Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It wasn't cold necessarily. More... Lukewarm? They didn't know how to describe it.

Her optics onlined, for the first time, and it was... something. The space he was in, wasn't spacious at all. They could move their arms a little, and lift their legs a bit, but they couldn't do much else.

They were faced directly to a window, peering out at the sea of stars they could feel they were moving though.

Speaking of where they were, where were they? "Hello?" she heard herself call out, she knows because.. well, he just knows it's his voice. It sounds like their voice. Why she said hello to nobody, remains a mystery to her.

A screen in front of them beeped on, naturally purple in colour. A round shaped head popped up on the screen in question, and blinked back at them. "Hi!"

He was a little surprised by the sudden appearance of a 2D-head. "Don't be so worried! I'm NAVO, Navigation And Outreach for Voyagers." The words popped up on the screen in front of them

"Tell me, what's on your mind?" The words disappeared and were replaced with that same round little avatar, it was pretty cute in their opinion.

She thought for a moment, how many things were there to find out? He knows some things already, how to talk is an example, but what don't they know?

".. Who am I?"

The screen had a few things pop up at once, "Classic question, you're Seela-Six!" Their name popped up on the screen, along with a picture of his face and body. That is their name! They must not have known the words for it yet.

As for appearance, their helm was sharp, they had almond-shaped, blue eyes, and their mouth was segmented – lines running from two circle-things on the side of their head, dipping and going back up to the corners of their mouth. He felt his face, it was like that alright. Their body was more sharp, circle and oval shaped things closer or on top of some of their joints.

Didn't feel much like them, but it was certainly what they looked like.

"Where are we?" Seela looked up to the corner of the bright screen, to NAVO's avatar, and it popped up in the middle of the screen once more. 

"We're in deep space. You left Cybertron approximately 3 sysyem weeks ago, you onlined relatively late, considering how long your brain has been showing activity."

Seela tilted their head, "Cybertron?" Where was that?

"Yes," NAVO loaded a picture of Cybertron onto the screen. Ah, a planet. It looked almost damaged. Dark surface, holes in said surface, barely glowing a purple colour all over. "Cybertron. Currently being rebuilt by it's inhabitants."

Pictures of mecha constructing tall buildings, paving roads, a room full of mecha, with a model of the planet above the centre of their table, appeared on the screen. Seela couldn't touch the screen, accidentally reaching out to the glass of the window instead.

"Am I one of them?" He asked the A.I.

"Of course you're Cybertronian!" NAVO pinged back onto the screen.

"Then why am I not there?" He sees they're rebuilding, but why couldn't he be a part of that process? Why isn't he part of that?

"You are meant to travel to a planet called Earth, to meet with a group of Transformers." NAVO projected a picture of the Earth onto the screen. Green and blue planet, some of the scenery is aesthetically pleasing to her.

"Transformers? Who are they?" Seela inquired, eyes moving between the pictures on the screen.

NAVO popped up in the middle of the screen, an X over its face. "Apologies, Seela-Six. I'm not allowed to tell you that."

"Well why not?" he prompted, confused at the sudden restriction in information.

"I have been instructed to let you figure some things out once you all get there."

Seela looked past the screen, to the sea of stars, with newfound interest in her eyes. " 'You all'? There's more out there?"

"Yes," NAVO's avatar nodded, "Two more to be precise."

"Tell me about them!"

"Negative, you will have to meet them on your own." 

Seela sighed, eyes drifting to the left of their pod. "Right. Well, how long is getting there going to take?"

"Aproximately 4 system months." 

"4 months?!" He exclaimed, almost not believing it.

"Yes. And no, we cannot speed up the process either." NAVO's avatar shook it's head and Seela opened her mouth to ask, before closing it when another imagine appeared on the screen.

"The pod burned through approximately half of it's feul. We cannot use more to speed up, you will run out before you get there." Seela hummed at this, fair enough, she supposed.

"Well what can we do in the meantime?"

All in all, the Malto family had been doing really well lately. No world-ending threats since the Quintessons, the Decepticons had been MIA for months now, with rather infrequent transmissions coming through from the Cassettes. The Malto siblings especially had been working on their own things.

Robby and Mo were actually focusing on their schoolwork nowadays - as much as teenage humans did anyway -, the Autobots took to helping out crises, with JB, Twitch and Thrash tagging along the most frequently. Oh, and Nightshade's friend/mentor guy has popped up a couple times - hiding and all. Nightshade themself has been working on tons of cool science projects - Hashtag's been showing off the more "miniscule" of them, as Nightshade says, which are still super cool!

Hashtag herself has actually taken up the fam, and Autobot's role as PR assistant! As much as they'd let her anyway. The technopath has been helping out with interviews, photoshoots, and other publicity stuff where she can, and she's been loving it! 

Her own socials have actually been picking up some traction - believe it or not, but positive feedback on her posts reminds her to get up and stop doomscrolling. Well, that and the rest of the family dragging her up from unproductivity on occassion...

Speaking of unproductivity, a ping from the main screen in the centre of their base caught Hashtag and Nightshade's attention from what they were doing. Nightshade was reading a new comic series they'd picked up, and Hashtag was controlling the music they listened to and was "managing" their socials. The ping manifested as a notification on the screen, and Nightshade was the first to get up and check.

Upon seeing the notification, Nightshade gasped in surprise. “What happened?” their sister asked, leaving her tablet on one of the oversized bean bags they sat on, in favour of looking at the ping. Hashtag turned the music down.

The notification read something about a UFO entering the atmosphere – Nightshade started tapping and typing away before Hashtag could get a proper look at it. “It might be as I suspected,” they started, turning to their sister as a map began to load onto the screen. The may showed a purple dot travelling in a curved dashed line towards the Earth. 

Another notification appeared, it read; Unknown Spacecraft Carrying large amounts of Energon.

“It may be Prowl's ship!” Nightshade added, and their sister's optics widened. “The Decepticons are back?”

Her sibling started again, “It may be so,” typing away as a smaller map with a more precise location loaded onto the screen. The name of the area popped up in the corner of the screen; somewhere outside Philadelphia. “And that may be where the ship is landing.” 

The siblings looked at each other and came to the same conclusion; this was fine – all things considered, but they needed a plan to get the ship back at least. Hashtag began to try and call someone on the comm line she and Starscream had set up a while back – she thought.

The two tried to tune into that frequency, and Hashtag got there first, trying to reach anybody.

Jawbreaker was probably nearer to the Autobot base, and the twins were heading back from a mission with Bumblebee… 

“Hashtag!” the familiar voice of Bee tuned in, “Bee, great! We've uh, got a bit of a sitch here.” Hashtag started before the scout could continue. Extra noise filtered out as Twitch and Thrash joined the conversation.

“ ‘A sitch’? What happened?” Twitch chimed in, and on Hashtag's end, Nightshade looked up to nod - so Hashtag continued. 

“The Decepticons are back”

When Hashtag and Nightshade told everyone about the Cons' appearance on the dugout's systems, they all agreed to go check out the area they'd be landing at. 

They agreed to tell the Autobots, but have them as back up in case something changed while they were away – and if they wouldn't give Prowl's ship back. They also figured bringing in Megatron or OP wouldn't necessarily help the approach they were going to go with.

Robby and Mo also weren't there for the confrontation – school hours and all.

Shockwave may have had an actual reason for coming back – he probably came back to Earth for some perfectly normal reason. Or Cybertron kicked them out, either one made sense.

Bumblebee – who insisted on coming – found the ship first. He sent the co-ords and the Maltos stopped what they were doing and bolted to the landing area.

When Hashtag got there, she saw it was a bit more of a crash than a landing. Must have hit a speed bump on their way down or something, it didn't look too bad.

When they were all there, Shockwave stepped out of the ship first, followed by Soundwave. Laserbeak was let out, presumably as surveillance, but they were the only ones that left the ship. 

“Maltos, we meet again.” Shockwave spoke calmly, walking forward and looking at them all with a calculating gaze.

“Shockwave,” Bumblebee started, taking a step forward, “what are you doing back?”

Soundwave stepped forward as well, sauntering on to be at Shockwave's side, “We have envountered an obstical”

There was a loud caw from above, and Soundwave glanced up at Laserbeak as he dove down to land on his shoulder. “Most a’ this area's clear, but backup ain't too far.” The bird squawked.

“Oh? What would you need backup for?” Shockwave looked down at Bee and the Maltos, singular optic shrinking slightly. 

“We brought backup in case you wouldn't hand over the ship” Twitch retaliated, hovering upwards and closer to Bee.

Shockwave shook his head, but his demeanor was now more relaxed, "You need not be concerned with that at the moment," he said with distaste in his voice, "we bring an 'update' of sorts. The ship you can have at a later date."

"An update? That Cybertron is no more, orr–" Thrash was elbowed by Nightshade, not too hard though. 

"Negative," Soundwave chimed in, pulling up a hologram of the planet in question. "Cybertron is being rebuilt."

The Terrans shared a similar notion of surprise and intrigue – they assumed it was no more and didn't think much of it. Bee, however, looked at the projection with some mix of relief, happiness – but hope mostly.

"Cybertron – that means we can go back" Bee said, turning his attention to Shockwave, who shook his head yet again, this time with disappointment. 

"Soundwave," the scientist started, turning to look at the mech in question, "if you please." Soundwave nodded and began to play a recording, as the hologram projection disappeared.

Static filtered out as the voices of multiple mecha speaking at once filled the air.

"They cannot be trusted – banish them all!"

"They came all this way-"

"They are Decepticons, they have no place here"

"Have you so soon forgotten-"

"And what of those on Earth-"

And such were being yelled over each other.

"Everybody calm yourselves!" a voice spoke, calm in tone yet louder than the others.

"I have a proposition for you lot." 

"We are listening." the voice of Shockwave stated blankly.

"We will send in protoforms – those with no affiliations to the war – and you will prove that you can be bothered with those other than yourselves."

"What–" Shockwave was about to start, flabbergasted, but was interrupted.

"Let me speak. We will send one Cybertronian, per group of transformers, and they will decide whether you deserve to live here." 

The audio cut out, and everyone had looked at the two Decepticons with mixed expressions.

"We're not particularly pleased about this either," the scientist's voice cut through the silence, "but this is their terms."

"So what you have to – raise Cybertronians to go back?" Bumblebee almost wanted to laugh, which was fair enough. Who would've thought that they would have to raise someone to go back home.

"Not raise, watch over," the scientist replied with the same unamused, if not a slightly vexed, tone. "And there is a we in this situation, to an extent."

"Wait, us too? You told them about us?" Hashtag spoke up, her mind already wondering how this entire thing could go.

"Precisely." Shockwave said, turning on his heel to walk back to the ship, "that is all we had to say." He spoke over his shoulder, as he opened the ship's doors to walk inside.

"Hey! We still need Prowl's ship!" Thrash demanded – which went ignored by the Decepticons.

Soundwave began to follow, before turning back to say, "Advice: they would not have told us everything on Cybertron." before continuing on into the ship.

"And the first protoform to land is ours, Maltos!" squawked Laserbeak, as the Bumblebee was getting ready to fire at the ship, to get them to halt.

Inside the ship, Laserbeak flew off of Soundwave's shoulder, to go tell whoever was in the front to take off immediately. Shockwave kept the door open for the communications officer, and he nodded as he said his thanks and the doors closed.

Hashtag was already on comms to get Wheeljack's updated drones and Prowl to go after the ship before/once it took off.

Once they had opened fire, the mecha inside the ship had pointedly ignored it, in favour of taking off. As they did, the drones and Prowl were on their tail, with Twitch soon to follow.

Seela's eyes darted around the now crashed pod they were in.

NAVO explained what they're actually here to do, told and showed where he'd be landing on the planet, and as the fuel depleted and the pod began to enter Earth's atmosphere, the A.I went offline and Seela-Six, for the first time in months, was alone. And it certainly didn't feel like it - not while the pod plummeted thousands upon thousands of kilometers down.

Not while it felt like his fuel tank dropped straight to the ground and took all her inner wiring with it.

The landing felt like it should've been fatal - Pits, she would've died of a heart attack right then and there! At least it sounded(?) like everything calmed down. The sound of the actual crash was dulled by what sounded like her entering some substance and hitting the ground.

The sound of her vents working overtime was the only thing that she could here for a solid minute, as he tried to regain his composure. By the time she did regain her composure, she decided to get up and look around at where exactly she landed.

Ah, it's water! She landed in water. As blue and pretty as she expected, she had to admit. Probably even more so.

When NAVO showed them some of the different biomes on this planet Seela found themself just about enamored with the underwater side of things. She felt like she could've spent hours upon hours looking at the different kinds of underwater sea creatures and wildlife certain planets have to offer. At a certain point he felt like he had, and at that point they decided to take a look at something else.

But wow, did it look vastly more impressive in person. And the colours were gorgeous - a lot less purple than the holographic screen would've suggested, but beautiful nonetheless.

They weren't a particularly good swimmer - obviously, you're not built for it - but admiring all this underwater life was still a treat. He actually recognized quite a few animals; turtles, she spotted a few clams, tons of fish they want to know the name of, her favourite so far were the sharks.

NAVO actually showed her things about sharks, like things that humans ended up finding out about them, their anatomy and adaptations - they're actually quite efficient predators once you think about it.

After a while, the protoform decides to surface, thinking of whether or not her systems can get waterlogged and decidedly not liking the idea. When they did so, they noticed a beach not too far from where she was currently swimming, so he decided to head there. Main concern was getting there and accidentally walking on or a tad bit too close to the humans there - NAVO told them about how they treated Cybertronians at first, so closer proximity probably wasn't too good of an idea.

Seela also hoped she wasn't disturbing the humans on these board thingies, or in boats too much by swimming - even thought she probably was, judging by the amount of indecipherable noise they made when she got nearer to them. There were certainly spots with less human and human-populated areas - hopefully - not like she could see them anyway.

And when some of the humans on boats dove down underwater with camera-looking devices out, Seela wasn't exactly filled with the most confidence, rather a bit more confusion. This was not the behaviour he was expecting, but NAVO did mention that humans in different countries tended to behave differently ion some aspects...

Maybe it's an "Australian thing"?

Chapter Text

Returning to Cybertron and seeing how their home was being rebuilt was relieving in a sense. Soundwave had his doubts that those left on Cybertron could rebuild, certainly. Especially if the Allspark never made it, but seeing it with his own optics put him at ease.

What was certainly frustrating was the fact that they had the nerve to send them back. Insulting. He'd wager it was the Autobots that made it to their blasted “council”. Soundwave was weary of their claims to manage the rebuilding and manage nothing further.

Shockwave claimed it logical to comply, as they would still be going home, but Soundwave could see it in his optic and hear it in his tone, that he was not happy about their predicament either.

Either way, the Decepticons were here, searching for the pod that should have crash landed by now. The seekers were told to comb the skies, Breakdown, Bombshell and Shrapnel were sent to get the temporarily-abandoned base back up to functionality, and the cassettes stayed with Soundwave and Shockwave on the ship.

Speaking of which, Rumble and Frenzy were combing the internet for clues or anything useful. 

… Or at least they were meant to.

“I'm tellin’ you two Mexico is where it should be at!” Laserbeak squawked, perched next to a Ravage who simply looked like she wanted the three to be quiet so she could get back to recharging.

Frenzy would have rolled her optics if they were visible, and her brother sister chimed in. “You don't get a say, birdie!”

“Yeah I do!” he retaliated, hypothetical feathers puffing up and wings raised, flaring. 

“You're not vocals, dude!” 

“Since when?” 

“Since you can't sing” Ravage cut in, tail flicking his head lightly.

Laserbeak squawked indignantly, Rumble snorted and Frenzy laughed at the two.

Soundwave chuckled at the sight, their behaviour was amusing even when unproductive.

He decided to walk up to the four— a stern talking to was in order if they hadn't been trying to find out if the protoform landed or not, and where.

“Rumble,” Soundwave's deep voice spoke up, and 3 of them turned to him, Ravage turning to lay her head down, “Status report?”

“Well you see boss,” Rumble glanced to his twin and Laserbeak under his visor, “no news of the, uh protoform just yet.” 

Soundwave's head tilted to the side and he raised an optic brow. Attempting to crack his knuckles, resisting the urge to fidget, glancing to the others. 

“Rumble: clearly lying. Task: incomplete or not started.” Soundwave knew he was right when he heard Frenzy sigh and saw Laserbeak hang his head.

Frenzy chimed in, trying to save face more than her brother, “Well pops, what Rumble here,” she said with a glare in his direction, “is that we've been multitasking!”

Ravage scoffed at that, earning a peck from the eagle next to her, which earned a growl in turn.

“Multitasking?” Soundwave raised his optic brow yet again, and put his hands on his hips, awaiting an answer, or at least proof.

“Yeah, pops!” Frenzy turned her tablet to face him and he leaned down to see. She was showing him the different tabs open, a lot of which looked like they were labeled as news headlines, or conspiracies about possible Cybertronian appearances. A few of which had to do with “best places to perform”, or “how to start a band when people dint liek you” so there was the multitasking.

“Rumble's just bad at tellin’ the truth.” the eagle added, deciding not to lose in a skirmish to Ravage, and earning an insulted “hey!”, from the cassette in question.

Soundwave doubted they were actually focusing too much on the news headlines, however it was late so he decided to let it slide this once. They all had to recharge at some point around now.

The Communication's Officer stood to his full height again, and began. “Multitasking: is not efficient,” earning a sigh or exasperated expression from the three, “however, it is late so it is best to rest.” and the three fixed their expressions.

Soundwave decided he could be productive in place of them, if only for another vorn or two. Combing the world wide web should not prove difficult once he gets a proper signal.

About one vorn later, Soundwave decided it was time for everyone to recharge. The ship had an autopilot function, so if they picked a destination to head they could turn it on and recharge until they landed.

The tall mech walked to where his cassettes were last sitting, and found Laserbeak sleeping on Rumble and Frenzy. An endearing sight, even without Ravage. 

Speaking of which, she appeared before him, tablet between her jaws, yet not crushed as she motioned for him to take it.

Soundwave did so, and when the tab he tapped on was finished loading, the jaguar began to speak, “I was keeping an eye out when they,” she motioned to the sleep pile with her paw, “fell asleep, and that popped up.”

Soundwave was now face to screen with a video of a human with an accent, recording a clearly confused protoform that was swimming, of all things. 

The human recording clearly had an accent, and a lot of other humans were running to the edge of their vessel to record a clip of him as well.

The mech paused the video and looked to Ravage, who was currently sitting up and looking at him expectantly. “A few other clips say that the protoform is in ‘Australia’.” Soundwave reached down to pet her and scratch behind her ears.

“Ravage: has done well.” she was clearly pleased by this, “Recharge now, we will arrive tomorrow.” Soundwave moved away, and started walking to where Shockwave was still working tirelessly.

Ravage gave him a look, but said nothing, so he wouldn't either.

Shockwave was tired of trying to comb the main operating system for information – most if not all of it was wiped from the system, but it still functioned on Earth's internet, so he had ought to make some use of it.

Even so, the cassettes and likely Soundwave were combing the internet thoroughly, so if none of the 5 found anything useful the notion that he could would be a waste of time.

He was already plotting their next moves, and how to get the protoform to cooperate. It was likely that they were naive, so cooperation should not be too difficult.

The scientist stood with his gun-arm limp at his side and servo tapping at the desk in front of him rather impatiently. 

They needed to get the base operational again. Shockwave had projects he'd rather not implode when he's not looking and did not enjoy having nothing to do. He would also rather his mind not think of such… fickle things, even if they are about fascinating mecha.

As he was deep in thought, he almost didn't notice the thud of footsteps behind him. A familiar touch made its way to his shoulder, and he looked over to be met with an equally familiar glowing red visor.

For an illogical second, he wished that touch was more familiar.

“Shockwave, request: recharge.” Ah, his companion came to tell him to rest. It was nigh pitch black outside, after all, so that made sense. 

“I cannot, I'm busy working.” 

“Your equipment is at the base,” he stated, pointing at the scientist's chest with a clawed digit. “We have no more work to do.” 

That made Shockwave tilt his helm curiously, “Of course we do,” he said and gestured to the screen with his gun arm, “we need to find a protoform.” 

Soundwave's head tilted slightly down, and the glow of his visor hadn't moved from Shockwave. A typical sign he knew of something. “Negative,” he started, turning on his datapad to show the other, “Ravage: acquired footage” 

He let the footage play, a choppy and low quality video of some human with an accent not from the United States yelling over the feedback of winds. The actual recording was of a protoform in question swimming, of all things. So they were likely going to acquire an aquatic alt mode.

“Location: Australian coast.” Soundwave responded, closing the datapad as Shockwave began to type away at setting a location for the automatic piloting to fly to.

“Very well, thank you–” he was then moved away at the shoulder while he was doing so and fixed with a look, even from behind the visor. Shockwave tilted his helm and his finials pressed back in confusion.

“Shockwave: refuel and recharge. Soundwave: will take it from here.” 

“But it would be equally efficient–” 

“Shockwave: has not refueled and requires recharge. We will reach our destination either way.”

The scientist checked his fuel reserves, he would not deactivate if he did this one, menial task, so Soundwave simply not letting it go is very illogical of him.

The Communications Officer stood there, helm tilted, arms crossed and unmoving. His visor was a steady glow, not moving from him for a second and his hips tilted as he shifted on his pedes.

With his finials moving back to their original state and a curt, “Very well, goodnight Soundwave.” Shockwave stalked off to go find some energon to eat.

Seela was unsure of what exactly to do for now. Obviously there was the option to wait for pick-up as it were, but that might be a tad bit suspicious. There was also the option to sit and twiddle their servos but honestly she'd rather get moving.

Plus so far he wasn't all that big of a fan of all the humans - the way they crowded around them, all trying to record her, someone who for all intents and purposes spoke to a living being two seconds ago, wasn't pleasant.

So after he went back to the pod, he was simply floating on the water's surface contemplating his next move. 

The nerves that got to them when they first started trying to talk to the locals were mostly gone now - they suppose that's what not having a camera glued to your face does.

He sat up, looking at the fancy building in the distance, deciding to go to an uninhabited part of the coast to wander until the time to go came.

So there she was, wandering a land of tiny looking animals she didn't recognize and looking at tons of red-coloured ground.

They were pretty sure that drone was still following her - which wasn't a very good idea because she wasn't getting anything done, but commands are commands she supposed. These animals were pretty funny looking though, a stonefish, something she recognized as a kangaroo and some dog-looking-but-not-sounding-creatures. 

Maybe she could find out more about these creatures, however humans acquired information. 

All this heat was not at all good for her systems though. She could hear her vents overtime, and he sighed, lifting a hand up to above her optics so she could properly see what was ahead of her. Maybe this was a bad idea.

And just then, they heard the sound of something flying directly above her, with a loud cawing following it.

Maybe not!

He dropped his arm and swivelled on their heel to look up, where the noises were. The bird-looking mech doubled back to land in front of them.

“Well howdy!” The bird squawked, taking as much a bow as a bird could. Seela noted the accent, and how something quickly disappeared from his visor, but she responded nonetheless. 

“Uh, hi?”

Yep. The best she could do. Maybe they needed more energon.

“Name’s Laserbeak- and Imma need you to come with me.”  So, straight to the point. She can work with that.

“Not sure about that.” Laserbeak tilted his head and stood higher, like he was ready to drag her with him. “Is where you’re taking me cold?”

Laserbeak let out a chuckle and went airborne before he responded, “If the air conditionin’ ain’t busted.”

And so, the bird started flying and Seela started walking.

“Yo, Ravage, Rumble, Frenzy, guess who found ‘em!” Laserbeak spoke into his communicator, which got Seela to turn her head upwards yet again.

The bird made a loop as he flew - Seela thought that was pretty cool, “Hah! I expect my energon when I get back! Later suckers” and presumably exited out of whatever they used to communicate.

“Who was that?” Seela asked, kicking a rock as she sauntered on through the wastelands that were Australia. For a second she wondered why humans would live here, and in the next second she remembered that the continents on this planet were big enough to have life anywhere if you looked hard enough.

“That my friend was my fellow cassettes.”

“Cassettes?” She responded quickly, confusion very evident in her tone.

“Y’know” Laserbeak swooped closer and transformed into a flat-ish rectangle, with two circles in the middle and his colours, and dropped into her servos. “Cassettes! Earth’s music players!”

Seela was about to turn it around and inspect him further, but he transformed back into the air.

“We all turn into one.”

“You, Frenzy, Rumble and Ravage?”

“Exactly.”

“Can everyone turn into stuff like that?” They asked curiously, and Laserbeak flapped his wings once before he responded.

“Every Cybertronian sure can! Not cassettes though.”

Seela thought that was pretty interesting - NAVO neglected to tell her about that, but it was never prompted to tell, so she couldn’t exactly blame it.

“What else can we transform into?”

And then for a chunk of the walk, they were talking about “alternate modes”, and what her alt mode could be. 

Seela isn’t all that sure, there must be tons of things to find and do no matter where you go. Flight looks like it must feel amazing, zooming past everything and anything, everything behind you disappearing to the horizon. Same with driving, racing sounds exhilarating - maybe not her style but it sounds like so much fun. Of course he’d love to be able to see the weird and ugly creatures of the abyss that is the ocean, just how much truly is there?

Eventually Laserbeak asked what exactly Seela knew - if she was clueless on alt-modes what exactly the mecha that sent him there let them know, and most of what she knew was just knowledge on fish and space. 

Seela wasn’t all too keen on letting him know about the AI she spoke to, so she kept it simple.

“Uh, let’s just say I don’t know anything useful..”

“I’ll say” he said, clearly joking and with a scoff. Seela decided to mock the tiniest bit of offence.

“I was in space for 4 months, you sure don’t learn a lot there!”

Rumble was seething about losing the bet - Frenzy was too, all things considered, and Ravage was safely prepared to fight her brother for her energon, so all in all it was a pretty normal time when they got back to the ship.

The Waves were on their way back, so Frenzy was free to jam out all she wanted until the Waves, Laserbeak and the protoform got to the ship. Too bad Rumble couldn’t rock with her - too busy trying to fix his bass after the last time it broke.

If the frustrated noises and exasperated expression were anything to go by, the bass guitar would be absolutely totaled by the time her twin was done with it. Bummer, she was gonna try and rope boss into doing a few covers with them when they had down time. 

Which should be all the time, now. But knowing the Autobots and ‘Cons, it was only a matter of time before fighting broke out again, so best to treasure this while it lasts!

And then, in swooped Laserbeak, almost preening. Probably about winning the bet. Frenzy thought as she stopped playing her keytar. 

And in walked a very relieved looking protoform.

“Bots and cats, I present to you,” Laserbeak started, with about as much bravado a bird like him would need to be considered full-of himself, which is to say just barely enough to be considered bravado. He bowed and spread out a wing to gesture to the protoform previously in question.

“Seela-Six!”

And Six waved to the room full of Decepticon’s quite cheerfully.

The appearance of the protoform got Rumble to ditch his bass - rest in pieces - and got Ravage to look up from where she sat.

“Seela-Six, Ravage” Laserbeak pointed from them to a cat mech, “Rumble,” he pointed to a red mech, “and Frenzy,” a purple mech that looked almost just like Rumble.

Seela, however, was more tempted to just lay on the floor as the air conditioning hit them as they felt like they could be smelted.

Chapter Text

In an attempt to calm down from, well, crashing, he came up with a list to gather his thoughts. 

So, a few things.

1. He just crash landed on Earth.
2. There are two others, Seela-Six and Ace. He needs to meet them at some stage.
3. He has to find one of three groups on this planet and stick around. Also, let a drone loose.
4. After that he can go home.
There is likely more steps to that plan, more things to do and extra information. However, he can worry about that later.

Landing in “Russia” means that his third objective is across an ocean. Troublesome, of course, but first he requires a way to actually move faster than walking before he can worry about going across an ocean.

It's mostly open, cold and white land, so she gets moving and closes her vents. He walks for what feels like miles and miles, empty white of the land accompanied by the occasional jet flying overhead.

He recalls learning many things in space. Of alternate-modes all of them had, how mecha tended to choose them. Alt-modes were only for utility, as was the consensus once upon a time. Apparently they thought if your alt-mode didn’t have a purpose the same applied to you - ridiculous honestly. For disguises, mobility, aesthetics - it doesn’t matter all too much. 

Though, he could really use the mobility right now. Add it to the list, he supposes. Not that he particularly minds the silence or walking, but freezing isn't quite how he imagined really starting his life.

He walks for about an hour, according to his chronometer. Dreadful. 
Nebula starts to see a structure, in the distance, but it's certainly there. Likely crawling with organics.

Well, given his lighter colours blending in would get more difficult the closer she got, so she needed to be quick.

When Nebula comes up on the structure, he gets a better look at the tower, runway and extra buildings it houses.

An organic, a human, takes one look at him and scrambles for something on their person and runs in the other direction. They leave many jets and planes behind.

“Those can suffice,” he mutters to no one. Maybe the drone if it's there.  This was certainly far easier than he would have expected. 

He looked at his options, and he saw one that he quite liked. A jet, it looked to be fast and it had no visible weapons. It was blue-ish, with white detailing and patterns. A scan confirmed her initial thought of the lack of weapons, and with that scan he felt his plating extend. In a way.

It felt like a layer of armour began to coat her, he looked at his arms and they bore green plating over the black appendages. His pedes lifted off the ground slightly, and a satisfying weight was placed on his back.

Nebula felt his T-Cog whirr inside his chest, and he was filled with the sudden urge to move. With a jump he did exactly that, felt his new wings shift to his sides as his head retracted. He retained his optical sensors. 

He didn't particularly know what it felt like, his actuators felt more operable than ever, his joints moved and shifted perfectly – it was amazing.

Before he had the chance to think more about it, he was soaring through the skies. He didn't know where she was going, really. But he went there anyway, doing multiple barrel rolls and testing just how fast he could get going.
Any higher and he swore he'd start cutting right through the clouds.

The biting cold and silence didn't matter. The silence was filled in by his own cheers and the cold was a lesser feeling compared to this.

Maybe this was what being alive felt like – this is where his life started.

“Soo… What are we doing?” 

Seela-Six tried to look down at Ravage from where she was walking, almost tripping over air instead. The two were in the mess hall, setting up speakers for what the twins ominously called “The Thing”. 

Ravage hopped up on one of their speakers and started, “It’s something of an Earthen tradition.” She got a notification on her HUD - the twins found the extension cables. About time.

Seela-Six set the other speaker down and looked at Ravage expectantly. 

“They have this holiday, “Christmas”. Every year around this time we play Christmas music,” the protoform nodded in some kind of thought.

“Soundwave's idea,” She added just as the twins appeared in the entranceway.

Frenzy let out a frustrated grunt pulled the cables up and over her shoulder. “You sure you're carrying these?”

Rumble scoffed, “ ‘Course I am!”

While Ravage's faceplates shifted and she looked at them questioningly, “Why did you bring so many cables?” 

Seela got up and walked over to help them with the cables. As she got to the entrance, she must have gotten a good look at how many cables they were lugging around and looked very confused, doing a small hop when one of her pedes hit the ground on the other side of the mess.

“Well we're gonna need to be able to access the intercom ain't we?” Rumble answered, and Seela picked up the wires on Frenzy's side and carried it to the speakers much faster than they could have.

“That much cable for the intercoms?” Ravage raised an optic ridge.

“Weren't we gonna hook up the other speakers too?” Frenzy countered, moving to untangle the mess of wires and plug them in, “Not like it's all only for these.”

“No, we were going to finish doing that on Christmas.”

The twins finished plugging them in and went to pick the first song.

“Okay, why are we doing this then?”

“Better question,” said Rumble.

“Why not?” Frenzy finished, tapping on the first song and music began blaring from the speakers.

Seela-Six winced and Ravage's ear flicked absent-mindedly.

“Also,” Ravage decided to add when she began singing, “most of them hate it.”

“The music?” the protoform inquired, with a tilt of her head.

“The the fact that we constantly leave it playing.”

Multiple bright monitors allowed Soundwave to see through cameras some of them didn't know about and hear whatever he chose to.

Shockwave was in his lab as usual, the twin Seekers had just flown off, – to find and bother Starscream, if he had to wager – Swindle had gotten off a call with someone, the Insecticons and one or two of their clones were wandering and Breakdown was on a call with someone. He turned on the audio for that monitor.
On a more fun note, the cassettes began setting up the speakers.

It was quite calmingly easy, turning on the audio and turning his attention to everything else. This kind of multi-tasking was his specialty, no matter how tiring. 

Breakdown scoffed, “Seriously?” Laserbeak had come back from an aerial patrol/stretching his wings on one of the outside monitors. 

“Of course we'll give the ship back – not like we need it anyway.” Breakdown was correct in that assessment, at least. He looked around – looked in the wrong corner, but he looked.

Something being said made Breakdown stop dead in his tracks. His eyes went wide, “Wait, Seriously?” 
Different tone, it sounded intriguing so Soundwave turned his attention to the monitor.

Breakdown's expression shifted from something of shock to something of irritation 

“Them again?” 
Them?

“I'll be there -– See ya then, Bee.” A conversation with Bumblebee then. On one of the inactive monitors, he searched for footage of Breakdown from the past few days. 

The most notable thing he found was footage of him driving off and returning the next day only. 

Soundwave hummed in acknowledgment. The cameras didn't need watching, and as this could be important, it takes precedence. 

The jet shut down the cameras and left – Breakdown was en route to his hab suite and would pass Soundwave, given the direction he seems to be taking.

As Soundwave walked the undecorated, mostly cold, and decidedly un-decked halls, Christmas music began playing over the intercom speakers. This brought a very amused smile to Soundwave's faceplates.

The twins usually chose this one first – he remembers how Starscream detested it, actively, and the rest of High Command simply tried ignoring it.

Somewhere in the building, a scientist who shall not be named sighed.

He was about to turn a corner, and be faced with the racer, and before that, he began playing the song on the intercom over his own speakers. Breakdown chuckled, and Soundwave stepped in front of him, crossing his arms.

“ ‘Sup Soundwave. Back on this again?” Breakdown motioned his head towards the wall, glancing at the speaker attached to it.

“Naturally,” he started, shifting on his pedes and standing up a tiny bit straighter. “Report: Status of the Autobots.”

A small look came across Breakdown’s face, but it passed in the next second. “They still want the ship back,” he scoffed, “Surprise, surprise. Aside from that, we’re still chill.” he adds, like an afterthought, “They also think they found the other protoforms.”

Soundwave hummed, in neither agreement or in thought. “Query: who is ‘them’? From your call.”

“Not cool,” Breakdown’s expression dropped and his gaze hardened, he knew, even when they were talking. 

“You remember MECH, right?”

Soundwave’s engine hitched and behind the visor, his optics grew wide behind the visor and one servo’s grip on his arm tightened when his shoulders tensed. The music stopped, “How could I forget.” His voice practically dripping with hostility.
How could anyone forget.

“Well, the bastards are back, apparently.” Breakdown’s optics glanced at the floor and his voice faltered for a moment. “They have him.”
Soundwave knew who he was talking about - anyone would, they were no secret.

This had become personal long ago, for a lot of them.

“Walk. Soundwave: will inform Shockwave and you will take me with you.” Soundwave uncrossed his arms and turned to walk with purpose in each step he took. Breakdown trailed behind him.

Breakdown’s optics flickered as he opened up his comms;

BREAKDOWN:

Change of plans
Kinda
The Waves wanna come with 

BEE IS TYPING

An unexpected opportunity – for possible resources and an actual medic. To repay them, in some cases.
Soundwave will be damned if he ignores this.

Chapter Text

Prowl looked over all the evidence, mostly any of G.H.O.S.T's old files, and statements from the other bots, they could find. Which is to say, next to nothing.

G.H.O.S.T wiped all information of MECH from their systems, aside from the fact that the division was terminated around 13 years ago and all activity from them ceased at around 10. Aside from that? Witness statements say that MECH needs to be kept far away from the newsparks coming – and possibly the Terrans, if they can help it.

Everyone agrees they're not above any kinds of torture or pulling apart, Arcee almost lost her arm to them. Some come with horror stories about what their dissections look like. Apparently they tried to take out Starscream's t-cog once. 

Megatron told him that they threatened to fire on them with advanced weapons that would harm civilian humans in the process. It was later confiscated though. Elita was taken as a prisoner, mostly to lure the others out, but she did try and get a glimpse of their plans at the time. Grimlock had a personal score to settle, but so did most of them.

Optimus noted that he saw to it that any and all devices like that were smelted for spare metal, but they could and should assume they have the technology.

This should be an “all hands on deck situation”. Even if those hands are young they have much to contribute and the ability to handle themselves in a fight. 

At likely a fraction of their resources and funds, as well as labour judging by that exodus they had, calculations of all survival are at 62.25%. Anyone like them tended to get creative, so that number could pretty easily drop.

Prowl took a look at his fuel reserves and chronometer, and got up and turned off the datapad he was working on. 

He needed some energon, and Optimus and Bee should be back soon, so he can ask him some more questions then.

On his way to the cafeteria, he spotted Hashtag tapping away at her tablet and pacing, Spitfire and Aftermath bickering about something and Nightshade and Jawbreaker attempting something, he couldn't see what.

Everyone else was either out or in the training room

Prowl grabbed a couple energon cubes, downing them and feeling it settle in his fuel tank.

Thinking of plans, they'd likely need to have a medic on standby– maybe they could contact Ratchet somehow.

The medics should still be around, Optimus mentioned them having gone off the grid a long time ago.

The thought of them being in MECH's clutches spawns a thought process he files away for later. He'd rather not have to have it, but they can't rule anything out here.

He opened the datapad again to briefly write down shorter versions of the thought and some things that could happen if that were true.

They would likely be tortured, or maybe used for their knowledge of Cybertronian anatomy. Maybe a mix of both.

So many possibilities, such a threat and yet so little information. Considering all he did in the war, Prowl's starting to feel a little bit rusty.

He started up Teletraan-1, and began to search for any forms of capture for or weapons against Cybertronians and see what MECH could still have or have made more of. 

Higher Energy Blasters certainly weren't off the table, and neither was some kind of net that emits a paralysing shock, but he was pulled out of his search when he got a notification in his comm systems from Optimus.

OPTIMUS PRIME

Prowl…

Don't be alarmed…

But we have company

Okay, definitely on his guard then.

PROWL

What do you mean “company”?

Go to the entrance

Bee and I will be back soon

The fact that Optimus said not to be alarmed already tipped Prowl off – maybe it was just those humans from the government Optimus said he was going to contact. Maybe not, and with the Decepticons back Prowl wasn’t exactly about to take.

Nightshade watched through some videos their siblings and the Chaos Terrans sent them on their tablet as they walked through the halls. They’d just gotten back from the cafeteria and were looking through things the others either thought would be cool to make or just pretty hypotheticals. They were never quite sure which were which though. 

On the way, they ran into Prowl, who looked quite on edge, if a little concerned. He also looked quite engrossed in his own head, like how most people get when they're just that bit close to figuring something out.

“Prowl?” That got him to tear away from his thoughts and look at them, “Is everything alright?”

Prowl wasn't hesitant to answer, a good sign, “Everything should be.” Possibly a good sign, “I'm going to check the entrance, don't worry about me.” Okay, something might be “up”. Everyone has been calm this past year, no major fights or concerns aside from the newest one, and Prowl doesn't typically act like this, even when he's not doing detective work.

Nightshade nodded, proceeding in the other direction to the lab when they caught sight of Prowl's blaster in his left hand. 

They walked far enough for it to be assumed that they kept walking and thought it over. Option 1, was to let Prowl deal with everything on his own as he said, Option 2 – the more preferable one – was to let their siblings know that Prowl was acting suspicious and follow him, Option 3 was Option 2 but Nightshade went alone.

Nightshade’s leg swayed idly as they messaged Hashtag. They'd hate to be overly analytical of something like this, but they'd hate to be wrong as well.

The owl got a response within a minute or two, Hashtag said she'd check the cameras if they told her what was up. After tapping away at a short message, Nightshade got confirmation that, yes, something was indeed happening.

The video Nightshade got back made their eyebrows raise slightly. 

In the crisp video the cameras had picked up Soundwave, Breakdown, Ravage, the twins and an entirely new protoform waltzed directly into the Base. Ravage was walking close to Soundwave, Rumble and Frenzy were talking to the protoform and Breakdown was walking ahead of them. 

The Decepticons were back at their base with one of the protoforms they had said were coming, and quite quickly as well.

Nightshade gave confirmation that Hashtag could notify the others and went on their way to join Prowl in asking what exactly they were doing here.

By the time the owl got there, Prowl was already pointing his blaster at Breakdown – likely with a scowl – before slowly, begrudgingly but nonetheless, lowering his blaster. 

Everyone had told Prowl of what the Decepticons were like before they – quite literally – jumped ship and left Earth for Cybertron. In truth, they weren't all that bad. There's something with each of them, something that makes them more than what they did during the war and what they did to keep living.

But Nightshade does suppose that Prowl is the kind of mech who says, “I'll believe it when I see it,” and honestly means it.

“You weren't kidding..” he said, looking past Breakdown at something Nightshade cannot see from where they stand.

It was then that Nightshade decided to message the group chat and step forward, but Prowl noticed before he'd gotten the chance to say or add anything.

“Nightshade? I told you, everything's fine.” Prowl turned around to say, and Breakdown scoffed.

“Right because that's what that was just now,” he retorted, although that was fine, and it wasn’t an overly hostile situation, Nightshade thought.

“And it is,” they answered, with a tilt of their head, “I only came because I thought we should know if something was amiss.”

“Something is, but it ain't us kid,” Breakdown responded, receiving a look from Prowl that some of the others would describe as a “side eye”.

Nightshade responded in kind, saying that they were well aware. Prowl pushed past Breakdown, likely to go inspect Soundwave, the Cassettes and protoform and Nightshade was to follow.

“Where's Bee? He's the one that said I should come.” Well that certainly explained it. 

“Bee is not here right now, he's out with Optimus on a patrol.” Breakdown hummed and nodded, he clearly didn't care much for mention of Optimus but he walked towards the small group along with Nightshade.

The protoform looked at them curiously, from where they stood off to the side, and they smiled at her. Prowl was currently interrogating Soundwave, so Nightshade thought they should introduce themself.

“Hi,” started the protoform rather than Nightshade.

“Hello, I am Nightshade!” They took a quick bow, meant to be theatrical more than anything, “my pronouns are They/Them.” 

The protoform was somewhat amused at the display, she smiled, but hesitated upon actual introduction. “Uh‐ I'm Seela-Six. Call me Seela,” Seela almost extended her hand, but decided against it.

“Pleasure to meet you– my siblings should be here soon,” Nightshade pointed to the doorway they entered from.

Seela’s eyes flitted from the doorway, to Nightshade and then to Prowl and Soundwave questioningly.

“That is likely fine,” Nightshade spoke again, getting her attention, “expected, truthfully.”

Seela hummed in understanding and nodded slowly, eyes watching as Prowl walked to the entrance quickly.

Just then, Twitch came in and flitted towards the protoform, floating next to her as she looked around for a moment. Twitch was in a pretty good mood today, and she was curious about the new bot. “Hi! I'm Twitch,” she held out her hand, “Designated older sibling right now,” that got some confusion out of the protoform.

“Hii, I'm Seela,” she took her smaller hand to shake, “and, uh, what's a ‘Designated Sibling’?”

“Designated Older Sibling!” Twitch corrected, with some pride to boot. “Thrash and I are exactly the same age, so whoever won the last family game night gets to hold the title of older sibling.” Nightshade thinks they're both equally qualified for the older sibling role, but the two quite like their little competitions.

“Ahh..” Seela responded, nodding along, still confused but on a different subject this time. “What's a ‘Family Game Knight’?”

 Nightshade decided to pitch in for this one, “It's when you and your family get together and do all sorts of fun activities, preferably at night as well.” Seela nodded along to this as well, although, with more understanding.

From there the conversation jumped between different topics, but eventually Seela looked back at where the Cassettes and Soundwave were – looking a little disappointed – and immediately asked if there was anything to do at the base.

“I'm getting bored standing around,” was the reason she gave. 

“Oh yeah, we could totally give you a tour of this place!” Hashtag chimed in, snapping her fingers and looking to her siblings for agreement.

“Oh yeah! Where should we go first?”

“The cafeteria, maybe?”

“Or the hab suites?”

“We could just go in order?” 

Jawbreaker, Thrash and Twitch suggested in rapid succession. Nightshade didn't really mind either way, so they just looked to Seela for what she wanted to do.

So, Seela guessed they were doing this now. They weren't exactly sure how long this tour would take but that buzzing definitely isn't helping pass time. 

No one seems to care though… 

It wasn't even that loud either, it just sounded like an amalgamation of multiple sources. And it was constant. 

At least it wasn't this bad back at the Decepticon base. 

Just then, she almost walked right into one of the ‘Terrans’ when they stopped. The tall purple one – Hashtag? – and immediately tried to tune back into whatever Twitch was talking about.

“– And this is the main terminal room! That's Teletraan-1,” the flier pointed towards the main, really big, and orange computer in the centre of the room. Like most hallways, it has those railings on the side – apparently those are for humans.

There was that guy with doorwings – Prowl, she remembers – standing over the computer, typing away and looking from the keyboard to the screen and back again.

He glanced back and Seela got the feeling they should get. He didn't sound too happy from here.

Oh wait, that's new.

“Oh wait, you guys mentioned a training room earlier?” Seela spoke up, looking at Twitch curiously as she nodded.

“Oh yeah! They should be done with it now,” and with a clap of her hands they were off again.

Some of the others were chatting amongst themselves, talking about things he didn't get or know about.

Seela wasn't particularly talkative, though. They had things to think about – mainly the strangely quick change in location. First 3 days here and he's already been pushed around to like 5 other places – and she was just getting settled at the Decepticon base. Started planning changes to their room and everything.

They're all for having things to do but it seems a bit… sudden? The ship ride here didn't exactly scream “everything's totally fine,” either.

“You okay, Seela?” said Jawbreaker, pulling her from her thoughts. He had this look on his face– he could probably tell that they were thinking about something.

Seela made a noncommittal noise and answered, “Why are we here?” they could see he didn't really get what she was saying, so she continued.

“I mean… We're here pretty suddenly.. Is everything alright?” it took Jawbreaker a second to decide how to answer.

“I'm sure everything's going to be fine,” he responded fairly cheerily. Or optimistically, she didn't know. 

“So everything's not fine?”

“I didn't say that-” 

“Yes you did. Implied, whatever.” they quipped with a dismissive wave of their servo. “What's wrong then?” 

“Uhm..” Jawbreaker looked at his siblings, one of which shook their helm and another looked at Seela and back at him.

“Maybe we should wait to tell you?” He said, sounding pretty unsure. Everyone then acted like that was that, but Seela didn't want that to be that. They're here too, these guys can tell her now!

She'd have to put a pin in that thought though, they were coming up on the training room and she'd probably have to tune in to whatever Twitch was going to say. 

Just as she was about to speak it sounded like something shot at the door, which made Seela take a startled step back and made Twitch twitch (hah) as she flew closer to the rest group 

“So it looks like they're still busy.” Twitch started, saving face, “so let's go watch instead.” 

“Apologies, but Wheeljack needs me in the lab,” said Nightshade, to which all Seela could really do as they walked off was wave as she filed away the name “Wheeljack" in the ever-growing list of mecha he didn't know.

They entered through another door off to the right, into a very spacious black room with screens tracking some different stuff– who was there, the ‘map’ they were using – and a wide window that let you view what Seela could only assume was most of the training room.

Apparently the people named “Megatron”, “Aftermath”, and “Elita-One” were all training together, and it was pretty chaotic. Turrets were being absolutely shredded through– the shot might have been those or from the heavy duty cannon on the silver one's arm – but there was this pink one and wow could she work a pair of swords. The other, more magenta, pink one had this hook attached to a chain on his arm. It looked like it could rust away at any second but it did some impressive damage.

There was this human, up on a really high ledge crying out for help – they were probably trying to get to it. 

The way they fought, dodged and tore through turrets and other obstacles that just spawned from the ground– Pit, it looked like so much fun! 

Seela was almost leaning completely forward, tracking their movements as best he could, watching intently as they attacked their way to the target. And if he watched a little more intently when one of the turrets began firing at something they just almost couldn't see, that's not really anyone's business. It got cut immediately anyway.

They were almost disappointed when it ended so quickly, but they looked about ready to call it quits.

Hashtag tapped on the glass twice, and only then it looked like they could see their group, because then they all turned in their direction when the pink femme looked at them. Seela waved – why did you wave – and got a look from the other pink one and a wave from the femme and silver bot. 

They met outside of the training room, and Seela was introduced to them.

The pink femme was Elita-One, the other pink one with spikes on his helm was Aftermath and and the much larger up close silver one was Megatron. 

Aside from a compliment to Elita-One and her swords, a returned look for Aftermath, her first thought when faced with Megatron was ‘Oh wow- you are way bigger up close, okay.’ Which got her a chuckle from the mech in question, because she accidentally said that out loud.

Soundwave scowled at the infamous detective from under his visor. His cassettes were right there backing him up, Shockwave was conversing with Wheeljack and the Protoform had left with the Terrans.

He did not appreciate such an interrogation. He was here for revenge and justice, and that was not any of their concerns. “All assumptions of reason for our presence here are incorrect. Desist.”

A chorus of agreements and orders to "lay off”, and get to the point sounded from the bots next to him. Prowl frowned at that, but let up nonetheless as not complying wouldn't get him anywhere.

“Fine.” He said, looking down at them, before turning his attention back to Soundwave. “We don't have much information right now, so that's where you need to come in.” Soundwave tilted his head, motioning for him to continue. “Hashtag is already scouring the internet and trying to hack old G.H.O.S.T files,” the police car handed him a datapad “and she dug up a list of unoccupied bases.” 

Soundwave turned the datapad on and it was as he’d said. There were about 4 in the country and at least 10 more across the globe, but without guarantee of finding any traces there, finding them would take longer than anyone would like.

“I've marked off the ones I will be checking,” he added as Soundwave looked up, “Report back to me your findings once you've searched a base, if any.” 

The two nodded, and Prowl stalked off, following Wheeljack and leaving Soundwave with his Cassettes, who soon left to go find various rooms or things, and Shockwave.

“You are agitated,” Shockwave remarked flatly, “do not be. We will have what we want in time.” Soundwave is aware Shockwave joined the Decepticons for science, and likely joined this mission for the same reason.

However, a part of his mind tells him that might not be all. They meant something to him.

When they murdered Buzzsaw, pulled him apart for his pieces and nearly did the same to Rumble, Shockwave carried his living son back and his mind had felt full of rage that they would dare do that to any Decepticon, much like Soundwave's, and they fueled each other's fire until a retreat was called and their base decimated.

He recalls the scientist finishing a project Laserbeak and Buzzsaw suggested making – a high power laser wired in a certain way – and giving it to Soundwave to decide what to do with it. The Communications Officer vividly remembers how much emotion he'd felt when he'd seen the engravings and the colours he'd used, what it did to his poor spark.

“Idea from and created for: Buzzsaw & Laserbeak, Cassetticons and beloved friends” Shockwave scratched it out, and let Soundwave replace it with "sons"

It was used once, and stored away on the Nemesis, later moved to their current base of operations.

“Soundwave: well aware. Time: an agitating thing.” Soundwave's finials twitched as he spoke, crossing his arms. Shockwave's own finials flicked and rested, and he nodded. They didn't say anything else, it wasn't like they needed to.

Chapter Text

Knockout's life was three places. His crummy apartment, his business with his clients and the streets.

His life stretched as far as he could drive, and one of his first destinations was the shady little alleyways and fake clinics and repair shops he stole for.

He didn't get the chance to have an actual business, his chances at becoming a surgeon, cosmetic or otherwise, blew up in his face, and everyone moves too fast for second chances. He'd resorted to stealing; stealing from the dead and the living, and selling his hauls to whoever would pay the most that stellarcycle.

Knockout managed to secure himself a spot in a building where quite a few residents left before he came and he had a certain amount of space all to himself. He took on more illegal and riskier jobs when he was getting too low on shanix to pay rent that decacycle. He’d been having a good run, with no late payments or glitching out from his landlord in a decade or so.

He would say his life stretched from his apartment to the streets, but any Velocitronian's life started on the streets. It started on the racetracks and the spectacle they brought, continued to engex shops and anywhere in that same vein of fun. Anywhere and everywhere worthwhile on the streets promised the same things, feeling alive .

All that to say, here he is. In an alley anyone unfamiliar would have to parkour to  get to, plopping a crate of spare parts, lines, tires and 1 (one) pristine spark casing down in front of his newest client.

The mech, a cool green motorcycle build, whistled at the sight.

“Behold,” Knockout pulled out the spark casing, a certain look crossing the other mech's faceplates, “In perfect condition~”

The green mech crossed his arms and looked at the other parts in the crate, mouth plates curving into a sideways smile, “I can see that. You're good at this,” he turned to look at the red racer, “Knockout, right?”

Knockout's helix brows furrowed – the green mech knew his name already, why is he asking? – but he put on an air of pride and placed his servos on his hip plating, “The one and only!” he gestured to the spark casing and the rest of the crate of parts, “You won't find this quality anywhere else”

“Right, right,” the green mech nodded, “Well, I assume you want what you're due, yeah?”

That is an odd way to put it.. Something's up, “Odd way to put it, but yes, I do need my payment. It's “What I'm due, as you've said”.”

“Well,” the mech then began to unspace… “What you're due, I'm afraid,” a blaster and a badge, slag! “A good few centuries in prison–”

“ACK–!?”

Knockout quickly unspaced a taser and ran up to stick it on the mech's plating, and while he was stunned, Knockout transformed and sped away.

He couldn't get caught, not now. He'd done too much and he still needed more, eventually he could've made something of himself, he knew he couldn't do this forever. 

His second chance was right there, he could feel it. Right around the corner. 

Knockout, sped onto a track, just before a new race started and didn't stop as it did, joining in unprompted and much to the confusion of the other racers.

He just had to keep moving.

He kept moving. Kept driving, kept racing, even when the war reached Velocitron.

When he joined the Decepticons.

When he got Conjunxed to Breakdown.

When they landed on this strange little planet.

And when the war was over, he… Slowed down.

He didn't stop, him and Breakdown, they never stopped. But, with the war over, and the two of them in the wind, they thought they could slow down. Maybe it came with laying low, maybe they both thought that the constant speed of their lives wasn't living. That maybe it couldn't be living forever.

Maybe that was their first mistake. Maybe that was all the mistake needed to get caught.

Knockout onlined his optics as the dingy little room – barely more than a filthy holding cell – was filled with a suspicious amount of light. When he looked up in front of him, the screen on one of the walls was on.

“Robbing me of seeing that ugly mug in the flesh, are you?” good. Knockout may not have access to his drill or saw anymore but he would rip that fleshbag to pieces.

“Doctor,” came a rough, ugly voice, drawing out the “r”, “How do you feel?”

“You know how I fucking feel. ”

Silas clicked his tongue at that. “Temper, temper.” he shook his head, “And here I was, about to make your day.

Knockout rolled his optics, “Your last bit of “good news” was abhorrent.” he spat out, “What scheme have you picked up now?”

Silas chuckled dryly like he knew something, like he was anticipating something funny. “Not a scheme, doctor.” 

He began typing away at a keyboard, as Knockout tipped his head back impatiently.

“I have something that will make you agree to work on our project.”

When he said that, a few pictures replaced his face on the screen. One was of a red dot marking somewhere in Indonesia, and Knockout could feel his spark casing drop to his fuel tank as he stared in silence.

The other pictures were of an energon trail, bright pink over tire marks on a race track, and of the mech they belonged to. A white and blue striped racer, in car-mode, seemingly unaware that the picture was even being taken of him.

When the silence lasted a beat too long, and Knockout showed no signs of responding, the pictures were replaced with the scarred face of his captor, wearing an ugly grin to go with it.

“So? I think we can all agree that having Breakdown in all of his pieces by the time this is all over is more important to you than the Project,” his tone was condescending but all intentions were clear. 

“He’s your Conjunx, right?” … How he knew about that, how he knew what that meant to them, Knockout had no clue.

“...Fine. I'll do it.”

They took another medic. 

Knockout didn't know when they got their grubby little hands on him, or how long they tried to break him down before they shipped him off to wherever Knockout was.

But at first glance he managed to recall the mech's name. 

First Aid.

The Protectobots little medic – Knockout didn't expect him to last, not unless he joined G.H.O.S.T, and by the lack of a symbol on his chassis, he hadn't. 

He had a choppy weld on his right arm, plating that looked pasted on his leg and various scratches and a few dents none of the humans would've bothered to fix.

Knockout could also see the drop dread tired look behind his visor.

They decided they needed another medic to make it all go faster – Knockout would’ve just used him for spare parts, but they’re not him – and of the 3 that were still around, they managed to find the pacifist combiner.

A sarcastic, Great., had been his first thought. All hope of escaping had been lost a while back, and while Knockout was glad to not be alone anymore, he figured one person yelling at him about building a fake mech when he was not a scientist was more than enough. He doesn’t exactly like group projects either.

As time went on, though, Knockout decided that there were worse options.

For one, he could’ve been stuck with Ratchet who very likely hates him just on principle. Turns out, First Aid has surprisingly little qualms about working with a Decepticon. Given the sickeningly kind spark he’s got on him, he thought it would be the opposite. Something about Aid’s track record for helping everyone proving the contrary was in that sentiment too.

Their shared experience with the Cybertronian viscera, Knockout almost hates to say it, but they actually worked faster on the days Silas actually gave them materials to work with. They’re getting dangerously close to being done.

Oh, and the way First Aid kept sassing and biting back at Silas was so entertaining. None of it was shock worthy, and that was a good thing too.

With both of them being medics, they’ve had more in common than either would’ve thought to admit. Specifically in their lines of work.

Complaining and gossiping about their old bosses and sharing some of the more stupid injuries they’ve encountered until someone told them to shut up was a good use of time.

Unlike today – or tonight – where they were both in a bad mood. ‘Bummed out’, the humans would call it.

Today, rather than enjoy a distracting conversation about whatever, really, their processors decided to dwell on their situation and what they could be doing instead.

First Aid exvented and tipped his helm back, hitting the metal wall with a very dull thud, “I miss them. ”

Knockout hummed, “Same here.” He doesn’t know why he said what he said next, maybe the intense feeling of doom, of expendability were finally getting to him. That crawling and tank churning feeling that, maybe, this was it. He was going to die here with a Autobot he’d actually grown to like.

Maybe that’s what being stuck on some planet, in a cell with someone you’re only technically meant to hate, does. Knockout briefly wonders if that’s what actual friend material is.

“I miss my Conjunx.” Knockout sees how Aid sits more upright, clearly more interested in what he has to say now. “Breakdown and I finally thought we were fine. That maybe one day, we’d get off this rock and hold a real Ceremony.”

“You don’t still think so? That he’s looking for you, and gets lucky enough to find you?” Aid tilts his head, he’s genuinely asking but Knockout scoffs.

“That would be a lie.”

First Aid took a small sip of the energon their captors almost deigned to give them, “Hope is a good lie to think.”

Knockout doesn’t really expect that answer, but it’s an answer that makes sense. Maybe after that dreadfully long war, hope is what he needs right now. “Come up with that all by yourself?” He says, before taking a sip of his energon.

“No,” First Aid pauses, “my brother did. It’s the type of thing that stuck with me.”

Right. Every once in a while, Knockout forgets that Aid had brothers. Or has brothers. Last he checked they were all alive and well, and since all of them stayed together, they seem lucky enough to live, however long the two were held captive.

“I miss them.” First Aid says, after a lengthy moment of silence, “My brothers and my… partner.” 

Well Knockout certainly didn’t expect that kind of admission, and whistles in a droning type of way. “That sounds complicated. You don’t seem like the type to settle for complicated. ”

That draws a chuckle out of the other medic, as he shakes his helm slowly. “He is a Decepticon, kinda comes with the territory.” he glances up at Knockout’s more surprised and impressed expression, “Full offence, don’t worry” 

“Ha! You have to tell me the story behind that.”

“Mm. When we get out I will.”

Knockout rolls his optics at that, “I see how it is,” He responds. If they do get out, he’ll hold Aid to that.

First Aid’s back slides down the wall a bit, bringing his knees closer to his chassis, “Cheers, KO,” he starts, pausing to think for a moment. And in that moment, Knockout smiles despite feeling like this may as well be their last meal before they’re forced to hurry it up.

“To us!” Knockout finishes for him, seeing his visor glow brighter. Aid smiled at that. “Wish I met you sooner”

They bring their cubes together with a soft, tink .

“Here here!” Aid exclaims, and they both down the rest of their energon.

Nebula’s had a good flight so far. He thinks he has, anyway.

The pilots that began chasing him when she took off were.. Decidedly not good, but they left him alone after a few minutes. His running theory is that they thought someone was stealing the jet he scanned.

He'd flown over “Europe”, and he noted seeing a kind of really tall tower that curved from its base to the point at the top. Nebula opened his HUD to take a picture of it. He also flew by some large machine he thought looked like a clock before a very loud noise rang out from it.

Not too long after, he adjusted the direction of his flight to be more south and began flying over the open ocean.

After quite a while of flying in what was more or less a straight line, he checked his chronometer for the time and —

“AGH–!”

Nebula exclaimed in pain as he was shot by some kind of laser, once in his leg – his left thruster –  and once in his wing, shooting him out of the sky.

He plummeted, ungraceful and panicking, into the cold waters as he transformed back into his root-mode. “What–!?” Nebula found his voice muffled by the water as bubbles left him intake as he attempted to speak.

Oh no. Oh this is bad..! He thought, mentally stating the obvious as he began rapidly sinking into very dark and deep waters. But… he wasn’t alone.

He squinted, optic lights adjusting to the mystery object he was sinking towards, and something, a harpoon, was shot through his leg and pulled him closer, despite his muffled scream.

Energon began to flow slowly out of his leg, trailing behind him as she was dragged down.

The maw of the submersible opened and the harpoon let go once he was in, water draining from wherever he was and he spat water out of his intake and let it flow out of his vents.

Nebula pushed himself up at his servos, looking around to see… Humans. Humans carrying some kind of railgun, or rifle, and they were surrounding him.

Before he said anything, another door opened, a red and white mech, with what looked like a car alt-mode. They had a bright blue visor, a white mask covering their face, and an Autobot insignia on their chassis.

“ Who are you–” the jet demanded as he hurriedly stood up and wobbled slightly, “ Where am I–” and he was cut off by yet another yelp, one of the humans shocked him and it brought him down on one knee.

“Calm down!” the red mech chided, presumably the humans. Nebula’s wings twitched as the shock subsided, and the red mech offered him a servo .

“No!” he swatted it away, struggling to stand up on his own, but managing slowly, “You shot me! Out of the sky!” he moved forward quickly, as the red mech stepped back, Nebula was shocked in the leg once more, fully bringing him to his knees.

“ We didn’t shoot you, the humans on this ship did.” the red mech reasoned, and Nebula wasn’t inclined to believe him. But with the way they had been acting towards him…

The other mech extended a servo again, “You’re losing energon and your thruster is damaged, myself and my friend are medics. We want to help you.”

Nebula stares at him and considers his words. He looks at him, at the humans, and decides that the stranger is a better option than being shocked repeatedly. He accepts the servo, and is pulled up off the floor.

He looks at the rest of the submersible – it’s not very big. There is some kind of operating table, a few tools, more humans with tasers, a human standing up front with the navigation, and another mech off to the side. He’s waiting by the table, he’s more red than the one with the visor, but his paint looks dull and faded – both of theirs do – and his wheels have stars in them.

He also inspects him, but he has a… strange look on his faceplates. He shares a glance with the other mech and speaks up, “Get onto the table. I need to run a scan on you.”

Nebula sat on the edge of the table, the red mech taking his forearm and plugging in a cable. Nebula got a ping on her HUD; Medic Knockout requesting medical port access. Accept? 

He let 'Knockout' have access and he ran a scan… he thinks.

When Knockout looked to the other medic, looking at him with scrunched up faceplates and a nod, Nebula was confused.

When the red and white medic looked down and to the front of the submersible, with something glowing in his visor.

“Uhm.. who are you two?”

They both looked at him, Knockout with some kind of sadness in his optics, and his expression was… Conflicted? Maybe.

“I'm First Aid,” the other mech answered, now behind him.

He then proceeded to inject something into the side of his neck, causing her systems to start shutting down as he got a ping on his HUD for “Recharging…”

A soft, muffled, “Knockout.” Was heard as his optics offlined and he entered a state of recharge.

When Nebula's systems come online, and he stops recharging, he onlines his optics and looks around. He's been moved to a dark, and wet room onto another operating table.

When he saw First Aid walk up to check on him – or something – he scrambled to move before he quickly stopped in his tracks and took a step back.

Nebula checked hus chronometer and… and.. nothing. He was denied access. He looked at First Aid, confused and concerned and– and scared. 

He checked other systems, the map, checked his thrusters – when his optics went wide and her intake opened slightly in shock. 

“I– my wings, I can't feel my wings,” he looked at First Aid, then to Knockout, with anger and fear flashing in his optics. “What did you do to me.?” it came out more shakily than he wanted it to.

“We blocked you from accessing certain systems.” came Knockout's voice, cold and seemingly uncaring.

“What.. I thought you were meant to help me what– Why?! What did I do--” he yelped at the end there, a small shock from around his neck successfully making her quiet. 

A collar. Like the ones they had. 

He reached up to pull at it, and there it was, hanging around his neck, just like theirs were.

... No… No, no, no, no, this is bad.

Just then, a bright blue light illuminated one wall of the dingy room, and Nebula whipped his head around to look at it. The medics were also shocked to see it go on.

There were only three other mecha on the screen. One was taller than the others, blue and red with a concerned expression. Another was a pink femme, who looked enraged. The last one was mostly blue, but with gold accents, a red visor and mask, who typed rapidly.

The tall and pink ones had Autobot symbols, while the blue and gold one had a Decepticon symbol.

“Optimus? Optimus we're under– agh!” First Aid tried to talk, but he was shocked by the collar for trying to give away their location.

“Silas!” Nebula took the liberty of assuming that was “Optimus”, “what is the meaning of this!?”

“This, Prime,” oh right, that's his title. Optimus Prime. “is your ultimatum. We have your medics, the child and enough weapons to wipe you all off this planet.” he threatened, and Nebula didn't like the idea of all that being true.

“Additionally: how dare you. Silas: will pay for what he has done.” growled out the blue and gold mech, finials twitching.

“What he said.” agreed the pink femme, “It doesn't matter what you think you have, we will defeat you.” her finials laid flat against her helm.

Silas, meanwhile, only laughed as if they said something funny. “Oh no, it's MECH who will win this fight. All you need to do is surrender yourselves and all your resources to us.”

“Here's a better option, you surrender, hand over the medics and mechling, and we hand you over to Earth's government. I'm sure they'd love putting away a terrorist like you.” the femme spat out, and Nebula would quite like her to follow through on that threat.

“Elita is right,” Optimus spoke up, tuning back in from whatever he was busy with. “We won't let your crimes, to humans or to us, go unpunished. You'll never win. You've proven that yourself.”

Silas chuckled, mirthless and for too long, “We'll see about that.”

And the room returned to its dark state as the call was ended and the feed was turned off.

And the medics were nigh ecstatic. Something about how First Aid told him, and how they're still looking and how they might be free – but Nebula feels trapped. Stuck, he hugs his legs to his chassis like he wants to curl up and wait it all out but that isn't safe. 

He felt coolant rise to his optics, threatening to spill.

“... Kid?” the sound fades in as his audials register it, and he very quickly moves to the other side of the operating table, hugging his legs to his chassis again.

“Don't touch me!” he demands, as they stand right where they are, not moving at all.

They're silent for a few more moments, “Are you… alright?” Knockout gives First Aid a look before Nebula can do it, but even then he's too busy blinking coolant out of his eyes as some of it falls down his faceplates.

“.. I just got these wings.” it comes out smaller than he wanted it to, but as small as he feels. The words visibly hit them both with realization, maybe regret and some guilt in there.

He lets the coolant flow out of her optics silently, all three of them unmoving.

“I wanna go home..”

“I've never been home…”

Nebula decides, then. He hates this planet.