Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was dark, and he could not see. The Tactilian Suite booted up before anything else, percentages and predictions running down in blue lines behind his vision.

He couldn’t move → Something was limiting his movements → It could’ve been anything from stasis cuffs to surgically conducted paralysis.

His memory bank hadn’t been damaged or corrupted, but it was taking a long time to boot up along with all his other systems → 46% chance that he had been drugged or knocked unconscious in some way.

There was an 78.9% chance that he was in mortal danger.

Honestly, he didn’t need the Tac Net to tell him that.

“—and there, perfect. Not a scratch on him.” The voice, high pitched and gravely, was the first thing he heard.

His eyes snapped open. A dark room greeted him. The sharp sound of blades sliding against each other and clinking on some surface became apparent to Prowl. A minicon scuttled into view, back turned to him, wiping energon-slick claws off on a poly cloth rag.

Scalpel → Decepticon CMO → Easily Subduable → Dangerous → Just finished an operation → That is your blood.

“And here you were saying I was a bad doctor.” The minicon grumbled towards another person in the room. Their silhouette became clearer as his eyes adjusted. Short and compact → Semi-Opaque Visor → Exibiting traits and kibble belonging to Bolt Bats → A Beastformer.

Mindwipe.

“I never said that, dear Scalpel. I just merely think your technique is a little…” beneath his visor, Mindwipe slid his eyes to look at Prowl. Only he noticed he was awake. “…blasé.”

Scalpel waved a claw as he scuttled towards the door. “I got the fucker reprogrammed without ruining that fancy tactilian suite, what more do you want?”

“This has nothing to do with what I want, darling!” Mindwipe called back. Scalpel grunted back in reply, then the minicon was gone.

And then Mindwipe turned to face Prowl.

Mindwipe, as a Decepticon, was often categorized as an annoyance. Yes, he was an intelligence agent as well as a known interrogator and torturer. Yes, he had hypnotic abilities. But he wasn’t a major threat like Soundwave— he was a lower ranking thug. Someone who took orders and was known for being a stereotypically cowardly henchman.

So, Prowl hated to admit that it was unnerving being alone with him.

Mindwipe grinned, the tips of his fangs peeking out from under his lips. “I’m glad you’re awake. Now we can have a little chat.”

He hopped up, plopping his aft onto a table. His wings fluttered. His claws rapped against the tables surface.

“You are…very bold for sneaking in here. I applaud you.” Mindwipe punctuated himself with a singular clap. “And tricking us as well, very bold indeed! We all believed you for a moment!”

Prowl made sure he didn’t flinch or twitch when the beastformer leaned in closer, and to keep him in his periphery. Never look a hypnotist in the eye.

“You make a very convincing Decepticon.”

Truth be told Prowl was only half listening to whatever monologue Mindwipe was getting into. Most of his processor power was going towards all the information he gathered on the situation so far from what snippets he got from Mindwipe and his slowly recovering memory bank.

You were undercover as a recently turned Decepticon → gathered various intelligence → you got caught trying to leave → they captured you and reprogrammed something in your processor. What exactly he didn’t know. It could’ve been anything.

“I have to admit I’m a little disappointed it was all an act, though my boss is most upset about the whole ordeal.” Mindwipe tapped him on the nose. “You stole a lot of valuable information from us. You were planning on planting a bomb!”

Prowl stayed silent. He was readying a distress signal for as soon as Mindwipe left. He had to stay silent.

Mindwipe’s smile lessened at his lack of reply, and he hopped off of the table. Shook out his plating. Flexed his claws.

“Oh well. You’ll see soon enough. I hope it was worth it.” With a wave, the beastformer left the room, closing the door behind him.

Once again, it was dark and he could not see.

He didn’t know how long it had been before the door opened again. He had sent several quiet distress signals, each unique in their encryptions. They all seemed to fizzle out into the air the same way, although that could’ve been a hallucination fabricated by an overtaxed processor. At least he had the time to gain his bearings, and observe the space he was in a little more closely.

It was some sort of torture chamber/medical bay/interrogation room. Four tables extended from the walls either side of him, covered in rusted tools and scrap and suspicious, barely visible stains. He himself was strapped down to a standing berth, although it could’ve just been a slab of metal with cuffs welded on. Heavy magnetization prevented him from doing anything → struggling would only result in unwanted damages.

Prowl had been in this situation more times than he cared to admit; strapped down and unable to move, at the mercy of whoever he was captured by. But those times were differentiated by the fact that he had a plan to get out, he had someone on the inside or help on the way. Here, he was alone. His mind compromised by foreign programming still unknown to him, his analytic systems couldn’t pin anything down.

Heavy footfall, the silhouette of a large frame in the entryway, the agitated clicking of mandibles. An EM field pulsed and licked at his, solid in a way that was angry and hateful. Overwhelming.

That little percentage tracking his safety went from a 65% to a 89% for mortal danger.

“You got me in a lot of trouble.” Bombshell growled, stalking towards him in that unnatural way most insecticons moved. He had pulled something out of subspace, a parcel of something Prowl could not discern, and placed it on the table along with all the other things that lay on the surface.

“Do you understand how humiliating it is? You were vetted, twice, and still you got past me. Fuckin’ annoying.” His eyes refracted the faint light in the room as he turned to Prowl. “…the Pit are you starin’ at?”

He didn’t answer. He knew better, after all, than to agitate someone like Bombshell while he was already in a bad mood. He wasn’t going to offer up some witty quip or jab, like Jazz would do.

Primus, Jazz could be reckless sometimes. What would he do in this situation? Odds pointed to something stupid.

The insecticon huffed. “You’re lucky you’re too valuable to execute. Tactilian Processing Suites aren’t exactly easy to come by,” Razor-sharp fingers grazed the side of Prowls helm. “Yours might be the first intact one that I’ve had access to.”

“So, that’s what this is all about? You want my processor?” Prowl narrowed his gaze at him.

“It’s all you’re good for.”

Prowl felt himself frown a little bit. Brief, but visible enough for Bombshell to feel all smug and proud of himself. The insecticon stepped back, bringing his attention back to the little parcel. Prowl watched as he unwrapped it, but his bulky kibble obscured what it exactly was, so he glanced back up to his face.

“You won’t break me. I’ll die before I tell you anything or turn traitor, or whatever you want me to do.” Prowl muttered. It sounded very rehearsed, but that was just because he had said it often. It didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

“I don’t need to break you, that would defeat the purpose of keeping you. Besides…” Bombshell stepped up to him, the edges of his frame seemingly blurred and doubled. “Seeing the pride melt off an Autobots face is...so much more entertaining.”

The cuffs unlatched and the magnetization on the slab cut entirely, causing Prowl to stumble forward. He used that momentum to hide himself grabbing a piece of scrap and flinging it at the general area between Bombshell’s throat and eyes.

The rusted disk went right through him, embedding itself into the wall behind him.

Prowl backed away from the dissipating illusion. Typical. He should have expected that.

“Don’t be a glitch, basically nothing has changed. You’re still a ‘Decepticon’ in this new arrangement. You’ll still be reporting to me.” Bombshell moved, after-images following him like smeared paint on a wall. “You can go back to your old ‘job’ here, run a whole team as well. There’s this group who recently lost their foreman.”

Prowl stopped. Froze up. A horrible, disgusting little shiver traveled all throughout his body before several geared started to click in his processor. Like something came and shoved a wall between the lines of his mind. Like tar, he started to slip out of his own body. That was the closest thing he could describe it as.

Bombshell squealed, almost giggling as he observed whatever was happening to Prowl’s physical body. The noise sounded distant. Echoing.

“I can’t believe it actually worked! Ohoho, this is going to be so fun!”

Chapter Text

Bombshell walked him down the expansive hallways of the station, floor B12, his lurching gait matching Prowl’s stiff, quick pace. He didn’t know where they were going.

Sure, he could guess—Prowl had the whole place mapped out—but trying to think had become a concentrated effort. Accessing the Tactilian Suite in this state would take more effort and time than he could afford to spend.

The lack of control was frustrating. Terrifying.

It couldn’t have been hypnosis. If it was, he wouldn’t even be aware of his surroundings right now. Conscious and aware…was it the reprogramming Scalpel did moments ago? Or was that for something completely different?

They entered a room bathed in shadows and dozens upon dozens of small, shining red optics. The only features he could recognize were a bench and a wall-mounted table. Two figures stood out among the writhing darkness.

Shrapnel → Outlier → Sadistic → Dangerous

Venom → Chief of Security → Commonly Considered to be the Leader of the Insecticons → Paranoid → Dangerous

Bombshell pointed to the bench. “Sit down.”

Prowl did just that. Shrapnel snickered.

“How’s the new toy, toy?”

“The cerebro-shells are taking nicely,” Bombshell grabbed his face, claws digging into soft protoform. “Look how obedient he is! He just tried to kill me a moment ago, now he can’t even move without my input!”

Prowl felt his face being shaken around, pinpricks of blood welling around Bombshell’s claws.

“Such a nice face. You wouldn’t bat an optic if I told you to lick my feet or eat biohazard waste, would you? I could—”

Venom hissed. “We’re not here to play games. Just get what we came for.”

Bombshell’s visor dulled, and he let go of Prowl to take the data pad Venom handed to him. With a soft sigh, he flicked through screens Prowl couldn’t see until he reached the one he needed.

“Tell me how many Autobot bases are on Antilla, and where they are.”

Unbidden, Prowl felt his mouth move, classified information spilling from his lips. He couldn’t stop himself. He tried. He couldn’t.

Epsilon 04

Zeta 05

Ironwork Base

Ulipsis

Site 045188

Bombshell wrote them all down. “In your humble opinion, if we were to scale an attack on any of them, which one would cripple the Autobot faction the most?”

He told them, the Tac Net supplying infiltration strategies while he spoke. Epsilon, Ironwork and Ulipsis were all vital, supplying weapons without risk of being detected by Decpeticon forces. It was because of the rust storms, no one in their right mind would go to a desolate planet and risk contracting cosmic rust for no good reason. It was the perfect place to hide, it—

Those people were going to die.

There was going to be an unexpected raid they would be wholly unaware about and unprepared to face. Weapons would be taken, communications and transmission records—

They were going to die.

They wouldn’t be able to run away due to the rust storms, unless they wanted to contract that deadly cosmic affliction. They wouldn’t be able to contact anyone for help → no one would answer in time → no one would come for them → not until it was too late.

Question after question he answered without fail or hesitation until Venom stepped forward.

“Enough.” He snatched the data pad from Bombshell’s hands. “Turn it off. We got what we came for, we don’t need to compromise ourselves further.”

“But—”

“Do it later. Now turn. it. off.”

Bombshell growled deep within his chest, but didn’t try to argue further. He pulled out what looked like some kind of initiator switch and unceremoniously pressed it.

He rebooted face down and shaking. Exhaustion and disorientation blurred his vision. Hunger clawed at his fuel tank. There was a buzzing sound in the left side of his helm.

After a moment, he shuffled onto his knees and looked around. It was hard to identify anything in the state he was in; he was in some sort of room, that’s as much as he could tell.

“Oh, you’re not dead. That’s good.”

Mindwipe’s fuchsia frame came into focus. Leaning against a wall, arms crossed over his chest, he smiled down at him with all his glinting pointed teeth.

“He’d have my hide if his newest toy broke on the first try, like that’s my fault.”

He wasn’t doing anything other than staring him down with that gleaming visor, but Prowl kept his guard up. Kept his optics from straying too closely to Mindwipe’s. It was a struggle, but with a lot of willpower and support from the wall Prowl got up onto his feet. His helm swayed and swam, the faint buzzing noise ebbing with the thrum of his processor.

Mindwipe was saying something. He forced himself to listen.

“—kinda an aft, you know.” He complained, waving his hand around. “Thinks he’s so important, cackling like an idiot and putting those fragging parasites in people. Like that’s a job.”

Prow blinked, clearing his vision somewhat if not his confusion. “…what are you doing here?”

Mindwipe had the audacity to shrug.

“Oh, who knows. I’m essentially your chaperone.” Mindwipe said, like that explained anything. Still, his processor chewed on it like it did with everything.

Chaperone → Guard → Warden.

“Where’s Bombshell?”

“You’ll see him soon enough.” Pushing himself off of the wall, the beastformer went over and tried to thread his arm with Prowl’s. “Come on. It’s time for your check-up.”

Like he was going anywhere with a Decepticon.

With a surprising amount of speed and coordination for his impaired state, Prowl grabbed his wrist, twisted it behind him and rammed him into the wall, effectively switching their positions.

Mindwipe let out a yelp of surprise before Prowl hooked his fingers in the roof of his mouth and bent his head back—not enough to rip it off but he easily could have.

Sharp teeth cut down on finger plating and his other arm flailed as he tried to claw at Prowl. He ignored it in favor of searching for a keycard of some kind—they were usually slotted in under wrist or collar plating. He didn’t have a lot of time for this impromptu escape, eventually someone was going to come and check on them. He needed to leave, or alternatively hide somewhere and bide his time.

A little red disc slid out of a joint component, small and semi-opaque → Level 2 Clearance Keycard.

Clutching it safely in his fist, Prowl proceeded to let go of Mindwipe’s teeth and bashed his face into the wall. Just enough to crack his visor, knock him unconscious… or at least disorientate him enough for him not to call security immediately. Dropping him to the ground, Prowl slipped out from that little room, speeding down dim corridors as quietly as he could.

Mission → Compromised

Was Discovered by Decepticons → Was Unable to Plant Kill Code → All Other Objectives Complete

Current Objective → Leave

The blank, near-featureless walls of the Hive greeted him, familiar after two cycles of working undercover. The Tac Net helpfully recalled the map he made of the place. If he could get to the hanger, he could hot wire a shuttle and hopefully escape undetected. Not that it would be hard, considering how empty the place seemed.

That fact did elicit some unease in him. He noted the silence, and the lack of lights. He noted the sound still buzzing in his audial system, though it had significantly lessened. The Tactilian Suite ate every scrap of information hungrily, sectioning it with the list of things he already knew about the Hive.

Why was it so quiet? Where were the guards, or any of the personnel that worked on this station? He took another turn at level F-02—one more before he got to the hanger—checking over his shoulder as he went further.

No guards. No workers, no drones. There was no one.

Something was wrong. He knew it, the feeling scratched under his plating. Mindwipe wasn’t an idiot; he should have alerted somebody by now, anybody.

The hallways shouldn’t have been so empty. So quiet. Why were the lights quiet? Yet his Tactilian Suite didn’t report anything being wrong or suspicious. His safety stayed at a level 59%.

He took the last turn his map said he needed to take and paused. Prowl stared at the long, darkened expanse of hallway in front of him instead of the hanger bay that was supposed to be right there.

He cross referenced the map again. He looked down the darkened hall again.

He took a few tentative steps forward, tracing the wall to make sure it wasn’t some fabrication of his mind—and sure enough, it was a solid expanse of metal wall beneath his palm. Cold, dead metal, not thrumming with electrical currents or the whisper of comm messages.

Prowl kept moving (because what else could he do?), occasionally glancing over his shoulder just to check that no one was behind him. No one was.

Sometimes the hallway would have a sharp bend or turn, but none of them led to the hanger bay. He couldn’t even find any doors. It was just hallway after hallway after hallway.

His mind bended and hazed the further he went down the twisting, never ending hallways. The map didn’t change. The buzzing in his audial systems kept growing louder and louder, drowning out any thought that could have come into his helm. Yet the Tac Net kept churning out data. Even if it was the same data.

He was so distracted that he didn’t even notice when he ran directly into the raised arm of a security guard, knocking him flat out on the ground.

The most he remembered after that was being dragged along the floor in that dazed state.

Dragged through a door.

Hauled up onto a flat surface.

He blinked and then he was there, in a different small room restrained to a different medical berth. It was a little bit brighter, if having a lamp shoved in your face was what you could consider ‘a little’. Grimacing, Prowl subtly tested this bindings. Magnetization and woven poly fiber, weak enough on their own to break out of, but together proved that he could not escape easily.

Eventually, the lamp was moved off to the side. Prowl blinked, clearing his vision, and glanced around the room as soon as he could see again.

There were at least three medical personnel in the room, all of them monitoring him to some degree.

The only frame in the room he could recognize was his least favorite hypnotists beastformer (as if there were any others). Mindwipe stood to the side with his arms crossed over his chest, sporting some scuffs and a nasty web of cracks spreading through his visor. He didn’t look as smug as he usually did.

Good.

One of the medical assistants turned to Mindwipe. “All damage is external. No internal processor damage as far as I can tell, sir.”

“This whole thing could be so much easier,” Mindwipe grumbled, rubbing at his optics under his visor. “Couldn’t you just stick his processor in a drone or something?”

Scalpel’s voice floated in from somewhere unseen. “These kinds of things are integrated into the processor. I’d more likely damage it than anything.”

“And we can’t have that, huh?” Mindwipe sighed, leaning a hand against the table Prowl was strapped to.

Prowl resisted the urge to bite his fucking hand off.

He perked up at the sound of a door sliding open with a slam. He saw Mindwipe snap his head up and back away from the berth, muttering something with a nervous grin. A heavy gait rattled the floor, just as Bombshell’s laugh seemed to rattle the air around them.

“First escape attempt, very nice. Sloppy, but fun nonetheless.” Bombshell leaned in close, visor gleaming. “Look at you, proving to be fun.”

Despite himself, Prowl flinched away from him, but not from any kind of fear. It was that fucking buzzing . It grew louder the closer Bombshell got to him, drowning out nearly every other sound save for Bombshell himself.

…Prowl decided that wasn’t just a coincidence.

Bombshell grabbed his face and yanked it, forcing him to look the insecticon in the optic. “C’mon, you can give me more than that!”

The tiniest whisper slipped past both his judgment and his patience. “…frag off.”

Warning → You Should Not Have Said That

Bombshell cackled and stepped back, whipping around to gaze at Mindwipe. “Nothing’s wrong with the off switch?”

“Scalpel said it’s fine.” The bat said, shifting any potential blame from himself. “And he woke up fine, as you can see.”

Bombshell hummed. “And what about our next scheduled appointment, are you ready for that?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Good.” Bombshell waved his claws. “Let him up.”

Mindwipe’s visor flickered and flashed. “S-sir?”

“He won’t do anything.” Bombshell reassured him, his tone of voice very thin and disconcerting. “Let him up.”

He only briefly hesitated, but with a soft grumble Mindwipe undid the bindings keeping Prowl tied down. The magnetization was lowered as well.

It took a little effort to sit up. Prowl rubbed the joints in his wrists, keeping his sights on the people currently in the room; Bombshell was right about one thing, he wasn’t going to do anything. Save Bombshell, none of the mechs in this room have definitive combat experience. Scalpel and his assistants were medical personnel, and Mindwipe was primarily a spy. However, the assistants had a 66% chance of  successfully restraining him if he decided to fight them, Scalpel was a minicon made primarily out of knives and Mindwipe was a hypnotist. The provided scenarios the Tactilian Suite was giving him proved the odds weren’t in his favor.

So, he was just going to have to wait for a better opportunity.

Chapter Text

Scrapper was good at his job, he and his crew. He followed orders without question, and his boys followed him. Loyal as Decepticons could be. It was just like any other contract work before the war, just with a little bit more murder.

But all good things must come to an end.

Loyalty couldn’t save you from a bullet to the head.

The shuttle rattled as it flew over the grey stretch of dusty Velocitronian waste. The poor guy got shelled as they were leaving the basically destroyed Autobot site. Hook didn’t know his name, and didn’t care to, and he’d probably die when they got back anyways. His attention was solely focused on the crew at the current moment.

“Follow the light.” He muttered, shining the little finger mod in Long Haul’s broken-in face.

Long Haul did without much complaint. He was one of the easier of the crew to do after-battle check ups on. His optics, visible through the shattered glass of his visor, moved up and down and side-to-side.

Bonecrusher sighed. “He’s fine, Scav, stop fussing.”

Hook hadn’t even noticed the long, nervous feeling through the bond until it wavered at those words.

“I ain’t doin’ slag.” He muttered, his twitching tail giving him away even further.

Hook shuffled over to him next, shining the light in his face. “Follow the light.”

Scavenger winced, blinking a couple of times before doing as he was told. Up and down. Side-to-side.

The shuttle shuttered again as he went through some turbulence. Or he hit a rock. Bonecrusher slammed his fist against the wall a couple times, yelling “Move straight you piece of slag”. Hook moved on to Mixmaster once he deemed Scavenger to be okay.

“H-Hook.”

Up and down.

“What?”

Side-to-side.

“Wh-hat do you want to do with that thing?” Mixmaster pointed to something behind him.

Hook let his sights shift to the drone briefly. It laid there on the floor, sparking and twitching as it died. It happened with every single one of them. There was something that happened with drones when combining that fucked them past the point of repair—it happened with the Stunticons, it happened with them. It happened with those damn Aerialbots, even though they had more living members than a five-part gestalt needed.

He waved his hand. “What do you take me for, your motherboard? Do what you want with it.”

“Wait!” Scavenger jumped up, even though Bonecrusher shoved him back down into his seat. “I brought it in fair and square, you can’t just call dibs on it!”

Bonecrusher groaned. “Nobody asked you to bring it with us, Scav!”

Before they could go into a full-blown argument, the shuttle rattled violently for the last time and landed rough in the Base 80 hanger bay. The sound of mechanics yelling could faintly be heard from inside the shuttle. Hook quickly did the last of his checkups as the shuttle doors opened to the hanger with several grinding clicks and a heavy clunk. There was an audible wheeze of vents, blasting hot air onto all of them. It stunk of rust.

The constructicons clambered out of the mech, Mixmaster being the slowest as he dragged the drone out with him.

Hook spared a glance towards the shuttle, just to check out the damage.

It wasn’t great.

Heavy denting and tears that prevented transforming, excessive bleeding, he even saw some liquidity rust oozing out of seams which couldn’t have been good; he was probably going to have to take care of it, being the resident medic in the base.

However, before he could even begin to yell at the grumbling mechanics strewn about the hanger bay to help him with the big hunk of metal, he heard someone shouting his name.

“Hook! Get your sorry aft over here!”

He turned, grimacing at the sight of Strika standing a ways away from him, arms crossed over her chest.

Megatron’s best general, big, powerful and destructive. Subsequently, she was in charge of the constructicons and their own destructive capabilities, perfect for fighting on the frontline. The relationship between them was simple: they didn’t like each other. Scrapper (somehow) had got along with her fine, and she didn’t really care about the others. She just had a problem with Hook.

“What do you want?” He exclaimed, marching up to her. “We cleared out that fraggin’ base without a problem. I’m a busy mech, Strika, I can’t—”

She shoved a data pad in his face. “You’re being reassigned. You and your crew.”

He blinked, stunned for a moment. Then he snatched the thing out of her hands, earning him a disdainful scoff.

The message wasn’t long. Just like she said, they were being requested at some space station in the middle of nowhere. There was some vague stuff about experimentation and gestalts and stuff, signed by a Venom.

Venom?

“What do the fraggin’ bugs want with us?” Hook asked.

“Pit if I know.” Strika replied oh so helpfully. “The important part is that you’ll be out of my circuits for the time being. Now get moving.”

“With what ride?” Hook pointedly glanced back at the shuttle.

She waved him away. “Don’t worry about him, just get to hanger bay 02.”

Hook sighed, looking back at the crew. What a day.

Prowl took a deep breath, the sound harsh against the complete silence of his little room → prison cell. His vents rattled unevenly as stale air fluttered through them. After a few more to steady himself, he transformed away the panel on his forearm to reveal several long, thin metal needles. He grabbed one by the eyelet and delicately slid it out into open air.

What he was about to do—as the Tactilian Suite was loudly informing him—was highly inadvisable. There was a 51% percent chance that it would do nothing at all, serving only to hurt him. Badly.

However, letting the Decepticons get anymore sensitive information out of him was out of the question.

He didn’t have the time, skill or resources to bypass all his firewalls and encryptions through medical ports or even a systems hardline, so he was just going to have to do this manually.

Carefully, he pressed the tip to the base of his helm. It was difficult trying to find the old puncture wounds from…previous experiences. He remarked to himself that this would be so much easier with another person, or at least a mirror. When he finally found one that would work, he braced himself, and pushed it in.

It stung.

As he wiggled it deeper, his vision fuzzed out at certain points, the Tac Net flashing foreign intrusion warnings. He grit his teeth against the feeling of cold, dead metal slowly entering his processor. When the eyelet hit the base of his neck with one final ill-advised shove, an involuntary groan floated out of his throat.

Lovely familiar feelings. He could almost pretend someone was on the other end of the needle.

His teeth bit down on his knuckles, malforming the metal of it as he pushed down the stinging pain and tingling sensation trying to spread out through his processor. Focus. Focus. He didn’t have time for distractions.

He proceeded to do the same thing three more times. It hurt more than it felt good. It was just dead metal, after all. When they were all in, he twisted and jiggled them by the eyelets. Painstakingly, he picked at and scrubbed the most important files from his memory bank. One by one, he felt them fade away with a prickling sensation that spread down his spine.

His teeth ground against his fingers, holding back sounds that wanted to escape his intake. Warnings filled his vision until he could barely see.

His hand was starting to shake as it grasped at the eyelets, slowly getting slick with…slag, was he bleeding? He cursed under his breath. This was the point where he just needed the things out of his helm. He ripped them out. The needles clattered to the floor, accompanied by the splatter of blood. He could feel it flowing down his back, between his doorwings, and also the distinct feeling of…wriggling → squirming → crawling on the back of his neck.

Prowl glanced down at his shaking hand, and it was hard to see through all the warnings and static that filled his vision, but he could make out the energon dripping off his fingers. He could feel the squirming of soft-bodied things on his hand, shriveling up and dying in the open air.

Cerebro-shells → Processor Parasites → Bombshell’s pests that he put in his helm.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Prowl whipped around, hand flying up to cover his bleeding, infested wounds.

For a moment, through the haze of his vision, he thought it was Jazz standing in that doorway. That would’ve been a pleasant surprise, if not somewhat embarrassing. But Jazz didn’t sound like that. His voice was smooth and melodic, with an accent you couldn’t quite pin down.

Besides, why would Jazz be here?

Mindwipe cautiously approached him, flanked by two guards and two medical assistants. Prowl scrambled up from his knees, but the guards were quick to restrain him. One pushed him back to the ground, face pressed against the dusty floor, while the other pointed the barrel of his rifle to his head. One of the medical assistants jacked into a medical port, her scanners poking and prodding at his systems.

He kept his optics on Mindwipe. The bat stepped around him to the needles scattered on the floor, picking one up between two fingers. He looked disgusted.

“Primus, were you trying to lobotomize yourself?” Mindwipe exclaimed. “Ugh, and you spilled those pests everywhere! Bombshell is going to kill me…I swear, you’re a nightmare to deal with.”

The medic plucked the cable from his port, not even bothering to shut it. “He’s clear. The cerebro-shells are agitated, but he didn’t loose too many of them. This was a manual hack job.”

Mindwipe’s focus snapped onto Prowl and he marched up to his prone form.

“What were you doing?”

Prowl glanced up at him. From where he was pinned, he really could only see the beastformer’s legs and hips. A little bit of his clawed hand. His gaze slid off of his and to the side, his teeth clenched and lips decidedly not spilling anything.

Mindwipe kicked him square in the face.

“Answer.” He growled.

Prowl spat energon at his feet.

Mindwipe kicked him again for that. And then kicked him again with the strength of all that agitation and repressed anger in his body. Through the ringing of his processor, Prowl could make out an order about getting him up. And he was, roughly pulled to his feet and shoved through the door.

The medic walked behind him, pressing some kind of poly cloth rag to his neck to stem the bleeding. Cerebro-shells were pushed against the metal, trapped and squirming. Prowl felt some of them crawl back into his head via his wounds. He wanted to purge.

His vision was clearing just as they entered into the medical room, its familiar stained walls greeting him as well as that cold hard medical slab. The three mechs hauling him around immediately got to work with trying to restrain him. One of the guards shoved him harshly onto the flat surface, pushing down on his chest and shoulder. The wrist strapped in place, not quite tight enough to properly restrain him yet. He needed to act fast.

“Should I weld up these puncture wounds?” The assistant asked.

“Don’t bother right now. We’re tearing up the flooring anyways, aren’t we?” Mindwipe pressed the comm link behind his ear. Two conversations at once, impressive. “Get those needles out of him, we don’t need him doing…whatever he did again. While you’re at it, do a deep scan and find anything else he might be hiding.”

Before they could tie down his other arm, Prowl swung as hard as he could at the guards face. With a grunt, he stumbled back, slamming into a wall. The other surged forward, firearm in hand, and Prowl kicked it out of his grasp. It fell somewhere on the floor. The medical assistant cursed and ducked down, while Mindwipe was fully pulled out of his comm session with whoever he was talking to.

“Hold him still—” Mindwipe narrowly jumped back from the swift kick aimed at him. “Damnit, what did I just say?!”

Prowl kicked the berth pulley with his heel, swinging him backwards and knocking those two guards away again. He flipped himself over and onto his feet, one rough jerk snapping the poly fiber restraint.

He scooted back, crouching, his hands sweeping the ground for that rifle. The guards groaned as they were getting up, and that medic was eyeing him like she was debating doing something.

His fingers graced the barrel of the rifle. It was Tarn made, light and disposable, 50 round caliber, maybe 45. He flipped it into his hands and stood up.

“Nobody move!” Prowl snapped, almost snarling. “I’ll blow your slagging heads off!”

Chapter Text

The barrel of the blaster wavered a bit as his optics flicked over the four mechs in the room. The two guards, to the right and left of him, both in hunched over positions → the medical assistant, crouched down by a table → Mindwipe, hiding behind the medical slab like a coward.

They all waited for someone to make the first move.

The silence was heavy. As were the breaths Prowl was heaving in and out of his vents. The Tactilian Suite was running hot, calculating positions and probabilities and offering battle predictions. Currently, there were 15 battle scenarios that could happen at any moment; it was just a matter of when.

His tracking systems caught a twitch of movement.

Right guard, pulling a pistol out of subspace. Shooting him was a split second reaction.

The guard’s hand exploded in a shower of warped metal and energon splattering on the wall. The other took the opportunity to rush and tackle him from behind, attempting to grapple him to the ground. Shoving the heel of the rifle and a hand between the space of his neck and the guards arm, Prowl flipped him over his shoulder, sending him crashing down into the floor.

Footsteps behind him, 5 paces from reaching him.

Prowl whipped around and blocked the strike with the length of the rifle; medical assistant was brandishing a syringe. Sedative fluids, no doubt. Shifting his grip, he jostled and shoved the medic off of him, sending that sedative plinking to the ground. Before she could recover, he slammed his foot directly into her abdomen, sending her careening back into a table. Medical equipment clattered to the ground.

Subroutines whirred as his optics glanced around. He needed to get out. Now was the time—go, go, go. He blasted a warning shot into the wall where a black clawed hand was trying to reach for the door panel before marching up to it. Mindwipe yelped and scrambled out of the way under a table.

Once again, he slipped out of a room with at least one unconscious body.

Hook fucking hated this place.

He didn’t like space stations in general, he liked being on solid ground, but this took the cake for shitty locations to be stuck in. Barely lit, poorly designed floor plan, hard to find exits and airlocks. Just walking in, they could see sections of piping and insulation that needed to be replaced—insulation that was important to have when orbiting a quasar pumping out high radiation. Insecticons moved in the shadows, watching them with their freaky refractive eyes. Their hab suite didn’t even have a berth.

So, bad hospitality and bad station design. What else was there? Oh right. The guy who ran the place.

Venom.

He was a big guy, colored in orange, green black and white. His plating was sharp and segmented, less mechanical and more organic looking. And he had this weird helmet on that might’ve just been his head, Hook didn’t know and he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Second day they were here and Venom pulled Hook out of his hab suite and into the hall.

“Apologies for the abrupt reassignment. Secrecy was of the most importance.” Venom’s glossy wings flicked and fluttered as he pulled the constructicon deeper into the hallway.

Hook frowned, but didn’t curse him out like he wanted to. “It’s…fine.”

“I’ve come to know that your gestalt is currently lacking.” Vemon’s voice was quiet, hissing and clicking modifiers that Hook didn’t understand. “We might be able to provide you with your long awaited sixth.”

Hook was mildly surprised. When Scrapper died he just kinda assumed they would be stuck with drones forever, based on how command handled the problem. His frown deepened.

“Why?”

“Reports of Devastators performance on the battlefield has been described as…lacking. One of my colleagues developed a project that could fix that issue. Commander Shockwave approved it just recently.” He handed Hook a data pad.

The first thing that drew his attention was the word Autobot. It was a black site, so it didn’t surprise him that they’d keep POWs here. He was a praxian, light frametype with an advanced processing unit. His expression soured deeper at the thought of a Barricade-type becoming part of the gestalt.

And speaking of that, could he? Hook had to do some quick math for frame compatibility. They were all heavy industrial frametypes, even that runt Scavenger. It was good that he was cold constructed like them, made merging easier. It would take a little doing but...

“Yeah, he’ll do.” Hook shrugged, concluding on a big fat maybe, handing back the data pad to Venom. “Don’t know if he’ll take, though.”

The Insecticon twitched. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve churned through a lot of drones, none of them survive the first merge.” There was a bunch of scientific jargon that went in deep with how gestalts functioned, but Hook barely understood that. Basically, when the group became one, their minds become one too.

“This is a living Cybertronian.”

“Yeah, and it happens to ‘living Cybertronians’ too.” Hook crossed his arms over his chest.

Drones didn’t have minds so they broke afterwards. Mechs that couldn’t merge, from weak minds to strong wills to being part of a different gestalt consciousness, similarly broke. They didn’t have any problems when they were a complete crew, cause they were hardy, sturdy, made together. They fit perfectly.

He was sure as the Pit that that sour little Autobot praxian would snap like a rust stick under the weight of Devastator.

Venom bristled with agitation before seemingly answering a comm. Rude aft bugs. Hook grimaced and rolled his head, leaning against the wall as he waited.

“You’re missing the head, correct?”

“Yep.”

Hook thought he heard the bug mutter ‘convenient’ under his breath. What that meant he didn’t want to know. He picked at some grit stuck in between his elbow joint.

“As a medical officer and gestalt member, you are permitted to be in the room for the procedure.” Venom drawling on, like he was reading the terms and conditions of a contract. “You are allowed to opt out if that suits you better.”

Hook thought it over a moment. It might be wise to at least see how the mech would connect to the rest of them, give out some pointers to the medical staff. “…sure. Why not?”

“Do you agree to preliminary testing after the initial procedure?”

Hook paused, pinging the crew before answering that. One by one they replied with easy agreement, with only Long Haul pulsing out a half-interested .:: why are you asking? ::. to him.

“What would that entail?”

Venom clicked, his field and body language reading distaste. All for a simple question. “That’s classified information. The most I can tell you is this: you’ll be killing Autobots.”

Hook huffed. They could get behind that.

Venom looked about ready to say something else when his entire body stiffened up. His hand physically went up towards his comm link and he turned from Hook, wings fluttering with agitation.

The Insecticon didn’t spare him a glance as he hurriedly said: “Excuse me, but I am needed elsewhere. You can return to your habsuite.”

Before he could even say anything to that, Venom flew off.

Exhaustion was a weight hung around his shoulders, but Prowl couldn’t afford to stop now.

His hurried steps echoed down the hallways. Or maybe someone was following him. He didn’t look back to check.

Prowl skidded as he turned a corner, slipping on nothing, but recovered quickly. He had to, two armed guards were quickly coming towards him. Their mandibles chattered. Reticles wavered over them as he aimed.

The first one, to the right, fell to a single bullet to the helm. It didn’t combust or explode like most mechs did, there were too many organic components for that. The second was a bit trickier as it rushed at him, claws hooking around the body of the gun.

Mandibles splitting the face to reveal sharp teeth gnashing. Hydraulic muscles struggling to wrench his weapon from him.

After a tense moment of struggling, Prowl finally rested the gun back in his steady grip and blasted the bug. Only in the shoulder, he didn’t have time to fully aim, but it served as a good enough distraction. He kept running.

But where was he going? He rounded another corner, rolling under the swipe of a surprise guardsman and smacking him across the face with rifle’s heel. His visor shattered under the blow, his dented facial plating further ruined by the bullet going through it.

He didn’t have an actual plan of escape. The most he had planned was conserving ammo, maybe hiding somewhere. But where could he hide where they wouldn’t find him?

Footsteps, 15 paces behind him, but separated by a locked door. He could hear someone bark orders to cut it open.

And would running even help him? He couldn’t trust the map or the architecture that he spent so long memorizing based on the fact he was pretty sure he had been running in circles for the past…who knew how long. How long had his chronometer been turned off?

Glancing around, he found an opportunity: a maintenance hatch. The number seven was painted on, along with some scratched text about how only maintenance workers were allowed to go through these tunnels. At the sound of a laser cutter sawing through the locked door, Prowl kicked in the maintenance hatch and climbed inside.

It was cramped. Dark. His plating scrapped against the dull, rough metal. He had to press his door wings closer to his body than they already were, limiting his senses. He could still hear skittering all around him, mandibles clicking and snapping, claws so close to wrapping around an ankle and just pulling. It was distracting.

He misjudged where the ladder was because of that.

Prowl would not describe himself as dexterous, and he sure enough wasn’t flexible in any way. So he fell ungracefully on the metal grating of a catwalk, the hard landing punching a grunt out of him. Jazz would have stuck the landing, and laughed at Prowl falling on his aft.

He rose unsteady, not quite shaking off the dazed feeling seeping into him.

The thrum of power signatures ran through everything; the walls, the grating, the plethora of towering, blinking electrical equipment. There were three maintenance hatches that led to this place, all multiples of the number 7. This was where he was originally supposed to plant the kill code, before being apprehended.

He could still do that. Salvage the mission before he was captured again—or more likely killed.

Leaning against one of the terminals, he slipped out a chip from his heel. It was an unassuming thing, sleek and black with little in the way of engravings, but devastating nonetheless. This was the second one. Always carry a second.

“Persistent, aren’t you?”

Whipping around, he aimed directly for the spark chamber.

Click click click. 

Prowl grit his teeth together. “Slag.”

Bombshell tilted his head, and although he couldn’t see it, Prowl got the distinct feeling he was smiling under that mask.

He raised the switch.

Click.

Chapter Text

Prowl rebooted sharply, suddenly. It was unnatural enough to make him uncomfortable. Restrained again, unsurprising. It was dark too.

Someone was yelling.

“I told you to keep your projects fucking secure! This was a major security issue!” Venom. Compared to all the other times he met him, the Insecticon sounded absolutely livid.

“I got him back.” Bombshell sounded bored.

“And what, I’m supposed to praise you for that?” Hissing, clicking. “Nine station personnel injured, Bombshell. Nine, in the span of 25 minutes.”

“I think I can count, Venom.”

“Those brutes I have in B12 were only supposed to be staying for two cycles, but thanks to the incompetence of you and your mammalian secretary, we have to reschedule this stupid procedure. They’ll have to stay longer and that in of itself—”

“Primus below me, shut uuup!” A petulant whine floated from Bombshell. “Do I need to remind you that this is not just about the foreman thing? He has valuable information that you want stored in that helm of his.”

A short laugh. “Really? Really? Do you want to test that out right now?”

“Sure, why not!”

They stomped their way into his clearing vision. Beady, shining optics and a red visor glared down at him.

“Activate it.” Venom snapped.

Bombshell sighed. “Foreman, tell us where Garrus-9 is.”

Like before, he felt himself slip half out his own body, his higher processing functions numbing with a dull buzz. Everything stiffened before relaxing into something more pliant. But, when he went to answer (as he was compelled to), he found that he couldn’t.

Memory Bank → Files → Garrus-9 → [Data Not Available]

He didn’t know what they were talking about.

Bombshell straightened, his EM field wavering with…something. He snapped his fingers. “Hello? Foreman, answer my question. Where is Garrus-9?”

“I don’t know.”

Bombshell seized his face with both hands, claws digging into his face. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Oh yes,” Venom spoke, his namesake leaking into every low tone of his voice. “Your secretary and the staff handling him told me all about it. Manual hijacking, Bombshell, straight to the processor.”

Bombshell whipped his helm up in disbelief and outrage. Venom continued.

“Before, I was simply annoyed that you were risking possibly our most valuable asset on a frontline combiner team. Now, now I’m pissed because he’s fucking useless to us now!”

“There’s still uses—”

“What, your cerebro-shells? A complete gestalt for the Decepticon army? A hostage? The Autobots already discovered where we are based on the obvious spy we have here—” Venom gestured down at Prowl. “—we were going to have to abandon this location anyways. What use is another captive infected with cerebro-shells?”

“They are easier to control.” Bombshell hissed.

“Easier to control?? Do I need to remind you again of what just happened?!”

Their arguing started to devolve into angry hissing and snapping mandibles. They almost looked like they were ready to maim each other over Prowl’s prone form. He winced at the added cacophony of sound as Venom’s wings started to flutter rapidly with agitation.

After a moment, Bombshell spat and growled something, waving his claw as he turned his back to the chief of security.

Venom kept hissing, but his words once again becoming easier to understand. “I know what this is. This allll is a ploy to undermine me, you subpar, half-scientist piece of slag!”

“Oh there you go with your fucking paranoia.” Bombshell snarled somewhere to the right.

“I keep this place running despite your projects, despite Shrapnel’s attempts at frying the circuitry out of the walls and despite Primus and the very universe seeking to grind me down to a smear on the floor I persevered. It doesn’t matter if the Autobots found us, they won’t find us again. But if this happens again, Bombshell—” Bombshell attempted to cut in but Venom was having none of it. A fist slammed down next to Prowl’s head, his next words shutting the Insecticon up in an instant. “—undermine me again and I will fucking eat you!”

Venom stomped away and out of sight, only the sound of the door shutting denoting his departure. There was no sound. No noise. No time that he could observe. Barely any room to think, the cerebro-shells buzzing in his head.

Finally, Bombshell broke the silence with a frustrated sigh. “Can you believe him?”

His heavy footsteps grew closer.

“He’s like this with everything. Stifling. Back-breaking rules follower.” Bombshell came into view, visor gleaming. Knife in hand. “You know, I’m almost angrier at him than I am at you.”

He leaned in close, wrenching his head up by the chin and tracing the flat of the blade over neck cables and fuel lines.

“How many of these would I be able to cut before you started to bleed out?”

With the cerebro-shells still active, Prowl came up with an answer with the quick estimational help of the Tac Net. “6, if you didn’t cut the major lines. Cutting Main Line 1 would leave me with 2 minutes to live.”

“…that’s good to know.” He slipped the blade under one of the cables, pulling it taut but not cutting it.

Prowl felt his face twitch from the constant pinching sensation in his neck. Bombshell watched unflinching, unmoving.

“How did you do it? The hijacking thing?”

“In my right arm compartment I have 16 needles stored for various uses. I inserted four into the base of my helm, accessed my memory banks and wiped information valuable to the Autobot cause.”

“Those are street doctor techniques. You done this before?”

Embarrassment and shame flashed through him as he answered. “Yes.”

Bombshell removed the knife from his neck cables only to jab it into the thin transformation seam of his arm and pry it open. Prowl felt his vocalizer hitch with pain as it forcefully popped open, the plate clattering to the floor with a few drops of blood.

Bombshell plucked one of the sixteen—now twelve— needles between his claws, examining it with a detached sort of interest. “Are these custom made?”

“Yes.”

“Did you make them?”

“No.”

“Does it hurt when you do it?”

“Not always.”

Bombshell grumbled and grabbed the rest of them out of his arm, throwing them haphazardly over his shoulder to clatter to the floor somewhere. He leaned in close, examining or scrutinizing Prowl.

Then he leaned closer, body twisting as he climbed on top of him. This close, even in the dark, Prowl got to see all the ugly little details of the Insecticon frame. Shell-like frame, the pumping of organic internals, limb kibble that twitched occasionally. Prowl half felt his insides twist as Bombshell straddled his waist.

The point of the knife touched his chest plate. “I’m bored. Ask me a question.”

That request granted him a refreshing breath of freedom, a little bit of himself slipping back into his frame. Prowl blinked and floundered for a moment before he came up with something.

“…what did you do to me?”

Bombshell twirled the knife, watching as it scrapped white paint off of Prowls frame. “Elaborate. Maybe I’ll answer.”

Prowl narrowed his optics. “Your surgeon, Scalpel. He put something in my helm that isn’t the cerebro-shells. What does the switch do?”

“Oooh that!” Bombshell sat up, pulling the thing from his subspace. “It’s simple, a ‘required security measure’ by that little glitch of a security officer. I can just turn you o—”

“—and on again.”

Prowl’s vision blurred as he was forcibly rebooted back into consciousness, a strangled noise coming out of his throat. The Insecticon chuckled.

“Real handy trick, though it does reset the cerebro-shells.” Bombshell fiddled with the switch, jimmying the button back and forth but not fully pressing it.

The knife was jabbed into his headlight, punching a deep noise of pain out of him.

“You should be fucking grateful I’m spending this much time on you.” Bombshell snarled, getting real close in his face as he twisted the blade. “I feed you, I make you better. Treatin’ your model with more respect than it ever got.”

“ Frag off. ” Prowl said it louder than last time, spitting in Bombshell’s face for good measure.

As a response, he got his head slammed back into the slab. He grit his teeth against the feeling of claws digging into metal.

“I show my appreciation for your brilliant machinery, and how do you repay me? With a fucking attitude.” Bombshell pressed harder, making the metal of his helm creak and groan.

Prowl hissed static as he felt metal dent and crumple under freakish strength. His body tried the buck up and throw him off, but he couldn’t do more than barely squirm.

Harder, harder, harder.

Battle protocols were being flagged by the Tac Net. It wasn’t until he got a warning about internal hemorrhaging did Bombshell suddenly let off. Although that was a generous term for how his claws raked down his face, filling half his vision with fresh blood.

Bombshell sighed, sounding almost wistful. “You make me so angry sometimes. Bring out the worst in me.”

Thankfully, before whatever this was went any further, there was a knock at the door. Bombshell twisted, growling at the sudden interruption.

“I’m busy!!”

He rolled off of Prowl, tripping and stumbling a little as he stomped over to the door. Prowl heard it slide open.

“What do you want? ”

“We’re just here to take measurements, like I told you…”

Scalpel.

Scalpel and his medical team.

The scraping of his sharp limbs paused, and he made a quiet noise of annoyance. “…by the Pit, Bombshell—”

“What? We’re reformatting him anyways, it doesn’t matter.” The Insecticon snapped back. “So do what you came here to do.”

At that light threat, Scalpel shut his mouth and got to work. The bright lights flicked on, blinding him for a moment.

Prowl blinked several times.

The thrum of an engine hummed underneath his feet as he stared at the expanse of red sand stretching on endlessly below him, framed underneath a green-grey sky. Clouds of dust wisped over the dunes. There were no noticeable landmarks as far as he could see, no rocks, no buildings.

How did he…?

What happened?

His frame felt heavier, his processing felt sluggish and itchy. He could almost feel the parasites crawling in him.

Prowl kept staring out into the desert, his grip flexing against the handle bar he was holding.

This was Antilla.

Oh.

Oh no.

No no no—

“There it is.” The inward hiss of air through vent systems, and the chittering of mandibles. “Finally. At least you were useful for this.”

It took physical effort for Prowl to turn his head, and even then he could only manage halfway. He could identify three Decepticons.

Long Haul.

Bonecrusher.

Scavenger.

Constructicons → Heavy Duty Industrial Frametypes → Highly Dangerous → Rest of Gestalt Team Nearby.

“Go on, foreman. Do what you came here to do,” Bombshell’s coying voice echoed in his audial system. “Combine and destroy.”

The last thing Prowl saw his body do was lax the tight grip he had on the handle bar.

For a second, all he could focus on was the data cascade.

Main Cortex: Functional

Meta Cortex: Limited Access

Main Memory Bank: Functional

Tactilian Processing Suite: Functional

Gyrospheric Systems: Currently Stalled

Subsidiary Systems: Currently Stalled

Transformation Sequence-02: Currently Active

ALERT//: Motor Functions Disabled
ALERT//: Alternate Mode [Pursuit Vehicle] Disabled
ALERT//: Gyro. Systems Disabled
ALERT//: Subsidiary Systems Disabled
ALERT//: Spark Anomaly Detected
Please seek the neares@t0#5!agow3lldh7o*

-!- WARNING -!-

Disabling Certain Systems May Limit Perception

-!- WARNING -!-

Core Personality Template Destabilizing: Persona Collapse Imminent

A sharp pain jabbed him somewhere, everywhere; if he had physical form, he would’ve collapsed on the floor. He didn’t even know what to call it—where it was—he couldn’t feel his body.

Then, other than pain, he felt something else. Like fingers, pushing into his mind. Picking and prodding at things that under every normal and abnormal circumstance nobody should have been able to access.

>>// Activate Anti-Infiltration Protocols

ERR: No Intrusion Detected

What?

But he could feel—

>>// Activate Anti-Infiltration Protocols

ERR: No Intrusion Detected

>>// Firewall Diagnostic

Firewall-1: Secure
Firewall-2: Secure
Firewall-3: Secure
Firewall-4: Secure
Firewall-5: Secure
Firewall-6: Secure
Firewall-7: Secure
Firewall-8: Secure
Firewall-9: Secure

>>// Encryption Diagnostic

Key-1: Intact
Key-2: Intact
G-P9: Intact
R-S6: Intact
H-B2: Intact

>>// Internal Security Chip Diagnostic

Sweeper Chip: Fully Operational
Anti-Infiltration Chip: Fully Operational
Access Control Chip: Fully Operational

Text rolled down his HUD, overwhelming. Yet it was practically background against the voice pounding against his helm. Part spoken, part comm, part his own; strange and unfamiliar.

{UNKNOWN} >>// Stop that.

Something was happening.

in his spark

in his mind

{UNKNOWN} >>// Just let it happen.

{UNKNOWN} >>// You’ll be dead soon anyway.

Six Sparks into one.

Six frames into one.

Six minds all syncing, merging.

Six pairs of eyes looking at one landscape.

Prowl couldn’t tell where he began and they ended. He wasn’t his body, he was—

He screamed in a voice that wasn’t his own, a war cry that shook the rust of the red desert. Glee → Rage → Bloodlust flooded into him like they were the most natural things to feel, the only things worth feeling. It felt good being whole again. It felt good to have a mind to think.

He marched slowly forward, laughing to himself, with his sights set on a structure in the distance. Round and white, covered in rust but painted words could be made out: Ironwork.

>>// stop

He rose his hand against missiles—puny little things—that exploded and burnt off his paint. That’s all they did against him. Wasn’t it wonderful?

Devastation, Destruction, Carnage. This was what he was made for. This was the best the war could give to him. Concrete crumbled beneath his hands, exposing rebar, destroyed rooms and crushed Autobot bodies.

>>// Stop

Dust and grit covered his hands, with little splotches of blood here and there. He felt faintly disgusted. Mostly he didn’t care.

Little people were driving out into the storm, trying to escape. Except there was nothing out there for them.

Devastator raised a foot.

>>// STOP

He—They—Devastator growled, motions faltering. His plating rattled, suddenly unstable, and with another roar he destroyed more of the compound with a desperate flail.

He pushed more, clawed at the five other psyches with his own. Forcibly take control of the situation. The wavelength wavered, minds desynching even more, thoughts and memories and bodies separating—

—and he stumbled forward, back to → He was back → back in his own frame. Prowl, he was Prowl. A hand on a ruined wall wasn’t enough to keep him steady, to keep his legs from buckling and giving out from underneath him. It was strange having a body again. There was a buzzing in his lines and in his head, the whirring of the Tac Net recalibrating and spitting out more data, more numbers, more suggestions on where to go next, the feeling of the wind howling past his plating.

He felt sick.

He was halfway through purging before he even realized, heaving and coughing up what little fuel was in his tanks.

None of that felt—it wasn’t like a forced hardline or a bad hack job. That’s what he thought at first, what he had tried to prevent, but his systems welcomed those grubby fingers prying into every corner of his psyche like they were his own.

He felt awful. Violated.

At least with the cerebro-shells he couldn’t feel them. He could almost forget they were there. This was…

Memories and feelings not his own lingered like abstract ghosts, his processor not fully able to comprehend the information given to him. Scraps of data. Unabashed violence and cruelty.

Eating the dead that got trapped under rubble.

Ripping mechs apart and salvaging their organs.

A bullet going through his helm.

Prowl shuddered, dry heaving a bit more.

…

Primus they were all dead.

It hit him suddenly, where he was, what just happened. Ironwork was gone, the Autobots stationed here—workers, people who weren’t supposed to have seen combat, and a small percentage of Neutral refugees—dead or dying in the rubble. Those who escaped into the desert wouldn’t be able to survive for long; the cosmic rust would see to that.

He did this.

He caused it.

Prowl pressed the back of his shaking hand to stifle a choked-up noise that crawled up his throat. No. Not here. Not in front of them.

Get yourself together.

He could faintly hear the constructicons groaning behind him over the buzzing. Good. He wasn’t the only one affected.

The aircraft landed near them, throwing thick clouds of rust into the air.

Dragging himself up with claws dug into the concrete, Prowl struggled to get a running start. He slipped on his own vomit, banging his chin on the ground, but scrambled forward anyways. His alt mode was faster, but wasn’t designed to travel over the soft, corrosive dunes. He would have to travel on foot.

Not that running had a very high rate of success. Very few things his Tac Net were offering him went above a 9%.

Still it was…he had to do something.

So, he ran.

He ran until they turned his processor off.

Chapter Text

Power. Precision. Perfection.

ANCILE

Sender: Overseer Observer, ANCILE Manufacturing

Subject: Requesting Shipping Permissions for Iacon, Uraya and Harmonex.

Forwarding Manufacturing Details on the new Pursuit-Protektor Unit (PPU-0), also referred to as a ‘Hunter Class Frametype’ for categorization purposes. This information is classified and should not be shared, leaked or sold in any way. All information is provided by the Overseers and Manufacturers at ANCILE manufacturing in Praxus.

Model Overview:

Light, low cost frametypes manufactured for the purpose of protecting the citizens residing in the Cybertronian city states—a must have for any functioning Enforcer Precinct.

Standard models are outfitted with light weight bullet resistant armor plating, retractable claws in both hands and feet, analytic identification systems as well as integrated tracking systems. Sensory organs that are connected and integrated into the sensor net are located on the back, able to detect slight movements around them. As a result, they are incredibly sensitive to stimuli and must be handled with care.

These units work best in groups of 3-5, headed by a superior officer or a PPU-C1.

The PPU series of Cold Constructs are made to be persistent, observant and obedient. As such, there is a value of command structure in the ranks of a PPU-0 squadron, highest rankings usually reserved for a specialist model. Although socially they prefer to be solitary and generally keep to themselves, on the field units will consistently communicate and work with each other while hunting down a target. 80% of chases end with PPU units capturing their target.

Specialist Models:

Pursuit-Protektor-Commander Units (PPU-C1) are a modified version of the standard model. A medium frametype, they are generally sturdier and larger than the standard without having to sacrifice mobility.

Strong, versatile powerhouse units, they can act as roadblocks, break down doors and barricades, and restrain violent subjects with ease. Hard, bullet resistant plating also comes in handy during raids, sting operations and riots.

Their commanding presence is perfect for ordering around PPU-0 units, who in turn follow their commander’s every word like they would with a forged superior.

Required Disclaimer: Known Behavioral Issues

PPU-C1 models have been known to exhibit unstable personality defects 1-2 stellar cycles after initial activation, resulting in behavior often described as violent or cruel. It is recommended to pair them with a PPU-C2 model, as they tend to act as a stabilizing force.

However, if behavior persists or worsens—examples include harming their unit or superior officer—decommission them immediately. We are not liable for any damages that may occur in these circumstances, but you might be.

Pursuit-Protektor-Controller Units (PPU-C2) are a modified version of the standard model.

Unlike the PPU-C1, the PPU-C2 model keeps their light class frametype along with standard programming. The design is kept simple for the purpose of resource allocation for neural modifications.

PPU-C2 models come equipped with a Tactilian Processing Suite—also known as the Tactical Scenario Battle Network, or just Tac Net for short—an improved and downsized offshoot of the MK-1 Battle Computer commonly seen in the Generation-1 Battlefield Units. With this, C2 models are able to calculate and accurately predict outcomes to scenarios such as a target escaping custody or hiding somewhere, an terrorist is holding a building hostage, or simply being assaulted by some low life, and react accordingly.

As it is a built-in part of the processor, the Tactilian Processing Suite is active at all times so that if anything happens, the PPU-C2 model is able to act with efficiency and precision.

Required Disclaimer: Known Issues

PPU-C2 models, like their C1 counterparts, do not often make it past 2 stellar cycles after initial activation.

60% of these models stop working after this time and it is recommended for you to either conduct a full processor reset or to fully decommission the unit. Signs to look out for: Slow Reaction Time, False Tac Net Readings, Despondency, Neurotic Tendencies, Paranoia, and Suicidal Behavior

It is very rare for the Tac Net to backfire in any way, but we are required to inform you that it is a possibility.

We thank you for your continued support, and hope you are satisfied with the results from numerous cycles of testing.

Chapter Text

Bonecrusher slammed his fist on the table. “What the frag was any of that?!”

“An experiment.” That crazy guy, Bombshell, replied. Awfully cheery despite the big, pissed off bulldozer glaring down at him.

“A successful experiment.” Venom nodded. “You five should be proud of yourselves. Commander Shockwave himself declared the test exceptional, sanctioned more to be made.”

“Nah nah nah,” Bonecrusher waved his hand, rounding the table to yell at these bugs face-to-face. “You’d said he’d be normal. He was all drone-like and quiet before we merged, and then—”

Venom narrowed his optics. “What do you care? You got your sixth, didn’t you? This is the least you can do, since you’ll be taking residence here.”

“Yeah, well—”

.::Bonecrusher::.

It was just a simple comm message from Hook and a pulse through his spark, but the message was clear: Shut your fragging mouth.

Reluctantly, he did.

Bombshell had slipped out of the room at that point, leaving Venom to talk to the five constructicons. It was a windowless meeting room in the mid-levels of a tower, sized perfectly for anyone not industrial-class.

Like, it was fine. Just a tight fit for the five of them.

“When’s the next test thing you have planned?” Scav piped up.

“You will be notified when the next combiner experiment is scheduled.” Venom narrowed his gaze. “I assume you don’t need an escort? You know where your room is, right?”

All of them shook their heads. Venom hummed, wings fluttering with that weird sound that they made, before grunting and leaving the room. None of the rest of them did, though.

Hook grabbed his shoulder, turning Bonecrusher to face him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He simply shrugged. “I dunno…somethin’…”

Hook looked unamused. Whatever, he was angry and his helm still hurt after a full cycle.

They were all hurting. Antilla didn’t go like they thought it would. ‘Cause it felt good. It was great at first, it felt good being six into one instead of five connected to a lump of metal. But then it was…bad? They became all unstable and confused ‘cause they weren’t Devastator anymore, they were just six people stacked on top of each other; and there was the anger and the screamin’ and it felt like someone was clawing at his mind…?

He glared, field souring. He was slag at describing things. It just felt bad. It felt bad to separate so soon after so long and now his head hurt.

“This wouldn’t have happened with Scrapper.” Bonecrusher growled.

It was a shitty thing to say. He knew it. He felt it. Whatever.

Hook scowled. “Well he ain’t here, so zip it.”

Scav made that weird, nervous little whine he did before speaking. “…well, if he were, what do you think he’d think of the new guy?”

“I said zip it, alright?” Hook snapped. Scav shrunk back at his harsh tone. “We have a new foreman now, and we listen to him. That’s the way it’s always been and how it’s gonna be, is that clear?”

Scav muttered his agreement. Long Haul and Mix, who had not said a word this entire time, nodded their heads. It took a moment, but Bonecrusher finally relented with a clipped “fine”.

It wasn’t like Prowl was a bad foreman. He was certainly fancy-looking and sounding, and he was pretty high in the Autobot chain of command. He just made a bad first impression.

After clomping down too many flights of stairs and pushing Insecticons out of their way, the crew made their way outside. Kinda outside. The walkway was sturdy enough for the five of them to walk without worry of somethin’ buckling.

The base they were currently on was named Kankr, and was situated on one of Nebulos’ moons—Mercos or somethin’ like that—low atmosphere and low gravity; a pretty good spot considering they were bombing the slag out of those Autobot sympathizers. Two watchtowers buzzing with private channel communications were connected by the walkway with the squat, square building sitting just underneath them. Other than that, it was just a bare moon with dark sand and dark moon rocks.

It kinda reminded Bonecrusher of Luna-2 in a way. All industry and busy-ness, the looming form of a planet watching over them.

But Cybertron wasn’t organic green, or had those sweeping rings around it, or a third moon, or constant orbital bombardments…at least not anymore, that last one.

Oh, and the Union was gone. Good riddance.

The inside of the second watchtower was the same as the first. Dull, sturdy, few windows. The bugs were everywhere, Kickback’s goons, chittering and watchin’ them make their way to their room.

Speakin’ of their room, it was as plain as the rest of the tower. Reaaal unremarkable. This one at least had a berth in it.

Mix elbowed him, mirth aplenty in his field. “To t-think, it took th-this long for us to become tower mechs.”

“Shuddahp.” Bonecrusher pushed him back.

Long Haul was testing out the berth with Scav scrambling behind him, while Hook and his perfectionist streak were inspecting every corner of the room. He’d find something to complain about soon.

“Do ya think Prowl’ll bunk with us?” Scav asked, hanging off of Long Haul’s shoulders.

Bonecrusher grunted in displeasure, but answered him anyway. “With the way Bombshell’s got his claws in him? No way.”

“Probably only see him during th-those tests.” Mix agreed.

Scav let out a disappointed hum, which, why the everlovin’ slag was he doin’ that for?

“What, you aching for another one of these?” Bonecrusher flicked Scavengers visor, getting the mech to whine at his agitated headache.

Idiot runt. You could dangle an energon treat over the damn pits and he’d run without lookin’. Of course he’d run into the arms of a guy who fraggin’…tore them apart.

Ugh. He was getting pissed again.

Hook huffed. “These windows aren’t properly sealed. They’re letting in draft.”

Chapter Text

A storm was coming.

Prowl could see it, trailing behind them.

Rust clung to him, trying its best to dig under his plating. The sky stretched out, sickly green. The desert rolled onward to mountains that never moved. The drive was never ending.

They were in a transport vehicle, him and several other mechs. The colors were familiar to him, even if the shapes of their frames blurred together into something unrecognizable; silver, gold and magenta laughing and speaking in a muffled tone of voice → blue and black arguing with her → small deep blue shapes looking out at the landscape → blueish-grey and red sitting quietly next to Prowl.

The only mech he could really recognize was that one in unmistakable constructicon green.  Though, recognize was a strong word, they all kind of looked the same—he was a heavy class industrial frametype, big and hefty just like all the others. The detail that set this one apart was the jagged hole in the right side of his visor. He was humming a tune, something Jazz would have listen to, slapping his hand against the vehicle to the beat.

Tune.

There was a tune.

Prowl turned his attention to the radio setup built into the metal of the vehicle, spitting out static-filled brass music. There were no words, no lyrics that he could discern. The slow song droned on as the storm barreled towards them.

But, just as soon as he noticed it, the song fuzzed out, replaced by something else.

“—bzzzt—attention, attention. Calling all Autobot communication channelzzzzt—”

He shuffled and kneeled to it, listening closer to the sound. He knew that voice.

“—this is Communications Officer Blaster, calling all Autobot channels. My numbers are 6, 10, 24, 37, 8, 8…”

Prowl snatched the small radio from its place in the wall, adjusting antenna and dials as fast as he could. “I’m here.” His voice shook, nearly drowned out by the storm. So he spoke louder, clearer. “ I’m here.”

“They can’t hear ya, officer.”

Prowl whipped around. “…excuse me?”

He hadn’t been called that in a long time, not in that tone or inflection. The sky was nearly consumed by the wall of howling wind and rust chasing after them.

The constructicon was looking directly at him, red visor gleaming.

He spoke again in that voice, all gravel and grit. “Get up off ya knees, soldierbot. You got some days ahead-a ya.”

A harsh sound somewhere between a grunt and a yelp punched out of his chest as his vision onlined along with a wall of a boot-up text.

Hard Reboot Sequence Ready

Starting Sequence…

Firmware: Functioning

 

Calibration Failure
Recalibrating Main Functions
Recalibrating Subsidiary Systems…

 

Recalibration Complete

Rebooting…

 

ANCILE

Serial Number: PPU-C2.456240055
Designation: Prowl
Model: Praxian Specialist
Core Personality Template: 06
Main Cortex: Functioning
Tactilian Processing Unit: Functioning

It took a moment for his optics to clear the fuzz at the edge of them, half-remembered visions of the desert fading into dark metal walls. An awful taste clung to his mouth.

Prowl sat up and took in his surroundings. His cell was different. That much was true.

For one thing, he could actually hear things going on in the walls. Not just the creaking of metal but the buzz of electricity, liquid running through pipes, steam hissing. The Hive was so insulated that you could barely hear anything.

The cell shared few similarities with his old one—blank walls, no windows, no lights, one door in and out—but there were some differences. The ceiling was taller and paneled. The walls were screwed in, not welded on.

His Tac Net churned.

He quickly patted himself down, fingers pressing into subspace compartments both obvious and not. He grimaced at the hole where his inter communications systems once were; no wonder he couldn’t contact anyone while in the Hive. His suspicions were unfortunately proven right, what little he had was gone, taken during the…re…formatting…

His hands lingered a moment on his knees and thighs, tracing transformation seams that were both familiar and…not. His frame felt the same, if only a little denser, but Prowl could tell that something was off.

Something had changed about him. No matter how subtle.

He shook himself. He could investigate (and more so fix) that issue later; right now he had to escape.

At least his systems and mods remained largely untouched and unchanged, he mused, as he flexed his claws out for the first time in what felt like forever. Military grade Praxus-made mods not exclusive to his model, but most recognize the mod due to it. Prowl never really used them for combat, they were too stubby to deal any real damage. He found them more useful for gripping and climbing.

Prowl dug his grip into the wall and climbed upwards towards the ceiling, reaching up to feel up the panels. Tightly bolted in, but no welds, thank Prima; if he had to scrape off metal for hours on end he would lose his mind. It would still be a pain to unscrew without any tools.

He dropped back down to the ground, letting his claws retract.

All things considered, his chances were looking good. 15% increase, in fact. Prowl paced around the cell as the Tac Net worked out scenario after scenario, supplying every percentage chance and probability that could happen in his situation. The fact that he was moved put him at a disadvantage (all of his carefully curated maps were now useless), but if he could get out of this cell and find out where he was…

That was the first step. He couldn’t escape if he didn’t know the routes to it. The next was getting a weapon, tools, medical equipment if he could, anything that would aid him.

Ultimately he needed to contact the Autobots as soon as possible.

Prowl stopped as soon as he heard something outside of his cell. The sound of bodies moving. Quietly. He moved closer to the door, strained his audial systems to hear better.

It was a lot of muffled conversation, footfall scuffing on metal grating, and snarling. Nothing truly identifiable. The only thing he could make out was someone saying “fragging thing” and the slamming of a heavy door.

After waiting for a long moment by his cell door Prowl sat down, back to the wall and wings pressed tight against his body. A long, heavy sigh ran through him.

A hand ran over taut cabling in the back of his neck, idly prodding at old wounds.

Since his chronometer had been turned off since the Hive, Prowl didn’t know how long he spent in that new cell. He could estimate, but doing that kind of thing strained his processor and generally just pissed him off, so he settled for ‘it’s been a while’.

In that long while of being alone with no guards coming to check in on him, he got to work on the paneling. Slowly, he used his claws to unscrew bolts from the ceiling, letting them drop to the floor to be picked up later. It was utterly tedious. But , it was certainly better than clawing his way through defunct maintenance tunnels infested with scraplets and retrorats.

Or sneaking through Deception territory with a bomb in his subspace.

Or anything that happened in Tyrest.

Prowl flicked another loosened bolt from the ceiling, the hexagonal thing plinking off the wall and onto the floor. There was a percentage chance that there wouldn’t be any room for him to crawl around once he loosened and took off the panel. 22.8%

If that was the case, he would have to cut some of the plans he made. Or start tearing up the walls.

…that last one actually wasn’t an unviable option.

The clomping of footsteps made him pause, then jump down. He gathered up all the loose bolts littering the ground, subspacing them before the door to his cell opened and two guards stepped in. To his surprise, they weren’t Insecticons.

One of them entered and grabbed him by the arm. Prowl let himself be dragged out into the hallway, and didn’t flinch when he felt the press a gun on his back—right over where his spark would be. So, with a twisted arm and an active threat, he went down the hallway without any trouble. At least he could look around, get his bearings.

It wasn’t very lit → no windows → weak artificial light. Their steps echoed on the metal grating made up the floor, allowing him to peek below and above him. This was a penitentiary, rows and rows of unmarked cell doors stretched behind → in front → above → below him. There wasn’t much sound to hear, but occasionally he could discern the muffled sounds of snarling or pained groaning coming from within one of the cells.

One elevator trip took them from that place to a floor that was a different kind of open. There were windows for one thing—large, wide windows—revealing the landscape the complex was on. The dark sand of a dark moon, watchtowers rising upwards and the great expanse of the star-speckled void that was space made everything feel very large and very small at the same time.

Another few doors and the guards shoved him into another windowless room. Equipment beeped and hissed and pumped where it was imbedded into the walls. The ground was absolutely filthy, covered in dry rust and crusted blood (organic and not). The sharp smell of ethanol and medical solvent mixed with spilt energon.

Two mechs were already in the room, both ‘medical’ personnel if he really wanted to stretch the meaning of that word. That same medical assistant that worked on him back at the Hive, and Constructicon Hook.

Medical Officer → No License → Multiple Accounts of Organ Harvesting → Reviewing Criminal Record…

“Ah, hello there.” Hook greeted him with visible lackluster. “I’ll be your nurse for today. Don’t mind the other one, she’s just here to monitor the equipment.”

Prowl was roughly shoved on and strapped to the operating table by the guards. The medical assistant plugged in cable after cable into his medical ports, bypassing his firewalls because it was medical equipment. She wasn’t the one to watch out for, though—Prowl kept his sights on Hook.

The file he had on him finally popped up: former Workers Union member, he was Generation 3 Industrial Class Heavy Frametype made for construction and zoning projects before the war. Serial number and manufacturer unknown. Cold Constructed, obviously, and bonded to a team of six when he came out of the factory like most Industrial Class mechs of his generation.

He along with the rest of his gestalt joined the Decepticons when the Union fell apart, where Hook now served as the loosest definition of a medical officer.

“Scalpel wants a checkup done before we do any more work,” Hook muttered. “Fine by me. Can’t have you falling apart from a misalignment or…something else.”

The Constructicon was busying himself with some tools on a little rolling table, cutting implements, grinders, sanders, saws, pliers, forceps. Hook took the things he needed, rearranging the tools he didn’t take.

The assistant readjusted the overhead light, shining it down on his torso just as Hook turned to face him.

His red visor gleamed in the low light. “Stay still.”

Chapter Text

Surprisingly, the constructicon’s treatment was much more impersonal than what he was expecting, at least compared to Bombshell.

He worked quickly, his poking and prodding strictly professional, not to satisfy some sadistic or perverted glee, and he didn’t talk through the whole thing. Prowl cautiously considered the experience to be…nice. Or at least fine. Hook was a Decepticon, he wasn’t nice.

However, he was thorough. Only stopping occasionally to change his equipment or check a monitor, the Decepticon medic sanded down some jagged edges of his modified frame, picked out the rust growing in between his joints and seams. His large hands, which had gutted and snuffed out the sparks of countless Autobots, held his tools with care.

Prowl tried to keep as still as possible.

The assistant flittered here and there, sometimes appearing in his periphery. Prowl didn’t have anything on her, like many of the Insecticons unfortunately. He didn’t even know her name. He could deduce certain things, like her alt mode having a 73% chance of being a grasshopper → rumors of cloning in Insecticon ranks popped up in his HUD → clone of Kickback? → possible → unlikely though. Her mandibles clattered together as she worked → possibly a nervous tick.

She chittered to herself, studying a nearby coolant monitor. “Should we sedate him before Scalpel gets here?”

Hook paused and looked up to her. “No. He needs to be awake for this.”

“You read the reports, didn’t you? Mindwipe said he should be sedated to prevent any more incidents.”

“Scalpel said he should be awake, and I agree with him,” Hook huffed. “And I don’t care what Mindwipe thinks is correct procedure. He isn’t a medical professional.”

Medical professional? Prowl nearly rolled his eyes—was that what he thought himself as? Being medically certified for a demolitions team didn’t exactly equate to getting a legitimate license in his opinion.

Hook snapped his head down and scowled at him. “I heard that.”

…what?

Prowl blinked, confused.

“I…didn’t say any—” He began, but Hook cut him off with a scaler to the throat.

“Shut up and let me work.” He snapped, settling back into impersonal, if not a little frustrated, professionalism.

The assistant clicked her mandibles, irritated. “We should at least use a paralyzing agent so that he doesn’t accidentally kill himself. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

What??

Prowl turned his helm around to look at her as his processor scrambled to decipher what she meant by that, but she was out of his range of vision. Hook let out a sigh.

“Just tighten his restraints, or add more. I don’t know. Anything that doesn’t fuck with his internals.” Prowl heard him toss his current tool back on the rolling tray.

The assistant reluctantly did as she was asked. Five more straps were added, two on each middle joint and one on his neck, before all of them were tightened to an uncomfortable degree and he well and truly couldn’t move. It was then that the door to the room opened, and the sound of something scuttling across the floor.

“We’re ready to start, sir.” The assistant said.

Scalpel grunted. “Let’s get this over with.”

Prowl felt the scraping limbs of Scalpel as he crawled over him, not quite piercing his frame but he could still feel the pinprick poking moving from his leg over to his torso.

The hard, outer armor that served as extra protection was easily taken off and thrown carelessly onto the ground. The medics were talking about something. He couldn’t listen → a thin, sharp edge slid under a transformation seam → second torso segmentation under the chassis → manual access.

Prowl grit his teeth against anger and indignity and skillful claws worming their way into him. His fingers dug grooves into the medical table as his chassis plating shuddered, clamping down tight and protective for a hopeful moment before fully unfurling.

Danger → Decepticons → Surrounded → Pinned → Spark chamber exposed.

His chest plates strained to close again, unable to due to Scalpel’s limb wedged in the transformation mechanism. At least his Spark chamber was still sealed tight. Scalpel was small enough that he was practically in his chest, examining and making little noises of interest or displeasure.

Scalpel tapped at the side of his Spark chamber, and Prowl barely managed not to flinch. “Chambers’ scorched black. Classic sign of a merge fuck up.”

Hook growled. “I know you ain’t looking at me when you say that. That was all him.”

“Well then tell me what’s the matter with him, since you’re the expert here.”

“The outside’s not the problem, his frame is as good as it’ll get.” Hook explained, hand dipping in with tools to scrape off black scorch marks.

“We can reduce the damage by installing an energy sink onto the chamber.” The assistant suggested.

Hook scoffed. A wave of displeasure floated off of the constructicon, accompanied by the haphazard throwing of his tools back on the tray. “Oh and blow out his Spark along with ours? I think the fuck not.”

“Well, the only other option is reinforcing it.” She snapped back.

Hook grunted in agreement.

“I’m gonna trust our expert on this one.” Scalpel said, body shifting as he pointed at the assistant. “Get me chamber metal from one of Bombshell’s slagged toys. We don’t have a lot of time to do this.”

Prowl tensed at his wording, straining against his bindings.

Medical procedures involving Sparks or Spark chambers were notoriously difficult even with the right equipment, so he’s heard from complaining Med Corp members. He didn’t like the idea that they would be rushing this. He didn’t like the idea that he had to be awake during it. He didn’t like any of this.

And he couldn’t move.

The only suggestion the Tac Net was providing him was → Struggling unadvised, 98% chance to cause serious injury and/or death.

He couldn’t even count down seconds as a distraction. He just had to lie there, the moment stretching onward forever. Unbroken.

Scalpel jabbed his blade limb deeper into his side. “If you keep wearing grooves into my medical slab, I’ll declaw you. I swear to Primus below.”

Prowl barely acknowledged the threat as the sound of the door opening pinged in his audial systems. He could smell the rich, heavy scent of chamber metal and his tanks churned from it.

Immediately Hook and Scalpel started to prepare for his impromptu surgery; dunking their limbs in ethanol, feeding the metal into a welding tank, tying rigs to his unfolded chest to keep it from snapping back together. Scalpel pushed wiring and internal components out of the way of the chamber and clipped them in place. Hook adjusted the settings on his visor, the red polyglass dimming significantly.

And of course it hurt when it finally happened. There wasn’t a world where it wouldn’t. He just didn’t think it would initiate a force-shutdown sequence.

When he next rebooted back into consciousness he was greeted by the sight of a ceiling light, the grinding sound of metal cutting through metal, and the smell of exposed energon. He turned his head on the gurney he was shackled to and was met by the sight of Hook, active buzzsaw in hand, cutting up the greying body of a mech like a butcher.

Perfect. Just what he wanted to wake up to.

After a moment of watching and letting his Tac Net run through various scenarios, Prowl decided to speak up. “Do you find it entertaining to defile dead bodies, or is it just a monetary thing for you?”

Hook stopped what he was doing, the whirring of the buzzsaw halting as he turned to look at Prowl’s prone form.

“Finally. Took you long enough.” Hook shook the excess blood from his contraption.

Splatters of stagnant, pink energon rolled down his face and frame. Honestly, the dim lighting made the scene look worse; besides the grey body spread out on the gurney, there were about a dozen shapeless masses that were probably also bodies in this slag heap of a room. It wasn’t just the corrosion of metallic bodies either; Prowl could smell organic rot here too.

“We’ll be going down to the planets surface to do preliminary tests. Gotta make sure the first time wasn’t a fluke is what I think they’re trying to say.” Hook explained. “I mean, it ain’t an unlikely thought. The bond hasn’t solidified like it should’ve—can barely even feel you right now.”

“And if I refuse?”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and he crossed his arms. “Well I can tell Bombshell you said no, and he’ll make you do it anyway. Your choice.”

And what a choice it was. Prowl felt the frown on his face deepen. “…fuck you.”

“Mhm.”

His unimpressed reply just made Prowl angrier. A singular noise? That was it? That was all he had to say after he forced himself into his chassis and take a welding torch to his Spark?

Hook flinched (at what, exactly?), a flickering wince flashing behind his visor, before shaking himself of whatever strange sensation he was feeling. “It was for your health, you know. Besides, it’s not a bad thing to have a reinforced chamber.”

Prowl stilled, anger waning a bit at that interesting reaction.

The gestalt bond hadn’t solidified. Prowl wasn’t an expert on the subject of spark bonds and didn’t know any experts—there probably weren’t any experts left, if he was being realistic—but he knew some things. It was common knowledge that things like emotion, pain and vague ideas could be passed through the bond, and with the case of pain it could be shared.

That could be useful, if applied correctly.

He watched as the Decepticon medic approached him.

“I’m gonna unbuckle you now, and I’m gonna be walking you down to the shuttle hanger.” He said it slowly, hands hovering over the restraints as he glared down at Prowl. “Don’t try anything, I mean it.”

He uncuffed his wrists first, then his ankles. For a brief moment Prowl considered attacking him—a swift kick to the face to discombobulate him, expose the back of neck while he was distracted and shred his main fuel lines with his claws.

Instead, he let himself be taken off the gurney and placed on his own two feet.

As loathe as he was to admit it, there wasn’t much he could do → no weapons → no plan → no idea where he was → he was imprisoned in another Insecticon facility → he had a parasitic infestation in his processor → he was Spark bonded to a Decepticon gestalt.

This was awful. This was the worst case scenario.

But if he had to do any of this, he would honestly rather be lucid during it.

Briefly glancing up at Hook waiting impatiently next to him, Prowl gestured to the door. “Lead the way.”

Chapter Text

As the Autobots military tactician, and one of the few mechs in Optimus Prime’s inner circle of generals and advisors, he made it a habit to know their enemies, their allies and important people in between.

The Nebulans had been long standing allies with the Autobots for centuries now. Organic, their species name derived from that of their planet. The planet, its surface consisting of 56% water, sported characteristics such as planetary rings and three named moons in its orbit—Mercos, Vedina and Los.

It was a beautiful planet, a place Hound would wax poetics about and happily get himself lost in the wonder of it.

Hound would cry if he saw this.

The Decepticon army burned a trail to the city of Melanossus. The ash billowing up from the burning forests choked out the sky, along with the insurmountable force of Kickback and the many, many Insecticon drones in his hive mind. It must have looked terrifying to anyone below.

Prowl kept his gaze straight ahead towards the garden city, gripping the shuttles overhead handle bar with his back to the Constructicons, studying the towering spires and fountains of glittering mercury.

Nebulans were not a long-lived species, most organic species usually weren’t, and typically had a lifespan of 100-200 years. Small, green-skinned with white hair and sprouting antennae. Yet, despite their organic nature, they had a proclivity for machinery. Mechanics. Robotics. They were incredibly technologically advanced, with their mechanists providing weapons and useful tech to the Autobot cause.

He gripped the bar tighter.

Centuries of good relations, wasted.

Melanossus was really a beautiful city, full of history and culture. He knew of it, very little of it. There were a few dignitaries that he had the pleasure of meeting, mechanists and one politician, clothed in thick cloth and chitinous armor, all sporting some kind of cybernetic implant. It was Jazz who introduced him to the music, if he remembered correctly—‘Hey Prowler, listen to this. I think you’d really appreciate it~’

Prowl reminded himself that didn’t have a choice in the matter, it was either do this of his own volition or be controlled by the Cerebro-shells to do it; he was being forced either way. There weren’t any other solutions, no other way to avoid this.

Main Cortex: Functional

Main Memory Bank: Functional

Tactilian Processing Suite: Functional

Transformation Sequence-02: Activating…

So there was no need to feel guilty.

He had to do this.

After all, what was one more city? A hundred thousand more lives? He could make up for it. A Decepticon loss was imminent after this, he would make sure of it. He had to, after this.

Melanossus grew closer. Prowl gripped the bar tighter, almost afraid to let it go. He felt the rumbling of heavy duty engines at his back, so close they felt like his own.

And he felt the pulling of his spark, almost splitting inside his own chest. Almost painful.

And he heard the buzzing in his head. So loud he couldn’t hear anything else if he tried.

Supplementary Systems: Temporarily Stalled

-!- WARNING -!-

Disabling Certain Systems May Limit Perception

Melanossus grew closer.

And closer.

Until they were right there, above it.

Prowl looked down at his feet and stumbled back, letting go of the handle bar in the process, as the city stretched out below him glowing with a hazy, pale hue. Above, the sky was choked black.

The shuttle was gone.

Prowl turned, his surroundings blurring in a smear of lights, shimmering mercury and dull stone. Keeping his balance in the state he was in was difficult, as was trying to find any identifiable landmarks when everything looked like—

He paused.

To his side, he had just now noticed, was the enormous form of a mech looking out into the distance. So huge that Prowl was just barely under scale with the monster’s head.

He knew this mech, from photos and damage reports and his own brief, personal experience. But there was something else.

Something much more disturbing about this sight in front of him.

He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the impossible sight of his—

That was his—

“You have my face.”

When he spoke, he was made aware of the horrible, howling winds that seemed intent on drowning it out. Yet the gigantic mech heard him somehow. His face turned to look at him, look down to regard this tiny thing still speaking to him.

He sneered at himself.

“Your face?”

-!- WARNING -!-

Core Personality Template Destabilizing: Persona Collapse Imminent

He could feel himself melting away. He could feel it this time. He was melting. Or corroding. Or falling apart.

He was becoming less himself by the second, and more of this… thing in front of him.

The wicked grin he gave to himself was nothing short of horrifying. “I am more than just a thing. And I am more than just your face.”

Devastator gazed down at him as he felt himself start to fade.

“You know what I am.”

>// You know what I am
>// You know what I am
>// You know what I am
>// You know what I am
>// You know what I am
>// You know what I am

Crashing onto the ground, Prowl felt the rusted catwalk shake underneath him and the glass of his door wings crack and break. He gasped, cringing for a moment before rolling over and pushing himself to his feet. Pain was good. Pain was real.

He took a quick glance at his surroundings. To the left → the door to his cell, right → the door across from his.

Front and back → catwalk with the elevator to his back.

Above → the hole he clawed out of his cell’s ceiling.

The penitentiary was cacophonous with the sounds of prisoners wailing and other unidentifiable things thrashing against the walls of their enclosures. Part of him had grown curious to what lay behind them. He knew better than to go looking.

Prowl kept low to the ground as he made his way to the elevator, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at every slight sound.

His wings twitched.

The elevator was empty when it opened, and there was a pretty good percentage that it would stay empty due to the infrequent movement of the facility’s staff. He stepped inside.

The elevator rose.

The ride was quiet.

Prowl looked down at his hands and grimaced at the sight of them caked in rust powder and dirt. He rubbed his fingers together before scraping it off on the studded wall of the elevator.

With that nasty feeling of rust, he noticed other sensations on his frame; chipping paint, scuffed metal, small scrapes and nicks. Grime in between his joints, making his movements occasionally catch. The dull ache in his helm that grew more pronounced as soon as he noticed it. All of it was him.

His doorwings shuttered involuntarily.

Being back in his own body was…

It…

His hand wandered up to the back of his neck, scratching at the plating there.

It was good.

Lucidity was good, being back in his own body was good, feeling things on his own was good. Memories that were not his own lingered with a hollowness that ran under his plating, both slowly fading as he gathered his thoughts on the matter and tucked them away to be examined later.

The elevator doors screeched open, and Prowl quickly stalked his way into the tall, starlit corridors of the complex.

This specific outing wasn’t about escape, not yet anyway. He still knew very little about this place. A map was a good place to start as any → then he could get to procuring tools → weapons → a means of communication → a means of escape. He already had a semblance of a map constructed—one to the shuttle bay.

He kept one hand to any given wall that was available as he wandered, and glanced around for any sign of cameras (or more likely) Insecticons spying from the corners of the complex.

He didn’t see any.

But he already knew not to trust his eyes.

The mapping process was tedious, made even more so by Prowl deciding to be meticulous with his exploration.

He found that the upper layer of the complex was mostly comprised of those tall corridors with windows looking out into space. Most rooms were locked behind access pads that needed specific keycards to open. Nothing unusual there.

Parallel to the main building were two towers. They were tall and windowless, stretching high up into the void. They were connected by several long, narrow bridges high in the air.

The stairways were similarly narrow, winding upwards towards empty, hexagonal rooms with  a series of doors that went to barely furnished rooms and one entrance to the connecting bridges. It wasn’t clear what purpose these buildings posed. Prowl elected to ignore them for the most part.

Maintenance hatches were numerous, but well hidden against the dull walls—made to blend in and look a part of them. They took a frustrating amount of time to pry open, but once inside Prowl began his the sub-level cataloging of his slowly developing map.

Some were just mechanical access points, displaying the blinking, hissing guts of machinery and the many switches and dials that controlled things like lights and, more importantly, door locks. Very important.

Others were crawlspaces into ventilation shafts and small pockets of very complicated electrical wiring, beeping and hissing and whirring.

As much as the idea of turning off the locks on door and exploring that way was an option for him to take, it wasn’t a valid one; walking into random rooms was dangerous. He could be seen by guards, there could have been specific security measures set in place in case of electrical tampering. Crawling through the vents was a much more advisable option—this way, though cramped and uncomfortable, allowed him to peek into rooms both occupied and not.

He felt like Jazz, crawling around through vents like this and spying. It also kind of reminded him of his cycles on the field, before he was the Autobot’s military tactician. Optimus Prime’s head of Special Operations during the first civil war.

Simpler times, he supposed—but no less dangerous.

“Please don’t struggle sir, we only wish to speak with you for a moment of your time.” Prowl paused in his crawling at the voice floating in through the ducts, familiar with its smug, unnerving drawl. “Besides, struggling… really isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

He peeked through the slits in the vents. Mindwipe stepped into the room first, looking the same as ever. Venom came in close behind him, his frame teeming with what Prowl could only assume to be agitation. Finally, an extremely old nebulan man was shoved into the room by two guards, hard enough to make him stumble over his robes. He had the look of a scientist, from his clothes to the tech he had grafted to his flesh.

Prowl followed them. Dragging himself through the air shafts, he soon caught more conversation and glimpses of this strange exchange.

“What do you creatures what from me?” The scientist demanded, voice shaking with obvious fear. “You’ve already taken Melanossus, Splendora, Celestina! You have the Nursery, what more do you want?!”

>// Melanossus

>// Splendora

>// Celestina

His Tac Net cataloged the information while his tanks tightened and churned.

Mindwipe examined his claws, teasing disinterest on his face if not in his field. “We don’t exactly have the time or personnel to run the nursery. We have our own operations to run.”

“You are one of the overseers, yes?” Leaning close, Venom waited for the man to nod. He didn’t. “You will be managing the production of weaponframes for the Decepticon army in this sector.”

Prowl’s frame clamped down tightly as the scientist gasped.

That was bad.

That was very bad.

The Nursery made many things, but it mostly made weapons; siege machinery, bombs, cold constructed weaponframes. If the Decepticons gained that venue for a weapons supplier, it would be harder for the Autobots to combat them → that would lead to decisions on whether they should take back the Nursery from Decepticon control → it would be another long campaign, difficult due to aforementioned circumstances and disadvantages on their side → low chance of success.

The nebulan scientist looked between the two mechs, easily towering over his withered form. “I…I can’t do that.”

“It is either that or we raze Koraja and eat the rest of your pathetic species into extinction.” Venom snarled, wings buzzing behind him.

The man paled in horror, and even Mindwipe grimaced at the specific wording Venom used. The hypnotist leaned down, his expression obscured from Prowl’s sight.

“I’saya? Is that your name?” His tone, quieter this time, was gentle as he wrapped a hand around his shoulders. It dwarfed his organic frame. “Professor I’saya? Good, good…allow me to explain in better terms.”

As Mindwipe spoke to the scientist, lowering his guard no doubt, Prowl took a moment to examine the room this meeting was taking place.

It wasn’t anything remarkable and to his disappointment not very useful for what he was trying to accomplish. A shadowed room with common appliances; an intercom embedded in the wall, darkened computer screens.

He had no weapon → at least a third of the Decepticons in there were armed → it was inadvisable to go attack, 98% chance of failure → there wasn’t much that he could do.

“Just look into my eyes, Professor. I’m a nice person,” Mindwipe purred, taking off his visor to look at I’saya more clearly. “I wouldn’t do anything to harm you.”

The scientists body went slightly slack in Mindwipe’s lax grip.

He couldn’t do anything.

Prowl dropped from the ceiling and onto the bulk of an Insecticon soldier, wasting no time getting the thing into a headlock → crushing its vocalizer. Its mandibles bit and snapped at the air as it stumbled back, off-balance and confused. Prowl only squeezed tighter.

If he was in better condition, he might have been able to rip the fraggers helm off like this. He would have to settle for incapacitation.

The Insecticon tried in vain to claw Prowl off of its back, even rammed back into a wall. Still, he held on tight, squeezing harder and harder until he heard a pop—hiss, then a sickening, almost organic crack.

The Insecticon dropped to its knees, jostling Prowl as it fell face first onto the ground. Its red visor dimmed and flickered.

Prowl stumbled onto his feet, stale air rattling through his vents.

It had been…an hour? More? Time didn’t matter here, what mattered was that after some amount of time sneaking around he finally found something useful—a telecommunications room.

The machinery here looked complicated, cables running from radio systems into the walls, dials and switches and sliders. It was standard Decepticon design, nothing he couldn’t figure out.

Flip switches 1, 2, 5 → turn dial to the right counter clockwise → flip switch 5 twice → slide frequency to 45.7 → and the static clears.

He jacked into the systems and raised the microphone to his mouth.

“This is Strategic Commander Prowl calling all Autobot channels, my numbers are 5, 7, 5, 12, 6, 18.” His voice was steady, the message practiced from the years he’d spent making and teaching the damn protocol. “If you can hear me, I am currently being held hostage in a Decepticon controlled moon base called Kankr, located in nebulan space.”

He repeated the message two more times, as was procedure, before opening the maintenance hatch to the side and ripped out a good chunk of important, colorful wiring. The Insecticon let out a weak, static-filled groan. Prowl went over and kicked it in the head before bending down and searched it for anything useful.

The bug didn’t have any actual weapons on it, only a medical grade exacto knife. Prowl flicked the blade out, quickly examining it before subspacing it → it was better than nothing.

He just had to hope his distress signal would get through to someone, which statistically it should—right now he needed to return to the penitentiary before he got discovered. Exiting the room, he glanced around the corridor before moving. Forward, Left, Left, Forward, pass the barracks without alerting anyone to him. He could hear the chittering and buzzing of insects. He turned right—

Right into Bombshell.

Funnily enough, Bombshell was surprised too, if his EM field was to be believed. The con stumbled back, clicking in confusion.

That’s an advantage, his Tac Net informed him. Take it.

The knife came to his hand in an instant, slicing through the air as it came an inch from Bombshell’s mandibles. The Insecticon took a step back and then, very suddenly, he lunged at him—an unwise decision considering Prowl was ready for that exact movement. He rolled out of the way, letting Bombshell crash onto the floor with a grunt. With a hiss, he flared his plating and rushed at Prowl again.

And that’s when something occurred to him, something incredibly important:

Bombshell wasn’t a fighter in the slightest.

Prowl had easily ducked and checked the insect with his shoulder, using his own momentum to throw him into the wall. Every attack Prowl had previously thrown at him, the Insecticon either dodged out of the way or used his outlier to get out of danger without any consequence.

It was admittedly surprising to him when he landed a blow to Bombshell, a punch to the visor that cracked the glass. It was, perhaps, even a little gratifying.

Prowl then went for the throat. No time for gloating or feeling proud of himself, he had an opportunity and he could not allow it to be turned against him. Bombshell had enough reaction time to catch his forearms, stopping him from cutting up anything serious. This close, Prowl could see his teeth gritting behind his mandibles, visibly straining against him as the knife cut a shallow wound across several unimportant cables. Coolant beaded and dribbled down his throat, but Bombshell let out a strangled, rasping laugh.

“Foreman, do me a favor and cut out your eye.”

It happened quicker than he realized, before his processor could fully understand what Bombshell had said → ordered him to do.

There was no resistance. The point of the knife plunged into his—

The sound of the sniper firing his weapon was almost just as loud as when the bullet tore through his helm. It was a perfect, well-lined shot. The right eye and the visor that surrounded it shattered on impact, the higher caliber bullet meaning that when it exited his helm, it took most of his processor with it, the gore scattering as his head tipped back—

The noise that came out of his throat wasn’t a scream, even though he had every right to scream; it was a long, weak groan that crawled out of his throat like a dying animal coming from a burrow.

His hand still gripped the knife. Blood poured out of the wound, weeping down his face and splattering onto the ground. The only thing keeping him standing was Bombshell’s vice grip on his forearms, and when he let go Prowl crashed to the ground strutless.

“This was fun.”

Bombshell stood high above him like some great and terrible tower, gazing down at Prowl and tracing patterns in the energon and coolant pouring from his neck.

“You really know how to put the fear of death into someone,” He breathed, squeezing his neck before retracting his claws. “Hah…got me all concerned and shit…”

The knife clattered to the ground, ripped out of his dead socket with gritted teeth. Prowl briefly pressed a hand to the wound. It was filled with squirming Cerebro-shells, looking for something to latch on to.

“Look at you, making a mess everywhere.” The sound of Bombshell clicking his mandibles together felt impossibly loud. “And bleeding all over my feet—you really have no shame, do you?”

His plating curled as micro transformations activated, his T-cog churning to—

“Don’t transform.”

And Prowl stopped, just like that. Still kneeling on the ground, he heard Bombshell chittering to himself again.

“Come on, you can’t run away now. The game’s finished.” He nudged his face with his segmented foot. “You lost, sweetspark.”

Prowl let out another choked noise, and Bombshell laughed. Not for very long, though.

“Lick it up.”

His limbs seized, but he didn’t move. He didn’t lift his head to look at the Insecticon towering over him. The Cerebro-shells squirmed on the ground.

Bombshell’s voice was distant and chilling. “I gave you an order, foreman.”

Despite everything, his frame did as it was bid, neck craning down to the ground and…

And he…

Primus, this was humiliating.

He was licking up his own blood off the floor, filled with wriggling parasites that also went onto to his mouth. His body didn’t seem to realize that he should swallow down the stuff he was putting in his mouth, so parasite-filled energon slowly dripped from the corners of his mouth back onto the ground.

Bombshell pressed his foot down on Prowls helm, not allowing him to continue with his orders.

“You’re so pretty like this.” He ground his heel into the back of his helm before raising his foot and slamming it back down on his head.

His audio cut out.

He only knew that because it was one of the many alerts that popped into his vision as Bombshell stomped his helm in.

A set of green pedes walked into view—obnoxiously green with scuffs in the paint. They stayed in his vision for a moment before a voice, rough and gravely and far-away, muttered out some words.

“Wow. He’s really kicking your slag in, huh?”

Prowl couldn’t answer. He tried, through a mouthful of debris and rust, but all that came out was a gurgling groan.

If he was being entirely honest with himself, getting kicked to death in a place no one would ever find him was not how he expected to die, but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Primus knew he had been in similar situations, and he really should have died in those scenarios.

“Oh c’mon, he’s not gonna kill you. Look at him.” The voice reasoned. “He’s having too much fun with this.”

-!- Error -!-

Logical Fallacy

Please seek medical attention as there may be an issue concerning—

Bombshell stomped on his head again, the vision he had remaining artifacting and glitching out. Prowl was vaguely aware of his own hands grasping at Bombshell’s ankle, but that seemed too far away to be concerned with.

“Hey.”

The voice shifted, like it got closer. The green pedes had also shifted, the frame they belonged to leaning down to sit next to him.

“Quick question before you go.”

There was no face that he could see, but there wasn’t a need to—not when the Decepticon symbol was laid boldly on his chest.

“You ever think about how badly made all these buildings are?”

Chapter Text

“He really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

The sound of glass plinking into the medical dish pulled Prowl back into his body.

Hook sat in front of him in the hygienic nightmare that was the medical bay, diligently pulling shards of optic glass out of his dead socket. Nearby, fiddling around with vials of chemicals and liquid metals was…Mixmaster. What he was doing Prowl couldn’t be sure from the angle the mech was standing, but he saw the pistol on his hip → standard Tarn issue → only one in the room with a gun. Bone…crusher? Yes, Bonecrusher was also there, standing near the door with his arms crossed over his chest. What he was doing here, or why, Prowl had no clue.

His lip twitched into a grimace. “…your bedside manner is terrible.”

Hook made an irritated noise. Prowl got the feeling if he had eyes, he would be rolling them.

“Boo fucking hoo. Get over it.” The mech stood back and handed the dish to Mixmaster, who ‘ooh’ed and grabbed at it eagerly. Hook waited a moment, staring at Mixmaster expectantly before impatiently clearing his throat.

Mixmaster handed him a plate of metal without looking, earning him a sarcastic “thank you” that he did not answer to.

Hook turned back to Prowl. “Here’s the deal: don’t have the materials to replace the eye, so I’m just putting a patch over it so you don’t get any crud in it.”

Prowl answered with a noncommittal grunt.

“Stay still.” Hook muttered as he ran over the edges of the dead socket with a cleaning cloth one last time.

There was a thin scar that ran from his jaw to his lower lip, splitting it. Prowl watched him worry at it with his teeth as he placed the plate and marked where to cut the metal to fit him helm, before taking a laser cutter from his set of tools. Steady hands guided the laser through metal, and placed the fitted metal back onto the right side of his face.

It was only when he picked up the welding gun did Prowl move, slapping the thing out of his hand.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Hook scoffed and bent down to pick up the tool.

Prowl shook his head. “You are not welding this thing to my face.”

Hook frowned. “Why not? It’s the easiest—”

“Exactly. You’re doing it because it’s easy.” Prowl jabbed a finger into his chest. “What if I need to clean out the socket, or even replace the eye one day?”

“You’re not going to replace it because we don’t have—“

Prowl continued with his rant. “You don’t actually know what you’re doing, for forgive me for not trusting you to do this properly.”

The constructicon stood up straight, his heavy plating flaring (as much as it could anyway). “And what does that mean?”

“It means what you think it means.” He snapped.

Hook scoffed, rolling his head in place of eyes. He moved, dropping the welding gun back on the tray, and retrieved a couple of magnets from Mixmaster’s little station. Frustration colored his movements as he fastened the patch onto Prowl’s face.

First things first—things could have gone worse. In fact, this could be considered the best case scenario for his risky maneuver. He had only lost an eye, his weapon and his dignity in exchange for successfully sending out an undetected distress call. Tac Net predictions pointed toward a 87% chance that the signal would be picked up and the Autobots would be able to retrieve him.

All he had to do was wait.

He could do that.

Bombshell wouldn’t kill him. He knew that. The Insecticon was a sadist and found him too fun to kill, he’d keep him alive as long as possible.

Prowl glanced down to the medical tray to his right, holding tools placed haphazardly around for the ‘medics’ convenience. He could very easily snag another makeshift weapon from here, another exacto-knife or a screwdriver, but not while he was in full view of Bonecrusher.

Would it even matter, though? Despite the evidence complied against them, the Constructicons seemed almost…passive. So far, Hook was the only one who spoke to him and he was pretty ineffectual; Prowl didn’t think he even met all of them. Would they even care?

That was a dangerous thought process → one he shouldn’t press his luck with. These were some of the worst Decepticons. These were murderers, they defiled bodies, leveled cities.

Bonecrusher and Hook were talking, he realized. Shit. He should’ve been listening.

Prowl only caught the end of the conversation → argument as Bonecrusher threw up his hands. “I’m only sayin’ what we’re all thinkin’!”

Hook let out frustrated groan and pointed towards the door. “If you’re not gonna help, you’re gonna leave.”

Bonecrusher scoffed, spreading his hands out, but he couldn’t get another word in. A look from Hook that Prowl couldn’t exactly parse out was all it took. Bonecrusher grumbled and flicked his hand as he stomped out of the room.

Hook huffed and turned back to Prowl.

“These sticking alright, boss?” He asked, fidgeting and adjusting the patch. Once again, Prowl batted his hands away.

“They’re magnets. Of course they’re sticking.” He snapped.

Then something happened. The lights flickered, as they tended to, before completely shuttering off. They were only in darkness for a moment before emergency lighting bathed the room red, and an alarm started blaring through the entire complex. It was completely unexpected, it caught everyone in the room in various stages of off guard.

Bonecrusher burst back into the room looking frantic.

“We’re under attack.”

Mixmaster blinked in mild surprise. “Oh? By Hh-who?”

“Is it Nebulans?” Hook was starting to subspace tools, even going to Mixmaster’s station and shoving his equipment into the others subspace.

Bonecrusher shook his head. “Loyalists.”

“Shit.” Hook cursed, tripping over something moving over to the doors console. “Frag! Fragging—”

Well, time to forget everything he just planned as it all got thrown out the metaphorical window.

Loyalists were bad news for anyone unlucky enough to be targeted by them. Star-crusading zealots, mechs that were still devoted to old ways of the Primacy and had followed Zeta Prime and Beta Trion after they both fled Cybertron. They attacked anyone—Autobot, Decepticon, Netural—it didn’t matter. Neither did taking prisoners. They were here to eliminate everyone on this moon.

He had to leave immediately.

The four mechs exited the med bay into the hall, where the sound of yelling and gunfire could already be heard in the distance.

Hook looked over to Bonecrusher. “Where’s Scav and Haul?”

“They were repairing’ something on the third floor, they’re meeting us halfway.” He answered.

Prowl gradually slowed his pace, allowing the Constructicons to barrel onwards. They didn’t notice when he stopped.

He didn’t watch them march on without him, instead glancing behind and pulling up his map of Kankr. Heading towards the hanger would be dangerous. Loyalists probably came into the complex through there. The hanger was also the only way out.

Letting out a long, hissing sigh through his vents, Prowl marched onward.

Long Haul and Scav met the others in the service stairwell between first and second floors. Public communication lines were firing off at lightning speed, requesting backup at different areas of the complex. Gun shots and screams were faint, and incrementally getting closer.

A jumble of worried pings scattered between them, all of them quickly answered in kind—i’m good, i’m here, i’m okay.

Scavenger was the first to actually speak as they rushed down the stairs.

“What’s the plan?”

“Frag, how would I know Scav?” Hook cursed, taking Scavenger by some of his back kibble and shoving him forward onto the ground floor. “Don’t die, I guess?”

Bones swiveled his head around, like he was trying to find something. Someone.

“Slag, where’s the boss?”

Hook whipped around to glare at Bones. “The fuck do you mean ‘where’s the boss’?!”

“I mean he’s not here! Jackaft!”

“Well—” Hook stumbled over his words for a bit. “He can’t have gotten far! Let’s go back the way we came.”

So they went.

And oh boy, shit was bad.

Insecticons and security personnel carrying weapons rushed past down hallways already marked with blaster shots and energon. They didn’t pay them much mind, they had intruders to kill. Long Haul caught a glimpse of one guardsman getting gored immediately before turning a corner to different hallway.

They checked the med bay. He wasn’t there. He could’ve been back down in his cell which…honestly wasn’t likely. They were out of ideas at that point.

Hook groaned. “Think! Where would he be…”

Long Haul looked around. It was kinda hard to think with the dull ache in all of their helms, that thing that never really went away after Antilla.

“He’s tried escaping a couple times. He might be trying it again.” Mix muttered.

Bones huffed. “Right now? That’s stupid.”

Mixmaster shrugged. Long Haul could hear guns firing outside.

“Well, in that case there’s only one place he could go. C’mon.”

Bonecrusher kicked the door in and was the first to march out into the blood soaked hallway. Insecticon bodies were practically smeared across the floor, rendered into organic-looking mush under the feet of the Loyalist intruders. They shouted things like “rebel traitors” and “rot in the Pit”. The Decepticon guardsmen yelled at them to “help already god damnit”.

While Bonecrusher went in to do his namesake, Long Haul pulled his fist back and bashed through some pale-armored Loyalist that decided he could point a gun at him, tearing his arm off easily before kicking him away. Mixmaster fired lazily at whoever he could see, mostly catching Loyalists, but a few stray blasts hit the guardsmen.

They didn’t stay long, making their way down to the hanger bay. That was the only exit that made sense.

There were two long, pale ships bearing the mark of Zeta on the bottom floor of the hanger bay, with about a dozen soldiers near each. They shot at shipwrights and security personnel, and destroyed control panels as well. But all their focus snapped onto a familiar frame crouched down on the catwalk stairs using a half-blasted Insecticon as a bullet shield, monochrome with that tiny defining red accent.

“There he is!” Scavenger pointed like they all couldn’t already see him.

Blaster fire scattered sparks and gun smoke at their feet, forcing them to retreat back. Sticking his tongue out in concentration, Mixmaster returned cover fire as they made their way towards the catwalk.

Yanking the pin out with his teeth, one of the Loyalists lobbed a grenade at the catwalk. Prowl didn’t even look at it. It was shot out of the air with little effort, the shockwave of the explosion sending air rippling across their frames. Loyalists stopped firing for a moment, shielding their faces from the flash and burning shrapnel.

Finally, Prowl got to what he was looking for—a frigate parked on the side of the catwalk platform. Dumping the body, he made a dash for the inside of the ship.

They, of course, followed him.

The ship was made of dark metal, small but large enough to fit them all comfortably.

Prowl whipped around, eye wide and flashing with shock, before aiming the barrel of the gun at them.

Hook raised his hands. “Woah, hey!”

“Stay where you are.” He grit out.

They did as he said. What else were they gonna do?

His eye quickly flicked between the five of them before narrowing. “I want to make one thing clear: this my ship now, and there is nothing you can do to change that. Is that understood?”

They all glanced at one another. Getting out of this scrap heap sounded like a dream come true. If they had to do it with a stolen frigate, so be it—no paint off their frames. Who were they to argue with the boss anyway?

“Yeah, sure.”

“Got it.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

Prowl blinked, his intense expression shuttering into one of confusion.

It didn’t last long as the ship shuttered and rocked from something exploding outside the hull.

Prowl cursed under his breath, taking a few steps towards the cockpit. “Don’t—don’t just stand there! Do something!”

They all jumped at the chance of following orders. Long Haul and Scav peeked their heads out just in time to see several blasts hit the side of the hull, blinding them with a shower of sparks. Footfall clattered on the metal gratting. They were coming.

Mixmaster pointed and fired at the connection terminal wired to the catwalk, unlatching the frigate from the connection ports before the hatch shut in front of them.

With one last shake of the outer hull, the frigate took off out into space.

Chapter Text

Labrys Inc.

We Have What You Need.

Sender: Overseer Analytica, Labrys Inc.

Subject: Delivery Report

3 Labrys Standard Combiner Industrial Units sent to Luna-2 for the purpose of zoning and the construction of Mining Project-2084. Unit listing pinned below.

For list of the Standard All-Purpose Industrial worker units, check the attached document labeled LSAPI list.

Unit 1

Bucket, LSCI 984-01, Head, Safety Inspection

Hightower, LSCI 984-02, Body, Material Fabrication

Steam Hammer, LSCI 984-03, Left Arm, Surgical Engineering

Scoop, LSCI 984-04, Right Arm, Heavy Labor

Gravedigger, LSCI 984-05, Left Leg, Waste Disposal

Wideload, LSCI 984-06, Right Leg, Material Transport

Unit 2

Scrapper, LSCI 985-01, Head, Architecture

Hook, LSCI 985-02, Body, Surgical Engineering

Bonecrusher, LSCI 985-03, Left Arm, Demolitions

Scavenger, LSCI 985-04, Right Arm, Toxic Waste Disposal

Mixmaster, LSCI 985-05, Left Leg, Material Fabrication

Long Haul, LSCI 985-06, Right Leg, Material Transport

Unit 3

Hardhead, LSCI 986-01, Head, Surveying

Erector, LSCI 986-02, Body, Heavy Labor

Hoist, LSCI 986-03, Left Arm, Surgical Engineering

Hauler, LSCI 986-04 Right Arm, Material Transport

Demo, LSCI 986-05, Left Leg, Demolitions

Quickmix, LSCI 986-06, Right Leg, Material Fabrication

Forwarding manufacturing details…

LSCI worker models are outfitted with thick, durable frames and hydraulics suited for heavy duty labor in varied environments. Fuel processing systems can accept crude oil and ethanol in place of energon, in case none is available.

Units consist of six models that are all bonded together through a “Gestalt Consciousness”, a type of spark bond that allows the team to combine together into one entity. The purpose of having a group that combines into a single entity is simple: constructing structures like buildings and cities becomes considerably easier and less time consuming. There has also been evidence that indicate that the mental effects of a gestalt consciousness greatly affect team cohesion.

As Industrial models they are made to work and take orders from site foremen or other such superiors.

Chapter Text

Reconnaissance Mission Report, recorded and compiled by Rewind

Mission Statement: Recover Autobot Military Strategist Prowl of Praxus

Last known location: Decepticon black site, designation “The Hive”

After a travel time of 2 Chords, we arrived at the point of interest. We did not find anything of note in the area besides space debris. We tried other estimated locations around where the site should have been, but also found nothing.

We suspect that the Decepticons destroyed the station before we arrived and moved Prowl to a different location. It is currently unknown where they would have taken him, however—

Jazz snapped his fingers in front of the little guys face, snagging his attention and stopping the words scrolling on the terminal before them.

“Guh—” The minibot’s visor spacked and flickered for a moment before turning to him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, really. But check this out.”

He’d been keeping an eye on local news, you know, things in their general circle. Specifically, he was watching the feed coming in from Nebulos who was getting some real Decepticon treatment, losing several cities in a matter of Chords to artillery, bugs and more recently a combiner.

Real shame, he always liked their music.

Rewind hummed, sympathetic. “Are we sending any aid?”

“Dunno. We woulda heard if they asked,” Jazz knocked a knuckle against the screen as a long shot of Devastator tearing apart buildings came on. “He look any different to you?”

Rewind leaned forward, squinting, and after a moment shrugged.

Was any this relevant? Probably not.

They’ve been out here for a while now, and…

And it wasn’t looking too hopeful. To them, at least. He could tell Blaster and his deck didn’t have high hopes of this mission being a success. He heard them whispering.

So maybe he was being a little pedantic with the appearance of mister green and ugly on Nebulan network news. A little too detail oriented with a combiner he heard dozens of secondhand accounts of and had only seen a handful of times.

But he looked different.

The guy didn’t usually have a chevron, right?

The little light on the side of Rewind’s head, the one right below the recording light, started blinking like crazy. The Cassette tilted his head as he answered the comm.

“Blaster caught a signal.” He said after a moment. “He’s sending it over now.”

Jazz grinned. “Finally.”

Chapter Text

The stars laid still.

The reason why stars glittered was because of a planets atmosphere. In the void of space, however, they stayed fixed and constant in every which direction one decided to move.

The cockpit was quiet.

Unbearably so, one might say.

Not for Prowl. It was quiet enough to think, to get his thoughts and his priorities in order as he and his…extra cargo drifted through space.

There were several issues concerning his current situation, although considerably improved from the previous one. One of these issues being supplies. After locking himself in the cockpit, he took stock of what he had; a stolen half-charged pistol and exacto-knife from Kankr, and from the glovebox was a flare gun, a screwdriver and a medkit with two emergency med-grade rations. Starvation was a legitimate concern.

In the inky void before him he saw himself, reflected faintly in the hard, durable glass that made the windshield of the cockpit. Focusing on it, he leaned forward, hands laid flat on the control console.

The frigate had sustained damage during his escape from Kankr. Communications, Navigation and weapons systems were damaged → unusable. It could fly at least, however…

His fingers traced over his face to the back of his neck, running over the hole where his internal comms should have been before going farther. He traced over old scars. Newer ones.

…however, without any knowledge of where he was or where he was going. How was he going to know how to get back to Cybertron?

Could he go back?

He had changed more than he’d realized. More than he’d have liked to.

Prowl hadn’t broken to torture or given away any information—at least not willingly—and although his original mission was a failure, he did gain valuable insight on how the Insecticons operated.

That insight came at the cost of himself.

His plating was rearranged, heavier, denser, with transformation seams unfamiliar to him. Alterations to things inside of him, half of which went unknown to him. Remade so that he would be forced to destroy cities and people, one piece to a great and terrible weapon.

Used as a thing—

He sat back down in the pilots chair. His plating clamped tightly against him, vents fluttering around wisps of steam. In his right hand he still held the pistol. It never left his side. It was too valuable → a weapon → a means of defense → a tool. He wasn’t entirely sure what the model was, although he was pretty sure it was some kind of standard issue Tarn-made weapon → medium voltage. It shot well.

Prowl glared out into the void. His reflection glared back, one eye burning blue in the darkness. And beside him, resting his head on the back of the chair and smiling, was Jazz.

Jazz, languid and liquid, his body language so outwardly open that one could mistake it for being inviting. But Prowl had a trained eye, he knew him → Jazz was a lie from the things he spoke to the way he held himself → an apex predator. He hid it so perfectly.

“What can i say? I had time to practice.” Jazz stood up straight, moving slowly as he walked his fingers along the back of the chair.

Prowl watched his every move.

“Not feeling up to a little back and forth? Alright, alright…” Jazz paused to point at his reflection. “Let’s review; you’re stuck between several rocks and a hard place, with the only thing seperatin’ you from them is a locked door.”

Prowl’s head twitched as he glanced back. It was still closed.

“And your one chance at gettin’ help is all the way back the way you came,” The mech jutted a thumb, gesturing behind him. “I suppose you’re not too keen on going back.”

He growled. “What do you think?”

“I think that you don’t have too many options at the moment, Prowler.”

He fiddled with the trigger. Lightly caressed it.

Jazz leaned forward, close enough to get next to his audial. His mouth was a soft, slightly downturned line. No charming grin or disarming smile. It was surprisingly, almost genuine.

“Y’know, there’s no shame in it.” He spoke softly. “It’s just standard procedure for things like this—a standard you made, by the way.”

He did, didn’t he?

He remembered, back when he was still head of Spec Ops, back during the first civil war, making that set of rules and teaching it to his team at the time. What to do when captured. What to do in the worst case scenario. He knew, he just—

Jazz’s hands squeezed his shoulders, tight enough to dent. “You’re compromised. You’ve been compromised the moment you let those insects capture you and scramble your brains. You should’ve blown out your processor the first chance you got, then maybe none of this would’ve happened in the first place.”

Prowl risked a glance at the pistol.

It was right there.

And really, did he really want to live through the experience of starving to death in the middle of space? Subject himself to the Constructicons?

The gun was right there.

BAM BAM BAM

The sudden sound breaking through silence shocked → startled the gun out of his hand, sending it clattering to the floor.

“Ey boss!” It was one of them. He couldn’t tell by voice alone. “Boss, you in there?”

Prowl briefly considered not answering that thing, but after thinking about it for a little bit he came to the exhaustive conclusion that whoever it was would just keep knocking and yelling for him until he answered.

He groaned, knocking the back of his helm against the chair before standing up and walking towards the door. He pressed the intercom button on the key pad.

“What.”

“Oh, uh, hi! Hook wants to talk to you. It’s about the engine.”

Shit. That wasn’t something he could ignore.

He let out a very forceful sigh, recollecting his thoughts and his gun before inputting a code in the keypad.

Scavenger was picking at the paint flaking off his fingers when the doors to the cockpit slid open. He scrambled out of the way as Prowl stomped forward, his stride being something that commanded respect. He was scowling, barely glancing at Scavenger as he passed him.

“So, uh, the engines that way if you want…” Scavenger pointed down the round main room of the ship. “I-I could go—I mean I should go with you! We’re going to the same place.”

The frigate wasn’t that big, he didn’t need to show the Boss around or give a tour or whatever.

Stupid.

He followed him down to the engine room, just a short ladder climb down into the small bowels of the spacecraft, where the rest of the crew were waiting. The engine was steadily chugging away, providing energy for the ship to propel itself forward…but there was an issue. It was very easy to hear; the disconcerting clunking that rattled out of it.

Scavenger didn’t know what it meant. None of them did. It was probably bad, right? Engines weren’t usually meant to make that sound. Maybe.

Boss glanced around the room, wings flicking occasionally before deciding to speak. “I do hope you actually have a reason for calling me down here other than this.”

His tone was cold, almost angry, like they did something wrong.

(Did they? Maybe they did, but he couldn’t think of anything.)

(Maybe it was in Kankr. He hated them in Kankr and on Nebulos, they fell apart so many times—)

Bonecrusher gestured to the engine. “Is this not a fraggin’ reason? This thing could, I dunno, explode or somethin’.”

“So? Fix it.”

They all kind of…stopped at the simple audacity of that statement. It clearly wasn’t a joke, ‘cause Boss didn’t look like he was the kind of mech to joke. About anything. But this was like—really? This was intrinsic, he should know this about them.

His words even shocked Long Haul into speaking. “…you think it’s that simple?”

Boss looked at them like they were stupid.

And it wasn’t like…well, Scavenger was. He was stupid. He knew he couldn’t fix the engine, he wouldn’t know where to begin with it and would probably make it worse (Same with Bones, he would get frustrated and probably break it more, Long Haul only ever carried things, Mix wouldn’t care, so maybe Hook since—)

“Don’t you build things?”

“Yeah. Like buildings.” Bones jabbed a thumb at the engine, baring his teeth in a sharp sneer. “Does this look like a building to you?”

Hook elbowed him in the side for that—maybe a bit too hard but Bonecrusher was being, well, himself—before sighing. His gaze was drawn back to the engine, still clunking away concerningly.

“I’ll repair it. I have experience in surgical engineering, and that kinda overlaps with this.” He shrugged. “It’s got engine in the name.”

It made a lot of sense when he said it, so Scavenger was inclined to agree. Mixmaster nodded along with him.

Prowl scoffed.

“So you’re technically a mechanic the same way you’re technically a doctor? That certainly instills confidence.”

Hook’s field flared out sharply for a second before whipping around to glare at Prowl, pointing a finger at him. “You—“ He stopped himself, field leveling out but still tense.

Prowl did not react in the slightest. “I’m just stating facts.”

“You’re being an aft.” Bones growled.

“If that’s what you’re taking from my words then I suppose we can’t have a productive conversation.”

Before Bones could really blow his lid at that, Hook grabbed him by the face place and physically kept his jaw shut with his hand. He kept his sights on Prowl, his voice and expression tight.

“Can we just get along for five kliks in the interest of not dying?” He asked. “We need each other to get through this, okay? And that goes to you too, Bossman.”

The boss didn’t retort or reply to that, ‘least not for a while. His wing twitched again, and his jaw shifted, gears clicking against each other.

“That is true.” He said.

“Yeah, it is.” Hook stressed.

Another beat of silence.

The tension was…really tense. Scavenger kinda wished that it stopped. A sharp hiss came out of Bosses vents, making Scavenger flinch a little.

“Fine,” Prowl gritted out. “But here are some ground rules: unless it is an emergency you do not touch me, do not approach me, do not speak to me under any other circumstances. Is that understood?”

Before anyone could say anything, Hook nodded. “Yeah, fraggin’—fine. We’ll do that. To the letter.”

“Good.”

He didn’t spare them a second glance as he ascended back up the ladder.

Chapter Text

The presence of someone else within you, filling every crevasse and crack in your frame.

Bonecrusher watched, arms crossed, as Hook worked.

Like finally regaining the feeling of your arm after losing it, walking after losing a leg. Being able to think clearly after being bashed in the head.

He was being very careful with the engine, using what he knew about living metal and applying it to a frigate engine.

And being within his frame, his mind. Filling in spaces made for you—drilled out and cavernous, yet almost too cramped. Unnatural. Uncomfortable. The feeling of pressure in a pipe.

Of course Hook turned it off before beginning to rummage around inside the thing, he wasn’t as stupid as the cop thought they were.

And the flood of slag that enters the mind uninhibited, slag you can’t understand because it’s going too fast, slag you can’t process because it’s too much. you can’t think. You can act but you can’t think because he’s fucking everywhere.

Bonecrusher narrowed his vision as a painful pulse of the splitting headache made a wave through him.

Then, after screaming at you like something from the Pit—then, like taking the cables in the back of your neck, he looks you dead in the eye and rips You asunder. Back to pieces.

Back to pieces.

Eventually Hook relented with a sigh. “What do you want.”

“I don’t like him.” Bonecrusher immediately said.

Hook grumbled, shoulder-deep in the guts of the frigates engine: “Yeah, you’ve made that pretty clear. Go complain to Haul or somethin’.”

“Yet he’s staying.”

“What else do you want me to do?” Hook groaned, “Whether we-you like it or not, he’s a part of the Gestalt now. Be thankful it’s not just the five of us anymore.”

Be thankful. Be thankful??? Bonecrusher was going to blow a gasket at this rate.

“You know what I’d be grateful for? If some random Autobot drone wasn’t here replacing Scrapper.”

Hook scrubbed a hand over his face. “Don’t start with this shit again—”

“And we’re all so happy to have a sixth again! Like this isn’t weird and not how it’s supposed to go. Like having a headache for the past—fuckin’—however many cycles is great. Like him tearing us apart however many times he wants is normal.”

And he just loved to do that. Ever since Antilla, their “foreman” tried to take control of Devastator during every job they had down on Nebulos, resulting in the combination destabilizing and breaking apart.

Fucker.

“I’m not asking you to be happy with it.” Hook stressed for what was probably the 7th time since this all happened. “I’m asking you to deal with it.”

Was he not fucking listening? “And I’m telling you this isn’t going to work.”

“Then make it work.” He snapped.

Fuck you fuck you fuck you—

“He’s not one of us, he never will be.” Bonecrusher growled low, pushing in close so Hook could feel every bit of his roiling EM field. “Get that through your fucking helm. He’s not Scrapper. He’s a fucking parasite that’s dividing us into tiny pieces and—”

“You’re the only one here dividing us!” Hook whipped around, ripping his oil-stained hand from the bowels of the engine. He jabbed a finger into Bonecrushers chassis, smearing black over his badge. “You need to get it together. We all agreed this would be the path going forwards. We all accepted his terms and conditions. You cannot be a fucking liability right now, do you understand?”

Bonecrusher glanced away, grumbling under his breath. “You accepted his terms.”

“Bonecrusher.”

“Whatever, fine!” He threw his hands into the air, causing Hook to make a little noise of exasperation under his breath.

They could all die in this stupid, tiny box together, see if he cared.

The medic slapped his hand against his chest, pushing him back towards the ladder. “I’m sick of listening to you glitch and moan while I work. Go do somethin’ useful like bash your head against the wall.”

Bonecrusher simply flipped him off.

Chapter Text

He thought about killing them.

Only a few times. Only in the beginning when the situation was unbearable to think about.

And it would have been easy. They all slept at the same time in the same place → in a pile near his door. He had spent long moments staring at them from the empty pit of his doorway, eye glaring in the darkness as he thought about the advantages of just…shooting one of them.

Any of them would do → Not Hook, Hook needed to be alive → maybe the bulldozer.

He wouldn’t even know that he had died. One clean shot through the helm and it would’ve been over.

But there was a problem with this thought—there were five of them. As soon as he shot one, the others would surely wake up and kill him. Catharsis did not outweigh the risk of acting out that fantasy.

And Hook was right about one thing. In this situation he needed the Constructicons in order to survive. Unfortunately.

For the most part he opted not to think about them. He had better things to do, such as calculating their trajectory from Nebulos to where he knew → assumed Cybertron to generally be. With no readily available data pads, he marked the walls with a spare pen he found in the glovebox, jotting down complex calculations and trajectory predictions.

Now, Prowl wasn’t a scientist or mathematician or anything similar to that. He was a former Enforcer with a processor made for predicting things. The Tactilian Suite was doing most of the heavy lifting here. That, of course, came with the usual migraines but he had gotten used to those since he was constructed.

A deep, gravely voice hummed right over his shoulder. “…seems like a long way back to Cybertron.”

Prowl’s grip on his marker tightened.

If he were to date this new…development, he would say it had begun a while ago, after his verbal agreement with the Constructicons. Or possibly before that, if his memory was to be believed.

It was in the shape of a mech, one his databanks faintly recognized as the (former) Constructicon Scrapper. Mostly due to the paint job.

He found that he couldn’t look at it directly, as every time he did he found nothing there. It disappeared—or more accurately, his mind realized there was nothing there to begin with. He saw it best in the corners of his vision or in reflective surfaces. The hulking frame, almost too big for the cockpit sometimes. The red glare of a broken visor.

He had done his best to ignore it.

Still, his best attempts at ignorance proved hard to maintain when all this thing did was talk, talk, talk.

Scrapper stepped a bit closer to him, letting out a low hum. “Those arches are a bit lopsided, you know. You think that has something to do with your depth perception?”

“Stop talking to me.” Prowl gritted out.

“I’m just asking a question.” Scrapper chuckled. “A reasonable one too.”

“Shut up.” He finally snapped, whipping around at the green and purple…thing in behind him. Of course there was nothing there, but he could see the green and purple reflection in the window. “You are not real, you’re—”

Prowl struggled to find the right words for it, vents struggling to ex-vent heat from his systems. Scrapper only stared at him, patiently waiting for him to finish.

“You’re a hallucination!” He finally spat out, throwing his hands up into the air. “A data ghost complied from the memory runoff of five psychotic constructicon workers!”

Because rationally that was what this was. It wasn’t anything other than that.

Scrapper simply shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat, mech.”

Suddenly, the engine sputtered and the lights flickered off.

“Primus, what is it now?” Prowl hissed, slamming his fist against the controls for the cockpit door.

He stomped out into the frigates main body, squinting into the darkness to find a figure in the darkness, reflected by the light of his own visor. A familiar, real shape, grumbling while he pulled at a panel in the wall.

“What is going on? What did you do?” He demanded.

The figure—Bonecrusher he realized, great—didn’t answer him. Instead he turned on what he could only assume was a flashlight mod and started inspecting the innards of the ship. The strip of light moved over colorful wires and considerably duller power cells.

More heat was vented as Prowl’s annoyance grew. “I asked you a question, answer me.”

He turned, glaring. “Oh, so you don’t want us to talk to you but it’s fine if you talk to us?”

“I can talk to you whenever I feel like,” Prowl snapped. “The engine just shut off. What’s going on?”

Bonecrusher waved him off, returning to the open panel. “The engine’s fine, it’s probably just…a fuse blowing out or something.”

“Well, that’s reassuring…” Prowl muttered. He watched for a moment, arms crossed and eye squinting through the darkness. “…do you even know how to fix it?”

“It’s just a blown fuse, anyone can gix yak. Yonyotharetharoca just tha rt ane It rots anca…”

Prowl blinked.

“Excuse me?”

Bonecrusher turned and glared at him even harder than before. “Arevan ostactoy prencoplofermplewita t ly pmoma fene avand- far amanee. Gilbgeebee.”

No, this wasn’t him spacing out again. Whether it was an audial malfunction or something else he couldn’t think of, Prowl could not for the life of him make out what Bonecrusher was saying to him.

To make things worse, the idiot was still trying to talk to him but all his systems were picking up was garbled nonsense, and the noise really wasn’t helping his aching helm. Prowl tried to shake the static that was slowly spreading through his head.

His vision doubled as a result.

He nearly purged.

Swiping a hand across his face, Prowl caught the sight of smeared pink on his palm before stumbling into the wall and passing out.

Chapter Text

SYSTEM ERROR

Initiating reboot process

“C’mon, get up.”

Prowl felt hands wrap around his arms and attempted to drag him to his feet. With no small amount of struggle his body slipped and fell back onto the sandy earth, where the rust of the red desert was allowed to crawl over his plating.

There was a sigh. “If you wanted to die you would’ve done so by now.”

……17%

He looked up and was treated to the sight of Scrapper’s back, the gore of his processor spilling out from the back of his head. Fuel ran down in trails of black down his back.

The wind howled.

……31%
……32%

Prowl tried to push himself up.

……64%

It felt like there was a weight on his chest.

……71%
……72%
……73%

No that wasn’t right. There was a weight in his chest, or at least something akin to it. It made it hard to move freely.

Or maybe that was the rust.

Maybe it was something else.

……90%

Scrapper tried to drag him up to his feet again. His hands were rough. Scratched and worn from cycles upon cycles of work and hard labor.

……98%
……99%

Prowl pulled against his hold. “…get off of me.”

“I’m just tryna to help.”

……100%

“No you’re not.” He snarled.

He felt his hands raise, stubby claws extended and hooking into Scrapper’s face. The plating bent slightly under the pressure and the pull.

“I don’t want your ‘help’. I don’t want you here.”

The constructicon stumbled back. Hands raking shallow grooves against his faceplate, Prowl grit his teeth—half grin, half grimace—as he tore his mask off with great effort.

……110%

There was nothing underneath. No face to speak of.

……270.7%

Just cabling snapping and breaking under the strain it was under.

……360%

Scrapper fell back, taking them both down in the fall. Fine rust sand clouded around them as they tumbled down the dunes.

……444%

Prowl didn’t stop ripping at him.

……512%

His fist smashed against the glass of his visor, breaking it even more.

……640%

He tore at the cabling in his neck.

……783.333%

Oil soaked into the sand, a black halo around the head of the green and purple mech. Scrapper barely moved against him, didn’t move to push him away.

……1036%

His claws hooked into the seams of his chassis and

LOGIC ERROR

And pried him open—

Reboot complete

Recalibrating…

Sight came back slow, artifacted and spotty. He could almost see the little, soft-bodied parasites squirming behind his eyes. He could certainly feel them, in this half-awake state. He was on the floor, laid out on his back and looking up at what he assumed was the ceiling. His eye shifted around slowly, rolling in his head like a drunk marble.

A shadow loomed over him. Arms, outstretched and reaching for him.

His frame reacted immediately.

He felt the impact rattle through him as he kicked upward, pushing the figure away. He swung wildly at his head, the second strike managing to crack the glass of his red visor.

“Ah, fuck—” Hook hissed, batting away another punch to his face. “It’s me! It’s me, calm down!”

Prowl rolled onto his knees, trying to stand, immediately failing and smashing his face against the floor.

He groaned.

Helm still ringing, he felt himself picked up and gently placed against the wall.

“Nice going.” Hook mumbled, his tone pinched.

Prowl huffed, squinting his eye open. His vision swam for a moment. Hook had his face in his hands, pushing it around as he checked for damages → that’s what he was doing. It took an embarrassingly long time for him to realize that, but in his defense most of his processor wasn’t in the best shape at the moment.

“Well, you didn’t break anything at least.” He muttered. Hook pulled out a small flashlight and clicked it on. “Move your eye around for me.”

He did that. The light shined in the corners of his vision briefly before retreating back into Hook’s subspace. Prowl raised a hand against his faceplate, scrubbing his palm against his eye. Frag, his head hurt.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Prowl squinted through his fingers. It took longer than he’d like for his vocalizer to work. “…three.”

“Great. You can talk and you can see.” Hook said. Prowl barely caught the ‘get back to work’ muttered under the constructicon’s vent. An inside joke.

He also noticed a distinct lack of pressure around him now that it was gone → EM field → Hook’s. Tense and shuddery. He didn’t dwell on it for too long as Hook had un-spaced a rag and was wiping away the nosebleed that was starting to crust on his upper lip.

Prowl slapped his hand away, scowling. “Get off me.”

“Right. Forgot.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry boss.”

Prowl felt his scowl deepen. “Don’t call me that.”

Hook made a face but otherwise didn’t say anything. He got up, subspacing his things and grumbling to himself. Prowl kept his sights on him as he subtly patted himself down. Everything was (seemingly) where it was supposed to be.

Irritation not his own crawled around in his spark like a worm. A feeling that wasn’t there → wasn’t his → words without sound → meaning without words → understanding the suggestion of a foreign emotion. It happened infrequently → the feeling → when he sat in the cockpit calculating. Prowl tried to ignore it most of the time but sometimes it just…

“Where are the others?” He asked, letting the thought trail off and fade away.

“Stuck ‘em in the engine. Got sick of them crowdin’, and knew you would too.”

Prowl regarded him for a moment. Hook didn’t look back, too busy with organizing his subspace…or picking at something in his frame, he couldn’t tell. He glanced over to the entrance to the engine room, which was silent. No muttering, no whining, no four pairs of visors peering at them.

“I have a question.”

That got Hook to look down at him. “I’ll do my best to answer. What is it?”

Prowl felt his Tac Net slowly churn. He had wanted to ask this for a while. Now was as good a time as any.

“In The Hive, you were one of the…medical officers that reformatted me.” Prowl braced a hand against the wall, attempting to stand. He quickly gave up. “I remember that. What I don’t remember is the procedure.”

Hook’s lips pressed into a fine line. “Okay, not a question. But I can assume you mean—”

“What I mean is that I want to know what you did to me.” Prowl stressed at him. Hook simply…shrugged.

“You know how it works.” The constructicon medic said. “It was pretty simple, actually. Wasn’t a full reformatting, we just added a few more components to frame and connected those new points to your T-Cog.”

“And how do you explain the combining aspect of it? I thought that combiners couldn’t…I thought Bonds like this were a closed circuit.” Or so to speak, Prowl didn’t exactly know how combiners worked besides the bare, bare basics. That’s why he was asking. “How did you reformat me into something else entirely?”

“Okay, well it’s kinda like…well you know how—no that’s…” Hook’s lips pressed tightly together as he tapped a finger on his chin. “…do you have a pen?”

After reluctantly handing him one, Hook began to explain in a way that made it increasingly clear that he didn’t entirely understand either. Which was frustrating for a number of reasons. Prowl watched as he drew crude diagrams on the floor, taking in each word.

The procedure, as far as they were both aware, was extremely technical → experimental → dangerous. Base schematics were sent over by Shockwave which were modified by Bombshell. Gestalts were made artificially, one spark constructed and modified within Althihex factories during the golden age, creating many out of one.

This was not that.

Prowl listened as Hook described slicing out the thinnest sliver out of each of their sparks—five out of his own—and placing them into the holes left behind. He listened as Hook described how the energies fused together, making the artificial bond. And he listened as Hook told him he didn’t expect him to survive. None of them did.

Prowl stared down at the crude doodle of an open spark chamber, five little lines drawn over  the spark.

“I mean, the initial combination test did nearly burn out your spark, I don’t know if you remember that—”

“I remember.” His tone was tight.

“—but besides that, you. Lived. So.”

Hook awkwardly trailed off, hesitating a moment before offering Prowl back the pen.

He reluctantly took it.

It was silent for a long moment, neither of them willing to break it. Fiddling the pen between his fingers, Prowl worked his jaw around. “…you’re going to fix this.”

“Whadaya mean?”

This time Prowl managed to get himself standing, pushing off against the wall. Hook nearly reached to steady him but retracted his hand quickly.

“If you’ve forgotten which side you’re on, you will be taken into Autobot custody the klik we get back to Iacon and you will reverse this thing you did to me.” He gestured to his head.

Hook sputtered, visor sparking.

He stood up, hands flapping wildly around him. “Wha-fuckin’—what do you want me to do? You think I know how to—to undo this??”

“You’re going to.”

“I don’t know how.” Hook stressed.

“Don’t make up excuses!” Prow snapped, out of patience. “If you could do it in the first place you can reverse it, and you’re going to. When we return to Iacon you are going to.”

“And if we don’t get back?” Hook asked.

“We will.” 39% chance → too many variables → Prowl narrowed his eye. His hand itched for his gun. “Unless that’s threat, not a statement.”

Hook groaned.

“You are fucking impossible.” The mech let his head fall into his hands, muttering something under his breath that Prowl couldn’t catch → didn’t care to.

‘I don’t know how.’

It was a horrible excuse → derived from selfishness. Any hack doctor worth the credits could dig around and fix whatever was wrong with their patient. Of course, he wouldn’t say Hook was exactly worth the credits.

Prowl waved his hand and turned to leave. “Return to what you were doing, don’t bother me.”

His head snapped back up. “Woah, hold on. We’re not done here.”

Prowl flinched out of his grip → he hadn’t even been grabbed yet → he felt it before it—

—it didn’t happen.

It didn’t happen.

Hook lowered his hand. “Look, okay…just listen. Five kliks tops, listen to me.”

Prowl watched the way the medic’s hand flexed for a moment before returning to his side as a fist. As the other ran down his face.

“Can we…just one of us, only has to be one, look over you for the time bein’. Just so you don’t pass out and crack your head open someplace we can’t get to you.”

Prowls eye snapped fully onto him. “That’s not necessary.”

“It is,”

“You don’t get to decide whether or not I’m fit—”

“I don’t care, it is.”

“—to handle myself! This is not a debate, you are not—”

“I am.”

“—monitoring me like I’m some sort of invalid, I’m the one piloting this ship you have no right or authority to—”

“C’mon, it’s for your health and safety.”

“—you’re not even an actual medic! I’m not putting my health into your hands! You were the one who—”

“We’re doing this, I don’t care.”

“You are NOT—!”

Prowl sat in the cockpit, keeping his eye firmly on the space between the window and the wall covered in his calculations, determined to ignore the Constructicon sitting right next to him.

Mixmaster hummed quietly as his chemistry set (literally just a hot plate and some beakers) bubbled away. The muted colors of his refelction could be seen in Prowl’s perifery. The one good thing was that he wasn’t talking to him.

Still. He was there.

It was hard to ignore them when they were right there.

He turned more fully to the wall. His scribblings upon the grey surface were laid out clearly, their trajectory to Cybertron long yet accurate. There were a dozen tiny variables poking at the edges of his processor—engine failure (0.05%) → Constructicons kill him (0.00026%) → asteroids destroy the ship (0.0034%) → captured by hostile forces (0.003%) → recaptured by Decepticons (0.002%). However, he elected to ignore them. Spending too much time on small percentage chances like that only served to waste time.

The Tactilian Suite, though incredibly useful and powerful, had a few issues that went unsaid when his model was being produced. It worked by taking the current situation and running through all possible scenarios that could happen based on criminal profiles, case files, training simulations, personal experience and memory bank files.

His hand wandered up to the back of his neck, but refrained from scratching at the scarring there.

Problems occured when personal experiences started to affect the processes of the Tactilian Suite → when memory started to muddle with the present moment. Thousands of tiny percentile chances crowded the mind when actively using the Tac Net, as well as when you weren't, hindering effectiveness and processing speed. You couldn't think, you couldn’t function, and at that point you would be decommissioned by your superior.

Of course, he knew his mind and how it worked. He had work-arounds to the issues that his processor posed to his ability to fuction.

…Had.

Just one of the things The Hive took from him.

He straightened in his seat a little more, pulling out and fiddling with the pen. He had to remind himself of the benefits of this mission. At least he got the information he wanted; about The Hive, about Insecticons operations, even Kankr was a boon to knowing what went on within the Decepticons more clandestine factions.

But what good was information if he could never bring it back to the people who requested it? What good was calculating their trajectory to Cybertron if…if he wasn’t even sure if he was correct? If they—if he would make it back home?

His eye shuttered, heat wafting out of his vents. Glancing briefly back at the windshield reflection, he let more out.

He hated having to rely on them.

“Well, your only other options are to kill us or kill yourself and I’m guessing you don’t want to do either of those.”

He blinked.

Then he whipped around, staring at Mixmaster in disbelief. The mech still had his eyes on his chemisty set.

“…excuse me?”

“Hm?” Mixmaster looked up at him curiously.

“What you just said. How did you know that?”

The constructicon just blinked. “I didn’t say anything, Boss.”

Prowl scowled.

“Stop calling me that.” He swivled back around in his seat, ignoring the sound of the beakers bubbling.

Chapter Text

Jazz didn’t smoke very often, but it was occasions like this that required something to take the edge off.

They had followed the signal to Mercos, the small dark moon that circled around the rings of Nebulos. The message was short and succinct, very on protocol. Very Prowl.

The complex itself was a prime example of hostile architecture. It was dark and tall, wide and pointy. Orbital cannons were stationed around, barely hidden by dust. The entirety of it was being reclaimed by the Nebulan Resistance Army. They allowed them to examine the moon for their lost tactician.

They searched everywhere. It was a large complex, there were a lot of places to search. Basically just a typical ‘con base. The most interesting thing about this particular base however were the masses and masses of gored bodies littering the corridors and stairways, stinking techno-organic sludge that was uncomfortable to be around. And the uniform frames of Zeta Prime’s Loyalists laid deactivated too.

The records room was a mess. A lot of the servers were smashed in or destroyed, so they couldn’t get much out of it. There was a security office that Blaster was trying to crack into at that very moment.

And the lower levels, Sweet Prima. Rusty, rotten and in disrepair, the Kankr penitentiary had to one of the worst places he had the displeasure of being in. If it wasn’t for the documents in this place he wouldn’t know what those things in the cells were.

Prisoners of war, organic and inorganic, grafted together in horrific ways with no real rhyme or reason to it. For fun. For boredom. Just to see if they could.

Fuckin’ disgusting.

He let the smoke cloud out of his mouth as he let his eyes wander. He let his mind wander too, while he was at it. Blaster’s deck was surveying the place, providing color commentary to an otherwise bleak scene.

“Can you believe that Loyalists were here?” Rewind muttered, taking pictures for his report.

“Ain’t that hard to believe.” Eject grumbled. He and Steeljaw poked at the gore splattered everywhere. “Their evidence is everywhere.”

Steeljaw let out a chuckle.

“You found him yet?”

Jazz glanced over to Blaster. He had the look of a mech who just spent the better part of a cycle sawing through a blocked door.

“No.” He took another drag. “Just bodies. What about you?”

“I got security footage up and running if you wanna check that.”

One of his sensor horns twitched. “Let’s.”

He flicked his cygarette over the railing and followed Blaster to that small, dark room, moving aside the two dead security guards to get to the monitors. Jazz watched as Blaster plugged in and worked his magic on the thing.

“Some of the footage is corrupted, and some of the cameras got disabled by the Loyalists.” Blaster explained. “But I can still access the useable stuff, I just have to…”

Whirring sounded deep within his internals as he trailed off. The monitor screens buzzed with static and flashed rapidly as they were searched through. Footage played backwards, all violent scenes of the invasion from different sections of Kankr.

“There.”

Blaster pointed at the screen, at the image of a little black and white mech pointing a pistol off the hanger bay catwalk. There was a little bit of interference, but one could clearly see him and five others climb into a stationed Decepticon frigate.

Green and purple.

Hm.

Jazz grinned, patting Blaster on the shoulder. “Look at yooou! Master hacker at it again.”

“We still don’t know where he is.” Blaster pointed out.

Nice. Way to ruin the mood.

He looked back at the footage, now on a steady loop. Prowler getting shot at, grenade explosion that fuzzes out the feed for a moment, then he ducks into a ship. One followed by five, heading into a dark-hulled Decepticon frigate.

“We can see which ship he took.” Jazz pointed out, gesturing to the screen. “We can track it down using the position it launched from and the energy trail it left from its thrusters.”

“That’s sketchy at best. What if we track down the wrong ship?” Blaster asked.

“It’s the only option we’ve got.”

He glanced up at him, hesitating before speaking. “Jazz, we don’t know if he’s even alive at this point. If we can’t find him within the next cycle we have to go home without him.”

“I know that, just—” Jazz squeezed his shoulder a little, that light and easy grin of his straining the longer this conversation kept happening. “Have a little faith.”

“Mech, I’m trying.”

Blaster pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed closed. They were quiet for a moment, either unsure of what to say or how to say it. Jazz pursed his lips together, hand slipping from Blaster’s shoulder as he stood up straighter.

And like, he knew. He knew that this was a long shot. He knew that the chances of finding him alive were slim, and finding him at all were slimmer.

He knew.

His doorwings flicked, then fluttered briefly.

“Say what you will about him but we need him. I know he ain’t popular, but he’s our military strategist. We’re dead in the water if we can’t bring him back.”

Blaster glanced back up at him, the pale light of the monitor washing out his paint. With the way his helm guard was shaped, it always looked like he was worried about something.

“Yeah…” He sighed, relenting. “Sure, fucking…yeah. You’re right.”

Jazz nodded, turning his gaze to the rest of the room. “Besides, I’d rather bring back a body than nothing at all.”

Chapter Text

Destruction. Devastation.

LSCI 985 2-6 : ACTIVE AND OPERATIONAL

LINKING CONSCIOUSNESS…

CONNECTING TO : PPU-C2.456240055
DESIGNATION: Prowl

Combined force of Six—

Main Cortex: Functioning
Tactilian Processing Unit: Functioning
Gyrospheric Systems: Currently Stalled
Subsidiary Systems: Currently Stalled
Transformation Sequence-02: Currently Active

ALERT//: Motor Functions Disabled
ALERT//: Alternate Mode [Pursuit Vehicle] Disabled
ALERT//: Gyro. Systems Disabled
ALERT//: Subsidiary Systems Disabled

—into One.

Devastator rose above the smoke and the trees, above puny organic cities. Glass-pane towers glittering the reflection of fire-light, the destruction of their architecture ordered from the many-toothed maws of insects and bugs.

Splendora fell like any other city.

It was like melting away. Like being you but bigger. But it wasn’t you, exactly, because ‘you’ didn’t exist anymore. ‘You’ are someone else, something else, a different element. Different entity.

Resistant armies and their missilage did little against his thick frame. They barely hurt. They barely made a noise through that of the shattering of glass, the rending of metal, the roaring of fire, the flight of Insects. Metal split and crumpled between his fingers before detonating.

And though he was not ‘him’, Mixmaster still retained memory, for they were Devastator’s memories. Memories of Luna-02 and the mining facility with a name that was no longer relevant. Memories of the 984 and 986 crew—Bucket and Hardhead and Scoop and Hauler and Gravedigger and poor, poor Hightower—drinking and laughing and working together. Memories of chemistry, of bubbling and dripping and caustic smoke wafting in the air.

Sweet reactivity.

Some of Kickback’s swarm landed upon his towering frame, chittering and shuttering their gossamer wings, crawling on him. Devastator sneered and splattered their forms into a thick pink paste. The evidence of their existence then burned away with the ignition of another missile against his plating. Fuel burned fast, after all.

Memories of Scrapper. Memories of failure. Memories of anger and fire and riot and revolt and death and hunger and death and killing and eating others and dead bodies and being alive and arguments and a bullet through the head and a hole in his chest and an emptiness and—

A hesitation.

—and Memories that were not his own.

Their destruction faltered. Their form rattled as He yanked on their sparks like a leash. Stark resistance and utter hatred for them, the reminder of separate identity destabilized the combined consciousness.

>>// Stop This. Now

Despite this, Devastator still makes the difficult effort to keep moving. His form desperate to continue existing.

A peering into a life so unlike his, but now was a part of him all the same, with so many intricacies that they were hard to parse together. Problems and percentages and numbers too numerous to count, and blurring things that made his helm ache if he tried to focus on them.

He saw the city of Iacon. He saw Praxus, and Tarn, and Polyhex. Places unseen by the eyes of off-world constructs. Old architecture of ancient cities that were all so beautiful, yet left unappreciated by the eyes that beheld them. Bars and people in those bars, dim from shitty light fixtures and the stink of engex on open air. Enforcer precincts all clean and utilitarian, bright lights and propaganda posters.

>>// STOP.

And suddenly he is there. Like an animal he digs his claws into him and tears back, causing Mixmaster to be aware of both Prowl and himself within the bond. Individuality.

It hurt.

The dark skies of Cybertron, so choked by smoke you could barely see the light of Luna-01 shining through. Tarn was an ugly city filled with smog, filled with factory noise and quiet people. Tarn was an industrial city that made its business from making weapons and refining energon. Tarn was a city that had an Emirate dedicated to the idea of change for his people, who wanted to build a school in a city made of factories.

He was not popular among the High Council.

He spoke too loud for them.

Like many of the citizens that lived within and outside the city walls, the High Emirate of Tarn had mysteriously vanished. The news was not made immediately public, of course. He doubted it ever would, or at least treated with as much severity as it should have been met with.

>>// DONT LOOK AT THAT

There was nothing else to look at.

He didn’t know why he was going so far with this. <Jazz<Jazz>Jazz> had told him not to dig too deep—“For yer own safety, Prowler.”—but he hadn’t listened. Jazz didn’t stop him. He helped him this far (under threat), he might as well follow to sate his own curiosity.

It was within an old energon refinery, abandoned and worn with age and slated to be torn down. Where everything lead to. Disappearances, assaults, people under the will of another, attempted assassinations.

There was a hidden passage. Underneath.

Whatever approximation of sight that wasn’t really there he clawed deep into it, and Devastator howled. Prowl wanted it to hurt.

As much as possible.

>>// I DONT WANT TO REMEMBER THAT

He went. Within. It was dark and he had a flashlight so he turned it on and the walls were covered in machinery and pipes. It stunk of corroding metal and infected energon. The further he went the worse it got, ▮▮▮▮▮▮ strewn up and ▮▮▮▮▮▮ ▮▮▮▮ ▮▮▮ ▮▮▮▮, missing ▮▮▮▮▮ and ▮▮▮▮▮, groaning with voices ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮. They ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ for him to ▮▮▮▮ ▮▮▮▮ but he moved forward, entering the chamber, the lab, that horrible place filled with ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ ▮▮▮▮▮ ▮▮▮▮▮. And he paused, from horror and shock, at a mech he could bar▮▮▮ ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮, Emirate ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮—

>>// DONT MAKE ME REMEMBER THAT

And with a final scream, Devastator shakes apart, it’s constituting pieces falling into the rubble of Splendora.

Torn Asunder.

“You’re bleedin’ ag-gain.”

Mixmaster reached out across the center console, over to the face of the mech sitting beside himself. He, of course, slapped his hand away. Blue eye locked onto his face.

This was Mixmaster’s 5th time being in the cockpit, keeping an eye on Prowl. Second to Scavenger. Surprising, since that one could yap the audial offa Alpha Trion so bad he’d get kicked out of the libritorium…or wherever the 13 were supposed to live and do stuff.

Long Haul was third, and he couldn’t even fit in the cockpit. Being the largest and all. He sat outside during his turn.

It was usually them three because Hook couldn’t look after two things at once—he had to make sure the engine didn’t kick it and leave them floatin’ in space. It was making a lot of weird noises lately. And Bonecrusher didn’t want anything to do with being near Prowl. That mech just wanted to be angry. One of his two talents.

(The other was blowing stuff up.)

Mixmaster retracted his hand as he watched Prowl wipe and smear the pink dripping from not his nose, like the chemist had noticed, but from his patch. He watched him smear it all along the side of his helm, not doing a very good job at cleaning it. In his opinion.

“It’s fine.” Prowl muttered.

“It’s a lot thh-hiss time, thh-though.” Mixmaster pointed out. “Lemme see.”

Before he could protest, Mixmaster grabbed him by the face and yanked Prowl towards him a little. Just to get to see all of his face. He swiped some of the stuff dribbling down his nose with his thumb, but before he could get his fingers underneath the patch, a fist came between them and cracked Mixmaster right in the middle of his face.

Mixmaster winced, his un-bloody hand clutching his face. He punched really fucking hard.

“What did I tell you?” Prowl snarled, really pissed off. “Do not fucking touch me.”

“Sorry.”

He settled back into his seat pouting a little, rubbing his dented nose guard. Pink was smeared against the surface of his thumb, sticking in between the seams of the digit. Obviously, he licked it off. What else was he gonna do, leave it there?

“Ew, Primus—” Prowl exclaimed. “That’s disgusting.”

It tasted off, for one thing—probably the cerebro-shells tainting it. There wasn’t any corrosion or anything like that, which was good. It mostly read as old—not giving off as much energy as it should have.

He licked his lips. “You’re fuel’s a little thin. Y’should eat.”

Shuffling around in his subspace, Mixmaster pulled out one of his plastic ration packs and tossed it over to the boss. The ones with the little screw-on cap on the corner. Prowl caught it, never taking his eye off of him.

“What makes you think I’m eating anything you give me?” He asked.

Mixmaster tilted his head. “Are you hungry?”

Silence.

“I haven’t any of that one.” He added on.

Prowl made a face but opened the ration. Then he made another face as soon as he tasted it, letting out a little noise of disgust as it stained the inside of his mouth black.

“What is this?”

“Low-grade.”

“This is not low-grade, this is…” Prowl squeezed a small glob of it out, squinting at the black liquid. “…is this crude oil?”

Mixmaster nodded.

“…you eat this?”

Mixmaster, smiling, nodded again.

Prowl groaned, knocking his head against the back of his chair.

Chapter Text

“Prowl.”

The mech scrubbed at his eye, trying to ignore the throbbing ache radiating from his helm. It had gotten bad enough that it was starting to make him nauseous. It was making his vision blur and warp.

“Pro~owl.”

He leaned forward on the control console, resting his head in his hands.

“I know you can hear me.”

Jazz’s hands wandered and rested upon his shoulders. They felt cold → they didn’t feel like anything.

“You’re being cruel, y’know. Ignorin’ yer only friend like this.” Prowl could hear the pout in his voice. “You’re gonna make me cry.”

He grit his teeth against a retort, about stating that he had work to do or that he knew Jazz wasn’t really there, but he didn’t exactly have the confidence that he could say something intelligible in his current state.

Prowl felt a hand move up, fingertips grazing the underside of his jaw. “Prowler, we both know you’re doing nothing but busywork. You don’t have a clue in the world if you’re on course.”

“Hhg.”

“I mean, your processor wasn’t meant to take on this much strain calculatin’. You’re undeniably frying your circuitry and you don’t know where you are.” His cloying voice was becoming caustic, rough and decidedly not Jazz. “On the bright side, maybe you’re melting all those parasites along with your processor, hm?”

Now that was a thought. Not a good one but it made sense → mind control parasites were still parasites, they would have to be feeding off of something in order to survive → his energon sufficed as a fuel source as they were Cybertronian in nature → which could explain the access bleeding he had experiencing → bad → bad → that’s bad—

His Tac Net spun as the arms wrapping around him felt less like smooth metal and more like organic hair, chitin. Fingertips felt more like claws.

But if he was using his Tac Net to the point of overheating he would know → no alerts had popped up in his HUD to remind him, only old warnings of foreign intrusion → cerebro-shells → and newer ones in the form of incompatible substance processing in his tanks. That was probably the oil the Constructicons had been giving him. It wasn’t like there was anything else to eat besides the med-grade in the glove box → he needed to save that in case things got really bad.

The claws trapped lightly on his chin, coinciding with the flares of pain rolling through his head → more so his empty eye socket.

“Do you think this is what it would feel like? If you accepted my offer back then?” The soft, rasping voice of Tarantulas made his frame shudder and flare out.

Primus and the 13, he did not want to hallucinate about Tarantulas of all people.

He could almost imagine the lab around them, dark and hidden and full of nasty, awful things. Prowl had ignored his…partner’s unusual proclivities in favor for using his works to win them the first war. It had been easy to ignore them. To encourage them. In fact, he considered Tarantulas to be a…friend at times.

…however.

“Do you remember? In the lab, before you cast me out so cruelly?” The spider hissed, his arms wrapping more tightly around him.

There was something in the back of his mind that made his tanks curl on themselves, something he hadn’t wanted to remember.

“Had I laid my spawn within you, would you feel them like this? Squirming and festering and feeding off of you—?”

It wasn’t about the ‘offer’, as sick as it made him.

No.

Tarantulas had done something unforgivable.

MEMORY ERROR

DATA MISSING OR CORRUPTED

The pain spiked sharply and Prowl audibly gagged and choked, but thankfully didn’t throw up.

“You good?” A low, deep voice sounded from outside the cockpit. It was uh…

…frag, what was his name? The huge one, mostly green. Long Haul? Was that his name, Long Haul?

A little string of irritation plucked within him. He should know their names. He had their records, he could conceptualize them, he had their memories for Prima’s sake he could remember two words.

A more petty part of him stated that he didn’t need to remember what their names were. That they didn’t deserve it.

They also didn’t have to feed him. They could have let him starve.

After a moment of contemplation, Prowl managed to let out a little noise of affirmation.

“You don’t like feel it.” The sound of shifting and metal scraping at Long Haul got up only served to make Prowl feel worse and curl up more against the console.

He couldn’t see him, but he could feel the edge of his EM field on his wing. He twitched at the feeling → dense yet ghostly, concern filling the buzzy area. Two others followed, as if summoned to it. Now there were three buzzing, wavering presences at the edge of his Sensor Net serving only to make his overstimulation worse.

Prowl shifted his head to see Mixmaster squeezing his way into the cockpit while Scavenger nervously hanging back, peeking out from under Long Haul’s arm.

“You want me to call Hook up? I could get Hook.” Scavenger suggested.

“Don’t.” He grit out.

“I have pain blockers, do you want those?” Mixmaster offered.

A part of him bristled at the thought of accepting anything mind or sense altering from them. He could just be saying it’s a pain blocker when in reality it could be anything—

He extended a hand out. “Give it.”

The flat chip felt cool as it was placed in his hand. Whatever, who cared. He honestly rather just not deal with this any longer.

Prowl opened and clicked it into the underside of his mouth, feeling around with his tongue to make sure it set correctly.

A shuddering feeling washed over him as the chip took effect. It certainly felt like a blocker at least, maybe a little hand-tailored instead of the corporate manufactured ones he was used to but it was doing its job at taking the edge off. As the pain ebbed out of him, Prowl had to fight off the wave of exhaustion that came to replace it. He blinked hard, heat heavily expelling out of his vents.

Prowl nearly flinched when Mixmaster pressed his knuckles against his helm, his hand feeling cool against the heated metal. “Feeling better?”

“Yes, th…thank you,” Prowl brushed his hand away. He felt the surprise flooding Mixmaster’s field, and suddenly decided he was done with this.

Twisting in his chair, he pushed against Mixmaster’s chest with a scowl. “Now out, all of you. I can’t think with you standing there.”

They scrambled away, Mixmaster sporting a big grin as he left, their crowding momentarily ceasing. The lack of their EM fields made his plating feel itchy.

His helm felt hollow from the lack of pain.

He felt tired.

“Prowl.”

It took effort, but Prowl glanced up at the windshield. Jazz stood there behind him, like a specter.

“You know I wouldn’t blame you.” Jazz muttered to him. Gently. Oh, so gently. “It’s the easiest way out. Anyone in your position would do it.”

Prowl…

Prowl glanced at the calculations that lay scribbled on the wall next to him.

The gun sat heavy on his hip.

Jazz smiled.

“C’mon. You can do it.”

Prowl suddenly shook his head, running a shaking hand down his face → shaking? → his hands were shaking. “No. No I need…I have to get back home. I have to get back to Cybertron.”

That was the goal. He had to get back, that was the whole point of this → if he gave up now what was all this effort for? He—he knew where he was going, he did all the calculations and the steering himself. He couldn’t be wrong. He wasn’t. He couldn’t.

So he had to keep going.

The smile didn’t fall from Jazz’s face, but it did pinch in the corners.

“Coward.”

Chapter Text

“How’s he doin’?” Hook wiped his hands of engine grease. The big piece of machinery was back to humming in the background, so far not emitting any ominous clunking sounds.

“Good, I think.” Scavenger picked at his flaking paint. “He’s eating what Mix has been giving him. And his helm doesn’t hurt as bad.”

“Yeah, I think we all felt that, Scav.” Hook muttered. “Hey, help me with this while you’re here, will you?”

His words were followed by him ripping a hunk of the wall paneling out and tossing it to the floor. That was a lot of the engine room at this point, exposed machinery and wires with a ton of scrap metal kicked into a pile in a corner.

Scavenger perked up at the prospect of helping. “Okay, whatcha need?”

“See this compression valve right here? You’re gonna have to stem the coolant flowing through while I try and reach that set of power converters behind it.”

Hook pointed to what he was talking about as he was pulling a set of wire clippers from his subspace. Scavenger nodded diligently—it was basically just what he was originally made to do, handle and dispose of caustic material. He couldn’t screw up at that!

“Got it.” He stood firm and got a good grasp on the valve, hydraulics hissing as he tightened the thing. The pipes groaned as the flow of coolant slowly stopped being feed to the engine.

“Thanks. I’ll tell you when I’m done.” Hook unlatched and moved the empty pipes away as he leaned further into the guts of the ship. “And please look at the gauge, Scav. I don’t want t’get melted.”

Scavenger let out a rare scoff. Like he’d frag this up.

He held the valve steady, keeping his sights trained on the gauge and its wavering pointer. He felt like an LSAPI unit, kind of—he saw them do all sorts of stuff like this on Luna-02 after they did all the big work of excavating and rigging up the scaffolding. Most of them didn’t have names, even after they all formed the Union, but he certainly remembered several of them. How could he not? Some of them packed a lot of personality in those small frames of theirs!

Like the one who worked on the elevator lift thing for the mine, LSAPI-053, really prided himself with cable management. Like, really prided. He was a real proud guy, kinda to the point of being arrogant (especially with something so trivial, he had heard Gravedigger mutter once) but he was really good at it. Made all these nice little arrangements that looked like flowers.

Or LSAPI-011, who always somehow snuck in and stole energon out of their foreman’s office without getting caught. He never knew how she did that. She never bragged or drew attention to it, just quietly shared it with everyone when their allotted break time came around.

LSAPI-007 sang. LSAPI-076 was a sports nut, always talked about going to Velocitron to become a racer. LSAPI-064 threw a bottle at the foreman’s head. He got in a lot of trouble for that. It was still really funny though, everyone laughed.

The hissing of the pipes and Hooks unintelligible but angry yelling snapped him back to reality. Scavenger tightened his grip on the valve. Whoops. He got lost in thought again, like an idiot.

He really needed to start taking a page out of Bone’s book and stop thinking about the Union.

It was just easier.

There were several stars splattered in a line right in front of them, not getting any closer because they were very far away.

Prowl sat to his right, fiddling with the ship controls and scribbling things down with his pen. Lotsa numbers. Lotsa other symbols too. His eye flashed between deep blue and blinding white as he worked.

Scavenger had been peering over at him for the better part of this cycle, having grown bored with slowly picking the rust and grime off of one of his trinkets: a misshapen spring that curled in a way that he liked a lot. There weren’t a lot of things to do on the frigate, especially when he was on one of his ‘watch the Boss’ shifts.

“Stop staring.”

Scavenger averted his gaze. “Sorry.”

They lapsed back into silence, the quiet humming of the ship serving as background noise.

Prowl was really different from Scrapper. They all knew that—obviously, just look at him—but it had been easy to imagine (or pretend) that the new guy was, y’know, the old guy.

(That thought obviously didn’t last a second on Antilla.)

It wasn’t just physical. They all remembered Scrapper, how he acted, how he talked, how he laughed. They’d all worked together, fought together. They remember his memories. He was familiar.

Prowl was not. The only similarity they had with each other was that he was also cold constructed—and even that was different! He was super zoomy and special-built for his original purpose, and Scavenger guessed that meant he was more of a person than they were. Kinda. Scav didn’t dwell on that thought too much.

The way Prowl thought was weird, it was disorienting when they were combined together and had to share the same mind. So many numbers and things that hadn’t happened yet (or ever). His memories were the same on the weirdness factor. Some of them were blurry, or had chunks missing from them, and sometimes there would just be a gap. A whole stretch of nothing. It was a little scary at times.

Scavenger snuck another glance.

Prowl was glaring right back at him. “What? What do you want?”

“I-uh—” Scavenger sputtered, suddenly put on the spot by his intense glare. “I didn’t—”

Prowl’s eye narrowed further, and his wing twitched.

“If you have something to say then spit it out.”

Scavenger scrambled for something, eventually landing on: “I-I was just wondering how you were feeling.”

Prowl didn’t look too impressed by his answer. To be honest, Scavenger wasn’t that impressed either. It was a real lame excuse.

“Right.” Prowl’s tone was familiarly sharp, a half grin half grimace expression spread over his face. “I’m sure you could just ‘feel it’, instead of asking me.”

Okay, cool. It was going to be one of those mean conversations. Normal Prowl stuff.

“Well, I’d still like to know. From you. Saying it.” He said lamely, still fumbling over his words like an idiot.

“Does it matter? We’re just using each other for the purpose of not dying in the middle of space.” Prowl had turned to the wall, surveying it for any available free space to write.

If he was built with a face, Scavenger would’ve frowned. “You’re driving the ship, aren’t you? It’s kinda important that you don’t die.”

“Mm.”

They lapsed back into silence again, more tense this time. Prowl was writing something down on his arm, angled in such a way that Scav couldn’t see what it was. Prolly more numbers.

Scavenger bit the bullet and asked again. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I don’t know—why do you even care?” He snapped. “What I feel and what I want doesn’t matter in this situation. You could—you’re Decepticons, you outnumber me five to one. I already know you don’t care if you hurt me.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. It was out of left field and he didn’t know what to say. He was stunned. Confused. So much so that a question slipped out without his input. “…why would I want to hurt myself?”

Prowl lifted his helm to stare at him, eye wide.

“Excuse me?”

“Uh, well I mean,” Gosh, he was sputtering again. “I know you’re you and we’re all ourselves but we’re also all of us, together, Devastator. And he’s like. Y’know. Himself. And you’re a part of that too.” He explained it as best as he could. It needed explaining, just getting everything straight and out in the open because Boss—Prowl didn’t seem to understand. “A-and we can be mean to each other but we’d never hurt each other. We’re not gonna hurt you.”

Prowl stared at him. Long and hard.

“You did hurt me.”

Scavenger’s visor flickered.

“Are you stupid? Or willfully ignorant?” Prowl’s tone was low, his voice quiet. Angry. “You people ripped me apart. Rearranged me. You did that.”

Third silence.

He looked at Prowl.

Prowl looked at him.

“Oh.” The small word sounded strangled in his voicebox.

They didn’t talk for the rest of the shift.

Chapter Text

Sender: Construction Foreman, home terminal

Subject: [Empty]

To the Six Great Primes of the Primacy of Cybertron,

We, the industrial cold construct workers on Luna-02, have come to a collective decision to form a union. We are tired of not being given the resources we need to reliably work without incident and not being treated with the respect that we deserve. As working peoples, we deserve real fuel, sanctioned break times, and better pay, as well as the respect from our employers.

We are headed by what we consider our leading representatives, LSCI 984-1 Bucket, LSCI 985-1 Scrapper and LSCI 986-1 Hardhead. This Workers Union is 90 strong, and all 90 of us are united by the idea that we are equal and are fair in asking for these things.

What we want is to be paid the standard amount for contracted workers, which is what we all are, and to be paid the amount equal to the time we worked.

We want stricter, better safety measures and standards when it comes to excavation and construction sites.

We want to be able to fuel on actual graded energon, not crude oil or ethanol. We want an allotted break longer than 15 kliks, as well as better sleeping arrangements.

We speak to you, to the High Council and the Six Great Primes of Cybertron, to consider our terms. If they are not met, we will continue not to work on this mining facility. We will continue to not let any work on this mining facility to be done while we are here. We will not leave Luna-02.

We hope you consider this letter and accept our terms. We can negotiate.

Chapter Text

It kept getting worse, and Prowl didn’t know how to fix it.

Recently his hands would shake occasionally for no real reason. That could’ve been a result of any number of things that were currently wrong with him.

His Tac Net was crowded with false readings and minor percentiles, which didn’t help with navigation.

He kept getting low fuel alerts even when his tanks were full. Even with a pain blocker installed there was always a dull ache wavering in his helm, making it hard to think.

And as if it couldn’t get any worse, he had noticed his paint was starting to look a little…grey.

He tried not to dwell on it.

The only thing he could say for sure was steadily working the way it was supposed to was the engine, but even that was starting to concern him (5.36% chance engine failure).

The Constructicons were arguing about something he couldn’t quite parse. He didn’t really care to. They could argue about whatever they wanted, it wasn’t his problem.

He tapped his fingers against the seats armrest.

Glanced at the wall.

Listened to Scavenger’s warbling whine.

The stars laid still outside. Unchanging. It brought to mind the idea that the frigate hadn’t moved at all, that he and the Constructicons were simply stuck in the same place for decacycles. Astrocycles. More.

He closed his eye, pressing his palms against his face as a shuddering vent of hot air left his vents.

The sound of a glass gently hitting the surface of a table drew his attention.

He was greeted by the by the dim interior of a nondescript bar, filled with indistinct chatter and faceless patrons. It looked like something that could be found tucked in some corner of the Iacon Strip. In the center of the room, sitting alone at a table sporting two glasses of high-grade on it, was Scrapper.

The constructicon nodded to him. “Howdy.”

Prowl stared, watching as Scrapper uncorked the bottle from the center of the table and pour himself a drink. He stared at his hands, the texture of his tires, the dust on his paint.

He stared at the hole in his face.

“I have to say, you got good taste.” Scrapper corked the bottle back up. “Ain’t never been to a place this swanky.”

Prowl couldn’t help but scoff at that. This was not in anyways a nice bar. For one thing, he had arrested more than a few people in places that looked like this—sketchy, out of the way oilhouses with sticky floors. Truly high class bars, like the ones in Praxus or Primus forbid the Towers, sported sleek interior design and open space and certainly more class than this. Ringing crystal fixtures and glass walls. Live music.

“Why aren’t we in one of ‘em, huh? I’d like to see that kinda style.” Scrapper chuckled, bringing his glass to his face but not actually drinking it → no mouth.

His plating ruffled at the simple question. “Do you think I want to be here?”

Scrapper shrugged. The muted sounds of the bar took the place of their silence, an unfamiliar song playing on the radio. Brass instruments, Prowl noted.

The Constructicon gestured to the other seat. “Wanna sit down? We could talk for a while.”

Prowl crossed his arms. He wasn’t real. Scrapper wasn’t real, none of this was. The last thing he should be doing is indulging in it.

“Aw, c’mon. What’s the harm in a little escapist fantasy?” The Constructicon leaned back in his seat.

“I’m surprised you know that term.”

“Ey, don’t be rude.”

Prowl glared at him, at the purple badge emblazoned so boldly on his chassis. A reminder of who he was talking to.

Scapper sighed. “It’s like talking to a brick wall with you.”

They lapsed back into silence, the scene of the bar continuing on around them. Prowl stared at one of the flickering light fixtures until it shorted out.

When he worked as an Enforcer, he had heard of the Workers Union liberally from both news networks and word of mouth → at best they were described as idealistic laborers, and at worst they were insurrectionist who annexed one of their moons. And despite not wanting to, he had seen bits of their lives while combined. The desolate, pale surface of Luna-2 and an excavation site of cold construct workers.

He didn’t want to, but he knew them.

And it was due to this unwanted understanding a question arose. Something that came from curiosity alone. How? How had it come to united comradeship to—to just six of them? If he really wanted to give himself a headache about it, the Workers Union was a true precursor to the original Decepticon movement, a want for fairness, for equality. Freedom.

He had to know → he really didn’t.

“Why join the Decepticons?” He asked against his better judgement.

Scrapper had the audacity to let out a tired sigh. “Shouldn’t you know all this?”

“I don’t know anything!” Prowl snapped. “I don’t know anything you think I should know! Is that what you want to hear? Now answer the question.”

Scrapper regarded him for a moment, vaguely shocked at his outburst as he thought on the question for a long while. “We really didn’t have a place to go after the Union. Then the riots happened, and the war, and then we really didn’t have jack.”

Flashes of abstract violence and bloodshed were remembered before it all melted into the landscape of a half destroyed city under the smog-filled sky. Prowl bit down a noise at the feeling of hunger and anxiety that washed over him.

Scrapper shrugged. “My boys are safe. We were fed, housed, and in return all we have to do is whatever a higher up tells us to do. Same old slag we used to do.”

“So. You joined the Decepticons for…no reason?” Prowl stared at him, a death grip on the back of his chair. Whatever emotion he was feeling was so much more than just anger. Stronger. So strong he felt helpless in the face of it. “You have no justification? Nothing?”

“Hey, maybe we’d be Constructobots if you got to us first, or whatever fragging name you’d give us.”

His tone was nearly acidic when he said it, barely holding back sharp peals of laughter.

That, out of everything, was what made him snap.

Prowl dug his claws into the underside of the table and shoved it aside, sending everything smashing to the ground. Glass shattered. Energon splattered onto the floor, soaking into the rust-covered floor. He kicked the chair at him for good measure, which Scrapper hardly reacted to.

“Do you understand the extent of the damage you’ve caused? What you five single-handedly have done in your dishonorable service?” Prowl fully yelled, any restraint he might’ve put on himself gone. “From Paradron to Velocitron you have decimated cities to rubble, 1.3 million killed from your actions! You are the worst the Decepticons have to offer—cannibals and murderers and desecrators and you-you don’t even care!”

Scrapper glared evenly at Prowl. “I did what I had to for the people who mattered to me. You know exactly what that’s like.”

Prowl stiffened at both the implication and the memory. Of Tyrest, half of the city destroyed and burning by his order → the simple press of a remote detonation switch. The choked-out black sky was illuminated by vibrant red.

But that—that was a decision he had to make. If he hadn’t, Decepticon forces would have seized the MTO caches underneath the city. It had numbered to 120,854 casualties, 705 dead → more would have died if he hadn’t done anything → a staggering 56% of that number were civilians or unaffiliated → that didn’t matter.

In the end it didn’t matter.

Tyrest had been a mistake.

But in the end Prowl would rather have a Decepticon loss than a victory for the Autobots.

“Oh please—” He snarled. “I don’t have to listen to a dead mech! Why don’t you crawl back into the Pit and leave me alone?”

The song skipped over the same lone note like it was being played on a physical record → impossible on a speaker radio. Solitary, heavy steps stopped right in front of him. Scrapper had picked up the knocked over chair and set it upright in front of him. Prowl didn’t look up from his pedes.

“It had to be done.”

Rage still simmered in his lines. It boiled. It festered. It made him sick to his tanks. Prowl glared up at him. He wanted to claw at his abdomin—or better yet, rip out his spark. Rip out the slivers of them in there.

It was all due to him that this happened. That any of this happened to him. That he was was stuck like this, half himself and half other. That he couldn’t go home without consequences or questions or fearing what might happen when his fellow Autobots see what he had dragged back with him.

None of this would have happened if Scrapper hadn’t died.

-!- Error -!-

Logical Fallacy

Data point nonsequential. Scenario cannot be visualized without a stable data point to draw from.

“I don’t forgive you.” He bit out.

“Okay.” Scrapper kept an even gaze with him. “I wasn’t apologizin’.”

Prowl didn’t have the energy to yell at him anymore. He just didn’t.

He sat down in his chair, and let his head drop into his hands.

“Hey.”

There was a deafening snap the sounded in his audials. He flinched upwards, eye darting around wildly.

Hook raised a hand. “Sorry to wake you. Just wanted to check up. You feel awful.”

There was a moment where he didn’t know where he was. The dull colors of a frigate’s cockpit, with half-dead control panels and walls covered in the scribbles of a madman, were a poor substitute for the warm colors of the oil house. The looping, haunting melody on the radio.

That didn’t exist.

Prowl opened his mouth to speak → to reply to Hook → say anything, really, but there wasn’t anything he…

He didn’t know what…

What would he have said?

“Hey. Space cadet.” Hook waved his hand in front of his face before getting impatient and physically moving it to face him. “You there?”

His touch, hands rough from cycles upon cycles of labor, felt cool against Prowl’s face plate. Held his head steady while Hook examined him with a pinched look on his face, worrying at the scar on his lip. A scene like this was almost reminiscent of an examination from Ratchet. He could imagine him there, scowling and ranting about how he wasn’t fueling or recharging properly → “you can’t be running on fumes, Prowl”

His spark ached in a way he wasn’t prepared for.

Hook wasn’t gentle by any means, but he also wasn’t ever rough with his treatment of him. It was swift and impartial when he peeled the eye patch from the magnetic latches. His other hand didn’t move from the side of his face, keeping his helm steady, the touch…

He leaned a fraction into it.

If Hook noticed, he didn’t bring attention to it. Or he didn’t care. Prowl was certainly too exhausted to do so.

“…how is the engine?” Prowl finally forced out a useful question out of his throat.

“It’s fine. Running smoothly.” Hook muttered.

(7.5%)

The medic grimaced, picking at the edges of the socket. “Primus, have you cleaned this thing out at all? That’s the whole reason you wanted this magnetic thing, and you’ve let it all gum up.”

Prowl made a little noise of discomfort at the feeling of fingers prodding at his empty eye. Little bits of picked-off gunk fell out of before Hook decided to stop using his fingers. He leaned back, unspacing a rag and some tweezers.

He flinched back slightly before Hook grabbed his face again, steadying him as he pulled out black gunk. The feeling was uncomfortable.

Prowl scoffed. “So much for just ‘checking in’.”

“Whatever.” Hook grumbled back. His grip shifted as he dug deeper into the wound. His pinched expression deepened into something more worried. “…you shouldn’t be bleeding this much. I sealed this up.”

Before Prowl could think of a response to that, he felt Hook’s tweezers grab onto something significant. He straightened, wings hiked up, as it felt like Hook had grabbed onto something important wired to his processor and was moving to pull it out.

“Wait—” Prowl seized Hook’s wrist. “Wait wait wait, stop—”

A high noise wheezed out of him as whatever Hook had in his grips was ripped out, pain flaring up in his head. Prowl clutched at the wound, now dribbling crude oil down his cheek. Admonishment ready, he grit his teeth and glared up at—

What was in Hook’s hands was not a wire.

He could only assume it was a cerebro-shell. The soft-bodied, fuel covered thing that had been pulled out of his eye thrashed violently between the prongs of the thin metal tweezers. It looked so unlike the small parasites he had seen before. This thing was long and thin, at least the length between his thumb and his pinky.

Prowl could only stare at it. Hook looked similarly horrified.

“What the fuck?!” He exclaimed, dropping the tweezers onto the ground.

The thin thing thrashed for only a moment before it was crushed to a paste under green foot.

Chapter Text

Sender: Overseer Analytica of Altihex, Labrys Inc.

Subject: Concerning Shipment Delays

High Emirate Xeon, this is a formal letter of concern from Labrys site 016 concerning the above subject as well as recent behavior from employees.

CC manufacturing has stopped momentarily as 90% of our workforce have halted in their respective duties, resulting in production and shipping delays. I have sent multiple letters toward Enforcement precincts located in Altihex, and attempts have been made to resume production. These attempts, so far, have been less than effective and the employees continue to refuse working. Mass termination was considered, but was deemed to be largely ineffective and costly for the company.

If this strike continues, I fear that profit margins will dip significantly. I predict at least 16% in the coming lustracycle, although it is not inconceivable to imagine where this proceeds to the point of 50% margin loss, which in the event would cause the shutdown of site 016.

I digress.

I humbly accept whatever answer you decide to grant me upon receiving this letter, and will continue to try and mitigate the current situation.

Sender: Drivetrain, ARGOS Representative

Subject: IM SICK OF THIS!!!!

This Union slag is getting out of control, my shipwrights are refusing to work! They keep complaining about stupid shit they don’t understand like “better hours” and “break timeblocks”.

Do you understand the situation I am in? This isn’t just about your Construct factories, Xeon! It’s my shipyards!

SHIPS. You know, transport? Well, at least the non-sentient stuff. We could always conscript shuttles and trains but who knows, maybe they’ll start rioting too!

Get this slag handled before I handle it.

Sender: High Emirate Xeon of Altihex

Subject: This “Union” Problem

To the Illustrious Sentinel Prime,

I would never trouble a Prime for anything that I think would be beneath you, but this is an issue that I believe requires both your attention and guidance.

I have been receiving many, many complaints and letters about workers striking in and outside my city, claiming to be a part of the Workers Union. The one on Luna-02.

It is getting ridiculous.

Labrys Inc. has contacted me many times over the fact they are losing a lot of money over this and they expect me to fix that for them. Several port and assembly managers have threatened to start shooting the idiots. I get too many messages from the same constructs who refuse to work.

I beseech thee, Illustrious Prime, something must be done about this before industry in Altihex halts completely.

Chapter Text

It was hard to tell how much time passed in the middle of dead space. Unless you had a clock on your ship or an internal chronometer (which most constructs didn’t), you couldn’t say if it had been a cycle or a day or whatever. Hook always complained about it whenever they had been stationed in the middle of nowhere, and Bonecrusher had half a mind to complain about it too. Like time had decided to bounce off to the nearest planet without ‘em.

It was kinda weird if he thought about it for too long, like a hand wrapped around his head and squeezed. Usually there was something—on Luna-2 you could count a full cycle rotation. On stations there were allotted shifts for crew members.

Games and talking and arguing only did so much. Eventually, there’s just nothing else to do except sit around and do nothing.

Bonecrusher kept his sights on the entryway to the cockpit. From where he was sitting, he could see a sliver of Scav in his chair. His tail was wagging back and forth, lightly scrapping against the floor sometimes. Prolly tinkering with some piece of junk of his, he couldn’t see from his current angle.

Bonecrusher pulled out the second to last ration he had on him and began twisting the cap off.

“Ey.” Mixmaster poked Bones with his foot. “It’s your sh-hift.”

“No it’s not, fuck off.” He waved him away. Or at least attempted to. Mix was persistent with his pestering (not clingy like Scav).

“C’mon,” the chemist whined, nudging him continually with his foot. “Stop being an aft, we’ve all taken shifts except you.”

Bonecrusher peeked up through his visor, getting a good look at the guy pestering him today. Mix didn’t look any worse than he usually did—acid burns that discolored the tips of his fingers and had eaten away at some of his paint, some old scuffs on his helm, and the newer one from when he got clocked by Prowl—same ol’ Mixer with a pout on his face. Like Bonecrusher owed him something.

Bonecrusher let out a hiss of steam. “Neither has Hook.”

“Hook’s busy.” Long Haul muttered next to him, making his once-per-cycle contribution to the conversation.

“And so am I!” Bonecrusher protested. “He has me up here messing with the lights and power converters and shit.”

Mixmaster scoffed, nudging him with his foot again. “Nice excuse. You just want to stay out of th-hhe cockpit.”

Bonecrusher rolled his head, faceplate screwing up in an expression of exasperation.

“Y’know what? Whatever. Go guzzle some acid or something.”

That earned him a pretty hard elbowing in the side by Hauler. He swatted his arm away, having half a mind to cuss him out of his frame.

And then the engine exploded.

Bonecrusher and Long Haul looked over the engine while Scav and Mix hovered over Hook. Hook’s hand was blackened and smoking, the tingling secondhand sensation of it drifting over the bond. That stung like a glitch, shared between the five (six, if he was counting the ‘foreman’ which…no) of them, but not as much as the realization that they were absolutely screwed.

The engine was shot.

Like, completely shot. It billowed black smoke and mechanisms ground together with nothing to move. Small leaks of coolant spilled from its sides, pooling on the ground.

“Well.” Long Haul pondered for a long time before saying what they were all thinking. “Shit.”

Scavenger glanced around nervously. “What do we do now?”

“Pit if I know.” Mixmaster shrugged. Then, with his tongue caught in between his teeth, he started to chuckle. “Starve to death I guess.”

Scav bristled and shoved him. “Shut up! That’s not funny!!!”

The two of them started scrapping with one another, Mix laughing hysterically as Scav shoved and hit him. Haul had to step in.

With the noise Hook pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a long hiss of steam from his vents. And then let out another, and another. He was basically smoking the whole room out with his fuming.

And Bonecrusher had no idea what to do.

Sure, they’ve been at this point before—starving was not an unfamiliar thing to them—but this was different. There were no bodies to siphon, no angry revolutionaries offering rations in exchange for killing a million people for shit Bonecrusher didn’t care about. They were just…they were just here. Here, in this shitty ship with little rations and no idea how to get out of the fuckin’ tomb they’ve made for themselves.

And y’know, as much as he liked to rag on the others, he did look to Hook for the next step forward. He did—he had to since Scrapper died—and Hook always came with an answer. You could look to him and he’d bark out an order to follow. But Bonecrusher was standing there looking at Hook while the other three were fighting and pushing and yelling at each other and he wasn’t fuckin’ saying anything.

“Well?” He hated how strained his voice sounded. “C’mon, doctor lugnut. What’s the plan here?”

It sounded for a moment like Hook was on the verge of saying something like ‘I don’t know’, but cut himself off, glancing around for a moment with his hand on his mouth. Bonecrusher wanted to yell at him to stop thinking and do something.

“Get Prowl.” He said instead.

Bonecrusher blinked. Then he frowned. But before he could protest Hook snapped back with: “I am not fucking asking you! Just do it!”

He bit his lip and his visor flickered a little, but he made his way to the ladder and climbed out of the engine room without any protest. He could hear Hook yelling at the others as he made his way to the cockpit.

And Maker of Prima, he didn’t know what he was expecting when he walked in but it wasn’t this.

Nearly every single inch of the space was covered in scribbled numbers and diagrams and math equations, black maker over and over and over until it was rendered illegible. It was freaky and honestly looked insane. Legitimately insane. Bonecrusher looked at the mech in the pilots seat, wondering why in the Pit his bondmates didn’t think to mention this to him.

Because again, insane.

Awkwardly, he started by clearing his throat. Just to gain the pricks attention, y’know? “Hey.”

As usual, he didn’t answer him—the prick had his head buried in his arms on the control console, fully ignoring him. Bonecrusher rolled his optics and nudged Prowl (perhaps a little harder than necessary but screw him he was being an aft).

“Get up. We need to talk.”

A hiss passed through his vents and his wings waved in jittery, waving motions. “Go away, Scrapper.” He mumbled.

Bonecrusher paused, utterly stunned. His joints seized up and his plating flared. He paused but only for a moment.

“…the fuck did you just call me?”

“Or whatever your name is, it doesn’t matter.” Prowl waved his hand at Bonecrusher, which only served to make him angrier. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to let you know that we’re screwed.” Bones snarled at him. “The engine broke down and Hook wants you’re aft down there so we can draw up a plan. You’re an expert in the plan department, aren’t you? So…so do something and help fix this.”

It was at that Prowl finally raised his head. Only a little, but he had gotten his attention. The blue light of his eye strengthened and dimmed for a couple of nerve racking moments.

“I see.”

Another stretch of silence in the dark space of the cockpit.

“…I see? That’s it?”

Prowl turned in his seat to look at Bonecrusher fully. “I knew that if this happened we would have no chance of fixing it and now it’s happened. We’re done. It’s over. Now leave.”

“No.” Bonecrusher shook his head. “No. Fuck you. No, you-you’re being difficult on purpose.”

“Are you not listening? There’s nothing—” He tried to stand but with a grunt he sat back down, black leaking out of the seams at his side.

“Y’know what? I get it, you hate us but you can’t fuck us all over ‘cause of it. Now get up and fix this.”

He reached his hand out but was slapped away.

Bones groaned in frustration. “Are you kidding me?!”

“I said leave.”

He wasn’t gonna deal with this.

“Get up before I make you.”

Prowl turned, eye flaring bright. “Do not fucking touch me, you cold-sparked glitch—!”

Bonecrusher seized and wrenched the glitch up from his seat by the arm, preparing to drag him down into the engine. He was done. He was done with all of this, with the ship, with this Autobot and his constant headaches and abuse, with everything! Everything—

He had enough time to see Prowl unholster the gun at his hip, but not enough time to move out of the way of the shot. It ripped through his shoulder, singeing his plating and the wall behind him.

He let go, obviously.

Stumbling back, he tripped over the chair behind him and fell against the wall hard. Prowl grunted in surprise and shared pain, also stumbling and falling to the ground.

Bones could hear the others clomping up to them. He gripped the shredded, bleeding joint and struggled up.

“You fucker!” He spat out.

Prowl groaned and coughed, trying and failing to stand. Black blood seeped out from his seams onto the floor before falling back into it because of course! Of course this would happen, why wouldn’t it? Why didn’t Bonecrusher expect this?! It happened before it’ll happen again with this mech—and always with him!

“Damn it, fuck you!” Bones yelled. He just yelled. He couldn’t do anything else. “Fuck you, fuck you! Primus I hate you! Damn it!”

Chapter Text

It was dark, and he could not see.

It seemed to stretch out endlessly, with no feature to define any kind of landscape or room. It was just…a void. An emptiness.

A nowhere.

It was so quiet the only sounds he had the privilege of hearing were his own internal workings, orderly and efficient → quiet whirring → the shifting of vents → the ticking of gears. He closed his eyes, hands shifting along his abdominal plating. The tightly laced seams moved upwards, built for easy access to his internal components. The Meridian seam traveled upwards to the bottom of his chassis and outer armor, scratched and chipped but durable enough to protect his spark chamber. The latches of that outer armor were located on the sides under his arms and on his shoulders. Everything about him, from his frame to his processor, was standard issue for his model type.

Something brushed against the side of his face.

His eyes snapped open.

The claws that were tracing his face now gripped, mashing against his mouth and rendering him unable to speak. The grilled visor and mandibles were unmistakably Bombshell.

Prowl raised his arms to try to push and shove the Insecticon away from him.

“Stop struggling, Prowl.” Bombshell hissed, mandibles chattering. His other hand raised to grip his neck. “We’re not going anywhere.”

His helm buzzed with the sound of a thousand hungry, eager parasites that Bombshell put in him. His body tensed at the prospect of himself sliding out of it, and he just struggled harder.

“I’m tired of chasing you.”

Bombshell’s tongue, organic and alien-looking, snaked its way out of his mouth into the open air.

“You’re tired of running.”

The appendage first felt around his face before shoving into his empty eye socket, forcing a groan out of Prowl’s throat. He could feel it → squirming → forcing its way into his head. He kicked upwards, connecting with his abdomen, raking his claws down his plating. His hands dug into Bombshell’s helm.

He couldn’t tell if he was trying to push him away or draw him closer.

Bombshell’s claws were on his face, so Prowl didn’t know whose hands were pressing against his chest plate. They were warm and rough and they kept applying pressure to his chest until they just—

Slipped in → no parting of his plating → no resistance—

His whole body jerked violently at the feeling, leg kicking out with denting force. Bombshell’s tongue curling around his processor was forgotten to the overwhelming feeling of hands wrapping around his spark → grasping through the chamber → light → shining → blinding →

“Please—” He gasped.

Please → Please → Please → Please → Please → Sharp, blinding pain sent a thousand signals to his processor.

A strangled yell ruptured from his voice box as his limbs involuntarily kicked out, lifting him off the ground to try to buck out the hands he now realized were rooting inside of his open torso.

“Easy!” Hissed—he flicked his eye to the side—Hook, his forearm deep in him and only going deeper. “Stop moving, Primus!”

Prowl scoffed, more out of disbelief than anything. “Really? You have half your arm up my torso and you want me to keep sti—”

Hook jostled against something and Prowl went ridged, hands shooting to grip at his forearm and choking down a whimper. It felt like needles were stabbing at the inside of his fuel tank.

“You’re going to be fine.” Hook muttered. His hands were still and his tone was steady but  his shaking EM field betrayed him. “You’re already doing so well. You hear that? You’re doing great.”

Prowl only groaned in response, bracing himself as he felt Hook start to move deeper—

ALERT//: Internals Exposed
ALERT//: Decepticons Near Sparkchamber
ALERT//: Internal Hemorrhage in Fuel tanks
ALERT//: Internal Hemorrhage in Processor

-!- WARNING -!-

Fuel Pressure Dropping

Fuel Pressure: 74%

Alerts clouded his already artifacted vision. Reality snapped back into place at the sight of Hook pulling out his fuel tank from his body—still attached and working, but leaking black oil from the seams. It was a grotesque sight. Prowl had already felt sick, but this was enough to put him on the verg of throwing up.

But hands, grasping the sides of his face, took and pulled his head back from the sight of it. The ceiling and Mixmaster’s face filled his vision. His face looked strange upside down. Wrong → his face moved wrong → strangely.

“Hh-hey. Look at me.”

Mixmaster spoke, but there was a very noticeable delay between him speaking and Prowl hearing what he was saying. Prowl watched as his face warped and shifted strangely with his mouth full of pointed teeth.

“Prowl. Look at me.” Mixmaster leaned forward. “I got something to tell you.”

Closing his eye for a brief moment, he exhaustedly went through all the stupid, inconsequential things Mixmaster could say to him in the middle of him getting his interals ripped out. “…what?”

“I th-hrew a pipe bomb at Barricade once.”

Just like that it shot back open. He stared, bewildered by the words he just heard.

Mixmaster nodded. “Mhm. It’s true.”

“What? What do you mean?” Prowl attempted to move his head, but Mixmaster simply held him tighter.

“It was uhh, back during the riots. We couldn’t get any work and we were down planetside and uhhh, um,” He was stumbling and stuttering over his words more than usual. “Oh, righ-ht! It was Scav, Bones and I, we hh-had gotten caught up in this big riot and Bones started yellin’ at the Enforcers, pushin’ at the shields, and I just whoop—!”

He raised a hand to mimic throwing a (literal, actual) pipe bomb. Prowl couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The crazy thing was that he could faintly remember that happening → a memory that absolutely wasn’t his.

“Why?”

“I hh-had it. Felt like throwing it.” Mixmaster assumedly grinned down at him. “Only found out after we joined the ‘Cons hh-he was the one I got with it. Hh-he was not h-happy when we met, lemme tell you.”

Prowl blinked through the static spreading through his processor. What a thing to tell him of all people → a former Enforcer → a former coworker of Barricade. He felt a chuckle slowly rise from his chassis, unsteady → weak → utterly delirious. It got Mixmaster to grin even wider than he already was.

It was strangely funny. It should have been a thing to get angry about, maybe, but perhaps it was due to how much fuel he had lost in the past few moments that he started to laugh. And it wasn’t like he enjoyed working with Barricade. He had been awful → violent → corrupt, and the thought of him getting a bomb thrown at him was both morbid and intensely hysterical.

ALERT//: Internal Hemorrhage in Fuel tanks
ALERT//: Internal Hemorrhage in Processor

-!- WARNING -!-

Fuel Pressure dropping

-!- WARNING -!-

Coolant Levels dropping

His gasping laughter morphed into just gasping, his vents shuttering and expelling steam over and over and over again as he began to overheat. He clawed at Mixmaster’s arms. He could hear Hook cursing somewhere in the distance.

“Mix, stop making him laugh!” The doctor hissed.

“I'm just trying to—”

“Zip it,” His voice, layered over itself, wavered through Prowl’s head. “Don’t argue, just stay still. Bones, give me that.” Hook took the medkit that Bonecrusher had taken from the cockpit’s glovebox and cracked it open, taking what he needed from it.

>>/ you could have used that

{Unknown}>>/ you’re using it now

His vision artifacted more as more pain signals shot up to his prrocessor. He could feel long thick things being pulled out of his tanks → wriggling, alive things. He felt like his head was being caved in.

The roof of the ship dented inward, splitting at its worn seams and raining screws down on five people who didn’t even seem to notice the ship being torn apart. The hole widened above them, revealing a red glare. Prowl watched, transfixed, as the tear opened wider and wider until he could make out constructicon green and purple.

Devastator looked down → reached down and seized his entire body → lifting him up into the cold dark night. The construct said nothing. It glared, expression slightly disgusted with the thing it held in its hand, before closing its fist around him.

Prowl shattered.

Elita-1 frowned, obviously disapproving of the proposed plan. “This is incredibly dangerous.”

“I know.”

The command room was empty, quiet save for the trilling of electrical wires running through the base. Only three mechs stood in this room, discussing in quiet tones the subject of infiltration and the benefits of doing so.

Prowl was set to infiltrate a Decepticon station primarily known as the Hive, due to how many Insecticons were stationed there. It orbited a quasar → a power source for something they haven’t been able to identify with probes. Add that the Insecticons were a very clandestine group, and they made for a potentially dangerous ally for the Decepticons to have.

He would be pretending to defect over to them, gather the necessary information about the site before planting a killcode into the stations systems and escaping. A simple plan, 79.8% chance of succeeding without major injury. He had gone over it many, many times in his head.

“You don’t have to do this. I don’t want to lose our best tactician over a half-forged plan.” Elita said, wings fluttering behind her in agitation.

“We have lost half of our Spec Ops officers, and the rest of them are currently on missions on their own. This is our only chance to gain information on the Insecticons.” Prowl stated plainly.

Elita still didn’t seem satisfied. “You’ll be going in alone. And I mean alone, we won’t be able to contact you unless we want to break your cover. We will not be able to help you if you find yourself in a bad situation.”

Prowl nodded. “I understand the risks.”

Elita shook her head and looked back towards Optimus Prime, who had not said anything yet. Her expression urged him to speak out on this, maybe to deny his Tactician from going out and getting himself killed. Prowl also looked at him, leveling his gaze at the larger-than-life figure before him.

After a moment, Prime sighed. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

What a question to ask.

They were already stretched as thin as they could afford to be—not an ideal scenario for a faction that was, admittedly, losing the war. All their other operatives were out on the field or doing something equally dangerous → Mirage was scouting Autobot territory for Red Alert → Ironhide, Hound, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker and Cliffjumper were out conducting a reconnaissance mission → Jazz was on a solo intelligence mission. The only people still left at base were people who absolutely could not leave unless there was a dire circumstance; Red Alert, Ratchet, Elita. Optimus Prime. The wounded and dying.

The reality was that only he could do this. This was an honest to Primus important mission, and he was glad to do it. Especially after Tyrest went so poorly. They needed an advantage on something.

“I assure you, Prime, if there was any other option I would’ve given it.”

Optimus nodded. “Then you have my blessing.”

The walk to the hanger bay was a long one. The halls of Iacons Autobot base melded together into one continuous streak of faded yellow. He walked, and walked, and walked down → winding and turning despite the fact there were no turns to this hall.

He felt sick to his tanks.

Eventually, he got to the hanger and entered the frigate. He put in the coordinates and set off into space. Everything gradually fell away to the pitch black horizon. The stars laid still, unmoving in the viewport.

ALERT//: Motor Functions Offline

Reason: Insufficent Fuel

There was a tightness in his chest → a hand squeezing his spark the longer he looked at it.

It felt wrong. This felt wrong. He wanted to get out → he needed to go back.

ALERT//: Fuel Tanks Breach
ALERT//: Medical Port Breach
ALERT//: Fuel Hemorrhage in [Processor]
ALERT//: Foreign Organism detected in [Tanks]

-!- WARNING -!-

Foreign Intrusion Detected

Cybertron.

If Prowl stayed out here, he knew he would die. Staying in the void would kill him. His hands traced over the control console, unsteady and shaking. For the first time in his life he was…stuck → frozen → unsure of what to do. The Tactilian Suite was experiencing a meltdown, that was the closest thing he could call it. Numbers over numbers, calculations and percentages layering over each other into garbled, unreadable nonsense. The only thing that made sense, the only thing he could truly focus on through the noise was the repeating number predicting his chances of survival.

3.6%

3.6% Survivability Chance.

96.4% chance that he would—

96.4%—

His hands tightened on the console. It didn’t stop him from falling to his knees.

>>/ I’m going to die out here

“…Prowler?”

His spark spun faster at the static-filled voice that called out to him → a voice he missed dearly. He gripped the sides of the radio communicator.

“Jazz—” He gasped. “Jazz, I’m here. Please—please you have to help me. Please. I’m here, I’m here. Come find me, save me—”

“Prowl, why did you call for me? You’re in dead space, I don’t even know where you are. I can’t save you.”

He blinked.

“You…”

Oh.

The transponder fell apart in his hands, crumbling to chunks of metal and parts → colored wires spilled at his feet. The red desert stretched outward, wind howling past.

“What—” He was panicking. He knew this. Desperate, fleeting thoughts ran through his head before even had a chance to consider them. “Then what—what do I do? What do I do, what do I—”

“Prowl.”

He looked up. Jazz stood before him. His frame was striking against the red dunes and hazy sky. His black and white paint. The Autobot brand on his chest. His doorwings. His horns. His face. The light shifted strangely, like the sun was rising and setting within seconds, causing the shadows to lengthen and short around him → his visor to gleam vibrant blue then fade. Prowl stared up, kneeling. Waiting. Dreading.

Jazz sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

Prowl shattered—

 —and reformed.

His plating buzzed with charge → agitation → anger → fear. Reality was breaking.

His Tac Net was malfunctioning.

There were parasites in his fuel tank.

There were parasites in his brain.

>>/ I want to go home

“I know.”

Scrapper stood against the sandstorm. The wounds of the past were fresh, still oozing black blood down his chassis in rivulets. But there was also a new wound—his chest clawed and ripped open to reveal his burning spark.

“But you never really get what you want, do you?”

Prowl felt his lips curl into a grimace. Gritting teeth → fingers digging into the sand. Air seethed in and out of his creaking vents, before everything collapsed into a long, grinding whine from deep within his chest. The kind of sound that came very close to a sob.

“I don’t know what to do.” He breathed.

“You don’t do anything.” Scrapper knelt down. “You just let it happen.”

Prowl just shook his head.

ALERT//: Unable to Access Motor Functions
ALERT//: Fuel Pressure Dangerously Low
ALERT//: Coolant Low

>>/ No

Scrapper let out a soft chuckle. “For what it’s worth, I think you did pretty well. You did what you could. And you stayed kickin’ for a good while, too. You’re real stubborn. I like that.”

>>/ No
>>/ No
>>/ No

“I can’t.” He bit out. “I can’t just let myself die! What about the Autobots? What about everything? I can’t leave them like this, that’s just—selfish!”

>>/ I don’t want to die

“Well, neither did I. You ain’t see me whine about getting shot in the head.”

Prowl, somehow, crumpled further into himself. A wheezing, broken laugh fell out from his head as he rose his head to look at Scrapper. He looked the same as ever, a dead mech sitting beside him making snarky, odd comments. He looked back over the red desert.

Scrapper wrapped his arm around Prowl, leaning him against his chest. He was close enough to hear his spark spin and burn as the storm blew past them. Even now he was gentle, at the end of all things. They had all been gentle, to some degree. It was disturbing → confusing. He didn’t know what to do with a gentle Decepticon.

Could he hate that? Could he be cruel? It was so easy to be cruel. Terrifyingly easy. He had been cruel to many people in his life.

Chromedome.

Cerebros.

Tarantulas.

Coworkers.

Comrades.

…Jazz, even. Back during the Golden Age, when they were very, very different people.

There was reason to it. There was always a reason. And he had very good reason to hate the Constructicons. But here he was, being comforted in death by one while the others did their best to…try and save him. Was that what they were doing?

He fucking hated it.

“Hey.”

Prowl could barely hear him over the wind.

“I’ve a favor to ask you.”

He couldn’t even look up to him. His leftmost gaze was transfixed to the horizon, how the grey sky gradually broke down into glitchy, artifacted red nonsense. How, if he looked close enough, he could see a white streak falling, splitting the sky as it sought out its target. The hole of his eyesocket drunk in the blazing sparklight eminating from Scrapper’s torn chest.

What he muttered into his audial made Prowl straighten. He turned to him, but his body didn’t seem to move along with him. “You—”

“You’re right. I’m not really here. I’m gone. I can’t be there for them, not anymore.”

A pressure built up in his chest. “How—how dare you. You can’t ask me to do that. Why would I—?”

{Scrapper} >>/ The only thing I can do is ask.

Prowl stared for a moment. Anger and disbelief drained from him like water. Scrapper looked down, his face a shadow against the blinding light of the sky and the sand and the storm.

Scrapper took one final vent inwards. “…So I’m asking you.”

Prowl shattered.

Chapter Text

To the Illustrious Sentinel Prime

It seems that after several cycles upon our planet's second moon, my continued observations of these dissenters have proven to be fruitful. This truly was the best course of action to take for this particular issue.

The LSCI leaders of this movement discuss more things to demand of you, as if the compromises to their previous terms were not enough. As if annexing Luna-2 was not enough. They glut themselves on the Primacy’s generosity, and grow greedier every cycle.

As for the work being done on the mining facility, it is still being stalled. The foundation for the building, which I assumed to be finished already, was halted due to the discovery of a complex series of caves at the dig site that they would have to excavate. LSCI 984-1 states that due to the safety rules implemented by their new contract they “cannot work in the conditions currently present at the work site until a thorough safety inspection is conducted”.

I am honestly surprised 984-1 knows how to construct a sentence so complex, but I suppose construction was what she was made to do.

I digress. My Prime, I am happy to inform that this issue with not only their unwillingness to work and the matter of their union’s existence can be easily solved.

If the work cannot be conducted without a thorough safety inspection, and such safety inspections are done by LSCI 984-1, then the course of action that is needed to ensure this Union goes no farther will be simple and subtle, just as what was requested of me. A forged signature and stamp I hope are sufficient to continue the much needed work on the facility.

And if an accident does happen during that time, all the more reason to press the construct leaders on their ability to maintain a cohesive union without the leadership of a real foreman or similar superior.

If all goes smoothly, I will be returning to Iacon in half a cycle at the latest.

Your Humble Servant

Botanica

Chapter Text

Long Haul stirred from dreamless recharge, visor blinking to life at the feeling of someone waking up beside him. It wasn’t Mix (sprawled out) or Scav (clinging to Mix’s arm) to his left. It was the other one, their “foreman” as Bombshell had once called him but was now more familiar to them as “Prowl”.

The surgery had gone…fine. Hook had to take his tank and empty all the fuel and bugs out of it, leaving a huge mess everywhere. Then he had to shove all his internals back in the right place along with some of that med-grade that was stashed in that med kit they found. Prowl didn’t die. He passed out but he didn’t die.

Long Haul was connected to him by a wire to monitor his vitals. That’s how he knew he had was woken up.

(It was Hook originally, but he had to take a break.)

He watched bleerily as Prowl shifted then sat up, the brilliant blue of his eye lighting up the darkenss. He reached for the wire strung between them.

“Don’t.”

Prowl paused, glancing up at Long Haul. His hand was still on the connection port, but didn’t move.

“You’re uh, still pretty weak.” He explained softly.

A long vent outward, Prowl let his hand fall and rest on his knee. His head knocked against the wall and the blue light of his eye disappeared as he squeezed it shut. Long Haul didn’t speak. For one thing, his gestaltmates were still sleeping beside him and he didn’t want to wake them up. Second, there wasn’t anything he had to say, or wanted to say. It wasn’t that type of moment.

It was a time to be quiet. To just…take a quick 15. From everything.

He did idly kept Prowl’s vitals in his mind. He was pretty sure Prowl knew he was looking, but either he didn’t care or he was too tired to. Or a third thing that Long Haul couldn’t piece together. They had bonded to a very confusing mech.

After another moment or so he pulled out the long tube of med-grade, half empty now, and popped the top off. He jiggled one of the small blue cubes into his hand and wordlessly offered it to Prowl. He took it. Holding it between his thumb and his forefinger, Prowl stared at the cube as he turned it over and over in his hand.

“Sorry.”

Prowl furrowed his brow, confused. “…what are you apologizing for?”

“We didn’t think our rations would make you sick.” The big mech said simply. “At least not that sick.”

“Well, now we know.” Somehow, for some reason, Prowl looked disappointed by his answer. But then it was gone. His shoulders dropped, his wings gave a small twitch and he took a small bite of his fuel. “…how can you stand it?”

“Stand what?”

“This.” He gestured to nothing. “The bond. I can’t…I can’t tell when you five end and where I begin—how does that not drive you insane?”

Long Haul thought about it for a moment, then shrugged.

“It’s all I’ve ever known.”

Prowl scoffed. “That’s not—”

He huffed, squeezing his eye shut and knocking his head against the wall again. Long Haul could hear his machinery whirring. Then, as Prowl’s head slid down to rest on his shoulder, he could really feel it. The slight buzzing against his plating mixing with the faint-feeling of his EM field.

The closeness felt better than anything. He let his visor turn off, enjoying the feeling of the sixth field against his own. They weren’t meant to be apart from one another.

Long Haul didn’t even say nothing when he heard Prowl mutter: “I wish I never got the chance to know you.”

He just hummed, and muttered back. “Too bad.”

Hook was in the engine room, sitting on the floor, head in his hands.

Right now, things were fine. Bonecrushers arm was an easy fix, solder up the hole into an ugly but sturdy patch. Prowl was stressful, but he’d live. They’d all live for a while until they ran out of rations. Then they all had the pleasure of starving to death together.

At least with Scrapper it had been quick. Pit, it hurt like a motherfucker—tearing through their sparks and feeling like they were the ones who got shot in the head—but it was over just like that. With Prowl it was all the time, just like with his headaches. It sat in his periphery, slow as tar, a constant reminder that something was wrong and Hook couldn’t fix it. And it really was down to him to do something, the others couldn’t do shit.

It was moments like this, where he was semi-alone with his thoughts, that he really started to resent Scrapper. He resented him for dying, resented him for making them join the Decepticons, resented him for every little descion he made along the way—all the way back to the first one. Letting Bucket take the fall for the excavation accident, even though they all knew that Primacy rep had something to do with it, and having as her and her gestalt get sent back planetside with one less mech.

Bucket didn’t deserve that. Scrapper just let it happen.

There were a lot of things Scrapper did that Hook hated during the moment and were fucking stupid in hindsight. He looked out for them, sure, but Primus fuck…it made him wish he was more alone, so to speak.

Hook dragged a hand down his face.

The ship shook violently, throwing Hook onto the floor. It didn’t take him long to scramble up the ladder to see what the fuck was going on. The others were similarly getting off the floor to see what exaclty was going on.

The ship was moving.

Something outside was moving the ship towards…Hook didn’t know what. For all he knew they were getting eaten by some space monster. He never believed the stories the lower ranking officers told about life-sucking things that lived in the vacuum of space, and he wasn't about to start believing now.

And thankfully he didn’t have to. Turns out, it was worse than what he thought!

The grainy, muffled quality of a megaphone could faintly be heard outside the frigate as it was very noticeably dragged into the interior of a ship. “Seperatist scum, you have waved your right to life the moment you defected from the grace of the Primacy. By showing your sorry hides in this occupied zone, you have effectively surrendered yourselves to us. Resistance is not recommended, and your immediate execution will commence shortly. May you all rot in the Pit.”

Great. They were being dragged into the belly of a Loyalist ship. Full of Loyalists. Who were going to kill them.

Was this better than starving to death? Hook didn’t know.

Mix and Scav were peeking through the cockpit window, the former unspacing his pistol. Prowl leaned unsteadily against Long Haul.

Hook turned to Mixmaster. “How many?”

“Too many for hh-half a clip.” Mix answered. Scavanger whined.

“We, uh,” Hook looked around. “The…if we keep the bay doors closed that can give us some time to think.”

“That won’t hold forever. They can just cut into the hull and shoot us.” Prowl stated.

Bonecrusher looked around, grimace set on his face. “What do we do?”

“We combine.”

“What?” Hook had to double take what Prowl just said. “What? Combine?? what are you—?”

“It’s either that or we get executed by Loyalists. Will you do it or not?”

Hook looked down at him for a long moment. Prowl’s hard glare did not waver, neither did his field or his conviction. They all noticed this. Hook struggled with his words for a bit, unsure of what to say.

He swallowed, tightening his jaw.

“You’re the boss.” He stuck out his hand.

Prowl grabbed it.

For a moment, nothing happened. The other four crowded around awkward and nervous.

And then Six became One. Became Devastator.

LSCI 985 2-6 : ACTIVE AND OPERATIONAL

LINKING CONSCIOUSNESS…

CONNECTING TO : PPU-C2.456240055
DESIGNATION: Prowl

The Great Destroyer.

The frigate was torn apart immediately, seams popping and ripping with explosive velocity as the combined form of the gestalt consciousness filled the docking bay. He laughed when the Loyalists screamed and unleased their gunfire on him. It barely did anything to him. Devastator returned the favor by bringing his fist down on their puny frames, exploding them into little pink splatters of gore.

It felt great.

It felt great to be whole. Truly whole.

Every piece of him working together; no hinderence, no hatred, just the pure unfettered need to cause as much destruction and bodily harm as possible. It was joyus. It was wonderful.

Devastator laughed.

Chapter Text

The frigates energon trail was a long and difficult one to follow. There were times where the trail went so thin that they could barely detect it on their scanners. Steeljaw was vigilant as ever, but even he was having trouble keeping on the scent. So to speak.

Both he and Eject complained the most about this. Jazz let them.

Because if he was being honest, and Jazz would consider himself to be pretty honest most of the time, this was him at his most…bossy? Determined? Those weren’t good words to describe it. Maybe he was edging towards desprate, but that was more embarrassing to admit. The bottom line was that he needed Prowl to be alive. They all did.

The Autobots needed him alive, because if he was dead after all this? They were capital S screwed. He knew that, Blaster and his deck knew that, anyone who had a processor (or at least used theirs) knew that. This trail was the only thing they had and that was possibly the saddest thing about this recon mission.

Thankfully, doubt flew out the window like a Harmonex Lilleth with the sound of their scanners finally picking up something.

“Approching ship.” Steeljaw annouced. He pawed at the controls, eyes locked onto the screens fuzzy display.

Jazz leaned over. “Cons?”

Rewind twisted some dials, strengthening the imaging. “…Loyalists.”

Blaster cursed under his breath. Jazz chewed his tongue for a moment, watching as the ship came into view on not only the scanners but in the view window. It was a standard M-17 battlecruiser, the most recognizable of Loyalist attack vessels. What it was doing in dead space was beyond him, but in any case it was safe to assume that agents of the old primes would be going to kill anything that could be deemed “heretical”.

“They ain’t send a comm or started attackin’ us yet. Either they haven’t noticed or something else is going on.” He turned back to Steeljaw and Eject. “Can you send out an Autobot signal pulse?”

Every Autobot had a signal tracker in their badge for missions and situations like this one. If the mech they were looking for was in that ship—

“Jackpot!” Eject pumped his fist. “Singular Autobot located inside!”

They found him.

A grin split Jazz’s face. The situation wasn’t ideal, but he had handled worse. In fact, infiltrating a Loyalist battlecruiser would probably be the easiest part of this whole mission. He high-fived Eject and got swatted at by Steeljaw for trying to pet him before springing into motion.

“Alrighty! Now, swing close enough to the hull so I can breach in.” Unlatching the emergency laser cutter from it’s case on the wall, Jazz inspected it before hooking it to his hip. He had a couple other things that would come in handy, but those were all under his plating.

“Wha—alone?” Blaster whipped around in his seat. “Mech, I know you’re good but you’re not that good. At least take someone with you, like Ramhorn or—”

“Ouch, Blaster. Tell me how you really feel.” Jazz pouted before breaking out into another grin. “Relax, baby. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Blaster huffed, but a small smile curled at the corners of his lips. He began to move the ship.

As soon as he broke through the hull, Jazz was in altmode and on the move. The corridors were long, symmetrical and orderly, all near the hull, with the more wider rooms (barracks, command, engine) sitting in the center. The whole ship was bathed in a flashing red emergency lights and the blaring sound of intrusion alarms. On before he came in, he noticed.

He had been right. They were preoccupied with something else.

Better for him all the same.

He sped through the level he was on, tires smoking and screeching around corners he intentionally took tightly, driving up the rampwells. He glanced through the open doorways only briefly. Speed mattered in a place like this, and he wanted to be in and out with Prowl as quickly as possible.

The next level was not as empty as his first. Several Loyalist soldiers clomped out of a doorway and right in the way of where Jazz was driving. He quickly identified them by what they were wielding—assault rifle, plasma rifle, stun rod and riot shield—before speeding up.

He caught stun rod by surprise by driving straight into his feet and knocking him down, causing the others to yell out intruder. With a quick quarter turn he tripped up riot shield too before shifting into root mode and catching the ballistic resilient shield in his hands—just in time for plasma and assault rifle to point their nickname-sakes at him.

Jazz crouched and crawled backwards towards the next rampwell, letting the shots bounce off the clear ballistics material as he rummaged around in his subspace for…there it was. He rolled the smoke grenade forward, where it hissed and filled the space in thick smoke. Jogging backwards, he went up the next rampway, hand to his comms.

::Prowler, come in. It’s Jazz::

No answer as he ducked and weaved through almost identical rooms and corridors. A squad of Loyalist were coming down the way and Jazz barely paid them any mind. The most he did do was throw a flashbang at ‘em before running and jumped over one of them, pushing off him with the riot shield as he ditched the thing.

The sound of his own footsteps echoed around him.

::Come on in, mech. I’m right here::

Still nothing. His comms weren’t broken, he just wasn’t getting anything back. Prowl wouldn’t not answer, he was probably compromised in some way—which made everything harder, but nothing in life was ever easy.

Slipping into a doorway, Jazz waited as more clomping footsteps and hurried words passed by him. Whoever was on this ship was really fucking them over. Five squadrons gone in a single sweep. Who even had the ability to do that?

He dipped out of his hiding place only to come nearly crashing into someone he didn’t hear coming until it was too late. Instinct took over, as it always did.

His blade was at the mech’s throat.

The muzzle of their gun was on his head.

It took a moment for the buzzing in his lines to settle, but as soon as it did Jazz had to pause. The mech in front of him was no Loyalist lacky. The white and black plating, slightly greying, had the bold red Autobot sigil stamped on it. And, of course, he couldn’t ignore Prowl’s similarly shocked face.

“Heya, Prowler,” Jazz couldn’t help the startled laugh that jumped out of his chest. “…you look like shit.”

Prowl said nothing. One-eyed, scratched-up, covered in dried blood Prowler stared for a good minute before dropping his gun.

“Jazz you’re…”

Jazz took half a step back, flicking the knife closed and back under his plating. Prowl followed, as if led by strings, his hands coming up to grip his shoulders. He had his claws out, and unintentionally clawed some of Jazz’s paint off.

“…you’re really here?”

He took him by the arm, a little afraid that Prowl was going to fall over or something. He looked like a strong wind could blow him over. “Yeah, mech. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Prowl didn’t say anything for another long moment. Jazz glanced around, checking the corridors for any hostile forces. As sweet of a reunion as this was, they were in no way safe or sound, and Jazz was very keen on getting off of this ship as soon as possible.

He just had to really quickly…confirm something.

“You ain't being followed, right?”

“No.” Prowl sounded breathless.

“Like, you’re alone—”

“Jazz, there is a 75% chance that I pass out right here and you have to carry me back to your ship through hostile territory.” That hard, sharp look was back in his eye. “Unless you want to do that, bring me back home.”

“Alright, alright!”

Jazz hooked the tip of his foot under the dropped gun and flipped it up into his hand, offering it back to the disgruntled mech in front of him. Prowl took it, checking the charges and glancing behind him. There was no one behind them.

And they left.

Chapter Text

“Hey.” Jazz’s fingers snapped in front of Prowl’s face, jerking him back to wakefulness. “Don’t doze off. We need to finish this incident report.”

A haze clung to the edges of his processor. Prowl glanced between Jazz sitting in a chair across from the bench slab he was sitting on to the door that led to the other crew compartments and the ship’s command center. Jazz was calm and his body languid, his finger tapping down on the surface of the data pad between them.

“Continue.”

Blinking hard, Prowl resumed his account of what had happened at the Hive black site and at Kankr. He told him about giving away several Autobot locations on Antilla, and the subsequent destruction of Iron Works. He told him about Melanossus, and Splendora, and Celestina. He kept it brief, at times neglecting to share some key details here and there. What really mattered was reporting what he got from his original mission.

They already knew that the Insecticons were clandestine, illusive and hard-to-track. They knew they were hard to repel due to the sheer number of their swarms. That was it. Now, as he recounted to his fellow officer, they knew how they operated, how they treated prisoners, what what weapons and tools they had at their disposal, updated profiles on signifigant members in their heiarchy, that they had a heiarchy. He knew why they were allied with the Decepticons to begin with and it was laughably simple—to fight alongside the Decepticons allows them to eat and reproduce more effectively without the threat of annihilation, and in return the Decepticons adds another wing to their armada.

Prowl had gotten the information that he wanted in the first place, and he got more after he got captured. If he wanted to, he could spin this situation into some sort of positive for the Autobots.

The Tactilian Suite argued differently.

The mission had been an abject failure, no matter how one looked at it. Captured → Failed to destroy The Hive → Leaked sensitive information to the Decepticons → Tortured → Failed to destroy the Hive again → Destroyed an Autobot supply bastion→ Tortured again. No amount of information or intel could offset the damage that had been caused to Antilla or Nebulos.

And then there was the matter of…the Constructicons.

Prowl had been careful with not mentioning those five in his account. He would rather be dragged into Solus’ slagpit than broach that subject with anyone. In the most likely scenario if anyone found out, a formal investigation would be made to determine wiether or not he was fit to continue his position as the Autobot’s military tactician. And if it was decided he wasn’t, then…then they would…

There were a number of things that they could do, none of them pausible → but how did he know that? He was spark-bonded to five—five Decepticons. If he had brought them with him, everyone would be within their right to suspect him for treason, or that they were leaking information to the other side or-or something. There would be no way for the Autobots to trust him, especially after learning he had been mind controlled.

How would they know that he wasn’t a Decepticon sleeper agent? If they couldn’t trust him, Prowl couldn’t continue to do his job → if he was scrutinized by high command that would seal his fate. And five Decepticons in an Autobot base, that wouldn’t be acceptible in the slightest. And he wouldn’t want them there → And he wouldn’t want them near him → And he didn’t want anyone looking at him like that → And people would get the wrong impression of what happened → And he didn’t want their comfort or their care or their hands on him or in him anyway → It had been the right thing to do to leave them → The best thing they could do for him now was die on that Loyalist ship → It would be a secret no one would know but him alone → But him alone → And → And → And→

“Prowler.”

He blinked, startled. Jazz had leaned forward in his seat, gazing at him with an unreadable expression. It might’ve been worry but with Jazz it could’ve been…the mech had always been hard to read.

But he was expecting an answer.

“I…” Prowl pressed his palm against his eye. “Excuse me. Could you repeat that again? I was…”

Jazz turned his head, kicking his feet up on the bench. “Nah, let’s take a break. We have time.”

“But the report—”

“The report can wait, sweetspark.” He grinned, and Prowl shut his mouth.

A long period of silence followed. Prowl had glanced around at first, opening and closing his fists while failing to relax. Yes, he was tired. Primus he was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. His gaze landed on Jazz’s pedes resting right next to his thigh, moving to a silent rhythm.

Prowl watched how his doorwings occasionally twitched and fluttered, how his horns would turn and rotate as they listened to the low hum of machinery working within the ship. Somewhere, Blaster and his cassettes were working the navigation systems to take them all back to Cybertron.

“Hey.”

Prowl’s eye snapped up to see Jazz staring at him. Curious. Contemplating.

“You were alone on that frigate, right?”

Decacycles of managing his outward appearance kept his plating and field from flaring.

“Yes.” He had already told him so. Why would he ask? “Why are you asking me?”

Jazz shrugged. “Just curious.”

He searched his face and found nothing but impassivity. This wasn’t curiosity, Jazz wasn’t ever “curious”. And certainly not with that tone. He was testing him, the test being…

He couldn’t…he couldn’t know, could he? How would he know?

“What spurred this curiosity of yours?”

Jazz’s wings hitched upwards for a moment, then he shrugged again and they went down. “I dunno. We were on Kankr and we were looking on the cameras for you and…I guess I thought I saw someone else with you when you boarded that frigate.”

He couldn’t see his eyes through the visor but he knew Jazz was staring right at him. Prowl stared right back, expression unmoving and body as still as it could be.

“You must have been mistaken. No one followed me onto that ship.”

“…Okay.” Jazz nodded. “I believe you.”