Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Heavy footsteps thudded across metal.

"I hate draft dodgers," said the mech over whose shoulder Prowl hung like hunted game. This placed his rough, growling voice almost in Prowl's audio. "Especially pipsqueaks with mouths."

"Oh, what's wrong?" Prowl shot back. The stasis cuffs on his wrists left him paralyzed, so talk was all he could do. And seeing as this mess ruined his day, he figured being as annoying as possible made for perfect payback. "Annoyed that you're not kissing your boss's skid plate?"

"Quiet! You're lucky you're going to see Yoketron. I'd love to throw your perky little aft into the stockade. Pow! Brats like you never last long."

They were coming upon a huge building, but Prowl couldn't move enough to scan it with his visor. He hoped, desperately, that this huge lug of a mech didn't accidentally pop his visor off. If he did...Prowl tried not to think about it. But not thinking about it made him more conscious of the uncomfortable, square shoulder digging into his abdominal plating.

"Who the slag is Yoketron?"

"Somebody who eats little twerps like you for lunch." The large mech smirked. He carried Prowl inside where it was blessedly warm.

The mech waiting for them wasn't much bigger than Prowl. Enough light existed to guess at color vibrations--lots of white, some black and gold trims as afterthoughts. The most interesting feature was his head. He wore a helm bearing two gold horns from its brow, giving the illusion of a frown. And for all that finery, the white bot just stood there, staring. What? Was he a stupid maintenance mech or something? Prowl sneered, wondering if Yoketron planned on making an appearance anytime soon. Considering the size of the place, he had to be big. Way bigger than the mech clutching Prowl like a toy.

But the little bot's hard stare grew annoying fast. Prowl hated it when people stared!

"Take a holo-scan, it'll last longer!" He groused.

"Quiet, you waste of Spark!" The big bot snapped. Reality flipped as he dumped Prowl unceremoniously onto the floor.

"Oof!"

"Thank you, Warpath," said the white mech. His voice was soft and deep, like the creak of an old joint, and his servos squeaked slightly in their housings. He had to be ancient! So ancient his serial number was probably one or two digits long! "You may remove the stasis cuffs."

"You sure, Master Yoketron? He's a feisty one."

Prowl jerked his head up. What? That creaky old bot was Yoketron? Did serving time mean waxing and oiling him every day? Prowl's shoulders sagged in dismay. Maybe the stockade was a better deal.

"If ya ask me, he should rust in the stockade." The huge bot--Warpath--bent over and unhooked the stasis cuffs. "Any Autobot who won't fight Decepticons is no better than a 'Con himself. We're at war--"

"It's not my war!" Prowl shouted at him. Why walk into gunfire and die for people who wanted him slagged anyway? He was flawed, protoformed without eyes behind his visor, and he'd just be wiped off the memorial wall as soon as the coroner-bot saw the truth. Why waste the time if his death meant nothing? He wanted to live.

Warpath was suddenly in his face. He stunk of cheap oil. "Then maybe I should take you out back and make it your war."

"I believe I can take it from here," Yoketron's calm words contrasted with Warpath's both in tone and timbre.

He must've shot the bigger mech a cold look, because the next thing Prowl knew, Warpath walked off, muttering, "Bam! Pow! Lousy draft dodging peacenik."

The door closed silently, and Prowl found himself alone with the old exhaust puff.

Knowing now he couldn't be thrashed for speaking his mind, Prowl snapped, "Why should I risk my chassis for anyone? Nobody ever risked their chassis for me!"

"Keeping you out of the stockade, I am risking something for you." Yoketron replied without losing his calm demeanor. "But if you are willing to learn, that risk could be very rewarding."

Learn? Prowl ducked his head and smirked to himself so he wouldn't laugh out loud. What could I learn here? How to scrape rust out of your teeth?

He stood up then, and jabbed an accusing finger in Yoketron's direction. "A rusty old bolt bucket like you, teach me anything? Doubtful."

Yoketron chuckled softly, like he knew something Prowl didn't.

"I will make you a deal." He pointed over Prowl's shoulder. "If you can get out the door before I stop you, you are free to go, and all charges will be dropped."

Outrun this ancient garbage can? Piece of flux cake! I'll be out of here before he even processes that I moved.

Speed was something Prowl prided himself in. Before Warpath caught him, he'd been part of an underground racing circuit where the fastest bots on Cybertron competed for prestige. He wasn't the only motorcycle bot who participated--and that meant the likelihood of his flaw coming out became nearly nonexistent. After all, nobody suspected a blind mech could race around a track at break-servo speeds.

He smugly grinned in Yoketron's face-- "See ya!" --and transformed, tearing towards the door.

Just like he expected, Yoketron hadn't moved! He had it made!

He'd almost cleared the door when an impact knocked him clean out of his alt mode. Two more struck his midsection, and before he even processed what happened he was on the ground, pinned beneath something heavy. He lay there until Yoketron's feet stopped near his head.

Yoketron grasped the wooden--whatever it was--and threw it backwards like a toy. It crashed somewhere in the distance.

He'd moved so fast. Faster than Prowl ever could in vehicle mode...and he did it on foot! How was that possible?

Beaten by a rust bucket. How lame! Prowl grudgingly pushed himself to stand, his pride crushed by whatever heavy object Yoketron just tossed aside. The ancient bot's deep, calm voice continued without missing a beat.

"If you would care to learn, you may stay and make yourself useful." Yoketron pulled out a long stick that he twirled with impressive speed and set down in front of Prowl. "You can start by cleaning up this mess."

Prowl reached out and grasped the handle. A push broom? First he got beaten up by that old coot, and now this? But it was getting dark out, and his oscillators were useless in the dark! Night time was the time he'd find a place to hole up and stay put until daylight. And now, he was in a strange place, being stared down by another bot who would know immediately once he faltered in the dark.

"Why do I have to clean up the mess you made?" Prowl groused.

No answer came.

Yoketron had walked away without a sound. It was one of the most embarrassing blunders of blindness--talking to empty air like a simpleton. Prowl ducked his head and muttered curses under his breath. He shoved the broom forward into an eternal nothing until it bumped into the wall. A quick about-face and he started towards the opposite wall, counting the steps it took to reach the other side. It was perhaps the only skill he retained since he upgraded himself with the oscillators. Who needed those non-visual skills when he had a secret mod that let him function like a sighted bot?

Prowl's quick exploration told him this room was a hundred steps long and seventy wide. The walls weren't even--once or twice he encountered the same wooden object Yoketron knocked him into earlier. Prowl went around them.

Cleaning that room took hours. The broom was titanium and...wood...and weighed at least a ton. It resisted him each time he pushed it across the floor. By the time he finished, his legs, hips, elbows and shoulders all ached from overuse.

How did Yoketron twirl such a heavy object like a toy?

"I'm finished!" Prowl shouted. He let the broom fall behind him. "Where do I put the--"

"No need to shout," Yoketron's voice was right beside him. He touched a button on the wall and the lights within his home snapped on.

Startled, Prowl jerked and tripped over the broom he just threw down. The hard wooden floor greeted the back of his head with a loud, humiliating clank.

Mercifully, Yoketron didn't laugh. He took the broom and said, "You have burned a lot of fuel, but you don't need to worry. Dinner will be served soon." He pointed to a door and his voice hardened into no-nonsense, "Go there and clean yourself. I will not tolerate dirty hands or feet near my table. You will wash before every meal as long as you remain here."

The old bot's tone left no room for argument. Prowl grudgingly entered the other room. Maybe a good few minutes under a hot spray would do him good.

Except there were no spigots anywhere. Prowl scanned every wall. The room was empty, save for a pump in the middle with two bowls, a basin, sponges and cloths to dry off. Even the waste container was old, and required manual dumping instead of an automatic flusher.

What the frag kind of bot lives without modern equipment in his own home? Prowl wondered, irritated. He stood there for ages until Yoketron entered.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Prowl gestured to the pump. "I don't know how to use this thing!"

Yoketron responded with a quiet cough of a laugh. "Oh, Prowl, you are cursed with your youth. The world outside wastes so much. Well, here, nothing is ever wasted. Here, you use only what you need."

With that, he held the sponge under the pump, pulled the handle and pumped until a gush of water soaked the sponge thoroughly. Then he knelt and washed his hands over one of the bowls, which caught the excess water that dripped. He did the same with his feet. Afterward, he wrung out the sponge, took the bowl and poured the water into a tray. Something organic grew from the tray to wrap around the bars on the window.

"What is that--green thing?" Prowl asked.

"It is a vine from Quintessa that thrives on water."

"Oh." Prowl worked the pump, washed and poured the contents of the bowl into the same tray. "Why do you have an organic plant in your washroom?"

But Yoketron was gone. Again.

This habit irritated Prowl. Talking to thin air twice in one day did not do his self esteem any good. He swore under his breath on his way into the main room. Unidentifiable scents drew him across Yoketron's house to a small space barely larger than a walk-in closet. There were no chairs, just a low, rectangular white table sitting on a black rug. When he sat down on the floor, Prowl noticed the eating utensils were also white--and nearly invisible to his oscillators. They weren't even forks! They were two metal sticks held together by a magnet.

Yoketron emerged balancing two trays on his hands. He set one down at the end of the table where Prowl figured he was supposed to sit and set his own at the other. Prowl adjusted himself accordingly.

The food was nothing Prowl ever encountered before. There was a bowl of tiny energon cubes no bigger than the screws that kept his armor plating from flying off. Next was a square tray that smelled like flux, but it'd been rolled into noodles with petroleum poured on top. The smell didn't appeal much to Prowl's olfactory sensors, so he moved his attention now to the drink--a squat bowl of turpentine tea with...Prowl sniffed again...bleach.

Yoketron settled on his knees and reached for the energon bowl first. He took the two sticks in one hand, brought the bowl close to his face and began to daintily scoop the energon into his mouth.

Prowl's attempt to imitate him failed miserably. He picked up what he spilled and placed it back in the bowl.

"Do you have a spoon I could use?"

"Mealtimes are silent here."

"I just wanted to--"

"Prowl..."

"But, I--"

"Confuto!"

It was a word in a language Prowl never heard before, yet its meaning was clear. And Yoketron always spoke so softly that hearing him shout shocked Prowl to silence.

Stung, Prowl used his fingers to eat, all the while wishing the floor would swallow him whole. The flux and petroleum tasted odd together, and only sipping the sour tea offered relief. Energon, at least, was familiar enough to make up for the otherwise unpleasant flavors. How did Yoketron stomach such weird food?

He didn't dare speak until Yoketron set his tea bowl down in the center of his empty food tray and spoke without a hint of his earlier anguish, "You are hiding something."

"What?" Prowl jerked his head up. First, a terrible dinner and now this?

"Everyone I've known who wore a visor took it off from time to time."

Prowl tried not to squirm under the older mech's careful scrutiny. "I-I just like mine."

"And there must be a reason you would dodge the draft for so long..."

"I already told you! Why should I risk my chassis when nobody ever risked theirs for me? It's pretty dumb to fight for people who wouldn't even care if I died!"

"Exactly. Now," Yoketron said softly, "take off your visor."

"No."

"Is it because you like it, or is it to hide your shame?" Then, in a few simple words, Yoketron stunned him beyond belief, "We are all flawed in some way, Prowl. And if you are to learn, I must know you."

"Look, Yoketron," Prowl stood up slowly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Your defensiveness suggests that you do. But if your digestion would benefit from a walk, you're free to leave the room."

Yes! Freedom!

Prowl turned to walk out the door. It was closed. He found out with his face, and reality reverberated from the impact. Several times, Yoketron put him in positions that made his flaw obvious. No excuses could possibly hide the truth. Yoketron knew.

"There is blindness...and there is blindness." Yoketron's voice was suddenly beside him, soft and gentle. "Do not let your visor prevent you from seeing yourself, Prowl."

But what I AM is disgusting.

"I'm hideous." Prowl's voice was squished small by the growing heat in his throat. "I need the visor to cover it. It connects to oscillator technology. Without it...I-I'm helpless."

"You are not the first flawed mech to live under my care." Yoketron laid a hand across his back. "If you let me, I will turn your weaknesses into strengths. But I can not teach you anything until I see your flaw for myself."

Prowl pressed his forehead hard against the smooth metal door. His whole body quivered in terror. Logically he knew he was safe, but taking off his visor was more dangerous than baring his Spark.

"I-I'm afraid."

"Then let me."

Yoketron removed the visor, exposing Prowl completely. Prowl heard himself weeping silently when Yoketron saw the ugly truth he spent his life trying to conceal. He couldn't bear to reach up and cover his own face, because that meant feeling his lack of eyes.

"I see no ugliness here." Yoketron spoke after a moment's silence. "You are young and frightened, Prowl, but the only shame is how the flawed are treated." He reached out then, and Prowl felt himself encircled in the old mech's arms. "Shhh...it is all right."

Having never been held before, Prowl didn't know how to respond. He just stood there, biting his lip hard so he wouldn't sob and make himself look even more pathetic.

"True beauty comes from the Spark, not the body." Yoketron whispered. He offered Prowl his visor and stepped back, "And to be a ninja is to use all senses, not just sight. The path will not be easy, and nothing will be simply handed to you. You must work in order to learn. Accept that and you will be a fine student."

Prowl collected himself and put his visor back on. Could he really learn to fight in a way that concealed his flaw?

"I never did like hand-outs, Yoketron," he smirked, "When do we start?"

Yoketron's response had a smile behind it, "You can start by referring to me as Master Yoketron. Now, come, I will show you to your quarters."

Prowl skipped two steps to catch up. Yoketron led him from the dining area, turned right and entered a corridor just across from the washroom.

"The first door on your right will be your room. The one across from it leads to mine." The old ninja bot smiled, "And don't think about sneaking away. Door servos have a terrible tendency to wake me from even the deepest slumber."

Of course he'd be a light recharger, but Prowl had a feeling he wouldn't want to go sneaking out anytime soon. Especially if it meant getting his aft kicked again. He started to turn away when Yoketron stopped him with a light touch on his arm.

"What?"

"I am your sacred sensei now, which means you must treat me with the same respect you would Primus. Therefore, you must learn to bow." Yoketron wasn't joking, and his tone kept Prowl from running his mouth. "Place your arms at your sides, touch your hips and bend at the waist until your head and Spark align towards my eyes."

Sighing, Prowl made a weak attempt.

"Your arms are not noodles, Prowl, they are iron bars. Keep your shoulders back and don't bend your knees. Now, try it again."

"Oh, come on, what's this supposed to teach m--"

A hand grabbed his chin and hauled him forward until his visor only detected two narrowed optics boring into his metal skull. The voice attached to the hand nearly froze his circuits. "Do you want to learn, Prowl?" Yoketron gave his chin a slight jerk, "Answer me when I address you."

Prowl was too scared not to obey. "Y-yes."

"Good." Yoketron's grip loosened a half-degree. "Then I expect you to pay attention. The first thing my students learn is respect. To be a ninja is to respect your sensei."

"But I-I--"

That icy voice again, "The proper response is 'yes, Master Yoketron.'"

Prowl sighed again, tempted to shove Yoketron away. Memories of what happened the first time he underestimated him stayed his hands. He grumbled, "Yes, Master Yoketron."

"Now say it without sneering."

"Yes, Master Yoketron." Prowl said, deadpan.

"And bow."

Prowl placed his hands at his sides and dipped slightly forward. The fingers grasping his chin pulled his head down lower, then let go.

"Your first lesson is concluded, then. Remember--respect me, and I will respect you. Respect requires obedience. Do as I say and you will become a fine student under my care." Yoketron stepped back, no longer invading Prowl's personal space. "I will see you tomorrow."

But he didn't immediately depart, and Prowl wasn't sure why at first. Then he remembered and shifted awkwardly into another bow. Yoketron mirrored the gesture with far more grace and departed, leaving Prowl wondering if a clumsy bot such as himself could learn to move that smoothly. What if Yoketron was wrong? What if he was a dud?

Prowl entered the room assigned to him, found the light switch with his hand and turned it on. His quarters were just a little bigger than the tiny dining area. Walking its dimensions confirmed his suspicions--fifteen steps long and ten wide--as opposed to ten long and five wide. A hexagonal window like the ones in the main room marked the center of the wall on the right. Here and there, decorative sculptures depicting mechs in fighting poses sat on tiny shelves. But where was the recharge berth? Yoketron didn't expect him to sleep on the floor, did he? Then, as he walked across from the window, his foot bumped into the octagon shape of a portable berth. He unrolled it and was surprised to discover a thin layer of memory foam topping each folding segment.

Prowl settled down on his side, surprised to discover how the foam cradled his body like...like resting on air.

I hope I'm cut out for this, Prowl thought while grasping the edge of the berth. I really hate being cooped up in here with that stuffy old fume bag, but it's better than the stockade. I'll just do my time and get out whenever my sentence is up.

Reaching up, Prowl rubbed the smooth spaces beneath his visor.

He said he saw no ugliness here. Tch, probably just talking out his aft to make me feel better. I really hate old bots. Especially the ancient ones without a sense of humor like Yoketron. I'll never be able to relate to him! He's old! I'm young! Hmph...but this IS a comfy berth...

His thoughts disjointed and a nagging ache in his joints reminded him of the horrid broom he had to push around. Hopefully, he wouldn't be using that wretched thing again any time soon.

Whatever. Prowl turned over onto his right side, which left him facing the door. I'll worry about tomorrow when it gets here.

He was almost in recharge when he heard Yoketron reach in and shut off the light. Darkness enveloped him, and soon, so did sleep.

Chapter Text

Training wasn't easy. Yoketron said it wouldn't be, but Prowl arrogantly believed it'd be a breeze anyway. His first assignment was to catch his Master by surprise. Simple, right?

Wrong.

Prowl used his holo-emitter more times than he could count. He disguised himself as the vine in the washroom. He tried to be a light fixture once. Another time, he was a wooden storage compartment.

Twice, Yoketron gave him a chop as he went by--like he saw right through the hologram. The third time, when Prowl waited for him to pass and tried sneaking up behind him, he found himself seized and thrown like a toy.

"How did you know I was there?" Prowl groaned, frustrated by his repeated failures. "My hologram projector--"

"It is the cyber ninja, not the weapon, that is important. You have skills, young one, and great potential. But you must develop the first to fulfill the second."

As he spoke, Yoketron reached out and removed both Prowl's holo-emitter and his jump jets.

"Wait!" Prowl cried out against the unfairness of it all. How was he supposed to sneak attack without any means of hiding himself? "Without my gear, I'm nothing!"

"And nothing is where we must begin." Yoketron replied, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Prowl sat up, rubbing his head.

"I will not remove your visor from you, Prowl, but for now..." Yoketron tossed a metal object that Prowl barely caught. It was a lead blindfold, something his oscillators couldn't scan through. "If you spend your life relying on oscillators, you'll never be true to yourself. Should the worst happen and the visor is removed in battle, you must still be able to fight."

"But--"

"We begin with nothing, Prowl. To do that, you must return to your truest self. Re-master the skills you attained before the visor. Then you will be ready."

Sighing, Prowl offlined his oscillators and slid the lead blindfold over his face. It fit perfectly over his visor and clipped in place via magnets. He felt...helpless...and sat down in the middle of the floor. Deep down he knew he'd have to move eventually, but at the moment he felt so lost. He fidgeted with his thumbs. Surrounding him were soft sounds--ships passing outside, clicks and clanks from his own internals and, occasionally, Yoketron walking around in another room. Many noises confused him. The vastness of the room felt like a void filled with imagined bottomless pits and toe traps.

He truly had forgotten a lot of his non-visual skills. If he was to get anywhere here, he had to rediscover them.

Somewhere behind him came a tapping sound. Metal slicing something soft and meeting wood. He turned towards it when he recognized it. Yoketron was chopping noodles.

Prowl screwed together his courage and pushed himself upright. The room was one hundred steps long and he stood close to the middle. He stretched out both arms and began to walk, counting until at exactly fifty-three steps, his hands bumped into the wall. His fingers brushed the light switch--and that existed right next to the washroom door. The eating area was across the room in the opposite corner. He knew because he still heard Yoketron chopping, though fainter than before.

I know where I am. Prowl rested his forehead against the wall, smiling at himself. He noticed a sweet smell, and upon walking towards its source and touching, he confirmed it was the Quintessan vine. It had waxy, sickle-shaped leaves as long as his thumb, and its flowers were fuzzy cups no wider than his palm. They had a sweet smell, like warm axel grease. The stem itself felt rough and strong, holding firm to the metal bar around which it wrapped itself. He never realized how beautiful the vine was because its presence had always been vibrations shaped into irregular spirals. The different frequencies of the pale violet flowers against the green stem felt almost meaningless to his oscillators. Colors were always lost on him--they only existed in his vocabulary by necessity--and he never thought of them as beautiful. But oh, against his fingers, the firm stem, smooth leaves and furry blossoms came alive as something real. Of all the things Prowl missed, using his hands to see was the hardest to give up. Doing it again was like greeting an old friend he left behind centuries ago.

Yoketron cleared his throat, alerting Prowl to his presence for once. "Prowl, the morning meal will be ready soon. I will teach you how to handle chopsticks properly, and then you are on your own."

Prowl turned and offered a clumsy bow in response.

It was as if this new discovery carried no significance to Yoketron at all. Yet, he didn't just walk away, either. Prowl could feel the other bot's eyes on him as he followed the length of a vine from the tray to the curled tip wrapped around one of the window bars. That feeling faded after a moment. Prowl confirmed Yoketron's departure by reaching for the empty doorway.

Content, he fumbled for the sponge and bowl, and started the water pump. After washing, he made his way carefully towards the eating area. He smelled the same energon always present at every meal. There was also hot wax soup, a thick, bland concoction flavored often with sweet rust, sour bleach, salty sodium or bitter gold. Each flavor resided in containers set up next to the bowl. Prowl groped about, sniffing the contents of each until he identified and added the rust.

Yoketron spoke just long enough to instruct Prowl on handling the chopsticks. Prowl wasn't graceful with them, but he managed to eat the energon without scattering it all over the table and floor. The soup was consumed by scooping small amounts into a deep spoon and gently sipping it like tea. It tasted smooth and delicious, warming his internals like sunlight on his cheek.

By tacit accord, the meal was silent until both were finished.

"Wait for me in the main room." Yoketron instructed as he gathered up the bowls and eating utensils.

Several minutes later, Prowl found himself following Yoketron into another small room hidden behind one of the wooden storage containers.

"This is my shrine to Primus, and demands utmost respect. Here, you press your hands together before your Spark and bow. You will do this before you enter and after you leave."

"Oh. Right. Bow." Prowl hurriedly slapped his hands together and dipped forward. He felt no breezes and realized there weren't any windows. It was just room even smaller than the eating area. Mechs taller than himself probably had to duck just to enter. Could somebody Warpath's size fit inside? Prowl snickered to himself as he imagined the massive bot stuck halfway through the door.

Yoketron lowered, tugging Prowl's arm until he also knelt. A tap to his upturned knee made him put it down on the ground. The floor was metal, not covered by wood or concrete.

"Now," Yoketron whispered, "Place your hands flat and bow until your brow touches the ground."

"Why?"

The answer was gentle, "The metal beneath us is the surface of Cybertron itself, and thus we are in direct contact with Primus."

Prowl wasn't sure he truly understood, but he positioned his hands and bent until his forehead touched the cool, smooth metal. One thing he knew was to respect holy places. Better to have Primus on his side than against him. He straightened again when Yoketron gently pulled on his shoulder.

The old bot took something from a metal container that clicked shut with a clang. Flint scraped over steel and then the distinct, stinging odor of iodine permeated the otherwise still air. The smell came suddenly closer.

"Take this. It is an iodine stick. Hold it with both hands, bring it to your brow and bow three times to the statue. You're facing it now."

Prowl wondered why he had to perform all this pomp and ceremony for a statue. Did he believe in Primus? Yes. But he wasn't necessarily religious or spiritual, nor did he pray, because why would a god listen to a mistake?

Sighing to himself, Prowl bowed three times with the stick pressed to his brow, trying not to cough on the iodine smoke that choked his intakes. He set the stick into the bowl Yoketron guided his hand to.

"What's the iodine for?"

"Once lit, its smoke cleans away negative energy and holds our prayers for as long as the sticks burn. The sticks I use burn for a full day. Bowing draws the smoke over your body, thus purifying you and this space. And a piece of advice?" Yoketron's voice had a smile behind it, "Wait until you finish your three bows to cycle air."

Prowl bit his lip so he wouldn't say something sassy in response.

"From now on, you will rise at dawn and pray here before you do anything else, whether I am present or not. To be a ninja is to be a spiritual being." Yoketron spoke softly, his voice not disturbing the peace of the room. "We come from Primus when our Sparks find a body, and we return to Primus when our Sparks leave that body. Every Spark has a purpose, and that purpose should be respected."

"Even me?" Prowl gestured to himself. "But I'm...I'm flawed. Everywhere I've been, I hear people saying Primus sees the flawed as mistakes and they're all damned to the Pit."

Yoketron hissed quietly through his teeth in dismay. A harsh, angry sound of pain, as if an old scar tore itself open. His voice remained calm when he replied, "I have seen what happens to someone who believes that. Prowl, Primus loves all of his creations. Sparks themselves are not flawed. It is us, the mortals, who create imperfect protoform bodies that then become a flawed mech. Therefore, Prowl, Primus loves you. He always has, he always will, and he will hear you if you wish to pray. But prayer also requires silence, because you also need to listen. To listen, you must be silent and still." He faced the statue again, "There is an old ninja-botsu proverb you should take to Spark: 'No one is as blind as the one who chooses not to see, no one is as deaf as the one who chooses not to hear, and no one is as numb as the one who chooses not to feel.' Now, be silent and pray."

Nodding, Prowl relaxed and focused on the subtle crackle of the shifting iodine sticks dissolving in the bowl. He didn't fully understand the proverb yet, but was sure one day he would. At the same time he felt his Spark rejoicing over a simple truth: his god hadn't abandoned him. He just wasn't looking in the right direction.

.o

As days and weeks passed, Yoketron began reading ancient scripture to Prowl. Between readings, he made Prowl perform seemingly mindless and menial tasks, like waxing windows, scrubbing walls, sweeping floors, chopping the flux noodles they ate and emptying the waste tank--the task he hated the most. Especially since Yoketron didn't just let him dump it--he'd make him twist and toss the contents into the larger receptacle outside. The buckets holding the solvents he used on the floor were heavier than the push broom.

Doing these tasks forced him to use his working senses. He could feel where he'd missed a spot waxing the windows or missed a section of the floor. The air traveled differently around corners and solid objects. More than once, he dodged Yoketron this way while working the broom, which often sparked quiet laughter from the old bot. Being so aware of his Master's movements was startling to Prowl, who once lived in constant fear of being surprised by that deep, disembodied voice.

And so it was: Lessons and chores. Lessons and chores. Lessons and chores.

Prowl listened intently, even when the readings bored him nearly into stasis. He worked diligently even though he didn't understand why half the time. The tasks fell into such a routine that he hardly thought of the motions, and did them efficiently until his servos ached.

He tried to be patient. He tried to be respectful. But after a full year of this, he'd had enough.

"Master," Prowl groaned at the conclusion of another long lesson. "I thought you were teaching me how to fight."

Yoketron answered, "Yes, but you must train your mind as well as your body, Prowl. What makes you a ninja is not how you fight, but how you think. The fighting abilities will follow when you are ready."

"Tch. When I'm ready? I get the readings where every lifetime is something Primus dreamed before time..." Prowl set the broom in its closet and closed the door. "But what am I learning by doing all these stupid chores? I thought I picked up patience and discipline by sitting in on those morning prayers."

"Stupid chores, are they?" Ice couldn't have chilled the air faster than Yoketron's voice, "Then sweep the floor. HAH!"

Prowl's hands instinctively swept sideways, knocking away a rapid series of kicks.

"Empty the tank. HAH!"

And Prowl twisted aside as a fist breezed past his face.

"Chop flux. HAH!"

Prowl chopped downward, deflecting his Master's knees.

Yoketron forced him through every motion of his chores. They'd worn into such a routine that no movement required conscious thought. Prowl couldn't believe himself. All his life he'd just been a bumbling mech who tripped over his own feet, and here he was, fending off a trained cyber ninja.

Finally, Yoketron's attacks ceased. Prowl heard him slap his own hips and bow, which prompted him to do the same.

"Once you have mastered defense, you will begin to learn offense. But one can not exist without the other, just as a trained body can not fight without a trained mind."

Then Yoketron walked away, leaving Prowl alone with his thoughts.

.o

One thing Prowl learned was not to fear the night anymore. Many times, when he heard the lights snap on in Yoketron's home, he'd venture outside and sit on the roof to enjoy the cool air. It was also a place he could truly think. Usually his mind took him on wild adventures where he stumbled upon the mech who pulled him from the compactor. Love was a common theme in the scriptures read to him...and he knew he could only truly love the person who saved his life.

And then reality always intruded when the temperature dropped.

The chance of finding that mech whose name Prowl didn't know? Slim to none. His only memories were hands with square-tipped fingers, a strong arm and the smoothness of a face shield. He could end up talking to the mech of his dreams and not even know it unless the events of his birth came up in conversation, and Prowl couldn't imagine that ever happening.

Prowl rested his chin on his drawn up knees and sighed. Even with Yoketron around, he still felt lonely much of the time.

"Prowl?"

Startled, he sat up straight. He'd been so absorbed in himself that he didn't notice his Master joining him.

"Oh! I was just going to come inside and--"

Yoketron made a dismissive noise. "You come here often, and every night you seem troubled by your thoughts."

"It's stupid." Prowl shrank back slightly when Yoketron sat next to him.

"I am old, Prowl, but I was young and wild once." The old bot sounded amused, and Prowl had a hard time imagining the ancient, schooled ninja master ever being anything but a somber, quiet mech. "The trouble with youth is you think you know everything. You think you're smarter than those older than you. Then, as you grow older, as you become more experienced, you might see someone just like you once were. In that moment, Prowl, you realize just how much you didn't know. True knowledge is like the vine in the washroom--it grows with age, and it is a beautiful thing when it blooms." His servos whirred while he sat next to Prowl. "My Spark has been in this body for six billion stellar cycles. I have seen and heard much in my lifetime. I offer you my audios now. Tell me, what is on your mind?"

Six billion stellar cycles? Prowl closed his fists and felt like a rust grain next to a star. Six billion years to his mere hundred thousand. Still...Prowl wondered...what if Yoketron, in all his years, had advice worth listening to? He lived before the Great Wars. He knew what a peaceful Cybertron looked like. And he probably knew a thing or two about love.

Prowl sighed. He realized what he wanted to tell Yoketron would sound stupid no matter how he said it, so he just said it, "When I was protoformed, one of the workers saved me from the compactor instead of shoving me back in. That was only a hundred-thousand stellar cycles ago...I wouldn't know his face or voice if he was right in front of me. But..." His throat clenched and he swallowed to force his voice out, "When you said Primus still loves me, I started wondering if someone out there--" he gestured widely towards the horizon he only knew existed by faith-- "could ever love me as I am. But the only bot I could ever really love is that worker. And I may never find him. Have you ever loved anybody like that?"

"I loved, yes, though not quite that way." Yoketron looked away, which softened his voice, and threads of pain were obvious in his words. "Long before you were brought to me, I ran across a flawed mech in the alleys behind my home. He had a very severe and obvious flaw, as you do, and had only been alive for a single day. He knew nothing, Prowl, nothing. My Spark wept for him, a life with so much potential cast away. The first time I looked into his eyes I saw a mind like a steel trap, and so I brought him here to foster that mind, hoping to teach him the things I'm teaching you. He learned how to speak through me. He learned how to read and write through me. I even named him--well his name doesn't matter now. He was like a Sparkling to me. I loved him so, Prowl, and he needed me, but I...I failed him."

It surprised Prowl, how hard it was for Yoketron to speak of this. He literally heard tears just behind his Master's eyes, beading, threatening to fall, but held back only by his discipline. "What happened to him?"

"He did not believe that Primus loved him. I could not convince him otherwise." Yoketron now spoke with a hand over his mouth, and Prowl realized those tears werefalling, silently. "He left. I don't even know if he still lives today, and I pray every morning that if he does, he will return."

Then Yoketron cleared his throat and shook his head, wiping audibly at his face. His voice returned to normal. "It's the past. One should not dwell on what they can not change, Prowl. He let his flaw prevent him from seeing himself. Do not fall into that same trap."

"But...you still miss him." Prowl reached out, catching Yoketron's arm before he could hop to his feet. It was a thin, cylindrical arm, but powerful because of who it belonged to.

"And he left me over four million stellar cycles ago." Yoketron said, his tone calm like the sheet of a waterfall regaining its smoothness. "As for you--you still have many long years ahead. If Primus wills it, your Spark and the Spark it desires will cross paths again." He patted Prowl's hand, a sign that it was time to let go. "It is late, Prowl. You should rest. Tomorrow, I will teach you the basic fighting forms."

Prowl nodded and smiled. He was glad he and Yoketron were able to share this moment together--he'd seen, without eyes, that his Master was a mortal bot just like himself. He still had feelings...he just knew how to control them, and when to let them show.

I CAN relate to him...he's been where I AM. Heh, maybe Master Yoketron isn't so bad after all. Prowl lifted his head when he heard Yoketron climb down the ladder. He jumped up and hurried back inside to sleep on his new epiphany.

When he reached his quarters, he encountered a piece of twine tied to a hook in the wall and followed it to the window. There, his probing fingers brushed the gritty pewter of a miniature pot and the fragile object contained within. Yoketron had given him a cutting from the vine in the washroom. A small piece no longer than his thumb with one lone bud and two tender leaves about to unfurl. A little vine for him to take care of. One day, it would grow and wind itself around the bars of the window. Prowl brought the potted plant to his chest and grinned, stroking the bud that promised a brilliant future.

"Thank you, Master Yoketron." He turned and bowed politely to the presence he felt in the doorway.

Whirring servos indicated a bow in response, followed by quiet footsteps walking away.

Chapter Text

The lessons were hard and fast-paced, giving Prowl little time to process what he learned before moving on to the next technique. All the chores he did laid the roots for each movement, and defense required linking them together into a chain of responses. Offensive moves began as a set of new, complex chores. Every afternoon, he was sent outside to chop the large blocks of flux down into manageable cubes for later processing into meals. To do it, Yoketron made Prowl strap a blade to his forearm.

Nothing was ever as easy as Yoketron made it seem. The old bot could cut perfect cubes, whereas Prowl often piled up uneven rectangles, or cubes with jagged edges and missing corners. He'd fill up a metal crate, duck down and side-kick it into a chute where it would drop into Yoketron's cooking area.

Another exercise required Prowl to walk along a beam barely wider than his hand. He didn't do so well the first time, and fell into the sawdust Yoketron kept piled underneath. Prowl practiced on that thing even in the hours he wasn't required to--having no vision meant balance had always been hard to master. Sometimes he even tripped on air while walking. Maintaining a steady center was hard when the only difference between up and down was the weight of gravity, and Prowl swore he'd master it even if he failed everywhere else.

And so the chores wove themselves into a fog of routine broken only by Yoketron occasionally testing his skills. Prowl loved seeing his own progress when they sparred. His mind was so occupied by his working senses that he rarely stopped to think of himself as blind. He gave himself fully to scriptures and studies until the spirituality became part of him. Faith let him believe in the world around him. He had a place in it, somewhere.

When he wasn't working, Prowl tended to his plant. It had grown over the weeks, generating more leaves and winding around the middle bar of the window. The bud was bigger and heavier as it prepared itself to bloom.

He started to dream about his lessons. And when he was awake...

"You must move like a gentle wind, Prowl," Yoketron instructed as he led Prowl through an obstacle course that required him to punch through slabs of wood or plates of glass. Sometimes, Yoketron randomly placed bells on the landings Prowl had to leap onto, and his goal was to land without making them ring. Each day, Prowl rang one less bell and got a little further across the balance beam at the end...

...until one day, he maneuvered in silence and crossed the beam without a wobble.

Instead of praise, Yoketron made him perform his forms while standing in the middle of the beam. It wasn't easy, and resulted in many dents and scratches. Prowl had to practice until he could move about, leap on, leap off and flip across it as easily as he did the ground.

He had conquered his balance. Praise was rarely given verbally. Rather, Yoketron quietly accepted his success and offered him something harder to improve it.

The skills Prowl mastered didn't come without pain.

On one cool morning, Prowl didn't take into account that frost occasionally occupied flat surfaces outdoors. Decks, the tops of waste containers...or the top of a certain balance beam he enjoyed. Prowl performed a running front-flip, but instead of a solid landing, he felt his feet fly out from under him. It happened so fast. He had no time to think, to correct his fall, so he stuck an arm out to catch himself.

The impact turned his world to static. Static turned into dull awareness. Dull awareness became excruciating pain shooting through his right shoulder. He reached up to touch it. His fall knocked it completely out of joint. He couldn't move!

"M-muh...MASTER!" Prowl cried out. He hadn't screamed like that since his birth.

"Prowl? Prowl!" Yoketron's footsteps stirred the sawdust. He jumped over the beam to land on the hard ground where Prowl fell. "What happened?"

"I-I slipped on ice...on the beam." Prowl gasped through another pang. "It hurts, Master. I-I need a medic! P-please!"

Yoketron silently placed one hand on his chest and the other on his upper arm. Without warning, he yanked downward, forcing Prowl's shoulder back into its joint with a sickening clank. Prowl let out a scream he was sure would hang somewhere in the upper atmosphere for the next million years. Then he felt Yoketron's hands spread open above his shoulder. His Master's voice resonated in a low hum Prowl never heard before, and the pain suddenly dwindled like a knotted wire untangling.

"Come," Yoketron pulled Prowl upright.

Prowl didn't question what Yoketron did. He let the older bot help him inside.

"Wait there. Move your shoulder, or it will seize again."

Prowl did as he was told while Yoketron vanished into the dining area. He remained there for ages, only to return carrying a bowl of something boiling hot and foul-smelling.

"Drink this."

"What is it?"

"A tonic that will help you heal."

Oh, it tasted horrible! More bitter than the time he mistakenly dipped flux into gold powder instead of rust and took a huge bite. But with Yoketron standing over him, he didn't dare reject the disgusting concoction. He grimaced and gulped it down. The heat pooled in his fuel tank and the tension in his body just...melted.

Yoketron spoke, "Hold your arm out straight. Good, now backwards. Up. Roll your shoulder. Mm." He gave Prowl a friendly punch right on the newly-recovered shoulder, and it didn't even hurt!

"Was that..." Prowl groped for a proper word. None came, and curiosity overrode his ability to remain silent. "...magic?"

His astonished expression must have amused Yoketron, for the old bot chuckled. "Someday, Prowl, you will learn the same thing. You are not ready yet. Focus on what you must work on now. I'll show you everything soon."

"But...Master...it's always soon. When will soon become now?"

Yoketron sighed--Prowl could almost hear his mind cursing youth's impatience--and straightened. "I will tell you my favorite proverb: 'having faith in the horizon--'"

"'--is to be patient with the night. The sun will rise eventually.' Yes...I know." Prowl hung his head dejectedly, frustrated with himself. Had he come so far in his training just to take huge leaps back with his hunger for more knowledge?

...but when will the sun rise for ME?

"Come, it's time to sweep the floors."

Prowl's jaw dropped. "I already swept them."

"I know." Yoketron's voice rose a half degree, indicating a dry joke was about to strike. "But you've tracked sawdust onto my clean floors, and I'm too old to go breaking my arm sweeping it up."

"Tch. You tracked it in, too."

He felt a finger flick the end of his nose. "And who's fault is that?"

"Fine, fine." Prowl grinned and got up to grab the broom.

His training continued for several more months. He chopped the flux into perfect cubes and never missed when he kicked them down the chute. He knew the obstacle course like the back of his hand, and could work through it in under a minute without setting off any of the bell traps Yoketron randomly placed inside.

And then, one day, Prowl heard Yoketron walking past the balance beam. Twenty feet. Ten feet. Five feet. He twisted himself sideways in a flying kick, and was surprised when it connected. The blow sent Yoketron sprawling in a rasp of armor over sawdust.

"Got you!" Prowl landed in in a crouch, pleased with himself. He listened intently for his Master's movements. When he heard none, he knelt next to Yoketron's form. "Master Yoketron?"

Yoketron sat up, spat out sawdust and laughed. "Nice work, Prowl."

Nice work. That was all he said before he kipped up and continued on his way, leaving Prowl's self esteem soaring.

That night, when Prowl entered his room and watered the vine, he discovered the bud was finally open.

.o

Iodine permeated the air like a spiritual fog of stillness and peace.

Centuries had passed since Prowl was first thrown down in Yoketron's presence. He'd been a child then, arrogant and believing the world owed him something for being a flawed mech that got away. Without eyes, he saw himself changing in a manner so intangible only Yoketron could perceive it from the outside. In his Spark, he heard something on the wind saying he'd chosen the right path, that he belonged here. And in his mind, he felt a tremendous hope that he'd somehow touch the horizon of himself, a place where his deepest dreams waited to be realized.

"Master," Prowl breathed after concluding his silent prayer. Over the years he'd tempered his voice into a quiet tone not unlike his Master's.

"Yes, Prowl?"

"I want to know your face." Prowl turned towards the older bot. He reached for the blindfold he hadn't taken off since it was given to him. His intent was to scan with his oscillators and save the awkwardness, but Yoketron grasped his wrist and guided his hand forward.

"See me this way," he said.

Prowl's fingertips encountered the angles and horns of an ornate helmet, then dropped down to a serious, rectangular face with narrow optics, a short nose, a tight, wide mouth and a cleft chin without adornment. He wasn't prepared for how old Yoketron was. He'd told Prowl his age, but a number was nothing to seeing it for real--like how the cyber-mesh around his eyes felt slightly wrinkled, and the way the microscopic links were wearing thin around his mouth.

Yoketron was a mech in the twilight of his lifetime. Prowl had no true idea of his age until then. He must have been very handsome in his youth--but those looks were withering slowly. All the oiling in the world didn't hide the faint creak in his aging servomechanisms. Soon, arthritic rust would stiffen his joints until just moving caused pain. And then he'd slip into recharge one night and die, though very few mechs lived to die naturally in this time of conflict.

"Prowl," Yoketron said softly, holding onto Prowl's hand and speaking his exact thoughts, "I don't have much time left in this world--"

"Of course you do!" Prowl retorted quickly, not ready to face losing the only friend he'd ever had. "Name the medicines you need. I can go get them."

Yoketron smiled fondly against his fingers, an expression that dramatically softened his severe features. "Oh, Prowl, I can't live forever. Now please, listen to me. This is important."

Distressed, every energon line throbbing, Prowl forced himself to listen.

"You are one of the finest students I've ever trained. From what you began as to what you are now...it is a gap as wide as an ocean. And that is why, when you complete your training, I will leave my entire dojo to you. The reason why will be revealed to you in good time."

"Me? Run this place? But, Master Yoketron...I-I'm not ready. There's so much I don't know."

Prowl felt Yoketron clasp his hand and push it gently away from his face. Yoketron's hands were so small compared to his own, a contradiction of delicacy and power; it was hard to imagine them one day crippled by age and rust. Prowl tightened his lips in a frown. As strong as they were, the hands grasping his also felt cold and feeble, the round, graceful fingers no longer able to straighten completely.

Prowl's Spark pressed in on itself. No, this was too soon. He couldn't lose Yoketron. Not now. Not ever.

"By the time I join the Well of Allsparks, you will be a Grand Master like myself. I see the potential in your Spark, waiting to be unlocked." Despite the age in his hands, they still squeezed Prowl's with a silent strength that came from somewhere beyond his physical body. "When I am gone, will you oversee my home in my honor?"

Sucking in a silent breath, Prowl swallowed his panic and nodded his head.

"Good!" Yoketron's voice rose to a cheerier note--or as cheery as he let himself sound. He was grinning. His hands slipped away from Prowl's and the smell of iodine rose like a tangible mist. "Now, let us be silent and pray. There is much be thankful for."

.o

Prowl's training progressed to utilizing items in the environment as weapons. Everything from throwing light switch covers like deadly blades to whirling about with the broom handle like a bo to slinging the heavy solvent buckets like giant nunchakus.

His forays into the obstacle course began to include weapons strewn about and swinging targets that he had to strike down. While he became an excellent wielder of the energy katana, the sais, the bo and the nunchakus, he found himself really enjoying the bladed throwing disks. They felt so right in his hands, and had a distinctive singing sound he could track by ear enough to reach up and catch them on their return flight.

"Remember, Prowl!" Yoketron called as he sent another swinging target down from wherever it hung, "It is the cyber ninja, not the weapon. Rely on yourself, not the disks! The disks only assist, they do not replace all you've learned!"

Prowl stood absolutely still, listening as the two blocks of hollowed flux whizzed past him. They were heavy and hard, able to concuss an unsuspecting bot caught in their path. He heard the ropes creak with the strain. Nodding, he dropped the disks and spun suddenly, simple chops from his hands severing the ropes and causing the blocks to fall and shatter behind him.

But Yoketron wasn't done yet. He let loose a smaller block. Prowl resisted his instincts to grab the disks and thrust his foot out, crushing the moving target with his heel. At the same time, he seized the disks and threw them forward, destroying two more swinging blocks.

Only then did Yoketron hop down and bow, prompting Prowl to do the same.

"It is time for dinner." Yoketron said. His voice sounded strained, as if something caused him pain. Prowl thought nothing of it--sometimes the older mech had pains in his joints that showed through his voice. A hot bowl of gold and turpentine tea usually restored him within hours.

Prowl bowed again, dismissing himself, and scurried inside to wash up. Something crunched under his foot when he entered the washroom.

That didn't sound right. Is there an insect infestation I didn't know about? Prowl knelt to feel around for the object he stepped on. It wasn't an insect. It was a crumbled, dying blossom from the vine. Yoketron once said it bloomed for three centuries, died and grew back anew.

Had it really been that long since he came here?

Prowl ran his hand along the floor, gathering the dead blossoms and crushing them so their remains could feed the vine.

Yoketron entered very slowly, and the pains of his age wouldn't even let him work the pump. Prowl did it for him, tacitly, hurrying so the older bot could make his tea and find relief.

"Master, is there any way I can help you?"

"No. I-I'm all right, Prowl."

Yoketron's footsteps trudged out.

Prowl sighed, working the pump for himself. He'd just finished washing and watering the plant when he heard a crash from across the house. A crash like something heavy falling. Not a normal sound.

"Master!" Prowl launched himself into the eating area, and nearly tripped over Yoketron's prone form lying by the table. Two shattered trays surrounded him. Prowl slipped and slid on the spilled noodles in his haste to kneel. "Master!" He shook him, hard. "Master Yoketron!"

"My fuel pump..." Yoketron's hands were clasped at his chest. His intakes came slow and ragged...and then burst into rasping gasps.

"No. Master, not like this!" Prowl gritted his teeth. The sheer helplessness of the situation flashed over his mind. There was no way he could heal Yoketron the way he'd been healed when he injured his shoulder. He pressed his audio and broadcast his coordinates on all medical frequencies.

"This is Prowl. The coordinates I am broadcasting are where I'm located. My sensei, Master Yoketron, needs immediate medical attention. Please, if anyone is out there, help us!"

Then he scooped Yoketron to his chest and carried him to his room. No matter what happened, he didn't want whoever came to find him lying in an undignified heap.

"Prowl...you must boil turpentine and--"

"No, Master Yoketron. I'm not leaving you alone like this. I'll wait with you for the medic and get you whatever you want after he's taken care of you. Please," he implored his Master not to make him leave the room, "if I have to do extra chores for disobeying you, I'll do them."

"I...unh!" Yoketron's whole body stiffened. He coughed, gasped and moaned. Prowl felt him trying so hard to relax and meditate through the pain, but it seemed too strong even for him to focus on anything else.

Prowl chewed his bottom lip until he tasted energon. This didn't feel right. Yoketron was his rock, and rocks weren't supposed to crumble. In his desperation he tried holding out his hands and humming. His Spark felt suddenly warmer, but a hand grabbed his wrist before it went beyond that.

"No! You...know not...the forces...you reach for. Wait...until I--I teach you."

"But--"

"No."

Prowl rotated his wrist so he could grasp Yoketron's hand. There was nothing else to do besides offer his presence.

"'Having faith in the horizon is to be patient with the night.'" Prowl whispered to his Master.

"'The sun...will--uh!--rise...eventually.'" Yoketron finished with him. No matter how badly he hurt, the strength of his hand remained steady, and Prowl found solace in that.

Eons of strained intake cycles passed before a siren broke the quiet. The front entrance burst open as heavy footsteps raced inside. Prowl left Yoketron's side just long enough to wave the medic into his room.

"Name's Ratchet. I'm a field medic," The medic--Ratchet--spoke with a harsh voice offering no room for argument. His demeanor was about as pleasant as a file on raw circuitry. He pushed Prowl aside, grunted and knelt next to Yoketron. "Sir, what are your symptoms?"

"Sharp p-pain..." Yoketron's voice sounded so weak and agonized, as if speaking took incredible effort, "Stabbing behind my Spark...shooting down my arm...my fuel pump..."

"Don't worry. I can take care of this. I'm going to temporarily overload your consciousness center so I can perform surgery."

If Yoketron responded, it was too quiet to hear.

Tools clicked and whirred. Prowl heard a zapping noise, followed by Yoketron's breath cycles nearly falling silent.

"What's wrong with him?" Prowl asked.

"Fuel pump failure. Typical in bots his age." Ratchet rattled something metallic, probably his medical supplies. The movement stopped abruptly and he muttered, "It's your lucky day. I've got a replacement for his model. Good thing you got to him when you did. Nobody lasts long like this."

"Just do whatever you have to." Prowl felt his own voice shaking. He was disappointed in himself for panicking. Even now, his Spark squeezed itself small. Or was the chamber suddenly too claustrophobic to fit inside his armor? Everything seemed too tight for his body, even his teeth. He ventured closer and seated himself next to Yoketron's head, hoping his presence offered some comfort.

"What's with the blindfold?" Ratchet's voice and whining servos indicated he was very old and settled in his job as a medic. He'd seen a lot of horrors--images Prowl could no more comprehend than imagine. How did he stand existing around so much death and chaos?

"It-it's part of my training. I'm supposed to wear it at all times until I'm told to remove it. Master Yoketron is training me to use all of my senses, not just sight." A half-truth, but in the moment Prowl just couldn't think of anything else that wouldn't make the medic suspicious.

"Mm. Ninjas. Never understood 'em." Ratchet's tools scraped together and Prowl nearly vomited when he smelled oil and energon bleeding from Yoketron's helpless body. Ratchet snapped him out of it with a snarl, "Hey, HEY!" He banged on the floor, "Don't you go passin' out on me!"

Someone has an attitude...

"I'm not..." Prowl swallowed so he wouldn't gag. "The smell...why does it smell so awful?"

"Hmph. When a pump is failing, the fuel backs up and waste builds in the reservoir. The pump works harder and harder, trying to clear itself. The valves can't handle the pressure, so they break. Happens pretty suddenly, especially in old bots like Yoketron here. And a pump that can't pump is about as useful as a hood ornament. And--yep, his is slagged. I'm installing the new one right now."

Ratchet set one tool aside and picked up another. A power screwdriver whirred to life. "So, your name's Prowl?" He twisted something else that made a metallic squishing sound, furthering Prowl's growing nausea. "Yeah, you look like a Prowl."

"And you look like a Ratchet," Prowl countered humorlessly, winning a snort from the burly medic.

A few more scrapes, clanks, clicks and hisses, and Prowl noticed Ratchet slowly putting his tools away. The whisper of a cleaning cloth over armor followed.

"Well, that does it. I dosed him again with my EMP generator, so he'll be out for another hour or so. Keep him resting and quiet for at least a day. He's a lot older than I am, so his body might take longer to accept the replacement pump. Now listen up, kid--if he vomits, collapses or has any chest pains--call me again. Those are all symptoms of rejection. My frequency is omega-gamma-zero-ten."

"Thank you," Prowl bowed politely and drew the thin futon sheet over Yoketron's form. He hopped up and showed Ratchet out, then raced into the dining room to clean up the spilled food. After that, he found himself on his hands and knees in the shrine, pressing his forehead to the ground beneath the Primus statue.

"Please, Primus...Master Yoketron is the only friend I've ever had. I'm not ready to lose him yet. Please...I beg you...grant him his health again. Don't let his body reject this new fuel pump. Please--I'll do anything." Prowl's voice cracked. He bowed low again, brow to the floor, waiting.

The shrine stayed silent.

Prowl bit back a sob and sat up. If he had eyes to cry, tears would have poured down his face. He reached out helplessly, his outstretched fingers encountering the face of the bronze statue. It was taller than he thought--at least the size of Yoketron--and seated on the ground. The face was so kind...yet serious, with wide, gentle eyes and a thin, softly-smiling mouth. Prowl snatched his hands back. Was it disrespectful to touch the statue? He didn't know or care anymore. Laying his head down upon the statue's lap, he cried and prayed until his overwhelming terror was light enough to bear on his own. Then, exhausted, he forced himself back onto his knees and bowed. If Primus had an answer, it would come in his own time. No sooner, no later.

Thy will be done, Prowl thought.

Yoketron said prayers hung in the smoke until iodine sticks burned down. Prowl lit three, laid them in their bowl and carried it back to Yoketron's room. He waved the smoke over his Master's form, muttering prayers and incantations for health and strength and believing with all his Spark that it would help. After he finished smudging, he placed the bowl above Yoketron's head, knelt and waited for him to awaken.

An hour passed.

Prowl paced about Yoketron's quarters. They were the same size as his with the berth barely two steps to the right of the door. Yoketron once described the area to him--a plain space decorated sparsely by statues depicting the various Ancient Circuit-Su lovemaking positions. In his disheartened state, Prowl found himself exploring them. They were tiny statues that fit in his hands, and some proposed positions so acrobatic he wondered if the sculptors ever heard the concept of joints. But one--a couple wrapped around each other by one leg and one arm--he found that one beautiful under his fingertips. If he ever got lucky, that was the position he wanted to try.

The Infinity Chain.

Yoketron's servos whirred. He spoke softly, his voice a low croak. "Tea. Straight turpentine without bleach. Add two parts gold powder and bring it to me boiling."

Prowl set the statue down where he found it. He asked no questions. Yoketron wasn't well yet, and Prowl didn't dare chance him hurting himself. He practically flew into the eating area, knocking containers over in his haste to locate the gold and turpentine and get the concoction heated over the metal stove. It took ages, wearing Prowl's shredded patience thinner.

Finally, he was able to return to Yoketron's side. He blessed the tea over the iodine before helping his Master sit up enough to drink the hot, foul-smelling mixture. Gold and turpentine, he'd learned, were said to purify the energy field after a shock to the system, such as a virus, injury or surgery.

"Ah, Prowl...relax. You are wound tighter than a locking mechanism."

Prowl ducked his head. Had he made his apprehension that obvious?

"Forgive me, Master Yoketron. It all happened so fast. I...I panicked."

"Understandable." Yoketron sighed, though his intakes sounded much better. "I will be all right in a while. Know this though: when my time does come, no intervention will stop my Spark from leaving this world. Not even a new body. Remember that and calm yourself. I'm not ready to leave you yet." Yoketron offered the empty tea bowl back by touching it to Prowl's open hands. "I apologize for spoiling our dinner."

Prowl accepted the bowl in one hand and made a dismissive gesture with the other. "Oh, no, no, don't be sorry. You couldn't help it. I can make myself something while you recharge. If you want anything to eat later, just call me in here." He smiled sheepishly, "I can't guarantee it'll taste great, but I can cut decent noodles."

Yoketron coughed a laugh. "Go."

And Prowl left him alone to rest. As he passed the shrine, he realized Primus was in the process of answering his prayer. He stepped in to bow in thanks before continuing into the washroom. Afterward, he fixed himself a simple bowl of energon cubes and gracefully worked the chopsticks to scoop the energon into his mouth. He pondered sweeping the floors, but figured skipping one day wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, he was exhausted.

So, Prowl tidied up and retired to his berth.

Yoketron was on his feet again the very next day. Prowl discovered this when he woke to the smell of flux soup. He felt for the water jug by his berth and watered his vine. Then he headed towards the shrine.

He did a lot of thanking that morning.

The door growled on its tracks. Yoketron bowed and lit an iodine stick. His body created an unobtrusive sound shadow on Prowl's left.

"Good morning, Master. Feeling better?"

"Yes." Yoketron's voice had a smile hidden inside. He reached out and flicked the end of Prowl's nose, catching the younger ninja by surprise. "But do not think you can escape sweeping the floor for another day. I may be old, but I see slightly better than you."

Prowl grinned at Yoketron's mild joke and ducked his head. "I'll get to work as soon as I'm done here."

"Good." Yoketron faced forward, effectively ending the conversation.

He was going to be fine.

Prowl relaxed, refocusing on his prayers and the tasks he had to perform for the day.

.o

A late afternoon found Prowl walking inside after a run over the obstacle course. Yoketron's house was silent.

Too silent.

Prowl faced a rush of air, tensing.

"Flying turbo piston attack," Yoketron called out.

Pop spars. They happened often, and at unexpected times. These sneak attacks were Yoketron's way of keeping Prowl ready for battle anytime, anywhere. Yoketron's tactics ranged from surprise punches to leaping out of innocent corners where Prowl never expected to find him.

Raising his arms, Prowl fended off the flying kicks and responded with a sweep. Yoketron blocked, and Prowl launched himself up towards the light fixture high above the floor. He hoped to lure his Master there, where he'd be slowed down by the cumbersome pole suspending the light.

"Five servos of doom!"

Prowl dove to avoid the flying hands and feet. Yoketron moved so fast! Ever since he had his fuel pump replaced, he'd become faster and stronger.

Their sparring resumed on the ground, Prowl defending himself as well as pushing his offense. He matched Yoketron blow for blow until a final punch brought stillness. Unsure, Prowl back-flipped to place distance between himself and his opponent. His mind raced--hundreds of years ago, he couldn't even spin on one foot without falling. Now, here, he just sparred Yoketron, a Grand Master of the highest ninja order, to a potential standstill.

And he did it using his own wits. Without oscillators and without sight.

"You have made great strides, Prowl." Yoketron advanced slowly and, to Prowl's surprise, took off the blindfold for the first time in centuries.

Feeling his oscillators work after so long without them made Prowl's head hurt. He let himself briefly look up at Yoketron before turning them off again.

The older bot went on, "Now, you are a cyber ninja worthy of a weapon."

Prowl sensed something extend towards him. He grasped the tray and bowed, "Thank you, Master," before setting it down to feel for the weapon Yoketron chose.

His fingertips encountered the cool roundness of throwing disks. The throwing disks he practiced with not too long ago.

"Throwing disks are the most difficult weapon to master, Prowl." Yoketron knelt in front of Prowl, bringing them face to face. In itself, that gesture made Prowl catch his breath. He'd never witnessed Yoketron kneeling before anyone other than the Primus statue. There was pride in his voice, a sound of something trying to heal. He grasped Prowl's shoulder and squeezed gently, "They were mine, once. They saw the Golden Age of Cybertron and drew energon in the Great Wars still going on today."

"Master..." Prowl began.

"No, no. I know you will use them wisely." Yoketron rose slowly. "Store them on your wheels and follow me. It is time for me to show you what you will inherit. There is one final skill you must master before this home becomes yours."

"Wait, becomes mine? I thought that meant after you--"

Yoketron chuckled at that. "Close your mouth and open your mind."

This was all so confusing. Prowl placed his hands at his sides, astonished when the throwing disks fit right into his tires as hubcaps. He activated his oscillators when Yoketron started to walk, and hurried to catch up.

Yoketron led Prowl through a door Prowl didn't know existed. It was inside the shrine, mere feet from where he knelt in prayer every day. They emerged into a large room. All along the walls were sculpted faces lit from above, though with his oscillators Prowl only recognized Yoketron's likeness.

"Soon, you will take your place among your cyber ninja brothers."

There were so many...but Prowl's attention went immediately to the one dark space. At first, he figured it was the shelf reserved for himself. He pointed, "Is--that space for--"

"A former student who brought shame to the cyber ninja call." Yoketron replied sadly. It must have been the flawed mech he took in and cared for. Before Prowl could apologize for his blunder, the old mech walked away, "But, let us not dwell on the past."

They stopped beside a large, ornate wall with a square hole in the middle--or at least Prowl thought it was a hole. It had no handles, no buttons. How was he supposed to open it?

Yoketron gathered himself. He hummed softly, beautifully, while he executed a graceful Circuit-Su form. As Yoketron moved, Prowl sensed incredible energy emanate from his Spark. It shot like a laser through the door and spread out in all directions. The four flaps retracted and a metal fixture in the next room levitated itself towards a decorative clamp extending from the ceiling.

Prowl gasped, "How did you--"

"Processor over matter. An advanced ninja-botsu discipline." Yoketron replied, acting as though what he did was no more astonishing than using his hands to open a door. He guided Prowl across a long platform within a round room so massive it defied comprehension. Pods lined the walls in neat vertical rows of two.

"This is our mission," he went on. "To guard these protoforms. They are the future of Cybertron. But if Project Omega fails, we will have no choice but to mold them all for a surge against the Decepticons." His voice lowered, saddened, "I fear that few will survive."

Yoketron's words swirled through Prowl's mind. He was leaving him to protect all of this? So many futures, so many promises and so many dreams not yet dreamed would come to rest in his hands one day. What if he was given this responsibility, and failed?

Yoketron pressed a code into the control panel. Somewhere far below, Prowl heard equipment hissing. He remembered that sound from his own birth. Under his home, Yoketron had a secret assembly plant. He probably had access, also, to the Well of Allsparks where Sparks were drawn up and placed in their new bodies.

Prowl scanned over the edge, wondering if he'd sense it, but he only detected a void.

"Prowl, you have progressed so quickly. You could be my greatest student if you can master the principle of processor over matter." Yoketron finished whatever he needed to do and started back the way they came. Once they crossed the threshold, he said, "Now, close the chamber."

Ice water couldn't have had more effect than those words. Prowl had only seen this done--what? Twice? Though Yoketron used processor over matter to heal and read scriptures about harnessing the Spark's power, he'd never demonstrated just how powerful it could be until now.

"Me?" Prowl asked. Surely Yoketron was joking!

"If you are to guard the chamber, you must be able to open and close it." Yoketron's response proved it was no joke. In fact, his words weighed more than the heaviest push broom in his closet. "Only fully realized cyber ninja are trusted with its contents."

Prowl's thoughts whirled across his processors. I need to study more. I-I don't know if I can do this. He can't just guide me through it like a fighting form. Either I can do it or I can't. What...what if I can't? I may be the last student he'll train in his lifetime. What if I disappoint him? I-I can't fail! I can't!

Chapter Text

Frightened, his fuel pump throbbing so hard he could hear it click, Prowl faced the door and collected himself. He hummed just like he heard Yoketron do, and began to move through the exact forms he witnessed a few minutes ago. As he moved, he felt something incredible around his Spark. A power so radical, so pure--so like the warmth he experienced when Yoketron's pump failed--that he wasn't sure how to focus it.

Please close... He willed towards the doors.

It took a moment, but he felt them move as though his own hands drew them shut. They were made of a heavy, solid metal. He pulled and pulled until he thought his Spark would explode.

The doors ground to a halt, unevenly closed, and nothing Prowl did made them move any further.

He wanted to cry. He'd failed.

"I'm...I'm sorry, Master."

"You have the Spark within you. You simply have to locate it." Yoketron didn't sound disappointed, which Prowl found surprising. "That is why I'm sending you on an optics quest. Find your Spark, Prowl, and return the cyber ninja I know you to be."

Optics quest? As in...leave?

Prowl bowed and left the room with his self esteem in shambles. As painful as it was, he didn't let his emotions control him. He walked slowly into his quarters. Oddly, he caught himself wondering who'd take care of his vine while he was gone. He grasped his scissors and gently pruned the overgrown leaves. His way of saying goodbye to it for...he didn't know how long.

What if Yoketron died of old age while he was gone? What if he suffered another pump failure, or got hurt in some other way? He'd said himself that nothing would keep his Spark from leaving when its time came.

"Prowl," Yoketron paused in the doorway.

"I'm scared," Prowl admitted. He chopped up the leaves he'd pruned and sprinkled them into the tray. "I don't know what's out there."

Yoketron smiled and joined Prowl by the window. "I do. Young bots like you tend to call it 'adventure.'"

The old bot's sense of humor was dry and often subtle, yet when it emerged, it tore Prowl off his guard before retreating again. Prowl couldn't resist the snicker he felt shake his shoulders.

"I guess it's the unknown I'm afraid of." Prowl admitted despite how much it made his face burn. "What if my flaw is discovered? All it takes is one person seeing behind the visor and--"

"It's a risk. But no life is without risk, Prowl. Bringing you here, knowing you were flawed--"

"How did you know?"

"Having protoforming equipment under my home means I also have access to all of the records. Only Ultra Magnus and I can view this data. I recognized your serial number listed in the draft, and I knew you would try to run." His fingers rustled the leaves of the vine. "And now I know, should you find yourself in battle, you will be safe. Everyone deserves a chance to live, Prowl. Life is a gift Primus grants us, and what right do we have to send those gifts back simply because the package isn't perfect?"

Time stood still as Yoketron's words buried themselves within Prowl's psyche. He didn't have to do all this, to risk his crank case for a bumbling and horribly flawed mech. Not for prestige, not for mere company...but because he cared.

Prowl sensed Yoketron's eyes upon him and lifted his head to meet them with his visor. The sun was shining in the window, lighting the gold on Yoketron's helm. A void in the image indicated where the vine cast curling shadows across his face and arm. He was smiling, softly, probably the way he did so often when the blindfold left Prowl unable to sense it.

In a way, Prowl had come to love his sensei like a father figure. Yoketron was someone he could turn to when he felt lost. Accepting a quest meant leaving that source of wisdom behind.

"When do I have to leave?"

"Whenever you feel ready," said Yoketron. He bowed politely, handed Prowl his jump jets and holo-emitter and quietly departed.

Prowl reattached the personal mods he'd been without for almost too long to remember. Their presence was a weight that reminded him that he couldn't stay here forever.

It was getting dark out, and the smell of mercury and wax proved too tempting to remain sullen for long.

Prowl made his way calmly into the washroom to clean up. Then he stepped into the kitchen just as Yoketron set their meals down. Wax balls with mercury dip sat on the tray next to the usual energon and tea bowls on the side.

The first time Prowl encountered these things, he hadn't mastered the chopsticks. Yoketron served the mercury warm, so Prowl learned that getting the wax from the bowl to his mouth before it melted took a lot of messy, embarrassing practice. But now, he could grasp a ball, dip it and bring it to his lips in a single, smooth motion without spilling a drop. He loved how mercury made wax taste almost unbearably spicy. So spicy that if he had eyes, they'd mist over from the perceived heat.

"Mm, that was delicious," Prowl said when they were finished.

Yoketron smiled across the table. "I recall your first bite. Your opinion was quite the opposite back then."

"You laughed at me," Prowl grumbled.

"I laugh at everyone who takes their first taste of waxed mercury. The faces they make...you would laugh if you could see them. Especially yours!" Yoketron gathered their trays with a soft laugh. "Not many acquire a taste for it, Prowl."

"Really?"

"Mm."

Try as he might, Prowl couldn't slow the passage of minutes. Each one counted down to his inevitable departure. Why was it that time marched slowly when he was eager, only to surge ahead when he wanted to hang on to every last moment?

While Yoketron tidied up the dining room, Prowl ventured back into the hidden room full of busts. He approached a random one, held out his hands and explored. A face similar in mold to his own with round audios, full lips and a solid visor.

"Ah...that one was an interesting young bot," Yoketron said from the door. His voice became cryptic and knowing, "In the future, Prowl, I hope you encounter him."

"Why? I wouldn't mind bumping into any of the students you trained."

"Mmhmm, but that one would interest you."

Prowl's fingers lowered to the plaque underneath the bust, but whatever was written there had been painted, not engraved. Why did Yoketron want him to run into this particular ninja? Prowl opened his mouth to ask, but his Master had already left.

Sighing, Prowl exited the secret room and retired to his quarters. He spent the entire night tossing and turning, dozing only occasionally.

It wasn't quite dawn yet when he gave up on sleep. Restlessness meant he should leave on his quest by sunrise. Otherwise he'd never find the courage.

He performed his usual morning rituals--watering his vine for the last time, saying his prayers and sweeping the floors. Every activity made the heat in his throat burn hotter. He envied mechs with eyes capable of tears, for he had nothing to cool the burning other than to weep out loud. And at a time like this, such just wasn't dignified.

Prowl made himself a small energon bowl, but only took two bites before his tank squashed itself too small to consume any more. He poured what he didn't eat back into the crate it came from and left the dining room that had somehow worn itself familiar in his memory. The table, walls and floor echoed with laughing, Yoketron's voice and various smells and flavors.

Everything he touched felt like a holo-scan only he could feel. Even the scuff in the floor from the first time Yoketron knocked him into a wooden container.

Suddenly, Prowl was standing ten feet from the open door, waiting for the courage to step out.

Yoketron emerged from his quarters. Prowl only knew by his sound shadow, which joined him on his right. Neither said anything for several long Spark-beats.

"Did you sweep?" Yoketron asked.

Prowl nodded.

Silence.

"Have you said your prayers?"

Again, Prowl nodded.

Another silence.

They were both stalling, and knew it.

"Before you go..."

"Master?"

"Take this." A hand grasped Prowl's wrist and one of the tiny sculptures he'd explored before slid onto his palm. It was The Infinity Chain. Prowl felt his Master clasp his hands around the statue. "And take the knowledge I have given you. It will serve you well, Prowl."

"Are you sure? These are special to you."

"That one is special to you." Yoketron's voice cracked slightly, "Primus bless you and keep you on your journey, Prowl."

Overwhelmed, Prowl stashed the statue behind his holo-emitter. He forgot how close Yoketron was standing. They bowed at the same time, and knocked heads. Prowl felt his visor pop off and fall with a soft plop onto the floor.

For a moment, all was silent.

Prowl bit his lip, "Master?"

"Yes?"

"My eyes fell off."

"I see that."

"And whose fault is it this time?"

Yoketron started to chuckle and that was it--they both guffawed so hard it echoed around the room. Nothing else was said because nothing needed to be said.

Their laughter died down after a moment. Yoketron handed Prowl his visor, a reminder that time marched on with or without him. He still had a journey ahead. No, not a journey...adventure.

The tension in Prowl's throat mounted another degree for each step he took towards the door. Yoketron walked with him--just as he had throughout this whole experience--except this time he would stop and Prowl had to continue alone.

Centuries ago he couldn't wait to get out, and now he was afraid to leave. He'd come here thinking he'd never relate with someone so old. They came from different worlds, different times. He was just entering this lifetime and Yoketron stood on the very edge of leaving it. Their friendship reminded Prowl of the vine--something that grew and intertwined, spreading its leaves into an immortal legacy forever linking the past and future together in the present.

Or maybe I'm the vine, and Master Yoketron is the pole.

At the threshold, Prowl turned suddenly and seized his Master in a careful embrace.

"Oh!" Yoketron was quick to return the hug. His voice became a soothing rasp in Prowl's audio. "It will be all right, Prowl, my boy...I have faith in you."

"Thank you, Master Yoketron." Prowl's voice broke. He didn't care. The next step he took would define his future, and he wouldn't take it without thanking the one who showed him the way. "You're the first--no, you're the best friend that I've ever had."

Yoketron's cheeks were wet, but he smiled and cupped the back of Prowl's head. "Likewise, Prowl, likewise."

Prowl held on until he felt the dawn's first rays brush his face. It was time. He let go of Yoketron, stepped through the door and started down the path. The sun was coming up large and soothingly warm. He glanced back and sensed Yoketron standing in the doorway, still smiling just like the Primus statue in the shrine.

It gave Prowl courage. He bowed one more time to his Master. Then he transformed and gave himself to the sunrise.

.o

Entering the Autobot Academy proved way easier than Prowl expected. All his life he'd run around using a forged serial number that somehow checked out everywhere he presented it. With the time he spent under Yoketron's tutelage listed in his records, he was automatically exempt from taking combat training and handed a huge list of academic courses to pick out if he passed.

Passed what?

Then they shoved him into a stuffy room with fifty other hopefuls and gave him a written exam. It was written in print his oscillators almost couldn't resolve unless he bent low over the paper, so he struggled to make out every glyph. Even then, he couldn't read all the questions in the time given. He barely passed the entrance exam, and only did because he used the focusing techniques he learned to keep himself calm. The bot next to him failed.

"Come back next year," said the mech overseeing the testing.

It was Prowl's first year, so he was only allowed three subjects to start off. He chose the literature, science and mathematics. Then he was given a data pad with his room number and the location's of his classes.

Naturally, Prowl discovered the data pad had a black screen with tiny red text his oscillators hardly detected. He fiddled with the settings, turned the print violet and jacked up the contrast until the femme clerk warned him he'd go blind if he left it like that.

Prowl almost laughed. "I just like purple. Now, could you tell me where to find these locations?"

"Oh," the unnamed worker said, "Just a minute. I'll have Warpath show you."

Oh, great, Prowl groaned mentally as the large mech lumbered in behind him.

"Well, well, look what we have here? BAM!" Warpath crossed his arms and smirked down at Prowl. "Learn anything?"

"I learned plenty," Prowl said back. It occurred to him that he wouldn't have met and made such a wonderful friend if he hadn't been hauled in. "I should thank you for taking me to Master Yoketron. I was an idiot then, but not anymore. I'm on my optics quest right now."

"Oh?" Warpath's demeanor smoothed along with his frown. "Good to see you turnin' your life around, kid. Now c'mon, I have patrol in ten."

An hour later, Prowl had memorized the paths he needed to take from class to class, and from his quarters to his classes. One thing he learned about walking around--stay alert--as combat trainees often came jogging through and they weren't afraid to shove smaller bots out of their way.

His education didn't start until the next morning, so Prowl checked out his quarters. The room was smaller than the one Yoketron gave him to sleep in--just ten steps long by eight wide--and the window across from the door turned out to be just a simple, round portal that snapped open at the click of a button. Prowl walked around his new living space with his hand rubbing up and down on the walls, which let him discover a computer console above the head of his berth and a small shelf for personal belongings extended just below it. Great, just one more thing to bump his head on, but it became the home of his Infinity Chain statue. The berth itself was literally right next to the doorway. He knew because he crashed into it walking in, and someone passing by laughed at him for being overcharged. And sleeping so long on a low futon-berth he could just step over made remembering the height of this one annoyingly difficult. It felt hard and foreign underneath him when he laid himself down.

The washing barracks were even worse--hot spigots and wasted water constantly pooling around the drains on the ground, people taking their sweet time cleaning off and empty wax containers left for the custodi-bots to clean up.

I really miss the old place, Prowl thought bitterly. He knew he couldn't make friends here without self-risk. Everyone was his enemy and didn't even know it.

When his classes officially started, he sat way in the back and made himself unobtrusive. Math and science were simple--mostly based on real-world application. It was the literature class he struggled with because of all the required reading. The first book they covered--Tales from the Lover's Spark--was an old Circuit-Su novel of romance written eons ago by an anonymous author. Prowl downloaded it to his computer screen. He could make the text huge there--big enough to read comfortably, though slowly. The story drew him in. Love...and seeing how the most ancient of ancient ninjas--like Yoketron--experienced it made him desire the same. Prowl's visor glowed with glyphs describing messages in trees, tea ceremonies and the power of lovemaking. Some scenes made his body hot and tingly in ways he never felt before.

If I ever fall in love, Prowl thought, I hope it's like that.

And so the years began to pass. Prowl prayed and dusted his quarters every morning. After literature class, he'd hop up onto the roof and practice the fighting forms Yoketron taught him. He worked hard in his classes, barely passing each year and signing up for the next level of the courses he was currently taking. Stick with the familiar, he figured, and he couldn't go wrong. His grades held steady at just below average--all because of the reading difficulties. Prowl lamented this often.

And there was the loneliness. Joining the Autobot Academy might have been more enjoyable if he could relate to his peers. None were ninjas that he knew of. It seemed odd to him that few ninjas existed on campus when there was a huge statue of the Infinity Chain right out front.

But Prowl didn't have time to socialize. Sometimes it took him all day just to read a single screen's worth of data for his literature course, and then he'd miss class the next day because straining his oscillators left him with agonizing headaches. Those were the days he longed for Yoketron's company the most--a little energy regulation and a healing tonic would've resolved the pain within hours.

Even worse, all around, he witnessed his peers kissing, caressing and disappearing into their quarters while he stood alone, feeling himself too ugly to deserve such attention. Once or twice he received offers to date, but he always declined by claiming homework had him bogged down. Besides, he felt no desire to be groped and fondled by someone who didn't know the sacred ways of Circuit-Su love. If and when he found someone, he wanted his first time to be special...not five minutes of heavy breathing he'd regret and forget. To make matters even harder--he often heard talk about self-servicing, and gave blank stares whenever someone asked him about his method. "Jack or port?" was another question he dodged by pretending not to hear. His social life suffered already, no need to make it worse by telling people he didn't know which one he had or that he didn't know how to self-serve. After these discussions, he'd lay awake in his quarters until the wee hours, wondering whether or not he was on the right path to finding his Spark.

And forays beyond his classes and the roof became exceedingly rare because he often stumbled into trouble. Like the day some joker stuck a mop onto the Infinity Chain statue. Everybody who walked by laughed. It was too highly visual to understand, but Prowl pretended to guffaw with the others so he wouldn't appear different. Of course, being seen laughing later had him hauled in to clean the filthiest waste tanks he ever smelled.

Another creative jokester--or was it the same person?--did a number on the fountain behind the Infinity Chain statue by adding foam to the water.

Pranks were a secret badge of honor. Prowl noticed a few groups liked to compete for who could pull off the riskiest prank without getting caught. Sentinel Prime was the biggest target because few people liked him, and his reactions were so over the top they became legendary.

Somebody once carved a goofy caricature of Sentinel Prime out of clay by making his chin so large it overwhelmed his body. That turned up on a rooftop, so Prowl only heard about this one. Somebody else edited recordings of Sentinel Prime talking, so the meanings of everything he said changed. The prankster broadcasted these filthy messages over the PA system. "That's fine, Ultra Magnus, I'll make sure Wasp's aft gets kicked into the stockade. Longarm has a transport on stand-by..." turned into: "Ultra Magnus has a fine aft!" A different time, somebody greased all the door handles, and someone else welded Sentinel Prime's door shut. Half the Academy still talked about the comedian who left a fake eight-legged creature on his desk. Everyone laughed when he screamed!

"I know how to really nail Sentinel," Prowl heard someone's voice outside his door. A femme whose name he couldn't recall. "Someone's gotta piss on his head. He'll flip."

"Ha!" Her mech companion pushed her against Prowl's door and the sounds of kissing followed. "Where can we find someone with the gearbox to do that?"

Prowl opened his door, letting the couple fall into his quarters. "Sentinel annoys me enough. I'd do it."

The femme laughed. "You? Oh, Prowl, you're too much of a goody-goody. You'd beg off at the last second."

"Watch for it tomorrow. I'll show you I'm no coward."

Prowl figured it was time to prove he wasn't just a shadow in the halls. Few respected him on campus, and it grew tiring to always fend away jeers and fights. No matter what he did, people whispered about him in the halls and behind him in class. Did someone suspect his flaw?

If they did, he hoped this would dispel the rumors once and for all.

The next day, Sentinel Prime performed a huge speech thanking the Elite Guard for accepting him as an official member. Prowl never met Sentinel personally, but he'd heard enough of him talking to find him annoying. An arrogant buffoon who often took credit for someone else's hard work--how sickening! Well, Prowl climbed to the highest balcony of the bowl-shaped auditorium, all the while his audios focused on Sentinel's position. And when he was sure he was completely hidden, he laid back, extended his output nozzle and aimed. His waste tank water arced over the modesty railing and chaos ensued.

"Augh! Someone pissed on me!" Sentinel shouted right into the microphone.

Needless to say, that took the wind out of Sentinel's long speech. Prowl never heard so much hollering and laughter. Being a ninja meant he knew just how to escape his hiding place without getting caught by the mechs sent to find the person responsible for Sentinel's humiliation.

That prank got around fast, and Prowl couldn't go anywhere without people patting him on the back and asking him how he did it. He never offered the details.

Several more years passed. Prowl went about his business, gaining the education he desired while missing Yoketron and his secluded home. When would he find his Spark? Would he find it here?

And then there came the day he heard mechs gathered around a common room computer, crying out in disgust.

"Ugh. I think I'm gonna output."

"Wow, acid to the audios. Nasty. And look, that one was still alive when they took the picture. See? He's still got some green on him, and his optics are lit."

"Oh, turn it off!" A femme cried. "That's one's sad. He looks like he's in pain. Oh, no, come on, don't play that video where they tried to repair him--"

A strange scream issued from the speakers.

"You stooge, it's a reflex." A deep, rumbling voice snapped. "Flawed mechs are too stupid to feel pain. Remember the time they brought a live one into the lab to study? It was moving and everything. One optic, chassis didn't close right. It looked at me when I poked its face. Sick stuff."

Prowl wanted to vomit, but he held himself still and stayed outside the door while his face burned.

"Oh, that's not gross. I've got a really gross one. Who wants to see?"

Whispering ensued, followed by a quivering voice, "Lay it on us."

Buttons clicked. Servos whirred as people jumped back or turned away from the screen.

"Whoa," somebody gasped, "Worst one yet!"

"What's going on in here?" Prowl entered the fray. He stood on his toes, pretending to try and look over somebody's shoulder. "What are they looking at?"

"Ewwwwww!"

"Oh, we're just looking at pictures of flawed mechs." It was the femme who'd commented on the acid burns. The same femme, also, who tumbled into his quarters the night before he'd pranked Sentinel. "It's so gross. Come here, Beachcomber just found one of some poor bot without any eyes. Have you ever seen anything so ugly?"

If self-loathing could kill, Prowl died a million times right there. They were just words, but they struck his Spark like a thousand energy blades. At the same time, Prowl's fuel tanks boiled in righteous anger. Everyone around him had the potential to be his friend; however, the moment he took his visor off, they'd abandon him to death without a thought. Him, a thinking, feeling, intelligent being cast away because he offended their eyes.

Well, he didn't have eyes to offend. And in his opinion their morals were more flawed than his body.

"Did you hear?" A different mech spoke, "There's a flawed mech in this academy."

Someone else creaked their chair. "Really? Who?"

"It's..." The deep-voiced mech paused for dramatic effect. "...Prowl!"

Chapter Text

Prowl's energon ran cold. He almost dropped the data pad he was pretending to read. If he acted frightened here, he'd completely give himself away. So he played stupid again, picking his head up with a confused expression. "Huh? What'd I do?"

A few people snickered.

"Oh, you glitch-head. He's a ninja."

"Yeah, but he's not like that other guy that's actually cool."

"Shut up. Watch. Can a flawed bot do this?"

A writing stylus came flying from the left. Prowl heard it flipping through the air and caught it before it struck his face. He tossed it up, snatched it mid-flight and hurled it so the pointed end jammed into the wall above the thrower's head. The group around the computer erupted into laughter.

"Yeah, Prowl's only flaw is he's about as entertaining as Perceptor's lectures. Leave him alone," said the bot who threw the stylus. "At this rate I'd almost bet it's some custodi-bot trying to hide out."

Prowl breathed a silent, relieved sigh. At least the suspicion was off him for now.

"Let's just hope it's nobody we know personally. I don't wanna get slagged. How'd you find out about this?"

"Sentinel mentioned something about Ultra Magnus finding a fake serial number on record. It doesn't match up. Teams are gonna start going around, inspecting everybody. They'll catch that disgrace and slag him and nobody's gonna be the wiser."

Prowl turned away and covered his face with both hands, his fingers sliding up under the visor to feel the truth they didn't know sat right beside them. All the work he did here, spoiled by one rumor.

"I haven't been around here much," Prowl dared say. "How do they do these inspections? I don't want to look silly if they invade my room."

"Oh, it's nothing." The mech at the computer said, "They just make you take off any visors and mods you've got. Then they run an X-ray scan and go on. It's annoying. Happens from time to time, but we've never had any flawed mechs yet. You're housed up in A-block, right? Better get in your room. They're gonna go there first."

Prowl's fuel pump nearly jerked to a halt. He jumped up and ran for the door, not caring what the others thought anymore. It was getting dark out, and now he'd need the cover of night. He offered silent thanks to Yoketron for forcing him to wear a blindfold; he trusted his working senses now, and knew he'd successfully escape.

The inspection crew was a group of three mechs--two burly Elite Guard soldiers and a femme medic named Red Alert.

Hugging the wall, Prowl listened for which way their footsteps went. They were plodding away from his location, checking bots on the opposite side of his quarters. Prowl gritted his teeth. Now or never. He projected a hologram of himself running down the hall, and the huge soldiers took the bait. Prowl used the confusion to slip into his own room and grab the Infinity Chain statue. It was the only possession besides his weapons that he kept over the years, but anybody who saw the sculpture would recognize where it came from. He refused to risk Yoketron's life that way.

The statue secured, Prowl opened his window, stuck his legs out and swung himself up onto the roof. He heard the soldiers enter his quarters. They were overturning the berth and poking the walls for hidden compartments. Invading his space over a rumor too true for comfort.

"Going by what's on the computer, he's taking Chromia's literature course. Let's check in on her tomorrow and scan him when he shows up for class."

Prowl swallowed a growl and waited for the noise to stop. If he went back inside, he'd just be grabbed and inspected tomorrow morning. If he didn't go back inside, he was giving up the education he hoped would lead him to his Spark and the whole campus would probably figure he was the flawed mech after all. Either way, he couldn't find his Spark here.

He had no choice. Leave or die. Yoketron might end up disappointed, but he'd also understand the reasoning for Prowl's early return. Maybe a new quest could make up for this failed attempt. Another school, perhaps...but right now, more than anything, Prowl needed the presence of someone who wasn't ready to throw him into a compactor.

Prowl nodded to himself. Go back to Yoketron, get set on a new path and try again. That's all there was to it.

.o

Reaching Yoketron's home took several days on back roads and hidden alleyways. Using a main highway would've been faster, but Prowl risked detection that way. He finally drove through Yoketron's front door and transformed. Exhausted, hungry and dusty, he sucked in a breath to smooth out his tired voice.

"Master Yoketron!" Prowl announced his presence. Then he remembered why he came back--his failure--and sagged where he stood. "Forgive me! I-I tried, but..."

Something wasn't right here. Yoketron's home usually felt warm, peaceful and enclosed like a capsule leading to another world. Prowl heard the air whistle past his sides. Cold drafts blew from places it shouldn't.

The windows were shattered. Something, or someone, blasted a hole into the ceiling.

He wanted to turn on his oscillators, but feared what he'd find...so he left them off.

"Master!" Prowl shouted into the suffocating silence. A whiff of flux drifted on the wind. He raced into the dining area and tripped over something impaled on the floor. His hands automatically explored the obstacle--a dented tray with the imprint of a foot. The table was broken in half. He found another tray embedded firmly in the wall like a throwing disk. Beneath it, a severed hand far too large to be Yoketron's. That made Prowl smile through his fear because he knew, at least, that Yoketron put up a fight against whoever invaded his home. Therefore, he had to be all right! He was a ninja Grand Master...practically invincible!

Prowl heard a noise on his left. He reflexively hurled a disk at the sound. It struck wood, not a living form. The disturbance was a beam shifting, nothing more. He retrieved the disk from the groaning wood and replaced it in his wheel.

"Master Yoketron! Are you here? It's me, Prowl!"

Still no reply. Just the oppressing quiet that wound Prowl's apprehension tighter. Coldness settled in the base of his helm, right where it joined his neck. This wasn't right. He couldn't shake off the disquieting sensation that something truly awful was still happening in this house, but he dared not think about what it could be. He didn't want to comprehend, assimilate or consider even the faintest notion that Yoketron might be dying or dead somewhere in this mess.

"Master! Please...can you hear me? Hello?"

Prowl raced for his Master's quarters next. They had also been thoroughly trashed--every single tiny statue lay in pieces everywhere. And in his own quarters, Prowl found his vine in shreds. The one in the washroom suffered the same fate. Prowl gripped the wall and snarled. Was it some sick robbery? Had Yoketron abandoned his home?

No, he couldn't have. He needed to--

The protoforms!

Prowl activated his oscillators and bolted for the shrine. And froze.

It had been utterly defiled. Iodine strewn everywhere, burns and slashes on the sacred floor, and the statue...Prowl reached out with shaking hands to view its broken remains. Someone shot its head off and blasted a hole through its audios. And even in its melted state, its tortured face still smiled so gently at him. Prowl bowed reverently before setting the head down on the floor.

The hidden door was wide open. Whoever came tracked iodine everywhere, leaving an odious trail halfway into the next room. The busts were gone and...to Prowl's dismay...the doors leading to the protoform chamber lay on the floor, ripped clean off the wall. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.

"Master Yoketron?" Prowl hesitated on the platform. Through his training, Prowl had learned the art of sensing other Sparks, and right now the only life force he felt was a fading signal up ahead. Its crumpled source lay a ways away on the floor. Prowl's visor detected white and gold--no, it couldn't be!

But it was.

"Master!" Prowl sprinted towards the fallen form of his sensei. The glorious helmet Yoketron wore was gone. He seemed small, weak and wrong without its perpetual frown marking his brow. Someone smashed his chest plates to pieces, exposing his Spark and stripping him of his dignity. Shrapnel from his own body surrounded him and crunched under Prowl's knees when he knelt. Prowl focused past the wounds, trying hard not to hear fried circuitry crackling or breathe the sickly sweet smell of burnt cyber mesh. "What happened?"

"Ambushed," Yoketron croaked, his voice betraying his pain. He was...crying. Or had been very recently. "Took...the protoforms."

"Who took them?" Prowl drilled his wounded Master. He wanted to know so he could find the person responsible and hurt them! "Who did this?"

But Yoketron ignored the question. Dripping sounds indicated an internal bleed somewhere inside his chest or abdomen. His Spark's energy output weakened. He was dying. He lifted his head with great effort and said, resolutely, "Now...I join the Well of Allsparks..."

"Master, no! I need you online!" Prowl implored, but Yoketron's head fell back and his life force continued its downward spiral. He gritted his teeth, listening to his Master's intakes heave. It was just like the time his fuel pump failed--the panic and dread and not knowing how to repair him. Everything he'd learned flew out the window when his visor sensed one unopened pod.

Did the thieves miss one? In his desperation, he ran back down the platform and hopped over the edge. Yes! A protoform! He could still save Yoketron!

"Whoever he was, he didn't take all the protoforms." Prowl briefly touched the protoform's head, hands and feet. It was about his size, and he was the same height as Yoketron. It'd do. He hauled the unformed shell over to the dying mech, who seemed so prepared for this moment that he didn't respond to Prowl's presence. His face looked pained as he lay there, breathing slowly. Each new breath came smaller than the previous. He was willing himself to die.

I won't let you die now, Prowl thought as he reached for the older ninja's Spark chamber. It was heavier than he expected, but he quickly transferred it into the protoform's open chest. I still need you. Don't you see that? You can't leave me!

Protoforming...it was a remarkable process. Prowl had scarcely set the chamber down when the blank, formless shape remolded itself into a young, healthy version of Yoketron. It worked! He'd given his Master his life back!

Yoketron drew a smooth breath cycle. His optics fluttered and blinked open wide, almost as if he didn't expect to wake up again. But, instead of sounding grateful, his voice came out horrified, "Prowl...what have you done?"

"I-I brought you back." Prowl choked out. Why did Yoketron seem so disappointed?

A memory called to him, faint and distant within the noise of his confusion--

"...when my time does come, no intervention will stop my Spark from leaving this world. Not even a new body."

--and grief seized his circuits. No, it couldn't be true. Not now!

"You...must not sacrifice a piece of the future to bring back the past." Yoketron took Prowl's hand and squeezed gently. His silent way of showing he wasn't angry. Prowl clutched at his Master's fingers, every servo within him aching to hold him here. It was even worse when Yoketron let go and went on, "Someday, when your time comes--" he calmly laid his head down and closed his eyes, "...you will understand."

The Spark in his chest faded away. Just like that. No struggle, no pain...it was simply gone.

"No..." Prowl breathed. He shut his visor off. Somewhere in the most childish part of his mind, he believed it wasn't real if his oscillators didn't sense it. The life force dwindling to nothing wasn't really fading. The hiss he heard wasn't really Yoketron's servomechanisms releasing their remaining tension. Yoketron didn't really die.

"Master Yoketron," Prowl whispered, taking Yoketron's hand again. It was heavy and limp like it belonged to a fragile marionette. He squeezed it and reached out, choking on his breath-- "Master...I-I need you." --as his probing fingers brushed the edge of Yoketron's rusted shoulder. He found his chest plates and continued downward until his fingertips dipped into the emptiness of a Spark chamber without its Spark.

It was cold. Deathly cold.

Prowl lifted the Spark chamber and transferred it back to the older body, hoping beyond hope some tiny residual life remained. The old bot didn't move, and Prowl's entire world shattered under the realization.

Yoketron was gone.

"Master Yoketron..." Prowl found his Master's face with his hand, and shuddered at the rips in his cyber mesh. Dried tear trails marked his cheeks.

How long did he lay there, crying, before he was found? How much of his suffering was physical? Prowl's broken thoughts struggled to grasp a clue, a sign, but his ability to think unraveled in the wake of harsh reality. Yoketron didn't name the one responsible because revenge wasn't his way.

"M-Master...I-I'm scared. I d-don't know what to do." Prowl rocked back and forth until he collapsed across Yoketron's chest. "You always knew w-what to do..." His voice broke in the heat spreading through his throat. "W-what should I do? Where do I go--from...from here? Tell me. Please...tell me."

No answer came.

No answer would ever come again.

Prowl felt the loss surround him in a bitter, cold wind. Everything he worked for lay in shambles. Darkness obscured the horizon he put all his faith into. Which direction was he supposed to look on a world turned upside down and inside out? Yoketron would've known, but he couldn't tell Prowl because he was dead. Dead right when Prowl needed him the most.

"Master," he tried once more, feebly begging time to turn back just one moment. One moment to get advice, a kind word, a smile...something besides this emptynothing.

No sound. The hiss-click he heard was his own intake systems hitching.

Prowl laid his head on Yoketron's chest and sobbed, not caring how unseemly he looked. His whole body shook from the power of his grief. The pain and anguish pressed down until he thought he'd implode, and in that moment he wanted nothing more than to tear out the Spark of the traitor who took Yoketron from him.

Chapter Text

Freezing air coursed over the same scrap yard Prowl escaped millennia ago. He stood alone next to the protoform pod he'd used as a casket for Yoketron's remains. The blessings had been said. Prowl had painted the proper markings on Yoketron's body to guide his Spark onward. Four burning iodine sticks had been placed in the pod to purify the corpse and surround it with prayers.

And now, Yoketron lay still inside, clutching the one intact blossom from his Quintessan vine.

Prowl knew the moment he left, scrap workers would descend on the pod, open it and take Yoketron's body apart. They did it to the younger one, the protoform he'd foolishly wasted. He brought that corpse first, and barely turned away before pieces came off to be tossed into the sorting bin.

But his Master's real body, the aged, worn thing he'd used his whole life--Prowl couldn't just lay it on the pile and leave, even though Yoketron's final, written wishes included donating his working parts to anyone who needed them. Yet, it was so like Yoketron to do something like that. He didn't want a grave where he'd be mourned.

Prowl still hated the idea of his Master's remains being...defiled...by tools and rough hands. Who there would know what a wonderful mech Yoketron had been? Who there would know of his love and patience when he transformed a bumbling, godless child into a graceful, spiritual ninja? Who there would know the weight of those memories? He was just another body in the eyes of the workers. A useless thing to be dismantled and redistributed to people who'd be forever unaware of the echoes lingering in whatever part they received.

"One should not dwell on what they can not change, Prowl."

I could have changed it if I'd come back sooner.

"Or you could have died along with me," he imagined Yoketron's retort.

Sometimes, Prowl wished he had. He pressed a hand against the top of the pod, trying to find the courage to let go. Surrounding him were the sounds from the scrap yard--clanks, clicks, crashes, crunches and scraping. His jaw tightened when he heard the compactor whirr and crush whatever lay inside.

Unbidden, his mind flashed to the hands he felt pulling him from that horrid device. Those gentle, square-tipped fingers and palms not much bigger than his own. Was his rescuer still alive? Did he still work here?

Something slapped down on the pod. The smell of fresh oil rose like an odious stain on the air. The scrap bot probably left a filthy black handprint on the clean pod, but Prowl couldn't find the Spark to be upset.

"You done yet, ninja?" The worker's brassy voice didn't fit with the other scrap yard noises.

Prowl nearly drowned in the hope rising through his mind. He touched the mech's fingers under the guise of pushing him away. The worker's fingertips were pointed and broad, belonging to a hand twice the size of his own. Prowl felt the pain in his Spark contract like an impending supernova. He pulled back, bowed politely to Yoketron's remains and bid him a last, silent farewell.

"His name was Yoketron. He was a ninja Grand Master, and he did a lot for me in his life." Prowl said to the large mech, "Please be gentle with him."

There. Leave a name behind. Something besides 'that old rust heap.'

"Tch. Sure." The worker hefted the pod-turned-casket onto a dolly and rolled it away. Air rushed into the empty space as if a vacuum suddenly opened over that very spot, and for a moment Prowl wished it'd suck him in.

He could return to Yoketron's house. It was left in his name. But there was no point. The reason he'd inherited the dojo was gone, and he didn't have the strength in his Spark to repair the building. Besides, it carried too much of the past, and Yoketron never liked to dwell.

Prowl turned away from the dismal smells of scrap and--just walked. No direction, no plan, he simply placed one foot before the other and told himself he'd stop when his faith in the horizon returned.

.o

The years melted around him like ice fading in the sun. Prowl drifted around Cybertron, a nomad rarely straying from the shadows. He had no home, and the money Yoketron left behind ran out in a few centuries. So he continued to wander, doing odd jobs to pay for meals. Several times, rumors of a flawed mech working this place and that got out, forcing Prowl to abandon the job and disappear.

For him, the worst part was mechs who tried to be friendly towards him. His spirit's injuries were still so raw, and offering a cold shoulder became his only defense. Let no one close, lest he suffer that pain again.

Sometimes he ached to talk to Yoketron again, and cried when he realized he couldn't. That wound slowly sealed itself until he no longer flinched whenever he saw or heard things Yoketron would've found interesting, but he still missed him terribly. He missed his wisdom and kindness. Would he ever find someone equally remarkable to fill the void Yoketron left behind? Or did friends like that only come once a lifetime?

Finally, a day came when Prowl happened upon a few scrappy Autobots milling around a ship. They were a small space bridge repair crew preparing to leave the planet.

Prowl joined them merely to get away from the memories that followed him all over Cybertron. His own planet didn't feel like home anymore, and something told him he'd never meet his destiny here. He belonged in the stars.

"Hey! I know that kid!" It was Ratchet, the medic who helped Yoketron long ago. "Where's the old guy?"

Prowl shot the medic a cold look. "He died not too long ago."

"Oh. Well, no need to glare at me over it. Everybody dies."

Yoketron was not 'everyone.' Prowl sneered. Of course the medic would be so flippant--he was a veteran, he'd seen a million horrible ways for mechs to die.

"Optimus! Bumblebee! Bulkhead! I'm not getting any younger here!"

"Easy there, Ratchet," said a younger, higher voice. "Who's this?"

Prowl felt Ratchet nudge him.

"I'm Prowl. I'm here to join your team."

"Oh? Did your paperwork go through?"

"Paperwork?" Prowl wrinkled his nose.

"Ugh, another one without paperwork? Ratchet, where do you find these people?" the young bot--probably not much older than himself--slapped his palm against his forehead. "We'll figure it out later. I'm Optimus Prime, by the way, and I'm the leader of this group. Follow my orders and we'll get along fine."

Why in the Pit was a Prime relegated to repairing space bridges?

Optimus turned away and called, "Autobots! Let's roll out!"

Everyone trudged aboard, Prowl entering last and sitting off to the side.

"Man, oh man, check out that creepy guy." A young bot waved his hands before Prowl's visor. Prowl didn't have it turned on at the moment, but he felt the heat of the younger mech's palm moving around enough to guess its location.

The talkative mech went on, "Well, take a holo-scan, it'll last longer!"

Prowl flinched when he realized he once sounded just like that--running his mouth, acting superior and thinking he knew everything. But he didn't. The world was a lot bigger than he once thought, and it owed him nothing. He'd been such a child to believe such silly things.

He grabbed the mech by the wrist. "Stop it."

"Whoa! Lighten up, ninja-bot!"

"Bumblebee, leave the new guy alone," said the largest mech, who plodded forward on feet that shook the ground. "Sorry about that. He's a little high strung. I'm Bulkhead. He's Bumblebee. So, what's your name? Where are you from?"

Prowl turned his visor on and felt the prickle of his oscillators at work. Bulkhead was massive and mostly green. That made Bumblebee the small, yellow mech currently frazzling his circuits.

"I'm Prowl, and that is all you need to know," he finally said.

Then he leaned against the wall to indicate he wanted no further conversation. He did not look back when the ship took off, and in less than a day he discovered how fate had funny ways of turning everything upside down.

The crew stumbled upon the Allspark while on a mission. This discovery led to encountering Decepticons. Encountering Decepticons led to landing on an unknown planet called Earth.

Earth was a world Yoketron would've loved. So rich, clean and almost entirely populated by organics. Prowl was enamored from the start--and when the human named Sari led them to a warehouse, he wanted the room with the giant organic thing growing through the roof. It reminded him of the Quintessan vine, but bigger, stronger and less likely to be shredded.

The first thing Prowl did was bury his Infinity Chain statue under the tree. The alternate mode he used on this planet didn't have the space of his Cybertronian body, and he didn't want the statue damaged by repeated transformations.

Life settled back into a routine. Prowl made his quarters his own and, while he was cordial with the others, even liked them a bit, he avoided them as much as possible. Especially Optimus. As a Prime, he could have the Elite Guard here in a cycle if Prowl's flaw came to light.

And so Prowl continued his quiet existence.

.o

Silence melted into his consciousness like the remembered warmth of wax soup.

Prowl sat alone outside the Elite Guard ship. The atmosphere inside was too...stuffy...so escaping into cooler air became prudent at the earliest polite opportunity. It was a dark night that rendered his oscillators useless. Better to be alone than risk someone discovering the truth.

Parts of his armor were scuffed from the fight with the malfunctioning police bots. What a mess that was...and all because of a single Allspark fragment. When did his life on Earth become interesting? He couldn't remember.

An energy source prickled along his consciousness. Prowl jolted as if awakened from a dream. That felt like Yoketron's Spark! Prowl jolted to his feet to follow it. He chased the feeling around a corner and crashed right into somebody coming down the ramp. The impact knocked him off his feet, and he kipped up before the person he bumped could offer him a hand up.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I was just--it's dark and I didn't see you there."

"Whoa, it's cool. Ease up before you blow a gasket." The words had a smile behind them, and that voice...it sounded as smooth as cream.

Prowl's face burned. He scooted out of the other mech's personal space.

The other bot went on, "It's been awhile since I ran into another ninja. Name's Prowl, right?"

"Yes." Prowl replied softly. He turned back towards the city, hoping to hide his embarrassment. Social graces were a skill that slipped away during his millennia of solitude. Losing Yoketron made risking another loss too painful for his Spark to bear. Could he ever trust anyone that way again? Flaw and all?

"Heh, heh. Anybody ever tell you you're gorgeous?"

"Excuse me?" Prowl gasped. The other ninja's name escaped his processor at the moment--an embarrassing oversight. So he retorted, "Are you talking to me?"

"Yeah." His companion laughed a pleasant, musical laugh. He shifted from foot to foot and every motion sounded perfectly smooth. "What? Can't take a little flirting there, Prowl?"

"I-I'm just not used to it." Prowl hugged himself, though deep down the compliments tickled his Spark. It wasn't often someone made him feel physically attractive. Still, the darker side of him voiced its suspicions before he could stop himself. "And I'm sure you flirt with every bot you meet."

"Nope." The other ninja laughed again. "Just attractive bots like you." He came closer, "Ever hear of love at first sight? 'Cause I think I just fell in it."

"Um..." Now the forgotten name really made Prowl's face burn. He didn't know whether to smile or take offense to such brazen advances. Nobody ever hit on him while he was at the Academy. How could anyone possibly see him as attractive anyway? Especially this smooth-talking, annoying bot whose voice was like music.

But Prowl knew the moment his visor came off, it'd be all over between them anyway, so why bother building a friendship? "Listen, it's getting early. My team and I are staying in the warehouse where a tree grows through the roof. So uh--"

"You forgot my name, didn't ya?" Amusement flickered through the other ninja's slick voice.

Prowl sighed, ducking his head. "I'm afraid I did."

And his companion chuckled, extending his hand. Prowl accepted it carefully. He encountered a strong, nimble hand with square-tipped fingers that brushed ancient memories buried in dust and pain.

The sun rose over the horizon just then, flashing his oscillators with visions of pouty lips, round audios and a blue visor. His mind suddenly recalled the bust he touched, and a low, gentle voice echoed from the past:

"...that one would interest you."

Prowl felt drawn to this bot for reasons beyond all comprehension. His Spark knew something his mind did not, and a nagging suspicion in his metal skull told him not to push this mech away like he did everyone else.

"The name's Jazz," Jazz said playfully, "and I still think you're gorgeous."

Prowl opened his mouth to reply with something sarcastic, but paused when he noticed an odd white artifact in his oscillators. Was it a glitch caused by the sunlight? The weird vibration came from behind Jazz, flickering as if not quite solid.

"Well then," he said, distracted by the glitch in his visor. "Hello, Jazz."

Suddenly, the artifact in his oscillators grew and turned, creating the sensation of a stern, white face and a black helm topped in frowning gold horns.

"Space case, that's what you are." Jazz chuckled, but grew serious when Prowl didn't respond. "You okay there, Prowl?"

Prowl bit his lip. He dipped his head ever so slightly. The shape smiled and bowed in response. A motion too painfully familiar to be his imagination. Then it turned and walked towards the horizon, slowly dissolving with every step until it vanished into the sun. The energy Prowl felt earlier dissipated like dandelion seeds scattered by the wind.

Everything fell peacefully silent. The city sounds were far away in another time.

"Jazz?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember Master Yoketron's favorite proverb?"

Jazz shifted where he stood. "The one about faith in the horizon? Never forgot it, but I never really got it, either. Why?"

"I think I just did."

Jazz whistled softly and tugged gently on Prowl's hands. "Hey, are you okay?"

But Prowl ignored him. He stood there and stared into the sun's glow. The world around him was waking up, and he felt something inside himself awakening with it. Like he'd been asleep for an eternity, only to regain awareness at just the right time. Here. Now. Today.

"I'll be fine," he turned to Jazz as renewed faith coursed through his Spark. "Care to join me for a morning prayer?"