Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The war was over. The war had been over for nearly 50 vorns. It came surprisingly easily for many mechs - millions of years of hatred and distrust were hard to set aside, but after so long surrounded by constant death, energon shortages and now the threat of planetary destruction - well, even the most steadfast warrior was willing to at least consider a ceasefire before the war completely destroyed their species.

A ceasefire which quickly turned to negotiations, and negotiations which lead to an official treaty as the two faction leaders continued their private meetings with increasing frequency,

and length.

It was eventually agreed power would be split between the two in a way that ensured equal representation of Autobots and Decepticons in government. Both leaders had agreed Cybertron would never return to the old system that had divided and oppressed its people so vehemently and even as Megatron took up the ancient title of Lord High Protector, there was no doubt in anyone's processor that the new Cybertron both sides had fought so hard to achieve was finally turning from a distant concept into a foreseeable future.

No one was surprised when the official announcement of their bonding was made.

The first task of this new utopia was organizing the massive amount of construction work necessary to reconstruct the torn planet. All major cities had been destroyed in the early stages of the war and there was no shortage of jobs for anyone with any engineering or architectural knowledge, but with a constant stream of volunteers willing to pitch in any small way they could nearly all of it had been rebuilt within the first few decivorns.

After that, mechs began searching out new jobs. It was still strange to be free to pursue ones passion without fear of retribution - not that there was a huge market available, but mechs took the chance to create new opportunities that never even existed pre-war - if they could make it work they could do it.

Most of the remaining tension was quick to disappear once mechs began adjusting to each other in an everyday working environment. It was hard to justify worry about your neighbour turning on you when you took your lunch breaks together.

Members of the high command had also chosen to leave government positions to live lives away from the responsibilities and burdens they had carried for the last several millennia. Well, on the Autobot side at least.

Both Prowl and Jazz had settled down together now that they were given the opportunity, with Jazz holding a successful music career while Prowl had chosen to retire handling paperwork and recovering and sorting important government records destroyed during the war. Starscream on the other hand had taken off to aid in the reconstruction of Vos as soon as the project was announced and -only somewhat surprisingly- taking position once again as its elected emirate. Only Megatron's third, Strika continued to advise him, even with the news that her and her consort would be expecting a sparkling of their own.

Speaking of which, the Prime filed away a mental note to send them a congratulatory gift when he got the chance, once he found Hot Rod. The sparkling had been adamantly avoiding both his creators once the news was broken that some of his favourite caretakers would soon be sent off-world.

Far off world.

Optimus had originally held serious reservations about letting any of Megatron's infamous Phase-Sixers anywhere near their creation, but when diplomatic duties took both of them away from Cybertron for extended periods of time, Optimus was loath to admit that the idea of having a virtually indestructible super-weapon on guard was somewhat comforting. Megatron certainly thought it was a good idea, though Optimus still didn't like putting too much thought into what activities mechs like Sixshot and Black Shadow came up with to keep Hot Rod's short attention span occupied. The thought was almost as unsettling as wondering why exactly the bitlet's favourite mechs to be looked after by were the DJD.

The news was delivered almost offhandedly, but rather than the expected response of throwing a fit, being indignant and moving on, he had gone to sulk off in an almost uncharacteristic way. They had told him they wouldn't be gone for long, but that seemed to offer little comfort.

Really, it was ridiculous he hadn't gotten bored with hiding yet. His dismay at his big caretakers' departure was unfortunate, but the decision to send them off was a necessary one. Most mechs by now had settled into the new era of peace with relative ease, but the Warriors Elite -living weapons created for the sole purpose of destruction and conquest- were having a slightly more difficult time adjusting.

They tried, they did, but they needed something to fight. Some kind of target to vent their abilities on safely and away from Cybertron, even for a short period of time.

This mission would be beneficial to everyone.

With a resigned sigh, the Prime decided to do one more quick search of Hot Rod's chambers before giving up and waiting for Megatron to return home from his meeting. The little bitlet would turn up eventually.

~o~o~o~

Tarn was just here to supervise.

The mission itself was fairly simple, but he couldn't blame Lord Megatron or the Prime for not trusting the other three not to frag it up.

U1 was an ancient Cybertronian colony right on the edge of Quintesson space. Though it was really more of a large asteroid than anything. When it was discovered during the war it became an area of high interest for both Autobots and Decepticons for its virtually limitless supply of raw energon which almost completely made up the planet -down to the crystals that composed its core to its liquid form that flowed freely on its surface, covering most of the planet.

An incredible source of power to whomever possessed the ability to harness it, making it just as well that its inhabitants were a primitive race -they looked Cybertronian he supposed, but they lacked sparks and thus lacked the ability to regenerate, summon weapons, transform, or -well, do anything useful really.

Unfortunately, by the time Cybertronians had stumbled across the small world, the Quintessons had already begun using the planet for their own purposes to the misfortune of its inhabitants, simultaneously draining the planet and using it as a field to conduct twisted experiments. Strange creatures would regularly pop up to attack natives and turned out to be a serious problem for posted Cybertronians as well.

Both sides had agreed the risk of leaving U1 in the Quintesson's grasp was too great and had deigned to work together to see them off.

Though the planet's inhabitants leaned towards the Autobots, a treaty was written up that allowed both sides to mine the planet in return for protection from their Quintesson neighbours. During the war several teams from both sides would always be assigned to guard refineries and take care of leftover creatures, but since it ended... well, everyone was busy with other things and the planet was once again forgotten.

Now an extended mission caretaking a planet of weak mechs from a distance with free reign to kill anything that looked hostile or Quintesson? Exactly the kind of outlet the Phase-Sixers had been needing since the war ended.

Well, not Tarn. Tarn was completely fine. Unlike the other brutes classified as Elite, Tarn was fully capable of living civilly. And there was the list -hunting traitors was a perfectly decent activity right there.

Even if it had been... dwindling a bit recently. It was becoming harder to justify traitorous activity in a world where factions no longer technically existed, coupled with a rather heavy amount of disapproval from the Autobots who insisted that trai- criminals had 'rights' and had to be judged by 'a real jury' and confessions couldn't be gotten under 'duress'.

It was ridiculous bureaucracy, but it did result in a lot of,

well,

spare time.

Not that it bothered Tarn, even if the other DJD members had begun appreciating the benefits of peace -well good for them- Kaon and Tesarus had taken second jobs and even though Helix was no longer technically a DJD member, they still all saw each other so frequently the changes were hardly noticeable.

They were still fully dedicated and capable of handling any situation in Tarn's absence, they had his trust on that. So if Lord Megatron needed him to make sure the other three didn't blow up the planet than Tarn would happily accept his mission.

To supervise.

The Guardian was at least a decent ship. Small, but fully equipped with long-range spatial communicators to advanced quantum engines, powerful enough to make the substantial jump from Cybertron to U1 in no time flat.

This mission would go fine.

"You know why you're here." What?

"What?"

It was Overlord who had spoken, sitting down on a crate adjacent to one Tarn was currently taking stock of. "You're sulking, I can see it on your face."

That earned him a frustrated glare that was only received by a smirk in return. "You're here for the same reasons the rest of us are, so stop sulking."

He was not sulking, and even if he was it wasn't like Overlord could see it.

"Is there something you actually need, I didn't think my mood was any of your business."

Overlord actually stood at that -still smirking, moving back towards the door to the cargo hold.

"I suppose not, but if you're ready to climb off that high horse we're set to go down here."

Ah.

The time had come. Inventory still had yet to be finished, but he supposed that could wait until they had arrived at their destination. Nothing seemed to be missing from the hold, in fact there seemed to be a bit of extra supplies.

Setting down the datapad he had been recording on, he followed after Overlord to the bridge.

Everything would be fine.

Chapter Text

Ship loaded, undocked, and ten minutes until autopilot took them high enough in atmosphere to engage jump.

Ten minutes for Black Shadow to throw himself out the airlock, or maybe make his way down to the engine room and hug the quantum generator till it activated.

As if being sent away from Cybertron wasn't punishment enough -and that's what this was really- it had to be with the three mechs he'd rather be on the other side of the universe to.

Especially -ugh, best not to think too long on that.

Really what he could use now was a drink. High-grade technically wasn't permitted on official missions, but Black Shadow knew for a fact neither were those illicit datapads hidden among Sixshot's belongings. He was willing to bet Overlord wasn't innocent either though he was a little afraid to go snooping -if only for what he'd find.

Meh, so long as no one told Tarn.

He was planning of waiting till they arrived on U1 to crack open a cube, but one last drink before departure was starting to sound better the longer he sat there.

Seven Minutes Until Quantum Jump

Now would be the perfect time, each of them was sitting at one of the several consoles lining the bridge. Tarn and Overlord were going on about something or other and Sixshot looked to be deep into a datapad on -were those battle reports? Ughhh- there was time for a quick farewell treat.

Still, he wanted to be prepared for the jump. Black Shadow didn't know what to expect of the current natives, but the last time he was there they couldn't distil engex for slag. He didn't want to waste their limited supply through accidental spilling when the engines engaged.

Checking the monitor - Five Minutes Until Quantum Jump - he synced the ships timer to a small popup on his HUD before heading to the cargo hold.

The crate he had packed them in was in the back, placed to avoid close inspection. Finding the right one marked with his designation he unlocked the lid and reached in for one of the glowing  cubes. Closing it up again he sat down on one of the nearby chests to drink when he noticed the sight in the corner of the room.

One of the crates had been opened.

His first thought was one of the others being responsible, but it didn't look right. Setting down the unopened cube he snuck over to examine the contents of the box.

There were items in there, some of which were necessities while others looked almost like toys. In the corner next to a small bag were several energon cubes.

Someone was on board.

Three minutes Until Quantum Jump

He didn't summon his blaster. Whoever the mech was they were small, possibly a saboteur, quick but lightly armoured. Sneaking along rows of boxes Black Shadow listened for any sign of the stowaway.

Out of the corner of his optic he saw a flash of red paint on top of one large stack and moved quickly. One hit wobbled the tower and the tiny mech lost their balance with a small shriek, falling right into Black Shadow's arms.

It wasn't a minibot like he had assumed.

It was a sparkling. A sparkling who was literally the absolute last mech he would have expected to find sneaking around save for the Prime or Protector themselves.

"Hot Rod?!"

"...hi."

Caught up trying to process the small bot in his arms Black Shadow almost missed the small notification in the corner of his HUD.

Quantum Jump Initiating

Fraging pit.

~o~o~o~

The jump went by quickly.

The planet U1 stretched out beneath them, close enough to make out mechmade buildings littering the landscape. Further out, coastlines could be seen lined by shimmering pink ocean. The nearest one held one of the planet's largest refineries -equipped with the facilities to support a long-term party- and a small native city right behind it. That was where they were meant to set up base.

Overlord had contemplated the possibility of any natives possessing space-capable technology but seeing the planet from near orbit only served to dash that hope. There were no visible signs of any advanced technology or even artificial satellites beyond what looked to be for simple communication.

Still as primitive as we left it.

There was always the option of commandeering the Guardian. Without the long-range comms in the ship, the others wouldn't be able to alert Cybertron until the homeworld noticed their radio silence.

Of course that plan required actually managing to get the ship started up without interference, something he doubted would be easy with how little he knew the others trusted him.

Behind him Sixshot was going over readouts,

"Quantum jump successful. Systems optimal, hull stable, landing coordinates calculated. Heat shields activating, beginning descent, where's Black Shadow?"

It was said with no change in tone and took Overlord a moment to process.

Huh, whatever. The fool was probably wallowing over a cube somewhere.

"Scanners are picking up a large object approaching the planet, still some distance away." Tarn observed from his own data.

Overlord brought an identical screen up on his console. It was a round object slowly moving towards the planet, scans suggested a crystalline composition and no indication of any forms of life inhabiting it.

"It's most likely a meteor. In all likelihood it will land in the ocean."

He could see Tarn preparing to argue but cut off with the unexpected surprise of Black Shadow bursting onto the bridge holding- Wait. Was that Hot Rod- in outstretched arms, a look of equal shock and disbelief on his faceplates as his optics darted back and forth between the sparkling and the other Phase-Sixers as though begging them for an explanation.

After a few moments Sixshot eventually managed to break the silence, "W- Hot Rod? Why- What are you- here?"

"I wanted to come with you guys." He said as though it were obvious, wriggling a bit to be set down but Black Shadow still hadn't moved from where he entered. "They said you'd be gone for a while on another planet."

Overlord was also having a bit of trouble concentrating, slowly rising from his seat.

Hot Rod. Megatron's creation.

Tarn however was finally snapping out of his trance, "How did you get on board?! You -you're too young to be here! Why would you even want to?!" He said standing up, torn between rushing over to the bitlet and hesitant to approach who none of them were even sure was real.

"I'm six and a half vorns old, I'm not a sparkling! And I wanted to come with you to space, go on an adventure! You guys are always doing cool stuff, I wanted to join in."

Black Shadow finally seemed to realise he was still holding the sparkling and carefully set him down, walking over to take a seat at one of the command consoles. Overlord felt he should probably sit down too, but couldn't bring himself to move.

They could all recognise Tarn slipping into caretaker mode now that the initial shock had worn off.

"I- Hot Rod, this is an incredibly dangerous mission."

"You can keep me safe, you always do!"

"Do you're creators even know where you are?"

"Uh, guys?" Black Shadow called from the console.

"No.. I'll tell them later. They won't pull us back for a short mission, I can stay with you till you're done!"

"GUYS!"

"Hot Rod this mission is a decade long!"

 Anything that would have been said next was interrupted as a fierce impact rocked the Guardian.

~o~o~o~

Black Shadow grabbed the manual controls seconds before the shot hit, jerking the Guardian out of the direct line of fire. From all the damage alerts blaring on the functioning consoles, it was probably what saved them. Hot Rod was thrown to the ground by the impact, curling in on himself as the cabin filled with deafening alarms and flashing red light. When no more shots came he onlined his optics to notice the large shadow above where Tarn had fallen over him, curling over in a protective shield.

Black Shadow still held tightly to the controls trying to steady the ship and put some distance  between them and the surface of the planet they were rapidly plunging towards.

"What's happening?" Hot Rod asked as Tarn rose, picking him up from the floor and quickly depositing him in the remaining free chair while he knelt clutching the back. When Overlord answered it was to the others,

"Half the ship is gone." he called examining the warnings flashing across his screen, too quickly for  Hot Rod to read. "Starboard thruster is completely blow and the engine room and cargo hold have been damaged."

Cargo hold? "What!" his stuff was in there!

The controls were beginning to creak from the force Black Shadow was manipulating them with. "I can't steady us!" he cried to the  room "We're going down!"

Sixshot darted over and grabbed the back of his chair. "Land us in the ocean!"

"You want me crash a burning ship into liquid energon!?"

"The ocean is stable, the ground isn't."  

Black Shadow froze in clear hesitation but before the other warriors could gather up any objection they were all sent sprawling once more as he jerked the ship towards the coastline.

The Guardian was losing altitude fast, they weren't going to make it. Gripping the sides of his chair for dear spark, Hot Rod offlined his optics as they made impact.

~o~o~o~

The ship hadn't exploded. Hot Rod onlined his optics to find he had been thrown beneath the console he had been sitting at. His frame was sore but after a few more moments of waiting for serious pain to kick in with no results, he slowly crawled out. His audials were still ringing and at first he thought his optics were damaged when he couldn't see the rest of the bridge before realising the lights and screens were dark, the only light available came from the numerous cracks running along the hull.

"Hot Rod!"

Tarn sighed in relief at the sight of the sparkling. "Are you hurt?" knelt down still brushing away debris and checking him over for injury.

"I'm fine." Just a little shook up. So far, this was not turning out to be the adventure he'd expected.

"We're good too by the way." Black Shadow called over from where the others were still picking themselves up. No one seemed hurt aside from a few dents and scratches. Even the ship seemed to be in good shape.

*CREEEEEEEAAAAKKKKKK*

Er, maybe not.

~o~o~o~

That creaking did not sound good. Everyone froze when it echoed through the hull, bracing themselves for the ship to collapse around them. After a few tense moments when nothing happened, Overlord spoke up.

"Everyone out."

Good idea.

Following a short scramble with everyone trying to carefully hurry out the ship -which actually held up pretty well considering the airlock doors had to be punched off by Overlord- they were finally able to get a look at the planet's surface.

They missed the ocean, but on the other hand they also missed the jutting cliffs just a few mechanometeres away. The Guardian had landed on a stretch of beach (probably the reason they hadn't instantly exploded), Sixshot could see glass formed from their impact beneath the ship and littering the sand around them.

The view itself was... pretty. Better than Sixshot remembered it. Before them blue skies and pink ocean stretched out with no visible end in sight, opposite that bordering the shore was a tall cliff face and -yes- the refinery set into it as though built from the surrounding stone. At least they hadn't overshot that.

"At least we made it." He offered up.

The others didn't look as hopeful. In fact Tarn's EM field was radiating barely restrained anger/hysteria all directed at,

Oh yeah, the sparkling. Sixshot was pretty sure he'd imagined him.

"What are you doing here!?" Even with the mask Tarn looked to be on the verge of panic. Black Shadow's face still held the same shocked expression as when he had burst onto the bridge and,

Oh. Overlord did not look good. He was just standing off to the side, staring at Hot Rod with a ... look that was one of the most ominous things Sixshot had seen in a long time. Meanwhile, Hot Rod didn't seem to be listening to Tarn's rambling at all. The bitlet was taking in the sights of the new planet with wide optics.

Sixshot.. didn't quite know what to feel at the moment. From the shock of Black Shadow's find to a dramatic near death experience, things were taking a bit to process. Sixshot looked back at the wrecked ship. What was Hot Rod even doing here, how did he even get on board? Primus, contacting the Prime and Protector about their missing sparkling was going to be one pit of a conversation. Best leave it to Tarn.

If the ships internals were even functional Sixshot wondered because the outside did not look good. It was obvious the Guardian was grounded. Whatever had blasted them had torn right through the hull. The starboard thruster hadn't just been damaged, it was completely gone. Sixshot sent a small thanks to Primus for Black Shadow's quick reflexes. There was no way they could have taken a direct blast.

But they were all alive. Including their young stowaway who looked to be completely oblivious to how close they'd all come to offlining. "What planet is this?" he asked interrupting Tarn's tirade.

"Hot Rod-" he tried.

"How far from Cybertron are we? Who lives here? Is this an organic planet?" Hot Rod asked in spitfire succession, optics wide in wonder, bouncing around between the warriors.

Heh, that was the Hot Rod they all knew. Watching the bitlet get so innocently excited was doing wonders for everyone's nerves. Sixshot could see Tarn and Black Shadow starting to relax as Hot Rod kept talking. It even snapped Overlord out of whatever trance he was in. Sixshot watched him turn and headed back towards the Guardian.  

Black Shadow sank pedes crossed in the sand with a weak laugh. "Well, this'll be interesting." he said once Hot Rod paused to vent.

When Overlord finally re-emerged from the airlock breems later, he did not look happy. "Communications are down. Completely. We can't send or receive anything."   

~o~o~o~

Hot Rod was here. Megatron's sparkling was right there. Out of all the Phase-Sixers, Overlord was the only one never called on to caretake the young prince -for rather obvious reasons. But he was here. Away from Cybertron and his overprotective creators. This was the closest he'd ever been and he was so small Overlord could easily crush his frame with one hand.

Though he seriously doubted that it would be easy with the other three around. He would have to find a way to kill them too -a plot of which was becoming an increasing priority. His odds of taking on three Warriors Elite once the sparkling was offline were not any he liked. Especially with Tarn.

Especially with no way off this Primus forsaken hunk of crystal. Cycles of tampering with the Guardians systems only confirmed what they all knew. The ship was done for.

They were stranded.

Chapter Text

Once everyone was 95% sure the Guardian wasn't about to suddenly explode, they got to work unloading the ship's remaining cargo onto the beach, searching for any useful supplies. Most of the crates had either been destroyed in the blast or sucked into the atmosphere from the resulting hull breech. The ones that remained contained very little in the way of tools or parts, mostly weapons and several other such objects command figured might be useful for dealing with hostiles.

Well, starting now, Black Shadow supposed.

But at least everyone's personal luggage was still accounted for, including the crate Hot Rod had somehow managed to sneak in on, though its contents had been tossed about during the crash.

"Everything ok, Hot Rod?" Black Shadow asked as he watched the orange bot shift through his gathered belongings.

"Yeah, except... wait." He searched around before climbing back into the cargo hold.

Once Hot Rod was gone,Tarn turned to him. "Why would you aim us at the ocean, it's liquid energon."

Black Shadow shrugged "He seemed to know what he was talking about." he gestured to Sixshot sitting in the sand sorting datapads. "How did you know what you were talking about?"

"The oceans are mixed with so many contaminants they're no longer explosive. The ground on the other hand sits on raw crystal. Something soldiers learned during the war." He answered without glancing up.

Everyone looked at Tarn. No one had expected Overlord or Black Shadow to do any reading up on the planet, but Tarn?

"...That wasn't in the official briefing."

"No, but it was mentioned in battle reports." Sixshot said holding one up.

"Oh."

A loud wail emerging from the hold grabbing all their attentions. "NOOOOOOO!"    

"Hot Rod?" Tarn was to him in a moment, knocking aside crates blocking his way.

"What's wrong?" Black Shadow asked trying to peer from behind the tank's treads.

With a heave Hot Rod lifted a fallen box off a small star shaped bag which leaked out vibrant energon as he picked it up to examine its contents. "This can't be happening!"  

"What?" Primus, the small bot looked to be on the verge of tears.

"The Turbo Treats! They're all ruined!"

"...What?"

Hot Rod held up the dripping bag for the warriors to peer inside. The crystallized energon goodies had all been broken into fragments, leaking out sweet energon that was seeping through the bag's mesh.

"Turbo Treats, they're the most scrumptious and delicious candy ever made!" 

Everyone could only stare in disbelief. Candy? Hot Rod had kept cool through almost dying, crashing, getting stranded and the thing that finally broke him down was the loss of his snacks.

It suddenly struck Black Shadow just how young Hot Rod was. Over the years he had frequently been called to caretake the sparkling. He had seen him grow so much from just a tiny protoform, but he was still so small -and fragile. He doubted Hot Rod even had any control over his spark yet. He watched the tiny bot sit next to his belongings, cradling the bag against his chassis.

They had to get him home.

Black Shadow stepped forward, kneeling to placed a supportive servo on Hot Rod's shoulder. "Hey, y' know we're right next to a town. I remember last time we were here some natives started recreating Cyb food. Maybe there's a place around that sells them."

Hot Rod sniffed, looking up at him. "Really?"

"Sure."

Tarn looked less than pleased "Wait, we can't-

"I agree." Overlord spoke up. "Hot Rod you should explore the settlement, we need you to... scout the area for us. This is a very important mission."

Hot Rod jumped up at that. He looked positively elated over the prospect of doing something useful. "Can I get Turbo Treats too?"

"Yes."

"Awesome! I won't let you guys down!"

Tarn was starting to freak out again. "We have no idea-"

"Great!" Black Shadow said giving him an encouraging pat on the back. He smiled up at Tarn. "Come on Tarn, give him some shanix."

"Yes, come on, Tarn." Overlord looked to be enjoying Tarn's anxiety way too much. "You can't say no to that face." he nodded to Hot Rod who was exercising his best turbo puppy eyed look.

Tarn shot them both a glare as he pulled out a handful of change from subspace and handed it to the elated sparkling who quickly took off towards the town. "I won't let you guys down!" he reassured them as he dashed across the sand.

They all managed to smile until Hot Rod was beyond the rocky outcrop.

"How could you let him go off!" Everyone recoiled slightly as Tarn's voice flared before he could gather himself. "There haven't been Cybertronians on this planet for thousands of years, we have no idea what to expect if something like that" he gestured at the sky "thing can take us by surprise!"

"Hot Rod will be fine! If the place is still inhabited it can't be that bad." Black Shadow tried to reason. "Besides, surprises like that are the reason we should scout the refinery before he gets near it."

It didn't seem to reassure Tarn. The smaller con was practically shaking at that point.

"Tarn, everyone's fine. We made it to the refinery, we can get parts for the ship, there's no emergency." Sixshot said.

"We kidnapped Lord Megatron's sparkling!" Tarn was no longer trying to hide his frustration "Took him halfway across the galaxy to the edge of Quintesson space where we almost died upon arrival! Now we're stranded here on a backwater planet infested with hostiles, no way to contact Cybertron, and we cannot even expect anyone to worry about us for ten years.

So do tell me exactly what part of this situation is not considered an emergency."

No one had an answer to that.

~o~o~o~

Wow, this place was small. On Cybertron buildings would stretch seemingly endlessly to the sky while numerous sublevels plunged deep towards the planets core.

This was the most tranquil place Hot Rod had ever been in his life. The town was set on a stretch of land sloped between the cliff they had crashed behind and a verdant landscape dotted with sloping mountains. All the buildings were small and colourful, the ones he could see sported painted signs advertising a variety of businesses and activities.

Pretty, but not exactly the adventurous atmosphere he was expecting.

For all its foreign quaintness, so much of it still seemed familiar. All the signs and posters were in Neocybex. Hot Rod could recognize some of the items they were advertising as being identical or off-shoots of Cybertronian goods -Black Shadow was right- even the natives looked normal.

Hot Rod had imagined all kinds of exotic species inhabiting the planet like the ones he'd spent his function learning about, but walking the boardwalk running along the shops, everyone he saw looked like regular mechs -even if he couldn't see sparks on any of them. At least it meant the few mechs walking around paid no mind to the curious sparkling bouncing about the town.

Finding places that sold food and candy wasn't hard, but none of the places he stopped at seemed to have any trace of the delicious treats he was looking for.

He groaned in disappointment when a quick glance at yet another vendor's wares held nothing but brightly coloured alien candies mixed with several recognizable Cybertronian treats like -

eww, Cougaraider Cakes. Hot Rod didn't even think those things were still sold on Cybertron, nobody liked them -they don't even look like cougaraiders he thought, glaring at the deformed pastries as though they had personally wronged him.

What was he going to do without Turbo Treats? He didn't know how long it would be until the Phase-Sixers got the ship working again, It could be weeks before he got to taste another!

Well, if there was one thing his creators had taught him it was to never give up. He was prepared to search the entire town to find his precious snacks.

Which turned out to not be necessary when he rounded a corner to see a storefront hanging several poster adds in its window, including a very familiar one.

Could it be? Yes! He'd recognize that brightly coloured, stylized turbofox anywhere!

The shop turned out to be some kind of video store. The name Rec. & Roll Video hung in bold glyphs beneath the giant vid-disc decorating the building's roof.

Not that Hot Rod saw any of that as he wasted no time bursting through the store's door.

A multitude of colourful discs lined the shelves while some lay strewn on the floor. What space remained on the walls and ceiling was plastered with vibrant posters -none of which Hot Rod recognized.

There were two employees, one reshelving the videos and one at back counter near a large junk food display.

"Welcome to R&R!" The black and white minibot behind the counter greeted him, Hot Rod was at the display before he'd even finished his sentence.

"Where are the Turbo Treats?!" There were no Turbo Treats. Why were there no Turbo Treats? Did they sell out? When would they get more?

If the cashier was taken aback he hid it well. "Oh, um, we don't sell those anymore." he said to the sparkling pressing his face against the display.

"But you have the ad in your window!" Hot Rod looked up at him pleadingly.

"Huh? Oh yeah, we've been meaning to take that down. Chromedome?" he called to the other employee.

"Busy."

Hot Rod whined. "This can't be happening, this has to be a dream, please tell me I'm dreaming." he said collapsing to the floor in distress, almost bumping into Chromedome carrying an armful of tapes.

"Careful, I'm stocking here!" he said narrowly dodging the sparkling.

"I'm sorry," the cashier tried to console him "I guess they stopped making them."

Chromedome snorted, "I guess they couldn't compete with Cougaraider Cakes."

"UGHHHHHH!" Those things were horrible, how did they even make it here from Cybertron -more importantly who in their right mind was buying them over Turbo Treats?!

With a groan, he tried rolling onto his back only to land uncomfortably on several of the discs lying next to him. "Why is everything on the ground?" he asked sitting up.

The cashier sighed, "The earthquake knocked everything around. It's usually a lot neater than this."

That sounded interesting "What earthquake?"

The mech looked at him, "The one that happened a couple hours ago? Did you not feel it, it was huge."

"Well, we just got here a few cycles ago."

"Yeah I haven't seen you around before. Are you from out of town?"

"Yeah, I'm Hot Rod." The sparkling said, standing to lift out a servo.

"I'm Rewind," the cashier said shaking it "That's Chromedome." He gestured to his companion who made a noise in acknowledgement.

"Are you from the city?" Rewind asked the bitlet who thankfully seemed done with his mini fit.

"No. I came from space." Hot Rod answered, resting his helm against the display as he examined the rest of the candy for anything worthwhile. "We kinda crashed into your beach." Nothing. Sighing he absentmindedly used his finger to doodle a small turbofox head on the glass. "Actually, it was probably our ship that caused the earthquake." he said before finally noticing the two employees staring at him with what he imagined to be slack jawed expressions.

"Wait, are you from Cybertron?" Rewind asked leaning over the counter to get a better look at the sparkling.

"How did you know?"

"That crystal," he said pointing to the light blue gem embedded in Hot Rod's chest, excitement flashing across his field. "I knew it looked familiar!"

"My spark?"               

Chromedome had also stepped forward to see, "It looks like the one that weird guy has."

"Weird guy?" No way. ''There's another Cybertronian living here?" What were they doing here, did the Decepticons know about them?

"Yeah. He owns like a gym or something downtown."

"Are you here for him?" Rewind asked.

"No, we-" Hot Rod straightened, flaring out his plating the best he could he tried to imitate the impressive and commanding stance he'd seen his creators use so often.

"We've come here to protect this planet from evil!"

"...um."

"Oh! Speaking of, I should get back." He hadn't actually been gone for too long, but he'd still gotten caught up in exploring the town. The Decepticons might need his help. Without giving the others a chance to reply, Hot Rod was already dashing out, pausing in the doorway to wave. "Bye, Chromedome and Rewind!"

The two waved weakly after him until he was gone.

"...what?"

~o~o~o~

Humming his way back to the beach Hot Rod thought about what he'd learned. This planet was already turning out to be interesting. It wasn't as big or exciting, but it was so different from Cybertron that it fascinated him anyways. So did the thought of another Cybertronian living nearby, he might even be able to help them fix their ship.

And Rewind had talked about a city. Maybe they'd sell Turbo Treats there!

The Phase-Sixers were nowhere to be found amongst the crash but four large sets of prints heading towards the refinery was all the tip he needed to head up the sandy path. The refinery was impressive from a distance but up close Hot Rod could see small designs and details in the architecture that somehow reminded him of those in the Primal Basilica.

He was talking before the door to the refinery had a chance to properly slide open. "Guys, you won't believe thi-"

A startled shout left his vocaliser as something big and drooling tackled him to the ground. Only quick reflexes let him push it away in time to stop it from biting at his helm but it was still too heavy to throw off on his own, and it was relentless. Turning his helm from the monster still snapping at him he tried shouting once again when the weight disappeared.

"Hey, Roddy."

It was Black Shadow who held the writhing creature away from him almost casually. Hot Rod could see now it was long and segmented, coloured a sickly greenish tinge and covered in numerous flailing legs with a single optic peering out from the inside of its screeching maw.

Turning,  Black Shadow tossed the thing across the room closer to where the rest of the Phase-Sixers where busy fighting a small horde of identical creatures. There were many, but they were being quickly dispatched by the seasoned warriors. Hot Rod watched as Overlord effortlessly picked one up to pull it apart with both servos. The creature snapped right in two, but rather than the spurt of internal fluid Hot Rod had expected, it disappeared in Overlord's grasp as though it were made of smoke.

The nonchalance with which everyone was going about had Hot Rod's panic turning very quickly into fascination with the strange things. Tarn and Sixshot were chasing them around the hall almost comically as the things seemed to realise they were out matched and opted to try taking cover in surrounding furniture.

"Awesome," he stood up and watched as one scurried across the floor in front of him clutching a datapad in its beak. "What are these things?"

"They were infesting the place when we opened it up." said Black Shadow as he wandered over to take care of one attempting to hide under a nearby table.

Tarn picked one up from the floor holding it still as it squirmed in his arms. "Thankfully I don't think they were able to get into the inner levels."

With the chaos over Hot Rod could now get a proper look at the room they all stood in. It was big, about the size of his room back on Cybertron, but it looked like a complete living space. To the left was a small recreation area with a raised platform Hot Rod could see contained a berth while the right side held what looked to be fully stocked kitchen complete with an energon dispenser.

All in all everything looked adequate. The sparse furniture was nothing like what he was used to back home and thick layers of dust still covering the parts of the complex not disturbed by the scuffle told of just how long it had been since this place was inhabited by anything other than the creatures still crawling about.

But what really got the sparkling's attention was the large door centered on the far wall of the room -large enough for any of the Phase-Sixers to pass through unimpeded. It was covered in shallow scratches most likely caused by the creatures looking to get in, but they were easily overlooked.

The entire thing was ornate, its center was embedded with a clear spark-like gem surrounded by intricate engravings that reminded Hot Rod of the matrix. In front of that was what looked to be a mini space bridge nexus lain horizontally on the ground.

 He looked back to the creature still in Tarn's arms that he was now starting to recognise resembled one of the organic animals his sire had taught him about -a centipeetle or something.

"Are they organic?" Their resemblance to the alien insects seemed to suggest so, but looking closely now Hot Rod could see the metallic gleam covering the thing's body.

"Most likely a hybrid of sorts, we'll get rid of them." Tarn said as the centipeetle in his arms renewed its struggling, hissing wildly.

"Aww." they may have seemed a scary at first but the longer he watched them the more they just peaked Hot Rod's curiosity -especially that smoke vanishing thing, how dangerous could they really be if they did that- maybe they could even keep one as a pet! "You don't have to do that, they're really cool!"

Hot Rod took a step back as the centipeetle Tarn was holding let out a choked gurgling noise as it continued thrashing -and not a moment too soon. The creature spat out a large mouthful of drool right where Hot Rod had been standing that began eating away at the metal floor before their optics, quickly leaving a small crater and a horrible acidic smell.

Ok, maybe not a good pet.                

In the kitchen Sixshot was finishing up with the last of the creatures, kicking one into a cupboard with a force that broke it's back, destroying it in that same cloud of white smoke. Sixshot leaned down to examine the empty space where it disappeared.

"Are we sure these things are what we think they are?"

Looking up from the still steaming crater, Tarn contemplated the centipeetle in his arms. "They have to be."

"Well they don't have sparks."

"That might mean there's a queen somewhere." Overlord mused, not even flinching as one of the centipeetle reared up beside him only to be quickly dispatched by a solid punch.

Tarn sighed. "We should probably find it before anyone gets hurt."

Well if that didn't sound like adventure, Hot Rod didn't know what did!

"Oh, oh! Can I come?! Can I, can I?!" he begged the warriors.

The cons exchanged glances -no one wanted to be the one to disappoint the small mech- and after a quick series of head gestures, a disgruntled Tarn was singled out.

"Hot Rod," Tarn sighed, "how many of your abilities can you use?" he said and watched as the excitement drained from the sparkling's face plates. Ok, that was maybe a little cruel. They all knew the answer.

"I... well..." None. The answer was none. It wasn't fair, other mechs his age would usually have come into at least one of their powers by now. He couldn't transform, he couldn't subspace, he couldn't summon a weapon, he couldn't regenerate -well he might be able to regenerate, he'd never really tried that one- for all the power his creators held, he'd never been able to do anything special.

Tarn continued, "I'm sorry Hot Rod, but until you learn to control the powers in your spark, we'll take care of protecting this planet." he said snapping the neck of the centipeetle in his arms. Hot Rod watched it fall limp to the ground before vanishing. "Alright?"

Hot Rod wanted to protest but he knew Tarn was probably right. "Aw..."

The sound of a door opening drew everyone's attention to the kitchen area where one of the creatures was rifling through one of the cupboards Sixshot had knocked open. Suddenly irritated at the things, Hot Rod chased after it.

"Hey! Get out of there! Go on, shoo, shoo!" he swatted at it until it scurried away with a can in its beak. The storage unit was filled with a variety of snack foods, most of which had been either knocked about or torn into by the nosey bug Overlord was currently moving to deal with. Most of it was Cybertronian food -likely leftover from the last few stationed teams- data chips, Energon-Os, chocolate-coated wheel-nuts, Frosted Gold Flakes, eugh- Cougaraider Cakes, and

"No way... it can't be!"

Oh yes, there was that familiar pink packaging!

"What is it?" asked Black Shadow asked taking a seat on the nearby counter as they all crowded around the kitchen.

Hot Rod grabbed one of the Turbo Treats and raised it triumphantly over his helm to show the cons. "I can't believe this!" Hot Rod stared at the package in awe. "I'm gonna save these forever!" ... "Right after I eat this one."

Tarn raised a servo "Hot Rod, those things have to be millennia old-"

Too late, the sparkling was already chomping away with such a happy expression Tarn figured they could deal with potential food poisoning later.

"Mmm, still good!" Hot Rod said looking up with a mouthful of energon. What even were the chances of finding these things? The Turbo Treats in this cupboard may be the last ones on this entire planet. It was a small thing, but maybe things were starting to look up. For all that had happened today, everyone was alive, safe -yeah, probably- and if all the monsters they were fighting were as easy to beat up as the centipeetle then literally nothing could go wrong.

"Um, Hot Rod..." Sixshot said.

"Wha?" Everyone was staring at him with weird expressions. That's when he noticed the light.

"My spark!"

For the first time in his existence the gem on his chest was glowing and everyone could only stare.

Finally Black Shadow spoke up, "Quick try and summon your weapon!" That was usually the easiest to do.

"I don't know how!" The glow was already dwindling. How was he supposed to do this, this had never happened before. Hot Rod tried to remember some of the advice his creators had given him but in that moment all he could do was panic. "It's fading! How do I make it come back!?"

"Calm down, Hot Rod. Don't force it." Tarn tried to reassure him.

"Yeah, you'll blow a fuse." Black Shadow joked in a weak attempt to lighten the mood.

Too late. As quickly as the glow had come it was gone and Hot Rod's spark was once again as unresponsive as it had always been. The dejected sparkling sunk to the floor and tried to will his spark to do something -anything. He was so close to being able to go on adventures, to being part of the team -to being a real Cybertronian. He sighed. "Can one of you just explain how to summon a weapon?"

~o~o~o~

Two cycles and four short conversations later and Hot Rod felt even further away from activating his spark. The three Decepticons he asked had all given different advice for summoning a weapon,

Tarn had said that power came from a sense of duty. Dedication to a cause bigger than one's self is what allowed him the use of his double fusion canon.

Sixshot said that it was about focus. He summoned his swords through hard work and careful discipline. 

Black Shadow's blaster came when he needed it. According to him, the power was his, all he had to do was want it.

Hot Rod couldn't think of anything he'd really be willing to fight for. Cybertron he guessed -that would be his job soon enough anyways- but thinking about home was too stressful at the moment. He certainly wanted it bad enough, but the idea of having to train for something so simple was already frustrating him.

Hot Rod wished he had pestered his creators more about using their sparks, but they never seemed willing to talk about their powers. He'd never even really seen their weapons, he only knew what they look like from the numerous depictions of them in war.

Hot Rod was just about ready to give up when help came a little unexpectedly.

Overlord hadn't answered when he'd originally asked the mech for advice, but he'd come back while the small bot sulked on the sandy beach.

Using the other's methods wouldn't help him, he'd said regarding the sparkling. If he ever wanted to summon his weapon, he'd need to find his own way.

Now that was a good idea. 

~o~o~o~

For Primus' sake, Overlord had only talked to the sparkling out of a strange sense of pity. He'd been wandering around the beach for cycles after listening to those three idiots -moping about, kicking sand and throwing petals in the air as the warriors tried to set up their remaining supplies in the refinery- it was annoying.

 But now the little prince had them all gathered back in the kitchen, repositioning them back and forth as he instructed them. "I think my best bet is to recreate what happened the last time my spark glowed...

Black Shadow I think your arms were crossed, and Tarn, your pede was riiight - there!"

"Hot Rod, I don't think it works this way." Sixshot said as the sparkling began rearranging Overlord.

"No wait, I got it!" Hot Rod said as he dashed over to the treat cupboard and pulled out the half-eaten turbo treat from before, tearing off the wrapper.

"And finally I took a bite of... THIS!" He said holding the candy up in anticipation. 

~o~o~o~

Nothing happened.

Absolutely nothing.

Everything seemed the same, but Hot Rod had once again failed at something so simple. He looked down at the turbo treat in his servos. Even its sugary face was doing little to cheer him up.

He sighed, "Maybe I'm just not a real Cybertronian.

"Of course you are, Hot Rod." Tarn said bending to the orange bot's level

"Yeah, even if your spark is inert-" Black Shadow hesitated when Tarn sent him a warning glare from behind his mask "What I mean is -no matter what happens, as long as we're here we're all a team."

That seemed to perk the small bot up. "Yeah, and if we're going to be here a while that means you guys have the time to train me!"   

"Well-"

"You're the best warriors on Cybertron," he said looking around the group "if anyone could teach me to use my powers it'd be you guys right?"

Oh, there were those wide optics again. It was always impossible to say no to that face -that had to be a power all on its own. All the other Decepticons were once again looking at Tarn to answer.

Tarn sighed. Without the tools to fix the Guardian they were all stranded for the foreseeable future, which meant there was little justification for not helping the sparkling. Even if Hot Rod wouldn't be facing any combat -they'd make sure of that- he still felt obliged to help the sparkling with this important rite of passage, and Tarn would be surprised if any of the others didn't agree.

"Of course we'll mentor you." Except Overlord. Tarn would have to keep a close optic on him.

The sparkling's field exploded with happiness. "Awesome!" He exclaimed, accidentally flicking drops of energon around and he gestured with his treat. "And hey, even if I don't have powers, I still have Turbo Treats." He said taking a bite from the one in his servo. Mmmmm.

"Um, Hot Rod..."

No way.

The blue light was back, brighter than before. Everyone watched mesmerised as the glow took shape and solidified.

"Hot Rod, it's a bow!" Tarn said staring at the formed weapon.

"Whoa, what? I get a bow?! Oh, yeah!" Hot Rod exclaimed, jumping with joy and accidentally setting of the loaded bow. It launched past Sixshot and Overlord who dodged just in time for the arrow to miss, embedding itself in an old television set.

Wait a minute," Hot Rod said once Black Shadow had stopped laughing, "I summon my weapon by eating candy!" Yup, things were definitely starting to look up.

"What's in these things?" Tarn wondered, examining the discarded wrapper.

Chapter Text

The refinery only had one bunk which none of the Phase-Sixers were small enough to fit on. It was given to Hot Rod while one of the mattresses was removed for makeshift bedding -the bottom bunk, because Hot Rod still wanted the top- that Black Shadow quickly claimed.

That night the cons settled down the best they could among stacks of luggage and cargo and tried to recharge. There were only two couches, both of which were way too small to be comfy but were better than recharging on the floor like Black Shadow who's bedding left most of him on the ground anyway. Tarn's couch was digging uncomfortably into his treads but he'd insisted on taking it as it positioned him right between Overlord and Hot Rod.

The sparkling hadn't wanted to rest but in the end it was his excitement that finally wore him out, leaving Black Shadow to carry him to the berth half-awake and muttering about Turbo Treats. Sixshot was the best off, transforming into wolf mode and curling up near the energon dispenser  that had been giving off a small amount of heat since they powered it on.

Of course being in beast mode had a few other advantages. 

Advantages like heightened senses that woke the warrior in the middle of the night to find someone moving about.

Sixshot watched Overlord from the kitchen. The triple changer didn't move towards Hot Rod, but rather approached the large, engraved door across the room.

They had spent all day trying to open that thing. That had to be the entrance that lead to the inner workings of the refinery -including the actual processing plant and, hopefully, more living quarters- but the Warriors Elite had no better luck getting inside than the insects that had been infesting the place for decades. 

There was no visible way to open it and punching it did nothing - boy did they try that. Whatever it was made of was infuriatingly durable, not even Overlord's gauntlets had managed to leave a dent in the metal.

It didn't seem like he was going to try again though, the blue con just seemed to be examining it.

Sixshot approached slowly. He made no noise but Overlord still didn't look surprised to see the wolf come up next to him. 

For a long while neither spoke.

::Is this where you imagined you'd be after the war?:: Overlord commed him.

Sixshot knew what he was getting at. ::Cybertron will notice our radio silence eventually::

::No, they will not::

Sixshot found he couldn't argue the point.

::One of us could fly out:: He suggested half-heartedly. He knew they couldn't, all of them knew it. 

Not only was U1 impossibly far from Cybertron, it was also completely out of range of any other life supporting planet. If one of them went out -even with all the energon they could possibly carry- they would almost certainly starve to death before getting anywhere close to another energy source.

Especially with the power requirements they all ran on.

::What about your core?:: Overlord asked.

Oh no, definitely not. 

Sixshot's power core was... unique. It had to be to balance the inevitable strain having six alt modes put on a spark. Dark matter fission cells were powerful, self-regenerating, and the same thing used to power space bridges. Sixshot's worked on the same basic principle. With a significant power reroute, he could generate small bridges virtually anywhere within range.

Halfway across the galaxy was not 'in range'.

Even if they could hook him up to the refinery's entire power grid, it would only get them part of the distance.

Either way, slow death by starvation in an endless void.

::No::

For a while they both just stood there in the quiet of the night. The sound of the ocean's waves outside and the thrumming resonating from deep within the refinery became a peaceful white noise overlaid with the low rumbling of the other con's power cores -and below that, a faint but higher pitched whirring of a small speedster engine.

"It was irresponsible of us to not examine our cargo." Overlord spoke quietly.

"...Yes, it was."

"I can't imagine how hard this must be on the youngling."

Sixshot transformed and leaned back against the door, field drawn in and arms crossed. Overlord continued,

"Of course most of the blame rests on his creators.

To think, how could the Prime and Protector  be so careless with their own creation?" Overlord's voice was sweet, full of fabricated concern. "It's not fair. Not on him,

certainly not on us.."

Sixshot had enough of whatever game this was, he stepped towards the blue warrior and whispered low and clear,

"Which is why we will find a way off this planet. We'll get back to Cybertron, and we'll return him to his creators. Unharmed. You're right, this isn't fair -but that's why we will protect him."

But Overlord wasn't looking at him. At first Sixshot stopped himself from turning around -expecting some sort of trick- but from the corner of his optics he could see light coming from behind him.

The gem in the centre of the door was glowing. It was the same white as the spark on his back, which the six changer realised had pressed against it as he leaned back.

After a klik of surprised staring, the colour and light faded until it was once again as clear as glass.

Curious, Sixshot slowly activated his spark, focusing on the gem.

The door opened.

~o~o~o~

When Hot Rod awoke the Phase-Sixers were gone, so were all the boxes. Some of them had to have been unpacked, Hot Rod could see datapads and nicknacks around the room that weren't there yesterday.

The cons weren't outside either. The Guardian -visible from the refinery entrance- showed no signs of being tampered with. In all likelihood the warriors had probably gone into town for parts to repair the ship.

Probably... 

He'd known Tarn, Sixshot and Black Shadow almost his entire function -well enough to know they wouldn't just leave him.

He'd never really met Overlord -for some reason he couldn't ever recall his creators asking the mech to caretake him- and he was starting to worry the triple changer didn't like him very much.

Well, if they were going to be here for a while then they should all find a way to bond.

The kitchen had everything he needed, and it might be a while before everyone came back...

~o~o~o~

Black Shadow was the first to return. Hot Rod heard the distinct sounds of transformation outside the main door before mech came in carrying a stack of fliers.

"Hey Roddy."

"Black Shadow!" The sparkling bounded over to him. "What are those?"

"Ah, nothing. I see you've been... cooking?" He looked towards the suspicious pile of food (?) on the counter.

"Yeah, I made us all breakfast! 

...Where is everyone?"

"Oh yeah, we figured out how to get into the refinery! It's tuned to spark frequencies. Here, check it out." Black Shadow lifted his left arm and activated his spark. The gem in the centre of the door lit up orange before the entire thing slid away.

"Awesome!" Hot Rod caught a brief glimpse of piles of items and raised platforms before Black Shadow stepped inside. "Can I see?"

"Um -well, it's a little dangerous. Some of the rooms are kinda wonky, we think there's a malfunctioning subspace generator somewhere...

Maybe some other time." He offered before the door closed.

"Wait!" Hot Rod ran over but couldn't find any way to reopen the door. He tried activating his spark, even pressing it right against the metal. "Door! Open, door!

Aw, why won't you work!"

He was tempted to get a Turbo Treat to help him, but if those really were the last ones on this planet he didn't want to use them outside of an emergency. Plus, he didn't even know if it would help -being able to summon a weapon didn't mean he could activate a door.

Well it might...

Before he could make up his mind the gem started glowing again, this time a bright pink and Hot Rod had just enough time to step back before it split open and Tarn emerged holding a large canvas. The room behind him had changed from when Black Shadow had entered, now a deep purple filled with lush furniture.

"Good morning, Hot Rod." He said walking around the room gauging the walls with the frame.

"Tarn, perfect! Check it out!" Hot Rod ran over and grabbed the still smoking plate of food he'd prepared. "I thought we could eat together, like best buds."

"Ah, that's nice." Tarn didn't seem to be listening, having found the perfect spot for his picture.

"What's that?" He asked as the con began hanging it up, just to the right of the main entrance.

"If we have to stay here this place should at least be liveable." Tarn said stepping back to admire his handiwork.

It was a portrait of his carrier. 

Tarn must have brought it from Cybertron. It was an actual painting, not a picture and it was very well made. He looked regal, arms lightly crossed and purple spark shining faintly on his forearm. 

He wasn't sure why Tarn had it, but seeing creator's face again seemed to lift a weight Hot Rod hadn't yet realised was there

But,

"Do you have one of my sire too?"

Tarn looked torn. "Ur, well, I- suppose we could... have one made... I suppose."

The sound of the refinery door opening drew their attention. The gem shone sea green but when the door opened it was Sixshot who emerged.

"What are you doing?" Tarn asked the six changer holding a glass jar full of fake brain modules.

"It seems some things got mixed up." He said holding up the decoration.

"Ah, my bad." Tarn apologised, "I thought they were Overlord's."

"Hm. These things have been jostled enough. They shouldn't be moved around too much, it could kill them."

"Kill them?" Hot Rod asked trying to get a better look at the floating orbs. "There're fake right?"

"..... yes?"

"Anyway," the sparkling lifted his platter to show the six changer, "Now that most of us are here, we just need to get the other two!"

"What is that?" Sixshot asked examining the thing the small mech seemed so proud of.

"I wanted us all to have our energon together, so I made us a together breakfast." He told Sixshot and Ta- 

Wait had Tarn left?

"But, everyone keeps leaving!"

Sixshot sighed. "Sorry Hot Rod. There's a lot of stuff to do around this place, things to organise, parts to find, and the inner room are a little... non-Euclidean."

"What's that mean?"

"It means that it's dangerous." Sixshot told the sulking youngling. Reopening the door he headed into his own room. "We'll have lunch together instead."

Hot Rod watched him go for a moment before making up his mind and heading after him. He squeezed himself and his breakfast through just before the door closed and found himself outside.

Wait, no. This couldn't be outside. The sky was dark in the later stages of twilight, not the morning his chronometer assured him it was. What he first thought was organic foliage turned out to be a hologram that phased through his servos as he reached for it. He thought he could see the edges of the room where the projection ended, but that had to be another optical distortion - that would make the place larger than seemed physically possible for the space of the refinery.

Either way the place certainly didn't look dangerous.

Sixshot hadn't noticed him yet. He was across the room in a part where the projection ended, organising the jar amongst several similar ones Hot Rod couldn't see the contents of.

"Hey, Sixshot!"

The six former jerked at the sound of his designation, accidentally dropping one of the jars which shattered when it hit the ground, pink liquid and silver orbs spilling everywhere.

The con didn't seem to care. "Why are you here?"

"We need to get everyone together! Meet me in the kitchen, I'll get the others."

"Hot Rod you can't be in here."

But the small mech had already found a door and was out it before Sixshot could get to him.

"Hot Rod!" He heard the warrior call, but when he turned back around Sixshot wasn't there anymore.

Neither was the doorway.

He was standing in a long hallway lined with doorways -the first few he tried seemed to lead right back to the place he entered- with no sign of any of the cons. A few times he'd see a shadow move in the corner of his optic, but anytime he'd turn he'd still be alone.

The fifth exit finally lead somewhere -or at least somewhere else. Hot rod wasn't sure it qualified as a physical space.

The new area was entirely empty, not just devoid of items but a completely blank plane and for a very brief moment Hot Rod thought he had somehow walked right into an atmosphere-less void. The room was entirely white -almost blinding so, and unlike Sixshot's room he couldn't see where the room began or ended. Even the entrance behind him had disappeared, leaving him and his energon standing in the nothingness.

But there was something -very quiet, like it was being muffled by mechanometeres of stone- he could hear Sixshot shouting for him.

He tried to get closer. "Sixshot! SIXSHOT!" He didn't think the warrior could hear him and besides the sound of his pedes echoing in the whiteness, there was nothing to indicate he was moving at all.

Finally he spotted a doorway he hadn't noticed before and hurried through before it had a chance to disappear again.

This room was as big as Sixshot's had been. It was furnished like a berthroom and painted deep blue. He first mistook discolouration creeping along the walls as unattended rust spots, 

but rust generally didn't sparkle.

There were small multicoloured crystals growing out from the walls in patches, peeling through faded paint and eating away worn metal beneath so what might have once been a quaint living space now looked like it was in the process of advanced decay.

It was pretty though. The atmosphere felt a little too foreboding, but up close the natural crystals shimmered in the dim light. Hot Rod reached out to touch one and almost immediately it broke off and crumbled to dust in his servos.

The room was definitely in use however. Among the decay was stuff which had to have been brought in by one of the cons.

Stuff being the best descriptor he could come up with considering the small mech didn't know what half of it was.

He set his plate down on a nearby desk as he looked around for another door -hopefully, this time one that would lead back to the outside- but froze when he saw a small shelf hanging low on a clear section of wall.

There was a small glass box. It was well maintained, only small scratches and scuffs betrayed its age. 

Inside, clearly on display, was a spark.

Hot Rod had seen faded sparks before. Intact gems where the consciousness was gone but the spark itself still functioned. He'd seen them used as macabre power sources to run old technology.

This spark was completely dead. A deep crack spidered out from the centre -almost shattering it entirely. Whatever colour it might once have been had faded away to a dead grey.

"What are you doing."

Overlord was standing in a doorway Hot Rod was sure wasn't there before and he did not look happy.

"Um, I made us all breakfast." The sparkling picked up his plate to show the blue mech.

Overlord didn't respond. Neither of them did for a long moment until Black Shadow skidded in behind the other Phase-Sixer.

"Overlord! Sixshot fragged up an-

Oh." He saw the sparkling. "You ok?"

"Yes."

Black Shadow sighed in relief. "Good. You shouldn't be here, come on." 

He said and looked to Overlord who just waved a hand and another door opened in the wall, this time leading back to the refinery entrance.

Hot Rod mumbled an apology as he followed them out. "I just wanted to eat with you guys..."

He thought he heard Black Shadow start to say something, but before he could step through the door after them the floor opened up and Hot Rod found himself falling.

~o~o~o~

The fall lasted only a second and when he landed he had just enough wherewithal to catch his plate before the energon spilled everywhere.

He was in another strange room, this one a large circular cave -the center of which held a smelting pit Hot Rod could feel the heat radiating off of from across the room. Dark red stalagmites grew everywhere, casting strange shadows around the room. The larger ones had been flattened into platforms and all held gems locked away inside glass boxes.

They could have been sparks, but none of them had the circular shape all Cybertronian life shared. Some were square, others triangular, diamond shaped, and unlike the one in Overlord's room all were alive, glowing slightly in the dim lighting. 

It was unnerving. 

On the other wall was an alcove with a staircase that thankfully didn't seem like it was about to disappear. Carefully, Hot Rod picked himself and his energon up and made his way around the lava pool. 

The sparks seemed to glow brighter as he passed them. There were so many, he was so caught up in watching them he almost tripped when his pede knocked against something solid.

It was a empty containment box. One of the nearby stalagmites had cracked, its surface crumbled away, knocking the container to the ground and jarring it open.

There was no gem around. Hot Rod searched around the fallen cube but found nothing that could have been contained inside.

It could have been empty anyways.

"Hot Rod!" Tarn appeared from the staircase. "Are you alright? How could Sixshot let this happen, this is no place to be wandering arou-"

As Tarn entered the room the shadows on the walls seemed to move and concentrate beneath him. With the next step he took, he phased right through the floor.

"Tarn!" 

The shadows that dragged Tarn down were rising from the floor, taking shape until they rose almost to the ceiling. The featureless creature turned what must have been its head towards the small mech who could only watch, paralysed as the dark mass started clawing its way towards him.

He snapped out of his trance when a sword speared through the creature's body and impaled itself in the wall.

"Hot Rod, run!"

Sixshot summoned another sword and charged. The shadow didn't seemed at all damaged by the six changer's first attack and the next time he struck it, the sword disappeared completely, almost sucking the warrior in as well before he released it.

Overlord and Black Shadow were just arriving on scene, weapons already drawn. Tarn must have commed them with the situation. Black Shadow squared himself and took aim with his blaster, not noticing the void forming above his helm. 

"Above you!" Hot Rod called out to him.

The warrior looked up and barely had time to dodge just as Sixshot's sword reappeared, falling through the open portal and embedding itself in the space he was just standing.

Overlord wasn't doing much better. Most of his focus was going into avoiding the holes the creature was creating beneath him and every hit he managed to land turned into a struggle to pull back his hands before they were swallowed by the shadow.

Tarn reappeared down the steps, cannon charged and blasted the creature without breaking stride.

The fusion shot seemed to finally damage it. The beast wailed and thrashed as Black Shadow got his bearings and fired his own volley.

"It's trying to escape!" Someone shouted, but too late. The creature moved with lightning speed, bypassing the warriors entirely and heading straight for Hot Rod.

He couldn't move fast enough. The force of the impact knocked him backwards, nothing between him and the creature but the energon on his servos. He'd expected to be teleported again but when he onlined his optics the shadow was gone.

The energon was quivering. "Together breakfast?"

Hot Rod shouted in surprise, dropping the plate as the energon blackened and grew, limbs rising out of its mass and twisting into an obsidian beast. Glowing violet biolights ran all along its body, accenting its clawed limbs and sharp maw that Hot Rod got a good look at as the beast descended on him.

The next shot from Tarn's cannon barely damaged it. The creature didn't even flinch as it absorbed the blow, but it was enough to distract it from the terrified sparkling -turning glowing eyes on the gathered cons.

"It's using the energy to reform itself!" Tarn noted before it pounced on them.

It was faster than it looked. Before the purple mech could recharge his cannon the creature was on him, coming down with a large clawed hand. Rather than knock the mech away, Tarn once again disappeared into its body.

He reformed from the ceiling, knocking down Black Shadow who had barely managed to get any of his own shots in.

Overlord came up from behind the creature and managed to get a solid hit in that knocked it to the ground. But on the next blow the beast jumped into the attack, using the blue mech's own momentum to suck him into its body.

The next portal opened up right above the smelting pool, dropping Overlord in. Lava splashed out from the impact. Hot Rod dodged a small puddle but several drops landed on the shadow creature. They burned on its skin like embers on paper and momentarily distracted the beast from its attack.

Hot Rod watched his guardians struggling in despair. "I didn't want this! I just wanted us all to eat together!"

"Hot Rod, you've got to get away!" Sixshot shouted as he aimed to slice off the beast's head, but quicker than either of them could see, the creature brought up a taloned hand and slammed the mech into the wall, knocking the sword from his servos.

That's when Hot Rod noticed something sticking out of its back. 

Stark against the pure ebony surface was his plate -stuck fast to where the creature must have originally formed from.

Across the room, the creature faded Sixshot through its hand and warped him above Tarn and Black Shadow, knock them all back down as it advanced.

Watching the creature move towards his caretakers was all he needed to take action. 

"That's...enough!" Hot Rod jumped out and grabbed onto the plate and held fast as the creature tried to shake him off. "I made you to bring us together, not to tear us apart!"

He could feel himself sinking into the thing's body, but whatever the plate was attached to it wasn't budging and the red mech gripped it tight as the monster tried to teleport him away.

He wanted to just hold on long enough for the warriors to gather themselves, but he soon felt a large pair of hands grab onto him and pull. The sparkling didn't let go, even as the creature doubled its flailing. That's when Hot Rod realised that something was dragging them into the smelting pit.

The creature screeched when it touched the lava. Fire consumed it's body as though it were made of paper, flames traveling upwards and passing over Hot Rod's frame. The fire itself wasn't hot enough to damage his plating, but he shuttered his optics, expecting to be the next one to fall in the pool.

The screams of the creature finally died down and Hot Rod realised he wasn't melting. 

He was in Overlord's arms, clutching the plate to his chest. Hot Rod wanted to thank him, but the triple changer was still standing waist deep in lava and the heat from his plating was starting to burn.

Hot Rod told him as much and the mech set him down on the edge of the pit and climbed out himself. Finally relaxing his vice grip on the plate, Hot Rod noticed something stuck to one of its sides. 

It was a violet, diamond shaped gem.

The other cons made their way over to them. Tarn picked up the empty containment box and knelt next to the sparkling, holding out a servo. Hot Rod handed him the plate and the mech carefully separate the two parts, placing the gem back in its case.

Hot Rod watched him set it back amongst the others and took in the damage.

The room was an absolute mess. Rubble was strewn about, lava had melted craters all around the floor, and there was a distinct Sixshot shaped hole in the far wall.

"I'm sorry guys." The sparkling said, "I guess I dreamed to big..."

~o~o~o~

::Do we really have to eat this?:: Black Shadow looked down at the food Hot Rod placed in front of them.

If it was somehow possible, this meal looked even less edible than the first one. Hot Rod looked so happy though when they said he could re-cook breakfast. 

Tarn cleared his intake, "Unfortunately Hot Rod, with my mask I can only drink liquid energon."

"Wait a klik Tarn, you can remove that thing can't you?" Black Shadow smirked.

Overlord joined in, "That's right. I've seen you do it before." If they had to suffer, so did he.

Tarn glared at both of them. He tried to think up another excuse but Hot Rod was looking at him so hopefully and -oh, there was that wide-opticed look again.

"Ah, right. I.... forgot."

Unclasping his mask, Tarn pushed it up just enough to expose his mouth.

Sixshot watched them with satisfaction, drinking a cube through his auxiliary intake. He knew none of them could prove he had a mouth, but the sparkling had still been happy to pour him some regular energon.

::Can't we all eat out?:: Black Shadow tried one last time.

::Just smile::

Chapter Text

"Hey Swerve, give me the bits!"  

"Hot Rod, we're closed." The red mech behind the counter pointed to the bolded sign hanging from the stand's window.

"Awww, what?" The sparkling groaned in disappointment.

Swerve jumped when Black Shadow smacked the counter top "Give him the bits!"

"The bits! The bits! The bits!" Hot Rod joined in on the banging until they were both shaking the small hut.

"Ok, ok! Watch the counter!" Swerve said as Hot Rod and Black Shadow high-fived in victory. He headed to the back and emptied one of the energon filters into a small bag. "You know I have actual snacks."

"Just the bits please." Hot Rod said as Swerve handed it to him. "Thanks!"     

"What about you?" He asked the con who seemed content to help Hot Rod finish his snacks.

" 'm good."

'Bits' were really just a crystallized by-product of making high-grade. They were more or less just mineral deposits, but they made for a rather tasty snack and Hot Rod had been fond of them since Black Shadow brought back a few when he first found the small bar.

The Cybertronians had been on U1 for a few days now and when they realised none of the natives were going to raise a ruckus over their presence -or really even bother investigating the crash site- they figured that meant it was safe to go out and mingle, though so far only Hot Rod and Black Shadow seemed interested. News of Cybertronians being on the planet had spread around, but for the most part it seemed mechs just didn't care.

The sun was just setting as the two headed back to the refinery. Technically they were supposed to have spent the day searching for parts to fix the Guardian, but it was a lot more fun to explore the various shops and attractions around town -like the Funland Arcade.

While Black Shadow kept trying to swipe more bits, Hot Rod was watching the sky. "Sunset's my favourite time of day."

"Yeah?" Black Shadow said between mouthfuls.

"It's nicer than on Cybertron." Hot Rod explained, "The sun goes down, and the second sun gets bigger and bigger in the sky..." 

Black Shadow burst out laughing, "Hot Rod, this planet doesn't have a-"

Oh. 

Oh no.

"What is - Ah!" Hot Rod yelped as Black Shadow abruptly picked him up -dropping the bits to the sparkling's dismay- and took off running towards the beach.    

~o~o~o~

The other three were already there, Sixshot watching the sky through a pair of binoculars while Overlord and Tarn discussed amongst themselves.

"Six! Overlord! Tarn!" Black Shadow called to them as he ran up the sand tying to motion at the sky with servos full of Hot Rod.

Tarn sighed, "We saw. Some of us are doing our job. Where were you?"

Black Shadow opted not to answer but thankfully Hot Rod spoke up instead "Can I see?"

Remembering the bot in his arms, Black Shadow set the small mech down next to Sixshot who handed him the binoculars.

The 'second sun' looked to be a crystalline meteorite that was way too big and travelling way too slow. He was going to suggest they just blast it out of the sky -until he saw it shutter. Part of its surface retracted to reveal a smooth ruby lens that eerily reminded Hot Rod of an eye.

Not an optic, but an organic eye- staring lifelessly down at the planet.

::Is that what shot us down?:: Black Shadow asked over the comms.

::Most likely.:: Sixshot replied.

Hot Rod handed the binoculars back to him -he was starting to feel like the eye was staring at them. "What do we do?"

The awkward silence that followed answered that question well enough.

Black Shadow sighed, "This would be a good time for one of Megs' fusion cannons."

"My carrier?" Hot Rod knew his creator was strong, but looking up at the gargantuan orb blotting out most of the evening sky, he wasn't sure his carrier's personal weapon would quite be enough.

Tarn elaborated, "During the war, Lord Megatron built powerful light cannons based on his own weapon. Several of them were hidden on this planet but..."

"We don't need Megatron." Overlord snapped, "No one even knows where the cannons are. We'll take care of this ourselves."

Oh wait! That reminded him, "There's another Cybertronian living here!" Hot Rod tried to remember exactly what Chromedome and Rewind had said about them.

He figured he probably should have brought this up a few days ago, but well -no time like the present. "He might know where the cannon is!"

"I thought no one was stationed here?" Sixshot asked Tarn.

"No one's supposed to be..."

"They're probably just a grunt who got left behind after the war." Black Shadow spoke up "They'd have no idea where to find a cannon and if they did they'd have broken or lost it by now."

"He's right, we'll handle this." Sixshot said before he, Overlord, and Black Shadow transformed to fly at the approaching eye.

Hot Rod couldn't shake the thought of the mystery Cybertron having the chance of aiding them. At the very least if he didn't have a cannon he might still be able to help them fight.

While Tarn was caught up watching the others, Hot Rod slipped off towards the town.

~o~o~o~

'A gym or something' wasn't exactly specific and so Hot Rod was stuck searching around the town for a good while until he finally found someone who knew what he was talking about ("With a gem like this." He said pointing to his own spark) and now he found himself in front of a small yoga studio. In the wide windows he could see a single mech sitting inside.

The door was unlocked. The entire building was basically one big room that was mostly empty save for a few mats lying about and the white and red mech seated cross-legged in the centre with his back to the door.

He didn't do anything until Hot Rod approached him.

"Welcome," he spoke without turning around "could I help you with something?"

This was definitely the right mech. From his position Hot Rod could see the bright yellow spark embedded in his upper back, right in the same place as Sixshot's.

"I came to see you." Hot Rod stopped to collect himself, once again trying to summon the charisma his creators had always given off so flawlessly. "We need your help."

At that the mech finally turned to face him only to freeze mid motion when he saw the sparkling, his optics landing on his spark.

"You're a Cybertronian."

It wasn't really a question but Hot Rod nodded anyway. 

"I... Come in." He gestured to the mats laying around the room. "My name is Drift."

Hot Rod took a seat next to him "I'm Hot Rod."

"What brings you here?"

~o~o~o~

The sparkling gave a short account of their situation -how he and his four caretakers had gotten stranded on the planet while coming to protect it, with no way to call for help from their homeworld.

Hot Rod finally paused to drink some of the tea Drift had gotten them at some point during the story. For most of it the white mech kept silent, deep in thought, but when the sparkling stopped talking there was still one question he couldn't understand.

"But why would they bring a sparkling with them if they knew it would be dangerous?"

"I'm not a sparkling." Hot Rod muttered, but it was a fair point. He wasn't supposed to be here. "I kinda snuck aboard..." he paused with the memory. "No one knows I'm here. Not even my creators..."

"I see." Drift said with a sympathetic softness. 

"Why are you on U1?" Hot Rod asked trying to shift the attention.

Drift chuckled "Only Cybertronians call this place U1, to the inhabitants it's Lost Light." He sighed before continuing, "I came here during the war, 5000 years ago when both factions were fighting the Quintessons. When the others left, I chose to stay behind. There were... things I couldn't bring myself to leave.

I've been protecting this place ever since."

"From monsters and stuff?"

"Yes."

That was good news. "Does that mean you'll help us fight the giant eyeball?"

"Eyeball?"

Hot Rod stood and gestured for Drift to follow him outside. He noticed the sky eye had gotten closer. Whatever the Phase-Sixers were doing it didn't seem to be working.

Drift looked absolutely stunned. "What is that?!"

Hot Rod shrugged. "I don't know, but to beat it we need a fusion cannon that belonged to my carrier."

"I -wait," Drift was staring at him again with an unreadable expression.

"Who is your carrier?"

"Megatron."

~o~o~o~

It took about an hour to convince Drift that not only was the war over, but the Decepticons didn't win -neither did the Autobots. They were at peace -and yes, Optimus Prime was his sire. 

Yes, he was sure.

Yes, Megatron and Optimus Prime.

Yes really.

No. No. Yes, both sides were equal.

What? No th- uggh, they didn't have time for this!

"Drift, we need to find a cannon or else that thing is going to crush us all!" He said pointing to the looming meteorite. "Do you know where one is?"

The white mech still looked like he wanted to ask more questions but seemed to realize the time constraint they were working under. The eye had gotten close enough to cast a faint red glow over the town, lighting up the sky despite being well past sunset.

"I believe I do."

He transformed and opened his door for the sparkling to climb in before taking off down the road.

As they drove Hot Rod watched the red eye's continuous descent. From this distance he could make out the comparably tiny forms of the Phase-Sixers whose best efforts seemed to have devolved into just trying to ram the thing in alt mode.

"Hot Rod," Drift's voice pulled the sparkling from his thoughts "Would you happen to know a medic named Ratchet? During the war he was the Autobot's chief medical officer."

He still was. He was also the physician for Hot Rod's entire family, and his sire's amica endura. Hot Rod liked him. Around grown mecha the medic always seemed to be perpetually irritated, but he'd never turned that on him or any of the other sparklings Hot Rod knew were in his care.

He told Drift as much. The speedster didn't respond but seemed content with the knowledge. Hot Rod wanted to inquire into how he knew the old medic, but they soon stopped driving and Drift opened his door for the sparkling to climb out.

"Here we are."

Hot Rod had expected something a little more grand. They were still in the town, standing in front of a... storage unit?

"Where are we?"

Drift transformed and moved to unlock one of the building's many garage doors.

"A place I store old things."

When he lifted the door Hot Rod genuinely had to take a step back.

It was filled predominantly with weapons. They were all Cybertronian, and all old. Some of the ones he could currently see were being powered by faded sparks. It looked like there might once have been a system of organisation but there was so much stuff to hold, the shelves were overstocked and overflowing, pointy bits sticking out this way and that. Piles of boxes and items too large to fit anywhere else completely filled the middle, leaving no room to enter.

"When our homeworld abandoned this place, they left behind a lot of dangerous artefacts. I've been collecting them over the centuries." He started lifting out items, "If there was a light cannon on this planet, it will be here. We just need to clear a path -"

"I'm on it!" Hot Rod said, seeing an opening and ducking between a precariously piled stack of boxes.

"Wait!" The speedster reached for him, but the sparkling was already gone.

The inside was even more diverse. There were weapons that Hot Rod couldn't even begin to guess at their function as well as strange artefacts piled haphazardly. Small statues, pieces of art, and even a few empty spark containment boxed filled the space.

But no cannon.

There wasn't much place to move around. Everything was so delicately piled he couldn't imagine trying to move anything. One pile crashed to the floor as soon as he tried lifting a small crystal carving.

"Hot Rod, are you ok!?" Drift called from outside.

"Yeah!" Without the pile in the way, Hot Rod could see an opening that lead deeper in. He had to crouch down to pass through, careful not to touch the tunnel's sides and accidentally bring the place down on him.

Drift sighed in relief, "Be careful in there." 

There were so many things to search through and Hot Rod wasn't even entirely sure what he was looking for. He kept crawling along trying to find anything that might possibly help them and paused, hearing a tiny crunch and felt metal crumple beneath his knee. 

It was an Autobot faction symbol, and a few feet away a Deception one also lay. Both were old, paint faded and slightly scuffed -the Deception one more so. Hot Rod wondered if one of them was Drifts. He hadn't seen a faction symbol on the white mech -but many Cybertronians had removed theirs when the war ended.

"Drift, which side were you on?" He called as he continued on.

"What?"

"During the war I mean. Were you a Deception?"

Drift didn't answer for a long time. "Why do you say that?"

"Your denta."

Hot Rod didn't think he knew anyone on the Autobot side with fangs. They were mostly a Deception trait many had modded or were just onlined with. 

Hot Rod used to have them too when he was younger... until he chipped one

...and then broke another

and then they hurt his mouth so badly his creators decided it was best to just get them replaced with flat ones rather than have their creation keep breaking the protruding dentae with his recklessness.

"I was an Autobot." Drift answered firmly. Hot Rod got the feeling it was a bit of a sore subject.

He couldn't get the badges of his processor though.

"What were my creators like back then?"

Another pause. "I didn't know them very well, but I can't imagine they'd have changed that much... They were both very... headstrong. Even when they started working together, they'd always find something to bicker over."

Hot Rod knew his creators argued sometimes, usually it was after coming back from meetings or over galactic council events. He was never sure over what exactly, he'd never seen them actually fight. They were always very careful to make sure he wasn't in the room. He knew they'd fought against each other during the war. The thought scared him sometimes.

"Like what?"

"Ah, small things. I remember Prime would never stopped commenting on how Megatron always insisted on keeping the lights dim."

"That still happens."

"Heh, and your sire had a tendency to monologue. I think at one point Megatron started keeping a list of all the clichés he'd use.

Transform and rollout, freedom is the right of all sentient beings, until all are one,"

Hot Rod's search was stopped by a purple light glowing faintly at the very back of the unit.

"maximum overdrive-"

"Drift, I found it!"

This was definitely it. It looked like a supersized version of his carrier's weapon -it had to be almost the same size as Drift. The Deception emblem stood out proudly on its base and when Hot Rod gently placed a servo on the grey metal, he could feel the subtle vibrations that signalled the cannon was active.

"How are we going to get it out?" There was no was Hot Rod could drag it back outside, especially not with all the junk in the way.

"Hang on, come closer." 

Hot Rod did and the white mech shuffled around in a nearby shelf for a moment before pulling out a length of reinforced rope.

"Here!" He tossed one end to the sparkling through the boxes "Tie it to this."

Hot Rod did as instructed, making sure the cannon was properly secured before crawling back out of the unit.

Drift transformed, hooked up to the other end of rope, and opened his door for Hot Rod to climb back in.

"Hold on." The speedster advised and floored it.

At first nothing happened, then with a lurch Drift jolted forward pulling the cannon free -as well as most of the unit's stuff with it. Drift didn't stop though, he sped off as quickly as he could with the weight of the cannon dragging along -the rest of the storage unit forgotten.

Now that he was outside again Hot Rod saw the reason for his urgency. 

It should have been well past sunset, but entire town was lit up under the eye's light. It had only been a few kliks, but it had gotten so much closer than before. It's actual size had to be that of a moon. Strange paneling ran all along its crystal surface and now Hot Rod could see that though it looked organic, it was definitely constructed. The iris was jointed, large plates contracted and dilated its surface as it focused in on the beach. It had to have been created by something -nothing like that could be natural- why though?

The towns mecha they passed as they drove were all watching the sky with a mix of curiosity and worry, but no outright fear.

"Where are your caretakers?" Drift forced out as he tried accelerating even faster, eventually having so ease up when his engine began protesting.

"The beach."

~o~o~o~

The speedster opted to carry the cannon the rest of the way once they reached sand. Hot Rod could hardly stop himself from running ahead. Drift trailed right behind him, still too slowly in Hot Rod's opinion.

"Hurry up!"

"I'm coming!"

The flight capable warriors were still gone, only Tarn stood on the beach as they approached.

Hot Rod called out to him. "Tarn! We found it!"

The purple mech turned towards the sparkling in confusion. "Hot Rod? Where have you been?"

"Drift and I found my carrier's light cannon, we can save the town!"

"Who?"

"Drift! We-"

Drift was gone.

So was the cannon.

"Hot Rod, you should be inside, it isn't safe out here." Tarn told him.

"Wait, but the cannon-"

"We're taking care of it, we'll be fine..."

A roar overhead heralded Overlord's approach as he transformed above them, landing heavily in the sand nearby.

"We have a problem." He looked frustrated even saying it. His paint was scuffed and his vents were straining. The others were returning too, none looking any better.

Tarn turned back to the sparkling, "Come inside, it will be safer in the refinery."

"But we found the cannon! Wait, I'll find him!" He said and dashed off before Tarn could protest.

He found Drift behind a rocky outcrop several mechanometeres down. The mech was frantic, clutching the cannon tightly and whispering to himself as he snuck back towards the town,

"They've come for me. They've come for me. Oh, Primus they're here..."

"Drift!" Hot Rot ran to catch up.

The speedster rounded on him, dropping the cannon in shock. "Hot Rod, you need to be quiet...!" He half whispered.

"We need the cannon!" The sparkling shouted, not understanding the mech's sudden panic.

The shouting just seemed to freak out Drift more though. "No, we need to get away! Come with me, we can drive to the city and hide out there."

Hot Rod had no idea what he was talking about. "But my caretakers-"

"Hot Rod, you caretakers are probably offline!" Drift knelt down to him. "I'm sorry, but we can still get away. I won't let them hurt you."

There was literally no time for this. "Who?!"

"The DJD! Tarn!"

"Tarn's my caretaker!"

From the look on Drift's face Hot Rod worried he'd blown a fuse.

Tarn rounded the bend, chasing after him. "Hot Rod, what are y-" he stopped, going completely still. His voice dropping dangerously. 

"Deadlock."

In an instant Drift was in battle stance, a great sword summoned and pointed at Tarn. He held it firmly -obviously experienced- but much too tense, defensive. His voice barely above a whisper.

"Tarn..."

Whatever might have happened next was interrupted by wind that swept over the beach, flinging sand and rocks up to the sky. Hot Rod was almost pulled away by the force had Tarn not the foresight to hold on to him.

It didn't subside, and that's when they realised it wasn't wind at all. It was the eye. The sphere was so large it was creating its own gravity, the field becoming stronger and stronger the further it got in atmosphere.

There was no more time. Drift and Tarn stared at each other for so long Hot Rod wanted to yell at them before Tarn's gaze shifted to the fusion cannon at Drift's pedes and the Phase-Sixer seemed struggle with some internal conflict.

"Bring the cannon."

~o~o~o~

Tarn ended up passing Hot Rod off to Drift as he lifted the cannon himself back to the other Warriors Elite. The gravity effect was getting worse. Parts of the town and loose debris from the Guardian were getting caught up. 

Drift almost balked when he saw the other three cons but was pushed on ahead by Tarn. The fliers also looked shocked, but not at Drift.

"Is that...?" Sixshot started as Tarn positioned the cannon between them. The relief was palpable, even from Overlord, but after a few moments Tarn still kept searching over the cannon -nothing was happening.

"Tarn?" Black Shadow asked.

"I don't- I can't activate it!" Tarn shouted, "It was Lord Megatron's weapon, only he knew how to use it!"

"What!"

"Drift," Hot Rod looked up to the speedster "What do we do?"

Drift shrugged, clearly at a loss. 

"This isn't working," Overlord growled "We need to refocus our attacks." 

"It's not going to work!" Tarn said.

No, no, no, they couldn't fail now! They had the fusion cannon, they were so close, it had to work! Hot Rod kept searching the cannon, examining its entire surface, banging, shouting, climbing its side, looking for  anyway to turn it on.

He'd wanted this to work. He'd wanted to save everyone. But now more than anything he wanted his creators. He wanted his carrier who would know how to save them, who would never back down from an enemy, and he wanted his sire who was always calm when things went wrong, who'd know what to say to reassure or rally his mechs. Hot Rod had no idea what to do to save them. He had no idea what to say to ease the shimmering dread in the EM fields of every mech on the beach. Nothing to say-

Nothing to say 

"Drift! What did my sire used to say!"

"What?!"

"Something made it work before, what was it?!"

The speedster seemed to catch on. "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings?... Overdrive- uh, rollout-"

"Till all are one!" Hot Rod shouted out.

The sparkling was thrown to the ground as the cannon shuddered, the weapon transforming out until it almost doubled in size and rolled onto the sand. Deep purple light began gathering in its barrel, rapidly increasing in intensity as it charged it's shot. Scrambling, Hot Rod tried to aim the cannon at the approaching eye. He struggled to lift it on his own but then there were five other pairs of servos all rushing to help.

"Brace yourselves!" Someone shouted just in time as the cannon fired.

The light was blinding. Had all of them not been working to steady it, the recoil probably would have thrown it back into the cliff. The purple beam cut through the sky and pierced the eye dead centre. 

For a long moment everything froze. 

A thundering crack echoed through the sky and the eye exploded in an flash of light. Building sized pieces of debris rained down on the ocean, some narrowly avoided the mechs on the beach and probably destroying a few buildings in town.

"Hot Rod, you did it." Black Shadow laughed a little shakily. 

The falling debris had raised the ocean's tide, washing water up onto the beach. For a while everyone took the moment to vent and let the waves gently wash over their pedes. The mechs relaxed into it, enjoying the cool liquid on overstressed circuits.

"All are one?" Tarn paused, making sure not to reactive the cycled down cannon. "Why would Megatron choose that?" He asked Drift who was staring up at the stars, still examining the place the eye had been with an uncertain mix of shock and awe.

"He heard the Prime say it once and thought it was so pretentious, I suppose he didn't think it was something anyone would every use regularly." The white mech answered distantly.

That's when the other warriors finally seemed to notice their companion.

"Deadlock?"

Chapter Text

He was definitely improving.

Probably. It was hard to tell over the shrieking.

At least three centipeetle were still running around the room, overturning furniture and snapping at any loose objects as they tried to escape Tarn and Black Shadow's exhausted wrath. One of the bugs broke away to lunge at him, jaws snapping.

Hot Rod barely even had time to look up before a blaster shot blew the creature to smoke.

Those things had kept coming back ever since the first time. Sixshot theorised there was probably a nest under the refinery -all their activity was drawing them out through loose paneling in search of food. At first Tarn was worried about them getting to Hot Rod while they slept, but their constant skittering and hissing was loud enough to be its own warning system.

Now they were just kind of annoying.

Tarn stomped one to the ground and stepped through the smoke towards the last one chewing up the kitchen. The centipeetle lifted itself onto the counter and the small display there just as Tarn raised a fist to smash it.

"Careful!" 

Tarn hesitated when Hot Rod called out to him and the centipeetle wasted no time in scurrying away. Moving startlingly fast for something of its size, it escaped through a loose wall panel before he or Black Shadow could grab for it.

Hot Rod hopped down from his spot on the berth and hurried to examine the case.

That was a close one. It was a scuffed little display box topped with the iconic turbofox head. Rows of battery powered lights illuminated the inside and drew attention to the outline of the icon. Rewind had found the old thing in R&R's back storage and figured since they were now discontinued (*groan*) the sparkling could have it. It wasn't in the best shape -it shorted out a lot, and you always had to be careful when opening it or the door would come loose- but it was too cool to pass up. He'd been carefully guarding it since.

~o~o~o~

Tarn sighed when the insect managed to escape but at least the thing was gone. Accidentally breaking any of Hot Rod's Turbo Treats would have been much worse. He hadn't even eaten any since the discovery of their effects on his powers. More than a few times Tarn had lightly tried to urge the bitlet to practice his abilities -with or without the candy- but Hot Rod was convinced he needed them and had also insisted that they be saved only for emergencies.

Satisfied his treats were indeed safe Hot Rod returned to his previous spot, once again picking up the weird instrument he'd been practicing with all morning. It wasn't... the best playing he'd ever heard, but it was good for a beginner. Definitely better than the time he'd tried to teach Vos a similar string instrument.

"Where did you get that instrument?" Tarn asked him. It seemed to just appear one day after one of the sparkling's excursions to town. He knew he was probably giving the bitlet more than a reasonable allowance to spend whenever something caught his fancy, but he still couldn't imagine he'd have bought the thing on his own.

"Drift gave it to me."

Drift.

He'd been forced to let the white mech leave when Hot Rod vouched for his role in saving them all. Tarn was worried about the influence he'd been having on the sparkling. He'd been hoping to make the most of this time free of Autobot ideals to reacquaint Hot Rod with more of his Deception heritage, but what time the small mech wasn't spending hanging around that traitor was spent socialising with the rest of the natives in town.

To be fair, he knew there wasn't much to do around the refinery with the inner levels still off limits to him. It was the reason Tarn couldn't insist he remain cooped up -especially when the four of them went out (which was admittedly often).

Speaking of, the door to the inner levels began glowing white and slid away as Sixshot and Overlord emerged - the former carrying a large piece of tech that looked like it had been assembled from random junk. 

It probably had been.

"Alright, it's done!" The six changer held the contraption up to the room. 

That got Hot Rod's attention. "What is?" He said running over to examine the strange object.

"It's a tachyon transmitter." Sixshot explained, handing it to the sparkling to examine. "It uses subspace to send communications over huge interstellar distances. If it works, we'll be able to contact Cybertron." 

"I thought our transmitter was destroyed?" Black Shadow said.

"Well... it was. This is just a patch, and it won't last for long. Once we activate it we'll have maybe a few cycles to send a message."

"Activate it then." Tarn said, "What are we waiting for?"

"We can't." Overlord huffed. "Not here in any case. The signal still won't be strong enough without proper broadcasting equipment."

"But we have a plan." Sixshot interjected. "The Celestial Spire."

"... What?"

"Not the ones on Cybertron -this one is a little less impressive. It was the nickname for the planet's main Autobot base back in the war. It's old, but most of its systems should be intact."

"The transmitter is tuned to the ship's comm frequencies. We hook it up, activate it, and return here to send a message through the Guardian's systems." Overlord elaborated. "The Spire is out to sea on a mech-made island, three cycles out by flight."

"Hold up, you said we'd only have a few cycles to use it." Black Shadow said. "How is that gonna work if we're spending that time just getting back?"

Three gazes collectively turned to Sixshot who sighed. "I'll bridge us back. Back. Not there. That'll give us plenty of time to send the S.O.S."

"We could try fixing the pad again." Black Shadow suggested gesturing to the ground bridge nexus in front of the refinery door. The construction was old, from back before the technology had been perfected. Unlike modern bridges that could teleport a mech anywhere, these could only warp you to another functional pad. If the area you needed to go didn't have one, or if one was broken, you were out of luck.

The problem with this one wasn't that is was broken per say, it was that parts were straight up missing. The entire command console had been carefully removed by someone who obviously knew what they were doing. Everything else was intact, there was just no way to turn it on.

"If we haven't gotten it by now we won't." Tarn thought for a moment. "The plan sounds reasonable. We shouldn't waste anymore time then, we'll leave right away."

"That's perfect!"

The four warriors were suddenly reminded of Hot Rod's presence. "What, Why?" Tarn asked. The sparkling had that exited look about him that usually lead to bad decision making.

"Because I can help carry it!"

The sparkling darted off -still carrying the transmitter- and after a few seconds of rifling through his scarce belongings, he returned holding up-

"A star?"

"It's a backpack!"

"Didn't that get ruined in the crash?" Black Shadow said.

"I cleaned it out." Hot Rod said. Duh. "It's basically a subspace... only star shaped, so it's even cooler!"

"....."

"Come on, this thing is perfect! It's got all kinds of pockets," Hot Rod demonstrated by showing off the pockets in each of the five points and one in the centre. "It's small, it's practical, it matches my paint, it was made to go on missions."

Tarn sighed. "Hot Rod, this is serious. This could be our one chance to contact Cybertron."

"I know. If this is about getting home, then it involves me too!" Hot Rod said.

"Hot Rod you don't-"

"I'm a Cybertronian." He said pointing to his spark. "Why can't I go?"

"Hot Rod-"

"I can help!"

"Rodimus, no!"

Hot Rod froze. So did everyone else. Tarn didn't stop though. "You are a sparkling. You're too young, you aren't even able to control your spark. What we're doing is serious and it is dangerous. You're too-"

"reckless."

Hot Rod said nothing, firmly not looking at the purple con.

"Hot Rod," Tarn said sternly, holding out a servo. "Give me the transmitter."

Hot Rod didn't move.

After a few bitter moments he thrust the transmitter out to Tarn. Without another word he went back to his place on the berth and picked up his instrument, back to the room. 

Tarn sighed. That was harsh, but the small bot needed to accept the situation -for his own good-he'd be home soon enough anyways.

With that, Tarn subspaced the transmitter and headed out, Overlord and Sixshot following behind.

Black Shadow hesitated. "I'll bring you back something cool." He promised.

Hot Rod didn't respond.

He stayed there pointedly plucking the strings without much rhythm until the sounds of transformation and jet engines had faded well into silence.

"... I'm not a sparkling." He said to no one.

He sat there for a while. Eventually a quiet scuttling drew him out of his thoughts.The centipeetle was back. It crawled out from its crack hesitantly, scanning the room for any of the larger mechs. 

Hot Rod didn't know why, but he suddenly found the creature's presence infuriating. He grabbed the nearest thing that wasn't Drift's instrument and threw it at the insect.

The thing turned out to be a medium sized throw pillow, but it did its job. It hit the centipeetle dead on and the creature retreated with a startled squeak.

He didn't want to be here anymore. It was too small. It felt stifling. He'd snuck onto the Guardian for a chance to see the universe beyond the stuffy and composed cities he'd spent his life in -now this 'adventure' may be coming to an end and what was there to show for it?

Processor coming to an internal conclusion, Hot Rod retrieved his star backpack where it had been discarded on the floor and began packing everything he thought he'd need. It took a bit of manoeuvring to get the instrument in, but eventually he managed to have only the neck sticking out with a bit of rearranging and the removal of some unnecessary items -what really were the chances of needing a first aid kit?- and he was ready to go.

Grabbing a few Turbo Treats just in case, he gave one last cursory sweep of the room before heading out.

~o~o~o~

It was nice out. It had rained earlier that morning. The sun had since come out to warm the town and dry up the small puddles gathered in the nooks and crevices along the worn boardwalk. There were only a few people out and about right now but as the day went on soon the town would fill up with mechs wanting to enjoy the light and warmth on their plating.

Swerve's was open. Only one mech sat at the counter while the red mini wiped down the bar.

"Hi Swerve!" Hot Rod greeted him as he approached.

"Hey Roddy." Swerve said. "Nice backpack." 

That made the sparkling happy. He spun around, showing it off proudly. "Thank! They're made off world, super functional. It's for official Cybertronian business."

"Dang, that's so cool." The bartender looked genuinely impressed. "Where's your big flying friend?"

"They all went out." Hot Rod said dismissively.

"Shucks, he's a good customer. Drinks me half out of stock though, it's probably best I serve everyone else now."

Hot Rod checked his internal chronometer and made a rough calculation to the planet's time the way Drift had showed him.

"It's like 11 in the morning."

"It's at least 12 something." Swerve corrected. "And I've always got customers around here, right Tb?"

The mech didn't respond beyond a few vague noises muffled around his drink.

Hot Rod grabbed onto the counter and used it to lift himself onto one of the empty bar stools. He didn't come up to the bar properly, but he leaned himself up on his elbows, staring at Swerve expectantly.

"You know, you shouldn't be sitting at the bar." The minibot said.

"..."

"I could get in trouble if anyone decides to report it.

"...."

"Hot Rod, as legitimate business mech I take this job seriously."

"....."

"Please order from the actual menu."

"......"

"... Alright." Swerve sighed and went to empty one of the energon filters.

"Thanks Swerve!" Hot Rod said as the mini handed him the bag of bits. 

Trailbreaker smirked "Hey, you never give me free stuff."

"If I gave you everything for free I wouldn't have a business." Swerve countered but Hot Rod looked thoughtful.

"Here Swerve, you can have this!"

The sparkling reached into one of his bag's pockets and pulled out a small piece of cardboard. He reached up and handed it to the bartender.

"You're doing a good job, Swerve."

It was a messy cut-out of a star. A doodle of what looked to be Hot Rod was drawn on with yellow and orange crayon.

"See you later!" Hot Rod waved as he bounded off, leaving the mech surprisingly speechless.

Trailbreaker leaned over to see the small badge. "That's adorable."

~o~o~o~

R&R was the next stop on the way. 

The store and its employees had become familiar in the past few weeks. The refinery didn't have a disc reader, but Rewind had been letting him watch vids on the tv in the back of the store on days there wasn't much else to do.

"Hey Chromedome, hey Rewi-"

No one was there.

The neon 'open' sign in the window was lit, but the store was empty. It didn't stop the sparkling from walking in.

"Hello?"

No one answered. That left the door to the back room.

Someone was back there. Rewind hastily jumped from the box he was sitting on as the door creaked open, visor snapping down and for a moment Hot Rod thought he could see teary yellow optics.

"Hot Rod! Oh, sorry. I was stacking. Do you need something?" The mini said hastily, picking up one of the boxes he'd been using as a seat. 

"Where's Chromedome?"

"Oh, he had to meet someone. I'm running things today."

"Do you need help?"

"No, no, I'm ok." He assured.

Hot Rod didn't want to just leave Rewind here, not without Chromedome there to at least comfort him.

He had an idea. "I'm going to see Drift. He's really cool, and he's got a bunch of neat stuff. You should come with me!"

"Hot Rod, I can't just leave-"

"It'll be fun, come on!" He said dragging the minibot out with him.

"Wait, I need close the store!"

~o~o~o~

"Do you like working at R&R?" He hoped that wasn't what was upsetting Rewind, he was only halfway through the second season of As the Kitchen Sinks, and if Rewind quit the store he'd need to find a new place to watch the show.

"I do -really, it's just Chromedome. One of his old co-workers has been coming around a lot lately, it's got me a bit stressed."

"A worker from the store?"

"No, from the city. We lived there up until a few years ago. I used to be an archivist, Domey was a cop."

"That sounds cool."

Rewind didn't respond.

The walk to Dift's wasn't a long one. Mechs were finally out and about, many of them greeting the two as they passed.

"You were right, it's nice to get out and see people. I haven't had the time in a while."

Rewind was looking a lot better. Hot Rod was always impressed by the mech's outlook. He'd been so nice ever since they'd arrived on the planet -he tended to pry, but he was always kind, even when he should be upset.

"Wait a klik," Hot Rod stopped to pulled out another cardboard star from his bag. "Here, you deserve this."

Rewind looked at the small cut-out he'd been handed. "That is so cute- I mean cool." He corrected when Hot Rod huffed at the word. "Thank you...what is it?"

"It's a congratulation star! They're for working hard and doing good. I was going to give them to my caretakers the next time we went on a mission, but they said I couldn't come this time." He muttered the last part.

"Why not?" Rewind asked.

"They think I'm helpless... I mean, they say what they're doing is too dangerous, but they're the best fighters on Cybertron! What can't they protect me from? Now they've just left for the next few cycles and I don't know how they expect me to get better at using my spark if they won't take me out to practice!" He said.

"What?"

"I'm six and a half vorns old, almost 550 stellar-cycles, I'm not a sparkling! My creators are the Prime and High Protector, I'm going to be Prime one day too, but no one wants to let me learn how! Everyone thinks I'm too young, or too fragile, or I don't know what I'm doing -and I know I don't- but no one will even give me the chance to try..." He finished. He had intended to talk to Drift about all this, but once he started he couldn't help spilling everything. He looked over at Rewind when the mech stayed silent.

"... Sorry," The mini looked lost. "I don't know what half of that meant."

"What do you mean?"

"For starters, how old are you?"

"Six and a half vorns."

"How long is a vorn?"

"Ten decivorns."

...

"How do you measure time?" Hot Rod asked after an awkward beat.

Rewind was at a loss as much as he was. "In months and years."

This was getting confusing.

"...We could ask Drift." He suggested.

~o~o~o~

Drift held morning yoga classes most days of the week -not that a whole lot of mechs attended, but the ones that did were all gone by the time they arrived. Drift was just finishing up with tidying the room.

"Hi, Roddy." He greeted the two. "Hello, I don't think we've met."

"We haven't, I'm Rewind."

"Drift. You work at the video store don't you?"

"Heh, yeah."

"So, what brings you two here today?" Drift gestured for his guests to take a seat on the mats. "Come for guitar lessons?"

Oh right, that was the instrument's name.

Hot Rod shook his helm. "Just to hang out. Actually, we have a few questions..."

~o~o~o~

"Ok, wait. What's this?" Hot Rod said holding up a servo.

"A hand?"

He pointed to his face. "What are these?" 

"Eyes."

"This?"

"Nose!"

"This?" All three of them were laughing now.

"Feet!"

"This?!"

"That's your aft!" Rewind couldn't hold back a fit of giggles.

A few lessons in terminology had turned into a fun look at the strange language differences between their respective planets -Lost Lighters had a bunch of weird names for everyday terms that Hot Rod found unnecessarily confusing- which eventually turned into questions about Cybertron itself, and Hot Rod was eager to talk; about his life, about his creators, what was happening before he left. Rewind listened eagerly. So did Drift, taking the opportunity to catch up on what he'd missed during the last 5000 years.

I'd had to have been cycles -er, hours- when Hot Rod noticed the small red light by Rewind's head.

"What's that?"

"Hm? Oh sorry," The mini hardly looked apologetic. "I wanted to get all this down."

"Are you filming right now?" 

"Yeah. I like to document things -archivist remember- and I've hardly got any information about Cybertron, I couldn't pass this up."

Hot Rod was fascinated. "What do you have?"

"Whatever I can get. Mostly about the war, Quints, gem creatures, a lot of music files..."

Yup, Hot Rod was definitely fascinated. "Can you play some of it?"

"Yeah, I- wait..." Rewind froze. "What time is it?"

Drift checked his chronometer. "Around 3:00."

"Slag, I've got to go!" Rewind was up quicker than seemed physically possible. "I'll see you later Roddy! It was nice to meet you Drift!" He said, barely stopping to properly wave goodbye.

"Likewise!" Drift called after him. "What about you?" He asked Hot Rod.

Hot Rod shrugged. "I guess my caretakers will be back soon."

"They're out?" Drift always got weird when he mentioned the four cons -especially when he wasn't sure where they were.

 "Yeah, but you're more fun to be around anyways."

"Oh... thank you?"

"Actually, I think you deserve this too." He pulled another star from his bag. He still had about twenty left. "I made them for after my caretakers' missions, but I've got a lot. You can have one too."

Drift stared at the star for a long time. "Hot Rod, do you know what your caretakers used to do in the war?"

Hot Rod looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean..." Drift hesitated. "Do you know what Phase-Six was? What the DJD were?"

"I know the DJD."

"Do you know what they are, what they used to do?"

"Hunt bad guys?"

"And do you know what they would do to those... 'bad guys'?"

"...Arrest them?"

Drift was giving him that look again. The one that made him feel like he was missing something important. Hot Rod didn't hold his gaze.

"You don't like my caretakers do you?" He asked.

"I-" Drift started.

"I don't know what they used to do or who they used to be, but they've always been nice to me -they've taken care of me since I was created, and right now they're here trying to protect this place -and these people. That has to count for something?

We probably need to leave this planet soon, but until then we're not going to stop doing our job. No matter what." Hot Rod finished.

Drift regarded the star he'd been handed once more before finally speaking. "I have something to give you."

He set the star down and pulled a large circuit board out from his subspace. He handed it to a wide eyed Hot Rod who took it carefully, a little surprised by how heavy it was.

"What is it?"

"It's the command console to the refinery's warp pad. I removed it when I stopped traveling away from town, it was too dangerous if anyone wandered in. It doesn't have a lock like the door. It reads spark energy to tell it where you want to go, but it could teleport you to the centre of the planet if you're just jumping blind."

Well this would definitely be useful. "Thank you." Hot Rod said sincerely.

A few mechs were coming in for Drift's next class. He fit the board in his backpack and he stood up. "I should get going."

Drift smiled at him -genuinely this time. "Goodbye, Hot Rod.

Be careful saving the world."

~o~o~o~

When he reached the refinery door he just unlocked it and left it slightly ajar. He set down his backpack and picked up the large rock he'd taken to leaving out on the porch. Kicking it open the rest of the way -weapon raised, he was surprised when nothing jumped out at him. 

In fact there were no centipeetle in the room at all.

That was... strange, but convenient. He could usually only manage to scare them off anyways, and lately they'd been getting bolder.

He brought the rock in just in case.

He emptied his bag and sat down near the bridge nexus to examine the command console. It was way too complicated to reattach himself (as he came to realise after a good few breems- minutes!- of poking and prodding).

Meh. The Phase-Sixers could figure it out when they got back. Speaking of, he figured they should be back anytime now.

He was right.

There was a flash of white light followed immediately by a shockwave that tossed over every loose item in the room -including Hot Rod. Once everything stopped spinning he could make out the four Deceptions in the room, and they were all dripping with energon.

"Why would you think punching it was a good idea?!" Tarn was shouting at Overlord. 

The blue con was unfazed. "It worked didn't it."

"My plan would have worked too, and it didn't involve destroying the spire!"

Black Shadow was doubled over against the wall coughing up mouthfuls of dirty energon.

Sixshot just collapsed, vents wheezing slightly.

"What happened?" Hot Rod asked.

"The spire was falling apart." Sixshot said from the floor. "It was infested with monsters, it collapsed into the ocean."

"And then we almost drowned because you took so long getting us out." Tarn said.

"Give me a break, I just made a ground bridge with my spark."

"So it didn't work?" Hot Rod said.

Sixshot sat up, shaking his head. "We sealed off the control room, we have time before it floods."

"We should get on that..." Black Shadow said, vents still leaking droplets of energon.

Then their adventure really was coming to an end. 

"So we send the message and then we all go home?" Hot Rod said.

There was a silence, even Overlord and Tarn had stopped arguing. 

"Well, uh-" Black Shadow started.

"You'll go home. Our mission isn't over yet." Overlord finished for him.

"...yeah."

That... shouldn't have been so surprising, nor should it have been so upsetting. Hot Rod had about eight different protests running through his processor, none of which were voiced as the ground started shaking. 

Everyone was on their pedes by the time the rumbling subsided. 

"What was that?" Someone asked. 

The answer came a moment later in the form of a deafening screech sounding from outside.

Overlord made it out first and cause of the commotion was immediately evident. A huge centipeetle with a white mane, easily ten times the size of the others was crawling up the cliff-face and wrapping around the upper parts of the refinery. 

"It's the queen!" He shouted as it turned it's attentions to him. With another shriek it lunged and Overlord jumped back, drawing it towards the beach.

"Stay in the refinery, Hot Rod!" Tarn ordered. 

"No way, I'm coming too!" The sparkling said but nonetheless ran back inside. The three warriors exchanged puzzled looks before moving forward to help Overlord.

Just like its drones, the creature spat acid. The cons dodged a large stream of it just in time -seeing how it reacted on ununtrium plating wasn't a test anyone was eager to volunteer for.

Avoiding the attacks while simultaneously trying to avoid further damaging the Guardian was the biggest challenge. Taking cover behind a large boulder turned out to be a less than optimal solution as the centipeetle's acid immediately began melting the stone. A few streams landed on Black Shadow's plating and -oh yeah, that stung.

"This would be a good time for a plan." He suggested, trying to shake off the corrosive droplets.

"You two can get on either side of it and blast its head." Overlord suggested to the two gun wielding mechs.

"What about the acid?" Black Shadow said.

"I don't know, wait for it to stop?"

"What?!"

"Well it can't do this forever!"

"Yeah, or we just get Hot Rod to distract it for us." Sixshot said sarcastically.

"Hey! Leave them alone!"

"Hot Rod, no!" The warriors cried in unison as the centipeetle stopped its barrage to turn to the small bot standing proudly on the beach next to his Turbo Treat display case.

Ignoring the cons, Hot Rod lifted one of the candies like a weapon. "Turbo Treat super combo powers, activate!" He shouted and took a bite.

Nothing happened.

The centipeetle queen reared back, making that horrible gurgling sound.

Hot Rod looked down at his spark. It was still as dull as ever.

"Uh oh."

Yelling in terror, Hot Rod grabbed his treats and ran just as the centipeetle lunged at him. 

Tarn immediately moved to help but had to dodge back a moment later when the pair of sharp pincers on the creature's rear nearly beheaded him.  

"We need to save him!" He said. They all ducked as the pincers returned and sliced the boulder they were hiding behind in half.

"Can we save ourselves first?" Black Shadow asked.

Hot Rod was still frantically shoving Turbo Treats into his mouth. "Why isn't it working?!" Oh come on! This was really not the time to fail. What was he doing wrong?!

The sparkling was so caught up he barely had time to notice the stream of acid being spat at him.

"Hot Rod!" Overlord moved quickly and caught the pincers on their next swipe, yanking the creature back just in time to send it's acid spraying wildly.

Parts of the stream landed on some of the Guardian's wreckage and everyone cringed. The acid quickly corroded the remains of the hull and stopped just short of reaching the internal systems. The centipeetle turned its attention back to the Phase-Sixers.

Hot Rod watched helplessly. All the Turbo Treats were gone, and his powers had left him. Now his caretakers were about to be melted and there was nothing else he could do. He looked into the face of the turbofox on top of the case.

No. Magic or no magic, he had to do something.

Filled with determination, he grabbed the Turbo Treat case and rushed at the queen while it was still distracted. With all his strength -and a cry of something that sounded suspiciously like 'till all are one- he chucked the display at the centipeetle's back.

It caught between the segments of its armour. The next move the creature made crushed the display and forced shards of glass into the unarmoured parts of its back.

The centipeetle screeched and flailed wildly trying to dislodge the ruined piece of metal. It struggled even as it slammed against the hull of the Guardian and went down, destroying the damaged metal and crashing through what used to be the bridge.

This time cringing would have been an understatement as the ship's systems finally reached their breaking point and exploded. 

When the clouds of smoke and sand cleared from the air everyone got a good look at what was left. The blast had sent pieces of shrapnel raining down over the beach, oil fire consumed the remaining wreckage but the centipeetle queen was still alive. It raised itself up -mane singed, half its armour blown off and the rest melting into soft heat-bubbled flesh, but still going. It tried spitting acid once more but all that came was a trickling drool that ran over what was left of its jaw.

The Deceptions summoned their weapons. "Let's end this." Overlord said and they charged.

The centipeetle was dead in seconds. Like its constructs, it exploded into smoke under the Phase-Sixers' barrage. A pale green, ringed sphere rolled into the sand at their pedes. Sixshot reached down and subspaced it. That was that.

Almost.

The shell of what was once the Guardian was still sputtering flames. The four warriors watched it burn dejectedly. Tarn had his helm in his servos, distress just giving way to resignation. Black Shadow tried to crack a joke, paused, tried again, gave up, and just sat down in the sand.

"...So now what?" Sixshot asked not honestly expecting an answer -and just as well,

No one had an answer.

"Roddy?" Black Shadow was the first to notice the small bot wasn't with them.

Hot Rod was sitting in the sand a few feet away, wiping at his optics in a way recognisable as crying.

Tarn knelt next to him and put a comforting servo on the sparkling's shoulder.

"Hot Rod, don't worry. We'll find a way to get you home, I pro-"

Until he saw what the bitlet was hunched over.

"Are you crying over your candy?"

"Only a little!"

A few torn wrappers were all that remained as evidence of his Turbo Treats. Hot Rod dug them out a small hole in the sand and ceremoniously covered them up in mournful silence.

Overlord, obviously not interested in the display, turned and headed back to the refinery.

Hot Rod sighed. "I thought I had my powers."

Sixshot sat down with the others. "Just because they don't come from candy doesn't mean they're not there."

"Yeah, you'll get it -but y'know, in your own way." Black Shadow said.

Hot Rod still didn't seem reassured. "It glowed..."

Tarn pulled him into a hug. "You'll figure it out one day."

They stayed like that for a while until Overlord re-emerged from the refinery holding something. He handed it to Hot Rod.

It was a handful of Turbo Treats.

Hot Rod's face lit up. "No way, Really!?" He took them all eagerly. "Thank you, thank you, thank you- !"

Overlord sat down too a bit further away to watch the sparkling's delight.

Tarn commed him. ::Where did you get those?::

::I brought them with me from Cybertron::

::Why didn't you bring them out the first time?::

::I like them too:: But the bitlet had done a good job this time... He supposed.

Hot Rod was positively elated. "-thank you, thank you! I'm gonna save these forever!

Right after this one..."

Chapter Text

A tremor caught Tarn by surprise and he hurried to steady the cube he was filling before it overflowed onto the counter.

"Another one?" Sixshot said. 

Mild earthquakes had be striking all morning, too frequently to be a natural phenomenon. They should probably look into that. Later. Right now everyone was relaxing from a previous incident involving a town wide infestation of parasitic shrimp. Even Hot Rod was sitting quietly, curled up on the small couch outlooking the front window.

"Have you guys ever killed anyone?"

The question came so out of nowhere Tarn accidentally crushed the cube he was holding. Black Shadow almost choked halfway through drinking until Overlord gave him a few hard pats on the back. 

Tarn looked at the sparkling in alarm. "W- why do you ask that?"

That's when he noticed the datapad in the bot's servos. It wasn't one of the ones from around the refinery -which consisted mostly of cheesy sci-fi novels and a strangely high number of cookbooks- it was an old history book.

An old Autobot history book.

"Where did you get that?" Tarn asked, trying not to panic.

He swore to Primus and back, if it was Drift who gave it to him that traitor would be a pile of twitching parts before the end of the day.

But to his surprise Hot Rod just shrugged. "I found it..." He said, glancing out the window awkwardly.

The cons followed his gaze.

It was hard to see, half hidden behind the rocky outcrop further down the beach, but there was someone there. It was a youngling about the same age as Hot Rod. They sat in the sand, face hidden at this angle, and completely engrossed in a datapad similar to the one Hot Rod currently held.

The cons immediately crowded the window.

"Who is that?" Sixshot asked. 

Hot Rod was actually blushing. "He's just someone who comes and reads here sometimes. He forgot his datapad a while ago." He said trying to use said datapad to cover his face, an action Black Shadow immediately picked up on.

"Ooo, you like him!" He said reaching down to smoosh Hot Rod's cheeks.

The bitlet swatted his hands away. "Do not! I don't even know him."

"Don't joke about that." Tarn scolded the other con. Lord Megatron's creation with some alien? The thought was affronting.

"So go talk to him." Sixshot said, "Or are you just going to hold onto that thing forever?" He said referring to the datapad. Actually, he really hoped he wouldn't. He doubted Hot Rod had actually read the thing, but just seeing it was giving him anxiety.

"I'll do it!" Hot Rod stood up. "Just... Give me a sec." 

Hot Rod darted away and Tarn activated their comms. ::What are you doing?::

Surprisingly it was Overlord who answered. ::He can bond to whatever noble he wants back on Cybertron. This is the time to have fun::

::He's 6 vorns old:: Tarn reminded him, to which the three of them just shrugged.

Tarn sighed and went to clean the spilled energon drying in the kitchen. He supposed it'd be good for him. On Cybertron, Hot Rod didn't have many friends his age. Most of the other couples in the Prime and Protectors' circle had their creations soon after the war ended, all vorns older than Hot Rod.

He remembered when Starscream's sparkling came online. Mecha joked Lord Megatron and his former second's creations would be a perfect match for each other, but that was a long time ago, and now Slipstream was old enough to begin learning some of her carrier's duties of leading their city.

Both Megatron and  Starscream seemed relieved when everyone finally stopped talking about it.

Hot Rod reappeared wearing his star backpack.

Tucked under one arm was the orange skateboard Black Shadow had bought him a few weeks prior. Not as cool as the hoverboards they could have gotten him on Cybertron, but still a rather expensive gift. No one had any idea where Black Shadow was getting his money, but Hot Rod certainly wasn't complaining.

"Ok, I'm going to go. But you guys can't watch!" It was kind of cute to see Hot Rod all flustered. "You'll mess with my cool vibe."

Cool vibe?

"We won't watch." Sixshot promised and Hot Rod headed out confidently.

As soon as he left everyone was once again at the window.

Out of view (so he thought) Hot Rod hesitated. He stood on the porch watching the other bot in the distance for a solid klik before making a show of psyching himself up and bounding down to the beach.

Overlord choose that moment to reach up and shutter the blinds to the protest of everyone else.

"Can't mess with that cool vibe." He said, smirking at the glares sent his way.

~o~o~o~

Hot Rod plunked his board into the sand and made a show of examining it. "Pretty cool huh?" He glanced at the other bot, still engrossed in his datapad.

"Flame decals, glossy finish, smooth ride..." He still didn't looked up. "... Yup, I bet there are a lot of mecha would love to own this-" He'd stepped on to demonstrate and gave the board a push.

Skateboards did not work well on sand. 

The board stuck fast while Hot Rod's own momentum planted him face first in the sand with a force that shook the ground.

No wait, that wasn't him.

Another earthquake rocked the beach and this time the bot did look up, finally noticing Hot Rod

But not the boulders knocked loose from the cliff above him.

"Look out!" Before he could think of the consequences, Hot Rod dived at the bot who made a brief noise of protest as he was tackled to the ground.

Hot Rod shuttered his optics as he shielded the other, not noticing the bright blue glow emanating between them until he heard a loud cracking as the falling rocks landed on... something. Not them, but something, and it took him a moment to realise the blue overlay enveloping them was a shield. Well, a bubble really. Hot Rod looked up and watched in awe as bits of rubble bounced off its surface like it was nothing.

"Whoa..."

A small 'Ahem' brought his attention back to mech he'd landed on. "Oh, hi. I'm Hot Rod."

Wide red optics stared up at him. "Minimus Ambus."

Hot Rod climbed to his pedes and offered a servo to the bot who regarded it before getting up himself. 

"What is this?" Minimus asked, cautiously reaching out a servo to feel the wall of the shield.

"I don't know. I think I did it." Hot Rod was in just as much awe.

"You?"

"Yeah, I'm a Cybertronian. We fight monsters and protect the planet and stuff." He bragged. 

"Oh, I've heard of you." Minimus glanced at the datapad he'd been reading. It unfortunately had fallen outside the protective bubble, the screen had been crushed by one of the boulders and was flickering sporadically. 

An awkward minute passed as the conversation trailed off.

"How long does this usually last?" Minimus asked looking around.

"Oh, right..." Hot Rod in-vented and focused in on his spark, trying to concentrate on the same burst of energy that summoned the shield. 

He focused hard.

Really hard...

Nothing happened.

"... I can't make it go away."

"What." It wasn't a question.

"I'll figure something out." Hot Rod assured him and was glad non-Cybertronians didn't have EM fields. He was finding it difficult to keep his uncertainty from leaking through.

He felt along the surface of the bubble looking for any kind of seam or weak spot. "I don't see you around that often."

Minimus joined his search. "I live in the city. My caretaker is a judge, his work sometimes brings us here."

"My caretakers go on missions sometimes, they say it's too dangerous for me though. They'll know what to do about this."

The bubble was a perfect sphere and  Hot Rod found when he leaned enough on one side he could get it to move a few inches in the sand. Minimus joined in and the next shove got them rolling towards the refinery.

Hot Rod had seen the bot a few times, but this was the best look he'd been able to get of the other. Minimus was slightly taller than he was, but much thinner. He didn't look like any of the other mecha he'd seen around town with thicker plating and common frametypes. He reminded Hot Rod of a fancy noble from back on Cybertron. Despite his appearance, he pushed with a surprising amount of force, leaning against the shield and pushing from his shoulder.

An odd W shaped emblem on his chassis stood out against his green and white plating that Hot Rod was about to ask about when their progress stopped and the bubble rolled backwards.

"What?" Another push lead to the same effect. The slope leading up to the refinery was too steep, they couldn't even get close.

"Guys! Tarn! Black Shadow! Help!" He tried shouting through the bubble.

"Can they see us?" Minimus asked.

Hot Rod groaned. "I told them not to watch."

Minimus' frown somehow intensified. "Are we just supposed to wait for them to find us?"

"No, no! I know a bunch of other mecha that can help."

~o~o~o~

It turned out the bubble was completely soundproof. Rewind was excitedly tapped on the glass and waving at Minimus who gave an awkward wave back.

"You know Rewind?" Hot Rod asked.

"He used to date my older brother."

They'd rolled to the front lot of the R&R where the store's two employees had been trying to help them for the last 10 minutes. Currently Chromedome was attempting to crack the bubble with a hammer -with little progress. Both of them seemed to be talking, but with their face masks it was difficult to tell. 

"He and Chromedome are a couple now." Hot Rod said. They watched as Chromedome said something to Rewind who threw up his hands in frustration. The two went back and forth arguing for a while until Chromedome ran into the store.

"They seem good together." Minimus remarked.

"They run this place." Hot Rod gestured at the store. "It has really good snacks. No Turbo Treats though."

"I know." Minimus said. "I used to come here when I was younger." Hot Rod gave him an inquisitive look. 

"I thought you lived in the city?" He asked.

Minimus pointed in the direction of the beach, up at the sloping cliffside Hot Rod knew the refinery was built into.

"Do you see the lighthouse on top of the cliff?"

"Yeah." It couldn't be seen from down on the beach, but from this distance he could make out the thin tower of the lighthouse and the elegant building built into the base of it.

"That was our summer home."

"You own that?"

"My family owns most of the town." Minimus said. "Including the beach."

Woah. His creators didn't even own their own beach. They should. He was going to recommend that as soon as he got back to Cybertron. Although,

"Does that mean we're trespassing?"

Minimus thought for a moment. "Cybertronians built a lot of structures on the planet. They were given the land in return for protection against Quintesson forces. If you're fighting their creations now you have the right to it." 

They were interrupted as Chromedome ran out of the R&R wielding a stool. Hot Rod and Minimus flinched as he swung it hard against the bubble. The impact fractured the wood and sent bits of chair everywhere without a single scratch on the shield.

Everyone just looked at one another.

"I've got one other plan." Hot Rod said.

~o~o~o~

Their task of trying to roll a giant bubble down a semi-crowded boardwalk had been suffered in relative -but definitely awkward- silence.

The minibot they were searching for worked as part of the boardwalk maintenance staff. Hot Rod had met the blue and white mech several times around town. When they finally caught up with him near the pier, he wasn't alone.

"Tailgate! Whirl!" Hot Rod tried to get their attention. Whirl noticed them first and paused in his game of holding one of Tailgate's brooms just out of reach. The mini took the opportunity to snatch it back from him before also taking note of the odd sight before them.

Hot Rod waved to them and they confusedly returned the gesture, both stepped forward to examine the bubble. Whirl reached out to tap a claw on its surface, getting increasingly frustrated when he couldn't even scratch the surface.

Hot Rod figured he had their attention. "We need your help!"

Just like Chromedome and Rewind, it was impossible to tell if they were trying to talk -not that it would have mattered anyway- but hopefully they could read lips.

"We need you to roll us up the hill!" Hot Rod tried enunciating. "Push. The. Bubble!"

The two looked at each other before ultimately shrugging.

"Wait," Minimus stepped forward and vented on the wall of bubble. In the fog that formed on its surface he used his servo to scrawl out-

"What does that say?" Hot Rod asked, trying to read the backwards letters before they faded.

"Push the bubble. That's what you said."

Tailgate and Whirl seemed just as confused.

"Your handwriting is terrible." Hot Rod commented.

Minimus huffed in frustration and crossed his arms.

"Let me try." Hot Rod also vented a patch of fog on the bubble and began tracing a diagram, drawing a curved slope and crude stick figures to outline the plan. He pointed in the direction of the refinery cliff and finally the two seemed to understand.

Tailgate looked unsure, but Whirl clicked his claws excitedly and with a firm push the bubble was once again rolling in the direction of the beach.

Minimus felt a growing trepidation. "Hot Rod, what did you tell them?"

Hot Rod just waved him off. "It's fine. Like I said, I've got a plan."

~o~o~o~

"Why don't they just help us up to the refinery?" Minimus asked. It was getting late and Tyrest would be expecting him back soon but to his surprise, rather than help them down to the beach, Tailgate and Whirl -mostly Whirl- had rolled them straight up the long slope leading up the cliff side. "Shouldn't we get your caretakers?"

"No, I can handle this." Hot Rod assured him. "You pointed out the lighthouse before."

"What about it?"

"You can't even see it from the beach, it's so far up."

They finally reached the top. It had been years since Minimus had been here, the lighthouse still looked as he remembered it.

His caretakers had always talked about putting a fence around the cliff, especially when he and Dominus were sparklings. In the end they had never gotten around to it -their creations were not there, nor unsupervised often enough to warrant it.

As they rolled up to the edge, he was starting to wish they had.

Hot Rod was still talking. "It gave me an idea. They roll us off the cliff, the bubble hits the rocks below, and the impact breaks us free!"

Minimus blanched, "And what happens after the bubble pops?"

"We'll be free!"

Inside the bubble, Minimus desperately tried shouting to the two outside, the words of which went unheard as Hot Rod shot them a thumbs up, and that was all the confirmation they needed.

Fortunately, they didn't get far before another earthquake rocked the ground. Tailgate and Whirl wobbled, letting go of the bubble just long enough for it to start rolling, away from the cliff and down the slope leading to town.

Could either of them see anything as the world spun around them, they'd make out Tailgate and Whirl chasing after them, falling behind as they picked up momentum until they were both plastered to the edges by the force.

They also would have seen they were rapidly approaching the docks, not that they could have missed them anyway, or done anything to stop from deflecting off one of the posts and sending them tumbling into the ocean.

 ~o~o~o~

They hit the sea floor hard. Hot Rod landed half on top of Minimus and rushed to stand.

"Where are we?" Minimus asked, dusting himself off.

Hot Rod looked around. "The bottom of the ocean."

Unsurprisingly, that response didn't seem to reassure Minimus. "It's ok!" Hot Rod tried desperately.

"Are we even close to the shore?!"

"Yeah, totally!"

The energon was cloudy with sediments kicked up from their fall, but Hot Rod could make out the mechanical forms of small aquatic creatures swimming past and countless forms of bioluminescent plant life that covered the ocean floor around them. Through the murk he could barely make out the solid support beams that held up the pier.

"Let's start rolling."

It was hard enough to move on land, and the ocean floor was significantly worse. Not only was their progress frustratingly slow, but the bubble would abruptly stop every few feet and jam on rocks, sand dunes, and small sea creatures who weren't quick enough to scurry out of the way in time.

Hot Rod laughed nervously after their fifth speed bump. "Ok, that last plan wasn't great. But when we get back I've got another idea, one that will definitely work-"

They both froze when a dark shadow loomed above.

Minimus went rigid, a quiet cry of distress escaping him.

A giant worm creature swam above them. It's thin body was crisscrossed with rows of running seams and covered in a thin coating of slime that shimmered as it moved.

It ignored the two as it reached down to eat at the strands of luminescent seaweed around them.

Hot Rod put a servo on Minimus' shoulder. He flinched at the touch but otherwise didn't move.

"It's ok. Look, it only wants to eat that bright stuff. Not scary at all."

The worm took that moment to finally noticed them.

Hot Rod didn't know how it could find them without eyes, but the creature twisted itself around to right where they were standing. Its segmented mouth opened up and inside Hot Rod could see a rectangular gem set into its equivalent of a throat.

Rather than attack them, the creature dived down, breaking through the rocky seafloor with such shattering force they were knocked down as the ground quaked. A long crevice split open from the creature's entrance point and as the earth opened up beneath them, the two once more found themselves falling.

This time, a much shorter distance.

Hot Rod onlined his optics when their descent abruptly stopped and scrambled to get his pedes out of Minimus' face. "Sorry!" He said. "Are you ok?"

Minimus didn't respond but looked up at Hot Rod and immediately startled, servo flying to his chassis, and Hot Rod realised why when he felt something stuck to his face. He removed Minimus' emblem from his upper lip and moved to hand it back to him, but froze. He almost dropped it when he could swear he felt-

"Don't touch that!" Minimus stood, grabbing it out of his servo before he could react.

Hot Rod stared at him in surprised. Minimus seemed shocked at what he'd just done, but after a moment just huffed and turned away, working to reattach the emblem to his chassis.

Hot Rod stood too. They hadn't fallen far but they were wedged tight between the walls of the crevice, too deep to roll out. Below, the darkness stretched out too far to see the bottom.

Hot Rod started telling Minimus as much when the other made a quiet noise of frustration. The green bot was still struggling to reattach his emblem, fumbling with the clasp and Hot Rod realised he was only using one servo.

"What happened to your servo?" He asked.

"What?" Minimus paused.

"Your ...hand. All day, you've only ever used your left one."

Minimus still didn't turn to him. "My right one doesn't work." Hot Rod waited for him to continue. He sighed. "There was an accident. My creators and I were attacked by one of those... creatures. It didn't see me, but they both-

They didn't survive it. My right hand was crushed. I was able to keep it, but none of the internals work properly."

When Minimus finished Hot Rod stepped forward once again, servo open. "May I?"

Minimus contemplated it for a long moment before carefully handing him the emblem. With as much delicacy as he could manage, Hot Rod reached out to reattach it for him.

"It's my family's symbol. I'm not old enough to wear it properly, but..." Minimus trailed off but Hot Rod understood. Several times over the past two months he'd been left staring at his carrier's portrait on the wall and wishing he actually had something of his creators to remind him of them.

The only thing the cons had to offer was a small statue of his carrier Tarn inexplicably had with him at the time.

He'd refused it.

The clasp was much easier to manage with two servos. Whatever he'd felt from it before was gone now.

"Thank you." Minimus said looking around, "But I think we're even worse off than before." 

Minimus sat down and Hot Rod followed. In the darkness, countless veins of bioluminescent plant life were visible crawling along the crevice walls and floating down on the current, softly illuminating the ocean around them with countless tiny lights.

It was peaceful. They sat like that for a while. Minimus watched the lights with the same absorption he wore when deep in reading, something Hot Rod had only seen from afar till now.

He reached into his backpack. "Here, you dropped this a few weeks ago." He said sheepishly, holding out the history datapad.

Minimus was shocked. "I'd thought I'd lost it." He took it carefully. "This book is a relic, I- thank you."

Hot Rod smiled. Yeah they were probably going to starve to death at the bottom of the ocean, but when Minimus turned on the datapad to find it working, Hot Rod was sure that in its light he saw the corners of Minimus' mouth twitch up the tiniest bit.

And then the bubble popped.

Hot Rod in-vented in surprise and a rush of energon flooded his vents before he could seal them. Minimus was worse off, jerking in panic. As quickly as he could Hot Rod took hold of his wrist and reached out his other servo to grab the ledge before they sunk down. Finding a foothold he was able to climb out of the crevice and pulled Minimus up beside him.

Minimus was clutching the now ruined datapad tightly to his chassis, looking down at the abyss they had almost sunk into. The pad was flickering sporadically, glitching from submersion and probably giving Minimus a few unpleasant shocks.

Hot Rod fought the urge to cough and clear his vents, the discomfort of liquid sloshing around his internals was almost unbearable -and he figured Minimus wasn't much better off.

They couldn't talk while submerged -Lighters didn't have comms did they?- but he shot Minimus a questioning thumbs up that was hesitantly returned. Good.

He looked around, trying to find the direction of the beach but couldn't. Up above it was night, as his chronometer confirmed, and the strongest source of light available was coming from the broken pad and the faint orange glow of the worm creature's gem above them.

Oh no.

The two dodged its mandibles by inches as it snapped at them. It turned sharply to come back around and its body followed, slamming into them and sending them tumbling. Hot Rod's shoulder  impacted with something sturdy and he realised with a start it was a support beam.

Grabbing Minimus he ran them up towards the beach. As soon as they broke the surface they were sputtering, trying to vent in cool air. Their respite was short lived however as a warbling cry sounded behind them. The worm was slithering towards them at a speed unnatural for its size.

This time it was Minimus who reacted first, pulling Hot Rod out of the energon to the rocky outcrop further on shore. "Split up, hide in the rocks!"

Hot Rod went one way and Minimus went the other, but the worm seemed to have no confusion as to its target. To Hot Rod's surprise it went straight after Minimus, and the other bot was struggling. The rocks were hindering him just as much as they slowed the worm. With his good servo he still held on to the flickering datapad, clutching it close like a shield.

"Minimus!" Hot Rod called to him in realisation. "It's the datapad! It eats glowy things!"

Minimus rolled away from one of the creature's lunges and jumped down into the sand. While the worm was busy spitting out rocks, he ran. Not inland, but further down the beach.

In the direction of the refinery.

Hot Rod followed. He caught up around the same time the worm realised its prey was escaping. It wasn't any slower on land than it was in the water, and Hot Rod knew they wouldn't make it to the cons in time.

Hot Rod grabbed the pad out of Minimus' servo. "What are you doing?" He protested.

Hot Rod smiled. "Trust me, I've got a plan!"

Minimus stared at him, about a hundred different protests on his glossa, but they were out of time.

Well, third time's the charm, he supposed.

Minimus nodded.

Hot Rod's face turned apologetic. "Sorry about this." He said and shoved Minimus.

Minimus fell, landing hard on the ground, the worm still coming. He curled as it came at him but the creature completely ignored him, bypassing him entirely to keep chasing Hot Rod.

He watched in horror as Hot Rod stopped at the cliffside. The same spot where all this had started, his old datapad and Hot Rod's skateboard were still left in the sand from that afternoon.

The worm kept coming. As though sensing its prey was vulnerable, it reared itself and lunged, maw open wide.

Hot Rod's timing was down to the second. He rolled out of its way at the last moment and the creature smashed head-first into the rocky wall.

Hot Rod ran back to rejoin Minimus who couldn't understand. The worm was still alive. It shook itself off and once again turned to the two bots, now angrier than ever. It crouched low and screeched at them

just as a sizeable boulder landed square on its head.

The worm exploded into smoke. It's gem dropped into the sand below. A few more rocks tumbled down from the cliff as Hot Rod and Minimus couldn't bring themselves to move.

After a moment Hot Rod realised he had taken a hold of Minimus' servo during the commotion. They pulled away quickly. "Uhh..."

"Hot Rod?!"

The Phase-Sixers came running down from the refinery.

"What's going on out here? Where have you been?" Tarn asked. Sixshot stopped to examine the rubble littering the beach and the orange gem that he reached down to subspace.

"That was incredible!" Minimus exclaimed and the cons turned to examine the new bot.

"You think so?" Hot Rod asked, the smallest blush reaching his faceplates.

Black Shadow startled him by placing a servo on his shoulder. "So, are you going to introduce us?"

Hot Rod's blush deepened.

Black Shadow kept talking. "Do you want to come inside? It's getting late-"

Minimus suddenly froze in panic. "Wait, what time is it? I have to get home!"

Hot Rod stepped forward, datapad outstretched. It had stopped flickering, probably broken for good but Minimus instantly calmed. "...Thank you." He said taking it back.

"I'll -uh, see you around?" Hot Rod asked.

Minimus nodded.

~o~o~o~

The cons wanted to know everything; What's his name? How did it go? What did you two do? Also, did you just kill a monster by yourself?

But he was exhausted and hadn't fuelled in cycles. They immediately rushed him back to the refinery and after a small cube energon said he should recharge, they'd get all the details in the morning -well, Tarn said that. The others were more reluctant to wait.

He didn't object though.

While the purple Phase-Sixer tucked him in for the night, he kept replaying the day's events. Now that it was over, he couldn't stop thinking about what he'd done.

He didn't know what he did or how, but he did have someone he could ask about it.

"Tarn?"

"Yes?" Tarn sat down on the edge of the berth.

"I think I might be an outlier."

Tarn looked confused. "Why do you say that?"

Hot Rod sat up. "I did something today. To save Minimus, I created a force field -well, a bubble- but I couldn't get it to go away afterwards."

Tarn was silent, pensive.

"Tarn?"

"It's... possible, yes." Tarn said, standing. "But it's getting late now, we can talk about it in the morning."

Hot Rod flopped back down. Despite how tired he was, he was too restless to recharge. "Could you sing me to sleep?"

"Of course."

Chapter Text

Overlord lunged forward but Black Shadow was faster. He dodged the grab and swung around, aiming a kick at the blue mech's head. Overlord raised his arms to block, and before the jet could pull back Overlord grabbed his pede and yanked. Black Shadow fell to the sand and twisted out of his grip. He rolled out of reach as Overlord swung at him and crouched ready to-

A whistle sounded from across the beach. "6-4 for Overlord!" Hot Rod called raising the clipboard he was using to keep score.

"Hey, I'm not down yet!" Black Shadow protested.

Hot Rod shrugged. "I've gotta call it somewhere."

They'd been sparring all morning. It had become a regular thing the past month. Sometimes Sixshot would join them, but alone Overlord and Black Shadow tended to get... competitive.

Hot Rod volunteered to call their sessions so they wouldn't get carried away.

Again.

"Must you turn everything into a competition?" Tarn stood just outside the practice zone, arms crossed in disdain.

Overlord rolled his optics. "What do you want?"

Tarn turned to Black Shadow. "Sixshot is looking for you."

Black Shadow climbed to his pedes and dusted himself off. "This ain't over yet!" He called to Overlord as he went inside.

Overlord smirked at Tarn. "You haven't trained since we got here, why don't you join in?"

Tarn stiffened. "I don't have to. I could take you down right now should I choose." He stated.

He turned to head back to the refinery and Overlord pounced. He grabbed the tank's arm and before he could react, twisted and flipped him over his shoulder.

Tarn slammed into the ground, pinned down by Overlord. "Get off me!" He growled.

Tarn got up as soon as Overlord backed off, an unpleasant tingling running across the triple changer's spark.

He shook it off. "Primus, you're no fun. This is why we've never combined."

Tarn rounded on him. "We can't combine because you're difficult and a mess!"

"We can't combine because you're an uptight-"

"Waaaaaaaaait a klik!" Hot Rod dropped his clipboard and rushed over, clearly distressed. "You guys have never combined?"

Tarn looked confused. "Well, no..."

Combining was like, the coolest thing ever!

Cybertronians' sparks gave them the ability to fuse with another of their species to create an entirely new being, an amalgam of all the power and abilities of its components. They were entities formed from purpose and trust. 

The Deceptions in particular had specialised in creating gestalt teams. Specially chosen mecha bonded together to be able to combine up to six mechs into one gigantic -but stable- being.

Within the normal populace it was rare for two mecha to sync perfectly -some combiners were just monstrous- but to be unable to do it at all?

"Why not?" Hot Rod asked them.

Tarn crossed his arms. "We've tried, but it's impossible."

"But you guys would be so cool! Strong, fast-" Hot Rod gasped in realisation. "You'd be so big."

"Hot Rod I don't think-"

"You could do it right now! Ooo, what would your name be? Would you be a mech or a femme? Would you have extra arms? Extra optics? What colour-"

"Hot Rod," Tarn stopped him, "We appreciate your enthusiasm, but it's just not something everyone is capable of."

Overlord scoffed. "Speak for yourself, I'm great at combining."

"Are you two done?" Sixshot had joined them sometime during their bickering. "We've got a mission."

~o~o~o~

"I've been talking to Deadlock," Sixshot said back at the refinery. "He's scouted out most of the planet's outposts and taken most remaining war relics, but he suggested something."

Black Shadow walked past them downing an energon cube.

Sixshot continued, "There's an old barracks in the south that might still have some useable Cyb technology."

"Oh joy, what now?" Overlord asked.

Sixshot ignored him, "Last time he was there he saw some old receivers that could pick up Cybertronian communications."  

Tarn's optics widened. "Could it be retrofitted to contact Cybertron?" He asked.

"No, but at least we'll know if they try and contact us."

"Then let's go." Said Overlord.

"We're busy." Black Shadow said, already on the warp pad. "There's a town up north under attack."

"We need to move quickly." Sixshot sent them a databurst with the details and went to join Black Shadow.

"Are you sure you don't need help with that?" Tarn implored.

"We've got it." Black Shadow said as Sixshot stepped onto the pad. "Just pretend you don't hate each other." He advised and the two warped out.

Tarn sighed. "Fine, let's go."

"Can I come?" Hot Rod asked. He already had his backpack on and was practically bouncing in place.

"Well..." Tarn started.

"Come on, you're just picking something up." He pleaded.

"Fine." Overlord said. Stepping onto the pad and sending the purple mech an impatient look.

"Yes!" Hot Rod bounded up beside him. "First mission! This is going to be awesome!"

Tarn sighed.

He stepped onto the warp pad and shoved Overlord out of the center.

"Stay in the beam." He advised Hot Rod.

~o~o~o~

Warping was not the same as using a bridge. Hot Rod felt a sense of weightlessness as they passed through the event horizon. It was like riding a column of light, and if he just reached out he could- 

"Be careful!" Tarn pulled him back to the centre and Hot Rod realised he'd been floating up.

They materialised at the base of a mountain. The warp pad in the center of what once might have been an elaborate crystal garden. The crystals had overgrown the area, most of them damaged from exposure. The stonework tiles and arches decorating the area were faded and crumbling from neglect.  

Hot Rod looked around. "Is this it?"

"Apparently." Tarn said setting him down.

A worn stone staircase cut a path through the overgrowth, leading all the way to the peak. Far up in the distance the spires of a large building were visible through the clouds.

"So... Would your combiner be a giant giant robot, or just a regular sized giant robot?" Hot Rod asked.

Tarn ignored him. "Let's go."

He and Overlord started up the mountain. Hot Rod looked at the barracks in the distance. There had to be a million stairs to cover, they'd be here all day.

"It's pretty far." Hot Rod commented. "If you guys were to combine it'd only take half the time!" 

"No." Overlord and Tarn said in unison. 

Hot Rod jogged to catch up. "Your combiner would probably be able to fly, we'd be at the top in a klik!"

Tarn sighed. "Hot Rod, even if we could, combining should only be used for dire situations. It's not something to be taken lightly."

Overlord said nothing.

Hot Rod groaned. "I'm never going to get to see your combiner." He mumbled. "All I want to do is see you turn into a giant robot..."

~o~o~o~

"So I've been thinking of names..." Hot Rod said. They'd been walking for cycles and neither Tarn nor Overlord had once passed up the opportunity to antagonise the other.

But nor had Hot Rod stopped trying to get them together. "Tarnverlord, Supercon, Nightcore, Cadaver-"

"We're here." Overlord said. 

It didn't look like a barracks. The structure was just as decrepit as the rest of the area, but the crumbling spires and faded engravings carved into the building gave Hot Rod the impression it might once have been impressive.

The inside was no different.

Berths were packed tightly together along the walls alongside shelves and shelves of books. Some newer technology like energon dispensers had been brought in and set up in some of the larger rooms. The sight of them, even rusted beyond use, was a strong contrast to the ancient stonework they stood against.

But what Hot Rod found the most surprising were the paintings on the walls. Most of them were unrecognizable through their damage, but Hot Rod had seen enough religious art know that's what it was. He saw depictions of Primus and the Guiding Hand portrayed in scenes from the Covenant, even the story of the 13 Primes.

"This was a barracks?" He asked, stopping to examine a faded image of the Knights of Cybertron leaving their home world.

"It used to be a temple." Tarn said, looking around with disdain. "It was converted to hold soldiers."

Hot Rod felt a twinge at that he couldn't quite explain.

More and more berths were piled up the further they went on, many of them destroyed. Personal belongings were haphazardly strewn about to be eaten by nature along with the rest of the building. It was like the inhabitants had all left in a hurry. Empty tins, broken holo emitters, crystal shards, Hot Rod would stop every so often and pickup whatever trinket caught his optic, storing them away in his backpack. 

They eventually came to another large set of doors. Tarn stepped forward and pushed them open. "If Sixshot's right, the main hall should be right through... here..."

They stepped through the wide archway and found themselves standing outside. The walls of the hall had likely collapsed years ago, the rubble so weatherworn and overgrown it was impossible to make out what any of it might once have been.

The connecting buildings to the right and left were caved in as well. Ahead, the field of debris extended all the way to the cliff edge. There was nowhere else to go.

Tarn stepped over the piles of rubble and looked around the centre of the destroyed courtyard. "It'll take all day to dig through this, the receiver could be anywhere!"

Overlord leaned against the doorway. "Keep freaking out, maybe that'll help."

Tarn stormed up to him. "I cannot believe you! This is important, Cybertron could be trying to reach us right now and you couldn't care less!"

"This place has been ruined for centuries, any tech is going to be ruined by now! Your squawking isn't going to fix that!" Overlord shouted back.

"I do not squawk!" Tarn squawked in indignation.

*Cheep!*

Everyone froze as a nearby pile of rubble started moving.

Another small chirp, and a small bird peeked out of its hiding place.

It hopped towards the assembled mecha. Hot Rod immediately rushed to it. It was a dark purple thing with wings too big for its small body that was mostly taken up by a long beak. It had no eyes and sniffed cautious as Hot Rod reached out a servo to pet it.

"Hot Rod, be careful." Tarn warned."But it's a baby!" Hot Rod said. He pulled out a rust stick from his bag and held it out. The bird snatched it and swallowed it whole as Hot Rod watched in fascination.

"See, it's harmless." He pulled out another treat. This time as he held it out the bird moved like lightning and snapped at his servo.

Hot Rod cried out and pulled back, cradling his servo as the bird pounced on the dropped rust stick.

"Hot Rod!" Tarn called in concern. The bite hadn't draw energon but had dented one of his digits. The bird swallowed the stick and shrieked at him for more.

Without hesitation, Overlord walked over and kicked it.

He hardly used any force but the creature went flying. It crashed into the rubble of a wall and exploded into smoke.

"We came all this way, and for what?" Overlord growled, gesturing around the courtyard. "There's nothing here!"

The debris exploded behind them.

Out of the ruins a giant bird rose above them. A scaled up version of the previous one, it's wings blotted out the sun above. With a piercing shriek it dived at them.

Overlord summoned his gauntlets and swung. The creature was faster and clamped its beak down on his forearm, digging in as he tried to pull back.

Frozen in shock, Hot Rod yelped when he was suddenly grabbed. Tarn held him close and darted back towards the intact part of the temple.

Overlord dematerialised the gauntlet and slipped out of the creature's grasp, diving back as it snapped again. He followed them inside with the bird in hot pursuit. Too big to fit through the archway, it clawed and snapped at them in a frenzy.

Tarn dropped Hot Rod and summoned his own weapon. In the moment it took the fusion cannon to charge, the bird pulled back. The shot went wide as the creature flew up, disappearing from sight.

A second later they realised why as a tremor rocked the building. Muffled scrapping from above drew their attention up as bits of dust and debris started raining down on them as creature pecked at the roof.

"This is great!" Hot Rod exclaimed. Both cons stared at him in disbelief. "Now's the perfect time for you two to combine!"

...

~o~o~o~

Dancing wasn't the only way to combine, but it was certainly the easiest.

He'd rarely combined with anyone outside the DJD, the intimacy of it was never something he was fully comfortable with, but there were times throughout the war where duty had called for it.

Times like now.

With a sigh, Tarn took up his own position and began.

He wasn't the most graceful mech alive, but at least he tried, unlike the mech that currently stood across from him moving like- oh Primus what was he doing. That was not dancing! Wh- oh for sparks sake, Hot Rod was right there! Ugh...

Grin and bear it, he reminded himself, forcing himself to focus on the looming presence of the creature above them and Hot Rod sitting eagerly in the corner.

~o~o~o~

Hot Rod watched in fascination as Tarn and Overlord's sparks began glowing, shining brighter and brighter as they moved.

He couldn't find much of a pattern in their movements, but eventually they settled on something close enough to try getting close. Tarn spun over and held out a servo to Overlord. The blue mech took it and pulled him close. 

Too close.

Tarn tried moving into a spin as Overlord wrapped his arm around him and ended up smacked him in the face with one of his gun barrels. Overlord growled in frustration and grabbed him roughly round the waist, pushing him into a dip. The placement was all wrong and Tarn ended up half sprawled on the floor right as the glow peaked and their entire bodies were consumed by light.

And then it broke.

They were thrown roughly apart and skidded to a stop at opposite ends of the room.

"Were you even trying to sync with me?" Tarn snapped at the triple changer, "Do you know anything about combining?"

"Ha!" Overlord brushed himself off. "You're one to talk! I have no trouble with Sixshot or Shadow, what about you?" 

Tarn bristled. "Maybe it's because I don't do well with arrogant, crude," He stepped forward until he was face to face with Overlord. "Hard-helmed types!"

"Stop! Please don't fight!" Hot Rod begged them. "If you don't get along then I'll never get to see your awesome combiner!"

The scratching from above suddenly intensified. All three mechs froze as a wide crack formed along the ceiling where they stood.

"And we might get eaten by a giant bird!" Hot Rod pointed out, right before the roof gave way as the bird broke through above him, snapping him up in its beak.

"Hot Rod!" Tarn and Overlord cried in unison as the bird swallowed him whole before once more taking to the sky.

~o~o~o~

Hot Rod tumbled down into the creature's stomach, landing roughly on the squishy lining.

It was warm and damp, but thankfully free of any kind of digestive fluid. Instead the creature's stomach was filled with junk. 

It was a small museum of shiny trinkets. Polished rocks, glass shards, including things that had to have come from neighbouring towns. Signposts, scraps of colourful fabric -was that a billboard?- even a few pieces of long greyed-out plating Hot Rod didn't look too long at. 

He looked up from where he fell. The opening to the creature's throat was too high up and the walls too soft to climb. Up above through the long column of its neck, he could make out the glimmer of a jet black gem set into the dangling piece at the back of its throat. What was that called, a uvula? Did birds even have uvulas?

The creature suddenly shifted and Hot Rod was thrown back, landing amid a pile of empty energon cubes and yelped as something dug into his back. He reached around to pull out whatever was jabbing between his plates, but the bird jolted again, violently this time. Hot Rod had barely any time to register it before a fist punched through the wall of the creature's stomach. 

Hot Rod cried out in shock as it began searching around. He tried to back away but froze as another large hand broke through behind him and grabbed him.

There was a sickening squelch as he was pulled from the creature. The warmth of its insides were a sharp contrast to the wind whipping around them and Hot Rod froze when he realised they were still flying. The temple courtyard rushed up at them as the bird lost its altitude and Hot Rod held tight to the mech cradling him against his chassis.

"Hold on!" Overlord advised him before removing his other hand and kicked off.

He righted himself and activated his thrusters right before they hit the ground -mostly for Hot Rod's sake. They still landed hard enough to shatter the stone below them.

Hot Rod was left momentarily disoriented by the impact. When he onlined his optics it was just in time to see Tarn standing across the courtyard below the falling bird, dual fusion cannons charged.

He fired. The creature righted itself too late, body missing the brunt of the impact but the blast tore through its left wing.

It plummeted to the ground, crashing through the ruins, destroying the remains of the building as it flailed to a stop.

Overlord set Hot Rod down behind a pile of debris at the corner of the courtyard. "Stay low." He said before heading to join Tarn.

Hot Rod listened.

The creature rose from the rubble, ruined wing dragging behind it. With another great cry it spread its remaining one and shook it out. Hundreds of feathers detached from its body, surrounding the air around their originator. The mecha watched as each plume shifted, breaking apart and reforming into creatures identical to the small bird from before.

They dived. Tarn and Overlord broke apart to either side, circling towards the edges of the courtyard.

The creatures weren't very smart. Many of them crashed into the ground rather than following the Phase-Sixers, bursting into smoke on impact. The ones that did follow moved like a hive-mind, rather than chase both of them the flock focused on Tarn.

The purple mech transformed and ground to a stop, twisting his gun barrels around to the approaching flock and firing, aiming not at the cloud of creatures but the giant section of wall Overlord lobbed above them.

Hundreds of pieces of rock exploded outwards. The area was flooded with clouds of smoke as the tightly packed cluster of birds were struck down by the debris.

Both mecha disappeared in the smokescreen. The giant bird screeched, flapping and flailing its good wing trying to dispel the thick cover.

In the center of the arena, Tarn braced himself and activated his fusion cannon, charging its energy well past the standard threshold.

The creature looked up at the sound. It lunged at him, beak open wide. 

So focused on Tarn, the bird didn't notice Overlord until he was in front of it. The creature tried to bite down on the blue mech but Overlord caught its beak in his servos, keeping it forced open.

Not giving it time to struggle, Tarn ducked in front of Overlord, fusion cannon aimed straight down its throat.

He fired.

The creature exploded in a cloud of smoke and light, its remaining constructs suffering a similar fate at the death of their creator.

Tarn an Overlord watched as the smoke cleared and all traces of the creature dissipated. In the crater it once stood lay a gem.

It had shattered completely. It's former shape was indistinguishable, only a handful of greying shards remained.

Tarn subspaced them anyway. He turned to Overlord, feeling like he should say something-

"You guys were amazing!" Hot Rod popped up from behind his cover. "That was so great how you worked together like that. Why don't you do that more often!"

He bounded over to the two cons who were pointedly not looking at each other.

"We still didn't find the receiver." Tarn lamented, looking over the destroyed temple. Anything that may have been intact definitely wasn't now.

"And you didn't combine..." Hot Rod pointed out a little dejectedly.

Tarn gave him a light pat on the back and Hot Rod yelped as the action triggered a sharp burst of pain throughout the area.

Seeing the problem, Tarn gently reached down and dislodged the debris wedged between his plating. Hot Rod sighed in relief as the dull pain he'd ignoring until now finally abated.

Tarn held the device up to examine.

Overlord leaned in. "Is that the receiver?"

It was just big enough to fit in Hot Rod's servo, and almost comically small in Tarn's. He couldn't see any controls on it, only the small blinking light on top gave any indication it still worked.

"I can't believe it..." Tarn said.

"Wait," Hot Rod asked, a smile slowly forming on his faceplates. "Does that mean we did it?"

"It would appear so."

"Yes!" Hot Rod celebrated, "First mission accomplished!"

~o~o~o~

They'd been back for hours before the warp pad activated again.

Rather than Sixshot or Black Shadow, someone Hot Rod had never seen before teleported in.

It was a black and white mech with red and purple accents. They were tall, taller than Overlord, but neither he nor Tarn seemed surprised at their presence.

"I see you didn't kill each other." The mech intoned.

The spark on their left arm was a bright citrine and with a gasp Hot Rod realised if they were to turn around there'd be a similarly coloured one set into their upper back.

"Giant robot!" Hot Rod exclaimed in wonder.

Tarn and Overlord didn't seem impressed. "What could have warranted you?" The former asked.

"Beetles." The combiner said, reaching up to pick debris out of one of his pauldrons. "Giant ones."

He reached into subspace and pulled out two diamond shaped gems, tossing them to Tarn who had to scramble to catch them in time.

"We completed our task too." Overlord pointed out.

"Whatever." The mech said, stepping down from the warp pad.

Hot Rod ran up to him. "Who are you?" For a combiner he looked almost normal, except for the dual pairs of wings on his back.

The combiner looked down at the star-struck bot staring up at him in barely contained excitement.

"Hex." He answered simply.

A bright glow filled the room and Hex split apart, gracefully separating into Sixshot and Black Shadow. The two stepped apart. Black Shadow raised a servo for a high-five and Sixshot returned it.

"See, at least we can get along."

Chapter Text

The wilderness outside of town was largely undeveloped. Large hills, mountain ranges, and widely held -though not entirely unfounded- superstitions of vicious, roaming monsters circulated wildly and kept settlements mostly delegated to open valley. Superstition like that surrounding the mountain the three Cybertronians currently found themselves at the base of, peering into the mouth of a large cave.

"We could collapse the entrance." Tarn suggested. The rock already looked pretty unstable.

Reports of rockslides and wildfires had lead them here. Mecha had urban legends of the large monster that allegedly lived in the cave system running throughout the mountain range, but besides a few hazy descriptions -100 meters tall!, no 500! With two heads, and huge wings! No, a serpent, with giant teeth, covered in horns!- 

It seemed like no one had actually encountered the beast.

Still, the felled trees surrounding the area indicated something was living here, and nothing small either.

"Better idea." Black Shadow said. He reached into his subspace, pulling out a can of paint. He activated his thrusters and flew up. Dipping his free servo into the can, he spread the bright orange paint above the cave entrance. 

"There." He said landing. "What idiot is going to go in there?"

They looked up at the large X messily painted onto the rock. Wet paint streaked down the rock face. Tarn didn’t look sold. "At least it will give us time to figure out a permanent solution." He conceded. 

"Perfect!" Black Shadow threw his arm around one of Tarn’s treads. "Now who’s up for lunch?

"Me!" Hot Rod said.

"Alright!" Black Shadow scooped up the bitlet and made his way to the centre of the clearing. "Meet you back at the refinery." He told Tarn, who was just noticing the bright orange servo-print on his treads.

Before he could do more that sputter in indignation, Black Shadow had transformed around Hot Rod and the two were off.

~o~o~o~

A few mecha still startled as Black Shadow landed right on the town’s main drag. Most of them were used to it and simply parted to let the warrior transform, Hot Rod still in his arms.

"Ok, where to?" He asked the bitlet.

Hot Rod thought for a moment. “Blue Flower has two-for-one ener-pizza." He suggested.

"Good enough.”

They weren’t far from the restaurant. The Blue Flower was a quaint little diner in the centre of town that everyone knew and loved. It was owned and run by a group of amica who lived together in the above apartment.

A familiar mech stood alone out front.

"Chromedome?" The orange mech hadn’t noticed them yet, leaning against the wall and occasionally glancing inside the diner’s wide front window.

"You know him?" Black Shadow asked.

"Yeah, he and his conjunx run R&R."

Black Shadow cut off suddenly with a raised servo, loosing focus on the bitlet in front of him. A clear sign he was talking to someone over the comms. Hot Rod looked back at Chromedome and waved. The mech finally saw him and waved back, still leaning at the window. 

Black Shadow groaned. "Duty calls, we gotta go."

"What’s happening?" Hot Rod asked.

"Some kind of moving moss. Tarn says it’s urgent." He didn’t sound convinced. "I think he just wants us to starve."

Hot Rod’s tank audibly rumbled at the idea. He looked back at the restaurant with longing. 

"... Wanna stay here?" Black Shadow asked.

Hot Rod nodded.

"Alright. Come back to the refinery afterwards, we should be done soon." Black Shadow said as he made his way to the middle of the street.

"Got it!" Hot Rod said as Black Shadow transformed and took off, frightening a few of the tourists and unprepared locals walking the area. 

Hot Rod watched him leave and bounded over to Chromedome who was once again intently focused on the restaurant, arms crossed.

"Hey Chromedome!" Hot Rod greeted him, servo raised.

"Hi Roddy." The other mech returned the high five and the bitlet also leaned against the building.

"What are you doing?"

"Ah, trying to talk to them." He motioned inside. It was a small place. Only a few tables had mecha sitting at them, but all of the other patrons were clearly disturbed by the ruckus happening in the corner of the restaurant.

Five mecha were all stuffed into one of the wall booths. The surrounding area looked like it had just come out of a food fight; two of them were trying to shovel down as much food as they could, the large purple one fiddled with stacking a pile of utensils into a small tower while the small brown one was trying -and failing- to discretely shove an entire basket of rust sticks into one of their side compartments. Meanwhile a small face-masked one was arguing loudly with one of the managers -Skids, Hot Rod remembered-  who seemed to be getting more incensed by the second.

"Who are they." Hot Rod asked.

"They’re a bunch of scavengers that come to around sometimes." Chromedome said, watching them through the window. "I think they’re homeless."

"They look cool." Hot Rod watched as one of them practically climbed on top of the table to reach the slice across from them.

"Pfft! They’re the five biggest losers in town." Chromedome said.

"Then why are you trying to hang out with them?"

Before Chromedome could answer something crashed inside. Hot Rod and Chromedome watched as the group of scavengers scrambled out past the overturned table as another manager -Nautical? Nautica- chased them out with an expertly wielded broom.

"Are you going to talk to them?" Hot Rod asked as the group booked past the duo and down the boardwalk.

"It’s -not that easy!" Chromedome stuttered. "I gotta play it cool. Let them come to me." He told Hot Rod.

"Don’t worry, I know cool." Hot Rod winked.

“Right…” Chromedome sighed, “Look Hot Rod, technically I’m here on work. I appreciate it, but you shouldn’t-"

Wait, where did Hot Rod go?

Oh.

“Hot Rod!” Chromedome shout-whispered after the bot currently dashing down the boardwalk towards the group of scavengers.

Hot Rod caught up with them just outside of town near a couple of rundown scooters. Rather than try and tie them up anywhere, it seemed they had just driven them into a shallow ditch and hastily covered them with leaves. Three of them were arguing about finding fuel when the small bot interrupted them. 

"Hi!” He said offering his servo, “I’m Hot Rod!”

Five heads turned to regard the small bot a klik before one of them returned the high five.

"I’m Misfire." The tall fuchsia one greeted him. "Are you one of those aliens?" He asked pointing to Hot Rod’s spark.

"Yup."

"Cool. Hey Fulcrum, come check this out!" He called to the small brown mech. "That’s Fulcrum. This is Krok, Crankcase, and Spinister." Misfire went around introducing them all, "So can you do magic?"

"Not really." Hot Rod admitted. "Actually, my friend and I wanted to hang out with you guys."

Chromedome watched the interaction from a ways away, trying to look casual as he spied on them out of the corner if his optic, debating as to whether or not to come over there and break up whatever mess Hot Rod was bound to be making when the bitlet ran back over to him.

"They invited us along for a ride!" Hot Rod told him.

Chromedome couldn't believe it. "Really?!" 

"Told you, I know cool." Hot Rod said shooting finger guns at him as he turned back to the scavengers.

Hesitantly, Chromedome made his way over to the group, shirking as he approached and all optics landed on him. "Uh- hi."

"You're the guy that was hanging out in front of the diner." The blue one with a bad looking head wound said. 

"We've see you around town a lot." The tall purple one observed. "We guessed you were following us."

Chromedome froze, "No! What-"

"Mm hmm." Misfire approached him "And cool kid here told us all about your obsession with us." 

He stuttered, "I'm not, it's not what you-" 

He was interrupted when Misfire threw an arm around his shoulder. "We get it, you wanna hang with the pros."

"... What?"

Misfire continued, "Yeah, it's not a glamorous job, but if anyone's gonna find the world's hidden treasures it'll be mech like us. It ain't easy, but you came to the right squad."

"And it can be pretty lucrative." The small brown one said. Fulcrum- that was Fulcrum, Chromedome noted. 

Misfire introduced the group again for him anyway.

"We got a tip about a possible looting ground, want to come with us?" Krok said. 

Chromedome was speechless, "I- wait, really?" 

"As an... intern."

"-unpaid" Crankcase clarified.

Krok continued, "If it does pan out, we could use the extra hands."

"Sounds awesome!" Hot Rod spoke for both of them. Any new chance to explore the planet was a welcome adventure.

"Uh yeah...” Chromedome still looked shocked. “Cool bikes." He said, trying to retake control of this unexpected situation.

"Eh." Spinister shrugged, as Crankcase started one up with a horrible sputtering noise and a thick cloud of exhaust. "They work, most of the time."

"Everyone hop on." Krok instructed an Hot Rod and Chromedome looked at the scooters.

Three scooters and now seven mecha.

"So..." Chromedome turned to Fulcrum, "Can I ride with you?"

"I don't drive." He said as he climbed in back of Misfire.

"What about me!" Hot Rod asked. 

"Yeah, you're small enough" Misfire told him, "and pinhead here doesn't take that much space anyway." He said, earning a shove from fulcrum.

Hot Rod hopped on the front of their bike. Unfortunately, he was small and Misfire had no trouble reaching around him to operate the controls.

Hot Rod settled in and Chromedome looked at the other options. Krok had saddled with Spinister, that left Crankcase.

Neither of them looked pleased with this arrangement.

Hot Rod held on tight as the scooter turned on and they were off.

The seven of them headed away from town until the tree line started to thicken into the outskirts of an actual forest. They only drove for about 10 minutes before they turned off the paved roads, eventually having to stop as the forest became too dense to continue through.

"Alright, we walk from here." Krok said as they parked the scooters a little into the brush, once again content to cover them with whatever leaves and twigs they could.

The forest was considerably dense, Hot Rod couldn't see more than a couple of meters deep.

"Are you sure you know where this place is?" Chromedome asked them as they started making their way through, Crankcase leading. He had a map in hand -not a datapad, an actual honest to goodness paper map with a dotted line drawn through leading up to a big X.

Chromedome was not impressed.

Nevertheless, he followed the group through the underbrush. 

Hot Rod walked up beside Krok, "You guys do this all the time?"

"Most of the time." Krok said. "It keeps us fed, and hey- sometimes we find some real treasures."

"Like what?" Hot Rod asked.

"Uhh," Krok thought for a minute, "Well, it depends on who you ask. You know what they say about one mech's trash."

Hot Rod looked back at the group. Chromedome was walking closely besides Fulcrum, attempting to start up a conversation the brown mech looked desperate to avoid. He kept trying to subtly put some distance between them as Chromedome stayed stuck to his side. Eventually he got close enough to Misfire to wrap an arm around him and Misfire reciprocated by pulling him close, and any talking Chromedome may have wanted to do was quickly drowned out by the purple mech's non-stop chatter as he turned to the two mech now in his vicinity.

"We're almost there." Crankcase announced.

Hot Rod looked at the forest around them. He still couldn't see much ahead of them, but he could still swear there was something strangely familiar about this place.

Something that immediately became evident when they stepped out into a clearing and he saw the bright orange paint dripping down the rock.

"We're here."

Now he remembered!

"Wait!" He shouted. Everyone froze. "We can't go in there!"

"There's no reason to be afraid" Krok said, "there are caves like this everywhere."

"Yeah, we check them out all the time." Said Misfire continuing on.

"Not this one!" Hot Rod ran in front of him, doing his best to block the entrance with his tiny frame. "There's a monster living in this one!"

"Psh, yeah. We've hear the stories, and I say it's junk." Crankcase gestured to the cave entrance. "You're telling me there an energon-thirsty monster in there that's never killed anyone and no one has ever even seen? Sounds more like someone doesn't want people snooping around."

"Which means whatever's in there is probably a goldmine." Misfire said, stepping around Hot Rod.

"Wait!" He protested, but everyone had already made up their minds.

"Chromedome?" He tried.

"Sorry Roddy." Chromedome said, continuing in on after them, "They're right, it's probably nothing."

Hot Rod watched as the six of them disappeared into the darkness of the cave. Two of them pulled out flashlights and the bitlet watched as the light went further and further down until it veered off. He looked at the bright orange X painted above the rock. Most of the paint had dripped down, and numerous drops of orange had fallen to the dirt at the cave entrance, marking the line from the clearing to the depths of the mountain.

Hot Rod thought about calling the Cons. He didn’t have the mod for long-range comms, but Sixshot had modified a small phone to access theirs. He pulled it out, but hesitated. If the Scavengers were right and the creature was a hoax, it’d be pretty silly to call his guardians away from a real mission just to barge in on a group of friends he was pretty sure they’d disapprove of anyway. 

And if there was a monster living in the cave system, well the chances of them arriving in time were slim -but that made him the best bot here to deal with it. 

Crossing the threshold, he ran in after the group.

The first dozen or so meters of cave were a straight line, but Hot Rod quickly came upon a fork in the tunnels. It wasn’t hard to figure out which way the Scavengers had gone -noises of pede steps and loud chatter echoed throughout the cave system. The tunnels were enormous, way larger than he thought any naturally occurring structure could be. Any of the phase-sixers could walk around easily, it wasn’t hard to see why mecha believed a huge monster could live here. 

Turning right, then left at a few more forks, he found the group and gasped. The tunnel opened up into a large circular cavern. Fulcrum and Crankcase still had their flashlights on but they were unnecessary, small pockets of green crystals were embedded into the rock around them, casting a faint glow everywhere. 

Chromedome reached out to touch the rock and looked at the fine green dust that came away on his servos. “Is this destronium?”

Destronim was the core material of living metal and what their bodies were made of. It's raw form didn't have much of a practical use on Cybertron, but for a people that couldn't regenerate? Hot Rod could imagine the value.

“Ha!” Misfire poked at one of the larger deposits, “No wonder they don’t want mech snooping around here, this place is a goldmine!” 

“There could be veins running through the entire mountain.” Chromedome said, looking around the room in shock “How has this not been excavated yet? Someone has to know about this.”

“Someone does.” Spinister spoke up from across the cavern.

Everyone turned to him. “Why do you say that?” Fulcrum asked.

That’s when Hot Rod noticed he was standing at the opening of another cave. The entrance was a lot smaller than the rest of the tunnels had been, but still large enough for all of them to peer past Spinister into the new room. 

The room was packed. The edges of the cavern were lined with uprooted trees and telephone poles broken in half and strewn around all the corners of the room. Sheets of dirty but soft looking cloth were draped around and bunched into a makeshift nest, but what was most noticeable was the pile in the centre. Everything from what looked like various trash to large pieces of scrap metal were piled up into a huge precariously piled mound. 

“…maybe there is a monster.” Krok said.

Carefully, the scavengers branched out and started to search the pile.

“What are you doing?” Chromedome whispered, looking around the cave in panic. 

All of them had honed in on some part of the hoard, Misfire had started unearthing a dented scooter from piles of other parts. “Whatever’s living here ain’t here now.” He said, albeit in the quietest voice he’d used all day.

Krok had found an upturned crate and was using it to hold whatever he hurriedly deemed was useful. “Grab what you can,” he instructed, “this thing could be back at any minute and we don’t want to be here when it does.”

Crankcase thrust another crate into Chromedome’s arms before returning to his own searching. Hot Rod looked up at him, “I really think we should go.” the bitlet whispered. 

Looking at the box in his arms and back at the scavengers, Chromedome sighed and started picking whatever he could.

Hot Rod pulled out his phone and tried calling Tarn. He wasn’t scared! He just…wanted to check in on how their mission was going. But after a few seconds he realised it wasn’t going thorough -Tarn always answered instantly whenever Hot Rod tried to reach him. He tried calling Sixshot, but to the same results. Either the cave or just the remoteness of their location was preventing any signal from going through. 

Chromedome pulled away one of the sheets and froze. In the centre of the pile was a large piece of grey metal, mostly obscured by the rest of the hoard and layers of cloth. Embedded into its surface was a gem, different from the destronium crystals surrounding them, bright red-orange and cut into a thin wedge. Chromedome gave it a gentle tug, to no avail. Setting down the rest of his loot, he pulled again, firmer this time. The gem didn’t move, but the pile did.

And then it rumbled.

Everyone dropped their collections and backed away to the cavern’s entrance as the pile shifted. What had initially looked like a large piece of scrap rose up, revealing red and gold plating and a very big mouth. A thick tail uncurled from around its body as it stood, two tiny clawed arms at its front looked useless, but that didn't seem to particularly matter as Hot Rod caught a glimpse of teeth bigger than he was. 

Everyone froze as the beast turned to the group, eying over each of them with small wide-set red optics.

“Don’t. Move.” Crankcase whispered furiously, “It can’t see you. If. You. Don’t. Move.”

“Frag that!” Misfire shouted and ran, everyone else close behind. Hot Rod grabbed Chromedome’s arm and tugged him towards the exit.

Behind them, the creature’s roars shook the cave. Hot Rod followed the group back through the twists and turns until he could see light from the outside, but the beast was fast. The head start they got from it having to squeeze through the entrance was quickly lost as they entered the larger tunnels. Without slowing its chase, the creature opened its mouth and breathed a stream of fire at them. 

The shot went wide, but at the back of the group, Hot Rod and Chromedome were thrown to the ground.

Hot Rod hurriedly picked himself up and was almost halfway out when he noticed Chromedome wasn’t following. The orange mech was up but frozen in place as the beast now crept towards him. 

Rearing up until it brushed the ceiling, it opened its jaws exposing its mouth full or razor sharp denta and a growing orange light building at the back of its throat.

Hot Rod ran back and lunged at Chromedome, tackling him to the ground a second before a stream of fire burst forth from the beast’s mouth. The brunt of the column roared above them but the two were thrown back powerfully enough that Hot Rod could feel his paint peeling as the flame filled the rest of the narrow cavern. A deafening crack that seemed to echo throughout the mountain caused Hot Rod to turn just in time to see the scavengers outside, watching in fear as the entrance to the cave collapsed around them.

~o~o~o~

Hot Rod coughed to clear the dust from his intake. The cave was almost pitch black, only a few rays of light shone through the top crevices of the heavy boulders sealing them in.

Outside he could hear the scavengers muffled shouts calling to him and the sound of rocks being moved around.

"I'm ok!" He tried, not fully sure they'd even be able to hear him.

"Chromedome?" Through the dim glow of his bio lights he spotted Chromedome slumped near the entrance. "Chromedome!"

The orange bot wasn't moving. Besides a few shallow dents and scuffs like the ones he himself had sustained, the worst damage seemed to be centred on his helm. One of his finials was crushed and a thin spiderweb crack ran along the length of his visor.

Carefully, Hot Rod gave him a small shake.

His visor flickered briefly and he let out a small groan before falling back into stasis.

"Chromedome's hurt!" Hot Rod tried shouting thorough the collapsed rock. He waited but there was no response, even the sounds of rocks being moved had stopped. He couldn't hear anything coming from outside.

Which meant he heard the growl behind them loud and clear.

Further down the cave he saw a pair of red optics staring them down. He froze, desperately hoping that Crankcase's advice was true.

It wasn't.

With a deep roar the beast charged. 

Hot Rod leapt in front of Chromedome, hoping desperately that shield he had conjured for Minimus wasn't a onetime thing.

As the creature opened its jaws he could see another jet of flame bubbling within and then the world exploded into light.

The ground shook as the cave wall exploded behind them and the beast was thrown back by the giant fist that had burst through the rubble, taking up most of the space in the cavern.

Frozen, Hot Rod watched as another hand reached through the entrance and grabbed Chromedome and gasped as a third arm reached through the entrance and picked him up, pulling them both out into the light.

The servo he was grasped in was almost large enough to close around him completely but only cupped him loosely in its open palm. He spotted Chromedome -still unconscious- but held safely in another of the giants four servos. He felt himself being lifted up to optic level as the giant brought him closer in examination.

"Guys?" Hot Rod questioned, finally getting the chance to see the monstrous combiner that had saved them.

Four red optics blinked down at him. Their plating was a garish mismatch of colours, but standing out on the centre of their forehead was a pale bronze gem.

The bottom half of their faceplate was obscured by a facemask, but Hot Rod was sure they were smiling as he stared on in awe.

A stream of fire blasted out if the cavern. The combiner jumped back, still holding onto Hot Rod and Chromedome. They set them both down in the tree line and Hot Rod watched raptly from behind a thick trunk as the combiner turned back to their attacker.

The beast charged out from the cave. It hardly came up to the combiner's waist but that didn't stop it from trying to tear a chunk out of their saviour.

The combiner braced itself as the beast slammed into them, all their arms wrapped tightly around its jaws, keeping them from opening even as it tried to spit fire at them. Smoke and flames slipped from the creature's clenched jaws in sporadic bursts as the it tried to thrash out of the grip of the giant robot. While the combiner was occupied with its mouth, the beast was able to twist to the side enough to swing at their head with its thick tail.

One of their arms was raised just in time to block the blow with a forearm and the creature used the opportunity to pull away from their grasp. It lunged again, this time with jaws open and the combiner was not fast enough to avoid the denta sinking into another one of their arms.  

It was then Hot Rod noticed the cracks in the combiner’s plating, spreading out from the bite and the area where the tail had collided. It looked like light was bursting out from beneath the broken plating as the combiner started to destabilize. 

Pushing the beast back one last time -and losing a big chunk of their forearm in the process, the light from their body quickly growing in intensity- picked up the creature with all four arms and raised it above their helm.

The light traveled down their limbs like crackles of lightning and Hot Rod could see the effort the combiner put into the movement as they flung the beast back into the cave.

It did not go easily, spitting jets of fire at the fusion. One direct shot hit them in the arm and the limb exploded into light, rapidly engulfing their entire body.

In one last great effort, the combiner threw itself against the cave entrance as they split apart and five mechs crashed to the ground along with the remaining rubble of the cave entrance.

When the dust settled, Hot Rod rose to his pedes. Chromedome was still out, but online -fine for now.

Slowly, Hot Rod approached the mountain. The cave and most of the rock around it had collapsed inward. If the beast hadn't been crushed in the debris, there was no way it was getting out that way.

In the corner of his optic he saw a large flash of purple pulling itself out of the rubble. 

"Tarn?" 

"Uhhh, Who?"

It was Spinister. Besides him, Crankcase emerged followed by Misfire a few feet away.

"Ughhh, did we win?"

Muffled shouting came from beneath one of the centre piles and everyone hurried to fish out the mech.

Krok coughed a cloud of dust as Misfire and Crankcase helped pull him out.

"Are we all alive?" He groaned.

"Yea- wait, where's fulcrum?" Misfire said.

"Slag,"

"Careful you don't step on him!"

"Is he still in one piece?"

Fulcrum hung limp as they lifted him out. Spinister immediately checked him over.

"He's fine," he informed everyone after a moment. "Just exhausted."

“Primus, did you see that thing! 

"I'm going to be sick..."

"Are you kiddin, that was amazing! I never get tired of that,"

"Hold up!" Hot Rod shouted. The scavengers froze. "You guys can combine!?" 

It seemed like no one knew what to say. They all exchanged looks back and forward before Krok spoke up, “I guess, kind of?”

"You're Cybertronians?"

"Well, er- no." Misfire said looking down at Fulcrum, unconscious his arms.

~o~o~o~

Spinister looked over Chromedome and declared him to be fine. "He'll wake up soon."

'Soon' turned out to be a cycle and a half later.

"W-uugh, what happened?" Chromedome asked coming online.

They'd dragged the two of them further down the mountain.

Much further. 

But lugging around two unconscious bodies was neither easy nor safe for a variety of reasons, and so they'd waited by their parked scooters just outside of the forest tree line, setting up a little campfire as night fell.

Chromedome looked around at the assembled mecha and the spot they were resting at, clustered together around the makeshift fire, Hot Rod next to him. The lights of the town twinkled not far off in the distance.

"What happened to that... Thing?" He asked.

"We turned into a giant robot and punched it." Spinister informed him.

"Her name is WAP." Crankcase added.

Chromedome groaned. "This isn't what I signed up for." He said getting up.

"Are you ok?" Hot Rod asked him.

"I'm fine." He said. He wobbled, but was able to straighten himself out without help. As soon as he was confident, he started off towards town.

"Where are you going?" Hot Rod asked him.

"Honestly, I just want to go home and see Rewind, and- ugh," He carefully ran servo over the crack in his visor, “-see a doctor.” 

"It's a thirty minute walk, we can give you a lift." Krok offered. 

"Nope! I'm leaving, right now. See you." He said to the scavengers. "And tell him," he motioned to Fulcrum. "Good luck."

Hot Rod watched him set off towards town before turning back to the group. "Why name yourselves Wap?" he asked.

"WAP." Crankcase corrected, "It's an acronym."

"We didn't vote on it." Misfire mumbled.

"The Weak Anthropic Principle,” Crankcase continued. "We're two completely different species, separated by billions of years of evolution and adaptation on planets a galaxy apart -linked only by a common ancestor- and yet somehow we manage to get a group together that not only are physically capable of it, but according to this loser-" he pointed to Fulcrum, "we have to be perfectly mentally compatible too?" 

"It is unlikely..." Hot Rod agreed.

"It's slag," Crankcase said, "but somehow we've come across the perfect conditions for it to work." He turned to Misfire, "And she likes it so there is a consensus!"

Hot Rod still didn't think it was a very good name for a combiner, but Fulcrum was starting to stir. Slowly his optics onlined and he looked up from Misfire’s lap, “How long was I out?”

“Couple of hours.”

Fulcrum groaned. “Does anyone have any energon?”

"Where's your spark?" Hot Rod asked him, cutting right to the top question he'd been dying to ask -among a hundred more- he'd been watching Fulcrum for cycles but couldn't figure it out.

Fulcrum sighed. He tried to sit up but couldn't muster the energy. Instead, Misfire propped him up to better lean against him. Weakly, he brought a servo up to his chest. "I underwent a frame reformat during the war. K-class, do you know what that is?"

Hot Rod shook his helm.

"I was remade into a bomb." He said with a grimace. " Everything was changed, moved -even my spark. It was supposed to press against the payload, that was the real explosion, that energy. 

I can't do anything now, summon my weapon, transform, I even didn't think I could combine anymore, but -well..." He said looking around at the rest of the group. 

Hot Rod still didn't understand, not fully. He believed Fulcrum, but he couldn't understand why anyone would do that, what could possibly warrant that -or who could condone it. He had so many questions he wanted to ask him, but Fulcrum was already starting to fade again.

"Why didn't you come find us when you heard Cybertronians had landed here?" He chose.

Fulcrum was quiet for a while. "I don't want anything to do with Cybertron -uh, no offence." he told him, "I'm barely even a Cybertronian anymore. All I want to do is live peacefully and forget it, forget the war, forget the-"

He stopped. "If you're here, is the war over?"

"Yeah." Hot Rod said.

"Who won?"

"It was a tie."

Fulcrum chuckled at that. "That's... good, I think. Either way, I have no more ties to Cybertron. This is my home now, so, uh- please don't tell anyone?" 

"I won't." Hot Rod promised.

Fulcrum let out a sigh of relief and collapsed back into Misfire's arms. 

Hot Rod was starting to get worried. "Combining isn't usually that hard?"

"Ha!" Fulcrum briefly bolted back up. "Yeah, if all mechs are pulling their weight. I'm one spark trying to hold together five."

"Pfft! We're not that bad!" Misfire gently jostled him, eliciting a very displeased noise from the brown mech. 

"I guess we should head back now." Krok said, looking at Hot Rod. "It's got to be past your bed-time."