TF: After Extinction: Genesis
Rating: PG-13
Series: Movieverse
Pairings: Ratchet/Ironhide
Summary: A discovery aboard Lockdown’s ship gives Optimus and the remaining Autobots hope.
Warnings: Spoilers!
Disclaimer: As per usual, the good things in life are not mine to have, but belong to someone else... in this case Hasbro, Takara and IDW and anyone else I’ve forgotten…
Authors Notes: This is my fixit fic, and it’s not perfect, but it’s mine… (copyright Tim Minchin). Because fixit fic needed to be written. So it got written. Hah. More notes after the fic because they could be spoilery…
Feedback makes friends. Flames dealt with by the masters of paranoia and fire, Red Alert and Inferno.
Font Used: Shadows Into Light
“Sensei, I think you must see this.” Drift’s voice echoed round the ship. Optimus nodded to Hound and Crossfire, before turning to go and see what Drift had found.
“Lockdown must have collected more from Earth and the humans than we realised.” Drift murmured as Optimus approached. He stepped back to reveal a bank of boxes, blue light shining out from all of them. Sparks. Dozens of them.
“Primus…” Optimus stood and stared, able at this distance to distinguish different signatures from each of the sparks in front of him. He paused, holding his hand up in front of one box.
“Ratchet…”
“Sensei?”
“I believe we may owe a debt of gratitude to Lockdown.” He moved his hand across to the next box and staggered.
“Impossible.” He murmured in disbelief. By now, Hound and Crosshairs had joined them.
“What ya found, boss?” Hound stared at the boxes in realisation. “The fucker’s got himself a little spark prison?” He snarled. “If you hadn’t deactivated him, I’d go and do it myself.”
“Easy, Hound.” Optimus held out his hand. “As much as I abhor spark prisons, in this case, we should be grateful.” He motioned back to the stack of boxes. “It seems Lockdown was as much of a collector as he was a bounty hunter.”
“So? Most the stuff he’s got collected here is squishy organic stuff.” Hound muttered, shuddering, remembering his own experiences with Lockdown’s collection.
“He’s got some nice weapons.” Crosshairs pointed out.
“And he has our comrades.” Optimus ran one hand across the boxes, listing the sparks encased within.
“Leadfoot, Dino, Starscream, Que, Topspin, Skids, Mudflap, Soundwave, Laserbeak, Roadbuster, Barricade, Ratchet, Ironhide, Sideswipe...”
“Wait wait wait, back up a bit there boss.”
“What’s he doing with all those sparks?”
“I would imagine he is returning them to the Creator.” Drift murmured.
“Whoever that may be.” Crosshairs scoffed, folding his arms over his chestplating.
“Didya say Ironhide?” Hound stepped forward, staring at the boxes.
“I did.” Optimus’ hand returned to hover in front of the box that contained Ironhide’s spark. “I know Ratchet had managed to recover a sliver of his spark casing, perhaps that was enough...” He mused.
“Enough?”
“How did Lockdown get Ironhide’s spark?”
“Spark casing.”
“Spark, spark casing. What is it doing here?”
“Perhaps Attinger gave him more than we realised.”
“We shall never know. I can feel that Ironhide’s spark is weak, but it is steady.” Optimus said. “And I believe there may be a way that we can have our friends returned to us.”
“How?”
“The seed.”
“But…”
“It’s possible.” Crosshairs looked thoughtful. “Look, I ain’t saying I know anything about it, but if it cyberforms…”
“It creates cybermatter…”
“Cyberforms, creates cybermatter…” Crosshairs glared at Drift, irritated at the interruption.
“Wait, yer saying that using that seed… you can bring back our friends?” Hound asked.
“I believe it will work.” Optimus nodded. Drift nodded in agreement. Crosshairs shrugged. Hound just tipped his head to one side.
“Well then, what’re we waitin’ for?”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Taklamakan Desert, North-West China
“Man, we going to pull a Search for Spock here.... let’s just hope it doesn’t backfire on us, like it did for Kirk.”
“What?” Crosshairs stared at Brains.
“Star Trek.” The microbot stared back and waved his cane. “You telling me, all the time you’ve been here, you’ve never checked out the local entertainment?”
“We ain’t really had the time little bud.” Hound shrugged.
“Or the chance.” Crosshairs snapped.
“Speak for yourself, sir...” Commander Riker’s voice echoed from Bumblebee’s speakers.
“Come on, Next Generation?” Brains pointed his cane at Bumblebee. “You still got no class.” He scrambled across Hound to reach Bumblebee, and they carried on a muted and obviously long-running argument.
Optimus stepped out of the ship, the boxes of sparks held carefully in his hands. Drift followed, carrying the seed as though it was something more precious than the sparks Optimus carried. Which in some respects, it was. Brains and Bumblebee quietened down as they approached.
“Do you really think this will work, boss?” Hound asked. More than anything, he wanted to see his mentor and friend again. He’d been devastated to learn of Ironhide’s cruel death when he’d landed on Earth less than three months after Chicago.
“I have to have faith.” Optimus murmured, unconsciously echoing an old friend. He looked around. “The impact here will be less than anywhere else.
“After everything the humans have done to us, you’re still gonna protect them?” Hound exclaimed. He’d protected Yaeger and the others on Optimus’ orders, but four years of hiding and fear of being attacked had taken their toll. The humans had proved they were dangerous over and over again. Not in the least by working with Lockdown.
“I will not cause more harm to them than necessary.” Optimus allowed, carefully placing the spark boxes on the ground. Drift passed him the seed. Brains counted the number of boxes.
“We’re reviving ‘Cons too?” He asked, Hound growling as he realised.
“I believe they deserve a second chance.” Optimus stood after placing the seed at the center of the circle he’d created.
“A second chance to kill us, you mean?” Crosshairs crossed his arms over his chestplating. “I don’t like it.”
“Everymech deserves a second chance.” Drift intoned softly. Crosshairs scowled. Hound growled again.
“For once I’m with Crosshairs. I don’t like it…” He paused, looking at Optimus. “But I ain’t gonna argue with you.” Optimus nodded.
“We will remotely activate the seed from the ship.” They all filed back to the ship, Optimus casting one last glance at the seed and its circle of spark boxes.
“Please, let this work...” He murmured, one hand resting over his own spark.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
They watched as Optimus activated the seed. Watched as the seed seemed to explode, coating the surrounding area in metal. The blast rocked the ship, and for a moment, it almost seemed to destabilise their holding pattern. An eerie chorus of static filled howls filled the area, making Crosshairs clamp his hands over his audios and turn his back to the window.
“What is that?”
“The sound of sparks in pain.” Drift murmured, peering at the sensors. Optimus seemed to curl in on himself as Drift spoke.
“Pain?” Hound stomped forward, pushing Drift out of the way to look at the sensors himself.
“They’re being rebuilt.” Drift explained, brushing off his armor. “From the inside out.” Brains cursed, and Bumblebee let out a mournful wail.
“Frag, that’s gotta be worse than field repairs.” Hound muttered. Crosshairs nodded, looking faintly sick.
“How long do we leave it?” He asked, deliberately not turning round to look out the viewport.
“I... do not know.” Drift shrugged, looking to the others for suggestions. Optimus straightened.
“We shall leave them for one day.” He proclaimed. “Then we shall go down and check on them. Sooner, if the sensors indicate anything.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“They’ve stopped howling.” Hound announced as he came into the cargo area of the ship. Crosshairs looked up as Hound entered.
“What?”
“I said, they’ve stopped howling.” Crosshairs nodded as he heard this time.
“Fragging glad they have.”
“Why? You weren’t even listening to it.” Bumblebee taunted.
“I’ve heard more than my fair share of mechs crying out like that. Don’t want to have to listen to it if I don’t have to.”
“Listening to those suffering…” Drift started but was interrupted by Hound.
“Nah, don’t start with all that soothing of the spark slag. We don’t want to hear our friends in pain.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“I hereby discharge you from duty.” Pain and darkness was all he knew. A familiar comfort wrapping him with love. Then pain and light. Ironhide opened his optics, not recognising where he was. Instinctively, his cannons whirred to life, arming themselves as he looked around. There was metal… everywhere. This was most definitely not Chicago. Not unless Sentinel had succeeded in his plan. He looked around, cannons following his optics as he searched out the one who’d stood against him. Nothing. Wait… was that…?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Pain. Then nothingness. Then more pain. Was his torment not over? Had he not suffered enough at the hands of humans? And Lockdown? He sat up, optics onlining and scanning his surroundings. This wasn’t the dockside. This was… somewhere completely different. He turned, getting himself onto his hands and knees, marvelling at the fact that whatever had happened had reconstructed his leg and repaired all the niggling little injuries he hadn’t been able to spare the resources to fix. Just what was going on? And what was that coming towards him. Saws out and spinning, he forcefully shut them down as the shape coalesced into something… someone he recognised. It couldn’t be…
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Ratchet?”
“Ironhide?” A silver hand reached to pull him to his feet.
“It’s me.”
“I’d recognise your protoform anywhere.” Ratchet muttered as Ironhide wrapped his arms around him.
“What happened?”
“A second chance.” They pulled apart at the sound of Optimus’ voice.
“Optimus...” Ironhide faltered. “Sentinel...”
“Has been dealt with.” Optimus answered, pain lacing his tone. Ratchet winced, well remembering dealing with Optimus as he worked through Sentinel’s betrayal. And then, the humans turning on them. He shuddered. Optimus, unsurprisingly, noticed.
“Cemetery Wind has been disbanded. The humans will not hurt us anymore.”
“What?” Ironhide growled and Ratchet realised just how much he’d missed that protective growl.
“We are safe.” Optimus held up his hands, reaching forward and placing a hand on Ratchet and Ironhide’s shoulders. “And we are together again.”
“We’re all together again, Prime.” Starscream’s voice cut in. Even without the bulky plating that had formed his alt-mode while on Earth, his slender protoform was recognisable.
“Starscream.” Ironhide growled, cannons spinning.
“At ease, Ironhide.” Optimus murmured. “Fate has given us a second chance. One that we would be fools not to use wisely.” Starscream nodded slowly, looking around at the mechs moving towards them.
“Megatron?”
“Not among those given a second chance.” Optimus’ tone turned a little sad.
“A second chance?” Starscream stepped forward. “You’re willing to give us all a second chance?” He waved a hand around. “Even Decepticons?”
“Cybertronians.” Optimus corrected. “There are few of us now, with the war, and the humans.”
“Humans.” Starscream hissed the word, his own death foremost in his processor. “Humans should be exterminated.”
“They hunted us, Optimus.” Ratchet spoke up, surprised to find himself agreeing with Starscream.
“Some of them did.” Optimus nodded. “But there are some that have helped us. Befriended us. Saved us.”
“And you think they’re worth saving?” Starscream scoffed.
“I think it’s beneath us to exterminate them.” Optimus corrected. “I cannot see what help that would be to us.”
“Aside from making sure they don’t kill us?” Ratchet actually growled, and Ironhide’s cannons spun angrily.
“Enough.” Optimus straightened to his full height. “We will not harm the humans unless they attack first.” His tone said that it was the end of the discussion. Starscream grumbled something subvocally, but didn’t say anything further.
“So what now?” Sideswipe asked. “Cybertron’s gone.”
“Lockdown was hunting us down for our Creators.”
“Creators?” Optimus held up a hand, asking for silence.
“I do not know either. There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve. But who we are and why we are here, are not among them. Those answers we carry inside.”
“So what now?” Sideswipe asked again, breaking the silence. “We going to find our creators?”
“We got ourselves a ship.” Hound pointed out. “I say we go get them.” He was almost surprised to be cheered.
“It is settled then.” Optimus nodded. “The ship will easily support all of us. If you know of others left alive, we contact them before we leave.” He turned, heading towards the ship, followed by Autobots and Decepticons. Followed by Cybertronians.
“I am Optimus Prime, and this message is to our Creators: leave planet Earth alone, 'cause we’re coming for you!”
Authors Notes Redux: AU in which Optimus doesn’t bugger off to find his Creator immediately. I would also like to point out that I have no real preference either way regarding Star Trek: TOS and Star Trek: TNG. And I need to go watch Age of Extinction again.