Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ah yes, the elusive knights of Cybertron… long known for how little information there is about them and their supposed disappearence. Apart from the few tales of their rule during the planet’s golden age, there really isn’t anything worthwhile. Yes, they do say that legends come from something explainable and real, and yes, they technically did find remnants of this reality. However, their situation seemed to get dimmer with every solar cycle.

And there he is, captain aboard the Lost light, experiencing his first hurdles… right after take off, later bravely facing a spark eater, helping Tyrest retire and Optimus Prime to save the world once again from world changing evil. 

How could such a brilliant, accomplished persona like him get punished to traverse the galaxy with Megatron? MEGATRON? How could Optimus ever do something like this??

Nonetheless, even Megatron didn’t stop him from wearing big boy pants and somewhat acting the captain part. So there they are, co-captains of the Lost light vessel against the world and, for now, each other. The challenges kept on coming, but even their first disaster seemed nothing compared to what’s to come.

Megatron strolled onto the bridge as one does, it’s one of the rarer occasions of them working the shift together. “Doing your homework on the knights of Cybertron? The legendary explorers and carriers of sacred knowledge across the universe, whom we’re after,” Megs retorted with a tinge of sarcasm.

“Everybody knows you’re aboard my ship just to spite everybody with hopes of extending what’s left of your pitiful life,” Rodimus put on his most condescending smile.

“And you’re here not because it’s a form of escapism,” argued the two captains as per usual after the whole quantum theater. The tensions still high as these two clowns learned how to finally get over themselves, however their relationship has been slightly improving.

“Anyways, we’ve been on the move for a while now and I’m thinking we should land here,” the fiery co-captain pointed to a small planet in a rather secluded sector not far from their whereabouts. “Mags said It’s not on any intergalactic councils or on any prohibition lists, so we’re in the clear to land,” he decided to keep the techno-organic bit out. “We can also refuel before a proper pit stop,” he smiled slyly, but it seems like a good idea, afterall, there is some residual energon on it and they’ve been running a little dry lately. A short field day won’t hinder their travel.

“I’d rather we kept going to our planned refuel site,” Megs just had to disagree, because we can’t have nice things on this stupid quest with stupid ex-warlord. 

“Well, I think it’d be great for morale, ” because you are on MY ship and I make the call whether you like it or not. 

They argued for a few more minutes before Megatron yielded to Rodimus’ unrelenting arguments favoring the crew (wink). So, they were off to make their little diversion, which was surprisingly convenient, why Megs decided to argue against it anyways was beyond the prime. He wouldn’t admit he himself really needed a breather from what has become of this vessel. Megatron wouldn’t get off his case ever since he boarded and not to mention the stress his presence throws onto the combined shoulder of the crew. He’s been stressed even more with Optimus checking in on him every so often. Every message, every call, official or not, slowly chipped away at his sanity. If OP is so busy, how does he even have time to bother him.

Soon they were near their short term goal and Rodimus compiled a crew of bots who wanted this little excursion, which turned out to be a solid two pods large with the usual characters like Cyclonus, Tailgate, Swerve, Ring, Skids, Nightbeat and a bunch of others. Even Sour-Mc-Mood-Ruiner Megs surprisingly went along in Magnus’ place most likely actually due to something like – I don’t know – ‘making sure’ Rods didn’t get everybody in trouble and so he could keep an optic on him too . 

The landing was smooth, nothing to complain about after seeing the threatening clouds surrounding the atmosphere, some bots watched in awe of the beautiful land they descended upon. It truly was breathtaking, one might even ponder if this was something Cybertron may have been similar to if it had time to recover and get overrun by the local wildlife. Except there were no visible remnants of actual civilization. To be honest, this planet only offered some organic looking nature and techno-organic beasts roaming it. It was a perfect opportunity to clear their helms and get some movement in their transformation seams. Primus knows it’s been difficult with Magnus on everybody's case, Rods’ been telling him they really need a race track or something of the sorts , but today there’s no Magnus and nobody to nag them for transforming in the halls. At least until he got a call from Megatron through the pod’s communications hub.

“Yes, Megs?”

“This supposed mineable energon better be of use to us, considering all of the fuel we burned to get here,” Megs stated in a defeated and incredulous way. 

“Don’t worry, Megs,” Rodimus replied looking through the viewing ports, “it’ll be worth every drop,” since anybody in need (Rodimus especially) will get to stretch their pedes and explore. 

During their little back and forth some local flying wildlife flew by their pods. Those beasts were quite large, but the cheerful co-captain was confident in their safety as he hung up the call without even a ‘Cya!’. None of them should be attacked, not counting in Whirl, of course, he’s always looking for trouble. Eventually they came to a gentle stop and the sign for safe exit was announced. Rodimus gave a short pep talk about being warned of what may lurk in the wilderness, but he had already forgotten the details. If we’re being honest here, they didn’t exactly check the planet in detail (or rather Rodimus dismissed it as nothing they couldn't handle), had they done so perhaps they would’ve seen the part where it stated it had unpredictable electromagnetic storms and a bunch of other warnings of erratic weather. 

Upon exiting the vessels everybody dispersed to do their own thing and of course explore. As the nerd team or the rod squad (Nightbeat, Skids, Nautica, Rung and others) went on to check out what mysteries this place had to offer, the younger co-captain chose to get his tires dirty individually ignoring Megs’ instructions for everyone to stay in teams. Megs noticed his fellow commander zoom off and sighed. 

As Rodimus sped down the grass, skidded and swerved corners, sped down avenues of trees (why we’re there vaguely road shaped sections anyway?), went down the steep mountains he approached what seemed to be various glyphs etched into the walls. He didn’t think much of them and simply continued on, it’s not his job to be the decipherer guy.

On their way in a different direction, ‘Tailgate and friends’ went on a different path, following a vaguely trail shaped area amongst the giant trees. As they were walking, something seemed off, like they were being watched. Cyclonus had some conflicting feelings for this sidequest ever since they breached the outer layers of the atmosphere, but nothing concrete to point out, therefore nothing to actually worry about yet, he decided to stay wary. 

As they trekked the dirt and grassy paths, gaped at the scenery filled with majesty and raw power, observed the impressively varied and complex wildlife (which Whirl did in fact try to engage in unfriendly ways), they too tumbled upon canion-esque areas with suspicious glyphs on the walls. Cyclonus took notice of them quickly, their sharpness and familiar shapes. He carefully inspected the walls up close and ran his claws through the hard stone, following the rather detailed work.

“What have you got there, Cyclonus?” Tailgate caught up. Cyclonus hummed in a thoughtful way, not breaking his attentive groping.

“Woah, that’s pretty cool. I wonder who would have left these here, thought there weren’t any smart species here.” Tailgate was right, however, it’s unlikely they were the first to come by this planet and leaving marks, while incorrect, is quite common to do when visiting alien places. He took note of them before quickly getting interrupted by Whirl rampaging on critters out of boredom. 

The group went on, transforming and getting some movement in their stiff gears and wheels. As Tailgate did his best to keep up with the flyers, his little squad approaching an opening ( a crater?) at the foot of where two mountains met and a shallow river flowed, he abruptly stopped, swerving and nearly crashing. Cyclonus wasted no time landing, perhaps his friend crashed out of clumsiness after catching a rock in his way, but the look he saw in Tailgate’s visor told a different story. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“THERE! I  SAW SOMEONE!” Tailgate spat out in a flurry of panic and fear. 

“Whirl, do you see anyone from above?” 

“Someone? And they tell me I’m not right in the processor-” Whirl did a second take and giggled. “Someone’s in trouble!”  he chimed, excited to get his claws bloody again.

“Whirl, do not engage, Whirl!” Cyclonus threatened him like a misbehaving dog as Whirl landed in a wreckers fashion right where their panicked minibot saw the alleged being. Wreck shit now, ask questions later.

Chapter Text

Megatron sighed as his brash ‘co-captain’ hurried off into the distance. Seriously, why was he like this? He’s incredibly self absorbed, noisy, lousy, really an excuse of a captain. Ignoring the obvious safety precautions any decent captain was supposed to take whilst visiting any environment with possible hostility. How has this crew even survived for this long? At this point in time Megatron hoped he was a genuine imbecile and not that incompetent, otherwise they were all doomed. Since Megatron is no babysitter, he decided, against better judgement, to let him get himself killed if he wishes so. 

Incoming call 

Ultra Magnus

As if having to come down here, on this obviously organic planet, and getting muck stuck in his seams wasn’t horrible enough he was about to get chewed out for not keeping an eye on that prick.

“Yes, Magnus?” He did his best to not sigh, rubbing his olfactory bridge with two fingers, anticipating a helmache.

“Just so you know, I am keeping an eye on the team through the trackers.”

“Which means-”

“Which means I saw Rodimus take off alone. I understand how insufferable he is at times, but I require your full cooperation for the sake of the ship and my own sanity. You’re there in my place, so please, keep an eye on him.” Magnus interrupted, explaining in a near pleading way. 

“ I’ll do my best. ” Megatron said through gritted teeth. He really didn’t want to be there, but after many discussions of expectations of them as their leaders and how this might just be the way to strengthen their relationship, he had no other choice but to comply. Not much time has passed since he came aboard, yet it feels like he’s been stuck in limbo for months. Having to cooperate with Rodimus has proven itself to be more of a problem than he would’ve liked. “I will go fetch him, see you, Magnus.”

“Get back safe, captain,” Magnus signed off, disconnecting the call shortly after. As the primary observer of the two captains’ progress he was quite satisfied with having someone on his side. Not to say he and Rodimus weren’t friends in a way, their own strained relationship has slowly shifted into something more akin to a companionship, but Rodimus was Rodimus, a stubborn glitch. Megatron is surprisingly easy, he easily follows the ex enforcers logic and if there’s one thing he won’t do is pointlessly argue with possibly his only ally on this ship.

Megatron pinged Rodimus before stalking in the direction the speedster took. Thankfully, surprisingly even, it didn’t take long to find him lying in a grassy patch filled with striking and colorful flowers. Perhaps not all logic avoids that empty processor of his. Rodimus took notice of his presence quickly even in this zen-like state, Megatron can’t recall ever seeing him so mellowed out. 

“Oh, it’s you…” Rodimus voiced his disappointment. “Let me guess, Mags asked you to come get me so a local cyberwolf doesn’t eat me before he gets a chance to scold me,” he chuckled like a misbehaving sparkling. Megatron refrained from saying anything, possibly caught off guard by his odd friendliness. He approached him in a non threatening way, heavy pedes thumping on the hard ground gently. 

“What are you doing? Thought we were here for that mineable energon.”

“Yeah well, scouts are out looking for it, I’ve got it covered.”

“Why aren’t you with the scouts?” Megatron pointed out, which was followed by a short, comfortable silence.

“They don’t need my help, they’ll be just fine on their own,” he sighed and sunk into the comfort of the field. Megatron found it slightly odd, after all, the organics have a tendency of sticking in uncomfortable places for a while. Why would a mech want to have a bothersome deep clean instead of avoiding places like this altogether, because it’s definitely about that and nothing deeper. While Megatron was lost in thought, Rodimus chimed, suddenly feeling incredibly chatty. “I didn’t exactly enjoy my time on Earth, but I gotta admit, Drift was right with all of this scenery scrap. It does help…”

Drift? The ex third in command? “What has this got anything to do with anything?” Megatron felt that same helmache creep up again.

“I’m saying you need to chill out for once. You and Magnus. Nobody will eat me and nothing bad will happen to the crew if I take a second to breathe, got it?” he retorted rather angrily, all of the previously displayed calmness leaving his frame with a light puff of smoke.

“Rodimus, why is he so… protective of you anyway?” Megatron was getting curious and for better or for worse the feeling was genuine.

“Why does it matter? I’m sure you already have something cooked up in that bucket of yours.” Rodimus scoffed, beginning to get up. His discomfort and irritation clear as day on his distorted faceplate, bright blue optics glowing a threateningly deep blue. “Why are YOU here, Megatron? If you think the scouts need someone to pick at every move they make you go and do that.”

“ You lied to me and you brought me down here to a stupid organic planet-”

“It’s techno-organic! Not even close.” Rodimus interrupted his rant.

“As I was saying, I do not want to be down here, not nowhere close to this scrap heap.” He growled, looming over the fiery ball of anger and annoyance. 

“How many times do I have to repeat it myself?? I did not want you on MY ship, but here we are! And you could use this chance to, I DON’T KNOW, get the hell away from the scrutiny?” Rodimus exclaimed, emoting with his hands “Primus knows how many cold stares you get all the time. But no, here you are, alone with me .” The last sentence didn’t get lost on Megatron, its suspiciously dark aftertaste reminding him of his first solar cycles on the ship, when the tensions were so tight you could play a fragged up cacophony on them. Yet this time there was little venom in it, perhaps this was a testament to the resentful acceptance they both were harboring in their sparks. Even though they still struggled and quarreled, it had become an odd normality. 

Right as Megatron opened his mouth Rodimus received an emergency call from Cyclonus, putting up a servo in front of his face. “WHAT?!” he snapped, hearing Cyclonus pause for a second at the outburst. “We’ve got a problem, we’re at the foot of the mountains nearby, you’ll know when you see it, hurry” he went straight to the point before the call quickly fizzled out into a bunch of static. Rodimus looked at Megatron with a puzzled stare before they heard a loud bang in the distance “slag, Megs, we gotta get back”. 

Meanwhile Whirl got knocked back a ridiculous distance from the mech, Cyclonus rushed to end the emergency call to his captain and took up a defensive stance nearby, the whole situation happening so close to them he had no choice, protecting Tailgate was more important. The caped and clothed figure approached quickly and they crossed weapons with sparks jumping out in every direction. As if the scene was unraveling in slow motion, he saw a mechanical hand and took notice of the weapon. A smooth staff intricately lined with faint bio-light resembling ornaments. How was this mech putting so much force behind something so dainty , Cyclonus deflected the weapon, striking the mech’s side with his blade, which was caught by the mech’s servo. What is this thing Cyclonus barely managed a thought in before the staff landed square at the back of his helm, knocking him out.

The co-captains rushed back towards the pods, Rodimus trying to contact the rest of the ‘team leaders’, but none of it went through. Scrap . Megatron noticed the shift in the skyline, the colors turning warm and a dome of clouds and lightning forming far above. Maybe he should have paid more attention at the briefing. 

“Must be one of those communication scrambling storms Perceptor warned us about,” Megatron swore under his breath as they approached their landing site. The scouts were back, but no sight of Tailgate or the nerds.

 “Didn’t they give us any ways of localized communication??”

“Maybe comms will be back up after the storm has passed” Megatron theorized “we’ll be fine, take some mechs and go” he barked the order. 

“You two, let’s go, chop chop!” he pointed at two other mechs nearby and transformed, speeding off. 

They soon approached the same paths the group went on, noticing the similar ornaments in the walls. As the battle clearly got louder Rodimus braced himself for the worst, in the near distance he made out silhouettes in the shapes of Cyclonus and Tailgate, staying clear of the main battle while keeping distance from some wyvern beasts. He put the metal to the pedal, jumping and transforming mid air, coming down on the winged ones with fire. They screeched at a disorienting frequency and flew off, leaving Rodimus with a confused look on his faceplates.

“What's going on here?? What the hell are those things?!” he demanded, looking at a disoriented Tailgate.

“The same creatures we saw before landing. Whirl saw someone from above and engaged in combat,” Cyclonus pointed behind Rod, and of course, there was Whirl struggling under a pede under someone twice his size while the two mechs pointed their blasters at the threat. “I’m not sure if we’re in any immediate danger, whoever they are, they managed to throw Whirl back nearly over the walls of the mountain” Rodimus looked around, absorbing the information as well as the surroundings. Slag, all the way from there to back here?? His jaw dropped at the images his imaginative modules supplied. 

“But they never charged at me, even after shutting Cyc off they left us alone, we could’ve escaped if our loose cannon hadn’t gone back in!” Tailgate added. 

That thing took him out in one swipe. “Cyc, you’re leaking!” Rodimus took notice of his wounded helm to which in response Cyclonus grunted and expelled a cloud of steam. “Help them out of here,” he demanded, “I’ll get Whirl, go, NOW!” Survival and safety of his crew on an unfamiliar planet was more important than a flashy fight, but he couldn’t help himself anyway.

Rodimus made a move towards the combatants (though Whirl was mostly a victim in that scenario), when he noticed in the far edges of the space, climbing down the steep cliff Nightbeat and the glasses guy, damn that guy what’s his name, while the rest of the nerds stayed up on the edge. Skids quickly noticed their captain, waving a friendly hello. 

As if the situation couldn’t get worse the figure hit whirl, leaving him writhing on the ground, and pursued the curious intruders. Rodimus was out of time, Primus knows what that monster will do to them, he rushed as fast as he could towards it in hopes of buying those dumbasses time to escape, trying to tackle the figure. 

It noticed and quickly snatched the prime by his head and throat cabling, looking back at the stupid mechs running towards an opening in the walls. A cave? Dammit what were they thinking, he tried kicking the figure to no avail, thrashing and yelling to leave them alone. He felt himself getting choked up, energon flow restricted to his processors, everything began shifting into a blurry mess. In a panic he flamed out, burning off the drapes of his capturer in the process. It let go and as Rods tumbled to the ground, leaving his struts aching, the most terrifying green optics staring from high above right through his spark.

Chapter Text

Caught in a temporary trance, he heard his friends yell and scream as they got surrounded by the wyverns once again, gritting their teeth and snapping their jaws at them. He looked back at the offender “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM THEM” he seethed at the giant mech. 

“Why are you here?” it spoke in perfect Neocybex, the voice thundering in his lines. It took him a second to regain his composure. Alright, it’s cybertronian! It made no further move to harm a pacified Rodimus, patiently waiting for a reply. As the form slowly kneeled with one leg, the harsh overhead sun no longer casting deep shadows, he got a better look at the mysterious mech. The green optics no longer panic inducing, a vaguely star shaped helm, horns, the mouth pressed to a thin line, sharp armor with spikes on the pauldrons and vaguely wing shaped giant protrusions on its back. Neither the built nor the kibble pointed to anything remotely vehicle-like, probably a beastformer, hopefully not a predacon.

“I am Rodimus Prime and you are harming my crew,” he finally choked out, “who are you ?”

The figure let out an amused scoff, putting on a smirk. She scanned Rodimus pedes to helm, locking into a sort of stare-off with those blue optics. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Rodimus fumed, this slagger didn’t care if those things harmed his mecha or not. He glared at her, but it was difficult staying cool while those things picked at his friends. “We’re here for some energon, that’s all. Now if you would, get the fuck out of my way ” his voice got increasingly louder, spitting venom, optics burning holes into the mech as he began rising to his pedes. She considered his words, letting them marinate before taking a casual look behind him back. I swear to Primus once they’re safe, he’s getting his aft kicked . Then he heard a whistle and some loud clicks. It was so loud it made him want to cover his audials and put his head through the floor. The wyverns flew to them and dropped his nerds on the cold ground before taking off into the sky.

Rodimus caught Nautica in his servos before counting the heads and turning back towards the mysterious mech, throwing a nasty glance. Perhaps Cyclonus wasn’t entirely wrong about him not displaying any wanton violence towards them, but damn him if his first impression wasn’t the complete opposite. 

She paid no mind to them any longer, turning her back and strolling away like nothing ever happened, adding fuel to the fire burning inside Rodimus. 

“YOU DIDN’T ANSWER MY QUESTION” he absolutely lost his bolts at the audacity. Just who does he think he is? He carefully set Nautica down on her pedes and started huffing after her, steam and heat rolling off of his body in scalding waves. He didn’t actually understand why this behavior enraged him as it did, however he could not forgive such cruel behavior towards his guys.

Before he could take another step a long metal pipe was pointed at his face. “ You’re intruding. Your mech attacked me ,”she put it simply. “Now go away,” she stated, quickly turning once more and going at an unhurried pace. 

Rods was about to blow a fuse, when a gentle hand landed on his arm, stopping him in his tracks. “It’s okay, captain, we’re alright” Rung smiled heartwarmingly. Of course, it was only to draw the Prime’s attention, he already operated at slightly higher temperatures, but currently his armor ran so hot it could melt off paint. 

Rodimus began calming down, raising his hand to check the comms and averting his still heated gaze towards the sky. Their situation wasn’t getting better, comms spat static, the clouds became even more threatening. “Any ideas on how we can get the communications working again?” He looked at Nautica and Skids. 

“I’d need access to our pods for a quicker job and some help, communications aren’t exactly my forte,” she said bashfully. 

Rodimus wished Brainstorm was here, that bastard could do anything. “Alright, let’s get back, Skids, help me haul Whirl.” They packed the comatose nutjob and began trudging towards their regrouping spot. It wasn’t far, but the path seemed to drag on forever with that heavy helicopter on their backs. 

Soon enough they reached the rest of the crew. Everybody hid inside their last means of travel offplanet. The storm was getting worse, lighting bearing down on the trees, striking the ground mercilessly. One might’ve been worried that the pods would get hit, however the huge foliage acted as lightning rods. They were safe for now, just have to wait for the storm to pass.  

First Aid got to work fixing up the injured in the second pod, meanwhile, the co-captains began discussing their situation in the other.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’RE STRANDED??”

“I did not say that, don’t be ridiculous, we just lost communication,” Megatron sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers, slumped over the offline console. The storm formed an impenetrable dome against all and any waves and ways of communicating, clouds flashing with lightning and grinning at them with cruelty like no other. 

“Well that’s what it sounds like!” Rodimus exclaimed feeling absolutely helpless, pacing the little space he has to do so. He hadn’t the time to fully recover from his earlier outburst, still harboring a lot of tension. “Did you try the ship’s emergency line?”

“I did, the-”

“Did you try the universal emergency frequency or a flare or something?!”

“Rodimus, let me finish for frag's sake!” Megatron demanded, feeling his own fuse getting ready to blow. “No, we couldn’t get through, all of it is blocked by this planet, and no, they wouldn’t be able to see a flair through the storm even if they wanted to.” Rodimus was making all of this a lot more difficult than it should be. “Rodimus, you need to calm down, this is becoming unbearable. We have to stay cool headed or we’ll just end up jumping at each other’s throats. This is already going nowhere.”

“Well, can’t we blast through it home??”

“Rodimus, the pod’s automated systems aren’t working currently, in fact, it’s offline completely.”

Rodimus paused for a minute. It’s almost like he was pawing at the edge of understanding and sitting the frag down, but it’s never that simple with him. Especially with not just his aft on the line. He took a deep vent and composed himself before opening his trap again.

“Did the scouts get any energon?” 

“They could not locate any veins.” Perhaps he should have been more tactile and less straightforward with the news, because Rodimus proceeded to grab his head and storm out of the pod. 

“RODIMUS!” Megatron roared at the audacity and reckless gesture. Thankfully, most of the lightning had passed. Most. 

Rodimus was furious, no way to call his ship, stuck down here on this Primus-awful planet , two of his guys injured while that afthole gets to waltz away like nothing happened. FRAG THIS LIGHTNING it scared him out of his struts by hitting a tree nearby. Wait a minute. He ran back in, startling Megs.

“What’s wrong with you-?!” Megatron roared before yet another interruption.

“There was a mech! He beat up Cyc and Whirl.”

“Cyclonus and Whirl were injured? And you didn’t tell me we got attacked?!” Megatron started seething. “What happened?” The energy in this pod was nearly suffocating. 

“They’re okay, First Aid’s treating them. Whirl took most of the punishment.” His pacing became more frantic as thoughts brewed inside those processors. He was trying his best to connect the alluring cybertronian to the storms in some way. Maybe he trapped them down here? No, no that couldn’t be it… could it? Maybe he was stuck down here the same as them? But why wouldn’t he ask for help?

“Actually, Whirl was hurt pretty badly, he still hasn’t woken up probably…” Tailgate said quietly from a corner.

“Rodimus, I can hear the gears in your helm turning, what’s going on here? You’re not telling me something,” it was difficult enough with him as it were, now he’s quiet and frantic which is possibly the worst state he has ever seen him in. Megatron saw him wrathful, somber and focused in the span of a single day, this cannot be good. “Rodimus?” He tried again. “RODIMUS?” He raised his deep, baritone voice.

“YES! Yes, I’m here,” he blurted out. “Megs, I have a crazy idea.”

“When do you ever have ideas that are logical and reasonable?” He stated flatly.

“We have to go talk to that mech. He looks like he’s lived here for… a while, he’ll know when the storm will pass or if we can do anything about it!” Rods exclaimed. 

“You want us to talk to the mech that showed previous aggression towards you? The mech that supposedly left Whirl berthridden ?” The look on his face was incredulous. Rodimus got as close to his face as he could and took the final jab.

“Yeah, let me ignore a chance at escape, because I got a scratch and instead listen to the mech that killed me.”

Chapter Text

Rodimus said the last part quietly, just for Megatron’s audials to pick up. Stone cold guilt went through his lines like liquid nitrogen as he was reminded of one of his many crimes. 

Yet, there stood the ghost of his victim, optics burning with determination and anger, frame vibrant and nearly scalding, servos curled into tight fists, spoiler twitching, all signs of a lively mech.

The knowing sheen in Rodimus’ optics momentarily turned to worry as Megs stood before him as still and woeful as the mountains of this planet. He began turning towards the crew when he heard something so small and quiet he nearly missed it amongst the chaos.

“I apologize,” as quiet as a cybermouse. Rodimus looked back at the ex-warlord with surprise, locking optics, searching for anything to betray his lie. But at that moment all he saw was an old, tired miner. What the hell is this? Rods felt disgusted… could he really be sorry? Did it even matter? He kept looking into the dim red optics, a small shot of guilt ringing through his spark for bringing this up. It already was hurtful to remember the day Hot Rod died, but he came to terms with that quickly after Optimus forced his killer into his life. 

The gaudy co-captain shifted, staring into his optics, Megatron thought that for a split second he saw him falter. For a klik they were just two mechs taking a peek into each other’s souls. 

“Yeah, uuh… we should – we should probably relax.” Rodimus broke the silence after resetting his vocal box, shying away from Megs’ sad maroon optics. Megatron made an agreeing sound as they retreated to different parts of the rather crammed pod, waiting for the storm to pass.

The next few hours were filled with a comfortable, thoughtful to some, silence as most of the bots settled down for recharge.

Before the next day the lightning storm subsided giving false hope of freshly working comms. Unfortunately for them, while the worst part seemed to have passed, the top of this planet’s cage still sat snuggly on top of them, preventing any further reach than within the area of the pods. 

The captains had been to the other pod, where Nautica and Skids explained that there isn’t anything they can currently do about talking to their home out in space, so they decided to go through with Rodimus’ plan.

“Alright, I need somebody to keep watch in case everything goes completely wrong,” he began, knowing him that is the most likely scenario.

“With all due respect, captain – em, co-captain – shouldn’t we send someone else to talk ?” Nautica pointed out what everybody was thinking. A small commotion of agreeing voices ensued. 

Rodimus put his servos on his hips and tapped his ped impatiently. Conversing wasn’t his strong suit, but that doesn’t mean he won’t do his best! Even with – eugh – him .

“I agree,” Tailgate joined the conversation, “you were pretty angry with him.”

“We saw how easily he provoked you, you were nearly melting with rage after that short interaction,” Rung gently added.

Dammit he wished they weren’t right. Wait a minute, an idea lit up in his head. “Why don’t you go, Rung?” He grabbed the slim bot by his shoulders.

“Me – ME ?” Rung’s eyebrows rose up high with surprise.

“You are our resident psychiatrist, you know how to talk. If anyone’s got a good chance, it’s you!”

“Oh no, no, I’ve had enough adventures for one day,” Rung shied away from the hold.

“Come on! Or I'm going and whatever happens is on you guys,” Rods’ argued. Afterall, if they disagree, but nobody else rises up, why even bother arguing.

“He cannot go alone,” the calm, deep voice of Megatron entered the verbal mush, drawing attention. “I doubt he stands a chance if it chooses violence.”

“Okay, so I’ll go with him! Problem solved,” his fellow co-captain exclaimed. “You’ll be watching our backs, right, Megs?”

“I will send help if it is required.” He sighed.

Alright, he’s staying by his pacifist shtick, so be it … Once the next morning came Rodimus, Rung and a couple of capable mechs plus Megs departed towards the mountain range. Passing the same areas Cyclonus trekked with his friends, noticing the same glyphs and ornaments. Megatron made a mental note to ask Nightbeat if he happened to come across these as well. 

The group split off a decent way off to avoid any suspecting eyes and Rodimus was off on his way, dragging Rung along. 

“I insist you let me defect from this mission!” Rung cried, he really didn’t want to come close to it again. Something about that mech really rattled his struts. The unpredictability was incredibly worrisome too, and we aren’t talking just about his captain’s.

“Everything will be A-okay, have some trust in yourself, mech,” Rodimus wasn’t making this any easier, but there was no turning back now as they were really close to the lair of the beast.

Rung steeled himself as Rods confidently strutted right into the area where she was last spotted. The captain looked around, scanning the area for any movement or signs of life. However, all they heard was the ambient sound of trees as the wind gently grazed their leaves. Rung slightly relaxed as an involuntary sigh escaped. Suspiciously quiet, Rodimus thought, so he yelled instead.

“We know you’re here, we just want to talk!” His voice echoed through the mountains. A startled Rung gaped at him in disbelief. “Well, it seems like no one's here,” he cocked his hip. 

“Maybe we should come back later?” Rodimus didn’t even listen until the end of that sentence before making his way towards the far side of this formation, nearing the cave he saw earlier. Rung could almost hear Megatron sigh from wherever they were observing the unfolding situation.

One may think Rods was being incredibly inconsiderate of their position, being in foreign territory and all, but if there’s one thing he was good at that’d be pushing buttons. In their altercation he carefully watched the cave entrance, eyeing his nerds with peak interest, watching their every move until nature intervened. 

Captain flames casually strolled up to the entrance, his foot setting barely over the stone threshold before he walked into something and fell back a few steps. There he was, in all of his dishonor and aftholeness. Rodimus did his best to keep a poker face, which resulted in a less deformed frown than what it could’ve been. A stare-off ensued.

Rung awkwardly put a hand on his captain’s pauldron in a ‘remember why we’re here’ way. Rodimus turned to him and back to the offender. He took in the sight once again. The reasonably thick deep green – nearly gray – armor, large build, minimal pops of a dark pinkish red and muted turquoise. The mismatched staff in servo, standing with his full mass and grandeur. Very few visible biolights to gawk at, a surprisingly camouflaged build for such a big bot. What stood out most was the lack of that oppressive and burdening EM field, in fact even a few steps away he couldn't feel it. Tightly stringed .

Rung noticed the carefully put together casualness. It’s quite easy after so many years of studying mecha to see what they try so hard to conceal. He had to admit, besides him clenching the staff slightly too tight there are no signs of stress or discomfort. He saw his analyzing gaze and instantly corrected himself. Precise . 

“Listen, I know we got off on the wrong foot here, but we really need your help,” the captain began explaining, obviously uncomfortable with this idea himself.

“I figured.” Damn, so cold.

“Well, why didn’t you help us then?”

“Because if you’re incompetent enough to end up here it’s natural selection.” 

Rodimus’ jaw nearly dropped, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. He laughed awkwardly, “really funny! There were, like, no warnings about this planet.”

“I’m quite sure you ignored them.”

Okay, he was getting on his nerves again. There truly were no serious warnings of getting stuck down here! About the communication scrambling storms, sure, but nothing about how long they’d be ooh.

“Congratulations, you’ve fallen victim to a black zone. No one has been able to leave since I got stuck,” he grinned, showing his dentae. Sharp, but a handsome smile nonetheless hmm . I swear to Primus above if he’s a Jazz personality .

He really didn’t like that answer. No way that THIS is the answer. They couldn’t have gotten stuck! How could Perceptor or Mags let them down here if they knew mechs met their end here. 

“Before you begin panicking, I reckon those disappearances weren’t recorded. Missing in action. There were no records of prior expeditions, were there?”

Rung kept looking at those face plates, searching, pinpointing, making assumptions and conclusions. There was something he wasn’t telling them. If their predecessors came down here to meet their ends, that means it’s unlikely they’re the first bots meeting him. Perhaps all of this was a defensive tactic, a way of keeping out of danger. Even bots of his strength have fears.

“You must have had a difficult life down here,” Rung began, testing out the waters, “being unable to return home and seeing strangers who wished harm upon you.” His voice was soft, a kind smile adorning his face. He truly felt bad for him.

She shifted, a glint in her laser focused optics at this out of pocket sympathy. She looked down at the small orange bot with interest. Rung made an accurate assumption, she hadn’t seen much kindness down there, but that’s mostly because most of them were decepticon and autobot scum. The lowest of the low, most cruel and degraded mecha she’d seen in centuries, even without actively participating in the war she saw what it did to their kind. Disgusting. But it seems as though these two were different. Instead of taking her avoidance for a taunt, they backed off. These have working logic modules it seems. Or they’re not starved enough yet.

“We’re really sorry for intruding, but if there’s any way you could help, any information you could provide, we would appreciate it greatly!” He flashed a genuine smile at her, optics closed, before taking rodimus and walking off with a wave of his servo. 

An intriguing bunch

Chapter Text

It’s been a whole solar-cycle since they last heard from the captains. Ultra Magnus was becoming anxious and irritated. Something was clearly incredibly wrong, the pods didn’t respond to their messages and demands for a status update. Who knows what could’ve happened to them down there. The science and communications teams were working tirelessly in order to uncover something about their vanishing.

The last line of communication was between him and Megatron, when he so graciously agreed to keep a close eye on Rodimus. He hoped that was not a fluke, otherwise months of improvement and fostering of something besides dislike and anxiety towards Megatron would instantly be replaced with hatred. This couldn’t be his doing, afterall, many of the bots on those pods were still wary of him, if not completely disgusted and irritated by his presence. You can’t undo 4 million years of war crimes that quickly, they would be quick to defend themselves.

He made his way towards Perceptor's and Brainstorm’s lab hoping to hear some good news. Right as he came in, a wrench flew towards the wall right beside his helm. He sighed and thumped over to Perceptor.

“Any updates?” He spoke up impatiently, keeping his stance calm and collected.

“We’re doing the best we can. I’m no meteorologist, but the storm seems to be a natural occurrence with little detail in any logs or databases.” Percy continued his research uninterrupted. “All we know is that it supposedly has translation interception liabilities, which we’re trying to combat with stronger long range comm chips, but so far no response.”

“How about logs from black boxes?” The third in command suggested, “perhaps the only way ships visited that planet was by crash landing.” Perceptor perked up at the observation. So far they’ve checked scientific databases and the autobot data logs. 

“That’s not my area of expertise, I will require help.”

“Take whoever you need and get to the bottom of this,” irritation seeped into Magnus’ words, then he turned and left. 

He may have his grievances with the younger captain, but this will not be the way they lose him, this is not the way he loses him.

Megatron watched from afar as the two negotiators made their way back. They surveyed the oddly short interaction from uphill, away from suspecting optics and in a strategic shelter of sorts in case the wind or some scrap betrayed their position. When the pair neared their previous break off point Megatron wrapped the observation up and began descending.

“What are you doing,” Rodimus voiced his dissatisfaction, “we’re supposed to get information as soon as we can!” 

“It’s quite alright, captain, we’ll figure something out,” if we try to pry him open, he’ll resist Rung thought. Better to let the thought marinate first. They should be under a watchful optic from now on.

“What happened?” They both turned their helms towards the voice of Megatron.

“Yeah, Rung, I don’t get it,” Rods added.

“Let’s get back to the pods, shall we?” he flashed a handsome smile, his optics pointing around them. Megatron took the hint as they began their walk back.

Once back at camp, he went straight for the pod with Megatron, Rodimus followed after nagging most of the way back.

“I think we can discuss, now that we’re somewhere private,” Rung began, knitting his digits together. Rods opened his trap, but before he could speak Rung picked up where he left off, “I’m quite sure he was incredibly defensive, and to be honest Whirl did not help our case,” took his glasses off and inspected them, “because all he’s seen in who knows how long were shell-shocked, delirious and possibly dangerous soldiers, who, one could only imagine, didn’t take kindly to ending up starving on a secluded planet.” He put his oculars back on.

“Okay. What’s this got to do with us leaving so fast?” Rodimus didn’t get it at all. Megatron wore a thoughtful look on his faceplates.

“We showed him that we’re civil, imagine it as taking pressure off a cornered turbofox – it’s less likely to bite. He’s somehow surviving, but I imagine such a bulky frame demands a ton of energy, maybe he will become curious enough and come to us instead.”

Megatron’s mean mug shifted into an unimpressed grin. They’re going to play tame a crazy mech, huh. Hopefully the storm will dissipate before they’re done and everything will go back to normal. “You’re nuts if you think we’ve the time to wait around until some –” a commotion outside broke his train of thought. A rather loud commotion, a scream.

The co-captains bolted towards the pod’s exit to see what the ruckus was about only to find a frantic Skids being chased by a giant, hooved cyberanimal. Rodimus thought it was similar to what people on earth called elephants or mammoths, except it was about Meg’s height. It was headed right towards their pods. No way they’d get off the planet if that damn beast wrecked their last hope. 

“Don’t lead it here!” Megatron roared.

“HELP ME! HE’S GONNA KILL ME,” Skids kept running straight for camp. Everything happened so fast one might say it was a miracle Megatron appeared right in front of the hooved cyberbeast, pushing it away from the pods. The momentary confusion gave them a moment to pick up their blasters and shoot it. Except that didn’t work and it went right after Megs. The tough outer armor was barely scratched by the shots.

“Do something, I’m not playing bull rider!” 

“We’re trying! IT’S CLEARLY NOT WORKING” Rodimus yelled back exasperated. “Get it away from camp!”

Megatron hurried out of the beat’s way as it charged, being careful as not to direct it towards their vessels. 

“Can’t you use fire on it like you did with the winged ones in the mountains?!” Came from Nautica’s voice box.

“I can’t keep doing it, it burns a ton of energy!” Rodimus exclaimed, an alive captain is of much more use after all. Had anybody had a spare second, they would’ve asked why this thing followed Skids anyway. 

“It might be our only way, do it, captain!” Nautica pleaded. “These things should be afraid of fire.”

Rodimus steeled himself, using his outlier abilities was incredibly energy inefficient. Combine that with a speedster frame and limited resources and you’re in hell of a lot of trouble. He got in the way of its path and produced a flame from his hand, not too big, but hopefully enough to scare it. Thank Primus that was enough yet again, he really can’t keep doing this. The animal fled back towards the treeline, disappearing into the wild shortly after.

“How about we set up lights or fire or something around the perimeter this time?”

“I cannot keep this up, why does everything happen to this damned crew,” Megatron mumbled under his breath, massaging his olfactory protrusion. “What did you do?” He approached the agitator.

“Well, me and Nightbeat had gone out to look at those patterns and we followed it into the canyons," he sighed, catching his breath and cooling off, “and we thought we found a spot in a shallow cave, more like a dome in the walls if we’re being honest, that had a pool of energon. Long story short we got chased away and I lost him along the way.” Skids made a phew sound and straightened up. 

Megatron sighed in a ‘why does this always happen’ way. Everyone was dismissed shortly after Rodimus gave the command to go check it out with a source of light / fire. While they’re stuck down here, they might as well stock up or explore the planet.

Chapter Text

She had an another uneventful solar-cycle when a pair of small spaceships breached the atmosphere with a loud whoosh and whirr, instantly drawing her attention towards the sky. Not again she thought as she bolted for the highest tree to observe the intruders. After landing, a bunch of different builds and colors flooded out through the gates, taking an observant look even from afar she could tell those were not war vessels, meaning those were most likely civilian frames. She went straight for her base, not waiting a moment longer.

For the longest time now she’s been prepared for crashing warships which carried angry soldiers ready to rip her to pieces. That’s all the socialization she’d gotten in the last, what, million years? Two million years? She lost count a while ago just like the hope to return to her life. As underwhelming as it was, she’d kill to be able to go to an energon bar again. That would be sanity saving after having to live the way she has. Live? No , survive .

Of course, it took them basically no time to find her and of course the first thing they do is attack her. She used to be so virile and combat driven, now she dreads having to add another digit to the seemingly never ending sin of murder. It’s strange how years of isolation will change a mecha. Which is why she paused instead, observing the purple, temporarily offline mech on the ground, being held and, what, protected? By a white minibot. That animated visor alight in fear and determination, just like the mechs in her dreams begging for mercy before she tasted energon in her mouth, before she felt the warmth of it on her servos. I hate myself too, little guy . Herself? No, no she’d never go that far. She hated the situation as a whole, especially what it forced her into doing.

The slanky one eye kept coming back, kept charging even after getting banged up. It was beginning to feel helpless, there must be something to stop this idiot. As he ran back in for more she lifted her, in comparison, giant pede and kicked him from above. He tumbled down, half conscious, the volatility slowly ebbing away from his frame. Stepping on him with her clawed pede, she pressed him down just enough to order him out of action.

A gaudy, bright mech had come to their rescue, spewing flames and venom in her direction. The way he writhed in her grip nearly made her feel like a monster, before he busted into flames to which she released her grip. The damage was minor, some paint on her servo bubbled. Those blue optics holding nothing but rage and hate reminded her why she’d never leave this place, of what could never leave this place.

Hadn't she shown enough mercy as it was? Why do they always come back looking for more ways to offline themselves? There must be a hit squad or something hidden around the perimeter beyond her cave, why else would any bot approach this place. And yet he’s only talking, punctuating words with that lashing glossa like that would make her taste his loathing. Admittedly, she was uncharacteristically closed off and rude. Nothing happened, the small orange bot showing pity when she deserved none, both leaving without a second look back. Perhaps this time will be different, no, no it can’t be, it always ends up the same way. 

She couldn’t help herself keeping an optic on them, after years and years booting up old concealment chips and stalking protocols. Watching how they bicker and banter, how they sneak out, yearning for the knowledge of what this dump has to offer. She picked two mechs and followed them from afar. They began following the writings she made up, right towards the pool of energon in the caves which she knew were poisonous. The multitude of chemicals and local compounds made it incredibly corrosive to cybertronian systems. Not an instantaneous death, but a painful full frame response to poison in their lines would ensue, but you’d only know that either from experience or an impurity detection test. It wasn’t a trap or anything of the sort, it appeared long after she got stuck or made those engravings, but it might give her a bad reputation either way.

Why does it matter, if they’re out looking for trouble, which may or may not be in the form of energon poisoning, who was she to intervene, right? Right… She transformed her tail into the long range rifle she had grown to hate, then taking a careful shot at a small herd of nearby stompers, as she so gracefully called them, before the mechs got a taste of the poison, irritating the bull into chasing them away. She’s gotten soft.    

Except the stomper chased away only the blue one. There were two. She toggled on distance lenses in her optics, hoping to catch where the yellow one had scampered off to. Such a hypocrite for thinking of them as stupidly curious when she’s doing the exact same thing. But not the stupid part, she knows they’ve got her right where they wanted, following their every move. It’s not like she didn’t stalk their predecessors, it’s just incredibly inconvenient every bot on this damn planet manages to find her lair, or her rations, or both, before the sun goes down. She just can’t have strays eating her food, not when there’s no hope for them. An alive Rabid is a... useful Rabid ?

She stayed a hundred paces behind the yellow one. The way his visor seemed to twinkle in response to the trails and the markings, itching to find out what it means. However irresponsible for going independently, she respects the dedication to solving a mystery. Even if it’s fake and there’s nothing real to uncover, watching him work is sublime entertainment. Those murals didn’t even lead anywhere interesting, it was a way to keep busy during the boring orns, staying creatively engaged if you will. Though, eventually they became the roads to places she found beautiful. It’s not like the place was littered with them either, in some places they were demanding of attention, contrary to others which carried small and subtle art. 

The predacon followed him for a long while, he never ceased to light a little flare of amusement in that scarred and deformed spark of hers. Eventually all good things come to an end as he slipped into a cave. It led to a beautiful formation with stalagmites and a water-energon mix, clear and bright. During the day, the sun rays beautifully warmed the sight through the open roof while at night the moon bathed it in silver. She’s not falling for the blatant attempt at trapping her, her HUD was alight with intruder warnings in her base area anyway. Time to wrap this up.

They never knew that was her. Sure, the ones who’d seen her frame probably figured she’s a beastformer, but they hadn’t figured out that she’s one of the wyverns. It’s a convenient mode, incredibly so. Lets her blend into the skies with the other flying beasts and travel freely without drawing suspicious glances. Many of the techno-organic wyverns took to the skies around the autobots, meaning she may or may not be right above their empty little helms. Of course, had they seen her alt mode up close it would’ve been clear she’s lacking the organic part. 

She flew back towards her humble cave, which definitely did not have a crashed ship hidden deep inside it, that had plummeted from the skies through a huge canyon in the mountains, which for sure wasn’t being concealed by the large treeline that developed over those long two million years. The small orange bot again? Flying towards the back entrance she was thankful it was so inconspicuous and hidden, then transformed and snuck into the hole she’d been calling home. 

Soon she popped out the other end where the small, lean frame approached her with another friendly smile. He couldn’t hurt her even if he tried… right? Her spark spun faster at the sight of another bot anyways. The battle protocols still triggered like she was in any sort of danger. She would’ve felt pathetic had she had the time before the orange guy spoke up. 

“I know it hasn’t been long since we bothered you last, I’m really sorry. They do not know that I am here,” he began, keeping his tone friendly, holding up his hands as a sign of his friendly, unarmed intentions. “I came here to confess before it’s too late…”

She tensed up, this cannot be good. Had they found and stolen her rations? Or the graveyard of dead mechs she had to bury? Was this all a ruse to harm her?

Before she spiraled the mech continued, “I had been talking to my comrades and they expressed a… blazing curiosity about your cave. I feel that’s not right, we may be continuously stuck because we won’t cooperate, but you’re not our enemy.”

“Wait, you’re here to tell me the nosy bunch decided to sneak into my cave? Why?” She was painfully aware how the presence of this mech made the sombre feeling of yearning stir up inside her. It was terrifying.

“It’s simply not right. We should be doing our best to trust each other, not breaking the slim chances of it ever happening.”

“You guys are always on the move, huh? Not even three solar-cycles have passed and you’re already doing everything you can think of in order to leave this sad place.”

“Don’t you want to leave?” Her optics widened at the inquiry.

Chapter Text

For the rest of the solar cycle she sat in her hole thinking about his words. Rung’s words, as he introduced himself before leaving. He wasn’t wrong, she yearned for her life up in the stars. But she couldn’t possibly trust these autobots, could she? They do not seem to be involved with Tyrest or the cops, nor the intergalactic afthats. But if this turned sideways, she would be arrested without anywhere to run on their ship. Was there a main ship? What about the war? The many unanswered questions kept her from recharge. She made a mental note to track down Rung and ask him more questions. 

Back on the Lost Light things were intense. A full second solar-cycle had passed as the third one began. The crew was becoming anxious and volatile, unhappy about staying there for so long. Most were glad Megatron was gone now, some even about Rodimus’ disappearance. Magnus made a point to keep everything in check, but he could not keep running the ship alone. They were either going to take their chances sending a small rescue crew in, or keep waiting. It was a difficult choice. They cannot afford to keep burning fuel in this random sector of the galaxy, but they cannot leave their captains to uncertainty. Time is running out.

The crew had brought back a good amount of energon first thing in the morning. After examining it, they determined it was in dire need of refinement and distillation. The trouble arose when they remembered their ships were still offline, therefore couldn’t refine the energon for them, but there was no manual way to do this. They have to get the pods operational. Nautica worked long hours trying to figure out how to minimize or offset the storm's damage. It wasn’t her exact area of expertise, but she made do with anything and everything. Eventually, after a bunch of tinkering and experimentation they found the problem. It was completely out of power, which meant they had to recharge it with electricity. 

The first obvious idea was to use the lightning via lightning rods. Except right now there was no lightning, the storm had calmed down to a simmer. No one can tell how long it will be before the lightning returns.

Next on the agenda was using overcharged energon to generate electricity. The downside was that it would heat to an uncontrollable temperature and most likely combust or hurt them in some other way.

Lastly, they could use a mech’s charge to cause a temporary spike in electricity, hopefully causing a surge strong enough and helping the ship begin regenerating energy by itself. Apart from the obvious implications of someone getting hurt whilst trying, this could kill a mech’s spark. So it was out of the question.

All they could do yet again is wait. Rodimus was doing his best to quench the anxiety of the thought of Magnus running the ship alone for so long. He was surely getting a lecture when they returned. Megatron had his own demons to wrestle with as well. The uncertainty of his safety away from surveillance and any sort of witnesses made his spark uneasy. They could jump him or even straight up leave him here and nobody would know what happened to him. Nobody would care . 

Rung sat in the shade of the trees, thinking about their situation, about how they should soon finally return and he could scrub his seams clean. About the off-guard look in that mech’s eyes after he asked why he wouldn’t want to leave. He most surely feels the same, who wouldn’t want to return to civilization after barely sustaining themselves Primus knows how? He couldn’t imagine a scenario which didn’t involve horrible trauma to the psyche. 

He had told him about unofficial plans to look for clues and perhaps supplies in his cave. Also to satisfy a general curiosity of Nightbeat, but it seems the plan was forgotten when he found something more interesting to follow around for now.

He heard rustling in the shrubbery behind him. Barely stopping himself from jumping and activating battle protocols when he felt an EM field against his own, whispering [calm/curious/safe]. Then he heard a quiet voice.

“I have some questions. Can you talk without drawing suspicion?”

“Why don’t we go for a walk?” he whispered back, standing up, stretching and turning towards a path in the woods. After he walked quite a way from the camp the voice piped up again.

“How did you guys really end up here? What’s the story?” He couldn’t see anyone around him, how could such a big mech hide so effortlessly?

“Well, our co-captain Rodimus decided that we deserved some shore leave already. To be honest, the tensions have been high on our ship, so, whoever wanted to get away came along. Then we found out the lightning storm had depleted our pods of power and blocked any effort of reaching out to home.”

“Tensions?”

“I’d rather not go into too much detail. Our crew is quite large and there’s bound to be some turbulence.” He smiled gently.

“But there’s only two pods worth of bots here? Just how many of you are there?”

“There’s about 200 bots in total on the Lost Light.” Followed by a pregnant silence. Rung had all the time in the world until someone came looking for him. He was technically breaking orders by going off ‘alone’.

“What about you?” Rung broke the anticipation early.

“What about me?”

“What’s your story?” He looked around expectantly, but still couldn’t pinpoint the mech. How clever, whatever technology or possible outlier ability he had, he used it masterfully. Ordinary civilians do not possess tech like that.

“Why does it matter?”

“Just curious, I told you about us, thought you may tell me about yourself.” Rung was incredibly patient, of course, as any psychiatrist should be. 

“I was on a vessel with a small crew. We got attacked by decepticons and crash-landed on this planet. There were no other survivors.” He stated bluntly with a sigh.

“How long have you been here?”

“About two million years.”

Rung nearly toppled over a root. Two million years? That’s half the wartime. He must not know about the peace and cybertron rebuilding. Primus, how does someone survive for that long to begin with.

“My, that is a very long time. How did you cope with surviving?”

“I scouted for energon, used the somewhat still operating pieces of the ship, salvaged parts and energon from other crashes. I made do however I could.” 

Rung felt the field pull away. It’s a touchy subject, he could only imagine. There’s definitely a lot being left unsaid. He couldn’t help but be curious about his past. Who was he? He would assume not a decepticon, but he wears no badges so you’d never know. Perhaps too embarrassed of anybot recognizing him?

“May I ask something incredibly personal?”

“Sure, shoot.”

“Why don’t you want to come with us? This may sound odd, but we’re looking for the knights of Cybertron. If you wish so, we could arrange for you to get off at the next stop, or you could stay and travel with us.” There was a contemplative silence for a few cycles. Rung took in the nature, even the chaotic, red sky looked beautiful.

“Why..? I’m pretty sure your red captain would disagree.”

“He wouldn’t. He was upset about us being harmed by you, but we didn’t know your intentions. I see that you’re hurting and I know that Rodimus has a kind spark. He will not turn down a mech in need.” His gentle voice nearly echoed through the forest. 

“I am not a good mech, Rung.” 

“We all make mistakes. While I do not know what yours are, I believe that everyone deserves a chance. Rodimus believes that everyone deserves a chance.” That may have been a partial lie as right now Rodimus is still having a difficult time with Megatron’s presence. However, no one is perfect, therefore they’re on equal ground until they actually know of his supposed crimes. This could be his subconscious speaking. Isolation is detrimental.

“Can you promise me something if I do agree..?” The voice now small, quiet, close by.

“What is it?”

“I will stand as your equal.” A threatening whisper in his audial, one last lick of his field spelling [fear/uncertainty/hope], now gone as a gentle breeze brushes the patches of grass.

Chapter Text

A message came through on the Lost Light’s comms, the source undocumented in the ship’s logs. Blaster answered the comm hoping to hear from other autobots or a galactical tower of communications, however, it was a bot who introduced himself as general Mayhem and insisted on speaking to higher command. Blaster gave the reins to Ultra Magnus.

The bot demanded they land on the planet, Magnus almost scoffed at the audacity, do they have any idea of the possible dangers or the laws surrounding this? He began taking them seriously when they threatened to shoot them down. For a moment he considered using the quantum engines for an escape, but what made Magnus really mad was hearing Megatron tell them to warp away and not risk the ship. They had their captains. And apparently enough firepower to shoot the vessel down in the upcoming cycles had they refused. Frag.

“Where’s Rodimus?”

“He’s taken care of.”

Someone is getting arrested for unlawful detainment of a ship and its crew tonight.

A good, long leisure stroll later, aka a few groons later, Rung returned, headed straight for the captains, but something was not right. There was a new ship, way bigger than the pods, but nowhere near the size of the LL. He hid in the bushes before anyone saw him and covered his mouth. He listened to the unfamiliar voices talking about seizing and reporting something, to Rodimus curse and yell profanities about how he’ll make the aggressors hurt. He took a peek through the hefty leafery, they were rounded up like animals and cuffed. 

Rung took his chances and retreated back towards the woods, headed vaguely in the direction of the mysterious predacon. A message from Skids appeared briefly.

.:Suspicious mechs. Definitely dangerous. Do not return:.

He pinged back a positive and picked up the pace, staying diligent. Before he got out into the open area of the beastformer’s lair, someone grabbed him by his servo, pulling into the shrubbery and their servos, muffling his mouth. He began thrashing, hoping to hit the perpetrator, but a familiar voice gave him pause. 

“Stay quiet, it's me!”

“Who are they?!” Rung whispered.

“I – I don’t know… maybe.”

“What do you mean ‘maybe’?” Rung threw his head back to look at the mech. “We need to help the crew,” he frowned.

“I… I know you want to help them…”

“Do not give me that, who are they?” 

“It’s a long story, but if my memory serves me right they’re –,” a loud shot echoed, grabbing their attention. “Listen, we’re going back to my cave and we’ll figure something out…”

That’s where they went – up the mountains, the large mech carrying the smaller frame under his servo, making sure to keep cover and avoid any possible scouts or drones. They reached it quickly with its long pedes, Rung took notice how they didn’t leave any imprints on the soft ground. Just as he was about to take a dive through the hole in the heavily wooded and covered mountain, Rung’s audials picked up the familiar sound of the LL’s engines. Rodimus’ ship landed here .

They sneaked into his humble living space, after their optics adapted to the extremely dim lighting, Rung realized it was the remnants of a spaceship. A small one, but a spaceship nonetheless.

“Could you please put me down?”

He obliged and went straight towards where the bridge used to be. A small console came online with a holoscreen of what’s happening outside the cave.

“You had cameras this whole time?” Rung was surprised at the setup of a supposedly crazy, barely having a home, isolated mech. That’s not what mechs in his situation do.

“I told you I made do. And a little more…” He looked at the video feed and sighed in relief. “They haven’t found me yet, we’ve got a slight advantage.”

They began devising a plan, before Rung noticed a mech approaching the camera. Holding Rodimus. “Someone’s coming,” he gasped. The predacon instantly turned, optics widening in horror.

“I’ll take care of this, you figure something out. Quick .”

Hadn’t Rung picked up the utter terror in his field, he would’ve thought he felt murderous from those contorted faceplates. 

She went outside to meet who once was her minor colony ship’s ex-SIC. Before he entered the center of the perimeter, she was already there waiting with her staff in servo, plating nearly sparking, tail whipping the air with anticipation and anger, probably. 

Those green optics set on Rodimus once again, he felt his struts shiver as the other large mech, general Mayhem, manhandled him like a toy. Only if it weren’t for those stasis cuffs.

“What. Do you. Want.” those green orbs flickered promisingly.

“Hello, Rabid. Fancy seeing you here,” he remarked, full of smugness, “I was hoping to never see your ugly mug again.” He lifted the red speedster by his cuffs, making him grunt and writhe in pain while his servos twisted behind his back. “I think I have something you want.” His sarcastic smile cut into her patience like a well maintained blade. He threw Rodimus. “Come and get it.”

“What do you want, Mayhem?”

“You see, we ran into a problem here. With you. You were supposed to keep the relic safe and away from any public perception. I admit, you’ve done a stellar job over those two million years,” he began approaching her, unsheathed sword in servo. Every jab of his words did exactly what it was supposed to, crippling her resolve, burning into her aching spark chamber, “but now, you’ve gotten soft. Every puny decepticon and autobot alike that came to this atrocious place met their demise at your brilliant servos up until this point.” 

“What..?” She sounded small, fragile. Seemingly all of her resolve dissolved like metal in acid.

“Don’t you get it, dear Rabid. It was all a setup.” His smile widened. “You were set up to take that mission. You were set up to crash and, thank Primus, be the only survivor. You were put right here, so greedy little leeches like him,” he kicked Rodimus in the mid-section plating as this afthole kept approaching, “couldn’t get their grubby servos on our precious relic, which you’ve so kindly taken a liking to.”

“What slagging relic are you even talking a–” Rodimus was cut short as he found himself under a heavy pede, ventless.

He stomped right over to her, being about two helms shorter than her. “But now, it’s time to return it, freak ,” he spat as his mask of kindness slipped off.

She stood there, frozen just like all those millions of years ago in the training rinks. Where he so generously had made an example of her, beating until that thick and sturdy plating began coming off. Until her one and only creator had saved her. Because that’s all she had been back then, an anomaly, a mech created out of pure mathematical chance and science equipment. An experiment gone rogue, turned practice dummy.

“Leave him alone you afthole!” Rodimus screamed while writhing on the ground, “how dare you detain my crew and land my fragging ship! We’re not fucking done.” He roared, fuming, smoke escaping his vents and tarnishing the brilliant reds and golds.

Mayhem threw a small blade without even looking, his wanton violence radiating like an aura of negativity and fumes. The blade stabbed through Rodimus’ thigh plating and he screamed in agony. Rabid jolted at the sound, regaining her composure. He used to be a great blade wielder, one of the best warriors Beta Galactus had. He’s always been a piece of shit. 

He took a hold of the staff, trying to force it out of her grip, but she did not let go. “You..” a whisper as cold as a breath of liquid ice. “Just as I thought I had escaped your pitiful fragging stare…” her grip tightened, struts straightened as her now deep crimson optics locked onto his from above, her long tail moving murderously. You’re not going to harm anyone else .

He swung his sword thinking that would teach her, “are you insane? I said give . It . Back .”

She caught his sword with little effort. Those sharp claws digging into the side of the blade with a painful screech. “You spawn of Unicron…” his blade was bent in half. “You came here alone, huh.”

He yanked his blade free, falling back on his pedes into a fighting stance, “YOU EXPERIMENT SCRAP!”

“I had a long time to think. Just like after the destruction of the colony ship. And I realized, it was all your doing.”

“Of course it was! I was a better fit and yet they chose him–” a powerful pede came down to his left, pushing him straight into the ground on all fours. In an instant an energon spear came to his throat and sliced clean through the cables, pulling his head off. A second jab right through the back out the front, impaling his spark casing. Rabid lifted his frozen faceplates in front of her own. His energon began disappearing into the blade as vapor steamed off of it.

“I’m disappointed. You used to be so virile, so passionate about the uselessness of my  build. You’ve become all bark and no bite, decrepit.” Every word escaped her mouth like venom. “Now history won’t even remember your designation.”

Chapter Text

Rodimus stared in utter shock at the execution, not even a peep leaving his vocalizer. She stored the head in her subspace compartment and sliced through Rodimus’ stasis cuffs. He carefully sat up, rubbing his sore cables and joints. 

“Can you walk?” caught Rodimus off guard.

“Yes…”

She gestured towards the cave, where Rung appeared. Unable to conceal his own shock, he hurried to check on his captain. Rabid went back inside.

“Rabid…” Rods muttered under his breath, shell-shocked, they followed after her.

She began looking for the weapon stock and gave the two some incredibly low grade energon.

“Okay, first of all, what are you even doing?” Rodimus’ uncertain voice echoed through the hall.

“Weapons.”

“I think we need proper introductions here,” Rung interrupted the conversation, hoping to lift some of the tension. “How about I go first, I am Rung, the Lost Light’s psychiatrist,” he gestured towards Rods to continue.

“I don’t see how this will help us right now,” he deadpanned. Rung’s unyielding gaze made him sigh and comply. “I am Rodimus, the carrier – ex-carrier of the Matrix of leadership and the” he said the next part with a lot of exasperation, “co- captain of the Lost Light together with Megs.” That must’ve been difficult.

Their combined gazes turned to him, well actually her as they recently found out.

“My designation is Rabid, I’ve been here for around the last two million years and yes, I prefer to go by she,” she said bluntly, locating the ammo stock. “Before that I was a sellsword – um, mercenary. And before that I lived on the Beta Galactus ship.” She found her personal bullets. Ones made of incredibly strong metals from a specialty metallurgist planet, bedazzled with her intricate markings.

“Wasn’t that a functionalist colony?” Rung gasped.

“Okay, we’ll have a chat later. Now, we need to get my ship back.” He paused for a second. Beta Galactus? He noticed the terminal with a view of the outside. “Are there any cameras trained on our camp?”

“No, tech doesn’t work that well here. I’ve applied some forcefields to this area and myself in order for it to work. Shielded from the atmosphere.” She paused, “however, if they orchestrated this whole operation, comms and everything else should work. Reach out to someone inconspicuous and ask for their situation.”

Rodimus complied, messaging Megs, Mags and a few others, hoping they’re okay. He received an order to not engage from both of them while the others took a while to reply, which made him anxious. He persisted and got the news that they were nearly completely surrounded, slag .

Megatron noticed the comm from Rodimus, this fragger, of course he’ll try and get himself offlined. He and Megs made eye contact as the guards continued berating them. 

“Hey so, how will we get there unnoticed?” Rodimus paced back and forth while Rabid stretched her frame.

“We’ll fly, I hope you’re not afraid of heights,” she said as her alt mode unfolded into a giant wyvern similar to the local techno-organic ones.

“Holy Primus.”

Something caught Magnus’ attention and he discreetly locked in on it. It was a wyvern. At night? Suddenly Rodimus fell out of the skies in a burst of flame and rage, demanding attention. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU FOOL?!” Mags couldn’t help himself, defeated.

“Hi, Mags; hi, Megs!”  

They would’ve face palmed if they could, but as the gunners and swords mech prepared to attack a giant wyvern came down deflecting the shots and picking off soldiers with precision. It began landing, transforming mid air with Rung held in the crook of its servo. The mech Whirl attacked. It pulled a head out of its subspace. Magnus froze. 

One of the aggressors stepped forward, sword in hand, his voice roaring “How dare you set foot here, where’s commander Mayhem?!” 

The predacon gently released Rung and lifted its hand as it kept approaching, now the face clearly visible in the harsh light shining towards it from the headlights and flashlights. Without a word the mech charged with his sword, all of the other soldiers standing alert. The first clang of weapons produced sparks.

“What gave you the right to harm your commander?!”

“Last I checked I was a free mech, lieutenant Silverwing!” He spat back. 

“You’ve no right to wield this relic! You do not deserve such a weapon!” he screamed, charging in with skillful and practiced ease, the predacon deflecting every hit with the ornamented metal rod. Its claws went for his midsection the moment the sword fell back, nails skillfully grabbing the thin plating on the warrior’s side and ripping it out, spilling energon and wires. He fell back, pulling his form together and attacking once more. The staff spun deflecting yet again, but Silverwing pulled a gun from his side, aiming it right at his combatant’s helm. 

Before he could pull the trigger, the large hand gripped the barrel and aimed it towards the sky. A slight twist of the pedes and a long tail shot out from in between them, jabbing the lieutenant in the leg joint to which his legs buckled and he fell on his knees. The predacon took the blaster and with a skillful hit to the servo disarmed the mech of the sword as well. 

During the opening, the staff transformed, producing an energon bladed longspear, aimed at the mech’s throat cables. “You’ve no right to judge me, for there is no more honor in your husk. You’ve lost.”

“You… feral beast–” his sentence abruptly stopped when the blade slit his throat cabling. 

Of course, it’d never end that quick, there was one last mech to kill in order for the rest of them to back down. But as the wyvern turned to him, the third in command, was uncharacteristically quiet. He backed down with his hands lifted in the air in submission and ordered a release of everyone. Then he turned to Rabid “you’ve grown. Thanks for taking care of those lunatics,” and with a wave of his servo they boarded their spaceship and began takeoff.

Rodimus was all over Magnus and Megatron as they were being released, making sure his fellow command bots were okay even with his leg still injured. Together they performed a head count and checked on their crew and got the medical attention anyone needed. 

Eventually, Rung found himself standing behind the elusive mech he now knew as Rabid. She looked… tranquil. Standing leisurely, feeling the wind on her plating, listening to the wyvern calls and nature slowly booting up. The sunrise bathed her in warm tones, accentuating the deep cherry reds and cyan blues on her stained and scarred plating. The staff seemingly had come to life, lighting up in a matrix blue color in between the patterns like biolights. 

“Hi, Rung,” she didn’t look at him, enjoying the warmth of the still young sun.

“Hello, Rabid,” he said with a small smile. A slight turn at the corners, almost keeping to himself. Her field gently brushed against his filled with content. “How are you feeling?”

“After all these years… at peace. You know, they were real afts, mostly nuts and bolts type of company,” she chuckled lightheartedly. “They had it coming for all of those terrible things they’ve done.”

“To you?”

“Not just me, believe me, there were many.”

From further away Rung heard his designation being called out. He looked back and saw the nerd squad waving at him. His gaze went to the approaching command bots, Ultra Magnus’ worried expression, Rodimus’ happy and determined optics, Megatron’s tired, but unusually content face. “I think someone wants to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I bet they do…” she giggled lightly. “They’re waiting for you too,” she turned to look at his friends, optics shining a brilliant blue “better not keep them waiting.” 

As the command trio came to chat with Rabid, Rung passed them with a warm smile, some reassurance and a reminder to be nice to her. The nerds went to Swerve’s to get a drink and unwind from this grueling adventure.

Chapter Text

During the next solar-cycle some bots rested, while others worked diligently in order to prepare for return into the vast known and unknown. Within the next few groons everything was ready for takeoff. 

The disruptive storms settled, however didn’t disappear completely. However, the Lost Light is a giant ship, with its backup power supply and raw power it should take off without problems, it’s not like they needed communications to get back into the dotted abyss. Now that the skies weren’t raging with lightning, they were free to leave. Rabid was able to leave.

She didn’t hang around waiting. The wyvern took one last flight to visit the vast dangerous sky and one last errand to run. During her time on this planet, she learned rather quickly that the wyverns are an incredibly volatile and aggressive species. They’re not dumb, but not smart enough to tell that she’s completely inorganic, which she used to her advantage in quickly being accepted into their society and taking an important position via combat. This had allowed her loose control of what the gang of flyers could attack, which places they would stay clear of. They communicated in whistles, which meant she could talk to them in her root mode as well. 

Surprisingly (well, maybe not if all they’ve seen is brutal crash landings), they feared spaceships, which meant they wouldn’t attack the giant hunks of metal. 

She flew to the steep cliff sides where the hefty murder of them resided, getting ready to lose the last bit of honor she had left. It was easy, just had to submit or pretend to be offlined for a few kliks and she’d be demoted and could make a fluid escape. Otherwise who knows, perhaps they would have tried to take the LL apart in order to save their leader. She’ll miss them, pitifully enough, they provided the only comfort to her. Even licking at the energon stained chest once she landed. Their organically coated soft glossa felt funny.

After this one last errand and a bunch of scratched plating later she returned to the giant spaceship where she was greeted by Ultra Magnus. She knew him from his enforcer days, actually saw him maybe once or twice while making a quick escape after one of her jobs. He’d never recognize her thankfully, the frame concealment tech went beyond a type of invisibility (which wasn’t actually making her invisible, just produced a mirror type effect of the surroundings, making it seem like she was see through) it could also distort her image into looking like a bomber plane. Of course, that had its limitations as well as there was no way in the pits it could conceal her alt mode. Combined with certain parts turned invisible, she looked like an actual bomber who’s name was Snuffer (like the snuffer of sparks, get it?) which every bot knew her by back then.

“Hello, um…”

“Thank you for taking me onboard. I’m rabid… in case you forgot.” He did forget. She was maybe about a helm’s worth of height taller than him, but leaner, if he was a boar, she was an anaconda. Rabid used to feel the stark difference when near civilian frame types, but now even more so standing in front of the giant legendary officer. That seemed to catch him slightly off guard, oddly so, Magnus was an imposing figure who’s captured even larger bots. 

“Yes, hello, Rabid. Rodimus has vouched for your boarding of the Lost Light, while I strongly agree that you have helped our crew, there will be a formal interview conducted.”

“I understand I have given you a reason to doubt my motives and right of passage,” the fact that he didn’t arrest her on the spot after those cuffs came off was a pleasant surprise, but they’d still allow her on the ship? “I’m immensely thankful for the opportunity,” she bowed her helm.

“Rest assured, we will get to the bottom of this incident. Rodimus will personally testify in your favor.”

In my favor? In his eyes she should’ve killed a random supposed commander of a neutral ship. Perhaps he’s more vindictive than she thought.

Soon she was brought onboard and, first things first, taken to their medic. She hadn’t been to one in forever, obviously, and it scared the slag out of her. This medbay looked nothing like she remembered the medibay’s interior on her previous ship. All of the machinery and instruments she’d never seen making her struts vibrate with unease. Their medic, First Aid, as he introduced himself, seemed professional and stoic, but unknowing of her life up until this point. The first reach for an unidentified object made her jump backwards out of the mediberth as her flee protocols activated before she could interrupt them. The predacon bumped into Ultra Magnus, who was standing right behind her, nearly toppling over him and taking down with her. He held her by her pauldrons, providing support as she sat back up. First Aid raised one edge of his visor at the display.

“First Aid, perhaps you should talk her through the process. She hasn’t been around other bots recently…”

From that point on everything went as smoothly as it could. Rabid did some minor jumps here and there, but otherwise stayed still and went along with every procedure necessary.

Astonishingly, the medic found nothing to worry about, except minor malnutrition, which would resolve itself with finally intaking of proper energon. What can she say, she’s hardy.

Ultra Magnus eyed her suspiciously. Aid’s private, worried comm pinged his HUD flagging the excessive amount of close combat and sharpshooting protocols on her software that showed just with a basic scan. He observed her in battle, everything pointed to a precise, overwhelmingly efficient warrior. This accounted for his assumptions and warranted further investigation. 

What’s more, her spark intrigued First Aid, he testified to having never seen anything like this before and she was rather young to have such problems. He filed a note to do a deep scan some time in the future.

Off they went to the bridge, Rabid gawked the whole way at the labyrinth of corridors and the size of the ship. Everything was so new, so interesting. The sniper protocols flagged every detail, every smell, sensation, sound. She’s embarrassed to admit it, but the sounds of the engines humming through the ship made her jump multiple times. This went as far as having to dull down her sensornet to calm her struts. As they approached the meeting room on their bridge, some mechs threw nasty glares towards her. The frag did I do? 

Inside sat the two co-captains, as everyone referred to them, Rodimus lit up with a handsome grin while the large gray figure looked her up and down. She didn’t miss the subtle kick of the pede to him as his stature shifted to something more mild. Ultra Magnus sat beside Rodimus and gestured for her to sit in front of them. If they wanted to make this anything but an interrogation, they failed miserably. 

Ultra magnus began by formally introducing everyone and to say her uplifted spirits drooped significantly at the introduction of Megatron would be an understatement. That can’t be the same Megatron. Megatron? MEGATRON? As in the one who started the revolution and the war? Her spark spun into chaos trying to process this information, battle subroutines booting in response to the stress. She wasn’t afraid of him or anything, it’s the fact that the supposed slag-maker himself was now just a dude on some random spaceship. Why wasn’t he in prison? 

If we’re being honest here, she held no direct hatred towards him either. She never met him on a battlefield, she never had any personal grievances. The only thing he was to her was the ghost of the war, incredibly impersonal, general knowledge. She wasn’t even affected by the war that much… Was she? Not really, she did many assassinations or wipe-outs of decepticon battalions that threatened the rich bozos, neutral cities or autobot stations who paid for her work. But that’s all it ever was — a job. She never made friends with either side, never directly served in either army or believed in a cause. She was an outsider, an observer of history. Nothing more and nothing less. 

She must’ve stayed quiet for too long because Ultra Magnus oh so subtly reset his vocalizer to get her attention. “Yes, my apologies. You must be curious about me,” she reset her vocalizer too. Remember, formal interview, might be recorded. Gotta make it feel official. “As you already know, my designation is Rabid. I am originally of the minor colony ship once known as Beta Galactus. For the last two million years I’ve been trapped on the nameless techno-organic planet in this region, which I recently found out was an operation to jail me as a guardian for what once was a precious scientific and religious artifact of the ship in question. As you have witnessed my… culture appropriate dealing of the situation, the one responsible for my entrapment was ‘commander’ Mayhem and his accomplice —  second in command Silverwing.” Who are both now with the allspark.

There was a long cycle of typing as Ultra Magnus wrote everything down, already creating a profile and a bio for her. Will most likely look everything up as well. Megatron, still difficult to believe, stayed silent, thinking. Rodimus kept eye contact with her, analyzing her face plates as she remained stoic.

“How old are you, Rabid?” Megatron’s baritone voice echoed through the room.

“Roughly 4 million, captain.” That caught her strutless. Why does it matter ?

“Please, be more specific.”

A please? No way in the pits this guy was responsible for the fragging 4 million year war… “I don’t know what cycle it is now… but my creation is logged as 3rd cycle 200.” 

The trio looked at each other, she’s barely 3.8 million years old. She’s a war era bot, no wonder there’s so many combat and survival routines in those processors, it somewhat made sense now. That must be why she survived for so long, hadn’t she been prepared, that planet would’ve eaten her alive. 

“Are you an M.T.O.?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with the term…”

“Made to order soldiers. They were mass produced and mentally underdeveloped cybertronian life for specific battles which took place during the war,” Megatron was looking intently at her. Maybe he can read the other captain’s mind and they’re subtly pushing the subject? Ha, ha .

“No…” it’s kinda silly they’d think so when there’s no way in hell anyone would make frames like hers on demand. “I was not created for any warframe purpose. I was an… an –” Rabid kept her wings from drooping. Now they were looking expectantly, but she can’t just admit to that . “I emerged from an artificial hotspot.” Yeah that’s better. She hoped he didn’t take that as deception, because it’s merely a touchy subject.

The partial lie did not slip Rodimus’ audials. He perked up, paying closer attention than before. The other guy calling her experiment scrap must’ve meant she was a cold construct or something similar, they had yet to find out for what purpose. “Were you a cold construct?”

“As I mentioned previously, I emerged from a hot spot.”

“An artificial one?” Rodimus wasn’t letting this go weirdly enough.

“...Yes?”

“What do you mean by ‘artificial’?” Megatron returned to the conversation.

The predacon’s wings drooped ever so slightly, “I do not feel comfortable discussing my emergence as I do not see what purpose this information serves.” That was smooth, good job . Still got it !

After a little more talking she was dismissed and Ultra Magnus, Mags as the fiery captain affectionately called him (which was a little processor numbing, because wasn’t he the most stuck up, by the rules mech anyone has ever met AND an enforcer?), accompanied her to the newly assigned accommodation. He generously informed her that the foreseeable future will be her adaptation period, therefore she’s allowed to explore and make friends freely until she’s comfortable enough to absorb into the rhythm of this ship. A trial period, to make certain she can behave herself, he also mentioned that she will be seeing Rung, Rung! Right, the psychiatrist. He made her get her helm out of her aft and actually think about what’d even be the point of staying on that Primus forgotten planet!

Once the newest addition was taken care of, Magnus went straight to his office and looked up her records. He always checked for any information on their spontaneous recruits, just like he did with Skids, he will do with Rabid. Magnus had to know of any nefarious pasts to accurately assess their danger level and compare it to the overall crew. He also couldn’t help himself, the intrigue of knowing everything about everyone, just like in his enforcer days. But there was nothing. Absolutely zero information. He spent the rest of that breem digging in different places, anywhere and everywhere any kind of information on mecha could be stored. Still blank. Well, that is unnerving.

Rodimus was in his office, he turned to Megs with a folding of his servos behind his helm and blowing raspberries at him from behind his desk. Megatron grumbled and rubbed his olfactory bridge as Mags entered the office. “Co-captains, there’s something you might want to see,” he set down the datapad with records of Rabid he could find on the desk in front of Rodimus. 

“Nada?” Rodimus supplied, optics wide.

Megatron walked around the desk and looked at the datapad, humming in thought. 

“Is that even possible? It’s like she never existed, not even a serial code?”

“Correct. No cybertronian is created without a serial code, even the ones who naturally emerged,” Magnus agreed.

Rodimus twisted and flipped a stylus in his servo, whistling.

“Do you ever take anything seriously?” Megatron growled, frowning.

“I’m thinking! It helps me focus, I can’t help it,” he mumbled ‘aft’ under his nose, but Megs probably heard that too. He recalled Rabid's fight with that crazy oldy and his words while pursing his lipplates and putting the stylus in between his olfactory protrusion and lips. ‘You experiment scrap’ hmm . Said with such offense. She had tensed up and killed him very unceremoniously and dramatically. Diva . It almost reminded him of Drift.

“When their boss took me, we went to her lair and they fought. He called her ‘experiment scrap’ and she killed him,” Rodimus turned his gaze back to Magnus, a slightly serious, but still smug, look on his faceplates.

“Perhaps that’s all the answers we needed,” Megatron’s face contorted into a grin of his own.

Chapter Text

Megatron was making his way over to the bridge when a comm from Minimus reached him. He had been keeping an observant eye over their new recruit, more like an adopted stray. He wasn’t upset at that, simply found it ironic how this ship and its cursed captain keeps finding more and more troubled bots to shelter.

.:She has not left her habsuite in two solar-cycles. I have not seen her go to the cafeteria, not once:.

.:Minimus, your insistence on staying updated on her status is admirable, but remember what the psychiatrist said: we must allow her the time:.

.:Have you conversed with Rodimus yet?:.

.:We have a captain’s meeting on schedule this cycle:.

.:Please, do not put this off. He cannot evade this once again:.

To say that boarding this ship has put Rabid in a state of constant overstimulation is an understatement. About a week had passed and she tried everything from turning down her audial range and pitch to taking suppressants given to her during the first and so far only medic visit. She decided tonight was the night she tries to get shitfaced in Swerve’s and see if that helps, during the later hours of course when barely a few bots were scattered in the halls or the bar itself. 

She had seen Rung recently on an official basis aka an appointment. They talked about the basic things like her first nights on the ship, her opinion on the crew and how she’s feeling so far. She was glad he had not yet breached the big conversation she knew was bound to happen soon enough. And she didn’t even have to guess that they’d be looking for any and all information about her. There was… very little. A suspiciously small amount of lore, if you knew where to look that is, none of which came from official logs from her creation or existence up until the disappearance. 

A week had passed and she didn’t even have any bots tagged as friend potential. Apart from Ultra Magnus’ visits and seeing the psychiatrist, she interacted with no one. It’s just the shock of the new environment was what Rung said, afterall, there’s no way of knowing if she’ll ever adapt! (She heard that from behind the door) There are no recordings of any similar cases to compare and contrast with…

She ducked her head slightly to fit through the doorway, the music was turned down to a tolerable volume which concealed unwanted noise, the smell of engex tickled her olfactory senses. Peaceful in a chaotic way, just the way she liked it. Strolling right up to the bar and sitting in the comically small stool for her size, she caught the attention of the barbot as he so clearly recoiled back a step in surprise. 

“Hello! Sorry, didn’t see you there! How’d you enter so quietly?”

“Didn’t mean to give you a spark attack,” she giggled lightly. 

“You must be Rabid, I'm Swerve,” he extended his tiny servo to her asking for a shake, “nice to meet you.” His smile helped her relax a tad bit. Going out into the social circle was nerve wracking, she didn’t want to be perceived at this moment in time. Negatively even less so.

She took his little paw in between her thumb and index digits and shook it gently. “Nice to meet you too, Swerve. Say, do you have anything helm-numbing, but pleasant to intake? Like a mix with nightmare fuel or something similar.”

“Aren’t you brave?” He joked with a tone of surprise in his vocals. “I’ll treat you, first drink on the house.” He began pouring a big vessel with various mid-grades, additives which made up a tiny supernova depiction inside the glass. He slid it to her, “so, tell me what you think! I figured I’d mix something special for you, ya know, congratulations for coming aboard and such.”

“Thank you,” she hesitantly took the first sip through the curly straw, feeling the cool tingle of a strong engex, but incredibly delicious, sweet, but not so overwhelmingly, notes of copper and other metals she couldn’t figure out. “It’s really good,” she smiled genuinely probably for the first time in a few solar-cycles. She was finally free of that prison and yet, she couldn’t help but keep trying to deprive herself of happiness.

The fuel quickly got to her helm, helping her be, well, normal. She began asking questions about the crew, Swerve, their travel and drama. He was a real chatterbox, impressively talkative. Rabid found out about the whole theater of Megatron coming aboard and how the co-captains really despised each other for a bit, but seemingly began growing onto each other already. He let it slip about the war being finally over, at least on paper, since the ex-warlord was sentenced and put on this ship. It gave her something to think about, specifically about how she knew nothing of the current Cybertron or political situation in the galaxy. She had missed all of that. 

Thankfully, Swerve began asking questions of his own accord and after the second drink, let’s just say the trap wouldn’t close. She told him of her mercenary times and her own travels. He was so invested, that he didn’t even notice the SIC and Megatron sitting down at a booth nearby. It was their weekly informal time, which was recommended by Rung for the sake of Minimus and Megatron’s collective sanity. Of course, Rodimus had jumped ship once again. They began eavesdropping immediately. 

“What was the most dangerous job of all?”

“Hmmm…” she purred, her faceplates already warm and fuzzy. “Probably Eucladia-9, defending a rich bozo from a local decepticon gang.”

“Decepticon gang?!” 

“Well, there was a decepticon outpost near a small fortress of neutrals. They tracked me down and promised, hmmmm, I don’t remember, but it was a nice, fat amount of shanix for making them gone.”

“So what happened?” he did not break audial contact as he cleaned the various glasses.

“I had probably my only near-offlining experience, which is odd, isn’t it? You’d think the job meant that it was a constant in my life, no?” She giggled at Swerve’s silly face, “anyway, I was positioned in a dune about two hics north from where they were supposedly camping. I had scouted the area previously for any booby traps, but I suppose they weren’t smart enough to set any proper defenses or anything for that matter.”

Megatron became incredibly invested in the story once he heard decepticon, but the continuation of the story made his plating tingle.

“I was pretty sure they were training rookies, thinking the fortress would be an easy take. They weren’t wrong, it was a slag fortress, however I was there,” her toothy, sharp smile grew with every word in the sentence. “I took out most of them with my condensed chromium rifle…” 

They also did not notice Brainstorm sleeping on a table near the wall in the dim lighting. His head rose at the word ‘rifle’ and fell back down almost instantly. He decided that once he’s back at his lab, he’ll need to have a talk with Percy and get that gun on their table!

“But there was a bot there, who was just as good with his blaster as I was good with my rifle. We had a gruesome shootout when he got slightly too close for comfort while I was distracted.”

“So how did it end? I see you’re here and not with the Allspark, what about the other bot?”

“He lived to tell the inverted tale, but not with his original blaster servo.” She felt almost giddy remembering this incident. It was the only mission she didn’t complete down to the last detail. Her first semi-failure.

“Did you ever get his name?” Swerve joked lightheartedly.

“I didn’t. Funny enough, his name had ‘dead’ in it, ironically he did not end up dead,” she laughed almost wholeheartedly. “He was a tough sunnova glitch. Shot out my optic, dislocated one of my pede joints, carved up my plating real bad, which was almost inconsequential to this study frame. I took his servo off and knocked him out, and let the customer take him for a few extra shanix, but I heard he escaped the second I left.”

Megatron and Magnus made optic contact, he wasn’t upset at the story or the mech who told it, instead he remembered the one time he read a report of Deadlock’s brief disappearance and return with one servo less. He personally debriefed the warlord, still dripping energon on the floor through the subpar self-patch job, conveniently leaving out the part of a giant predacon taking it and his troops’ sparks. 

Not like there was anyone to get mad at anymore, the Deadlock he thought of was no more, similarly to the warlord himself.

Chapter Text

Rodimus sat in the captain’s chair as per usual. Busy with daydreaming and evading any overbearing tasks, lost in thought about the last mecha they took in so kindly. He kept thinking about that staff and the deceased commander’s words about her. What was it, science scarp ? No, experiment scrap . The hurt on her face was clearly visible. 

It’s been nearing the third week since she joined. The first week was tough as he had heard from Mags and others. But after the visit to Swerve’s everything seemed to go… surprisingly fine. Swerve’s big mouth paid a visit to the rumour mill, summarizing the stories she told him about. Luckily it didn’t completely backfire as he did mostly say how cool and different — new — she was. Most mechs stayed alert after finding out about this dubious past and the general opinion of mercenaries (ahem Lockdown). 

Momentarily his thoughts drifted to Megs. Oh, silly old Megs. They were doing quite well in terms of professional relationships. As good as they could be. He’s naturally suspicious of the lack of data and the supposed life of a mercenary she’d lived before, the lack of any data, really. 

He didn’t hear that story from Megatron no, no he heard it from the rumors. But Megs definitely knows more, he was at the bar when she told her stories, because he intentionally skipped the informal time. How dare he try to take Mags from him…

Rods didn’t want to be involved, but Rung asked him really nicely . She had helped them therefore he was in debt to her anyways, the least he can do now is help her acclimatize. Besides, now that she was mostly used to everything, the command could begin asking real questions. That staff was filed away with a huge red exclamation point somewhere in his data banks, his curiosity had peaked even higher after seeing it act almost like putty in her servos. Some time ago, during the golden age, such weapons, although of a smaller scale and capability, were quite popular, but he’d never seen one before. 

The fact that one in perfect condition and seemingly fully operational was found and kept on some random scientist (he presumed) ship, drifting across space, untouched by the war, was a little crazy. He wanted, no, needed to know if they could date it back to the knights, or at least apply similar tech to make one for himself. Maybe it hid a dark, dark secret somewhere within those mechanisms. Afterall, they were appropriately called vampire wields. He checked his chronometer, 3 cycles until the end of his shift, it’s time to introduce the predacon to Perceptor and Brainstorm. 

Off he went towards Rabid’s hab, passing many familiar faces in the corridors saying hi and trying to chat him up. No time, he has a mission to accomplish. He knocked on her door, hoping to see an instantaneous response. Maybe she’s busy cleaning or something, so he waited. And waited. For way too long (by his standards anyway). He went to knock, but still no response. Perhaps in a lapse of judgement, he used the override key and entered the dark habsuite. 

There was… no one there, or so he thought, because a klik later a gust of a warm exvent ghosted over the back of his helm. Battle protocols surged online as if a sparkeater had been resuscitated right behind him, he turned around and yanked his helm up. There she was… in recharge? He looked around for the berth, following the recharge cable that was loosely draped over the beams and magnetized to her… somewhere. 

She recharged hanging from the pipes on the ceiling… like a bat, wrapped in those large wings. He quietly said ‘hellooo’ to be met with no response. Maybe she’s in a stasis-lock? Rodimus’ struts locked up in fear at the idea. What if they abandoned her for too long and she just… went into a stasis? The horrible idea made guilt ring in his spark. He leapt without a second thought, grabbing the cocoon gently (that’s a lie) and yelling at her face to wake up.

In the next few seconds his world turned upside down as he found himself on the floor, spoiler screaming in pain, with a claw on his cables, which was lifted just as quickly as those talons found his neck lines.

“Captain! I am so sorry,” she quickly raised him to his pedes, checking for damage. “Are you alright?”

Rodimus began talking but she heard no words. Oh! Yeah the audial reception. “I’m sorry cap, I turn my audials off,” and, well, dampen my sensor net, “or else I can’t recharge. Please forgive me…”

“It’s okay, really, my bad. I shouldn’t have barged in like that, you– you scared me there,” he laughed it off awkwardly. “I’m here to show you around some areas you probably wouldn’t think to go to!” He smiled handsomely like that bigaft mecha didn’t just sweep him off his pedes and stood him back up in seconds.

“Where are we headed to?”

“The labs. You’ll meet our brightest minds today. I figured you’d love to chat them up, Brainstorm loves weapons and, you know, you’re an ex-mercenary.” He boasted, so proud his crew isn’t only plain idiots and psychos even if he didn’t understand all that junk they spewed about. Rabid cringed internally at the assumption she’d want to talk about weaponry after all of that happened . As they approached the magic chambers, he gave her a rundown of Perceptor and Brainstorm, more like warned her about the latter. 

The red one — Perceptor or Percy as they called him — paid no mind to them, writing complex equations and formulas she wouldn’t bother to understand. She figured he had millions of years of study in that helm of his. A cyan figure excitedly bounced around her pedes while talking to Rodimus, she heard the designation Brainstorm. As Perceptor turned to face them his faceplates caught Rabid’s attention. He was missing an optic? Not exactly, there was a targeting glass. Her optics instinctively zoomed in on it, even from ten large steps away she could see the details of the glass, what it slightly mirrored from inside the helm. 

Her focus disappeared when a white helm with a yellow face guard popped up right in front of her face. Was he… hanging upside down? She looked him up and down, following the cords holding him in the air. She felt anger bubble up in her lines, wait, why anger ? Rabid simply lightly smiled thinking of cutting them, but that’d be rude, now wouldn’t it? 

“WHAAAAT  ISSS  YOO UUR  NAAAA MEEEE?” He spelled it out for her, watching her face fall as the purposefully slowed words registered.

“I’m not dense, I just wasn’t paying attention,” she deadpanned. Also, her audials are dialed down a bunch too, the white noise in this lab was annoying. The amount of noise on this damn ship was annoying.

“You were looking at Percy over there, weren’t you?” He giggled.

“No, I was turning down my audial perception to escape all of this noise,” she remarked. She was looking at Perceptor though. Had to admit, he was quite a sight to look at. A microscope with a targeting glass? Just who was that guy.

“No time to waste! Show me your rifle,” he swooped down with a flip, landing on his pedes, walking around her contemplatively. The red one now visibly interested in the conversation too. Rodimus had long ago relocated to sitting on one of the desks, trying to chat up Percy about projects and research. She shrugged and complied, reaching behind her for her tail. With a barely audible ‘snkt’ and a ‘kshhh’ it released, allowing her to hold it in front of Brainstorm. He nearly jumped backwards with surprise, bet he thought she’d take it out of subspace. 

As he was about to ask why the slag her tail came off, it lightly vibrated in her servo and transformed into the rifle in question. Brainstorm lit up, grabbing a data pad, taking pictures and notes, asking her to do it again, if she can control it and make it transform slower so he can see the sequence, if he could look at the docking ports and parts, how she kept up with the maintenance. Perceptor, unable to bear it any longer, nearly ran over to them partaking in the gawking and note taking. 

For the next few groons she was a scientific victim. It didn’t bother her, contrary to what she herself expected. It was… enjoyable. She wasn’t just a subject, she was the one with the knowledge, showing them something new and explaining its complexities, partaking in it. This spiraled out of control fast once she began showing off her weapon arsenal. Pulling some pistols out of subspace, showing hidden knives and blades, letting Percy aim and inspect her rifle.

“Extraordinary…” he goggled at every detail.

“It’s adaptive too, you can adjust this part for easier close quarters shooting. Though, it’s not very good at that,” Rabid smirked as said part transformed and the barrel shortened. Brainstorm squealed.

“Didn’t know you had those,” Rodimus took at her smaller calibre weapons. Did she sneak them onboard?

“No ammo, rendered inoperational by lack of use too,” she shrugged. “Magnus let me keep them for sentimental value.”

Her final party trick was taking two long and sharp segments (feathers?) out of her wings and showing them off as one would a well crafted blade. Her wings were a unique creation she was constructed with. Using minor controls and angles they could shred and cut through many different things, especially if she was going fast . To say the least, the two scientists were overflowing with content and happiness, their fields nearly dancing against hers. It made her joyful by extension. Rodimus was right, maybe Snuffer isn’t exactly dead as much as I wish he were.

As they walked back she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face, EMF blooming with light. 

“So, how are you doing so far?” Rodimus smiled at her struggle to keep that field close to herself. At this point every bot they passed must’ve felt it.

“To be honest, I never imagined that would happen,” she kept giggling like a happy new-built. “It’s contagious…” She covered her face with her paw in a show of shyness.

“I never understand what Percy’s on about, but I’m glad you three find a common ground.”

“You said he was..?”

“Now he’s a scientist, but during the war he was the best sniper out there… Say, why didn’t you show them the stick?”

“Staff, and I don’t think it’d be respectful to pick it apart, plus, Beta Galactus’ scientists never found anything special about it other than it being really old.” Perhaps another time. A sharpshooter, huh? 

Rodimus smirked to himself, really old you say. If he wanted to pick it apart before, now there’s no deterring him.

After getting a giant cube of energon and returning to her hab, she kept thinking about the two silly science guys. Maybe the bots on this ship weren’t all that bad. She’ll fit in eventually. One, or two, bots at a time.

Chapter Text

Megatron had given Ravage a task to find out more about that odd mech before she found out about her. Specifically snoop in Rabid’s habsuite, if possible follow her around and get a feel for what kind of mecha she is or might be. She agreed to do it and scampered off where the cybercats go whenever they feel like sneaking unnoticed. 

At first it was painfully easy to locate her, she barely left her room. After Rodimus showed her the labs and introduced her to the nerds, she’s been everywhere all at once. Always on the move, ready to bounce from one bot to the other. Ravage observed the way she thumped through the corridors, chatted with Nautica, Brainstorm and even Perceptor. She was always so friendly, lightheartedly bantering with whoever her victim for that groon was. Even the minis weren’t afraid of her anymore, instead taking a liking to her. She even let them climb on her, got an invitation to a movie night, which she declined and said she’d save it for the future. 

Yet once they left or scurried off for their shift, her posture would change in the blink of an optic. If no one was around to witness it, her wings would droop, vents heaving heavy bursts of air, tail wagging slower and more lethargically. She might have even seen her slump against the walls in the corridors multiple times, field flaring out so far that Ravage would feel it way up in the vents and behind walls or doors. One had to admit, the size of that mecha wasn’t the only impressive thing. The reach of her EM field was like no other she’d met, not even Megatron’s looming could reach the heftiness and weight of an exhausted Rabid. And she was tired most of the time, yet somehow managing to hide it with practiced ease. 

The only way she’d get it back under control was back in her accommodation when she could take out that makeshift electric guitar. She’d plug it into a small speaker which was most likely made of scraps and spare parts as well. The songs she played were unfamiliar, but the sound of the instrument gave her a way to focus and unwind. Sometimes she strummed those surprisingly well tuned strings in a sad, melancholic way while on occasion an upbeat tune was played. It never failed to impress and had a similar therapeutic effect on Ravage herself. 

Once she did sneak into her room. Ravage figured there’d be nothing intriguing as the only possessions of hers were either makeshift tools and things or weapons besides the occasional find on the planet or, what she assumed was, any spaceships she came across. How did they not take away those blasters and blades when she came onboard? That’s beyond Ravage. This blind trust from Rodimus became the reason for numerous arguments between him and the rest of command. 

It did not slip past Ravage how quickly Rabid caught on to someone having broken into her living space. Besides this horrible news, she was actively searching and suspecting who could’ve done it. Rabid asked no one about it, possibly assuming they’d be in on it. She had to admit to slipping up, this was supposed to be a secret between Megatron and Ravage, but now she might be in danger. The predacon never turned her audials up too high, keeping them muted, similarly to the rest of her sensornet. Unable to process the influx of information from the ship all at once, she adapted by sacrificing the things that kept her safe and now… they’re intruding, ruining her perception of the ship as a safe space. This might be the thing that breaks the mechacamel’s back and it worries Ravage. They couldn’t lose their position so easily.

As she stalked the corridors and darker areas of the ship, she thought she saw a shadow move. Her tacnet blazing to life as old tactical subroutines booted up. She had become a member of this ship, everyone knew her by now and if they didn’t stay away at least they stayed friendly or neutral to her, so she couldn’t be in any possible danger, could she? Megatron would reprimand anyone for disrespecting or attempting to harm her and he’d never forgive them.

But then it happened again, subtle fluctuations in the shadows. She couldn’t sense any bots around her during that time, there was no one there. This kept happening for a solar-cycle or two. Ravage minding her business and finding herself frozen with that same feeling of being observed and followed with no one to blame. She felt like she was going crazy by the end of the day she’d become so paranoid and ready to snap she scratched Megatron.

“I’m sorry…”

“What’s wrong, Ravage?” that once demanding voice spoke so gently.

“I don’t know… I keep getting flare up in my sensornet about being followed and observed, but there’s no one there.”

“Do you feel any guilt for stalking Rabid?”

After a short pause she spoke up, “yes… a little. There’s nothing suspicious about her, Megatron. We’re betraying her trust.”

“The feeling is mutual, friend…” He sighed.

Maybe it was that little inkling of guilt for such an invasion of privacy of a recently disturbed mech at fault. They had every right to be suspicious, she’d never admit to being wrong in that sense. Joining the crew so abruptly and right after committing two public executions, being allowed to keep or avoiding seizure of her weapons. That was suspicious activity. But maybe… just maybe they misjudged her. 

Rabid at one point strolled up to Minimus Ambus in the hallway and asked him about Rabid and why she could keep her weapons. 

“To put it simply, Rodimus demanded so. He said they talked and she had agreed to surrender her weaponry, but asked to keep the most sentimental pieces which weren’t working anymore or simply were impossible to reload due to outdated technology. In addition, you cannot just strip a mech of their body parts.” He put it bluntly.

“What if she fixed them up or lied?”

Minimus shook his helm in disagreement, “that’s not possible without the proper tools. When I mentioned outdated technology, I meant incredibly so. There are no more parts or factories for such weaponry. I checked everything when consent was given.”

She wouldn’t argue with him.

Perhaps this was pure paranoia eating away at her lines. She’d committed many crimes under Megatron’s orders and even after he left the title of warlord behind he asked things of her. Things which were incomparable to said crimes, but sneaky and incorrect either way. While it was odd, the mental consequences of those actions arrived after such a feeble act in comparison, she couldn’t keep ignoring it. Megatron was rubbing off his feelings and regret on her.

Ravage had stopped following Rabid, instead focusing on herself and keeping Megatron safe and at least somewhat happy with her companionship. After taking her morning energon, she went on her way towards wherever felines went and did their things, perhaps a nap in Megatron’s hab, perhaps a sneak around the corridors or an eventual visit to the bar. Her spirits were high as she was no longer being bothered by the intense paranoia as if coming to terms with what she did, glad there was no actual damage done to anyone. No raging wyvern stomping through the halls and murdering every mech it sets its optics on. 

As if Primus himself intended, she walked right into Rabid in the hallways. The mighty mech straightened at the sight of the feline as if nothing was wrong, doing her usual schtick of being highly spirited and content. 

“Hi, Ravage,” she greeted in a friendly tone.

“Hello.”

“I don’t think we’ve properly met. How’s your time on this ship?”

“It’s fine. I keep Megatron company, that is all.” She stated simply with a whoosh of her tail, continuing on her usual route.

“Yeah, I bet,” she giggled, but as Ravage walked past her that EMF said something different this time. It carried a burdening sense of knowing and a flicker of anger, licking up her spine from the top of her tail, breathing heavily against her own EMF. “See you ‘round, Ravage .” 

She stood frozen in her tracks for a klik, but by the time she turned around Rabid was gone. She paused for no longer than the time it took for a single step, but she was gone, soundlessly, effortlessly, barely a taste of the smell of techno-organic soil and musk left.

Chapter Text

They sat in the common area, analyzing pictures, comparing and contrasting information with old datapads and books, arguing, and coming up with hypotheses. Nightbeat could not rest until he’d figured out what all of it meant. Those symbols lived rent free in his head since they returned to the boring everyday routine of this enormous ship. 

“But there were no signs of previous civilization. Not cybertronian, not anything else. It was just a wild, barely touched planet. It wouldn’t even be logical to try!” Nautica exasperated.

“But someone left those there! There had to be a reason, otherwise they wouldn’t be there to begin with!” Nightbeat just can’t leave it unanswered.

“She did say it wasn’t unvisited . Just not worth getting offlined. Perhaps whoever ended up on it like her just wished to be remembered somehow. My guess is that it was a warning, maybe an omen of an imminent offlining without a way to escape.” Skids argued.

But that simply can’t be it. There was something deeper. Using primal vernacular dictionaries, at least the shoddy ones they could find and understand, they found similar symbols and the meaning, but it turned into complete gibberish once put together. It had to be old cybertronian, but it was a complex, sort of poetic language with tons of nuance and diversion. A symbol within a sentence could mean many things which depended on the context. A symbol for order could be turned into the opposite just by the wrong placement or a slightly incorrect line, completely different from spoken old cybertronian. It’s like picking apart poetry as an inexperienced reader — it made no sense whatsoever.

He even went to Rewind, asking for any and all recordings and encounters of it being written anywhere like the ones he studied to understand the map. It was an underwhelmingly small amount of footage, leading to another dead end. Rewind himself could not for the life of him understand what it said. Complete and utter gibberish as he suggested.

While his comrades loved a good mystery, they couldn’t keep it up with the constant disappointment either. They needed help, someone who knew it like it was his primary language! One who’d definitely know how to read and comprehend that ancient history. Rung! He’s probably as old as Primus himself, therefore if he can’t explain it, no one can. Rung never joined their research team, too busy with appointments, he said. Too bad! Nightbeat needs to get to the bottom of this pit.

The second his previous appointee left, Nightbeat barged in through the door of Rung’s office and demanded his help. They were friends, buddies, of course he’ll understand.

“I’m sorry… I have no clue what this says.”

Nightbeat’s face fell instantly. But… but he was supposed to be the one! 

“But you understand written ancient cybertronian, right?”

“I do, but this simply doesn’t mean anything. It’s a bunch of words thrown together in an unnatural, undecipherable way.”

“But I thought all the nuance and whatnot–!”

“While yes, primal vernacular does have a lot of subtlety and shading, there’s still structure which these markings do not possess. Besides, I am rusty…”

“Okay, so what does it say?”

“Leaving out all of the symbols I don't recognize, something about relics, stone and… engex. Cannibalism, but it could also mean the energon in mech’s lines? I can’t say with a lot of certainty.”

“Okay, that makes no sense.”

“It could mean many things. You should ask Cyclonus. He’s a real patriot, I doubt even he can read all of this, but at least he hadn’t forgotten it. I haven’t had the need to read olden Cybertronian in a long time… I think these may be the markings of a slightly loony and, well, creative mecha.”

With his servos mostly empty he returned to his hab for the rest of the cycle. His plans for the next solar-cycles have shifted to tracking down the old warrior and persuading him into answering his questions. He’d be satisfied with merely understanding the message at this point! He needed a diversion, something to occupy his processors for the time being. Getting a wash would be relaxing, he hasn’t been to the washracks in a hot minute.

The running solvent, the atmosphere, the smell of freshness did actually help. As wild as it may seem, he may even get ideas on how to solve this mystery. The feeling of warm solvent in his transformation seams took priority at the moment, until he heard the voices of two other mechs talking about… docking ports?

“So that’s how you attach it! I’ve heard my fair share of weaponized limbs, never anything like this, especially on a frame like yours.” The voice was clearly infatuated with whatever they were talking about. What an inappropriate conversation. He knew vacant washracks were a place of… all kinds of activity, but they’re not alone!

“Yeah, thanks for helping me clean it out… it’s kinda difficult without any help.” SO inappropriate!

“Who made these mods for you?”

“My… creators? I don’t know what to call them. Scientists and weapon developers. They wanted me to be well equipped.” Say what now? Nightbeat’s jaw nearly dropped. “I consented, of course.” Body mods weren’t uncommon, but what the hell was he hearing right now.

After a beat of silence the conversation picked up again. “Woah, there’s a lot of muck in your seams.” He knew that voice. He’d recognize the uplifted, grandeur manner and pronunciation of Brainstorm anywhere.

“I am so sorry…” But whose voicebox was that?

“No, no it’s alright. I offered in exchange for a closer look, didn’t I?” Just what the frag were they doing back there?!

He couldn’t hold it any longer, this was so intriguing in the worst way possible. He felt like he was becoming a part of the rumor mill all again! Nightbeat quietly snuck towards the corner behind which hid Brainstorm and the presumptuous mech he was hopefully only chatting with. Who would’ve thought sir brainiac was that kind of person. Slowly came the cyan frame of brainstorm and a dark, much larger frame into his view, both with their backs turned to him. They were just… washing each other. Which was still rather intimate, wasn't that something conjux and amica did?

“Brainstorm? What are you doing? Aren’t you moving a little too fast?” He spooked both of them with his amused chatter. Two different surprised and embarrassed yelps escaped.

“What?! No! I’m helping in washing her flying equipment!”

“You mean wings?” The predacon had turned her faceplates in their direction.

“It’s you!” Mr detective chimed up, recognizing her from that attack back on P127 in sector C3112. “Why do you need help with it anyway?”

“Does it look like I can reach every seam and bolt on my back plates and wings?” Clearly unamused.

“Yes, I kindly offered in return for observing the mechanism of her tail in better detail.” Brainstorm almost puffed out his chest in victory. “It’s incredible, Nightbeat, she can take her tail off painlessly and voluntarily!” He gestured to her aft. 

Nightbeat’s optics fell to her, taking in every detail and marking. She puffed out her plating and closed her wings in protest, hiding her whole backside to being perceived in a slightly vulgar way. The realization hit soon after. “Sorry! Really, you’re the bot who saved our afts, right?”

“Yeah, you’re welcome. Could we finish up..? I feel rather… exposed.”

“Yes, of course… Do you know anything about the writing left on the planet?”

“Oh–” she giggled with a slight shake to her wings, “they threw you for a loop, didn’t they?”

“How’d you know?”

“You asked and I followed you around while you explored them,” wow, rude, he didn’t even notice, “they don’t mean anything really. I made them up because I was bored. They were my way markers for the first hundred years or so.”

With that they soon went on their merry ways, Nightbeat thinking about it the whole way back. It was hard to believe that was the lackluster truth, so the next solar-cycle he went to Cyclonus as planned.

“Everyone’s been telling me they don’t mean anything,” he paced around the common area table blabbering on about Rung and Rewind while Cyclonus read through the photos once more. He finally put his servos down on the table, “but what do you see?” Perhaps a bot with a different perspective will see what they’re missing. Cyclonus was a bot of the arts.

After a cycle of thinking, Cyc finally broke the silence. “I had observed these murals while trekking through the landscape. While I had no time to question their purpose then, now I may see how to read them. You were right, this is primal vernacular, however, it is out of order and terribly misspelled. It’s a puzzle of sorts.” He put his claws against his chin in a show pondering. Nightbeat perked up at the word puzzle. “There is… a lot of artistic liberty. It's like the… writing of a new-built beginning to put their knowledge into practice.” His optics slightly narrowed in concentration.

“But, she said she made it up… what does it say, Cyclonus?”

Chapter Text

It was early morning when his alarm woke him up, except he was already awake and had been laying in berth for a while. Keeping up his disciplined ways, not wasting too much time even in his ‘retirement’, Megatron made his way to get some energon for the first time in a couple of solar-cycles. If you had to intake such a degraded form of energon, you wouldn’t want to be consuming it too regularly either. 

The hallways were vacant, barely a bot or two returning after their night shifts or heading towards their own early shifts. Megatron enjoyed the quiet and empty halls of the ship, appreciating the moment of serenity and lack of staring. Most bots were already accustomed to his presence, but not necessarily accepting. 

His energon was usually stored in the medbay, from here on out he could use that time as he pleased, making the decision to drink his energon in the cafeteria was unusual, but it was the next most likely empty place after his habsuite during this time. Occasionally a change of location helped improve his mood, reminding him that he didn’t have to shut himself in on his free or pre-shift time, Rung has been insisting on doing so more often recently as well. 

Those therapy sessions appeared to have a positive affect towards his mental health, providing an outlet and someone outside of command to converse with. Even if it was usually deeply personal and sometimes triggering, it pushed him to think and analyze himself more, engaging with those dark thoughts and memories in a safe space. He probably could do without them, but that may be his ego speaking.

As he pushed through the door of the dining area, expecting to see an empty and quiet space, he heard voices. The cafeteria bots were talking with a member of the crew, he paid no mind to them and took a seat where he pleased, keeping relative distance from the chatterboxes. The voices ceased and instead whispering took their place apart from the singular confused bot, who kept speaking in a normal tone. One might think it was out of politeness to someone entering the room, keeping to themselves especially so early in the cycle, but it was likely just because he’s Megatron.

As he pulled out his datapad and thought of what to read or possibly write, their psychiatrist had insisted he reconnected with as many hobbies as he can or found new ones, two curious pedes approached him.

“May I sit here?”

Megatron raised his helm to see who this voice belonged to and it was none other than their newest recruit. Wings perked up high on her backstruts, tail almost wagging with anticipation, faceplates upturned with a warm smile which almost clashed with the dark shadows the overhead lighting created. As the words registered Megatron realized she was indeed talking to him, quickly composing a response.

“If you so please.”

The figure quickly sat in front of him, trying to get as comfortable as a frame that size could on a standard bench, moving her wings and tail out of the way, making sure they didn’t hit anything on her way down, setting down the excessive amount of dishes. In hindsight, it was foolish to think that would be the end of it, but Megatron never expected anyone to strike up a conversation with the ‘slag-maker’ himself. 

“May I inquire?”

“You may.”

“Why are you up so early in the cycle? Day shifts don’t begin until like, a whole two groons later.”

The rather personal question felt odd to him. Why wouldn’t he wake up in advance to get ready for the day? Perhaps most of the crew enjoyed sleeping in or recharging as long as possible, but he was the captain or co-captain as Rodimus insisted. Though, he supposed the latter example wasn’t one of a grade A captain.

“How about you?”

“I do not intend to be rude, but I asked you first.” 

Megatron looked up from his datapad again, observing the intruder chowing down the energon treats like a mech after a famine. But in a way she did live through one, didn’t she? Had he still been the same warlord, he probably would’ve sent the mecha away for such a retort, he’s grown to appreciate a little resistance in his life.

“I enjoy the peace and quiet, and preparing for the solar-cycle without a rush,” was the simple and accurate response that left his intake in simultaneously with a sigh. Sipping on his energon, he looked at the mech expectantly, eyeing the low-grade sweets and big cube of energon. She finished chewing and took a sip of it, at least she seemed to have some manners.

“Me too.”

The conversation discontinued and Megatron resumed his reading, beginning to enjoy the silence when her intake opened once more.

“How long have you been onboard for?”

“Why are you so invested in me this solar-cycle?”

“I’m trying to get to know you, captain. This may come as a surprise, but I prefer to hear it directly from the source,” she smiled and took another sip while keeping eye contact. Megatron lifted his head, preparing for a proper talk and not simply throwing glances from beneath his helm, expecting the other party to leave shortly.

“A couple of months ago. You’re going somewhere with this, aren’t you?” He laced his fingers together after setting the datapad into his subspace.

“I know about the war and that you’re one of the prime reasons for it… But I bear no negative feelings. I just wanted to find out about what happened. They say you ended it and are seeking redemption as a farce.”

“I came to understand that I had lost my way. Not just as a leader, but as a revolutionary. The cause, the ideals I claimed to uphold had long since crumbled into something unrecognizable. I saw the truth, that what we had become was merely a reflection of my own hubris: a war with no end, fought not for principle, but for the sake of conquest. And so, I renounced the decepticons,” this was a pleasant surprise, a gulp of fresh air in his routine. So far nobody believed what he said, even listened to him to begin with. That is if it was genuine, which Megatron had grown to doubt rather quickly, even if everyone had every right to stay angry. “I am holding myself accountable accordingly.”

“But why are you here? I heard there was a trial, hadn’t I met you here I would’ve thought you were executed…”

“According to ancient laws of Luna 2 I am allowed to seek judgement by the knights of Cybertron. I joined to find them.”

“But you don’t believe in them?”

“After living on this ship, even after such an inconsequential amount of time, I realized anything, however improbable, is possible,” the corner of his mouth rose ever so slightly before he covered it with his drink.

She remained quiet for the upcoming cycles, thinking about the newly obtained information. Possibly realizing she knew nothing of the Megatron who chose to rise up. The rudimentary knowledge of the prew-war functionalist era she should have possessed must be extremely limited. As per her own words, she originated from a minor colony ship somewhere far away from his optics nearing the middle stages of war, considering broken contact between homeworld and the ships, she must’ve been living in the dark up until the end. Recently he had asked Rung for any and all information on the vessel and the only thing that still echoed in his helm was ‘most likely a functionalist colony’. Perhaps she was brainwashed as well.

“Do you know of the functionalist era?”

“A little…”

“Do you want to know?”

“Yes.”

Megatron indulged in this chance to enlighten Rabid’s mind. They talked for most of those last two groons until it was time for his shift to begin. She listened patiently and with intent, asking various questions, providing her opinion and insight, Megatron correcting her and explaining what and why she was misunderstanding or misinterpreting. She opened up to him that in the beginning of her isolation she had read ‘Towards Peace’ as it was surprisingly in the ship’s library chip, but found it oddly put together, which Megatron explained was the work of censorship. 

In a way, talking to a complete outsider from the war’s perspective was deeply intriguing. Megatron had talked to Nautica, but it wasn’t the same, he was literally teaching Rabid history he partook in while Nautica had been fed many partially incorrect or autobot-washed pieces of propaganda. He spared her no details, admitting to being biased when the conversation returned to the war and to his crimes. He did not glaze over anything, even feeling overbearing and horrible multiple times during their history lesson.

While two hours wasn’t anywhere near enough time to recount everything, he had fed her a great deal of information nonetheless. She had thanked him and they parted ways, Megatron feeling almost refreshed, heard, even when trying to keep the ranting to a minimum, he doesn’t rant, of course. Left with something to analyze and ponder about later, he stepped onto the bridge feeling slightly lighter.

Chapter Text

“How are you feeling today?”

Those are the same words every spark wrenching session starts with, followed by a gentle, warm smile. She always left these with a heavy spark and an even heavier frame, having to keep that field so tightly drawn felt like running from a homing missile for hours on end. It was, to put it simply, absolutely fragging exhausting. If this keeps up she’s bound to end up in the infirmary once again, being prodded and picked at by those tools and cold servos that reeked of medical grade.

Back on her ‘home’ ship, if you could even call that hole home and she certainly could not, the docbots fixed her up with devices made for dampening EM fields and stabilizing spark spin. To say that caused her pain and suffering would be an understatement, she had discarded them the second she escaped. Ever since her onlining, she’s been a sensitive, constantly overcharged bot and not in the sense you may think. Her EMF was abnormally powerful, letting every bot within the same room know just how she felt thanks to her engorged, deformed spark which somehow kept this giant frame running. Yes, large bots had stronger, bigger fields, that was normal. But hers exceeded said normal boundaries, it drowned out the space she occupied in its natural state, she couldn’t blame them for being so put-off by her, hence her working overtime after joining the Lost Light to keep everyone comfortable. 

It was a stark contrast in comparison to her life in isolation. Nobody to suck up to and keep that field contained, she had all the space in the world to let it roam and envelop anything in its path. If she missed anything , it was that. Plain and simple freedom. Of course, she’d never go back, the freedom in question had detrimental consequences and she was smarter than that. Now all she had to do was relearn and readjust to this life. Not many others get third chances.

“I’m fine,” thinking it was that simple to keep the clever bot off her ‘hind would be naïve, but by now she knew just what to say and how to say it, how to manipulate her field at the right second so it could give the slightest hint of honesty the psychiatrist fell for every time. It was only proper to keep to herself unless the situation called for a genuinely and naturally uncontained emotion, was it not?

“By now you must realize I've heard of your stories. Would you like to talk about them?” He sat opposing her, spaceship model parts on the table, sitting casually, seemingly relaxed. His tone was always gentle, manner of speaking inviting and full of meaningful pause.

“There isn’t much to retell, I'd like to think I told a decently detailed account,” she was invisibly tense, meaning she was tightly stringed inside, boiling with emotion and whatnot, but outside was warm, put together to the tiniest details, portraying a casual stature while reclined on the sofa, joking around as if nothing mattered.

“Funny thing, I prefer to hear it from the bot in question. I want you to tell me how you feel coming back to a vastly different life than the one you left, how you are different now in comparison to the stories.” He was so gentle and reassuring in his tone, it felt barely any different than talking to Rung all the way back on that planet. He was good. “How do you think you’ve improved and changed?”

“Well.. the obvious answer is that I’ve changed a lot,” though I guess I’m still a liar , “I’ve had a lot of time to think… I’d say I'm wiser now, less brash.” More mature as one might call it.

“That’s good, don’t you think?” He was definitely looking for a falter. 

“Of course, it’s a grade A quality,” why wouldn’t it be? Perhaps she said it with a little too much sarcasm.

“Why would you call yourself wiser, excluding having lived longer? I’ve lived for a long while and I’m not sure I feel any wiser.”

“I’ve seen a lot more types of mecha since then, and traveled further,” before they imprisoned me.

“I figured, mercenaries do travel a lot for work,” he giggled, putting together that spaceship model like it was a casual afternoon chat over energon, even though there was energon and snacks a reach of a servo away, but she couldn’t get a bite in right now even if she wanted to, “who was most memorable?”

“I’m not sure,” most of those memories she’d rather get deleted than revisit any time soon, it was the kind which resurfaced when one was trying to recharge, unable to stop their clouded processor from thinking. “They all had equally important impacts in different ways.” She wondered if he remembered what she had said to him after his inquiry about joining the crew, had she known he’d be trying to get into her processors, she would’ve shut her trap.

“I can imagine, every spaceship I worked on had at least multiple mecha I’d never forget. They were a joy to be around during the trips. Rabid, did you enjoy your time as a traveler?”

“Yeah, of course. You don’t see giant space beasts or intricate alien culture unless you get out there. As odd as things may get, it never disappoints.” 

“I agree, how many planets have you visited?”

“Lots, couldn't remember all of them even if I wanted to,” the corner of her mouth slightly rose in a small smile, reminiscing on the beautiful sunsets and scenery she could revive in her memory banks.

“Visited them for work affiliated reasons, I presume?” There we go, no more buttering.

“Not always. I had to make pit stops for supplies and some entertainment occasionally,” please, just leave it alone . “What about you?”

“Shore leave is necessary for everyone, on the Lost Light we take it seriously, as you already know,” he giggled and paused his model assembly to give his glasses a thorough cleaning and a rub to his optics. “But I've always wondered how it differed for bots of your guild. Could you elaborate?”

“You mean how docking for work differs from docking for pleasure?” She scoffed, he can definitely tell how it’s not the same, this gentle form of prying won’t get her to talk. “I’m sure you understand why and how.”

“Individual experiences differ from the general context in my opinion. I’d like to know yours specifically.”

“It was a job, I came, got paid and left,” she’s not getting out of this one it seems.

“You say it as if it were that simple, but what was it really like?”

“I don’t dwell on the past, the last 2 million years have taught me better.”

“Dwelling and reflecting are different. Revisiting and analyzing your past may help create an easier future.”

“You’re good, docbot, but not today,” of all bots she knew that perfectly, intimately as that was most of what she did after getting over the grief, anger and denial of her stranding.

“We don’t have to, but I am curious, why the aversion?”

“Why the insistence?”

“It’s my duty, and I’d like to get to know you, the real you.”

“That sounds like something mecha do at a bar or rec room, not an office.”

“Would you be more willing to speak in a more informal environment?”

“I’d prefer to go back to my hab for now.” She let a feeling of sleepiness and fatigue flow out of her field momentarily. In actuality the overbearing exhaustion was weighing down on her like a pile of rubble, slowly burying Rabid.

“I’m not holding you hostage by any means, but our time hasn’t ended yet.”

She paused for a second taking in a deep in-vent. These sessions had started off with him being incredibly professional, datapad and stylus out, prepared for an interrogation of sorts. Now, it’s just them talking as Rung puts together or cleans and dotes on those spaceship models. He did offer her a try at one, but she refused. Her servos are too large for such a dainty job, seems more like a helmache than a good time to Rabid.

“You’ve got a lot of those…” she sighed.

“It’s my hobby, I enjoy collecting and maintaining these models. It also may come as a surprise, but I’ve worked on all of these ships,” he waved his servo around showing off his collection.

“Impressive, I bet you’ve got some wild stories from those days.”

“Nothing you’ve never heard of. Of which the wildest and most unbelievable ones definitely came from recent incidents on this one,” he giggled.

“It’s a trouble magnet, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps, but it's my home now. Our home,” he threw her a glance.

“I hope it will be…”

“Do you have any hobbies?”

“I guess I like music. It kept me sane and busy on that planet. My ship always had a large library of music and I’ve always carried storage devices full of it. I like the sound of electro guitars and basses.”

“You know how to play one?” his gaze locked onto her.

“Yeah, I had all the time in the world to learn,” she giggled lightly. “I find it soothing,” and insanely therapeutic. After all, it was her way of coming down from emotional turmoil.

“What kind of music do you play?”

“Whatever I feel like, honestly. I don’t know the names of the genres, a lot of the music came from this random hole called Earf? Erth? Something like that.”

“You should talk to Swerve then, he enjoys Earthian pop-culture, especially various series.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind,” she smiled gently, feeling actually slightly relaxed. “Seems like our time has come to an eventual end, huh? I won’t keep you busy during your off time,” she got up to leave his office, walking towards the door.

“If you wish to, the offer is still available. To spend some informal time, I mean,” he looked almost hopeful, like a soldier extending a hand to a comrade holding on on a cliffside with one hand before he fell to his death.

“I’ll consider it, perhaps another day…” She stomped out of the office confidently, but after the door closed she couldn’t keep it together anymore. Releasing that field into an empty corridor felt like resurfacing to breathe while huge waves did their worst to drown. The heavy in-vent felt like pure, quadruple filtered energon after a million year drought. It felt great before a punch of exhaustion and fatigue hit her square in the olfactory protrusion, making her double over herself and kneel on the floor.

She only had to keep it together until she was in her hab, just a little longer. Rabid wished she could teleport in that moment, sensornet screaming for release, a break from the agony, spark spinning wildly and causing her to feel winded and light-helmed. She got up and took the first step before hitting the cold ground of the dimly lit corridor of a barely used part of the floor, processor unable to chew down on the informatory overload, gyroscopes not registering how the world spun around as she plummeted. Everything went dark and cold, the last thing she felt was a sharp pain behind her chest plates and the buzzing of the engines of this damned ship.

Chapter Text

It’s cold, dark, and smells… bad. Like disinfectant. Like medical grade and sickness, rust. Beeping, lots of it, breathing, buzzing, huffing, hissing, thumping, wheels turning, metal on metal, screeching, grinding up there, below and around… Opening and closing doors, the ground is thumping rhythmically, buzzing occasionally, voices. Discord. There’s something on her frame, a panel open, a port plugged into. More beeping, it’s getting faster and faster, an alarm blaring. Servos tightening, I– I can’t see … more beeping, rapidly increasing. Her spark spinning and spinning, helm itching, hurting, protocols rebooting, processors underperforming. 

Walking, fast and hurried, that’s all she’s honing into for now. Approaching fast. Battle protocols booting and failing, optics refusing to reboot, vocalizer staticky, spark spinning faster and faster, pedes refusing to twitch, I can feel my fuel pump , vents not cooling, but her armor feels cold, why is it so hot in here, it was cold mere kliks ago ? She can feel bots constantly coming through her EMF. Overwhelming. Buzzing in her right side, audial not responding, a long high pitched noise, the pedes are almost here. 

The door opens, so incredibly close by, she can’t move, something’s wet on her face, it’s on her lipplates, in her mouth. She can’t draw her field in, they’ll find her, she can’t draw it in, her frame won’t listen, why won’t you listen to me ?!

There’s something warm on her frame. On her chassis, a servo, a calm little flicker of light amidst the chaos, words, voices which aren’t directed at her. Still beeping and buzzing, there’s more pedefall, more steps, more doors, more buzzing, someone’s near, one here, one a few steps away, one coming closer, one in the door, the door didn’t close, why didn’t the door close ? She’s confused, anxious, angry, desperate, why won’t her tail flick and wag, why aren’t her wings fluffed with irritation and just something, why is there so much of everything else and so little of her. She can feel her plating nearly sparking. The beeping is in her audials now, loud, obnoxious, that alarm won’t shut up, blaring so loudly.

“You’re okay, listen to my voice,” familiar, the bot closest to her, one bot running around and stopping in various places around the room. The other two are still standing close to the door. “Can you feel my servo?” 

More static, more glitching and lagging, why is this so difficult? Mouth open, yet no sound can escape, only more wetness and moisture on her face, the taste of coolant in her mouth. It’s uncomfortable. Her field is flared, heavy, all encompassing, uncontrollable, talking, she can’t make it out over all of the raucous noise, more pedes, they’re leaving through the door, leaving her gelatinous field…

“Listen to my voice, you’re safe, you’re okay. Do you remember where you are, Rabid? On the Lost Light. Can you hear it buzz and huff, the white noise of the engines?” The voice is distant, almost as if sounding from the end of a corridor.

Yeah… it’s so loud she can feel it. Everything quakes once in a while, so incredibly lightly to others, but overbearing to her. The servo is still on her chassis, the warmth of it making it evident how cold her plating is, someone else's calm and warm EMF against hers, lightly buzzing around the edges, tickling her chassis while she can feel multiple others in the proximity. Hushed talking. Someone’s humming, it’s low and heavy like a proto-bass, when did they come back? Did they ever leave? 

Someone’s touching her servo, lifting it up, making her touch something. Something warm, buzzing, soft, protoflesh? She can feel the bassy frequency in her servo, traveling up to her elbow and shoulder joints. It’s nice, comforting, alive and gentle, slightly out of tune here and there. She doesn’t recognize the song, what is that ? It’s smooth, 4/4 tempo, but not hurried, slowed if anything. The melodies are quite simple, nothing fancy, no harsh jumps in octaves, no grand finales or build ups, but it feels quite… grandeur.

Rabid’s processors finally reboots properly, optics coming online first, a dim white light, very bright interior, many shapes of different tools and apparatuses, but optics still hazy, she can close her mouth now, about time . Her throat cables unwind slowly, protoform slowly defrosting and cooling down at the same time, spark spin slowing down significantly, field pulling back into the confines of the room, not as muddled anymore. Think less of a damp, wooded swamp and more of a forest after a light rain. The world isn’t ending, nobody is trying to slit her throat lines.

As her HUD comes back to life she lowers her sensornet sensitivity, audial range, just everything in general, numbing it as much as possible naturally. If there’s one black market thing she’s glad to have, it’s the improved control of her sensornet, allowing her to even dial down sensitivity to touch and feel. But she left that one mostly alone, not wanting the gentle humming to stop or the gentle servo on her chassis to become dull. 

Finally, taking proper, deep vents she can relax, optics focusing on the space around her, as gross and sterile as the medibay private rooms are. She can finally see the bots beside her, who generously helped her calm down. Of course, one of them is Rung, she figured that one out quickly. The other one, however, surprised Rabid, even leaving her flabbergasted as the bot with her servo on his throat turned out to be Megatron. His faceplates seemed… tired, lids heavy, but the optics were sharp, focused if not slightly scared. If her whole frame wasn’t aching and weak, she would’ve pulled her servo back so fast she’d fallen out of the berth. Rabid decided to save her embarrassment for later, but couldn’t help it bleeding out all around her. The realization that they could feel it made her want to crawl out of her armor even more so, making her painstakingly turn away and break eye contact.

“How are you feeling?” Rung seemed genuinely happy she had come back to her senses.

“Like slag…” she murmured after having to reset her vocalizer multiple times. “Thank you,” came one of the smallest and quietest of apologies you’ve ever heard.

Megatron still held her servo, ceasing the humming, probably not sure himself of what to do. She couldn’t lie that it didn’t feel nice to be held, maybe she did become a little touch starved over the years.

“What happened..?”

“After you left, I felt… something was wrong. Thankfully Megatron’s appointment was scheduled after yours, he was on his way when he found you on the floor and he carried you to the medbay.” How could he tell her that he had felt her implode and explode all at once from inside his office.

Rabid gently took her servo back, breaking away from the warmth and comfort of another servo, sighing deeply. She felt even worse since waking up, her spark palpitating.

“Do you need some privacy?” A clearly worried and upset megatron spoke up, she could’ve never imagined a warlord feeling so… so much pity for someone, it must’ve been a disturbing sight, not even mentioning that they had seen and felt everything she went through on this medical berth.

Honestly, she felt like a wreck. So much embarrassment to drown in, she simply wished to do it alone, but did she want to be alone? The conflict within couldn’t allow her to give a clear answer even if she wanted to. Perhaps she should talk to Rung more genuinely from now on…

“I don’t want to take up more of your time…” Her vocals were raspy and quiet, pathetic .

“It’s quite alright,” Rung fixed his glasses, Megatron interrupted him before he could continue.

“Not long ago Magnus told me a minor breakdown is virtually a rite of passage on this ship, but yours was not minor, your wellbeing is important. I do not want this to happen to you, or anyone else, on this ship again,” he was roughly gentle with his words, she must have traumatized him and whoever else saw this happen. A rite of passage, huh . Everyone was holding back, she could feel the tension, they felt like they were walking on something fragile, avoiding harsh words and phrases which directly correlated to what had happened. It’s simple. She couldn’t hold it together during the moment of weakness, exhaustion. Everything had been piling up on her pauldrons since the first day onboard. 

“It’s not your fault, nobody’s but mine,” she struggled spilling her wires like that to them, she hated feeling vulnerable. Rabid tried to pull her field back in to no avail, the weakened state she pushed herself to didn’t allow for any excess energy to be spent for all nonvital systems. She felt like digging herself into a hole and never coming out of it and now they could feel it too. As Rabid tried to continue the sentence she felt herself getting choked up, turning fully away from them to lay on her side and wrapping her aching frame in her quivering wings for comfort.

“Listen, this isn’t like your old commune, you will not get lynched for allowing yourself to exist in a natural state,” Megatron’s voice was almost commanding, assuring, making it clear with no space for interpretation.

“I’d forgotten you knew…”

Chapter Text

Megatron’s optics widened, just what was she talking about. It couldn’t be that she had known about Ravage following her around, could it?

“Knew what, Rabid?” Rung’s curiosity peaked, if anyone gets their hands on evidence or raise an alarm that he’s been using Ravage to snoop around undetected and ask her of whatever he needed, they’d be the ones getting lynched.

“I had talked to him about it before…” she mumbled, why did she lie to Rung, she must have figured out Ravage snooped around on his accord, what does she gain from keeping it secret. It could not have been planned, Megatron could not be convinced her traumatic breakdown wasn’t genuine. If she manages to deceive in such a compromised state, what is she really like? Perhaps their suspicions were reasonable.

Rung was clearly caught strutless by this confession. He most likely thought they had found some kind of fellowship in being the two newest and most bizarre additions to the crew. 

“Hm, interesting, I’m glad you two talked, I was thinking of suggesting it to one of you,” he seemed genuinely content at this revelation.

Megatron relaxed again as the conversation shifted back to Rabid and her quality of life, urging her to cease the facade as often as possible and see First Aid weekly from now on. As they stood to leave, she asked Megatron to stay ‘if it’s not too inconvenient’. He had the solar-cycle off and fulfilled her request even at the expense of his personal time. Megatron made a mental note to reschedule his appointment with the psychiatrist before sitting back down in the chair. Rung waved his goodbyes, wishing her a swift recovery and nearly ordering her bedrest. 

“I did you a favor there, didn’t I,” she chuckled sadly, pathetically, field still bristling with embarrassment and thankfulness. 

“What are you seeking? Blackmailing me will not land you in my favor,” he was rough, no-nonsense with her now. But he paused as she shifted uncomfortably, unable to hide her slight fear and worry.

“I did not intend for it to seem that way… I’m sorry, it slipped my trap before I realized what I was saying,” she was being genuine, but he couldn’t forget that he wasn’t the only one who knew exactly what was going on within the room, there was no escaping her either. 

“So you knew. When did you figure it out?”

“I heard and felt her. I don’t keep sucking up when I’m alone in my hab. She’s been watching me through the vents occasionally, hasn’t she?”

“You’re clever, I can respect that.”

“There’s nothing clever about that, it’s the only conclusion you can make logically,” she sighed and turned back towards Megatron, facing him. Her weary, dimly green optics barely highlighted the coolant stained pale greenish gray faceplates.

“But you managed to stalk Ravage in retaliation. That takes tremendous skill,” by now he had also drawn the conclusion that the cybercat was most likely not paranoid, but simply picking up a threat she couldn’t see. How did a giant beastformer hide in plain sight?

“I will neither validate nor deny your claims,” she sighed again, getting comfortable in a different position on her stomach plates.

“You also use the same tricks to sneak around the ship collecting intel, is that also an educated guess you will avoid answering to?”

“You as a captain simply don’t see me much outside of our lessons. I’m usually… more composed or not out at all. And if I’m that curious about something I simply ask.” They allowed a short pause before Rabid spoke again, “listen, I’m not antagonizing you or Ravage, I just want to…live. Readjust. Be happy again… and I am not an enemy infiltrating your ship or wishing anyone harm.”

Megatron eyed her with careful consideration, his expression softening at the admission. “Ravage told me you threatened her. Is that true?” He was obviously on Ravage’s side here, but curiosity got the best of him, no actual aggression behind his intentions.

“I simply let her know I knew what she did, it was barely a wordless warning. As a master of deceit I think you understand what I mean.” He chuckled at the last part, even though Rabid’s face was devoid of humor, or any other strong emotion, he felt a slight tone shift around him to amusement.

“Perhaps you really were a brilliant mercenary,” credit where credit is due. However suspicious that there’s no official or unofficial intel of her past apart from her personal accounts, everything could have been destroyed by someone wishing to keep her a dirty secret. Someone who does not tread the same realm anymore.

Soon they were interrupted by First Aid checking in, asking if Rabid is ready for a check up and this time a full frame deep dive. Rabid shivered in response, still queasy after the last visit, while it didn’t go terribly, she still didn’t feel comfortable being prodded at so soon. The medic’s reassuring servo on her pauldron helped her settle, steel herself for what’s to come.

Megatron left the medibay with the rest of the light-cycle free for speculating about the predacon (after today’s conversation it felt quite fitting). He heard from Rung that he went to her for help since he was the only one uncaptured by the aggressors. The ex-decepticon couldn’t help but wonder if Rung might be an accomplice or under a strange influence into helping and possibly keeping any extra information he had on her. Perhaps Rabid’s stories were the key to finding out just who she really was.

They did many different scans helm to pede, rechecking, double checking, triple checking, cross analyzing. He was an experienced doctor, but her case seemingly professionally perturbed him. Her spark analysis was worrisome, she had refused anything but a basic check prior, now everything was visible. The way her spark spun, the irregularities like size, form, brightness. Rabid knew she was an anomaly and she wished it had stayed that way. Just ‘me, myself and I’ with that knowledge, now even Perceptor might get involved. How was that possible if he’s a scientist, but that was beyond her. 

First Aid explained that currently her spark was in a weakened state, the prior meltdown and post-waking anxiety attack depleted its energy slightly into unacceptable levels for normal performance. She’d need to work on her scans more to figure out if it will have long-term effects on her frame, but for now she was prescribed a lot of bedrest and multiple additives to her daily energon. 

The tough part was yet to come as Rabid did not appreciate the interrogation of her emergence from a concerned medic. She had to spill it and there was no avoiding it as Ultra Magnus came down to the medibay to supervise from beyond the door window and make sure she complied with all of her requests (possibly for moral support too). She couldn’t lie as easily if she wanted to, leaving slim chances of the deceit actually working on the medic, in addition, she just didn’t feel like it anymore, all processing power directed to understanding the Aid’s inquiries. She kept telling herself it’s not an interrogation and no one was trying to get sensitive information out of her, no one was threatening anything or anyone.

And so, she told what she knew. She wasn’t supposed to be at all in fact, pure mathematical improbability and luck. A roll of a dice. Beta Galactus had been carrying various sparks extracted from hot spots pre-war era, preserved, waiting for their turn. They were experimenting with synthetic hot spots and the possibility of raising bots with predetermined outlier abilities. There were three different sparks, a weak, faint blue one, an average spark and one akin to a weak super spark, slightly more powerful than an average one. 

Everything was in the works when an accident occurred on the ship. They were passing a cosmic storm and the sparks had supposedly ended up together when the ship took damage and was shaken rather harshly. Something triggered an early emergence and the sparks had fused together, forming a trifecta, a single misshapen amalgamation which emerged during the chaos. The systems didn’t sound the alarm to caretakers as they were supposed to, so, everything was left to Primus, how one bot had retorted. After everything was taken care of they returned to an empty synthetic hot spot and no bot to be found. She had wandered to one of the other labs and hid in the storage room and eaten a bunch of rations they stored for emergencies. The next solar-cycle the scientists found her and the rest is history.

To say First Aid’s faceplates were horrified would be accurate, this new information lighting a new debate on how that could even happen. 

“Pure luck,” Rabid repeated once more. “You should ask Perceptor, not me, I’m just a result.”

“But you’re three sparks in one frame,” Aid almost exclaimed, optics sparkling at the discovery. He probably hadn’t seen anything like this in his career, ever.

“No, it’s a single spark fusion… I told you they molded together. If you look at the scans of my spark chamber again, you can even see where they’re glued together. I know it’s a little… gross, but if you pay attention you can tell that where one of the spark chambers was it seems more like glue sticking them together.” Talking so much was quickly depleting her energy, bringing the dreariness and heaviness back to her frame.

“It looks like a scarred and deformed spark chamber… I think I see what you mean, it explains the odd color of the spark itself…” he murmured in concentration. “Is it possible to reverse it I wonder…”

Once those words registered Rabid’s jaw nearly dropped, her field screaming in shock and horror at the medic’s expression. That’d be like killing Rabid as she was, wouldn’t it? She pushed the terrible thought away, she’d lived for basically 4 million years just fine, she’s not going to die for an another experiment.

The sparkle in First Aid’s visor disappeared as he realized what escaped his vocal box, apologizing profusely, Ultra Magnus looking over both of them from afar with a disapproving stare.

“Is it causing you pain?” Aid asked, tone careful and gentle.

“No, not that I know of. But I was told it’s the sole reason for my EMF being so strong and big, I guess it’s like three times the output of energy and emotion. It simply cannot be contained within one frame, no matter how large, when it was never intended to be like this…”

A thoughtful silence took place, before Rabid interrupted it, “though, I probably experience more instability than any healthy bot should. A similar thing almost happened when I crashed on P127, but I survived it without medical intervention,” she giggled a little pitifully. “I’ll be fine,” she looked at the medic with hopeful optics.

“How did you cope?” Aid’s pity wasn’t lost on her.

Barely would’ve been an accurate answer, but she could not remember anything currently, nor did she want to. Rabid wanted to recharge and suffer in silence.

“Could I involve Perceptor in this? I won’t say anything to anyone if you refuse, of course.”

“I’d rather keep this between us,” she looked at Ultra Magnus purposefully, “and our third wheel.”

“Don’t worry, he can’t hear us. This conversation falls under patient confidentiality, it’s your choice if you want them to know or not.”

Rabid spent the rest of that solar-cycle in a medical berth, hiding in her winged cocoon under close supervision, which seemed almost bizarre, it’s not like she was trying to self-induce an offlining, while it wasn’t in her control completely, it was preventable. Just like all of this embarrassment and guilt for taking up their time, for terrifying not just the ones directly involved, but a plethora of other bots who got exposed by accident. She almost wished her spark would tear itself apart right then and there.

Chapter Text

It has been a peaceful cycle, which Cyclonus thoroughly enjoyed in the rec-room with the usual company. They were playing a new board game Swerve had suggested called “monopoly” he saw on an earthian show recently. 

“What do you mean I have to go to jail?!” Tailgate whined.

“That’s what card you got, you go to jail, what’s hard to understand?” Swerve’s cheeky smile grew.

“I just got out!” The complaining continued for a short while until Tailgate cut his losses at a “those are the rules” wild card. The first round had been a trial, learning curve. The actual game quickly became a bloodbath of landlords, estate brokers and strategy. Nautica quickly bought up utilities and railroads, bankrupting Skids before the tenth lap. Cyclonus wasn’t doing poorly himself, quickly acquiring plenty of residences and collecting a large treasury of money, occasionally slipping Tailgate a bill or two when he pulled his puppy eyes. At least as well as he could with his visor.

When Tailgate got put into jail once more Swerve didn’t waste a moment with his poor humor. “How about this: every time someone lands in jail they stay in the brig for the rest of the round?”

“There’s not enough time to get to the brig and back,” Nautica chuckled at the suggestion, “besides, you’ll sulk once you end up in there.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Swerve lifted a brow (well, edge of visor) doubtfully right as he rolled a 3 and ended up in jail. “Are you kidding me?!”

Nautica burst into a slightly evil laugh and as the round continued bought up even more utilities, upgrading and punishing whoever landed on her spaces. Soon Swerve was out of the game along with Tailgate, disgracefully cussing and yelling for a rematch. The last two standing were Nautica and Cyclonus.

Cyclonus, once a multi-billionaire and multiple estate holder, generally clever and, after all these millions of years, wiser than ever, was quickly gaining the upper servo. However, Nautica was smart, adaptable, quickly catching up and surpassing him. It was an entertaining match, near bloodbath as those two dueled with little metal houses and thin sheets of fake money. Unfortunately for the tetrahexian, he made a fatal slipup and lost after having to pay out an egregious amount of money he didn’t have anymore. Cyclonus folded his arms and looked away with dissatisfaction as the minibots roared at the physicist claiming her winnings as she closed the game with a wide, beautiful smile.

“Good game, Cyclonus!” She absolutely beamed and extended her servo for a friendly handshake.

Cyclonus accepted it, “affirmative” as they shook their hands, Swerve pulled out an idea for a different game. Before he opened his trap about the rules, a couple loud bangs echoed through the hallway. Everyone turned their helms at the unexpected sounds, other bots bracing for whatever might burst through the door or an alarm going off. The bangs and clangs neared with a ruckus of shouts and screech of metal. 

“Well that doesn’t sound good,” Swerve yelped at a particularly harsh bang.

As Cyclonus unsheathed his sword, a tall figure frantically burst through the door and smashed the control box, making the door lock automatically after entering.

“Rabid?” Swerve tried asking before she interrupted him.

“Where’s Ultra Magnus?!” Her vents heaved as fans worked overtime to cool her frame down from whatever activity she was doing prior. By the sounds in the hallway and claws screeching against the opposite side of the door, they guessed something bad.

“What’s happening?” Tailgate was beginning to shrink in on himself, worried as to what scared her.

“Whirl, he’s trying to–” she didn’t get the time to finish her sentence before the bot in question broke through the door. She was caught in the blast, being thrown down under what used to be the door of the rec-room. 

“Where is he?! You owe me a rematch!” He snapped his claws like a crab, looking at the bewildered faces of his friends as he stood right on top of the door. 

“It’s she, you imbecile!” Rabid said progressively louder until she was screaming as she jerked her legs forward under her, bracing, quickly throwing them up above her helm into doing a handstand and throwing the door together with Whirl off her backstruts. The beastformer landed on her pedes and wasted no time and sprinting off in the opposite direction down the hallway.

“What a quick bugger, you know, she’s deceptively fast for such a huge aft!” Whirl giggled manically, turning to chase after her before Cyclonus caught him in a chokehold. “Release me,” he choked out, trying to grab Cyc.

“Get a hold of yourself, you maniac,” Cyclonus hissed at the writhing goose-former in his grip.

“How about you go frag yourself,” he yelled as his claw caught Cyclonus’ neck and made him recoil back in defense, releasing Whirl to release wreckage upon the ship once more. He watched as the nuts and bolts mech ran after her, disappearing into the hallway way too quickly. 

Cyclonus transformed and flew after him, ignoring a rule or two should be worth stopping that crazed wrecker from ruining half the ship and possibly offlining innocent personnel. 

Rabid ran almost on all fours now, semi-transforming her back legs into a more comfortable position for such purposes. Surprisingly, she was unnaturally faster, bouncing off walls on corners and covering a bunch more ground in one stride, occasionally soaring down to a gentler landing for her limbs. It was almost uncanny, if the poor sparks were wary or scared of her, now they had an even better reason to stay clear. She cussed under her vents as mechs moved aside and looked around with puzzled faces, almost as if looking for the supposed danger she was bolting away from. She’s not scared, no, not really… If anything, she’s terrified of the consequences when it wasn’t even her fault to begin with! She can’t keep drawing so much attention to herself.

The memory of about 5 minutes earlier replayed in her helm. She was sitting in the cafeteria, enjoying her lunch energon as that blasted Whirl came in, slamming his pede right on her meal and splattering it all over both of them and the table. He shouted, demanded they have a “rematch” as there could be no way in pits she beat him so easily and he’d show her what fighting a real wrecker is like. While she was wiping her faceplates, his claws reached for her, making her recoil back instinctively, flipping backwards out of the seat, bracing her arms and kicking the table with as much strength as she could. It flew towards the wall, stunning that afthole just long enough to bolt away. He had quickly caught up to her, unfortunately, right by the exit, swinging his sharp claws for her midriff and slicing her less protected side plating. It was a short fight as about one punch downwards gave her a window to actually run away. Once again, he found and engaged her, the short fisticuffs ending abruptly once more with a few punches, dodges and a calculated kick, sending Whirl across the corridor and leaped into the closest room.

Her recollection was interrupted as the sound of spinning helicopter blades thundered through the hallway behind her. It was a slightly busier than empty corridor and he began shooting. Shooting?! Is he out of his mind? She ran for the bystanders, covering them with her frame, using those sleek, but rigid wing plates to shield off the shots. They were light and aerodynamic, quite fragile, but her outer armor was built to withstand minor and few bullet wounds. Keyword – minor and few. His guns were almost blazing in her direction, Rabid could not afford to stand still, but he’ll keep shooting at everyone if she doesn’t do something. 

Those bullets were beginning to drill into her armor within kliks, even with her seams pressed together as tightly as possible, it was causing pain as she held against the wall, shielding off the poor sparks caught in between the crossfire. She had begun to reach for her deconstructed and stored staff. Thankfully, the tetrahexian rammed straight into the heli after he transformed back into root mode mid air. Rabid felt like she could vent again as the other two got surrounded by the security bots, guns aimed and ready. Rabid slumped against the wall on her knees, now heaving as the space filled with the stench of burning metal and the sound of dripping energon.

To put it simply, it ended incredibly poorly. Ultra Magnus showed up, but was surprisingly understanding towards Rabid being mostly a victim as she fled the scene in hopes of avoiding the fight and damage altogether. Cyclonus was reprimanded for using his alt mode in restricted areas aka the halls and Whirl was put on brig time. 

“This is the second time you’re brought in for less than appropriate behavior,” Magnus spoke strictly.

“I was trying to mitigate the situation.”

“Next time don’t intervene. I’m warning you about the disallowed use of transforming in strictly root mode areas.”

Cyclonus responded by nodding and respectfully leaving Magnus’ office, but just before he left through the door he heard Magnus speak once again. 

“Good job.”

Cyclonus smiled to himself and left.

Whirl spent the next five solar-cycles in the brig, yelling and shouting for a large chunk of his jail time. He also received more therapy time after that.

Instead of seeing Magnus, Rabid was called into Megatron’s and Rodimus’ shared office. When she almost limped in, hunched over, only Megs greeted her as Rodimus was too busy on the captain’s chair with Mainframe, Magnus and the other crew bots. 

“Hm, you’re the troublemaker this time? I expected more from you,” he didn’t lift his optics from the datapad. Just like that time in the cafeteria.

“To be completely honest, I was trying to avoid fighting him…” she awkwardly sat down with a wince when he wordlessly pointed to the chair. Did Magnus already trust him to judge the situation without bias? Guess there isn’t a reason not to, when you think about it.

“I heard, but Magnus was incredibly displeased with onboarding you, now especially so after you got into a fight.”

“Why?” Her eyebrow ridge raised.

“He’s head of security in addition to his duties. Taking your first statement since entering my office, did you actually not lay a single digit on Whirl?” Megatron looked at her intently, those red optics so captivating. He scanned her still leaking frame.

She smiled sheepishly, because she did, but what was her action plan supposed to look like then? “Well, I defended myself briefly, of course, I ran the second I had an opening. I wasn’t trying to get into a fight, it simply followed me.”

“You’re excused,” just like that? “But I expect to never see you in this office in similar circumstances again,” he knitted his digits together.

“Thank you, captain,” she smiled and stood to leave. Before she exited through the door, Rabid turned back to Megs, “same time tomorrow in the observation deck?” Her tail wagged happily despite the pain.

“Yes, but, Rabid?” She cocked her helm to the side attentively. “You could press for harsher punishment for damages to your person.”

“I’m good. Forgive and forget or whatever they say.” She could’ve sworn he cracked a tiny smile. Just the barest hint of one, contently leaving and heading towards the medibay to have her wounds patched and plating evened out.

Megatron eyed her backplates as she scurried off. They were burned through, almost caved in to the protoform from the burn damage. Her wing armor holed and pricked with bullets. She could’ve demanded a lot of Whirl and the high command of the ship for such wanton violence, instead taking her dismissal with clear happiness. Those must have hurt.

As Rabid felt two red watchful optics lose her figure, her frame deflated, the limp in her step becoming prominent and the horror her sensornet was under making itself known loud and clear. A storm of emotions erupted, most of which she could not name or make sense of. Her spark squeezed and optics slightly burned, servos twitched and frame wished to violently shake, Rabid wanted to either punch someone or bash her own helm into the wall, claw those sensations out of her core. One thing was clear, the next time that bastard touches her again, his crabby claws are getting trimmed.

Chapter Text

“You should go see her, you brought her onboard.”

“I know… it’s just, I don’t know…”

“You’ve been distant to everyone, Rodimus, what is wrong?”

“It’s nothing, I’ll get over it eventually.”

“...”

“Why won’t you talk to me, Rodimus?”

Ever since we got back up into the familiar unknown amongst the stars, everything has been going downward. Though, that has probably been happening since they began this quest. I wish Drift was still here… he’d know what to do, what to say. That was the thought he found himself revisiting whenever big decisions or seemingly unsolvable problems were in his way. Without his closest friend, confidant he felt bare, strutless, but he had to pull it together. He has to do it for the crew, to keep them safe, to never fail them like that ever again. The gash in his plating, the wound that stays forever no matter how hard you buff and care for it. The scar that doesn’t fade nor blend in.

He’s trying so hard to be better, stronger, wiser, more tactful and thoughtful, but deep inside he’s still Hot Rod. Brash, fast, stupid, as if 200 heads do not rest on his shoulders, counting on him even more than previously. He has to do better, yet he constantly fails, unable to stop himself, cursed to only bear the consequences. Will he ever learn?

Why won’t he see Rabid? It hits a little too close to home, to say the least. After she joined, it didn’t take him a long time to see right through her, after all, she’s in the same situation, isn’t she? She’s young, even younger than him, hiding something and just as barely. If anything, the recent incident proved he was right. If Rabid bears the past he suspects, she thinks she’s better, trying to do better, but it’s not working. 

A broken mess, a fraud, hidden behind a new shiny frame and a different name, filling a void with something that isn’t helping, pushing through somehow. A silly, cheerful, empty-helmed wall in front of the real thing. It makes Rodimus wonder if she’d see it too.

He didn’t need to see her directly, he watched the cameras he had access to, he heard stories and chatter from the crew. Megatron apparently had been spending time with her occasionally, he had yet to learn just what kind of slag he was putting up her helm, what his plan was.

“...R-dy”

Megatron suddenly being interested in someone, someone new, might spell trouble. He didn’t know him that well, but with a CV like that no one could ignore it so freely. I know what you’re up to.

“Roddy!”

And if ol’ Megsy gets into her head, together they might tear his ship apart at any inconvenience–

“Rodimus! Hey, buddy, you’re okay?” Blaster interrupted his inner turmoil with an awkward smile. “Been standing here trying to get your attention for a hot minute,” he giggled awkwardly. “Has the engex gotten to your helm that fast?”

Rodimus looked at Blaster, taking a klik to remember he was at Swerve’s partying with his crew. “Slag, Blaster, I’m sorry, got a little lost there,” he flashed a handsome smile, diving right back into the friendly, buzzing atmosphere of the bar like nothing happened. Drink and forget, not drink and dwell!

“Wanna get out for a minute? Take a breather?”

“Fuck no! I’m having fun,” he finished his third drink of the night, the Earthian curse word really emphasizing his determination to drink the night off his aft. “I need to get another one,” he put down the glass rather harshly, licking his lips. Swerve’s was packed tonight, everyone from all corners of the ship coming together to enjoy a drink and the music, yet he had allowed himself to feel so pitiful amidst all of this energy.

“Not that kind of breather,” Blaster smiled deviously, he obviously meant something else.

“You mean you’ve–”

“Yes, I’ve got some, come on,” he rushed Rodimus out of his seat as they left excitedly. Contraband wasn’t unusual aboard the ship, but it’s definitely a miracle if you manage to sneak it past Mags’ keen eye. Cygarettes were pretty low on the list all things considered, even though it was still a type of circuit booster. He would allow himself one or two every once in a while.

They snuck out to the lower decks away from the storage houses and whatnot. Mecha came here often for things like this, but nobody ratted it out to Mr third in command yet, therefore they should be safe for now. Blaster didn’t stall, quickly passing one to Rodimus and he lit Blaster’s up. These kinds of boosters were mild, leaving your frame feeling relaxed, like after a good soak in the baths for a long, long time. It feels almost crackly, the ionized smoke tickling sensors and making your helm feel slightly lighter. Almost magical, instant relief. Temporarily, of course.

As they re-entered Swerve’s those drinks he absolutely flushed down his intake had taken effect, making him feel even more woozy after the booster. He waddled his aft towards the bar and ordered another drink.

“So soon? Aren’t you moving a little fast tonight?” Swerve half-heartedly bantered, a small tinge of worry in his voice.

“Come on, hit me! I’m having fun tonight and I've got tomorrow off,” Rodimus eagerly jumped on the barstool, spoiler twitching with genuine excitement. He probably should’ve been worried about the thought of engex making him so happy and eager. But was there anything else to be happy about? Except not having to live through yet another crisis again.

Rodimus happily downed drink after drink, slowly starting to feel worse. This was unusual, he had a pretty good tolerance, how come… (he had to count it in his head multiple times to make sure) six drinks made him nauseous now? Oh, six, right… he slumped over the bar, vents working overtime to cool his frame, a hand holding his helm up. 

He was alone. Sure, there were plenty of mecha around, but he was so, so nauseous and painfully lonely. There was a voice and a gentle tap on his arm. He used whatever strength he still had to turn his helm and see… a blur. Not Blurr (haha), but everything was so blurry he couldn’t make out who the silhouette was. All he knew is how unfamiliar it was. The colors, the way the colorful light muddled that large frame. Who the hell–

“Captain, are you alright?” An unfamiliar voice inquired, it almost scared him for a moment a decepticon breached the ship, before the semi-familiar green optics came into better view. He’d remember that color anywhere, it still spooked him when he saw two green dots, remembering a large servo on his helm and neck. He wondered why they were green.

“Mm?” He barely managed before his optics lost focus again as his spark finished the uncomfortably quick rotation.

“I can’t hear you, I’m sorry… Do you need help getting back to your hab?” Slag, he was too tired and overcharged for this nonsense, his helm hit the bartop in response.

He felt a panicked field against his as a gentle servo lifted his helm to look at his faceplates, tapping on them gently. “Rodimus? Captain?” 

“NO… will you just leave me alone!” He protested meekly with a shutter of his optics, slurring his sentences. Since when was keeping them open so difficult anyway. His head was back on the bartop.There was a long pause, in fact, so long he’d thought she left him alone by now. That was until he was hoisted up from the stool and set on his pedes.

“Can you walk? Ultra Magnus said I should help you back to your habsuite.” Of-fragging-course he did. 

“Yes…” he murmured

“What?”

“YES,” oh my fragging god, Primus, give him patience. An arm wrapped around him, holding his shoulder as he began taking a step. His legs gave out before he lifted his pede off the ground, hadn’t it been for the one holding him up, he would’ve been lying on the floor by now. He cursed under his breath. 

“I’m sorry…” He barely had time to register the words and not even an opportunity to think why? He was picked up, the next thing he registered was a servo on his lower back, an arm under his aft and his upper half on someone’s pauldron. He was being carried out the bar and he hated every second of it… Did his dignity really mean nothing to his crew anymore? She could’ve waited until they were out of the bar, around the corner of the hallway, but now everyone saw him being carried out like a petulant new-built. He tried to kick and get away, but to no avail.

He considered activating his FIM chip and running away, but he figured he’d save himself from the embarrassment hitting him all at once in this state.

“I’m fine…” he mumbled.

“You’re slurring your words,” slag, why didn’t he think of that huh?

“You just– hmpf… just picked me up and waltzed out… so rude,” he pouted, embarrassment bitter in his field.

“I’m really sorry… I didn't think that through,” an equally ashamed field fizzled against his. “I also, uh, well… I don’t know where your hab is…” It was almost hilarious, really, the absurdity.

He warily opened his optic, barely seeing where they were. “You took a left after exit?”

“Yeah..?”

“Just go in the general direction of the bridge, I’ll…” he sighed, "I'll tell you where,” he began drooling and falling out of consciousness. He felt like purging, the gentle swaying making his dizziness worse. He couldn't even writhe in her grip, he was completely limp and docile. “Immona…” his tanks churned, “ughhh, purge”.

She gently sat him down on the floor with his back against a wall, kneeling in front of him, “do you want to lay down?”

All he could do was growl, dry heave and sigh as his fans whirred like there was no tomorrow. He hadn’t felt this terrible in a while, being so busy as co-captain and whatever, he didn’t have time to go and get drunk. He’d almost forgotten how terrible it felt. The cold floor definitely helped.

He saw a large smudge of dark green walking around anxiously as he kept heaving and trying to calm his tanks down, purging in the corridors was the last thing he wanted to do. He didn’t know how long he’d been there, but he felt weightless again as she held him and hurried towards the general direction of his hab.

“What do you need? Coolant? Energon? Please, just say something…” He could only listen to the clang of pedes as she walked, asking him pointless questions, voice sounding more frantic. He really wished Drift was here, he always knew what to do, he always took him home...

He woke up in his hab as cool water gently ran over his frame, thanking Primus or whoever or whatever pushed her not to use freezing cold water to wake him. However, he was assaulted by a frantic, terrified EMF. He purged instantly, grateful that she didn’t put him in a berth to cause this mess. A warm servo gently laid on his back as he emptied everything he gobbled down like some engex crazed mech.

The next time he became conscious was in his berth, laid on his side in a safe position. The lack of a frantic EMF told him he was alone, however the sound of idling systems and shallow vents suggested otherwise. He lifted his sore head and looked around his hab seeing no one. His HUD said it was extremely late in the night, or extremely early to some, he thought Rabid would’ve gone back to her quarters, but then where were these sounds coming from? He looked around once again, finding her recharging in a corner, bundled up in her wings. He barely remembered what had happened, but the fact that she was still here suggested something terrible.

He would’ve walked over there and woken her up so she wouldn’t waste her time, but his frame felt so heavy and burdened, he nearly instantly fell back into recharge.