Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Earth

Noah sat back in Mirage's driver's seat as the Autobot convoy left New York and watched the city streets pass by. He wasn't sure why he'd gotten invited along on this road trip, maybe because they might need a human to check on stuff or talk to other humans, or maybe because Mirage just wanted to hang out. Noah was okay with either option. Plus, it might be the last time for a while that they got to do this. Sure, Noah's life had changed a whole lot since he'd tried to steal a sports car from underneath a fancy hotel. He still wasn't technically working, since saving the world didn't get you automatic clearance into above-top-secret groups like G.I. Joe, but he knew a regular paycheque was on its way. He still had to go through a lotta hoops to get the clearance he needed. Agent Burke had said he was in, though, when Noah had called to say he'd take the job, so it was just bureaucracy and shit. Not that he minded: wait or no wait, getting a job thanks to giant aliens trying to kill him was still better than a panel interview. Kris was doing a whole lot better since he'd started getting regular treatment.  Their mom wasn't nearly as stressed now that she didn't have to worry about clinic bills. G.I. Joe had even cleared up the bill at the clinic for them. But some things about his life hadn't changed, like getting a chance to hang out with a friend.

The fact that this friend was a giant alien robot who turned into a car and could take him on a road trip with other alien robots? That was a little bit different, yeah.

“So where’re we headed?” Noah asked, looking at Mirage’s radio. He knew the bot wasn’t really talking out of it, but you had to look somewhere when you were talking to someone. It felt…rude, otherwise. “And why?”

“We’re headed somewhere about four hours outside of the city. Optimus got a signal from some other Autobots,” Mirage replied, effortlessly passing an old Honda Civic. “Turns out that we've got some new mecha on their way. They’re about to land in a field or park or something upstate somewhere. Optimus wants us all there to say ‘hi,’ let ‘em know what’s up, how to blend in on Earth, that kind of stuff.”

“Yeah?” Noah asked, instantly curious. “Know who they are?”

“Nah, no idea. The transmission was kind of garbled. We couldn't make out their names or serial numbers or anything. Optimus seems pretty sure they’re on our side, though.”

“Pretty sure?” Noah echoed, feeling a little worried now, frowning at the radio. “What d’you mean, pretty sure?”

“Hey, relax!" Mirage protested. "I wouldn’t have brought you with me if I thought it was gonna be a problem. Besides, you handled yourself just fine down in Peru.”

“Yeah, well, you know," Noah shifted a little bit and looked out the window. "Peru turned out alright, but I’d be okay without having to go through anything like that again.” Noah had seen action in the military, sure, but fighting giant aliens was something else, though. Might be something he was gonna have to do again, what with the whole GI Joe thing working out, too. 

"Relax," Mirage insisted, passing a slow-moving car so he could catch up behind Optimus. "It'll be fine! Just gonna go out, say 'hi,' 'welcome to Earth,' all that stuff, and then bring 'em back to base. No biggie."

Noah wasn't entirely sure he'd call the abandoned warehouse the Autobots were hiding out in a 'base,' more of a hideout. He wasn't gonna say anything, though. Not about the closest thing the Autobots had to a home right now.

Maybe they could get a better place as an HQ if they started to work with G.I. Joe? That’d give them connections, funding, all that stuff. It wasn’t up to Noah, though, and he had no idea where Optimus was on that whole 'teaming up with a human government agency' thing. Sure, the big guy'd come around to working with individual humans, but an actual alliance-type deal was probably a whole different ballgame. Maybe Optimus had some Star Trek-style thing about not sharing advanced technology with people who didn't have it or weren't at least close to having it or something. Like, how Optimus Primal had made sure not to change stuff for the Mayans.

"You expecting a lot of bots to show up?" Noah asked. He knew the Autobots had all had to escape Cybertron because of the war, which, honestly? It sounded like the Decepticons were winning. 

"I sure hope so," Mirage said. He slowed down just a little bit in a way that Noah knew meant he was thinking about something. "Y’know, with more bots coming, we’re gonna need more space and stuff. These G.I. Joe guys, you think they're on the level?"

Noah shrugged one shoulder. "Yeah, wouldn't have signed up with 'em if I didn't. They're doing alright by Kris, that's for sure."

"Yeah, and don’t get me wrong, I like Kris. I’m happy they helped him out,” Mirage said. “Optimus is just worried about what else they’re gonna want if he says yes. It’s gonna be kinda hard to go back under cover once we're out, right?"

“Yeah, no kidding.” Noah was honestly astonished that there wasn't more on the airwaves about what had happened down in Peru. Sure, there hadn't been any cameras around, but a whole lot of what'd gone on before and during wasn't exactly subtle. It made him wonder just how much power G.I. Joe had to keep something like that under wraps. Noah knew that governments kept secrets, but this was real conspiracy territory.

"Yeah, that's gonna…" Noah thought about just what proof of aliens hitting the general public was gonna do, and couldn't picture it. He wound up just shaking his head and laughing a little. "Yeah, that's gonna be big, man, like…I can't even tell you. That’d be some real X-Files type shit."

Mirage laughed. "The X-Files? Man, that show is wild. I can't believe that's really what humans think aliens are like! Hey, what d'you think's gonna happen in season two?"

Kris had gotten Mirage into the X-Files, of course. Noah wasn't as into it, but he watched it with his brother because it made Kris happy, and he could keep up his half of the conversation pretty well.

Riding in an alien going to meet aliens while talking about aliens. Who'd thought this would be his life?

They’d stopped talking about the X-Files by the time they arrived at the landing site. Noah had asked about what they did for fun on Cybertron, and Mirage had kind of…not answered. Maybe he hadn’t been able to answer, since he’d said stuff like that had all been before his time. But he’d also said he'd heard it’d been pretty similar, and he knew someone with lots of recordings of shows, music, that kind of thing.

‘They’d show the media, play the music, but not talk about what’d been like, too, I dunno, live through it, I guess,’ Mirage had said. ‘I ran into that a lot, the other guys not wanting to talk about what it was like before the war. So, if these are our guys, uh, don’t expect a whole lot of reminiscing about before the war.’

Noah had been planning to hang back anyway and not get involved until he could see what the new guys were like. Sure, the Autobots were all cool with him now, but he remembered his first meeting with the Autobots, in, like, Technicolour. At least out here, no one could pick him up and put him on a shelf. Optimus still hadn’t apologized for that one. Like it was Noah’s fault he’d been accidentally kidnapped? Plus, hopefully, the new guys would get a heads-up about why he was there first.

Mirage stopped, and Noah got out as he transformed along with the others. They went the rest of the way on foot. When they got close enough to the landing site, Noah could see that the new Autobots hadn’t come down in a ship — or maybe as ships, no reason they couldn’t transform into UFOs or something — but in some kind of pod. The pods were sitting in circles of grass burned from the heat of re-entry. They looked a lot like the one Noah had seen in the G.I. Joe hangar. Seen up close, the pods were big but not Optimus- or Stratosphere-big. The mechs inside were probably gonna be bigger than Bumblebee but not taller than Mirage. 

Noah watched as Optimus and the others checked out the pod-things. Looked like everything was okay because Optimus and the two pods exchanged some clicky modem-type sounds that seemed like a conversation of some kind, and then the pods transformed and stood up as a pair of new bots with Autobot insignias on their chests. Okay. Noah felt himself relax. Not Decepticons or Terrorcons, then. Good. He'd be okay with neither of those lot showing up. Ever. The world had barely survived Unicron and his Terrorcons; it probably wouldn't do any better with Decepticons.

Noah wasn’t sure what he’d expected to happen next, but it sure wasn’t Mirage darting over to the new guys, exclaiming, “Hey, you made it!” He really wasn’t expecting Mirage to grab both bots in a hug.

One of the bots, the one who didn't have wings or doors or something coming off his back, chuckled and hugged Mirage back, holding on for longer than was just friendly. Once the first new guy let Mirage go, the other one bot pulled Mirage’s head down to press their foreheads together, optics off. That went on for a bit too before he let go, stepped back to look Mirage over, and frowned. It seemed like he was looking at some of the new parts Noah had used in the rebuild, the ones that still looked kinda not-Mirage close up. Mirage had explained how he was gonna integrate the parts Noah had used to rebuild him into what was left of his original body. Some Star Trek-sounding thing about nanomachines. Somehow, he was just gonna…absorb all the sheet metal and car parts and convert them to Cybertronian stuff somehow? Noah'd tried to get more info about how exactly that worked, but Mirage'd just shrugged and said he didn't know. It seemed like New Guy Two was…unimpressed? Concerned? Noah wasn't sure how he should read that expression.

Noah got the feeling the bots were gonna spend a while getting caught up, so he just stayed put. There wasn't exactly a whole lot to do, so he just watched while he waited. It wouldn't have been a bad time to have a Gameboy or something with him, but it wasn't like Kris was gonna give his up even if Noah would've known to ask ahead of time. So, he just watched the Autobots instead. Noah had only ever heard them talk in English before, but what he was listening to now had to be Cybertronian. Noah couldn’t understand the words, but he could get tone and body language just fine. Mirage was getting impatient with whatever was going on, and the mech who'd frowned at Mirage's repairs reached up and put a hand on his shoulder. The other new mech kinda waved his hand toward the road, and Mirage said something back, with a little shake of his head, and pointed at Noah. Both new bots immediately focused on him.

Oh, man. The last time Noah had gotten a look like that, it'd been his high school girlfriend introducing him to her parents before prom. What'd Mirage been telling these guys?

"Hey, Noah," Mirage called out, jogging over with his…friends? Maybe? The new mechs following him, whoever they were. "Hey, c'mere. You gotta meet my dads!"

"Your —?" Noah cut himself off before he said something stupid or just accidentally rude. Mirage'd told him new Transformers were made by something called the Allspark. You told it what you wanted the new mech to be like, and got a person back that matched what you'd asked for. Moms and dads didn't come into it, at least as far as Noah could tell, especially since Mirage'd even said they didn't really have family back on Cybertron the way they did here on Earth. Noah didn't get what Mirage meant by dads; it didn't match what he'd been told before.

"Your…dads?" the mech who'd frowned at Mirage's repairs echoed. He sounded just as confused as Noah felt.

The other mech had that 'accessing' look in his optics for a moment, like the one Arcee sometimes got, then broke out into a smile and exclaimed happily, "Hey, yeah, I'm your dad!"

Noah looked at Mirage with raised eyebrows, trying to get 'you gotta explain this, man,' across without actually saying it.

The mech with the door-wing-things on his back glanced around and put a hand on Mirage's arm. "We shouldn't remain exposed too long, Thrash."

"Yeah, uh…" Mirage sounded a little embarrassed, and that was something new. "I don't go by that anymore."

"Oh? Did you go back to X-834 or Afterburn?" asked New Guy One, who Noah had decided to think of as Dad One until Mirage gave them proper introductions with names and everything.

"What!" Mirage exclaimed, and yeah, that sounded like someone being embarrassed by their parents, all right. "No! C'mon, Jazz!"

"I dunno, I think some of them had promise. Hey, Prowl, remember — "

"Okay, no, nope," Mirage broke in. "Nope. Don't need to go over that one. Don't want things to get confusing, right, Noah?"

"Yeah, sure, Mirage, but —" Noah stopped short when the new mechs immediately looked at Mirage not only like that name was new to them but like they had expected anything but that

"Heh." Mirage rubbed the back of his neck, not making eye contact with anyone. "Yeah. I'm gonna hafta explain the new designation, aren't I?"

"Open a private comm channel with Prowl and me, and we can talk and drive," Jazz suggested. "Prowl 'n I will catch up with you in a bit, we still gotta scan local alts."

“Yeah, you got it.”

Noah had spent the last few hours sitting down and wouldn't have minded a little longer to stretch his legs. Standing around with a bunch of giant robots was going to attract attention, though, especially if anyone was tracking incoming objects. Mirage seemed to get it, though, because he shifted his interior enough to give Noah some extra leg room.

"Thanks," Noah said, taking advantage of the new space while he fastened his seatbelt. 

"Hey, no problem."

There were a couple of moments of silence before either of them said anything else. Noah was trying to think about how to ask his very unexpected question, turning it over in his head. Finally, he gave up on subtlety, which Mirage wasn’t big on anyway, and just spoke up.

"So, Jazz and Prowl are your dads, huh?" Noah started, hoping to clear up his confusion because this was not in line with what Mirage had told him so far. "What's up with that? I thought you guys came from the Allspark? And how come they were surprised you're called Mirage?"

"Yeah, the Allspark is where almost everyone else comes from," Mirage said nonchalantly, "but I got made special. Well, me and some others like me. Jazz, Prowl and Mirage are the mechs who helped create my spark.  So they’re surprised because I’ve kind of got the same name as my third creator. Kind of."

"What?" As if hanging out with alien robots wasn't confusing enough sometimes. "Whaddya mean, 'kind of'?"

“Yeah, you can’t really hear the subharmonics that make the words different, I guess. But trust me, they are.”

Noah frowned; okay, so, same word, maybe different meanings depending on how you pronounced it or its context, but the way Mirage was using ‘subharmonics’ was a little confusing. Noah tried again, cuz sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between Mirage forgetting to explain and Mirage not wanting to explain. "What d'you mean? How's it different?"

"It’s like… Hm.” Mirage thought about it for a moment. “It's like, I make illusions, and he can be or is an illusion. Make sense?"

"Not…really?" Noah hedged. He'd go with a lot of stuff, sure, it wasn't like his life hadn't gotten plenty weird sometimes, but he really doubted Mirage'd been…built, or whatever, by a ghost. There had to be way more to it.

"Anyway," Mirage went on, sounding a little sad now, "I really wish he'd shown up with Jazz and Prowl, y'know?"

"Yeah." He did. Noah remembered the last time his dad had left for deployment and how it felt, not knowing when or if he would be coming back. He looked away from the radio for a sec. The highway was almost empty, just trees and the occasional sign streaking by. "Did Jazz or Prowl say anything about him, or…?"

"Not back there, but they’re just not in the mood for giving a lot of news, y'know? Besides, they didn't say he was dead or anything, so I'm just gonna tell myself he's okay out there somewhere. Unless someone tells me otherwise, anyway." Mirage went back to Noah’s original question. "So.  Remember how I told you Optimus sent the Allspark offworld. Bam, no more new mechs, right? But the Autobots still needed soldiers, so that's where I came in. Eventually, anyway. It's kinda a long story," Mirage said. "And I wasn't there for most of it, y'know. But I can tell you what my dads told me."

It was gonna be a long drive back, and besides, Noah wanted to know. "Yeah, okay. Go ahead."

"Alright. So. A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away —"

Noah stared at the radio. "You're kidding."

"Heh heh."

Chapter Text

Cybertron

The command meeting was already sombre by the time they reached the casualty report. Prowl, in the middle of delivering the results of the latest battle, frowned at the report and looked back up at the others. His tone was worried and concerned. "Three Autobots — Wheelwing, Highwire, and Starshot — were offlined in the last major offensive at Uraya. Three more are in indefinite stasis, and we have eight more out of stasis in non-combat-ready status. These last two groups will be out of action until replacement parts can be produced, installed, and integrated. While fourteen Autobots out of action will not have a major strategic impact at this time, the inability to add to our ranks will be a problem in the future."

"'Less the Cons lose people fast as we do, or faster," Jazz added, spinning a stylus in his fingers. "And yeah, I know you don't wanna lose anyone, Prime, but it's gonna happen."

"We need to find a way to replenish our numbers," Prowl said, even though he knew that was going to be somewhere between difficult and impossible. "At this point, it seems likely that anyone willing to enlist has already done so. Previously, I would have suggested using the Allspark. That, out of necessity, is not possible at this time. We'll need to explore alternate methods."

"If you're looking for suggestions, drones can do some stuff," Jazz said, pulling up an overview of available construction materials so he'd know what he was dealing with. "But you need a sapient for a lot of things."

"Drones also present very similar logistical issues to sapient mecha in terms of manufacture and repair," Prowl said. "Living  mecha would be prioritized for those; we will likely run into the problem of having inoperational drones, lessening the advantages of having them in the first place."

"We’d have to take people off the front lines to build them, too," Jazz pointed out. He looked over at Optimus, who was frowning. No questions about what was bothering him either. "Still, y'had to get the Allspark offplanet, OP."

"Jazz is correct, my Prime," Prowl said. Way less officious than his predecessors, Optimus had almost succeeded in getting Prowl to drop the formality, but Prowl sometimes fell back into it during tense or sensitive conversations. "The Allspark would only have been a source of further conflict on Cybertron. And if the Decepticons had gotten control of it, we would be in a far worse position."

"The road’s the same length either way, then, at least unless we can come up with some way to make new mecha." Jazz frowned and tapped his fingers on the table, thinking. I’ve heard about experiments that tried to figure out spark-cloning running way back when. I never heard of anyone having much luck with them, though. Ratchet and Wheeljack'd have more info on that, though. Perceptor, too, maybe."

Optimus hesitated. “I’m not comfortable with the thought of asking people to allow themselves to be cloned, even if a successful method could be found.”

“Based on what I remember, cloning an existing spark didn’t exactly work,” Jazz said. “But maybe the info might lead to something?”

“We have to do something,” Prowl said soberly. “I agree with Jazz: it’s worthwhile to explore the idea, even if nothing comes of it.”

“Gotta do something.”

“Very well,” Optimus said, although he still sounded unsure.  “Prowl, please see if Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Perceptor are available to join us.” 

"Of course."

Once Ratchet and Wheeljack had arrived, Prowl recapped the meeting so far and asked the doctor and engineer what they thought.

"So, since we can't use the Allspark, and drones aren't the answer, so what do we do?" Wheeljack asked, turning a small gadget over in his fingers. "I mean, pretty much the only source of sparks we've got now is…uh, us and spark cloning, well…"

"It’s a bad idea and I won’t try it," Ratchet said bluntly. " Every attempt at spark cloning has ended in fatal instability. I deal with enough explosion-related trauma as it is."

"Kay, so we know what we can't have, and why we can't have it," Jazz put in, switching gears on the conversation. Talking about how Autobots were getting killed off wasn't going to get them anywhere. "That's why you two got the invite to this party. We know what we need. Any ideas on how we can get it?"

"There were some interesting reasons that cloning sparks never worked," Wheeljack said thoughtfully, absently taking the small gadget he'd been fiddling with apart and laying the pieces out in order on the tabletop. He went on to explain, using some deeply technical data that quickly lost everyone but Ratchet and Perceptor.

"Translated to laymech," Ratchet said once Wheeljack stopped talking about spark mechanics, but after Jazz had started assigning himself small rewards for each breem he didn't zone out, "Sparks don't like to have copies. Not unless they split naturally, and no one's ever been able to nail down why that happens. If you try to do it artificially, you're going to destabilize at least one of the sparks when you try to copy it. It has something to do with the frequency, but no one's managed to alter a frequency in the cloned or artificially split spark enough to stabilize it."

"Yeah. Getting a second frequency involved seems like it should work, but," Wheeljack shrugged, "no matter how close you get them, it just…doesn't. No one knows why."

"There's not a lot of research on it," Ratchet continued. "Not past a certain point, anyway. It turns out that simulations can only take you so far, and there aren't many people willing to risk their spark for science. And sure, these are old experiments we're talking about, and medical sim software has come a long way since they were run, but people haven’t changed that much. It won’t go over well if it gets out we’re experimenting with anyone’s spark." 

"The extremely delicate and dangerous nature of spark experimentation did result in a great deal of public resistance," Perceptor said diplomatically. "Further experimentation was banned after several, ah, rather catastrophic incidents."

"A couple of buildings getting flattened tends to create 'public resistance,' yeah," Ratchet said, much less diplomatically.

"Er, yes. As a result of several protests, spark experimentation has been illegal for centuries," Perceptor said. "Rather understandably, given previous outcomes."

"Sure, yeah, but right now we’re trying to avoid going extinct," Jazz pointed out. "And it ain't like the Cons're gonna be obeying those laws and they're just as likely to figure this out as we are." He glanced over at Optimus. "Looks like we got what's passing for Cybertron's government these days here anyway. What d'you say, Prime?"

Optimus hesitated for a long moment, turning the idea over. "That may be true, but I don't like the idea of making unilateral decisions of this kind. If we had a sitting Senate…"

"Don't think any of the Senators are exactly in a position to vote right now," Jazz said, twirling his stylus between his fingers and looking meaningfully downward, toward the former home of the Allspark. The current home of Primus, too, not that their god had much to say these days.

"I doubt their input would be useful even if they were," Prowl said drily. "The war might be over before the debate." He turned to Optimus, straightening slightly in his seat. "Prime, I understand your reluctance, but this is of the highest importance. I would even call it urgent, given the current state of the planet."

"Perhaps a compromise?" Perceptor suggested. "Temporarily lift the moratorium on simulation such procedures if you would, Optimus, and, should a viable solution be found, move on to mech testing. If sufficient volunteers with appropriate clearance can be located, of course."

"How're we gonna approach getting those volunteers?" Jazz asked. "I mean, if Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Perceptor say it's cool, then I'll go for it myself, but…we're talking about sparks, here. Hard to get more personal than that."

"And spark compatibility is no indicator of compatibility between individuals," Prowl pointed out. "That may present a significant roadblock to the project."

"Yes," Perceptor said. "However, spark duplication does not require spark extraction, although some exposure of one’s spark would be necessary. Only a small amount of matter from each volunteer's spark would be required to infuse a crystal and synthesize a new spark."

"You shed spark matter normally as it converts to energy and back," Ratchet said to the non-scientists and non-medics, who all had somewhat appalled expressions at the thought of having spark matter extracted. "We can harvest what we need from that, and you'll regenerate more over time."

"Does anyone else get a weird feeling over the word 'harvest'?" Jazz asked, breaking the silence. "Or is it just me?"

"It is not the most comfortable of ideas," Prowl admitted. "But neither are extinction or Decepticon subjugation."

"Hey, way to bring down the room," Jazz tried to joke, but the attempt fell flat, into a silence that went on for nearly a whole klik. 

"…Alright," Optimus said finally. "I’ll permit research into the possibilities. The ban is lifted for this purpose only. But I don't want this to go beyond the officers in this room,  at least not for now. Once we know if this will work, then we can start looking for volunteers."

"I gotta admit, it still feels weird," Jazz said. "The idea might  put a few people off, but we should get at least enough to make it work."

"Sparks are the most personal thing we have, usually don't show them to anyone else, gifts from Primus and all that," Ratchet said. "But people are probably willing to do a lot more than they used to be, especially if it could help end the war. We know what went wrong in the past, so that'll help us do this safely."

"No levelling buildings," Wheeljack said. The gizmo he'd been fiddling with had been rebuilt in a new configuration. "So if we're not doing that, we should be okay. The only ones I can think of that'd actually protest enough to disrupt stuff were some of the groups with stricter interpretations of the Covenant. I don't think anyone's heard from any of them in vorn."

"Strict religious types, yeah, I remember, " Jazz, one of the least conservative mecha in existence, commented. "Wouldn't care 'cept they tended to get pushy. Don't miss those guys,"

"Neither do I," Prowl, as close to an atheist as someone could be when the existence of your culture's god was provable, said, "though hopefully they would relax their guidelines in the face of extinction." His tone suggested he had doubts, though.

"Regardless," Optimus broke in, stopping any debates cold — Ratchet, for all he routinely cursed Primus, could be oddly spiritual at times, at least in his own way — "we face difficulties today that we haven't had to worry about for a long time. I'm willing to consider experimenting with spark creation if the simulations show it can be carried out with minimal danger." His tone became grave. "Without the Allspark, we have no other choice."

"Yeah," Jazz said, even though he could tell Optimus still wasn't comfortable with the idea. "Just hope we work something out before the 'Cons do."

“Will you be following standard protocol for an experimental project?” Prowl asked Ratchet, who was the project head by default. The meeting swiftly shifted from discussion to project planning. It broke up not long after that, and Jazz hung back to talk to Optimus.

"How are you really feeling about this, big guy?" Jazz asked. "It's a pretty unorthodox idea, huh?"

"I'm sure the temple priests wouldn't have approved, no." Optimus sighed. "To be honest, I'm still not sure how I feel about it either."

"It’s the thought of bringin' a spark online just to watch 'em fight, right?" Jazz guessed. "Yeah, I get that. Worked out okay so far for B-127 and the twins, though. And if anyone we build  wants out, you'll let 'em go." It wasn't a question; Jazz knew Optimus/Orion Pax far too well. No mech, no matter how many hours and resources had been put into their R&D, would be forced to fight. None of the alternatives were great either, though. A newbuild heading to a neutral colony, or trying to stay civvie on an increasingly battered Cybertron that was starting to run low on energy? Not gonna be in for a good time. "Not a lotta good choices here, huh?"

"No," Optimus said gravely, "there aren't."

Two lunar cycles had passed, and even though they were working with existing data, the spark-synthesis project still wasn't making much progress. Virtually all that the project team had been able to do was confirm that the data from the original experiments was essentially correct. The previous experiments had only missed one major factor: two frequencies were insufficient.

"I know we're missing something!" Wheeljack exclaimed in frustration after another round of unsuccessful simulations. "We know two frequencies just won't be enough, but we still get instability when we add more!"

"None of the options — spark cloning, synthesizing sparks using donors — work," Ratchet complained, glaring at the datapad in his hand as if that would force it to give answers, "but it looks like it should. So what the frag are we missing?"

"This is indeed quite perplexing,” Perceptor said. “As you say, all the data indicate that a minimum of three sparks is required for successful synthesis, and every permutation of the equations confirms this." Perceptor paused for a moment, thinking. Finally, he said, "Perhaps it is not the number but the nature of the sparks in question that presents us with our current dilemma."

Ratchet quirked an optic ridge at him. "You're thinking we've got to look at specific sparklines?"

Perceptor nodded. "Yes, I believe that to be the most viable avenue for exploration."

Wheeljack shrugged and turned back to his terminal. "Well, can't hurt to look into it. If you have an idea where to start, I can put together an analytic algorithm to pull up the most likely probabilities."

"We are attempting to have spark energy take on a new form," Perceptor said, "a new shape, as it were. I suggest we start with the most logical sparkline for adaptability, that of Amalgamous Prime."

Ratchet nodded slowly, understanding right away where Percetpro was coming from. Wheeljack connected directly to the terminal so he could work faster. "Alright. Let's start the sims up again and see what happens. We won't be any worse off than we are now if it doesn't work."

The trio spent days running the new sims over and over. Wheeljack was starting to see sims running in his recharge. But now that they were focused solely on donors from Amalgamous' sparkline, he could finally begin to see the patterns. They were getting closer to something that would work. When it finally happened, Wheeljack almost couldn't believe that they had a potential success after all the failures and near misses.

"This is it!" Wheeljack exclaimed, staring at the results of the latest simulation. Ratchet had lost count of how many simulations —at least one in each combination —they'd run. "It has to be, it's the only one we get consistent results from."

"It works in a simulation with spark frequencies taken from an old database and using some plasma calculations," Ratchet said, his tone reminding Wheeljack not to get carried away. "Remember, there are slight variations that occur in spark frequency ranges and densities over time that we'll have to account for. They aren't huge, but they're there, and it doesn't take much to generate an error in something like this."

"I can program the simulation to vary spark frequencies and plasma densities quite easily," Perceptor assured them. "Now that we know it will work with one variant, it is extremely probable it will work with others."

"Alright," Wheeljack said, turning back to the terminal. Frustration had been replaced by a new feeling of engagement, now that they had seen progress. "Let's get started!"

The science team ran hundreds more simulations with millions more variables —everything they could think of, and everything the branch of the Teletraan AI assigned to them could generate. The results weren’t one hundred percent successful every time. Eventually, they were able to narrow down a range of spark frequencies and plasma densities that yielded successful spark synthesis results above ninety-five percent of the time.

Ratchet shrugged and pinged a meeting request to the science and command teams for this operation. "Can't hurt to check."

"I take it you have some progress to report?" Prime asked at the meeting that Ratchet had called after their success with the simulations. There had been yet more casualties since they were proposed. Prowl knew how to compensate for losses, and the number of casualties wasn't yet large enough to affect the efficacy of the Autobot strategy and tactics. Still, the increase in casualties was a sobering reminder of why it was so important to find a new way to generate mechs.

"Indeed!" Perceptor answered, perking up even more. Even though his explanations tended to be very technical, he was enthusiastic about his work and that positivity tended to be a good influence on his audience when making presentations. Having worked in the private sector — back when there was such a thing — he also had practice. Perceptor could simplify things for an audience when he needed to. Wheeljack had taken contracts and sold inventions back in those days, but he'd hired Tracks to do the sales pitches for him, which had worked out pretty well.

"Lay it on us, Perce," Jazz invited. He was slouched in his chair, deceptively casual, but his attention on Perceptor said otherwise, the light of his visor sharp and focused if you knew where to look for it.

Perceptor gave an explanation of their work that the non-scientists mostly followed, finishing up where Optimus, at least, probably wished he had begun.

“…and so, as you see here,” Perceptor concluded, “the simulations indicate that a viable spark can be synthesized with the use of a minimum of three donors, provided one is of Amalgamous Prime’s sparkline and all donors are spark-compatible, based on the criteria provided in Appendix A.”

“Who’re we gonna start with?” Jazz asked, mentally reviewing the list of candidates from the science team's report. “And I know donating ain't gonna be an order, but how’re we gonna convince mechs to sign on? Like I said before, this is your spark, it's pretty personal stuff.”

“How about ’donate your spark plasma so we don’t all go extinct?'” Ratchet suggested. Jazz couldn't tell how much of that was sarcasm, but that was the core of it, wasn't it? As a slogan, it would need some fine-tuning before it hit the market, though.

“Yeah, sure,” Jazz said, nodding. “But — and I ain’t doubting your work — there’s always gonna be a difference between sims and reality. Before we start recruiting, we gotta be sure that this is gonna work. I think we gotta run off a viable new mech or two before it even goes beyond the officers. So, who’re we gonna ask?”

“I’m willing to volunteer for the project,” Prowl said quietly, looking at the table. Prowl was a pretty private mech, so if he were going to volunteer, it just showed how important this whole project was to him. “If my spark frequency is compatible with that of any of the other donors, of course.”

“Alright, that’s one,” Ratchet said with a nod of thanks. “Anyone else?”

“I will volunteer,” Optimus said. “I can’t ask anyone else if I’m not willing to do it myself.”

“Prime makes a good point there,” Jazz said, nodding. “Alright, I can be a good example. Count me in.”

"We've already discussed it, and we're each willing to go for it once we're not needed to actively run the synthesis," Ratchet confirmed on behalf of his team.

“Will that be sufficient to start, Perceptor?” Optimus asked.

“I believe so,” Perceptor said, “provided there is sufficient compatibility between the various groupings. However, the analysis to determine compatibility should be trivial to assemble."

"Please let something about this project be completed quickly," Ratchet muttered. Aloud, he added, "Alright, well, let's get back to it then. It's not going to be done any faster sitting here."

True to Perceptor's prediction, the compatibility analysis was completed quickly, spitting out a list of compatible groups. They picked out and prioritized compatible officer groups. Possibly because of the Matrix, Optimus' spark wasn't compatible with anyone else's, at least not as far as synthesizing a new spark went. Jazz and Prowl were the two most compatible officers on the list, but when it came to a potential third, none of the existing options meshed with them.

"We'll have to look outside the officers," Ratchet predicted with a sigh, tossing his stylus down on the lab table. "And I'm not too happy with the idea of using info from people's medical files for this without them knowing."

"Looks like we're starting recruitment early then," Wheeljack observed. "I can keep trying with the simulations on altering spark frequencies, but I don't think it's gonna get us any further, and this project's eating up a lot of computer time as it is. Especially since that other Teletraan node got taken out in the Decepticons' last bombing run. I can anonymize the data from medical files, but…"

"Eventually it has to be not anonymous, yeah," Ratchet said. "And people wouldn’t  be happy when they find out what their medical files were used for— even when we told them what it was for and if I'd let you do it."

"There are components of the regulations that could be made to fit this scenario," Prowl hedged, having analyzed them just for that reason, "but I understand your concerns."

"Yeah, and who remembers the regs all the way back from enlistment? Or would interpret 'em like that if they did?" Jazz asked. He thought for a moment, absently tapping out a rhythm on his knee. "Could tell 'em most of the truth, then ask 'em about testing and donating if they pass. They’d have to be mechs who can keep a secret, too." He made a series of quick taps on his leg again, deep in thought. "My team is pretty tight-lipped. Elita's group, too. You think that's enough to start with, Ratch?"

Ratchet shrugged. "It should be, but we won't know until we try. It’s a good idea to start with the more tight-lipped mechs. I'd say go for it, and we can just keep going through decreasing levels of clearance if we need to. I'll draw up a brief and consent form for the experiment, so anyone who says 'yes' knows what they’re agreeing to. It should only take a couple of cycles.

"Get it to me when you're done, Ratch, and I'll ask my mechs," Jazz said. "Prime can update Elita and have her do the same. If that's not enough, then I guess we'll keep looking."

"Hope we don't have to look too long," Ratchet muttered. "I know what the casualty reports look like, Jazz. It's not going to be too long before we start running out of time."

"Yeah, well," Jazz drummed his fingertips on the table. "Just keep thinkin' those positive thoughts, I guess, Ratch."

"I'm starting to run out of those, too."

Chapter Text

Cybertron

Even Wheeljack was starting to get tired of running simulations by the time they got some conclusive results. But it was worth it to finally get data indicating which volunteers and which combinations were likely to provide spark matter viable for synthesis.

"Alright, here's the list of mechs who passed the testing," Wheeljack said, once they had the data indicating which combinations of volunteers were likely to provide spark matter viable for synthesis. He brought up the list up on the display in the centre of the conference table. "Elita, Chromia, Ironhide, Mirage, Bumblebee, and Hound all made the cut."

Prowl frowned slightly. "Ironhide wasn't on the list of second-round candidates. He isn't from the correct sparkline."

"No, but he showed up with Chromia and started asking questions, and it was easier to test him, too, than try to talk him out of it," Ratchet said with a shrug. "Besides, on the list or not, has anyone ever heard Ironhide spill anyone's secrets? No, and he and Chromia had been Primal Vanguard longer than any of us have been Autobots. He might not be from Amalgamous's sparkline, but otherwise, he makes the cut for donation: there are a good number of mechs his spark will successfully combine with. He’s just being added to the project a little early, is all."

"That's fine," Optimus said, ending any potential debate. "I trust Ironhide. Just don't let anyone else sweet-talk you into letting them into a top-secret project, Ratchet," he added, though his tone was gently teasing.

Ratchet snorted, not the least put off. "'Sweet-talk' my rear axle! You try talking those two out of something they both put their minds to."

"Yes, Ironhide is a very promising candidate indeed," Perceptor said, neatly bringing the meeting back to purpose. "Though perhaps not for the attempt to generate the prototype. Indeed, we have quite a different grouping in mind, provided the third mech is amenable to donation."

"The most stable combination will be a spark synthesized with donations from Prowl, Jazz, and Mirage," Wheeljack said. "It's not by a huge margin, so we can still go with the second or third choices if Mirage doesn't agree, but that would be the best grouping."

"He probably will," Jazz said, scanning the data on the holodisplay. "I've been friends with 'Raj for a while, so I've got no objection. Prowl?"

"None."

"Alright," Jazz said, removing what Mirage hadn't been cleared to see yet from the data on the display. "Let's bring the mech in and brief him."

While some mechs would be intimidated by being called into a room full of command staff, Towers-trained Mirage — designed, built, and trained for corporate, political, and inter-house negotiations —  wasn't one of them. He'd dealt handily with all three groups before the war and, like Jazz, had known Optimus when he'd still been Orion, though not as well.

"Ambitious," Mirage said, optic ridges raised, once he'd been brought up to date. "I admit it's hardly a solution I would have expected, and that I know enough about the previous spark experiments that being asked to donate part of my spark makes me a little nervous, after all. But if you're alright with it, Prime, I'll trust that we're not about to repeat that bit of history."

“I will admit to some initial reservations about the project,” Optimus said. “But I have confidence in Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Perceptor’s efforts. I also see we have little choice.”

“True,” Mirage murmured. “I don’t have access to all the strategic data, of course, but it’s not difficult to extrapolate from what I do have. I know we need to do something.”

Jazz nodded. "Sure do, mech. So, you’re in?"

Mirage nodded back. "I am."

Prowl had volunteered for experimentation before, as he had been part of the pilot project for the Praxian Enforcers’ experimental advanced Special Weapons and Tactics battle computer. He quelled the tiny voice that reminded him the SWAT project had been well-researched and simulated, too, yet still led to adverse side effects for nearly all of the participants. Ratchet and Wheeljack had repaired the ones Prowl had been left with. He trusted they would have been just as diligent in seeking ways to prevent all the foreseeable problems with spark synthesis.

'Want a sedative chip before we start?' Ratchet asked over comms as he carefully hooked Prowl up to monitors, before beginning collection. It wouldn't be the first time Prowl had asked for one before a procedure, but…

'No, not this time,' Prowl answered. He didn't like others knowing about his hesitancy regarding medical procedures. Jazz and Mirage were in the room with him, and they would surely realize if he were sedated, especially if they were to interact during the collection period.

'Alright. You've got my comm if you change your mind.' Ratchet switched to verbal communications. "Open your chamber at your own discretion. Once you're ready, we'll start collecting the spark matter."

Prowl wasn't entirely sure he was ready, but there was no logic in putting this off, so he sent the command and opened his chestplates. The glow of sparklight was quickly eclipsed by the collection device being magnetized into place. Prowl supposed there was nothing more to do but wait. He brought up a logic game on his HUD to keep himself occupied until the collection was complete.

Jazz had done a lot of interesting things in his life, and a few of them had been spark-related, but donating his spark matter was something new. He wasn't sure what he'd expected the donation process to be like. Lying hooked up to a bunch of monitors with a weird gizmo magged over his spark chamber was pretty close, though. Feeling like he was driving while lying still, though, was not. Ratchet had done something to fool Jazz's systems into thinking he was moving fast and had muted Jazz's motor-control signals, but he still felt like he was in motion. It was weird and made his wheels itch, but apparently, it'd speed up his spark's matter-energy conversion rate, meaning it’d collect faster. Spark energy didn't like being away from a spark, apparently, so it had to be collected and the crystal imbued with it as fast as possible.  

On either side of Jazz, Prowl and Mirage were hooked up the same way. Prowl lay perfectly still with his optics shut off, probably running simulations with that impressive strat-tac mod of his. Mirage, lying on his back with one arm behind his head, was on Jazz's other side, probably watching a vid or playing a game on his HUD. Or maybe reading. Jazz knew Mirage was a fan of an old historical fiction holodrama, one that took major liberties with the times and events it pictured. Jazz had tried watching it off and on over the vorn and couldn't get into it. He knew too much history for the inaccuracies not to bug him.

He killed that processing thread right away. Jazz didn't like thinking about his old life. If he started comparing Cultural Investigator Jazz's life to Spec Ops Head and Spy Extraordinaire Jazz's lives, it felt like looking at two different people.

The itch in his tires got worse. He just wasn't made to stay still like this for this long!

"Jazz, you seem unsettled. Would running a racing simulator with others help?" Prowl asked, with what a lot of people found to be spooky prescience, but was just him paying attention. This time, it'd be Jazz starting to get slightly fidgety. "I have access to several quite challenging racing sims on the base server. I’m happy to network you in."

It sure couldn't hurt, Jazz figured. It wasn't like Ratchet needed their full attention for this. Besides, it wouldn't be a bad idea to know a little bit more about the mechs he was gonna — hopefully — be making a new person with.

"Yeah, I'm in," Jazz said, and accepted the party invite Prowl sent him. "Mirage?"

"Yes, I'd like that."

Mirage had been somewhat concerned about things becoming awkward, being part of such an… intimate project alongside two superior officers. He suspected those reservations were more on his side than theirs, and the idea of a network game was a welcome potential icebreaker.

Prowl had picked a racing sim with an obstacle course that shifted randomly on each pass, one that Mirage had played before, if only briefly. Prowl chose player-versus-player as the gametype, and the obstacle courses made it more complicated than just 'fastest mech wins'. Prowl's tactical skills gave him an advantage, but Mirage and Jazz each knew a few tricks that gave them advantages as well. When they wound down playing a joor later, the score wasn't evenly divided between them — Prowl was ahead by just enough points to win the round — but it was satisfyingly close.

"A racing game, huh?" Ratchet said thoughtfully when he came to unhook them. "I'll have to remember that trick for the next batch of donors. We were able to harvest more spark matter than we predicted we would." He finished Prowl from the collection device and the monitors. "Sit up slowly and tell me if you get dizzy."

Mirage hadn’t looked at Jazz or Prowl while their sparks were exposed, as that felt too intimate, but the shed spark matter was different. It glowed in its flask more faintly than a full spark would have, with a paler hue. As each flask was placed into a stasis container, it was whisked away by a medtech. Mirage's was the last to go, and he watched it with a strange feeling he couldn't identify, wondering if the others felt the same.

"Are we gonna get to watch the magic happen, Ratch?" Jazz asked, sitting up slowly like Ratchet had told him to. Mirage did the same, though he didn't feel dizzy at all.

Ratchet frowned, though it wasn't clear whether it was directed at Jazz or the monitor readings. "I think we should make sure it works outside of a sim, first."

"I would like to observe the procedure as well," Prowl said, even though he'd been mostly silent since they'd arrived. "I have never seen a spark generated."

"I have," Mirage said quietly, thinking of home. "Twice."

Two of the members of his Tower had been much younger than he was. Mirage was vorns older and hadn't known them well, but still wished he knew with certainty what had happened to them. They were officially listed as 'missing', but he had seen what was left of Vinvissuss Heights after the Rainmaker squadrons and the heavy bombers had been through. No one else had survived, and Mirage knew better than to hold out hope, but couldn't help it, even so.

Ratchet sighed in a way that said he knew he didn't have time to argue and no medical reason not to allow it. "Alright, fine. Everyone who's coming, come on. But stay behind the sterile shielding, or I'll weld you to the floor at a proper distance. Come on."

Mirage knew he wasn't walking into a Vector Sigma terminal, but he'd still somewhat expected the room to look the part. It didn't, of course. It was far sparser and undecorated, and very definitely lacked anyone praying to Primus.

So far, anyway.

In fact, not only was there no prayer, but no one was talking at all, entirely focused on the clearly very delicate procedure. Mirage realized now he had only seen the very end of the spark generation process, at least if it was anything like what Ratchet and Wheeljack were doing. Of course, all the priest-technicians who could have known with certainty were dead or off-planet and had always kept their secrets to themselves. Ratchet had repeatedly complained that the spark synthesis project would have been much further along if they hadn't.

Next to Mirage, Prowl, and Jazz watched in equal fascination as the canisters of spark matter were carefully inserted into a machine, the spark energy disappearing into the depths of the device.  A strange hum filled the air, just on the edge of hearing at first, but slowly growing louder. Ratchet and Wheeljack immediately began scanning what could only be a new spark beginning to generate.

In Mirage's peripheral vision, Jazz shifted slightly, likely curious and wanting to observe more closely. He heeded Ratchet's warning and stayed back, though. Prowl was intently focused on the procedure in front of them and then…

Light.

The bright flare of sparklight faded but did not entirely diminish. Mirage was no expert on newsparks, but he had seen them, and he was sure it looked healthy and viable. Ratchet and Wheeljack were moving quickly to get the newspark into its waiting protoform, another promising sign.

Mirage stilled, watching and remembering as the medic and the scientist. The roughly mech-shaped mass of protomatter closed over the spark in its crystal casing. A shimmer ran through the featureless gray mass, and then it started to shift, its shape altering and gaining definition and distinct components.

Earth

"You look like you're thinking about something," Mirage said with one of those sudden bursts of insight he sometimes had out of nowhere. Noah didn't think the carefree personality Mirage projected was fake, but there was definitely a lot more going on under the surface than he let on. "Is any of this weirding you out?"

"I mean…" It would have bothered Noah even if he couldn’t exactly say why. He tried to find a way to phrase it that wouldn't offend Mirage, which admittedly seemed like a pretty hard thing to do. Never knew what might hit someone the wrong way, though. "I don't know. Does it…bother you? Being made as part of an experiment like that? Just 'cause they needed new soldiers?"

"Nah. Why would it?"

It would have bothered Noah, even if he couldn't say why. "Well, I mean —"

But Mirage kept going. "I mean, none of us get a say in how we're brought online, born, whatever, right? And Cybertron isn't like Earth, where new people get made just 'cause. On Cybertron, everyone gets brought online for a purpose. Don't always fit it, but that's not as much of a problem for them as it used to be. Besides, even if I hadn't wanted to do what I got built for, it's not like Optimus would've made me. He's not a Functionist or anything."

"Function-what?" Noah was starting to get the feeling Mirage had really gone light in the details of Cybertronian history when he'd told Noah stuff before. Like, really light. "What's that?"

"Eh, that was all before my time," Mirage said dismissively, so Noah guessed Functionists-whatever-they-were probably weren't important anymore. At least, they weren't important to Mirage. "You could ask my dads about it when they catch up to — Oh, hey, there they are!"

Noah glanced in the rearview and immediately thought back to that first wild ride with Mirage when he saw a cop car pulling up beside them. But then another Porsche pulled up along with it, and it clicked. Mirage's dads, flanking them. Briefly, Noah wondered which one Mirage had gotten his driving skills from.

"Hey, kiddo," Jazz said cheerfully over Mirage's radio. "Thanks for the specs. This vehicle mode is pretty slick!"

"It does defeat the purpose of being inconspicuous," Prowl pointed out, which was a hell of an observation from someone who'd managed to find or make a police Nissan 300ZX.

"Yeah," Mirage said nonchalantly. "Don't worry, it'll fit in a little better in New York. Mostly."

"New York is quite densely populated," Prowl said. Guess he'd done some research while he was looking for a disguise. Maybe talked to some of the others, too. "Is it difficult to remain concealed there?"

"Eh, it's New York," Mirage said, confident as if he'd been born and raised there, sounding like he would have shrugged if he were standing in robot mode. "Nobody cares."

"'Cept you seem to've picked up a friend there?" Jazz asked, in a casual tone that almost-but-not-quite reminded Noah of Mirage.

"Yeah, this is Noah," Mirage said easily. "We met when he tried to steal me."

"Please explain," Prowl said in a mild tone that still made Noah straighten up in his seat. This guy was part of a military command, alright.

"Hey, it's not a big deal," Mirage protested. "Anyway, I stole him instead, or we stole each other or whatever, so it worked out."

"Uh-huh," Jazz said, and if that had come from Noah's mom, the tone would've meant a conversation later. "Prime gave us the rundown on what went down with Unicron, but it sure seems like he skimped on some of the details."

"Yes, and I expect a fuller debrief from you, Mirage," Prowl added. "I suppose it explains your recent…modifications?"

"Uh…um, yeah. But hey!" Mirage said hastily. "Noah already knows that all that stuff, y'know, since he was there and all. I don't wanna bore him. It's why I've been telling him all about how you guys made me."

Jazz laughed and drifted a little closer to Mirage in a way that weirdly reminded Noah of a friendly nudge, even though there wasn't any contact. "Well, you're definitely anything but boring, kiddo. Alright, loop us in and keep going."

"Good timing, I was just getting to the good part: me.”

Cybertron

The protoform's development accelerated as more of its components were constructed and brought online, and began to interact with one another. This was where self-repair systems started, providing the new mech's schematics and finalizing development. The process seemed to go unusually quickly, but Mirage supposed he had very little basis for comparison. In less than a breem, blue and silver armour-covered internals, and the new mech's optic shutters flickered open.

"Hello there," Ratchet said gently, and put a slowing hand on the mech's shoulder when he tried to sit up right away. "Take it easy. Coming online for the first time can be a little disorienting."

"Aw, c'mon doc — you're a doc, right? It's gonna be boring just lying here!" the mech protested, pushing up against Ratchet's hand. "Lemme up, I wanna see what's going on."

"Alright, okay, just let me know if you experience any vertigo or visual or auditory glitches." Ratchet let up, and the mech pretty much sprang to his feet, looking around, optics bright and curious.

"So, this is being online, huh? Tell me I don't have to spend it all right here."

"Just give me two kliks to scan you and run a few quick tests to make sure everything settled into place right," Ratchet said in the face of the new mech's energy. "Do you know your designation yet? It's alright if you don't, it can take some time."

"Huh." The new mech paused to think about things, but not very long, and his expression was, briefly, astoundingly reminiscent of Prowl analyzing something. "Yeah, I dunno yet, but I got this thing on my heads-up display listing me as X-834. Doesn’t  seem right, but I can use it for now, I guess." He looked over the other mechs in the room, lingering on the three behind the partition.  “Who are all you guys?"

"I'm Ratchet, a doctor, and that's Wheeljack, one of our engineers," Ratchet explained. "Behind us are Prowl, Jazz, and Mirage."

Apparently too curious to wait for Ratchet to finish scanning, X-834 leaned around him so he could see, and his expression brightened when he saw the three mechs standing behind the partition. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "I know you guys! Or…well, I feel like I do? I'm just…not sure how."

"And we'll tell you soon," Ratchet said firmly but not unkindly. "First, we need to make sure your spark has integrated properly with your structure. It's just a simple test."

X-834 frowned a little. “Do I have to do it? Tests sound boring.”

Jazz could feel the others’ attention on him, even the ones who didn’t actually turn to look. He tried not to grin. Yeah, that was his input, alright, showing up right away.

“Sometimes you've got to do boring things, kid, no way around it,” Ratchet said, with more patience than his more mature patients usually got. “C’mon, it won't take long, and then you can go and meet everyone."

"Sure, I guess."

But the new mech did what Ratchet told him, so he definitely had sound judgment. While Ratchet ran his tests, Jazz tried to read screens and body language to make sure everything was okay. Ratchet was too professional to let anything show if there was, of course. X-834 didn’t show any signs of glitches or pain. He just kept asking questions, seeming alert and interested.

"I hope everything's alright," Mirage murmured, his voice just loud enough for Prowl and Jazz to hear. "I feel far more anxious than I usually would seeing a newspark come online."

"Looks like he's okay so far," Jazz said reassuringly. "He’s not disoriented and has a normal amount of energy. If the synthetic spark was gonna lead to problems, I'm pretty sure we'd see them right away."

"Jazz is correct," Prowl confirmed. He switched to comms, presumably so X-834 wouldn't hear. 'However, since spark synthesis is a new process, we should still be wary.'

'Yeah,' Jazz said, optics still fixed on X-834. The others were having trouble looking away from the newbuild too. 'But for now, let's just stay positive.'

"Alright," Ratchet said after more than two kliks of scans and tests. X-834 looked like he was getting impatient. Jazz had been through his own share of medical testing and understood the feeling. "Alright, that's enough tests for now. Come with me,  I've got some people I want you to meet." 

Ratchet ushered X-834, who looked curiously between his three spark donors, over to the observation area. Prowl, closest to the door, was introduced first. Jazz had never heard Prowl use quite that tone, pleasantly surprised and slightly softened, before. Once X-834 moved over to Jazz, though, he got it. Sure, this was a whole new person, but Jazz could still pick out little bits of himself, here and there. Intonation, sure, something about the optic colour, yeah. Attitude pretty much exactly what Jazz’d been like when he was younger. Oh yeah, Jazz got what Prowl and Mirage after him had to be feeling.

'This is amazing,' Prowl told Jazz and Mirage over a private channel. 'We helped make a new person!'

'We certainly did,' Mirage said. 'Incredible!'

'Yeah,' Jazz said, watching X-834 meet Mirage. 'And, don't know about you two, but I'm not done helping the kid out yet. You guys?' He got two affirmative answers. 'Alright. Let's make sure this mech is ready for the world.'

Chapter Text

Cybertron

One of the first steps in making X-834 ready for the world was making sure he had an alt mode. Jazz was the one to take him to the warehouse nicknamed The Showroom, where scavenged models of various alts were stored. Sure, there wasn't the variety you'd've had at a Vector Sigma terminal, but hey, the kid could always switch up later. Sure seemed like he was expecting to do that anyway, with all the transscanning he was doing.

"You know that you can only use one alt mode at a time, right?" Jazz teased gently as X-834 scanned his fifth vehicle mode from the nonsentient demo models in front of him. "How many are you gonna store?"

"Just the hot ones. Besides, I  don't have to stick with just one, right?" The newspark asked rhetorically. "That’s boring. Besides, it'd be useful for undercover stuff, right? I read about that, and it looked like fun. Hey, which one d'you think suits me best?" X-834 asked, transforming into the first model he’d scanned. "This one? Oh! Or!" he switched models, "This one?"

The switch from one vehicle mode to another was so fast that it took Jazz by surprise. Loading a new alt without transforming back to root mode wasn't impossible, but that had been way faster than Jazz had ever seen. It didn't seem like he'd had to take the time to load a new schema for the new alt. From the look of it, components were just wholesale-switching from one to another without the telltale ripple of reprogrammed nanites Jazz was used to seeing. As far as Jazz could tell, the kid hadn't even paused to load the new alt's schema.

"What's the look for?" X-834 asked, transforming back to root mode and looking himself over. "I got scuffs or rust spots on me or what?"

"You switched pretty fast there," Jazz said neutrally, wanting information before he explained. "How long'd it take you to load the new one?"

"Huh?” The other mech frowned. “It's already loaded, just like the rest. How many alts d'you have loaded?"

O-kay. Sounded like X-834 could keep multiple alt mode schemas loaded simultaneously. That was a new one on Jazz, given how complex the alt mode schema could be.

"I’ve only got one in active memory at a time," Jazz answered, curious as to what the kid was going to say. "Gotta load up a new one from my drives and wait a couple nano-kliks if I wanna change alts."

"What, so you just stick with one all the time?" X-834 asked, sounding amazed.

Jazz nodded. "Unless I need to switch it for an op or I find a model I like better, yeah. That's what most people do."

"Huh. Sounds boring, but okay." X-834 shrugged. "I'll try them out for a bit. Maybe I'll find one I like enough to stick with. Maybe not."

Jazz couldn't help smiling fondly at the kid, remembering how long it had taken him to decide on an alt. It wasn't like he'd kept it, either, changing and upgrading whenever he found a new model he liked better. He’d probably been like that for the first half vorn or so.

"You can switch it up as much as you like," Jazz told X-834, still smiling. "So long as you're happy, kiddo."

"Thanks, Jazz."

Mirage had initially planned to give X-834 a formal education similar to the one he had received, but when he pulled up the files to review them, he paused. Now, he could see how what he'd learned had focused on only a tiny part of Cybertron’s history and society. It presented a view in which the world outside the wealthy's Towers barely existed, and both worlds no longer existed. Mirage would have to create a new curriculum virtually from component parts. It seemed as if this might be an education for both of them.

Unfortunately, while X-834 was clearly very intelligent, he was not inclined to sit still for long lessons of the kind Mirage had always had. Revisions to Mirage’s lesson plans were immediately necessary.

"Just 'cause you did it doesn't mean I have to," X-834 argued. "I mean, didn't you get bored sitting through all this history stuff? And c'mon! We're fighting a war; none of this is about what’s going on now."

"Wouldn't you like to know what you might expect life to be like after the war?" Mirage tried, and then remembered his reaction to similar arguments. He could see them reflected in the skeptical look X-834 was giving him. "Alright. Perhaps you'd prefer to have some time on the race track if you finish your analysis of Over-Run's historic siege of Fort Scyk during the War of the False Prime in a timely fashion?"

"Eh, that's boring. But! Racing with you, not boring. I'll get you your analysis, sure." X-834 flashed Jazz's grin at Mirage and turned back to his console. "See ya on the track!"

Racing had always been Mirage's preferred reward for doing what his tutors wanted, too. The base didn't have the type of courses he'd used back then, but it did have a variable obstacle track. Mirage was reasonably sure he could reprogram it from memory, if not exactly, then to something similar to what he’d had.

In the end, it wasn't a perfect replica of the pre-war track, but it was good enough—and X-834 was happy, which more than made up for any shortcomings.

Prowl would have preferred to delay X-834's combat training for a few cycles longer to give the mech more time to adjust to his frame, abilities, and alt mode when and if he settled on one. To let him spend more time learning to socialize and acclimate to society. But that was no longer the Cybertron in which they lived, and what the young mech had to acclimate to now was war.

Unfortunately, until the next batch of newsparks came online, there would be no other beginners for X-834 to spar with. Prowl knew they didn’t have time to wait. The best Prowl could give him for now was a sparring partner who qualified for clearance and who had been instructed to go easy on him.

Well, relatively. The mech still had to learn, after all.

"Damn, you're fast!" X-834 exclaimed, sounding a little bit envious, as Sideswipe avoided his attempted strike.

Sideswipe shrugged and grinned even as he dodged. Despite the provocation, X-834 wasn't getting flustered or losing his temper, Prowl was pleased to note. The younger mech was still making errors, but usually not the same one twice. Prowl wasn't surprised to see him learning quickly: X-834 had scored very high in adaptability. Prowl felt more pleased than he usually was with such a student, something he attributed to the stronger bond he, as well as Jazz and Mirage, had with X-834. Prowl had a strong affection for the young mech whose spark was a partial copy of his own.

Sessions passed, and X-834 was still not quite nerving himself up to actually hit Sideswipe, who really was going easy on him, despite what X-834 probably thought. Prowl didn't blame him for not wanting to use violence, but self-defence was a vital skill for any Cybertronian these days.

"X-834," Prowl said, signalling for a time-out. "You won't always be able to dodge your opponent. Eventually, you'll have to hit back or parry them. However, since you are successfully able to dodge…Sideswipe? Level two. Begin."

Sideswipe nodded and sped up the pace. It was harder for X-834 to dodge now, and he did manage to parry Sideswipe a couple of times.

"Dodging and weaving are important skills," Prowl said mildly one day, several sessions in, pacing a circle around the two combatants, "but X-834, you have to learn to hit back."

"What're you talking about?" X-834 protested. "I hit him!"

Sideswipe snorted, made a feint that the younger mech fell for, and dropped X-834 to the mat. "You tapped me, and not that hard." He stepped back warily, waiting for his opponent to get up again. "C'mon, get up, you don't get to pause in a real fight. The 'Cons aren't gonna hold back, and neither should you."

X-834 frowned briefly but then rolled back to his feet and went for Sideswipe again. X-834's stance and technique were overall good, but he was still hesitant to actually hit Sideswipe. Prowl could see X-834 growing frustrated and was tempted to intervene. But he could also see X-834 thinking and wanted to see what the younger mech would come up with.

X-834’s solution was nothing Sideswipe or Prowl could have expected. Prowl stopped pacing in surprise as suddenly a second X-834 feinted for Sideswipe, distracting him just long enough that the real X-834 was able to land a fairly decent hit on his opponent.

What had just happened?

Once his initial shock had worn off, Prowl called a time-out to ask that question, ignoring Sideswipe’s muttered, "good question!"

"What? I couldn't find an opening, so," X-834 shrugged. "I distracted him and made one. I mean, you wanted me to hit him, right?"

"Yes," Prowl said, adding a 'well done' to encourage the behaviour despite his surprise, before continuing to a very, very pertinent question. "But how did you do that? You aren’t equipped with a hologram generator." As a prototype, X-834 was regularly monitored to ensure he was operating correctly and to guard against any errors in future batches of synthesized mecha. Ratchet had not reported any such technology being present, and Prowl was absolutely certain that X-834 had no access to aftermarket modifications. Not only had that market collapsed, but Ratchet or Wheeljack would have had to install them. That wouldn’t have been held back from the project team.

"Huh? Of course I'm equipped with this stuff?" X-834 gestured to himself. "C'mon, Prowl, it came with the package! How else? Mirage has one, so does Hound. How come you’re so surprised?"

"Mirage and Hound's abilities are from aftermarket modifications," Prowl said slowly. "They didn't come online with them.”

"C'mon, you gotta be kidding me!" Sideswipe protested, looking between them. "What do you mean, he came online with 'em? Wouldn't Ratchet've picked it up when he did his scans?"

Prowl would have expected that as well, but could think of several reasons he might not have.

"If these systems are integrated and considered part of his systems and structure or developed later, perhaps not," Prowl said aloud, simultaneously comming Ratchet for an appointment as soon as possible. "X-834, practice is over for now. We're going to go see Ratchet."

X-834, no fan of tests and scans, groaned but followed.

"I didn't see it because I didn't know to look for it," Ratchet said, confirming Prowl’s suspicions. "I was only checking to make sure that the systems that are supposed to be there were there and were working properly. His power demands were a little high, but that's not uncommon in newsparks, since their systems and structures are still being updated and settling. I'd have to go back to your internal maintenance logs, X-834, but it's possible this system hadn't finished construction or completely come online yet during your initial scans. Do you remember having access to it when you came online?"

"No, but a lot was going on. Lotta stuff on the HUD, y'know, people to meet, places to be." X-834 glanced over at Prowl before turning back to Ratchet. "But…it's cool, right? No problems, everything’s up and running like it's supposed to be?"

"You’re fine, yes," Ratchet reassured his patient. "But I'd like to do some more detailed scans and a diagnostic, as well as some tests on the limits of these abilities, to get an idea of how they work in case you ever need medical attention." Familiar with X-834’s tendency to get bored quickly, Ratchet added, “Keep an audial out for questions while I work. Otherwise, you can entertain yourself on your HUD like you did before.”

X-834 looked sheepish. "Oh, you, uh, you noticed that?"

Ratchet snorted, not even looking up from selecting tools. "Kid, I missed you having a fancy in-built system no one's supposed to have, but I don't miss much else. Lie back and open your diagnostic port, please. Prowl, out."

"It's okay," X-834 said suddenly. "Prowl, you can stay. We can maybe link up and play a game or something? If you've got time, I mean."

Prowl had several things that could easily occupy the remainder of the time he'd set aside for X-834’s training. But they were also things that were not nearly as important.

"I'd like that," Prowl said simply, and settled into a chair out of Ratchet's way. "Shall we see if Jazz and Mirage are available too?"

"Yeah, sounds fun!"

None of the older mechs networked on the game were the type to let X-834 win. They also recognized that knowing how to lose was a valuable interpersonal skill. But Prowl was pleased to note that, with every iteration, X-834's scores rose, and his tactics evolved. It was difficult to tell if ability was a heritable trait or due to training, but Prowl liked the idea that he’d passed on at least some of his skills.

That just left the question of how X-834 had developed his more unusual traits. Hopefully, Ratchet’s tests would provide some answers.

“It’s not precisely clear how X-834 came to develop his illusion ability,” Ratchet reported at the next project meeting. “But it does seem to be something that developed as a side effect of the spark synthesis. And right now, I've only got a sample size of one, so who knows if X-834 is a one-off?”

“I ran more simulations using the new data,” Wheeljack said, “and some similar frequencies appear in some of the theoretical sparks, but not all of them. Which ones develop them, and which ones don’t seems to be completely random.”

“The presence of different frequencies does indicate that X-834’s ability is not guaranteed to be duplicated exactly in the additional newbuild,” Perceptor pointed out. “We can hope they will all be as useful, of course.”

Ratchet picked up the conversation again. “Anyway, I'm less concerned with getting new mechs with built-in abilities, no matter how useful, than I am in making sure that the ones we do have are online and functional."

"That's not even getting into the moral and ethical issues surrounding creating mecha specifically for any potential abilities," Prowl pointed out, aware of Optimus' — and the command team in general's — discomfort with the potential ramifications of the spark synthesis project.

"But we're not talking Point One Percenters here, right, Ratch?" Jazz asked.

Ratchet shook his head. "No, I'd have definitely picked up on that well before we got to this point. Those are incredibly rare, anyway, as you can tell by the name. I've been practicing medicine since I came online, and I've only even heard of a few. I doubt we could synthesize one without a Point One Percent donor anyway, and we don't have one."

“So we have, as far as scans can tell, a large number of sparks with a standard distribution and a few outliers that may have extra abilities,” Prowl summarized. “But no way of knowing what those abilities will be until they come online.”

“That’s about it,” Ratchet said with a shrug. “Maybe once we have a few more mechs with synthesized sparks to scan, we’ll be able to predict them more accurately. Right now there’s no way to tell.”

“Is there any danger to the newbuilds?” Prowl asked. Jazz had been kinda trying not to think about that himself. “Any instabilities?”

Ratchet gave him a knowing look but answered sympathetically. “No, and it’s likely if X-834’s spark were unstable we’d have picked it up by now. He’s as safe as he can be. In fact, I think it’s time to shelter him a little less.”

Jazz picked up what Ratchet was putting down and exchanged glances with Prowl, plus a quick comm with Mirage. “Whaddya think, time to introduce him to everyone else?”

“I think we’re getting to the point that he’ll do it if we don’t,” Prowl said, echoing what Mirage had said. “So, yes.”

“Alright. Let’s pick a time and place and do it.”

Prowl, Jazz, and Mirage debated how to introduce X-834 to everyone and decided to simply bring him to the mess hall. Prowl wasn’t sure what the reactions would be, but if nothing else, it was becoming impractical to try to keep his existence hidden, and it was unfair to the young mech, besides.

X-834 had met a few mechs beside his spark-donors and the main project team, but this was his first time in a relatively large group. Prowl chose a low-traffic time to visit the mess hall to ensure X-834 wasn't overwhelmed. He needn't have worried.

"Wow, you hang out with all of these guys?" X-834 asked, too busy looking around the room to remember to drink his fuel.

"Sometimes," Jazz said cheerfully, and Prowl was happy to let him answer the question. "Don't always work with all of them, but there's social stuff sometimes, when we can manage it."

Which was becoming less often as personnel grew stretched over an increasing number of tasks, and resources continued to deplete. Prowl had never been as interested in social events as Jazz and Mirage were, but he'd still attended on various occasions for varying lengths of time. As the gatherings grew fewer in number, Prowl found he missed, if not always the events themselves, the opportunity to go.

"Can I meet them?" X-834 asked, no doubt aware of the curious looks he was getting. So far, no one had approached to ask questions or pick up his FFID tag, but it was only a matter of time. "All of them?"

"Sure, kiddo," Jazz said. He twisted in his seat and waved to catch Bluestreak's attention. Well, if Jazz wanted word to spread quickly, Prowl thought, he'd certainly made a good choice.

X-834 was clearly delighted to meet new people and made friends, especially with Bluestreak, fast. It didn’t take long before his social circle had expanded, and it expanded further still when more newbuilds began to come online. 

Earth

"Yeah,  you said there were others like you," Noah said. "They can all make illusions?"

"Nah, just me. And not all of them have extra stuff like that. As far as I know, they never figured out why some of us did and some of us didn't, or why they're all different. And I haven't even started telling you about the gestalts yet!"

"’Gestalts’?" Noah echoed. "What're they?"

"Probably the biggest surprise to come out of the whole project,” Mirage said casually. “But hey,  we’ve still got a ways to go. I got time to tell you about them."

Chapter Text

Cybertron

The spark-synthesis project was bringing new mecha online semi-regularly now, depending on time, resources, and donor availability. It wasn’t enough: the Autobots still weren't gaining a numerical advantage. 

Ratchet wasn't someone to really pray to Primus, unless swearing in the deity's general direction counted, but sometimes he had to wonder if their god was listening after all.

After the discussion about whether it was possible to use a single set of donated spark energy to create multiple mechs, the project team began monitoring the new sparks even more closely. Perceptor, in particular, was curious to see at what point in spark creation one might naturally split: that ought to be when it was possible to artificially induce a split. It had never been before, but their understanding of spark creation had grown vastly since the beginning of the project. Simulations weren't practical here, since they didn't yet have the data they needed to build a useful one. They could only monitor and hope that a spark would split naturally, and that they would finally be able to record the needed data.

Ratchet complained extensively about the secrecy of the priest-technicians who had interceded with Vector Sigma on behalf of supplicants. Wheeljack and Perceptor were less vocal about it, but, overall, agreed. 

The breakthrough came a few months into the program, and it happened so fast that Perceptor had to spend two weeks teasing the information out of the recorded data. The resulting twins called themselves Topspin and Twin Twist. They were fast and strong, and sharing a link that let them each get an echo of the other's feelings and pain.

Twins had never been common on Cybertron, but while some had reported a vague sense of the other, it had never been this extreme, and it wasn't reported by all of them. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, for instance, reported no such thing, and Ratchet had seen them in his medbay, individually and together, enough to have figured it out if they did. Ratchet hoped that wasn't going to be a trait that every set of twinned sparks they managed to create was going to share. It might be alright in peacetime, but in a war, with a pair of mechs who looked like they were headed for the front lines — mainly because it seemed impossible to keep them away — not so much. 

Earth

"So what’s the difference between splitting sparks and cloning them?" Noah asked. "'Cuz cloning's just making a copy, right? Isn’t splitting them just making a bunch of copies?"

"Mmm…not exactly. I don't really get it. I'm just going by what Ratchet told me. Speaking of…Hey, guys," Mirage had to be talking to Jazz and Prowl. "Any word from Ratchet or Perceptor? Or-or Mirage?"

"Ratchet is well and on the Ark, but refuses to come down to the planet until he's sure no one else incoming needs medical care," Prowl replied. "Perceptor was last seen taking refuge on Nebulos. Mirage's last transmission indicated he was aboard a ship looking for other Autobot refugees, but…that was some time ago."

"Oh."

Noah winced a little: no need for Mirage to say that was not what he’d hoped to hear.

"Hey, he'll be fine," Jazz said reassuringly. "Mirage knows how to take care of himself. Goes with the name, right?"

"Heh, yeah, guess so."

"As far as cloning sparks goes," Prowl answered Noah's earlier question, "I'm afraid I lack a complete understanding of the science behind it. But if it were feasible, we would have pursued that avenue. What was successful was determined from the data Perceptor collected, which led us to a reliable method for creating one spark and splitting it into multiples."

"So, you wound up with a bunch of mechs all with the same abilities?" Noah asked.

"Mmm, yeah," Jazz allowed. "Just, maybe not in the way you're thinking."

Cybertron

The project team expected the first live spark they tried to split would split into an even number of new sparks. There was probably a more reasonable explanation for it, but for now, Ratchet was putting it down to Primus's fondness for prime numbers. A bit egotistical if you asked Ratchet, which he doubted Primus ever would. And all five mechs were healthy, functional and, most importantly, willing and able to work. The Autobots still weren't bringing new mecha online at replacement levels, and they needed everyone who could work to perform their duties.

"With the success of the current iteration of the spark generation project, it seems clear that the extra time and materials required to construct five mecha simultaneously are well spent," Perceptor said. "Given this success and our present requirements for additional personnel, I believe this is where we should maintain our focus. Unless there are any issues you can foresee, Ratchet? As I recall, there was some concern during the simulations phase that the sparks might try to, ah, reintegrate, somehow?"

Wheeljack winced. "I still don't like the sound of that. It shouldn’t happen. I worked out all the kinks that might've led to that. Just in time, too. I was starting to have recharge fluxes about it."

“I'm not worried about that since they came online. They’re definitely not one spark anymore,” Ratchet said, scanning Perceptor’s latest report. “And I've never even heard of anyone theorizing about splitting one spark between five bodies like this. I asked First Aid — who’s got the makings of an excellent medic but doesn’t want to be actively involved in fighting, by the way — and he said he didn’t feel like he should be a different person, just that there 'should be more.' Couldn’t tell me what he meant by that, though. But what’s particularly interesting to me is these mutations on his and his batchmates’ t-cogs. They’re almost like what we see in triple-changers, but not quite.”

"'Not quite'?" Wheeljack echoed, optic ridge drawn down in a frown. "Do they have a third mode or not, Ratchet?"

"They've got a third mode," Ratchet confirmed. "I'm just not sure what it is yet. It's not a vehicle or a tool, though, which kind of limits the known options."

Wheeljack shook his head. "I never stop being surprised by the things we're finding with this project."

Ratchet snorted. "You're telling me about surprises here? I'll keep working with them. I don't think First Aid is keeping anything from me; I think he just hasn't figured out how to explain it to me yet. I'll bring in Aid and his siblings, sit them down, and see if we can learn more by getting them talking."

The lightly structured interview technique Ratched tried to start the Protectobots off with ran into problems almost right away. It wasn't that the Protectobots didn't want to answer; they just weren't sure how. Midway through the conversation, Ratchet gave up on guiding and just sat back, letting free association among the five do its thing.

"It feels like there should be more," First Aid said, with a bit of frustration in his voice. "I just…I can't explain it any better than that. I wish I could!"

"I know, I feel it," Hot Spot said, shaking his head a little. "I just…can't explain it. It's not like something is missing…"

"Someone," Streetwise said suddenly. "Someone who isn't here but isn't exactly missing."

"It doesn't make any sense," Blades complained. "I mean, it's right, but it still doesn't make sense. How can you be here but not here? I don't get it!"

"I wonder if it has anything to do with the extra alt mode the scans indicated we're all supposed to have," First Aid said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, well, if that was going to do anything, wouldn't we know about it by now?" Blades demanded. "Transforming's one of the first things we all figured out."

"I'm…not sure," First Aid replied hesitantly, and glanced over at Ratchet as if hoping for help.

Ratchet usually preferred to have his students think through a problem until they reached a solution, but First Aid had never worked with a triple-changer and probably hadn't had much time to research them. That was if it had even occurred to him to do it, or if he'd had the time — Ratchet had to admit he'd been keeping the kid busy lately. So, this once, he'd go ahead and answer for him.

"It's not unknown for mecha with three modes to take a little time to figure the third one out," Ratchet explained. "It's not surprising; there just aren't a whole lot of triple-changers around, so there's less information. And whatever your third mode is, it's entirely unique to you; I don't have any data on anything like it from anyone else. You've got the programming, whatever it is, but because it's new, it didn't come with any info on how to actually use it."

"So it's all on us, huh?" Blades said, sitting back and folding his arms. "Great."

"Hey," Groove said, as relaxed in his seat as Blades was tense and seemingly annoyed in his. "Don't worry about it. It'll all work out and we'll figure out how to get him to show up, alright?"

"'He'?" First Aid echoed, zeroing in on the same thing Ratchet had. "Yes, he's…us, but also more than us."

"Us together," Streetwise added, the words sounding like a slow realization.

"Who is 'he '?" Ratchet asked. It was Hot Spot who answered.

 "Defensor."

Once the Protectobots had figured out—or maybe remembered—the name of Defensor, this sixth entity, the information about who that was and what the group's third mode was supposed to be seemed to cascade. They knew who and what Defensor was, and it was intricately tied into the third mode their t-cog configurations had hinted at.

Prowl let his optic ridges rise in surprise when Ratchet briefed the project team. "They transform and combine into a sixth mech? That would certainly be quite the sight. Have you seen this in practice yet?"

"They haven't figured out exactly how to combine," Ratchet admitted. "Groove thinks they need to find their centre and harmonize, which is probably correct, if not the most scientific way to phrase it. Not that I have a lot of science to go off of, here. Not yet, anyway. For now, 'finding your centre and harmonizing' will have to be good enough."

Prowl was already thinking ahead, working out strategies for how to best make use of such a mech as Defensor in combat.  The tactics used for the guardians, such as Omega Supreme, would be the most useful, with the added advantage of being able to first move five smaller mecha into position. It was impossible to stealthily move a guardian into place, but with this team…

"Maybe let 'em figure it out before you start building battle plans around 'em, Prowler," Jazz said, easily interpreting Prowl's expression. He and Mirage had gotten much better at that, since they'd been spending more time with each other thanks to X-834.

"And make sure you can get First Aid onto the battlefield," Ratchet added. "He's not big on fighting, but I think he'll go if you can convince him it's for the greater good. And I think, on some level, he wants to be Defensor. They all do."

Prowl nodded. “Then I think we should give them what they want.”

Given how large Defensor was likely to be when combined, a standard training space would not be sufficient. There weren't many places left standing in Iacon that would have worked, so one had to be modified. Decepticons had the advantage in aerial surveillance, so to minimize risk and keep the secret as long as they could, instead of building up, the Autobots dug down. The result was a new training area that needed robust climate control systems to keep it from making its own weather. It was a drain on power, but not one they would need for long. Defensor could only be a pure surprise on the battlefield once. Decepticon tacticians, as soon as they knew about him, would account for the possibility of his presence in each battle.

Prowl would simply have to account for that knowledge in turn.

On the day chosen for the combination test, only the project team and the Protectobots were present. The five young mecha gathered together in the centre of the large space. They weren't speaking out loud, but Prowl expected they were using private comms. Perhaps discussing, possibly reassuring or coordinating with each other. Finally, they all stepped back out of their group huddle, forming a looser circle.

"Alright, everyone," Hot Spot said, his voice carrying as it tended to do, whether he meant it to or not. "Like Groove said, just…clear your mind. Just think about the part of you that's Defensor. Let him come to the surface."

The Protectobots went quiet again and still. A klik passed, then another, and then suddenly, there was a flurry of motion. Transformation sequences engaged and five mechs converted, not into vehicles, but into components of a much, much larger being than themselves.

Now the observers fell into utter silence, watching the giant examine his hands and take stock of himself. After what seemed like a long moment, the new mech looked curiously down at the other Autobots.

Optimus stepped forward and broke the silence with two simple words. "Welcome, Defensor."

Earth

Noah let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Damn, this Defensor sounds like one hell of an advantage."

"He was," Prowl said. "Although perhaps not as much as I would have liked, unfortunately."

"What d'you mean?"

"While we took every step to make sure that all aspects of the spark generation project stayed top secret, it was resource-intensive. We needed to obtain more metals and fuels than our wartime expenditures would otherwise suggest." Prowl didn't sound happy about that, and Noah couldn't blame him.

"Got it, yeah," Noah said with a nod. "That got 'em curious, and they grabbed your intel?"

"You got it," Jazz confirmed. "Took 'em a while though."

"You did your best," Prowl said immediately. Noah got the feeling they'd had this conversation before. A lot.

"Yeah, just too bad that Soundwave did better."

Cybertron

Jazz had done his best, but information leaks and theft were part of the war — no way around that. He and Red Alert had locked everything down as tight as they could, but as much as it ground Jazz's gears, perfection still belonged to Primus. The Decepticons eventually found a way in and grabbed intel on the spark-synthesis project.

“Yeah, we got the word back on what was stolen, and it’s not good,” Jazz announced to the others. “They didn’t get everything, but they did get a whole lot on our spark combining techniques and some of the gestalt info. Probably not enough to recreate any of it outright, but enough to get a good idea of what’s going on. I give Shockwave a vorn or less to start churning out new mecha and get some headway on the Con’s very own gestalt teams.”

“Your estimate is optimistic, “ Prowl noted. “Especially since Shockwave isn’t concerned with things like ethics or informed consent in his experiments. We were awake and aware while spark essence was extracted, but that may not be necessary.”

“However Shockwave may plan to create new mecha, if he does and doesn't try a shortcut by modifying existing mecha, we need to do whatever we can to stop him, or at least slow him down,” Optimus said. “Jazz?”

“Well, there’s no stealing the intel back, “ Jazz said regretfully. “Not really, anyway. I can go in and delete what they took wherever I can find it, but if I know Shockwave and Soundwave, they’ll have backed it up and copied it to more places than we’ll be able to reach before they can get things up and running. Our best option is to try and sabotage the labs as we find ‘em, slow everything down as much as we can.”

“We can’t get the advantage back,” Prowl added, staring at his data as if he could change it using sheer will, “but we can make it hard going for them if they want to catch up.”

Optimus nodded. "I agree. Are there any other personnel or resources we can assign to our own program to speed up development and increase our own advantage?"

"Not without impeding some of our other plans," Prowl reported truthfully. "I will run an analysis and consult with project leads to see what can be reallocated. However, I can already recommend against delaying the escape pod project."

"Agreed, though that’s one project I hope we don't have to use," Optimus said grimly.

"Think we all hope that, Prime," Jazz said with a nod. "But you had us put those in place for a reason, and we all know the energon supply’s getting low and the war's not going as well as we'd like."

"We should also focus on shoring up our defences around all the designated escape areas," Prowl said, pulling the areas in question up on the display. "As well as designating additional escape vessels to maximize the number of mecha we can get off-planet at once. It will attract more attention from Megatron's tacticians, but that can't be helped, now. I'm already anticipating a push in the southwestern sector by the spaceport."

"Alright, Prowl," Optimus said, "go ahead and approve the construction. I —"

Whatever he was going to say next abruptly became irrelevant when an explosion rocked the room and everyone's audials shut off automatically.

Prowl didn't wait for his hearing to come back online before he was on comms, demanding a sitrep from somebody — anybody — seeking data to make order out of chaos.

"Prowl, Jazz, what's happening?" Optimus demanded, already on his feet and heading for the door.

Prowl had long given up on trying to convince his Prime not to run into danger, but even if he hadn't, whatever had happened, it was clear that everyone would be needed. Prowl followed, still issuing demands and accessing data, with Jazz on his heels. 

"I’ve got a nasty feeling our timeframe just got moved up and fast," Jazz said, keeping pace with Prowl. "Sounds like something big went up by the northeast fuel depot."

"I suppose it's too much to hope for that it's not the fuel depot itself?" Prowl asked, even though he was surely getting most of the same intel that Jazz was. His analysis was slowed by the need to coordinate the rescue. At least he could rely on Inferno having fire response under control, if necessary — and it would be a miracle if it wasn't necessary.

Jazz didn't answer, but he didn't need to. Prowl had just gotten the same report. The fuel depot was burning. Even if the fires were extinguished, the remaining energon would be tainted, unusable. Whatever happened now, Jazz had been right. Their timeframe had been moved up to near-immediate: the Autobots had to leave Cybertron and find new fuel sources.

Earth

"Never been in anything like that before," Mirage said, in that quiet voice he used when something was bugging him. "And it’s not like it was my first big fight or anything. Went in to fight, wound up helping to haul mechs out. Alive, dead, nearly dead… Dunno if the Cons'd planned anything else. They took off pretty quick; some people said it might've been because the updrafts from the fire made flying too rough."

"I've seen 'em fly through fires and around explosions before," Jazz said. "I think they did what they came to do and then left us to worry about what we were gonna do. They had to've known about the ships and the escape pods — maybe blowing the depot was to stop us taking off — but they didn't go for them. Not then. They pulled back just long enough to make sure we'd worry."

"Psychological warfare, I guess," Mirage said.

"Suffice to say,” Prowl said, “we made some very, very difficult decisions very quickly. We weren't given time to do much else."

Cybertron

It took cycles for the fire at the depot to be even remotely contained, and it would take cycles after that to put it out. By the time Jazz wasn't needed on site anymore, he was soot-stained and scorched, running low on fuel and tired as hell. He still wanted to see Thrash (kid'd been through a few designations since X-834, but that was the current one) with his own optics and make sure he was okay.

Jazz found him at one of the medical stations set up just outside the minimum safe distance from the fire. He was with Mirage, both of them as scorched and soot-stained as Jazz.

"Glad to see you both made it out okay," Jazz said tiredly, slumping down next to Thrash on a crate hauled in to act as a chair. Mirage leaned over and pressed a cube of coolant into his hand, and Jazz drank it down automatically.

"We did," Mirage confirmed. "I believe casualty reports are still coming in."

Jazz nodded. "Yeah, they are. Probably won't have a full count for a while, though. Ping everyone you know, report back anyone you don't hear from, usual drill."

"I have."

"Me too," Thrash said quietly, staring into his own cube of coolant, which was likely not his first one. He'd been on rescue and retrieval just like Jazz and was probably running low on fluids thanks to the heat of the still-burning fires. "Lotta…there's a lotta names not getting back to me."

Jazz would never be too tired to put a reassuring arm around Thrash's shoulder. It wouldn't be the first time someone Thrash knew had gone offline, but the scene at the depot was bad. The kid wouldn't have seen anything like it before, even though he’d been in battle before.

"What happens now?" Thrash asked, still staring into his cube. "The fuel depot's gone, the energon reserves are running dry, where're we gonna get more?"

Jazz squeezed Thrash’s shoulder, hoping he was providing more reassurance than he felt. "Optimus'll make an announcement, okay? Just…just stick with Mirage. Prowl'n I are gonna be busy for a while. Still got time and comms open for you when you need it though."

Thrash leaned into him, just a little. "Yeah, I know. Thanks, Jazz."

Chapter Text

Cybertron

There was no possible way to keep the mass evacuation of the Autobots a secret from the Decepticons, and no question that they'd try to stop or disrupt it. The Cons’ biggest advantage was their access to fuel reserves, and they couldn't afford to let the Autobots find a new source of their own offworld. They would fight, and the Autobots would have to fight back with whatever gave them an advantage.

Prowl had hoped to keep the advantage that was Defensor quieter for longer, but Megatron, unsurprisingly, had forced his hand. Jazz's Spec Ops team had also provided the unfortunate intel that Deception technology had advanced far more quickly than the Autobots had hoped it would. Prowl had every reason to believe the Decepticons were now in possession of their own gestalt

Anticipating the Decepticon gestalt being fielded during the Autobots’ evacuation of Cybertron, Prowl had quietly let several of their best warriors in on the existence of Defensor. These mechs might not all be officers, but others would follow their lead. So when the Decepticon gestalt team reconfigured into their massive combined form, there was less shock and panic than the Decepticons might have hoped for. The Autobots were surprised, even awed, to see their first combiner, but, following the lead of the mecha they trusted, their lines did not break.

And, the Autobots had a surprise of their own.

Prowl didn't like to rely on excessive shock and awe in his tactical and strategic planning. Still, he had to admit it was satisfying to see the sudden realization among the Decepticons that they didn’t have the advantage they'd thought they’d had as Defensor combined. The Autobot combiner took to the field, towering over everyone except his opposite number.

"Everybody get behind me!" Defensor ordered, not needing to shout to be heard over the chaos. "I'll take care of this."

The Decepticon gestalt roared angrily in response. “Bruticus smash!”

Autobots and Decepticons alike scattered without regard to which front was whose as the two giants charged each other. The titans clashed with a deafening noise and, for a few kliks, they were the only active combatants on the field as everyone else simply watched in awe, including Prowl. Seeing Defensor under controlled test conditions was one thing; seeing him in action, against a mech of his own great size, was something else entirely. Debris was crushed underfoot and buildings shattered as the two titans grappled, and the noise of their clash was deafening.

Prowl shook off his stunned fascination and forced himself to concentrate on coordinating his troops. Power limitations meant that Defensor — and hopefully Bruticus as well — would only be operational for approximately five kliks. No matter how impressive the two combatants were, Prowl had to take advantage of the time they gave him.

Prowl pushed his way through the battlefield to Optimus, reached up and put a hand on his Prime's arm. "Optimus. It's time. Broadcast the announcement."

Optimus nodded and opened up a general comm. That would be far easier to decrypt than private comms, but it hardly mattered now.

"Everyone!" Optimus boomed out, his message amplified by Blaster, and relayed by officers to their commands. "To the ships! If you can't get to those, get to an escape pod! You all know the plan."

Prowl knew that wasn't an order Prime had ever wanted to give. It wasn't a plan Prowl had wanted to put into motion either, but he followed it, retreating towards his assigned ship and doing his best to provide his fellow Autobots with covering fire.

They didn’t make progress as quickly as Prowl had hoped they would. Optimus was the most important target on the planet, and Decepticons were swarming his area of the battlefield. The Autobots would be overwhelmed before long. Defensor and, mercifully, Bruticus, were forced to separate well before Prowl and Optimus made it to their designated ship, the Ark. Prowl lost visual contact with the Protectobots in the chaos, and comms failed. Soundwave had to be jamming them.

"Get to the ship, Prowl," Optimus ordered. "I'll be right behind you, don't wait for me."

"Optimus —"

"That's an order, Prowl!"

There was no arguing with that tone. Prowl bit back a sigh. "Yes, my — yes, Optimus."

"Good. I'll see you at the rendezvous point."

There was nothing more to say. Prowl obeyed orders, reluctantly falling back to the Ark.

"Prowl!" Jazz yelled to him from the top of the gangway as soon as he was in sight. Prowl hurried to him as best he could. "Where's Optimus?"

Prowl shook his head, pressing himself against the wall to not impede the flow of traffic. "He ordered me to leave him. I didn't…"

"Didn't want to, but didn't have a choice," Jazz finished for him. "Yeah. I know. I got the same order over comms. The big guy'll make it, though. Has to."

"Yes." Prowl changed the subject, knowing there was nothing he could do for Optimus at the moment. “Where is Thrash?” Prowl asked, trying to find the younger mech amidst the stream of Autobots retreating aboard the ship. Thrash wasn’t responding to comms, but there were many reasons for that. Prowl told himself it was distance or their comms being jammed. “Did Mirage make it aboard?”

“’Breaker got a comm from Mirage,” Jazz reported, busy pulling injured mecha out of the crush and redirecting them toward the medbay. “Said it was garbled, but he could make out that ‘Raj is okay and headed for another ship. I’m not a hundred percent sure which one, but it's probably the Grace Under Pressure.”

Prowl managed a quick smile. “Appropriate. But…?”

“The last I saw of Thrash, he was with Arcee. They're all assigned to the same ship. Hey,” Jazz put a hand on Prowl’s shoulder. “Thrash’ll be fine. He’s smart and he’s quick. He’ll make it.”

"I hope you're right," Prowl murmured.

"Hey, when am I not?" Jazz tried to joke.

The attempt at levity fell flat, and Prowl and Jazz went back to trying to get the flood of refugees organized and in place for takeoff. They received confirmation that Mirage was safely aboard the Grace Under Pressure, and that was some relief. But Prowl monitored communications from Cybertron and the other ships as long as he could, and received no word from or about Thrash.

Earth

"We weren't sure what had happened to Mirage and the others in his group until we got close enough to Earth to communicate with Optimus, and he confirmed you were all safe," Prowl finished. "We were extremely relieved to learn that, as I'm sure you can imagine."

"Yeah," Jazz added. "Prowler hugged me in front of people, even."

Prowl made a sound like a laugh, and he and Jazz fell back behind Mirage, doing that drive-real-close-hug thing that Noah was pretty sure was an alt-mode hug. (He'd've also bet real money that there was something more between those two than just donating spark energy or whatever to make Mirage. Probably not the time to ask about that, though.)

Mirage didn't talk for a moment or two after Prowl finished telling his and Jazz's side of the escape from Cybertron — the exodus, they called it, a word Noah’d only heard in Bible-related stuff. Everyone having to leave a planet all at once in the middle of a battle sure sounded Biblical, like something out of those old movies he’d used to watch with his mom on Sunday afternoons.

“I wanted to comm you,” Mirage said quietly. “I tried, but I didn't have any luck. I managed to get a comm off to 'Raj, though, so we each knew the other was okay, at least back then. But I figured you two would be where you were, and I was out of range. I made it to an escape pod, but the comms on it weren't much good for anything beyond receiving transmissions and broadcasting a location. I’m sorry, I didn't mean to worry you.”

Prowl pulled up next to them and drifted close again, so close his and Mirage’s side mirrors almost touched. “It’s alright, Mirage. We’re just glad you’re safe. You’ve done well.”

"So what did happen to you during the retreat from Cybertron?" Jazz asked. "Been wondering that for years now."

"I didn't actually make it aboard the ship," Mirage admitted. "I had to grab an escape pod. Man, was that a boring ride! At least until I entered the solar system here and started picking up transmissions. Never been so glad to hear staticky transmissions in my life! Had to find Optimus when I got here, though."

Earth (Seven Years Ago)

“Ow,” Thrash complained, landing on rocky ground after falling backwards out of his escape pod. He blinked rapidly to help his optics adjust to the sudden bright light. Not his best entrance, that was for sure. “At least no one saw that. I hope. Heh.”

He did a quick scan, aaand… yup! His cred was still good. Of course, that also sucked because he had no idea where anyone else was on this planet. If it was big enough that the others were out of comms range, it was gonna make it really hard to meet up. Damn. Hopefully, everyone else had made it okay. If everything had gone really well, then Jazz, Prowl, and Mirage were here, or someone who could at least tell him if they were alive and okay.

That was gonna have to wait for later, though. First of all, he was gonna have to find a way to blend in, and the first step in that was picking up a local language. He'd picked up some primitive transmissions on his way in —basic radio —and now that he was closer to the source, he could use them to learn about the planet he’d landed on. Thrash ran a scan and… 

…huh. This planet didn't have much of a DataNet, but there were a whole lot more of those radio signals floating around. More than enough to pick up the local lingo, easy enough. Some of the signals contained embedded images, some had music, and some of them had both. Jazz’d love it. Thrash sure hoped he and Prowl were okay. Mirage had been the only one in comm range back when they were all running to make it off of Cybertron. If Jazz and Prowl and Mirage's ships had picked up Optimus' transmission, they'd be on their way. Maybe it wouldn't take too long before he'd see them again.

The indigenous life forms — who called themselves humans, if he was reading it right — had a lot of entertainment about aliens but didn’t seem to have made first contact with anyone yet. He’d have to pick up a local alt pretty quick, then, since they wouldn’t be ready for a Cybertronian one and definitely not for a mech just walking around. Optimus wouldn’t be happy if they started off their visit on this planet attracting too much attention.

Still, you never knew when you might run into someone local unexpectedly. Better have a translation of his designation ready. And maybe change it up a little. Kinda been feeling like Thrash wasn't really feeling like him anymore.

He fixed on the sound of traffic, which wasn't all that different from the sound of traffic on Cybertron in the old media he'd watched with his spark donors. Well, mostly Jazz and Mirage, but Prowl had joined sometimes. The mech had liked critiquing the crime dramas. Looked like this world had more than its share of those, so Prowl'd probably like critiquing those, too. Once he'd worked out how this place's laws worked, anyway. Maybe even before.

Speaking of laws, it couldn't hurt to get ahead on that. Accidentally breaking them could be a good way to attract that attention he didn't want. Just the basic traffic stuff was all he needed for now. The other stuff might be useful later, but for now Thrash just tapped into a local broadcast and let one play in a separate processing thread while he hung back from a local highway among some kind of really big plants and waited for a decent alt mode to come by.

And waited.

And…man, had he picked the most boring place on the planet to land or what? Felt like he was waiting forever for something workable. Yeah, sure, he could change it later, but he still wanted something with style! Had to look good when he met up with the other Autobots. He had a reputation to maintain.

Oh, hey, that'd work! Sure, it was being carried somewhere on some kinda big transport, but the transscan figured out its stats easily enough and only had to make a couple of tweaks when it converted the scan to an alt mode schema. It took a while after that before there was a big enough gap in the traffic for him to get on the road without being seen, but finally, he could get on his wheels! Between being cooped up in the escape pod and crouching here waiting for something to scan, it felt like he'd had to stay still since forever.

Mirage revved up his engine, set his comms to scan for Autobot signals, and set off along the highway.

Earth (Present Day)

"And then I met up with the others," Mirage concluded. "Hung around on Earth for a bit, met up with Noah, helped defeat Unicron, got rebuilt, helped Noah get a job with a secret government organization, Optimus picked up your incoming transmissions, aaaand here we are!"

"Hey," Noah protested, "you just telling all my secrets here?"

"Well, you just heard a bunch of mine."

"Yeah, but — those were mostly about you, though."

"Eh, same difference." Mirage, predictably, changed the subject, this time switching off his comms for a private conversation. Noah could tell because the radio shut off. "Um, not that I'm kicking you out, but…I haven't seen these guys in forever. Once we get back to the city, are you okay with going home and giving us some time to catch up?"

That was a rhetorical question if Noah'd ever heard one. "Yeah, sure. Should check in with mom and Kris anyway. Haven't had a chance to spend a whole lotta time with 'em lately. Pick me up tomorrow, though? You can tell me more about Cybertron."

"You got it."

Chapter Text