Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Did you know that being thrown right through a building really hurts? Because Deckard did, and he hated it when it happened.

He and his team were fighting a new bio-monster that had popped up a week ago and was now rampaging through Nanagamri.

The thing resembled a jellyfish with its primary control center in its bulbous head, and several cable-thin tendrils that acted as its arms. And according to Shadowmaru, the thing possessed telepathy, which was fantastic, because that meant it could predict most, if not all of their moves, like it was currently doing with the Build Team.

Dumpson got thrown not far from where Deckard landed, going through a few walls until Power Joe was thrown right on top of him. The ninjas and Gunmax peppered the creature with shots from above, while Duke hacked away at the tendrils that were trying to reach a group of humans that were still trapped in the building behind him.

McCrane, to his credit, was taking potshots from a ridgeline above that section of town, aiming for anything that may have been important.

Deckard sat up with a groan, shaking his head to clear his blurry vision when he heard Yuuta calling for him.

Immediately, the Brave Detective stood on shaky legs and looked around for his best friend. To his relief, Yuuta was out of harm’s way and was pointing towards an open hatch at the back of the thing’s head, which had been blown open by McCrane.

Understanding what Yuuta meant, Deckard reloaded his pistol and fired at the hatch, a few shots straying all the way inside and causing an explosion to occur inside the bio-monster’s control center.

The creature shrieked and a high-pitched whining sound was heard, which Deckard realized was the thing’s telepathic abilities about to go haywire.

“EVERYONE, RETREAT!” He cried out to the others, who mobilized quickly and gathered the humans to get away as fast as possible.

Deckard was quick to grab Yuuta from where the young man stood, instantly curling around his friend when he felt the blastwave of telepathic energy hit him in the back, causing the Brave Detective to black out.

Chapter Text

The first thing he felt was warmth, not like from a generator, but from another body pressing close to him.

Deckard shifted and felt a blanket of some sort fall around his waist from where it had sat on his left shoulder. He realized that he was laying on his right side, and fluttered his orange optics online.

He was surprised to see that he wasn’t in Toudou’s repair bay, but was rather in what looked like some kind of bedroom in what he guessed from the size was an apartment.

From what he could see, there was a smooth door on the far wall off the foot of the berth he was in; silver-white walls with light pink, horizontal lines running along the middle that seemed to be glowing; a desk with a large monitor and several tablets stacked neatly next to it in the far right corner; a few shelves along the wall near the door and the desk; and a huge window that showed a dazzling city skyline, with elegant towers and a bright, pale yellow sun slowly rising from behind the buildings.

It took his breath away, but Deckard was torn from the sight when something shifted behind him and a strange arm was thrown over his waist in a strangely intimate motion.

The stranger behind him stirred and pressed closer to spoon the Brave Detective, and he felt like he should be panicking, but strangely, he felt at ease and even amused by the action.

The arm and the hand attached to it were both the color of obsidian, with a spiky bracelet around the wrist, the spikes of which were yellow, and the tips of the fingers were adorned with long, thin claws that caught the early morning light. Deckard saw something poking out further up the arm but couldn’t see it without moving his head.

For some reason, Deckard couldn’t bring himself to be afraid of those claws or of the person behind him, as though he knew who it was despite none of the Braves possessing claws or spiky bits or armor so dark a black.

After a few more minutes, he heard a soft groan as the sunlight finally entered the room fully, the sound coming from the arm’s owner. He heard a soft “Is it morning already?” from the person whose arm had now tightened around his waist. The voice was female, though it rang with a metallic echo like a voice belonging to an actual robot, the synthetic undertones reminding Deckard of a recording.

“Afraid so, love.” Deckard found himself saying, surprised and horrified at himself for saying such things to someone he didn’t even know.

Another groan, and this time the person (or bot) removed their arm from around Deckard’s waist and used it to push themselves up. The Brave turned his head to get a look at the stranger, and the sight took his breath away.

The bot above him had a pointed face that matched the strange purple insignia on her chest; her armor was all black with two red-tinged screens on the front of both shoulders and both lower legs, right above the top of her peds; a spiky collar to match the bracelets; yellow spikes on her hips, and two on both sides of her peds, which were joined by some kind of wheel.

She had a helm like a pilot’s helmet, edged with yellow, with two red-tipped antennae that twitched every so often; her face, neck, upper arms, midriff, and thighs were white, a stark contrast to her black armor; and there were four blades on her elbows, two on both arms, that resembled helicopter blades.

There was also a clear space in her chest, just under her insignia, that was covered with amber-colored glass, and a wide, bright red visor obscured her optics. She was the most beautiful thing Deckard had ever seen.

She shifted a bit more, before smiling down at him.

“What? Do I have something on my face?”

“No, you’re just beautiful this morning.” Again, Deckard was aghast that he’d say something like that to a stranger, but again, she didn’t feel like a stranger.

She smiled all the same, seemingly oblivious to Deckard’s internal struggle with himself, and leaned down to kiss him. That was apparently something Deckard expected, though he didn’t know why. It was all very confusing but he found himself not caring.

The kiss got a bit heated, to the point where she was looming over him, both of her arms resting on either side of his prone form, when all of a sudden a ringing was heard from the table beside Deckard’s side of the berth.

The kiss was broken and the mood effectively ruined as the red-visored femme growled, showing off her fangs in the direction of the comm-tab that Deckard had rolled over to answer. A voice came through the device.

“Flightdeck, I know you’re up, because you always wake up at the same time every day, so listen: Wheeljack just blew up a good portion of his and Shockwave’s lab, so we need all servos on deck for repairs. In other words, I need you here, ASAP. Got that?” his mentor’s voice chimed in over the line, causing Deckard to sit up and stretch, his wings flaring behind him as he got up, finally free from beneath the femme’s frame.

“Yes, Ratchet, I’m on my way. I’ll see you there.” He hung up the call and turned to see that his Conjunx was now flopped face-first on the berth, her long, spiky black tail twitching crossly.

“Really, Wheeljack? You couldn’t’ve waited another joor before you started blowing up scrap?” she mumbled, her face lifting out of the pillows to pout at him.

Flightdeck chuckled at her and wandered into the washracks to clean up before he headed out. After a few minutes, he briefly looked at himself in the mirror.

Flawless cobalt paint, white faceplates, bright amber optics, sharp gold chevron, long red-tipped audials, an aerodynamic frame, and two long, wide white wings marked with red medic decals, gold edging and a single blue stripe along the middle.

Entering the living room, Flightdeck threw one last smile over his shoulder at his lover as she handed him his Energon before he opened the glass doors that led to the landing pad outside.

He subspaced his Energon cube and transformed into his sleek jet form, taking off in the direction of the lab.

The thrill of flying over the brightening city was what finally snapped Deckard out of his ridiculous behavior and realized that something was wrong.

He couldn’t fly without J-Roader, he didn’t transform into a jet, he didn’t know what the heck Energon was or why he would need it, he didn’t know anyone, human or Brave, who was called Ratchet, he didn’t know where he was or where he was going, and he definitely was not named Flightdeck.

As he realized this, Deckard heard the voice of his beloved friend calling for him. Yuuta’s voice had brought him out of nightmares and flashbacks before, and it seemed this was no different.

The dream had faded but left the Brave Detective feeling empty, even as he began to stir.

Once his optics were opened and he saw that he was in Chief Toudou’s repair bay, the blue mech wondered what that strange dream had been. Who was that female, and why did she seem so familiar?

Chapter Text

The next several days Deckard had been noticeably distracted, which was bad for his performance reviews, which Azuma made very clear to him was unacceptable.

The Vice Commissioner had thought it to be a good idea to chew out the Brave Detective while the entire team was in the Decker Room, attempting to humiliate Deckard in front of everyone because “It was his job to set an example for the entire Brave Police force”, in Azuma’s words.

The blue Brave had begun to tune out the human in favor of focusing on the dreams he’d continued to have every night.

They usually started the same, with him waking up in that bedroom, him greeting the female after she was awake, her kissing him and then the pair getting up to start their day. Since he usually rose early to help Yuuta to get ready for the day, Deckard never got past the part where he was flying somewhere, he assumed a place of work, before he woke up.

“ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME, BP-110?!” Azuma’s highly annoying voice broke Deckard from his thoughts, turning his head to look at him.

“Yes, sir, I’m listening.” he lied through his teeth, something the human didn’t pick up on. The Brave detective found himself getting more and more irritated at Azuma the longer the human prattled on, and was thankful when Commissioner Saejima stepped in to stop him.

“I think Deckard gets the picture, Azuma-kun. However, I do agree that you seem distracted lately, Dekkado. Is something the matter?” Saejima looked at him, deep blue eyes sharp. Deckard stood up when Yuuta looked his way as well.

“I am well, Commissioner. Just having some difficulty focusing after our battle with the telepathic bio-monster not long ago.” Yuuta looked worried.

“Dekkado, why didn’t you say anything?”

It hurt to lie to Yuuta, but Deckard saw no other way to do what he was thinking of doing. “I thought it would clear up on its own.”

“Regardless of what you thought, Dekkado, it seems that you need to be seen by Toudou again.” the Commissioner looked around at the others, who had stopped pretending to work to focus on their leader.

“Duke, you will take over for Deckard during his absence, and Dekkado, you are officially off-duty for the remainder of your repairs. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!” The Braves stood and saluted the man, who nodded and then left with both Yuuta and Azuma while Deckard headed to the Repair Bay.

Once there, he updated Toudou on what Saejima had said, and the mechanic shut him down for repairs, allowing Deckard to once again slip into another dream.

Chapter Text

He had learned to go with the flow of his dreams, believing himself to be in the mind of another, and so Deckard had no problems with letting things happen as he waited to begin another day as Flightdeck, whom he’d recently discovered was a doctor. Which made sense, given the medical decals on his wings.

However, this time his waking was different. Flightdeck groaned in pain as he came too, finding himself slumped against a steel wall in a small, colorless room.

The jet slowly flexed his digits, one at a time before continuing to test for injuries to the rest of his arm. When he found none, he reached up to feel his helm for whatever was causing him pain.

His hand came up to the source of his pain and found a fist-sized dent behind his right audial, guessing that he’d been knocked out (Deckard never got to the end of his dream the night before, so he didn’t know of his own kidnapping).

After a few more minutes of careful flexing of the rest of his limbs and his wings and reading the reports popping up in his HUD, Flightdeck used the wall to help him stand. Once he was stable, the blue mech headed towards the door, which slid open for him with a bland ‘beep’.

The door opened to a spacious hallway, as colorless as the room had been, and the hall stretched on in both directions. Flightdeck recognized the place as the shady medical center he used to work at, glimpses of a few of his darkest moments making Deckard gasp when he saw them.

Remembering the way out, Flightdeck turned left and walked on through six different hallways, making small adjustments to his course each time, as the hospital (if you could call it that) was massive but had fallen into horrible disrepair.

Deckard tried to stay away from the assault of awful memories that Flightdeck was experiencing, but that didn’t stop him from seeing a few things that turned his blood cold, as humans put it.

Flightdeck was not far from the entrance when a noise from one of the surgical rooms to his left made him stop, his wings flaring behind him. Looking around a moment, Flightdeck approached the door and it slid open with a rusty ‘screech!’.

He entered the dark room when something came out from his left, the flickering light of the hallway glinting off of a circular metal saw. Pain burst throughout Flightdeck’s face, mostly in the left side, as the force behind the blow sent him flying into the opposite wall, slamming into it with a loud clash of metal.

The blue mech collapsed as he slid off the wall, slowly rising to his hands and knees as he raised his left servo to clutch at his optics, feeling a deep cut that was steadily leaking light pink Energon.

His wings arched over his back, the densely-packed, sensor-laden appendages mapping out the room.

Beside the door was a tall, gangly mech with thin legs, thicker arms, a spiky helm, thin face, and a full mask and visor. He couldn’t tell what sort of vehicle he was, but his right hand was currently transformed into a circular saw sometimes used in surgeries. Flightdeck knew him immediately.

“S-static?” The mech seemed to leer at the downed Seeker.

“Surprised to see me, Flightdeck? I’m sure you are,” he answered his own question before Flightdeck could speak. “Seeing as I’m supposed to be dead and all, after you left me at the mercy of Overlord!”

The mech, Static, stalked closer to where the downed Seeker was still crouched, delivering a swift kick to the mech’s side, earning a pained yelp from his victim.

Deckard saw all of this, but although he was terrified, he felt an odd sort of calm wash over him as he felt something tugging on his heart, err, Flightdeck’s spark, his bond to his Conjunx.

Now that he was awake, she felt him and now both Deckard and Flightdeck knew that she was on her way. Flightdeck was confident that if anyone could find him, it was her.

She wasn’t the Decepticons’ Head of Intelligence for nothing, after all.

Static kicked Flightdeck again, this time near his left wing. That surprised a snarl out of the Seeker as he was focused on something in his coding.

“If you’re trying to call for help, it won’t do you any good. I’m sure you’ll remember those nifty comm-blockers we had installed before the whole place went to scrap. Handy little things, aren’t they?” Static knelt down to get closer to Flightdeck.

“Remember all those close calls with the “patients” comming for help, and all those Enforcers we had to turn away because of it? I’m sure you do, I mean after all, it was you and your sweet, disarming personality that convinced them to leave us be. So tell me,” he grabbed the flyer’s jaw roughly, causing Flightdeck to wince as he kept his hand clamped over his optics.

“Where was that sweet, innocent little nurse when you were reprogramming your patients to relive their worst memories, live in their worst nightmares, and turning them into loyal Autobots?” Deckard’s oil froze cold in his veins after hearing that.

He was then assaulted by memory after memory of countless surgeries, red-opticked soldiers brought struggling or unconscious to the medic, each branded with that purple insignia that seemed to glare at him as nurses polished them away, leaving only a scratched up surface when the marks had once rested so proudly.

He saw needles and long claws, heard pained screams as many nightmares flowed into the minds of countless victims, slowly breaking them down and replacing the subject of that strong loyalty from the purple insignia to an increasingly familiar red one.

All of this and much, much more was shown to Deckard, and although he was horrified, he was impressed by the sheer number of years that this had gone on before anyone suspected anything, reminding him of one too many cases of syndicates and crime rings.

During this onslaught of memories, Deckard noticed that 1), Static had released him and was monologging about something or another (he didn’t really care at this point), and 2), he was no longer in pain, his face and side now pleasantly numb.

And then, just as the Energon dripping from his face began to crystalize, something bashed the door in and tackled Static, causing the mech to scream in terror.

Flightdeck dialed his wing sensors all the way up to see more clearly, and he “saw” a large bot pinning Static to the wall, the familiar frame seeming to take up the whole wall. Suddenly feeling much safer, he flicked his wings and attempted to stand.

“Are you alright, Flightdeck?” his Conjunx asked him, her head briefly turning to get a glimpse of him. He nodded, his left hand still covering his face while his right helped to steady him.

“I’ll be fine.” he replied, his wings seeing the femme nod sharply before returning her attention back to Static, who was writhing in her grasp.

“What’s a Con like you doing rescuing him? Don’t you know what he’s done to bots like you?!” Static spat at the black-armored bot, who glowered at him and lashed her tail but ignored his question in favor of asking one of her own.

“Do you know who I am, little mech?” Static stopped squirming and got a good look at her, and his visor paled. She smirked in victory, they always did that once they realized.

“Carnyx of Staniz. Head of Decepticon Intelligence.” he squeaked out, his fingers scrabbling desperately to unlatch her claws from his throat.

Carnyx tightened her hold on his throat and his escape attempts ceased, but he began to panic again when her hold became tighter, intent on squeezing the life out of this sorry excuse of a mech.

Flightdeck finally steadied himself as he said, “No, Carnyx, don’t kill him. We need information out of him.” She stopped her assault and loosened her hold, but then used her tail to grab a set of sturdy poles and wrapped them around his wrists, arms and torso, trapping him there.

“What should we do with him?” Carnyx asked her lover, though she was interrupted by Static jeering, “As soon as I get out of this, you’re dead scrap, Flightdeck. I’ll tell everyone about your involvement in this shady little operation of turning Decepticons into Autobots, and then you’ll get it from both sides!” the mech sneered at the blue flyer, who’d gone quiet, and he launched further into his spire.

“I’ll be a hero, especially once I hand over the list of all of your “patients” that you’ve “treated” over the years. The Prime himself will be surprised to see just how many of his loyal soldiers were brainwashed into his service!” Static began to laugh, but when both Carnyx and Flightdeck went silent, he stopped laughing quite abruptly and looked at them both.

Carnyx had a look of sadistic glee on her visored face, while Flightdeck lowered the hand that covered his optics.

“Oh, Static, you don’t understand.” With no hand obscuring his face, Flightdeck looked Static right in the optic and the other now saw that his blade had not gotten both optics, but rather went through Flightdeck’s left optic and then down his nasal ridge, leaving his right optic unharmed.

That same optic now glittered with elegant malice as the blue Seeker sauntered over.

“I don’t need you to speak.” he raised his left hand, admiring his digittips before unsheathing the long needles hidden inside them.

“I just need you to think.”

Static’s struggles began anew, much stronger this time as Carnyx held him down on the examination table while Flightdeck came nearer.

“Carnyx, be a dear and scalp him for me.” At her Conjunx’s request, the red and black femme dug her talons into Static’s forehead and ripped the top of his helm off.

Deckard saw from Flightdeck’s memories what was going to happen next, but he was oddly entranced by the horrifying act occurring before him as Flightdeck inserted his needles into the top of Static’s head, causing the mech to wail in pain and terror.

Chapter Text

The room that the pair were sitting in was certainly no longer bland white, as light pink Energon was splattered all along the walls and even some on the ceiling that was now crystalizing. The floor was littered with scrap metal, and a few severed limbs from the pair’s previous activities.

Flightdeck sat perfectly still on the examination table as Carnyx carefully welded a flat piece of metal over his injured optic, smoothing it over with a buffer once she was done. Both the medic and his Conjunx had Energon staining their armor, though it didn’t bother them.

Flightdeck looked at Carnyx, taking note of her beauty, even as bloodstained as she was. The red and black Decepticon looked him in his remaining optic and smiled, showing flecks of pink staining her fangs before she leaned in to kiss him.

The blue jet moaned in delight and clung to her as she lifted him into her arms, the femme breaking the kiss to exit the room, and he gave her directions to get out.

Once on top of the ridge a safe distance outside the hospital, Carnyx sat Flightdeck down and knelt beside him, looking for more injuries she might have missed.

“Hmmm, Carnyx?” the intelligence officer nuzzled his neck and hummed to let him know she’d heard.

“Blow it up. The Enforcers don’t need to see this evidence.” Carnyx smiled and pressed another kiss to his lips before getting up and returning to the hospital. She re-entered the room they’d left and swiftly began planting the bombs she’d brought with her, making that room seem like the source of the explosion.

Before she left, Carnyx picked up a spiky, gunmetal-grey helm with its lightless spark chamber and some spinal struts still attached, looking over the grey and coverless face of the mech who’d once been Static. She turned it in her talons a bit before carelessly throwing the severed helm over her shoulder as she left.

A few more bombs here and there, and Carnyx made her way outside again to rejoin her Conjunx, who looked at her with love and adoration as she helped him stand again.

Smiling, Carnyx took another bomb from her subspace, unlatched the pin with her dentae and threw it towards the hospital, where it went off near the one she’d placed close to the entrance. The resulting explosion was deafening, but the pair were safe from the blastwave and any flying debris thanks to Carnyx’s strategic placements.

The couple glanced at the explosion briefly before Flightdeck kissed his lover’s bloodstained cheek and backed off to transform, assuming his jet form and hovering in place. Carnyx smirked and transformed herself, assuming her own helicopter mode before both flew off in the direction of their home.

Chapter Text

To say that Deckard was horrified when he woke up was an understatement. He could barely manage to school his face into a neutral expression while speaking with Toudou before he all but bolted from the Repair Bay and locked himself in the washracks, sinking to the floor with the most horrified and sickened look on his face.

The dreams from the last several nights had only been that. Dreams. Interesting in their own right but with no repercussions for him after he woke up. But that last one, that was something the Brave Detective never wanted to see again.

Carnyx and Flightdeck, two mere figments of his imagination (or so he believed), had literally torn Static to pieces, and they did so with such glee and pleasure. Hell, the two kissed each other when they were covered helm to pede with blood. He remembered the mech’s screams and when he recalled the moment when Carnyx had brutally decapitated Static, Deckard tightly gripped his optics shut.

“Why, why is this happening?” the detective groaned, rubbing his face as the memories faded, leaving the blue policeman leaning against the washrack wall.

{_-_}

Deckard managed to pull himself together again by the time Duke arrived at the station with Yuuta in tow. The boy had been very nervous over whether or not his best friend would be alright, and he was overjoyed when he saw Deckard sitting in the Decker Room.

But Deckard felt wary in Yuuta’s presence, where before he would be completely calm. This reaction to his best friend’s presence worried the Brave Detective, so he opted to remain at the station under the pretense of making sure his systems were perfect before going home to the Tomonaga residence. In the meantime, Duke took over that aspect of his leader’s duties, escorting Yuuta to and from home.

That night, sleep was the last thing on Deckard’s mind as he picked up on the work he left behind during his repairs. He worked all night and all the next day as well, and it worried the others.

Eventually, as most of the Braves were preparing to power down the night after, Shadowmaru convinced him to rest, claiming that his reluctance to sleep would be taxing on his systems, and so Deckard joined the others in their nightly power down while Shadowmaru and Gunmax took the graveyard shift.

Chapter Text

Mere moments after his power down was completed, Deckard awoke to once again find himself in that apartment, the pale sun already hitting the room in its entirety, as Flightdeck was waking up very slowly.

The reports on his HUD still showed signs of the hospital-grade painkillers that had been used during the repairs to his face by his mentor the night before, and painkillers of that grade always made him extra sleepy, which was why he had been reluctant to use them.

But the temporary disconnecting of his pain sensors during Static’s monologue had come back to bite him in uncomfortable places and Carnyx almost had to force him to consent to the medication. As loving as she was, Carnyx was still a force to be reckoned with, and he felt safe knowing that she was caring for him during this time.

Flightdeck sat up slowly, confused at his not finding Carnyx in bed next to him. There was a datapad on his berthside table and when he flicked it on, he was greeted by a note that read,

“Something came up in Altihex, Soundwave needs my help. Roddy should be there to take care of you by the time you wake up, and my comm-link is open if you have an emergency. Love, Carnyx.”

Flightdeck shook his head with a small smile playing on his lips and stood up slowly, his wings flaring out to help him keep his balance, as he unsteadily walked to the living room.

There he was greeted by a hot-rod-red blur running around his kitchen, and the smell of something slightly spicy. He chuckled a bit and walked over, leaning against the countertop and watching his brother-in-law continue to rush around.

When Hot Rod finally caught sight of the smiling blue flyer, his first response was to turn down the heat of whatever he was cooking and then turn around and march Flightdeck to the couch that sat along the far side of the wall, sitting him down on the plush cushions with orders to stay there while he finished cooking.

He laughed aloud, sounding a little loopy as he did as he was told, remaining seated until Hot Rod finally finished and brought over a bowl of curry.

The pair ate in comfortable silence, as the red speedster’s cooking skills were legendary after the war ended and the planet produced enough Energon for bots to begin cooking meals again instead of sticking with just liquid Energon.

“So, do you know what happened in Altihex?” Flightdeck asked, setting his bowl on the low table at Hot Rod’s instruction. The red speedster shook his head.

“No, Wave wouldn’t tell me. He just asked if I was cool to take care of you if Carnyx went with him. All I know is that the situation has to do with the Seacons.” Even with all his years of experience with warriors of all sorts, the blue Seeker still shuddered when he thought of the Decepticon Combiner team.

Under the command of Snaptrap, Nautilator, Overbite, Seawing, Skalor and Tentakil were the Decepticons’ Seacon Combiner team, designed for combat on aquatic planets like the far away Earth. They were a ruthless bunch who formed an unusually intelligent combiner, and they didn’t pull punches either.

Although Flightdeck was worried, both for his Conjunx and for Soundwave, he knew that both twins were more than capable warriors with several millennia of experience under their belts.

Shaking his concerns away, Flightdeck and Hot Rod spent the rest of the day catching up, as Hot Rod and Soundwave both lived in Kaon while Carnyx and Flightdeck made their home in Metroplex, which was quite far away, even by shuttle.

There wasn’t much they could do, as Roddy was trying to refrain from going out with his brother-in-law still recovering. They played games most of the time and just chatted. Before either of them knew it, it was almost noon and the pair decided to go onto the balcony.

Once they were outside, Deckard heard something loud blaring and realized that Flightdeck’s vision was going hazy, causing the blue mech to wake up to the sounds of his teammates’ exclamations of concern and annoyance.

The emergency alarm was blaring, and the others were quickly filing out towards the Decker Room, with Deckard at their head. Once there, Saejima stood with a stern look on his face, the video of a large bio-monster already playing as the group hurried inside. Deckard groaned when he recognized it as the monster that had started all these weird dreams.

A quick recap of what they knew of this updated version and the Braves were responding to the calls that came in, rushing out to their support vehicles and gunning it to the scene.

Chapter Text

The military had, thankfully, already evacuated that part of the city, leaving the Braves to do their jobs. Deckard, Shadowmaru, Duke and Gunmax split away from the others, allowing the Build Team to form Super Build Tiger.

Now that one combiner was capable of going toe-to-toe with the creature, the other four Braves raced behind it, intent on finding its new weakness. Yuuta was thankfully far outside the battle zone, giving commands via screens and radios.

Shadowmaru and Gunmax took to the sky, while Duke and Deckard split up below, the blue patrol car racing towards downtown. He transformed and pulled his revolver, firing at the limbs closest to him.

However, the bullets didn’t pierce, so he aimed higher and fired at the joints. Again, nothing. The next three shots only left dents, but not enough to do any true damage, leaving Deckard growling in anger.

Although once he cleared his head enough to try and look for other weak points, he became aware of a low droning noise, the sound of something sharp and heavy spinning through the air. His comm crackled to life.

“Uhhh, McCrane? Did Seia mention calling in a helicopter?” Gunmax asked, sounding confused.

“No, she didn’t.” the mech replied from inside Super Build Tiger. Duke’s voice filtered through the line with, “Shadowmaru, is there any branch of the Self-Defense Force that is currently using Boeing 66 Comanche helicopters?”

A beat of silence before the ninja answered in the negative, before continuing with, “I have the copter in my sights now, but no one appears to be aboard.”

Deckard felt a strangely hopeful feeling in his chest when he heard the description of the copter. Why did that thought bring him such joy? Whatever the reason, the vehicle was soon above his position, Shadowmaru jetting right behind it, and the bio-monster turned to face this new threat.

The copter, which was indeed a 66 Comanche, was pure black with red lines and detailings, and a cockpit covered with amber-colored glass. Laser fire quickly came from the monster, only for the copter to dodge with incredible agility.

A circular blaster lowered from beneath the cockpit of the copter, which then fired back, the yellow bolts scorching the creature’s plating and causing it to shriek with anger. The smoking marks each reveal a small hole that had been blasted into the monster’s hide.

Now thoroughly upset, the bio-monster began to charge its psionic blast, its bulbous head aiming for the (presumably) unmanned helicopter. It never got to fire.

The Comanche slid out two screens from under its doors, a low whine that steadily grew in pitch signaling the charging of its own blast. A sudden burst of sound came from the screens, hitting the creature and paralyzing it, and the shockwave that followed shattered the glass of the buildings nearby and nearly blew out Shadowmaru’s audio receptors.

The violet jet retreated in pain just as Duke Fire burst from the buildings behind the creature, both he and Super Build Tiger managing to grab the monster and pin it down, the bio-monster’s mainframe still undoubtedly scrambled by the sudden impact. The thing went down, and Deckard called for J-Roader before combining with it to form J-Decker.

Together, the three titans managed to restrain their target by the time the military got there with the scientists. After samples were taken from the creature, the goal was to contain it and keep it in a secret facility where it could be studied. However, when J-Decker looked to the sky for the black copter that had struck down the bio-monster, he saw that it was gone, much to his disappointment.

When the creature was properly tied up, the commander called in three Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters, much bigger than the black Comanche that helped them. The Chinooks lowered their hooks and once the creature was securely in the lines, they took off towards the facility.

The three titans split apart, and Duke and Deckard took command of the situation, directing cleaning crews and other rescue attempts, but Deckard soon found himself looking to the sky again, hoping for a glimpse of black.

{_-_}

By the end of the day, the eight Braves were exhausted, even Drill Boy didn’t have enough child-like energy to bounce his ball around. Seeing their dusty and exhausted, but relatively unharmed states, the Commissioner sent them to get cleaned up and repaired, even clearing their schedules for the next day.

If the mechs were being honest, the clean-up that was required afterwards was the hardest part of that battle, the creature had been surprisingly easy to take down with the Comanche’s help, although the copter was nowhere to be found. Seia had not ordered an attack helicopter, and the Japanese military didn’t even use Comanches.

After rinsing off the dust and grime from the fight and resulting clean-up (he strongly denied almost nodding off under the warm water, no matter what some mechs say, Gunmax), Deckard settled himself into his dock and finally settled off, not having to worry about Yuuta since Toudou would be driving him home.

However, the memory of the strange copter played in the detective’s mind, the colors and shape reminding him of something. As he slipped further into slumber, another memory came to his mind, this one of a familiar flashing red visor, a seductive smile and sharp fangs marking his throat. But that was impossible.

Right?

Chapter Text

It wasn’t long before the black Comanche was spotted again, this time flying through a restricted airspace at unnatural speeds, three days after its first sighting.

Since that day, Deckard’s dreams had been……. strange. Stranger than normal. For the past few weeks, Deckard had grown accustomed to going into recharge, waking up in the dream-life of Flightdeck, then waking up in his own world and the cycle would repeat.

The last three days, however, ever since the last dream with that red mech (what was his name again? Hot Rod?), his normally fully lucid dreams had become mere figments, a small flash of something here and there, as though he were drifting in and out of consciousness.

He could feel very little of his dreams now, his body in the dream sluggish and heavy, like a human would feel when they were drugged. And what was even more strange was when Shadowmaru reported the sighting of the strange Comanche, Deckard felt that same hopeful feeling again, and still, he wondered why.

His emotions were pushed aside when he and Shadowmaru arrived at the airport where the Comanche had been spotted, the pair briefly speaking with the pilot who had spotted it before taking off in the direction it had gone.

“What are we hoping to find here, danna?” Shadowmaru’s smooth voice asked over the comms, the cobalt detective carefully considered his next words so that the ninja wouldn’t become suspicious.

“I’m not sure, but this helicopter does remind me of something.”

The violet jet hummed before continuing his radio silence, content with his master’s reply and knowing not to pry. Soon, the silence was shattered by a beeping from Shadowmaru’s console, his sensors had found the helicopter.

“Allow me to check it out first, danna, it appears to still be airborne.” Deckard called out his confirmation and the ninja flew off before the cop could blink. He slowed to a halt and transformed, pulling his gun and carefully making his way towards Shadowmaru’s position, coming up to a low mountain.

Once he got there, however, the jet was nowhere to be found. The only sign that the ninja had been there were both of his katanas jammed into the rock of the mountain. There were no other signs of anything, from either Shadowmaru or from whatever had gotten him, which put the Brave Detective on alert.

The only things that had been able to actually take out the Ninja Detective before were the Chieftains, and every one of them had been tracked down, all of them having fallen offline soon after the defeat of Eva and Neuva Fahrzeug.

Deckard, after glancing around him for some time, quietly sheathed his pistol and retrieved the two katanas, but not without some difficulty, as they were jammed quite far. Whoever had done this was very strong.

With both katanas acquired, Deckard carefully set them in his subspace and took out his gun once more, still looking around. A sound came from behind him and the quiet whine of a blaster made the blue mech stiffen.

“Weapons down and hands on your head, unless you wish to end up like your purple friend.” An achingly familiar voice, robotic with recorded undertones but still fraught with emotion, was what caused Deckard to slowly bend down to place his gun at his feet before straightening and turning around to see who was speaking to him.

There, scuffed obsidian armor dazzling in the sunlight that peeped through the forest foliage, was Carnyx, alive and outside of his dreams, and just as beautiful. Her arm was transformed into a sonic weapon he remembered seeing her practise with once, her face was marred with a snarl, and her angular red visor broken, revealing one blood-red optic, an even darker shade than that of her visor.

She showed her fangs at the detective, and snarled out, “Who are you and why are you after me?” Deckard looked her in the optic and spoke with easy rigidry and confidence.

“I am Detective Deckard of the Nanagamri Brave Police.” She didn’t seem impressed but her face (what he could see of it) became confused when she looked at him further. In Carnyx’s mind, she knew that she’d seen this strange, human-built mech before. She lowered her blaster and gestured to the east.

“Your friend’s in a cave a few miles that way, he’s unharmed, just knocked out.” Deckard nodded and picked up his pistol, watching as she transformed her blaster back into her arm and stepped out further.

Her frame had changed from when he’d seen her in his dreams, as he had no doubt that this was indeed Carnyx, having taken on an Earth form to replace her Cybertronian one.

“Thank you, and I assure you, we’re not here to hurt you, we just wanted to thank you for your help.” Carnyx’s exposed optic looked his way.

“Felt like the right thing to do,” was all she had to say before she suddenly stopped and looked at him funny. The air suddenly became tense, as the two examined each other, Deckard knowing who she was and Carnyx trying to understand what was familiar about this mech.

Glancing at the mountain that now rose at his back, Deckard’s audial fins twitched in his nervousness and Carnyx stopped. She had felt his apprehension, and knew of only one mech who twitched their audial fins like that. She couldn’t believe it.

“Mighty Amalgamous, is it true?” she whispered, reaching out a clawed servo towards Deckard’s face, the detective stock still, wondering what she was seeing. Her optic found his, and the tense air was shattered with a simple, disbelieving whisper. “Flightdeck?”

BANG!

Off went Deckard’s gun, and Carnyx recoiled violently, her hand clutching her bleeding hip, where the bullet had gone into.

The Brave Detective scrambled backwards and transformed, racing towards the cave once he pulled up his maps, finding it quickly. Once inside, he found Shadowmaru and roused him, the ninja wincing at a small dent in his helm where Carnyx had gotten him.

The pair made it out of the cave and both drove off towards the airport again, the violet mech close to Deckard’s bumper the whole way. Reaching the airport, both transformed again and radioed for the J-Roader, since it was not safe for Shadowmaru to fly in his condition.

The truck arrived and the ninja was loaded up, resting in his canine form while Deckard took his place in front of the J-Roader, making their way back to the base. A small part of his mind asked, “What will Carnyx do now?”

Chapter Text

“Flightdeck?”

BANG!

White-hot agony flared up in her hip as the gun the blue mech held went off with a flash. How stupid was she not to realize that the gun was facing her the entire time?

Carnyx stumbled backwards, gripping the wound and grimacing, though her head snapped up when she heard the sounds of transformation. The blue mech had transformed into some kind of police car and drove off towards the cave where she’d left the violet jet. Oh, well, nothing she could do on that angle.

The black-and-white femme leaned back against the mountain and fumbled through her subspace for her medkit, opening it and looking around for the tools she needed. Her scanner, a magnet, small soldering wires, soldering gun and a thin patch. That should hold her over for a while.

Using the scanner and magnet, she found the bullet and extracted it, tossing it aside without a care. Next, she used the wires to piece the workings of her hip back together, though according to the scanner, the bullet had only hit a few tubes that would heal quickly and missed pretty much everything else. It just hurt like the fragging Pit and bled a lot.

She recalled Flightdeck teaching her that very trick, shooting the hip of an enemy that didn’t actually do a lot of damage, just kept them down for a bit.

As she worked, soldering the wires and then the patch over the wound, Carnyx thought back to the blue mech, who’d undoubtedly found his friend by then. Was he really her lost love? Or was he some kind of sick doppelganger or shapeshifter? She’d searched for Flightdeck for years, only to now find him, or what she thought was him, on this backwater planet she’d not visited in a very long time.

But he said that his name was Deckard, the logical side of her mind supplied, despite the resemblance of names, and he was obviously a grounder. Flightframes couldn’t change to a groundframe without surgery, so unless Flightdeck had gotten said surgery, willingly or not, this mech could not possibly be him.

The other side of her mind, the desperate side, told her that this Deckard had the same nervous but confident mannerisms as Flightdeck, and was his splitting image despite the slight differences in frametypes.

And then there was the factor of her dreams. Carnyx mused as she folded up her medkit and subspaced it again, standing up and beginning her trek to the cave, limping very little.

For the last several weeks, ever since she’d gone to Chromedome for mnemrosurgery therapy on Rung’s orders, Carnyx’s recharge had been plagued with dreams of the Brave Police, always from the perspective of BP-110, Brave Detective Deckard.

She had seen how he became sentient, thanks to the young boy known as Yuuta Tomonaga, how he became a leader to the other Braves that followed, she saw his hardships, felt his hurt feelings and physical pain. It was weird, as from the human’s apparent age, this all happened quite some time ago, so why was she seeing it now?

Confiding in Rung had gotten her nowhere, neither had speaking with Soundwave. Her own twin had even suggested that she was making up these dreams in her sleep because she was still grieving, which had gotten him nothing but a broken faceplate and her a very slagged-off brother-in-law.

Running away to Earth might not have been the smartest thing she’d ever done, but she had to know what these dreams meant, and why was she dreaming of this specific mech? What was so special about Deckard?

Chapter Text

After Shadowmaru was released from Toudou’s care with instructions to rest from his blow to the head, Deckard began working on his report, though he hesitated when it came to the part about Carnyx.

Did he dare reveal that she was on Earth, and that, maybe, just maybe, she was looking for something? Maybe she was looking for Flightdeck, he thought as his fingers paused in their rapidfire typing.

Since Carnyx was real, it was only logical to assume that her lover was too, and that Deckard’s own dreams were, in fact, meant to help the detective find the mech. But that also brought up the question of why Carnyx had called him Flightdeck.

Deckard was not blind to the similarities that existed between himself and the cobalt flier; they could very well have been twins themselves if they were at all the same species. The two were nigh identical, save for the difference in alt-modes and the changes that came with jet and car.

But even if that was what his dreams meant, in revealing Carnyx, would Saejima order the Brave Police to hunt her down? No, that wasn’t like the Commissioner, who was stern but also kind and understanding, but what about Azuma? The chairmen on the Board of Directors? Even the other Braves may think her a threat.

The Brave Detective was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t hear Saejima calling his name until McCrane tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

“Ahh, yes, Commissioner?” Deckard stood up and saluted his superior.

“At ease, Dekkado. Toudou and I would like to speak with you in the Repair Bay.” and with that, the man turned on his heel and walked away. The blue mech looked around the room to see the other Braves staring at him (the American term “rubbernecking” came to mind) before they quickly busied themselves at their desks. The Brave made his way to the Repair Bay, where he found Saejima and Toudou waiting for him.

“Yes, sir, you asked to see me?” Saejima looked at Deckard with a stern expression.

“Dekkado, ever since the first psionic bio-monster attack, you’ve not been yourself. You’ve become distracted, never when you’re needed, which is a relief, but you’ve distanced yourself from the other Braves, and even from Yuuta. Shadowmaru stated that you’ve become withdrawn the last few weeks.”

As Toudou spoke, he looked at Deckard the way Mr. Tomonaga did when he was scolding Yuuta for not telling him something important. “We’re all worried for you, and we want to know why you’ve become this way.”

Saejima had said nothing this whole time, just looking at the expressions on Deckard’s face that he tried to hide. He didn’t know what to say. How could he explain that he was having dreams about another planet, about alien robots with their own lives and cultures, each so different from humanity’s and yet so similar?

How could he explain seeing this alien world through the eyes of another, seeing the world as if he knew everything there was to know about it? And what about his striking resemblance to Flightdeck, or his growing attraction to Carnyx? Instead the mech shook his head and replied, “I don’t know the answers to that yet, sir. But I promise I will speak with you both, with everyone, once I figure out what’s going on with me.”

The two men raised an eyebrow as though they doubted this, so Deckard doubled down with, “I believe the bio-monster triggered something in my AI, but it’s only been revealing itself when I sleep. If I could take some days off, I believe I will find the answers.”

It didn’t take long for the Commissioner to make his decision, and Toudou prepared Deckard for a four day shutdown. The others piled into the room with Yuuta in tow as Toudou began the process of shutting down each of Deckard’s systems. He smiled at his team and his best friend, before his gaze went dark, and the last thing he hears is Yuuta.

“Come back to us safely, Dekkado.”

Chapter Text

Deckard’s optics fluttered online and he was surprised to find himself laying down on a cool metal surface. He sat up a bit, and looked around to see a vast, open plaine with pale blue biolights running along its surface.

Deckard looked up and saw Cybertron’s twin moons, Luna 1 and Luna 2, almost ready to align in the pale night sky. When he sat up straighter, he realized that there were no proud Seeker wings on his back, and looking over himself, found that his frame was his own. He was not Flightdeck tonight.

“Where am I?” he asked no one in particular, his voice carrying out into the empty plaine. Standing cautiously, Deckard’s audials twitched when he heard someone approach, so he turned and saw a dark frame that began to take shape the closer it got until Carnyx stood not 3 meters from him. Her visor was still broken, leaving her one optic visible, and she glared at Deckard once she realized who he was.

“Detective,” she acknowledged him a bit defensively. He bowed briefly in greeting before continuing to look around.

“Do you know where we are, Carnyx?” he asked her absentmindedly, causing her to look at him sharply.

“How do you know my name?” A bit irritated, Deckard opened his mouth to remind her of their previous meeting before Carnyx interrupted him with, “I never told you my designation last we met.” Suddenly realizing his potentially fatal mistake, Deckard looked over his shoulder to see her regarding him with open suspicion.

“How do you know who I am?!” she snarled, pointing her servo at him and becoming irritated and confused when her arm didn’t shift into her sonic blaster.

“What in the name of Unicron’s unadorned spike?” Again and again she tried to bring out her arm-mounted weapon, but still nothing happened.

Seeing her getting frustrated, Deckard reached for his own weapon, only to discover that his trusted revolver was gone. The same could be said of Carnyx’s handheld weapons, her chained daggers, and even the sniper rifle she sometimes carried.

Seeing all her weapons gone, Carnyx growled, “Where are we, and what do you want?” Deckard looked at her with a frown.

“You think I did this? I have no control over these things! At least now I’m certain that this isn’t another dream.” The air was tense as the two glared at each other with open suspicion and hostility, though neither noticed when the two moons aligned and the plaine around them got lighter.

“ENOUGH, MY CHILDREN.” a loud voice boomed over their heads, making Deckard jump and reach for a gun that wasn’t there, and Carnyx whirled around to confront whatever had spoken.

The pair backed up until they were almost back-to-back, making both jump at the first brush of contact. Her tail lashed, spikes quivering with anticipation but not standing straight up like they would normally do, and Deckard’s audials flicked up and down, briefly lighting up the sirens on them.

“Calm yourselves, my children,” the voice boomed again, softer this time, catching their attention although there was no one else on the plaine except for the pair of them. After a few tense moments, Deckard began to calm down and stood up straight, prompting Carnyx to do the same, her tail still twitching tensely. Still they looked around, their backs almost brushing.

“Who are you?” Carnyx asked warily, her revealed optic dialed wide and pale with terror.

“I am Primus, your Creator. Welcome, my creations.” Carnyx and Deckard jumped when a shimmering orb made itself known beside them, a pearlescent white that seemed to emit a gentle pulse every few seconds. Deckard seemed entranced by it, but Carnyx just watched the orb with growing wariness.

“If you’re Primus, then is this the AllSpark? I can’t possibly be dead, can I?” The blue mech noticed how she looked nervous about that. Carnyx cursed herself for sounding so frightened, she’d faced death countless times before and she’d never been frightened.

“You are not dead, Carnyx of Staniz,” Primus explained gently, “You are here, both of you, to complete the missions I gave to you, not so long ago.”

Carnyx looked at Deckard sharply, as though she’d forgotten he was there.

“But, Lord Primus, the detective is not Cybertronian, he was built by humans! He has no spark, no place amongst your people.”

Deckard was hurt by that, but before he could reply with an angry retort, Primus replied, “Oh, how wrong you are, Carnyx. For Deckard here, is Cybertronian, though humans have tainted his original frame with their own designs, to better suit their own purposes.”

The black femme looked at Deckard with confusion, but the Brave had no answer for her, so he instead asked, “Lord Primus, if I am indeed Cybertronian, how did I get on Earth? And what is this mission you’ve given us?”

“I will answer the second first, as the first will make sense then,” Primus had lowered his voice to a whisper now, though it still boomed to them.

“Not half a century ago, after the War had ended and there was peace, a human discovered abandoned technology the Decepticons had left behind, and used it to build her own success,” the orb flashed and showed a human woman taking apart a Cybertronian computer, examining the discs she now held as she smiled, and Deckard almost felt his engine stop when he recognized her.

“Eva Fahrzeug,” he whispered in almost terror, causing Carnyx to look at him. The detective’s optics were wide and pale in color, his face frozen in a look of horror as his hand came to rest on the center of his chest plates, his expression becoming pained. Her own dreams came back to her, and she recalled what had happened to the detective at the humans’ hands.

Then her optic darted back to the orb and she winced when she saw the human female continue to create something from the technology she’d acquired, only to try and use it on other humans.

“Indeed. When she was locked away, frozen in stasis, the AI she made was then used to create more and more advanced technology, even to the point that one was used to corrupt a Cybertronian mind.”

Another flash, and a mangled blue frame was shown being taken apart by engineers, its armor stripped away until a bare silver frame was left.

Both of them recognized the frame before the armor was stripped away, and Deckard’s heart ached when he heard Carnyx cry out in horror.

“Flightdeck!”

The femme collapsed to her knees when she saw the frame being taken apart, bowing her head with heaving sobs. Deckard felt sick, until the orb showed the frame being taken away, at which point, the images faded.

Silence fell on them like a heavy drape, broken only by Carnyx’s muffled grieving, until Deckard asked, “Lord Primus, the mission you gave us, gave me… my team and I have already stopped the Fahrzeugs, so now, is my mission to find Flightdeck?”

The black femme looked up at him in suspicion and confusion, so the detective hurried to explain.

“I’ve been receiving visions about him, dreams of me in his frame, though they’ve faded in the last four days.”

She looked surprised, and even more so when Primus replied, “Yes, so you have. You’ve already defeated the first half of the Fahrzeugs’ plans, but the other half is coming, slower and quieter than its predecessor. As for the dreams, they are not completely just dreams. They are memories of the life behind you, Deckard. And Carnyx, you’ve seen the life of Deckard through visions of your own.” Deckard’s head whipped around to the still kneeling femme, who merely nodded.

“I have, and I know now the cause of most of the trouble the Brave Police have faced,” she still bore an expression of grief, but she seemed to be pulling herself together enough to stand. “This second part, are we meant to stop it? And if so, what does Flightdeck have anything to do with it?”

“As I had said, I would explain the second before I explained the first, so now, I will explain further.” There was another flash from the orb, but this time, it made Deckard’s vision go black.

Chapter Text

White spots appeared in his vision as Deckard struggled to see past the blackness that was afflicted on him. With a groan, he raised his head – when had he fallen onto the floor? – and onlined his optics to find Carnyx’s face just inches from his.

He held his breath, vents going silent – he still didn’t feel any wings on his back, so this wasn’t another Flightdeck dream where he’d be safe – hoping she wouldn’t wake up with them like this. Unfortunately, Primus apparently wasn’t listening and she woke up anyway.

She looked confused for a split second before she realized that they were laying face down right next to each other and they both scrambled away in fright.

Before she could start yelling at him, voices were heard and both turned to a set of glass double doors that opened to reveal a pair of brightly colored mechs. One hot-rod red with gold flame accents and the other….. Deckard realized that he and Carnyx were standing on the landing pad of her and Flightdeck’s city apartment, and that the mechs in front of him were Hot Rod and Flightdeck himself.

The detective glanced at Carnyx, who was standing stock-still at the sight of her dead Conjunx, her face looking like she was seeing a ghost and one clawed servo reaching out as though she was going to touch Flightdeck, but the mech just walked right past her.

“We’re looking back at a memory, they must not be able to see or interact with us.” he told her gently, watching her crestfallen expression sink even lower. They watched Flightdeck and Hot Rod get to the railing on the edge of the landing pad, and they leaned against it.

Flightdeck looked like he was having a hard time staying awake, his helm kept jerking up when it would lower to his chest plates, and Hot Rod saw that. Before he could usher his exhausted brother-in-law back into the building, three jets flew up to the pad and transformed as they landed.

The three were tall coneheaded-type Seekers, broad-shouldered and not as sleek as Flightdeck, but much larger. They all had twisted grins on their dark faces as they approached the two mechs, Hot Rod pushing Flightdeck behind him. The blue mech seemed to realize the predicament they were in and stumbled towards the doors.

That’s when the far right Seeker raised a red-accented arm and fired a shot at Flightdeck, hitting the blue medic and stunning him. Hot Rod’s optics widened and he immediately ran to Flightdeck’s side as the other mech went down with a soft cry of surprise. He managed to catch his brother-in-law before he glared at the approaching flyers.

“You stay away from him!”

Hot Rod raised both his arms and flames burst out from the pipes on his forearms. The fire he aimed at them kept the three mechs at bay, sweeping his arms from side to side and keeping a constant wall of fire between him and his opponents.

Unfortunately, again, one of the other Seekers dared to raise an arm against the flames and fired a shot at the red mech, hitting him in the left arm.

Hot Rod howled as the circuits in his arm went dead and then the appendage hung limp, leaving one flank open to further attack. The flyer that shot at him was holding his right arm, the violet-accented limb scorched beyond repair due to the intensity of the flames.

While all of this was happening, Carnyx was trying her damnedest to hit one of the Seekers, unable to grasp the reality that this had all already happened, and that she couldn’t do anything to help.

Deckard only felt sick to his tanks as he watched Hot Rod attempt to keep the three back with only one functioning arm, only to be quickly stunned himself and tossed aside by the leader, a deep green mech, who bent down to pick up the still unconscious Flightdeck.

He roughly tossed the flyer over his shoulder before the sound of a helicopter reached his audials, at which point, a black Cybertronian chopper flew up to the landing pad, and Carnyx halted her would-be assault in time to see herself transform. Then it hit her.

“It’s that day…” she whispered, barely loud enough for Deckard to hear. “The day… I lost him.”

The detective’s optics went wide and he turned back to see the three flyers taking off with Flightdeck in their possession and past-Carnyx hot on their heels, the femme letting out an enraged roar as she fired off her sonic cannon.

The double glass doors opened to reveal a heavy-set, dark blue mech with a silver face mask and slanted red visor, who quickly took stock of the situation before firing off shots of his own. The two managed to hit the red seeker, who went down after his thrusters and left wing exploded from the pitch of the sound-based weapons.

The other two were quickly out of range, causing past-Carnyx to snap, “‘Wave, stay with Roddy, I’ll get those fraggers!”

The deep blue mech nodded and rushed to the downed red mech, carefully cradling his Conjunx in his arms as he commed for a medic while his twin vaulted over the edge of the pad to transform and take off after the two remaining Seekers.

The scene changed too quickly for Deckard to keep up, and the pair suddenly found themselves in a crumpling spaceport, with a large ship docked to go and the remaining two Seekers bearing down on a struggling Flightdeck. They were tying him up but the medic was struggling, despite being weakened.

Once he was tied up, the two Seekers shove him up the ramp and tossed him onboard before the wall behind them came crumbling down, and past-Carnyx rushed in, aiming directly at the green conehead leader, who raised his arms to defend himself before his helm was blown clean off by the volume of her sonic cannon.

The violet conehead could only gape at his deactivated trinemate before he was forced to seal the shuttle doors, the sonic blasts heavily denting the surface. Carnyx and Deckard were then transported into the shuttle, where the now one-armed Seeker hurriedly typed in a set of coordinates before he slammed the ship into gear, taking off while past-Carnyx was still firing off blast after blast, severely damaging the hull and half of one of the thrusters.

Soon, the large shuttle was out of range of her weaponry, and the two heard past-Carnyx’s roar of rage. Looking out the porthole window, Deckard saw that the past version of Carnyx had transformed and was giving chase as fast as her rotors could spin. The violet mech exvented heavily and glared at the barely conscious Flightdeck.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?! Whoever’s paying for your bounty had better pay full price once I get you to the dropoff, this wasn’t worth losing my entire trine over!” he backhanded Flightdeck harshly, and Carnyx snarled, her revealed optic glowing in absolute fury.

Before the scene could go on, the pair were taken to a field, the floor white with snow and the sky dark with a coming storm. The conehead’s shuttle, heavily damaged and not looking too good, landed with a great BANG that shook the Earth under their feet. He stomped down the ramp, pausing at the bottom to look around. Flightdeck was nowhere in sight. Deckard didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Once he was off the ramp, the mech appeared agitated that whoever or whatever he was looking for wasn’t around, and it was then that Carnyx’s vents hitched and Deckard looked up at the shuttle again.

To his shock, he saw Flightdeck, roughed up with dented wings, but alive and shedding the cables that he’d been bound with. His optics, pale with exhaustion and terror, spotted the conehead and then crept down the ramp as quietly as he could. Due to the wind whipping around them, the violet conehead didn’t hear anything until it was too late.

Flightdeck threw the cables that had bound him around the conehead’s neck, quickly tightening it and making the bigger flier choke in surprise before Flightdeck scrambled up his back and jammed his needles into the back of the mech’s neck, making him jerk forward.

Unused to the extra weight on his back, this action sent the conehead to the ground, with Flightdeck landing on top of his wings, making him scream in agony as one of them crumpled under Flightdeck’s knee as the smaller flier struggled to keep his needles in place.

Soon the violet conehead stopped struggling and went silent, the only indication that he was still alive was the tremors that traveled across his plating. Flightdeck retracted his now pink tipped needles back into his fingertips and shakily got off the downed conehead, glancing back at him every so often as he took hold of his surroundings.

The ground began to rumble under their feet, making all three of them turn towards the noise, when they saw a huge machine, built on tank treads, rolling towards them. Sheltered from the blizzard by a circular glass globe was Eva Fahrzeug, much younger and well-kept than when Deckard saw her last, with a far younger Neuva sitting at her feet.

Controlling one of the robot’s arms, Eva sent the shell-shocked and still terrified Flightdeck flying into the side of the shuttle, knocking him out when his back and damaged wings hit the wall of the ship. The snow muffled his landing, though it did nothing to cover the sound of cracking metal.

Deckard saw Eva’s malicious smile as her robot picked up both unconscious flyers, and did nothing as Carnyx flew into another rage, trying to dismantle the robot with claws that went right through it. He couldn’t understand her pain, but he felt it, as well as the lightheadedness that swept over the blue detective.

“Hnnngg,” Deckard clutched at his helm, trying to fight off the sudden vertigo that was threatening to swamp him. Carnyx stopped her futile attack with a howl of emotional pain, seeing that her attacks did less than nothing to the memory of her love being taken away.

The huge femme rounded on the detective, the strange mech she was stuck with for now, looking for some kind of explanation, only to see him collapse, clutching his helm. Now alarmed, Carnyx ran to him, grabbing hold of the smaller bot before her processor could catch up to her.

“What’s going on? Are you-” She could get no further. The scene was changing around them, and by then, Deckard could barely hold his head up when he was suddenly surrounded by familiar gray concrete walls, with all sorts of cranes and machinery inside.

Both of their gazes were drawn upwards, seeing a bare silver frame with only bare hints of blue metal left. Humans were working around it, operating crane arms and welders as what Deckard recognized as Flightdeck’s stripped down frame was being reassembled.

Carnyx’s venting hitched, and Deckard saw why. The flyer’s frame was being molded into another, equally familiar shape.

His own.

Chapter Text

Countless emotions swirled through Carnyx’s mind as she stared numbly at the bare frame — confusion, horror, love, denial, hopelessness, relief, and a blistering, mind-numbing rage being just a few. How dare these pathetic insects touch her Conjunx like this?! It was only when she felt the kneeling detective shiver within the hold of her arms did she realize that she’d let her EM field loose, and he was taking the brunt of her out of control emotions.

The Casseticon reigned her EM in as much as she could, looking down at that familiar face as Deckard blurrily blinked up at her. Carnyx felt her spark in her throat as she gently cradled the mech’s face, he looked… confused? Understanding? She couldn’t count the emotions in those warm amber optics, so achingly familiar now that her optics were open to the truth.

The scene around them faded to a pale silver-pink, not that either noticed, too absorbed in what they’d been shown. It wasn’t until Carnyx could no longer feel his plating under her servos did she break eye contact and look around.

Deckard, similarly, no longer felt the black femme’s warm, gentle touch, and began to look around the empty space around them in panic. What was happening now? It was then the two shared a look, full of determination and a wish to know more, and let go of the other, their eyesight failing as the world turned to black.

{_-_}

Feeling came back slowly, as his systems woke up, one by one, to avoid overwhelming his sluggish processors. Notifications that his hearing had activated lit up on his HUD, testing certain levels of noise within range. There was quite a bit of noise, the faint blaring of horns, the buzz of many voices, small footsteps, and the sound of machinery in use.

Then came the sensors under his armor that made up his sense of touch, feeling the support arms and cables of his recharge cradle. Various receptors, chemical, humidity, temperature and others, came online next, allowing him to “smell” the faded scent of crude oil, lingering traces of welder smoke, and the warm, dry air of many bodies moving around.

His fingers began to twitch as his vision slowly came online, testing all ranges of detection. With a flash of amber-orange, Deckard lifted his head from its resting place against the headboard of the recharge cradle.

Looking around showed him that he was in the repair bay once more, and it appeared to be midday, if the light streaming in from the small windows up top said anything. As the detective began to move, it alerted several technicians, who jumped and scrambled to release him from the locked cradle, and he heard one of them calling for the Chief.

“ Dekkado ?” The mech turned his head to see that Toudou had arrived, looking relieved and confused. Deckard saluted the Chief.

“Chief Toudou,” he greeted. The old man huffed and waved off the salute.

“Good to see you up and running, Dekkado , but you weren’t supposed to wake until mid evening tomorrow. How did you wake up so early?” The detective shook his head.

“I’m unsure, but I do know that my AI has dealt with any remaining issues. I am ready to return to work.” Toudou chuckled.

“Sounds like you’re back to normal, but you’re gonna need Gov’s approval for that. I’ll let him know you’re awake.”

“Thank you, Chief.” Deckard smiled before he turned to look outside, as the Repair Bay doors were open to the rear entrance to the Brave Police headquarters. It looked over the rear docks where the police boats were anchored, and he looked over the vast expanse of blue

As the technicians wisely left him alone, the Brave Detective thought back to what he’d seen, and he smiled wryly. So he was Flightdeck, at least, that’s what he’d seen, but some of it made sense.

Previous cases looking into Eva Fahrzeug and her Hamelin system showed that Deckard’s own Super AI unit had not been as new as Toudou thought. He’d been given the AI unit from Eva’s experiments, the very one first used to corrupt Flightdeck’s original data, which was why Deckard had to be thrown around by a psionic bio-monster for his memories to reactivate.

Meaning that he wasn’t going crazy, his attraction to Carnyx was genuine, his dreams were his own memories , and he knew what he had to do now. He just had to play it cool for a while.

{_-_}

She woke up cursing every deity that came to mind. She’d been so fragging close, only to be whisked away to wake. Carnyx sat bolt upright in the thin, cramped berth of her small shuttle, where she’d gone into recharge, only to wake up and find that her chronometer read that she’d been asleep for THREE FRAGGING DAYS?!?!

“Primadammit, Primus fist-fragging Unicron, why does the universe hate me?!” The Casseticon almost screamed as she stumbled out of berth and out the rear of the shuttle, hitting the ground with barely a falter in her step until she vaulted off the edge of the cliff and assumed her helicopter form, making her way to the Brave Police Headquarters.

About halfway there, Carnyx felt her engine stall as she searched for a solution to her new problem. How did she approach Flightde- no, Deckard, about this? She couldn’t very well just show up demanding answers, no, she had to be smart.

Slowing down so that her rotors didn’t wear themselves down to nubs, Carnyx thought hard. Did she arrive at night? No, the headquarters always had at least two of the Braves on graveyard shift. He typically went home with that Yuuta boy, right? She could follow them there and speak with him. No, no, helicopters are NOT stealthy, she would wake up the entire neighborhood. She growled, “Oh, fucking Liege Maximo’s false spike, think, Carnyx!”

It was the sight of the mountain range just outside of Nanagamri City that startled the femme from her thoughts, when another idea came to her. She landed in a small clearing and transformed as quietly as possible. A small tap to the amber-colored glass of her chest activated the flat cassette tape inside.

The ex-Decepticon smiled. “Wake up, Crescendo, I have a mission for you.”

Chapter Text

Whatever he’d been expecting upon entering the Decker Room after getting cleared by both Toudou and Saejima, getting glomped by Drill Boy certainly wasn’t it. Deckard briefly stumbled from the impact, back hitting the door that had slid shut behind him. He almost expected his wings to flare with added pain, only to recall that they weren’t there.

“ Dekkado ! You’re awake! Duke’s been making us do extra patrols!” Drill Boy’s tone was half relieved and half accusatory towards the ambulance, who leaned back in his chair with a roll of his green optics.

“You only think it's extra patrols because I wouldn’t let you sneak off to play soccer midway through your morning route.” Duke nodded politely to his leader, who had managed to untangle Drill Boy from his person. The orange mechling stuck his tongue out at the white mech before he bounced off after a soccer ball Dumpson had thrown his way.

With a sigh and a small chuckle, Deckard made his way to his desk beneath Yuuta’s, waving to the excited young man, avoiding Gunmax’s legs that were sticking out over the top of the desk he shared with Shadowmaru, and sat down at his monitor. Beginning to scroll through the reports he missed during his shutdown, Deckard allowed his mind to drift off as his team chattered around him, and when he felt a soft twinge in his chest, he smiled.

{_-_}

Driving Yuuta home for the first time in a few days now, Deckard’s mind wandered back to Carnyx whilst still keeping his sensors fixed on the road. He felt giddy at the prospect of seeing her in person again, especially now that he knew the truth. More memories filled the gaps the more he thought back, but he didn’t dare go through them properly just yet, for fear of crashing.

“You’re very quiet tonight, Dekkado,” Yuuta remarked, looking at the console behind the steering wheel in his hands. “Is something the matter?”

The console flashed briefly as Deckard replied, “Ah, just thinking about a few things is all, Yuuta. Nothing serious.” The young man looked unconvinced.

“What kind of things? You know you can tell me anything, right?” Deckard dipped his headlights as he turned onto the street to the Tomonaga residence.

“I know, it's just something that’s a little,” he paused, searching for the right word. “Delicate, let’s say.” The young man suddenly had a knowing look in his blue eyes.

“Ah, I see now,” he said as his best friend parked in the garage.

“Do you now?” was Deckard’s reply.

“Mm hm, you have your eye on someone, don’t you, Dekkado ?” The teasing tone (and rather accurate observation) would have made the Brave Detective blush if he were human (or even properly Cybertronian again).

“W-well,” the blue once-flyer struggled for an answer, shifting on his axles. He didn’t dare tell Yuuta of his discoveries just yet, but he was technically right… “How did you figure that out so quickly?” he settled for asking instead, silently hoping it was vague enough to divert the human’s attention. It thankfully worked as Yuuta said, “You’re acting like Mom and Dad do when they’re thinking about each other.”

Well, at least he wasn’t being compared to Azuuki and her airheaded crush on their neighbor, Kashiwazaki. Deckard was saved from further questioning by the sound of Kurumi calling out from the now open front door.

“Yuuta, come inside! Dinner’s getting cold! And welcome home, Dekkado !” the patrol car dipped his lights.

“Good to be home, Kurumi.” the young lady smiled at their friend as her little brother (not so little anymore) hurried into the house, calling out his good nights as the door closed. Settling back on his axles, Deckard prepared to recharge and sort through his memories when something made a noise above him.

Adjusting the sensors on his altmode roof, Deckard spotted it. Balancing easily on the wall of Yuuta’s bedroom balcony was a large, black bird. It was clearly a robot, the street lights reflecting off its shiny exterior, and its vivid gold optics cut through the dark. It was larger than any flighted bird on Earth, and when he spotted the familiar purple insignia on its wings, Deckard knew what it was.

Transforming carefully, the blue mech walked out into the driveway, turning back to the bird and holding out his arm as a perch.

“You’re one of Carnyx’s, aren’t you? She did used to talk about finding a cassette or two. Good to know she hadn’t changed her mind over the years.” Deckard’s optics then dimmed softly as the memory returned. How eager his love had been as she researched the small Cybertronians.

The bird’s optics brightened and it flew down to perch on his arm, landing gracefully. Now under the light of the Tomonaga house, he could clearly see that it was a large cryo-condor, with gold and neon blue highlights. Definitely Carnyx’s.

Gently stroking its neck with the back of a finger, the blue mech asked, “Do you have a message for me?” The cassette cocked its head to the side and projected a beam from its golden optics. Deckard took in the map he’d been presented with, memorizing the coordinates, until he left a smirk show. “A perfect spot,” he mused, resuming his petting. “I’ll be there.”

Chapter Text

He felt a little guilty running off in the middle of the night, but hopefully the message he’d left on Yuuta’s phone would give pause to any questions until he got home. The cryo-condor flew overhead, constantly projecting its location to him so he could follow it more easily.

As he pulled up to the spot he’d been shown, Deckard transformed and looked around as the cassette circled above, being hit with a strange sense of deja vu until he realized. This was the same cave he’d found Shadowmaru in just a few days ago, which was rather fitting, since he would be meeting her again for the first time as (almost) himself. The cryo-condor flew toward the cave entrance, where it swooped up to perch on a familiar black and white arm.

“Good job, Crescendo,” Carnyx cooed as she gave the bird a stroke on the beak before opening her chest cavity and allowing her cassette to transform. Crescendo assumed its cassette tape form and settled inside to rest in its space, the tall femme closing up her chassis again.

Acknowledging Deckard with a soft, searching look for the first time since his arrival, the two just stared at each other, a bit awkward. The last time they’d been in this location, it hadn’t ended well. Finally, Deckard tilted his helm and then chuckled softly, breaking the silence.

“This reminds me of when we first met, minus the battle going on around us.” Carnyx’s exposed optic brightened, causing her broken visor to glitch. “Yes, it does a little.” she offered cautiously. With an encouraging smile, Deckard remembered that day clearly.

{It had been a small scuffle at the base he’d been stationed at, three Decepticon K-Classers falling around critical points on and around the small outpost. He’d been deployed alongside his miniscule unit, and was tending to the wounded battleside. He’d just dragged an artillery class mech off the field (sporting a very nasty shrapnel gash on his left side), and was welding him back together behind the cover of a rocky outcrop, when his wings sensed movement behind him.

Daring to take his optics off his patient to look over his wing and shoulder, Flightdeck was treated to the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen since he left Caminus: a tall, slender, monochrome frame, lit by red and yellow biolights and the flash of a bomb detonating behind them. A red visor was framed by a dark helm, glaring down at him. They’d held each other’s gazes for a long moment before the tall Cassetticon turned away and leapt back into battle, a long, sharp-plated tail cracking against the rock as they did so.}

Blinking away the memories, the blue mech dared to take a step forward with a sly, if slightly unsure smile that had Carnyx interested. “If I recall correctly,” he drawled, reaching out a hand. “You kidnapped me after that encounter, and you protected me from the Cons who wanted to hurt me while I was patching them up.”

The tall femme grinned broadly, and it took only a few long strides to sweep her beloved into her arms, spinning him around in a tight embrace as Deckard squealed in delight. The next thing he knew, she’d set him down and swiftly captured his dermas in a bruising, claiming kiss.

Deckar-, no, Flightdeck, moaned into the kiss, the once-flyer molding his frame into hers as much as he could, as Carnyx allowed her servos to slide behind his back, one coming to rest on the sensitive space between his shoulders (where his wings used to be, he noted), and the other on the small of his back, just above his aft.

They barely paused to vent before going back at it, trying to pour over a century’s worth of emotion and longing into every kiss, emotions that Flightdeck felt tenfold. They stayed there for a long while, kissing till their lips were bruised, but they didn’t care. They were together again at long last.