Project Reset - The Prequel (4/?)
I could poke it some more, but I'm just going to leave this here tonight, ok? Holy Exposition, Batman! How could Hot Spot explaining stuff get to be so long? I promise there will be a teeny bit more action in the future. Also, since it's been awhile, LJ links to:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Bonus Snippets
Title: Project Reset - The Prequel (4/?)
Characters: Barricade, First Aid, Groove, Hot Spot, hatchlings
Universe: movie-verse, post "Dark of the Moon" AU Heavily inspired by
niyazi_a's fic, Chance, and also this bit of Starscreamy awesomeness: Desert
Rating: K+
Word Count: 7817 words
Warnings and Notes: twiddling with Bayverse 'bot characterizations and assorted canon to suit my Nefarious Plans.
Summary: Barricade gets some blackmail material on the Protectobots and learns way too many astonishing things, Hot Spot explains, Groove is Groovy, and First Aid mostly sleeps.
(Lyrics from "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen.)
Beachcomber had surveyed the location originally, deep underground near the lingering warmth and slowing pulse of Cybertron’s dying heart, and he and Wheeljack and the rest of the Science and Medical Division had made it their temporary home, their refuge for a time from the war, the hidden sanctuary to safeguard their precious hope. Ample energon could still be scavenged for those with the knowledge to find it. It could have been bleak, but it was surprisingly cozy down here, and it felt, somehow, protected. As if they were being watched over by friendly optics, although the more pragmatic of them dismissed the sensation without hard evidence to back it. And now everything, the long orns of patient tending and waiting and preparation, was about to pay off. Their very future as a species was at stake, and not a single one of them, if they were honest, had any idea what they were doing. They grinned at one another with nervous excitement.
“Wheeljack, hurry up! You’re going to miss it.” Hoist cupped his hands anxiously under the hatchling pod, watching as the small figure inside squirmed and clawed at the membrane. One talon had broken through, allowing a thin trickle of clear fluid to run down the side and drip from the bottom. Next to him Arcee, Signal Flare, Camshaft, Elita, and Perceptor clustered around the emerging hatchling, while the rest of them kept a close optic on the other pods. Most were near hatching as well, and had been squirming and struggling for joors, but this was the first one to actually puncture the membrane.
“He’s trying so hard,” Arcee winced sympathetically as the form of the hatchling, blurred by the thick protective pod membrane, paused for a moment, bracing its helm against the side of the pod and wiggling the one free talon in a beckoning motion. “I just want to help him out.”
“He can do it,” Hoist reassured her. “C’mon, little guy, keep trying.”
Wheeljack pushed his way into the excited cluster of mechanisms around Hoist. “Oh wonderful, look at that. He’s really gonna do it, look at him go!”
“Everything’s ready to go, in case he needs it?” Hoist asked, never taking his optics from the squirming hatchling. Another talon joined the first.
Wheeljack nodded. “Such as it is. Let’s hope he doesn’t need it. Emergency resuscitation on the first hatchling in a thousand vorns with absolutely no instruction manual is not something I really want to try.”
“He won’t need it,” Camshaft said, his optics glowing brightly. “He’s a strong one. They all are.”
“Number three’s hatching, too!” Evac called from where he was watching over the first three pods.
“Ha! Told you he’d be the first out.” Smokescreen grinned smugly from where he watched over podlings number eight and nine.
“You’ve been taking bets on the hatchlings?” Hoist sounded mildly indignant.
“Based on the order of spawning, relative growth and energy conversion ratios, and cumulative movements per joor, I must dispute your conclusion, my dear Smokescreen,” Perceptor said, nevertheless leaving Hoist to go assist Evac. “My calculations show that number five has been the incontestable leader in development over the last orn.”
Smokescreen made a rude noise, to which Perceptor responded with a rude gesture over his shoulder. Signal Flare, grinning, positioned himself exactly halfway between Hoist and Perceptor, hedging his bets, and Elita rolled her optics at him, poking the big tankformer in the side as she went over to help Perceptor. Despite all the good-natured teasing and the almost audible hum of excitement in the room, the mood in the hatchling incubation chamber stayed intently focused, none of the science and medical team wavering from their constant scanning and monitoring of the eleven new lives under their care.
“It’s too bad Optimus is missing this,” Elita said softly, as she and Perceptor watched hatchling number three. This one had indeed breached the pod membrane, one talon poking through in almost identical fashion to Hoist’s number five.
Perceptor nodded, cradling his hands under the pod. “All is being recorded most meticulously indeed, but…yes. I wish he could be here, too. We are most privileged to have had a small role in bringing it about.”
“We’ve got the whole arm!” Hoist announced as hatchling number five resumed his struggles to emerge. “And…whoopsie doo! Here we go!” Signal Flare darted back over to the little crowd around Hoist.
“My fine mechs and femmes, we have our first hatching!” Wheeljack announced, to quiet but sparkfelt cheers (and a pretended groan of dismay from Smokescreen. Perceptor was too engrossed by the hatchling in front of him to claim victory).
“Wheeljack, how’s he doing? Is he ok?” Elita called.
“He’s venting normally-” a pause, as Wheeljack and Hoist hovered over the hatchling, their helms close together “-vitals all strong and steady… Primus.”
“What?! What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Wheeljack answered. “He’s beautiful, absolutely perfect. Just look at his little optics! Look Hoist, how he’s holding on to your hand!”
“I see, I see,” Hoist laughed, cradling the tiny frame, the optics bright and clear, no longer shrouded by the pod fluid. “He’s got a pretty good grip for a newspark, and he feels...soft. He’s almost all protoform.”
“Those little talons, they don’t even seem real,” Arcee said, exchanging grins of wonder and relief with Camshaft and Signal Flare and flashing victory signs to the rest of the team in the hatchling chamber.
“Don’t let him get cold; we don’t know what sort of temperature fluctuations they can handle,” Wheeljack cautioned, hovering a little.
“Let’s get him to the warmer and get him dried off a bit,” Hoist agreed. “Clear the way, everyone,” he added, smiling. “Hatchling, coming through.”
“We’ve got an arm out over here, now, too, and…wow! When it happens, it happens fast, doesn’t it. Hatchling number two is out!” Elita announced. There were more muted cheers and mutual congratulations.
“Number two?” Smokescreen asked, startled.
“Number three,” Elita clarified, “second one hatched. He looks good so far.”
Perceptor, after letting Evac get a quick look, took his hatchling and joined Hoist and Wheeljack at the warmer in the center of the chamber, and everyone not directly monitoring a pod joined them to admire the two new arrivals while everyone else patched in visual feeds and provided commentary.
“Look at their little optics, just looking around at everything!”
“I can’t believe they’re finally out.”
“Have they said anything yet?”
“It’s too bad Optimus…damn this war.”
“They’re so tiny, even smaller than cassettes!”
“They do have quite the grip, don’t they,” Elita commented, watching Hoist unsuccessfully try to place hatchling number five on the warmer.
“He’s not letting go! I don’t want to hurt him,” Hoist said. The hatchling made a cascade of distressed, high-pitched cheeps every time Hoist tried to delicately pry loose the tiny talons wrapped firmly around his finger units. He gave up at last and let the hatchling cling, stroking him reassuringly while Wheeljack took more detailed measurements of his vital signs. Perceptor was having similar difficulties with his hatchling. Elita, trying to help, found her finger tightly entrapped as the hatchling transferred one set of talons.
“Oh dear, I’m afraid we’re stuck,” Perceptor laughed.
“One of the unforeseen hazards of hatchlings, it appears,” Elita said, laughing as well, carefully rearranging her arm-with-hatchling-attached to a less awkward position. The tiny bot watched her, blue optics focusing on her face in fascination.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“What’s his designation, has he said?” Evac asked.
“They won’t have full-fledged language processing capabilities for a long time, Evac,” Wheeljack reminded him.
“But…not even designations? How are we going to know what to call them?”
“What’s wrong with Three and Five?” Perceptor said.
“We can’t keep calling them numbers,” Camshaft objected. “Not once they’re hatched.”
“I fail to detect anything unsuitable with the number three,” Perceptor murmured. “Three is a perfectly delightful digit, yes it is,” he cooed to the hatchling still grasping his hand. The hatchling turned his small helm to focus on Perceptor, optics wide, and flared his thin bits of plating a little.
“Bzee?”
Elita laughed at him. “Perceptor, you’ve lost your processor. Why are you talking like that?”
“It’s obviously the optimum method for conversing with pre-verbal hatchlings. Look how he responds to it.” Perceptor addressed the hatchling again, pitching his vocal unit higher and letting the intonations rise and fall outrageously. “Yes, my dear little microchip, you know I’m communicating with you, don’t you, such a clever, darling little protoform.” The hatchling squirmed and wiggled in his hand, squeaking as it let go of Elita’s finger and began trying to climb Perceptor’s arm.
“I agree, Camshaft, we can’t just call them by number anymore,” Wheeljack said. “We’ll have to give them temporary designations until they can choose their own.”
Several of the Science Team shifted uneasily. “Can we do that?” Signal Flare finally said. “I mean, what if they don’t like the names we pick?”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to express your opinion if you don’t like it, won’t you, you adorable little energon cookie,” Wheeljack cooed to hatchling number five, imitating Perceptor’s mode of speech. Number five chirruped back at him. “Why don’t we call you Cookie, hmm? Is that your designation? Is it? Are yooo my little Cookie-bot?” He sqreeked his vocals even higher. “Are yooo? Are yooo?”
“Apparently he is your, ah, ‘little Cookie-bot,’” Hoist chuckled, shaking his head in resignation as the hatchling beeped and wriggled happily in response to Wheeljack’s apparent loss of sanity.
In the end no one else felt comfortable actually assigning names to the hatchlings, so Wheeljack, as lead scientist of Operation Hatchling, named them all. Number three became Snugglebits, followed by Wisehelm, Caliber, Zap, Hot Spot, Isotope, Tangent, Bridger, Sparkles as the remaining hatchlings emerged over the next several joors, until only one was left still in the pod.
“Here he comes, finally,” Wheeljack said. He held hands at the ready as the last hatchling finally breached his pod membrane. “I was starting to get worried about you, bitlet.” The set of talons sticking out of the pod seemed to wave at them all excitedly. “Come on out, little Happy Claws,” he encouraged. “The rest of your brothers are waiting to meet you.”
The last of the hatchlings emerged in a rush of incubation fluid and a pair of startled blue optics into Wheeljack’s waiting hands. He was examined and cuddled and pronounced healthy, and taken to join the improvised hatchling nest where he was promptly engulfed by his ten wriggly siblings.
“All eleven,” Hoist said happily, watching to be sure the newest hatchling was not being overwhelmed by all the squirming. Tangent and Isotope wrapped themselves around the new one and all three proceeded to gnaw contentedly on one another’s talons and foot supports before gradually powering down into recharge, still in their tangle of small limbs and frames. It had been a long cycle, but no one wanted to leave; the whole team took turns crowding around the nest and admiring the hatchlings until sheer exhaustion made them head off for their own recharge.
“This simply isn’t working, Wheeljack,” Elita said, several joors later, frowning as Hot Spot dumped the small cube of energon all over himself for the second time and then started chewing on one of the armor projections on Elita’s forearm, with a discontented buzz-growl of hunger and frustration. “They have no idea how to refuel, and they just don’t have the coordination to hold onto the cubes. We need some sort of…feeding devices to regulate the energon flow. Tubes, or nozzles maybe.”
Wheeljack was having slightly more success as he tipped one corner of the cube against Zap’s mouth components, allowing the hatchling to intake a tiny portion at a time. Still, the majority of the fuel was ending up either on Wheeljack or the hatchling, especially as Zap insisted on “helping” by trying to stick his talons into the cube and pull out the energon more rapidly. Wheeljack made a thoughtful noise as he put down the cube and tilted Zap onto his ventral plates to let him drip dry for a moment . “I could definitely use a few more finger subunits, that’s for sure. Maybe that’s what that diagram was about, in Ratchet’s file. The only glyph we could translate was ‘mandible’; we always assumed it was some sort of hatchling dental cleansing device, but maybe it was intended for refueling. And the other schematic, that was similar to a medical spark fusion conversion chamber, like Ratchet has. That would let us refuel them directly from our own systems!” Wheeljack’s optics lit up with excitement at the thought of redeveloping the ancient design. “I bet I could come up with something.”
Elita nodded, expression sober. “They’ll draw a lot of energy, but I agree. Integrated hatchling refueling systems would be a good precaution, if we ever have to evacuate the hatchlings quickly. At least some of us should have them installed. I’ll let you test the prototype out first, though, and at a safe distance,” she added on a lighter note.
“Is this normal?” Evac, the other hatchling-tender on duty, watched the hatchlings with a worried expression as they clumsily tumbled and pulled themselves about in their nest. “I mean, they can’t even feed themselves, or walk, or communicate. I knew they would be small, and different from Allspark-kindled newsparks, and they’re certainly appealing, but…are we sure they’re not…deficient, somehow?”
Bridger squawked as his helm was trapped under Sparkles and Wisehelm, and Hoist rescued him, gently nudging the hatchlings apart.
Wheeljack shrugged. “Optimus remembers so little of his hatchling phase, and as Sentinel kept him so guarded, and left us no records, we really have no way of knowing if they’re normal or not. Megatron might be the only one still alive who could enlighten us. If he’s still alive.”
Evac snorted at that. “Um, yeah. No. I’ll continue to live in ignorance, thank you.”
“Also….” Elita said, exchanging a significant glance with Wheeljack. “Wheeljack and I have a theory that Prime-kindled hatchlings truly are new sparks, while we who were Allspark-kindled have been…recycled, from previous sparks that have already lived and extinguished once, or perhaps many times.”
“Recycled!” Evac drew himself up indignantly, rotors flaring. “Just who are you calling recycled?”
“It’s only a theory,” Elita laughed. “However, it corresponds very nicely with what we know of how the Allspark generated new life, and the way Allspark-kindled mechanisms are able to immediately function and communicate and control their own frames. Perhaps it takes time for a spark to adjust to the physical plane. Perhaps originally our sparks were all Prime-kindled. It is possible that the existence patterns that we gain in our previous lives remain when our sparks are rekindled by the Allspark, allowing us to function with immediate proficiency once we are embodied.”
Evac gave her a skeptical look, but Wheeljack and Hoist were both nodding.
“Most juvenile techno-organic and organic lifeforms begin life in a similarly primitive stage, after all,” Wheeljack added. “In fact, from what we can decipher of the Ancient’s archaeological records from the Primordial-era, a lot of the evidence seems to point to us being descendants of organic lifeforms, rather than the other way around.”
Evac blinked at that. “I appreciate the…value and worthiness of our organic neighbors as much as the next Autobot, but that’s taking it a little far, don’t you think?” he said a little plaintively. Even Elita looked somewhat shocked.
“Huh,” she said finally. “Wouldn’t that make old Megsy lose his coolant.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barricade hurriedly shut down the memory packet from Wheeljack’s hatchling records file, and stood up to pace, his spark pounding in shocked outrage. Descendants! Of inferior organic lifeforms! It was ridiculous. Organic species were the inferior copies, everyone knew that. Beneath his outrage, however, burned an undercurrent of unrelated, building shame. The hatchling facilities in the record file, while obviously cobbled together of scavenged supplies and wedged into some sort of battered and ancient underground facility, were scrupulously clean and well-maintained. Every hatchling was tended and cared for with the utmost attention, and expertise by mechs and femmes programmed for discovery, repair, and creation, not for…war. Destruction. Not originally, anyway, no matter what they had become later. He looked at his pile of grubby hatchlings in a barn with something close to despair, remembering how many times they’d been at the verge of deactivation, the days, even weeks, they’d been left in dark hiding places while he foraged for fuel.
The medical readouts for the hatchlings in First Aid’s monitoring feed were still reassuringly in their safe zones, but what hidden damage had they suffered, under Barricade’s unskilled care? “I’m sorry. You should have had someone better than me,” he murmured. Even if the Autobots were a bunch of lunatics, with near-blasphemous theories.
Wheeljack’s file had thousands of sections he hadn’t gotten to yet, but the labels alone were telling. Processor stimulation games. Learning modules. Coordination exercises. Meticulous records of growth and development. Endless memory files of every squeak and buzz emitted by every single hatchling, no doubt, although the orderly file listing cut off suddenly at just before the third instar, a gap before resuming again…Barricade went back and skimmed the label tags and found it again, the time break in the file listings. In the subcategories after the break, only five hatchling labels appeared.
Barricade glanced at First Aid, recharging with his head bowed over his pulled up knee components, his back against the barn wall near the hatchlings. It didn’t look all that comfortable. Only five. Barricade opened the small, unlabeled sub file that was tucked just after the time gap, scanned it quickly, and then closed it again, feeling his spark roil with a mix of emotions. Pretty much what he had suspected. The secret hatchling base had been discovered; six of the hatchlings had not survived. Damage reports, severe hypothermic shock (another hatchling feature he’d discovered the hard way, hatchling systems were not nearly as resilient to temperature extremes as adult mechs - he’d nearly lost them all that first winter). One of them, Hot Spot, had had his arms ripped away. What he had not suspected was Starscream’s role in rescuing the five survivors. First Aid, here today, because of what Starscream had done so long ago. An act of mercy? Or calculation. A way to put Optimus in his debt, perhaps, or had Starscream somehow foreseen that these hatchlings would need First Aid to survive? Barricade wouldn’t put anything past the devious jet at this point. He waited expectantly, but his inner Starscream seemed to have gone silent. No jet appeared in memory bank glitch or hallucination or whatever it had been to point out his inferior thought processes.
A crunch of gravel and muted engine noise from outside the barn brought Barricade out of his thoughts to sudden alertness. Cybertronian engine noise, Barricade noted quickly, something fairly light and fast. Scout class, most likely, but the wrong pitch to be Bumblebee, and not making any attempt at concealment. There were sounds of transformation, and then a soft tapping at the barn door.
“Hello?” The voice was deep, but tentative. “Hello, Barricade? May I come in?”
Barricade sighed in resignation. One of First Aid’s other gestalt brothers, no doubt. At least this one knew how to knock. The repaired barn door included a robot-scale latch on the inside. He opened it to reveal a very tall, gangly cycle-former with big blue optics, who greeted Barricade by ducking his helm and flashing a sweet, shy grin.
“Groove,” he said, by way of introduction. “Limbo!” he added, leaning back to navigate the door frame. Once inside his optics fastened immediately on his brother, and then back to Barricade, as if asking permission. Barricade narrowed his optics-First Aid was right next to the hatchlings-but like the medic, the cycle-former appeared to be unarmed. If he was hiding any heavy artillery in that thin, fragile-seeming frame then Barricade would eat the rest of the tractor, not to mention the guy was practically radiating innocent harmlessness with his hopeful expression and luminous blue optics.
“Go ahead,” he said, waving towards First Aid. Groove flashed his quick shy smile again and went to his brother, having to duck under a few of the support beams along the way. He folded himself down beside First Aid and wrapped long arms around him. First Aid sighed and relaxed a little in his recharge, leaning into his brother and murmuring something before going still again. Groove examined the crack in Aid’s visor (and Barricade was starting to feel an utter cad about that) and tucked him in close.
Barricade settled himself on the other side where he could keep an optic on everyone, while Groove peered over at the silent pile of hatchlings and then around the barn with open, friendly interest. How this sweet, fragile crystal of a bot had survived so long in the big bad universe Barricade had no idea. He found himself studying the other mech’s face, trying to match it to one of the hatchlings from Wheeljack’s file. Hatchlings were all so similar, formed to a standard mold when newly-emerged, but there was something about Groove’s long, tilted cheek flanges and high peaked optic ridges, the small half smile as he looked about that reminded him of one of the hatchlings from the memory file. Barricade had grown attuned to even the subtle differences among hatchlings in two years.
Groove smiled and ducked his helm every time he happened to meet Barricade’s optics. Embarrassed? Or shy? Barricade wasn’t sure, but he found himself wanting to break the silence, strike up some sort of…verbal exchange, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of a way to begin. All of his conversations with First Aid had been pre-fabricated by the need to care for the hatchlings. He’d never been much for idle chatter in the first place, but now after two years alone, with no one but the hatchlings and the occasional semi-sentient organic lifeform to provide conversation…he seemed to have lost the knack.
“Scaramouche, scaramouche will you do the fandango?”
Groove was looking at him hopefully.
“Uh…the…” It took Barricade a moment to remember the proper code response, as he’d attempted to permanently delete it after Frenzy had sung the entire Queen repertoire nonstop for three weeks (and he hadn’t been all that particular about the order of the lyrics, either). “Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening?”
Groove’s smile turned as high wattage as his helicopter brother’s. “Exactly! Not for awhile yet, though,” he said. “There are some tornado warnings to the west, and volcano watches from Lake Michigan to Valparaiso, but we’re ok for now. The magma plumes have really calmed down the last few months anyway. Blades is keeping an optic on it, and Streetwise and Hot Spot are on standby if we need to evacuate.”
Barricade hadn’t been paying attention to the weather, but now that Groove mentioned it, the wind did seem to be picking up quite a bit. And volcano watches? That did not sound good.
“Just a precaution,” Groove said, reassuringly. Some of Barricade’s alarm must have shown on his face. “We’re probably fine, and we don’t really want to move the hatchlings at this stage unless it’s unavoidable, but we’re also not taking any chances. Also, there’s been a rather cryptic message from Galvatron that he’s on his way back to Earth, which is breaking all kinds of treaties, but don’t worry. We’re sure he wouldn’t be coming here at all without good reason. Optimus will get it sorted out and you won’t have to be involved at all if you don’t want to be.”
Groove seemed to think this last part was quite concerning, so Barricade nodded vaguely rather than letting on that he had no idea what Groove was talking about. The silence stretched for another long moment.
“What is the fandango, anyway?” Barricade asked finally.
Groove tilted his head thoughtfully. “Hmm. I could show you, but we should probably go outside. Might knock things over in here and wake up the bitlets.” Groove nodded at the hatchlings.
“Ah…maybe later,” Barricade said quickly, and then, changing the subject with studied casualness: “So. Galvatron. On his way back.” Or completely obvious and awkward obviousness, but Groove only nodded.
“With the decelerating time shift, he must have started about two point five vorns forward to be reaching us now, so he’s been in transit nearly two years. The reverse trip is massively energy intensive, so for him to leave Cybertron like this it’s got to be something major, although with the Matrix and the Allspark in cahoots who knows…” Groove trailed off, finally noticing Barricade’s expression. “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Barricade schooled his expression back to impassive sternness, but his spark still pounded from hearing those words so casually uttered: ‘for him to leave Cybertron.’ As if it were still there, as if their entire planet, their home, had not been destroyed forever. It was an Autobot trick, or Groove was certifiably glitched and not just somewhat odd, but those optics held only honest concern as Barricade’s engine caught and sputtered with suppressed emotion.
“I forgot, First Aid said you were still kind of, uh…twitchy. He’s been trying not to overwhelm you so I guess he hasn’t gotten to that part yet.” Groove looked completely, undeniably, sane. It was Barricade who felt his processor splintering, stalling, not sure what was real anymore, what was illusion. Maybe the corrosion had reached his processor at last.
“You’ve been driving him nuts, you know, with your engine sounding like that and not having time yet to do anything about it.” Groove was still watching him with concern, his voice low and soothing. “Once the hatchlings are all in full molt it would make him very happy if you’ll let him do some repairs.”
“I’m not ready for the smelting pits just yet,” Barricade gritted out. Twitchy! The nerve of these youngsters! Coddling him as if he were a fragile newspark instead of it being the other way around. If he weren’t rusting apart at the seams he could have snapped Groove in two with one hand. “I want the truth. All of it. Now,” he growled.
Groove seemed undismayed by Barricade’s scowl of doom. Made of sterner stuff than Barricade had first supposed, then. Groove sighed and rested his cheekplate against the top of his brother’s helm. “You’ll wake him up if you blow out a gasket or something, you know.” He raised his optic ridges at Barricade in inquiry. “Would you mind a bit more company? Hot Spot’s better at explaining than I am.”
Great. Another gestalt brother. And Groove was asking instead of calling Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots to dispose of Barricade and take the hatchlings for their own, he recalled with a sudden chill. All the chips were in their hands, now.
“You think I’m going to have a processor lock up or glitch out or something. You just want someone here to pin me down.”
The corner of Groove’s mouth quirked in amusement. “Well. Maybe.”
“Fine.”
Shortly thereafter, Barricade again heard the crunch of gravel and hum of a Cybertronian engine over the rising sound of the wind and distant thunder. A much bigger alt mode, this time.
“You don’t happen to know where the lost Star Saber of Nexus Prime is hidden, do you?” Groove asked as they waited, out of nowhere.
Barricade gave Groove a blank stare. Groove shrugged one angular shoulder. “Just checking. It would be useful to have it around.”
“You must be Tangent.”
Groove’s optics widened a little. “Oh man, he gave you that whole file, didn’t he. Blackmail material, dude. Blackmail material.”
Barricade grinned in spite of himself, on slightly more familiar territory. “Good to know. So why’s he still Hot Spot.” Barricade nodded towards the door.
“Hot Spot’s always Hot Spot,” Groove said, as if that explained everything. There were sounds of transformation outside and a quiet knock at the barn door.
“Coming in,” a deep, rumbling voice announced. “Nobody glitch out, ok? I don’t want to have to do any pinning,” the mech continued with a chuckle.
Only the red optics, framing mechanisms crinkled with good humor, allowed Barricade to keep his composure as Hot Spot carefully maneuvered himself through the door. Other than optic color, the mech was the image of Optimus Prime. Hot Spot stood cautiously to almost his full height. The barn was large, designed for storage of bulky farming equipment, but at more than half again Barricade’s own height Hot Spot had to bow his head slightly to avoid hitting the ceiling rafters. Fire truck alt, Barricade could see now, not semi. This had to be the third Prime, the one First Aid had spoken of; he was practically exuding calm leadership all over the place, even as he stood there in his slightly awkward pose and-Barricade blinked a few times, resetting his optics to read the color wavelengths in the dim lighting of the barn to make sure-powder blue paint job.
“Thank you for trusting me,” Hot Spot said, making no move as yet to come any further into the barn. Pit. He even sounded a little like Optimus, as he remembered him from Cybertron, all that compassion and kindness slag going on. Were all Primes so fragging compelling?
“Not like I’ve got a lot of choice,” Barricade muttered.
“I know, and for that I’m sorry. Ask me to leave at any point, though, and I’ll go. No questions asked. We value your goodwill, and theirs.” Hot Spot nodded, indicating the hatchlings.
Barricade floundered for a response to that for a moment, while Hot Spot waited patiently. “Yeah. Right. We can all join hands and sing later.”
Hot Spot took that as permission to make his way to his two brothers, successfully navigating the lower support beams through the center of the barn to kneel comfortably next to Groove and First Aid. At least he didn’t fuss over the cracked visor, Barricade noticed gratefully.
“Fandango demonstration, later,” Groove informed him.
“Excellent.” Hot Spot put an arm around them both and First Aid smiled slightly in his recharge and burrowed closer. “So,” he said pleasantly. “Where shall we begin?”
“Cybertron,” Barricade said shortly.
Hot Spot nodded. “Cybertron. As you may have gathered, it is not destroyed. It’s not in the best of shape, mind you, but it is essentially intact. Whatever happened when Sentinel’s device was destroyed appears to have blown it about seventeen hundred vorns into the future, but it’s time-decelerating at a rapid pace. By Perceptor’s best estimates present-day Earth will catch up to it in approximately seven thousand Earth years, at which time Earth and Cybertron will resume their aborted collision course and the entire solar system will become a big scrambled mess. According to Galvatron nearly everyone on-planet should have been deep underground during the temporal backlash and most of them could have survived, but that still amounts to less than a thousand at best. And even if we manage to produce more hatchlings, they’ll still only be fifth or sixth instar in seven thousand years. Humans and Cybertronians are going have to, as you put it, ‘join hands and sing’ if we’re going to save both our worlds.” Thunder rumbled outside as if providing dramatic emphasis.
“The Ultimate Doom,” Groove added, nodding, once the thunder quieted. “But wait! That’s not all.”
“Still with me?” Hot Spot said, watching Barricade closely. “You might want to sit down.”
Barricade didn’t argue. He sat and let his helm rest on his knees for a few kliks. Cybertron. Time decelerations. He wondered who could possibly still be living there, and if they could be anything close to sane after so long on a dying planet. Less than a thousand…Cybertronians had become scattered through the vorns of the war. How many of their people were left? He lifted his helm again to look at the fourteen hatchlings, approximately one percent of their total population, still recharging peacefully. They had loved all those episodes of ‘Sesame Street’ he’d projected for them, before his signal receptors had corroded out, Barricade thought randomly, before forcing his processor back into focus. “All right,” he said, finally. “Galvatron?”
“He’s very shiny,” Groove said, his noseplates crinkling up impishly. “It was all First Aid’s fault.”
Hot Spot smiled at that, looking down at his recharging medic-brother fondly, although his voice was solemn, almost sad when he spoke. “It was indeed, although the Ancient Primes and Optimus were kind of involved, too. Not to mention the Matrix of Leadership. And the Allspark.”
“The Allspark, but…” Barricade trailed off. “It’s still destroyed…isn’t it?” he asked tentatively.
“Mm. Yes and no. Let’s see, where to begin.” Hot Spot shifted, cuddling Groove and First Aid closer. “When we arrived to this solar system two years ago, we discovered that Optimus Prime was…changed. You were right to be wary, Barricade. We were not naïve enough to expect any mechanism who has fought a war such as Cybertron’s has been to come through it spark and soul intact, but…a Prime spark is built to carry great burdens, and Optimus…had always remained Optimus, despite everything.” Hot Spot paused for a long moment, looking down at First Aid.
“Even Primes have their limits,” Hot Spot said finally. “The problem is that when Prime sparks crack, they tend to take down entire planets, entire civilizations. Sometimes even the very fabric of reality cracks with them. So Optimus did pretty good, actually, considering. It could have been much worse, though the…executions were bad enough, and every time Optimus broke a little further. ” Hot Spot’s optics were sad but steady as he looked at Barricade. “Watching Megatron die, that first time, getting killed himself and a traumatic resurrection, and then, one does not lightly kill a fellow Prime, even one so twisted as the Fallen. It was Sentinel’s betrayal, though, that broke him completely. Megatron offered a truce, there at the end, did you know? And Optimus destroyed him anyway.”
No, Barricade had not known. The storm was approaching in earnest now, with thunder and lightning occurring almost continuously, and intermittent onslaughts of rain and wind.
“Tornado watches and warnings have all been cancelled,” Groove said quietly. “Just a lot of wind and rain, now. Some localized damage to property, but the human authorities have it well in hand.”
Hot Spot nodded and resumed his story. “Megatron had betrayed him before, with offers of truce. It was not so…inconceivable that Optimus should destroy him, to end the war, to save Earth and the humans. What was wrong was the glee with which he did so. Without Ironhide…Ratchet and Sideswipe and Bumblebee did their best to hold him together, and with the best of intentions Optimus refused to abandon Earth to her fate-two years ago the whole planet was on the verge of tearing itself apart-but it was really only a matter of time. He tried to hide it, to keep us far away after we arrived, but…we knew.”
“Problem was, we kept sticking our sensors where they didn’t belong, trying to find a way to help,” Hot Spot continued. “Megatron was not dead. He had absorbed the majority of the Allspark energy, directly into his spark. Just like the Matrix, the energy of the Allspark can only change form, it can never be destroyed, and the bulk of it had become one with Megatron. When the shard was used to revive him, the Allspark became whole, at least enough to gradually attempt to assert itself, although for a long time Megatron refused to acknowledge it and the Allspark is no tyrant. First Aid found Megatron, what remained of him. He was…still aware. In torment, with no way to end it, with the Allspark a part of him he could not die. Optimus knew, had felt it all along, had been fighting the path the Matrix was trying to show him as Megatron was fighting against accepting the Allspark. They were both trapped, linked in agony with no way out. First Aid,”-Hot Spot’s voice broke a little and he took a deep vent-“First Aid confronted him, about leaving Megatron in that condition, and Optimus…snapped.” First Aid shifted slighty, frowning. Groove buried his helm against Hot Spot’s shoulder. “Optimus had his energon sword to First Aid’s spark before he realized what he was doing.”
Barricade made a noise. Optimus Prime had held a sword to his own hatchling? Had held a sword to First Aid, of all of them?
Hot Spot nodded, his optic ridges drawn together in pain at the memory. “That would have been three Primes dead by Optimus’ sword, which would be…quite a record. He stopped before that happened, though. He tried to turn the sword on himself. First Aid grabbed it by the blade to stop him.”
Barricade winced. Medics had the majority of their sensory network in their hands and upper arms. Ouch didn’t even begin to cover it. “Yeah,” Hot Sot sighed the word out slowly. “All of our memory files get a little hazy from there.”
“Wait…” Barricade frowned, puzzled. “You said ‘three Primes dead.’ I thought….”
“Ah,” Hot Spot grinned in understanding. “No, First Aid’s the Prime, not me, although we’re not really advertising the fact that there is another Prime still alive. Or three now, more accurately, if we include your little bitlet, but not all of the Dreads have been accounted for and we’d rather they not become targets. We didn’t know Aid was a Prime, though, until later. We knew something was different - First Aid was still in his sixth instar, while the rest of us were already seven, but we didn’t know why. The damage to his hands from grabbing the energon sword triggered his last molt. Ratchet thinks it was premature, a traumatic molt cycle, and that’s why he still has electrical problems sometimes. Prime sparks are supposed to take longer. It took him three months to recover, and we were all out of commission for nearly as long. Our sparks are linked; we are changing, too.”
Barricade blinked his optic shutters a few times, but First Aid did not suddenly metamorphose into a figure of power and awe. He remained as he had been, just a weary, gentle young medic-bot, recharging in the embrace of his brothers.
“It’s not so unheard of, for someone like Aid to be a Prime,” Groove contributed, lifting his helm again. “A lot of the Ancient Primes were healers, not warriors. They spoke to us from the Matrix, when we were…sort of dying, but not really. They were excited about First Aid because he was part of a gestalt, something about the weight of our sparks resetting the center and source of all possibility.”
Barricade decided to not hear that part about talking to the Ancients, for sanity’s sake. “All right. First Aid Prime.” He laughed briefly and rubbed his forehelm. He’d kidnapped a gestalt-member, Prime-spawn, and a fragging Primus-to-goodness Prime himself, and lived. At least until Optimus got to him. Very well. Carry on. “And Megatron? What happened to him?”
“Optimus tried to get the Matrix to heal First Aid, but it wasn’t working; the Matrix refused him. First Aid was still awake, he kept insisting that Optimus use it on Megatron instead.”
“It was very irresponsible of me,” First Aid mumbled sleepily into Groove’s shoulder. “What if I’d unleashed Megatron as he was on the Earth again?”
“You didn’t,” Groove said, patting his brother on the backplates. “You knew what you were doing, and so did the Matrix. Now go back to recharge.”
“With you talking about this?” First Aid protested, lifting his head. He gave Barricade a look over with still-dim optics. “Are you doing ok? Hot Spot, make sure he gets some real energon before we go any further.”
“Yes, oh my Prime,” Hot Spot said, with a wink at Barricade. First Aid rolled his optics and dropped his helm against Groove’s shoulder again, snuggling himself in more comfortably. Hot Spot got up and made his careful way back to the big storage container that Blades had left by the barn door and extracted a full cube of energon. Not the high grade, Barricade was disappointed to see, but a nice crisp-looking mid-grade, better quality than anything he’d had in a long time.
“Go ahead,” Hot Spot said, when Barricade hesitated. “We’re all well-fueled. The electric lava has its problems, but we’re not hurting for energy at the moment.”
“Ah, ok. Good.” Electric lava, sure. Barricade decided to just roll with it and drank his cube, a little self-consciously with the other three all snuggled together, watching him with expressions of fond satisfaction. The energon had an interesting taste to it, a hint of magnesium and ash. Different, but not bad.
“Megatron is now this Galvatron, I presume,” Barricade said, as he neared the bottom of the cube, beginning to feeling pleasantly full. It let him examine the thought with some measure of equanimity. Megatron, alive. Or alive-ish, depending on how much remained of him in Galvatron. He wasn’t sure yet if it was good news or bad news. “The Matrix healed him?”
Hot Spot nodded. First Aid appeared to have dozed off again, cuddled between his brothers. Hot Spot ran a caressing hand up and down his helm. “We were all pretty out of it at the time, but yes. When the Matrix and the Allspark get together, things can kind of get out of hand. There were a lot of fireworks, apparently, and the magnetic field in the area still hasn’t straightened out, but Megatron was reforged, and in the process the cracks in Optimus’ spark were mended, enough that he could find his way back to himself. Sentinel Prime lied to them both. But what Optimus saw and loved in Sentinel was not a lie, it was the reflection of truth from his own spark. Megatron found the truth of both their sparks and showed it to Optimus again.” Hot Spot shook his head a little. “I don’t know if I’m explaining it very well. They were keeping old promises, Galvatron said, when we asked him later.”
Barricade tried to remember him, Megatron from before his obsession with the Allspark, before the strangeness that had overtaken him after his association with the Fallen. He had followed Megatron for reasons beyond fear and inertia, once. Respected him. Loved him, even, with the fierce loyalty of a soldier for a charismatic and gifted commander, though that had faded quickly in the face of Megatron’s growing erratic behavior.
“He’s…shiny now? Galvatron?” Barricade asked, curiosity fastening on that small fact after another long moment of trying to absorb it all.
Groove grinned. “When the Matrix repairs someone it’s rather impressive. Or maybe it’s something to do with the Allspark? At any rate, he’s indestructible by anything less than a supernova and possibly not even that, so we’re glad he’s on our side. Or we’re on his side. Whichever. We were worried that it might have reprogrammed Megatron against his will, but both Optimus and Galvatron concur that nothing was done they didn’t both agree to.”
“So if Megatron…Galvatron, is the Allspark now…what does that mean? Can he…I mean, the Allspark is back on Cybertron, so…” He was babbling. What did it mean for Cybertron? It had been dying for so long, even before the Allspark had been launched, but now…in orbit, in the future, around Earth’s steady yellow sun…
Groove hummed a short melody Barricade recognized instantly, though it had been several thousand vorns since he had heard it. The theme song to the “Detective Nightbeat” holovid mystery series. He had watched every episode…Barricade felt his spark clench. That avenue of thought had long been too painful to remember.
“A very good question,” Hot Spot said, nodding seriously. He did not elaborate, by which Barricade inferred that everyone was just making it up as they went along. Well, and when had things ever been any different? Barricade sighed and leaned back. His systems were working hard to process the unaccustomed fuel input and sending him increasingly hard-to-ignore demands for recharge. The storm outside, which he had at some point ceased paying attention to, had settled to a steady soothing rain.
“Ok,” he said, tallying up the various processor-blowing revelations on his finger units. “Cybertron, Galvatron, First Aid here’s a baby Prime, Optimus isn’t likely to go off the deep end and destroy the universe, and impending doom unless we make nice with the humans.” Sentinel's plan of enslaving a human workforce would have been faster, but with these youngsters running around being all trustworthy and helpful and slag maybe the humans would buy in to cooperating of their own free will, in the interest of survival. Free will. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Ugh. Barricade briefly considered slamming his helm against the wall behind him several times. “Anything else I should know?”
“A few secrets are not ours to tell,” Groove said mysteriously, tilting his helm, “but that’s the major scoop.”
“It’s not all sunshine and energon cookies, of course,” Hot Spot said. “The humans, understandably, have not been swift to trust or forgive, nor have all members of our own kind been able to accept that the war is over. Another reason we are keeping you, and the hatchlings, under close guard. We don’t know yet how the humans will respond to the idea of Cybertronians increasing their numbers in this manner, although it is likely many of them will find the idea threatening, especially with the memory of Chicago still so raw.”
Barricade bristled defensively at the thought, and Hot Spot nodded in understanding. “Keep in mind, Barricade, I also know humans that would give their lives to protect innocent offspring no matter the species, even ours, the aliens that have brought so much destruction to their planet,” Hot Spot said. “Give them a chance.”
Groove giggled suddenly. “And some that would go even further than that. Optimus gets emails and letters almost every day from humans offering to have his offspring.”
Barricade straightened, more shocked than he had been by any of the other revelations so far. “Can they do that?” he asked, horrified.
“Not yet,” Hot Spot chuckled. “Just give them time, though! Humans are very determined lifeforms when they put their brains to it, and especially when a few billion of them decide they want something very much. We are their worst nightmare, but we are also their fondest dream. It may be the saving of us all.”
This entry was originally posted at http://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/88175.html. Please comment wherever you wish.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Bonus Snippets
Title: Project Reset - The Prequel (4/?)
Characters: Barricade, First Aid, Groove, Hot Spot, hatchlings
Universe: movie-verse, post "Dark of the Moon" AU Heavily inspired by
niyazi_a's fic, Chance, and also this bit of Starscreamy awesomeness: Desert
Rating: K+
Word Count: 7817 words
Warnings and Notes: twiddling with Bayverse 'bot characterizations and assorted canon to suit my Nefarious Plans.
Summary: Barricade gets some blackmail material on the Protectobots and learns way too many astonishing things, Hot Spot explains, Groove is Groovy, and First Aid mostly sleeps.
(Lyrics from "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen.)
Beachcomber had surveyed the location originally, deep underground near the lingering warmth and slowing pulse of Cybertron’s dying heart, and he and Wheeljack and the rest of the Science and Medical Division had made it their temporary home, their refuge for a time from the war, the hidden sanctuary to safeguard their precious hope. Ample energon could still be scavenged for those with the knowledge to find it. It could have been bleak, but it was surprisingly cozy down here, and it felt, somehow, protected. As if they were being watched over by friendly optics, although the more pragmatic of them dismissed the sensation without hard evidence to back it. And now everything, the long orns of patient tending and waiting and preparation, was about to pay off. Their very future as a species was at stake, and not a single one of them, if they were honest, had any idea what they were doing. They grinned at one another with nervous excitement.
“Wheeljack, hurry up! You’re going to miss it.” Hoist cupped his hands anxiously under the hatchling pod, watching as the small figure inside squirmed and clawed at the membrane. One talon had broken through, allowing a thin trickle of clear fluid to run down the side and drip from the bottom. Next to him Arcee, Signal Flare, Camshaft, Elita, and Perceptor clustered around the emerging hatchling, while the rest of them kept a close optic on the other pods. Most were near hatching as well, and had been squirming and struggling for joors, but this was the first one to actually puncture the membrane.
“He’s trying so hard,” Arcee winced sympathetically as the form of the hatchling, blurred by the thick protective pod membrane, paused for a moment, bracing its helm against the side of the pod and wiggling the one free talon in a beckoning motion. “I just want to help him out.”
“He can do it,” Hoist reassured her. “C’mon, little guy, keep trying.”
Wheeljack pushed his way into the excited cluster of mechanisms around Hoist. “Oh wonderful, look at that. He’s really gonna do it, look at him go!”
“Everything’s ready to go, in case he needs it?” Hoist asked, never taking his optics from the squirming hatchling. Another talon joined the first.
Wheeljack nodded. “Such as it is. Let’s hope he doesn’t need it. Emergency resuscitation on the first hatchling in a thousand vorns with absolutely no instruction manual is not something I really want to try.”
“He won’t need it,” Camshaft said, his optics glowing brightly. “He’s a strong one. They all are.”
“Number three’s hatching, too!” Evac called from where he was watching over the first three pods.
“Ha! Told you he’d be the first out.” Smokescreen grinned smugly from where he watched over podlings number eight and nine.
“You’ve been taking bets on the hatchlings?” Hoist sounded mildly indignant.
“Based on the order of spawning, relative growth and energy conversion ratios, and cumulative movements per joor, I must dispute your conclusion, my dear Smokescreen,” Perceptor said, nevertheless leaving Hoist to go assist Evac. “My calculations show that number five has been the incontestable leader in development over the last orn.”
Smokescreen made a rude noise, to which Perceptor responded with a rude gesture over his shoulder. Signal Flare, grinning, positioned himself exactly halfway between Hoist and Perceptor, hedging his bets, and Elita rolled her optics at him, poking the big tankformer in the side as she went over to help Perceptor. Despite all the good-natured teasing and the almost audible hum of excitement in the room, the mood in the hatchling incubation chamber stayed intently focused, none of the science and medical team wavering from their constant scanning and monitoring of the eleven new lives under their care.
“It’s too bad Optimus is missing this,” Elita said softly, as she and Perceptor watched hatchling number three. This one had indeed breached the pod membrane, one talon poking through in almost identical fashion to Hoist’s number five.
Perceptor nodded, cradling his hands under the pod. “All is being recorded most meticulously indeed, but…yes. I wish he could be here, too. We are most privileged to have had a small role in bringing it about.”
“We’ve got the whole arm!” Hoist announced as hatchling number five resumed his struggles to emerge. “And…whoopsie doo! Here we go!” Signal Flare darted back over to the little crowd around Hoist.
“My fine mechs and femmes, we have our first hatching!” Wheeljack announced, to quiet but sparkfelt cheers (and a pretended groan of dismay from Smokescreen. Perceptor was too engrossed by the hatchling in front of him to claim victory).
“Wheeljack, how’s he doing? Is he ok?” Elita called.
“He’s venting normally-” a pause, as Wheeljack and Hoist hovered over the hatchling, their helms close together “-vitals all strong and steady… Primus.”
“What?! What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Wheeljack answered. “He’s beautiful, absolutely perfect. Just look at his little optics! Look Hoist, how he’s holding on to your hand!”
“I see, I see,” Hoist laughed, cradling the tiny frame, the optics bright and clear, no longer shrouded by the pod fluid. “He’s got a pretty good grip for a newspark, and he feels...soft. He’s almost all protoform.”
“Those little talons, they don’t even seem real,” Arcee said, exchanging grins of wonder and relief with Camshaft and Signal Flare and flashing victory signs to the rest of the team in the hatchling chamber.
“Don’t let him get cold; we don’t know what sort of temperature fluctuations they can handle,” Wheeljack cautioned, hovering a little.
“Let’s get him to the warmer and get him dried off a bit,” Hoist agreed. “Clear the way, everyone,” he added, smiling. “Hatchling, coming through.”
“We’ve got an arm out over here, now, too, and…wow! When it happens, it happens fast, doesn’t it. Hatchling number two is out!” Elita announced. There were more muted cheers and mutual congratulations.
“Number two?” Smokescreen asked, startled.
“Number three,” Elita clarified, “second one hatched. He looks good so far.”
Perceptor, after letting Evac get a quick look, took his hatchling and joined Hoist and Wheeljack at the warmer in the center of the chamber, and everyone not directly monitoring a pod joined them to admire the two new arrivals while everyone else patched in visual feeds and provided commentary.
“Look at their little optics, just looking around at everything!”
“I can’t believe they’re finally out.”
“Have they said anything yet?”
“It’s too bad Optimus…damn this war.”
“They’re so tiny, even smaller than cassettes!”
“They do have quite the grip, don’t they,” Elita commented, watching Hoist unsuccessfully try to place hatchling number five on the warmer.
“He’s not letting go! I don’t want to hurt him,” Hoist said. The hatchling made a cascade of distressed, high-pitched cheeps every time Hoist tried to delicately pry loose the tiny talons wrapped firmly around his finger units. He gave up at last and let the hatchling cling, stroking him reassuringly while Wheeljack took more detailed measurements of his vital signs. Perceptor was having similar difficulties with his hatchling. Elita, trying to help, found her finger tightly entrapped as the hatchling transferred one set of talons.
“Oh dear, I’m afraid we’re stuck,” Perceptor laughed.
“One of the unforeseen hazards of hatchlings, it appears,” Elita said, laughing as well, carefully rearranging her arm-with-hatchling-attached to a less awkward position. The tiny bot watched her, blue optics focusing on her face in fascination.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“What’s his designation, has he said?” Evac asked.
“They won’t have full-fledged language processing capabilities for a long time, Evac,” Wheeljack reminded him.
“But…not even designations? How are we going to know what to call them?”
“What’s wrong with Three and Five?” Perceptor said.
“We can’t keep calling them numbers,” Camshaft objected. “Not once they’re hatched.”
“I fail to detect anything unsuitable with the number three,” Perceptor murmured. “Three is a perfectly delightful digit, yes it is,” he cooed to the hatchling still grasping his hand. The hatchling turned his small helm to focus on Perceptor, optics wide, and flared his thin bits of plating a little.
“Bzee?”
Elita laughed at him. “Perceptor, you’ve lost your processor. Why are you talking like that?”
“It’s obviously the optimum method for conversing with pre-verbal hatchlings. Look how he responds to it.” Perceptor addressed the hatchling again, pitching his vocal unit higher and letting the intonations rise and fall outrageously. “Yes, my dear little microchip, you know I’m communicating with you, don’t you, such a clever, darling little protoform.” The hatchling squirmed and wiggled in his hand, squeaking as it let go of Elita’s finger and began trying to climb Perceptor’s arm.
“I agree, Camshaft, we can’t just call them by number anymore,” Wheeljack said. “We’ll have to give them temporary designations until they can choose their own.”
Several of the Science Team shifted uneasily. “Can we do that?” Signal Flare finally said. “I mean, what if they don’t like the names we pick?”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to express your opinion if you don’t like it, won’t you, you adorable little energon cookie,” Wheeljack cooed to hatchling number five, imitating Perceptor’s mode of speech. Number five chirruped back at him. “Why don’t we call you Cookie, hmm? Is that your designation? Is it? Are yooo my little Cookie-bot?” He sqreeked his vocals even higher. “Are yooo? Are yooo?”
“Apparently he is your, ah, ‘little Cookie-bot,’” Hoist chuckled, shaking his head in resignation as the hatchling beeped and wriggled happily in response to Wheeljack’s apparent loss of sanity.
In the end no one else felt comfortable actually assigning names to the hatchlings, so Wheeljack, as lead scientist of Operation Hatchling, named them all. Number three became Snugglebits, followed by Wisehelm, Caliber, Zap, Hot Spot, Isotope, Tangent, Bridger, Sparkles as the remaining hatchlings emerged over the next several joors, until only one was left still in the pod.
“Here he comes, finally,” Wheeljack said. He held hands at the ready as the last hatchling finally breached his pod membrane. “I was starting to get worried about you, bitlet.” The set of talons sticking out of the pod seemed to wave at them all excitedly. “Come on out, little Happy Claws,” he encouraged. “The rest of your brothers are waiting to meet you.”
The last of the hatchlings emerged in a rush of incubation fluid and a pair of startled blue optics into Wheeljack’s waiting hands. He was examined and cuddled and pronounced healthy, and taken to join the improvised hatchling nest where he was promptly engulfed by his ten wriggly siblings.
“All eleven,” Hoist said happily, watching to be sure the newest hatchling was not being overwhelmed by all the squirming. Tangent and Isotope wrapped themselves around the new one and all three proceeded to gnaw contentedly on one another’s talons and foot supports before gradually powering down into recharge, still in their tangle of small limbs and frames. It had been a long cycle, but no one wanted to leave; the whole team took turns crowding around the nest and admiring the hatchlings until sheer exhaustion made them head off for their own recharge.
“This simply isn’t working, Wheeljack,” Elita said, several joors later, frowning as Hot Spot dumped the small cube of energon all over himself for the second time and then started chewing on one of the armor projections on Elita’s forearm, with a discontented buzz-growl of hunger and frustration. “They have no idea how to refuel, and they just don’t have the coordination to hold onto the cubes. We need some sort of…feeding devices to regulate the energon flow. Tubes, or nozzles maybe.”
Wheeljack was having slightly more success as he tipped one corner of the cube against Zap’s mouth components, allowing the hatchling to intake a tiny portion at a time. Still, the majority of the fuel was ending up either on Wheeljack or the hatchling, especially as Zap insisted on “helping” by trying to stick his talons into the cube and pull out the energon more rapidly. Wheeljack made a thoughtful noise as he put down the cube and tilted Zap onto his ventral plates to let him drip dry for a moment . “I could definitely use a few more finger subunits, that’s for sure. Maybe that’s what that diagram was about, in Ratchet’s file. The only glyph we could translate was ‘mandible’; we always assumed it was some sort of hatchling dental cleansing device, but maybe it was intended for refueling. And the other schematic, that was similar to a medical spark fusion conversion chamber, like Ratchet has. That would let us refuel them directly from our own systems!” Wheeljack’s optics lit up with excitement at the thought of redeveloping the ancient design. “I bet I could come up with something.”
Elita nodded, expression sober. “They’ll draw a lot of energy, but I agree. Integrated hatchling refueling systems would be a good precaution, if we ever have to evacuate the hatchlings quickly. At least some of us should have them installed. I’ll let you test the prototype out first, though, and at a safe distance,” she added on a lighter note.
“Is this normal?” Evac, the other hatchling-tender on duty, watched the hatchlings with a worried expression as they clumsily tumbled and pulled themselves about in their nest. “I mean, they can’t even feed themselves, or walk, or communicate. I knew they would be small, and different from Allspark-kindled newsparks, and they’re certainly appealing, but…are we sure they’re not…deficient, somehow?”
Bridger squawked as his helm was trapped under Sparkles and Wisehelm, and Hoist rescued him, gently nudging the hatchlings apart.
Wheeljack shrugged. “Optimus remembers so little of his hatchling phase, and as Sentinel kept him so guarded, and left us no records, we really have no way of knowing if they’re normal or not. Megatron might be the only one still alive who could enlighten us. If he’s still alive.”
Evac snorted at that. “Um, yeah. No. I’ll continue to live in ignorance, thank you.”
“Also….” Elita said, exchanging a significant glance with Wheeljack. “Wheeljack and I have a theory that Prime-kindled hatchlings truly are new sparks, while we who were Allspark-kindled have been…recycled, from previous sparks that have already lived and extinguished once, or perhaps many times.”
“Recycled!” Evac drew himself up indignantly, rotors flaring. “Just who are you calling recycled?”
“It’s only a theory,” Elita laughed. “However, it corresponds very nicely with what we know of how the Allspark generated new life, and the way Allspark-kindled mechanisms are able to immediately function and communicate and control their own frames. Perhaps it takes time for a spark to adjust to the physical plane. Perhaps originally our sparks were all Prime-kindled. It is possible that the existence patterns that we gain in our previous lives remain when our sparks are rekindled by the Allspark, allowing us to function with immediate proficiency once we are embodied.”
Evac gave her a skeptical look, but Wheeljack and Hoist were both nodding.
“Most juvenile techno-organic and organic lifeforms begin life in a similarly primitive stage, after all,” Wheeljack added. “In fact, from what we can decipher of the Ancient’s archaeological records from the Primordial-era, a lot of the evidence seems to point to us being descendants of organic lifeforms, rather than the other way around.”
Evac blinked at that. “I appreciate the…value and worthiness of our organic neighbors as much as the next Autobot, but that’s taking it a little far, don’t you think?” he said a little plaintively. Even Elita looked somewhat shocked.
“Huh,” she said finally. “Wouldn’t that make old Megsy lose his coolant.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barricade hurriedly shut down the memory packet from Wheeljack’s hatchling records file, and stood up to pace, his spark pounding in shocked outrage. Descendants! Of inferior organic lifeforms! It was ridiculous. Organic species were the inferior copies, everyone knew that. Beneath his outrage, however, burned an undercurrent of unrelated, building shame. The hatchling facilities in the record file, while obviously cobbled together of scavenged supplies and wedged into some sort of battered and ancient underground facility, were scrupulously clean and well-maintained. Every hatchling was tended and cared for with the utmost attention, and expertise by mechs and femmes programmed for discovery, repair, and creation, not for…war. Destruction. Not originally, anyway, no matter what they had become later. He looked at his pile of grubby hatchlings in a barn with something close to despair, remembering how many times they’d been at the verge of deactivation, the days, even weeks, they’d been left in dark hiding places while he foraged for fuel.
The medical readouts for the hatchlings in First Aid’s monitoring feed were still reassuringly in their safe zones, but what hidden damage had they suffered, under Barricade’s unskilled care? “I’m sorry. You should have had someone better than me,” he murmured. Even if the Autobots were a bunch of lunatics, with near-blasphemous theories.
Wheeljack’s file had thousands of sections he hadn’t gotten to yet, but the labels alone were telling. Processor stimulation games. Learning modules. Coordination exercises. Meticulous records of growth and development. Endless memory files of every squeak and buzz emitted by every single hatchling, no doubt, although the orderly file listing cut off suddenly at just before the third instar, a gap before resuming again…Barricade went back and skimmed the label tags and found it again, the time break in the file listings. In the subcategories after the break, only five hatchling labels appeared.
Barricade glanced at First Aid, recharging with his head bowed over his pulled up knee components, his back against the barn wall near the hatchlings. It didn’t look all that comfortable. Only five. Barricade opened the small, unlabeled sub file that was tucked just after the time gap, scanned it quickly, and then closed it again, feeling his spark roil with a mix of emotions. Pretty much what he had suspected. The secret hatchling base had been discovered; six of the hatchlings had not survived. Damage reports, severe hypothermic shock (another hatchling feature he’d discovered the hard way, hatchling systems were not nearly as resilient to temperature extremes as adult mechs - he’d nearly lost them all that first winter). One of them, Hot Spot, had had his arms ripped away. What he had not suspected was Starscream’s role in rescuing the five survivors. First Aid, here today, because of what Starscream had done so long ago. An act of mercy? Or calculation. A way to put Optimus in his debt, perhaps, or had Starscream somehow foreseen that these hatchlings would need First Aid to survive? Barricade wouldn’t put anything past the devious jet at this point. He waited expectantly, but his inner Starscream seemed to have gone silent. No jet appeared in memory bank glitch or hallucination or whatever it had been to point out his inferior thought processes.
A crunch of gravel and muted engine noise from outside the barn brought Barricade out of his thoughts to sudden alertness. Cybertronian engine noise, Barricade noted quickly, something fairly light and fast. Scout class, most likely, but the wrong pitch to be Bumblebee, and not making any attempt at concealment. There were sounds of transformation, and then a soft tapping at the barn door.
“Hello?” The voice was deep, but tentative. “Hello, Barricade? May I come in?”
Barricade sighed in resignation. One of First Aid’s other gestalt brothers, no doubt. At least this one knew how to knock. The repaired barn door included a robot-scale latch on the inside. He opened it to reveal a very tall, gangly cycle-former with big blue optics, who greeted Barricade by ducking his helm and flashing a sweet, shy grin.
“Groove,” he said, by way of introduction. “Limbo!” he added, leaning back to navigate the door frame. Once inside his optics fastened immediately on his brother, and then back to Barricade, as if asking permission. Barricade narrowed his optics-First Aid was right next to the hatchlings-but like the medic, the cycle-former appeared to be unarmed. If he was hiding any heavy artillery in that thin, fragile-seeming frame then Barricade would eat the rest of the tractor, not to mention the guy was practically radiating innocent harmlessness with his hopeful expression and luminous blue optics.
“Go ahead,” he said, waving towards First Aid. Groove flashed his quick shy smile again and went to his brother, having to duck under a few of the support beams along the way. He folded himself down beside First Aid and wrapped long arms around him. First Aid sighed and relaxed a little in his recharge, leaning into his brother and murmuring something before going still again. Groove examined the crack in Aid’s visor (and Barricade was starting to feel an utter cad about that) and tucked him in close.
Barricade settled himself on the other side where he could keep an optic on everyone, while Groove peered over at the silent pile of hatchlings and then around the barn with open, friendly interest. How this sweet, fragile crystal of a bot had survived so long in the big bad universe Barricade had no idea. He found himself studying the other mech’s face, trying to match it to one of the hatchlings from Wheeljack’s file. Hatchlings were all so similar, formed to a standard mold when newly-emerged, but there was something about Groove’s long, tilted cheek flanges and high peaked optic ridges, the small half smile as he looked about that reminded him of one of the hatchlings from the memory file. Barricade had grown attuned to even the subtle differences among hatchlings in two years.
Groove smiled and ducked his helm every time he happened to meet Barricade’s optics. Embarrassed? Or shy? Barricade wasn’t sure, but he found himself wanting to break the silence, strike up some sort of…verbal exchange, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of a way to begin. All of his conversations with First Aid had been pre-fabricated by the need to care for the hatchlings. He’d never been much for idle chatter in the first place, but now after two years alone, with no one but the hatchlings and the occasional semi-sentient organic lifeform to provide conversation…he seemed to have lost the knack.
“Scaramouche, scaramouche will you do the fandango?”
Groove was looking at him hopefully.
“Uh…the…” It took Barricade a moment to remember the proper code response, as he’d attempted to permanently delete it after Frenzy had sung the entire Queen repertoire nonstop for three weeks (and he hadn’t been all that particular about the order of the lyrics, either). “Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening?”
Groove’s smile turned as high wattage as his helicopter brother’s. “Exactly! Not for awhile yet, though,” he said. “There are some tornado warnings to the west, and volcano watches from Lake Michigan to Valparaiso, but we’re ok for now. The magma plumes have really calmed down the last few months anyway. Blades is keeping an optic on it, and Streetwise and Hot Spot are on standby if we need to evacuate.”
Barricade hadn’t been paying attention to the weather, but now that Groove mentioned it, the wind did seem to be picking up quite a bit. And volcano watches? That did not sound good.
“Just a precaution,” Groove said, reassuringly. Some of Barricade’s alarm must have shown on his face. “We’re probably fine, and we don’t really want to move the hatchlings at this stage unless it’s unavoidable, but we’re also not taking any chances. Also, there’s been a rather cryptic message from Galvatron that he’s on his way back to Earth, which is breaking all kinds of treaties, but don’t worry. We’re sure he wouldn’t be coming here at all without good reason. Optimus will get it sorted out and you won’t have to be involved at all if you don’t want to be.”
Groove seemed to think this last part was quite concerning, so Barricade nodded vaguely rather than letting on that he had no idea what Groove was talking about. The silence stretched for another long moment.
“What is the fandango, anyway?” Barricade asked finally.
Groove tilted his head thoughtfully. “Hmm. I could show you, but we should probably go outside. Might knock things over in here and wake up the bitlets.” Groove nodded at the hatchlings.
“Ah…maybe later,” Barricade said quickly, and then, changing the subject with studied casualness: “So. Galvatron. On his way back.” Or completely obvious and awkward obviousness, but Groove only nodded.
“With the decelerating time shift, he must have started about two point five vorns forward to be reaching us now, so he’s been in transit nearly two years. The reverse trip is massively energy intensive, so for him to leave Cybertron like this it’s got to be something major, although with the Matrix and the Allspark in cahoots who knows…” Groove trailed off, finally noticing Barricade’s expression. “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Barricade schooled his expression back to impassive sternness, but his spark still pounded from hearing those words so casually uttered: ‘for him to leave Cybertron.’ As if it were still there, as if their entire planet, their home, had not been destroyed forever. It was an Autobot trick, or Groove was certifiably glitched and not just somewhat odd, but those optics held only honest concern as Barricade’s engine caught and sputtered with suppressed emotion.
“I forgot, First Aid said you were still kind of, uh…twitchy. He’s been trying not to overwhelm you so I guess he hasn’t gotten to that part yet.” Groove looked completely, undeniably, sane. It was Barricade who felt his processor splintering, stalling, not sure what was real anymore, what was illusion. Maybe the corrosion had reached his processor at last.
“You’ve been driving him nuts, you know, with your engine sounding like that and not having time yet to do anything about it.” Groove was still watching him with concern, his voice low and soothing. “Once the hatchlings are all in full molt it would make him very happy if you’ll let him do some repairs.”
“I’m not ready for the smelting pits just yet,” Barricade gritted out. Twitchy! The nerve of these youngsters! Coddling him as if he were a fragile newspark instead of it being the other way around. If he weren’t rusting apart at the seams he could have snapped Groove in two with one hand. “I want the truth. All of it. Now,” he growled.
Groove seemed undismayed by Barricade’s scowl of doom. Made of sterner stuff than Barricade had first supposed, then. Groove sighed and rested his cheekplate against the top of his brother’s helm. “You’ll wake him up if you blow out a gasket or something, you know.” He raised his optic ridges at Barricade in inquiry. “Would you mind a bit more company? Hot Spot’s better at explaining than I am.”
Great. Another gestalt brother. And Groove was asking instead of calling Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots to dispose of Barricade and take the hatchlings for their own, he recalled with a sudden chill. All the chips were in their hands, now.
“You think I’m going to have a processor lock up or glitch out or something. You just want someone here to pin me down.”
The corner of Groove’s mouth quirked in amusement. “Well. Maybe.”
“Fine.”
Shortly thereafter, Barricade again heard the crunch of gravel and hum of a Cybertronian engine over the rising sound of the wind and distant thunder. A much bigger alt mode, this time.
“You don’t happen to know where the lost Star Saber of Nexus Prime is hidden, do you?” Groove asked as they waited, out of nowhere.
Barricade gave Groove a blank stare. Groove shrugged one angular shoulder. “Just checking. It would be useful to have it around.”
“You must be Tangent.”
Groove’s optics widened a little. “Oh man, he gave you that whole file, didn’t he. Blackmail material, dude. Blackmail material.”
Barricade grinned in spite of himself, on slightly more familiar territory. “Good to know. So why’s he still Hot Spot.” Barricade nodded towards the door.
“Hot Spot’s always Hot Spot,” Groove said, as if that explained everything. There were sounds of transformation outside and a quiet knock at the barn door.
“Coming in,” a deep, rumbling voice announced. “Nobody glitch out, ok? I don’t want to have to do any pinning,” the mech continued with a chuckle.
Only the red optics, framing mechanisms crinkled with good humor, allowed Barricade to keep his composure as Hot Spot carefully maneuvered himself through the door. Other than optic color, the mech was the image of Optimus Prime. Hot Spot stood cautiously to almost his full height. The barn was large, designed for storage of bulky farming equipment, but at more than half again Barricade’s own height Hot Spot had to bow his head slightly to avoid hitting the ceiling rafters. Fire truck alt, Barricade could see now, not semi. This had to be the third Prime, the one First Aid had spoken of; he was practically exuding calm leadership all over the place, even as he stood there in his slightly awkward pose and-Barricade blinked a few times, resetting his optics to read the color wavelengths in the dim lighting of the barn to make sure-powder blue paint job.
“Thank you for trusting me,” Hot Spot said, making no move as yet to come any further into the barn. Pit. He even sounded a little like Optimus, as he remembered him from Cybertron, all that compassion and kindness slag going on. Were all Primes so fragging compelling?
“Not like I’ve got a lot of choice,” Barricade muttered.
“I know, and for that I’m sorry. Ask me to leave at any point, though, and I’ll go. No questions asked. We value your goodwill, and theirs.” Hot Spot nodded, indicating the hatchlings.
Barricade floundered for a response to that for a moment, while Hot Spot waited patiently. “Yeah. Right. We can all join hands and sing later.”
Hot Spot took that as permission to make his way to his two brothers, successfully navigating the lower support beams through the center of the barn to kneel comfortably next to Groove and First Aid. At least he didn’t fuss over the cracked visor, Barricade noticed gratefully.
“Fandango demonstration, later,” Groove informed him.
“Excellent.” Hot Spot put an arm around them both and First Aid smiled slightly in his recharge and burrowed closer. “So,” he said pleasantly. “Where shall we begin?”
“Cybertron,” Barricade said shortly.
Hot Spot nodded. “Cybertron. As you may have gathered, it is not destroyed. It’s not in the best of shape, mind you, but it is essentially intact. Whatever happened when Sentinel’s device was destroyed appears to have blown it about seventeen hundred vorns into the future, but it’s time-decelerating at a rapid pace. By Perceptor’s best estimates present-day Earth will catch up to it in approximately seven thousand Earth years, at which time Earth and Cybertron will resume their aborted collision course and the entire solar system will become a big scrambled mess. According to Galvatron nearly everyone on-planet should have been deep underground during the temporal backlash and most of them could have survived, but that still amounts to less than a thousand at best. And even if we manage to produce more hatchlings, they’ll still only be fifth or sixth instar in seven thousand years. Humans and Cybertronians are going have to, as you put it, ‘join hands and sing’ if we’re going to save both our worlds.” Thunder rumbled outside as if providing dramatic emphasis.
“The Ultimate Doom,” Groove added, nodding, once the thunder quieted. “But wait! That’s not all.”
“Still with me?” Hot Spot said, watching Barricade closely. “You might want to sit down.”
Barricade didn’t argue. He sat and let his helm rest on his knees for a few kliks. Cybertron. Time decelerations. He wondered who could possibly still be living there, and if they could be anything close to sane after so long on a dying planet. Less than a thousand…Cybertronians had become scattered through the vorns of the war. How many of their people were left? He lifted his helm again to look at the fourteen hatchlings, approximately one percent of their total population, still recharging peacefully. They had loved all those episodes of ‘Sesame Street’ he’d projected for them, before his signal receptors had corroded out, Barricade thought randomly, before forcing his processor back into focus. “All right,” he said, finally. “Galvatron?”
“He’s very shiny,” Groove said, his noseplates crinkling up impishly. “It was all First Aid’s fault.”
Hot Spot smiled at that, looking down at his recharging medic-brother fondly, although his voice was solemn, almost sad when he spoke. “It was indeed, although the Ancient Primes and Optimus were kind of involved, too. Not to mention the Matrix of Leadership. And the Allspark.”
“The Allspark, but…” Barricade trailed off. “It’s still destroyed…isn’t it?” he asked tentatively.
“Mm. Yes and no. Let’s see, where to begin.” Hot Spot shifted, cuddling Groove and First Aid closer. “When we arrived to this solar system two years ago, we discovered that Optimus Prime was…changed. You were right to be wary, Barricade. We were not naïve enough to expect any mechanism who has fought a war such as Cybertron’s has been to come through it spark and soul intact, but…a Prime spark is built to carry great burdens, and Optimus…had always remained Optimus, despite everything.” Hot Spot paused for a long moment, looking down at First Aid.
“Even Primes have their limits,” Hot Spot said finally. “The problem is that when Prime sparks crack, they tend to take down entire planets, entire civilizations. Sometimes even the very fabric of reality cracks with them. So Optimus did pretty good, actually, considering. It could have been much worse, though the…executions were bad enough, and every time Optimus broke a little further. ” Hot Spot’s optics were sad but steady as he looked at Barricade. “Watching Megatron die, that first time, getting killed himself and a traumatic resurrection, and then, one does not lightly kill a fellow Prime, even one so twisted as the Fallen. It was Sentinel’s betrayal, though, that broke him completely. Megatron offered a truce, there at the end, did you know? And Optimus destroyed him anyway.”
No, Barricade had not known. The storm was approaching in earnest now, with thunder and lightning occurring almost continuously, and intermittent onslaughts of rain and wind.
“Tornado watches and warnings have all been cancelled,” Groove said quietly. “Just a lot of wind and rain, now. Some localized damage to property, but the human authorities have it well in hand.”
Hot Spot nodded and resumed his story. “Megatron had betrayed him before, with offers of truce. It was not so…inconceivable that Optimus should destroy him, to end the war, to save Earth and the humans. What was wrong was the glee with which he did so. Without Ironhide…Ratchet and Sideswipe and Bumblebee did their best to hold him together, and with the best of intentions Optimus refused to abandon Earth to her fate-two years ago the whole planet was on the verge of tearing itself apart-but it was really only a matter of time. He tried to hide it, to keep us far away after we arrived, but…we knew.”
“Problem was, we kept sticking our sensors where they didn’t belong, trying to find a way to help,” Hot Spot continued. “Megatron was not dead. He had absorbed the majority of the Allspark energy, directly into his spark. Just like the Matrix, the energy of the Allspark can only change form, it can never be destroyed, and the bulk of it had become one with Megatron. When the shard was used to revive him, the Allspark became whole, at least enough to gradually attempt to assert itself, although for a long time Megatron refused to acknowledge it and the Allspark is no tyrant. First Aid found Megatron, what remained of him. He was…still aware. In torment, with no way to end it, with the Allspark a part of him he could not die. Optimus knew, had felt it all along, had been fighting the path the Matrix was trying to show him as Megatron was fighting against accepting the Allspark. They were both trapped, linked in agony with no way out. First Aid,”-Hot Spot’s voice broke a little and he took a deep vent-“First Aid confronted him, about leaving Megatron in that condition, and Optimus…snapped.” First Aid shifted slighty, frowning. Groove buried his helm against Hot Spot’s shoulder. “Optimus had his energon sword to First Aid’s spark before he realized what he was doing.”
Barricade made a noise. Optimus Prime had held a sword to his own hatchling? Had held a sword to First Aid, of all of them?
Hot Spot nodded, his optic ridges drawn together in pain at the memory. “That would have been three Primes dead by Optimus’ sword, which would be…quite a record. He stopped before that happened, though. He tried to turn the sword on himself. First Aid grabbed it by the blade to stop him.”
Barricade winced. Medics had the majority of their sensory network in their hands and upper arms. Ouch didn’t even begin to cover it. “Yeah,” Hot Sot sighed the word out slowly. “All of our memory files get a little hazy from there.”
“Wait…” Barricade frowned, puzzled. “You said ‘three Primes dead.’ I thought….”
“Ah,” Hot Spot grinned in understanding. “No, First Aid’s the Prime, not me, although we’re not really advertising the fact that there is another Prime still alive. Or three now, more accurately, if we include your little bitlet, but not all of the Dreads have been accounted for and we’d rather they not become targets. We didn’t know Aid was a Prime, though, until later. We knew something was different - First Aid was still in his sixth instar, while the rest of us were already seven, but we didn’t know why. The damage to his hands from grabbing the energon sword triggered his last molt. Ratchet thinks it was premature, a traumatic molt cycle, and that’s why he still has electrical problems sometimes. Prime sparks are supposed to take longer. It took him three months to recover, and we were all out of commission for nearly as long. Our sparks are linked; we are changing, too.”
Barricade blinked his optic shutters a few times, but First Aid did not suddenly metamorphose into a figure of power and awe. He remained as he had been, just a weary, gentle young medic-bot, recharging in the embrace of his brothers.
“It’s not so unheard of, for someone like Aid to be a Prime,” Groove contributed, lifting his helm again. “A lot of the Ancient Primes were healers, not warriors. They spoke to us from the Matrix, when we were…sort of dying, but not really. They were excited about First Aid because he was part of a gestalt, something about the weight of our sparks resetting the center and source of all possibility.”
Barricade decided to not hear that part about talking to the Ancients, for sanity’s sake. “All right. First Aid Prime.” He laughed briefly and rubbed his forehelm. He’d kidnapped a gestalt-member, Prime-spawn, and a fragging Primus-to-goodness Prime himself, and lived. At least until Optimus got to him. Very well. Carry on. “And Megatron? What happened to him?”
“Optimus tried to get the Matrix to heal First Aid, but it wasn’t working; the Matrix refused him. First Aid was still awake, he kept insisting that Optimus use it on Megatron instead.”
“It was very irresponsible of me,” First Aid mumbled sleepily into Groove’s shoulder. “What if I’d unleashed Megatron as he was on the Earth again?”
“You didn’t,” Groove said, patting his brother on the backplates. “You knew what you were doing, and so did the Matrix. Now go back to recharge.”
“With you talking about this?” First Aid protested, lifting his head. He gave Barricade a look over with still-dim optics. “Are you doing ok? Hot Spot, make sure he gets some real energon before we go any further.”
“Yes, oh my Prime,” Hot Spot said, with a wink at Barricade. First Aid rolled his optics and dropped his helm against Groove’s shoulder again, snuggling himself in more comfortably. Hot Spot got up and made his careful way back to the big storage container that Blades had left by the barn door and extracted a full cube of energon. Not the high grade, Barricade was disappointed to see, but a nice crisp-looking mid-grade, better quality than anything he’d had in a long time.
“Go ahead,” Hot Spot said, when Barricade hesitated. “We’re all well-fueled. The electric lava has its problems, but we’re not hurting for energy at the moment.”
“Ah, ok. Good.” Electric lava, sure. Barricade decided to just roll with it and drank his cube, a little self-consciously with the other three all snuggled together, watching him with expressions of fond satisfaction. The energon had an interesting taste to it, a hint of magnesium and ash. Different, but not bad.
“Megatron is now this Galvatron, I presume,” Barricade said, as he neared the bottom of the cube, beginning to feeling pleasantly full. It let him examine the thought with some measure of equanimity. Megatron, alive. Or alive-ish, depending on how much remained of him in Galvatron. He wasn’t sure yet if it was good news or bad news. “The Matrix healed him?”
Hot Spot nodded. First Aid appeared to have dozed off again, cuddled between his brothers. Hot Spot ran a caressing hand up and down his helm. “We were all pretty out of it at the time, but yes. When the Matrix and the Allspark get together, things can kind of get out of hand. There were a lot of fireworks, apparently, and the magnetic field in the area still hasn’t straightened out, but Megatron was reforged, and in the process the cracks in Optimus’ spark were mended, enough that he could find his way back to himself. Sentinel Prime lied to them both. But what Optimus saw and loved in Sentinel was not a lie, it was the reflection of truth from his own spark. Megatron found the truth of both their sparks and showed it to Optimus again.” Hot Spot shook his head a little. “I don’t know if I’m explaining it very well. They were keeping old promises, Galvatron said, when we asked him later.”
Barricade tried to remember him, Megatron from before his obsession with the Allspark, before the strangeness that had overtaken him after his association with the Fallen. He had followed Megatron for reasons beyond fear and inertia, once. Respected him. Loved him, even, with the fierce loyalty of a soldier for a charismatic and gifted commander, though that had faded quickly in the face of Megatron’s growing erratic behavior.
“He’s…shiny now? Galvatron?” Barricade asked, curiosity fastening on that small fact after another long moment of trying to absorb it all.
Groove grinned. “When the Matrix repairs someone it’s rather impressive. Or maybe it’s something to do with the Allspark? At any rate, he’s indestructible by anything less than a supernova and possibly not even that, so we’re glad he’s on our side. Or we’re on his side. Whichever. We were worried that it might have reprogrammed Megatron against his will, but both Optimus and Galvatron concur that nothing was done they didn’t both agree to.”
“So if Megatron…Galvatron, is the Allspark now…what does that mean? Can he…I mean, the Allspark is back on Cybertron, so…” He was babbling. What did it mean for Cybertron? It had been dying for so long, even before the Allspark had been launched, but now…in orbit, in the future, around Earth’s steady yellow sun…
Groove hummed a short melody Barricade recognized instantly, though it had been several thousand vorns since he had heard it. The theme song to the “Detective Nightbeat” holovid mystery series. He had watched every episode…Barricade felt his spark clench. That avenue of thought had long been too painful to remember.
“A very good question,” Hot Spot said, nodding seriously. He did not elaborate, by which Barricade inferred that everyone was just making it up as they went along. Well, and when had things ever been any different? Barricade sighed and leaned back. His systems were working hard to process the unaccustomed fuel input and sending him increasingly hard-to-ignore demands for recharge. The storm outside, which he had at some point ceased paying attention to, had settled to a steady soothing rain.
“Ok,” he said, tallying up the various processor-blowing revelations on his finger units. “Cybertron, Galvatron, First Aid here’s a baby Prime, Optimus isn’t likely to go off the deep end and destroy the universe, and impending doom unless we make nice with the humans.” Sentinel's plan of enslaving a human workforce would have been faster, but with these youngsters running around being all trustworthy and helpful and slag maybe the humans would buy in to cooperating of their own free will, in the interest of survival. Free will. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Ugh. Barricade briefly considered slamming his helm against the wall behind him several times. “Anything else I should know?”
“A few secrets are not ours to tell,” Groove said mysteriously, tilting his helm, “but that’s the major scoop.”
“It’s not all sunshine and energon cookies, of course,” Hot Spot said. “The humans, understandably, have not been swift to trust or forgive, nor have all members of our own kind been able to accept that the war is over. Another reason we are keeping you, and the hatchlings, under close guard. We don’t know yet how the humans will respond to the idea of Cybertronians increasing their numbers in this manner, although it is likely many of them will find the idea threatening, especially with the memory of Chicago still so raw.”
Barricade bristled defensively at the thought, and Hot Spot nodded in understanding. “Keep in mind, Barricade, I also know humans that would give their lives to protect innocent offspring no matter the species, even ours, the aliens that have brought so much destruction to their planet,” Hot Spot said. “Give them a chance.”
Groove giggled suddenly. “And some that would go even further than that. Optimus gets emails and letters almost every day from humans offering to have his offspring.”
Barricade straightened, more shocked than he had been by any of the other revelations so far. “Can they do that?” he asked, horrified.
“Not yet,” Hot Spot chuckled. “Just give them time, though! Humans are very determined lifeforms when they put their brains to it, and especially when a few billion of them decide they want something very much. We are their worst nightmare, but we are also their fondest dream. It may be the saving of us all.”
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