Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When Hot Rod imagined stepping into the shadowzone for the first time, he’d pictured himself triumphantly emerging from the groundbridge portal with the rest of his team right behind him, cheering the whole way. Then he’d make a grand speech about friendship and teamwork—yeah, okay, so maybe Dead End was right about his tendency to do that—and remind everyone that they shouldn’t let this mysterious dimension scare them, because Soundwave should be super close and they were so super close to finding him and bringing him home.

His perfect fantasy is immediately ruined when Hot Rod actually steps out of the groundbridge portal and, before he can utter a single word, trips over Perceptor’s unmoving frame lying right at the portal’s exit.

Hot Rod yelps as his pede catches on Perceptor’s side and he pitches forward. Laserbeak squawks in alarm and flutters off his shoulder as he plows face-first into the ground, the hard tile banging against his already-dented nasal ridge. His damage report pops back up on his HUD and pointedly adds another error line to his long list of injuries.

Groaning, Hot Rod rolls onto his back, wincing at the jolt of pain that shoots through his damaged spoiler with the motion, and stares up at Laserbeak circling around the orange-tinted sky. Every strut in his frame aches. “Ow.”

His “ow” is echoed beside him, and Hot Rod tips his helm to see Clobber also splayed out on the ground. Her optic is closed, and she looks so relaxed that Hot Rod would’ve thought she was peacefully sunbathing if not for the multitude of injuries making her look exactly like someone who just fought off hundreds of trigger-happy security drones.

“Why are you on the ground?” asks Hot Rod.

Clobber lifts one arm and gestures vaguely in Perceptor’s direction. “I also tripped over Percy.”

“Oh.” Hot Rod frowns. “And why’s Perceptor on the ground?”

“Because Dead End dropped him as soon as he came through the portal,” Whirl’s voice answers from further away.

With effort, Hot Rod picks up his head and peers past Clobber, squinting his optics against the morning sunlight. Whirl is crouched a few astrometres away with his back to Hot Rod, neck cables bent at a downward angle as he fiddles with something below him. His frame is partially blocking the view, but there’s no mistaking the grey helm sticking out past Whirl’s side. Hot Rod’s fuel tank lurches.

“Is Dead End okay?” he blurts out.

The grey helm turns towards Hot Rod, and Dead End’s optics meet his. “Dead End is fine,” he grumbles. “Whirl’s fussing over nothing. I got way worse injuries in the war.”

Hot Rod isn’t sure if Dead End sounds so annoyed because of Whirl’s attentive medical care, Hot Rod expressing concern for him, or how terribly his day is going so far, but either way he figures Dead End must be fine if he’s well enough to complain.

“Your right pede fell off,” says Whirl.

“I damaged my ankle joint when I fell catching Perceptor,” says Dead End. “And I made it worse when I had to keep running around the arena, trying not to get shot or blown up, and then the joint must’ve snapped completely when I jumped through the portal. I already turned off my pain sensors, so it’s fine. Perceptor got his arm torn off during the Quintesson invasion and he turned out fine.”

Whirl pokes Dead End hard in the forehelm with the tip of his claw. “Perceptor had access to Iaconus’ gigantic medical facility filled with state-of-the-art equipment that Ratchet would’ve killed for! We don’t have a convenient war Titan with everything we need right now!”

“Didn’t you bring all the fancy equipment you need with you?” asks Dead End.

“Well, duh,” says Whirl. “But there was only so much I could fit in my subspace. If the next thing that falls off is your head, there’s not much I can do to help you.”

Dead End’s shoulders shift over the ground in what Hot Rod assumes is supposed to be a shrug. “I don’t think even Primus would be able to help me at that point, so I won’t hold that against you.”

Whirl yanks on something that makes Dead End wince. “I’d rather you try not to get decapitated in the first place. Actually, I’d rather you try not to get hurt at all, or at the very least, not risk making your injuries worse because you’re being a bolthead and won’t let me fix you with all my fancy, state-of-the-art equipment. And I’m pretty sure Perce would agree with me, so just be quiet and let me put your pede back on.”

Dead End mutters something about Perceptor being unconscious and so his opinion doesn’t count, but it’s half-sparked. Clearly taking that as a win, Whirl pulls out a soldering iron from his subspace and powers it on. The tiny blue flame sizzles as it lights up and closes in on Dead End’s ankle.

Hot Rod looks away and gingerly sits up, rubbing at his sore nasal ridge. Then he gazes out beyond Whirl and Dead End, finally taking a good look at the world around them, and his mouth falls open.

“Holy Amalgamous Prime.”

All five of them—no, six, he can’t forget about Laserbeak—look like they’re in the same spot in the centre of the Cube Arena, and if Hot Rod didn’t know they’d just gone through a groundbridge portal, he’d have thought none of them moved at all. But when he sharpens his visual feed, he can see the faint, fuzzy sheen overlaying his surroundings, like everything around him is being filtered through a muted prescription lens that’s slightly off.

The sunrise is bright, but its bold colours aren’t quite as brilliant as they were while he and Whirl were flying over the Cube Arena. The fires still burning hot around the arena are also less vivid, a pale mirage compared to the heated bursts of orange that had backlit Shadow Striker’s entrance into the arena. The remains of the security drones they’d destroyed are now barely reflecting the sunlight—they’ve become dull, broken pieces of bronze littering the ground and stands.

And Shadow Striker, standing in the centre of the arena, is way hazier than she should be, even through the wisps of smoke still blanketing the air. The edges of her frame are slightly blurred, and her deep purple paint looks like it’s been brushed over with a thin coat of grey. Both her optics, a dimmer red than usual, are fixed on the groundbridge portal as it shrinks and flickers out of existence.

She continues staring where the portal disappeared for several more astroseconds, and Hot Rod thinks she might’ve kept staring for even longer if her wrist comm didn’t suddenly start ringing.

Shadow Striker glances down, and her mouth instantly twists into a deep scowl.

“Scrap,” she mutters, raising her wrist. “I didn’t think he’d get the news this fast.”

Her holoscreen manifests over her arm. A beat later, Ratbat’s face pops into view.

Hot Rod physically recoils. Shadow Striker controls her reaction a lot better than him, but he’s sitting close enough to see the way her upper lip curls up in barely-restrained disgust.

“Hello, Ratbat,” she says, so sickeningly friendly that it’s looped back around to sounding venomous.

«Shadow Striker,» he returns. If Ratbat can tell Shadow Striker is trying to murder him with her optics, his face doesn’t show it. «The council was made aware of an incident at the Cube Arena this morning, and I see you’re currently present at the scene. What happened?»

Hot Rod stiffens.

“There was an attack at the Cube Arena,” replies Shadow Striker, her vocals steady and unflinching. “A group of bots broke in, wiped and disabled the security cameras, and then destroyed most of the security drones that were activated in response to their break-in.”

Hot Rod cycles his optics.

That’s—omitting a lot of details, but it’s not not true.

«And where is this group of bots now?»

Shadow Striker’s gaze stays centred on Ratbat, without a single glance back at the spot where the groundbridge portal vanished. “They’re gone. As you can see—” she extends her wrist to show Ratbat the fiery ruins of the Cube Arena— “the bots are no longer here.”

…Yeah, that’s technically true too. Hot Rod is impressed.

Ratbat is not. «This is unacceptable,» he says, vocals icy. «Jazz told me she placed you in charge of the Cube Arena’s security because you’re the most capable bot in her employ. I’m finding it very difficult to believe that’s true when you’ve allowed a bunch of ruffians to wreck the entire arena less than a week before the Cube World Championship finals, and even let them escape!»

The fake smile on Shadow Striker’s face is razor-thin and just as sharp. “Yes, of course that’s all on me. I’m so sorry about that.”

Then she subtly raises her free arm behind her back and, as Ratbat starts blathering on about the importance of responsibility and meeting people’s expectations, she flicks up two digits and spins them in a quick, tight circle. Most of the security bots who’d accompanied her exchange confused looks, but Smokescreen—Hot Rod didn’t see him on the arena field before, he must’ve only joined the others after Hot Rod and his own team went through the groundbridge—smirks. He stows away his energon prod and sneaks up behind Shadow Striker, carefully angling his doorwings down so they don’t appear on the holoscreen.

«I’ll be filing an incident report with Jazz,» says Ratbat. «Clearly her judgement was—»

Smokescreen opens his intake and a full-throated, staticky wail comes screeching out from his vocalizer.

All of the other security bots hurriedly clap their servos over their audials. Clobber, Whirl, and Dead End, neither of whom had been paying attention to Shadow Striker and Ratbat’s conversation until that moment, all startle and stare wide-eyed at the sudden unholy noise.

“Ow, okay that was not what I was expecting,” mutters Hot Rod with a wince.

Ratbat’s reaction is the least overblown, but even he rears back. «What on Cybertron is that noise—?!»

“Sorry, can’t hear you!” says Shadow Striker, raising her voice to be heard over the Smokescreen-induced cacophony. “Sounds like the line is breaking up. I’ll have to call you back later.”

And she shuts off the video call.

At the same time, Smokescreen stops screeching, and he beams at Shadow Striker as she turns to face him. “Was my singing a good enough distraction?”

“That was singing?” one of the other security bots—Hot Rod thinks that’s Mirage—says. “It sounded like Sky-Byte getting tortured.”

“It was a passable distraction,” says Shadow Striker.

Smokescreen pouts. “Only passable?”

“It was a good excuse for ending the call, but I doubt Ratbat actually bought it,” says Shadow Striker. “Still, it should keep him off our back plating until I figure out how to deal with this mess.”

Smokescreen glances around the Cube Arena, eyeing the hundreds of wrecked drones strewn across the ground and stands. “I don’t think it’ll take that long to deal with? Our maintenance drones are making good progress on the cleanup—”

“Not the literal mess,” snaps Shadow Striker. “The giant mess that Hot Rod left me by suddenly fragging off to another dimension. Ugh. If he breaks his promise, I’m going to kill him when he comes back.”

Hot Rod cringes. Clobber gives him a sympathetic pat on his shoulder, but doesn’t offer him an empty and obviously false reassurance that Shadow Striker wouldn’t actually kill him.

“What promise?” asks Mirage.

A strut in Shadow Striker’s jaw twitches, and she looks back at the spot where the groundbridge portal was—unknowingly locking optics with Hot Rod, sitting close by and an entire dimension away.

“To pull off a miracle again,” she says.

The way she says that, straightforward and stark, makes it undeniably clear it’s as much a threat as it is a declaration of faith. Still, the words lodge inside Hot Rod’s spark the same way her earlier plea did, when she extracted Hot Rod’s promise to bring Soundwave back whole and alive.

Hot Rod knows Shadow Striker can’t actually see him.

He meets her optics anyway, and gives her a resolute nod.

Shadow Striker releases a long ex-vent. “Okay. No one here better tell anyone anything about Hot Rod and the other bots who were here this morning. Consider everything that happened to be classified information.”

“Can we tell Jazz?” a smaller green bot—Moonracer, maybe?—asks.

Shadow Striker grimaces. “I’ll talk to Jazz myself,” she says, not sounding at all enthusiastic about that prospect. “And I’ll come up with a plan later to deal with the council. In the meantime, let’s—”

A quiet groan from Perceptor promptly distracts Hot Rod from eavesdropping on the rest of Shadow Striker’s orders.

“Perceptor?!” Hot Rod crawls over to Perceptor’s side, scrambling over the scorched arena tiles and ignoring the pricking of the scratches in his knees. “Perceptor, are you okay?”

For a long moment, Perceptor remains motionless on the floor. Then Hot Rod catches the tinny clicking and whirring sounds of his systems reinitializing, and Perceptor’s scope jerks up so abruptly that Hot Rod barely has time to dodge it and avoid getting socked in the jaw.

Blue light spills out from his scope, sweeping in a wide arc and passing over Hot Rod’s frame, and Perceptor says in raspy vocals, “Hot Rod…?”

Relief floods Hot Rod’s spark. “Yeah, it’s me,” he says, and tries for a grin. It feels too wobbly at the edges, but hopefully Perceptor is still too out of it to pick up on that. “I know what you’re thinking: that I’m so good-looking that you must be dreaming. But this isn’t a dream. It’s real life, and we’re really in the shadowzone.”

Perceptor’s next words are much less raspy and much more flat. “Hot Rod. We’ve known each other for millions of cycles, and in that time, you’ve referenced your physical appearance enough for me to perfectly visualize it in excruciating detail.” He tries to sit up, but gives up halfway through and promptly lays back down. “Hmm. I feel like I was forced into a systems-wide shutdown.”

“That’s because a drone thingie did knock you into a systems-wide shutdown!” Clobber says helpfully.

“Yes, I surmised as much.”

The low buzzing of Whirl’s soldering iron clicks off. “You should run a full self-diagnostic,” he calls out to Perceptor. “Just in case the shutdown caused any system errors, or gaps in your memory banks, or any other serious issues.”

“I’ve just done that,” answers Perceptor. “I’m not seeing any system errors or corruption in my memory files, although the latter would be easily fixable because I have my core consciousness on a hard drive in my subspace—”

“Hold up,” interrupts Hot Rod. “You just carry your core consciousness around?”

“Not in my daily life, no,” says Perceptor. “But after considering the dangers we may encounter in the shadowzone, I believed it would be a good idea to have all my knowledge, memories, and personality matrices on hand in case anything happens to me.”

That’s…very scary to think about, but it’s also a very practical, caring, and Perceptor-like choice. Hot Rod also brought a data slug in his subspace—a shiny red one with his face engraved on it, so everyone would know right away it’s his—but it’s empty because he thought he’d use it to back up the video recordings he’d take of his sickest action stunts in the shadowzone. He hadn’t considered the possibility of downloading his entire self onto it.

“As I was saying,” continues Perceptor, “my diagnostic results seem fine. The only thing worth noting is that there was more damage inflicted on my left side compared to anywhere else on my frame.”

Dead End’s voice rings out. “That’s because both Clobber and Hot Rod ran into you.”

“What?!” Hot Rod splutters. “First of all I wasn’t running, I walked through the groundbridge at a normal walking speed. Secondly, I don’t think me walking into Perceptor did as much damage as you dropping him on the ground.”

“Dead End, you dropped me?” asks Perceptor.

“Hey, I saved you from hitting the ground after you fell off Whirl and plummeted thousands of astrometres,” grumbles Dead End as he levers himself up, gripping Whirl’s shoulder for balance as he gingerly puts weight on his newly-reattached pede. “You’re welcome. Then I hauled your offlined frame around and made sure both of us didn’t deactivate on the Cube Arena field, which was harder than you think and my foot falling off is proof of that. Excuse me if I accidentally dropped you once we were finally somewhere safe.”

“I wasn’t trying to imply—” Perceptor cuts himself off. “Never mind. I appreciate you saving me. Thank you, Dead End.”

Dead End slowly moves his servo off Whirl’s shoulder, carefully not looking at Perceptor. “...You don’t need to thank me. You already know I’d do all that for you.”

Perceptor’s mouth curls up into a small smile. “I do.”

Hot Rod bites down on his glossa to stop himself from smiling too.

Perceptor tries to sit up again, and this time he succeeds. His frame creaks as he straightens, head and scope turning to inspect their surroundings. “I see we all successfully made it to the shadowzone.”

“Yep,” says Hot Rod. “Even Laserbeak!”

On cue, Laserbeak drops out of the sky to perch on Hot Rod again, cocking his helm to one side as he observes Perceptor.

“You know, I’m not surprised Laserbeak wanted to come help us save Soundwave,” says Whirl as he stores his medical supplies back into his subspace, “but I’m kinda surprised Shadow Striker didn’t want to come too, after you told her the truth about our mission. Weren’t she and Soundwave best friends?”

Hot Rod glances back at where Shadow Striker is barking orders at her security team. She doesn’t look happy, exactly, but she definitely doesn’t look as murderous as before, when she thought Hot Rod was destroying the Cube Arena as some kind of petty revenge act. Maybe Hot Rod is just imagining what he wants to see, but he thinks there’s a new lightness to her movements, as if a weight that’s been clinging to her since the end of the war has finally been released.

“I promised her I’d bring Soundwave back,” says Hot Rod. “And she promised me she’d hold down the fort in Cybertron until we came back.”

“Yeah, we all heard that.” Dead End’s voice is skeptical. “But you know neither of you can actually promise that, right? She can’t guarantee the council will do nothing about our disappearance for that long, and you definitely can’t guarantee we’ll actually bring Soundwave back.”

Hot Rod shrugs. “Maybe not. Still, that was enough. Shadow Striker didn’t need to come with us. She knows we’ve got it handled, the same way I know she’s got everything back in the real world handled.”

Laserbeak fluffs out his wings and caws in agreement.

Dead End stares at him. Then he lets out an exasperated sigh and shifts his exasperation to the sky. “Whatever. I gave up on understanding how your processor works a long time ago.”

“What I want to understand is how this shadowzone place works!” Clobber bounces to her pedes and, as Hot Rod watches, she reaches out and swings her arm at Shadow Striker. Her servo passes right through the middle of Shadow Striker’s torso, the air distorting in wavy swirls where she would’ve normally touched her, and Clobber shivers as she pulls back. “This place is weird. How come I can see and hear Shadow Striker, but not touch her?”

“Because we’re in a different dimension,” says Hot Rod. “That means, uh…we’re not on the same plane of reality as everyone else anymore. So even though technically Shadow Striker is right next to you, she’s also a trillion astromiles away at the same time. Or something like that, I think. Did I get it right, Perceptor?”

He waits for Perceptor’s revised, in-depth explanation of how the shadowzone actually works. When five astroseconds pass by and that doesn’t happen, Hot Rod cycles his optics and looks over at him. Perceptor is sitting stock-still, and his scope is aimed in the approximate direction of Hot Rod and Clobber’s positions, but there’s a deep frown on his face. He doesn’t really look unhappy, though. He looks—wary? Maybe even confused?

“Perceptor?” Hot Rod prompts.

Perceptor startles. “Ah, my apologies. I just…I recognize this may be a foolish question, but—can all of you see Shadow Striker right now?”

“Uh…yeah? She’s right there.” Hot Rod points. “Next to Clobber. She’s telling the rest of the security team they’re going to help clean up the wrecked security drones so the arena repairs can get started sooner. Can you…not see her? Even with your scope?”

There’s a long moment of silence.

“No,” says Perceptor. “I can hear Shadow Striker but I can’t see her, nor the rest of the security team. I can see the Cube Arena’s floor, but…” The smallest hint of frustration creeps into his tone. “I can’t see the wrecked security drones, even though I know they’re all over the floor. My scope’s visual inputs are merely processing an enormous blank space around me.”

At the corner of his visual feed, Hot Rod glimpses Dead End turning to stare at Perceptor, a rare look of concern—actually, it’s not that rare when it comes to Perceptor, Hot Rod probably shouldn’t be surprised—flashing across his faceplates.

“My second self-diagnostic still isn’t showing any issues, but it’s possible the problem is something that a diagnostic scan wouldn’t recognize,” continues Perceptor, still sounding frustrated. “Adjusting my scope’s calibration settings isn’t fixing it, so…perhaps the scope lens was damaged, or there’s a coding bug in my program for compiling sensory data. When I have sufficient time, I’ll need to complete a thorough manual check to determine the cause.”

Hot Rod claps his hands together in an attempt to dispel the unsettling tension that’s begun filling the air with Perceptor’s revelation. “Hey, that actually works out great! That aligns with the next step of my plan.”

“You have a plan?” says Whirl.

“I’m impressed,” says Dead End. “I was so sure you came here with no plan other than ‘find Soundwave as fast as possible.’”

“Of course I have a plan!” says Hot Rod, offended. “Step one was to get to the shadowzone, which we’ve accomplished perfectly.”

Laserbeak’s gaze roams over the still-smoking ruins of the Cube Arena field, and he turns his helm to shoot Hot Rod the most judgemental expression he’s ever seen on a bird.

“And since none of us got to recharge last night,” continues Hot Rod, “step two is to find shelter and take a nap.”

Clobber, whose optic had started drifting shut while standing, lights up. “Really?”

“Yes, really!” says Hot Rod. “Obviously I want to find Soundwave as fast as possible, but we’re not gonna find him if we all run ourselves ragged and deplete our energy levels before we start searching. Recharging will also speed up our self-repair, and we could really use that extra boost to heal our injuries.”

His optics take in the chunk of metal missing from Clobber’s shoulder, the misshapen rotor on Whirl’s back, and the large dents and scratches scattered all over Dead End’s frame. Perceptor isn’t visibly injured anymore, but Hot Rod knows getting every single capacitor blown out isn’t something you just walk off without any issues. Then there’s himself—there isn’t a single bit of his frame that Hot Rod would rate lower than a four on the pain scale, though the worst is his aching nasal ridge. And the stinging cut in his neck cables. And the burns inside his exhaust pipes. And his dented spoiler, that’s definitely hitting an eleven in pain.

The more Hot Rod thinks about it, the more a break to rest and recover is sounding better and better.

“I wasn’t feeling that tired before now,” says Whirl, rubbing at his forehelm, “but now that we’re talking about napping, a nap is starting to sound really, really nice.”

Dead End watches Shadow Striker and the other bots start to disperse, heading to different trashed spots around the Cube Arena. “Do we really need to find shelter? This is the shadowzone, so technically we’re the only ones here. We could just recharge right here.”

“I guess, but…” Hot Rod shrugs. “I don’t know, doesn’t the idea of sleeping in the arena feel super weird? Even if no one back home can see or hear us, it still feels like we’d be too exposed.”

He doesn’t add that there’s an ever-present reminder in the back of his processor that Tarn may be somewhere out there in the shadowzone too, and the worst-case scenario would be Tarn stumbling on their team while they’re all sleeping out in the open and slaughtering them all. And Hot Rod doesn’t know how likely or unlikely that worst-case scenario is because none of them really know anything about this dimension they’ve fallen into, so his instincts are telling him it’s important to be cautious.

…Maybe Optimus’ lessons are sticking after all.

“So!” Hot Rod grins and claps his hands again. “If there are no objections, it’s time to go. The sooner we find shelter, the sooner we can all get some sleep. It shouldn’t take us long—I have the perfect place in mind already.”

Whirl’s optic narrows to a slit. “It’s not that shady hotel the Insecticons run in downtown Iacon, is it? Because I’ve been there, and trust me—that is not a place you want to recharge in. Unless you like waking up covered in rustbugs.”

Grinning wider, Hot Rod says, “Nah, don’t worry. I think you’ll like this place.”

******

Dead End stares up at the building’s exterior, one optical ridge arched. “Weren’t we just here?”

Hot Rod beams. “Yeah, that’s why it’s perfect! We kicked off the first part of our mission right here in the real world, and now we’re moving on to the next part in the same place. Just in the shadowzone instead!”

The familiar neon sign of Maccadam smiles down at them, polished and gleaming even in the haziness of the shadowzone’s atmosphere. Long ribbons of golden sunlight peek through the neighbouring buildings to paint the bar’s exterior. Dead End’s makeshift CLOSED FOR PRIVATE EVENT sign has been moved and propped up against the side of the building, partially hidden from sight so only the word CLOSED can be seen.

It’s early enough that there aren’t many bots walking around, but a few are out for morning errands or a stroll to enjoy the warm weather. At first Hot Rod automatically stepped out of the way whenever someone was walking by, but after he stepped off the sidewalk only to get fake-hit by a passing car on the road, he gave up and just let everyone walk right through him. Every time this happens, it stirs up a cold, tingling sensation inside his frame, as if he can feel the unnerving way it’s disrupting his internals—although Perceptor assured him three times that that’s not what’s happening.

“I also think this is the perfect place!” says Clobber, and that’s why she’s Hot Rod’s best friend. “Since you and Percy own the place, I won’t feel bad about stealing your snacks.”

“You should still feel bad,” retorts Dead End. “I’m not giving you permission to eat our snacks, so it’s still stealing.”

Clobber turns a huge optic on him. “But you said you stocked up on fluorescent rust sticks just for me!”

“Yeah, for you to buy. I doubt you brought shanix to the shadowzone. So stop giving me turbokit eyes, I’m not giving you free snacks.”

“This is a pointless discussion anyway,” interjects Perceptor, his tone more clipped than usual. There’s a rhythmic clicking sound coming from his scope, like he’s constantly adjusting and readjusting the lens. “We can’t interact with anything in the real dimension, and that includes snacks.”

Clobber’s face falls. “Aww.”

Hot Rod frowns as he watches Perceptor raise his right servo and physically shake his scope a little. This doesn’t seem to fix anything, because the irritated look on Perceptor’s face doesn’t change at all.

“I’m guessing you still can’t see anything?” ventures Hot Rod.

Perceptor’s head turns in his direction. “I can see everything in the shadowzone perfectly fine. It’s only everything in the real dimension that I can’t see.”

“Like Maccadam’s?”

“Yes, like Maccadam’s.”

Hot Rod looks over the Maccadam’s building again, and offers lightly, “Well, I can tell you that Chromia hasn’t burned down your bar yet.”

Perceptor’s mouth twitches. “If I’d wanted someone to temporarily take over my bar with the expectation that they may burn it down, I would have asked you.”

“Gee, thanks,” mutters Hot Rod, but as he’d planned, Perceptor seems less stressed after insulting him, so he doesn’t protest the bullying any more than that.

Whirl approaches the front doors of Maccadam’s, stopping a few astrometres from the doors and craning his neck upwards. “Huh. I forgot the sensor wouldn’t know we’re here because of the shadowzone thing.”

Hot Rod scratches the back of his helm. “I forgot about that too,” he admits.

“In that case,” says Whirl, glancing back at him, “how are we going to—”

With an annoyed screech, Laserbeak takes off from Hot Rod’s shoulder and streaks towards the front doors. Before Hot Rod can shout a warning, he flies straight through the doors and vanishes.

“Oh,” says Hot Rod. “Right. I forgot about that too.”

Tentatively, Whirl pokes at the door with his claw. When his claw passes through the tinted glass like nothing is there, he lets out a noise of mild surprise and follows Laserbeak into the bar.

“It’s good to know at least one other person here remembers how the shadowzone works,” Perceptor says dryly.

Hot Rod laughs. “I knew Laserbeak coming with us was a great idea.”

He takes Perceptor’s hand, and the two of them walk forwards. On instinct, Hot Rod squeezes his optics shut as they near the doors, but there’s no impact—he only feels the familiar cold, tingling sensation of walking through something. He opens his optics again, and is greeted by the even-more familiar interior of Maccadam’s, looking nearly unchanged since the five of them were here last night.

Besides Whirl trying and failing to change the soft ballad playing on the jukebox under Laserbeak’s scrutinizing optics, the only difference inside Maccadam’s is Chromia and Windblade’s presence at the back of the bar. Windblade is seated on one of the bar stools, absentmindedly swirling a bright red straw through her engex smoothie, and Chromia appears to be rummaging through the shelving unit behind the counter. She reaches for an overflowing box, heaving it off the shelf with a grunt, and carries it over to drop onto the counter. Windblade looks up and her mouth starts moving.

Curious, Hot Rod tugs Perceptor closer with him, straining his audio receptors until he can hear the two bots’ conversation.

“—weren’t kidding,” Windblade is saying. “It sounds like you have everything you need.”

“I know, right? I thought Perceptor was totally crazy when he asked me to run Maccadam’s for him, but…” Chromia plucks a tin of cesium from the box and inspects the detailed label. “Between the ‘best uses’ guides duct-taped to every additive tin and the ridiculously long instructions manual he sent me right after our call, I’m starting to think this gig might actually not be too bad.”

Behind Hot Rod, Clobber and Dead End enter the bar. Clobber immediately makes a beeline for the back of the room, passing Hot Rod and diving right through the counter. Dead End yells after her with another warning not to touch the snacks, both him and Clobber apparently forgetting that’s not possible.

“If it was anyone else, I would’ve assumed they rushed to put this all together to make your job easier,” says Windblade. “But this is Perceptor we’re talking about, so I’m sure he already had all this stuff ready in case he ever needed someone to take over Maccadam’s on short notice. He’s always thinking a hundred steps ahead, and everything in his life is so perfectly organized. I’ve visited his lab before, and it’s arranged just as flawlessly: every metal sample is labelled, all the beakers are sorted by the volatility of their contents are, and the shelves where he keeps his datapads are colour-coded based on the research stored on them. It’s so methodical that it’s kind of scary.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen his lab too. It’s no wonder he was the Autobots’ top scientist for so long.” Chromia places the cesium back into the box and picks up another tin, this one actinium. “And…don’t tell Perceptor I said this, but it’s a shame that he partially retired from science work. Not that he’s not doing a great job with Maccadam’s, but he’s been our chief science officer for so long that this feels like a big step down. Like it’s a waste of his skills, you know?”

Windblade’s smile is wistful. “I know what you mean. I asked him once why he decided to retire, and he said something about wanting to move on from being an Autobot scientist and do something new, but—I got the feeling that there was more to it that he wasn’t telling me.”

Hot Rod feels Perceptor shift, uncharacteristically awkward, beside him. “This feels rather unethical,” he says quietly, the words barely audible over Clobber’s dismayed cries as she unsuccessfully shoves her servos through the rust stick bags on the shelf behind Chromia. “It doesn’t feel right to listen to them talk about me when they don’t know I’m here.”

“Uh huh, sure,” says Hot Rod. “Is Windblade right, though?”

“Well, yes,” answers Perceptor. “I did speak with her about my decision to quit the position of chief science officer—”

“No, I meant—is she right about there being something else behind why you quit? Something you didn’t want to tell her?”

Perceptor is silent for a brief but noticeable moment. Then: “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Hot Rod gapes at him. “Wait, so there is and you’re not gonna tell me either?! I thought we were best friends!”

“I was under the impression Clobber was your best friend.”

“So are you!”

“You need to revisit the definition of a ‘best friend.’”

“I don’t need a dictionary to tell me who I can and can’t have as a best friend,” Hot Rod says disdainfully. “I can have as many best friends as I want, and you’re one of them.”

“If you say so,” says Perceptor. “However, I’m still not telling you.”

Hot Rod resists the urge to stick out his glossa at him. “Hmph. Fine. Keep your secrets.”

While he and Perceptor were talking, Windblade had finished her engex and stood up to put her empty mug in the sink. “Speaking of Perceptor,” she says as she turns on the tap to rinse the mug, “did he tell you why he needed you to take over running Maccadam’s?”

Chromia’s mouth thins. “No. He just said, and I’m quoting him exactly here, Dead End and I will be away for some time. Would you mind temporarily running Maccadam’s? With no questions asked, please.”

Windblade huffs a laugh. “You two must be pretty good friends if you still agreed to do it anyway.”

“Well, we are,” says Chromia, dropping the actinium tin back in the box. “But I think the main reason he asked me is because he knows I still feel guilty about him blowing out his optics to free us when we were captured by the ‘Cons, and I wouldn’t say no to anything he asked.”

“Damn.” Hot Rod looks at Perceptor. “Is she right about that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“...You’re putting your best friend status at risk.”

“That is unfortunate, but I’ll survive.”

“So no, Perceptor didn’t tell me anything,” Chromia tells Windblade as she hauls the giant box of fuel additives back to the shelf. “Why?”

Windblade turns off the energon tap. “Just wondering. I stopped by the planetary government building this morning to pick up some things, and overheard some other council members talking about an attack on the Cube Arena this morning. Apparently a group of bots broke in, wrecked a bunch of the security drones, ruined the field, and then escaped.”

Hot Rod winces.

Chromia turns back and stares at Windblade. “And you think Perceptor was involved with that?”

“I…I don’t know,” says Windblade. “I don’t know why he’d do that, but the timing…it can’t be a coincidence, right?”

“I suppose that’s true,” Chromia says slowly. “I would ask him, but I haven’t been able to get in touch with Perceptor this morning. Whenever I try to comm him, the comm just bounces back.”

Windblade’s optics cycle. “That’s funny. The same thing happened when I tried to comm Hot Rod earlier.”

Hot Rod winces harder.

“I don’t believe it’ll take them long to put all the clues together,” says Perceptor. “That was faster than I’d expected.”

“Well, we did destroy the Cube Arena, so our departure to the shadowzone was a bit less stealthy than I’d imagined,” Hot Rod says sheepishly. “I’m guessing you didn’t expect that to happen.”

“No, I didn’t factor that level of destruction in my calculations. Though in hindsight, I should have accounted for that strong possibility.”

Windblade’s gaze drifts away from Chromia, and for one spark-stopping moment, Hot Rod thinks she’s somehow looking right at him. “I could be wrong,” she says. “Maybe neither of them have anything to do with this.”

She doesn’t sound like she really believes that, though. Probably because she’s met Hot Rod.

“I’m sure Shadow Striker will be able to tell me more about what exactly happened at the Cube Arena,” continues Windblade. “Speaking of which—I should probably head back to work, but I’ll let you know when I learn more information.”

“Thanks, I’d appreciate that,” says Chromia. “Oh, before you go! You should take a cube or two of energon with you.”

Windblade’s optics light up. “Can I? I’d hate to take any if you think Perceptor or Dead End would mind…but their energon really does taste better than the dispenser in the work breakroom.”

“Hey, I’m the one running Maccadam’s right now,” says Chromia with a smirk. “And I say it’s fine. Here, let me get the cubes for you.”

She hurries over to one of the overhead cabinets, where Hot Rod knows Perceptor and Dead End keep their clean cubes. In her haste, the pointed tip of Chromia’s elbow catches on one of the fluorescent rust stick bags on the shelf and knocks it onto the floor, but the sound of the aluminum bag hitting the ground is muffled by the creaking of the cabinet door being opened.

“Hey Chromia, you dropped something!” Hot Rod calls out, momentarily forgetting that she can’t hear him.

But Clobber hears him fine, and glee flashes across her face as soon as she spots the bag on the floor.

“Score!” she crows, lunging towards it. “Finders keepers!”

“Clobber,” says Perceptor, exasperated, “I’ve already told you that you can’t…”

The exasperation in his voice trails off into quiet astonishment when Clobber seizes the bag of rust sticks and raises it triumphantly over her head. Hot Rod stares at the bag, specifically at where Clobber’s servos are clearly gripping the bag, and then he whips around to stare at Perceptor instead.

“Did she just—”

“Clobber!” Dead End barrels over, fury in his optics. “I’ve already told you two hundred times that you can’t steal our snacks, so why am I looking at you holding them right now?!” Then his own words seem to sink in, and he stops abruptly to join Hot Rod in staring at Perceptor. “Wait, why am I looking at her holding them right now? I thought you said that was impossible.”

Clobber takes advantage of Dead End’s distraction to rip open the bag and start eating her newly-acquired fluorescent rust sticks. Hot Rod holds out an open servo, and she obligingly shakes several rust sticks into his waiting palm.

“I…I don’t know,” murmurs Perceptor, sounding even more shocked than the one extremely memorable time Hot Rod pointed out an error in his trigonometry calculations. “I don’t understand. All the theories proposing the existence of the shadowzone were certain that anyone trapped inside would be unable to interact with anything in the real world.” Absently, he reaches up and rubs the edge of his scope. “I couldn’t see that bag of rust sticks, so it must’ve been an object in the real world, and yet the moment Clobber picked it up, I was suddenly able to see it.”

“Huh.” Dead End’s expression turns thoughtful. “You said you can see the floor, right?”

Perceptor frowns. “Yes. Why?”

Dead End gestures at the floor between them. “You said before that the ground is one of the things we can touch in the shadowzone, which I guess makes sense since if it wasn’t, we’d be falling into an endless abyss or something. But isn’t it kind of weird for that rule to also apply to the floors inside the Cube Arena and Maccadam’s? I know we stand on the floor too, but it’s not exactly the same thing as the ground. We wouldn’t die if we fell through the floor and had to walk on the ground underneath instead. And the floor isn’t part of the environment the way the ground is.” He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s some kind of link between that and the reason why you could suddenly see the rust sticks?”

Perceptor looks—well, logically Hot Rod knows he’s not actually looking at Dead End with his optic lens covers, but it looks like he’s looking at him in bemused surprise.

Dead End rocks his weight backwards. “Uh…that was just a random thought, so it could be nothing.”

“No, that is an excellent observation,” breathes Perceptor. “You’re right, Dead End. I’d assumed the shadowzone’s tangible properties were limited to our world’s natural environment, but the floor we’re walking on is certainly not part of that.” His voice rises in volume with his excitement. “It’s such a refreshingly simple observation that it never occurred to me.”

Dead End looks like he doesn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered by that remark.

“I thought the shadowzone’s only rule was that we couldn’t directly interact with the real world, apart from the air we need to vent in and the ground we need to walk on,” continues Perceptor. “But us being able to touch the bar floor and the rust sticks is an exception to that rule. That means the shadowzone has additional rules, its own unique laws of physics that we don’t fully understand yet.”

Hot Rod tilts his helm. “Uh, okay,” he says around his mouthful of rust sticks. “Is that…bad?”

“Not at all! We simply need to conduct some experiments and determine what all the rules are, so we can effectively navigate the shadowzone going forward.” Perceptor spins around so fast that his scope almost hits Hot Rod in the face. “There’s no time to waste. I need to write down all of the information we’ve collected so far so I can start running my long-term analysis subroutines.”

“You can start writing it over here, Perce. Join us!”

Whirl waves at Perceptor from where he and Laserbeak are sitting in the middle of the floor, using his free servo to pat the empty spot to his left. It looks kind of absurd, considering they’re surrounded by chairs and booth seats, but Hot Rod supposes they don’t have any other choice when the only thing they know they can touch is the floor and the single bag of rust sticks in Clobber’s hands.

Perceptor makes his way over and sits cross-legged beside Whirl. Whirl slides him an energon cube.

“Thank you,” says Perceptor, distracted, before his scope jerks and does a double take at the cube. “Whirl, did you take this from the real world as well?”

“If you did, I’m adding it to your tab when we get back,” says Dead End.

“I didn’t steal it! It’s from my subspace,” says Whirl, passing another cube to Laserbeak, who promptly dips his beak into the cube and starts drinking. “I didn’t know how long we’d all be gone and if the shadowzone had any energon, so I bought a bunch of those bulk energon cube crates at the grocery store. They only come in plain and krypton flavours, though.”

“Ah.” Perceptor reaches into his subspace and pulls out a similar energon cube. “I had the same thoughts as you, and brought numerous cubes from Maccadam’s energon depot. All plain flavour, however.”

“What?” Hot Rod points at the stocked box of fuel additives in Maccadam’s, right over there. “Why didn’t you bring any of the flavour tins I just saw Chromia go through?”

The expression on Perceptor’s face turns withering. “I had more important things to pack in my limited subspace than additives.”

Whirl tosses another energon cube at Hot Rod, who catches it one-handed, uses his other hand to unwrap the foil seal, and downs it in one go. The smooth liquid slides down his intake, and he makes a face. It’s…fine, he supposes. It tastes exactly like something you get in a discounted bulk pack from the grocery store, but maybe Hot Rod is just spoiled from getting enough shanix in his government paycheque to buy energon at Maccadam’s all the time. Either way, he can’t really complain about Whirl and Perceptor having the foresight not to let them all starve to deactivation in the shadowzone.

Unbidden, Hot Rod thinks about his panic attack at the Valley of Repugnus, when he’d vividly imagined Soundwave trapped and starving to death in the shadowzone, and he forces himself to take in several slow, deep in-vents before his processor can spiral into an infinite loop again.

Soundwave is alive. Hot Rod has to believe that.

“You coming, Hot Rod?” asks Clobber.

Hot Rod’s attention blinks back online, and he glances over to see that Clobber and Dead End have joined Whirl’s circle on the floor and received their own krypton-flavoured energon cubes. Everyone in the group is looking back at him expectantly.

“Uh,” says Hot Rod. “Actually, I think I’m gonna go take that nap. I’ve been getting damage report pop-ups for a while now, and if I keep ignoring them I’m pretty sure my systems are gonna shut down on me without warning as some kind of self-inflicted revenge.”

He tosses his empty energon cube into the disposal bin. It goes right through the bin—ah, slag, he forgot about that again—and clatters onto the ground.

“Does that damage report mention anything you want me to look at?” offers Whirl.

Hot Rod does a quick scan. “Nah, I think my self-repair can take care of everything.”

Clobber balls up her empty bag of rust sticks, the crinkling of aluminum echoing loudly inside Maccadam’s, and tosses it at the same disposal bin. The bag falls through the bin to land right beside Hot Rod’s empty energon cube.

Not seeming to notice the incredulous looks Dead End, Whirl, and Laserbeak are giving her, Clobber asks Hot Rod, “Are you planning to sleep right here? In the middle of Maccadam’s?”

“I think me awkwardly sleeping off to the side would put a damper on your energon picnic,” says Hot Rod, and he jerks a thumb at the door leading to the Maccadam’s back room. “I was actually planning to go there. Figured it’d be easier to sleep away from the bar in case more people in the real world decide to stop by Maccadam’s.”

Clobber nods. “Okay! I’ll join you later. After I finish my energon cube, I want to see if I can get any more bags of fluorescent rust sticks.”

Dead End’s plating bristles. “Don’t you dare—”

“Go ahead, Clobber,” says Perceptor, and when Dead End shoots him a betrayed glare, he elaborates, “I’d like to see if she’s actually capable of interacting with anything else inside Maccadam’s. It would be valuable information to add to my analysis.”

“Seriously?” Dead End rolls his optics. “Ugh. Fine. I guess if you’re able to, you can steal more rust sticks.”

“Yay!”

“I’ll join you later too, Hot Rod,” pipes up Whirl. “I also want to see if I can steal some of Dead End’s snacks.”

“I hate all of you.”

Chuckling, Hot Rod offers everyone a parting wave, then heads to the back room.

He hasn’t been to the back room in ages—probably not since the Quintesson invasion, when he and the others kept sneaking in to take the elevator whenever Maccadam wasn’t paying close attention—but it looks just as empty and nondescript as it did in those days. A few energon crates are stacked along the wall. There’s a spare table folded up in the corner. The long bench is still there, which would’ve been perfect for recharging on, but Hot Rod tries kicking it and his pede goes right through the bench’s leg, which makes it less perfect.

Hot Rod ex-vents and looks away. His gaze falls on the elevator, and he wonders if the rule about all types of floors being tangible applies to underground floors as well.

…Probably best not to test that out. If he deactivates so soon into his journey to the shadowzone because the elevator drops him into—what did Dead End call it? An endless abyss?—everyone in the AllSpark is going to laugh at him forever.

Instead, he settles in the middle of the floor, just like his friends in the bar’s main room, and reclines back on the cold, hard surface. Between that discomfort, the daylight shining in from the room’s single window, and the fact that he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in six months, he expects it to take a long time for him to fall into recharge.

But for whatever reason—maybe it’s the exhaustion from their battle in the arena, maybe it’s the accumulated stress of the past week, maybe it’s the knowledge that his friends are nearby and he’s safe under their watch—Hot Rod drops off immediately.

******

The desolate landscape is empty and grey, with sparse rocks and dead trees barely illuminated by the dusky sun. Despite the air being clear, there’s a faint scent of smoke clinging to the nearly soundless atmosphere. A fuzzy sheen that Hot Rod’s quickly becoming used to is overlaying the bleached setting, undeniably marking this mystery location as somewhere in the shadowzone.

Hot Rod squints across the landscape, and—oh. This mystery place isn’t completely empty after all. There’s a smudge of dark blue on the horizon, and it’s slowly growing bigger and bigger as it approaches Hot Rod.

A grin spreads across Hot Rod’s face as he starts running, the rocky ground blurring beneath his pedes as he picks up speed. The smudge gradually sharpens into achingly familiar angles and features, and Soundwave’s visor flickers as Hot Rod slides to an abrupt stop in front of him.

“Hi,” says Hot Rod, still grinning so wide he feels like his joy can single-handedly power the whole universe.

“You don’t look surprised to see me,” says Soundwave.

“Why would I be surprised? I know you’re alive. And I know this is a dream, and you’re not the real Soundwave, but—you’re still making me really, really happy, and that’s all that matters, right?”

“Hm,” is all Soundwave says.

“Anyway, this is different,” says Hot Rod, peering around their unfamiliar surroundings. “I’m not complaining, because I was getting really sick of watching you die over and over again in the Cube Arena, but I don’t think I know this place. I’m guessing this is somewhere in the shadowzone, but it doesn’t look like anywhere in Iacon. Or even anywhere on Cybertron.”

“This isn’t Cybertron,” says Soundwave.

“O-kay,” says Hot Rod. “Can you narrow it down a bit more than that? The universe is a really big place, you know.”

Soundwave’s expression doesn’t change, but somehow Hot Rod gets the feeling that he’s internally laughing at him. Either that, or judging him really hard.

Knowing Soundwave, it’s probably both.

Hot Rod casts a glance around the barren landscape again. “Well, for all I know, this place isn’t real either, so maybe that was a stupid question. If that’s the case, I don’t suppose dream-you knows where the real Soundwave actually is? That would really help me find you faster.”

Soundwave considers his question. The misty sunlight dapples the surface of his dark blue plating, flecks of white dancing like stars in the midnight sky.

“You’re getting there,” concedes Soundwave. “You still have a long way to go to find the real Soundwave…but you’re on the right track.”

“Really? That’s grea—!” Hot Rod stops and narrows his optics. “Wait. Are you saying that because it’s actually true, or because it’s what I would’ve wanted the real you to say?”

“That’s not important,” says Soundwave. “It made you really, really happy, and that’s all that matters, right?”

Hot Rod snorts. “Touché.”

Soundwave’s gaze lifts higher, observing the thin, wispy clouds drift through the pale sky and obscure the dim sunlight. Elongated shadows creep over the landscape, shrouding the rocks and dead trees in inky darkness. The ground under Hot Rod’s pedes turns cold.

“You’re on the right track,” repeats Soundwave, “but you need to be careful. The shadowzone isn’t what you think it is. It’s far larger, and far stranger. And you’re not alone.”

Unease stirs in Hot Rod’s fuel tank. “I know I’m not alone. I have Clobber, Whirl, Perceptor, and Dead End with me. Even Laserbeak is here.”

“No. You don’t understand. All of you—you’re not alone.”

Soundwave’s visor burns dark, and before Hot Rod’s optics, a round crack appears in the centre of the crimson glass. White lines spiderweb out from the punched-out circle, snaking out from his visor and branching over the protoform of Soundwave’s faceplates.

“What—” Alarmed, Hot Rod reaches out, but his fingers smack into something solid and invisible a few micrometres away from Soundwave. He tries his other hand, but it meets the same barrier.

“If you’re not careful,” says Soundwave, still talking despite the fractal cracks now covering the entirety of his face, “none of you will live long enough to find me.”

“Nope, not gonna happen,” Hot Rod says instantly. “We will find you. That’s a promise.”

The cracks spread to Soundwave’s chassis and slice right through the centre of his Decepticon insignia. “Don’t make promises you may not be able to keep. You’ve already failed once.”

Hot Rod cycles his optics. “What do you mean, you’ve already failed once? We just got here!”

More jagged white lines cascade down Soundwave’s frame, carving down his legs and over his pedes before splitting the ground underneath them. Hot Rod yelps and jumps back as enormous fissures rip through the greying rock with audial-splitting cracks. Loose pebbles go flying as the fissures hurtle across the landscape and then somehow, magically, arc off the ground to continue their paths upward. Thick black strokes zigzag up through the air like lightning before collapsing inwards, breaking the sky into glass shards of transparent light.

Despite the unnatural disaster happening around them, Soundwave remains motionless and calm. His frame is more white than blue now, with so many cracks etched and crisscrossing over his plating that it looks like he might shatter and fall apart at any moment.

“Beware the monster,” says Soundwave.

Hot Rod leaps forward, skidding over a tilting section of the ground, and desperately reaches for Soundwave again, but his hands slam into the same stupid invisible wall.

“What monster?!” he shouts, pounding his fist against nothing. “Are you talking about Tarn? Is that what you mean by us not being alone?”

Soundwave’s voice is barely audible over the discordant sound of breaking glass. “It’s—from another—dangerous, so you—just because he’s—get yourself killed.”

“What? Can you say that again?”

If Soundwave actually repeats himself, it’s lost to the deafening boom that rends the sky above them. Hot Rod jerks his gaze upwards as the glittering shards of light begin raining down, accelerating as they fall and slamming into the ground with enough force to fracture the rock.

A huge shard plummets past him, narrowly missing his face, and Hot Rod’s visual feed catches a split-astrosecond glimpse of a familiar blur flashing past him. He follows the movement down to the shard that almost hit him, and freezes when he sees Soundwave’s own face reflected in its pale surface.

“That’s…you,” says Hot Rod, bewildered. “Why are you—”

Another shard tumbles down and splits the ground nearby, and Hot Rod reels at the near-identical sight of Soundwave mirrored within it. Then another shard falls from the sky, and then another, and then more and more, and Hot Rod spins around to take in the countless trapped Soundwaves littering the area around him like the universe’s most destructive funhouse of mirrors.

Hot Rod turns back to ask Soundwave what the hell is going on—just in time to see his fear come true. With a final loud crack, Soundwave breaks apart and crumbles to the ground in tiny metal pieces. A gust of wind blows in to carry the remnants of Soundwave’s frame into the far distance.

Hot Rod gapes at the empty spot where Soundwave was standing, then swallows hard and directs his glare up at the fragmented sky.

“We will find you!” he insists, ignoring the life-threateningly large shards still dropping perilously around him. “I don’t care what you mean by ‘failing once’ or whatever! I promised Shadow Striker I’d bring you back, and I refuse to break that promise!”

The ground rumbles ominously under Hot Rod’s pedes, reverberating across the vast, barren landscape, and the unsteady slab that he’s been balancing on snaps in half and disintegrates. Hot Rod screams and slips backwards—

—And with a gasp, he wakes up.

He stares up at the chipped ceiling of Maccadam’s back room, spark racing and cooling fans running at their maximum setting. The whirring is loud enough to fill the small room with white noise, yet his frame still feels like it’s enveloped in a suffocating heat generated by his emotional subsystems going haywire. After a few astroseconds of gulping in deep in-vents of cool air, Hot Rod realizes the haze in the air isn’t only because of the shadowzone, but also from the smoke whistling out from his exhaust pipes.

“Oops,” he mutters as he scrambles to find the right settings and shut off first the smoke, then his cooling fans. The white noise dies down, but oddly enough Hot Rod can still hear multiple sets of whirring sounds, all at different pitches vibrating across the surface of his plating.

Baffled, Hot Rod glances down, and—huh.

Looks like there’s another reason for the suffocating heat surrounding his frame.

When his friends said they’d join him later to sleep, they apparently meant that very literally. Clobber’s head is cushioned on his right shoulder. Whirl is sleeping against his left side, his rotors wedged at an awkward angle under Hot Rod’s arm. Laserbeak is snoozing on his chassis, wings folded neatly and small engine thrumming right over Hot Rod’s new insignia.

For some reason, Perceptor decided to sleep with his head resting on Hot Rod’s knee, even though Hot Rod is pretty sure that’s the most uncomfortable spot on his frame he could’ve picked. Either it was the only spot where Perceptor wouldn’t accidentally hit someone with his scope, or he wanted to be as close as possible to Dead End—the only bot who decided not to use Hot Rod as a pillow. Dead End is recharging near the wall, with a healthy amount of distance put between him and Hot Rod, but his arm is outstretched so he and Perceptor could sleep with their digits tangled together.

Chuckling, Hot Rod takes an image capture of the sight. As he does, he accidentally dislodges Clobber’s head, and she shivers and mumbles something that sounds like “too cold” before burrowing back into Hot Rod’s frame.

Hot Rod gazes down at the five of them, something warm and immeasurably fond blooming inside his spark.

“I never said you could use me as your personal heater,” he grumbles, but he knows that if any of them were awake, they’d be able to tell he’s not genuinely annoyed at all.

He pulls up his damage report on his HUD and finally takes the time to read through all of it. Thankfully, it looks like he was right and his self-repair fixed most of it, even the burnt lining in his arms. There are a few dents that haven't come out yet, including the bad one he can feel in his spoiler, but he’s no longer in danger of suddenly shutting down or getting yelled at by his own self-preservation routines.

Awesome. That’s good enough to keep going.

Slowly, very slowly, he shifts Clobber’s helm off his shoulder and onto the floor. With his freed right arm, he picks up Laserbeak and sets him on top of Clobber. A little snuffling sound escapes from Whirl as he’s moved and Hot Rod freezes, but Whirl just rolls over, tucks his rotors into a more comfortable position, and continues sleeping. Hot Rod blows out a relieved ex-vent and carefully extricates his leg from underneath Perceptor’s head, shuffling backwards until he’s free from the impromptu cuddle pile.

A part of Hot Rod feels bad about abandoning his role as their personal heater, but the larger, more insistent part of him can’t ignore the itchy, restless feeling clawing underneath his plating. The image of Soundwave and the world around him cracking and breaking apart is still seared into his imagination matrix, and as much as Hot Rod loves his friends, he needs some space to process that nightmare without being smothered by multiple heavy bots.

He springs to his pedes and stretches his arms out high above his head until he hears the joints pop. Then, moving as quietly as possible, Hot Rod tiptoes to the doorway and peeks into the Maccadam’s main room.

It’s completely empty. Maybe Chromia decided to give herself an extra day to figure everything out before reopening the bar, or maybe it’s just too early for Maccadam’s to officially open. On instinct, Hot Rod checks his chronometer for the time, but the application seems to be frozen—it’s stuck at the time when he and Laserbeak went through the groundbridge portal. Frowning, he glances out the closest window. The sky outside has transformed from a burning orange to a serene blue, so it’s probably early or mid-afternoon.

Well, maybe. For all Hot Rod knows, the shadowzone’s day and night cycles are completely different from the real world. The sky he’s looking at might not even be the same sky as the one everyone in the real world is seeing.

He steps further into the bar, walking past the counter, and extending his hand to see if he can touch anything in the real world the way Clobber did. It doesn’t seem like he can, because all Hot Rod feels as he wanders around the room is air brushing against his fingers, but he’s also barely paying attention—most of his processor is fixated on cataloguing and analyzing every detail of the dream he’d just had.

It could all mean nothing. Even within the dream, both he and the dream-Soundwave acknowledged that none of it was real. But the way Soundwave spoke…he sounded serious, like he really believed and knew what he was talking about. And yeah, Hot Rod knows Soundwave says everything with absolute seriousness, even normal, mundane things like asking for extra ice in his energon or telling Hot Rod his latest idea is especially terrible, but this time was different. This time, there’d been an extra weight to his words that gave Hot Rod the feeling Soundwave had been trying really, really hard to make sure Hot Rod was properly listening to him.

And those words he’d spoken—

The shadowzone isn’t what you think it is. It’s far larger, and far stranger.

All of you—you’re not alone.

Don’t make promises you may not be able to keep. You’ve already failed once.

Beware the monster.

They’d all sounded like warnings.And Hot Rod is pretty sure that, real or not, getting dire warnings about the shadowzone right after he and his friends entered said shadowzone is a really bad sign.

A shudder runs along his spoiler, and Hot Rod tries to shake off his trepidation as he continues pacing the bar. If they really are warnings, they’re not very helpful ones. They’re way too cryptic to understand, and that makes it almost impossible for him to avoid whatever danger dream-Soundwave was trying to warn him about. Is this how Optimus felt every time the Matrix showed him a vision from the dead Primes? No wonder he looked so confused and tired whenever he woke up from one.

Even so, Hot Rod does his best to remember all the possibly-helpful details from the dream. The audial-shattering earthquakes. The sky raining down in giant glass shards. The infinite Soundwaves reflected in those shards. The mysterious desolate landscape. Soundwave cracking and crumbling to pieces. Soundwave’s first appearance as a smudge of dark blue on the horizon.

Hot Rod completes his sixth loop of Maccadam’s, circling around the counter and trudging past the blank vidscreen on the wall. As he commits the dream’s details to his memory data, he absentmindedly notes all the things in the bar he keeps passing by: the booth seats, the rectangular tables, the stacks of chairs, the powered-down jukebox, the broom propped by the doorframe, the smudge of dark blue on the floor, the—

—Wait.

He whirls around, optics wide, and drops to his knees with a crash. Hot Rod squints down at the floor, and his next in-vent rattles inside his chassis so hard the tremor shakes his whole frame.

He’s not hallucinating. Right there, on the floor near the entrance to Maccadam’s, is a messy blotch of blue paint.

Hot Rod doesn’t know the precise hex colour code of Soundwave’s paint job, but he’d bet his racecar alt mode that this is an exact match. And when he leans closer and presses the back of his shaking hand against the smudge, as if he were about to smear some of his paint onto the floor, the square shape is almost a perfect fit—it’s just a little bigger.

Soundwave’s hand is just a little bigger than his own.

The laugh that bursts out from his vocalizer probably sounds unhinged, but Hot Rod doesn’t care. This isn’t a dream. This is unquestionably, one hundred percent real. The real Soundwave was here at some point, and left his paint on the floor for Hot Rod to find. The real Soundwave was, at the very least, alive when he first made it to the shadowzone.

Hot Rod takes back all of his negative thinking around getting really bad signs about the shadowzone. This is the best sign he could’ve possibly asked for.

He pulls his hand back, and that’s when he spots the tiny etchings just above the blue smudge. Cycling his optics, he zooms in with his visual feed.

Carved into the floor with precision of a laser scalpel is a single line: E2261923.

That…means nothing to Hot Rod. He runs a search through his memory data, and even through his encrypted archives when that doesn’t turn up any results, but nope. Nothing.

“Whatcha looking at?”

Startled, Hot Rod rears back and accidentally rams the back of his head into Whirl’s knee. Whirl cries out and topples over, also knocking over Dead End beside him. Laserbeak, who’d been perched on top of Dead End’s head, shrieks and flutters his wings wildly to keep his balance.

Whirl picks himself up off the ground, rubbing at his knee joint. “Ow! C’mon Hot Rod, that’s the second time today you’ve hit me!”

“Sorry, it was an accident this time too! You scared me.”

Thankfully, it doesn’t look like he seriously hurt any of them. The opposite, actually—both Whirl and Dead End seem to be in much better shape than they were before Hot Rod’s nap. The minor dents and scratches are gone, and their movements aren’t as sluggish. Even Laserbeak, who was barely involved in the fight at the arena, looks livelier than before as he pecks at one of Dead End’s finials in retribution for falling.

“He scared you?” mutters Dead End, batting at Laserbeak and making no move to get up. “More like you scared us with the racket you were making in here. What happened?”

Hot Rod points at the blue smudge on the floor. “I saw that.”

Whirl crawls closer, his optic widening as he follows Hot Rod’s digit. “Wow. That’s gotta be Soundwave, right?”

Laserbeak hops off of Dead End’s head and studies the blue smudge for a few moments, then looks back at Hot Rod and warbles a tune of bright, joyful notes.

“Definitely Soundwave,” says Hot Rod, grinning.

Dead End rolls over to inspect the smudge for himself. “Well, what do you know,” he says, sounding grudgingly impressed. “The glitchhead really did survive and make it here. Soundwave better hope this smudge only shows up in the shadowzone, ‘cause I’ll kill him if I go back to the real Maccadam’s and find blue paint on the floor.”

“Wouldn’t you have noticed at some point over the last six months if there was blue paint on the floor?” asks Whirl.

“Yeah,” says Dead End. “...Probably.”

“Only probably?”

“Hey,” says Hot Rod, and brings their attention back to Soundwave’s message by tapping the floor. “Does ‘E2261923’ mean anything to you?”

Laserbeak shakes his helm.

“Uh, nope.” Whirl’s head tilts as he reads the message again. “Maybe it’s a secret code. Did Soundwave ever share a cipher key with you?”

“I don’t think so,” says Hot Rod. “Pretty sure I would’ve remembered if he had.”

“Seven numbers…” mutters Dead End, rubbing under his jaw. “It could be a passcode. But if it is, it’s not very helpful since we don’t know what it’s a passcode for.”

“Soundwave would have known we wouldn’t understand what his message means without additional context.” At the sound of Perceptor’s voice, Hot Rod turns to watch him leave the back room and approach the rest of them. Clobber is right behind him, rubbing her optic as she yawns. Like the others, they both look much better and healthier. “So the fact that he chose not to give us any context and kept it deliberately vague means he was likely worried about someone else finding this code before us. He didn’t want to risk the information falling into the wrong hands.”

“Uh.” Clobber suddenly looks a lot less sleepy. “What wrong hands? I thought we were alone in the shadowzone.”

All of you—you’re not alone.

The memory of Soundwave’s warning douses Hot Rod’s processor with ice.

“There’s Tarn, remember?” he says. “We always knew there was a chance he’d be trapped in the shadowzone too.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about him.” Clobber shudders. “I hope he’s not here.”

“But even if Tarn isn’t in the shadowzone, that doesn’t mean we have no enemies here.” Hot Rod pushes himself to his pedes and looks all his friends in the optic. “We don’t know anything about the shadowzone. This is a totally new world to us. So the moment we step out that door—” he thrusts a digit in the direction of Maccadam’s front doors— “we need to be on guard for any, and I mean any, danger we might run into. We need to survive so we can find Soundwave and bring him home. For Soundwave’s sake…” Hot Rod glances out the nearest window, where the bright and deceivingly cold sunlight is streaming in through the glass. “We need to be careful.”

For a long moment, Hot Rod’s friends look back at him in stunned silence. Then the silence is shattered by Clobber snorting out loud.

The sound is so sudden and unexpected that Hot Rod flinches. “Wha—Clobber? What’s so funny?”

“It’s—it’s not anything you said, Hot Rod, it’s just—” Clobber struggles to get her giggles under control. “The same thing happened right before we left Maccadam’s yesterday! You looked out the window and said—” She tilts her chin up toward the window and dramatically raises the pitch of her voice. “And…be careful.”

A choked-off laugh puffs out from Dead End’s engine, and it’s quickly followed by Whirl cracking up beside him.

“My voice doesn’t sound like that!” protests Hot Rod, but his voice breaks embarrassingly high halfway through his sentence and he cringes. “Wait, no, that was a one-off—”

“No, I’m afraid Clobber’s mimicry was perfect,” says Perceptor, so seriously that if Hot Rod hadn’t known him for millions of cycles, he wouldn’t have realized that Perceptor is totally fragging with him. “But it was a very admirable attempt at making this situation unnecessarily dramatic.”

“What do you mean, ‘unnecessarily dramatic?’ We’re about to journey through an unknown dimension! It’s exactly the right amount of drama for this moment!”

Whirl regains his composure. “Yeah, but when it’s coming from you, it sounds like you’re trying too hard to be dramatic. Like you’re the brooding protagonist of a bad action movie.”

Hot Rod gapes at him. “Brooding?”

“Yeah I know, that’s not the word I’d usually pick to describe you either. That’s supposed to be Dead End’s role.”

Dead End abruptly stops laughing. “You think I’m brooding?”

“Well, yeah,” says Whirl. “What else would you call all that moping you were doing in Maccadam’s earlier? When you were all like, oh no, I have commitment issues and don’t understand why Perce would want—”

“Shhh!” Dead End hisses, cutting a sharp glance over at Hot Rod, Clobber, and Laserbeak. “I didn’t tell you all that in private because I wanted everyone to know!”

“You two were talking out loud in the middle of the bar,” says Hot Rod. “If you didn’t want everyone to know—” Then he cuts himself off mid-sentence, because— “Hang on, we’re getting way off topic! Look, I said we needed to be careful because—”

“You’re worried about us,” supplies Perceptor, and smiles. “We know. We’ve already been over this, remember? We may not know exactly what lies ahead in the shadowzone, but we knew about the high risks of this mission.”

“And we came anyway!” says Clobber, pumping her fist. “Because like you said, Soundwave deserves to be freed, and we all want to help you free him.”

That’s true. Hot Rod did say that.

But that was before he had a terrifying dream about Soundwave dropping cryptic warnings about the shadowzone and then disintegrating right in front of him. He’d thought that was better than watching Soundwave sacrifice himself to take down Tarn for the two hundredth time, but now he’s not so sure. At least the whole disaster with Tarn already happened in the past. This is the future, and it’s just as unknown as the shadowzone they’ve barely begun to explore.

Should he tell everyone about his dream? About the warnings? If dream-Soundwave had given him any information that’s actually useful, then Hot Rod would. As it is, passing on Soundwave’s ominous words would just scare them for no reason, or make them laugh at Hot Rod for believing he’s suddenly having prophetic visions like he’s Optimus Prime.

So maybe he should keep his intake shut for now. Their mission to save Soundwave has just started. There’s plenty of time for him to share the details of his dream later.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Hot Rod says instead, and manages a genuine grin. “Sorry, didn’t mean to sound like I’m doubting you all. There’s a lot at stake, and a lot that can go wrong, but we’ve accomplished miracles before. I know we can make them happen again.”

“Great,” says Dead End. “Now that we’re all in high spirits about walking into mortal danger, what’s the next step of your plan?”

“Huh?”

Dead End crosses his arms. “Earlier, you said you had a plan. Step one was getting to the shadowzone, and step two was finding shelter. What’s step three?”

“Oh, right!” says Hot Rod. “Step three is finding Soundwave.”

Everyone stares at him. Hot Rod hears a strong gust of wind blow down the street outside Maccadam’s, accompanied by the hollow thunking sounds of tumbleweeds bouncing off the roofs and windshields of vehicles on the street.

“That’s…a pretty big jump between steps two and three,” Clobber says slowly.

“Are there any—” Whirl makes a circling gesture with one claw. “Sub-steps under step three?”

“Uhhh, no,” says Hot Rod. “I thought once we got to the shadowzone, it’d be really easy for us to figure out where Soundwave went, so…”

“I wish I could say I’m surprised,” mutters Dead End.

“Uhhh,” Hot Rod says again. “Okay, so step three might be a little more difficult than the previous two steps, but that’s fine because—”

“Because you have me,” finishes Perceptor, and he withdraws a small, square-shaped device from his subspace.

Hot Rod peers down at the familiar-looking device, trying to remember where he’s seen it before—oh, right. It was during the Quintesson invasion, in the dark, post-apocalyptic streets of Iacon he’d been exploring alongside Soundwave.

“Isn’t that the thing you made to help me find the Scientist?” asks Hot Rod. “The one that picked up on the Scientist’s, uh, electromagnetic waves?”

“Yes,” says Perceptor. “Last night, I reprogrammed this scanner to detect Soundwave’s electromagnetic waves instead.” His smile turns smug. “This should make it easier to track him down.”

Hot Rod tears his gaze away from the device, walks over to Perceptor, and drops both his hands on Perceptor’s shoulders. “Perceptor,” he says solemnly. “You’re a genius.”

“I know.”

“I could kiss you right now.”

“Please don’t.”

Whirl looks at Dead End. “Are you okay with someone hitting on your boyfriend right in front of you?”

Dead End shrugs. “If it’s Hot Rod, I don’t care. Perceptor isn’t the least bit interested in him.”

“I’m not,” confirms Perceptor.

“I’m not even offended right now because I’m too busy being grateful you’re here,” says Hot Rod. “This is great! This is perfect. A Soundwave scanner is just what we need for step three of the plan.”

A grimace appears on Perceptor’s face. “It’s not a ‘Soundwave scanner,’ it’s an electromagnetic wave detector.”

Hot Rod thinks about it, then shakes his head. “Nah. ‘Soundwave scanner’ is catchier and easier to remember.”

Apparently deciding it’s not worth fighting Hot Rod over that, Perceptor just sighs and backs up to free himself from Hot Rod’s grasp. He presses the button on the side of the device and the Soundwave scanner powers on, the light in the centre cycling through a rapid sequence of colours before settling on a steady green.

“What does green mean?” Clobber frowns down at the device and pokes at it. “Whoa. And why is this scanner thingie warm?”

“The green light indicates that the electro—the ‘Soundwave scanner’ has detected Soundwave’s electromagnetic waves. As it nears Soundwave’s location, it will turn yellow. Once Soundwave is within our visual range, it should turn red.” Perceptor turns over the device, securing it to his wrist, and there’s a quiet snkt as the device magnetizes to his plating. “As for the warmth, I modified the device so its temperature would also increase the closer it gets to Soundwave. This feature is for my benefit—it’s easier for me to perceive changing temperatures than colours.”

Perceptor’s scope darts up to face Hot Rod. “Just so you’re aware, the green light also means that Soundwave is currently alive and somewhere in the shadowzone. The light wouldn’t have turned on at all if he wasn’t.”

“Oh!” says Clobber with a grin, and she beams at Hot Rod. “That is perfect.”

Renewed hope flares to life in Hot Rod’s spark. “Alright then,” he says, and he knows his next words are probably what Perceptor and Whirl would deem ‘unnecessarily dramatic,’ but, well. If Hot Rod doesn’t let himself be unnecessarily dramatic sometimes, then he wouldn’t be living as freely as he wants.

He takes one last look at the E2261923 etched into the floor, committing Soundwave’s message to his memory banks.

“This is it. Let’s go save Soundwave.”

******

Even though the war razed most of Cybertron’s surface and the cities they’ve only just begun to rebuild look drastically different from before, the planet still feels like home in a way that Hot Rod has never found anywhere else. If someone asked him why, though, he wouldn’t know exactly how to explain it. Maybe it’s the nostalgic familiarity of seeing Cybertronian-style architecture and environments when he goes out for a drive. Maybe it’s about seeing so many other Cybertronians living and thriving in a world they all once thought was lost forever. Maybe it’s because, after spending millions of cycles waging war on countless other planets throughout the universe, this is still the only place Hot Rod and most other bots ever wanted to come back to.

But despite all that, the sight of Iacon’s reconstructured streets, skyscrapers, and landmarks coloured in the shadowzone’s grey stain is enough to make Hot Rod feel like an outsider in his own home. Bots he knows pass him by without a second glance in his direction. Whenever he accidentally clips a corner or walks through a signpost on the sidewalk, the cold sensation that seeps into his frame reminds him he’s basically become a ghost. Even the bright sunlight stops being a comfort after he looks back to check on everyone walking behind him and notices that none of them have shadows anymore.

“I knew being in the shadowzone meant we’d be completely cut off from the real world,” remarks Hot Rod as he pulls out his blue visor from his subspace, “but I didn’t realize how weird it’d feel for us to be in Iacon but also not really be in Iacon at the same time.”

Sharp claws pinch the sensitive metal by the side of his helm. Hot Rod winces and eyes Laserbeak, perched in the gap between his neck and shoulder, but the indignant “Hey!” dies in his vocalizer when he sees the way Laserbeak’s gaze is fixed on the distant sky.

He doesn’t look like he’s purposely digging his talons into Hot Rod’s plating. He just looks…antsy. Restless. Which makes sense—Laserbeak is used to being Soundwave’s surveillance partner. Being stuck at Hot Rod and the others’ ambling pace when he could be flying off to explore the shadowzone at three times their speed is, for him, probably akin to torture.

As Hot Rod slides his visor over his optics, Dead End says, “The shadowzone isn’t as weird as whatever you’re putting on your face right now. What the frag is that supposed to be?”

“It’s a makeshift visor!” Hot Rod says brightly. “It helps me see better when it’s sunny. I had this one custom-made to look like Earth-style sunglasses.” He tilts the upside-down triangular blue lenses to sit more comfortably over his nasal ridge, then winks at Dead End. “Pretty sweet, right?”

“If by ‘sweet’ you mean ‘ridiculous,’ then sure.”

Whirl moves closer for a better look at his visor. Through Hot Rod’s lenses, his glossy plating is a much more muted shade of blue. “Can’t you just dim your optics to shield them from the sun?”

“Yeah, but this makes a statement. A statement that I’m trendy and hot.”

“Uh,” says Whirl. “Okay. If you say so.”

“Come on, you can sound more encouraging than that!” Hot Rod looks up ahead. “Perceptor, you agree that I look hot with these on, right? Even more hot than usual?”

Perceptor is walking at the front of their group, focused on holding out the Soundwave scanner in different directions, but at Hot Rod’s question he stops to look back and tap his optic lens covers. “I’m blind. I have no opinion.”

“I know your scope can still see things in the shadowzone, and that includes me!” Hot Rod throws his arms in the air. “You’re all meanies. Clobber, you have to agree that I’m—Clobber?”

Clobber has stopped a few astrometres behind, staring up at the lone steel building they’d all just walked past. Hot Rod follows her gaze to the building’s flat, triangular spires, slanted together in the centre to form an angular teardrop shape. A familiar teardrop shape that shakes loose several files in Hot Rod’s memory banks.

“Oh,” says Hot Rod. “This is…”

“Home,” finishes Clobber.

Whirl gives them a puzzled look. “You live here?”

“No, this was our hideout during the Quintesson invasion, before we found Maccadam’s.” Hot Rod gestures between himself, Clobber, and Perceptor. “Back when the three of us were the only ones awake on Cybertron. It was our home for a while, but I haven’t been back here since we were forced to abandon it. I’d assumed the Prosecutors would destroy the place, so I’m kinda surprised to see it’s still standing.”

“The Prosecutors did destroy the place,” says Perceptor, “but the Constructicons repaired the damage several months ago, at Windblade’s request. She’d invited me here to salvage any materials and equipment still worth keeping before the renovation process began.”

Dead End’s gaze roves over the building. “Guess that means there isn’t anything left worth scavenging. Assuming we can even touch anything in there.”

“You’re welcome to double-check, but that’s likely correct. I believe Windblade thoroughly cleaned out what was left after I finished going through it.”

Hot Rod sneaks a glance at the Soundwave scanner, but the light is still green. He’s not really surprised—he doesn’t remember ever telling Soundwave about this place, and only Perceptor knew about the abandoned garage before the Quintesson invasion, so the likelihood of Soundwave hanging out here is pretty much zero.

“I can comm Windblade and ask her if there was anything useful she left behind,” offers Clobber.

Hot Rod cycles his optics. “I didn’t know you have Windblade’s comm number.”

“Unfortunately, I doubt that will work,” says Perceptor. “Based on the conversation we overheard between Chromia and Windblade, it seems that comms don’t work in the shadowzone.”

“Really?” There’s a long pause as Clobber presumably tries to send a comm. “Aw. You’re right, it’s not working. I can’t even comm you, Percy.”

“We can’t even send comms to each other?” says Whirl. “Primus. That’s gonna make it hard for us to talk to each other if we ever get separated.”

A thought occurs to Hot Rod. “Hang on, there might be another way we can talk,” he says, and opens up the holoscreen over his wrist.

Laserbeak briefly nudges the side of Hot Rod’s helm, gentle and unexpectedly affectionate, before taking off in a flurry of wingbeats. Hot Rod watches him fly off with a smile.

While he was writing in and reading the group chat, Hot Rod hadn’t really been paying attention to his surroundings, and was only barely following Perceptor’s red frame in the upper edge of his visual feed. Now that he’s closing the chat and his holoscreen, he finally looks up—and immediately does a double take.

“Hey, wait!” calls out Hot Rod. When everyone looks back at him, he points up at the tall building by the side of the street, with slanted spires and an extremely familiar teardrop-shaped gap over its roof. “Didn’t we already walk by this spot?”

“You didn’t notice yet?” asks Whirl. “We’ve been walking in circles for a while.”

“We already walked by Maccadam’s three times!” adds Clobber.

Slag, really? Oops. “Oh. But why?”

“My theory is that the shadowzone is centred around our entry point, which was the Cube Arena.” Perceptor’s scope activates and projects the familiar three-dimensional map of the arena. An astrosecond later, the projection expands outwards to include the outline of Iacon’s entire downtown core. “If the shadowzone’s size is limited, then it’s possible we can’t travel beyond downtown Iacon.”

“Okay, that would explain why we’re walking in circles,” says Dead End, “but if the shadowzone is this small, shouldn’t we have found Soundwave—or Tarn—by now?”

“That would be a logical assumption,” agrees Perceptor. He switches off his scope and raises the Soundwave scanner, which is still displaying the same green light. “However, we don’t appear to be any closer to Soundwave.”

Frowning, Hot Rod surveys the area around them. They’re standing at one of Iacon’s many intersections, with hundreds of bots clogging up the streets during what looks like the evening rush hour. Numerous people are honking their horns in a poorly-orchestrated symphony. On the other side of the street, a holographic banner that once announced the Parade of Metals, but now displays an advertisement for Trypticon Plaza’s low shopping prices, hangs over a group of five bots fistfighting and yelling about illegal U-turns. Another bot gives up on battling the busy traffic and transforms in the middle of the road, shoving their way through the other vehicles and stomping over to the slightly less congested sidewalk.

All of that is, unfortunately, pretty normal. Hot Rod was hoping there’d be some kind of obvious clue to explain why they haven’t run into anyone else if the shadowzone is so limited, but other than the whole walking-in-circles thing, nothing about their surroundings looks off or out of place—

In the distance, framed between the pointed tops of two towering skyscrapers, a small, faint triangle shimmers to life in the hazy sky.

Hot Rod stills, lifting up his blue visor for a better view. “What the…?”

He tries to magnify his visual feed for a better look, but the moment he starts zooming in, his feed explodes into a pixelated mosaic of staticky grey squares. With an alarmed yelp, he stumbles back and blindly reaches into his optical settings, scrabbling to figure out what’s happening. His visor drops back down over his optics, but it doesn’t help him see any better.

A servo grasps his arm. Hot Rod instantly recognizes Clobber’s solid, gentle touch. “Hot Rod? What’s wrong?”

Before he can answer, his visual feed abruptly clears. Hot Rod cycles his optics a few times and looks around, taking in Clobber’s worried expression and everyone else staring at him in confusion, and checks his settings again.

Weird. Everything looks normal.

“Hot Rod?”

“I’m okay,” says Hot Rod, patting at Clobber’s servo to put her at ease. “I had a glitch in my visual feed, but it was only for a few astroseconds. Everything seems fine now.”

That gets Whirl’s attention. “A glitch in your visual feed?” he repeats. “Did something trigger it?”

Hot Rod risks a glance back at where he’d seen the triangle, but the distant sky is now empty. Just like his visual feed, it all looks normal.

“Uh, maybe? I thought I saw a triangular shape over there—” he points towards the tops of the two skyscrapers— “and my feed started glitching after I looked at it.”

Dead End arches an optical ridge. “Your visual feed glitched because you looked at a triangle?”

“I know it sounds stupid!” huffs Hot Rod. “I don’t know, maybe it’s another weird shadowzone thing!”

“Or maybe you’re hallucinating,” suggests Dead End.

Hot Rod opens his mouth to deny that, then pauses. “Is it possible for the shadowzone to cause hallucinations?”

“Not that I know of,” answers Perceptor. “But before several astrocycles ago, I would have told you it was impossible for anyone in the shadowzone to steal a bag of rust sticks from the real world, and I would have been wrong. So for now, I wouldn’t say anything is impossible.”

“Hallucinating triangles that cause visual feed glitches, huh,” says Whirl. His expression goes slightly vacant—a sure sign of someone looking intently at something on their HUD. “That wasn’t on my shadowzone bingo card.”

Hot Rod stares at him. “Did you seriously make a bingo card?”

Whirl’s optic refocuses on him and narrows. “Hey, someone who made an insignia out of his own face and stuck it on his chassis doesn’t get to judge me for this. If I win bingo before Dead End, I get all the shanix we pooled together.”

“What?” Hot Rod turns on Dead End. “You made a bingo card too?”

“Yeah,” says Dead End. “I got to put down the very first token when you admitted you didn’t have an actual plan to find Soundwave.”

Clobber’s expression turns intrigued. “Can I join the pool? When we go back home, I’ll add more shanix.”

“Clobber?”

Dead End smirks. “Sure. The more shanix, the merrier. I’ll send you the file template for the bingo card.”

“Well,” Hot Rod says loudly, deciding he doesn’t want to think too hard about his friends gambling on their lives in the shadowzone. “Whether I hallucinated that triangle or not, I don’t see it there anymore. Am I the only one who saw something weird? Did any of you see something that stood out, or didn’t fit in with what you know the real world is supposed to look like?”

There’s a long pause as everyone considers the question.

“I saw Alpha Strike speaking to a bunch of sparklings back there,” volunteers Whirl, jerking a claw in the direction of the public park Hot Rod knows is about a block away. “That’s weird, right? I thought she hated sparklings.”

“Not as much as she says she does,” says Hot Rod. “And that was probably the Little League Cube team she coaches. Alpha Strike’s raising them to be Cybertron’s most terrifying generation of Cube players. I joined their practice once, and two of them bit my ankle joints as a distraction so their teammate could steal the cube from me.”

Dead End rubs at his chin. “I saw Ratchet standing outside the hospital, ranting at thin air. That was weird. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him lose it like that. What if—”

“Oh, that’s probably my fault,” interjects Whirl, sheepish. “I overheard what he was yelling about, and…well, let’s just say Ratchet is mad about me borrowing some of his medical supplies. And also about the note I left.”

Hot Rod cocks his helm to one side. “What did your note say?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll explain when I’m back!”

“...Okay, I can see why he’s mad.”

“On our last loop around shadowzone Iacon, I saw Skywarp testing her new shrapnel blaster by the energon river,” pipes up Clobber.

Hot Rod rolls his optics. “That’s not weird. No matter how many times I tell her she can’t test her new weapons in public, Skywarp never listens to—” Then the rest of Clobber’s sentence sinks in, and he stops short. “Wait, by the river? What river?”

“The one right up there, around the corner of that building,” says Clobber, pointing ahead. “I don’t go there a lot, so I thought it was new.”

“I come here every day,” mutters Hot Rod, jogging past her, “and I’m pretty sure I would’ve noticed if they added an energon river to the middle of Iacon.”

He rounds the corner Clobber indicated and stops dead.

It’s downtown Iacon’s biggest and busiest plaza, partially hidden inside a ring of stocky grey buildings. Hot Rod’s visited this place several times during his work breaks, so he’s familiar with the cobblestone walkways, the polygonal terraces shaded by giant cantilever umbrellas, the metal poplar trees dotting the patches of green space, and the stone fountain on the raised central dais, welling up bright blue energon. He even recognizes some of the bots milling around the plaza—including Skywarp, fiddling with the dials of the large shrapnel blaster in her servos.

He definitely doesn’t recognize the shining energon river emerging from the base of the fountain, carving a path down the dais’ ramp and through the cobblestones to wind out through a gap between the buildings.

“What in the name of Primus?” murmurs Hot Rod, approaching the river and crouching down beside it. He reaches out and, to his surprise, feels the cool, wet energon flow over his submerged digits. “This is…this river isn’t in the real world. Right? If I can touch it, that means this river only exists in the shadowzone.”

Perceptor comes up behind him, extending his scope over Hot Rod’s shoulder. “You’re likely right. I can see this river, and so far I haven’t been able to see anything that exists in the real world.”

Hot Rod glances back at him. “I guess that means you haven’t figured out why you can’t see things in the real world yet?”

“Not yet.” Perceptor’s voice is carefully even. “I’ve determined it’s not an issue with the scope lens or the sensory data programming, but there are still numerous possibilities I need to test.”

“Gotcha.” Hot Rod looks back down, inspects his energon-dampened digits, and licks one. “Oh, this is actually pretty good! I can confirm this energon exists in the shadowzone.”

“...I suppose it’s too much to hope that you ran a sanitation analysis on the river before putting unknown energon in your intake? We don’t even know for sure if this is energon.”

“Well, it tastes like energon.” Hot Rod checks his fuel gauge. “And my tank’s registering it as energon. So it’s probably energon.”

Up on the dais, Dead End tries to touch the energon fountain, and scowls when his servo passes through the stone. “Okay, but if the energon river only exists in the shadowzone, then where the hell is all that energon coming from? It’s definitely not coming from this fountain.”

Clobber joins Dead End in staring at the fountain, though she looks more fascinated than irritated. “Maybe it’s another weird shadowzone thing?”

Whirl kneels beside Hot Rod and skims the tip of his claw over the surface of the river. “I dunno, but if we’ve really got magical unlimited energon in the shadowzone, then I guess I didn’t need to pack all that energon in my subspace.”

“Your energon cubes will still be useful in case we lose access to this river,” points out Perceptor. “Besides, just because this energon didn’t immediately poison Hot Rod doesn’t necessarily mean we should be consuming it. I’d like to run proper sanitation analyses on it.” He pulls out several test tubes from his subspace. “Dead End, would you mind taking some samples from the energon river for me?”

As Dead End takes the tubes and fills them with the mystery energon, a distant screech hits Hot Rod’s audio receptors. He climbs back to his pedes and takes off his blue visor, visual feed scanning the sky until it locks onto the black blur winging its way towards him and his friends.

Whirl follows Hot Rod’s gaze. “Is that Laserbeak? Already?”

“Yeah,” says Hot Rod, anticipation prickling across his sensornet. “Guess he found something.”

He extends one arm and Laserbeak drops down on his improvised landing pad. His talons grip onto Hot Rod’s red plating a little tighter than he’d normally like, but right now he doesn’t care too much about the condition of his paint.

Without pause, Laserbeak opens his beak wide, and a rectangular beam of violet light projects onto the air in front of him and Hot Rod. The light stabilizes into a visible screen displaying a flat, desolate landscape. Hot Rod swallows hard as he examines it, because—it’s hard to tell, but it might be the same place he saw Soundwave in his dream. The emptiness, the bleak sky, and the pale lighting sort of match.

As the rest of the team crowds closer for a better look, the video on the screen starts playing.

Clobber’s optic widens, and her gaze darts to Hot Rod. “That’s—”

“That’s Soundwave,” breathes Hot Rod, watching the pixelated bot on the screen amble through the empty landscape. Laserbeak must’ve taken the recording from the air because it’s super zoomed out and the bot in the video is tiny, but Hot Rod can still make out the familiar frame shape and the dark blue paint. His spark thuds hard in its chamber. “That’s Soundwave, right?”

Laserbeak hesitates, then replies with a series of squawks.

Everyone turns to look at Hot Rod.

“Uhhh,” says Hot Rod. “That’s a yes. I think.”

“You don’t sound very sure,” says Perceptor.

“I’m—I mean, that has to be Soundwave. Why else would Laserbeak show this to us?” Hot Rod meets Laserbeak’s optics. “Can you take us to this place?”

Laserbeak dips his helm in a nod, shutting off the video and taking off to the skies once again. Hot Rod spares an astrosecond to flash his friends an excited smile and beckon for them to follow him, and then he cartwheels into alt mode and peels out of the plaza after Laserbeak.

He keeps his optical sensors fixed on Laserbeak high above as he spins one of his side mirrors to face forwards, using it to avoid driving through any obstacles as he zigzags through downtown Iacon’s main roads and back alleys. With his other mirror, he catches sight of Clobber and Dead End on his tail, along with Perceptor riding on top of Clobber’s roof. He angles his mirror higher and—yep, there’s Whirl following from the sky. Perfect.

Hot Rod guns his engine harder to keep pace with Laserbeak. Yellow sunlight glints off Laserbeak’s glossy black plating, leaving a sparking afterimage on his visual feed. He clears and resets his feed just in time to avoid driving straight into the energon river—at the last second, he checks his momentum, back wheels swivelling against the very edge of the damp riverbank as he throws himself into a tight turn and continues speeding after Laserbeak.

Red pings light up on his dashboard. Curious, Hot Rod flicks open the group chat.

Hot Rod takes a look at his surroundings, and—oh.

The streets, skyscrapers, and landmarks characteristic of downtown Iacon are gone, disappearing rapidly in Hot Rod’s rearview mirror. By following Laserbeak and the energon river, the five of them have emerged into the flat, colourless landscape from the video, stretching far into the distance. It’s even more barren than the one from Hot Rod’s dream—here, there’s no sign of any rocks, crystal plants, or any of the other usual things you’d see in a natural environment.

It kind of reminds Hot Rod of the open desert between Iacon and the memorial wall. But even that empty desert has brown sand dunes and scrubby green plants, so it’s not an eerie void of nothingness like this. The sky above the desert is also a vivid shade of blue, but this place’s sky and ground are an unsettling greyish-white, so pale that they resemble a translucent layer of glass. The only pop of colour here is the blue energon river, still flowing in a straight line through this spectral landscape.

Before Hot Rod can ask anyone else if they’re getting the same strut-deep feeling that everything about this place is weird and wrong and should not exist even in the shadowzone, Laserbeak suddenly swoops down. Hot Rod tracks his descent to a blue figure about an astromile up ahead, and the feeling of wrongness is completely swept away by the euphoria that fills his entire frame.

“I’m going on ahead!” he calls back, his vocals carrying easily in the silent landscape. “Meet you all there!”

He’d thought he was driving at his top speed, but apparently not because he manages to push his engine even harder, hard enough for its roar to pound against the inside of his audio receptors like a Tetrahexian bass drum. His tires squeal against the ground as he launches himself forward so fast that for a few moments, Hot Rod swears he goes airborne.

The dark blue bot stops walking and turns as Hot Rod soars towards him. And—Hot Rod may still be half an astromile away, but he can see the bot’s shoulder-mounted cannon. The shiny glass over his chassis, with the Decepticon logo in the very centre. The unmistakable steel-grey mask and scarlet visor.

The euphoria suffusing Hot Rod’s frame swells to a crescendo of pure, unfiltered joy.

“Soundwave!” He flips back into root mode and starts running, spreading his arms wide for a hug that—well, Soundwave isn’t the hugging type, so he might not return the hug. But these are extraordinary circumstances and Hot Rod can hope, right? Even if he doesn’t get a hug back, he’ll settle for Soundwave not shooting his spark out when Hot Rod grabs him to make sure he’s really, truly, here and alive.

“Soundwave, it’s me!”

He wonders what the expression on Soundwave’s face looks like. Disbelieving, that Hot Rod came all the way to the shadowzone? Relieved, that he’s not alone anymore? Not surprised at all, because he always believed that Hot Rod would find him?

“Hot Rod, wait!”

Hot Rod registers Perceptor’s voice from far behind him, but he doesn’t stop. He can’t stop. Soundwave is right there, less than a hundred astrometres away now. He’s already been waiting for Soundwave for over six months—he can’t wait any longer when he’s so close.

“Hot Rod!” Perceptor’s next shout is much louder and tinged with alarm. “Stop! That’s not Soundwave!”

What?

That can’t be right. He knows Perceptor is never wrong, but there’s no way that’s not…

Hot Rod comes to a skidding halt right in front of the other bot and stares.

He’s got the shoulder cannon and the glass chassis and the red visor, yeah. Hot Rod wasn’t wrong about those. But this bot’s frame is too boxy, with square corners and straight lines where Soundwave’s frame has much sharper angles. His posture is too stiff, too rigid compared to Soundwave’s casually arrogant bearing. The built-in speakers, such an integral part of Soundwave that Hot Rod can’t imagine him without them, are missing. Now that he’s up close, Hot Rod can see that the blue paint is wrong too—the colour is way too dark, far from the brilliant cobalt blue that Soundwave’s paint is supposed to be.

And the most damning reveal of all: this other bot, someone who looks like Soundwave but isn’t Soundwave, is staring back at Hot Rod without a trace of recognition in his expression.

Hot Rod’s joy extinguishes like a doused flame, melting into horror.

The dream-Soundwave’s voice echoes inside his processor. All of you—you’re not alone.

“Who are you?” demands Hot Rod.

In response, the stranger’s shoulder cannon swivels down to Hot Rod’s face and lets loose a point-blank sonic blast.