side on a diagonal as more cannonfire, now from the majority of the ship’s dozen forward guns, tore down our way, Editor running our point defense systems in conjunction with the Claymore’s to shoot down missiles and counter direct fire rounds and launched flares while I side-spun the ship to disrupt tracking with a 360 degree circumference of flare placement.  

=“Whatever, you’ll be brought to justice- what the blazes is a transmasc?! THAT’S NOT A THING! That’s not possible for us! What the Pit does that have to do with Tagan? You insipid liar the Functionists were wrong about a lot but they were right about you lot Crasher be damned-”=

The two Autobot ships in the area jammed the rest of the voice message, and no longer focused on by the enemies’ guns, blew up the central hull and bridge of the Revolt- class destroyer with a cross section of combined fire of fusion and ion guns.

We sped on.

“Hey it seems like the engineering deck of the ship survived, the surviving senior engineer, Slipstream, is surrendering the ship and profusely apologizing for her superior’s behavior, and leading a mutiny against the gunnery captain.” Editor chuckled as I veered us into high atmosphere, starting planetary burn, following Arcee into the burning and wrecked landscape of torn up canyons and polities that made my spark a heavy boulder threatening to tear down my torso. “I pity what kind of conditions she will face in Autobot prison…”

“I forgot how much I hated war, and this one is the dumbest yet, Road Rage was right, the Functionist legacy is effectively in a civil war with us caught in the middle. Maybe we’ll break Slipstream out later,” I hailed the Axiom while I banked to engage a Seeker squadron of twelve coming from the western horizon . =“Thanks for watching out back, you see the bogeys to the left of us?”= 

A voice replied: =“Engaging, and happy to, it’s the least we can do for friendly neutrals or any sentient being, sorry we don’t know better about- your whole deal. Thank you, fellow brot- sist- citizens of Cybertron.” The Axiom opened fire with dorsal ion and fusion turrets in a beam laser configuration, tearing into five out of ten of the fighters inbound dropping their entire bomb payloads to pick up speed, a torn up town directly below. 

The horror. And you call yourselves revolutionaries. I veered down to boom past a fighter, same as Arcee, our plasma autocannons locked on two targets and burning them to shreds with two volley bursts. Choom-Choom-Choom. Choom-Choom-Choom. Our turrets engaged the other three as they turned to try to shoot us, Editor splashing one. 

“Nice job, my love. Get the bombs if you can,” I elbowed them.

“On it,” by Editor’s hands I trusted with my life, brrrts of fire tore forth from our dorsal guns at the falling bombshells and charges. I circled so they could stay on target, the Claymore doing the same, catching all the bombs airborne.

Minerva: =“The word you’re looking for is siblings, Captain. Gender neutral equivalent of brother and sister.”= 

=“Name’s Thunderclash, I’ll add that word to my vocabulary, and I like the sound of it. Who are you people? I don’t know anybody in the Navy who is so good at defensive maneuvers with a wide arsenal of supposedly outdated gear.”=

Arcee’s laugh was almost a giggle as we sped back towards her polity near her scrapyard home for her ship-home of late. “That’s the name of the game, Thunderclash. It’s a tough galaxy and we were already dealt a hand stacked against us back home, we were lucky our guts could take all the hits and recover from enough, strategically improvise, and carve out happiness. For every group of trans people you meet who excell whether they are clawing out of squalor or can live comfortably, there are those of us who didn’t make it. We carry the names of the ones we know.” 

Once again, there was silence on the other end while we soared with our path’s roar getting through the hull and filling  the cabin of the Tagan’s Shadow, mighty energon rocket engines thundering louder in atmosphere even as I slowed us down for landing. The silence however, seemed one of respect.

Thunderclash: “I swear to you fellow knights that I will act to change what I can, even if I lose rank and face the courts. What you all go through is no way for things to be. Watch out for Decepticon commandos down there. We’ll cover you for another five minutes but have to rejoin the battle soon, the flagship is caught in a pincer maneuver for that Theo-Vanguard dreadnought to close in on.” 

Trans-Mutate: =“Thank you, Thunderclash. If you ever want to learn the truth-”= 

A horrific screeching jamming cacophony tore through our comms, Editor turning them off as I restrained myself from grasping my audials as if bleeding within my helm while they screamed as I yowled, a heavy weight of dread of my grave being walked over. I never thought I’d hear that sound again… I didn’t fight in the Prime Wars to hear that again. 

“Darling, are you okay?” I took my right hand off the nav controls as we entered low atmo, thrumming over the scrap covered hills towards the tower and hall ruined and wrecked polity beyond and it’s bunker dockyards, the Claymore’s dorsal turrets firing on advancing Decepticon soldiers below us in the hills, drawing their anti-air fire away from our ship.

“I’ll- be okay. Steer the ship. I need to signal lights with the Claymore until we land. That must be the dreadnought jammer, but tech like that hasn’t been seen since-”

“Onyx Prime and Megatronus,” I grumbled. “This just gets better and better. Next you’re going to tell me they have techno-organic warmachines like the titan Nemesis who bloody modified all of his modes with tools of terror. Where the stars did they get that? The Functionists would have used that if they had it.” I cut the main thrusters and fired retros intermittently to smoothly descend into the ship-crawler access tunnel Flamewar had marked for us, sitting below the city. 

“Arcee mentioned to me the other night that there were reports a millennia back before Zeta Prime was overthrown of Shockwave’s forces having opened up a cache of technology from what she figured out was one of Onyx Prime’s secret bases. The Decepticons apparently kept hush-hush about the history. She wasn’t able to get there in time to stop them having removed objects but did use a titan imploder on the moon in the black hole’s orbit, pushing it into the accretion disk and missing a century of galactic affairs thanks to relativity time-warping close to a black hole.” 

“Oh my gods,” I kicked off the main drives again as we reached ground level, our ship’s hull peppered and scorched by Decepticon small arms fire as we zoomed towards the torn up opening tunnel metal gates, Lithonians in high speed ground and air modes flitting out beneath and above Arcee and I to provide covering fire. At least, that’’s probably what they are given their rock pile insignias…

I took us into the arrow lit metal shaft, nearly all my focus on the flight in the oval tunnel as our ship was too close for comfort to the ground, the walls, and Arcee’s own, as much as I love doing fancy maneuvers with the gal who helped me realize my orientation before she found that hers was the same , Lithonians tailing us as the gates shut. “I knew she was saving that imploder for Jhiaxus and Nova if they ever turned up again, the poor iterexper altmodus gal… have to focus on keeping us steady, check our hull and systems.”

Editor typed and turned knobs rapidly. “On it, we’ve sustained only minor damage along the underside and wings, as far as I can tell, but- one of the kinetic rounds appears to have contained a rocket engined drill that had turned towards the left engine!”

“Scrap,” I barely contained my spark and fuel duct pounding panic as my fingers and thoughts scrambled precisely across the controls after cutting thrusters to ready retro thrusters while signalling: =Engine failure imminent, Lithonians! stay on the right side!= I enabled reactive separation protocols for the left engine on the wing. =Our starboard engine is going to blow, have to drop it-=

They had already cruised to the side, and I blew out the engine array, cutting cables cleanly with reactive microdemolition charges that ejected it behind and below us while I sped us away, retros firing, towards the massive ships barely in view in the light at the end of the tunnel-

And the dropped engine array exploded, tearing plasma shreds into our rear engine’s underside armor, exhaust, and the left wing, I kept us steady with retro fire. “Not enough to knock us out…” I checked ship vitals, and saw the quantum drive had been knocked out. “Scrap, we’ll have to dock old Shadow when we jump…” =No casualties, can’t jump though!=

Tunnel lights signaled back:: =Copy, this is Rosanna, we’ll transport your ship when we recover you, I know us solidars are used to packing like sardines, glad you’re still in one piece to hug.=

Editor smiled, face pink and lipped: =Thank you, old friend.=

I grinned as I slowed us down steadily, cutting rear engines, spark warm at the thought of the throuple I hadn’t seen in two million years, while thoughts of concern swam about having one less boarding party ship along with memories of the faces of my friends swirled, most prominently my sister Trans-Mutate, of my Conjunx, and of darling Arcee. I don’t know how much my spark can handle more bittersweet moments, but I have to. For me, for her, for them, for xe- xe- for her, for all of us. I crunched my face in anguish at not being able to use my dear friend’s second set of pronouns, memory entropy throttling me, and I muttered “Jhiaxus I hope you’re dead.”

I turned my focus on the open flight deck of the colossal curved, broad, rock-stylized, slope armored mass transport ship hued a resplendent pewter blue, and glided us in alongside the Claymore , noticing the ship was in fact hundreds of rock-like craft joined together. “Oh thank gods its modular.” I landed Tagan’s Shadow on the right side, near Anode and Lug’s ship and Road Rage’s Crystal Memory . I stood after we came to a stop, finding Editor’s hand on my forearm.

“I heard what you said,” they looked up at me, face flitting through their usual three colors and shapes for a moment before settling on pink. “You’re worried about leaving her with what she’s been through.”

“Yes, I am,” I bowed my head and turned to power walk over to the rear cargo bay door, Editor kept pace with me. “Cybertronian oppositional genderism is the worst, you know? I hate how viscerally she has to feel what’s wrong with our world, and potentially losing her again in trying to save her and our lives makes me so sad. And we only spent a few years with Anode and Lug- I hope Flamey, Rosa, and Shade can look out for them.” 

Now past the hallway and in the cargo bay stuffed with supplies and our few personal belongings, I unlatched and tapped the wall button to open Tagan’s Shadow bay door, and stepped down the ramp to face my disembarking loved ones and the bot Lithonian marine and technician detail alongside Autobrand bearing Flamewar, Rosanna, and Shadow Striker, and those three ran towards us, us old friends colliding into a brief group hug, frames pressed on each other with loving words before standing apart. 

“It’s so good to see you, again,” Shadow Striker saluted, as is her habit. “Now, to business, as we don’t have much time or denizen lives to spare. Anode and Lug, nice to meet you, you’re needed in the main cargohold strongroom, Arcee, you’re needed at the armory command post where the bridge citadel is located. The rest of you- you likely noted your missing vessel is here, as soon as the Tagan’s Shadow’s armor is patched up we’ll launch, we’ll be sure to leave the components needed to fix your quantum drive handy too.”

“Everybody, before we go-” Arcee took an old bulky Reflection 84 camera comms-phone out of her side-tasset hip skirt plating “I’d like to get a photo of us together, I’ll be sure to send it to everyone.” She turned with that soft, earnest mouth loose vulnerable expression of hers to the Lithonians. “Would one of you be so kind as to get a picture of us?”

I smiled, as did most of our group.

“Gladly,” a broad tank bot with a bicrested redged helm reached forward. “It’d be an honor, Arcee. Thank you by the way for saving the life of my cousin Kranixx a while back from the Rock Consortium when you were on a job. Our causes are joined.” 

“Glad to, and you are right, and there is a strength in that,” she handed the phone to them. “Thank you for giving me a home.”

The Lithonian nodded and motioned for us to stand together, and so we quickly arranged ourselves, myself behind Anode and Trans-Mutate, to the right of Codexa and Arcee in front of her between Shatter and Anode, with Editor to my right.

I nestled my arm along Arcee’s lower back to rest my hand in a gentle hold on her waist, while Anode laced her arm above mine to hold her taller partner’s midriff. Codexa embraced the back stacks in front of her, Shatter stood sideways to hug both Arcee and Codexa, Arcee held Shatter there while holding Lug alongside Anode, and I wrapped my right arm around Editor and Trans-Mutate, my sister also embraced her lover Road Rage. 

To my spark-warmed surprise, everyone else sat in front of us, in a half circle, Minerva with a copy of On Ancient Truths in hand, a finger pointing to the primary author’s name among us, and Lifeline took her Delta League stylized hammer off her roofed back, leaning it over her shoulder, the gold, pink, cyan, and white hammer end resting on Arcee’s knee.

“Oh dears-” Arcee laughed. “You’re so sweet- I-”

“We wouldn’t be here together in the same way or perhaps at all without you, and your companionship has gladdened our sparks, sparkmate,” Minerva smiled up at her. =“We wanted to emphasize you, celebrate you, and us through you.”= She turned to face the camera while the Lithonians murmured approvingly, the bot taking photos having already snapped some.

—---

The Lithonian Supreme Commander, Celenium, got on internal ship comms: “Delta Wing, you are cleared for launch, we are approaching the low orbit Autobot escort fleet. We have ship communications back up, cometspeed to you.” 

=“‘Aye, thank you, ‘till all are one,”= Road Rage replied, =“Launching now.”=

I took my ship off, turning to trail Road Rage’s gunship on a leftwards diagonal out of the hangar. Codexa put her big arms around me, hands resting above my chest, that kind of smug embrace of hers that told me immediately who she was missing. 

Veering at intercept course out of the hangar into the fleet combat above, I caught a glimpse of expertly placed anticraft cannon and beam rounds crossfiring at approaching Decepticon boarding craft, and could practically feel the guided fire control command rhythm of my old car gal friend at the bridge. “You’ll see her again, dear friend, mark my words. I’d give my life for that.” I turned my attention back to closing in on the city sized dreadnought spearheading the approaching Decepticon formation, and locked coordinates across the edge of the command citadel deep within the hull, readying the breaching torpedo payload.

Radar detection inputs alerted me that six blocky Autobot gunships formed up with us, three on each side clearing the way through Decepticon craft with their turrets, a sabot shaped Autobot missile corvette behind us intercepting missile swarms and blasting Decepticon counterparts.

“Rampage you don’t have to, you’ve had it hard too…” Codexa gave me a squeeze.

Road Rage picked up speed, dodging and weaving and launching all manner of bright flares and chaff shard clouds, and I maneuvered and launched the same with hands plugged into the console inputs. “Sure I have, but this is what we’ve done for each other, and I’ve never known, likely will never know, the kind of pain she went through.”

Decepticon Seekers scrambled from nearby ship conflicts to tear into us, and our gunship and corvette cover broke off to intercept. Road Rage and I plowed ahead, while Arcee messaged us simply saying =I love you. All of you.=

We replied in turn with as brief a message containing the multitudes of our feelings.

“I do know how precious her relationship with you and Shatter is, and it would be deeply inconsiderate of me to belittle the weight you’ve had to bear, where her anger and reclusiveness comes from.”

I rerouted shielding to the front of the ship in preparation for our boarding impact. About three minutes out. No bogeys have locked on us so far. “Things are not going to get easier for transformer transfems as this war drags on and turns the galaxy against our species while our warring factions grow more entrenched in arrogance and desperation. In that respect, there is a future and a history I want to save, just as you all have risked your life so many times for me. For our future.” 

I looked over at wordless Editor, whose sensors seemed riveted to the turret fire controls warding off Seekers while we approached the colossal purple Theovanguard planetburner, a blocky narrowing towards the bow fortress vessel so much like two massively oversized Nova-era Vanguard vessels stacked on top of each other. The turrets focused on larger ships, a cloud of Seekers swarming out of hangar bays on the sides towards us instead. They think we don’t know what we’re doing. Ha!

As we slowed down just enough to be able to navigate with enough precision, I wrapped my fingers around the torpedo release trigger aiming level with where the bridge was supposed to be kilometers ahead: =“Fire!”= 

I pulled the trigger, and I knew Road Rage or someone on her ship did the same from the projectile signature warnings: two sets six longmetal torpedoes full of mining charges refitted for breaching lanced towards the dreadnought, firing retrothrusters to slow down and bypass shielding, and collided into the hull, front ends collapsing and detonating yellow igneneon explosions that tore gaping holes in the hull large enough for us to cruise our gunships into. 

A quick scan revealed the main hallways were indeed standard Theovanguard specifications, large enough for us to fly our ships through. “Functionists always made their unwieldy ‘superweapons’ too damn easy to deal with.” I flew us into the hall, Editor directed the guns to tear up the blast doors attempting to close ahead, and I flew onwards. 

“Damn right!” Shatter cackled and squeezed my shoulder.

What crew were in the immediate vicinity of the blast scrambled away. No one followed our engine wakes, but I was certain the side doors would open to blast us or railguns would be placed behind us. Still better than risking a turbolift or footing it. =“Road Rage, do you have-”=

The terrible spark shaking shriek ran through comms again, which I promptly shut off, as memories of my sibling and I running proton rocket launchers in hand surged. Running from the screeching low atmosphere bombardments of the long stalactite Nemesis upon Megatronus legion occupied Taganis, guns and blades everywhere quieted only when the hulking visage of Codexa dueled bulky Megatronus - focus, they all still need me . 

“Rampage! My love slow down and turn, we’re taking too much fire, I can’t block it all!”

“10 o’cog!” I immediately banked slightly leftwards, Editor fired forward guns into the inner dreadnought walls to match, and I started to slow down as alarmed for multiple hull fractures and dying engines flared. “I’m so sorry, the scream- we lost contact with Road Rage didn’t we? How far are we from rendevous?”

The central engine blew out behind us, and we careened towards the floor. I fired every retrothruster I could to reduce speed, and we crashed into the hull, skidded into it, bow and wings crushed and stuck inside, my frame still shaking from the impact. 

“About a kilometer, let’s go!” Editor unstrapped from their chair, slender barreled photon burst rifle drawn from their back, and headed for the side hatch, while Codexa and Shatter readied scrapmaker autocannons and followed then.

I primed my forearm claws’ fusion cannons as I unbuckled and followed them out, both of us in a run. They pulled the emergency lever of the hatch and leapt forward, left forearm particle tower shield emitter ignited, and started blazing away burst volleys in their run down their wing, already under fire from blaster bolts. I clambered out and zoomed in on their fire trajectory, spotting Decepticon infantry, gunships, and wheeled fighting vehicles in the dozens swarming into the hallway.

=“Creating tight quarters with your numbers is foolish,”= I aimed my forearms as blasts plinked and singed on my armor, and aimed one forearm cannon at the bots on the ground and one at a gunship as I ran alongside my lover. =“Megatron doesn’t know how to properly utilize a fusion cannon! Behold the skill of a veteran of the resistance against Nova Prime!”= I fired, two continuous purple beams stretched across the vacuum, and I stretched my arms about to opposite sides, decimating their front lines with torn up melted frames.

The survivors turned and fled. I stared on, beams withdrawn, in full surprise. =“Are bulk-sized fusion cannons a rarity now?”=

“Lost technology, I think,” Codexa looked over at me. “Best if Prowl never finds out and tries to reverse engineer your claws.”

“Right,” Arcee, be careful with that one, I hopped up into my jet mode and started to streak towards the citadel annex while Codexa and Shatter leapt up in flight after me.

Editor joined us in their golden jet mode, and for a while, all was still save for our air breathing energon rocket engines and our frames. A precious stillness. We came in for a landing near the towering gray blast doors for the Citadel, guards nowhere to be seen, and my radar pinged me to a large familiar fighter-freighter joining us on our left. I light signaled them. =Good to see you. Land and blast?=

Trans-Mutate flashed back: =Aye, solidar. I take it they ran from your fusion beams.=

=That they did.= we joined our firepower together, all cannons tearing into the Citadel armor while the rest of our boarding team dismounted and brought personal arms to bear, melting the doors away in seconds.

Then we barreled into the blaze of counterfire and screams and orders of the multifloor bridge, Decepticons took cover behind terminals we tumbled around and leaped over. I took the center, shrugged off blaster fire, clawed through and blasted crew with ease while Legonis howled and fired round after round of photon fire from his sword-blaster into me, denting armor and causing internal fissures. 

Trans-Mutate thruster jump somersaulted behind him as I approached, then she cut the back of his knees with her forearm blades, and stepped aside as he fell to the floor to leep on the bulky truck bot’s flat frame and slice arms in twain while I shot off potential rescuers, and the rest of us seized control of the room. This was too easy, even for the Functionist variation of Decepticons… my fuel tank lurched. 

Trans-Mutate put her blades to the tearful injured admiral’s throat. “I’m sorry I had to do that, tell your crew to surrender.”

=“All units, stand down, it’s over.” Legonis then cackled, more blood spilling with the laugh. “I serve the dark prophecy of galactic freedom from will, laid out by Nova Prime. Arcee is part of it, you are not. Poor little Delta Leaguers, you are no longer of utility. At last we have our vengeance. The FTL engines are rigged to blow on a countdown from my surrender or loss of command. The entire sector of this solar dystem will perish in the quantum disruption and fusion blasts. The heart of the Delta League dies today, and the majority of bots of another species who hold on to gender and altmode degeneracy for good measure!”=

Rage filled my spark as he soke, terrible rage that wafted through my frame and I rushed over as Trans-Mutate spoke. I did not hear theif words. I heard all the pain and suffering, hope and love of the last five million years of friends, loved ones, solidars, of refusing to accept another torture, another grief. 

I slammed my claw around his neck as I knelt. “Tell me how to shut this down, sorrowful lost hatespark, and I will keep away from dismembering you in a way that makes what Jhiaxus did to my kind both trans and fauna look like nothing.”

My sibling looked up with worry, with the same face she gave Arcee a handful of times when her wrath and loss of trust was at its peaks.

Legonis sobbed, and bit his teeth, and I grabbed my sister and pulled her away in a tumble with me while the admiral’s head exploded.

“I’m sorry… I was a fool…” I turned away, let her go.

“He was never going to give the info with the resources we had,” Trans-Mutate ran for the helm to set launch coordinates and get on comms, =“We set this ship on course to nowhere and get back on the freighter! All of you, go!!!”=

—---------------

Meanwhile, primary armory command post of the Sediment Group, entering low orbit.

=“Repelling teams, report in!”= I pulled my blade out of a Decepticon flier halberdier, thankful for the faster comms restoration, and quickly scanned around to be sure my Lithonian armory team was accounted for. All alive, good- I listened as each defensive crew team in the refugee fleet sounded off and gave still combat effective signals on my blue agate command terminal. =”Good, I think we’re clear to-”= 

Codexa: =“Arcee, all of you, listen to me! We love you, the FTL engines are set to blow, we’re trying to make it, find Caminus, heal-”=

The connection cut as my radar feed showed the massive superheavy capital ship blipped into qusntum space headed for the shortest way to the Rim, an explosion going off almost immediately after the quantum voyage, my spark’s swell of emotions flung just as far across me as the IFF of the Crystal Memory caught in the dreadnought’s wake, tossed on a trajectory past the opposite side of the galaxy.

I sat down, merely going through motions. =“Celenium, you’re clear- clear to jump. I’m an atheist, but I pray and hope to casuality that my loved ones find a rogue star system to anchor them and refuel for a long journey home. I’m going to need some time away from command.” My ability to speak started to seize up. “And when the oppurtunity comes up to check out an old Nova-era observation post along the Rimward Run, I ask that we take it, in honor of my beloved’s wish.”=

Zey replied: =“All granted. Refugee Admiral Thinagraph, you are clear to jump. Cometspeed to you and the League, and to the Autobots. We will join you soon.”=

We jumped just as Optimus’s voice came on, ardent with the communing passion I heard long ago at times when Solus wielded the Matrix within the Star Saber, and in this case, deep with sorrow: “I’m sorry, Arcee, for the millions of years in which the lineage of the Primes and Cybertronian society has failed the part of us you all are-”

Another Decepticon fleet moved in as we moved further away in quant space, and I nearly hit the floor before a striding Flamewar caught me, sobbing into my shoulder, letting loose the tears I had not the wherewithall to ease out of myself, as I laid limp in her arms. 

Eventually I found the ability to speak again. Please live please live please live, by the time the rest of us Leaguers left were in the room. “We press on. For them,” I turned around to hug her. “For us. For love. The strongest thing in the universe.” I don’t know if I believe that anymore.

????, soaring past the galaxy’s edge. 

Every second a century, I moved my rapidly aging engines to full speed to keep my consciousness online, to find the direction towards the emergency FTL shut-down on the dashboard. Every raid thought a decade, and I fund my way off the ceiling, believing. Channeling my exponentially meditative sheer continuum of will on the memory of my home from whom my orientation was named, of all my love for the cosmos. 

I hit the window and fell to the floor, gravity of the ages gnawing at me inside out, and I started to reach up, creaking. All my love of my family, of the Matrix’s destiny, of Solus’s promise in youth and apology before war, of my love for my partners please arcee be strong be gentle forgive yourself trust my love my love my love my love my love-

Alarms blared declaring we were at quant brudge factor ten, and once more the Matrix touched me as I moved to dkam my hand on the energency shut down, once more the knight-commander Thirteenth out on the Rim who never ruled touched my spark with hers, and a beautiful rainbow of lights of the fallen spark bots played before my optics, Dropkick kissing me with her soul and embrace while mighty Solus touched my falling hand to say: “Shockwave has meddled with history, replaced Onyx, but the vast shape of it is for now as it would have been, near collapse of gender for one of fourteen worlds included. You and Arcee are greater prime movers of collective history than I ever was, in this continuum, old flame. Variation with strategy will bring you long awaited victory. I love that old vanguard for how she challenged power, I never had the courage to ask her out, and now I know that she was a-”

Shatter slammed my hand down on the button, as tearful as me at having seen the Afterspark, as amazed that none of the Guiding Hand were among the ones we saw- 

Our thoughts separated and we held each other close, legs strewn around each other.

“Do you think that was real?” she quivered. “How could-”

“I don’t know, but Shockwave has been a recurring theme lately,” I kissed her cheek. “Did you feel Dropkick too? Her whole life touching us?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “It felt good to live through most of it again and the parts I missed.”

“Guh- where are we?” Rampage cradled an unconscious Editor in his arms. 

“Star charts say-” Road Rage pulked a map onto the observation window holodisplay. “Rogue star cluster XM 1284-Z-R-Pi, also known as “My Hat Star System,” as registered in name star ownership from Stentarian astronomer funding efforts 25 million years ago. Universe sure has a sense of humor.”

“It’s. A bit dry sometimes.” Lifeline drew Minerva in to lean on her. “More than a bit. So hang on a second, the Thirteenth Prime is actually that old warrior order polity commander? Didn’t you and Arcee work with her, Codexa? You told me once but I completely forgot until now. That’s really weird, considering.” 

“Before I explain her whole deal, when are we?” I checked the year date on the dashboard. “Oh no, it’s been four million years… are they even-”

“They’re alive,” Minerva nodded. “I didn’t feel them in the Allspark. But they’re in trouble, been in trouble a long time. The Lithonians had to split off, your partners broke up, Flamewar and co. got separated from them, Anode’s on Caminus last I saw, wanting to bring Arcee and Lug there-”

I howled out of anguish and relief both, and Shatter must have been too, while our family present gathered around us, and eventually charted a route to the nearest source of energon on the long road back to Starway galaxy…

Chapter Text

3.999,985 million years ago, Spaceport CSSB-16 in orbit of Femax, out on the Rim.

“This contract is right scrap dangerous and just as noble,” I looked down at Captain Glacias and his pulosian guard retinue while going over the tablet that he had handed me. “Thank you for giving us some time to grieve.”

“As I said, the Grand Architect regrets the loss, and we do too, they were good people,” Glacias warbled slowly and long with his crew. “Their stories are in textbooks and our archives now. Even if the Autobots and Decepticons forget, we will never forget what you did for our world, as I can tell the Lithonians around feel the same with the looks of reverence. So, if you linked gals need some time to think it over, we’ll give it until the end of the day. The Grand Architect is worried about how far along Shockwave might be.”

“Well dears,” Arcee crossed her arms. “We can’t take more than an infiltration team to steal Autobot MTO tech and liberate some along the way, otherwise we put everyone here at risk. So, I’m in, been revving for a rematch against Jhiaxus’s student responsible for awakening my Matrix receptacle his teacher made anyway.”

“A vote, then, and caution since Shockwave may be anticipating at least one of us,” Anode raised her hand. “I’m in. If we’re going to cut ties with the Autobots we may as well break out Slipstream while we’re at it.”

Flamewar, Rosanna, Shadow Striker, and myself voted the same. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” Glacias flicked and typed briefly on his own tablet and handed me a suitcase with both hands. “8,000 credits in advance for the six of you together, as promised. And, as for Slipstream, the Grand Architect put quite a lot of effort into her legal defense-”

“Cor, for real?” I grinned. “That’s nice of Techy.”

“It is,” Glacias nodded. “She’ll be joining you in the hangar bay, she’s a free agent marked KIA in Decepticon records, going by Wingray for operation purposes. Good luck.”

Hours later, aboard the Claymore , departing from the Femax System.

“So we go after the Autobots first, yeah? If you all don’t mind I’ll stay back on the ship because you know, recent trial and all that,” big bulky purple and teal trim flyer Slipstream flipped her sword in her hand from her seat. 

Definitely feel for her circumstances being so dire. This is gonna happen more.

“That’s more than fair, and I’ll happily chart in that direction,” Arcee flicked some switches at the pilot dashboard, Anode leaning on her with Lug in her arms. 

“Don’t worry Slip,” Rosanna reached up to the big bot. “Any attention we draw from the Autobots will help buy us time against the Decepts.”

“Where are we headed again, exactly?” Lug turned around to look at me.

“Autobot MTO Training Dropship 74B, Triskelion ,” I met her optics. “Out near Omnitron.”

“Vanguard outpost turned Autobot training center,” Shadow Striker loaded her blocky shotgun with a photon energy cell. “Our best chance in is an internal intelligence cover, which technically, we are addressing a rights violation.”

“I hate proto and child soldier programmes,” Arcee unholstered her long curved pistols from her thighs to look the guns over. “We have a day to get there, I say we come up with an ostensible cover or play it honest to make the Autobots have moral reconsiderations, reduce the fire coming our way.”

“Not having to lie sure is amusing,” Anode laughed. “Let’s do that.”

One day later, in orbit of Omnitron.

Looking out the observation window, I was unsurprised at what I saw. An Autobot flotilla of a dozen golden Ark Minor frigates patrolled the orbit, a Due Process class silver fighter and light craft carrier near the old tower-like Primal space station studded with old photon cannons and missile batteries watching over the the partially cyberformed bronzelike steppe world below. The dropship was nowhere to be seen…

Scrap. “Lug, run a planetary scan, I bet they’re doing a field trip ground exercise. We might not be able to save the kids, we’ll end up in a protracted engagement.”

She bowed her head slightly as she ran the scan from the dashboard while Arcee shuddered.

“Yeah, ship’s parked on the edge of the Primal Vanguard campus,” Lug pulled up a holomap on the side of the window. “No way we’re getting more than tech.”

“New plan,” Arcee pulled on the joystick for a descent planetward. “Shadow Striker and I run a stealth operation to get the tech, and we get out. Everyone else, keep the ship ready. Call it a resupply mission.”

“I concur,” I checked on my acritalunimum EM kunai, pressing the power buttons on and off to hear the thrum of the armor piercing fields. “Ready to dance when you are, ‘Cee. We’ll stay as nonlethal as we can. Flamewar should handle the call.”

“Aye, be careful,” my motorcycle partner hugged me from her seat while we made a clean shielded planetary burn. Her forearms warmed my back with her thermal projectors. “Love you.”

“Love you both too,” I hugged her back and reached to hold Rosanna’s hand. “Good luck.”

“We’ll be watching,” she squeezed my hand in reply, and I got up to join Arcee while Anode took the helm and flew us in towards the port while talking to air-space traffic control. Arcee and I ran for the opening side airlock, and leapt out, myself into Arcee’s arms.

We softly descended with her thrusters, onto the Due Processes ’s shiny silver hull, and stepped apart to approach a locked hatch while crouched against the wind, and cut it open with our blades. It flew off promptly, and I slid down inside with hands to the ladder, pulling up internal memory of this carrier class’s layout to find the hangar. 

I sidestepped to give Arcee room. “‘Cee, there’s a turbolift down the hall, we can take it to the hangar. My independent agent clearance should work as a cover story for the guards…” 

“Let’s make it so,” she smiled at me and we strode down the blue-gray hall headed for the turbolift, not encountering anyone in the hull. Yet. 

When we got to the entrance frame, I pressed the turbolift button, and we waited, quietly, closely. I smiled back at her.

She stepped a little closer, elbowed my elbow, and the turbolift doors opened.

“Weirdly empty, don’t you think?” I stepped in and plugged in the coordinates for the 5th deck, the closest access to the hangar. 

“This is probably the ship assigned to watching over the kids, I can only imagine all hands that can be spared are on sensors and viewport windows aimed downwards. Glad we’re taking a recognized craft. Good idea, Shadow.”

“I was in the Delta League Marine Guerrillas on and off for millennia, and then when Rosanna, Flamewar and I returned to Cybertron we went independent on heisting and assassinations,” I returned the elbow. “Social engineering is so much easier when you already have access compared to that. I must have cycled through a hundred covers as a forged man. I remember all of them.”

Arcee looked at me then with knowing optics, a quivered nod, before she hugged me, and I replied in turn with a hold a little looser than hers, spark awash with her trust. 

“That must have been hell with extremely satisfying payoffs,” she whispered. “Thank you for doing what I could not, sister.”

  “Of course,” I kissed her cheek guard while we stepped apart and then through the once more open turbolift, onto the fifth deck. 

Here soldiers marched or were posted in pairs of four. The infantry security detail, doubtlessly. One group was on a beeline towards us. This will be easy, I hope. 

Among the four was a rather asymmetrical mostly blue bot with wrist mounted rotorblades on the left arm and a cannon for a right forearm, with pink pontoons for a right lower leg, who called out “Autobots! Hello, I’m Windmill, I don’t recognize you from the ship - to - ship roster. What brings you to the Iacon Stone? I’ll need proper clearance.”

“Primarian agent 42-017-33 niner, code thetacron gamma proto,” I booted up my holocard from my wrist. “Acting on independent purview for top secret operations concerning the whereabouts of surveillance technology that only I am qualified to disable after years of training. Triline here is my bodyguard. That’s all I can say.”

“One moment,” Windmill pressed two of his fingers to the side of his helm for a while. “Codes check out, welcome, Violetsaber, and Triline,” he saluted. “Is there anything you need?”

“We need your fastest, smallest vessel the two of us can take,” Arcee returned the salute with me. 

“Right this way,” Windmill turned around and proceeded to march back the way he came. We followed.

“Is there any danger to us or the MTOs?” Windmill asked while we reached the hangar doors. “Just so I can report to the commander.”

“In terms of immediate action unless we trigger the alarms, no,” Arcee answered for me. “That’s why we need to go alone.” 

 The armored blast doors opened, a large hangar half-filled with recent interceptor and gunship models, rounded and rather angular.

“You’ll want a Runabout fighter,” Windmill pointed at the most acutely angled in the wings craft with a sloped upwards middle hull design meant to mess with radar systems. “Fastest we have, stealth systems too. Just return it if you can, it’s expensive. I’ll clear you for launch now.”

“Thanks,” I gave another salute, and Arcee and I walked towards the fighter’s launch bay, clambered up the ladder and hopped inside each seat, myself with the copilot suite behind my friend. 

While she talked to carrier command and then launched, I ran through the ship systems, to ascertain just how high end the ship was. Stealth systems, electronic countermeasures, point defense coilgun drones, jamming, radar fryers, not to mention the ram-scoop torpedo system… 

Arcee had us landing by the training vessel by the time I sighed after I finished my lengthy appraisal of ship systems value. “‘Cee, this thing is way too expensive for us to hijack. We’ll have to leave it here or in orbit. I mean, who the Pit runs full ammo belts of engine seeking stealth ion cannon rounds with an ammo manufacturing system running on the unshielded fighter’s energon? What is this supposed to be, a guerrilla fighter with terrible fuel efficiency and irreplaceable parts?”

“Some files contacts of mine sent me last year made mention of the Runabout, but nothing about the specs,” Arcee turned off the engine. “It’s design came from a classified supplier for the ‘Diplomatic Corps’, and are apparently really somebody’s first round application capstone to Kimia Facility. My understanding is that Jazz recommended it be used as a peerless trainer and stealth defense fighter, so it’s only seen limited production.”

“Thank gods. The Autobots are going to lose this war hard if they greenlight stuff like this for mass production. Poor thing, I’d take a garage-built Apo-2 or Swordfox over this,” I unlocked the pilot windshield and clambered out. “Come on.”

“Surely you don’t mean that,” Arcee laughed and hopped down alongside me, and she motioned to the door ahead. “You’d rather go rogue in venerable light and torpedo snubbombers from two million years ago than an overwrought concept special operations craft-killer that actual special operations and the intelligence community turned down for offensive use?”

We both supressed laughs, our smirks all that was needed while we jogged to the airlock of the golden half circle ship that towered over us.

“Why, I think that’s your famous irony in your voice,” I entered my back-up clearance code into the keypad by the airlock. “You and I both know that modern thermal and radar principles of the war assume those signatures are Neutral craft. Do you have parts for one?”

The keypad beeped, and the airlock hissed open.

“I’ve been saving them for an emergency, but we really should make sure you all have a back-up to, I think I can trade one off Hipotank,” she ventured in. “Third deck is where the tech is. We’ll extract from the ventral hull. Let’s go.”

We said nothing as we snuck lightly through the halls and used maintenance Solus-tubes to clamber our way up to the third deck, and made our way to the cold construction hall, passing MTO crew quarters and an armory on the way-

“Who who- are you? Why do y- y- you two look- like that.” the stammered voice was paralleled by a sudden footfall behind me as if from the ceiling, with a gun to the back of my neck. “You Decepticons?”

“Easy kid-” I snarled when the gun barrel was pushed harder while Arcee started to turn around, If I can buy her time…

“I’m not a kid!! I was constructed grown-up!! I didn’t get to be a protoform!”

“I’m sorry,” I bowed my head a little, raised my hands slowly and turned my multi-optic side of my face to look at them. “It’s wrong that they denied you both the sociological and physical experience.”

A bright gray packless blocky bot with bright blue shoulder and lower leg wheels, with tall chin armor for a lower lip, under a blue visor and black helm, all aquiver with trembles. 

“We’re not going to hurt you, we’re here to help,” I turned on my identifier code holo, with my real name and information. “I’m cleared with High Command, see? My friend and I were in the war for liberation before this one, against the Functionists, and we worked with the Autobots when the Decepticons proved to be the newest wave of the same scrap. My name’s-”

“Shadow Striker,” the bot started to lower their gun. “I can read, it’s in the ten-step program. My name’s Quickshadow. You have- sh- sh- she pronouns specified in your profile. What are those?”

I lowered my arms and turned off the holo while Arcee stepped besides me and I faced Quickshadow fully.

“Cybertronian, as far back as we can remember and even in records from before 6 million years ago and the hypothesized intergenerational severance event, has been a language with more than one way to refer to or contextualize oneself in regards to gender. Of one’s chosen shape, realized understanding of who they are, how that connects with what one does and with other people.” I could practically hear Arcee’s smile. “My friend and I use she because we like the sound, how it’s written, and for us it matches the womanhood and altmodus we know ourselves through, the shapes we have chosen for ourselves, who we are from blade to helping hand and the thrill of rolling under the sun and stars.”

What a goddamn tragedy the world didn’t want her to be a parent.

The holovisor shut off to reveal two blue optics while the gun was holstered and their mouth opened and closed a few times wordlessly. “I um- sorry what. That was really beautiful. Gender? You can choose your shape for- your own purposes? I was taught that reformatting within your altmode type used to be for fashion before the war and now should be reserved for military utility and self-defense. What?”

“Clearly the made-to-order program wasn’t made with the assumption that..” how to phrase this carefully… I put my arm around dear Arcee as I rephrased, “that there would be time to even cover the fact gender or a parallel or lack thereof per person exists in all species of the universe, different for each person. Part of your heritage. Unfortunately knowledge of gender among our people has largely been… lost.”

“I- yeah that… makes sense.” They smiled. “I’ve wanted… more. For a while. I like my head but I don’t curve as much as I’d like to, the way you two do. I’d love to have tasset armor. Some of my peers are shaped more the way I’d like to be but they just- work with it because it’s how they’re made, and like me don’t know better, and don’t have time. I want to use she and her, at least until I hear other options. Are there any? Could you talk to the instructors? They’ll listen to you, maybe you can change the whole program.”

I looked over at Arcee, and she shared that gaze for a moment before I said “talk about your time as a gladiator and soldier of Megatronus.”

“I- yeah, I’ll do that.” She smiled at me, and then addressed our new acquaintance. “Quickshadow, you understand that you’re going to be deployed as a bot-wave strategy or rapid reinforcements, correct? They’re basically giving you a gun and a sword and telling you to survive and make your way to an objective after… six months of life? I went through something similar, long, long ago, before the Alliance of the Thirteen.”

“It’s my duty as an…” Quickshadow stopped for a moment. “Tell me. Please. I’m curious.” She took a step closer, her trembles returned as well. “You must have been through so much.”

“When my twin brother Galvatron and I were forged, the two of us were raised to be gladiators, from what I can remember. When we weren’t fighting to surrender or death we were healing, training, trying to care for each other because no one else would. We weren’t free people. We suffered under the whims of a tyrant and his oligarchy. But all that changed when…”

She sighed, while Quickshadow and I could not look away from her.

“Megatronus and his army marched on Protohex, called Protihex, now. He arrived at the arena and- he still had some decency back then- threw Septimus Prime from the royal box of the arena into the dirt where Galvatron and I had been duelling to the death, and liberated us and the rest of the gladiators. My brother and I killed Septimus, and marched with Megatronus’s army, for we knew no other path. We were part of terrible imperial conquests across the planet. I was hoping for a way out in a kill or be killed situation. I didn’t do enough.”

Quickshadow barreled into a hug with Arcee, held tightly, and we hugged back.

“But one day… I did have the bravery, the spite, the love, and still enough ability, to band together with like-minded pursuers of freedom, equality, dignity, democracy, and peace, the Delta League, when all seemed darkest. It saved my life, enriched it beyond all imagining, made the Golden Age what it was, and I still hold on to what is left of the good we did together before we had to flee. Shadow Striker and I fought together, built peace together, still have a small family we live with dearly. My name is Arcee, young one.”

“I- I want to go with you,” Quickshadow had droplets running down her face. “I understand what you’re saying. That even if the program changes, I am not being given the time I need to learn to fight well, to even have a growing up, that I will likely die, unlike older Autobots. Thank you for all you’ve already done for me, both of you. I want to leave a message for the program about my desertion so they change it and it makes things a little easier, I won’t mention you two are why. Would you- I want you to be my fathers.”

I bristled a little at the word and hugged closely, while Arcee laughed, and laughed, a raucous cackle throughout her entire frame. Ah, yes that would be pretty funny to me too, given. Worth possibly blowing our cover. It was infectious, I laughed, and Quickshadow did too.

“Er, what’s so funny? Was it something I said?”

“People tend to use very specific gender terminology for me because of a condition I have, if they know the words,” Arcee chuckled, a little more dryly. “Better words to use for us would be mentor, or parent, or in a gendered sort of way, mother or mom. First names are fine too.”

“Heehee, I like the sound of mom,” Quickshadow stood apart. “All right, I guess I should ask- what brought you here?”

“We’re on contract to a technologist looking to recover made-to-order technology from both sides for their own work, best we can figure repopulating the species apart from the war.” I replied. “We also want to rescue some MTOs along the way, so if you could tell us, were you built in the room around the corner?”

“Yeah, I can let you in too, and there’s spare stuff, they won’t notice, I’ll leave the message while you grab construction bay tools and parts.”

“Thank you, mentee. Is there a reason the ship is totally unpopulated besides you?”

We headed over while she replied, “I stayed behind from the field exercise because well. My shape dysphoria, they gave me a break but didn’t know what to do. I’m supposed to be reading to see if I can find anything useful. I have top marks in self-defense so they weren’t concerned.”

“I’m glad you want to help out your fellow bots with a message,” Arcee and I stepped through the door after Quickshadow opened it, and headed to the cabinet she directed.

“Half and half on our backs?” I asked Arcee while Quickshadow started to record her farewell behind us. 

“Yeah,” Arcee started to grab the boxed parts and tools to stash magnetically on my back.

I sighed as she worked, thinking of dear Flamewar and Rosanna for a moment while pondering Slipstream’s appreciation of us and mine of her, before I called the ship. =“Surveyor to Firebird, we have accomplished the objective and one volunteer. Awaiting rendezvous in five minutes, over.”=

Lug: =“Copy, Surveyor, we are a-ok to meet at L-z. Out.”=

“They’ll meet us at the landing zone soon,” I took a turn stashing equipment on Arcee’s back when she was done. “Quickshadow, you ready?”

“Aye aye,” Quickshadow made her way over. “Rooftop extract yes?”

“That’s the plan,” Arcee nodded. I grabbed the last few boxes to lay on her lower back, my own encumbrance nearly equal to the weight of carrying Flamewar around. Oh Flamey… “Let’s go.”

“Follow me,” Quickshadow headed for the door, which I got for her and Arcee, and we followed Quickshadow to the lift. 

“So um, you and your family are revolutionary guerrillas turned independent warrior contractors?” Quickshadow peeped while we took the elevator up. “You must have gotten to see a lot of the galaxy together and had plenty to choose from to read.”

“Heh, over the millions of years, yes, travelling more so Arcee though than the rest of us, though we have all seen our fair share of the worlds including our own beyond what is most apparent as of now.” I kept listening to the ship sounds, the hum of the turbolift, waiting to hear footsteps or engines. 

“Cool,” Quickshadow led us out towards a ventral airlock ladder. “I’d love to read and see whatever is on hand, both because my specialty track is field intelligence work and well, I enjoy reading history and mystery stuff…” she started her climb. “And I guess I’ve always wondered if there’s magna march music about people like us.”

“My partners would know all about that, they’re musicians on their spare time,” I smirked while Arcee followed Quickshadow up, who opened the airlock hatch after some hand-wheel turns. 

“Oh that’s awesome,” Quickshadow clambered out.

I joined Arcee on the ladder and we followed, up onto the top of the ship. That was inordinately easy. Might not be working with the Autobots again for a while unless my work to separate my alias from me pays off… 

Arcee started to sing while Claymore was on approach, of forest and hammer dancing with one another, write out of one of Broadtire's ballads from the books she loved. She's so soft sometimes... I know she'd like to be soft more, even to the point of sparring instead of ever fighting again...

 Aboard the Claymore, two days later, en route to Constellgem.

“Thank you Slipstream for corroborating intel on Shockwave’s Made-to-Order labs of the nascent Decepticon capital world,” I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You’ve been a big help, filling in for gaps in intelligence gathering by my network and the ones we inherited from… loves and dear friends.” I sighed and smiled. “It’s what they would want.”

“Of course,” Slipstream smiled back from her bridge seat. “We’ll show them what for. I want to be there.”

“Then you shall,” Anode tapped her fist over her own spark chamber. “The other four are more than enough to guard and run the ship while we’re away.”

“How do you plan to make our approach?” Rosanna pulled up the holo map of orbits, landing approaches and delta-v intercepts around the half-cyberformed world studded with fortresses. “If they recognize us we’ll probably have to expend most of our countermeasures to even land.”

“We jump in-atmo,” I smirked. “A few kilometers from the lab.”

“Wha- Arcee are you sure?” Flamewar said from the helm while everyone else stared at me. “I can do the jump itself with copilot help, the question is what happens after. It’ll turn into a hot drop fast, and we’ll have to pull out and jump. You’ll be on your own until you need orbital support. You’ll have to find your own ship.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Anode grinned. “I know how to spot a bucket of bolts that can fly.”

“It’s settled then,” Lug nodded. “How heavily equipped are we travelling?”

“Primary and sidearms for us, breaching and lockpicking equipment, medical gear,” I counted with my fingers. “And extra sidearms and energon for bots we free. We have no idea what to expect, especially, considering our collective intel of the capital is a bit patchy from lack of contact this last decade.”

“I memorized your armory,” Quickshadow perked up. “I’ll happily help pick out energy cells and ammo suited for run-ins with elite Decepticon forces based on my training, and I’m sure the former Autobot agents and Slipstream here can help with that too.”

“That’s very sweet, dear mentee,” I patted her helm. “Let’s get to work.”

Anode brought her arming sword and revolver, and Lug a thermal longsword and submunition rifle, Slipstream high frequency scimitars to match her shoulder-mounted scoped null ray rifles, and I packed pistols with my blades. Anode put a silencer on her revolver and packed discarding sabot rounds along with APHE, Lug brought photon lens energy cells and railgun firing chambers, and I brought ion pistol cells. We all brought extra neutron pistols and acritanium knives to give to those in need, Lug opted to carry most of the medical equipment, Slipstream loaded missiles on her wings and brought door breachers. We all brought filers that could be stowed in our forearms and lower legs, made sure we had reboot cubes in our throats. Lastly the four of us tediously and tenderly lined each other with reactive armor micro-explosives and port operated energon blade emitters I had done my best to keep in working order, repair, and gathered over the years at immense expense for an operation as dangerous as this one. 

We were on our last deep space stop jump before the Imperator System of Constellgem when we were done in the armory.

“We should sleep,” Slipstream murmured when we were done, her hands withdrawn from Lug. “Shadow Striker’s probably getting ready to take the helm, and Rosanna and Flamewar watching over Quickshadow before resting themselves.”

“Aye, we should turn in,” Lug patted her forearm.

We got up and bid good night, and Anode and Lug joined me in the bunk of our quarters. We cuddled around each other, without a word, my mind on each other, and the lost we all loved, sharing a moment of starry peace together, until I fell asleep, a yellow grey truck bot I knew well and missed dearly frequent in my dreams.

Eight hours later, nearing Constellgem.

Slipstream, Anode, Lug, and I were sitting in the cargo bay, waiting for Rosanna to drop the Claymore out of quant space. 

Rosanna: =“Darling bots, we’re dropping in five, make sure you’re all tuned up and ready to rumble!”=

Quickshadow: = “Good luck mentors!”= 

My spark blossomed with warmth from the care of the two, from Rosanna’s battlebard tendencies, from Quickshadow bringing us closer as family. I love you both so much.

Shadow Striker: =“Good hunting, siblings .”=

Her enunciation to me was slow, deliberate. Clearly trying to overcome whatever inane program I uncontrollably transmitted that compelled her and everyone to only call me sister. Droplets ran down my cheeks, glistening my smile. =“We love you.”=

Flamewar: =“We’re Delta League Take Five, and we’re gonna take their tech and free those kids from the war! By my chin armor we’ll take this sloop down the gullet of the enemy and deliver your reckoning! Give ‘em Decepticons the blazing Pit for me, ‘til all are one in multitudinous harmony!”=

=“‘Til all are one!”= the four of us cheered, my hand squeezed Slipstream’s while she shivered, and she smiled down at me, turned her hand over to reply.

“I heard legends about you from a bot I knew by the name of Hot Rod when we were growing up in Nyon,” she grinned. “It’s an honor to fight beside you, Arcee.”

“Likewise beside you, we’ll watch out for each other,” I withdrew my hand to keep it free and ready.

There was a slight jaunt as my ship jumped into normal space, and the sound of our craft slamming against the air on the rumble of rocket engines. Air defense alarm sirens started to sound, with an ultimatum to surrender or die on frequency while the cargo bay doors opened.

The four of us dove out into the smoke grenades and flares dropped to obscure our fall, Anode and Lug flew down together on her back engine, Slipstream on her leg thrusters, and I used my back stacks to make a controlled dive and standing landing among the purple and gray sharp and jagged skyscrapers and fortresses, not far from our target, the looming brutalist architecture halls of Shockwave’s research campus.

Flamewar: =“Surveyor to Firebird, we’re pulling out, meet you at rendezvous, out.”=

The Claymore’s rocket engines roared up to full acceleration and speed, a cacophony of gunfire opened up in reply that I could only follow through thermal vision to see my ship speeding up into the sky, followed by flyers and numerous blast salvos.

“Starspeed, dear ones,” I whispered and pointed ahead. “Five blocks up to an access tunnel, let’s move.”

“Right behind you,” Anode watched my left flank with her revolver out and ready to aim.

I ran forwards through the sidewalk of the emptying street, pistol and unignited sword in hand, jogged at a hurried march as if to suggest we belonged here and were engaging in a routine response without sight of our quarry and thus no need to sprint , and the rest followed suit. No one bothered us on the way to the access ramp down into the catacomb lobby halls of the Constellgem Research Campus. Did he really have to make my name part of the acronym pronunciation? What a poppet valve.

We stopped some distance away when I spotted cameras lining the tunnel walls. “Hey, Slip, you have a solution for this one?”

“Given our choices between Shockwave’s staff recognizing us and them simply knowing a breach is occurring, yes,” Slipstream procured a ball from her back riddled with yellow - black hazard stripes and electromagnetic pulse warning labels, with one large red button under a plasteel transparent seal that she flicked open. “This an EMP bouncer/bowler, I toss it, it starts disabling cameras upon landing until it loses momentum. Any guards down there might get fried too if they can’t withstand a standard stun grenade. You’ll be fine though, if memory serves from the War you have a high resistance to electric stun weaponry.”

“I do, yes,” I smirked while putting the many, many times I had one lobbed at my face only to cut down attackers who came in after it out of my mind. “All right, ready when you are.”

On instinct, we got out of her way.

“Fire in the hole!” She tossed the momentum stun grenade in overhand, a clean strike to the floor shuttering cameras off as it bounced and rolled its way down. I immediately sprinted in after it, into the darkness lit by my blade and helm light, thermal vision overlay on…

Two heat signs dimmed further some hundred meters ahead after some shouting and a loud clunk sounded in that vicinity. I pressed on quickly, staggered when the grenade rolled back near me and shocked me, but nothing I couldn’t handle. The two identical purple and green car bot guards were slumped on the floor in front of blast doors. No need to kill them if they’re out… I put my foot in front of the grenade to bring it to a stop, kneeling from the dizzying pain with a yelp, and then it shut down. =“All clear, oddly only two guards. Going to start cutting in.”=

By the time my pals caught up, I had cut through, and I kicked the blast door down to find a plasma weapons fire flared my way, I blade deflected with ease. The weaponsfire was from odd squat purple drones with four legs and stubby tails, ten of them at the start of this shelf and vault filled lab- “Scrap, they have record-”

Gunned down by Lug, Anode, and Slipstream in short order.

“We need to move, Anode and Lug, survey while Slip and I guard you. Your lead.

“Right,” Anode stepped up  next to me and heaved Lug on her back, turning into a jet vtol biplane with Lug inside her currently open canopy cockpit, rifle out. “Follow me.” 

Slip and I plunged in after them, trusting her roguish skills, keeping an optic out for any sign of MTO tech or bots. 

We went unchallenged, which I found concerning. “There’s probably an ambush ahead, planning to encircle us…”

Deep in, right on cue, I thought I heard distant yelling from the door we had entered through.

“Frag, well, I did find the spark laboratory, that’s our best bet,” Anode pointed a searchlight on an unmarked door. “I can smell the signs of cold construction.” 

“On it,” Slipstream sprinted, tacked a door breach charge on, and spun onto the wall for cover as she detonated the explosive with a button press. 

I ran in… This is not what I expected to see- dozens of rows with wired sparks shining within “How the hell do we exfiltrate them? What an atrocity,” I screamed in anguish and hatred, and blocked a pistol shot from inside as a matter of course

Ten bots, two loaded with guns that have way too many buttons, I snarled, and charged at the two fancily armed I was guessing were scientists while my dear pals opened fire behind me, their rounds streaking to my sides while I deflected more blasts among yells of terror and to focus fire. 

Good luck. I activated my thrusters and collided with one of my targets. The two of us on the floor, I leg hooked their gun aside and put a sword to their throat, the blue streaked with orange bot quaked with hands near their head.

“Sorry Arcee! I was under orders to take you alive if you came by! Please don’t kill me! Squad, stand down-”

The other supposed scientist dropped dead next to them, shot cleanly through the forehead, while the other eight bodies lay smoking.

“No… Circuitwing…” the only one left alive shut their optics while my friends quickly advanced. “What do you want, Arcee?” 

“I need to exfiltrate these poor weaponized sparks, give them a better home, along with a copy of your MTO tech-” I heard a vent latch open and turned my head up just in time to see a curvily lanky with very blocky and winged back stacks bot with a striking resemblance to my drawings leap down with a leg aimed for my head, blue plasma beam swords out-

While Slipstream knocked the bot aside and I attempted to call out from a gut reaction to stop fighting, a gun barrel within a palm was pressed against my neck the moment Anode’s revolver went off, clearly having shot into the clearly not disarmed bot who would have tried to hold me hostage.

“Thank you Anode- everybody stop fighting, please!” My spark raced and frame’s sensors were hazily sharp as I stood to face the prime blue with bright yellow swirl trim not quite lookalike who had already scrambled to their feet in a protective stance, swords ahead.

“We’re at an impasse, you killed to get in here, including two of our adjunct mentors, why the Pit should my solidarity siblings and I listen to you,” they stood while seven dozen bots ran in from both doors guns ready, and a five bot combiner lumbered into view with a massive gold hilted pink blade double-edged sword. 

The combiner gazed at me with their bucket-helm somewhat resembling a Megatron-like face, more sharp, with a much taller crown-crest, gray rimmed with black helm guards and purple trim.  “I know you. You’re… I don’t remember. Shockwave told us…” they looked away. 

“I’m sorry,” I turned off my sabers, and stowed them. “I’m Arcee, I use she. These are my Delta Leaguer pals.” Murmurs went though the amassed likely made-to-order soldiery, anf the one who looked like me seemed unsurprised. “Tell me,” I stowed my blades and gestured with open hands. “Your combiner siblings had a better memory before being made to combine, did they not? I know another similarly effected, Monstructor, and I myself have struggled with afteraffects of awry CNA editing. We can help. Anode and Rosanna and myself have some familiarity. And I imagine that’s not the only thing the scientists here have put you all through.”

“No, it’s not,” one winged bot of purple and green started. “Many of our siblings are the weapons you see before you, primed to ignite innermost energon directly for mass destruction. They say many must be sacrificed for the cause, so we and our sisters can live.”

“Can’t remember- don’t remember, except Luxkick once said she looked up to you as a shaper of history and for persevering through accidents,” the combiner spoke again. “I am Megatronia. We are she. Have been for twenty years.”

The blue and yellow one I now suspected was Luxkick had ?her? head in her hands. “Mentor Shockwave says your way is not one of order, but an important foil and motivator for it, so long as you refuse your rightful place in hierarchy. But you fight for your family to be free do you not? Those gathered here?”

“Yes, she does,” Anode answered before I could. “Love and wanting to never have to fight again are her ideals. You must understand, what Jhiaxus did to her was no accident, even Shockwave admitted this at the Interregnum constitutional Senate session two million years ago.”

Lug turned on a recording of it starting from Shockwave’s ‘great woman theory’ speech, and my response including to the forced activation of my matrix receptacle.

The young soldiers’ faces were full of horror. Shouting of betrayal started. Luckick looked devastated, tearful, leaning on Megatronia’s lower right leg.

The thundering of many footsteps came close, and she shouted a code command that led to the doors behind us shutting.

“Listen to me!” I called out. “If you want to save your kin, Anode is a blacksmith, and we will have help on Femax from Lithonians and Femaxians alike! We just need a ship big enough for all of you and to bring MTO tech!”

Blasting and shouting started on the other side of the door.

“Okay!” Luxkick pressed her hand over her spark. “We’ll hijack mentor Shockwave’s ship, I have the command codes. Brothers, sisters, let's move these storage bays out, towards the interior hangar!”

“We’ll cover you,” Slipstream readied her guns. “Arcee, go with Luxkick. You’re a priority target and by far overly skilled enough to take out Shockwave without killing him.”

“Thank you,” one of the tearful MTOs nodded.

I ran for the front, blades out, while my dear friends and loves held the rear among the commotion of pushing and towing the rows of spark-bombs. Shockwave, you’ll pay, in a way your mistreated mentees can accept. 

Megatronia threw herself at the wall ahead and cut with her massive, earthshaking blade to remove the rest of the wall to ease our way en masse further into the laboratorial fortress. Luxkick pointed her sword at an incoming tank bot and clicked a hilt button- a pinpoint blue laser beam tore cleanly and precisely into the barrel and exploded the ammunition within, tearing the tank apart while we sprinted into the loads of sharp implement storage and halls of testing chambers I only bothered contemplating with optics long enough to check if there was someone alive within, finding nothing but various forms of remains.

“Nifty sword, were these prisoners?” I gave the youngster a glance, suddenly wondering if there was a long-con / sting operation in play. If Shockwave gets our ship…

Shooting broke out behind us.

“They were originally laser pointer swords, I modded them to photon-burst beam capacity,” Luxkick sighed. “I use she too, and um, yeah, Shockwave is always running tests on incarcerated personnel. Mostly Functionist holdovers.”

“Oh.” I did spot the gear winged insignia on one oozing armor plate. “The line between late Functionist and Decepticon is merely one of economics and bioessentialist structure these days, the speciesism and cluelessness about gender is nearly identical.”

Megatronia caught up with us. “The last known Cybertronian Knight speaks true, we must make haste.”

“The what?!?!” I stared up at her and crumpled to my knees screaming in pain, a thundering of indescribable thoughts at the edge of my conscience while I could not tell if my frame was melting or freezing alive “Aaah aghhhhh please not sensory mayhem now-”

The fighting behind stopped at my screams, and Megatronia picked me up in one hand. “I’m so sorry. Shockwave came by a month ago and told me to say, made me say… for the welcoming of death that awaits.”

Anode : =“Arcee!!! Arcee luv please listen, feel your spark, the calm of all you are even beyond that that cannot be taken from you. Let your wheels you wish for drive you! Please…”=

I listened to her, and from that, my spark, the only part of my frame not wracked with sensory issues, only sad and enraged over their immediate proximity and full body ordeal. Listen to each tremble, each quake, each pulse… how could… 

My mind, for a brief moment, turned to Antilla, to the fleet and in atmo reports of the shapechanging apocalypse before contact was lost, what hazy reports there were of off the scale technomancy power readings led us to believe the Antillans destroyed themselves to stop our colonialism. How could Shockwave possibly know? Trion destroyed all records of it, and of him being a Prime, no one but the highest levels of Nova’s regime knew and since they owed him and didn’t want a rival respected that… and what’s this about a- Knight? = I’m okay Anode, thank you…”= “Impossible… I’m too young for that…” there’s no way the memory haze is pain induced, it wasn’t like that before the surgery… just guilt and isolation… like always… because I am only culpable. Only a problem. But I won’t give up.

Anode : =“Oh thank gods. Love you. We haven’t been followed.”= 

I was able to pay attention to my surroundings again. “Thank you, Megatronia,” I sat up, put a hand on her shoulder while she deflected blasts with her blade or knocked bots over with quaking stabs of the ground. “Please don’t feel bad, Shockwave messes with people to achieve a means to an end. I’m sorry your mentor is like that, he learned it from his own teacher.”

I noticed as my pains subsided that Luxkick fought with calm, booming precision, disarming and triple kicking adversaries with all manner of strange guns with no issue, with a velocity to her leg blows like that of a manti crab, visible heat haze around each strike, yelling my name and siblings of hers and swearing vengeance, most bots simply running. Some of the moveset I recognize from my own combat style, but the rest… “She learned that, right? Not an outlier ability? Truly impressive.”

“Dear sister Luxkick modified her frame after reaching limits of her training based on prewar Stentarian monastic martial arts. Car mode is also a vtol-rocket.”

“ Before the Stentarian Civil War of twelve million years ago, older than our species? Beautiful,” I made sure I had my blade hilts. “I suppose being Shockwave’s kid has it’s upsides.”

“She is ours, brothers too, or we would not be here.” One massive droplet of energon went down Megatronia’s half smile from her red optics.

“Aww, kids,” I kissed her cheek, hugged her face. “You’ll have so much to look forward to as a free family together.”

“Yes,” she smiled. “Yes we will.” 

I gathered my bearings a moment longer, we were deep in the security checkpoint for the hangar, with demolished turrets about and alarm sirens of base lockdown. I leapt down and ran to catch up with Luxkick. 

She was on comms with my team while running ahead. =“If the rear is good, come up. We’ll need you up here.”=

Slipstream: =“On our way.”= 

I heard my team’s engines near, reached Luxkick, and heard the audial-shattering sound of an energon-plasma railgun firing at artillery power levels, and the purple streak in the distance from deep within the dimlit corridor.

I assumed a back stance in front of the blast and in the split second of my precise swing thought here goes nothing. 

My slice-block was clean, cutting the front of the projectile itself which scattered hot plasma bits onto my armor as the rest of the blast crumpled on my blade and exploded backward.

I yelped and braced to keep from writhing, and drew on my pain for furious insight- I launched forth on my thrusters alongside Luxkick’s leap into rocket-car mode and with Anode and Slipstream overhead strafing in jet modes, with Lug and the bots behind us pouring down a torrent of fire to our sides, into the heavily armed four dozen Decepticons shooting back around deep purple, broadly framed, railgun for an arm Shockwave, whose yellow mono optic at the center of his hexagonal featureless face gazed upon me. 

Scrap, the youngsters - I checked briefly behind me to see Megatronia had made her sword into the center of an energy shield, absorbing all fire.

The twenty four of Shockwave’s guards on their flanks were torn apart by what blasts had come from the MTOs before the shield, the remaining sixteen who hadn’t been torn apart by my friends switched targets to everyone except me, now almost upon them while Shockwave stared on.

No. “Blades!” I fell upon them with my swords, just as Luxkick, Slipstream, and Anode did along with dismounting Lug, thermal and energon plasma with point blank laser blasts tearing down one gunner after the next- with ten gone in six seconds of pure arithmetic from one stab into a spark chamber into the next, two on my part, the rest ran while Anode and Slipstream stumbled from turbine and nosecone injuries from defensive fire but a moment before. 

Shockwave took action then as we came upon him, torso spinning rapidly as if a point defense turret, firing a railgun blast point blank that broke into energon nets upon hitting their target- first Slipstream, knocked back into the wall and slumped over by the blow-

Before I could get a stab in, Anode had rapidly unloaded three rounds from her revolver with the follow-up predictive aim of a dogfighter, tearing off Shockwave’s cannon arm before he could shoot again.

I punched him squarely in the head with my left sword hilt, and he stumbled, and fell. Every bit of me wanted to take him out so very much, “I won’t kill him, for your sake.” I turned to Luxkick. “But only because of you kids.”

Anode rushed over to Slipstream, and before Luckick could reply to me a flurry of hundreds of micromissiles discharged from revealed pods within Shockwave’s armor-

Luxkick, Lug, and I did our best to fend them off with counterblows that blocked missiles and tore up Shockwave's frame in equal measure before our armor was largely shattered even with reactive armor discharge to counter on our fronts with internal structure fractures, blood everywhere-

Luxkick delivered a triple kick at Shockwave’s spark, setting off explosions across his frame with even more energon spilled, his optic dimming, forcibly reassigned frame shattered. 

The missiles stopped, and he had but one word to say. “Logical…”

And then, as best as I could gather, he was dying, which set off an alert calling for all Decepticon elite guard units to deploy.

“Good riddance,” Luxkick shook and sighed, “Get your friend awake and let’s go.”

My armor was too torn up for me to try transforming, it hurt everywhere. Oh scrap.

“I’m- here, cogent…” Slipstream stumbled up from the shorn net in Lug and Anode’s arms. “I’ll catch up flying with Anode. Go!”

We flew and ran, a kilometer in to reach the hangar, finding a lengthy heavily armored purple block of a spacecraft with the name Empiricus emblazoned along the hull. Luxkick synched up with the ship remotely, and it opened up a boarding ramp for the lot of us. 

“Go, get ready. We’ll watch for you.” I turned around to keep an optic on our incoming bots and to see if any attackers came by. Slipstream, Lug, and Anode moved to join me.

“We’ll wait for you, Arcee,” Luxkick touched my shoulder with a hand. “Thank you, old itermodus iterexper torquey gal.” She ran towards the ship. 

“I will wait with you,” Megatronia stepped in to join us, slammed her sword down into energy shield form and her brothers passed around us. “Good older friends.”

“Indeed, I hope to be friends with you,” Lug smiled. “You all right, Arcee luv?”

“I’ll make it to lying down in a medbay,” I nodded. “You all all right?”

“I’m fine, aside from general discomfort with everything about Shockwave except his youngsters,” Slipstream had her shoulder cannons up and ready.

Anode scooched over to give me a kiss on the cheek.

I kissed her back, of course. We’re all just glad to be alive and trust each other with this.I kept looking around us, finding no pursuers while the last of the uncombined MTOs ran into the ship.

“Ah, conjunxship, read much, only two of us had the chance,” Megatronia gave a deep chuckle. “There is good in the world. Let’s go.”

We ran on board, into a sterile brightly lit deck, where Megatronia split into five bots, the largest a mostly gray truck bot, the other four two robust cars of black and pink or yellow, and two tall helibots of black and pinkish red or cyan. The truck and burgundy heli were holding hands. 

I smirked, With hundreds of non-related siblings, aloof parenting at best, not at all uncommon among mechanoids- 

My fracturing body crumpled then, “Guh- Flamewar, you’re up-” and I lost consciousness, my res-cubes not particularly helpful bringing me back in severe pain, I was just barely aware of Anode knocking me out with program line wired in access from finger cable to neck I had allowed years ago.

When I came to, Anode and a yellow-orange MTO with boat-hull shaped shoulders were waiting on me in a highly furnished medbay equipped with all manner of tools I did and did not recognize. “Wow… I think taking Shockwave’s ship was easily the largest blow we could have done-”

“Besides Luxkick ordering Megaempress and the 4 Guards to open gun battery fire on Shockwave’s lab as we escaped, yeah,” Anode smirked. “Mission accomplished above and beyond expectations. How do you feel darling?”

“Um,” I sat up from what I realized was a resting bunk, and not an operation table. Shockwave knows the difference? I guess maybe he thinks it’s logical to put people at ease and differentiate the two… No pain came. “I’m fine-” I looked down to see my waist and thighs were sealed in armored medical casts, just like the ones Anode had on herself- “Ah. I take it I won’t be transforming for a while…” I shivered for a moment, at the thought of not being able to escape my bot mode for a while, but ultimately glad I and my remaining dears and all the youngsters were alive, presumably. “Thank you, so much,” I blew her a kiss, and she leaned in to kiss me back. “Where is everybody, and what’s your name, doc-”

“Afterflame,” the boat bot smiled, green visor shining. “I was one of the bros initially assigned medicine who stuck with it. You’ll find everyone else at the deployment hall, we’re rendezvousing with your ship at the Architect’s meetup coordinates, Glacias said he’s interested in hiring us on and can help with making sure our ship isn’t recognizable. We’re um, a bit on the run.”

“I see,” I gently touched my feet to the ground and got up in Anode’s embrace. “You can hold me to get there if you want, sweetspark.”

“Gladly luv,” she smooched my cheek again and walked alongside me. “C’mon, lift down isn’t far.”

We traversed out of the medbay into the deck’s main corridor, a lift opposite us, and went over to it, where Afterflame called one, and we took it down together. I made use of the time to peck kisses here and there on Anode’s chuckling face.

“If you don’t mind me saying, Arcee, your spark is incredibly strong,” Afterflame nodded at me. “Makes me hopeful about the rest of us when we have to part ways, if we can hold onto determination and care the way you do.”

“That’s very sweet, Afterflame. Anode, I assume we’re giving the young bots’ copies of our texts and such?” my spark warmed. “I’m sure you already have plenty of answers, but if we’re not going to be working together as often then- I think it’d be important for you all to have.”

“Aye, Rosanna was gonna present a copy,” Anode grinned.

The elevator opened to same entry hall I had emarked on, and we made our way out a boarding ramp into the crowd of allies and crates upon crates of accrued gear standing upon an old Peacebuilder class vanguard vessel’s hangar bay from before the spacebridge collapse, light blue and rosy trims lining the floor and walls, the Claymore parked inside just on the opposite side of the group.

People cheered lightly to see me well, and Quickshadow ran over to hug me, followed by Shadow Striker and Rosanna’s slightly slower embraces.

“Oh my gods!! You’re okay!!!” Quickshadow nuzzled her face in while Lug tapped my back stack and leaned on me. “Thank Primus…”

I chuckled. “Hi dears, yes. Some sort of provenance was certainly at work, namely the fine labor of Anode and the medics of the…”

“You can call us the Soulguards,” Luxkick waved at me. “I think our employer or his representative is finally making an appearance.” She pointed at the opened airlock at the end of the hangar.

A ridge-plated largely flat and boxy with armor grooves beige and shades of blue bot with a cane and forearm cannons clipped in at a steady pace, yellow optics and sharp chin smiled at us all while alongside them stood a mostly white with blue and red towering figure of a bot, and a gargantuan silver bot resembling a folded up space bridge watched from outside. A working space bridge who is a person??? No wonder they don’t need guards.

“You certainly have pooled together interesting capabilities, Grand Architect, or rather our employer has,” I gave the old hand over spark salute. 

“Astute as ever, Arcee, if only you had been around to shape our first steps into space, the world would be quite different, I would imagine,” The blue and beige bot returned the gesture. “The Grand Architect isn’t able to attend, but Techy did want to convey his sincere depth of gratitude, and share with you what his project concerns; safeguarding the future of forged reproduction of transformers with full autonomy over their own shaping past equal to that rumored to be capable of by Adaptus and Amalgamous, starting with at least providing forgings for the bomb-trapped spark adopted siblings of your unexpected friends. If any of you want, as well, when the capability is there, he is willing to provide anyone a frame who wants one, or at least a reformat if desired.”

Hm, unsure if this is a dig to try and poke at my role as a vanguard in the colonial ventures of the Thirteen, or a reference to the peaceful forays of the Knights and their barely understood predecessors… Among the merry and relieved outcry of the MTOs, my spark quickened at the thought of getting a reformat with full resources, but I was not trusting, and I am not ready. Not only do I not know them, it’s too much. I am still healing. 

“Thank you, er-,”

“Please, call me Modem,” the blue bot nodded. “He/they is fine for me, wise old one.” They smirked.

“Right, Modem,” definitely someone around my age range. “Thank you so much to you and Techy for this, but um, I’m not- ready. The CNA editing I went through has left a mark that needs healing- if Techy has anything to provide in that regard that will make Anode’s work and my own easier, aside from ample pay to get by a long while…”

“Of course,” Modem’s face softened, and he pulled himself closer on leg and cane. “Anything I’ve been given by the Architect to give, will be. Nothing will be done that you haven’t agreed to with ample foreknowledge.”

“Thank you,” I nodded, finding a sob flow freely as I slumped with a heave of feeling. Things are going to get better . 

They held me, as did my partners, before every manner of reformat soothing tool, medication, and technique that could be provided was given to help me out by Anode’s hand while Flamewar continued business talks on our behalf…

In the Claymore’s medbay, having already ingested a sensory rewire booster pill and more at ease while more aware of the dysphoria from not quite having the shape I wanted, I was curled in Lug’s tender grip while Anode’s palms started up. Her blacksmithing energon palm emitters caressed my frame, gently, slowly washing away some layers of built up tension and metacelllular trauma and haphazard inflammation, starting with my feet, up my legs. 

“Just follow my touch, focus on taking yourself in as you are, embracing your discomfort so you can one day take the step to replace it with all you want,” Anode hovered over my ankles before going up my shins and calves and then my knees… “Be gentle and kind with yourselves, in all the memories and hopes you all are.”

“You’re both so sweet…” I nodded. “I can do that, I know the mayhem might come back until we’ve fully worked it out of the epigene even if you somehow get it out of the genome like before… but I know I’ll be free one day…” the calm was all encompassing, “I feel at home…”

“That’s right,” Lug patted my helm. “You will be free, one day…”

Meanwhile at Constellgem, Capital World of the Decepticon Empire - New Kalisian Imperial Palace High Court

“Heard from your second in command you were attempting to desecrate what little decency we have as a species with a heinous slaughter using our very souls, and tried to kill or capture some Neutral trans women along the way and messed with the psyches of your own daughters who had been heroes in the defense of Constellgem a decade ago, Shockwave. Though calling you a mentor is certainly a stretch of the imagination, I now understand,” I stared down from my gray raised palace podium bench at the wrecked body of my head scientist across a mobile medical berth on the ground below, his purple armor covered in medical patches. 

Black and gray wheeler Flatline and stubby minibot Sireen backed off immediately at my words.

“Your second is the only one I spared, I had the rest of your staff involved executed. Do you have anything to say for yourself, you who I trust to give us technology for revolution, not for Functionist madness!” I leapt down, slamming in front of his berth, and raised my fusion cannon to his head. “Well?”

“Megatron… you must understand…” Shockwave’s single yellow optic blinked in and out of coherence. “We are a lost people. We are killing ourselves as it is, on a mound of non-Cybertronian blood, leaves, minerals, and circuits, at that. The galaxy burns with our war… I got lost. I'm never putting that many weapons in me again, it felt wrong, for me, personally.”

“Is logic telling you to appeal to me emotionally?” I glowered, and charged up my cannon. Surely Shockwave doesn't have a notion of assemblage or mercy for himself, I'm surprised...

“No… to tell the truth. I have met Arcee before. Many, many years ago. She faced down the Senate with two of her friends on behalf of the Anti-Vocationist League during the Interregnum-”

“You almost killed a revolutionary predecessor? This better be good, you scrap-head,” I stepped closer, to put my cannon to the side of his head.

“It is, my lord,” Shockwave kept optic contact with me. “You see, she spoke to how the issues of our Functionism are not actually racial, they are gender-based, since the first move was to destroy gender, and pave the way for anatomy based roles and stratification-”

“An old-timer,” I laughed. “Please, as if her younger counterparts who joined up with us believed that. We’ve never had gender on our own, Shockwave, are you delirious?”

“It matters not,” he sat up, bleeding as he did so. “What I am trying to say is- she and her friends are still fighting for their anarchic revolution, trying to live, to care for each other, refusing stratocracy and dictatorial imperialism both. I merely took the step you would have taken next without me, consider me your ethical wayfinder. I mess up, you see it, and you can course correct. You mess up, no one can tell you wrong.”

“Why you-” anarchy. Didn’t I used to believe in that? I collapsed on my knees, head in my hands, as it screeched across circuits in pain. Burning and short circuiting on and off all at once. “Agh!!” Violence is the way. To kill, murder, create war as society, not subaltern nonsense- “That doesn’t make sense, she’s killed so many, how can she be more ethical than me? Uck. My head hurts…”

“She is within the definition of ethics she and a wide variety of thought from people like her subscribe to, because the basis and methodology of her violence is different than ours,” Shockwave laid back down. “Usually, anyway.”

“No! There is just Optimus’s paltry peace, or my way! The Neutrals don’t get it, blade or no! There can’t be more than two options! One will stand, one will fall!” I felt droplets fall down my cheeks. “You can live, Shockwave, I just ask that the next time you meet such a valuable potential ally and her warriors, don’t try to tear her apart whether they’re dead or alive. Your projects are secondary to that. Am I clear?”

“I can agree with your logic, to keep our deal,” his optic shut off.

I looked up at Flatline and Sireen, waving my arms about. “Tend to him! What are you doing? He’s bleeding, and I’m unfortunately no medic!” I wish I was- no, I have to be a warrior-general, a lord protector, to see this through…

They rushed over, and I turned to walk away into the hallway out of the gray brutalist courtroom. “She… this was supposed to be her revolution to lead, not mine… but she walked away from it all to go hyperlocal on nomadism,” I made optic contact with boxy blue Soundwave in the shadows on my way out, his red monovisor watching me back, crestfallen. 

I sighed. “So we had to do what she couldn’t do anymore, to face the Functionists at their worst. Isn’t that right, Soundwave?” I opened the door ahead and walked out past our bot guards, hearing Soundwave’s footfalls behind me. “When we joined causes in the early days, did I not often remark that liberation of frame would entail trans liberation?”

“Equality for all Cybertronians is our byword. From what I read of her, for an old woman she is a bit naive, sticking up for non-Cybertronian life of all sorts of late, often murderously so.” Soundwave stepped alongside me in the grim hall with a view of our lovely night sky dotted with purple warships.

“What a pity. Someday she’ll come around. We could use a warrior like her, there are only so many Crashers in the world,” I grinned. “Soundwave, if I was a woman, would you still respect me?”

“Of course I would, that’s what we fought for, even though the idea of being a woman hasn’t really caught on with the troops much. Too much internalized Functionism to have a meaningful conversation,” Soundwave reached out to my shoulder. “Do we disappoint you? And did you mean that you are…?”

“We all do our best,” I patted him on the back. “Give it another four million years, and the chauvinism will fall away. And no, I’m a cold-c man, just doing my due diligence.”

1516 CE, aboard the Claymore, in orbit of Menonia, out on the Rim. Holocene Year (HY) 11,516. Before Epoch of Solidarity (BES) -501. 

The many ridged green and gray decapitated head of the Quintesson Mara-Al-Utha sat in the transparent plasteel containment box where I had plopped it with my guns and supplies from the recent commando mission to aid in the planet’s liberation from his rule, dull optics as if upon me when I awoke from my mess of a recharge bunk at the cheery ringtone I had set for messages from a ship I never expected to hear from again.

I scrambled up, unperturbed by the mess, and pressed the play message button on the comms dashboard next to my bunk, spark racing, sensory aches and gory nightmares fading, my implacable sensory suffering ignored. Not that it matters. Nothing matters except-

Anode : =“Hi Arcee. Lug and I hope you’re well, truly. I just thought I should call because of the amount of good news, including that could help you, and because well, I’ve been in the scrapper myself lately, lost a good thing from my choices, and wanted you to have it, and I bloody miss you. I found Caminus, five hundred years ago, they apparently went interstellar a while back for mechanoid medical services and art enclaves, I was studying to work at the capital in blacksmithing but I um, I missed Lug so much I ran, and took stuff out of embarrassment. But I have the coordinates!! Too dangerous to put in a message here because of The War but. You can actually get-” the recording of her started crying and laughing, and I silently teared up too, holding back my yowls of relief and pain because I wanted to listen. “Oh gods you can finally get intergenerational institutional community outpatient and comprehensive healing help from people who aren’t sketchy, you won’t be alone… they really do value gender assemblage dearly, down to cosmic and individual transformation being core to spirituality… please sweetspark, for the love of all that is good, meet us at the Troja Major system, we’ll be there in two weeks, if we’re not there sixteen days something’s gone wrong. Lug and I have a job with that thricedamned Techy again to make ends meet, going after some widowed metal, you know, the spark field not far from the Luna 2 town you used to live in, just telling you in case you have to go looking for us. If you go to Caminus after, put in a good word for me, yeah? Look forward to seeing you, we’ll be in the Hadean in two weeks time, and we’ll wait for ya out in the outer belts if you need more time to get here, this next dig will have a massive payout which gods do we need it, running low on food, anyway, love you!”=

I howled out my tears as I ran for the cargo bay with the Quintesson head’s box in tow, promptly ejected it through the dropoff chute with a tag beacon for contract pickup with a note I’d be back for pay later, and I sprinted with shudders and merriment and resurgent anguish of loss into the pilot chair, and got the ship to jump immediately from high orbit towards the gray market trade port of a world, Troja Major. 

“Oh my gods oh my gods oh my gods you sweet dears…” I could feel closure at hand past one more step of desperation, I recorded a message back and sent into through the ftl comms network, only to get back a ‘undeliverable due to major Decepticon offensive in the area blockading comms,’ and swore more swears than I cared to remember. Gods dammit strength dammit there’s always something what the frag. And on top of all this I keep running into old leftovers of Nova’s regime that shouldn’t be active. But all this- all the pain, all the hurt, the loss of so many, the Femaxian Diaspora that left us without a safe place to call home, there will be a changing of the score. Caminus is still in play, and all my suffering beyond the direct horrors of war… is finally going to be over. All the years apart, I’ll finally see two old friends again. “I’m not alone…” I wheezed, laughing with starts and stops between singing and tears and writing and ample exercise to try and work off how damn glad and anxious I was. Please don’t die, Anode and Lug, I can’t stand the idea of anyone else dying for me or anyone I know dying because of injustice. Please… You’re all I have left, and I want that to change… I really hope everyone else is alive somehow too, even though I don’t even know  where they went, Luxkick chasing after the trail of the Thirteenth, Flamewar and family gone to ground…

Chapter Text

 Twenty days later, Luna 2, Hadean System, Cybertron.

I parked my heavy fighter-freighter Claymore in a plateau cave, lowered the ramp and sped out in hovercar mode after I traced the residual energy signature of a shoddy shield generator. = “Anode?? Lug?? Where are you?? Arcee here, are you okay??”= I repeated over and over as I raced across the barren plain towards the residue. They said they had to pick up some widowed metal on Luna 2 and would meet me on Troja Major. I knew something would go wrong but was too far to make it. I don’t like this- Decepticon territory. 

I spotted recent Cybernought tracks in the direction of my heading. No no no this is bad!! =“Anode! Lug! Can you read me??=

I slowed and reached the residue point- there was a crater with a shattered shield staff in the middle, and pink blood everywhere. 

I transformed, crouched, and spotted split off pieces of Lug’s chest and torso armor.

A screech from my mouth filled the wind as I cupped her bloody pieces in my hands, my face wet with sorrow and fury. “Strength’s sake dammit! What did those Decepticreeps do to you and Anode? I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t there for you, I’m a bloody piece of scrap and rust, a dishonor to the gender I thought I was- I don't have one in this soulless cruel and empty world, but you do… was any of this real? Am I just grasping at something that couldn’t stick for our kind? I’m so sorry…”

My optics caught the trail of tracks that continued to my right. “I have to find you… if I can do this one thing right in my life… and more importantly make sure you are okay…” 

I stowed the pieces in my back stacks, transformed again, and zoomed off towards the tracks- Anode and Lug’s hodge-podge of a long range freighter was in view, Wandering Star, among rocks . Nine bots were tearing the poor vessel apart with engineering tools: a laser pointer bot, three bulky tank, two car, and three plane bots. A Cybernought exosuit sat by an energon stockpile hoversled. 

I switched into bot mode and I darted quietly between the rocks from cover to cover swords drawn until I was close to the biggest bot. I leapt and put a sword to their neck, my other one pointed at their fellows. “Don’t move. I demand to know what you did to my friends, a biplane and backpack bot, Neutrals. I know your Cybernought pilot encountered them.”

They didn’t draw arms. 

“We don’t owe a scavenging explanation to someone with an Autobrand-” the biggest flyer started.

“I only bear the insignia to fight the monstrosity of imperial regime the Decepticons have become, I’m an independent agent, errant and helping protect gender expansiveness amongst transformers and to fight faction infiltrators of Functionist and collaborator ilk.” I snarled. “If you haven’t hurt my friends, I have no quarrel with you except to keep you away from their ship, and I know they probably wouldn’t have made it off-world without their ship, they’re low on energon. So they must be somewhere on the planet scavenging or are in trouble with you.”

“Protecting gender expansiveness amongst transformers? I’ve heard stories… …what’s your name?” The tank bot I had a sword to asked.

“Arcee of Protohex, she/her, AVL co-founder.”

The Decepticons stiffened and shivered with wide optic stares.

“We- we- we know we can’t hide the truth from you,” the lanky flyer blurted. “I don’t like attacking Neutrals, but that’s what Blastdrive did-”

“Shut up Triloflight, honestly!” the smallest bot started.

“No! He said that the biplane put a shield and the Necrobot whisked him away-”

“Her, both of them, not he,” I growled. Necrobot? Ridiculous. 

“Right, sorry…” Triloflight shedded a tear. “But the backpack was left behind, the shield generator overload killed her. He left the body, someone must have taken her… Please don’t kill us all, I understand- well I don’t understand but I respect your anger-” Triloflight started to shake and dropped his crowbar and plasma cutter. “I don’t think people like you folks are on a different side- you’re better than our stupid factions.”

“You rusted spark traitor soft for different pronoun Neutrals-” Blastdrive drew his pistol and stopped halfway to find my draw of mine with my right hand already leveled with his center mass.

“I don’t believe this Necrobot stuff,” I stared him down. “If any of you hold onto their bodies or few belongings you’ll die. Tell me where their bodies are.”

Everyone except Triloflight emptied their compartments of little mementos and trinkets Anode and Lug had gathered over the years that they hadn’t sold yet since nobody would put any value on them all these millennia . I recognized several, including a flame stylized anvil with simple figures hugging each other beneath. Something I had only seen once before millions of years ago, a Camien hearth anvil charm. 

Anode and Lug’s names were upon it with a blue and pink spark between their glyphs. 

“We- we don’t have their bodies, honest,” Triloflight started to cry softly. “I’m so sorry.” He turned his arm cannon towards Blastdrive and opened fire with Choom blue plasma tearing through the smaller bot’s head.

Blastdrive crumpled into the dirt bleeding from where his brain module used to be, and a fight broke out between the five other Decepticons against Triloflight and the tank bot I had sword to the neck of.

Scrap. I barraged into another tank bot while blasting out the optic of a flyer, and parried the tank bot’s ax, sweeped my leg to trip him, and drove a stab into his spark.

I leapt to my next opponent- a chopper taking flight. I used my back stacks to rocket upwards, and fired a burst from my pistol into the central rotor. As he fell out of control, I met him in a dive with my sword and pierced where I saw his head had tucked away inside the bow.

Then I landed and took on one of the car bots, a rounded one, and our blades clashed over and over in attempted strikes and parries. I brought my pistol to bear and volleyed a score across his chest. As he bled and screamed, he tossed his sword at me, which I barely parried before he tackled me and we scuffled in a wrestle- I wriggled out from under him and pinned him in a suplex on his back, and drew one sword to his neck and the other to his arm. 

“Who taught you?” I snarled and saw the remaining opposition was dead- the tank bot and Triloflight formed up in front of me, weapons down or stowed, both injured.

“Your brother, wretch-” he laughed. “You cannot stop what is coming, you could have been part of it if you had just accepted yourself as a fulcrum for the transformation and ascendancy of our species. Jhiaxus learned a lot from you, how to meddle on a genetic level to create perfection- of which you won’t receive.”

“I don’t want to be perfect, and there’s no such thing in aesthetics or anything! I just want to be me without fear!” I pushed my sword into his neck enough to bleed- he squirmed and whimpered. “Where is he?”

“I die for the empire to come. Slay me- you know you want to. Pity your fellow trans friends might not be dead, didn’t even know they’d be here but I recognized them from network intel after contact, we have fully infiltrated the Decepticon movement, you have no idea what we could be doing to them- Aagh !” 

My blade cut through cleanly, and I gave a murderous stare with bared fangs at the two who had helped me.

“You understand how his allegiance puts everything into question about whether you actually care about me? Thank you for helping me… if you want to live, tell me everything you can about your squadmate and where the base you operate from is.”

“The base? Why?” Triloflight asked. 

“Because,” I grinned and coursed with only hate, anger, sorrow, and loneliness. “I need any scrap of info I can get, and to spill blood. Your cause has killed so many of my kin whether in your ranks or otherwise- I intend to cut a bloody path for everyone to remember our wrath.” 

Two hours later. On the outskirts of Imperial Fortress Optic, Luna 2.

The thick armored siege battle tank bot next to me nodded his twin turret downrange at the antiaircraft and antispace gun and pod covered battlements ahead. “You know the deal with the Great War already, we’re not prepared for a swordfighter commando. I just got the call approving you for entry for unearthing ‘infiltration of the revolution,’ but since we’re not reporting in for debriefing given the urgency of the situation, that’ll raise an alarm.-”

“Especially if there are other covert Nova operatives who are going to be wondering why you’re here after Anode and Lug’s deaths were reported in by one of their own,” I flashed my headlights. “I understand. I can cut a path just fine. You ready?” 

“You took the words out of my radio,” the tank chuckled. “I like that. Let’s go.”

Triloflight flew and circled overhead in interceptor form while we drove in at Dis-Sabot’s full speed, coming to a halt at the twin scrapmaker-gun pillbox emplacement flanked gate.

=“Internal records show you are travelling with Arcee, 5th Guard Captain Dis-Sabot,”= the intercom started. = “Are you aware of her numerous crimes against the Decepticon Empire, most recently foiling Shockwave’s Dyson Sphere Project?” =

“Respectfully, her intel shows Shockwave is part of the problem. Unless you have High Command on the line, we need in, now, for an investigation to continue. She is the key to saving the ideals of the Decepticon Revolution.” Dis-Sabot replied while Triloflight landed in bot mode. Good, you got out of the way of the guns. 

=“One moment.”=

Tension and excitement built up in me, waiting to leap to cut down the gun emplacements with my blades and leap through the hole in the gates that Dis-Sabot would blast.

They’re taking too long to answer, they’re gathering forces, I gave a single hover wiggle to signal before jumping forward into bot mode, using my thrusters to charge around the walls with graceful ease and ferocity, automatic-fire weapons cut apart while Dis-Sabot opened fire. I looped back around and flew into the hole within, finding two hundred troops already running in with rifles and shotguns at the ready, not a single melee weapon to be seen. 

“Open fire, stun or disabling rounds!” one of them shouted amid the already poor fire discipline leading to fully lethal energon, photon, and plasma rounds screeching towards me-

All aimed at similar heights from ten bots firing on automatic in a panic, my targeting computer and circuit-fiber memory made swings with ease, forty in total, to deflect half the shots while speeding past the rest of the crossfire, felling nine of the bots with deflected blasts in those two seconds-

The rest opened fire with electric blasts and ion rounds, which my blades impeded the first half without issue, and the others scattered back at them in the next two seconds, stunning or causing staggers of the front line of twenty bots trying to encircle me. “Pah! Amateurs!!”

I was upon them, every block a cut that severed a head or spark or whole upper torso from the rest of the body below. “Did you really think any amount of infantry weaponsfire with exhaust-bad tactics could stop an ancient point defense computer sword wielder that is the transfem I am by necessity?! I won this fight before it started!” That’s sixty- every word, a death or several by flaming blade, alongside more than a dozen knocked out by crossfire. Pretty soon this won’t be tight quarters fighting. 

That was when Dis-Sabot and Triloflight started firing behind me, mowing down the flanks to keep the encirclement from getting a good shot. Focus on the center. I kept slashing and stabbing, two, four, six- the weapons fire dropped off by this point, more than half their number gone, and only a third able to focus on me- until they ran.

I was drenched in blood from head to toe, and felt fully vindicated in the fervor, literally tasting the violence wrought. “You better run! Go! Go before you burn with this place!”

I sprinted ahead, turned right towards the rectangular barracks hall Dis-Sabot had shown me the route to. Inner turrets opened fire, silenced either by my own deflections or my lancemates guns. 

I sheathed my left blade on my back and aimed at the command tower with my palm grenade launcher unfurled, some of my innermost energon reserve pooled into the explosive ordnance of an energon grenade that now shone with terrible brightness out of my hand. =“Help me, run, or die! Bear witness to the terrible might of such an aggrieved woman as myself, pushed further on the path of war than any of you will ever know, to save us all and save the part of us you all tread underfoot, Autobot and Decepticon alike! Run, you fools! You cannot see his darkness of your own making, your own legacy”= I look forward to immolating Jhiaxus this way. I- how can I use my innermost energon like this I’m awful- I have to.

Absolute panic filled the comms lines. Pleadings for mercy and forgiveness, misogynistic swears of complete hatred for my ‘organic’ nature- I traced one from the anti-air artillery gun swerving towards me, and fired the grenade.

The starbright nimbus of an explosive careened head-on with the triple railgun antiaircraft turret, promptly imploded it and presumably exploded its ammunition magazine/feed. The entire tower on that part of the wall began to crumble, aflame with a completely hazed out heat. For frag’s sake, Jhiaxus. When I remove this grenade launcher from myself I’m burying it with you.

=“We surrender!! Please Arcee have mercy!! You can have anything you want, the intel, our resources, our weapons, our ships, please just leave us alone, leave my troops alone! We’ve done nothing to you!!”= a round bulky white and blue tank bot I knew was Major Legonis per my two lancemates emerged from the tower at ground level with hands up while bots were on the run in the dozens and hundreds at a time. =“Please… let them go. I’m sorry we’ve wronged you so badly…”=

=“How do I know you don’t work for him? For the dark empire of old?”= I aimed my palm at him, switching to a discarding sabot round.

=“I- who? You mean, Megatronus the Fallen? I don’t understand…”= 

I cackled then, oh, how ironic, definitely doesn’t know or very convincing, missed the time period significantly. = “One of those old warlords? No, if you don’t know then I demand you turn over all communications, and I will discern if you truly don’t know or not.”=

Legonis knelt onto his knees in the distance. “You’re in luck, I thought it’d be relevant to your case, I have a full archive here, and you can check the command tower if this is insufficient. There were some… irregularities in communications. A bot from Dis-Sabot’s squad, Gutblade, had been talking with or passing messages through the Drones of the Stellar Cartography Archive, on Bhul, in the Van Dema Sector, a supposedly Neutral world…”

The command tower promptly blew up behind him, and he tossed a drive my way while it came down on him. 

“No!!” I ran, and caught the drive, and saw his head get crushed by a collapsed wall, while a VTOL jetted away-

I drew my pistol and fired calculating assent- and caught the bot down his nosecone and fuselage- he spun out of control and crashed beyond the battlement.

“Well scrap,” I sniffed. I kept the next sentence low enough to not be heard by recordings I knew were happening, and wanted, frankly. “That definitely confirms Jhiaxus has his hands deep in all this, and I’m sure Gutblade’s files will corroborate that fact.” I looked over my shoulder to see the two bots catching up. “Dis-Sabot, Triloflight! Let’s go check Gutblade’s files. And for the record, Legonis, you have done so, so so much to my kind, to everyone. The galaxy weeps and rages against Decepticon oppression. May you know a better world than this one, now that you’re no longer around to help shape it.”

After finding that the assets from the old empire including ones I had run into last year had been brought back online and added onto over the centuries and getting confirmation of the Cartography Archive being a command center, we headed for the Claymore. Not a word was said until then, the focus and hunt on our minds. If evil machinations could stink simply for being such, the trail left by Jhiaxus stank past the smell of sulfur fouling energon.

Aboard my ship, Triloflight and Dis-Sabot witnessed me grieve for my lost friends with Anode and Lug’s gathered objects, including a photo of us together with other trans bots we knew who were alive, and the three of us in a meadow-filled valley of Theffia Mediora in a smiling embrace. I stowed both in my compartments along with the Camien charm as I wailed and shook, while the two ex-Decepticons held me somberly. I started to sing our beloved song of comfort, and when I finished I whispered “I feel like life was forced upon me, that I went through motions of force that I didn’t have the options to contemplate differently- that my surgery was- not the same kind of care as what Anode did for me to heal from it…”

“Of course not,” Dis-Sabot whispered. “From what it sounds like, Anode actually cared for you, Jhiaxus used you.”

Can’t trust anyone, can’t trust, I’m terrible, I hurt and the world is hurt- the hard painful thoughts came again and I held my head in my hands. No! There is love in the world!!! Love is streng-

You are unloveable.

I moaned. 

“Hey, hey, Arcee, we’ll help you, even if we die trying,” Triloflight smiled. “Do some justice in the world for once. It felt good to be part of the righteous path of justice and vengeance you’ve forged. Better than any of my life before this really. Things finally feel- clear.” 

“Okay, okay,” I smiled back. “Just be careful- I have a rage problem, as long as I can remember I’ve had trouble with trust- it’s deeply rooted but doesn’t feel entirely right- like something harsh to my brain module on top of the trauma reasons to feel this way.”

“It could be shadowpl-” Dis-Sabot started, and I ran swords through both of their sparks and forgot what he said.

You see! You are just a wreck. 

I curled up. No- I didn’t mean to do that- I didn’t mean to - a faint memory of Shockwave standing over me flitted in my mind. Jhiaxus’s student- he has something to do with this- that has to be what that Knight remark was about, I need to get to the bottom of it, and stop this empire from returning. And stop anyone else being used against their will, even if I’m not a woman, I do this for transness, for all of us. 

The harshness was quiet, broken for now.

Chapter Text

I came to with a terrible headache, resuscitator cubes in my throat shorted out, in a blocky chair with my arms and legs completely encased in metal. I took no more than a glance out the starry narrow window beyond and spotted Ultra Magnus in the pilot seat to my left, driving using the dashboard, before I tried firing my left palm grenade launcher, which brought up pinging internal warnings that the grenade fabrication system was clogged. 

I then attempted to fire off the thrusters in my back stacks, realizing the exhausts had their fuel lines clogged too.

I bottled up my searing rage and sensory wrath into running my engines and arm and leg actuators at full speed, bending my arms ever so slowly, tearing some of the metal while quietly foot kicking dents in the leg casing. The arm casing creaked loudly as I strained -

Ultra Magnus leveled a trembling large caliber ionizer pistol at the side of my head. 

“Don’t make me do this, I don’t like to shoot people when restrained even with so-called ‘nonlethals.’ Not that this will do more than make you drowsy when I empty the magazine, but leaving you drugged de facto isn’t something that sits well either. Never seen a bot alive or dead make it through one my armor-bypassing stun grenades conscious in twelve hours, much less under half an hour.”

I bared my teeth, still kicking. I didn’t get shot. He can’t hear the kicks and doesn’t have a security monitor on the binds or a scanner on hand. Good. He’s an idiot if he’s the only crew member. “Kid, I’ve been doing this much longer than you have, I’ve been through fights, loss, and pain that you can’t even contemplate, you fragging diode ache. Let me go before I tear you apart or my friends find out what happened to me.”

Ultra Magnus bowed his head. “But you don’t have friends, sadly. You’ve been alone community-wise, I at least had the Primal Vanguard, who understood my journey very different from theirs or yours-”

My optics narrowed. The dents had started to create room for my feet. I started to push both of my lower legs against the casing, hoping it would tear quietly. “Two of my dearest trans gal friends were killed by Decepticons connected to Jhiaxus. If you are as expansive as you say and know some version of my story, even a Functionist propaganda version, can’t you see that I seek justice and to protect all of us? Also uh- you use he/him right?”

They stiffened. “Yeah I do. Arcee, I’m sorry for your loss, truly. But we trans folk aren’t systematically oppressed-”
I cackled wheezingly, incredulous. The leg casing was starting to give. I slowed my struggle- get him talking, and make enough of an opening to slip your legs out in a leap, think arms can squirm out too. 

“-and the man you want dead already is. I’ve looked into it. Did you think I wouldn’t, with the resources I have that you don’t, knowing what happened to you, and seeing the Decepticons follow his footsteps meddling with combiner tech, organics, and even more awfulness towards MTOs than anyone else today? Not to mention attaching peoples’ heads to mines… makes me sick.”

“I can’t believe you bought into the ‘Autobot’ way.”

“Why’d you say that in audible quotations? Optimus was the first to reclaim-”

“ I was among the first, ” I chuckled as he staggered in his seat, cooling fans venting profusely. “Not that you’d know, you weren’t there when our older expansive kin gave their lives so you could tread us and younger bots into your joke of a justice system.”

“ Excuse me?!?! ” His face scrunched up, optics looking like they were going to boil. “I’m not responsible for that and the crimes you do! You could all join the Autobots-”

“To be misgendered, gaslighted, sidelined, ridiculed, ostracized, treated as insane, and expected to tow the line through all that. Yeah, tried that already, as my Autobot insignia shows.” 

“Ugh,” he shook his head. “You said you have friends? Nothing in the records show that, but regardless, would they be willing to speak at your trial? Still have to find you an attorney. One moment-”

A voice I didn’t recognize came on: =”Ultra Magnus, we’ll escort you the rest of the way to Garrus-9. Still don’t understand why you need a whole naval squadron escort for one bot. Does she have ununtrium coating?”=

Magnus: =“Thank you Devcon, and worse, she’s got fiery relentless zeal. So thank you,”= “Sorry, had to attend to that. Would your friends be willing to help?”

Really grating how they’re so awful to me and don’t even think about how they’re gendering me correctly. The cognitive dissonance. I returned the gesture. “I don’t want to risk them getting arrested too, and contacting them would reveal too much. We have too many enemies.”

Magnus’s optics cooled, and drooped. “Arcee - the charges and warrant put out by Autobot Stratocracy Courts, you’d face lifetime imprisonment. Wouldn’t your pals want to help?”

“They’ve already risked so much for me,” I frowned, and ever so slowly pushed on the casing around my thighs, using my ankles for momentum. “And I put distance between them and I because of that. I will do what I need to do alone.” 

Ultra Magnus lowered his pistol. “Why did you kill all those people? Plow through databases with fury? You need therapy, not prison -”

I seethed, barely able to keep myself from trying to escape before I had the best chance. "So why did you fragging arrest me you internalized hatred scraphead?"

“I had an obligation to the law-”

I winced and retched, fuel tank and spark queasy. “I preferred the snugness and trust my partners could give me over this inane coercive punitive routine I didn’t ask for.”

My pushes with my thighs widened the casing almost enough.

He blinked, and then stared up at the ceiling with a groan. “Haha, very funny Arcee. Look I get it, you don’t like cops, I don’t like arresting you, but I had to! You’ve cut down thousands of civilians-”

“Jhiaxus’s minions, not civilians, adherents of Nova Prime’s regime. Also do me a damn favor and don’t mention my surgery to the courts.”

“Noted, and like I said, Jhiaxus is dead, so is Nova Prime.”

I wiggled my thighs,and readied my arms to slip out. All ready to be free. “Do you want my records saying otherwise regarding the two’s network across the stars?” I’ll give him one chance.

“I will gladly pour over them,” Ultra Magnus smiled.

“Then, would you mind letting me out? I’m going to face worse than you after this, right? At least I’ll get a reprieve and can help you find what I won’t be able to in prison.”

He looked down. “Regs say I can’t do that with how much of a danger you are-”

“The files are in my backstacks, I can feel them in there, you didn’t take them out like you took my swords and guns.”

“Then the military tribunal and Aequitas can look at them-”

“You don’t understand. I don’t know how deep this goes. You all could be infiltrated, there’s words in the files of brainwashing Autobots.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure, so-” I slipped out of the casing that tore at my armor as I shoved myself out on my legs that scrambled and broke out of their own casing. “Frag you,” I leapt over onto him, grabbed his pistol holding hand-

He struggled with me, his massive might trying to bring the pistol to bear, his other arm swinging to punch me-

I dove under, pushing his pistol arm up so the blow went into his pistol, crushing it, and releasing the ionization charge across him-

=“Uuuh- uh Devcon Arcee is loose, open fire on my shi- wif EM—Ps, in, name o’ Arcana Magnus-”=

My optics widened and I shoved his head up against the chair, my hazy gray memory fog churning, the name sparking fire in me. “WHO IS ARCANA MAGNUS?!? TELL ME TELL ME WHO ARE THEY-”

=”Don’t care what does to me, by Arcana Magnus, rampage has to stop-”=

Unbearable electric charge seared through the tiny ship, knocking me out instantly.

“She’s finally waking up,” Devcon’s voice shuddered my bleary fog of consciousness as I opened my optics, and felt the dull pressure of jumper cables clamped to my exposed spark chamber and a fuel nozzle of energon in my left lower leg port, and the unwelcome ionizing tightness of stasis cuffs on my wrist joined to ones my ankles and a collar of the same on my neck by an ununtrium bar-

“How dare you meddle with my-” I looked around and saw a blue-gray courtroom whose benches seemed to be filled with Autobot brass and security from the camera drones hovering near some bots, journalists. Curved blocky mostly blue and gray Devcon was sitting next to me on one side, white and red trimmed massive flyer Jetfire on the other, and a colossal towering red and blue many-wheeled bot sat at the judge’s podium with a pair of clouded sharp blue optics loomed down at me, a stiff tension on the mouth tightened to a frown.   

I quieted myself, but did not stop talking. “Pardon, your honor,” think Arcee, they are looking for anything that doesn’t fit a ‘good trans narrative,’ in the most high profile court case of a trans person by the Autobot Stratocracy so far, don’t give them that. “I am rather disoriented, it was frightening to be resuscitated restrained in a courtroom where my case at first seemed to be underway without my input, in defiance of Autobot law. I’ve lost my family, I assume I’ve been assigned a public defender?” I peered around at the desks in front of the judge’s stand, one I was sitting at also had a red and purple round shelled and robust stag beetle bot who was waving at me…. must be my lawyer.

I waved back with just a hand, arm stuck, while eying the occupants of the chairs of the other desk: a sturdy blue and yellow shoulder stacked and wheeled bot sitting next to a lanky gray and gold helicopter bot, Detective Nightbeat and… no it can’t be - memories bubbled up of the bot who had slipped away in my mind’s eye the previous times that I had seen him. The state chopper always in the shadows on the lookout and peering through shadows back when the League was all holed up at Jhiaxus’s, a mild-manneredly vicious powerbroker between Jhiaxus, Nova, Galvatron, and the Functionists I’d get recon reports on but never acted on, part of the former Jhiaxian Party of the defunct Senate, there that day, that day Codexa and Road Rage and I spoke- why do I remember all this now? I didn’t even notice him much before! Does the history of shadowplay go back further than Functionist rule? How did he clip himself into Autobot society so seemlessly? 

“Arcee, we have merely been waiting for you to regain consciousness. It’s good to have you with us,” the judge smiled. “You’ve had a long road largely alone. The least we can do, manacles as a precaution aside, is give you the dignity due by Autobot law I am charged with upholding. I am Sentinel Trion, Appellate Judge of Garrus-9. Now, that you’re awake, we can begin. I understand if you need to be recused from what I say next. Can you bear to be in attendance?” 

I saw Rosanna and Flamewar in the crowd, looking at me, hands over their sparks, the former teary as she wiped her faceplate. Oh loves…

Out in the corner of the courtroom, Prowl saluted me, his face looking grim, almost on the verge of an outburst. What? This one? What does he have to with this sympathizing for me?

I nodded. “Yes, I can.”

Sentinel T. went on. “You sit accused of multiple charges of mass murder and torture within the context of both domestic terrorism and warcrimes against the Decepticons. Your appointed public defender is the esteemed Saberhorn, and it is only right that you two are given time to prepare your defense in concert, as you were not conscious, and he had to rely on Ultra Magnus’s police report and personal testimony that you consented to. Admiral Devcon, please release the accused’s neck and spark so she may meet with her lawyer in private. Arcee, you are also entitled to see a therapist and some time to rest, holding quarters will be provided, no bail, my apologies. A bailiff will escort you, Arcee. Court is adjourned for a recess for today.” He slammed his gavel.

“Pardon,” Devcon unbolted and opened the collar around my neck while people got up to leave.

I sighed and looked away while he undid the spark jumper cables. A massive with triple barrel artillery gun turrets for shoulders colossus of a white and blue bot with red and black trim stepped towards my seat at the defendant’s bench, looming over with me with a smile. “Hello, I’m Grandus, I’ll be watching over you throughout the trial.”

“Your hands are big enough to crush Megatron with one blow or squeeze, isn’t this and the naval armament a bit much? You could be off fighting Monstructor,” I smirked. They’re terrified of me. 

“You’ve been assessed over four million years and Golden Age files to be threat level 9, equal to Monstructor. Megatron and Optimus only rate threat level 8. Believe me, elder, I would not be doing this if I didn’t have to, I should be off doing picket ship, command post, or assault transport duty.” He gestured towards Saberhorn, who was getting up to approach, files put away in a metal suitcase. “You should meet your lawyer.”

Why are they all being so nice to me while holding cannons to my head? I stood in the now nearly empty room. “Good to know where we stand,” I shuffled towards the stag beetle bot lawyer and extended a cuffed hand. “Pleased to meet you, sorry it had to be like this.”

“Likewise, Arcee, charmed,” he pressed his palm against mine. “One swordsbot to another, I’ll do my best.” He stepped around to offer a hand to my shoulder. “Come, I don’t want you to seem cold and aloof, they’re already gunning for a hot and cold narrative.”

I leaned into his hold with a genuine chuckle. “Some things take forever to change.

The three of us made our way out of the side of the courtroom through a bunker blast door into the holding area for the trial, and I was shocked to actually have a small window view of the golden sky outside and the craggy rocks ringed with fortress battlements and artillery and missile pod turrets massive and small. 

I made note of the smaller bunker door to my right, “I thought Garrus-9 was known for maximum security,” I shambled towards the window to lean with a look at the sky. And that damn Functionist is teamed up with the detective.

“They want to make a show of being nice to you, Arcee, including with the surface court and holding cell usually reserved for darlings of the Autobots,” Prowl’s voice wafted from the entryway we had emerged from. 

I sighed, and turned around to face him, and found him surprisingly soft in expression as he continued to speak. “You have to understand, this is the highest profile court and criminal case for a transfem in the living and recorded memory of our species, what’s left of it,” he huffed. “The war is at a dire point, morale on both sides at an all time low. A landmark case like this for a feared legendary figure-”

I wheezed a laugh, Saberhorn warbled assuringly, Grandus stood still save for a slight bow of his head. 

“-from a historically downtrodden and misunderstood population most are only learning now exists among us from your solo campaign across the galaxy, and from this case therein, things are fragile to High Command, one public relations or ethical crisis disaster away from lines crumbling. It was not hard for me to persuade them to let me assign a lawyer to give you a fighting chance, and turn a blind eye to the presence of accomplices from a betrayal that of it’s scale is well past the statute of limitations being here to support you.”

“Ah, so they want it to look like they are gently giving me a maximum sentence consigned to only maximum security prison for community, this has all the energy of if they were putting me in a psych ward,” I raises a finger and shuffled over to a chair near the singular table here to sit down. “So, what do you get out of the chance of springing me, Prowl? You want to make an asset for special operations work? Is that it?”

While Saberhorn and Prowl moved to join me at the table, the latter chuckled, “perceptive as ever. The rest haven’t picked up on this yet, but I believe you and your tactics are the key to victory and a future of peace. At this stage of the war, with the Decepticons reduced to infiltration planet exploitation and resource extraction, and us Autobots to interception and raiding actions, both of our forces greatly diminished, your skill outshines either of our numbers. But that aside…”

Seated, he leaned close. “Someone has to be around to keep the pieces postwar together. The records aren’t clear on this because of how much has been lost from the Golden Age or redacted during that time period, but it seems to me you found a group of likeminded bots who helped keep society honest, fought against the buildup of decay. I won’t ask for details…”

I cackled, my frame sensors lit up at the absurdity of my current situation if he knew that we engaged in open battle with the ‘Golden Age’ state’s proxies… , “That’s certainly a way to put it, and thank you for respecting my privacy.”

“Of course, every agent of the cause has a right to that,” Prowl opened his hand. “What I’m getting at is that, when the fight is over, I will need someone to keep things from leading to war again, and in the long run bring together people who can do that. Now, even if you don’t agree, I will offer whatever relevant usable info I have on the Great War and it’s sides to strengthen your case, but if you agree… I won’t forget even if we lose this case, I’ll work to get you out. I’d say it will take a millennia of maneuvering at most, hopefully less.”

“I see,” I raised both of my hands so I could put one to my chin, trying to ignore the dampening stasis buzz that had my thrusters, t-cog, and grenade launcher disabled. I really don’t like this-, I thought, but it’s ironically amusing, I could feel Anode’s cheeky grin and Shatter’s smirk in my thoughts, and it’s my one chance out, Lug and Codexa’s remembered embraces of me soothed my frame as I spoke: “You have a deal. Now, Saberhorn, you probably want an intake for my defense, yes?” 

“My dear lady of the blade, it would be much appreciated,” Saberhorn pulled his suitcase up and opened it to the files and notepad within. “Why don’t we start with some basic facts about you? Background and so on. I have that information in some form, but I’d prefer it from you.” 

“I’m Arcee, Exponent of 86, of Protohex, she/her, linked altmodus iterexper torque transfem, residence before incarceration my ship Claymore, and I was forged 12 million years ago at the Vespertine Blue hot spot, when it was annexed by the old polity long before any of you were alive.”

Everyone stared at me wide opticed, even Grandus.

“That-” Prowl twitched. “That makes you a Progenitor, and the oldest woman alive of our and most peoples, from the dawn of recorded Cybertronian society no less, most likely.”

I teared up then, sobbing into my bound hands, every bit of me wanting Codexa and missing her. “Pro- guhuhuhu- Probab- uh -ly… I miss my dearest peer… she never wanted this to be where I ended up! I don’t even know if she’s alive!! We never dreamed of this being where things would be, that damned Nova and Jhiaxus and their followers ru- u- u- -ined everything for everyone…”

Saberhorn pressed his hand over his now exposed shining spark, and reached over with his other hand to touch my shoulder. “May I? I’m so sorry.”

Prowl looked absolutely stunned, mouth opening and closing with no sound, tears quietly accompanying mine within a distantly similar crested and round audial face. Can’t think about this right now, I- i miss Codexa…. my sensory pains ran asunder briefly as if stabbed a few times. “Urk…, yes you may.”

Saberhorn rested his hand on me. “Arcee. I don’t pretend to understand to even have the first clue how horrendous this slow collapse of our species and your life has been for you. I can say though that I suffered under Functionist rule as a beetle bot, and they didn’t simply appear in a vacuum after Nova’s departure. I know it hurts.” 

I nodded, trying to focus on my circuit and energon cycles and my vents while listening. Poor Saberhorn…

“If you want, there’s a psychiatrist with the highest clearance there is for medical professionals in the Stratocracy outside of intelligence, Rang or Ring I think. I can never remember the man unfortunately, but I’ve seen his prodigious body of theory work on subaltern experiences, being forgotten, abandoned, feared, ridiculed, objectified, othered, rendered monstrous, alone, and the trauma of loss and survivor’s guilt. He’s the one who assesses the psyche of Wrecker special forces, and made time to be available for this trial. If you need to see him before we go on, the three of us can take our leave.”

I blinked a few times, incredulous. “Really? Some high end witness to warcrime grief and recalcitrance fade into the background psychiatrist genius is making time for-” the dots connected. “Oh, he relates somehow, doesn’t he? Another lost soul. Wait- how is he cleared to be in here without Grandus watching over me, since the level of threat I am allegedly apparently denies me the right to be alone with my attorney in case I escape?”

“Uh–” Prowl’s optics came back into focus, scratching their helm. “I can’t bloody remember, actually,” he pulled out a flip tablet and plugged in by finger, screen away from all of us. “Says here that- Rung, that’s his name-”

“Right,” Saberhorn nodded.

Rung. I’ll do my best to remember.

“Is cleared for unrestrained contact and self defense with singular bulk and minibot threat level 9 detainee patients?!?! What?!?!” They went quiet for a minute. “He’s apparently been the lone survivor of hundreds of Autobot operations. Explanation redacted.”

I gave a fanged smile. “Then yes, I’d like to see him, after we at least discuss legal defense strategy. Preparing for questioning can be after. Saberhorn, if you wish to observe the therapy session, I will allow it.”

“Agreed,” Saberhorn grinned.

“One thing to ask and point out before we start,” Prowl locked optics with me. “What you said about Nova’s character and ethical compass, is it true? Is he responsible for harming all of us?”

Has Prowl been compromised? They were pretty high up during the Functionist Sentinel Prime’s rule, a second in command to him, yet a cold constructed early supporter of the Autobots, known for their zeal… I and Shatter’s sharpness thought together: There is no doubt there are people on their team who are agents of Jhiaxus and Nova. “Yes, Prowl. It is true. My intelligence gathering from commando strikes over the last two hundred years have exposed infiltration of the Autobots and Decepticons by Imperial forces and agents of Nova Prime and Jhiaxus, who are very likely to be alive. A darkness is sweeping the galaxy, slowly, readying to conquer everything. I am the only one who can see it, feel it. When I hit my secondary targets to prove the Stellar Archive was a valid target, the very CNA edited sensors of my frame were on high alert to the stink of Jhiaxus’s meddling. And…”

Saberhorn sighed, seemingly unsurprised, while Grandus had his forehead in his hand, and Prowl reeled as if I had slapped them.

“That copter bot, I assume the prosecutor,” something came loose in my mind, a memory surfaced of a name to the face. “Videlicet. I remember him being among… proto-Functionist forces during the Golden Age. He is very likely there to secure a death penalty or access to rewriting my brain so I can be made part of the conspiracy.”

“Oh my gods…” Grandus sat down his massive weight on the floor, side cannons somehow seemed more drooped than down at ease, perhaps the downward incline. “Do you have proof of- of course you do.”

Prowl bristled and went still at my last sentence. “I- you mean mnemosurgery has been infiltrated too…” their face frowned. “Arcee, this is hard for me to accept, I’m trying to. Nova Prime is lauded deeply among the Autobots as someone of high moral character and ethical compass as ruler of the Golden Age. There is no legal or political precedent among us for challenging this, your case will be lost if that angle is pursued. And- you said you could ‘sense the stink?’ What does Jhiaxus have to do with…”

Thank gods they seem to be clean on this front. This was the answer I was hoping for. “I’m not prepared to answer that. Prowl, you must understand, be careful about who you trust, there are those who would lead you astray into brutality as ends justify the means. As for what this leaves for our defense, Saberhorn…”

Prowl withered at the words ‘brutality’ and ‘ends justify the means.’ 

Saberhorn replied, “Well, Arcee, without being able to connect the infiltration to a movement, it is trickier. From what I can see, we can make the case that you as an independent Autobot agent stumbled onto something larger than you can handle, that caused an existential crisis and near total lack of trust. Augmented by your loss of community that I’m sure I’ll hear more about later, and having watched our species fall and done what you could to stop it, dragged into the heart of the maelstrom of violence, that leaves two strategies. Firstly, acquittal for no wrongdoing, and alternatively, no felony conviction due to insanity from a mountain of largely untreated chronic trauma. We can also try to expose his prejudice in order to get a mistrial, but there is a lot of pressure politically to not simply let you go on a technicality. Still worth the time it will buy us, though.”

I dipped my head low. “So this is what things have come to.” I started to laugh uncontrollably, the absurdity of my life plain. 

When it passed, among worried, sad faces, I could feel their empathy, and added: “I am so, so tired of the whirlwind that has torn my life apart over and over, leaving me only violence, taking the lives of my friends and beloveds, not being able to raise and care for my daughter. I agree to these angles, and would like to speak with Rung now. Please.”

“I’ll message him,” Grandus typed on his wrist communicator. “We’ll get out of your way. For what it’s worth, guilty or not, I’m sorry about what you’ve been through and are going through. I hope you get a break.”

“Thank you,” I nodded, and teared up quietly again. Saberhorn scooted over to hold me, chittering and chirping soft, long beetlesong. 

Prowl stood. “I’ll look into the Videlicet issue. If I can find anything to get the trial thrown out on mistrial-”

There was a knock at the door, and Grandus went to unlock it. 

It opened to a short bot my optics struggled a little to focus on. Not from anything that cued anything in my brain module, just- my optics would slide off or past unless I focused. How strange. I wonder if that’s a defensive mechanism- the bot was short, thin, with a round chest and shoulders, blocky lower legs and forearms. His alt mode presumably had wheels from the one on his back, but what shape he took was beyond me. Mostly an orange-gold and silver-gray bot with red biolights down each chest plate alongside the central beige plate with a large bright blue shine…

I recognized it right away as some directly spark powered mechanism from thermal imaging cues Minerva, Lifeline, and Anode had taught me, and my own extremely extensive experience cutting into spark chamber circuitry and ducts in battle, seeing dying sparks of all sizes.. His spark is so alive, so vital… how- what-

His audials’ antennae wagged while his hand waved hello. “Hi, you must be Arcee. I remember you from the Golden Age, I lived in Rodion during the errant peace. May I sit down?”

I grinned, overjoyed in every circuit to possibly have a true ally within this nightmare situation, and gave the old spark salute. “Please do.”

We’ll take our leave,” Prowl stood, joined by Grandus. “I’ll be in touch, Arcee.”

“Thank you, Prowl.” I nodded. 

The two left, Prowl giving a wave while walking away, and the blast doors shut. 

Rung sat down in the chair opposite me, pulled out and slid across the gray table a signet magnet of the old Forge infinity loop, layered onto the ancient ‘from dust to dust’ blue, yellow, white, orange, and red colors of stars flag pattern I hadn’t seen fly since the Age of the Primes, a modification of the old linked gender-trans flag that normally had a matrix in the middle instead of the infinity loop… I wonder… 

“Thought you might want this spare of mine from then. feel it in my spark that the halcyon days carved out by your  resistance will return, even though it may be hard to believe right now,” he smiled. “You probably know better than me, but I enjoy studying naval operations, and the war as it is is not sustainable. Both sides’ fleets are but shadows of what they were at the height of the war 2 million years ago.”

“This is-”, I grasped the signet, caressed it, laughing with teary glee. “Not- how I expected this would go- thank you.., It’s true, the Decepticons stopped manufacturing War Worlds and cyberforming planets fifty millennia ago. My concern is-” Intrusive thoughts of being trapped and forgotten or unarmed against armies rose, of Jhiaxus and Nova’s agents getting their hands on me and my mind, spark, and millions of years of compiled intel and mostly gone to ground networks. “I scared that if I lose this case, as the Autobots reach the point of crumbling, that my old enemies will force me to be an asset of theirs. I’d rather a Decepticon warlord make a mockery of me, escaping from that is easier.” The memories of my surgery rose, unable to escape from the unbearable extremities of pain, only having gotten away because I was unceremoniously left unbound to escape on my own as my betrayers fled the Functionist onslaught after both of us. 

I couldn’t stop shuddering, optics shut, head in my hands, the gender celebrant billions passed on I had known an ocean of dying stars in my thoughts. “I had my rage to fight my way out, to put an end to an almost seemingly returned Jhiaxus and Nova. And now I only have performing authenticity palatably where even if I win, my path to victory will not be allowed on my own judgement. I don’t have enough information, I was so close, the Stellar Archive and several other locations are key to some nefarious operation, but I won’t be allowed to continue the hunt without Autobot supervision and doctrine, not able to lead to find their main bases, to put my beloveds to rest and have the peace I need to blossom…”

“May I hold you?” Rung’s voice was close. “That and I do have to unbind you, since I’m cleared for that.”

“Y-yes,” 

Rung’s hands started with my forearms, clicking in what I was sure was a port to port quantum cipher relay key, and my stasis cuffs fell away, caught in his hand most likely, as they did not clatter on my thighs. “Thought you might want to do the rest yourself.” He pressed the key into my hand, as lit up inside as the rest of me at the chance to take up my carmode, to have a break from the botmode side of rigid ideals imposed on me. 

I rushed down to click the cipher key into my lower leg binds and then leapt to the side into my hovercar mode, roving around knowing it might be the last time in a long while that I’d get to.

I eventually came to a stop in front of Rung, who reached to pat my car roof launcher fin. 

“Feel a little better? You can stay in car mode if you like.”

“Yeah, I do… I’ll do that.” I nudged my seat with the front of my mode slowly and then jumped up by putting my repulsors on maximum thrust, and hovered to a park sideways along the chair, facing Rung. “I just. Where do I even start? Will it even matter if they lock me away in spark iso to entropically rot until the stars go out?”

“It will still make a difference for feeling at peace and ready to return, if they give you that mercy instead of being stuck in darkness. It still matters. Start with the pain that led you on your most recent quest.”

“I… right.” The seat felt good, a nice parking spot. I focused. “The deaths of my dear friends and former lovers Anode and Lug at the hands of Decepticons whose faction turns out to be thoroughly infiltrated by spy networks loyal to a seemingly returned Jhiaxus and Nova Prime was the catalyst for my wrathful justice. I am sure you can surmise why.”

“Yes, I can. Between Jhiaxus’s betrayal as your doctor and Nova’s as one of the last warriors of the dead or fled Thirteen, like you.” Rung nodded while my mouth fell open, processing what he had said, and got the odd feeling I had met his soft sweetness and sensory humor before. 

He took off his spectacles, blue optics clear to see, his uncommon dark gray living metal playing eyebrows downturned towards the nose. His optics and spark shone brighter for a moment, face a little less worn out. “I’m so sorry, it was never supposed to be like this, I never wanted this for folks like you.” And then they clouded a bit again.

Is he- a survivor of mental tampering too? What did “Do I know you? I feel we met long ago. You were looking after something entrusted to others. You and…” my brain refused to cooperate, though no pain came, that pain, the emotional impositions, if they were not just part of my own trauma, gone forever, I hope . Only a sense of safety of one of my oldest and lost friends warmed my spark. Her… who? “What did you mean by ‘I never wanted this for folks like you?’”

He blinks. “Huh? I said- I don’t know. a guy and fluid transformative feeling that’s been with me ever since the hierarchies and wars that I can remember. Things get patchy. Listen, I had one other thing, I know this is irregular in a therapist to patient situation but you and I are both far older than the regs that I helped create…” he dug a model of the Everbright out of his pack, engraved with my name, and that of the Delta League command staff and many of our solidars, and his name signed in a bottom corner. As he handed it two me, and I unfolded in my chair into bot mode to hold it, both of our optics welled up along with Saberhorn’s, I noticed my name, near those of my partners before the exile and Trans-Mutate and Rampage, was placed near etchings of the Matrix. “I… I make models of the ships I served on, but this one… is the ship I wished I had joined, followed closely. I etched the Matrix there not because of what Shockwave wanted for you, not for leadership or ruling, but because… hearing your story over the years, I thought you should be a Prime in the way they were meant to be, sages and advisors, the way the old pre-Knight paintings seem to suggest. Please keep it, to remember me by, people tend to forget me, I don’t know why, I tend to forget myself too, but seeing you… I remember a bit more. I remember wandering. I remember when the Knights left, taking the Matrix with them. You were there. The thing I don’t understand- is we’re both showing clear symptoms of shadowplay, but we’re both around at least 6 million years older than its invention…”

“Yeah, exactly!” I ran my hands over the ship model. “There’s something dark there. Unknown. I want you and a mnemosurgeon to take a look at my brain.”

“You may have better luck than me,” Rung grinned. “My brain tends to generate near useless scan data past surface level. I can’t remember the results myself. I can’t remember the results from any of my tests, people remember you better, including you. I’ll do the psychological baseline questions. Prowl’s the bot charged with maintaining the officially licensed mnemosurgeon registry, I’m sure there isn’t one far down his speed dial if not actually present.”

“Good to know that Prowl has a filled to the brim covert absurdist parody shuttle reputation,” I cackled, the other two joining in. “I absolutely bet there’s some off the books squad watching everything unfold as best they can.”   

An hour later. Peaceful Revolution , docked at a delisted port on Garrus-9. 

“I told you she had signs, Prowl,” Medic Agent ‘Cortex’ grinned. “Tooold you you should bring me along.” 

I took a look at the orange with silver trim bot, bulkily armored with triple jointed and nearly hooved legs, and a long rounded head with a triple headlong crest, sitting at a computer terminal in his quarters. I know you once looked very different. Lobe. 

I sighed. “There’s a catch. You’ll be operating on her face to face with a pistol under your chin in her cuffed hands. She won’t miss if you try anything. And even if you somehow survive, I will deal with you, and disavow you. Am I clear?”

“Clear as crystal, commander,” ‘Cortex’ stood, and gathered his medical toolbox. “I read Ultra Magnus’s after report, I know that her being on strong sensor dampeners will not stop her. Besides, I’ve always wanted a patient who can talk back to me beyond their brain.” He smirked. 

I dragged my hand down my face, barely able to contain my wrathful disgust. He reminds me of Mesothulas. “Just do it.”

30 minutes later, Arcee’s holding cell, Garrus 9. 

“How do you feel about your brother, Arcee?” Rung, seated, had his spectacles on while the scanner magnetized to one audial read responses as his own spectacles allowed him to as well.

“I… ‘ I let my circuits cycle, thinking of that last hug and comms call 7 million years ago, burning up at remembering recordings of him boarding the Ark-1 with Nova, Jhiaxus, Cyclonus, Scourge, and their most loyal expedition-fevered besides, supposedly searching for an endless source of energy spotted past the Benzuli Cluster and utmostly classified after the spotting. I suspect they found something else, why else would they stretch their hand out again? “That traitor abandoned me long ago, like I predicted he would, he prefered to be at the top of hierarchy than to work to destroy it." 

The long headed thickset armored bot with a mnemosurgery toolkit came in through the blast doors with Grandus. Prowl’s nowhere to be seen, unsurprising. 

The mnemosurgeon bowed. “Arcee, charmed to meet you, my name is Cortex. And you again Rung.I feel very lucky to be working this case to aid your quest, my late colleague Trepan would have loved to.”

Rung frowned. “I would never have approved him touching her, and you know it.”

I gave him a glance. “Am I missing something?”

Cortex grinned.

“I…” Rung shivered. “I can’t reveal who without violating medical privacy, but Trepan had, under Zeta’s rule, attempted to alter the personality of an unwilling dissident away from anarchy towards authoritarianism, and on top of that loyalty to the Functionist and Senatorial state. I stopped him, it was unwarranted both in the letter of the law and common decency, but it almost certainly traumatized the poor bot.

Rage ran strong in my energon ducts, and Cortex gasped in the same moment. “Really? He- I can’t believe it! How awful! I promise I wouldn’t do that to you, would be so rude to do that to a lady… ”

I rolled my optics. Why are some forged men like this…

“Good thing she doesn’t need to trust your promises, brainrunner.” Grandus extended and unfurled his massive hand towards me, to reveal a heavy, narrow, light and dark gray blocky energon plasma pistol with a fully loaded charge clip beside it. “I did my best to find something in requisitions that fit your combat record, sorry I couldn’t give you one of your own pistols that were sequestered for evidence. I’m going to have to order that your arms and legs be rebound before I hand this over to you. Rung if you would…”

“It’s all right,” I smirked. nudged the cipher key over towards Rung, and leaned down to refasten the stasis cuffs onto my legs first, and then did my arms on the table, making sure the locking clips went off audibly, and I trembled a little at the buzzing loss of altmode capability. “I appreciate what little autonomy I am being afforded under duress for what it is.”

“I do have to ask,” Cortex moved to sit down while Rung came over to latch sensor dampeners onto me. “What legal maneuvering did Saberhorn do to get you, a prisoner, a military police provided gun?”

“The Autobot Stratocracy has many faults, but one thing it gets right in the letter of the law, though clearly not the spirit, is viewing mnemosurgery of any sort as a violation of privacy,” I grinned. “So- I am afforded guarantees of safety and reparations, for which I elected ballistic self defense into you, since restitution or anything else isn’t of nearly as much use as keeping you from messing with my brain.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “Wise. Rung, you’ll be scanning my work on her with your spectacles, I presume?”

“Yes.” Rung got up to put four sensor dampeners on my neck and turned them on. I felt undeterred despite the slight haze- I’ve been on these so long to merely exist on bad sensory days. “I’ll be here, Arcee, nothing will go wrong on our watch.”

“You really are the relentless Progenitor people say you are,” Cortex reached over my optics to my helm. “Do you feel this when I touch you?”

“Can’t feel a thing,” I grinned, and grabbed the gun and ammunition from Grandus’s hand, loaded it with a slight fumble from the extreme nerves, and stuck it up at Trepan’s head. “You won’t either, if you try to compromise me. You can start removing my head armor. Are we clear?”

“Clear,” he nodded and took my helm off, left it to the side of the table, and extended a laser barrel from his right forefinger. “Unto the breach.”

The vree-ing sound of the laser churned with every movement, a precise whirl around my upper head with dexterous exaction of arm readjustments, a slight smile implacable on his face.

After a while, he took my upper head casing off. “I’ll seal it back on for you, save you the trouble of getting another physician involved.” 

“Uh huh, thanks,” I watched him put the casing to the side. “I take it my brain module is exposed? Would you mind showing me your mnemosurgery needle plug-ports?”

“Certainly,” Cortex brought his fingers into view, now with needles out of each tip. “I lose lifespan by doing this, you know, a shame there isn’t another way to do delicate medical work mind to mind.”

“On that, I do sympathize,” I frowned. “I would have given anything to let doc Minerva inside my head. You may proceed.”

“It’s okay, Prowl keeps me adequately compensated,” Lobe laughed. “This will feel disconcerting, as if someone is digging around in your brain without access. I would encourage you to relax, let the thoughts pass by, I’m sure someone like you can aim a gun at me at the same time.”

“Right,” I noticed Rung had his quarterstaff out. You have a friend here. cycle your circuits. We’re doing this to find the truth. I listened to the charge and energon pulse, gaze still on Cortex, a smooth sharpness.

A buzzing sensation brushed deep into my thoughts, I did my best not to buck. “Promise me you won’t turn over your findings to Prowl.”

“Even if I promise, you have no leverage if I break it.”

“Wrong,” I smirked. Thanks Rosanna and Flamewar for showing up... “I have some contacts who would hunt you down if you did, with cyberwarfare capabilities.”

“Ah,” Cortex chuckled. “Rest assured, I am no fool, I’ve played this game very carefully for far too long. I won’t say a thing.”

The sense of a staring, gleeful combing through every memory and thought for the signs of altered discrepancies increased significantly. In my mind’s eye, I could see him, with a much pointier long head, a much more sharply curving frame… a name surfaced Lobe. 

You- you did something… 

There were flashes. A severed blue green trimmed helm. A brain module transferred from it into a sided purple head - Shockwave’s- poked and prodded by Lobe’a mnemosurgery needles.

I pushed further in.

“What? How are you-” Lobe strained in the material outer world. 

I saw Lobe standing side by side with Jhiaxus, the latter teaching him shadowplay upon sequestered subjects; the animal bot gestalt members of Monstructor- and after Jhiaxus was gone to the stars with Nova, helping form the Functionist’s shadow torture and brainwashing agency, the Institute.

You’re a dead man. A traitor twice over to the Autobot Stratocracy constitutional articles. 

He shook, and laughed. No. Not without me revealing that you, dear old warrior, were behind leading the greatest resistance to the legal origin and common law basis of the Autobots from which those articles are based. Don’t worry, my loyalty is to that cause. My only home. Surely you understand that, from what I’ve found.

We’ll see.

“I can’t find any sign of the handiwork of any of the known shadowplay disciplines derived from Jhiaxus’s original creation of the technique. I will give Arcee the opportunity to see my knowledge through her mind to confirm.”

No merging of minds occurred, no sharing of thoughts and feelings. A cold file transfer was made of knowledge I wished I and no one had never learned, save for gladness in grasping statistical studies showing it is not permanent, breakable even when continuously reinforced. Good. That confirms that I did.

“Yeah, I…” my own circuits seemed completely clear of forced thought pattern and pain reinforcement coding hints, memories only more hazy surrounding my youth. “I don’t see anything…” I started to shutter. “That can’t be I had pain feedback for breaking from it-”

“Don’t,” Lobe urged my body to be still by tapping into the dampeners plugged into me. “My mnemosurgery plugs are still in your brain module. I’ll remove myself and seal you back up.”

I blinked affirmation, and Saberhorn had the sorriest cheek grasping look in his optics.

Lobe pulled back his coding surveil, and pulled his fingers out, grasped my head casing, and put it back on, and took out a brace from his back to keep the two parts aligned while he sauter-sealed with a finger beam.

Oh gods… What do I even have to defend myself with now? An insanity plea? I don’t want to do that… 

He took the brace off, and handed me my helm, which I put back on after putting my pistol on the table, glad for the return of sensation in my worn swoop-tail crest and audialbuns. 

“I’ll give a more detailed review now. Your genome aging is rather intact, Arcee,” Lobe sat down in the chair between Rung’s vigil and myself, Rung also sat.

Lobe laced his fingers together with a grin. “You’re twelve million years old, according to your biometrics, I’d chalk up the memory discrepancies to you being as old as Rung here and all the trauma you have, particularly your early days as a gladiator and soldier you haven’t fully healed from… if there was any mental tampering, the principles were not something anyone has the knowledge on either side of the war to find.”

His smile lessened. “You’re a linked gender lady bot in a man’s world, sweetspark, even if you win this case things will continue like this until we’re all gone. Your old ways have been discarded or lost, you best keep yourself safe and let the Autobots eventually even out a pax cybertronia.”

Despair and fury incensed in me, having to use every bit of my will to keep myself from breaking the neck of the imperialist twerp. 

Rung flared up too, hands balled into fists. “Please, so many of us live or die by the socioeconomic impacts of the Great War. We know that both sides are exhausted for resources, Cybertron has been abandoned, the Decepticon Constellate has collapsed, the Autobots are outnumbered, and you both turn to increasingly desperate measures, including to trusting us with valued skills with more power, I wouldn’t be surprised if another species or several help determine the fate of the war and the future. All empires fall, as will this ‘man’s world’ bots like you created and the two sides continued.”

“Thank you, Rung,” I smiled and turned to Lobe. “Your efforts ought to have shown you should watch yourself. For you know now that the dream resurges again and again. Thank you for your help. Go.”

“Aye, I’ll be gone save for if asked for testimony you permit,” Lobe got up, packed his tools, and headed out the blast door.

“Good riddance. Saberhorn, I need to rest, but after… let’s run through a mock trial questioning? And Rung, given your background, can you help with providing more psychology to work with in my defense?”

Saberhorn nodded, and Rung replied: “Of course.”

The next day, in the courtroom.

“Prosecutor Videlicet, you may proceed,” Sentinel Trion’s optics needled the grays and gold helicopter bot’s gaze. 

Glad to know his opinion is not the highest of that scalpel of a clean-sweeper. Part of me wants to tear his neck off with my binds. 

“Thank you, honorable Trion,” Videlicet stood, and approaching the stage, a quick, nearly imperceptible, wide opticed gaze of fear at my reflexive response of readied chained forearms and sitting on tip toes at the defendant’s table to launch myself at him. I can take you down like this and you know it. I relaxed. The message had been sent.

“Prosecutor Videlicet, are you all right?” Sentinel peered down at him. 

“I er yes, point of order,” Videlicet faced the judge, back towards me. “Why is the defendant not sufficiently contained like she was when she was brought to consciousness?”

An incredulous stir rose among the crowd. It’s working.

“Prosecutor, she is standing in point blank range of artillery platform bot Grandus unarmed, with a dozen rifle and stun baton armed bailiffs around, not to mention my own arsenal. In what way do you feel threatened by the defendant?”

“I… you don’t know what she’s capable of, your honor. I do.”

“Your honor, overrule this line of discussion,” Saberhorn stood. “There is nothing to be gained with further fearmongering of my transfem client who, innocent or otherwise, cannot, nor can any one standard bulk bot, feasibly pose a threat to the court without her weapons and with stasis cuffs on her arms and legs! As far as I am concerned, this is grounds to call the prosecutor’s motives into question, who possibly is predisposed to unduely fear her!”

“Why you-” Videlicet growled before Sentinel T. cut him off.

“Enough,” Sentinel Trion slammed his gavel. “Yes, this is overruled, and I will not look favorably on continued arguments that needlessly demonize the defendant as a current security threat. Videlicet, try this again, unless you need to recuse yourself for prejudice of the person you are legally bound to prosecute, not persecute.”

“Sir, she tried to intimidate me! This is completely unfair!” Videlicet exasperated his arms upwards. “You can check the camera records, she had a combative response upon seeing me approach you to make opening arguments.”

“I am well aware of her physiological response, may I remind you that I am tapped into courtroom recordings during proceedings,” Sentinel frowned. “It is not unusual for defendants or frankly. participants of this court, who, regardless of usual temperament or history of violence, get on

edge at seeing the person who will be largest determinant against their prior and/or future autonomy. She is, I will remind you, the senior of everyone in this room, and in the entire Stratocracy , and moreover consigned to a rather lonely life on the matter of her gender. so this must be emotionally difficult for her to not make some slight hostility that was not beyond regulation.”

There was no small amount of cheering and sounds of relief, including from dear Rosanna and Flamewar. I hope I get to talk with them today after all… it was too much yesterday.

Sentinel Trion slammed his gavel a few times. “Order, order please! I will, however, for the sake of information on this case and to hopefully confirm or deny one of my worries, humor you, Videlicet, in that I will ask the accused if she can speak to why this perceived hostility occurred. I will not be holding any vitriol in this regard against you on it’s own, Arcee, feel free to speak.”

I did my best not to grin at how completely derailed Videlicet’s opening argument had been, from nudging his own hatred past whatever planning he had made, and I ignored his wrathful stare as I spoke. “Your honor Sentinel Trion, and esteemed members and guests of this court, my response was twofold. One in part unconscious, as you said. The other is because Videlicet by name and visage is someone I recall clearly as a former Functionist power broker who ascended to Senator as part of a larger plot by that reactionary bioessentialist totalitarian movement to end the Golden Age so many of us worked to uphold. If Prowl’s investigation bears ore, I will be able to prove this, beyond my own notation of currently active or MIA members of that repressive regime, confirmed by Autobot contacts!” 

Total uproar ran through the courtroom then, and Videlicet screamed in rage, swiveling a thermal lance forearm gun towards me, and I ducked into Saberhorn’s grasp and cover of his unsheathed dueling saber- Now is not the time for me to defend myself. 

Sentinel Trion’s shoulder pods unleashed a flurry of missile fire that tore through Videlicet’s arms from sheer impact force, without detonating, while Grandus leveled forearm cannons in his direction, the missiles clattered onto the floor after imact.

Everyone went quiet as Videlicet crumpled to the floor, bleeding, two medics rushing two him, and at Trion’s finger wave, two guards as well.

“Videlicet, from your actions alone here, aiming to execute a defenseless former independent agent you became too frenzied to prosecute, I am having you disbarred in accordance with military regulations, and issuing an immediate warrant for your arrest and inquiry including as source for this trial. You clearly have a history with her, or did you simply snap?”

“I was set up! Military Detective Nightbeat ensured I would be the prosecutor, why don’t you ask him???” Videlicet snarled and spat while his shoulder wounds were sealed, and then pushed up to his feet to walk off under guard, one of the medics carrying his arms. “He told me there were orders on high were to make sure that Arcee was prosecuted justly in accordance with the Novan laws and the Interregnum Constitution!! She was and is an enemy of the state, of order, as he will show you. You want to blame me? Ask yourself why you aren’t allowed to mistrial this!”

He was out the main door after. 

“Is it true, your honor, that High Command has denied mistrials?” Saberhorn asked.

I sat up, head low. Godsdammit . 

“While not true in the way he stipulated, yes, the Chiefs of Staff of the Autobot Stratocracy decreed that this case must be solved innocent or guilty, and not thrown out on a technicality, what with the amount and methodology of casualties with unclear motive.” Sentinel Trion sighed. “I’m sorry, Arcee.”

Arguing broke out briefly in the court, Rosanna in tears while Flamewar held her. Oh dears I’m sorry… Gods when Quickshadow finds out… if High Command decreed this, that means Prowl knew the whole time, he’s that high up, isn’t he? Ugh. 

“Detective Nightbeat, I understand you hold a law degree and were the chosen second for this case. Will you take up the role of prosecutor.”

“I am prepared, including to make opening arguments, even though it saddens me deeply to do,” Nightbeat said after a moment, and stood with a tremble holding his head, with a wince. “May I?”

There’s something wrong with him… he’s being coerced, and I imagine if he is under a shadowplay program, quite prepared to prevent finding out. Scrap.

“Proceed.”

Nightbeat walked up to the middle of the courtroom. “Your honor, the case before us is extremely concerning, and to be handled carefully. I do not take lightly the accusations I am making : that the carnage incurred after Luna 2, hitting Grand Central Station, Apollix Sanctorum, Cone Gap, Terasu’s Eye, through to Bhul, each time against a Neutral Cybertronian group, employing mass… …murder and torture to neutralize supposed ‘dark machinations’ and to ascertain the scientic assets of Bhul for massive destruction… …like that of each Cybertronian facility or Cybertronian portion of a facility she left behind. I am tasked… …by my evidence, and my sworn duty to Autobot law, to prove this was unjustified, and I will do so in part by showing this part of a larger pattern of behavior of marauding against both sides of the war and of her own… …collapsed psyche, with such efficiency that her Threat Level assessment should be adjusted from Level 9 to… …Level 10. The prosecution rests.” 

Every word he spoke seared in my sensors, just as he had pauses in his words with winces eacg time, and gasps came from the audience at his last sentence. That would only leave retraining me, ‘retraining,’ or disposal. Suddenly maximum security isolation doesn’t sound so bad…

“Your honor, this is defamation!” Saberhorn responded immediately. “The only living entities to qualify for Threat Level 10 are Titans!! She’s not a weapon of mass destruction, nor a capital ship or a mobile base siege platform!”

“Overruled,” Sentinel Trion smirked. “If only because there is no jury and this is not a military tribunal, and I am free to judge myself all arguments, including absurd ones, should either side make them. You may sit, Nightbeat.” 

I laughed briefly, at that, as did some of the audience. What the blazes is this case…

Nightbeat smiled, and went to sit. Did he purposefully undersell what Videlicet clearly wanted? 

“Saberhorn, please make your opening statement,” Sentinel T. beckoned towards my lawyer. “And Arcee, if you wish, I will allow an opening statement from you as well, to speak freely, as it is the duty of the Stratocracy to show goodwill and grace to those we understand less, and I am personally dubious how much full context will be possible in examination inquiries otherwise. I would not blame you if you use this time to filibuster.”

To speak freely with consequences, more like. This is also an oppurtunity to get me to incriminate myself. I turned to Saberhorn as he was about to stand. 

“What do you think?” I reached to his shoulder.”

“Go for the compassionate appeal we talked about,” He smiled and stood, and walked up to the center. “Your honor, this case is not one about terrorism. Arcee has done her part, over and over, throughout the Great War to defend the downtrodden and desperate of her own accord. This is no different. She was taking on a Decepticon aligned network she stumbled onto complicit in the deaths of her dear friends Anode and Lug, two Neutral transfems deeply impoverished of late, who had been hoping to link up with her. She struck the network with calculated, precise wrath, there were no civilian casualties. We are all aware of the vast multitude of crimes the Decepticons are responsible for- this is no different from a series of surgical strikes by the Autobot’s finest. There is no blame to be had!” Saberhorn raised his arms. “Her primordial, tortured, tired, lonely soul responded as anyone would in her place! I beseech you, if you find the evidence we present of her targets lacking regarding culpability, that you have mercy and recognize she needs our support, not our punishment! The defense rests.”

There was a soft rumble of discussion and agreement in the courtroom benches.

“One question, Saberhorn,” Sentinel T. raised a hand. “Can you name the network?” 

“Our de facto title for the organization has been their stated ideological goal, Expansion. They are some manner of imperialist whose full goals Arcee was trying to uncover.” 

“Thank you, Saberhorn, you may sit. Arcee, would you like to make a statement?”

“I would,” I got up to replace Saberhorn, ambled over and stood as proudly tall as I could. “Your honor, this court, and the Stratocracy at large, I bid you to hear my understanding and plea. All my life, I have watched the conditions of Cybertronian affairs worsen. From the end of the reign of the Thirteen, loss of contact with the colonies, the end of the Golden Age, the Functionist poison that brought about the Great War that has injured our spirit and wrecked the galaxy, I count myself both lucky and terribly lonely to have survived it all and to carry the weight of memory. I fight not for the halcyon days gone, but for a future better than them, so that we may not stumble as badly as they have, and not end up like our Stentarian counterparts who are still fighting their civil war after 16 million years.” My chains rattled as I brought my hands close to my spark, clasped. “Please understand, I did not seek this life! Digging myself out of war after war has been what we’ve all been put through, and having lost so many friends and family to that I said no more!! My only consolation has been my ability to survive and my curse that those who have helped me are mostly dead!” I broke into quiet tears then. “I never wanted to hurt anyone, but we have all been hurting each other for so long… the Expansion is one more such threat. That is all I have to say right now.” 

“Thank you, Arcee of Protohex,” Sentinel nodded his head. The court is now in recess and will reconvene in two hours to begin detailed arguments, discussion of evidence and witnesses, and examinations.”

15 minutes later, Visitation Hall. 

“Arcee-” Rosanna hugged me close, her head on my midriff. “I’m so sorry we couldn’t be there for you, I…”

“It’s okay,” I patted her back, a hand on her head and embraced Flamewar with my other hand. “You had to leave for Quickshadow’s sake. The collapse of Anode and Lug’s relationship with me was too much…” I sighed.

“Arcee dear, we know, she knows, you only engaged in more and more violence against the world opposed to us and became ever more withdrawn because things kept getting harder,” Flamewar hugged me back. “We don’t blame you. And we feel bad that we didn’t know how to support you luv. We’re not here to judge you. We want to help.”

I nodded, unable to cry, and sat down at the table, slowly, a little dizzy and relieved. “Help me? How? It’s not like you two can you know- despite your immense skill.”

The two chuckled, and while Flamewar brought two chairs over Rosanna touched my cheek. “Not that dear, no. Part of how I’ve made a living for the family lately is independent journalism, Flamey and Shadow went into the cybernet and investigation sides of supporting my job. I know the right people to share your story with to get the public to see none of this is your fault, that it all goes back to Nov-”

“Don’t say that name,” I furrowed my optics while the two sat down next to me. “Three related questions. Did you know that’s whose reactivated intelligence network I was cutting down, and if so how? And third, you are aware of how the Autobots view a certain Prime, yes? Let’s just say tendencies of fealty to him still run very deep, and if I am correct, not entirely willingly. That lawyer whose career I ruined was one such. There are more. Both sides of this fight are as poisoned as ever.”

“What?” Flamewar and Rosanna exchanged a long glance. 

“No, dear ‘Cee, we did not know that lot was who you were after, though I’m sure we would have figured it out,” Flamewar scratches her head. “That old ghost… I know what you’re talking about. They cover their tracks extremely well, I can’t even prove they exist. If your attacks against them started at a Decepticon base… …and they’re a present danger, then…”

“You don’t want an interview, is what you’re saying, old friend.” Rosanna looked down. “Between the fact the two sides have no idea nor want to believe what that old cabinet of leaders was responsible for, as they both claim them as their legacy of equality, and the fact that- is that why you saw a mnemosurgeon? Do you think you’ve been compromised all this time since your-”

“No, not by that lot,” I shook my head. “There is an older, more dangerous, possibly abandoned and unsolvable game at play there. My concern in that regard for myself stretches back to not long after I was forged. The findings were inconclusive, either meaning that the technique was unrecognizable by known medical measurements, or that something else happened to me. Whoever was behind that, if not just the sheer weight of systemic oppression while not knowing my truth but exhibiting it I endured, is either dead or has moved on to something else long long ago. I don’t have anything to go on at this point besides there being some thread to the originator of modern shadowplay, who, notably, did not do any to me when he had the chance at that time you referenced. If you’re worried my word can’t be trusted, you can ask Ru- Ra-” what was that nice therapist’s name? “The psychiatrist who came up with Rungian analysis is here, he personally oversaw and scanned the investigative mnemosurgery I had yesterday. I’m sure you can look him up.” 

“Silly dear, Rosanna patted my shoulder. “We’ve always trusted your word, but we can talk to him anyway if you’d let us run a story instead about the state of your mental health and all you’ve endured.” 

“That… “ I touched my chin. “That might be useful depending on how you do it, maybe focusing more on the pressure I’m under whether or not I am of sound mind-” I saw their shocked wide optics. “I’ll explain the sorry state of my legal defense…”

Later, amidst court examination and arguments.

“Arcee,” Nightbeat came up to me while I sat for questioning in the courtroom. “I have laid out ample evidence that you have taken military contracts on countless occasions before and during the Great War, often for people in need, sometimes the Autobots. Would you agree that each instance I named is true?”

I nodded. “Yes, it is true. I have given of myself by the sword over and over.”

“Thank you, for that. Then, I wish to make clear your actions on Opulus IV. You aided the Pulosian democratic collectivist revolution did you not?”

“I did.”

Nightbeat faced the judge. “Your honor, we could stand here debating endless quantities of heroism and violence Arcee is responsible for as to what her threat level is, or I could demonstrate a historical file. I would like to introduce my first piece of evidence : a recording of her and a mere platoon of bots and dozens of tiny organics for fire support as she took the principal role in defeating an Omega Sentinel, the piloted corpse of Omega Upsilson, during the Pulosian Revolution 4 million years ago. Her capability for jump assault blade point defense against artillery grade missile volleys is unmatched. I’ll discuss what we’re seeing means later,” Nightbeat pulled out a dataslug drive from his side. “For now, I ask, given the accused’s testimony, may I submit this evidence to the record? At the very least, we’re verifying she was acting with good intentions there.”

Amongst the murmurs, Sentinel T. looked on with slightly wider optics. “how did you procure this?”

“Yout honor, the Diplomatic Corps negotiated giving all data on Cybertronian incursions in return for us making an exception in the Tyrest Accords for their use of technology based on ours. I asked Crosscut for the records, as he already testified.”

Ah yes, the ‘Diplomatic Corps’ cover for Special Operations. Opulus IV wouldn’t do this to me, even with the Autobot Orbital Command Hub around Opulus I. 

“Yes, you may.”

A projector dais rose from the unfolded floor behind Nightbeat. He turned and slotted the dataslug in, and plugged in a cable from his forefinger. Screens came down along the walls, and a recording displaying my, Glacias, and Trans-Mutate’s thruster aided charge through and chopping down missile fire from Omega Upsilon four million years ago played out up to my beheading of the piloted Upsilon.

“As you can see- Arcee is capable of commanding and leading the charge of a small force against an Omega Sentinel with flawless results. The fact the Omega Sentinel was not operating at full capacity does not diminish this fact- her point defense technique and counterattack were superbly executed. Optimus Prime could not do better. None of us can. I have the entire bulk and minibot declassified combat stat records here to demonstrate this, compared to her own. It is sheer luck that Ultra Magnus incapacitated her with a well placed electromagnetic pulse grenade.” Nightbeat pulled out a massive thumb drive. “I trust, of course, that I need only show this to you and the defense, Sentinel Trion, given the sensitive nature of the data.”

They’re really pulling out all stops for this. The frag did I expect. It’s what the world is.

“Your honor, I must protest this! Arcee didn’t kill the pilot, and moreover, he could hardly be considered to be a capable combatant, he was an industrial plutocrat who fancied himself a superhero! When she has faced similar threats of similar firepower, like the artillery barges of Deathtopia, she could not merely charge into the fire! I will go over her record in detail to prove it!” Saberhorn rattled off loudly at a stand.

“Sustained, Saberhorn,” Sentinel nodded. “I’m sorry, Nightbeat, I would need much more than this incident to rate her above threat level 9. Arcee, if I may ask, were the friends you lost the ones who helped you in this fight? A battlebond and family?”

“Yes, your honor, that is correct,” I sighed. “I’ve lost nearly everything, with only my swords, medications, and memorabilia all that I have left of then and them.”

“Thank you, Arcee, and I’m sorry to hear that, truly. I must ask further; Nightbeat has clearly elucidated from evidence your pattern of killing and torturing those you allege are covert operatives. The numbers are staggering, in the thousands in this year alone, with more in the last three millennia. In all this time, you haven’t found the leadership of the ‘Expansion’?”

“I cannot answer that, your honor. It would put me and everyone here in danger, and moreover, I would not be believed.” I quaked. “Please understand, I had the galaxy’s interests and my own closure in mind.”

“I thought so. Do you have more arguments, Nightbeat?”

“Y- ye-” Nightbeat stammered and then convulsed. “No- no. Your honor. Please, I must retire, I yield my place in the proceedings. I think you have already hit the core of my argument yourself.”

“Very well. Saberhorn, please begin your defense…”

Figures the judge himself would intercede to rule already that I acted under duress and am not of sound mind. Frag it all. 

Two days later, in the afternoon.

“Having deliberated profusely over this case, and read up prior and during it on transfeminity within our species, and consulting the defendant’s paychiastrist, it is the opinion of this court…” Sentinel paused, the room otherwise still with anticipation. “That Arcee, without support from the Stratocracy for her medical and social issues, under the weight of galactic mechanophobia and Decepticon atrocities, and the loss of her family, acted out of suffering to strike vengeantly with nearly unparalleled skill, yet only one bot. The unsolved nature of whether her targets were civilians or covert operatives with little evidence to be offered for the latter in many cases by the defense leaves me having to conclude that this Progenitor in our midst is mentally exhausted and unsound. Her actions were not for cruelty’s sake, instead deeply trauma motivated. I cannot blame her, but it is also not safe for her orthers to gold her in anything less than maximum security to prevent a rampage.”

Rosanna broke into tears, and I did my best to stand tall while my insides screamed. I won’t bend. I won’t break. Not with my back up against the wall.

“As such, aware that she is still cogent enough in her inane acts to not be considered fully insane, I do find guilt for the hundreds of counts of unsanctioned torture and for a dozen counts of domestic terrorism, even if the murders themselves are still disputable. But this court cannot simply condemn for eternity, for it is true she has been deeply unwell. As such, I sentence Arcee Exponent of 86 of Protohex to the maximum security remedial long term rehabilitation care E wing of Garrus-9 until she is deemed fit to return to society after a minimum thousand years pending joining the Autobot military, twenty thousand going independent. Felony convictions are being waived. That is all.” He slammed his gavel. 

“I’m so sorry, Arcee. I’ll keep fighting for you.” Saberhorn put his hand on my shoulder.

“I… I’m sure there are other trans people who need your craft, you kept me from getting an oubliette sentencing or an eternity in spark iso,” I growled. “Thank you, Saberhorn. It’s up to me and the cosmos, now.”

My goodbye with Rosanna and Flamewar was a hazy blur. I called them spark-kin, they promised to keep family safe and try to reunite. 

Garrus 9 Holding Cell 903B.

That taxonomy damned Arcee. How dare she blow my cover. I swear when Jhiaxus and Nova get their hands on her- I sat in the completely dark, tiny cell that merely had a bench to sit on, fuming, and imagined all the ways we’d pull her apart-

The door opened to an even darker still pitch black, out of which walked a resplendently shining blue and yellow winged four legged Prime of legend, spear in hand, four red optics from a sharp mawed masked face beared down on me. 

“Onyx Prime? Have you come to save me?” I stood and knelt. “I have been so loyal to the Grand Taxonomy all these years, blessed be thy- Urrrk- gh” I slumped over, the lights and senses leaving me, his spear through my spark and out my back. “Why….”

“That you would recognize me as Onyx even with four legs, your movement insisted I only stood on two and turned into a plane… most amusing. Just like the near mistrial you caused, prosecutor. You’re as pathetic as the wretched Nova himself, who can only accept a world where he is the only will, just like the Functionist Council that came after. This history I did not intervene in. For if I did… I would not be here today. And I owe her that as well.” A purple shimmer shone beneath his armor, and bright yellow light cast forth from his head onto my face. “Functionism must die so empire can live. Perish.” 

“No- it can’t be, you were supposed to be-” all faded. 

Meanwhile, Garrus 9 E-Wing entry. 

“Come on Arcee, I know it hurts,” tall bulky mostly white with streaks of red and blue winged Jetfire stood over my crumpled manacled form. “You’ll get to rest soon.”

“You really shouldn’t.” Deeper blue with gray tread stack bearing squarish Fortress Maximus towered on the other side of me with a shotgun whose barrel was as big as my head in hand. “She could kill you if you let your guard down.” 

“She deserves what dignity we can afford her, Fort Max,” Jetfire lent a hand towards me, kneeling. “Come on.” 

“You think I’m crazy and culpable, for trying to save our collective afts,” I stumbled to a chain clanking stand. “I’ll be waiting a lot longer than reaching my prison cell for understanding in the outside world to meet the needs I have, that we all do.” I stood tall, and walked ahead. “Which way, overprepared warden?”

“For frag’s sake, you really are a handful,” Fort Max scoffed behind me. “Keep ahead, wait for me before taking the first left. You’ll be in a monitored cell with the only other bot we have in here who we know is on the same gender spectrum as you.”

“How ironically considerate, I don’t remember that being an option with Autobot unit formation if we tire of being the only trans gal on the team,” I chuckled with my fangs out as I strode through the gray hall with sealed cell blast doors.  

The two must have been stunned to silence, no movement behind me as I walked.

“...You’re not wrong, Arcee,” Jetfire jogged a thunderous sound to catch up. “With how much masculinity is our baseline, we didn’t fully consider the loneliness of the rest.” 

Damn right you didn’t.

Fortress Maximus’s even heavier footfalls followed. 

We went on, I waited at the leftwards hall intersection corner with Jetfire for the warden. 

“This way,” Fort’s voice was soft, distant, optics elsewhere as he pointed onwards. “You’re in 3907-B with Howlback.”

“Anything I should know about them? Do I have anything I can hold onto in there?”

“You’ll get books from the library, if you have one you want now I’ll get it for you,” Jetfire handed me a small soft fiber ball. “Only other thing I can give you is this stress ball.”

Vote’s out on whether or not they leave me chained or not in there. I gave the ball a firm squeeze and didn’t let go, the pressure of my own will something to cling to for the moment. “Thanks. Yes, let’s start with something I think you’ll have. I’d like to read the Primal Vanguard Transfeminity Journals, please.” 

“Ah. I was reading those, in fact. I’ll get you print copies,” Jetfire nodded. “It did strike me odd that they seemed to be dodging around the subject of the history of Cybertronian gender beyond them, and left dissidents to Nova Prime’s rule unnamed and only vaguely referred to, and I didn’t previously know there were any. Do you know what that’s about?”

“The Golden Age was not so golden, and only was golden at all thanks to efforts of those who truly cared for autonomy and transformation. If I told you more you wouldn't believe me." I chuckled.

“Indeed, I would not."

Fort Max walked up and unlocked the cell blast door, and gestured a key towards me. “I can take these bindings off you here, if you need to go somewhere I or a squad will escort you.”

I stepped closer, hands ahead, and he gently got the manacles off my wrists and lower legs. 

A lithely rectangular blue metal feline head low to the ground poked out into sight within the simple lit cell. “Hello, you must be Arcee, it’s an honor, ma’am, I’m Howlback, I will do my best to smooth over whatever deep political disagreements we have while we’re in here together.”

“Sorry we had to meet this way,” I started to head in. “Do we eat in a mess hall or…”

“You two can elect to eat amongst yourselves, which I would recommend to avoid excessively violent prisoner power struggles,” Fort Max crossed his arm over his shotgun. “I will admit it is stupid we can’t hold you two in Garrus-8 where you’d have significantly more company from lower level offenders of your kind.” 

“Duly noted,” I stepped inside and the video feed simulacrum window to the outside of Garrus-9 caught my optic, a view of starlight and the evening sun. 

I sat down in front of it on the floor, holding my legs.

“...I’ll be around with the books soon,” Jetfire spoke behind me. “Evening meal is in two hours.”

I didn’t reply, doing everything I could not to cry or scream or fight in front of the Decepticon cassette bot and prison officials. 

The door shut, and the big guys’ footfalls moved away.

“Good on you for cold shouldering them,” Howlback sat down on the haunches of her box cassette of a frame, yellow optics focusedly soft on me. “Jetfire thinks he means well but knows nothing, and Fort Max is harsh knowing even less. You in for remedial supervision before drafting? They made me the same offer, I said no, blasted Autoscraps.”

“I am, yes. My problem is the galaxy is in danger and I was the best positioned to save it from Nova and Jhiaxus’s schemes.” I sighed, and let go of my legs to lie back on the door.

“Ah yeah, I would have told them about Nova’s corruption but well, I didn’t know he was alive, and even most Decepticons reject the notion that Golden Age ‘equality’ was false, and claim Nova’s legacy just as the Autobots do. “Howlback sat down next to me, head near my leg. “Before you ask, yes you can pat and scritch my head, nobody I’d trust or want it from has done it in forever.” 

“All right,” I smiled, and scritched behind her pointed audials, and smirked at her purring. “You make this easier.”

“Same.” Howlback scooted to rest her head on my thigh. “We don’t have to talk about our histories to assess each other, right? We’re both prisoners and thus whose first obligation is to escape.”

“Yeah.” I patted her head before resting my arm on her back. Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I don’t know if I can get out of this one sooner than a millennia though. They’re willing to direct fire a salvo of artillery pieces point blank at me, and I feel their idea of therapy will be to deny my understanding of my suffering, if the court and Ultra Magnus have been any indication.”

The next day.

The guards clamped my wrists and ankles into the chair’s lengthy chains, and then left the softly lit room while a stocky van bot of mostly silver with red trim came in to sit across the table from me, a tablet and stylus in hand.

“Hi Arcee,” he smiled. “Sorry to be meeting like this, my name’s Zupirid. I’ll be doing your treatment intake, once we’ve done that we’ll be able to determine when in remedial care we can have you unbound around other people-”

“Why isn’t the Rungian analysis bot here to do this? I already had a good connection with him.” I huffed.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Wringer -it is Wringer, right? Was called away for Wrecker business. That’s all I know. Jetfire and Fort Max tasked me with your case. I’m sorry.” He put his tablet down. “Look, I’ve worked with special operatives for millennia too. I know there’s a lot you’ll bring up I can’t write down, that cameras will be off for. This won’t take long, and again, I’m just intake. The assessment will be contrasted with Wrang’s to determine what kind of treatment-”

“He recommended outpatient treatment outside of prison for trauma, and for me to be free to do what I want after with socioeconomic support. Not that Sentinel Trion or Nightbeat were willing to acknowledge that.” I stared him down.

“Yes, well, er-, if I can verify that maybe we can get you out sooner-”

“You didn’t read his notes, did you.” I sighed. 

“Fort Max wanted me to do an unbiased intake-”

“ You’re already biased, by my court case and by how our societies treat trans and transfem Cybertronians, by sidelining and forgetting us as they arrest and murder us.” I growled, testing my chains as I stood with a flex that rattled them and pulled them against the chair. If I had been stuck on the chair directly I’d be willing to break my limbs to get out, but thankfully I don’t have to do that.

He stood while my chains strained, I could the slightest rupture in them start.  

“Now, Arcee, I’m sorry I offended, please understand, I am here to help you. Don’t make me put this against your record. You have to understand, our stagnant societies miss much, it’s not a question of systemic transmisogyny, that isn’t real for us transformers among ourselves-”

“The Pit it isn’t!” I can’t let them try to do this! I sprinted around the table, cutting into my forearms and shins with the bindings as the chains broke, and I swung a loose one from my right arm at him as he pulled out a pistol and hit a panic button receiver, the jagged chain end cut across his neck, spilling blood-

He dropped his gun, and I, bleeding from every limb, grabbed it as he collapsed gurgling on his chair, and opened up my grenade launcher hand barrel to shoot the plug in it and shake the debris out before effortlessly swiveling the pistol around under my back stack thrusters to free my thrust exhausts the same way. “Stay here. I don’t want to kill you.”

Alarms were already sounding, and he simply trued to patch his wound.

I siphoned innermost energon to my grenade launcher, faced the blast door, and blew it out.

It tore apart all over the bulky tank guards about to open the door, shredding the two’s armor. I magnetically holstered my pistol and leapt down to grab their pistol grip batons and towards the prison block I had come from, taking both batons in one hand to blow out the next blast door, and proceeded to use my pistol to shoot out the hinges on prison cells. One- two- three- four- 

Five guards sprinted towards me while eight Autobots, Decepticons, and Neutrals alike poured out, saw me, immediately grasped the situation, and tackled the lot, taking firearms-

“Get everyone else out!” I sprinted in. “Don’t kill if you can avoid it, I don’t want any of us executed today! Move!”

We kept up the pace of freeing more prisoners by gunfire while a thundering of hundreds of footfalls of guards came from both ends of the hall, opening fire with stun ion blasts that zapped through the air. My fellow rioters started be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of fire save for those who transformed alongside me-

I used up more innermost energon, and fired a salvo of supercharged EMP grenades out of my fin’s forward and rear launchers, I’m spent, decking what must have been a hundred bots in front and behind each while I and ten bots flying rolling and hovering raced towards the prison wing exit, tanks freeing more of our fellows-

Fort Max sprinted ahead around the corner unleashing EMP scattershot while Grandus rolled up the stairs, a thundering of stun artillery raining down area denial attacks in front of us.

I turned off sensors and hit maximum thrust while my engine rapidly shortcircuited. I lost my hover, skidded, and transformed on my tcog and tried to use auxiliary actuators to move, crawling to a stand while desperately trying to reboot my motor with my spark.

“I’m sorry, Arcee, we’re going to have to put you in spark isolation to keep us from further traumatizing you and to keep you from hurting people. We’ll try this again in ten millennia,” Jetfire strode up with a stun pistol and unloaded it on me, and caught me in his arms as I blacked out.

Peace. My loves in memory here. My body gone. My shape here. I can feel my wheels, my bulky curve. I feel my loneliness- cycles and pulses. I must sleep and dream- my thoughts approximated words for my spark before letting go, brain module elsewhere, separated, and I attempted to rest.

Chapter Text

Autobot Orbital Command Hub, in orbit of Opulus I, 1516 CE, H Year 11,516, BES Year -501. 10 days later. 

I stared at the Garrus 9 complex weekly report on my computer desk display. At the top of the list was the prison riot led by a Progenitor, Arcee, and I noticed Arcee was described as she in the file. Her sentence had been upped to spark isolation after she was finally apprehended by a battalion of elite guards. She had incapacitated over two hundred in her escape attempt witj just a pistol, integrated grenade launcher, and dualwielded batons. 

I remember you, old one, when you helped us evacuate Lithone 4 million years ago and lost much of your heroic family to an FTL mishap. How did you end up here? I read over the attached court case. The loss of more friends by Decepticon hands, the dire straits, the loneliness when attempting to join Autobot ranks, the rampage against thousands of bots across the galaxy who the court could not determine if most were covert operatives rather than presumed civilians. The near mistrial from a late Functionist lawyer apparently assassinated independently of her after he was arrested, case unsolved. The ruling of her both having some guilt and being of unsound mind. The inciting event of the riot being a therapist attempting to tell her cybertronian transmis- transmisogyny isn’t real. We don’t even have an official position on… my head hurt, the Matrix ached and cried out in my circuits, the old darkness upon its ancient memories shaken, a vision briefly of green hands holding it, a visage of a lavender cable haired bot Solus Prime, isn’t he - no, she? How-

A knock came at my door.

“Who is it?” I croaked feebly while trying to get my sensors under control.

“Hot Rod, sir, you all right, Prime?” his voice came from the other side of the door.

“Yes,” I coughed. “Yes come in, commander.”

The blast door opened, and rounded arm blocky torso Hot Rod of red and yellow walked in, gray face’s blue optics sharp upon me, back spoiler shining under the room light. “Optimus Prime, this sentencing of Arcee is inane and an insult to the cause. You must pardon her and release her immediately.”

Ultra Magnus followed in. “I’m sorry Prime, I tried to stop him-”

I raised a hand, spark heavy with the Matrix. “Let’s hear him out. Hot Rod, you have to know from the severity of this case that I can’t do that.”

“The frag you can’t!” Hot Rod slammed his fist on my desk. “I grew up in the streets of Nyon alongside transfems, I grew up with stories of Arcee’s virtuous spark, a guardian knight who protected the best parts of the Golden Age from corruption and hierarchy! She is one of the original Autobots, effectively! You owe her everything, so do I! Our movement is far from the rebellion I waged against Zeta Prime!” He raised his hands apart and high. “She was trying to save us all from a threat we don’t understand! Don’t you want to hear it from her, to intercede and hear what she is too scared to say on fear of her life? Don’t you find it concerning a Functionist was revealed in our ranks by this trial?”

I can’t let him find out about Prowl’s Special Operations full of slateclipped mnemosurgeons we otherwise wouldn’t have or worse the Decepticons would. If I start an investigation in earnest Prowl might go up against me… what have I become? I’m nothing like the noble line of ancient primes, nothing like Nova or Solus. “Rest assured that we will be reviewing the ranks, commander. I remember serving with her at Lithone, she was exemplary. She did a number of other operations for us or that helped us over the millennia… but she has fallen from grace more than us, and we’re trying to help her. Fort Max and Jetfire recommended no visitations, especially after the riot she conducted that involved releasing Decepticon war criminals. Hot Rod. I can’t let her go. My hands are tied. Her suffering needs rest. We have to wait”

“Frag it all, Supreme Commander, Prime! What she needs is people to believe in her, not just to use her! Prowl and you are both going to do that, just like how Dawnlight died holding the line at the Simanzi Massacre while the rest of Command pulled out!” Droplets ran down Hot Rod’s face while Ultra Magnus merely stared into the distance, and other bots in the hall started to watch.

I wanted to double over and cry. To run away from the Matrix. I couldn’t. I had a war to win. A galaxy to save, a Megatron to defeat.

“Do you remember what she said?! I’ll take you to tribunal over this! I’ll duel you, even! I was there, Prime! She said, ‘tell Arcee I’m sorry, she was right about everything, transformation forgive me-”

“ Enough, Hot Rod. Your comments are noted and your insubordination will be handled. You are demoted to Warrior. If you will not take heed, Ultra Magnus can outline the codes you broke. If you want her to have a fair chance, Hot Rod, we need this war to be won. Dismissed.” Every bit of me ached, a sadness welled up at the loss of my confidante Dawnlight at Simanzi. What could she have been sorry about?  

“Ye- yes sir,” Hot Rod straightened up, still teary, turned and left.

“Close the door, Magnus.”

“Yes sir, sorry sir,” Magnus shut the door. 

I put my head in my hands, shaking. “Dawnlight… I’m sorry… what would you do?”

“I can’t bear the roil anymore, so much pain-” I opened up my chest to remove the Matrix, which came away with ease, and I felt lighter, lonelier. I can feel the call of the stars. I need to go out to that stellar sea again until I find my way once more, my answers. Who will bear this for me…

Someone of high honor and noble virtue, more at ease with the cosmos than I, I pushed a button on my desk comms relay dashboard. =“Thunderclash, report in to my office at Opulus Command as soon as possible. Give me an ETA. I am designating you to be Matrix bearer and Supreme Commander in my absence.”=

A reply came in some minutes after: =“It’d be an honor Prime, I just want to note I don’t agree with Arcee’s sentencing, I was there at Lithone alongside our trans siblings, but I won’t countermand you and the judicial system. Just think it over on your sabbatical.”=

I forgot he was like this. He’s not wrong…

Chapter Text

Quintessa Polity Ruins, Gorlam Prime, 2010 CE, H Year 12,010, BES Year -7.

I sat, and waited. Waited among the craggy gray cave rocks and not far from the sickly silver unalive Dead Universe pool, while Jhiaxus’s broken and hunched body slowly came back together from my most recent bisection of him, his head refusing across brain module, circuit, and armor casing, nearly devoid of energon.

A deep calm and intense relief came with every moment, my fury of the last three years here on this world decreasing in reckoning where time moved differently than the universe beyond, as if in a warped version of a black hole’s orbit . The calendar year three years’ lived time ago is what many humans called, according to newly dear friend Hardhead, 2009… 

Three years of tearing into him, of returning a fraction of all the suffering he has caused me and my loved ones for seven million years.

Light returned to Jhiaxus’s optics and spark, and he immediately shrunk away on his chains, wings flapped nervously. “Please… Arcee… I’m sorry… I did wrong by you, you should have been untouchable save for precisely what you instructed, like Nova and your brother… I took advantage of you…”

“You still haven’t fully answered me,” I waved my unignited sword hilt slightly. 

His gulp was audible, he looked away, face and body scrunched up, expecting to ‘die’ again .