Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Transformers Language/Slang

*Note: I’ve sourced this guide from various places so most of it isn’t original material, just a helpful cheat-sheet for those who aren’t that familiar with Transformers or to help along with what material I’ve cobbled together such as how sparkling development works, etc.

At the end there is also a working list of the Decepticon and Autobot officers and chain of command.

• Klik = About a minute
  • Breem = 8.3 minutes
  • Cycle = 2 hours
  • Rotation = 36 hours
  • Decacycle = 3 weeks
  • Vorn = 83 years
  • Microklik = less than a minute
  • Astroklik = about or less than a second
• Optics – eyes
• Pedes – Feet
• Servos – Hands
• Processor – brain
• Audials - ears
• Struts – legs
• Aft – butt, ass
• Primus – Cybertronian creation deity
• Unicron – Primus’s brother, the “fallen” deity of their pantheon similar in ideology to Judeo-Christian Lucifer
• Energon – refined energy consumed by Cybertronians aka their food or fuel
• Spark – soul (literal), heart (metaphorical) depending on usage
  • As a Cybertronian matures during sparkling-hood, they are moved into various frames/forms once their spark grows strong enough to support/sustain the new form. This is also how a Cybertronian moves from being a sparkling to a youngling and then from a youngling to a fully-formed mech or femme.
• Sparkling – youngest stage of Cybertronian development, similar to human infancy through childhood
  • Protoframe/Protoform – “infancy”
  • Second Frame – similar to toddler-hood up to early childhood
  • Third Frame – similar to early childhood through tween
  • Final Sparkling Frame – early to mid-teens
• Youngling – secondary stage of Cybertronian development, similar to human late teens to early adulthood
• Cassette – a sparkling created through asexual reproduction, such as Soundwave’s Frenzy, Laserbeak, etc.; their sparks are created by the carrier mech splitting off a piece of their own spark into a protoform that is then separate and autonomous from the original spark which grows and heals after the split.
• Mech – fully grown/adult male Cybertronian
• Mechling – affectionate name for a mech sparkling
• Femme – fully grown/adult female Cybertronian
• Grounder – wingless/flightless Cybertronian, can be used derogatively by winged or flighted Cybertronians
• Seeker – special classification of winged/flyer Cybertronians, elite flyers who owe allegiance to their Winglord
• Seekling – affectionate name for a Seeker-class sparkling
• Wingling/Winglet – affectionate name for a flyer/winged sparkling
• Bitlet – affectionate name for a sparkling
• Sparklet – affectionate name for a sparkling
• Winglord – combination of elected and earned position as leader of the Seekers, once given the title can’t be revoked except through death, considered the best/most dangerous Seeker alive
• Lord High Protector – elected position similar to a High General, military position meant to lead in unison with the ruling Prime
• Prime – a combination of an ability-based inborn power and a religious high priest-type position, the ruling leader of Cybertron
• High Council – an oligarchy that over time took power on Cybertron, diminishing the power of the Prime to a figurehead status (pre-war), currently destroyed/defunct
• Matrix of Leadership – artefact created by the original thirteen Primes, contains knowledge and memories of the Primes and has the ability to recall a dead/fallen Cybertronian’s Spark from the Well of Sparks, effectively resurrecting them
• Well of Sparks – repository of Cybertronian sparks or souls
• Vector Sigma – naturally occurring phenomenon where Cybertronians are effectively created out of base metals and gifted with a spark, harnessed by Primus to create the All Spark
• All Spark – repository of Vector Sigma creation power gifted by Primus to Cybertron
• Trine – bonded triad of Transformers, most often Seekers
• Split-spark – siblings who share a single spark or soul between them usually twins
• Bond – equivalent of marriage through sharing and bonding sparks, aka spark-bond
• Interfacing – having sex, fucking, sometimes shortened to ‘face or ‘facing
• Batch-mate – sibling
• Ornament - Loosely translates to "useless person" with shadings of arm candy.
• What’s your malfunction - What is wrong with you
• Microchip moron - Another word for ‘stupid’
• Cybertron below me - Roughly equivalent to "my God" or "What on Earth?" depending on context.
• Glitched - Not normal… or fucked up.
• Slag – waste, shit, shite (literal); slag it or slagger analogous to fuck it/fucker
• Frag – similar to fuck; fragger: fucker; fragging: fucking
• Frell – also similar to fuck but mostly used for frelling aka fucking in the derogative
• Scrap – useless
• Scrap-heap – waste of space
• Burnout - Term for a robot past his prime.
• Knock-off - Approximate equivalent to "bastard".
• Kite - Effective, if mild, insult against jets with big wings.
• Glitch-headed - Crazy, insane
• Lump - Useless, stupid, and ugly besides.
• Mis-clock - Hints at a bit of insanity, too... they're more than just slow, their internal timing is off kilter enough that their processors aren't even working in a normal mode
• Spawn of Unicron - Loosely translated the same as ‘spawn of devil’
• My sine function - Similar to saying ’My left foot’
• I don’t give a flying frag - Used where a human might say, "I don't give a darn (flying fuck)."
• Go jump into the smelter - General insult. Meaning ‘go jump from a cliff’.
• Dim-spark - Meaning is similar to "dim-wit".
• Tri-former – Transformer with three forms.
  • Known Tri-formers:
    • Megatron – mech, tank, aerial
    • Ravage – mech, cat-like mech, grounder
    • Laserbeak – mech, raptor-like mech, aerial
    • Buzzsaw – mech, raptor-like mech, aerial
    • Guardian Prime – mech, Mini-Cooper, Dark Sword UCAV
  • Gestalt – combined form made of at least two Transformers who share a connection known as “gestalt mind” which is similar in many ways to the bond shared by spark-twins.
    • Known Gestalts:
      • Combaticons
      • Constructicons
      • Aerialbots Gestalt
      • Safe Harbor Gestalt

Autobot Chain of Command:

• Commander: Optimus Prime
  • Second in Command/First Officer: Prowler
  • Third in Command/Weapons Specialist: Ironhide
  • Fourth/Medical Officer: Ratchet
  • Fifth/Special Operations: Jazz
  • Sixth/ Security Operations: Red Alert
  • Seventh/Science Officer: Wheeljack

Decepticon Chain of Command:

• Leader: The Fallen aka Metatronius Prime
• Commander: Megatron, Lord High Protector of Cybertron
  • Second in Command/Air Commander: Starscream, Winglord of Vos
  • Third/Communications Officer: Soundwave
  • Fourth/Science Officer: Shockwave, Steward of Cybertron
  • Fifth/Special Operations: Blackout

Chapter Text

Sparked by Design

A Transformers/Harry Potter Crossover

By Sif Shadowheart

Disclaimer:  As usual, I have no claim to any of the canon characters, property, etc. of these two fictional universes.

A Note about Setting: I’m going with the Bayverse (the live action movies) for the setting with tidbits from elsewhere in the Transformer multiverse coming through along with a healthy helping of fanon.

Warning!  This story contains what could be considered both Slash and Mpreg!  It is also very A/U!

For a guide to language and slang, see the first chapter which is exactly that, and might be added to as time and the story progresses.

“Audible speech.”

<< Speech over Comms between Cybertronians >>

One: A Deity by Any Name

Primus felt the spark-scream reverberate through the in-between place that He occupied as many deities have done for time beyond and without measure.  He felt it in Him and through Him.  A young one, whose very soul and self and heart, their spark, screamed and cried out in pain and devastation echoing through the ether.

It wasn’t one of his.

No, not quite a sparkling.

But it was a young spark, a young soul, on the cusp of that stage of maturity, that of being a sparkling, and what his creations, his Transformers lately of Cybertron, would call the youngling stage nonetheless.

And the sundering pain that encompassed it was far too much for any being or deity of creation to ignore.

His brother, Unicron, quite obviously didn’t feel it, far too enraptured – and being a deity of destruction besides, the dark to Primus’s light – with the current battle ongoing between one of Primus’s chosen and one of Unicron’s corrupted in one of their countless ‘verses to even notice that Primus had felt something.

That there was anything at all to feel in the first place.

But then…his brother, as much as Primus loved Him, wasn’t a Creator but an Unmaker.

Though given the sheer pain of the sparkling, Primus thought that if Unicron weren’t so focused elsewhere and elsewhen that He could have felt it as well.

Pain called to Unicron after all.

And pain was what filled this lost sparkling along with loneliness, hopelessness, and worst of all: betrayal.

He doubted, so severe was the combination, that the sparkling even noticed it was giving a spark-cry for a deity or any other being with a modicum of power to hear and know it’s – his, Primus thought without venturing to the distant ‘verse the cry originated from to know for certain – trials and tribulations.

Whatever the purpose behind the spark-cry, it reached Primus nonetheless, and Primus being Primus, He could not allow it to go unanswered as other deities might.

He wasn’t sure of what about the spark-cry that struck him so – though as ages would turn he would come to realize that the cry’s originator reminded him much of Unicron before the role he was cast to play in the turning of the ‘verses began to turn him cruel – but that it did in that moment was enough to turn Primus’s eyes – just for a moment – from the current battle between his chosen and Unicron’s corrupted for, as many deities do, He sensed a moment of opportunity in that spark-cry.

Deities, no matter their name or purpose, could rarely directly interfere with their ‘verses, forced to use proxies and worshippers to carry out their wills.

A sparkling that could sunder the ‘verses with his spark-cry would make an excellent proxy and, perhaps, turn the tides of time away from playing into the total destruction of Primus’s creations in the active ‘verse as things were set on a course of such with no hope in sight for his Cybertronians to once more prosper.

Keeping one optic on Unicron, Primus sank into his power utterly focused on the lingering echoes of the spark-cry.

Searching, searching, seeking far beyond the borders of the ‘verses allowed Him and his brother.

And then He found.

It – he, He’d been right that small fraction of a spark that had come through with the spark-cry had been tinged with a male essence but that in and of itself was hardly conclusive regarding whether the sparkling even came from a species with gender let alone one which contained males of any sort – was small, very small to Primus’s optics, smaller than any Cybertronian He’d ever given spark to in any fashion before the AllSpark landed on Earth, and those few that had been created since were protoform drones…sparkless automatons rather than true sparked sentient beings.

But by all Creation…was he strong even in the midst of spark-deep wrenching pain.

The small flicker of time Primus viewed didn’t explain the spark-cry He’d played witness and audience to: a black-haired human male of young years hunched and crying over a strange respectable containing liquid that churned and shimmered with strange power.

Curious now, as one would think that anything able to cause a spark-cry would be readily apparent, Primus split His focus once again – hardly any trouble to a deity – and watched both the past and the present as He tried to discover the hidden root cause of such a depth of pain and despair.

And oh, by Creation, what He found was enough that were this one of His ‘verses shared with His brother, He would let Unicron have His way with these…creatures.

That was no kind of life for a sparkling, any sparkling, let alone one of such selfless strength and forged-steel resolve.

That, Primus could see even before watching the sparkling walk without hesitation to his death to save his people, was a fledgling Prime.

The deity of this ‘verse might be content to allow a Prime to live and die without knowing true joy or happiness or by all Creation even the barest hint of love but Primus was not.

His ‘verse or not…Primus could not ignore the spark-cry of a Prime.

Not now…not ever.

Which, perhaps, might have been the purpose behind this ‘verse’s ruling Power allowing the spark-cry of a Prime to reach the audials of Primus…but that was a matter for debate another time.

For now, Primus had less than an astroklik of a time-frame to perform a bit of slight-of-servos to change the tragedy of one sparkling Prime with raven-black hair and bright-green optics.

That that decision made in a flicker of a moment changed the trajectory of not only the sparkling’s ‘verse but also His active one…well.

He was Primus not a saint.

…

Harry wasn’t sure what he’d expected to happen after Tom’s Avada hit him, the green light, a light that he’d seen both in his nightmares since he was a baby and also in the shadows of his own eyes, swallowing him whole in its embrace there in the depths of the Forbidden Forest with Tom and his Death Eaters surrounding him.

Nothing at all, maybe.

Or perhaps the white light and warmth that some people liked to talk of.

The Stone’s figments of his parents, Remus, and Sirius told him it was quicker than falling asleep.

Dying, that is.

Either they’d lied to him – and he couldn’t see why they would since the entire purpose of the figments created by the Resurrection Stone was to convince the holder to die – or he wasn’t dead at all.

And that was more troubling still than waking up – such as it was – after closing his eyes on the Avada to find himself on a dark alien landscape.

“Where…?”  Harry gasped, eyes wide one hand rising to press against the burning-sear of the skin over his heart where the Avada had struck.  “Where am I?”

“Cybertron.”  A great, thundering voice that had an echoing underlayer, as if it were made of many voices, spoke, Harry whipping around trying to pin-point it despite it sounding from all around him.  “The last remnant of a once-great people, now dying a little more every cycle.”

Harry blinked at that.

Well, it was an answer at least.

Granted, it didn’t make any fucking sense but still, it was an answer.

“O-kay.”  Harry drawled, turning around again but this time much slower as he studied the strange alien architecture that soared high above him, noting that it was all metal and something like glass and crystal with energy lighting up a few rare spots in the far distance.  “Informative but…yeah…”  He tried a new tack, leaving aside the strange landscape for the moment for the more pertinent question.  “Why am I not dead then?”

Seriously, how many times was he going to have to get hit with an Avada for it to finally take?

All he wanted was to rest.

To quote Hamlet…to sleep, perchance to dream.

No more.

Simply to rest.

No more battles.

No more deaths.

No more orphans.

Simply to rest, to sleep, to dream.

It didn’t seem much to ask given all he had done in his too-short and yet unutterably endless life.

“I heard your spark-cry, sparkling.”  The Voice, it really did deserve the capital as it near too shook the ground and Harry with it with every syllable, told him.  He was pretty sure it was trying to be helpful but still failing despite that, not unlike Harry himself a lot of the time.  “Through space and time and the ‘verses themselves, I heard a young one’s very self cry out, and I came.”

Harry was starting to get that chill creeping up his spine, that same one he’d gotten when Hermione read the story of the Hallows.

The one that told him, soul-deep, that there were much bigger things in the world than him.

That reminded him of the utter insignificance of himself in the greater whole of the All.

Harry wasn’t much one for religion or belief in much of anything.

But that there was something more to life than what little a creature like him could understand, that?

Yeah.

He got that.

More…he was getting the feeling that he was meeting something like that, a deity by any other name, though why it or he or they would bother with him was the question.

Well, that.

Also, how much it was going to cost him, since he’d learned – being fate’s bitch as he was since before he was even born – that having the attention of any kind of powerful being was not, contrary to popular opinion, something to be in any way desired.

“I saw what was,” the Voice continued.  “And what would be, and was not content with the plan of your ‘verse.  So I changed it.”

Just that simple, huh.  Harry gave a mental eye-roll, holding in a sigh.

“I feel your disbelief, sparkling.”  Primus continued, a bit bemused.  “And I understand it.  Nothing in your life has lent itself to something as nebulous as belief.  That is of no matter.  There are no strings to this as you would say, sparkling.  No hidden agenda.  Simply intervention.  A new plan.  A new life.  What you choose to do with it…that is up to you.”

“You saved me.”  Harry made that much out.  “You must want something for that.  Cheating death doesn’t come cheap.”

Tom had taught him that all too well after all.

“No, that it does not.”  Primus found himself a bit entertained by the sparkling even as every word and thought that came from him drove him on, digging deeper and deeper into the wound the young one’s spark-cry that made in His psyche.  “Salvation is never without sacrifice, sparkling.  A truth which you know all too intimately.”

“And what sacrifice does my salvation demand this time?”  Harry demanded of the strange formless being that had whisked him away from his world and plonked him down in the middle of a strange metallic world.  “The last was a life for a life.”

“And so it is.”  Primus noted.  “Your old for your new.  I am not the deity of Earth but of Cybertron.  My interference demands change but is not without its gifts and charms.”

“And what is a creature of Cybertron?”  Harry asked shrewdly.  “What form will my new life take?”

“I do not hear a refusal in your words.”

Harry snorted.

“I’m tired not suicidal.”  Harry told the Voice.  “You plucked me from my world, I rather doubt you’re just going to let me go.”

“Smart little sparkling, very smart.”

…

Elsewhere/Elsewhen

“Mine!  AllSpark!  Mine!”

“Sam!  Put the Cube in my chest!  No!  Sam!”

…

“We’re out of time, sparkling.”  Primus noted, attention flickering a moment to the tableau that was coming to its apex, and with it His brother’s attention would once more fall upon Primus and his…business on Cybertron.  “Stay or go.  That is your choice.  What comes after is mine.”

“Will I live either way?”

“Yes.”  Primus answered reluctantly but could not lie.  Not about this.  Not if he was to gain the sparkling’s consent.

Which with what he had planned…was very much needed.

“All it will cost is my old life, nothing else?”

To escape the fate that awaited said old life, Harry had to admit it wasn’t much of a sacrifice.

Even if he still had no real idea who was doing this, or why.

Just that it was happening, and he had to make a choice.

The catch was likely living with it.

“Nothing else.”

“Then…yes.”

…

Mission City, Nevada, June 11, 2007

Sam Witwicky pushed the AllSpark into Megatron’s chest even as the Rangers brought down Blackout and Optimus Prime beseeched him to destroy the AllSpark…by destroying Optimus.

No sacrifice, no victory may be the Witwicky family motto, but he could choose the sacrifice he wanted to make.

And crazy death-bot over friendly protector-bot was an easy choice to make.

That was the last thought he had as the AllSpark, a near-limitless well of energy and more, collided with the spark of Megatron, and burst with a concussive bang! Golden-white light blasting wide and throwing Sam, Megatron, and Optimus in opposing directions.

But…

That wasn’t all that the collision blew, as when the dazzle faded from the eyes of Captain Will Lennox and his friend and sergeant Robert “Bobby” Epps, they saw a fourth form fallen upon the asphalt even as the Decepticons bugged out and the sounds of battled faded along with the dazzling light and the ringing in their ears or the Cybertronians’ audials.

“Man…”  Epps drawled, laser up and ready to paint the new target.

Though with most of the F-22’s taken out by the Decepticon flyer Ratchet called Starscream, he didn’t know what good it would do, but it still gave him some semblance of comfort so he didn’t lower it.

“Hold up.”  Will commanded as Optimus climbed to his pedes, towering over the downed form of Megatron.

“You left me no choice, brother.”  Optimus noted, grief ripe in his voice as he stared down at the off-lined, but not scrapped he thought, form of his batch-mate.

The Autobots gathered in the wake of the Decepticon bug-out, taking only a klik to clock the form that Epps and Lennox had noted first being closest – other than Optimus who had a sort of tunnel-vision on the downed-Megatron – to the blast, Sam knocked out for the count likely complete with a concussion to show for it.

“A Seekling?”  Ratchet spluttered, optics flickering at the black-gunmetal-and-emerald form that was laid out across from the downed-Megatron, seemingly thrown back by the blast of spark meeting AllSpark…though none of the Autobots’ processors could find any memory or files dedicated to the tiny mech existing at all…let alone to have been near the battling leaders of the two Cybertronian factions.  “Here?  On Earth?  Impossible!”

At that, Optimus’s attention was drawn from standing watch over Megatron to see if he would on-line and take the fight back up, though it appeared the AllSpark explosion had offlined him good though he was reading definite signs of life in his oldest friend, brother, and adversary.

“Ironhide.”  Optimus tilted his helm towards the downed form as his optics focused on the tiny – to their optics though still larger than any human – form on the ground and the even tinier form cradled against its, his, Optimus clocked it as a mechling, chest-plate.

The weapons specialist nodded and traded his commander places, charging and aiming a cannon at the dangerous mech – downed or no – as the Prime moved to stare and study the fragging impossibility that was the sparkling.

A sparkling.

Any sparkling was impossible.

Ironhide’s mutters said it best, Optimus’s audials picking up the subvocal Cybertronian that was inaudible to human ears.

“A Seekling!  A slagging Seekling!”  The Ironhide cursed.  “How?  Where?”

A Seekling, a sparkling Seeker and future elite flyer, was beyond impossible as even before the fall of Cybertron outside the aerial city of Vos there was a less than one percent birthrate of Seeklings.

And yet…there one was, Optimus’s trained eyes noting the sleek lines of wings and elegant struts that would lend themselves to nearly impossible evasive maneuvers.

There was a reason why Optimus was glad Starscream was ever at odds with Megatron, and it had everything to do with keeping the Winglord of Vos, the Decepticon Second-in-Command, away from as many battlefields as possible.

 “Uh, guys?”  Lennox asked even as Mikaela pulled up the tow-truck with Bumblebee attached to the bed-hitch, his struts still immobile until Ratchet got around to repairing him.

Better than Jazz.

Without the AllSpark, the Autobots’ Special Operations commander was never going to on-line again after Megatron ripped him in two even if Ratchet could repair being rent apart in such a manner.

<< Not just one. >>  Ratchet would deny that he squeaked the information over their comms, not wanting the humans to hear his report, to his dying cycle. < < Two.  Two sparklings. >>

<< Was it the AllSpark? >>  Bumblebee guessed, having heard the humans create – and then kill – a protoform drone.  << Another protoform drone? >>

Optimus supposed that Bumblebee’s ignorance regarding sparklings could be overlooked, given that he was the very last of the last surviving batch of sparklings to survive to his grown mech form before the fall of Cybertron.

No mech or femme who had ever seen a true sparkling could confuse them with the sparkless drones created without the long-absent natural Vector Sigma power or the controlled form harnessed and contained by the AllSpark or even one created by spark-splitting or spark-sharing, both of which were infinitely rarer than the safer versions of Cybertronian reproduction supplied by the extinct Vector Sigma or the now-destroyed AllSpark.

Before Optimus or one of the other older Autobots could correct their youngling comrade, the sparkling – well, the larger sparkling, Optimus finally clocking the tiny bundle cradled in the mechling’s servos – sat up and his optics flickered on, the humans sucking in surprised breaths that were echoed in the wordless shock of the Autobots.

The reason?

The sparkling had emerald green optics to rival the scant highlights of color on his frame, a color Optimus couldn’t remember seeing on another mech in…ever.

“Sparkling.”  Ratchet spoke using his vocal processor, not wanting to startle the little one, using long forgotten subroutines from cycles vorns beyond count ago.  “What is your designation, sparkling?  How did you come to be here?”

“What the hell?”  Epps muttered to Lennox, the captain sending their men out to help rescue who they could from the robot death-match that just went down in the middle of the city.  The less witnesses for more alien drama the better.  “That has to be the smallest alien I’ve seen yet, it’s nearly our size.”

Except, notably, Will tilted his head to the side as the slender – in comparison to the other Autobots anyway – form climbed to its full height, for the wings on its back.

A flyer, one of only four that Will had seen in comparison to the dozen or so wheeled ground-based aliens.

“I…”  Will frowned, shaking his head as he lowered his rifle.  “I think it’s a kid.”

“Really?”  Epps asked skeptically, frowning at the form that he estimated to being at least a third taller than himself or any of the other humans around, at least seven or eight feet in height.  “That’s a kid?”

“A sparkling.”  Optimus corrected as he watched the brilliant emerald green optics flicker over the handful of Autobots, clocking each and every one as well as the humans and the downed Megatron before focusing back on Ratchet.  “But…impossible as it is…yes.”

…

Guardian Prime, the mech sparked by design of Primus Himself from the remnants of a being once known as Harry James Potter, gave a hidden processor-wince at the cacophony surrounding him as he on-lined in the midst of an ending battle with another sparkling – though he hardly thought he counted as a sparkling having been a grown wizard by any measure before being changed by Primus, he knew the grown mechs would disagree with that assessment based on his size if nothing else – in his servos.

And wasn’t that a trip and a half.

In less than a second – no, a klik – he went from organic clueless human to a non-biological lifeform complete with a genetic memory and a massive data upload courtesy of his, literal, Creator.

Servos, not hands.

Processor, not brain.

It was enough to give a mech a complex and that was before he tossed in the unique programming and subroutines of a fragging Prime into the mix.

Slagging deities and their “offers.”

No, Guardian wasn’t suicidal, though the info he’d gotten from Snape’s memory certainly was designed to push him that way.

He wouldn’t trade being dead over being either a Transformer-sparkling designed by Primus, even if it did come with the duties of a Prime with it.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t put his new pede right up Primus’s aft if the deity ever deigned to show up again after the second “gift” he’d given him with his Sigma abilities and Prime-hood, neither of which, he should mention, he’d fragging agreed to.

Leave it to a Creator to make him just as much of a freak in his second life as he’d been in his first.

That second gift being the sparkling cradled in his servos, designation Moonracer, and the only thing of his old life he’d taken along with him other than his memory files and one of his Sigma abilities: Edward Remus Lupin-Tonks.  Primus left him a data-package regarding Teddy.  Apparently, the deity had seen his memories of Harry being made the infant’s godfather and scanned for the baby on his original world only to find Andromeda in the middle of a heart-attack after hearing of the “death” of Harry alongside her daughter and son-in-law.  Primus had made the decision to pluck the baby from the home, disappearing him the same as He’d done to Harry, though unlike Guardian Prime, Moonracer wouldn’t have any memories of his parents or their original world.

It was enough to drive any mech to violence let alone a Prime who’d been designed to protect and guide his people in both lives, though the second was through actual programming and subroutines rather than manipulations and mindfuckery like it’d been done in his first.

Moonracer was a grounder mechling, with golden-amber optics to match his werewolf father and turquoise and silver coloring on his plating in honor of his metamorph mother.

Guardian’s introspection, review of his data-uploads from his Creator, vow to kick Primus in the aft if they ever met again, and moderate internal freak-out over, well, everything took less than an astroklik thanks to the processing power of a Transformer – could he call himself a Cybertronian given that he was distinctly of Terra Sol, Earth, rather than Cybertron? – processor over that of a human brain.  Where in his first form his processing would have been noticeably long as he spaced out, as a mechling – more, as a Seekling which were known for requiring even faster processors and decision-making programming due to their normal processing routines and subroutines – it wasn’t noticed at all, the other bigger mature mechs surrounding him barely processing that he’d onlined in the time it took him to, well, do the same.

It wasn’t every cycle that one woke up the savior of the wizarding world in one ‘verse, died, and then was reborn a Prime in another, after all.

A little existential crisis was in definite order but would have to wait until the current crises were sorted.

And oh, did he have a bone or ten to pick with the other Prime and his slag-headed Lord High Protector brother.

Primus had given him a specific few jobs to complete first however, not the least of which was checking on Moonracer and then sparking the currently sparkless drones running around the city-cum-battlefield.

Though he had to admit, the soothing undertones the orange-and-white mech was using were rather helpful for staving off Guardian Prime’s inevitable processor-crash over everything.

“My designation,” he sounded out slowly testing his vocal processors, which was not at all the same thing as talking had been as a human.  “Is Guardian Prime, this is my brother Moonracer.”  He said, ignoring the gasps and the buzz he picked up that was the obvious – or so his processor said – sign of mechs speaking over comms.

There was no need to answer the mech’s second question.

His designation answered it handily he thought as the red-and-blue mech that towered over the others introduced his people and the human soldiers.

“Optimus, man.”  One of the human soldiers, Lennox, said, breeching the invisible ring the mechs had made around the trio of Guardian Prime, Moonracer, and the downed form of Megatron.  “I get this is a shock for you guys, having new ‘bots appear out of nowhere, but with the Decepticons bugging out it’s only a matter of time before those Sector Seven assholes catch up with us.”

“Your human friend is correct.”  Guardian nodded his helm in agreement as he climbed to his pedes.  “Further questions can wait.  For now: my main programming demands that the drones are located and all Cybertronians – alive or dead – are relocated to a secure site.”

“Are y’all sure he’s a kid?”  Epps asked, tilting his head a bit to eye the mostly dark grey and black form.  “Cuz he sure don’t talk like it.”

“We are onlined with a genetic memory and programming suitable to our forms.”  Optimus explained to the humans…and reminded his own Autobots in the process when they traded surprised glances at the sensible words from the sparkling.  “Captain Lennox, is there a secure base close?”

“Nellis Air Force Base.”  Will nodded, then gave his men orders to locate a flat-beds for transporting the remnants of the destroyed aliens, though the one on the highway was going to be a bitch to recover.  “A little over ten miles from here, if we can get Secretary of Defense Keller on the phone he can give them orders to shelter you guys while things are worked out.”

“That would be suitable, thank you Captain.”  Optimus nodded, keeping one optic on the pair of sparklings as Guardian Prime spoke lowly to the much-younger sparkling – perhaps even a newspark – in his servos as he began to wake from being deep in recharge.  “Ratchet and I will assist your men in moving the downed forms of the Decepticons and Jazz once transports have been acquired while Ironhide keeps guard on Megatron.”

“That a good idea?”  Epps asked.  “Shouldn’t ya just…you know…?”

“Do you know how many Cybertronians are left in all the galaxy, human?”  Guardian demanded, then continued without waiting for the man to answer the rhetorical question.  “Less than a hundred.  There were a total of seventeen alive on this planet before this day’s epic round of glitched behavior.  Three of whom are completely destroyed beyond recovery.  Every Cybertronian life must be preserved if at all possible.”

“Guardian.”  Bumblebee snickered as Ratchet finished repairing his vocal processors.  “Even of glitch-afted mis-clocks.”

“Glitch-afted mis-clock or not.”  Guardian sent a smirk at the Autobot scout as Ratchet finished his staring – and scanning – of Guardian and Moonracer to set to work on the yellow-plated Autobot’s struts, having him in workable – if not great – condition in no time.  “My programming is for the betterment and protection of all of Primus’s creations.  A neutrality.”

<< Stay with them, Bumblebee.  >> 

Optimus sent the order as he and Ratchet started loading the flat-beds Lennox’s men had returned with, with the help of the winch from the tow-truck Mikaela had hot-wired, the human younglings having settled down to watch the activity all around them, more than half in shock from the day’s events as the adrenaline wound down in their fragile bodies. 

<< They are sparklings for all that Guardian declares Prime programming and status. >> 

Whether the claim was truth…well.  Optimus found it hard to believe that any Cybertronian, let alone a sparkling, would dare claim as such without it being truth.

Even if he was also claiming neutrality in a conflict that had been waged across the stars for vorn almost beyond measure.

That, at least, lined up with the lack of faction sigils on the Seekling’s frame, clearly visible as Guardian gave in to the entreaties of Moonracer and lifted the sparkling around so he was perched between Guardian’s wings on his back, the mechling more than capable – being a sparkling rather than an infant now – to cling on and communicate, transformer young much more advanced than most organics of the same age ever could be, though it was an advantage that was balanced by the long – very long – maturation period they went through.

Guardian himself would be barely considered more than a newspark if it wasn’t for Primus equating his human maturity into his transformer frame, putting him on the cusp between sparkling and youngling with only a matter of a few decacycles before upgrading to his adult youngling mech form, as he would have had a magical inheritance on his next birthday.

The sparkling found himself with a dedicated shadow in the form of the locked-on optics of Bumblebee, the young yellow-plated scout on his tail as Guardian ignored the bustle around him and focused on his programming.

Sooner done, sooner he could enjoy the oncoming processor crash.

At least the data-dump he’d gotten let him know he could trust Moonracer with the Autobots, even if they did have to guard Megatron at the same time, with Ratchet unleashing a hard-line connector to force and keep the Decepticon commander in recharge, preventing him from doing much else for sheer lack of being to disconnect without risking the dangerous ‘Con coming back online.

Guardian had a programmed command imbedded regarding him as well, but for the moment it could wait as long as there wasn’t any further talk of forcibly and permanently off-lining the mech.

Not that he couldn’t understand the impulse.

But still.

His programming was his programming, and while the remnants of his human-self understood the desire to kill a dangerous foe, that same human-self had been hallmarked with a deep empathy and caring that had helped draw Primus to him in the first place.

An execution was one thing.

Murder was another.

And a forced-offline while Megatron was in recharge was the latter no matter how he looked at it.

<< What are you doing? >> Bumblebee asked Guardian over the comms, Guardian pausing a moment before his processor dug up the communication system subroutines.

<< You aren’t the only one with orders. >>  He answered, eyeing the demolished form of one of the military transports, which had a communications system that should suit as well as anti-aircraft missiles.  << And this happens to be one of mine. >>

Placing one servo on the crunched lump of metal, only absently aware of his audience, Guardian let his power pulse into it, the metal turning to liquid under his servo as the plastics and other non-metallic substances fell to the ground as he separated the liquid metal, metal that took on an otherworldly sheen, into two orbs – one much larger than the other – his servos spreading wide as he separated the metal.  The smaller orb took on form much faster than the larger, understandably so, and before long there was a small mini-bot, optics dark laying on the asphalt.  Beside it the larger metal turned burnished green with browns, forming up into a large mech in tans and browns, with a number of wheels attached to his back marking him as a big-rig type grounder not unlike Optimus but with his alt components in different places.

“Ok.”  Epps muttered, frowning.  “We’ve seen some shit in the last couple of days but…”

“I’m right there with ya, man.”  Lennox swore under his breath, then shook it off and focused on the task at hand.

The sooner this day was over and he could get debriefed and back with his family the fucking better.

Guardian lowered his servos, the metal solid – or rubber in the case of the larger mech’s tires, harvested from the remains of the plastics in the downed armored personnel carrier – and ready for the next step as he took an unneeded breath, a remnant of his human life, and allowed his chest-plate to split open revealing his spark: a blinding white mass of swirling power from which two much-smaller sparks, one a light gold the other a pale blue, split off.

Catching them in his servos, Guardian lowered them gently into the spark-space of the formed blanks, though they were clearly mature mechs being formed and sparked rather than sparklings, the gold spark sinking into the mini-bot and the pale blue into the large mech, Guardian acknowledging each as they came online within kliks of each other.

“Beacon, Overdrive: acknowledge.”

“Beacon, online.”

“Overdrive, online.”

“Gestalt programming acknowledged: we are Safe Harbor.”  They reported in unison, bond ready and in place as the pair followed their primary command and joined together to form the gestalt-form of Safe Harbor, the two as much one as split-spark twins could be or the other gestalts were known for, though they were the lowest-numbered gestalt currently alive, most being somewhere upwards of four or more mechs or femmes that combined into one larger gestalt form.

Moonracer gave a sweet sparkling giggle at the dual-voiced programming acknowledgment that let Guardian know he didn’t just completely frag-up his primary function: creation.

Ignoring the slack-jawed forms of the Autobots and Rangers alike, Guardian continued on with his programmed duties, anxious to get it done so he could offline and recharge.

Because once he onlined afterward, his programming would be his own to take charge of, not subject to the programmed commands and whims of Primus.

He was glad to be alive.

And epically fragged off that at least half of what he was doing was controlled by subroutine programming implanted when Primus designed him to pull the Cybertronians’ collective afts out of the smelter.

“Safe Harbor commence sequence Alpha-Prime-Victor-Victor-Seven: summon the drones.”  Guardian commanded with a sigh, already knowing that a squad of the Rangers had been trying – and failing – to find and round-up the trio of drones that had been created sparkless by one Sam Witwicky dropping the AllSpark during the battle.

“You can do that?”  Lennox frowned, glancing between Optimus and Guardian as they finished loading Megatron’s heavy-ass form up onto a flatbed all of his own.

Motherfucker was bigger even than Optimus the crazy bastard.

The rest of the downed ‘bots were on another pair of flat-beds with Optimus already agreeing to tow a fourth to where he’d torn Bonecrusher apart just off of the junction NV-167 and NV-147.

Lennox knew one thing for certain, the commanding officer of Nellis was not going to be happy about them rolling in with several tons of alien scrap metal, let alone half-a-dozen alien robots and a couple civilian kids.

As it was, he was looking forward to nothing more than a hug and a kiss from his wife and baby girl…plus maybe a tall highball of Scotch to make this whole day nothing but one long fucked up nightmare, especially the part where the alien version of a teenager – from what he could tell – created a pair of new aliens out of a decimated APV.

He was so glad that the SecDef had seen some of this shit for himself, otherwise his debriefing would get him and his men laughed out of the military let alone SpecOps.

“Certain levels of command have the ability.”  Optimus confirmed.  “However, as the leader of the Autobots, it is unlikely that the drones would obey me.”

“But since the kid is neutral.”  Lennox finished the thought.  “They might listen to him.”

Optimus tilted his helm with a nod, sending a message to both Ironhide and Bumblebee over the comms…as much as it pained him to do so, let alone admit, he couldn’t continue watching over the sparklings when there were other duties for him to carry out.

And he was the only one able to lead the soldiers to the remnants of Bonecrusher, let alone have the hauling capability in his alt form to transport it to the military base for safe keeping.

“Ironhide and Bumblebee will watch over Guardian Prime and the sparkling Moonracer while they wait for the drones to arrive.”  Optimus told the humans.  “I will go with Ratchet and the rest of the convoy to retrieve Bonecrusher.”

“Right.”  Lennox nodded.  “Epps, you’re with ‘hide and the kids, I’m going with Optimus just in case there’s problems when we hit Nellis.”

“Sir, yessir.”  Epps gave a jaunty little salute, even if he was getting stuck with babysitting duty at least he wasn’t alone with them.

Though from the looks Ironhide was giving the kid bots, Bobby didn’t think that you could pull him away with a tractor beam let alone a simple order, even from a superior officer all the Autobots seemed to respect as much as Optimus.

<< We’ll watch over the sparklings. >> Ironhide responded, recovered – at least a little – from the glitch-outs he and the rest of the bots had been experiencing one right after another with Guardian.  At least as veteran battle mechs the glitch-outs didn’t completely offline them like they would less experienced and hardened mechs.

<< Take care of them, old friend. >>  Optimus commanded in his gentle way.  << They may very well be the last hope of our people.  Not even I can so easily split-spark, let alone create mech frames out of base materials.  Guardian has a gift from Primus Himself.  He must be protected at all costs. >>

<< Yes, my Prime. >>  Ironhide and Bumblebee answered, the command having gone out to all of the onlined Autobots in the area.

Not that they needed commanding.

Powerful little Seekling or not, Guardian was still a sparkling.

And not even the worst of the Decepticons would dare to harm one piece of a sparkling’s frame.

Humans, however, from Bumblebee’s experience and hearing that poor protoform being onlined and then murdered, had no such qualms.

They would protect Guardian Prime to their last drop of energon, so help them Primus.

…

As the Autobots and soldiers were sorting logistics, Guardian jostled and played a bit with Moonracer, the true sparklings giving clicks and coos from his vocal processors in entertainment, little baby giggles sounding sweet no matter what the species in question.

<< You’ll be just fine, Moonracer. >>  Guardian promised him fiercely over comms.  << I promise, I’ll take care of you. >>

<< I know you will. >>  Moonracer answered, able to use his comms thanks to that genetic memory Optiimus had mentioned, even if his vocal processor would take training.  << Love you. >>

Guardian scratched at a ticklish spot under Moonracer’s helm, the baby ‘bot giggling some more at the action as a trio of smaller forms, all but one smaller than Moonracer, attempted to sneak their way passed the pair’s guards to where they stood, Moonracer still perched on Guardian’s back, over by the combined form of Safe Harbor.

<< Designations? >>  Guardian demanded, though with gentle tones, over comms of the trio of protoform drones created by raw power from the AllSpark.

Power, that could be manipulated and forced from the defunct cube.

An actual spark from the Well of Sparks…not so much.

Guardian took comfort, weak and small thing that it was, from the knowledge that at least the humans weren’t murdering sparked infants.

Murder it still was, but not as egregious as the crimes could have been with the limited and faulty understanding and empathy humans had proven to have for any species other than their own…and often not even that considering the endless wars they waged on each other.

Civil war may have destroyed most of the Transformers, but, and it was a large but, it was initiated because of governmental corruption and tampering of a general by the Fallen, not over something as asinine as color, race, or religion.

Small comfort, again.

But at least Guardian had the hope that with the government thoroughly demolished and with his data payload to hopefully fix the fragged-up general in question, the war might be resolved…at least in time.

He had no such hope for the conflicts of Earth and its native species.

<< We have no designations. >>  The message Guardian back-traced to the largest of the drone trio, a green mech with automatic projectile canons not unlike automatic shotguns or grenade launchers.

Okay then, Guardian nodded to himself, motioning the spokes-mech forward first before opening his spark-chamber once again and repeating his feat from earlier, pulling out another nascent spark, this one in the same pale-blue as he’d called up for Overdrive, a warrior-class spark with the genetic programming to go with it.

<< You are Scattershot. >>  Guardian gave the warrior-mech his designation alongside his spark.  A fitting one, from the little he’d seen of the drone in action.

<<  Yes.  >>  It was said with no-little amount of wonderment and awe from the former vending machine turned Transformer.  << I am. >>

Guardian repeated the process with both the former steering-column, an eight-struted mini-bot that took a bit after Earth’s arachnids, gifting her, the only femme he’d onlined or seen made as a drone, with a pale-gold spark and marking her as a communications femme with the designation Skitter, while the used-to-be-an-Xbox that had a bit of an amalgamated form: three struts, two pincer-like servos, almost crab-like? Was a clear warrior as well despite his small stature that received a blue-spark and the designation Terrabyte.

Someday soon he hoped that he’d be able to spark beings with the standard silver sparks that allowed mechs and femmes a bit more choice in their programming and life-tracks but for now, he was limited by circumstances and ongoing danger.

From what he could tell, other than the healer Ratchet with his warm orange spark and the blue sparks in both Megatron and Ironhide, the rest of the Autobots: Optimus, Bumblebee, and the currently offlined Jazz, were all silver-sparks…which kinda made Guardian curious over what or who Optimus Prime used to be before becoming embroiled in civil war to give his white Prime spark that tinge of silver instead of the blue or orange he'd expected.

A puzzle for another day, as with the collection of the three drones, Ironhide and Bumblebee were shifting into their alt forms of a lifted GMC truck and a Chevy Camaro for transport to the base, Epps herding the human teenagers into Bumblebee as Guardian directed the former-drones into the bed of the massive black truck.

<< Safe Harbor, split-form. >>  Guardian ordered, knowing that Overdrive’s tan cab and trailer would be a lot less flashy with the Camaro and truck than an obviously military vehicle would be.  << Overdrive, bring up the rear, Beacon with me.  >>

At his urging, the former-drones slipped back into their alt forms and he tucked Moonracer into the cab of Ironhide, the warrior slipping a seatbelt around the small form and darkening his windows as Epps climbed into the “driver” seat of the rig as Guardian with Beacon perched on his shoulder-plate swung up with ease into the bed and laid flat to avoid being seen from other vehicles as they drove towards Nellis Air Force Base, Ironhide giving the order:

“Move out!”

As he felt the truck alt kick into gear, Guardian let himself slip into a brief recharge, already knowing he’d need the break before dealing with the next phase of the programming Primus had oh-so-thoughtfully left for him to deal with before granting his newest “chosen child” autonomy.

He’d already done his impossible things for one cycle.

Too bad that there were more waiting for him on the other end of the brief truck ride.

...

Chapter Text

Sparked by Design

Reminder: for information on slang and language, see the first chapter Slang and Language Guide.

Guardian given his origins is still likely to use some human slang and expressions, especially to himself, though he won’t necessarily shy away from using them around humans or the other Transformers given that he has access to literally the entire internet now to explain away any weirdness.

“Audible Speech.”

<<Communication over Transformer Comm system.>>

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” – Lewis Carroll

Chapter Two: A (Not so) Warm Welcome

Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada; 11 June 2007, 1600 hours

The SecDef still had communications up with Nellis AFB, though it was still patched through Morse code, by the time Captain Will Lennox along with his convoy of Autobots arrived at the base, arriving almost in unison with the stragglers from Mission City with Sgt. Epps riding along with Ironhide, the rest of the ‘bots either shifted into their “alt” forms as Optimus had explained during the extraction of the ‘Con Bonecrusher’s remains from under an overpass or in the case of Guardian, Beacon, and Moonracer hidden from easy line of sight.

Will wasn’t certain what level of coverup this whole FUBAR of a day was going to merit, but he and his team had already thrown in their lot with the Autobots back in the weapons hold at the Sector Seven base hidden in the Hoover Dam and they were all dedicated to riding it out.

That they hadn’t lost anymore men during the operation in Mission City was likely part of that, though Will wasn’t willing to count his blessings just yet if the bitchy look on the base commander’s face was any sign.

Nothing any brass liked less than having bigger brass call the shots in their “domain” and the SecDef had done just that in order to get the Cybertronians out of the public eye and hidden in a place where words like “Classified” and “Top Secret” actually meant something to people in the modern age of cellphones, video cameras, and social media.

Tarps and canvas – anything they could source really – were covering the flatbeds, keeping the average soldier from spying just what one of their SpecOps teams was bringing in with civilian rigs, but that was little comfort given the day they’d had…and it was only 1600, most people in the country not even off work yet and the world – hell, the galaxy – as Will had known it had completely changed.

A Commander Gantry met their convoy and introduced himself as the Base Commander, he and his team directing Lennox and the rest towards an out-of-the-way hanger, likely a remnant of the era of WWII heavy bombers.  The massive hanger door squealed like a stuck-pig as the heavy winch ka-chunked into gear and there was more dust than concrete on the ground, but it would work for a temporary respite.  The squad following the Commander were quick about unloading a cargo-van’s worth of supplies: water, rations, med kits; before bugging out at an order from Gantry.

“I’m not happy about this.”  Gantry made no bones about that to Lennox.  Frickin’ SpecOps bullshit.  “But orders are orders.  No one and nothing is getting on base without the SecDef’s say-so, we’re on total lockdown from the moment your convoy crossed the base perimeter, Captain.”

“Thank you, Commander Gantry.”  Lennox saluted, his men with him.  “We shouldn’t be squatting on your base long, sir.”

“Hope not.”  Gantry gave a bit of a harrumph as he eyed the civie rigs and the clearly civilian teens with the SpecOps team.  In his long career, he’d learned almost from the start that nothing good ever came from crossing paths or fouling up with a SpecOps team or mission.  Poor kids but not his problem.  “At ease, gentlemen.”

“Sir.”

“Sir.”

The team gave another salute, then an audible sigh of relief came up from all around as the winch lowered the hanger door back down, the lights of the Autobots helping the limited natural light coming from the begrimed hanger windows keep the old building from total darkness.

“I apologize, Captain,” Optimus shifted out of his alt form, the rest of the Autobots and Neutrals with him save for the trio that were already in their base forms, the neutrals coming in to surround Guardian Prime in a crescent from behind, protecting their leader’s flanks despite the implicit détente between the Autobots and the sparkling leader.  “If our presence has caused trouble for yourself or your men.”

“No problem, Optimus.”  Will shrugged.  “I knew the risks when we threw in with you guys over those Sector Seven assholes.”

“Considering that they were engaged in mass infanticide.”  Guardian crossed his servos over his chest plate as Beacon perched on his shoulder and Moonracer toddled over to his self-proclaimed brother on the wobbly struts and pedes of a new sparkling.  Granted, they weren’t sparked infants, but they were infant protoforms all the same.  “I would say it was the right decision.”

“Woah, woah, woah.”  Sam spluttered, snapping out of his post-survival fog at that doozy, his concussion not helping things along at all though at least some sugar and electrolytes from the sports drinks the SpecOps guys were passing around was helping with his flagging energy if not his massive migraine.  “Infanticide?”

The Autobots traded looks while the Neutrals seemed to harden – if such a thing were possible for beings made of metal – even further into their watchful stances.

“You were there, Sam.”  Bumblebee told him gently, blue optics casting a glance over both the teens and Lennox and Epps who were all present from what his sensors had told him while he was being tortured at the S7 base.  “All four of you were.”

“That freaky little…”  Epps trailed off, catching himself even without the look from his commanding officer and best-friend to check his occasional issue with motor-mouth syndrome.  “Bot?”

“A protoform drone.”  Guardian nodded.  “One of dozens on-lined and murdered by the agents and scientists of your government’s Sector Seven and just one of dozens more crimes perpetrated against our people by the same.”

“Yeah.”  Lennox sighed, shoulders drooping even as one of his men, Burke passed him a bottle of water and a ration pack as the humans sat on the edge of the flat beds while the mature aliens got to work shifting and moving the downed bodies, including Ratchet swapping out his rather short cable he was using to keep Megatron under for a longer one to allow him to work on the Autobots’ collection of dents and dings from the battle before moving on to the sure-to-be labor-intense job of getting Jazz repaired.  “I was afraid you were going to say something like that after Simmons’ little speech about Megatron being the originator of the modern age and what they did to Bumblebee without any proof of imminent threat…from him anyway.”

Trying to keep kids and non-combatants out of the hands of shady government jack-boots didn’t quite hit Lennox’s radar for torture-worthy offenses.

Having a moral compass was weird like that.

Moonracer made a sad little trill, nuzzling closer to Guardian’s strut before the older sparkling bent down and picked him up, setting him easily on one hip-joint as the sparkling’s servos held onto his chest-plates, Beacon grumbling only for show as he had to cling tight to avoid toppling from his perch on Guardian’s shoulder.

“Crimes or not.”  Epps pointed out with a cynical twist to his mouth as he bolted down his rations and kept one ear on the conversation between Will and the ‘bots and an eye on the knocked-out Big Bad at the same time as the ‘bots moved all around them setting up a temporary base as close as he could tell, all save for the kid and his collection of misfits he’d “on-lined” if Bobby was starting to catch the lingo. Well, except for the one on his hip given that the kid had introduced the little guy as his brother.  “You know the brass is going to want their pound of flesh for Mission City and the S7 base.”

“We are aware.”  Optimus answered with a bit of dread in his tone.  “However, it was not our decision to take the AllSpark to a populated area, but a human one made by your team and your Secretary of Defense.  Were the battle staged in the open desert civilian casualties would have been avoided.”

“Make sure you say that to the brass.”  Epps advised him, taking that one for the team as Will got a self-loathing look on his face.  It’d been his idea, for all that Keller approved it.  Knowing his captain, it’d be years if ever before he forgave himself for the inevitable death-count and injuries that the battle in Mission City caused, even if his mind had been in the right place to try and get birds in the air to take out the combatant ‘bots.  “They’ll try and dodge any and all responsibility if you let them and hold your feet to the fire if they can.”

“I understand your meaning.”  Optimus agreed to take it under consideration.  “Though there is much we have to offer your people in an alliance, as such laying blame would be counterproductive.”

“Oh, you’re definitely a diplomat.”  Guardian snorted, piping back up from where he’d been talking lowly to his newly on-lined ‘bots and keeping Moonracer entertained while the mature mechs set up camp in the old hanger.  “And an idealist with it.  Good thing you won’t be going into any negotiations alone.”

“What do you mean, young one?”  Optimus asked politely, optics drawn – as were all the Autobots’ optics inevitably even as they carried out their orders, unable to go longer than a klik without checking on the pair of sparklings, even as surrounded by mechs as they were – to the slim form of the Seekling.

“I’m a Prime just as much as you are, Optimus.”  He reminded the older Prime.  “I’ll be in those meetings right there with you to keep your clear favor for the humans from trumping Transformer interests in the oncoming negotiations.”

Optimus ignored that implied censure and threat for now, focusing back on a subject that was very much at the forefront of his processor.

“How did you come to be in Mission City, young one?”  He asked.

Guardian snorted.

“You think power like that released with the AllSpark implosion just goes away?”  He arched an optic ridge at the mature mechs who all looked a degree of chagrined at his question.  “It had to go somewhere.  My Creator,” though he was certain only he heard the capital.  “Used it to send us,” he jiggled Moonracer on his hip.  “Through to Terra Sol with a payload of programming that I’m required to obey until completion for the betterment of our race and to begin my installment as a Prime.”

To that end, Guardian sent a compressed file that had been given to him to pass on to Optimus…likely with the hope that it would dim at least a little of his idealism regarding humans and bring his pedes back down to earth.

<<This is the total gathered information the humans’ Sector Seven were able to gather and reverse engineer from studying both Megatron, the AllSpark, and the murdered protoforms.>>  Guardian told him on a private comm link.  <<You might want to review it before this Secretary Keller arrives with whatever Sector Seven commanders survived Megatron’s prison-break and whoever else he brings with him.>>

Knowing that would keep the elder Prime busy sorting through the terabytes of data harvested, much of it likely the only surviving copies given Megatron had been aiming for the server banks when he blasted his way out of the Dam from what information had been passed on to Guardian by Primus to prepare him for his new tasks.

Speaking of which, Guardian sent an encoded message to Beacon, who then used his impressive comm systems to remotely hack Megatron whilst he was unconscious and vulnerable to upload the anti-virus Primus had crafted to combat the mis-clock caused by the Fallen.

Megatron hadn’t always been a tyrant and megalomaniac bent on galaxy-wide dominion after all.

He’d been a rebel.

A freedom-fighter taking on a corrupt High Council as his people, the people he’d been charged to serve and protect as the Lord High Protector, starved into stasis-lock and died.

If the Cybertronian race was going to survive, even with Guardian’s Sigma abilities, they were going to need that idealistic freedom fighter back, not the crazed glitched-out mis-clock he’d become under the Fallen’s control.

And he wasn’t the only one.

Shockwave had done his job well, infecting two of the highest-placed commanders in all of Cybertron’s vast empire under the Fallen’s control-net, though as time passed they became more and more glitched from their primary functions fighting the viruses and subroutines the Fallen and Shockwave had implanted.

Megatron at least was in hand, and hopefully through him – if he didn’t completely fry his own circuits when he was brought back on-line – they could reach Starscream since Soundwave was the only Transformer in existence that stood a chance at combating the Winglord’s processor long enough to upload the anti-virus other than his batch-mate Shockwave or Starscream’s trine-mates Skywarp and Thundercracker who Guardian had no idea of the whereabouts of as they hadn’t shown their faceplates at Mission City.

Guardian knew that he’d – they’d, he wasn’t alone anymore…he wouldn’t ever be alone anymore – would need all the help he could beg, borrow, or steal in order to take down the Fallen.

From the crucible into the smelter: he’d taken out one evil bastard – or at least made it finally possible – only to have to deal with another.

Though with the Fallen he at least had a bit of time to circle the wagons, the Victory being at least a couple years out thanks to the fuel shortage caused by millions of years of war between the two factions.

The frelling glitches.

One would think when waging a war of attrition that they would stop when their people weren’t at sustainability levels any longer.

Reason save him from zealots and fanatics.

He wondered if any of the younger generations of Autobots and Decepticons even knew why the war began in the first place or if hating and warring against each other was simply so entrenched they hadn’t needed a reason at all?

Not unlike the war he’d left behind, the one he’d found himself at the center of, Guardian thought.

<<Package delivered, creator.>>  Beacon reported.  The others might be fooling themselves that his creator was nothing more than a young Prime, but Beacon and his batch-mates all knew better.  Still…not his problem beyond the difficulties it might present with the older mechs going forward.  <<The medic as yet has not registered the subroutines as they engage with Megatron’s programming.>>

<<Good work, Beacon.>>  Guardian beamed a smile down at the mini-bot on his shoulder.  <<Keep an optic on his progress.  Let me know if Ratchet notices or begins to interfere with the debugging.>>

Paranoia alone would insist on the medic doing so if he discovered the anti-virus package Beacon had patched Megatron’s processor with.

They couldn’t afford it.

Not now.

Not with Keller inbound according to Skitter’s report, the femme being tasked with tracking the human movements, especially those using key phrases such as NBEs, Sector Seven, or Mission City/Hoover Dam incidents.

“What’s the deal with that, anyway?”  Epps asked, Lennox and the rest of the team sitting back and observing as the gregarious sergeant interacted with the alien mechs.  “I thought Optimus was your guys’ leader?”

“Being a Prime is more than a leader and it used to be that there were more than one at a time.”  Ironhide enlightened them.  “There were thirteen original Primes, the progenitors of our species.  Each served a specific purpose.  Optimus was chosen by the High Council and confirmed by both the Lord High Protector of Cybertron and the AllSpark as the ruling Prime.  Our young Seekling by his own admission fulfills a different purpose than a commander.”

Guardian gave a shrug when all eyes – and optics – turned towards him.

It wasn’t as if it wasn’t true after all and unless Optimus made some seriously fragged decisions he was perfectly happy to sit in the background and carry out his job of bolstering the Transformer numbers and ensuring the race’s ultimate survival.

Though his means were by both nature and choice drastically different than those of the Fallen for all that the latter would espouse that their ends were the same.

“An ability that all Primes possess is that of calling sparks from the Well via any of the powers or tools that exist for that purpose such as the AllSpark.”  Guardian supplied.  “I was created to do so naturally given the loss of the AllSpark, the Six hiding the Matrix of Leadership in their Tomb, and Vector Sigma no longer occurring.”  He gave a bit of a smirk at the others.  “A contingency plan if you will.”

“That true?”  Sam double-checked with Bee, who gave an absent nod of his helm, never taking his optics off of the youngest Prime he’d ever heard of in all their histories.

And given that Optimus, one of his main caregivers after he was found by the Autobots, was a former archivist, Bumblebee knew a lot of Cybertronian history.

“Primes also take new designations upon rising as a Prime.”  Ratchet noted cannily.

“Orion Pax.”  Optimus answered the unspoken question in the glances sent his direction by the humans, the Autobots – and given the depth of information Guardian seems to possess, he as well – already aware of his former identity as an archivist and historian.  “Though the original designations of the Primes before me have – mostly – been lost to time.”

“Only those after the original Thirteen have – or had – different designations upon being sparked as they did upon rising as Primes.”  Guardian pointed out with an eye-roll.  “I was sparked and designed as a Prime.”

Which was technically true.

What was the line?  I can’t go back to yesterday, I was a different person then?  Truer words from a riddle-happy madman.

“In a battle scenario, against a common enemy, my neutrals will obey Optimus.”  Guardian gave in a moment later, conceding something that hadn’t yet been broached for leverage later.  “Or whoever their assigned commander becomes.  I’m a creator and a leader and a Seeker not a general.”

At least…not anymore.

Those days – he hoped – were long behind him.

Optimus may be a fragging glitch sometimes when it came to his soft-spark but his ability to win battles against a much-better supplied and numbered force was unparalleled.

The Autobots were a small faction – they always had been.

And yet, millions of years after the war originally broke out, they were still facing off against Megatron and the Fallen…even if they were completely ignorant of the latter’s existence let alone his status as the power behind the madness consuming the Lord High Protector.

“That is a generous compromise, given that they first owe allegiance to yourself as their brother or creator, Guardian.”  Optimus accepted the proffered – if tentative – alliance with the good-nature he was infamous for to the point of being derided by the Decepticons as a soft-sparked fool.

“To be accurate.”  Guardian gave a self-deprecating half-grin.  “I’m only Safe Harbor’s creator.  The Mission City trine were on-lined through an accident – a happy one, now, but an accident nonetheless.  I merely sparked them.”

“Merely, he says.”  Ratchet scoffed with a roll of his optics.  “As if it’s as easy as pulling a wrench from my subspace.”

“I have a feeling…”  Mikaela said, having spent her time since Guardian Prime’s arrival watching everything and making a few deductions of her own.  “That for him, it might be that easy.  I mean…”  She continued despite having all optics around – not to mention pairs of human eyes – suddenly turned her way.  “You guys weren’t there, you didn’t see him when he, ah, sparked the new bots.  It was like breathing or blinking for a human.”

“Not quite that level of unconscious ease, I assure you.”  The Prime with a British accent smirked at her, interest written all over his face plate.  That one was more than an average teenage girl, even if her determination to save the life of Bumblebee hadn’t told him that already.

Much like Sam.

Anyone willing to risk their own life to protect others, as both teens had proven in the battle, were the sort of people that gave him hope.

Not really for humanity.

As a group they were remarkably callous, uncaring, and out-right dangerous, an opinion gained long before he was turned into a Transformer.

But for select humans, there was enough hope that convinced him foiling the Fallen’s plans for the Star Harvester were what was right…no matter Primus’s opinion on the matter or the programming He’d put into his processor.

“Though it isn’t an entirely inaccurate analogy.”  Guardian admitted with a tip of his helm to the side.

“So, Primes are leaders, got it.”  Epps nodded agreeably, lowering the walkie Gantry had passed off from his ear.  “Good to know since the command just came over the wire.  Keller, Banachek, and whoever else are coming this way, be here in ten after talking to Commander Gantry.”

…

United States Secretary of Defense John Keller walked into the large airplane hanger looking a bit the worse for wear and trailing, as expected, Sector Seven’s head of advanced research Tom Banachek, a fresh uniform behind him for his protection, and Commander Gantry bringing up the rear with a severe air of being “put upon” whenever Secretary Keller looked away from the base commander.

There were no aides or “consultants” such as the analyst and her hacker friend who had accompanied him to the S7 base inside the Hoover Dam.

No extraneous personnel of any kind.

Just the lead adviser for defense to the man who many considered the leader of the free world, there to open talks – though of what kind had yet to be determined – with the leader of a race of extraterrestrials.

A race that mankind had unarguably benefitted from and been damaged by.

It was a defining moment.

For both species.

Though, Keller had to admit, it wasn’t often that he’d been caught so much on the backfoot as he was when he saw firsthand that, yes indeed there was more out there in the universe than humanity had ever thought as he’d beheld the cyro-frozen form of “NBE-1” or Megatron as the group had been enlightened by a damn teenager of all people.

He’d known there were more, he’d been told there were more, even met the Camaro himself and fought off a tiny little thing full of spinning blades and furious frenzy, but staring up at a pair of alien beings made of metal as the rest of them currently on Earth besides a few rogues all sat and stood back with the SpecOps team, being most obvious in their casual “not-listening” poses, he found himself once again flabbergasted, both at this being the new reality and at the differences in simple size let alone shape, color, and so on carried out through a people made of machines.

Captain Will Lennox stepped up to do the introductions, the team leader though clearly exhausted having been drafted as an intermediary of sorts between the Autobots and the small group of men representing the U.S. government in various forms.

“Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots of Cybertron and Guardian Prime, leader of the Neutrals of the Silver Galaxy,” Lennox had blinked at that when he’d asked how the two wanted to be introduced but at this point it was all one haze of information he was planning on drowning in Scotch and then freaking out over tomorrow.  “This is the Secretary of Defense for the United States of America: John Keller, Head of Advanced Research for Sector Seven: Tom Banachek, and you’ve already met the Commander of Nellis Air Force Base Commander Gantry.  Gentlemen, the leaders of the friendly, Non-Biological Extraterrestrials.”  With a nod and a wave at each party, Will stepped back, content to stay the hell out of things until or if he was needed again.

“Gentlemen, or gentlerobots I suppose.”  Keller stepped forward, blinking a bit when the bigger one – much bigger as the one Cpt. Lennox had introduced as Guardian Prime wasn’t more than a few feet taller than a human where the rest for the most part were giants in comparison – came down on one knee, or whatever part they called it, to be closer to his level.  “As Cpt. Lennox said, I’m John Keller, the Secretary of Defense for the country you have landed in by accident or design.  As such I have been authorized by the President of the United States to open talks with your people in the interest of creating a treaty between us.”

“Secretary Keller, Commander Gantry.”  Optimus nodded his helm even as Guardian had rolled his optics at his kneeling onto a strut joint with a chime of <<Diplomat.>> going unheard by their human counterparts.  “We would like to thank you for the temporary lodgings supplied on your military base.  We are aware of how disconcerting it can be, meeting alien life: friendly or otherwise.”

“Yes, yes it has been a bit of a learning curve for me.”  Keller had to admit.  “However, there are some serious questions we have for your people, Optimus Prime,” he nodded to the larger robot then the smaller.  “Guardian Prime.”

However, before he could continue, as he took a bracing breath, the smaller robot spoke for the first time.

“We have some serious questions for your government as well, Secretary Keller.”  Guardian arched an optic ridge at the surprised look that gained him from the older statesman.  “Would you care to hear the sum of them or to present your own issues and concerns first?”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you mean.”  Keller frowned over at the smaller robot, noting the paint job it had that was quite different from the rest of the Autobots except for one, all of whom were rather bright in coloring.

“Don’t you?”  Guardian tilted his head, taking that as a go-ahead from the man.  “Interesting.  Since your own men,” he gestured to Banachek and the SpecOps soldiers.  “Have confirmed that not only have you held without trial or due process two sentient beings of our people but that your people have also murdered dozens of infant protoforms as well as harvesting information via reverse-engineering from that unlawful torture and imprisonment that has benefited your species to the tune of at least trillions of dollars in technological advancements…to start.  Some of which, Secretary Keller, you witnessed for yourself…or am I mistaken?”

“Well, we know for sure Guardian Prime’s not a diplomat like he called Optimus.”  Epps whispered to Burke.  “That was one hell of a starting shot, Guardian doesn’t pull his punches.”

“And your people have cost human lives in the hundreds.”  Keller responded a moment later.  “A cost that cannot be equated with dollar signs.”

“Should not, perhaps.”  Guardian allowed.  “But cannot, no that I don’t believe given that if one were to weigh the value of lives, or look at simple statistics, humans have murdered or otherwise killed as little as thirty percent of our current population and as much as fifty percent.”  His faceplate settled in a scowl even as Optimus leaned forward.  “Ninety percent or more of whom were protoforms: infants.  Not that I am excusing the actions of the Decepticon faction, but given that you’d imprisoned their leader for over a hundred years, the losses of your military base in Qatar and the Sector Seven base could have been foreseen and prevented as Megatron’s captivity presented a clear danger to your people.”

“Both of our peoples have secured losses.”  Optimus took a step into the verbal ring with his counterparts.  “That is undeniable.  Seeking retribution will benefit no one.”

“Maybe not but it’ll feel good.”  Guardian muttered, rolling his optics as Banachek did the same.

Optimus continued as if he hadn’t intentionally voiced that with his vocal processor instead of his comms so that the humans could hear it.

“What we should focus on in protecting the Earth from a mutual enemy and forming a partnership, as the Cybertronian race has much to offer humanity.”

“What guarantee do we have that this ongoing threat exists?”  Banachek asked with a scowl.  “NBE-1 was beaten according to all reports, you have him in custody.”

“Megatron was beaten.”  Guardian nodded his helm.  “But despite information you may have received otherwise, Megatron was not the leader of the Decepticons: merely the commander of their military forces.  That honor belongs to a mech known as the Fallen, a zealot of Unicron with a grudge against all biological species.”

“Oh, great.”  Sam groused to Mikaela, rubbing one hand over his face where they were pretending not to eavesdrop.  “There’s a bigger-bad alien robot bent on the destruction of Earth.  Fantastic.”

“Metatronius Prime?”  Optimus turned his helm to look at Guardian.  “I thought he offlined long ago?”

“I’m sure you did.”  Guardian told him.  “He likely wanted it that way, the better to advance his cause.  After all, who’s the better draw for the young and discontented mechs and femmes of Cybertron: the disgraced and mad former-Prime or the charismatic Lord High Protector?”

Even Keller and Banachek, not having ever met the beings in question and only vaguely aware of the nature of the conflict between the various alien factions, had to admit that it was an excellent point.

“Then how do we know this Fallen character is even going to come to Earth?”  Keller posed the next rebuttal question, the lack of knowledge he and his people had had going into this day keeping him seriously underprepared to deal with the issues that had arisen since the strike on the base in Qatar.  “Now that the Cube is gone and Megatron is in custody?”

“Because he’s already on his way.”  Guardian told them – all, this being the first the Autobots and his own faction had heard this little gem as well.  “The Victory, the Fallen’s flagship with most of their siege force left their current outpost in beta-quadrant once Starscream’s advance team had positively identified Earth as the originator of Megatron’s signal.”

...

Chapter Text

Sparked by Design

Author’s Note: I’ve updated the Language and Slang guide in the first chapter as of 7/14/18.

Chapter Three: The Non-Biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty

June 13^th, 2007; The Pentagon

“Gentlemen.”  Secretary of Defense Keller spoke to a dozen of the high-ranking soldiers and officials who were involved or otherwise aware of the NBE issue.  “The President has ordered that Sector Seven, in accordance with the Non-Biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty, be disbanded and a handful of uninhabited islands or those with only a military presence, be turned over to the aliens as recompense for the sentient lives Sector Seven took without redress or forethought.  A story has already begun to circulate, filtered through the appropriate channels, and the NBEs have collected all evidence of their people from Mission City and the surrounding area.  At the current state, it behooves us to become friends and allies with a people that we have seriously harmed in the hope that they will continue to stand with us against the ongoing threat to our planet posed by the being known as the Fallen…”

…

Sand Island, Midway Atoll

<<With the AllSpark gone, we cannot return life to our planet.>>  Optimus Prime sent Guardian Prime’s communications specialist Beacon the wording he wished used on the signal to the Autobots throughout the galaxy as Guardian watched on.

They’d used the materials present on the Midway Air Force Base, a base that was set to be one of two used for the NEST joint species taskforce along with the one on Diego Garcia, to create a beacon that would direct the landing of any Cybertronian that came to Terra Sol to the empty Spit Island, a small piece of land but more than large enough for any of their people to hit on entering Terra Sol’s atmosphere.

Now all they needed was the message.

<<And fate has yielded its reward: a new world to call home and a second Prime with the ability to call forth new life from the Well.  We live among the people of Terra Sol now, in territories granted us by them, or hiding among them in plain sight, but always watching over them in secret.  Waiting.  Protecting.  I have witnessed their capacity for both cruelty and courage, and though we are worlds apart, like us there is more to them than meets the optic.  I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message to any surviving Autobots or Neutral Cybertronian left taking refuge among the stars.  We are here.  We are waiting.>>

<<Should I add anything, Creator?>>  Beacon asked, turning his helm up to the optics of Guardian Prime.

Guardian shook his helm.

It was missing a few things he’d add were it him, but in the end: he wasn’t the leader of the Autobots.  Optimus was.  He had to trust him to know how to speak to his people, even if the Neutrals weren’t his to command.

<<Send it, Beacon.>>  Guardian told the communications specialist.  <<With the correct trajectory and coordinates for Spit Island.  It wouldn’t do to have our people falling from the sky into any more cities.>>  He frowned.  <<With as disgruntled some of the humans were over the land-price attached to the treaty, and the destruction of the Sector Seven servers and mainframe by Megatron, we might not ever find them if the humans get there first.>>

Beacon nodded, then looked upwards and sent out a powerful blast of condensed coded information containing the message that any Cybertronian would be able to understand but would take any humans trying to intercept it eons to decode, then anchored the repeating message to the antenna and beacon on Spit Island for continuous broadcasting.

<<It is done, Creator.>>

<<Excellent work, Beacon.>>  Guardian praised him, turning from watching Optimus speaking with Ironhide and now-Lieutenant Colonel Lennox over the logistics of clearing out Diego Garcia, the SpecOps team that had originally fought with the Autobots in Mission City having been given the option of a discrete honorable discharge with an upgraded retirement package or a promotion and being moved onto the NEST taskforce.  To little surprise, all but one soul who was more freaked than fascinated with actual alien life had taken the promotions and the now-NEST operatives were based with the Transformers at NEST AFB Midway.

Midway, Wake, and Palmyra Atolls, all considered to ostensibly be uninhabited beyond a few military or science personnel, had been easy enough for the Transformers to take possession of, as well as Jarvis Island, even if they didn’t have immediate need for some of them.  They were owed.  As he’d told Secretary Keller, they were owed quite dearly considering with Blackout’s death the perpetrator of the Qatar attack was gone and human involvement had led to the deaths in Mission City and the Hoover Dam.

That Blackout’s cassette Scorponok was considered likely alive if damaged wasn’t shared.

Especially since he was still attached to the Decepticon cause and AWOL at that.

Guardian Prime enjoyed finagling every last piece of concessions out of the U.S. government as possible.

Probably enjoyed it more than he should.

But he was honest with himself at least: he had issues with authority, let alone governments, and the information given to him by Primus Himself had in no way alleviated any of them.

Diego Garcia was a more difficult case.

It had a bloody history, the indigenous population either killed or driven off by the colonizing British and Americans, who in the end only used it for one joint-use base.

Optimus had been less than thrilled about the history behind it when he’d been told by Epps, but it was one of the best equipped for running the NEST joint task force and they needed a base in that part of the world.

There would be two bases for the joint task force, with two different human leaders.  The main would be at Diego Garcia under a General Morshower while the secondary base would be at Midway under Lennox.  At the moment they didn’t have a large enough Transformer presence on Terra Sol to bother with having mechs at both bases…and Guardian would rather be at Midway where there was much less human military presence, such as Banachek who’d managed to transition to a position with NEST as a liaison to the Pentagon rather than being scrubbed with most of the agents and researchers.

He didn’t trust humans at all.

After all, he’d been one, fought in a blood-war as one.

He knew what they were capable of in a way that none of the rest of his new people did.

Guardian would always be suspicious of humans in general though some individuals would eventually prove worth his trust such as Sam and Mikaela, though Epps was growing on him and Lennox decent enough.

In the meantime, he had other issues to worry about that didn’t mesh well with having to deal with playing nice with humans all the time like Optimus did, the diplomat eagerly agreeing to serve as liaison himself after Guardian had proved more than once during the NEST negotiations that he had no patience for the role.

Someone needed to keep the more trigger-happy humans from dropping a nuke on them…and Primus knew it wasn’t going to be Guardian.

Transport was still an issue that the Transformers relied on humans for to come and go from “their” islands, a situation that Guardian had foreseen as an irritation in requesting island atolls in the first place to balance the security they provided, leading to his requests for both materials to create genuine, designed protoforms for sparklings as well as a few human machines that he would – once things had settled down a bit and the humans were less leery of having an increased alien presence on their planet – spark into Transformers.

Specifically, a Lockheed Martin C5 Galaxy military transport plane and an aircraft carrier.

Each would “blend” with human technology when in-transport, but they will also give them the ability to move their mechs and femmes where ever needed without relying on the human military.

A win-win as far as both Keller and Guardian were concerned, given that he had information Keller needed regarding the Fallen, though the Secretary of Defense wasn’t aware – intentionally so – as to the exact use that Guardian wanted them for.

He could extrapolate but needed a bit of plausible deniability in case the whole NEST situation blew up in his face.

Now that Guardian had been sparked, there was nothing really keeping them on Terra Sol other than Optimus’s sense of duty and that it was a hospitable planet for them with energy sources that could be refined into energon for the Cybertronians and that was naturally derived from their star for Guardian and the other Earth-sparked Transformers…another bit of information that the humans didn’t need.

They could derive solar radiation anywhere.

In any system.

Terra Sol just happened to be suitable at the moment.

The second it became inhospitable, Guardian would be scooping up Moonracer and heading for the next system at full speed…and that was if he didn’t find one of the few mechs left with space-bridge tech before then since that tech would make decamping from Earth even easier.

No, humans wanted what they had to offer, and that was good.

It kept them from doing anything truly stupid.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t plan for contingencies…just in case.

Though, hopefully once he was able to recharge and Primus’s initial commands faded away, he’d be less damn paranoid.

Guardian was starting to annoy himself, making him glad that he kept the majority of his issues with humans to himself since if he was annoyed, he didn’t want to imagine what Keller or Banachek’s responses would have been.

Walking into the main hanger, Guardian clocked the shipment of metals that Ratchet was directing Ironhide, Bumblebee, and Scattershot in sorting out as he worked on Jazz’s broken form while Overdrive watched over/entertained Moonracer, with help from Scattershot’s trine-mate Terrabyte, the final trine mate Skitter busy keeping her processors locked on the different government agencies that knew of the alien presence on Terra Sol, her current main mission from Guardian.

Well, after she’d hacked the accounted linked to Sector Seven and authorized an untraceable payment to the Witwickys to cover the damage caused by both Sector Seven’s investigation of their home...and the Autobots’ destruction, while accidental, of their yard.

He already knew after a rotation’s acquaintance that Optimus wouldn’t approve, but thankfully Guardian didn’t answer to Optimus Prime.

In addition to the islands and the materials, Guardian had set Skitter and Beacon to some, ah, educational hacking of Sector Seven’s accounts and not just for the benefit of the Witwickys.  Being of former human extraction, Guardian knew how the world worked.  And money talked.

Humans respected two forms of power more than any others: arms and funds.

They had the humans woefully outmatched in the former and thanks to the utter lack of oversight of Sector Seven the government had done, now they had the second.  Well…  Thanks to lack of oversight and untraceable bank accounts in Switzerland.

Eventually they would need to order more materials, different materials, or what have you that weren’t supplied under the initial agreement between the human governments and the Primes.  He wanted them to have the money to avoid another deal and then another and another from happening.  A pattern of events that would someday come to bite them on the afts.

No, a bit of punitive damages were just what the medic ordered.

His morality would cringe, but he comforted himself that if they’d been human and taken a wrongful death suit with as much evidence as they had to bring to bear before a judge that they would have been awarded the money anyway.

The humans considered the treaty their recompense for the wrongs they’d done to them.

Guardian, a Prime gifted with the power to create, considered it a down payment.

Optimus would forgive.

Megatron would want blood.

Guardian took what hurt the humans the most: property and money.

…

That night, after Moondancer had cuddled up inside Safe Harbor to recharge, Guardian found himself involved in an intense debate with the Autobot officers, Bumblebee together with the rest of the newly onlined bots all in recharge while Ironhide took his turn at watch, the weapons specialist taking the shift when the humans but for their guards slept and most of the bots were in recharge to protect them all when they were at their most vulnerable.

“You want to what?”  Ratchet’s optics flickered in shock at the words coming over from Guardian’s comms, the Prime clearly not wanting to take a chance on any sensitive information being overheard by the humans.

<<I’ve had Beacon monitoring Megatron’s processors as the anti-virus he uploaded after the Mission City battle did its work.”  Guardian elaborated.  <<He’s back to spec.>>

<<Anti-virus?>>  Optimus questioned with a frown.

<<Glitch-aft’d mis-clock?>>  Guardian questioned himself.  <<I’m not the only one who heard Bumblebee call him that, right?  Or that I agreed with that assessment?>>

<<Your agreement was implied, I believe.>>  Ironhide noted.  <<You’re saying that Megatron really was glitched, not just mis-clocked?>>

<<The Fallen did it.>>  Guardian shrugged, he didn’t know much more about it than that, though with the historical overview Primus had given with his data package and the genetic memory he could probably make some pretty accurate hypotheses on the subject.  <<With help from Shockwave, glitched Starscream as well, going to need Soundwave to help upload the anti-virus to the Winglord since even Skitter and Beacon working together aren’t enough to breech his programming.>>

<<Cybertron below me.>>  Optimus’s optics flickered dangerously and he seemed to sway in shock.  <<That’s…>>

<<A fragging shock.>>  Ironhide comm’d bluntly.  <<I’m one of few mechs old enough to remember vorns before the Wars, Optimus and Ratchet as well.  Megatron’s descent into glitched behavior seemed both gradual and inevitable.>>

<<It had to be, for both of them.>>  Guardian extrapolated.  <<Given what I know of both mechs’ processing abilities, they would’ve noticed a full-assault.  I’d venture by the time they or anyone else knew something was truly wrong it was far too late to reason away or do anything about it.>>

<<How certain are you that the mech that on-lines won’t still be fragged, seekling?>>  Ironhide asked the pertinent question.  <<Damage like that can take a serious toll on a mech’s processor.>>

<<Since Primus gave me the anti-virus when he onlined me.>>  Guardian told them drily, reveling in the shocked faceplates of the elder mechs.  <<I’m one-hundred percent certain that the mech that wakes up won’t be the glitch-afted mis-clock that offlined thanks to the AllSpark in Mission City.  I’m hoping that the mech that on-lines will be the idealistic rebel leader that Megatron was before the Fallen got his hook in him.  But anything less than a megalomaniac tri-former would be an improvement.>>

“Primus was your Creator.”  Optimus whispered aloud in shock, the other mechs off-lining – if only for a klik – as they processed that information.  It just didn’t compute.  They’d been without any sign of Primus’s favor for so many vorns that it didn’t want to compute.

And yet…

Guardian Prime had Primus-given gifts they couldn’t explain in any other way, things that hadn’t been spoken of since the original Thirteen.

He was the embodiment of Vector Sigma power in a way that the AllSpark had never been, being merely a tool without sentience to use the power that had been placed within it.

This young sparkling on the cusp of taking on his youngling mech form was as much a gift as he was gifted.

For his part, Guardian just nodded, showing none of his inner-glee at making the officers’ processors freeze since his sense of humor wasn’t completely buried under Primus’s commands like some of his sensibilities had been leaving the way clear for his pragmatism to reign supreme until he clocked-out for recharge, something he still hadn’t found time for with the treaty negotiations and putting Skitter up to no-good and helping Beacon build the repeater that they placed on Spit Island and so on.

He’d been a bit busy to recharge and that was all beside having all the data dumped on him processing in the background so that he didn’t have to stop and unpack parts of the data when he needed them like he’d had to in Mission City to figure out how to use his comms.

A full breem passed as the mech officers processed Guardian’s origins – and by extension Moonracer’s.

<<How are we going to explain this to the humans?>>  Ratchet focused on that, unable to consider the rest of the implications of Guardian’s latest bombs.  IF Megatron and Starscream were both glitched…really, truly glitched…then legions of Cybertronians had died under their orders for a cause that they didn’t believe in once they switched focus from taking down the High Council and ruling elite to expansion at any cost.  At its spark, in the beginning Megatron’s rebellion had been an economic uprising.  It was never about conquest until…until when?  Ratchet asked himself.

Then it came to him.

The attack on Praxus and all the civilian casualties that came along with it.

That was when the Decepticon cause changed.

Commonly considered the Decepticon response to the High Council’s mercenaries attacking Vos, as many of the winged-mechs and femmes were part of the Decepticon forces, it remained even thousands of vorns later to be the single worst strike by any side in the Cybertron wars for sheer collateral damage.

That was when the revered Lord High Protector began being feared more than respected or beloved by his people and his enemies alike.

<<They understand the concept of brainwashing, believe me.>>  Guardian responded.  <<Part of our agreement covers all Transformers found engaged in criminal activities being subject to Transformer-determined sanctions not human justice.  Community service is also a thing they understand.>>

Maybe his tone was a little snarky, but he was starting to wear down and humans annoyed him even when he was one.

<<Some of the Autobots are going to have major problems with this merging you’re guiding us towards, Guardian.>>  Optimus warned.  <<And not all of the Decepticons are going to follow Megatron and Starscream away from the Fallen.>>

<<I’m aware.>>  Guardian told him, giving a processor-sigh to himself as his shoulder-plates slumped.  <<And it sucks.  But I can’t change the past, that’s one power Primus didn’t give me.  All I can do is seek the betterment and survival of my people, all of my people, and their survival as a viable species as I was programmed, nothing less would be acceptable to me.>>

He would save as many as he could.

And those he couldn’t…

Well.

He’d won one war already and ended another by his very existence.

If he had to finish this one too to finally have peace, he’d damn-well do it, even if he did so by poking and prodding at Optimus and Megatron until they got along as the brothers they’d damn well been onlined as or holding Red Alert down until he agreed to play nice…when or if ever the Security Specialist ever arrived on Terra Sol.

<<When?>>  Optimus asked quietly, as at this point they’d all accepted that sparkling or not, Guardian was going to do as he Primus-well-pleased unless one of the bigger mech physically restrained him.  With help from his faction, even that might not work since it was programming monitored by Ratchet’s hard-line connection that was keeping Megatron offline, and as Guardian and Beacon had already proven with slipping their anti-virus passed the medic, altering the corrupted programming implanted by the Fallen with help from Shockwave.

<<No time like the present.>>  Guardian told them.  <<We don’t need an audience for this, especially a human one.  I don’t anticipate that the Lord High Protector will take the actions he’s either ordered or participated in since being glitched well at all.  The less optics around for that impending meltdown the better.>>

…

They rose and surrounded the laid-out form of Megatron, the triple-formed Lord High Protector of Cybertron both offlined and repaired by Ratchet in the last few days, the medic giving attention to the damage caused by both the battle and vorn after vorn frozen in sub-zero temperatures when he needed a break from the spark-hurting task of piecing Jazz back together.

Guardian had been honest in that he would give calling back Jazz’s spark his best shot but that they might need to find the Matrix of Leadership to manage it.

He didn’t yet know how complete his spark-calling abilities were, hadn’t had cause to test them to that extent yet.

Four forms of spark-calling existed: spark-splitting, a form of asexual reproduction (as humans would understand it); spark-merging, a form of sexual reproduction (as humans would understand it); regular spark-calling as Guardian had already accomplished in Mission City; and lastly spark-recalling as would be needed for Jazz.

Before Guardian’s sparking, only the AllSpark could spark-call and only the Matrix of Leadership could spark-recall, making Optimus and Ratchet optimistic that Guardian might be able to do the latter as he’d proven capable with the former.

In theory, Guardian would also be able to online Blackout, Brawl, and Bonecrusher as they’d been offlined at the same time as Jazz.

However, the damage to Blackout and Brawl hadn’t just been done by another Cybertronian but by sabot rounds from human weaponry burning holes clear through parts of them.

He could, probably, fix the damage and respark them.

But Brawl and Bonecrusher at least were both known for their battle-lust, being ruthless killers, moreover Primus hadn’t given Guardian any directives to keep them alive as had been done for Megatron and Starscream.

Blackout would have to wait until Megatron was back online and able to give Guardian information on where the mech’s loyalties were, besides which he was even more controversial then Megatron when it came to dealing with the humans given that he had been the one to destroy their SOCCENT base in Qatar and had sicced his cassette Scorponok on the survivors, causing civilian casualties.

Frenzy hadn’t been recovered from the Sector Seven base, leading them to assume he escaped despite reports that he’d been damaged beyond repair by the humans.

His partner, as Guardian understood things, Barricade hadn’t been at the battle in Mission City at all, leading him to think that the mech was responsible for Frenzy’s escape, since a police car wouldn’t have looked out of place with all the emergency responders who had been deployed to Hoover Dam thanks to Starscream’s attack.

Optimus nodded to Ratchet and the medic discontinued the programming keeping Megatron offline then disconnected the hard cable.

If nothing else, Guardian’s anti-virus – in theory – had freed the Autobots from having to keep one of the four currently on Terra Sol and online from having to be physically patch into Megatron’s systems to keep him a prisoner as they definitely did not have the means to keep him subdued any other way.

Red optics flickered then lit up, the Lord High Protector’s helm turning one way then the other as he clocked who stood over his berth, then the information payload that had been packaged with the anti-virus unloaded…and about the time his processor hit the truth of his existence as the Fallen’s bitch-bot for vorn beyond vorns, it froze and he was back off-line, though this time from natural overload and not from an Autobot forcing him into the state.

Guardian snickered a bit at the big-bad-bot having a processor-freeze upon waking.

Safe Harbor owed him twenty bucks.

They’d bet on Megatron having an epic meltdown tantrum, not offlining in shock.

Though, having watched as more than one Autobot experienced mini-freezes at some of the information he’d dumped on their heads, Guardian had a bit of an insight into how Megatron was likely to react given that it was all piled on him at once and was highly personal considering it was his processor that had been played with.

“Oh yes.”  Guardian said drolly as red optics began to flicker again, Megatron snapping back online and still utterly confused by the sight of a worried Optimus hovering over him even with the succinct explanation of events the winglet he recognized as Guardian Prime according to said explanation had given him, right before experiencing another processor-freeze at finding the knowledge regarding Guardian’s Prime designation.  “He’s terrifying.  I’m shaking on my pedes.”

…

It took a half a decacycle for Megatron to stop glitching out or having issues with experiencing a series of processor mini-freezes as he sorted out vorns and vorns of damage from the fragging Fallen’s corrupting his processor.

Shockwave’s betrayal wasn’t nearly as shocking to the Lord High Protector as the Fallen’s mere existence nevermind what the Fallen had done to him with Shockwave’s help and all the fallout that had come afterwards.  The deaths.  The damage to both his people and so many others.

He was supposed to be the Lord High Protector of Cybertron and he couldn’t even protect himself from his own Science Officer and Fourth in Command.

Though being glitched out of his processor explained the insanity of leaving Shockwave as the Steward of Cybertron.

Let alone risking alienating his entire aerial command by constantly belittling their Winglord and Aerial Commander in Starscream.

Not tactically sound decisions.

Though given that waging a war of attrition across the stars wasn’t that sound either he wasn’t all that surprised over some of the epically fragged decisions he’d made since being glitched by the Fallen.

None of it levened the weight of the deaths on his servos.

Nothing ever would.

But.

But.

Now there was Guardian Prime and a new purpose for a Lord High Protector with nothing to protect but a few dozen remaining Cybertronians and a dead planet.

Some rotations it was all that kept him from letting himself fall into stasis-lock.

The sight of little Moonracer toddling along after Guardian Prime or chirping on his brother’s back between his wings as the Prime went about his day.

His people needed a protector.

Optimus, his brother, was a diplomat and in this place they needed that too, but with a way to have sparklings again not merely drones, Megatron and his troops had a purpose beyond that of serving the Fallen and he hoped they would turn from that cause with the truths that Guardian had shared with him presented to them.

There were some who were remorseless, little more than drones themselves after eons of war.

Brawl and Bonecrusher had been two of that number.

No one would mourn them beyond the general loss of Cybertronian life.

Blackout was of a different ilk, following Megatron from the ranks of the military academy to the defense force to the Decepticons, for the sake of Blackout Megatron hoped that Guardian Prime’s experiment with Jazz was successful.

He would like to have his old friend back now that Megatron was once more capable of being a friend.

Too much had gone on between himself and Starscream to ever hope that his one-time lover would ever return to his side, even after Soundwave completed penetrating the Seeker’s firewalls and uploaded Guardian Prime’s anti-virus routine to combat Shockwave’s meddling with his processor.

Starscream had his trine now.

He would never come back to Megatron’s side.

As much as he’d hurt him…Megatron didn’t know that he even wanted him to.

He wasn’t worthy of the level of forgiveness that would take, nearly on par with the forgiveness it would take to repair his relationship with Optimus.

But as Blackout was of a different ilk than Brawl or Bonecrusher, Optimus was a different ilk from Starscream, their relationship much longer and deeper than that of the Winglord with the Lord High Protector.

There was no power in the universe that would keep Optimus from being his forgiving, empathetic self.

And with evidence to back-up Guardian Prime’s assurances once Megatron was able to isolate the corruption and remove it in a separate storage file for Ratchet’s diagnosis, Optimus wouldn’t hear anything regarding Megatron’s guilt for any event that took place after Shockwave had hacked him.

Stars would implode before Optimus would change his mind now that he had his brother back.

The stubborn soft-sparked fool.

Optimus hadn’t been designed by their parental units to be a Prime, not like Guardian had been.  When a mech or femme or bonded pair or trine or gestalt applied for a sparkling rather than attempt spark-splitting or spark-merging to create one, they would request certain programming.  A common request for those with more than one offspring was that the newspark would complement the elder sparkling of the parental units.  Optimus had been made in many ways to be the perfect partner and companion for Megatron.

Fated, some would say.

And before Optimus was raised up as a Prime and Megatron glitched to the Pits and back by Shockwave and the Fallen, they would have said that they were meant to be as well, that bonding was an inevitability.

In many ways the remnants of that relationship, deeper than brothers, more intimate than lovers, had been the ghost that kept Megatron from attaching as he should, as he was meant to do according to his new programming, with Starscream.

It was the one way Megatron had failed the Fallen before his programming was purged of corruption by Guardian’s anti-virus.

His one failure.

A frelling good thing he had failed, as while Optimus would forgive him a lot of things, the stubborn creature would have likely been pushed beyond his limits of civility if Megatron had bonded another.

Megatron knew he never would’ve forgiven Optimus if he had done, with Ironhide or another mech in his army who would be a suitable ornament for the Prime.

Forgiveness wasn’t something that could be earned, it was something that was given.

That didn’t mean Megatron wouldn’t spend vorns trying anyway.

Maybe before some stripling mech sent him to the Pits he’d actually manage it.

He had to hope anyway.

Otherwise, beside protecting Guardian Prime and the new sparklings, what was the point?

…

Chapter Text

Sparked by Design

Author’s Note: It came up in a comment, then I realized I’d failed to address it properly.

I tinkered with the Fallen’s original name.  In canon it’s Megatronus Prime but that was just way too close to Megatron for me.  I’ve written it as Metatronius Prime instead for two reasons: to get a little separation between the two characters and because I can’t flipping stand the character of Metatron from Supernatural so any chance to take a shot at him really...

That is all.

Enjoy!

Chapter Four: Nubot Command

July 30^th, 2007; Sand Island, Midway Atoll

The tension around the Sand Island base was so thick and brittle that it seemed at times the slightest movement or sound might shatter it or cause it to implode and take the entire population of Transformers and NEST operatives with them in the wake of Guardian Prime’s defragging Megatron’s systems.

Two decacycles had come and gone since the Lord High Protector had been onlined, bringing with them both change and stasis.

Change in that a likewise un-glitched Starscream had shown up a handful of rotations after Megatron’s own defragging, alone, to investigate whether Megatron was changed or if he remained the same megalomaniac he’d been since planning the Praxus attack.

A rotation later – which involved yet another discussion with the humans over the necessity of gathering forces to fight the Fallen, yes, even Decepticons who had shot down F-22’s over Mission City – he’d summoned the aerial mechs who’d been loyal to either him or Megatron before the Fallen, including his bonded trine-mates from the dark side of the moon where they’d been hidden since arriving with Starscream’s advance team to scout Terra Sol, confirm the presence of Megatron and/or the Allspark, and free/obtain them if at all possible before the Fallen’s arrival on the Victory.

They’d had to open a new hanger to hold berths and wash racks alone, keeping the main hanger as the med bay, recreation area, and energon hall and storage with the new arrivals to help them integrate into a single faction.

Skywarp and Thundercracker together with Starscream had some of the highest Autobot kill-counts among the Decepticons; while Skyfire, a shuttle-class aerial, and his bonded trine-mate Nightfire, a Seeker, hadn’t heard from their other bonded trine-mate Jetfire since the bomber with space-bridge tech had been one of the very first scouts sent out seeking the tomb of the Six to locate the Matrix for the Fallen at the beginning of the Fallen’s takeover of the Decepticon leadership.

Five Decepticons and all aerials, but not all of the forces the Winglord commanded merely those that had come with him to Terra Sol, the rest were on the move towards the planet to answer their Winglord’s call.

Even those who wouldn’t deign to follow Optimus Prime or join the Autobots were outraged at what the Fallen had done to their Winglord, the former Prime managing to do something even Megatron hadn’t dared in all his vorns as the commander of the Decepticons: insult the aerials of Vos.  At times some of them hadn’t agreed with the course their Winglord had chosen for them, but aerials were loyal.  Once given their allegiance rarely faltered.

For those left after the wars, what the Fallen had done was a grave insult and attack on them as a whole, one they’d never stop attempting to redress.

Which fit with what Guardian Prime knew of the former Metatronius Prime, the Fallen.

Arrogant enough to think he do as he would for vorns without measure and never be made to deal with the fallout.

Megatron had personally called in Barricade, the SpecOps grounder bringing Frenzy with him, the hacker in bad shape but surviving to reach Ratchet’s not-so-gentle mercies for repair, the human NEST team from Midway tagging along inside Skyfire’s rather-conspicuous Cybertronian shuttle alt form to pick up the pair from a deserted air-strip outside Los Angeles as arranged with their commander.  Barricade was one of Megatron’s original recruits from the defense force to his cause, a genius interrogator and soldier who’d excelled at the Military Academy in stealth missions training where his twin had risen just as fast up the command track at the Academy and been snatched up for the Prime’s personal guard…the rest was history pitting a pair of twin brother mechs against each other.  Frenzy on the other hand was one of Soundwave’s cassettes, his parent the Deception’s Communications Officer and was Megatron’s most loyal lieutenant.  He would follow the Lord High Protector out of love for his parent even if he found the thought of working with Autobots distasteful and downright hated doing so alongside squishy humans.

The frenetic little bot who’d more than earned his designation had clicked right away with the neutral communication bots and hackers, though more than once as the humans watched him spaz-out around the main hanger turned recreation and meeting area they’d asked if he had the Cybertronian equivalent of ADHD as he exhausted even Skitter and Terrabyte’s energy levels.

Guardian couldn’t really blame him when the mech mini-bot had explained that he’d been separated from his spark-twin ever since the Fallen had ordered him and Barricade to Terra Sol ahead of Soundwave, who traveled faster than the Victory but not as fast as Skyfire and the Seekers.

The communications officer was at least within comm range, able to route messages to his separated twins as Rumble remained with their parent, a comfort they hadn’t had for over a vorn.

Having Starscream on-base was a boon in more than one way, as he along with Skyfire had both attended the Science Academy before the wars, able to take the data-package information Guardian had on refining various forms of energy Terra Sol boasted into energon for the bots not equipped with built-in refining processes like Guardian and Moonracer’s solar-radiation harvesting colored polymers, the cause of the dark-grey patches on both mechlings’ frames, an adaptation Guardian had passed on to Safe Harbor as a gestalt as well as Overdrive and Beacon’s individual frames and alts, though the Mission City trine were subject to the same energon needs as the Cybertronians, as that was the template – so to speak – that the AllSpark knew.

If Guardian was any judge at all, the Winglord was giddy over the possibilities.

A Tower-raised mech sparked in the care of an aristocrat, he was likely equally as excited over the possibility that one particular avenue of refinement posed, as if it could be actualized the humans would be paying them to take the raw materials off their hands for recycling as in a raw state it was highly toxic to both biological entities and the very land.

In other words, they would be paying them to eat.

It was the sort of backhanded dealing that appealed to a mech that had grown up playing the Tower games of one-upping each other.

Not that anyone, in Starscream’s oh-so-humble opinion could ever one-up the Seeker, at least not some Tower bratling, which Shockwave and the Fallen most certainly were not.

The day after the half-dozen aerials arrived, the rest mobilized but still far enough away among the stars to need more time to arrive, the leaders called a full-Transformer meeting in the main hanger.

A problem had arisen that needed sorting and an idea had been posed that needed to be presented, hopefully the second would help with the first, but it remained to be seen.

Still, the whole situation pointed out something all of them should have foreseen being an issue and would be handled.

Though it was already a foregone conclusion that most of their people weren’t going to like it.

Barricade was the last to arrive, slipping through the open hanger door like a wraith against the evening gloaming, joining Frenzy with a nod for the mini-bot mech where he sat on one of the empty flat-bed trailers before hopping up onto Barricade’s shoulder-plate so he didn’t have to look up for the whole fragging time to see the faceplates of the Autobot Prime and Megatron the giant knock-offs.

The neutral Prime was standing on another cleared-off flat bed, “his” people, dubbed the “Nubots” by one of the squishies who thought he was being clever, sitting along it’s edge except for the mini-bots who were perched on various shoulder-plates like Frenzy only Skitter and Terrabyte were resting on their trine-mate Scattershot while Beacon was on his gestalt-mate and the sparkling was perched, as Moonracer always was whenever his Prime would let him, between his brother’s wings with his jaw-hinge resting in the curve between Guardian Prime’s neck and shoulder-plate.

For a group that had agreed to an alliance, lines of demarcation were both indelibly drawn and done with unconscious care.

A problem for a trio of leaders that needed them to be able to work together.

Hence them taking measures to fix the problem before it became completely entrenched and/or other bots arrived, or the humans realized the issue and tried to take advantage of it for their own gain.

Guardian Prime and Megatron turned their helms towards Optimus in unison and nodded, signaling him to begin.

“A problem as arisen among us.”  Optimus told the group of disparate personalities, morals, and creeds.  “While an alliance exists between our factions against a common enemy, we need to be able to work together and trust each other in battle before that enemy arrives and presses the issue, let alone having to integrate more Autobots and Decepticon defectors into our alliance.”

“I hear what you’re saying, Optimus.”  Ratchet crossed his servos.  “And in theory I agree…but I have no idea how you three plan to accomplish that.”

“That’s a problem to begin with.”  Megatron admitted, nodding towards the orange-and-white medic.  “Technically, especially as far as the squishies are concerned, there’s only two leaders of the Cybertronians on Earth: the Primes.”

The former Decepticons all shifted, uncomfortable and knowing all at once what was about to happen.

“As such.”  Megatron’s optics flickered.   “All the former-Decepticons will report to the wash-racks after this meeting and help each other remove their faction symbols using the solvent Starscream and Ratchet have manufactured.  As of now and ongoing, any former-Decepticons that join our alliance will remove their faction symbol upon joining and be folded into the Neutrals or Nubots under Guardian Prime with possible assignment under an Autobot unit commander depending on their specialization.”

Now, the former-Decepticons weren’t happy with that announcement per se, but they had also seen something like it coming.

The price they paid for being defectors.

Their Autobot counterparts, at least those present, took it with equanimity…and the foreknowledge that some of their faction were going to be livid, especially a few in particular like Cliffjumper and Hot Rod, not to mention the terror twins.

“Current rankings are as follows and can be expected to shift and change as more mechs and femmes arrive.” Guardian announced.  “Optimus Prime will remain the leader of the Autobots and be the main diplomat and ambassador between us and the other sentient species on Terra Sol.”

“That said.”  Optimus added, dropping a bomb on his trio of on-lined Autobots.  “I will not be remaining as a military commander or general.”

Optimus took up the charge because he had to, not because he enjoyed it or had any desire to be a military commander.  His people had needed.  Optimus had done what he could.  But there was more than one military commander in their combined force that would actually enjoy the position and all the helm-and-spark aches that came with it.

Besides which, as Guardian had proven, they needed a diplomat something Optimus did both enjoy and excel at being, a win-win.

Though many of his people were going to find it a tough bit of grease to swallow.

Given the alternative military commanders available anyway.

“When he arrives, which should be soon,” Guardian continued.  “Prowler will take up the position as the Autobot Second-in-Command for non-military action and SecOps Commander and Second-in-Command for our joint military forces.  In the meantime, Ironhide has agreed to continue this position for the joint force.”

The massive mech nodded his helm at the others, though there weren’t many mechs he’d be in charge of for the moment.

Just himself, Optimus, Scattershot, both Overdrive and his gestalt Safe Harbor, and Terrabyte.

Not much of a security force but it would grow being the largest branch of their military normally, depending on how many aerials either followed their Winglord away from the Fallen or what bots were onlined by Guardian Prime.

“Starscream will remain as Aerial Commander, making him Third-in-Command for the joint military.”  Megatron took up the announcement, spelling Guardian, the handful of flyers all nodding or shrugging as there wasn’t an Autobot capable of taking up the position and more as the Winglord of Vos, there wasn’t another mech that the Seekers would follow before Starscream.  “While the head of SpecOps, for the moment,” he leveled an optic at the three SpecOps mechs: Barricade, Frenzy, and Bumblebee, a more problematic mix-up than the SecOps since at the moment that squad was only two Autobots and a few true-neutrals not any former-Decepticons.  “Will be Barricade to serve as SpecOps commander and the military Fourth until Jazz or another high-ranking Autobot SpecOps officer is able to take up the charge.”

As much as it chafed at Megatron, even he had to admit that for a faction a third of the size of the Decepticons, the Autobot SpecOps had done a spectacular job of keeping apprised of his plans and troops movements…thanks to the pain-in-the-aft Mirage with his cloaking ability not to mention Shadow’s advanced camouflage abilities.

Bumblebee grumbled a bit, but as it was a temporary assignment under Barricade he’d deal with it.

Scouts, while sometimes SecOps or Medics or other specialties, were most often attached to Special Operations.

Though the longer it went for them to announce who was going to take up the military command instead of Optimus, the worse of a feeling he got in his spark-chamber.

“Ratchet will continue as Medical Officer and Autobot Third in Command, while in the military chain of command he will serve as the Fifth Officer.”  Optimus continued the round-robin of announcements.  “With another temporary appointment, Skyfire, as the Science officer, Nubot Fourth and military Sixth, until Wheeljack arrives to take up the position in the military sector and Soundwave for the Nubots.”

Which was perfectly fine with the mech since at the moment it was more laying the framework for how this whole alliance was supposed to function than it was giving him any actual authority that he didn’t want since the other science-inclined mechs were both officers in their own rights: Starscream and Ratchet, and titles or otherwise Megatron and Guardian Prime were going to handle any Nubot issues until things were more…settled.

“Beacon will serve as Communications Officer, serving as military Seventh until Soundwave arrives, while Safe Harbor will be the neutral Second and Skitter the neutral Third.”  Guardian announced, which really only effected Beacon/Overdrive and Skitter, the femme nodding in agreement.

“And the firsts?”  Ratchet asked with trepidation since there were notably two high-ranking mechs who hadn’t been mentioned.

“Guardian Prime will remain as the leader of the Nubots which will include the former-Decepticons in a non-military setting.”  Optimus answered his old friend.  “He and I together will be the face of leadership for the NEST treaty with our human counterparts.”

“Megatron will retain his position of Lord High Protector and General,” Guardian told them all, tone brooking no argument or dissent on the subject, as the title implied that he would work in tandem with both Optimus and Guardian in non-military matters as well as being the ultimate commander of their military units and forces, though as ever the Primes would be able to overrule him if needed.  “I shouldn’t have to explain why.”

And he really didn’t as much as it didn’t go over well with Ironhide and Bumblebee who would be under his command after vorns of fighting against him.

The Fallen had wanted him for a reason.

His rebellion was winning before he’d been glitched to the Pits and back.  They could have successfully dismantled the High Council and that would have been the end of it with reformations to follow.  The war would have never become what it did.  Cybertron would still be a viable home for their people.

When able to function without hindrance, Megatron alone was a military strategist and warrior without compare, with only Starscream able to match the former and Optimus Prime the latter.

A single look from Optimus was all it took to silence Ironhide and Bumblebee’s protests for later in private.

Dissent in front of so many non-Autobots was not a good idea even if everyone was trying to get along.

Some, like the prankster Skywarp, wouldn’t be able to help themselves but poke at the pair over it.

Optics stern, Guardian nodded, then ordered his new responsibilities to the wash-racks, following along with them.

After all, this wasn’t a military setting.

At the moment, they were all his problem.

And he tended to start as he meant to go on and set an example: by scrubbing the frag out of Megatron’s wing until the Deception sigil was gone as if it’d never been in the first place.

…

<<You don’t have to do this, sparkling.>>  Megatron sent the comm message to Guardian Prime.

Out loud, the young one was Guardian Prime: always and ever.

The young one deserved that respect from Megatron not only for defragging his processor and giving him the anti-virus for Soundwave to send to Starscream as well, but for his stubborn insistence on giving the Decepticon defectors their rightful respect for their abilities.  His people weren’t being shunted aside.  They weren’t being ignored.  And all of that went right down to the Seekling on the cusp of his young adulthood.

Any cycle now he was expecting the young Prime to freeze into stasis-lock and begin his next stage of developmental transformation.

And honestly, he and if he knew the other flyers at all, were all excited to see his youngling frame, as it would have the same capabilities and form as his adult mech form only smaller due to his young age.

But between them or to himself, Megatron could indulge instincts and subroutines long suborned by the Fallen’s parasitic corruption, and use subvocal tones meant to help sooth and comfort sparklings, or dote on the tiny creature that had pulled Megatron’s aft from the very Pit.

He was the Lord High Protector for vorns before he realized the corruption of the High Council and the dire straights of the less wealthy of Cybertron.

Made to protect.

Part of that, though it would likely surprise anyone but the Primes, was being able to comfort a little one whether newspark or youngling or any stage in between.

Stepping his pedes into the largest washrack, which was the only one large enough for either himself or Skyfire, shuttle-class flyers being the only mechs out there larger than Megatron, he heard Guardian give a soft snort as tiny servos – in comparison – batted away his own.

<<I don’t know how you were expecting to reach your insignia on your wing.>>  Guardian responded patiently.  <<But I doubt you want any of your people, let alone the Autobots, watching as you contort yourself into a Megatron-sized pretzel to manage it.>>  He arched an optic ridge up – way up, the frelling giant – at the Lord High Protector, then taking a bucket dunked it in the can of solvent and gestured for Megatron to kneel, allowing Guardian to reach the Decepticon sigil on his left wing.

While Guardian scrubbed away with the solvent, Megatron worked on getting clean otherwise, all-but-reveling in the solvent pouring down from the washrack showerhead.  Plain water and human soaps were fine to get the dust off, but for an actual clean they didn’t do the job, putting real washracks and solvents – plus water to rinse down with – on the list of changes made to the old military base on Sand Island.  A tap on his wing and a chime over the comms told him Guardian had succeeded in his endeavor to remove the faction insignia, Megatron rising and flipping the tap over to water to rinse both of them off, smiling a bit to himself when Guardian’s wings gave an instinctive flutter despite not being usable for actual flight or even gliding yet.

For a Seeker or flyer sparkling, no matter their stage of development, their wings were just another appendage they had to get used to controlling but nothing more than that.

It wasn’t until their youngling frame that they were able to learn to fly in both their mech/femme and alt form.

Skyfire shuffled in to the rack as Megatron and Guardian Prime exited it, his mate Nightfire following even as Guardian followed their progress with a sad light in his optics.

<<Winglet?>>  Megatron prompted as he quickly dried off the Seekling using one of the large pieces of Terran nubbly fabric that Guardian had acquired during his “requisition” phase of their treaty with the squishies.  Some of the things Guardian had gotten via treaty still boggled his processors while others, like the fabric that had come on large rolls, now made sense.

Guardian shook his helm and snatched up another piece of the fabric after Megatron finished buffing him dry.  He’d gotten used to having the older mechs all do things like that for him, especially Ratchet, Megatron, and Starscream’s trine.  It was like they just couldn’t help themselves but look after the “Seekling” even knowing he was a Prime, or rather they couldn’t help their programming, and likely the only thing keeping Skyfire and Nightfire from joining in was their missing mate Jetfire.

He knew he should know something about that, indeed he thought he did, but he just couldn’t locate the files, making him think that they might have been part of the information payload that Primus had given them that had faded more and more with every recharge, leaving him with impressions to help guide him instead of Primus-granted information and programming.

<<Do you know anything about Jetfire?>>  He asked as he buffed the bottom half of Megatron’s struts and the tops and sides of his pedes.  It was different than doing the same thing as/to a human.  They didn’t feel things the same way in their physical selves as organics did.

They did feel, their metals were their skin and bones, their wiring and tubing their nerves and arteries.

But it was different too.

It could be shut off if needed, which is what he knew they all did when he insisted on helping like this, sweet-but-silly Skywarp had been the one to explain it to him after helping him wash Moonracer.

He was a sparkling to them, even if he was a Prime, and their programming was automatic in a lot of ways when it came to certain things that would be taken one way from a youngling or mature mech or femme and was completely innocent coming from a sparkling.

So, while if it were say Optimus rubbing down Megatron’s struts, the badass bot would have a very different reaction than the non-existent one from Guardian doing the same.

He wished that was the only thing the playful Seeker had explained to him but with his transformation coming up it didn’t stop there, only for Ratchet to take him aside and go over a lot of the exact same information for two mortifying conversations in one day.

Fragging Primus.

As if being sent to another world as a child and a Prime wasn’t bad enough, he had to go through the alien version of the Talk…twice.

Though that actually was a good thing, kinda, given that there were quite a few little tidbits that Skywarp shared that were Seeker/flyer specific that Ratchet just didn’t know.

Probably because, from what all he knew, there weren’t any aerial Autobots except for the appropriately named Aerialbot gestalt, made up of five young mechs who’d been onlined during the war by their creators Wheeljack and Perceptor at the behest of Optimus, the Prime sheltering their sparks in his own spark-chamber until the inventor bots had their frames ready, then onlining them – from what Ratchet had told him – in a manner almost identical to Guardian’s onlining of Safe Harbor…though without creating their forms.

Ratchet just didn’t know that much about flyers, something which from the way the medic was stalking the Nubot aerials with a greedy gleam in his optics, he was eager to fix.

<<I know quite a lot about Jetfire, seeklet.>>  Megatron answered as they moved to the berth-hanger, which with the arrival of bonded mechs had necessitated a few walls being slapped up for the illusion of privacy if nothing else.  Fragging Seekers and their libidos.  <<He was one of my oldest friends…before.>>

Some memories – both for himself and Starscream – had been fragged to the Pits and back by both the Fallen and the anti-virus used to free them.

There were files that were more fragments than anything.

But much of who Megatron was before the Fallen remained, his old friends with it, many of whom were missing or dead now.

Jetfire among them.

<<Now I know that the Fallen sought to undercut my powerbase in the first vorn after he spiked my systems.>>  Megatron told the young Prime as Moonracer caught sight of his brother and came toddling over to reclaim his spot between Guardian’s wings.  They were going to have a Pits of a time keeping that one out of trouble once he hit his next frame and was steadier on his struts, Megatron already knew it, the way the bitlet already ran away from his minders – in his case Bumblebee – whenever Guardian came into view.  <<At the time, his ordering some of our best Scouts to search for the Tomb of the Six seemed reasonable.  That they were once my friends didn’t even occur to me.>>

<<So, you don’t know where they are?>>  Guardian frowned, wings dipping a little.

<<No.>>  Megatron answered.  <<Some of our other Scouts might…>>  He trailed off, processor clicking rapidly through the files he had on his people.  <<Frenzy and Barricade might have an idea or orders to search for them.>>  He finally supplied as Guardian focused on playing with Moonracer, most of the rotation having been taken up with meetings, with more to come.

Now that the hierarchy was set, there were things that warranted discussion between the now-two factions.

<<If not them, then Soundwave.>>  Megatron finished.  It was his best theory on who alive might have a clue other than the Fallen himself.

Guardian nodded, flipping Moonracer over his wing and catching him, causing those sweet sparkling chirps and giggles that never failed to light up the optics of any mech or femme nearby.

…

…

Restructured Military Command Structure/Units:

Commander: Megatron

Second: Ironhide (temporary)/Prowler (eventual), Security Officer

Third: Starscream, Aerial Commander

Fourth: Barricade (temporary)/Jazz (eventual), Special Operations Commander

Fifth: Ratchet, Medical Officer

Sixth: Skyfire (temporary)/Wheeljack (eventual), Science Officer

Seventh: Beacon (temporary)/Soundwave (eventual), Communications Officer

Autobot Command Structure:

Leader: Optimus Prime

Second: Ironhide (temporary), Prowler (eventual)

Third: Ratchet, Medical Officer

Fourth: Jazz (eventual)

Neutral Command Structure:

Leader: Guardian Prime

Second: Safe Harbor

Third: Skitter

Fourth: Skyfire (temporary)/Soundwave (eventual)

Chapter Text

Sparked by Design

Author’s Note: I did not come up with Ravage’s nickname and I have no idea who the first person to call him that was, the same with Starscream, so if someone does know comment for me so I can give appropriate credit where it’s due.

Chapter Five: Vector Sigma

Guardian Prime gave a heavy sigh of his vents as he found himself seated around the massive worktable/computer display that Starscream had put together with help from Ratchet in the endless days between the Seeker confronting Megatron over his defragging-via-Soundwave and waiting for his trine-mates and the other two flyers of their advanced team to arrive at Midway.

Starscream, Guardian had found, was a font of near-endless energy: always moving, always thinking…unless his mates were pining him to a flat surface somewhere.

That had been a fun conversation to have with Moonracer over what was wrong with Starscream as the original Nubots got a first-audial rendition of just why the Aerial Commander was often referred to as “the Screamer” or just “Screamer” by both the Autobots and the former-Decepticons.

Starscream hated when they did that but took the teasing about it with good-grace since it was his own mate Skywarp that did most of the teasing.

Moonracer, thankfully, was still too young to fully understand even with the general genetic memory he had as a grounder sparkling.

Guardian was not ready to have that discussion with the little bitlet, not now, not ever.

Ratchet could do it in revenge for making Guardian sit through two versions of the Cybertronian version of the Talk.

He was tired, his energy levels flagging as he prepared to go into stasis for his transformation from his final sparkling frame into his youngling adult frame, and he did not want to have to sit around and have another discussion with the command officers over, well, anything really.

All he had to do was make it to midnight for his annual Happy Birthday wish to himself, a holdover from his first life that this year at least he had no intention of doing away with, and then go recharge before stasis.

In theory.

Even Ratchet and Optimus weren’t sure how everything was going to go with Guardian already being a fully-empowered Prime despite his sparkling frame.

It was a lot of guess work slapped together with information parsed from Optimus’s archivist databanks, holdovers from his former career-track, as well as some supplied by Megatron that he knew from his time working with Optimus’s predecessor Sentinel Prime.

That was it: all they had to go on.

It didn’t exactly fill him with confidence, though he tried to keep his trepidation to himself.

Primus knew Ratchet was nervous – and therefore cranky – enough for all of them.

Around the table were Optimus, Megatron, and Guardian with Ironhide, Starscream, and Beacon: the three leaders and their seconds, however temporary that position was for Ironhide.

“Where are we with locating the missing Scouts?”  Guardian led, as it was one of the main ongoing issues beyond the merge – which they’d well and truly worn out by now – facing them other than preparing for more Transformers to arrive, whether friend, foe, or created by himself.

With the talk he’d had with Megatron fresh on his processor and the shadow that seemed to follow Skyfire and Nightfire, it was an issue he wanted sorted as soon as possible.

Starscream shared a glance with Megatron then spoke:

“The Fallen never gave me any direct orders regarding the missing Scouts.”  He explained.  “Frenzy is aware that some of the other mini-bots were given information on the missing to help locate them, perhaps even some of his batchmates.  He sent a query to Soundwave last cycle for more information.”

“Soundwave should respond with what knowledge he could gain – either from his sparklings or otherwise – within the next rotation.”  Megatron added, more familiar with Soundwave’s reliability than Starscream as his two former lieutenants often worked at cross-purposes.    “Ravage, I would imagine, might know the most of any resource we have.”

Ravage, Soundwave’s eldest sparkling – though they were all adult mechs now, one’s sparkling was always their sparkling, especially for a mech like Soundwave that had the rare ability to split his spark – was the foremost spy in the Decepticon ranks.

His loss alone, let alone that of his brothers and father, would hurt the Fallen.

Frenzy was an excellent hacker, second only to his father, but Ravage was an intelligence operative without compare.

Even if he’d never been told of the Scouts, Megatron would be willing to bet the – as the Autobots had derogatively, if humorously, named him vorns ago – “Deceptikitty” would know if anyone would.

“Thank you, Megatron.”  Optimus played diplomat well, not an ounce of his ongoing and at times near-crippling discomfort over having his brother at his side again showing in word, comm, or deed.  There were times he forgot he’d ever been anything else.  But such was the processor of a healthy Transformer that the time before he became a Prime always came back.  Even when he’d rather it not.

“When will you online the new Nubots, Guardian?”  Starscream asked, intensely interested in the process as it’d been described by both bots and squishies who’d watched the process in Mission City.

“Soon.”  Guardian told him with a nod.  “As soon as I stabilize after my transformation most likely.”  He sighed with his vents.  “I’d prefer to time it to coincide with an arrival, keep the humans guessing about the extent of my abilities, but I’m also not comfortable without the transportation capabilities Highpoint and Homeport will bring.”

“What of Homeport’s safety while transformed?”  Ironhide asked, leaning forward and posing the question that had been itching at his processor for days.  “If he’s moving ‘bots he can’t exactly transform back into his mech form to fight.”

“I realized that.”  Guardian gave a rueful smirk.  “About a klik after Starscream showed up.”

The Seeker frowned, not quite understanding why his arrival would enlighten the Seekling as to the need for protection for their soon-to-come aircraft carrier bot.

“Protection.”  Guardian explained.  “You and the other Seekers, even Skyfire if need-be, can protect Highpoint in the air.  Who could protect Homeport in the water other than any aerials he happened to be transporting?”

“Especially if the attack was from underwater.”  Beacon pointed out as one of his protocols was protection as half of Safe Harbor, even if that was more Overdrive’s programming than his own it was still there as part of the shared gestalt mind.  “We would be without recourse other than Homeport having to shift: transporting others or not.”

“Right.”  His Creator nodded as the mini-bot followed the same thought-train that he’d arrived at himself.  “So, it won’t just be Homeport, but another pair of bots with water-based alts.  I’m planning to model them after an advanced South Korean destroyer class and a combat submarine, designations Typhoon and Abyss.”

“We will welcome them as we have all of your creations, Guardian Prime.”  Optimus told him after his optics flickered a bit at how nonchalant the young one remained over his ability.

With four more ‘bots planned, plus the five from mission city, Guardian will have done more to bolster the Cybertronian numbers in the galaxy than anyone in millennia, even Soundwave with his six cassettes or Wheeljack’s Aerialbots gestalt.

“The safety and survival of our people is my entire purpose, Optimus.”  Guardian reminded him once more, though it was the first time either Megatron or Starscream had heard him acknowledge his role as a Prime, a very different one, one much more singular and all-encompassing than Optimus’s.  “I have hope that in time,” he tilted his helm a bit to the side, knowing that time was something that he now had in abundance.  “I might be able to give life to true sparklings for their parents rather than having to online adults.”

The latter might be the most efficient way to boost their numbers, but it wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

Every being deserved a childhood – in the case of his new people a sparkling-hood – even one as shitty as Guardian’s had been after his fifteenth month.  It was a time to learn and grow.  Naturally.  Not with the massive data uploads required for onlining an adult.  Doing so can cause dissonance, which thus far his creations didn’t have other than the initial shift – in the case of the Mission City trine – from drones to sparked, an issue that he’d learned through talking with Bumblebee was one they’d run into with the Aerialbots at times where their lack of mature emotional depth couldn’t process things in cooperation with their mental maturity.

A reminder chime pinged his comm from Beacon, Guardian’s optics finding Optimus’s across the table, the Autobot leader rising and sending a comm to Ratchet to meet the Primes in the med bay, the others realizing what was happening after a glance at the human clock on the far wall.

It was time.

They didn’t know when he’d have to be transitioned to his new frame – or even if it would go as normal, with his spark detaching from his current frame and needing guidance to his new one – but they wanted to be in the med bay well in advance.

There was a lot of not knowing when it came to Guardian’s transition to a youngling adult.

Starscream had worked himself into recharge more than once helping Ratchet and Guardian prepare a blank youngling frame based off of his own sparkling frame, with Skyfire pitching in to help after he’d arrived and picked up Barricade and Frenzy from Los Angeles.

They’d cut it fine, but the frame was ready.

Guardian wasn’t so sure he’d need it after the display he’d made of creating Safe Harbor’s gestalt members out of little more than demolished APV.

To that end, he’d comm’d Scattershot and Overdrive and had them move a few large pieces of the titanium alloy he’d negotiated for with Secretary Keller, ostensibly for repairs.  Really, it was just a base metal that he was planning to transform into the tougher, stronger, lighter Cybertronian alloys Primus had given him knowledge of – including a way to protect them from the weakness of the sabot rounds the humans had discovered.

He likened it to permanent transfiguration and often found himself entertained at the many and various ways, big and small, that Primus had conjoined his old traits and abilities into his new form and life.

The med bay with “his” blank and the metals also was stockpiled with cubes of energon, some of the Autobot supplies as they weren’t yet up-and-running on the refinement methods he’d gleefully washed his hands of by turning them over to Starscream and Ratchet, now with help from Skyfire.

Creation was energy-draining work and while his personal storage tanks were topped up from spending time under the powerful mid-Pacific sun, they were sparkling-sized tanks.

If this went the way he thought it might, he was going to need a lot more than that to come out of recharge on the other side of his maturation process, though thankfully it was a lot easier to tube-feed a Transformer than it was a human, all Ratchet would have to do is open an emergency panel on Guardian and hook him up, not unlike topping up a petrol tank.

Being Cybertronian was in many ways a lot more convenient than being human.

It also made him very happy that Optimus was more R2D2 than Terminator, since, you know, The Fallen was giving the latter behavior enough of a go all on his own.

Settling onto the med bay berth under the watchful gazes of Optimus and Ratchet – Optimus to guide his spark if necessary and Ratchet…because he’s Ratchet and wasn’t about to be anywhere else – Guardian laid back as his own reminder pinged him this time.

Happy Birthday, Guardian, he thought.

Then all he could recall was pain.

…

Bright white light burst from the sparkling’s frame an astroklik after Guardian laid back, temporarily blinding the watchful pair, Ratchet raising a servo to protect his optics and Optimus lowering his visor in reaction.

“Cybertron below me.”  Optimus gasped, optics flickering in shock.  “It’s his spark!”

“Pits, Optimus.”  Ratchet swore, shaking his helm as he made out metal and tubing liquifying along with the sheets of metal the Nubots had moved into the med bay – a just-in-case precaution, one that Ratchet was now glad to have gone along with – then seeming to reform all within the massive spinning orb of light that had subsumed Guardian Prime’s sparkling form.  “I knew Prime sparks were bright but this…?”

“Guardian Prime has more Sigma abilities than anticipated.”  Optimus finally answered a long klik later of watching the transformation that appeared markedly similar to Guadrian’s creation of Safe Harbor’s blanks before sparking them.  “This isn’t purely a Prime spark, Ratchet.”

“Then what is it?”  Ratchet asked, perplexed as his brow ridges lowered in a scowl.  It was the correct color after all.  All Primes had white sparks in the stories.  And he’d seen his commander’s spark before while checking it for damage after this-or-that impossible scrape Optimus managed to survive against all odds.  It was pure white with an edging of silver from his original spark before being chosen as Prime and undergoing the change that came with the position.

“It is Vector Sigma ability.”  Optimus told him, awe and shock at war in his words.  “I have read of the phenomenon in our histories, back when the natural power of creation was still rich on Cybertron and whole hosts of our people were created by the blessing of Primus.  Guardian Prime is no simple spark-caller.”  Optimus turned dazed blue optics on his friend.  “Nor transported to Earth by the AllSpark.”  His vocals shook.  “He is the AllSpark.”  He announced, then qualified.  “Or at least contains part of its harnessed powers of Vector Sigma.”

“Well,” Ratchet said a breem later, having needed the time to process that and not offline due to shock caused by one little Seekling.  Again.  “Then, he did tell us Primus designed him.  Perhaps we should start taking that a little more literal than some have been, hm?”

“He must be protected.”  Optimus swore as the white light of Guardian’s spark and the Vector Sigma power of the AllSpark began to contract and sink down into the spark-chamber of Guardian’s new frame, one that would finally allow him to make use of both holo-matter generators and alt forms with all of the abilities of a grown mech, just smaller in frame as he would be for vorns before needing a final mature mech frame.  “And we can tell no one.”

“Aye, that’s a wise decision.”  Ratchet muttered to himself.  “Worked so well with sending the AllSpark off-planet didn’t it?”  He continued to grumble, readying himself to begin diagnostics of Guardian Prime as soon as the light was fully concealed in the youngling’s spark-chamber, swearing to himself over the near-critical energy levels but not overly surprised given the light show.

Creation on that level had to take an astro-ton of power to manage.

The youngling’s frame had at least doubled in size, making him around the same size as Jazz, which was still half the size of a fully matured Seeker like Starscream, and his wings were even sleeker, if possible, than they had been on his sparkling frame marking him for an extremely high maneuvering ability in the air without compromising speed given the shape from the design information Starscream had imparted while they worked on the now-unneeded blank Seeker frame which wasn’t an exact match any longer but could still almost double for Guardian’s twin, much like Starscream’s own doppleganger Sunstorm.

Having seen some of the speculative looks Guardian had given the blank, Ratchet wouldn’t be surprised if the first thing the Prime did after recovering was online the blank as a new Seeker.

Snapping into motion, Ratchet had Guardian hooked up to an energon cube in less than a klik, Optimus breaking out of his own shock to assist and keep the cubes coming since at that rate Guardian was still burning energon as his spark – and the rest of it – settled into his new frame Ratchet needed another set of servos to keep the flow of energon consistent so as to not overload Guardian’s circuits with too much too soon or too little too late.

Primus really did slip us one from the bottom of the deck this time.  Ratchet mused to himself as he kept an optic on his diagnostics, watching for any issue however seemingly infinitesimal.  The Fallen won’t see this Prime coming.

For certain, none of them had.

…

He wasn’t asleep – in recharge, he was a Transformer now, remember Harry? – not in the way Ratchet and his diagnostics showed.

Odd thing, change.

Metamorphosis.

Guardian Prime had gone through it more than once during his life as a human before Primus plucked him up from a life not lived and set him down in a sparkling’s frame in another dimension altogether.

Beloved son to Savior.

Savior to Freak.

Freak to Harry.

Harry to the Boy-Who-Lived.

Boy-Who-Lived to the Golden Gryffindor Seeker.

And on and on it went until it culminated in a dark office in the only home he ever knew: from Child Soldier to Horcrux and from Horcrux to Martyr.

It was the next change that changed how Guardian Prime even viewed change itself.

If he could go from Martyr to Prime in an instant, what else might he become at the mercies of a deity?

But more, what might he become if for once he made the choice to change for himself.

That was when change stopped being about how much worse could it get and instead became a mode of opportunity.

That moment he said: Yes.

Guardian Prime understood power better than any other mech alive, better than any human likely ever could, all down to who he once was and who he became before taking his name and carving it into an intrinsic role in his new society, however small it might be.

As he’d told them himself: power like that of the AllSpark collision didn’t just go away.

They’d seemed to accept that all that had been done with that power was bringing Guardian and Moonracer to Mission City, and in a way that was true as it had been the catalyst Primus had used to cover his slight-of-servo.

Deities don’t allow power to disappear from their control if at all possible for them to prevent it.

And while Guardian Prime wasn’t necessarily under Primus’s control, it was a lot better option than sending it spiraling into a human or Cybertron-forbid Megatron as fragged as he’d been at the time.

Not that it would be any better if such a thing were to happen to the massive mech now either.

He wasn’t built to handle it.

Not like Guardian Prime’s frame had been, or like his memories of magic helped him manage this new influx of, to quote his former wandmaker, great and terrible power.

There was more to the AllSpark, Guardian had quickly found during his first recharge – though, again, recharge for Guardian wasn’t the same easy black nothing that it was for other Transformers – than being a receptacle of power set to a purpose and given to Cybertron or a repository of knowledge.

It was a power and magic that the logical processors of Cybertronians couldn’t comprehend.

But a wizard from a distant dimension?

Oh, he understood it all too well.

That said, he wasn’t expecting the lava-in-his-tubing pain or the burning desire to tear his own plating off when he used that power, the power of Vector Sigma harnessed by Primus and forced into inactivity by the AllSpark, to simply reshape himself instead of trusting Optimus to handle his spark or Ratchet to oversee his transition from one frame to another.

Why wouldn’t he, if it was an option?

Still, he hadn’t been one-hundred percent on him retaining enough of his former magical control to fine-tune the creation potential of Vector Sigma into reforming his frame while he was still fragging conscious unlike how he’d made Safe Harbor’s blanks and then sparked them.  The blank he’d built with Ratchet and Starscream was a necessary back-up plan.  He hadn’t survived Tom just to fry himself in his latest Gryffindor-inspired stupidity.

Which as the power seared him down to circuits and rebuilt him, all while he had to stay aware to guide it, he had to admit it was exactly that: a stupid move.

That said, as he used another talent that worked a hell of a lot better with a Prime’s processor than it had with his ADHD riddled human brain: Occlumency or something like it; to let his memory banks lock away those few endless kliks of pain, he’d likely do the exact same thing when it came time to transition from young adult to adult frame.

After all…nothing ventured nothing gained.

Even if it did mean he was stuck meditating, or again something like it, during what passed for him as recharge while his new frame sucked up cube after cube of energon, there was no inventor or frame designer alive – except maybe Soundwave from what he’d heard about his sparklings – who could have done for Guardian’s youngling frame what he’d fashioned with Vector Sigma.

Now he just had to wait out the recharge so he could wake up and enjoy the changes that he’d programmed himself with and ensured his frame could handle.

If nothing else, the looks on some of the other Transformers faces were sure to be priceless.

And if he was lucky, he might even shock some of them into a temporary off-line.

Again.

Ah, the little joys in life.

…

It took a full rotation, all thirty-six Terran hours, before anyone other than Optimus or Ratchet laid either eye or optic on Guardian Prime.

A fact that one could easily ascertain with just a glance at an uncharacteristically fussy Moonracer.

The little sparkling, who’d long ago figured out how to climb the frames of the larger ‘bots among other typical sparkling behaviors, sat quiet and still watching the doors to the med bay, only the caregiving soother protocols the Seekers and Megatron were all equipped with keeping the little one from through a true sparkling tantrum over having his brother out of contact with the silver and turquoise mechling.

That the Seekers had caregiving protocols was a surprise to Bumblebee, given that he’d never been to Vos before the fall of Cybertron or been around any aerials outside of combat but the younger Aerialbots in his life.

If he had, then he would’ve been aware that Seekers were onlined with latent caregiving programming that came active only around sparklings: a natural occurrence that came with their genetic memory and a necessary imperative given that of all Transformers, Seekers were the most likely to have spark-splitting abilities, other aerials after them, and grounders least likely though Cybertron’s scientists had never discovered why that was beyond Seekers also being more likely to have Sigma abilities.

Sigma abilities only occurred in what on Cybertron had been called the “one-percenters”, mechs and femmes that were, by nature or design, stronger, faster, and simply better than your average Cybertronian.

Given that Sigma abilities as well as being stronger, faster, more intelligent, etc. all added to a bot’s ability to survive, the current occurrence rate was over ten percent of the living Cybertronians.

And Starscreamer’s trine made up three of those with Sigma abilities.

Skyfire was another one-percenter, though he didn’t have Sigma abilities, while Megatron had both being a tri-former with his dual alts, and the Primes were both obvious possessors of Sigma ability.

The missing Jetfire was another like Megatron: having both advanced size and strength as well as a Sigma ability while the lone Sigma-blessed Autobot, Mirage, had an ability but not the size.

Watching Guardian walk out of the closed medbay on strong struts, all sleek wings with a handsome – even for a Prime – mature faceplate with none of the inherent cuteness or softness of a sparkling was nothing less than a revelation for the loitering Transformers, among them only the original Nubots onlined by Guardian not shocked to the bottoms of their pedes by the transformation the sparkling had undergone.

The sparkling was gone.

In his place was a dangerous – and desirable – mech with emerald-green optics and the expected elegant lines of an elite Seeker who while half the size of an adult Seeker was nearly the same height – give or take a foot – as Barricade with none of the interrogator’s bulk.

Though thankfully, none of the Transformers offlined from the shock, all of them expecting the change in how their subroutines viewed Guardian as all of them save for the original Nubots and Bumblebee had seen a sparkling mature into a youngling over the vorns just not in a long, long while.

“How are you feeling, Guardian?”  Will asked the recovered Prime, blinking at the Transformer who had in the course of two days doubled in size, some of the NEST operatives hanging out in the rec hall with the Transformers as they waited for Guardian to wake up.  They might not fully understand what was going on – though now they had a pretty good idea – of what “transitioning” meant to the aliens but they’d been there to support their friends nonetheless.  Even if Guardian had yet to really take to any of them other than Epps.

“Stiff.”  Came the cultured voice from the taller mech as he tilted his helm back and forth and shrugged his wings.  “And in need of a fly.”

“Seekers.”  Ratchet rolled his optics as he passed the slighter form of the youngling.  “Barely topped up and already reaching for the skies.”

“Is he topped up?”  Skywarp asked, bouncing on his pedes as Moonracer bolted for his brother, Guardian having to lean over much farther to scoop up the bitlet and toss him in the air, happy sparkling shrieks bringing smiles to human faces and Transformer faceplates alike at the sight.  “Can he shift?”

“Only one way to find out.”  Starscream told his trine-mate with a grin.  “How about it, Seekling?  Ready to try to take to the air?”

“Always.”  Guardian shared a fervent look with the other Seekers who crowded around him, making for a vibrant parade out to the tarmac, Moonracer perched on top of his brother’s shoulder-plates before being passed over to Safe Harbor for watching.  “You can’t come with me this time, Moonracer.”  He told the now-pouting form, understanding that his little brother was feeling neglected but needing to stretch his wings and test his systems before slipping into an actual recharge.

Transformation had taken more out of him than he’d expected, along with the information upgrade his processors had naturally unlocked and shifted into place regarding how to use his alt forms or holo matter generator, or any of the other protocols that went along with being an adult – if not fully mature – mech.

He needed to recharge but he needed to feel the wind on his wings more, something that the other Seekers and flyers understood from the soft-but-excited glances he was fielding from the older mechs.

“You can fly in both your mech and alt form.”  Starscream told him, taking point and gesturing the others back, a glance at Skywarp and Thundercracker had both of them up in the air and waiting on Guardian but ready to keep out of Guardian’s way and help in case of emergency.  “You should have subroutines for both, try and access them.”

Lifting his wings, Guardian shuttered his optics and dropped his optic guard, then followed the instinctual programming and activated his thrusters, shooting up into the air at rapid speed to excited hoots from the other aerials and the grounders and humans alike, gaining altitude before shifting in midair – and then things really got fun as the wind passed over and around him, Skywarp and Thundercracker barely staying in formation with him as he showed off the maneuverability his form had shouted of and the speed his smaller build banked on for protection in a fight against larger mechs.

“Jesus.”  Epps shaded his eyes with one hand as he watched the black-grey-and-green jet fall into barrel-rolls and loops, dropping into sudden dives and then shooting up towards the sun.  “What build is that?”

“I don’t know.”  Will admitted, watching the smallest jet in the sky as he was joined by the rest of the aerials in a display that would have any air force in the world green with envy, pulling stunts that from the looks on the ground-based Cybertronians were heart-stopping even for the aliens.  “But I wish he had a cockpit.  Some of those tricks he’s pulling would be impossible for even the best pilot to manage.”

“Guardian Prime is…exemplary.”  Optimus told them, vocals pitched low in awe.  “Even for an elite Seeker.  There are issues, but, once trained to work as a member of a team he will be one of the best flyers in the sky, perhaps even equal to Starscream.”

In his alt form anyway.

His mech technique needed a lot more work than his super-maneuverable alt form.

After a few breems Starscream ordered the aerials back to the ground, including Guardian, already looking forward to training the youngling Seeker who was, as Optimus noted, exemplary.

Completely without fear.

If Starscream didn’t know better, he’d say that Guardian had spent cycles and cycles in the air not breems.

But that was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

Though he felt he couldn’t be blamed for his minor spark-shock when the little fragger came in far too fast towards the ground, the other aerials clearing a path at a comm from Guardian, and rather than lowering his wheels or changing back into his mech form to slow himself and use his wings to stop, he changed instead into the alt form none of them knew he possessed and landed with a soft bound on wheels that were already spinning before turning in a screech of rubber in a U-turn and finally shifting back into his mech form.

“A tri-former.”  Megatron chuckled.  “As you said brother, our youngling Prime is truly exceptional.”

“What the hell?”  Epps snorted a laugh.  “He turns into a damn Mini Cooper complete with Union Jack on his roof?  Could he be anymore British?  Really?”

...

Chapter Text

Sparked by Design

Chapter Six: Not Good, but Great

August 2007; NEST Base, Sand Island, Midway Atoll

It hadn’t taken long for the humans assigned to the main Cybertronian base in the South Pacific to get accustomed to hearing the happy chittering squeaks-and-clicks that indicated Moonracer was nearby.

Granted: it had taken some getting used to.

Kids - even the alien version of them - weren’t something they saw at forward operation bases, like, ever.

And while their new machine-based friends were open about making Earth their new home, there was no doubt as they watched the ‘bots settle in around them that while someday Sand Island might become more of a home than a base, it wasn’t there yet.

A status that wasn’t likely to change from the humans’ perspective until this big-bad in the form of ‘The Fallen’ was handled.

They could be wrong though, and none of them would be all that shocked if they were.

Transformers operated on an entirely different level when it came to just about everything than humans, and the more time they spent around them the more obvious those differences became.

Hearing that sweet little Moonracer wouldn’t even be considered a proper child rather than an infant for at least several “vorns” - which equaled eighty-three-years - had only been one of those shocks.

Learning that they’d been at war with each other for millions of years had been another.

It put that whole “living until they were dead” thing into perspective.

Then came the third major shock in a relatively short time frame (even for squishy humans): with Guardian Prime around, apparently even death wasn’t a guarantee that a life was finished.

Now that?

That had been a whole new world of weird.

One that had taken more than one of the human allies of the ‘bots aback.

It wouldn't, however, be the last.

…

Less than a week after he’d been feeling envious of Guardian Prime’s flying abilities - especially since unlike the other fliers, Guardian’s chosen aerial-alt didn’t have a cockpit to allow a human to fly with him - Lt. Col. Will Lennox found himself arching a brow in surprise when the Seekers returned from their daily flight training with Guardian…only for him to notice that the smallest Seeker had picked up a shadow.

Leaning over, he muttered to Epps: “Unless I forgot how to count, it looks like Guardian is starting to spark ‘bots again.”

“Uh huh.”  Epps blinked in shock and nodded at the sight of the new jet coming in for landing.  It was sleek like Guardian he could tell as they both moved in unison to grab their binoculars and get eyes on the new bird.  “Not a UCAV alt though.”  He noted immediately, spying out the glint of a glass bubble that gave away the existence of a cockpit.  “But…Will, man, I don’t recognize that jet prototype as anything the military has in play.”

“That is because the design is unique.”  Optimus Prime noted, having driven over silently to wait with the humans for the Seeker Wing to return to land.  “Joint engineered between Starscream, Skyfire, and Guardian Prime.”

“Looks like a cross between Guardian’s UCAV alt and Starscream’s suped-up F15.”  Will mused, lowering the binocs to focus on his friend - and fellow leader - while Epps continued watching the Seekers.  “High agility, high speed, but able to work in unison with a human pilot if necessary.”

“That’s right.”  Optimus shifted from his alt into his mech form, taking a knee next to his human friend.  “Originally there was discussion in favor of Guardian onlining a duplicate of his own Seeker form, but Guardian was insistent on Dark Sword having his own design and identity.”

“Guardian Prime is good people.”  Epps commented off-hand as the Wing came in for a picture-perfect synchronized landing.  “Y’all should listen to ‘im.”

“We are aware.”  Optimus nodded, thinking of all the youngling had done for their people - both their peoples - and in such a short amount of time.  “Of that, you can be sure.”

…

Onlining Dark Sword using the youngling mech blank that had originally been intended for Guardian’s transition had been a decent test of how the young Prime’s energy levels had recovered after his painful and taxing shift to young mech-hood.

To the sincere relief of both Ratchet and Starscream, Guardian had Called up Dark Sword’s spark from the Well without issue.  The newest Seeker turned out to be generally a calm, serious personality who had been instantly welcomed among the forming Wing, but due to the information payload regarding Guardian Prime’s most dangerous and daring aerial stunts had a hidden daredevil side to the youngling flyer.  Needless to say, both Skywarp and Bumblebee had taken to him, allowing Dark Sword to find companionship whether in the air or on the ground though all of the Terra-dwelling Transformers had welcomed their newest Spark with both servos.

Having a prepared blank as a template along with the programming information from Guardian’s new Wing along with his own had helped the young Prime beyond measure when it came to calling a suitable spark from the Well and onlining Dark Sword.  He found it far easier than how he’d created Safe Harbor out of nothing at all but the wreck of an APV.  But at the same time, the process was far more involved than simply calling up suitable sparks for the Mission City trine, as they’d already been sparkless protoform drones before Guardian Prime got his servos on them.

Which led him to his next challenge, one that he genuinely didn’t know what to expect regarding - if he managed it at all.

Recalling the Sparks of fallen Transformers - Cybertronians alone at the moment, but if he proved capable of it and his own created Transformers fell in combat, then one day potentially them as well.

That night in the middle of August found Guardian Prime with a small audience of Ratchet and Optimus standing over the laid out, repaired, and cleaned form of Jazz.  Blackout was ready in a separate hanger bay, waiting for the outcome of whether or not Guardian would even be able to recall a lost spark or not.  If Guardian failed, all was not lost however.  The power of the Matrix of Leadership was legendary, and while Guardian doubted that the Fallen wanted it for its ability to spark-recall, that Metatronius was convinced it had been left on Terra Sol was without question.  If Guardian failed, they would simply wait until the Matrix was located and then recall the lost sparks of their people back from the Well.

Guardian lightly rested his servos over the open - empty, cold - spark chamber of the fallen warrior Jazz, searching for a sense of the lost spark to help identify the spark of Jazz from all the others that dwelled within the Well.

“He was your second in command.”  Guardian spoke softly, optics focused not on the scene around him but on a place that only he could see and feel.  That ephemeral place that was everywhere and nowhere that he nonetheless also carried within.  “A born warrior.”

“He was.”  Optimus responded, grief and memories heavy in his vocal processor.  “One of the finest I have ever served with or commanded.”

“Where was he sparked?”  Guardian continued to try and search and sort through a thing that both was and wasn’t all at once.  “What was his original designation?”

Fluid Cybertronian flowed out from Optimus’s mouthpiece, answering the young Prime with information that among the Autobots only the leader himself knew as Jazz had always been a private mech.

To some surprise from the older mechs, Guardian repeated it flawlessly, then they held their - metaphorical - breath as his vivid green optics began to brighten and flare.

Then there was a burst of the same bright-flawless-white spark-light that they’d witnessed during Guardian Prime’s transition to full-youngling mech.

And then they knew nothing at all.

…

“Holy Fuck. ”  Lennox cursed as he saw the familiar form of Jazz standing tall in the Midway command center the following morning.  “Jazz?”

How in the name of-

His wide-eyed gaze met the equally-shocked one of Epps, both humans goggling at the sight of the formerly dead Autobot 2IC standing shoulder-to-shoulder with none other than Guardian Prime, the pair almost identical in height and build aside from Guardian’s wings and optics.

Well, and the features on their faceplates too he supposed, but even after nearly a month of spending the majority of his active duty time at the base with the various ‘bots, he still struggled to identify them based on their faceplates alone rather than their builds and colors.

“Guardian Prime’s abilities surpass that of any Prime since the original Thirteen.”  Optimus explained - but also not - vaguely.  “He is a true gift to our people.”

“Soo…”  Will pondered that head-scratcher for a long moment.  “Our resident Nubot,” and paranoid-towards-humans, can’t forget that bit, “leader can resurrect the dead?”

“Cybertronian dead.”  Optimus corrected, pedantically.  “Under certain conditions.”

In that moment, Will Lennox decided to promptly forget everything Optimus had either said or implied about Guardian Prime’s powers or the identities and potential allegiances of any “off-lined” ‘bots he and his men may or may not have helped Optimus bring back to Nellis after Hoover Dam and Mission City.

As far as he was concerned, asking questions about Guardian Prime and his powers at this point was borrowing trouble if the brass found out about it.

And fuck knew that they already had more than enough troubles of their own.

Jazz was a loyal soldier and fighter that the ‘bots had managed to repair.

That was all that Lennox needed to know.

Moreover - that was all he would ever put into a report.

“Congratulations, Optimus.”  Will eventually said, before moving over towards the command table that held Guardian and Jazz along with the mini spaz Frenzy.  They still had an op to go find the lost Scouts to plan, resurrected ‘bot or no resurrected ‘bot.  “Let's get this show on the road.”

…

<<Are you certain about this course, Optimus?>>   Jazz questioned through their comms, not willing to undermine his leader by vocalizing the words aloud.

He had only been back online a cycle - and, Primus, but that he’d come back at all after being certain Megatron had finally slagged him was a shock that his processor was still fumbling about with - after apparently having been offlined for more than a Terran month.  But when he came back - was brought back - it was to a reality that looked the same but at the same time was almost nothing like the one he’d left behind.  The changes were almost too many to innumerate.

Starting with that he’d come back at all, and probably ending somewhere around the being that managed it: a second Prime who according to his people had the sort of power not seen by a Cybertronian since the Thirteen.

Megatron having been glitched to the Pits and back by Shockwave was an easier concept to grasp - albeit with a healthy dose of skepticism - than the being that was Guardian Prime.

Or his power.

It also didn’t help that a youngling Prime so fraggin’ powerful was also so damn pretty… but Jazz wasn’t thinkin’ about that.  Nope.  Not a flicker crossed his processor after comin’ back online to the sight of gorgeous green optics and a perfectly designed faceplate about Primus havin’ blessed the young Prime jus’ a little more than normal.  Not at all.  Nope.  Never.

Dwellin’ on thoughts like that about a Prime tended to lead to nothin’ but spark-break if a ‘bot let it go too far.

He’d handle his attraction (which in his case was snarled up with gratitude, and… no) to the pretty Prime the way any sensible mech would: by admiring his face and sleek form from a safe distance.   Let the more reckless of their kind face off against the cornered turbo-fox that was a Prime’s purpose and try’n distract ‘im.  Like the terror twins if they showed up, or a kid like Bumblebee.  Jazz would jus’ enjoy the, ah, scenery and laugh when the mechs that let their sparks an’ libidos take charge got crushed under the realization that they’d always come second to a Prime’s duty to their people.

Admiration was fine, attraction was normal, but Jazz knew - pullin’ him back from the Pits or not - that gettin’ his spark tangled up in thoughts of a Prime was askin’ for the sorta trouble that led to situations like Megatron’s millenia-long obsession with Optimus.

And vice-versa.

All of which aside, with what he’d been told of Guardian Prime’s purpose and programming, he couldn’t help but question whether the Prime’s decision to bring Blackout back online was actually a good idea or not.

<<Guardian has yet to be wrong and Blackout has been a loyal friend to Megatron since he was a youngling at the War Academy.>>   Optimus attempted to sooth the worries of his 2IC.  

He understood Jazz’s fears, though for the most part he didn’t share them.  Jazz didn’t have more than two solar days spent with the Nubot leader or the Decepticon defectors to rely on when it came to assuaging his fears as the rest of the Autobots did.  To Jazz, it was as if he’d woken in a completely different reality than the one he’d known when he’d fallen at Mission City.  It would take time for belief and trust to come in the wake of the new facts of their situation - both on a personal level and that of their species as a whole.

<<He takes a hard stance on behalf of our people, it is true.>>   Optimus could concede that much to Jazz’s worries.  <<That does not mean he stands against our human friends or that he is without empathy.  Merely that he will fight our cause first, last, and always.  It has endeared the defectors to him and won him their loyalty beyond the service he provided them in defragging Megatron and Starscream.  Blackout will be the same.>>

<<And if you’re wrong?>>

<<Then it will be up to Megatron to handle, though I believe simply having his friend back to spec will be enough to earn consideration and time from Blackout, if not an instant defection from the Fallen’s ranks.>>

<<On your helm be it, Optimus.>>   Jazz at last conceded with a sigh of air through his vents.  <<Though I hope we have a new alt ready for ‘im either way, as I doubt our human friends are gonna welcome the mech who wiped out one of their bases with open arms, no matter his potential change of loyalties…>>

…

Guardian braced himself to recall a spark from the Well once more.

Recalling Jazz had caused an exhaustion similar to the cycle after his transition.  For all that calling and recalling sparks both drew from the Well, the latter, or at least when it came to Jazz, was exponentially more difficult.  At least for Guardian to manage.

It seemed that while his Vector Sigma powers were significant, they weren’t omnipotent in the matter of sparks.

Neither Optimus or Megatron were shocked that Guardian was coming close to finding the edges of his power limits - at least when it came to sparks.  That he could call sparks with relative ease, even without Primus’s commands riding him, was already a gift.  Both older mechs were too old to expect such things to come for free or without limitations.

Expecting Guardian to have complete sway over the Well would have been…greedy, to their processors from what they explained to him.

Recalling Blackout in the depths of the Terran night was both easier and harder than Jazz.  Easier, as Guardian wasn’t learning a new aspect of his powers through trial and error.  But…harder, still, than Jazz in a single and significant way.

Blackout was mostly at peace where his spark rested in the Well.

Jazz had been - to Guardian’s sensors - fractious.  His work wasn’t done.  He’d fallen in combat like Blackout, yes.  However in Jazz’s case that wasn’t enough to allow him to rest as the Autobot had been determined even in his rest that in falling before he knew the outcome of the battle he’d been in, that he hadn’t done enough to rest.

As a Decepticon, it seemed Blackout’s spark had long expected to fall in battle from what Guardian could read without actually merging with Blackout’s spark.  It was a suitable end as far as the BlackOps mech was concerned.  They’d found and rescued his oldest friend from the imprisonment the humans had subjected Megatron to.  They’d located the AllSpark.  Hope had returned to them, and if Blackout needed to fall for them to succeed…

Then so be it.

That ideological difference meant that Guardian had to spend less time discovering the logistics of locating and recalling the fallen spark and more time crooning to it and coaxing Blackout from his rest.

Come, he called, trying to convince the mech to return.  He wouldn’t force him.  He wasn’t a monster, he wouldn’t tear Blackout from his rest if he truly had no wish to leave it.  But he had a duty to his people.  Besides which…while the Autobots would be glad of Guardian’s failure in this endeavor, among the former Decepticons the BlackOps specialist would be deeply missed.  There is more to do.  A safe home to find. A temporary refuge to settle.  Our people to protect.

Tired.  Weary.  Rest.  The soft spark of the mech responded, pulsing lightly against Guardian’s own spark where he’d send it seeking into the Well through his ineffable - but undeniable - link to it.  Peace.

Friends who need you.   Guardian countered, pulsing back with the sensation of seeing Megatron coming back online after his defrag.  Those who miss you.   He sent the feeling of a forlorn Frenzy sulking on the shoulderplate of Barricade, the little hacker and his partnered infiltrator staring at the repaired blank that used to be Blackout.

Rest…peace?   

This time the response was more tentative, Guardian almost grinning in victory before he went for his trump card.  One he hadn’t needed against Jazz.  Which wasn’t a surprise.  From what he’d come to understand about his new people, while the Autobot faction was resilient and adaptable, the Decepticons - or former Decepticons - gave new meaning to the work stubborn.

Younglings to guide.   Guardian countered once more, sending the impression of Dark Sword flying through the air with the main Seeker trine.  Then the kill-strike: sparklings to care for.

Happy chittering sparkling-clicks filled the pulses between their sparks, the impression of Moonracer’s joy and carefree giggles nearly overwhelming.

Less than an astroklik later, Guardian was smiling smugly as Blackout - whose spark had leapt into his care at the first baby-sweet vocalization as sparks didn’t (couldn’t?) lie - stared down at him out of stunned red optics.

“Welcome back, Blackout.”  Guardian Prime greeted the returned Decepticon as Megatron strode up and came to flank him now that the light show that came servo-in-servo with his spark recalling ability had died away.  “You’ve been missed.”

…

The happy giggles of Moonracer rang and echoed - though less and less as they continued to renovate and retrofit the existing buildings on Sand Island - through the building as the little sparkling ran on struts and pedes that were slowly but surely gaining experience and stability with walking.

From what Guardian had been told by the mechs old enough to remember what it was like to have a real sparkling around, Moonracer wouldn’t drastically improve beyond the baby/toddler stage until his next frame.  As a sparkling could have anywhere between two and five “sparkling” frames before moving up to a true youngling frame, that didn’t quite alleviate the low-grade anxiety he had regarding Moonracer’s development.  He may be capable of creating sparklings, and had the programming to care for them, but that didn’t mean that having one depending on him - especially one as precious to him as Moonracer - wasn’t terrifying.

All the adult mechs helped of course.

Ratchet confirmed that Moonracer was in perfect health, and had the subroutines required - as did all the Seekers, apparently, since for some reason pre-war aerials and particularly Seekers were more likely to have spark-creation/splitting abilities than non-aerials - to refine energon into sparkling-grade fuel.  All the adults were baffled by the upgrades Primus had given both Guardian and Moonracer - and that Guardian had passed along to his own creations in turn - that allowed them to refine their own energy source from solar radiation.  Still.  If it let them feel less anxious regarding the one aspect that Guardian wasn’t worried about - Moonracer going hungry - to refine energon for the kiddo, Guardian was perfectly happy to let them.

One thing they were certain about regarding Moonracer was that he was in his first true sparkling frame and not a protoframe.

So that was good for all that Moonracer being so small and delicate and not able to even use his comms unit yet was terrifying.

(That there was nothing more entertaining to Guardian than watching all the Big Bad Mechs™ surrounding them melt into piles of goo whenever Moonracer made his “Optimum Status Achieved” alert sound also helped.)

The pair of newly-recalled mechs Jazz and Blackout were Moonracer’s current victims as the sparkling clambered all over their seated frames as if they were a climbing gym, to much amusement of the rest of the mechs on base as well as their few human counterparts.

“Kids really are the same no matter the species.”  Lennox mused, shaking his head as he took in the sight before him.  

He cast a dark look towards the larger mech the kiddo was using as a climbing frame but left it there.  All he had was suspicions regarding who, exactly Blackout was but no proof.  When he’d returned with his men from their latest op with Ironhide and Bumblebee - trying to track down energy signals of ‘Cons that had been sent to Earth before Megatron even arrived - to the sight of a mech with a helo alt…he’d known.  Especially after the trick with Jazz that Guardian had pulled out of his ass like Jesus resurrecting Lazarus.

Blackout wore no ‘Con brand.

His helo alt, a Bell UH-1Y Venom, was different from the Sikorsky MH-53J Pave Low III that had taken out the SOCCENT base in Qatar and been taken down at Mission City.

But Will’s mama didn’t raise a fool, and it was only the words plausible deniability that kept both will and his 2IC Epps from blowing up over working - however tangentially as all the ‘bot commanders had been careful to keep some of the former ‘Cons more than others away from their human allies - with a mech that had killed their men, many of whom had been friends.

Having an inkling that Guardian Prime might resurrect Blackout was a vastly different challenge than staring down the living reality of it, no matter what previous decisions Will had made in order to come to terms with the possibility of such a clusterfuck.

It wasn’t the first time that his government had leaned into an opportunity to turn enemies into allies, but fuck did it sting when it happened right before Will’s eyes.

At the end of the day, Optimus did his best to keep Will and his men from seeing the former ‘Cons who’d actively fought them.

It wasn’t enough.

Will didn’t know if there was a line that would be “enough” when it came to lives lost.

He had to keep his eye on the target that was the inbound Big Bad, and pile as much of the blame there was to go around on that apparently-evil motherfucker.

It sucked, but there it was.

…

Guardian watched the human commander all through the debrief regarding the energy signals, the scouting efforts lining up - for the most part - with the information Soundwave had passed along from Ravage regarding the scouts.

That was shaping up to be a problem.

One that he better get ahead of before it blew up the temporary peace they’d all been working towards out into the mesosphere.

…

“A moment of your time, if you please, Lieutenant Colonel.”  Guardian Prime snagged the attention of the human commander before he could disappear across the island to the human-safe dormitory and recreation/mess hall.

The humans were currently on a three-on/one-off weekly schedule.  Three weeks (roughly) stationed at Midway with the transformers, then a week or ten days either on liberty or at Diego Garcia or another base entirely.  It was a static schedule at that, rather than a rotating one except for the pair of comms soldiers who were deployed there as a remote duty station instead and only left for “liberty” in Hawaii when Lennox and his men were present.

Optimus and Ironhide weren’t entirely sold on the scheduling as non-defector Decepticons could land on Earth at any time, but Guardian and Megatron both approved as it gave them at least a week every lunar cycle without having to worry about squishies running around besides the two comms guys.

Comms guys who without the rest of the soldiers running around, tended to stay secluded on the “human-safe” part of the island instead of underfoot.

Lennox shared a look with Epps, jerking his head towards the exit in a silent order for his men to bug out and leave him with the younger Prime who’d never once in all the two months he’d known the ‘bots, asked to speak with any of them.

He didn’t shun them like some of the ‘bots, but he didn’t seek them out either.

And as…uncertain of the ‘bot’s character and motivations as he - and all the humans, really - was, Lennox couldn’t in all good conscience dismiss the opportunity to try and find out what made Optimus’s co-leader tick.

“After you, Guardian.”  Lennox waved a hand over towards the empty flatbed a dozen or so yards outside the co-use command hanger.  Usually it was used for the humans to hang out with some of the friendlier ‘bots and shoot the shit or as a bleacher-type set up when they felt like watching the ‘bots spar or train.  But it - like the raised catwalk platform in the command hanger - would help even out the height differential for a talk with the ‘bots as well.

Guardian Prime was one of the smaller full-sized mechs.  Larger exponentially than any mini-bot, but according to what everyone around them said, still not fully mature.  It made Lennox wonder:

If as a “youngling” Guardian Prime was already equal in size to Jazz and nearly as large as Barricade…how massive would his mature adult mech form be?

As large as the Seeker trine?  Larger?

As big as Skyfire, the biggest of the aerials?

Or as large as the strongest mechs in Optimus and Megatron?

Ratchet had mentioned something about the degree of change between the average youngling and their mature mech form, but from what Lennox and the other Rangers had picked up when it came to Guardian Prime they were working with guesswork.  Hypotheses.  Theories.  No one, perhaps maybe Guardian himself, seemed to know.

It killed Lennox a little inside that by the time either Moonracer or Guardian or Sword would be maturing into their next form, he and all his men would likely be dead and gone from old age or illness - if combat didn’t get them first.

His children might meet a fully-mature Guardian Prime.

His grandchildren might know Moonracer as a youngling.

It was an astonishing - and reality-warping - reality to come to grasps with.  The ‘bots didn’t think in terms of months or years or even decades when it came to time and planning.  They thought in vorns, a unit of measurement close to eighty-some years as Earth measured time.  They measured age in centuries and millennia.

The oldest of the ‘bots had been alive for eons and were older than humanity itself.

When Lennox thought about it too hard, he constantly flipped between awe and terror when he looked at his new friends and allies through that lens.

One that he wasn’t certain most of the brass “in the know” had even guessed at.

At the flatbed, Will easily jumped up onto the empty deck of the flatbed trailer as Guardian took a knee, the two concessions making it so they could face each other more-or-less head-on rather than deal with craning necks or hunching over.

“What can I do for ya, Guardian?”  Will asked, falling naturally into an at-ease stance as he stared into those eerie bright green optics that were unique among the ‘bots and even the defector ‘Cons.

“You do not trust me.”  Guardian Prime stated bluntly, part of him enjoying watching as Lennox fell out of his trained posture with a jolt at being called-out.  “That is as it should be.”  He waved a servo before the man could find his way to a denial - however polite or dishonest it might ultimately be.  “I do not trust you either.  However, if our people are to work together, we must be able to work together as Optimus Prime will not always be available to mediate.”

“Okay…”  Will drawled, brows furrowing in consternation.  He hadn’t thought he’d been that obvious about how he watched Guardian and the Nubots.  “What’d you have in mind, Guardian?”

“A bit of transparency on both our parts.”  Guardian offered.  “So that if there cannot be trust, there can at least be understanding of our individual motivations.”

Will turned that over in his mind for a moment.  He couldn’t deny that gathering more information on Guardian Prime was tempting - it was what had him following the mech out for this little talk in the first place.  Having an idea, no matter how vague, of what Guardian Prime was after on Earth besides the survival of his people would likely be valuable information.

Giving the mech a small sample of what made Will tick in turn would be almost negligible in comparison as while Will led the NEST operatives on Midway, he by no means held a position comparable to Guardian’s own among the ‘bots.

“What do you want to know?”  Will asked.

“There is little about how humans operate that I do not know.”  Guardian began, more in warning than anything else.  Despite himself, he was growing to like this human and his people.  A sense of fairness that predated his rise as Guardian Prime had roused the longer he watched Lennox and the other Rangers work in open partnership with Optimus and his Autobots.  “More, that I understand in a way that Optimus and the others likely never will.  When Cybertron sundered, the governmental structure that governed its Empire sundered with it.”  He explained the highlights.  “In the wake of the destruction, the remaining survivors became distinctly tribal following and owing loyalty to a singular leader or cause.”

“And you don’t?”  Will questioned, fascinated by the peek-behind-the-curtain of the ‘bots that he was being granted, puzzle pieces of how Optimus and even the likes of Megatron tended to act compared to Guardian Prime.

“I don’t.”  Guardian agreed with a nod of his helm.  “I still hold a familiarity,” due to his first life rather than his programming, but he wasn’t about to get into that with a human.  “With the idea of empires and nation states.  I know of the wording of your oaths to office and country and people, Lieutenant Colonel.  I know how your command structure is set, I know what you will risk if you were to disobey an order.  Such as an order to abandon an alien ally in combat.  Or to relay sensitive information that you may obtain due to your exposure to an alien people and culture.  I do not trust you, Lieutenant Colonel, because I know - not simply understand in an academic or logical sense - where your duty lies: to your own. ”

“And that makes me and mine a risk to you and yours.”  Will’s smile was wry and sardonic.  Though he had to admit: he hadn’t thought any of the Cybertronians understood the humans around them as well as Guardian Prime apparently seemed to.  He didn’t deny the Catch-22 that the mech had so clearly understood and outlined.  Personal loyalties to friends and allies couldn’t be discarded, but on paper GP was dead-on the money.  “Where I know from what’s been said that while Optimus would fight to protect and defend Earth and her people, that you would blast us all if it meant the survival of your own.”

“Optimus Prime is a good being.”  Guardian had no doubts about that, and neither should Lennox.  “He yearns for peace and has a deep empathy for others.  He would do great and extreme acts of sacrifice and heroism for a cause he believes just.  His is a beautiful spark.”

“Aren’t you the same?”  Will asked.  “You’re both Primes, aren’t you?”

“Ah, but there’s the rub.”  Guardian chuckled lowly.  “I am not a good being in the way that Optimus is.  Few beings are capable of such pure selflessness.  I won’t die for a cause, Lieutenant Colonel.  I will not sacrifice myself,” not again.

“Then,” Will frowned deeper, unsettled.  “What would you do for a cause that makes you a Prime?”

“Anything it required.”  Guardian leaned close, green optics all-but-burning a hole through the human before him.  A phrase echoing through his memory banks from a forsaken life: terrible, yes, but great.   “I would fight, survive, kill, wound, destroy, for my people.  Just as I would cherish them, build them up, care for them, and love them.”  He leaned back, preparing to rise as while Lennox had spoken little, his reactions - both visible and not, those that his sensors had picked up such as his pulse and hormone production rates - having told him all he needed to know.  “Generals retire, Lennox.  Presidents change, kings die, tyrants are deposed.  Optimus is a good being and leader.  Take care that he is not betrayed by your people, Lieutenant Colonel.  The Fallen is coming.  Not all the Decepticons will defect.  Earth is a planet quite suited for our people, but it is not unique and Optimus Prime may very well be the only being standing between your people and those who would destroy them to claim your world for their own.”

“That include you, Guardian Prime?”   Will dared, fear warring with fury inside his chest.

“No.”  Guardian shook his helm.  “I would not destroy billions of innocent lives to advance my people.  But I would kill dozens or hundreds or millions of aggressors against them if that was what it took to protect them.  If we are betrayed by the allies Optimus is attempting to make on this planet, I will not seek redress or revenge.”  He warned.  “Instead, I will take my people, my warriors and fighters that now are the firebreak between humanity and the Fallen, and we shall leave humanity to its fate.”

Will clenched his jaw and gave the mech a nod.  Message received.  Though he wasn’t excited to forward it to General Morshower, let alone SecDef and the Joint Chiefs as Guardian Prime strode away, leaving him to his thoughts.

Goddamn it.

He really hoped that the politicians back in D.C. weren’t plotting too much fuckery when it came to their newest allies.

That was about as blatant a fuck around and find out that Will had ever gotten.

Washington was going to have kittens, and Will was the poor sucker who had to be the bearer of bad news that the Autobot leader, despite their assumptions regarding the loyalties of the others like Bumblebee and Jazz, was the only being standing between Earth having allies with the ‘bots or being left completely alone against the Fallen and his Decepticons.

Fuck.

Just… fuck.

…