Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ever since Prowl had become a pupil under the watchful gaze of Master Yoketron, he had gained a certain sense of spirituality that many other mechs looked down upon. He couldn’t say he blamed them for that. Belief in the divine powers of the universe didn’t exactly help one in the middle of a battlefield, and fate often guided with a cruel servo. But those differing factors of life did not sway Prowl.

When Detroit was threatened by Megatron’s clones of Omega Supreme, when Prowl’s friends and family faced a peril that seemed unavoidable, fate had spoken her final word, and Prowl had followed dutifully. It brought comfort to Prowl as he rose into the air, glancing one last time at Jazz’s shocked face, to know that giving up his spark would allow the others to continue on, even if it meant he wouldn’t be there to see it.

His final moments on Earth buzzed with warmth, assured with the knowledge that his family would be safe.

Prowl always assumed that joining with the Allspark would be a peaceful experience, and he was proven right. There was no thought or form around Prowl as his spark drifted into the afterlife, only a soft blue glow that enveloped him in its entirety.

Until there wasn’t.

Abruptly, Prowl felt a sensation, so foreign and wrong in this place beyond reality that it took him a moment to register what exactly it was: cold. A creeping chill, making its way through limbs and components that Prowl no longer possessed, a phantom of pain racing through his sensory network. If he still possessed a frame, he would have writhed under the assault of numbing prickles–but that couldn’t be right. He had no physical form in which to feel pain anymore.

Fear bled into his circuits as the dull ache of cold intensified into an agony of frostbite, nipping and chewing at his spark. The blue of the aether pulsed with purple, like a sparkbeat, shifting and unfurling around him.

Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. He should be gone, his consciousness absorbed into the Allspark, dispersed among the energies of the universe.

Instead, he was stuck in between.

A chuckle, low and rumbling, filled Prowl’s processor, coming from nowhere and all around at once. He wished to shrink in on himself, but what was there to shrink away from? His spark was vulnerable without a frame to protect it.

Don’t be in such a hurry, cyberninja.

The voice was barely more than a whisper, but it boomed and echoed within his audio receptors nevertheless.

I have use for you yet. Let us meet soon.

With a final flash of purple, the world dissolved around Prowl in a turbulent storm of energy. His spark felt battered, pulled apart and stitched back together, his awareness dissolving into nothing more than a pinprick of panic as everything came to a screeching halt.

And Prowl felt .

Not just the frantic spinning of his spark, which seemed to be too big for its chamber, but he also felt the ache in his processor as heat bore down over his frame, along with the way bits of gravel dug into the seams of the armor on his back. His visor glowed a dim blue as he onlined his optics, slowly, resetting them once, twice, just to make sure they weren’t malfunctioning. But how could something that wasn’t even meant to be there in the first place malfunction?

Prowl stared up at the buttes that towered above his helm, their sandy surfaces illuminated by a setting sun sitting on the western horizon like a ripe blood orange. His sensors picked up a distinct dryness in the air–a prickling under his plating that typically accompanied Earth’s electrical storms.

Slowly, Prowl propped himself up to a sitting position, although even that small movement sent his helm spinning. Waiting for his sensors to recalibrate and adjust, Prowl climbed to his pedes, taking a shaky step forward. An amused huff exited his vents, stirring the dusty air.

“It’s like being a newspark again,” he chuckled to himself, although the humor soon left him. He was a newspark. Whatever lifeforce now pulsed through his frame was not his own—his original spark had been extinguished.

The skeleton of a bush skirted past Prowl’s pedes. If he remembered correctly, Sari had dubbed them “tumbleweeds.” Gazing around, his optics were met with nothing but more brown and red dirt, not a tree or green leaf to be seen. Wherever he was, it was most certainly not Detroit.

Gaining strength with every step, Prowl began walking. He wasn’t entirely sure where he intended to go, but he knew that he didn’t want to stay still. There was a buzzing restlessness in his struts, like he had been sitting still for too long.

Stuttering steps turned into a light jog, then a loping trot, until Prowl’s pedes were beating against the ground in a steady, blistering rhythm, sprinting across the uniform landscape with abandon. He missed the pleasing shades of the alpine forests which had surrounded Detroit, but he had to admit that this landscape had its own charm. In the twilight hours, it was practically a living, breathing painting.

With a soft click , Prowl’s t-cog activated, his frame folding down into his alt-mode in a single fluid motion. His wheels bit into the desert sand, kicking up a cloud of dust behind him as he raced forward. Without the limitations of road laws, Prowl allowed his speedometer to tick into the red, his engine roaring in the still air.

The peace of the Allspark had been nice, but Prowl was so glad to be alive .

Leaping up, Prowl transitioned back into his root mode, landing on all fours as the momentum of his ride sent him skidding over the desert grit. Slowing to a stop, Prowl stood, dusting off his armor.

This action, however, brought his attention elsewhere. His frame looked…different. The same black and gold paint shined pristinely up at him, albeit a bit dulled from the dust, but something amiss. Apparently, his reformed frame had not retained his master’s armor. Feeling around the top of his helm, Prowl was disappointed to find the weight of Master Yoketron’s helmet to be absent.

However, Prowl was relieved to see that, when he glanced over each shoulder, his jump jets had made the journey, along with his shurikens and holoprojector.

He flexed the digits of his servo in front of his face curiously.

Perhaps his time in the Allspark had heightened his perception of details, but Prowl couldn’t remember his servo ever having so many joints. Certainly not with the complex internals revealed between the plating as it spun and whirred with each subtle movement he executed. The same principle applied to the rest of his armor–there were many more cracks and seams in his armor than he recalled, the plating interlocking in an intricate pattern that allowed him fluid movement while retaining the protection of his outer shell.

All in all, it was quite strange.

So enraptured by this new form, however, Prowl almost missed the ringing boom bouncing off of the buttes, his audio receptors picking up on the tail end of the echo as it faded into silence. He paused, unsure if he had imagined the noise, looking left, then right. The landscape remained unchanged.

Frozen, Prowl stood stock still as another report split the desert landscape. If he didn’t know any better, he would almost say it sounded like blaster fire.

Suddenly feeling horribly exposed, standing in the middle of a barren wasteland, Prowl quickly began to make his way to the nearest column of sand and red dirt, hoping to find some semblance of cover behind a nearby cluster of boulders.

Figuring he had no better options, Prowl brought a servo up to the side of his helm.

“Autobots? Optimus? Does any-” Prowl jerked his neck sharply as his comm unit crackled with deafening static, cutting out abruptly with a pop . His pedes struck the earth with an increasing frequency as he picked up his pace, seeking refuge from his unseen enemies. He would have to be very careful if he had no means of calling for backup.

Raising his servo once more, Prowl gave his comm unit a small tap, but the static persisted, even as he gave his helm a small shake in his frustration. He would have to have a talk with Ratchet about faulty equipment when he saw him next–Prowl knew it would be when, and not if.

Over the hissing of his comm, Prowl failed to pick up on the sound of pedesteps crunching around the corner of a butte behind him, or the priming of blasters ready to fire. It was the sharp crack of a volley of lasers barreling past him that finally broke through the buzzing in his audial, and not a nanosecond later, Prowl’s world exploded into pain.

Allowing honed battle protocols to override his logic core, Prowl immediately dropped to the ground, bolts of pure crimson fire whizzing by above him. He rolled to the side, crouching behind a low lying rock and trying to keep himself from becoming scrap metal.

Heat radiated, raging and sharp, from a point on his lower abdomen. When he went to check on the damage, Prowl desperately wished he hadn’t.

Thick rivulets of blue energon—blue?—spewed from a ruptured line in his side, the armor broken and singed away from the power of the blast, revealing sparking wires and many of Prowl’s internal components. Prowl had engaged in battle with enough Decepitcons on Earth to be familiar with the injuries of war, but somehow this seemed more raw. It was a gruesome sight, even for him. In a bout of morbid curiosity, Prowl’s optics roamed over the internal workings of his own frame, taking note of the detail with which every bolt and screw stuck out from his plating.

Definitely not normal , he thought, recalling his injuries from his team’s battle with the nanobots.

Snapped from his musings by another volley of blaster fire, Prowl grit his dentae against a renewed wave of pain, placing his servo over the wound in hopes that putting some pressure on the damaged line might staunch the flow. He was beginning to regret not taking Ratchet up on some of those basic medical training classes when he had had the chance.

Taking a risk to peek over the shelter of the boulder, Prowl caught sight of the source of the haphazard shots. Five identical Cybertronians—or what Prowl could only assume to be Cybertronians—stood in a tight formation, firing from blasters attached to their arms. Even in the absence of an insignia, Prowl had a pretty good idea of where their alliance might lie based on their black and purple frames.

Decepticons had found him.

Ducking back down, there was now a sizable puddle of energon collected underneath him, mixed into a slurry of gritty mud with the desert sand. He knew he was running on limited time before he was forced into stasis lock from loss of power to vital components. He had to get somewhere secure before that happened.

Within his sight, although still some ways away, Prowl spotted a crevasse—a narrow gap between two of the towering buttes, probably only wide enough to accommodate two mechs side to side. If he could lead the enemy Cybertronians into that enclosed space, use the walls to his advantage…or maybe even make an escape up the side of the canyon, leaving the ‘Cons in his tire tracks?

Thoroughly out of options, and with no backup to rely upon, Prowl was willing to take the risk. As quickly as his compromised frame could go, Prowl rolled out from behind the boulder. As he ran, dust was kicked up around him as stray blaster bolts struck the ground. A shot clipped one of his jump jets, but Prowl took it in stride. 

Stumbling, he forced his t-cog into action, wincing through the grinding of misplaced plating as he sped forward in his cycle form. Despite the creaks and groans that echoed across his frame, his tires held steady, carrying him swiftly into the shadow of the canyon. The loud pedesteps of the trooper bots followed closely behind.

Transforming swiftly, Prowl threw two of his shurikens, dodging fire as he went. They stayed true to their targets, nailing one of the ‘Cons in both the helm and neck.

Reaching for more projectiles, however, he ran into another problem–it appeared that Prowl was only working with two throwing stars, his extra storage being completely empty.

Switching gears and turning on his heel, Prowl plucked the projectiles from the mech’s falling frame, bright trails of blue energon arcing through the air as Prowl brought the sharp blades down onto their next victim. Even spending solar cycles on a space bridge repair crew, Prowl was still a trained cyberninja—albeit an injured one.

Prowl sucked in a sharp vent as he twisted to fend off a blaster aimed directly at his faceplates, his armor tugging painfully at the edge of his wound. Renewed spurts of energon flowed down his side at the excess movement. That single flinch earned him a new singe mark on his shoulder plating. Prowl was forced to roll away, hiding around a corner in the canyon.

As the ‘Cons regrouped, now three strong, Prowl struggled to come up with a strategy that resulted in him making it out of this situation online. He was eager to cling on to this second chance at life–he couldn’t throw it away now.

The answer became clear to him when he glanced above. By now, several stars were beginning to wink awake in the narrow strip of indigo sky visible between the walls of the crevasse. Prowl narrowed his optics, acutely aware of the sound of primed blasters buzzing nearby. He had nanoseconds to act, if even that.

With his jump jets rendered obsolete, Prowl dug his digits into small breaks in the rocky walls, creating a climbing ladder out of the canyon. As the strip of space between walls drew narrower as he ascended, Prowl reached across to the other side, anchoring himself firmly like a starfish, splayed across the empty air above his unsuspecting enemies below.

The drones–that’s what Prowl had decided they were–looked at the deserted crevasse, confusion clear in their shared glances. The mechanics in Prowl’s arms and legs strained as he kept himself perfectly still, hoping against hope that the ‘Cons would look for him elsewhere, and he could make a silent escape.

Unfortunately for him, a single bead of energon from his wounded side snaked away from the severed line, and Prowl watched as it dripped down, down, down, directly onto the helm of one of the mechs. The plink echoed across the rocks, louder than any clap of thunder, and three red visors snapped up to look at Prowl, a sitting duck in the sky.

The first shot clipped Prowl’s leg, sending him into a controlled fall onto the shoulders of one of the ‘Cons. Using the mech as a springboard, another series of shots marred his finish as Prowl scrambled to put as much distance between himself and his enemies as possible.

Perhaps it was a result of returning to life in such an abrupt manner, or maybe it was the copious amounts of lost energon trailing in his wake, but Prowl was losing that signature light-footedness of a cyberninja, his pedes leaving dragging marks in the dirt as he stumbled along like an injured piece of prey.

His vents ragged, Prowl refused to admit failure. At the very least, his assailants didn’t seem overly invested in his defeat. If anything, Prowl thought they might be enjoying toying with him, meandering after him and waiting for the inevitable collapse. They were Decepticons, after all, despite their faceless nature. He shuddered at the thought.

Searching his sluggish processor for an idea, Prowl found himself limping out of the narrow confines of the crevasse and into a walled clearing—a round, spacious, naturally occurring arena boxed in on all sides by the same sandy cliffs as the rest of the network of canyons. The moonlight, still weak, washed the area in silver. Many more tunnels branched off from this central hub, but Prowl knew he couldn’t go much further. He had to make a stand now.

The rattling of pebbles kicked loose by the pedes of the other mechs drew closer, but the sound sparked the beginnings of a plan in Prowl’s mind. Looking to the sky for salvation once more, a pile of boulders perched precariously atop the canyon from which Prowl had exited, and under which the ‘Cons would tread within moments. Clutching one of his shurikens to his chest, watching the watery moonlight glint off of the polished gold blade, Prowl crept into the sheltering shadow of the canyon wall. From a safe distance, he projected an image of himself in clear view of the approaching enemies.

From within the crevice came the buzzing of blasters, and within moments, bright beams of red raced towards the projection of Prowl, passing harmlessly through his pixelated image and hitting the rocky wall behind.

Still focused on firing, they rounded the final corner and came into Prowl’s sights. 

Two more steps.

One more step.

Prowl let his shuriken rip through the air, impacting the scree lodged under the largest of the boulders overhead. A great plume of dust rose into the air as an avalanche of rocks plummeted down, right onto the helms of the ‘Cons. The horrible screeches of twisted metal reached Prowl’s audio receptors as the drones were crushed beneath the weight of the stone.

With small particulates of sand still wavering in the air, Prowl’s vision dimmed, swaying slightly on his pedes. He brought a servo back to press against the wound in his side—although now there were several places across his frame which sparked—and looked at the spatters of energon marring his plating. The flow had slowed to a trickle, but Prowl couldn’t tell now if that was a good thing.

The growl of an approaching engine stirred Prowl from his stupor. It grew louder and louder, but Prowl found he was unable to take more than a single step forwards. He was already using all of his remaining energy to stay upright.

The engine abruptly cut off, followed by the mechanical sounds of a transformation sequence, the thud of pedes striking the ground as the new mech jumped down into the canyon, and the buzz of a primed blaster.

The last thing Prowl caught sight of was a flicker of yellow armor through the dust before a flash of blue energy sizzled against his helm, knocking the world into black.

Chapter Text

Waking up the second time was quite similar to the first. Processor aching, limbs cramped, the overwhelming feeling of his spark spinning in its chamber. But now, there was no sun to warm his frame. Instead, when Prowl brought his optics online, harsh fluorescent light temporarily overloaded his optical sensors.

Turning his helm slightly to the left, a bank of monitors greeted him, their illumination contributing to the glare from the overhead spotlight. As he looked closer, Prowl could just barely make out the telltale flowing line of a spark monitor. Other vital stats occupied the accompanying screens.

So this was a medbay, then. Whoever had shot him must have retrieved his frame for repairs. But to what end? What purpose could these strange mechs have for him?

Something in him felt it was unwise to stick around and find out.

The room was somewhat small, the medberth on which Prowl laid taking up a majority of the space. There was only one–not that the room could accommodate any more. A private suite, perhaps? Or, there simply wasn’t demand for more.

Prowl sat up, stretching his legs, then his arms. Despite the beating he had taken from the ‘Cons, he felt refreshed, the pounding in his helm already receding to a dull thump. Where he had taken the shot to his chassis there was now a patch of smooth, new metal, gray and in need of a repaint. At least he could be grateful that whatever medic had tended to him knew how to keep their welds neat.

Figuring that he might as well test the strength of his repairs, Prowl shimmied himself to the edge of the berth, preparing to jump down to the ground.
Before he could do so, however, something tugged him back into place.

Upon closer inspection, Prowl spotted a slim band of metal threaded between the spokes of the wheel on one of his pedes, tethering him to the berth. A second, more firm yank supplied that, despite its unassuming appearance, the binding was unyielding.

Reaching for one of his shurikens, Prowl was disappointed—and somewhat alarmed—to find both missing. He knew he had lost one in the rockslide, but he distinctly remembered replacing the other in its compartment on his hubcap.

Additionally, the lightness of his shoulders proved to Prowl that, before even turning his helm to look, his jump jets had also been confiscated. Tied to a medberth and disarmed of any weaponry, the picture being painted in Prowl’s processor was not pleasant.

At least they had left his holoprojector alone.

But simple restraints wouldn’t be enough to hold him.

Settling into the familiar lotus position on the berth, Prowl clasped his servos in front of him. Melodic humming filled the silence around him. He had trained his processor over matter technique to such a great degree that he had been able to pluck the dispersed energy of the Allspark from thin air–surely he’d be able to bend this small metal band.

But even as he focused all of his processing power onto his technique, willing the binding to move, nothing happened.

Despite this, he continued honing his focus. Prowl was a patient mech.

After several more minutes of this ritual, Prowl was able to determine that, while he did still contain the capacity to use his processor over matter technique, something was inhibiting him from using it to his full ability. Even the most sharp focus he could muster only managed to create a miniscule crack in the restraint. It was like pushing a boulder twice his size up the steep cliff of a mountain.

In the service of limited time, Prowl took that small advantage and began to claw at the cuff, ignoring the further scuffs he inflicted onto his own finish.

Practically as difficult as trying to use his processor over matter technique, Prowl managed to pry the metal away from his pede, shaking out his aching digits. It had been a mistake on the part of his captors not to ensure his immobility with a pair of stasis cuffs.

Jumping off of the berth, his pedes hit the floor with a solid metal thud. He took a few exploratory steps, just to confirm that all of his systems were working properly, before looking at the singular door that acted as both an entrance and his exit. Its frosted glass revealed nothing about what may lay beyond it.

Sitting innocently off to the right of the door was a keypad, and a press of a button confirmed Prowl’s suspicions: locked. He briefly contemplated trying to use his processor over matter technique again, but his previous attempt dissuaded him. He didn’t know how much time he had left before his captors would return.

And I cannot be here when that happens, Prowl thought, crouching so that his visor was level with the display.

He began to feel around the edge of the panel for a way to loosen it from the wall. He figured if he could sever a few wires within the circuitry, it might trigger the lock to disengage. He could only hope that there was no alarm.

Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t find any cracked seams on the unblemished surface. But this was a medbay, wasn’t it? There had to be a tool he could use.

The first drawer Prowl opened–luckily none of these had been locked–contained a number of scalpels, medical grade saws, and weld patches. Grabbing a scalpel, Prowl returned to his work at the keypad, slicing through the sealant that kept it attached to the wall. It was slow going, and even as he wedged the sharp edge of the scalpel into the small gap he had created, levering the panel away from the wall, the keypad refused to budge.

A flicker of movement caught Prowl’s attention out of the corner of his optic. There, in the frosted glass, a large shadow had blotted out whatever light filtered in from outside, and he heard the sound of a code being input on the other side of the door.

Prowl’s helm whipped around frantically as he kicked the scalpel under a nearby table. The size of the room, which had seemed so cozy before, now revealed a bigger problem to him: there was no place to hide.

With no better option, he looked up. While the rest of the room remained clean and relatively sparse, there was a mess of pipes and wires covering the high ceiling. 

Without a moment to lose, Prowl cast a projection of himself laying on the medberth, presumably unconscious, and launched himself upwards. Even without the use of his jump jets, he was able to secure a spot for himself among the supports of an air duct, and pull his pedes out of view just as the door slid open with a mechanical hiss.

A bot stepped into the medbay, something tucked underneath one of his arms. He bore an orange and white color scheme and possessed rather bulky, utilitarian armor. A symbol adorned the lower plating on his arm, very reminiscent of…but no, that didn’t make any sense. This mech looked very little like Ratchet.

From his bird’s eye view, as the humans said, Prowl watched the bot–a medic–place the objects he had been carrying onto a nearby countertop. Well, it turned out to be two objects: Prowl’s jump jets, fully repaired and shining like new. However much Prowl longed to have them back, however, the medic had made a critical mistake.

He had left the door open.

The medic was busy making final adjustments to the boosters, muttering under his breath about tech he hadn’t encountered in millenia, and something else about overcomplicated circuitry. His back was turned towards Prowl’s exit.

Before the mech had a chance to turn and discover Prowl’s decoy on the medberth, the cyberninja dropped down from his hiding place, his pedes a whisper against the floor as he landed. He slipped undetected into the hallway that lay beyond the door, and quickly found the companion to the keypad inside.

With a click of a button, the door swept shut, and the keypad flashed red as Prowl engaged the lock. He knew this only spared him a few seconds at most, seeing as the medic almost certainly had a way to unlock the door, but Prowl allowed himself a modicum of satisfaction.

It didn’t last for very long.

“Hey!”

The voice came from Prowl’s left. The hallway he stood in opened up into some kind of underground hangar, the rocky ceiling suggesting it had been dug out of a bigger structure. The cavern was littered with equipment, and at its center stood a femme, her blaster engaged and pointed directly at Prowl.

Blaster…Decepticon!

Before she could so much as move, Prowl was out of sight around a corner, rhythmic thumps echoing in the hallways as his pedes struck the metal floor. He didn’t know where he was running, just that he needed to run.

A blaster bolt flew by him, not making contact but forcing him to divert his path into another snaking corridor. This base, despite its claustrophobic nature, seemed to sprawl endlessly.

“Come back here!” the femme commanded, but her voice seemed to be fading behind him. As Prowl risked a glance over his shoulder, he saw that she had stopped, her servos propped on her hips.

She’s letting me go? he thought warily, refusing to fuel the burning ember of hope igniting in his spark.

As Prowl rounded yet another bend, he came upon the end of the hallway–a complete dead end. The femme was blocking his only way out. He was trapped.

And so he did what he did best when he was backed into a corner.

Choosing a door at random, Prowl stalked into what appeared to be a storage closet, although dubbing it a ‘closet’ did a disservice to its size. It was easily big enough to match his room at the abandoned factory on Earth, if not bigger, with the same elevated ceiling. Just like in the medbay, its upper reaches were shrouded in shadow, crisscrossed by any number of pipes and ducts.

Using a few boxes as leverage, Prowl crawled into what he figured to be the darkest section, curling into himself to become as small as possible. He settled into something that resembled comfort, although he knew his struts would grow cramped in a matter of time, and prepared to wait. His narrowed optics rested on the door, tension flowing throughout his frame unabated.

It took less time than he had thought for that same mechanical hiss to meet his audio receptors as the door opened. Both the head and blaster of the blue femme poked into the room, surveying it for possible threats. Seeming to find none hiding among the storage crates on the ground, her blaster returned to a servo, and she stepped fully into the space. Following behind her was the medic bot.

“I don’t get it. How does a mech just disappear?” she said in frustration, her pink-rimmed optics still scanning her surroundings. Prowl noted, however, that her optics were mostly blue. Intriguing–Decepticons weren’t known to have blue optics.

“Well, he’s got some kind of holoprojector on him that I missed upon initial inspection. He wedged himself into the ceiling and put a decoy on the table,” the medic explained, taking the opportunity to sweep the shadows above his head as he spoke. Prowl’s spark spun faster, praying that he had hidden himself well enough that his dark paint would blend into the darkness.

He was not so lucky.

“Ah.” The medic’s optics settled on Prowl, his faceplates carefully neutral.

“What?” The femme’s helm whipped around, and she jolted slightly as she, too, caught sight of him. Prowl sighed to himself. So much for his bid for freedom. He could only hope that they would be merciful.

“What in the name of Primus are you doing up there?” the orange mech demanded, voice on the verge of shouting. “Get down here!”

“Sorry, but I won’t be doing that,” Prowl responded evenly, shifting even further back into the wires that supported him.

“And why not?”

“Because…” Prowl paused. Squinting down at his captors, the dim fluorescent lighting of the closet gleaming against something seated on the medic’s chassis. An Autobot insignia. “...you’re Autobots?”

The medic rolled his optics. “No, of course not, we just wear this symbol because it’s a nice accessory.” He paused, seeming to collect himself. “Yes, we’re Autobots! And unless your own insignia is a mistake, then so are you. So, if you know what’s good for you, I would recommend getting your aft down here,” he scoffed. “But if you’d prefer, we can leave you up there to rust. Either way is fine by me.”

Slowly, as if a swarm of bees had nestled themselves in the seams of his armor, Prowl extracted himself from his hiding place. Leaving the safety of the shadows felt like a betrayal to his well being, but he forcefully reminded himself that he was among allies as he carefully made his way back to the ground.

Upon further inspection, Prowl realized that the medic bot was tall. Really tall. While Prowl was at roughly equal standing with the blue femme, the top of his helm barely reached the waist of the other mech. He felt all the more scolded as the medic glared down at him.

“You shouldn’t be exerting yourself so much, you’ll ruin the new welds. Come on.” With a rough jerk of his helm, the orange and white mech stepped out of the room, with Prowl following, and the blue femme bringing up the rear.

They traveled in silence. In his blind panic, Prowl hadn’t realized just how far he had run. It took a good amount of time to walk back to what he assumed was the central command of their base, and he had to admit he was lucky to have the guidance of the other two Autobots–he would surely get lost in this maze of tunnels on his own. He found it odd, however, that they didn’t encounter any other mechs on their journey. With the size of their underground bunker, they could easily support dozens, if not hundreds, of bots.

The medic stopped abruptly in front of a door–the medbay. Prowl grimaced as the mech stepped inside. The table was empty, his projection gone.

“What’s the problem?” the other asked, turning to face the entrance as Prowl failed to follow him.

“Do I have to…go in?” Prowl asked mildly, although his face morphed into a small frown. He knew he sounded like a petulant newspark, but he really did not relish the prospect of being strapped down to the medberth again. The medic sighed loudly.

“If you want me to make sure that you didn’t rupture any of your repairs with your senseless escape attempt, then yes.” Seeming to rethink the situation, he added: “The restraint was only a precaution. Now that you’re conscious, it won’t be necessary.”

Seeing that that was all the reassurance he was going to receive, Prowl reluctantly walked up to the medberth, pulling himself until he was sitting on the edge of the table. Somewhat embarrassingly, his pedes dangled several feet above the floor. The blue Autobot stood by the door, leaning against the wall–likely to prevent any further bids for escape.

The medic approached him with a medical scanner, fiddling with the knobs as he held it in front of him. Green light washed over Prowl, and the machine pinged. Looking at the display, the medic seemed satisfied.

“Well, it doesn’t look like you’ve done any major damage, which you should be thankful for. As long as you’re properly fueling, it will only take a few more solar cycles for your repair nanites to fully integrate the welds into your frame. Take it easy until then,” he ordered. Prowl nodded along.

This was all still very…surreal to him. Not long ago, he was on his way to becoming one with the Allspark, and now he was being taken care of by strange bots in a strange place with a strange new body. None of it made sense.

Realizing that he had spaced out and the medic had said something to him, Prowl shrugged apologetically at the scowl gracing the mech’s faceplates.

“Sorry?”

“I said, I wasn’t able to scrounge up enough spare parts to repair the damage to your chevron, so you’ll be stuck with it like that until I do. I would apologize, but there’s another bot who is very eager to do so already, so I’ll leave it to him.”

Prowl blinked. “My chevron?”

Silently, the orange and white mech handed Prowl an empty tray designed to hold medical tools and supplies, the back of which was reflective enough to act as a mirror. Prowl held it up to his helm, and refrained from dissolving into a fit of giggles.

His optics skimmed over the strangeness of his face, the extra dimensions that had been given to his features, and locked onto the golden crest which adorned his helm. One of the two prongs had been chipped off halfway down.

It was nearly an exact replica of Ratchet’s war wound. He could only imagine what the old bot would say to him if he saw Prowl now.

Keeping a grin off of his faceplates, Prowl handed the tray back to the medic. “It’s no problem, only cosmetic damage. Thank you for repairing me,” he said politely. As the medic opened his mouth to say something else, the femme stepped up beside him from her post at the door, cutting her teammate off.

“You should be thankful, I’ve seen ‘Bots be deactivated from much less. What were you doing fighting a platoon of Vehicons without backup?” she demanded, arms crossed over her chestplate. Even though he had a higher vantage point, perched on the medberth, Prowl had the distinct notion that she was looking down on him.

“They fired on me, so I defended myself. I was attempting to put distance between myself and my assailants, but they continued to follow me. Drastic measures were necessary to avoid possible offlining,” he explained simply. The femme narrowed her optics at him while the medic merely shook his helm.

“We have tabs on each and every Autobot within a hundred lightyear radius of this planet. Care to share how you managed to make it onto Earth completely undetected by our sensors?” the mech inquired.

Unable to come up with a satisfactory answer, Prowl determined the best course of action was to remain silent. After a sufficient amount of staring, the medic gave up with a scoff, picking Prowl’s jump jets up off of the counter where they had been sitting. The fluorescent lighting gleamed off of unmarred armor, looking brand new.

“Ratch, are we really giving him those things back?” the blue femme asked, an edge to her voice.

Ratch…

Prowl stiffened, but through significant effort kept himself from startling. Surely that name was a coincidence?

“Whatever suspicions you may have, Arcee, he wears the Autobot insignia. I can be assured his loyalties lie with our cause,” the medic responded gruffly as he picked up the jets, although he glared threateningly at Prowl as he said the last part.

But Prowl didn’t care much about either of these bots’ suspicions of his allegiances at that moment, too distracted by his own thoughts.

Arcee.

The intelligence bot that Ratchet had failed to save in the war, and whose memories were restored when she was rescued by the Autobots from the Moon. The one with the activation codes for Omega Supreme. Prowl hadn’t had the chance to meet her properly before he had deactivated, but he knew some things about her. Namely that her paint job was pink.

Prowl remained silent as the jump jets were reconnected to his shoulders, clicking into place like puzzle pieces.

“Alright, give them a test,” the medic said, stepping back to allow Prowl room. The familiar whirring filled his audio receptors as the jets powered up, allowing him a cushioned landing on the floor. He rolled each shoulder joint individually, nodding as the armor flexed to accommodate his movements.

“Perfect,” he confirmed, and did not miss the slight quirk at the edge of the medic’s mouth. Now that they stood side by side, the blue femme–Arcee, Prowl reminded himself, no matter how strange it seemed–looked him up and down.

“Rare to come across a flying Autobot. I didn’t think we had any left,” she remarked with a raised optic ridge. Prowl stood straighter, keeping his arms neatly at his sides.

“Actually, I know of two. But these are only meant for short distances,” he said, tilting his head in reference to the jump jets. After a pause, Prowl decided to test his luck. “I believe there was one other possession of mine that was…borrowed?” he asked delicately. Ratchet–he supposed there was no denying the similarities now–tilted his head back briefly with a pondering look, before his scowl settled back into place.

“Oh, those pieces of scrap. You won’t be needing those for a while if you’re staying inside the base,” the medic brushed him off, clearly delaying the return of his weapons. It irritated Prowl, but he supposed they didn’t entirely trust him yet. At least they had afforded him his jump jets back.

These bots obviously didn’t have a clue who he was, which was concerning, seeing as he had shared quarters with one of them for many stellar cycles. It was obvious that something had happened when he was pulled back from the Allspark–he just needed to figure out what.

“You have both of my shurikens, then?” Prowl questioned.

“Yes, our scout managed to pull one out from underneath a few boulders, where it appears you had collapsed half of the cliffside onto two Vehicons. It’s in pieces now, but I’ll put some work in to fix them up, if they’re really that important. No promises,” Ratchet explained.

Prowl nodded along. Then their ‘scout’ was who had found him after he’d been knocked unconscious. He wondered if they might be another bot bearing the same designation as one of his friends.

“Speaking of which, if we’re done here?” Arcee aimed the question at Ratchet, who gave a sharp, affirmative jerk of his helm. She led the two of them out of the medbay and into the large, central cavern of the base.

Prowl looked up in wonder at the ceiling high above, draped with stalactites. He had always been fascinated by Earth’s rock formations, and here was an opportunity to see them up close.

But he had other priorities to deal with first.

“I’d like to know exactly how you managed to defeat five Vehicons. But first, we need to know who you are,” Arcee began.

“Of course, my apologies.” How strange it was to be introducing himself to these bots. “My designation is Prowl.” He dipped his torso in a small bow, servo placed atop his chassis. “And you?”

“I’m Arcee, and this is Ratchet, our medic,” she said, motioning towards the taller bot. “We’re part of a small outpost of Autobots on Earth. The station in which you’re standing is Omega One. It’s a bit run down, but it’s served us well throughout the war.”

Prowl took in this information, keeping his expression carefully blank. There were many times he was grateful for the protection of his visor, and this was one of them. It was easier to seem unphased when no one could see your optics.

“It seems homey,” Prowl remarked casually. His focus shifted to a series of green holograms floating in the air across the room. It was some kind of computer system, but its purpose eluded him.

“You haven’t got any blaster mods installed. May I ask what your position was before you arrived on Earth?” Ratchet asked. Prowl latched on to the specific wording Ratchet used. It offered cover for him to get out of explaining that, in fact, he had been on Earth for some time, although he was beginning to suspect it wasn’t this Earth.

“I was part of a spacebridge repair crew.”

Ratchet and Arcee shared a look. Prowl did not consider himself to be a nervous mech, but at the moment, he felt like he was a contestant in one of Sari’s favorite game shows, and had just gotten an answer wrong. In an attempt to save his blunder, he tried to move the conversation along.

“But before that, I was training to become a graduated cyberninja. I have no blaster mods because I’m not a soldier.”

And I’m also not a Decepticon, he added privately, but considering Arcee was obviously armed, he decided not to speak that thought aloud.

“I thought the last cyberninjas went extinct ages ago…” Ratchet muttered to himself, a digit scratching at his chin as he scrutinized Prowl like a particularly interesting insect.

More loudly, Arcee scoffed. “How does a bot that’s not a soldier nearly decapitate a Decepticon? I saw the damage you did to those drones. Besides, every Autobot within the ranks who wasn’t previously occupied was recruited as a soldier when the war moved offworld, and anyone else not interested in fighting left to join the Neutral colonies millenia ago,” she stated, her disbelief clear on her face.

“I slipped through the cracks,” Prowl supplied. “Even if I’m not a trained soldier, I still have my cyberninja expertise, and that has served me well. I have fought quite a few Decepticons,” he informed them. Megatron himself was included within that category, but Prowl felt that was something he should keep to himself. “To answer your previous question, I ambushed most of the drones. They’re easy to take down if they can’t shoot. And the last two—what did you call them, Vehicons?—I crushed under boulders, as you saw. That’s why your scout found my shuriken there.”

“I won’t blame a bot for not relying on blasters,” Ratchet conceded, his own servo transforming into a sharp blade as he spoke before switching back. “Not that I’m in the field particularly often, but you seem to do well enough with your own weapons.”

“Thank you,” Prowl acknowledged. He hoped it was a compliment. This Ratchet seemed equally, if not more grumpy, than his own.

A ping from the computer console interrupted their conversation. Ratchet moved with purpose to stand in front of the glowing screens, his digits flying across the keyboard before swiftly pulling down on a nearby lever.

There was a strange cavity carved into a portion of the wall that Prowl had dismissed before as irrelevant—merely a cutout in the stone supported by a few metal beams. Now, that innocuous tunnel lit up with an ethereal green glow, a portal swirling into existence right before his optics. It was different from what he was used to, but Prowl recognized spacebridge technology when he saw it.

Bracing himself, Prowl felt the roil in his tanks as he laid optics on the mechs who stepped through the gateway.

The first to come out of the swirling vortex was a sleek bot, his armor flashing yellow and black in the dim lighting of the cavern. Large, blue optics blinked at Prowl as they scanned the room before locking onto him. Despite the battle mask obscuring part of his face and the notable difference in height, there was no denying who the mech was: Bumblebee.

Behind him trounced a much larger bot, his wide frame taking up a majority of the portal. His pedes thumped against the metal floor, heavy enough that Prowl could feel it across the room; he knew that a single step would likely squish him flat. The dull green armor confirmed that he was Bulkhead.

And finally, the mech that Prowl could only assume was Optimus Prime, although he bore very little resemblance to his own leader—the only thing they shared was their red and blue finish. This bot towered over all the rest, even Bulkhead. Prowl only came up to his knee. Craning his neck back to see the Prime’s face properly, he caught the flicker of a battle mask retracting to reveal silver faceplates. Simply by the way he held himself, Prowl knew this mech was old. He held an air of wisdom about him that was only gained with age.

With a swift push, Ratchet brought the lever back to its original position when the returning Autobots had cleared the portal, the vortex dissolving into nothing.

“Well? What did you find?” the medic asked, and under the gruffness of his voice Prowl sensed a current of eagerness.

“Hold on one moment, Ratchet. We have a guest,” Optimus chided, and by the stars his voice was deep. But the change in the Prime was much less alarming than the yellow mech who was suddenly standing in front of Prowl, a series of chirps and warbles emitting from his vocalizer as he reached out towards Prowl’s helm. Although he couldn’t understand Bumblebee, he interpreted concern through the bot’s movements.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” Prowl stated, waving Bumblebee’s servo away. The mech let out a low, mournful blip, his optics whirring as they refocused. He was still staring at the chip in Prowl’s chevron.

“You have experience with galactic binary?” Ratchet inquired, his optic ridge quirked in interest as he laid a hand on Bumblebee’s shoulder.

“Galactic binary? No,” Prowl replied honestly, a questioning gaze briefly flitting in Bumblebee’s direction. The mech had occupied himself by fidgeting with his servos.

“Then how did you understand Bumblebee just now?” Ratchet pressed further.

“Body language is a very strong indicator of intent,” Prowl said simply. A look of surprise seemed to pass over Ratchet’s face before he settled back to something more neutral, nodding.

“I’ll give you the linguistics update necessary for you to download tonight during your recharge. It’s standard procedure for soldiers within the Autobot ranks, but I suppose given your background, you ‘slipped through the cracks,’” the medic huffed, surrounding Prowl’s previous words with air quotes.

Before Ratchet could walk away, however, no doubt to go back to interrogating the Prime about whatever mission they had returned from, his attention was drawn by Bumblebee tapping an urgent digit against his shoulder plating. Ratchet looked unimpressed as several more beeps were emitted from the mech’s vocalizer.

“Despite the fact that he can tell you himself tomorrow—“ Ratchet said said through grit dentae, “—Bumblebee deems it pertinent for me to inform you that he was the one who shot you in the helm, mistaking you for a Decepticon through the dust, and that he is overwhelmingly apologetic about it.”

Arcee leaned in close to Prowl, a servo raised to cover her mouth. “Ratchet had to lock him out of the medbay to finish your repairs. He wouldn’t stop asking how he could help,” she whispered, a twinkle of amusement clear in her optics. Prowl’s expression softened.

Despite whatever weirdness was going on, Prowl could still see reflections of his own team in these strange bots. His Bumblebee was also the type to hover around the medbay–he would never outwardly show his worry, but he would always be skulking nearby like a broody cat. In a somewhat bittersweet twist, Prowl supposed he didn’t need to worry about his family missing him indefinitely—as far as they knew, he was one with the Allspark.

They would have the closure they needed to move on. He figured that was not a luxury that would be extended to himself.

“There’s no need to feel guilty. It was an accident, after all. I’m grateful that you brought me back to Ratchet for repairs, despite the fact that you didn’t know who I was. I also appreciate that you expended the energy to retrieve my shuriken from the rockslide,” he commented, allowing a small smile to slip onto his face. His words visibly seemed to relax Bumblebee, although the mech’s optics still spun anxiously.

“Hey, Bee, don’t hog the new guy!” Bulkhead butted in. “You were pretty beat up when you got here, but wow did you do a number on those ‘Cons. It’ll be nice having another set of working servos around here!” he remarked jovially.

“It’s Prowl, and I didn’t realize I would be staying ‘around here,’” he corrected flatly. It’s not like he particularly had anywhere else to go, as he doubted Detroit would be what he had left it as, but he needed to test the waters of this team and see where he might fit in. If it didn’t work, he could always go solo again, ignoring the ache that that thought brought to his spark.

“I knew a mech by the designation of Prowl once, a very long time ago,” the large Prime said as he, too, joined them. Or rather, Prowl thought ruefully, towered over them. “You wouldn’t happen to know him?”

“No, it must be a coincidence,” Prowl replied. If this situation was what he was suspecting it to be, did another version of himself exist in this place? The thought both interested and repulsed him.

“Pay no mind to Bulkhead’s enthusiasm, Prowl,” Optimus said, resting a servo briefly on the green mech’s shoulder, “but it has been quite a while since a new Autobot has arrived on Earth, especially one that is unknown to us. We are excited, but also intrigued. If the prospect would appeal to you, we have many open quarters available.”

“I will consider your kind offer,” Prowl stated. For whatever reason, he received a few mildly hostile glares from the bots surrounding him. Had he said something wrong? Optimus cleared his throat, the deep sound reverberating inside Prowl’s helm.

“Forgive me, I have not introduced myself. My name is Optimus Prime,” he greeted warmly. Still somewhat confused by the looks he was receiving, Prowl dipped into another light bow.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, all of you.” As an afterthought, he added: “I mean no disrespect, but I have to find my place on this planet before I make a decision on where to settle.”

Optimus nodded.

“I would expect nothing less. However, while you are finding such a place, know that you will always be welcome here. As you have likely determined, there is a large Decepticon presence on Earth, and they will jump at any opportunity to reduce the ranks of the Autobots. At least stay until your injuries are healed,” the Prime implored.

“Of course.”

Seeming to take this as the end of the conversation, Optimus nodded once more. He wasn’t cold, per say, merely blank. Prowl had a very difficult time getting a read on the emotions of this Prime, so unlike his own. It was something he would have to adapt to.

At last, the attention of the room shifted away from Prowl. Ratchet began to hound Prime on whatever information they had gathered in the field, and the rest of the Autobots followed the two back towards the glowing console.

Well, all of the Autobots except one.

Bumblebee stayed exactly where he stood, looking at Prowl like at any moment he might burst into a million glittering shards and be blown away by the wind. The other bots seemed content to allow him to do so.

“Um…hello,” Prowl said uncertainly. Unlike Optimus Prime, Bumblebee wore his emotions on his sleeve–that is, if he had sleeves. Prowl speculated his seeming lack of voice may have contributed to him being more expressive, and right now, Bumblebee was staring at Prowl like he wanted something from him. Prowl, however, didn’t have the slightest clue what it may be.

Appearing to have come to a decision, Bumblebee turned to the rest of his team and uttered a series of buzzes.

“Yes, yes, please do,” Ratchet waved the mech off from over his shoulder, thoroughly engrossed in whatever was being discussed. Bumblebee made a quick gesture with his servo towards Prowl, beckoning him to follow, and Prowl obliged without protest.

Despite the similarities these bots possessed to his own team, he had to remind himself that he was a guest here. He wouldn’t want to offend them by being rude.

Bumblebee led him away from the main chamber of the base, although not nearly as far as Prowl had ventured upon his ill-fated escape attempt. They only passed a few doors before Bumblebee stopped beside one, typing a code into the keypad to unlock it. He stepped aside to allow Prowl to enter first.

What greeted his optics was a large storage space, packed to bursting with bright blue cubes. At first, he couldn’t quite tell what he was looking at, but his processor flashed back to his fight with the Vehicons, and the wound he had sustained to his side. He had bled blue.

So this had to be energon. To further prove his hypothesis, Prowl watched as Bumblebee shuffled around, poking at a few piles before extracting a glowing cube. He held it out to Prowl as an offering.

“Thank you very much,” Prowl said politely, accepting the cube.

Perhaps he believes I am still suffering from energon deprivation, Prowl mused, although all of his system readings were well within their usual parameters.

Although energon was their fuel, bots typically only needed to top off their energon supply if they had been injured or had otherwise lost a significant amount. The refinement of energon crystals ensured that there were almost no impurities that were required to be filtered out by a bot’s frame, and therefore there was little pressure to refuel often.

Any additional energy requirements could be substituted by alternative fuel sources, such as gasoline or, in the case of what was most readily available on Earth, oil.

But, seeing as this cube had been gifted to him, Prowl took a tentative sip, rolling the liquid over his taste sensors. In everything but color, the energon was identical to what he was used to at home, the familiarity of the consistency and flavor almost comforting. He took a larger gulp, reassured that it was, in fact, safe for consumption.

It was then that he realized Bumblebee had not gotten a cube for himself, and instead stood silently beside Prowl, staring at his own pedes like a scolded sparkling.

“Are you not going to have some energon yourself?” Prowl inquired, figuring the question to be innocent enough. Immediately, he was met by beeps and warbles, but Bumblebee quickly cut himself off as he looked at Prowl. He reached up and tapped at the battle mask which had been a permanent fixture on his face since he had stepped out from the spacebridge portal.

“Ah, I see,” Prowl stated, taking another drink.

In reality, that gesture could mean any number of things. Maybe Bumblebee’s battle mask was stuck, or perhaps he had an alternative way of receiving his needed fuel. Or perhaps he just wasn’t comfortable showing Prowl his face. Whatever his reason, it didn’t seem like necessary information for Prowl to pry into.

With Prowl still holding his half empty cube, Bumblebee stepped out into the hallway, beckoning him to follow. They walked through the base seemingly at random, Bumblebee good-humoredly shrugging and doubling back whenever they hit a dead end. While he wouldn’t call the silence between them awkward, it wasn’t exactly companionable. Bumblebee would attempt to say something to Prowl, then promptly cut himself off and attempt to convey the same message through gestures. It made Prowl miss his own obnoxious Bumblebee all the more sharply.

When he drained the last drops of liquid from the cube, Prowl held on to the empty container as they continued their tour–or, at least, that’s all he could assume it was. While Bumblebee was trying his best to remain animated and engaged, Prowl had caught him several times giving Prowl a certain look that he just couldn’t figure out.

Seeing that Prowl had finished his energon, something shifted in Bumblebee’s demeanor–less rigid, more curious. At the crossroads between two identical pathways, he stopped and pointed at the jump jets sticking up from Prowl’s shoulders, waiting expectantly for Prowl’s response.

“Oh, these are jump jets. They allow me to take flight for short periods of time,” Prowl explained. Seemingly excited by this revelation, Bumblebee made a pushing motion with his servos, urging Prowl to show him the jets in action. Glancing around the hallway, however, Prowl had his doubts. “Sorry, this space is a bit too cramped for me to safely take off. I wouldn’t want to damage anything,” he said somewhat apologetically.

Bumblebee brought a digit up to his chin in obvious thought. Prowl looked on in fascination. It was like he could practically see the gears turning within the mech’s processor. Turning abruptly, Bumblebee didn’t wait for Prowl as he set out with purpose deeper into the base.

The raised voices of the Autobot team, which had been echoing around them for several minutes, faded entirely as they descended further underground along a sloped path.

The lights grew brighter overhead as they emerged into a cavernous space, this one also draped with stalactites, its walls lined with garage doors. The metal floor was entirely empty, save for a few sparring dummies and racks of weapons lined up out of the way of most pede traffic.

“Is this…a training room?” he asked tentatively, gazing up at the high ceiling. It was much more sparsely decorated than what he remembered practicing in under Master Yoketron, but there was still plenty of room to move about.

Bumblebee nodded enthusiastically, but he made no move to grab any of the sparring equipment available to him. Instead, he took the empty energon cube from Prowl’s servos and set it down gently next to the door, then returned to looking expectantly at Prowl.

Sighing, and seeing no way of worming himself out of this, Prowl powered up his jump jets and merely hovered a few feet above the ground, enough so that he came optic to optic with Bumblebee. And wasn’t that a strange thought–Bumblebee being taller than him.

“Satisfied?” Prowl inquired, unenthused. He felt a bit like a lab experiment as Bumblebee circled around him, examining the mobility his mods allowed him. He could understand the bot’s excitement—after all, Arcee had said there weren’t many ‘flying’ Autobots left—but the attention was beginning to make Prowl uncomfortable.

Luckily enough, Bumblebee seemed to lose interest after a few more seconds, and Prowl allowed his pedes to touch back onto solid ground as the yellow mech turned away.

Turning away, Bumblebee moved beside one of the weapons racks and motioned Prowl closer. Stepping up next to the mech, he looked over the assortment of weapons available to him.

Most of the equipment were blasters of some variety—the kind that were meant to fire blank cartridges of light instead of the incinerating bolts that were popular among soldiers. Alongside these were different kinds of melee weapons: staffs, pikes, clubs, and even an errant flail. Every one of them was covered in a thick layer of dust. Prowl suspected this room, or at least its available training equipment, hadn’t seen use in quite a long period of time.

With a blip of noise, Bumblebee picked up one of the blasters, tossing it from one servo to another before holding the grip out towards Prowl.

“Sorry, I’m not a great shot,” Prowl admitted, waving apologetically. With a shrug, Bumblebee placed the blaster back onto the rack and grabbed a staff seemingly at random, giving it a quick tap against the floor to dispel its dusty blanket. Prowl, for lack of a better idea, grabbed a similar staff. The weight felt familiar in his servos as he spun it with practiced ease.

Bumblebee danced on light pedes to a more open section of the floor, where he leaned against his staff, waiting. Prowl stepped closer to him tentatively.

“Are we…sparring?” Prowl asked with a small tilt of his helm. Twittering met his audio receptors, as indecipherable as it had been for every time before. “This just seems like a strange activity to partake in on a simple tour.”

In response, Bumblebee twirled his staff around his servo—a bit clumsily—but managed to keep his grip on the metal as he dropped into a defensive crouch. Still not exactly sure what was happening, Prowl copied his stance, although he adjusted his pedes to be of the right alignment–Bumblebee’s pedes were ever so slightly too close together, which would throw off his center of gravity. The yellow mech’s optics narrowed, whirring into pinpoints.

Prowl was able to dodge the first lunge without problem, sliding quickly to the side as Bumblebee’s staff came down where his shoulder had just been, although there wasn’t much force behind his swing.

Sparring, then.

With a tight twirl, Prowl responded with a quick strike to Bumblebee’s unprotected stomach, before dancing out of reach once more. Bumblebee chirped as he thrust his staff out, this time aiming low at Prowl’s knee joints. Allowing the ingrained muscle memory of millenia of practice to take over, Prowl saw the attack coming and leapt into the air, allowing the staff to pass harmlessly beneath his pedes. On the way back down, and while Bumblebee was still recovering his step, Prowl brought his staff down against the yellow armor of the bot’s upper arm with a sharp tink—not hard enough to dent, but it would probably sting.

Bumblebee took a few tentative steps backwards, reassessing his strategy as Prowl landed neatly back onto his pedes. Dropping once more into a crouch, Prowl felt a twinge in his side as the movement pulled on his newly welded injury. He kept any notion of the discomfort off of his face.

Making the first move this time, Prowl leaned back with the aid of his staff, bringing both pedes off of the ground in a flying leap at Bumblebee’s chest. The yellow bot dodged, ducking underneath the attack. As Prowl passed by, Bumblebee tapped his side, just enough to throw him off balance. Prowl’s staff clattered to the ground as he was forced to drop onto all fours, preventing a harsh impact with the ground.

As Prowl was reaching for his staff, a smirk playing at the edge of his lips, both mechs turned at the sound of heavy pedesteps from the direction of the entrance to the room. Ratchet appeared there in a matter of moments, a stormy expression on his face.

“When I said to get him out of the command center, I didn’t mean go and spar with him!” the medic fumed, marching up to Bumblebee and snatching his staff away, roughly depositing it back onto the weapons rack. “Have you even touched a staff since boot camp?”

Bumblebee let out an indignant burst of static, motioning towards the blasters. Prowl covertly slipped his own staff back to where he had retrieved it from.

“I don’t care about weapon preferences, you shouldn’t have been sparring in the first place! I’ve already told him off for jostling his repairs, and I would have expected you to know better,” Ratchet barked, narrowing his optics at Bumblebee, although Prowl suspected the last part of his tirade might have also been directed towards himself. 

Hanging his head, the yellow mech followed Ratchet out from the training room, picking up the empty cube as he went. Prowl trailed a few steps behind. He remained silent as they walked, not wanting to incite the anger of the medic. The patch on his side ached more than he remembered–perhaps he had been a bit too rough.

At a split in the corridor, Ratchet muttered a few words to Bumblebee before sending the mech on his way. Bumblebee waved as he departed, something Prowl only reciprocated with a minute nod.

He had assumed they would be making their way back to the medbay, but to his surprise Ratchet halted in front of a seemingly random door in the hallway. Prowl could hear dull murmuring echoing at the edge of his audio receptors; they must be somewhat close to the central command containing the spacebridge. Ratchet turned to him, glancing him up and down.

“Well, there’s no visible damage to your repairs, be thankful for that. As I said, you’ll need to keep physical activity light for the next few days, just to make sure everything sets properly. I won’t patch you up every time you do something stupid,” he huffed. There was a small voice in Prowl’s helm that told him the medic didn’t really mean that, but he brushed it away as residual affection for Prowl’s own Ratchet.

From his storage compartment, Ratchet pulled out a small data chip, and held it out. Prowl opened his servo, hearing a small plink as the chip was dropped into his palm.

“That there is the linguistics update I mentioned earlier. Plug it in before you boot down into recharge.”

“Plug it in?”

From the slightly bewildered look on Ratchet’s face, Prowl suspected that was not something he likely should have asked, but there was no taking his question back.

Wordlessly, Ratchet held his own arm out facing towards the ceiling, and popped open a small port at his wrist. Prowl glanced at his own wrist–a similar port sat snuggly at the intersection between his servo and arm.

“I see.”

“Don’t forget to download the update–it makes things much easier for all of us. Now, good night.”

With those parting words, Ratchet began to walk away. Prowl checked his internal chronometer quickly. The sun wouldn’t even be fully set yet.

“Is it not a bit early for recharge?” he mused, and Ratchet paused, but did not turn to face him.

“I’m just showing you to your room. Whether you choose to recharge or not is up to you, although it would expedite your repair nanites.”

With that said, he was gone.

While he didn’t necessarily feel drained enough for recharge, Prowl couldn’t think of much else to do. He was still unfamiliar with the base, and didn’t want to face the embarrassment of becoming lost.

Ratchet’s words had also stuck in Prowl’s processor. From his and Bumblebee’s altercation, he had gathered that Bumblebee had been specifically tasked with keeping Prowl away from the command center. For what reason, he was unsure, but one thing was clear: these Autobots didn’t fully trust him. He tried to excuse it–after all he had been awake for a few hours at most, and was a stranger to them. Still, the thought stung his spark.

Clenching his servo around the data chip, Prowl pressed a digit to the keypad by the door, a small beep accompanying his entrance into the room. It was a modest size, a bit smaller than his quarters at the Autobot base, and sparsely furnished. There was a berth, made up with a thin mesh barrier and a pillow, as well as a desk, the chair tucked underneath its surface. A stack of storage crates hastily shoved off into one corner had Prowl raising an optic ridge. A peek into the small washracks revealed a rusty drain. It was obvious this room had not been in use for quite some time.

Placing the chip on his pillow so he wouldn’t forget it, Prowl realized his frame was still covered in the red dust of the desert. The only parts that had been wiped down were around his injuries.

Reluctantly, Prowl stepped into the washracks, which were thankfully clean aside from the drain. The solvent was lukewarm, but it did its job. He stepped out and wiped down the remaining liquid with a piece of fabric–most likely a large rug–that had been left for him. Apparently these facilities didn’t have the luxury of automatic dryers.

Though it was still early for recharge, Prowl appreciated the silence of the room–his room now, he supposed. Surrounded by so much noise, being attacked by Decepticons, arriving at a new base with new bots who shared the names of his team; now, all he wanted was peace.

Swiping his pedes over the area a few times to remove the largest of the dust bunnies (such adorable names the humans gave things), Prowl folded his legs beneath him, hands placed on his knee joints, letting the beautiful silence wash over him.

He allowed the worries of the day to bleed out around him, replaced by the serenity he was well acquainted with.

Meditation was a crucial step within Prowl’s daily routine, and one he rarely skipped. Before he had become a pupil of Master Yoketron, Prowl had seethed with a restless energy, the desire to constantly be doing, regardless of the consequences. But meditation had curbed the worst of his impulsiveness, and allowed him a chance at self-reflection that had been sorely absent in his youth.

He focused on the beating of his spark, and the room disappearing around him as all of his attention was pointed inward. Throughout the course of his meditation, Prowl swore he could hear a faint buzzing at the very edge of his awareness, but he dismissed it to some oddity of the new base that surrounded him. After all, he was not familiar with it the way he was his old home, so he wasn’t able to as efficiently block out the idiosyncrasies of his environment.

After an untold amount of time, that thought finally dragged Prowl out of his revere.

Old home.

Stretching out cramped limbs, Prowl sat on the edge of his berth, servos folded neatly in front of him. His optics trailed over each armor segment, each wire, each joint.

Throughout the day, he had whittled through many, many scenarios of what had happened to the world, and he was forced to acknowledge the only one that seemed to make sense: that this was not his world. Somehow, in some way, on Prowl’s journey to the Allspark, he had been snatched away and deposited here, wherever here may be. Despite sharing the same names and several other resemblances, these were not the bots that Prowl had come to accept as family.

The only question he had left was why. He suspected that the voice he had heard upon his departure from the Allspark had something to do with it, but his processor had been so overwhelmed that now the words were muddled. It worried him, but without being able to remember what was spoken to him, he figured there wasn’t much to be done.

Prowl picked up the data chip from his pillow. There were still some things he had control over. He could learn about this new world, these new bots, and make a place for himself on their team. Or he could strike it out alone, try and force the universe to give him an explanation as to why he was given a second chance at this peculiar thing called life.

After a few tries, he carefully slotted the data chip into the medical port on his wrist, where it hovered as his firewalls scanned it for any harmful software. When it came back clean, he watched as it disappeared beneath his armor, the download already commencing. He supposed he would see where this adventure took him.

Laying back against his pillow, however, recharge refused to claim him. After tossing and turning for who knows how long, Prowl sighed harshly. He knew what the problem was: he hadn’t recharged on an actual berth in several stellar cycles.

From the moment he had claimed his room at their base in Detroit, he had taken to recharging in his tree. He had grown used to the comforting sway of the branches in the wind, the way the rustling of the leaves softened the harsh noise of the city.

Another few minutes and Prowl sat up, frustrated. He eyed the stack of storage crates pressed up against the wall. In the darkness of his room, Prowl stood up and stalked over to the crates, eternally grateful for the night vision enhancement on his visor. Shimmying up the makeshift ladder of the crates, Prowl wedged himself into the pipes of the ceiling for the third time that day. A row of wires acted as a hammock of sorts, suspending his chassis in the open air.

If he offlined his optics, he could almost pretend he was home. He drifted into recharge without further issue.

Chapter Text

“PROWL!”

The sudden shout jerked Prowl violently out of recharge. He was scrambling to escape from his night’s perch before even onlining his optics, several wires wrapping themselves around his pedes. It wasn’t until he was fully hanging upside down from the ceiling, staring at the bewildered, open-mouthed expression of Ratchet, standing in the doorway to his new room, that his processor finally booted up properly. Prowl grinned sheepishly at the medic.

“What in Primus’s name is it with you and hiding in the rafters? If I didn’t know any better, I’d mistake you for a spark-forsaken squirrel!” Ratchet seethed, the exasperation clear in his voice.

With a small jolt of power from his jump jets, enough slack was formed in the tangled wires to allow Prowl to drop down to the ground gracefully, trying to regain some of his damaged pride. Checking his internal chronometer, he surmised that it was still early in the morning.

“Any reason for the personal wake-up call?” Prowl inquired mildly, moving to tidy the mesh which had slid off of his berth during his failed attempts at recharge the night prior.

“Us Autobots operate by a strict schedule to make sure our operations run as smoothly as possible. Energon is given at specific intervals throughout the day for rationing purposes—if you miss a meal, you will have to find your energon on your own time. Right now, you’re late for breakfast, although I suppose that is my fault for not informing you yesterday,” Ratchet said, a tired note to his voice.

He’s only mentioned energon thus far, no oil or gasoline, Prowl thought, gears turning steadily in his processor. I suppose it won’t cause too much harm to just ask…

“Energon is quite rare to come by,” Prowl commented casually, trying to keep his optics away from Ratchet’s face. “Are there no alternative fuel sources on this planet?”

Ratchet gave him a long look.

“No,” he said slowly, as if puzzling out his own answer. “Any other fuel on Earth that is viable for the production of energy does not meld well with Cybertronian biology. Best case, you end up having your tanks pumped. Worst case, you go offline.”

“I see,” Prowl nodded.

But Earth does not have the climate necessary to harvest energon. Is their only supply what they’ve managed to carry from Cybertron? He shook the thoughts away. I will find out with due time, I suppose.

“Well, if we are late to breakfast, then lead the way,” Prowl motioned towards the hall, falling into step behind the medic.

They travelled swiftly, passing through the main cavern and into a room just beyond it. This was not the room Bumblebee had taken Prowl to yesterday, nor was it nearly as crowded by energon cubes. A large, circular table occupied a majority of the space, around which the other Autobots were already seated.

The other bots perked up when Ratchet and Prowl entered. Prowl didn’t move to sit at the table—although the fact that there were two empty seats did not go unnoticed by him—as Ratchet made his way swiftly to one of the stacks of energon cubes pushed into the corners of the room.

He began to dish out the energon, sliding one cube each to Optimus, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee, and setting one aside, presumably for himself. He then retrieved an empty container and poured half of the contents of a full cube into it. One of the half cubes was sent Arcee’s way, and the other was handed to Prowl. He raised an optic ridge as Ratchet took his seat, joints creaking audibly.

“A half-ration?” he asked, somewhat dubiously.

“You two-wheelers burn a lot less fuel than us bigger bots,” Ratchet shrugged, turning to his own energon. Prowl glanced briefly at Bumblebee, but the mech was pointedly keeping his optics trained on his own cube. He had offered Prowl a double ration yesterday, and had done nothing to stop him when he drank more than his fill.

I’m not sure what to make of that, he grumbled internally. So many new elements to access and analyze. It made his processor ache.

“Don’t worry, it keeps you full enough,” Arcee promised, a smirk on her face. Prowl nodded. As the team began to drink their meals, he pivoted on his heel strut, heading back towards the hallway.

“Wait, don’t you want to stay?”

The voice shocked Prowl enough that he stuttered to a stop. Of course, he recognized the bloops and trills of Bumblebee’s speech, but never before had the meaningless sounds produced words. It was a bit jarring, but at least he knew Ratchet’s linguistics update had been downloaded properly.

Without turning his helm, Prowl replied, “No, thank you,” and left. Luckily, he managed to find his way back to his room without much hassle, having to backtrack only once when he made a wrong turn. His navigation center was already beginning to create a map of the base to be stored in his neural net.

Still, he was grateful they had housed him in close proximity to the main cavern—even if it was only for the purpose of keeping an optic on him, as he suspected was the case.

Prowl drank his energon silently in his room, trying desperately to force away the feeling of being a newspark again, sent away to cool off after misbehaving. He wanted to enjoy what quiet he could get without guilt nagging at him. Although the neon blue liquid was much less of a comfort than the purplish-pink he was used to, it filled his tanks all the same.

With only a half ration in his servos, the contents of the cube were drained within minutes. He set the empty container onto the surface of the desk, then trailed his digits along the metal. He pulled them away and rubbed them against one another, noting the streaks his servo had left in the dust.

If he was going to stay in this room for any significant amount of time, he at least wanted it to be clean. So, he did the only reasonable thing he could think of, and started trying the locks in hopes of finding cleaning supplies.

Evidently, these new ‘Bots didn’t trust him all that much, as almost every room he tried to gain entry to denied him access.

“Doesn’t anyone understand the value of a clean living space?” he muttered to himself.

On his seventh attempt, he was greeted by a pleasant beep as the door swept aside. He stepped into what appeared to be a storage closet, although all that Prowl could see were pieces of scrap metal that had more place in a junkyard than a sophisticated center of Autobot operations. To his luck, and relief, a quick search through one of the crates revealed a large fabric cleaning cloth. If Prowl had to guess, he’d say it was a large human bedsheet, but for his purposes it would work well.

Prowl hummed to himself as he exited and returned to his room. Using some solvent from the washracks in the absence of an actual cleaner, Prowl set to his task with vigor.

He got into the rhythm of the work, wiping down every surface he found fit, even the high tops of the storage crates. Going back to the closet where he had found his cloth, Prowl also retrieved a broom. He swept every square inch of the floor, maneuvering furniture as he went. Figuring the cloth was a lost cause, he picked up the debris collected by the broom and dumped the whole gray mess discreetly into his waste bin. Returning the broom to its place, he found himself in much higher spirits.

He gazed around his room with satisfaction. The metal of his desk gleamed in the fluorescent lighting, and he couldn’t see a single speck of dust on the barren floor.

As a final touch, Prowl swept the mesh off of his berth and climbed up to where he had recharged the night before. Worrying about putting unnecessary strain on the wires he had lounged in, he tied the corners of the mesh to the strong steel struts that ran under the length of the ceiling, creating an impromptu hammock. Testing it for a few minutes, and definitely not because the cleaning had made his injured side ache, Prowl was satisfied to find that it comfortably held his weight.

When Prowl returned to the ground, he was somewhat shocked to discover that he had unknowingly slipped into recharge for an hour, and it was nearing midday.

While he deeply appreciated the solitude of his room, and would prefer to stay there, he felt somewhat cramped after his nap. The buzz of building energy swept through his struts, and he journeyed out of his room, eager to do anything that wasn’t standing still.

Although he had hoped to the contrary, upon entering into the main cavern, Prowl spied Ratchet standing in front of the green console next to the strange spacebridge. The medic’s attention was rapt onto the glyphs which scrolled across the screen, and Prowl’s curiosity won over his desire to be alone. He walked up behind the other mech and quickly scanned the information which flashed across the screen. The left edge of his visor quirked upwards as Prowl tilted his head in confusion.

“Are you searching for…energon?” he asked.

“Ack-! What in the Allspark–” In a whirl of motion, Ratchet’s servo transformed into a blade, which would have cleanly taken the tip off of the intact side of Prowl’s chevron had he not ducked underneath the swipe. Ratchet stared down at him in momentary shock as Prowl righted himself before his face twisted into a deep scowl as his servo reappeared. “Don’t sneak up on a mech like that! I could’ve taken your helm off,” he reprimanded sharply, turning back to his work.

Prowl, unphased, muttered an apology, but stayed exactly where he was, waiting patiently for the answer to his question. Ratchet let out a large gust of air through his vents.

“Yes, we are searching for energon,” he said reluctantly.

“How?”

Ratchet gave him a sideways glance.

“By scanning the Earth’s surface for energon signatures. Most of the deposits that are left are too far underground for our equipment to detect, so we rely on energon that has already been unearthed by the Decepticons,” he explained.

“There are energon deposits on Earth?” Prowl’s optic ridges rose in surprise. That was news to him.

“Yes, although they’re quickly dwindling. If we had our own mining equipment, any one of these energon mines would be enough to keep us sustained for months. But, having to compete for it with the Decepticons, we’re often left with nothing but scraps,” Ratchet grumbled.

Prowl nodded as Ratchet focused back onto the monitor. He idly wondered exactly how long they had been going on like this. Weeks? Months? Years? More and more questions piled onto his already overloaded processor. If they were suffering energon shortages, why had they not hailed the aid of other Autobots by now? And why take in another frame to feed?

“I don’t wish to put more strain on your already thinly stretched resources,” Prowl spoke suddenly. He didn’t want to apologize for his presence at the base, but he felt the need to say something.

“You’ve been invited personally by Optimus. He wouldn’t have done so if he didn’t think we had the extra available.” The tone that the medic used suggested that they, in fact, did not have the extra available, but Prowl decided not to push the topic further.

His optics traced the pulsing light that took up the majority of the screen in front of Ratchet, as well as the two smaller dots which circled it.

“Are these our fellow Autobots?” he pointed to the smaller of the trackers. Ratchet hastily batted his servo away.

“Yes, yes, that’s Optimus and Bumblebee, and I’m trying to guide them into the mine without accidentally alerting an entire platoon of Vehicons, so if you’d please,” Ratchet hissed, his voice strained. Prowl backed up a step or two, but remained close enough to keep an optic on the monitor. After a pause, the other mech typed a few glyphs into the keypad, altering the view from which he observed the generated landscape.

“According to Bumblebee’s previous scouting missions, there should be a patrol passing just to your right. Once they make a loop around the entrance and pass out of your sight, you are free to enter,” the medic spoke in a clipped manner, seemingly to no one. His optic ridges furrowed as he listened to a voice only he could hear. “No, no, there should only be Vehicons stationed at this location. If there’s an Eradicon accompanying the troop, then there’s a possibility that Decepticon High Command has taken an interest in the area. I would recommend immediate extraction.” His expression grew more stormy. “As you wish.”

“Comm links?” Prowl spoke up once more. Ratchet gave a single, sharp nod, gaze trained intently on the two blinking dots.

“I don’t see what the use is when they won’t listen to their operator,” the medic muttered, mostly to himself. The Autobot trackers quickly disappeared into the depths of the mine, their signals flickering as the thick crust of the Earth obscured their life signatures. Ratchet’s shoulders slumped, and he turned fully to face Prowl. “If you decide to make your residence here more permanent, we would have to outfit you with one as well. Safety precaution.”

“Of course,” Prowl replied readily. It was standard procedure–not that he necessarily knew that much about military protocol, especially not on this backwards world, but a way to quickly contact his team sounded like a good idea.

This team, he sharply reminded himself. Not his team. Ratchet’s optics drifted up and down Prowl’s frame as he internally reprimanded himself.

“Here, why don’t I give you something to do instead of hovering around me for the entire afternoon,” he stated, large servo already loosely gripped onto Prowl’s shoulder, steering him away from the main console. Prowl did little to object as they approached the medbay, and Ratchet typed in the access code to allow them entry. “I’m stuck on groundbridge duty so often that I hardly get a chance to tidy up in here. Everything’s in its proper drawer, but it can be cumbersome to root through a bunch of junk for the tools I need. Seeing as you’re not doing anything else…”

The request felt more like an order, but Prowl didn’t mind. With a nod and a shooing motion towards the medic, he was left alone in the medbay. Without the oppressive panic of being strapped to the medberth, Prowl could appreciate the work Ratchet put into attempting to keep his space neat. The countertops were completely free of debris, and the merdberth was sparkling clean, not a hint of energon apparent.

However, just as Ratchet had said, the drawers were not the same. The first one he opened–the same one he had stolen the scalpel from during his ill-fated attempt at escape–was practically overflowing with medical equipment, thrown in haphazardly and without order. Prowl was barely able to open the drawer to its full extent, as some of the tools had piled up on top of one another and were jamming it.

It was easy enough to remove the equipment, sort out what was too rusted to be of use, and put everything back in such a way that it was simple to access.

Upon moving on to the next cabinet, Prowl allowed his processor to drift, the monotonous task serving as its own kind of meditation. Ratchet had referred to what Prowl had previously assumed to be a spacebridge as a groundbridge. But that posed a problem: Prowl didn’t have the slightest clue as to what a groundbridge was.

He decided to start with the pieces of the technology that he did know. The groundbridge, at least fundamentally, operated in the same manner as a spacebridge: they both transport bots across expanses of space, essentially acting as a form of teleportation. Prowl knew it was much more complicated than that, but he was working with a limited amount of knowledge at the moment. That is where the similarities end.

Spacebridges were enormous structures, meant to support a portal that could transport even the largest ships within the Autobot fleet. This groundbridge looked like it was barely wide enough to allow a small Shuttle-class Autobot safe passage, let alone one the size of Omega Supreme—although on second thought, Omega Supreme wouldn’t fit inside this base in the first place.

There was also the difference in appearance: spacebridges were blue and spherical, whereas the groundbridge was a swirling vortex of green, almost like a whirlpool.

Prowl shook his helm and moved on to one of the cabinets hanging above the countertop, which he was forced to stand on top of the countertop in order to reach.

He supposed he could just operate on the assumption that groundbridges were more compact versions of spacebridges. It seemed like the most reasonable deduction.

Then his mind turned to the issue of an extended residence with these Autobots, who were very clearly still embroiled in the midst of a fierce war..

There was a reason Prowl had so vehemently avoided the war when it first broke out in his own world—he didn’t want to lay his spark down for a conflict that ultimately didn’t concern him.

But things have changed since then, he reminded himself, tugging at a particularly stubborn pair of pliers that had become wedged in a corner of the cabinet.

He couldn’t deny the tug in his spark when he thought about abandoning these Autobots. Did he hold some kind of responsibility to these strangers merely because they shared the same names as his own crew? His logic circuits screamed at him no, but that didn’t make the answer any clearer. His emotions were a maelstrom of indecision.

So caught up in his own processor, Prowl missed the sound of the groundbridge activating, and the new murmur of voices that filtered through the door of the medbay. 

What did catch his attention at last, however, was the sudden rev of engines tearing out from the main cavern, becoming quieter by the second. Deciding his work to be complete—he had one drawer left, and it only contained a few scraps of welding material—he let himself out of the medbay and ventured into the command center.

The only bots occupying the space were Ratchet and Optimus, appearing to be deep in a tense discussion. Not looking to have another meeting with the business end of Ratchet’s blade, Prowl paused a respectful distance away.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? He’s just arrived on the planet, and–Aha!” Cutting off whatever murmured conversation they had been having, Ratchet’s helm whipped in Prowl’s direction, a digit pointing accusingly. “I caught you this time.”

“I wasn’t aware I was doing anything worthy of being ‘caught,’” Prowl replied loftily, the edge of his visor quirked in a silent challenge.

“What Ratchet means is–” Prime butted in, placing a servo on Ratchet’s shoulder, a clear warning in his tone, “–we’re still adjusting to having a new mech around the base.”

Prowl nodded curtly. They had clearly been discussing Prowl when he had interrupted them, but he was very intrigued by whatever Ratchet thought might not be a ‘good idea.’ A prolonged, silent look from Optimus prompted a heavy sigh to gush from Ratchet’s vents. The medic beckoned Prowl over to the green console as the Prime stepped back to allow them space.

“How familiar are you with the organic lifeforms on this planet, Prowl?” Ratchet began, looking down at the cyberninja with a disinterested expression.

Prowl paused. Would it be suspicious if he admitted to his knowledge of Earth? Their assumption was that he had landed here not long ago, and certainly not long enough to have acquainted himself with the locals.

“I have seen a few,” he decided was the safe answer.

“Well, there’s one species in particular you’ll have to watch out for.” At this, Ratchet pulled up a crude anatomical diagram of a human. “They call themselves humans, and they’re sentient.”

“I see,” Prowl replied, keeping his expression carefully neutral. Cybertronians were no strangers to sentient inhabitants of alien planets–there were hundreds, if not thousands, of species on record. If anything, it would appear strange for him to react with surprise. “Are they dangerous?”

Ratchet chuckled. “No, their technology is still in its infancy, and the humans themselves are tiny and squishy. They can be quite loud, though.”

Prowl hummed in acknowledgement. “What is there to warn me about, then?” he wondered aloud. There was obviously a reason Ratchet had brought this up. The medic seemed to mull over his answer for a moment, shooting a glare at the Prime, who was attempting to appear like he wasn’t listening to their conversation but very clearly was.

“To most of humanity, we are nothing more than mindless machines. It is for our safety, as well as theirs, accounting for the fact that we believe they are not ready to accept the reality of the existence of aliens. Even if you decide not to stay here with the team at Omega One, this is one rule you have to abide by during your time on Earth. Even the Decpeticons are smart enough to keep themselves hidden. It is not worth the trouble.”

Prowl allowed Ratchet’s words to sink into his processor, a horrible realization dawning on him.

The humans didn’t know?

The people of Detroit had accepted the spacebridge repair crew easily enough–there had hardly been any fuss at all. He couldn’t imagine the pain of having to sit in Detroit traffic, knowing full well he could shift into root mode and simply walk over the blockade of cars. But, he supposed, this was a different world, and hence, the Autobots lived by different rules. It was something he would have to adjust to.

“Wait, what do you mean most of humanity?” he questioned.

As if on cue, the sound of roaring engines filtered into the large cavern from an offshooting tunnel. A motorcycle, a muscle car, and a sizable off-road vehicle rolled into view. Arcee, Bumblebee, and Bulkhead, if Prowl had to guess based off of their paint jobs.

What was new were the three companions who stepped out onto the concrete as the three Autobots transformed.

“Hey, I was promised a new ‘Bot!” came a high-pitched voice from one of the children.

“Don’t get your tailpipe in a twist, he’s right-” Ratchet’s reprimand was cut short as he looked to the space where Prowl had just been standing, only to find empty air.

As soon as the other Autobots had appeared, the cyberninja had tucked himself stealthily into the shelter of Ratchet’s large pede, obscuring himself from view.

Fundamentally, Prowl knew that these children were aware of the existence of the Cybertronians, mainly due to the fact that they were standing in a room full of multi-story tall cybernetic beings without raising a panic. Even still, he figured it was best to proceed with caution.

“When I said most of humanity, I meant there were a few exceptions. These three are part of that exclusive group,” Ratchet stated, lifting an optic ridge as he looked down at Prowl.

“I see,” Prowl responded, taking a few tentative steps back into the light. Before he could get very far, an aggressive clearing of the medic’s throat brought Prowl’s attention back to Ratchet.

“Play nice,” the mech warned. There wasn’t any humor in his optics. The medic was dead serious.

To show his pure intentions, Prowl sunk down onto one knee to put his height closer to that of the humans. To his slight shock, they appeared bigger in relation to his frame than he remembered from his own world. Granted, he was aware that Sari, before her upgrade, was a smaller than average human, but it appeared his frame had shrunk upon his arrival to this new world. It gave him a strange solace to know that everything in this place wasn’t just gigantic–he was smaller.

Well, the Prime was still pretty tall.

“Why don’t you introduce yourselves?” said Prime prompted gently.

“Hi, I’m Jack,” said the tallest of the trio, his hands propped on his hips. His skin was pale like the sands on the beaches of Lake Erie—as were the others—and on top of his head sat a flurry of black hair.

“Miko here!” exclaimed the girl–the same one who had spoken when they arrived–the twin pigtails bouncing on her head as she jumped into the air, waving.

“My name’s Rafael, but you can call me Raf,” said the smallest, pushing his glasses up on his nose, his shoulders hunched.

“Hello Jack, Miko, and Raf. My designation is Prowl. Are you friends of the Autobots?” He assumed it was a safe enough question to ask. After all, they had just arrived riding in the bots’ alt modes.

Jack nodded, while Rafael looked down at his shoes.

“Yeah. They’ve been keeping us safe from the Decepticons,” the boy replied, his voice hinting at his nervousness.

“A noble endeavor,” Prowl remarked. While the other humans seemed reluctant to approach him, Miko had no such qualms. The cyberninja stayed perfectly still as the girl walked right up to stand beside his kneeled frame, well aware of the many pairs of optics trained on him.

No sudden movements, he repeated to himself. If these Autobots were anything like his own team, they were likely quite protective of their human charges.

“What’s with those sunglasses covering your eyes? Do you wear them all the time? Are they attached to your face? Ooo, and what are those tall things sticking up from your shoulders? Why is that gold thing on your head broken?” The torrent of questions came pouring at Prowl one after the other, leaving him no room to respond. 

He opened his intake once, twice, but no words came out–he didn’t even know where to begin.

“Miko,” Bulkhead reprimanded, drawing out the girl’s name in an exasperated manner. “Give the mech a chance to talk.”

“Oh, right, sorry! We haven’t met another Autobot since Wheeljack came to the base a while ago. Are you going to leave like he did?”

She was staring up at him with large, pleading eyes. Fortunately, he was used to that trick from Sari.

“I’m not sure yet,” he stated evenly. Miko pouted, crossing her arms over her chest, but she quickly shook off her disappointment to continue the interrogation.

“Bulkhead said the ‘Bots didn’t know who you were. Isn’t that weird, though? With so few Autobots left, I thought you guys would all know each other. How did you get onto Earth, anyway?”

She wasn’t making it easy for Prowl to formulate a cover story. He decided to stick as close to the truth as possible.

“I was part of a wayward crew of Autobots at the very edge of the universe, far away from the war. I suppose we never crossed paths. As for how I came to be on Earth, my stasis pod crashed, and I woke up in the middle of a desert,” he shrugged. Doctoring a few of the details, Prowl almost believed he had made the tall tale sound convincing. Stars seemed to pop into Miko’s eyes.

“If you haven’t been here that long, does that mean you still have your Cybertronian vehicle mode? Oh, I’ve always wanted to see one!” she cheered. Jack perked up at her statement.

“Huh, I guess we haven’t seen any of your guys' Cybertronian vehicle modes,” he remarked, referring to the other Autobots. “You all had already scanned Earth vehicles by the time we met.” He seemed intrigued by the prospect.

“Would we be able to see your vehicle mode, Mr. Prowl?” Raf asked sweetly, his hands politely folded in front of him. Prowl internally cringed. This…could be an issue.

“No, sorry,” he said reluctantly, shaking his helm and ignoring the crestfallen looks of the children.

“No?” Arcee repeated, her face one of pure confusion. Prowl supposed it would be revealed one way or another.

“I don’t have it anymore,” he explained simply. All of the Autobots in the room visibly stiffened. The three humans looked around warily, except Miko, who scoffed and threw her hands into the air. Prowl rose to his full height, although he was still dwarfed by almost every other bot in the room.

“What do you mean, Prowl?” Optimus Prime inquired, his voice even. No accusations being thrown just yet. Maybe he could still salvage this.

“I figured that a native vehicle might be better suited to the unique terrain of this planet, and so I chose to scan one shortly after emerging from my stasis pod.”

“Well, I’m sure there’s plenty of motorcycles just lying around in the middle of the Nevada desert,” Ratchet grumbled, dragging a servo down his face.

“Were you seen?” Bumblebee asked with a worried tilt of his helm.

“Not that I know of. There was no one around.” A long silence followed his words, tension thick in the air.

“That makes our job easier, doesn’t it? Not having to find him an alt mode?” Bulkhead questioned tentatively, his optics shifting from one bot to the next.

“Would have saved me a small spark attack,” Ratchet huffed in exhaustion.

“If you don’t have a Cybertronian vehicle mode, then can we at least see your Earth vehicle mode?” Miko pleaded. She seemed desperately interested in knowing every little detail about Prowl, and he figured he could please her with at least one answer.

“I don’t see why not,” he smiled ever so slightly. Mechanical whirring filled Prowl’s audio receptors as he engaged his t-cog, transforming into his alt mode. He rocked on his wheels for a moment, orienting himself in his new form. If the other bots had seemed massive before, they were practically giants now—his fixed vision in alt mode only allowed him to see as high as the Prime’s knees.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“What’s the matter?” Prowl couldn’t tell who had been the offending speaker. He gave a small rev of his engine, slowly turning a circle in the small space he was offered between the other Autobots’ pedes.

“You’re a cop!” Miko exclaimed, pointing excitedly as she bounced from one foot to the other.

“More accurately, you’ve scanned the vehicle of one of Earth’s law enforcement,” Ratchet surmised, his exasperation showing clearly through his voice. Prowl wiggled his side mirrors, trying to crane the optical sensors positioned there far enough to see the mech’s face.

“And that’s a problem, why?” Of course he knew why, but feigning ignorance might give him some leeway.

“You’ve essentially painted a giant bullseye on your chestplate for every other motorist to see,” Arcee said ruefully.

“It’s not a problem Prowl could have foreseen, being on Earth for as short a time as he has been. But the Autobot operation requires more–” Optimus paused, and Prowl assumed the Prime was now talking to him, “–covert methods of transportation. You will need to scan a new alt mode.”

At this revelation, Prowl sagged on his wheels ever so slightly. Although his alt mode felt different in this world, the same way his body did, it was still one of the only things he had left to remind him of home. Now, it would be taken away from him as well. 

Prowl quickly dispelled those dour thoughts from his processor as he transformed back into his bipedal mode. He would force himself to learn and adapt–it was the only way to survive.

“When is a good time for this escapade?” Prowl inquired.

He had directed the question to Optimus, but Arcee was quick to pipe up. “I don’t have any scheduled patrols for the rest of the day.” Prowl’s optic twitched minutely; as always, he was thankful for his visor.

“I assumed it would be a solo mission,” he replied, working diligently to keep any annoyance out of his voice.

“I’m afraid that is not a wise idea,” Optimus shook his helm mournfully. “You are unfamiliar with this planet and its rules. It is best if Arcee accompanies you while you search for a vehicular mode that suits your needs.”

Prowl remained silent, only a jerk of his helm showing his assent. He could put up with a babysitter for an hour or two, he supposed.

“If Arcee’s going, can I come?” Jack offered, stepping closer to the blue femme. “Y’know, as an ambassador for the humans,” he added bashfully.

“I believe that would be good for Prowl. Thank you, Jack,” Optimus praised, glancing down at the boy as a small smile graced his face. It was the most emotion Prowl had seen from the bot thus far.

“Hep, hep, wait just one moment! I have not cleared our guest to leave the base, nor partake in any form of joyriding. He is still recovering from his injuries,” Ratchet tutted, wagging a digit in the air as if scolding a newspark.

“Perhaps another scan is in order? I’m feeling much better than yesterday,” Prowl suggested. While he had hoped to go about it in solitude, the idea of getting outside of the restrictive walls of this underground outpost and seeing the unique landscape that awaited him outside was alluring.

After a few muttered complaints about young bots and their belief in their indestructibility, Ratchet reluctantly cast Prowl in the blue glow of his scanner. When the medic looked at the results of the scan, his optic ridges shot up.

“Is that good or bad?” Bumblebee inquired, trying to read off of Ratchet’s screen before the ambulance shooed him away.

“It’s remarkable. The damage to his armor has practically disappeared, and the welds have melded perfectly with his frame,” he sputtered, double checking the reading.

“A testament to your fine work, I’m sure, Ratchet,” Optimus said warmly.

“Yes…my work…” the medic murmured.

“So, am I cleared?” Prowl asked, breaking through whatever stupor Ratchet had descended into.

“Fine, fine, you may go. You’ve interrupted my work for long enough. Come, Rafael, we have much to do.” Waving Prowl off, the medic stooped to allow the smallest of the humans to crawl into his palm, raising the boy up to sit on the central console. The boy opened his backpack, extracting a laptop and settling it comfortably in his lap.

Arcee motioned Prowl closer to the tunnel which he assumed led to the exit from the base. As he approached, the rapid patter of small feet followed him.

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road!” Miko jumped into the air, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Miko, what are you doing?” Bulkhead asked, gazing with tired optics after her, making no move to give chase.

“Giving the new guy a tour. Duh,” she responded, hands placed firmly on her hips.

“And who would you be riding with? Arcee’s not a fan of having two passengers, remember?”

“The new guy.” Her tone suggested that should have been obvious to Bulkhead. A punishing gust of air blew from the large bot’s vents.

“Most Cybertronians don’t appreciate little organic hands all over their frames. You’re gonna have to give him some time to adjust first. Also, you can’t legally drive. Also also, kids don’t typically ride police motorcycles.” With each point Bulkhead made, Miko visibly deflated.

“But he’s not staying forever! I wanted to see some more of him before he leaves,” she whined, throwing her hands up in dismay. In a strange way, Prowl was touched—he knew Miko was only interested in him because he was something unknown, like how Prowl himself might want to study a strange insect he stumbled across in the forest, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

“Perhaps that can be arranged,” Prowl started, his voice coming out of his vocalizer surprisingly softly. He cleared his throat. “I might be convinced to stick around for a while longer.”

It seemed enough to satisfy Miko. She looked up at him again with the same sparkling smile, then skipped over to stand beside Bulkhead’s gigantic pede.

“Well, that’s good enough for me. Come on Bulk, we’ve got some shredding to do!”

As Prowl turned to follow Arcee and Jack, he heard Ratchet’s voice from where he stood at the computer console: “Not in my workspace you’re not!”

The large room disappeared behind them as Jack, Arcee, and Prowl stepped into the tunnel leading towards the outside.

Chapter Text

“Come on, newbie, transform,” Arcee ordered, transforming into her alt mode, pausing to allow Jack to hop aboard, pulling a helmet down over his head. Prowl followed her lead, his t-cog whirring loudly in his audio receptors.

“Your use of the term newbie is unnecessary,” Prowl sighed in annoyance, their engines combining into a unitary hum as they picked up speed through the tunnel, echoing infinitely in the enclosed space surrounding them.

“Of course it’s necessary, you’re new. Hence, newbie. And being a newbie, I get to pull rank and tell you what to do.” An air of smugness emanated from the femme.

“I would like to remind you that I am, in fact, not yet a part of your structure of command, and therefore you hold no rank over me.”

“Whatever you say, newbie.”

Prowl swore he heard Jack’s chuckle over the rumble of his engine. The tunnel extended before them seemingly endlessly, although Prowl could feel the slight incline of the floor underneath his tires as they ascended towards the surface.

“I would recommend using that holoprojector of yours and conjuring yourself up a rider before we exit the base. Humans haven’t invented self-driving motorcycles yet,” Arcee suggested. Prowl could tell she was teasing, but ignored it in favor of following her more practical advice.

Pixels fizzled into existence above his vacant seat as the holoprojector activated. Prowl tilted his side mirrors to get a better look at his human disguise in the dim lighting–it had the same traits as the one he had previously employed in his own world, but everything seemed to have been brought into a sharper focus. The folds of the clothes, the creases of the skin, the flickering of the tunnel lights as they raced across dark sunglasses and a hard, white helmet.

All of it was suddenly awash in harsh daylight as the black mouth of the tunnel spat them out into the endless blazing of the sun. Because Prowl had no optics to blink, he patiently waited for his optical sensors to adjust as he pulled up next to Arcee, who had paused only a few yards away. Stopping beside her, Prowl’s hologram mimicked Jack, who had put a single foot onto the dusty ground in order to remain upright while they were stationary.

Jack nearly fell off of Arcee’s alt mode as he got his first good look at Prowl’s hologram, who was waving in the boy’s direction.

“Woah! That is…really disconcerting,” he breathed, removing his helmet from his head so Prowl could get a good look at the bewildered expression on his face. Prowl’s hologram tilted its head in confusion, a small frown tugging at its lips.

“What is?” Prowl wondered. The hologram’s mouth moved to match his words.

“That!” Jack pointed. “Arcee’s rider doesn’t have a face.”

“Because it’s hard enough to mimic a human’s body language, let alone trying to dissect expressions,” the other Autobot butted in, almost defensively. “Having squishy, nonmetallic faces makes for a wider range of movement, and I have more important things to focus on.”

“Then I suppose I am a quick learner,” Prowl remarked, attempting to keep his smirk off of his human projection. Jack shivered once and turned away, replacing his helmet.

“Where did you even find those clothes? You look like someone pulled you out of an ‘80s buddy cop movie,” he muttered, voice muffled by the helmet’s visor.

“We don’t have all day to waste on the intricacies of human fashion. Let’s get moving!” Arcee whooped, her tires spinning underneath her as she shot off into the desert sands. Prowl followed closely behind, weaving between boulders and sporadic patches of yellow grasses and parched green. The green patches were obviously some kind of organic plant, but he had never encountered anything similar in Detroit. Another oddity of this biome that he would have to study.

Each rise or bump that Prowl passed over jarred him deep into his struts. Having almost exclusively driven on the paved roads of a large human city, he was unaccustomed with offroading, but relished in the untamed nature of their drive. He tamped down a small flicker of disappointment as Arcee turned onto a narrow strip of black cutting through the monotonous orange of the landscape. There were no other vehicles in sight.

Arcee surged down the road ahead of him, kicking the last of the sand off of her tires in a cloud of dust. However, noticing that Prowl had dropped behind, she slowed her pace until she was level with him.

“What’s the hold up? I may not have any more patrols to get to, but this outing shouldn’t take all day,” she chided.

“I am following the speed limit,” Prowl explained simply. He had seen the sign when they first turned onto the road.

“What does a giant alien robot care about the speed limit? Besides, there’s no one else around!” Jack called to him over the sounds of the road before Arcee could get a word in, gesturing towards the empty horizon.

“My understanding is that your operation is meant to be covert. Hence, I am following Earth’s traffic laws.”

“And what do you know about Earth’s traffic laws? If my memory banks serve me well, I don’t remember many similar rules on Cybertron.”

Prowl knew he wasn’t being paranoid when he picked out the very real suspicion underlying Arcee’s line of questioning.

Scrap.

“Like I said, I’m a quick learner. I see a sign that says speed limit, I assume I need to limit my speed.”

It was a poor excuse, even to his own audio receptors. But, by some miracle, it did the trick.

“Well, you won’t be that lucky when guessing most human laws. We’ll find you a new alt mode today, but it might also be a good idea for Jack to coach you through some of the basic rules of the road,” Arcee suggested.

“Yes, that sounds fine,” Prowl agreed, relaxing onto his tires as stress bled from his frame.

Prowl had spent his first several months on Earth immersing himself in human culture along with his studies of nature, not only because it was positively fascinating, but also because it enabled him to do his job more efficiently. To know the difference between a scream of laughter and a scream of terror was very important for a bot tasked with the safety of humans. But now, it was coming back to bite him.

For the duration of their ride, Jack went over several traffic laws, from further explaining speed limits, to the concept of a traffic light. When it was fit, Prowl gave a hum of acknowledgement or his hologram gave a nod, but otherwise his mind was elsewhere. He knew all of this, after all.

What really held his attention was his surroundings. While the environment specific to the Detroit area had been what Prowl was most familiar with, he had done enough research on the planet as a whole to know that Earth contained a multitude of different biomes and climates. He had always wanted to visit other places, study different creatures, but had never had the chance between battling Decepticons and keeping Detroit safe from other threats.

Now, he leapt on this chance.

At first glance, there wasn’t much to see. The ground was almost entirely covered in the same uniform, grainy sand, occasionally broken by a rust red boulder. In the far distance, buttes rose up against the sky, framing the landscape with their rocky faces. But still, life thrived, specifically those sprawling, paddle-shaped plants.

Cactus. The word tugged at Prowl’s processor. Sari must have mentioned them once, or he had read about them somewhere. Adapted specifically to flourish in extreme drought and sun. He would love to get to know them better–maybe he could learn a thing or two about adapting.

The road they followed curved around one of the looming buttes, revealing a small clustering of structures in a valley between plateaus. When thinking of human civilization, Prowl was used to towering skyscrapers, winding and overlapping roadways, and an array of autonomous helper robots. This was certainly…not that.

“And here’s home sweet home: Jasper, Nevada,” Jack finished his lengthy lecture. Prowl heard a slight clearing of the vocal tracts from Arcee.

“Not very trusting, are we?” Prowl commented mildly.

“Come on, Arcee, we passed the welcome sign already. He’s bound to figure it out eventually. Plus, he’s got the Autobot badge, remember?” Jack said, almost as if Prowl weren’t in earshot.

“It’s just strange for an unknown bot to show up out of nowhere,” Arcee grumbled.

“Space is big,” Prowl reminded her. All he received was a huff.

In tandem, the two bikes slowed down as they entered the town of Jasper, side by side. Prowl noted that there were significantly less automatons than he was used to, but chalked it up to a symptom of the rural nature of the town. After the first few stops at traffic lights and stop signs, Jack seemed to trust that Prowl had properly absorbed his quick driving lesson, and eased up on the backseat driving.

They rode around town for over an hour, but Prowl couldn’t find anything suitable to scan. It was obvious he was beginning to frustrate his companions, but this wasn’t a process he wanted to rush.

“What about that one?” Jack asked desperately, pointing to a dirt bike propped against someone’s garage. Prowl gave a disapproving hum.

“It’s too spindly for my tastes, not enough room for armor,” he declined politely. They rolled on down the residential street, but Arcee’s engine was rumbling loudly in agitation.

“Never took me this long to find an alt mode,” she said icily.

“I like to get things right the first time,” Prowl replied, his tone no warmer. Jack, obviously unnerved by the tension between the two bots, looked up and down the street, but failed to find anything remotely close to a motorcycle for Prowl to scan. The best he could do was a bicycle.

“Maybe we could try watching the interstate for a while?” he proposed hopefully. “Or the next town over?”

“Not really looking to go on a road trip,” Arcee remarked. She pulled ahead of Prowl, turning a corner.

“You’re making a pretty big deal out of this, Arcee. Isn’t scanning an alt mode something that’s important for Cybertronians? Doesn’t it make sense Prowl is being careful?” Jack questioned. Arcee wiggled her handlebars in Jack’s grip for a lack of a better way to vent her frustration.

“I just don’t like picky mechs,” she sighed. “It is important, but I’m a little tired of sparkling-sitting duty.”

“Don’t let Prowl hear you say that,” Jack chuckled, then paused. “Speaking of, where is he?”

“What?” Arcee jolted to a stop, forcing herself into a sharp U-turn. Indeed, the road behind her was empty of other vehicles. She quickly backtracked, searching for the other Autobot as she took the corner tightly, before braking, nearly throwing Jack out of her seat. Over Jack’s protests, she hissed, “What is he doing?”

This was one of the newer sections of Jasper, and a house on the block was under construction, the finishing touches being applied before putting the building on the market. In its front yard sat the sprawling form of a prickly pear cactus next to a pile of shovels and clippers. Prowl’s alt mode was parked just beside it, his kickstand down and his holographic projection gone.

The construction workers, seemingly coming back from their lunch break, stared in confusion at the unattended police motorcycle that had suddenly appeared on their work site, owner nowhere to be found. Jack was quick to hop off of Arcee, hurrying to intercept the situation before anything could spiral out of control.

“Hey, kid, what’re you doing?” one of the workers asked, scratching at the hair underneath his hardhat. Jack carefully worked his way around the patch of cactus to place his hands on Prowl’s handlebars, looking apologetically towards the men.

“I’m sorry, I-“

“Hello? Is that Jack?” A voice crackled out from the radio set mounted on the police bike. Prowl felt Jack’s grip tighten on his handlebars in a silent warning, but he saw as the boy reluctantly plucked the transmitter off of the radio, holding it up to his mouth.

Bwip.

“Um, yes?” More static buzzed across the line.

“Ah, good, you found my bike! I had hoped my directions were thorough enough,” Prowl said through the radio set. Jack’s confusion was palpable as he shared bewildered glances with the construction workers.

Bwip.

“Why did you send me to find it, again?”

“Well, I had left it on that property to run back to the station and get the proper papers for the court order, but you must notify the workers there that they are not to remove the cactus next to which I left my motorcycle.”

Bwip.

“I can do that, but why?”

“That cactus is the residence of several juvenile avians, and it would put unnecessary stress on the local environment and the birds themselves to remove their habitat,” Prowl explained.

He resisted the urge to angle his side mirrors downwards to see the creatures of which he spoke, but Jack had clearly caught sight of them by now, several yellow eyes blinking up at them from a hole burrowed within the safe recesses of the cactus. Prowl heard Jack sigh as the boy turned fully to talk to the construction workers.

“Sorry guys, the cop who owns this bike says you can’t take out that cactus,” he relayed reluctantly.

“As we’ve heard,” sniffed one of the grizzly men, his eyebrows raised in slight disbelief.

“He said something about a court order, though. Wouldn’t it be best just to leave it alone?” muttered another. A worker in the back sighed—Prowl saw on his nametag that he was the supervisor of the project.

“I suppose the cactus can stay. Our employers asked for it to be removed, but I don’t see the harm in leaving it be. It’ll be the homeowner’s problem, and less work for us,” he conceded. A burble of static passed quietly over the radio set as Prowl hummed in satisfaction. The supervisor’s eyes narrowed at the sound, and Jack shot Prowl a quick, scathing glare. “Hey, how do you even know the owner of this bike, kid?”

“I’m his, uh, nephew.” Jack supplied. To save him further strife, Prowl came over the radio once more.

“Oh, Jack? I have the papers organized now. Please bring my bike to the station so I may return to the construction site promptly.”

Bwip.

“Will do,” Jack grumbled, replacing the transmitter back onto the radio set. As he began rolling Prowl off of the property, the supervisor called after them.

“Tell your uncle not to bother coming back! We got the message loud and clear.” 

He did not sound happy at having his work interrupted. Jack’s only response was a backwards nod as they rounded the corner, finding someone much more peeved waiting for them. If she were in bipedal mode, Prowl had no doubt she would have slapped him.

“What in the name of the Allspark were you thinking?! You can’t just go galavanting around making casual conversation with humans!” Arcee sputtered in outrage, pushing towards Prowl. Wiggling himself free of Jack’s grasp, he popped his kickstand out, not having the energy to put towards crafting a believable holoprojection. Arcee followed suit.

“It was an important conversation. I thought a large part of the mission of the Autobots on Earth revolved around protecting the native lifeforms,” Prowl defended himself. He understood her concern for blowing their cover, but surely she could see it wasn’t from a place of malice or incompetence.

“Yes, human lifeforms. Sentient lifeforms. Those are burrowing owls! They live everywhere in this desert, and they won’t miss one measly plant,” she retorted.

“Measly!” Prowl scoffed in indignation, but held himself back from arguing further. If he revealed too much about his knowledge of Earth’s ecosystem, he might jeopardize his cover story, and then he’d really be ‘up a creek without a paddle.’ That may be one of his favorite human phrases.

No!

It was thinking like that that would get him in trouble. 

Arcee may not agree with my methods, but at least the cactus and the birds are safe, he thought contentedly.

Jack had, by that point, taken a seat on the curb, his helmet cradled in his lap as both he and Prowl were subjected to a lecture by Arcee. Something about the importance of maintaining a low profile, which Prowl was already aware of.

However, something else had caught his attention, and whatever snippets of Arcee’s speech Prowl did manage to catch quickly disappeared into the depths of his memory core.

Across the street was a motorcycle. However, unlike the two dozen they had already seen within the day, this one was in almost every way identical to Prowl’s own alt mode, minus one important aspect: his sirens.

It was perfect.

“One moment please,” Prowl excused himself, cutting Arcee off mid sentence as he righted himself and drifted into the middle of the street, carefully keeping an optic out for any potential witnesses to the self-driving motorcycle.

“Prowl! Get back here!” Arcee demanded. Prowl crept closer to the other bike, readying the sequence within his t-cog required to scan a new form. When he was within range, a bright green light swept out from his headlights, engulfing the other vehicle within its dazzle. As the scan completed, Prowl felt his plating readjust to the new mode comfortably. All that had changed was the disappearance of his sirens and any markings designating him as an emergency vehicle.

“Really?” Jack had strode up next to him without his notice. “You look…exactly the same. Wouldn’t you want to change things up a little?” he asked curiously.

“I know my tastes,” was Prowl’s simple reply. Arcee rolled up beside the two, motioning for Jack to climb on, who quickly obliged.

“We’re going back to base. I’m sure this has been enough excitement for your first day out,” Arcee remarked dryly.

Prowl summoned back his human holoprojection, but accounting for his change in alt mode, he made a few tweaks to the fake human’s appearance. He kept its pants and boots the same, but swapped out the emblazoned police uniform for a sleek, nondescript black leather jacket, and gave the helmet a new black sheen. The sunglasses, of course, remained unchanged.

“I would say so,” he replied, a smile tugging at his projection’s face. He took off down the road ahead of Arcee and Jack.

It didn’t take them nearly as long to return to base as it did to arrive in Jasper, seeing as Prowl was a bit more comfortable bending the speed limit now that he wasn’t so concerned about drawing attention. He skidded to a halt as both he and Arcee emerged into the main chamber, its only occupants being Ratchet, as usual, and Optimus Prime.

Almost immediately upon entering, Arcee waited for Jack to hop off before transforming and walking rather quickly to speak with the Prime. Prowl had quite a good guess as to what she intended to discuss with him, and decided not to follow her.

In the meantime, and still in his alt mode, Prowl turned his attention towards Ratchet.

“Is this vehicle mode more to your liking?” he called, waving the arm of his holoprojection to gain Ratchet’s attention. The larger bot looked down at him with a raised optic ridge.

“Yes, I would say so,” the medic settled on, turning back to his work with no more than a dismissive nod in Prowl’s direction. Satisfied that he had completed one mission, Prowl’s holoprojection turned to address Jack as another began to form in his processor.

“Jack, if I could ask a favor of you?” he inquired politely.

“Just so long as it doesn’t require covering for any more of your weird stunts,” the boy sighed, looking distinctly uncomfortable as his eyes rested anywhere but on Prowl’s holoprojection.

“I assure you, I had no ill intentions, and I apologize for putting you in such a predicament. What I am asking is blameless,” Prowl guaranteed.

“Sure, just…could you transform into bot mode?” Jack asked tentatively, choosing his words carefully. Without a second thought, Prowl complied, although he remained on one knee so as to more easily talk with the human.

“May I ask why?”

“Your rider gives me serious creeps. It’s way too uncanny,” Jack explained.

“Uncanny? I’m not familiar with this term,” Prowl stated candidly.

“You know, something that looks real but doesn’t feel real. Like how your projection looks human but I know it isn’t. It’s just really weird to talk to,” Jack said, scratching at the back of his neck in embarrassment. Prowl nodded sagely.

“That was not my intention, my apologies. I will keep it in mind for the future,” he promised. Jack, from the looks of things, was relieved, but still somewhat on edge.

“About your favor-?”

“Oh, yes. I wanted to request that you acquire and bring to me a book on the local flora and fauna of your home.” At this, Jack paused, squinting up at Prowl like a puzzle he had just lost a piece to. The boy glanced over at Arcee, but she was still engrossed in conversation with Optimus.

“But…why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you, a giant, alien, warrior robot, have any interest in the organic lifeforms of Earth?” He appeared to be at a complete loss.

“It is a personal interest of mine. I find myself connected to this planet in more ways than one,” Prowl said. Seeming to accept that answer as the best he would be receiving, Jack nodded slowly.

“Yeah, I think I can manage that. But how are you going to read it? Humans don’t exactly have Cybertronian sized books.”

“I have my ways,” Prowl chuckled. Noticing Arcee’s approach with Optimus in tow, Prowl stood up to greet them.

“Arcee has informed me of your adventures from the day,” the large mech began, his stoic face giving nothing away of his thoughts.

“I understand it may have been out of line, but I have reasonable cause,” Prowl was quick to defend his actions. Arcee was casting him a frustrated stare, but he kept his optics locked on the Prime.

“That I’m sure you do. You do not strike me as a reckless mech, Prowl, and for that reason I will give you no more than a stern word this time,” Optimus nodded. “But please keep in mind that it is imperative to both the safety of this planet and its sentient inhabitants that we keep our existence here a secret.”

“It will not happen again,” Prowl assured. He was very eager for this conversation to be over, but the Prime surprised him.

“According to Arcee’s report, you seem to be adapting quickly to Earth. Our team had quite the steep learning curve when we first arrived here,” he commended.

“If that is what you observe,” Prowl replied neutrally. He had to be a bit more careful in how he conducted himself in relation to his knowledge of the planet from now on, he decided.

“I know it is quite early in your visit here, but I would like to reiterate the offer to make a more permanent residence at this outpost.”

Prowl’s optic ridges raised in obvious surprise. These bots seemed extremely eager to incorporate him into their team. But that nagging guilt still tugged at the back of his processor.

“This planet has its merits,” Prowl began slowly, watching closely for any slight twitch in the Prime’s face, “but I would still like to explore all of my options before making a decision.”

Optimus Prime’s only response was a single dip of his helm. “Then allow us to continue hosting you.” And he walked away.

“Hey, Arcee!” piped up a voice from beside Prowl’s pede. He had briefly forgotten Jack’s presence, but the boy jogged over to stand beside Arcee. Prowl would need to be much more observant of his surroundings within the base—one slip of his attention could result in serious injury to one of its human residents. “Want to go out for another ride? Just the two of us?” he inquired.

Arcee cast a glance Prowl’s way when he was sure she thought he wasn’t looking, but it was too quick for him to decipher whatever emotion had flickered across her face. “I can get behind that.”

The fading roar of Arcee’s engine left only Prowl, Ratchet, and Optimus in the command center. Nodding to the medic and the taller mech as he passed by, Prowl could no longer deny how wonderful the prospect of solitude sounded as he made his way back to his room.

Five days had passed, and Prowl was beginning to settle into a routine. He would come out of recharge and climb down from his makeshift hammock, which had held up surprisingly well, and for the hour or so before he was scheduled to emerge and retrieve his energon ration, he would meditate, as he was doing now.

Prowl’s room slowly faded away from his consciousness as he focused in on the rhythm of air cycling through his vents. Back in his home world, he had always used his sparkbeat as a grounding method to begin his meditation, but for whatever reason, it had become unusually quiet within his own audio receptors as of late.

This was Prowl’s thinking time. He knew the basic idea behind meditation was to think of nothing at all, to empty your worries into the ethos and let your mind slide away into silence, but he found the time much more well spent dissecting his worries than merely pushing them to the side.

As Prowl hovered at the precipice between the familiar lull of contentment and alertness, his most pressing concern bubbled up to the front of his processor almost immediately: What exactly was his next move?

A routine meant he was settling, and Prowl couldn’t deny that he was beginning to feel comfortable inside this strange and backwards base. Not only comfortable navigating the winding tunnels and caverns, but also with the bots who resided within it. But what really bugged him was that he couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not.

On one servo, he knew for the sake of his prolonged survival that it was necessary he stick with this team and make things work. Prowl may be an expert in stealth, but there was no telling what small slip up could send him careening into the grip of a Decepticon eager to tear him limb from limb should he brave the wild. It would always be safer for him here than anywhere else he might make camp.

On the other servo, there was the part of Prowl that still resided in Detroit, and the many unanswered questions he still had regarding his arrival in Nevada. The open road called to him–the need to escape these imposters and forge his own path as he had once done before in deep space–and he was growing more and more tempted to answer.

It was foolish, but Prowl was a sentimental bot. In a way, he felt like he was betraying his own team by accepting his place in this new one.

This was how the past few days of meditation had gone as well. It was a circular train of thought, dragging him around and around on a wild goose chase, but still the answer never seemed any clearer. What didn’t help was the buzzing.

He had noticed it that first day he had stayed in his room, but he had dismissed it as an oddity of the base. And maybe it was still merely a machine running somewhere within the caverns that Prowl hadn’t found the source of, but it only appeared when he entered a state of meditation. And it was getting louder each day.

Now, instead of a faraway buzzing at the edge of his awareness, it was a persistent drone inside his audio receptors. He made it to the required hour of his meditation, but near the end the sound had begun to grate on his nerves. As Prowl stood and stretched his limbs, it faded into silence.

Another thing to add to his list of strange occurrences within this new world.

The only part of his routine that was strictly enforced by outside sources were his energon rations. He walked towards the impromptu mess hall, taking his time to appreciate the quiet of the base. Whatever that buzzing was, he was almost certain by this point that no external factors were involved.

His navigation hub had fleshed out almost every main passageway within the outpost, so he didn’t worry too much about getting lost now.

Passing through the command center and into the mess hall, Prowl leaned against the doorway as the other Autobots chattered amongst themselves.

He never bothered to insert himself into these intimate conversations. It was not a mission or a matter of safety, and he was not obligated to be social. He was more comfortable taking his energon in his room, anyway. It maximized the time he spent in peaceful solitude.

Ratchet dished out the energon as usual, and Prowl took his leave as soon as the cube was placed in his servos. Bumblebee had stopped asking him to stay after the third or fourth meal, but the extra chair was still taking up room at the table. His chair, waiting for when he would be ready. If he would ever be ready.

But that was not today.

Prowl returned to his room, drank his energon, and then sat in silence. He desperately wished for some kind of reading material to occupy the time, but the prospect of asking was still too daunting with these strange bots.

After an hour of trying to evade thinking while also having no distractions, Prowl stepped back outside of his room, at a loss for what exactly he wanted to do. Going to the command center was a no go—he wasn’t in the mood to deal with the other Autobots. The only other locations Prowl was aware of inside the base were the mess hall, another no-go, and…the training room.

Without his prompting, Prowl’s pedes had already turned to carry him deeper into the base. A bit of practice would be just the thing to keep his processor occupied. It had been such a long time since he had a genuine, disciplined training session that Prowl had the slight worry that he might be growing rusty in his cyberninja skills. Although he had only been to the room once, he was able to guide himself without problem along the correct passageway.

However, as he neared the training room, a noise reached his audio receptors that practically made him wilt.

Screeching, shaking, audial-shattering music. Human music.

He stood for a moment just out of view of the cavern, contemplating simply turning around and going back to his room. Ideally, he could escape outside and find a quiet crevasse to practice in, but he knew after his last stunt that he wouldn’t be let out of the base without supervision, and the idea of having someone overseeing his training reminder him a little too closely of his time spent at the dojo in all the worst ways.

The prospects that waited for him if he should turn back surfaced in his processor. Continue to wallow in his room, listen to Ratchet’s grouchy voice in the command center, or wander the endless, identical halls of the inner guts of the base. Out of everything, the training room seemed to be his most interesting option.

Forcing himself into motion, Prowl rounded the corner and began his march forward. Bulkhead took up the majority of his vision, his hulking mass occupying the middle of the large cavern that made up the training room. He was flipping his servos rapidly between a mace and a blaster as he whipped his frame in different directions. 

Some kind of reaction time training, Prowl surmised.

As he approached, something else surfaced over the roar of the music. A small, feminine voice.

“Blaster, right! Mace, up! Mace, down! Servo, forward!” Miko, who Prowl assumed was in control of the music, was directing Bulkhead’s movements. Sounds boomed and bounced so rapidly around the expansive space that Prowl leaned against the doorway unnoticed for some time, merely watching as Bulkhead and the human continued their exercise.

Prowl’s original assessment had placed Miko in the same space that Sari occupied within his processor. They were both humans, both young girls–although he knew Sari had been younger, before her upgrade–both full of energy, and apparently sharing a love for loud music. However, the more Prowl observed, the more differences he was able to find.

Miko contained an intensity that Sari lacked. She strummed at her guitar like it might be the last thing she ever did. Their senses of fashion also differed. Sari enjoyed a simple wardrobe of dresses in soft colors, whereas Miko dressed in harsh blacks and grays with bright pops of color, even in her hair. It was fascinating.

“Come on, Bulk, I know you can move faster than that!” she shouted, a particularly large squeal emitting from the amplifier propped next to her. Bulkhead sighed, slumping down as the mace at the end of his arm transformed back into a servo.

“Miko, we’ve been doing this for a while already. Don’t you want to take a break? Maybe–Oh, hey.” Bulkhead cut off his suggestion as his blue optics locked onto Prowl.

“Don’t let my presence interrupt your training, I am merely observing,” Prowl assured, waving his servo in a dismissive manner. Bulkhead’s face lit up, and Prowl could visibly see the gears turning within his processor.

“Why don’t you join us then?” the green mech offered, his face open and inviting. Prowl tensed ever so slightly.

“No, thank you. I prefer to train alone.”

“Aww, but Bulkhead never spars with anybot,” Miko whined, an accompanying downward riff exemplifying her upset.

“Because I don’t want to accidentally hurt anyone. I’m the biggest mech around–aside from Optimus, of course,” Bulkhead reminded the girl. “Besides, I didn’t say spar. I meant something more recreational.”

A small flame ignited in Prowl’s spark. The way Bulkhead spoke of his teammates, it seemed as if he feared hurting them because they were smaller. Prowl was now being lumped into that same category. If anything, it sounded like a challenge.

“You know, I may be up for a little sparring,” he declared abruptly, pushing himself up and off of the doorway. Bulkhead looked slightly taken aback.

“No, really, it’s alright. I wouldn’t want to aggravate your injuries.”

“My injuries are healing just fine. In fact, Ratchet gave me a completely clean bill of health yesterday. Besides, I have been in combat with mechs far larger than you and come out unscathed.” Prowl didn’t really mean for the last sentence to have such a bite, but Bulkhead definitely picked up on it.

“Is that so?” he drawled, an optic ridge raised.

“I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t.” Bulkhead paused for a moment, then shook his helm with a huffed laugh.

“You got some spirit, I’ll tell you that. Miko–” She perked up at the mention of her name, “–take your amp with you over to the wall and stay with it. Wouldn’t want you getting in the crossfire,” Bulkhead ordered. The girl complied eagerly, practically vibrating with excitement.

“Bot fight, bot fight!” she continually whispered to herself, giggling all the way. Safely tucked against the far wall, she looked on with glee, her guitar leaning at her side, forgotten.

“Alright, what’re the rules?” Bulkhead asked, using the time to stretch out his limbs.

“Servo to servo. No blasters, and no maces–in exchange, I will not use any of my own modifications,” Prowl stated with a slight smirk.

“Winner declared?”

“When the other forfeits.”

“Your move, then.”

Prowl bowed politely as the match began. Bulkhead had already shifted into a defensive stance, clearly waiting for Prowl to launch his attack.

Prowl knew this was not a fight he could win by sheer force. Sure, he packed a larger punch than most mechs expected from him, but he certainly wouldn’t be toppling any mechs of Bulkhead’s size, especially in this new, smaller frame. He had to be a little more creative.

The shock on Bulkhead’s face suggested he was not expecting Prowl to make an immediate frontal assault. As Prowl’s pedes tapped against the floor on his headlong charge towards Bulkhead, the green mech pulled his arms tighter against his chassis, forming a protective barrier in front of his more vital components.

At the last moment, and before Bulkhead could unfurl from his defensive position, Prowl veered to the right, a grating screech filling the cavern as he scraped the sharp tips of his digits along Bulkhead’s arm, peeled paint fluttering to the ground. He quickly danced out of Bulkhead’s reach before the larger could make a grab for him, shifting from pede to pede like a dancer waiting for his next cue.

“Oho, so it’s gonna be like that?” the other Autobot laughed, the sound reverberating within his chest cavity, deep and booming.

“Not your style?” Prowl inquired, a teasing lilt in his voice.

“I can handle a little scratched paint.”

Bulkhead moved slowly, but there was no doubting the power behind each of his swings. Prowl dodged his first two strikes with ease, but a hidden right hook caught him on the shoulder in a glancing blow. It only hurt for a moment, but it jarred him out of his rhythm, forcing him to back out of Bulkhead’s reach once again.

Prowl looked onto the battlefield with narrowed optics. Bulkhead was obviously pulling his punches so as to not seriously damage Prowl, but it didn’t change the fact that he would not be able to tank as many hits as a mech larger than him might. He would need to stay well out of reach of those servos, or the fight would be over before it truly began.

“Not your style?” Bulkhead parroted lightheartedly, shaking out each arm before returning to his defensive stance.

“Just takes a little adjusting,” Prowl replied evenly. Once more, he raced forward, although this time, his trajectory veered to the left. Bulkhead made a move to grab Prowl, or knock him off of his path–and only managed to snatch empty air. Prowl dropped and slid between the larger bot’s pedes, twisting as he stood to grab ahold of the green plating on Bulkhead’s back.

Bulkhead turned in a circle, confusion written clearly across his frame, as Prowl used the seams in the green mech’s armor to scale his back like a particularly crafty spider.

“Where’d you- Hey!” Bulkhead’s question morphed into outrage as Prowl clamped his servos down over Bulkhead’s optics from behind. Disoriented, the larger mech stumbled, making blind grabs for Prowl, which were easily dodged.

“Yeah, you get ‘im, Prowl! Show him who’s boss!” Miko shouted from the sideline, fist pumping in the air.

“Miko! You’re supposed to be on my side,” Bulkhead gasped in mock offense, Prowl still clinging like an unwanted bug to his back plating.

“You can’t win all the time. Let the new guy have some glory!” she cheered. Deciding he had had his fun, Prowl gracefully dismounted from Bulkhead’s shoulder with a flip, landing neatly in front of him.

“Don’t give me your pity victories,” Prowl chided, only partially serious.

“Pity my aft! That was a neat trick,” Bulkhead complimented, a wide grin splitting his faceplates.

“There are more where that came from,” Prowl assured, already mapping out his next move in his processor.

They sparred like that for a good while. Prowl was able to get more licks in than Bulkhead, but by the end, his frame was littered with twice as many dents. To his credit, it was ultimately Bulkhead who capitulated first, backing down after a particularly nasty flying kick to the helm.

Now, Bulkhead sat next to Prowl on the floor as they both recovered their energy after the match, once more serenaded by Miko’s guitar skills.

“Thanks for letting Miko play,” Bulkhead said loudly enough for Prowl to hear, but Miko was too enraptured by her music to pay them any attention.

“Hm? Oh, yes. I don’t mind it,” Prowl responded. He found it to be the truth. He had never been a particular fan of Sari’s music, and he couldn’t say he was especially fond of Miko’s, but something about the way it filtered through his audio receptors was soothing. It was a true expression of the soul.

“Really? Most bots hate it. Ratchet can’t stand it. That’s why we gotta come down here,” Bulkhead chuckled.

“At least she has amiable company.”

Miko’s guitar filled the silence between Prowl and Bulkhead.

These Autobots seemed extremely fond of their human charges. Prowl’s team had always doted on Sari, especially before her upgrade, but he couldn’t imagine the stress of having three Saris running around their base at a time. It was difficult enough keeping the one out of trouble. Perhaps that was why these Autobots had seemed to pick out specific guardians for each of the children. A sort of buddy system to keep things in check.

Prowl’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden absence of screeching guitar, and he gazed down to find Miko looking up at him imploringly.

“So will you do it again?” she asked without preamble.

“Do what?”

“Come and spar with Bulk! It was awesome to watch.”

“Miko, he’s not staying–”

“I’ll consider it.” Bulkhead glanced at Prowl in surprise. “But first I need to buff out these dents. They impede my aerodynamic frame.” Miko’s smile brightened.

“You’re gonna start sounding like a Seeker if you keep up with that talk,” Bulkhead laughed. “Autobots wear their dents with pride.”

“Well this Autobot cares to keep himself in good shape.” Prowl stood, and despite the flat tone of his voice, a small smile tugged at the edges of his intake. As Prowl walked towards the exit, Miko called after him.

“See you again, right?”

At the doorway, Prowl turned and nodded before disappearing back into the hallway.

Chapter Text

As it turned out, Bulkhead was serious about the Autobots’ pride in battle scars. After searching for nearly an hour, the best Prowl was able to scrounge up was a buffer that looked like it had lived through the entirety of the Golden Age, and which he was fairly certain would scratch his finish more than it would polish it.

Deciding against using the buffer, Prowl spent the evening in his room manually taking off sections of his armor and popping the dents back into place. As much as Bulkhead talked about pride, Prowl was equally serious about his aerodynamics. He was a mech that relied on swiftness, and anything that inhibited his range of movement would certainly slow him in battle. He couldn’t do much about the scratches to his paint, but the cosmetic side of things didn’t bother him nearly as much as the practical side.

The next morning went much the same as the one before. Prowl climbed down from his hammock and spent an hour meditating—although the thrumming in his audio receptors was really starting to get on his nerves. Perhaps he should ask Ratchet to check that his sensors were properly calibrated.

He took his energon ration back to his room and drank it in silence, as usual.

And just the same as the day before, Prowl found himself with nothing to do. Boredom had never been a problem for him in his own room when he had an entire ecosystem to study at any given moment in his tree, but these new quarters were distinctly lacking in greenery. He also had yet to acquire any reading material.

After another half hour of being sedentary, Prowl came to the conclusion that now would be a good time to stock up on some literature, if he were going to be confronted with many more mornings like this.

He figured the best place to start looking would be the central command center. He hadn’t seen any datapads near the main console, but Ratchet was bound to have something, even if they were of the medical variety. After his near-death experience, Prowl could do with a bit of first aid knowledge.

As Prowl approached the gaping cavern which housed the groundbridge, an unfamiliar voice reached his audio receptors. He slowed his steps to a crawl, careful not to make a sound as he stalked closer to investigate.

“-and I haven’t heard anything from Team Prime in over a week! My superiors require regular check-ins to keep this operation running smoothly. They’re all in a tizzy, breathing down my neck and threatening to pull their support,” the voice grouched.

“And Team Prime can assure them that such an incident will not occur again,” Ratchet’s voice replied. By the edge in his tone, Prowl surmised that this conversation had already gone on for quite some time.

“So? What’s the status report? Any luck fending off the ‘Cons? And where is the rest of your team, anyway?”

“Currently all out on patrol,” Ratchet replied. “Which, may I remind you, is how we keep you humans safe.”

So the voice belonged to another human, then. Prowl had assumed it was only the children who knew of the Autobots’s existence here, but it seemed that assumption had been incorrect.

Ratchet continued: “The status of the Decepitcons remains unchanged. We have been keeping close tabs on their energon mining operations, and currently they are keeping far away from densely populated areas. We will update you if circumstances change.”

Prowl snuck a glance around the corner of the hallway. Ratchet was facing away from him, speaking to a human standing on the mezzanine. The human—a man—was pudgy and dark-skinned, wearing a rumpled gray suit. He reminded Prowl strongly of Chief Fanzone. Perhaps he was a police officer as well?

Prowl ducked back into the shadows before he could be spotted.

Silence lapsed between the two in the cavern. Prowl heard the shuffling of Ratchet’s pedes as he returned to his post at the groundbridge console.

“And you’re sure you’re not hiding anything?” the human implored.

“Nothing at all, Agent Fowler.”

“Prime has been very evasive in answering my calls, you know-“

“What reason do we have to hide anything from your government?” Ratchet burst out, evidently at the end of his patience.

“You tell me, because clearly something has gotten under that thick metal skin of yours.”

A puff of air exited Ratchet’s vents.

“It’s nothing.”

“So you ARE hiding something!” Agent Fowler leapt on the break in Ratchet’s facade. “What’s this ‘nothing’ that’s so inconsequential you don’t even feel the need to inform me about it? The ‘nothing’ that has been sending my calls to voicemail for a week?”

“Prime didn’t wish to inform you, the situation is still unclear. Our guest may not-“

“GUEST?!” Agent Fowler’s voice rose to a high-pitched squawk. “What do you mean guest? I thought you had told us about all the bots on this God-forsaken planet!”

“It is a very recent development,” Ratchet defended himself. ”There was no guarantee that he would become a permanent resident on our team, so we figured it would be easiest if the problem resolved itself.”

“Oh, so I’m a problem now?” Prowl questioned as he stepped out into view of the two occupants of the room. A set of eyes and a set of optics whipped in his direction, one in shock, and the other in exasperation. Ratchet’s voicebox let out a series of irritated hisses as he struggled to regain control of himself as Prowl came to stand beside him.

“Prime had explicit orders-“

“I don’t care WHAT Prime’s orders were!” Agent Fowler interrupted Ratchet’s reprimand aimed at Prowl. “Who in the name of Uncle Sam’s polka-dotted pajama pants is this?”

“My designation is Prowl.”

“And how exactly did you end up in the company of MY charges?”

Prowl could feel Ratchet’s gaze burning into the back of his helm, but he ignored the medic. “My vessel crashed on Earth and I was rescued from a platoon of Vehicons by your ‘Team Prime,’” he explained simply. Agent Fowler looked about ready to blow a blood vessel. “And for the record, I was not given orders by Optimus to keep myself hidden from any humans who already know of our existence. Who might this be?”

Before any more expletives could pour from Agent Fowler’s mouth, Ratchet butted in. “This is our liaison to the human government on whose land our base of operations resides.”

“Agent Fowler,” the man introduced himself. Although his shoulders were still stiff with tension, he walked up to the railing of the mezzanine and stuck his hand out for a shake. Prowl obliged, holding out a single digit. “I wish we could have met under better circumstances.” A scathing glare was sent Ratchet’s direction, to which the medic promptly scoffed to himself.

“So, what was the reason behind Prime ordering such secrecy?” Prowl inquired. He couldn’t think of what advantage keeping Prowl’s presence at the base on the down low could offer, but then again, these bots had different relationships with the humans of this world.

“As I said before, we weren’t certain if your residence would become permanent. He thought it best not to stir the pot–metaphorically speaking–if you were going to be gone within the week.”

“Is it an issue that I am here unaccounted for?” The question was directed at Agent Fowler, but he was once more cut off by Ratchet.

“Certainly not. The human government doesn’t need to know the exact whereabouts of every single Cybertronian on Earth. Not even we do,” he huffed, rolling his optics at the last part.

“That’s where you and I disagree, Doctor,” Fowler crossed his arms. “It’s my job to keep an eye on you and your team, and that includes any other Autobots on Earth. It’s a matter of national security.”

“Then you will have to take that up with Optimus,” Ratchet sighed, shaking his helm and returning to monitor duty. Fowler’s attention was almost immediately riveted solely onto Prowl.

“So you’re new to Earth, then?” he asked. Although he stood on the mezzanine, Prowl still had to angle his face downwards to properly speak with the man.

“I suppose you would consider me new,” he conceded.

“Has Team Prime shown you the ropes? You’re not sticking your neck out into trouble, are you?” Agent Fowler grilled further.

“I was escorted by Jack and Arcee when in search of a new alt mode. I have not been left unaccompanied when leaving the base, and I am following human traffic protocols,” Prowl assured. He knew he was evading Fowler’s actual question, but the man seemed satisfied enough. In the brief pause in their conversation, Fowler squinted down at Prowl’s pedes.

“So you’re like Arcee, then?”

Prowl was thrown by the sudden change in topic.

“In what way?”

“You’re both motorcycles, right?”

“Yes, both of our alt modes are based on two wheels. I’m surprised you could tell as much based solely on my root mode.”

“I suppose I’ve been hanging around the Autobots too much,” Agent Fowler chuckled, mostly to himself. The grin was quickly wiped off his face as he raised an accusatory finger at Prowl. “You don’t talk back like her, do you?”

“Only if the situation requires it.”

“I don’t like your answer, soldier.”

A sudden flurry of movement from Ratchet drew both of their attention towards the ground bridge. Already, the swirling green vortex had materialized, and Ratchet stood beside the activation lever, ever attentive.

Through the groundbridge walked Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, side by side. Although there was no visible change to the mech’s face as his battle mask retracted, Prowl swore he caught a tightening of the Prime’s armor as his optics locked onto Prowl and Agent Fowler.

“Bumblebee, please inform Ratchet of our findings,” Optimus ordered as he approached the mezzanine. The yellow mech nodded, splitting away from his leader.

“Prime! You’ve got some explaining to do.” In spite of his small size, Agent Fowler’s voice carried easily across the open cavern.

“What seems to be the issue, Agent Fowler?” the Prime asked, as polite as ever. He was not the type of bot to rise to Fowler’s bait. Evidently, Fowler was well versed in this song and dance, as he puffed up even further.

“This one here–” Fowler made a gesture towards Prowl, “–has been living in your base completely off the radar for over a week! My superiors will not be pleased to hear about this.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Agent Fowler, but Prowl is a passing guest. I assumed it would not be worth your time to inform you.”

Seeming to reassess the situation, the man lost some of his bravado, slumping against the railing.

“Listen, I trust you ‘Bots, and I know you’ve always got the good of humanity on those tin can brains of yours, but Washington doesn’t. The next time you have a guest ‘passing through,’ I expect to be in the know.”

Prime dipped his helm with closed optics, although Prowl couldn’t tell if it was out of respect or exhaustion. “Understood, Agent Fowler. Now, concerning some new movements of the Decepticon army–”

Although Prowl knew it would be in his best interest to stick around and listen to Prime’s update to Fowler, Bumblebee’s animated gesturing to Ratchet quickly distracted him. He drifted closer to where the two stood by the groundbridge control, trying not to make it too obvious he was eavesdropping.

“Come on, Ratchet, I’ve been on dozens of missions like this. What’s different this time?” Bumblebee buzzed, throwing his servos down in a fit of frustration.

“What’s different is that I don’t want you poking around a mine the Decepticons have taken a special interest in, especially when said mine is in a communications dead zone. It’s too risky!” Ratchet shot back, optics firmly fixed on the green hologram in front of him.

“I’m a scout. This is what I’m trained for, for Primus’s sake! We don’t know why Knock Out is at that mine, but wouldn’t it be in our best interests to find out? The Decepticons are very protective of their only medic–he wouldn’t be there just to stretch his wheels,” Bumblebee argued, to which Ratchet’s shoulders visibly slumped.

“Bumblebee, it is not–”

“What if Bumblebee didn’t go alone?” Prowl interrupted. Bumblebee’s optics whirred in surprise at the sudden intrusion, but Ratchet didn’t even turn away from his screen.

“Don’t even think about it. Bumblebee will have to wait for Bulkhead or Arcee to return from their patrols. You have no field experience–”

“–which you’re assuming, and which you’re wrong about. My cyberninja training focused on stealth and reconnaissance. Just because I’m not a soldier doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced combat,” Prowl argued.

Both mechs looked at him in surprise. Maybe he had made his point a bit too forcefully.

“I mean, he did mangle those Vehicons pretty badly,” Bumblebee pointed out.

“May I remind you that one of your weapons is still broken?” Ratchet scoffed.

“Then I will go with one. The point of scouting is to remain unseen—we wouldn’t be expecting a fight anyway.” And now, for the nail in the coffin: “Besides, even if you refuse, he’ll figure out a way to go anyway.” Ratchet leaned against his console, sagging under the weight of his frustration. Bumblebee fidgeted with his servos, attempting to look guilty and failing miserably.

“And you would know how?” the medic grumbled.

“Educated guess.”

Ratchet heaved himself up, disappearing into the medbay without a word.

“It’s no easy task to talk Ratchet down. You’re a natural. But, really, I don’t need an escort. If anything, you—“

“Do you want to go on this mission or not?” Prowl asked, optic ridge raised.

“Point taken.”

“Just as much as I believe you can handle yourself, I need you to trust that I can, as well,” Prowl implored, to which he received a reluctant nod. Ratchet returned shortly after, shoving Prowl’s remaining shuriken into his servos.

“Don’t break this one, too. I only have so many tools to do repairs, and I would prefer not to dull them unnecessarily,” the medic threatened as he stepped towards the activation lever for the ground bridge. Prowl tucked the shuriken away safely, relishing in its comforting weight.

“So you/ve managed to convince Ratchet, Bumblebee?” Optimus questioned as Ratchet prepared to open the groundbridge.

“Sure did! With a little help,” the yellow mech twittered back playfully, nudging Prowl minutely.

“I hope it won’t be too much of a hassle if I tag along,” Prowl added.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Prime? I don’t want some rookie blowing our cover,” Fowler demanded.

“I don’t see the issue, Agent Fowler. After all, Prowl will be under the careful guidance of Bumblebee, and the mine they are intending to investigate is far from the nearest human town,” Optimus reasoned.

Prowl was a little surprised himself that the Prime was so quick to agree to the mission, but he supposed it was an easy and relatively low-risk way to see how Prowl might operate in the field.

Seeing that he was fighting a losing battle, Fowler pointed his finger at Prowl once more. “You better be on your best behavior!” he reminded sharply.

“Wouldn’t dream of anything otherwise,” Prowl responded drily. The groundbridge was active, and the violent mix of colors invited him into the unknown. As Prowl and Bumblebee prepared to depart, Ratchet called out after them.

“Remember, it’s a communications dead zone! I will have this bridge open again in exactly one Earth hour. Be back by then at the same site where I will drop you off.”

“We got it,” Bumblebee reassured, sending a backwards thumbs up to the medic as the two disappeared into the portal.

Prowl felt his fuel tanks flip as he passed through the gateway, but the sensation was not unfamiliar. He had felt the same passing through spacebridges. He really needed to figure out the difference between the two.

As soon as Bumblebee’s pedes hit the leaf litter, he set off at a brisk pace, motioning for Prowl to follow. Glancing around, Prowl was relieved by the lush green that met his optics. Although this wasn’t the pine forests that surrounded Detroit, it was still refreshing after the aridness of the desert. The two mechs moved quietly enough that Prowl was surrounded only by the sounds of the woods. Birds chirping, the crunch of leaves underneath his pedes, the far-off cry of a canine or other mammal. If they weren’t on a mission, he would love to just sit and take in the sights.

But Bumblebee was clearly of a different mind.

“Of course the ‘Cons chose a forest to put their mine in. It’s a lot harder to be stealthy when you’re snapping trees left and right,” Bumblebee griped, swatting branches away from his helm. To Prowl’s relief, he didn’t literally start snapping trees.

“But it does offer plenty of cover,” Prowl pointed out. “How far are we from the mine?”

Mining energon. On Earth, no less, he thought in disbelief. I may never get used to it.

“It should be just over this ridge,” Bumblebee gestured towards the top of the rise they were hiking towards. “Ratchet couldn’t drop us any closer without risk of notifying the ‘Cons of our presence. Optimus and I were scoping out the terrain, but we decided to head back and inform Ratchet of our findings before proceeding. Because we can’t use our comms here, we had to go pretty far before we could contact him. It might be the natural terrain interfering, or it could be the ‘Cons blocking our frequency. Either way, we’re here to find out what Knock Out’s digging around for,” Bumblebee explained.

“Knock Out–you said he was the Decepticon medic?” Prowl inquired. It wasn’t a name he wasn’t familiar with. Were there Cybertronians in this world that didn’t have counterparts in his own? Or had he merely not crossed paths with this mech before?

“Don’t let his shiny finish trick you, he’s one of the meanest ‘Cons in Megatron’s army. Although he’s more likely to be staring into his own reflection than tearing Autobots limb from limb, you don’t want to end up on the business end of his energon prod. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t ever find yourself on his operating table.” A shutter passed through the yellow mech.

“Noted.”

Cresting the ridge, Prowl followed Bumblebee’s lead as he crouched behind the bulk of the hill, only lifting their helms enough to see into the valley below. It took Prowl a moment to figure out what he was looking for, but once he spotted it, the signs of Cybertronian presence were overwhelming.

The sound of a drill vibrated across the forest, something Prowl had assumed during their journey was merely the pleasant background noise of nature. Several Vehicon drones wandered around the valley, their dark plating obscuring them in the shadows of the trees. And, most strikingly, a large, yawning hole had been cut into the side of a cliff at the very bottom of the run.

A sudden anger filled Prowl’s spark, and he took several deep, slow invents to quiet the agitated rumbling of his engine. What right did these Decepticons have to disrupt the natural processes of this planet? What right did they have to destroy what had taken millions of years to cultivate? Although, Prowl figured, it was a pattern of behavior long established.

Cybertronian or organic, the Decepticons would destroy whatever was in their way if it meant gaining more power.

“You said they’re mining for energon, but I don’t see any crystals,” Prowl whispered, his voice barely audible. He doubted any of the Decepticons below would be able to hear him over the obnoxious buzzing of the drill, but he felt it was better to be safe than sorry.

“This is the usual setup for an energon mine, but you’re right. I’m not picking up any energon signatures,” Bumblebee replied. A small handheld scanner had appeared in his servos. “None that aren’t heavily corrupted, at least. Scrap.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The only readings we get like these originate from dark energon.” Bumblebee tucked the scanner away.

“Dark energon?” Prowl parroted, shuffling through his memory banks for something of the same name he may have encountered before. He came up blank. Bumblebee shuffled through a few incomprehensible hisses before he reset his vocalizer, nodding vigorously.

“I know you’re thinking it’s just an old nursery tale, but the stuff’s real! Real nasty, that is. I can fill you in later, but the weird part is that there shouldn’t be any veins left on the surface. The fact that the ‘Cons have found some is very bad news,” he explained. “I want to find out what they’re planning to do with it.”

“Then we’ll have to move closer,” Prowl agreed. It was obvious they would not be able to traverse down the hill in front of them. The soil was loose and rocky, not ideal for large trees or bushes, making for very little cover. To their right, the ridge abruptly cut off into a steep gorge, leaving their only option to creep slowly down the gently sloping left bank.

Prowl went first, moving swiftly and silently, scoping out a path that Bumblebee would be able to easily maneuver. Both of them kept low, careful to conceal themselves behind the wall of greenery that ran along the ridge.

The real challenge began when they reached the entrance to the valley.

It was a narrow space—not as narrow as the crevasse in which Prowl had engaged the platoon of Vehicons when he first arrived in this world, but it might be difficult for a larger bot, one of Prime’s size, to move through. What made matters more difficult, however, was that everywhere Prowl looked, he spotted a lurking drone.

“Whatever the ‘Cons found, it sure is important,” Bumblebee remarked softly. “The only way we’ll be able to get closer is if we create some sort of distraction. Maybe one of us runs—“

“We don’t want them knowing of our presence, it will only make matters more difficult. I have an idea,” Prowl cut him off.

Although Bumblebee shot him a dubious look, he motioned towards Prowl encouragingly. “Be my guest.”

Prowl crept forward to the very edge of a cluster of tall bushes, surveying the mechs guarding the entrance to the valley. He wouldn’t be able to draw away the drones hidden further within the gorge, but he and Bumblebee would find better cover amongst the dense thickets sitting on the valley floor.

Summoning what scattered memory files he could, Prowl projected the largest image of a bear that he thought realistic onto the ground before him. The beast rose up to his waist on four paws, coarse brown fur rippling over taut muscle. A scowl painted its fuzzy face.

Piloting the holoprojection out of the bush, Prowl placed it in plain view of the Vehicons. It took them a moment before they noticed it.

“Woah, what the scrap is that thing?” one of them shouted, presumably the one pointing a digit towards the animal. It was hard to tell when none of them had faceplates. His comrades jolted to attention, transforming and pointing their blasters at the bear.

“Chill out, it’s just an organic,” another scoffed as they put away their blaster. Said organic made a show of bearing its teeth as it stalked closer to its prey. Prowl wished he were able to make a proper growl for the sake of realism, but he didn’t want to risk ruining the illusion.

“Are you sure?” the one who had spoken first asked, a quiver of fear evident in his voice. “That thing’s pretty big. Knock Out wouldn’t want it near his finish.”

On cue, the bear suddenly reared onto its back paws, claws swiping through the air near the Vehicons. One of them let out a panicked screech, and several of the drones began firing.

“It’s immune!” they screamed in terror, continuing to shoot even as the lasers passed harmlessly through the hologram. Prowl’s frame was rigid with tension, hoping they would not discover the true nature of the diversion.

As suddenly as it had stood, the bear dropped heavily back onto all fours, and began lumbering towards the other side of the forest, away from Prowl and Bumblebee’s position.

“Hey, it’s getting away! We can’t let an organic best us,” one of the Vehicons declared, followed by a chorus of agreement from his companions. Together, the squadron trundled off in the direction the bear had disappeared, whooping with excitement.

After waiting a moment for the leaves to stop shaking, Prowl crept out of hiding, motioning for Bumblebee to follow him.

“Where have you seen a grizzly bear before?” Bumblebee questioned, emerging from the leaves.

“One of the children's nature documentaries,” Prowl supplied quickly, turning away from Bumblebee’s somewhat bewildered expression. “That won’t keep them for very long–my holoprojector has a limited range,” he stated as they entered the valley, “We’ll need to be fast.”

“Let me take the lead.”

Prowl shifted to let Bumblebee pass, and they began to traverse through the narrow valley, darting from boulders to thickets to keep out of sight of the Vehicons patrolling above. They knew they were approaching the mine when the thrum of the drill rose to a cacophony.

Bumblebee paused behind a particularly large boulder, positioned in such a way that it shielded both Autobots from the prying Decepticon optics surrounding them, but allowing them a clear view of the cave entrance by craning their helms around the rock. An outcropping of shrubbery from the gorge wall shielded their helms from optics in the sky.

And, most importantly, they could hear.

Turning up his audio receptors, Prowl crouched at the ready beside Bumblebee, prepared to make a run for it should they be discovered. Emerging from the mine was the large drill the Decepticons had used to dig the mine, now powered down, followed by a large convoy of Vehicon drones. In the midst of them, Prowl caught sight of a brilliant flash of red.

“Someone get me a datapad!” called a haughty voice, echoing in the narrow space. Prowl was nearly blinded as an absurdly shiny mech sauntered out from among his Vehicon entourage. His crimson paint job was so thoroughly waxed that he reflected the sun like a mirror, and he held some sort of scanner in his wickedly clawed servos.

If Prowl had to hazard a guess, this was the Decepticon medic, Knock Out.

The pompous mech drifted farther from the entrance of the mine, staring at his scanner as if it had personally offended him, his porcelain white faceplates contorted in a snarl. “It just doesn’t make sense!” he lamented. “According to both Soundwave’s and my sensors, there should be a deposit of dark energon at this site, but there just isn’t any to be found. Not that we should be digging for the blasted blood anyway.” The medic kicked viciously at a small pebble, sending it skittering right by Prowl. “Where is my datapad?!”

“Here, sir,” one of the Vehicons scurried over, handing off the aforementioned piece of technology to the mech. Knock Out snatched it close to his chassis, quickly typing in a number of glyphs. Prowl wished he could see what he might be recording, but Knock Out was facing towards their hiding spot, obscuring the screen.

“After the whole fiasco with Unicron, you’d think Lord Megatron would finally leave the stuff alone, but I suppose he has convinced himself it still has use as a power source,” Knock Out continued, seemingly talking to no one but himself. “Whatever pleases his lordship,” he shrugged.

The Decepticon medic continued to glance from his scanner to the datapad, collecting the data that had been presumably recorded in the mine. He was standing only a few yards away from where Prowl and Bumblebee hid. Bumblebee was worriedly glancing over his shoulder, waiting for one of the Vehicons they had drawn away to return and report the disturbance. They would be spotted if such a thing occurred. Prowl’s spark spun faster, but he remained rigid and silent.

A shrill beeping cut through Prowl’s audio receptors.

“Hm? Strange…” Knock Out commented, tapping a digit against the side of the scanner with sharp, repetitive clicks.

“What is it, sir?” the Vehicon beside the medic questioned.

“It could just be a bug, but the scanner has picked up a sudden spike in energy, although these readings don’t look like the energy signature of dark energon…”

Pedesteps scuffed over the earth, approaching Prowl and Bumblebee’s boulder. The scanner was leading Knock Out directly to their location. Bumblebee ducked away and made as if to run, but Prowl knew if they tried to escape now, they would come under fire from no less than a dozen Vehicons.

Gripping Bumblebee’s wrist so tightly the tips of his digits left dents, Prowl pointed to his Autobot badge. Bumblebee’s optics whirred in obvious confusion, but he made no further attempt to flee.

Knock Out was standing on the other side of the boulder now, and would catch sight of the spying Autobots at any moment. The scanner was screaming at an unreasonable pitch.

Knock Out rounded the boulder…and let out an unamused huff. The air directly surrounding Bumblebee and Prowl wavered ever so slightly, the only sign of Prowl’s holoprojection from their perspective. To Knock Out, he was looking at nothing more than an exceptionally large rock, with a strange outcropping from its back side.

“The stupid machine is glitched,” Knock Out informed his Vehicon company as he returned to stand beside the drill. “You can have that boulder marked for excavation, but I doubt you’ll find anything inside,” he sniffed. A Vehicon drone ambled over and transformed a single digit, a laser carving a shaky ‘X’ into the rock’s surface–luckily the portion that was not created through Prowl’s holoprojection. The Decepticons conglomerated back around the massive drill, seemingly to reassess their technique when it came to their digging.

“We got what we came for,” Bumblebee warbled softly, prying his wrist from Prowl’s grip—Prowl hadn’t even noticed he was still holding it. “Now would be our best chance to escape.”

The only response Prowl could give was a nod. With the Vehicons’ attention elsewhere, they were able to make their way safely back to the head of the valley much the same way they had entered, by hopping from sparse cover to sparse cover. Despite the fact that Prowl’s projection had no doubt disintegrated long ago, the guards had yet to return, allowing the Autobots an easy exit.

They traveled in utter silence, retracing their steps back to the rendezvous point. Prowl checked his internal chronometer.

Fifteen minutes to spare, he thought to himself absently as he took a seat on the ground. Searching around him, Prowl picked up a suitable rock and set to work sharpening the blades of his shuriken with rhythmic swipes. Sparks flew through the air.

“Are you sure you’ve never had any field experience?” Bumblebee questioned, sitting a few feet away from Prowl.

“I never said that. In fact, I said quite the opposite. I’ve never had formal training as a soldier, true, but that doesn’t mean my time while learning to be a cyberninja did not involve field study,” Prowl replied evenly.

“Cyberninja, huh? I remember you mentioning that.” Before Prowl could get a word in, Bumblebee continued eagerly: “But man, you’ve got some skills! I’m particularly jealous of that holoprojector. Where’d you come by a fancy piece of tech like that?”

The name floated at the edge of Prowl’s processor, but it was too faint to catch. Mirror? Montage? Something along those lines.

“Must’ve bought it millions of years ago, sometime during the war–that is, when it was still on Cybertron. But it’s less about what equipment you have, and more about how you wield it. This shuriken, for instance—“ Prowl stated, holding up said weapon, “—can be used as both a melee and ranged weapon. But just because I can throw the shuriken doesn’t mean I can wield it. It took years of practice to become even remotely familiar with it.”

“Is that why you’re so good with a staff?”

“Partly. Master—my master insisted that I train with nonlethal weapons before advancing to something more…robust.” Bumblebee gave a nod of affirmation.

For a minute or two, they sat in silence, except for the shriek of rock against metal. Prowl was definitely oversharpening the blades, but some part of him was still jittery from their close call, and he didn’t want it to show through his shaking servos. 

Bumblebee was the first to speak up.

“You know, Prowl, I think you’d be a really good fit for our team,” he remarked casually. Prowl stayed silent, although his servo stilled. After waiting for Prowl to respond, and seeing that he wasn’t planning to, Bumblebee took a deep invent. “It’s been a long time since Team Prime gained a new member. There was Wheeljack for a second, but he’s always preferred to go it alone. I get that same sense from you, but in a way it’s…different. You’re always skulking around the base in the shadows, but you don’t hole yourself up in your room. It almost seems like you want to join in, but there’s something holding you back.”

Prowl sat rigidly.

“You’re quite an observant mech,” Prowl chuckled, although the strain was evident in his voice.

“What I mean is that we don’t have a bot of your skillset on the team. I’m a scout, and I’m perfectly capable of stealth, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t squeeze into small spaces like you can. I also don’t have a holoprojector. Arcee has the size covered, but she’s much more of a punch-first-ask-questions-later kind of femme. And from what I’ve heard, you went punch for punch with Bulkhead–that’s not an easy thing to do. Maybe it’s also that we’re getting bored. It’d be more interesting with new company around,” Bumblebee concluded, his optics fixed on Prowl imploringly.

Prowl gave himself a moment to collect his scattered thoughts.

“Did Optimus put you up to this?” he began tentatively, avoiding the question he really wanted to ask: Do you mean it?

“Nah, this is all me! But I’m serious. Miko seems hyped about you, and Raf admits he hasn’t talked to you a whole lot, but he says he’d love to get to know you more. In my experience, those kids are pretty good judges of character,” Bumblebee stated with conviction.

Prowl wanted to say something, but his vocalizer seemed glitched. No sound exited his intake except a thin hiss of static.

This felt wrong. Bumblebee wouldn’t praise his ability as a cyberninja. He might make a few impressed faces, but his pride was too bloated to ever admit any bot did anything better than he did.

Imposter.

Imposter.

Imposter.

His processor chanted at him, but he quickly shut down that sinister voice. He knew this wasn’t his Bumblebee. Everything from the frame to the lack of proper voice to the war experience proved it. But to hear something so horribly alien be projected from that familiar face made his spark pulse with pain.

“Bumblebee…”

Without warning, there was a sudden crackle in the air directly next to the sitting mechs. The crackle turned into a roar, and the familiar sight of the groundbridge appeared before their optics.

Bumblebee hopped up quickly and extended a servo out to help Prowl up, but seemed to think better of it and let Prowl rise to his own pedes. Without a word, the two walked through the green vortex.

The command center was crowded when they emerged, Ratchet shutting the bridge down as soon as their pedes hit the metal floor with twin plinks. Or, as crowded as this base could get.

Ratchet and Optimus Prime stood near the groundbridge controls, whereas Bulkhead and Arcee stood further into the cavern, seemingly conversing before their attention was drawn to the returning mechs. If Prowl didn’t know any better, it almost seemed as if they had been waiting for their arrival.

“How was the first mission, newbie?” Arcee called as she crossed the room to meet them, Bulkhead trailing after her with thumping steps.

“Fine, thank you.”

“Fine? Prowl here was a lifesaver!” Bumblebee boasted to the grins of his team.

“I’m sure we’ll hear all about it during the mission debrief. After each mission, the participating bots are expected to give a report—“

“If I may speak, Optimus Prime,” Prowl interrupted. The brief look of shock that crossed the Prime’s face was not missed by Prowl.

“Hey, you can’t just—“

“It is alright, Arcee,” Optimus curtailed softly. “You may, Prowl.”

“I would like to request my exemption from this mission debrief. Bumblebee is more than capable of carrying out this duty, and I am feeling somewhat spent. I would prefer some time alone.”

Physically, Prowl was fine. He had sustained no injuries to his frame, and the only thing that informed him of his distress was the accelerated spinning of his spark. But, even to himself, the cause was foggy. All he knew was that he had to get out of this room full of bots. Now.

He refused to look at Bumblebee, who he could feel practically deflating beside him.

Optimus nodded. “If it is your wish,” he conceded. The larger mech stepped to the side to allow Prowl to pass, of which Prowl stoically complied. On his way out of the room, Prowl stopped in front of Ratchet, a thought suddenly occurring to him.

“Do you have any reading material in this base?” Prowl asked quietly, not lifting his optics to meet Ratchet’s.

“Not much, but we do have a small collection,” he responded, obviously confused. “Take two rights, then go to the fourth door.”

“Thank you.”

The gathered Autobots were silent as Prowl exited.

Prowl spent the remainder of the evening reading on the floor of his room, datapads strewn across the ground beside him.

Turns out, Ratchet’s definition of a “small collection” amounted to piles upon piles of dusty datapads shoved up to the ceiling in a cramped storage closet. There was every subject of datapad he could think of—even a few human books stacked in a back corner. Prowl considered taking some of the human literature as well, but a quick glance at the dates told him they were Earth decades out of date–far too long for an organic timescale to be reliable sources of information. It did make Prowl question exactly how long these Autobots had been on the planet, however.

In the end, Prowl had selected a myriad of datapads, but there was one he intended to read through fully before the following day. Its title boasted: A Complete History of the Cybertronian Civil War. While he would have preferred a full history of Cybertron itself, he understood that such datapads were hard to come by in this environment due to their length and likelihood to come in sets. Prowl had found a few volumes of such extended histories, but no complete sets within the library of the Autobots. A summary of the war would have to do.

And as he read, a clearer picture of exactly how these alternate versions of his team had been shaped by their circumstances began to form. Although Prowl had told himself to create separate spaces in his processor for these two worlds, finding out that Optimus Prime himself was the leader of the Autobot faction was still quite a shock, not to mention some kind of religious figure within Cybertronian society. It made a bit more sense as to why his team was so reverent of him.

The early history didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Prowl initially, although some things stayed the same. Megatron was still a gladiator from the pits of Kaon, although at some point he had gone by Megatronus. Optimus Prime—then Orion Pax—was a lowly archivist in the Iacon Hall of Records.

Prowl couldn’t recall his Optimus ever having mentioned the Hall of Records, only brief accounts of his days in the Academy. If that included any archival work, it was not included in his recountings.

Moving quickly from that thought, there were many more divergences between Prowl’s history and this worlds’, and it also seemed like their societies differed vastly. After a few chapters of political nonsense, Prowl decided to look further into the ranking system of this old Cybertron. After all, while Prime was a coveted rank within the Elite Guard, it was by no means the title of a leader. That honor belonged to the Magnus alone.

But not here. From Prowl’s reading, he discerned that, while there had been thirteen original Primes, each of them had met their end one way or another, and the only way to pass down the mantle of Prime was through a relic known as the Matrix of Leadership. The Senate—Prowl didn’t have fond memories of the Council in his own world, and this Senate didn’t seem much better—listened to Orion Pax’s plea for freedom from prejudice and corruption, and sought to give him the Matrix. Megatronus, who was Orion’s partner in a new revolutionary group, believed himself to be the one worthy of the relic, and grew bitter, taking his own supporters and beginning the Decepticons.

He learned that, in this reality, the only difference between Autobots and Decepticons was the symbol they wore into battle, a far cry from his own universe, where the two were practically different species.

I suppose that explains the warframe builds, he mused. Uninhibited by size or societal standards, they have been force to meet the Decepticons in firepower in order to survive.

How Orion came about acquiring the Matrix and ascending to the Primehood was unclear within the text, but he took on the name of Optimus Prime and led the newly formed faction of the Autobots into the grisly servos of civil war.

Prowl skimmed a majority of the battle catalogues included in the history. After all, he wasn’t expected to be knowledgeable of such things—he was nothing more than a maintenance bot lost to the edges of the universe.

But then there was the matter of Cybertron itself. Scrolling through the battle logs, Prowl almost missed the image capture, but the slightest hints of blue against the dark background of the datapad caught his optic.

At first, he wasn’t really sure what he was looking at. It was obviously a planet floating in deep space, but there was a multitude of debris floating around it, and it appeared to be completely uninhabited. His optics drifted down to the caption.

Cybertron, postwar.

Prowl remained still, his processor working overtime. It wasn’t shocking that the planet was in ruins; after all, the war was still ongoing, and Prowl’s own Cybertron had been quite literally ripped in half by the infighting. But his home had sprung back from the carnage. This one appeared dead, an empty husk.

A quick read of the accompanying paragraph revealed that the planet had been devastated, extinguishing the Allspark, and halting the process of creating new Cybertronians.

By that point, Prowl placed the datapad down in front of him, keeping the screen flipped away. There were too many things to absorb at once.

He decided to deal with the most glaring atrocity first: Cybertron was dead. Somewhat ironically, Prowl was hit with a pang of homesickness so profound it made his tanks flip. Here he was, trapped in another reality, and he couldn’t even return to the familiarity of his birthplace.

And the Allspark, extinguished! The text explained that the Well of Allsparks was attached to Primus at the very core of Cybertron itself, and acted as a fountain for new Cybertronians to sprout from.

Primus, he thought, scrutinizing the text. The Autobots here keep mentioning that name, but I’ve never heard of such a mech in my own world.

In the brief synopsis afforded by the history datapad, it was explained that Primus was, in fact, the planet itself.

So completely dumbfounded by the information being fed into his processor, Prowl found himself muttering the words aloud as he read, trying desperately to understand tem.

“Primus, the first Cybertronian and creator of all subsequent Cybertronians, holds the title of the most important spiritual figure in Cybertronian history. As legend tells, his epic battle with The Destroyer, Unicron, nearly took them both offline. To save himself, Primus transformed into the planet of Cybertron, his spark acting as the core of the planet, and from which the Well of Allsparks drew its power. Primus is the only entity with the ability to bestow the Matrix of Leadership onto the mech he deems worthy of the Primeship.”

Prowl paused, staring blankly at the far wall of his room.

“He’s the entire planet? How is that even possible?” he asked himself. “No wonder these Autobots invoke his name in such a way–he’s essentially a Cybertronian god.”

And there was the matter of the other name mentioned in relation to Primus: Unicron The Destroyer. Prowl scrolled further through the datapad, but was disappointed only to find the name mentioned in passing.

“I remember Knock Out mentioning him,” he said, reaching blindly for another datapad. He picked up a rather lengthy, more analytical text on general Cybertronian society. This was a piece of reading he looked forward to perusing through at a more leisurely pace, comparing and contrasting his own Cybertronian customs, but for now he was on a mission.

What he was looking for wasn’t hard to find. The bold title of the section screamed at him: Unicron, the Destroyer. He skimmed the overview of the chapter, finding this bit of literature much more informational.

Unicron was the name of a Cybertronian of the same caliber as Primus–that is, planet-sized. Where Primus sought to protect and nurture life, Unicron sought to destroy it, absorbing the energy of entire solar systems into himself in order to win his ever-lasting battle with Primus.

But through his perseverance and courage, Primus triumphed over Unicron. Although the anthology went into detail about Primus and his role as Cybertron’s core, all it said of Unicron’s fate was that he was banished to the edges of the known universe, never to threaten Cybertron again.

But then why mention his name as Knock Out did, if he is such a sacrilegious figure? Prowl pondered.

A heading within the next few pages caught his optic.

Dark Energon, the blood of Unicron.

“That’s what Knock Out was searching for,” Prowl whispered excitedly, feeling that he was coming close to a breakthrough. He read further. “Dark energon, also referred to as the blood of Unicron, is a hypothetical variant of standard energon with unknown properties. It is said to be created when energon comes into contact with the frame of Unicron. However, no known samples have ever been recovered.”

That’s it? he thought with a modicum of disappointment. But if the Decepticons were looking for dark energon, then it must have been discovered…on Earth…

A horrible thought struck him–something so terrible he barely even wanted to entertain it.

If Unicron was a planet-sized entity of unknown location, and dark energon, something produced through energon’s contact with Unicron’s frame, was found on Earth’s surface…

“Is Unicron Earth?”

Even speaking the thought aloud made it seem all too plausible.

“But it can’t be,” Prowl shook his helm vigorously, kicking the datapad across the room, its protective casing skittering across the metal floor. “Earth is such a beautiful planet. How could it harbor such evil at its heart?”

The datapad had not mentioned Earth by name. And yet, Prowl knew the planet was very young, practically unknown to Cybertronians until he and his team crashlanded some fifty years ago.

No, it was discovered when the Autobots took refuge here, and were followed by the Decepticons, he reminded himself harshly.

He could feel the beginnings of a processor ache forming, and dragged himself up off of the floor. He risked a glance at his chronometer.

And I missed the evening ration, he slumped into himself, reading the time as thirty minutes past when he was due to make his appearance. A part of him thought to just stay in his room. He would be serving himself his ration, and although the prospect didn’t bother him, he felt it was more energy than he was willing to expend. On the other servo, the stress from the day had burnt through more energon than he would have preferred. His tanks rumbled unhappily.

Rising to his pedes, Prowl crept from his room. He wasn’t too eager to talk to anyone just yet after his outburst to the Prime, coupled with the deluge of information he had just absorbed into his processor, most of which he was still struggling to digest.

The hallways were easy enough to traverse undetected. The problem came when he had to cross through the command center. It seemed like every bot in the base had congregated here—all except Bumblebee. Some kind of after meal gathering?

The four Autobots–Optimus, Ratchet, Arcee, and Bulkhead–stood clustered around the groundbridge console. Directly blocking Prowl’s path to the energon cache.

Some part of Prowl felt ashamed for sneaking around like a criminal in the base that he had been warmly welcomed into. He logically knew these bots meant him well, and it would do him good to stop isolating himself.

But on the other servo, his spark constricted. He was tired. Starting over seemed like too daunting of a task.

But these thoughts were too big for his empty tanks and roiling processor. He could think more about it after he safely retrieved his ration.

“—here, and here. Now that we know what to look for, the sensors—“ Ratchet was explaining something as he pointed towards the console, the other three bots rapt on his speech. Using millenia worth of honed skills, Prowl stuck to the shadows at the edge of the room, not even a whisper of sound emitted from his creeping form.

“But why would the ‘Cons be digging for dark energon again? Unicron has been put in stasis,” Arcee pointed out. Ratchet turned to face his teammate, and Prowl froze, keeping the glow of his visor carefully pointed towards the wall. He hoped the black of his frame would conceal his presence in the dim lighting of the cavern.

They’re talking about Unicron, he thought distantly, too focused on remaining unseen to give it much more thought. I will inquire about it later.

Although he was interested in hearing Ratchet’s answer, he took his opportunity to slip into the energon cache as the medic turned back to the screen, the door swishing quietly closed behind him and blotting out the rest of the conversation.

“Oh, hey!”

Prowl nearly jumped out of his plating at an unexpected presence. Despite all of his sensors being on high alert, he had somehow missed the large yellow mech occupying a seat at the round table at the center of the room, facing the door. To disguise his momentary shock, Prowl quickly paced over to the smallest of the energon piles. Before he could reach out his servo, however, Bumblebee waved him over.

“Wait, wait, I’ve got your energon right here,” he beckoned. And, as Prowl looked down at the table, he saw the half filled cube of his ration next to an empty one—presumably Bumblebee’s. Somewhat perturbed, Prowl stepped closer.

“I was informed by Ratchet that if I missed the time I would have to serve my own ration,” Prowl stated without accusation.

“Well, normally, yeah. But I figured I’d save you some. Like your first day, right?” Bumblebee said lightheartedly. Prowl drew his cube into his servos cautiously, abstaining from sitting. Bumblebee looked up at him imploringly with those large, blue optics.

“Thank you for saving me some, but I can get my own in the future,” Prowl stated as he turned to leave.

“Wait!” Bumblebee’s call halted Prowl directly in front of the doors, remaining closed. Prowl glanced back at him with a questioning look. Bumblebee brought his servos together, his door wings held uncertainly above his shoulders. “I just…I wanted to say sorry. For earlier.”

Prowl turned to face the mech fully. “Sorry? For what?”

“I was too forward, I shouldn’t have pushed you like that. It’s your choice whether you join Team Prime or not, and I shouldn’t try to influence that decision,” he admitted, his gaze lowered to the top of the table. It was such a pitiable expression that Prowl was drawn closer.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he assured. When Bumblebee looked at him with an air of confusion, Prowl continued: “You shouldn’t have to apologize when you’re right. You’re a very observant mech—which is why I’m sure you’re such a trusted scout amongst your team. You were correct in your assessment of me. I am being held back, by myself or other forces I can’t say, but I don’t know if I will be able to move past those reactionary forces.” Prowl knew he was treading in dangerous territory, but there was something about Bumblebee’s wide optics that dragged the words from the depths of his spark. “There are things about your team that remind me of bots I once knew, bots who I have…lost. Sometimes it is a painful reminder, and other times it isn’t. I’m just not sure how those resemblances will progress should I stay here.”

Bumblebee, seemingly taken aback by Prowl’s honesty, took a moment before he responded. “Well, maybe we could help! There aren’t many things that are solved by isolating yourself. Talking is a good place to start.”

The invitation was obvious, but Prowl turned back to face the door.

“I appreciate your care, Bumblebee. Enjoy your evening.”

The main cavern was silent as Prowl swiftly walked through, only having a few glances thrown his way as the rest of the team remained riveted on whatever was being displayed on the console. He was happy for the lack of attention—any more talking and he might combust with the amount of thoughts bouncing around in his processor.

He reached his room and choked down the energon in three large gulps, determined not to gag as it burned down his pipes. He tossed the cube haphazardly onto his desk and sat cross legged on the floor. He felt horribly out of control, and figured a bout of meditation may help him organize his thoughts. After all, he had given up after only a few minutes in the morning due to that same annoying buzzing.

Drawing deep cycles of air through his vents, Prowl allowed his spark to slow, settling more comfortably on the floor. He knew this wasn’t a decision he could put off for much longer—eventually, his hosts would become impatient. He highly doubted Optimus would outright kick him out to fend for himself, but if Prowl didn’t begin contributing to the team in earnest, they may grow antsy with his drag on resources. They had certainly seemed satisfied when he had come back from the mission today.

Prowl pushed the growing buzz out of his consciousness, zoning in on the repetitive movements of his vents.

He should also take into consideration Bumblebee’s words. Prowl wouldn’t have taken anything said by his own Bumblebee at face value, but this one seemed painstakingly earnest, eager to invite a strange mech into his close circle of friends…family? And he hadn’t been set up by Optimus to share such sentiments.

As Prowl continued to sit with his thoughts, chasing them in circles, the buzzing grew to a dull roar in his audio receptors, almost as if he had suddenly been thrown underwater. Swirling currents of sound and energy surrounded him, muddling his mental space and constricting inward like a hungry python.

And through it all, he felt a presence.

Broken abruptly from his meditation, Prowl whipped his helm around, servo reaching for his sharpened shuriken only to see…emptiness. Nothing had disturbed the room, and his door remained closed. But now Prowl stood, pacing, keeping his optics trained to where his back had been turned.

He had felt something. His cyberninja training had attuned his senses to both the physical and the spiritual. He had been sure something—someone—had been directly behind him. Something malevolent.

But there was nothing. Pausing midstep, Prowl dragged a servo down his face, tapping a digit against his cheek, letting out a sigh. He had never been this anxious before, never so paranoid. This world had set him on edge, so uncomfortably so that he couldn’t even get through a full session of meditation without working himself into a spiral.

“This isn’t sustainable,” he muttered to himself, sitting heavily into the chair at his desk. Normally, he would go work this anxious energy out in the training room, but at the moment he just felt drained. Most likely a combination of the stress of their mission, as well as the overload his processor had experienced trying to absorb so much new information. He hadn’t given himself any time to process it all.

“Maybe we could help!” Bumblebee’s warbling voice echoed in his audio receptors. “Talking is a good place to start.”

Prowl wasn’t the talking type, never had been, and probably never would be. But it had made those scant moments with his team where he did talk, where he was heard, all the more special.

For the first time since Prowl had arrived in this backwards world, he truly allowed the thoughts about his team to flood his processor unimpeded. Ratchet’s endearing grumpiness, his advice coming interspersed with insults as he patched the team up after a mission. Bumblebee and Sari, joined at the proverbial hip, off to cause mischief that Prowl would no doubt be saddled with cleaning up. Bulkhead, who wouldn’t touch a blaster if it would save his spark, always optimistic, him and Bumblebee keeping morale high. And then there was Optimus Prime, perhaps not the perfect leader, but the glue that kept them all stuck together in times of strife.

And here he was stuck with mirrored versions of them, similar in some ways and different in others. Arcee, a wild card that Prowl hadn’t even gotten to properly meet in his home world. Ratchet, somehow even more cynical, but not without a protective streak and that same endless drive to keep his team safe. Bumblebee, not so quiet as at first glance, who had obviously seen the horrors of war but continued to live in spite of the scars it had left. The same goofy Bulkhead, despite his battle-hardened nature, allowing a small organic lifeform to boss him around like a drill sergeant. And the Prime, arguably the most changed, but reading through the lines, Prowl could spot glimpses of the mech he had once known by the same designation.

If only his team could see him now. Bumblebee and Ratchet would laugh, Bulkhead would pat his shoulder with awkward reassurances, and Sari would look up at him with large, concerned eyes, asking after his well being. But the image that stuck out in his processor was Optimus. The disapproving gleam in his optics.

These were the bots who had dragged his sorry self off of that floating rock where he would likely have stayed moping for eons, lost in his own stubbornness and self doubt. Never, in whatever millions of years were to come, would his team want him to isolate himself again for the sake of their memories. And in his spark, Prowl knew he didn’t want that either.

Feeling much lighter, the strange visage forgotten, he climbed into his hammock–if there was one thing he would allow himself to miss, it would be his tree. But, with new resolve, Prowl promised himself that he would make a home for himself here, no matter what the past dictated.