Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The GiW had something new. It wasn’t a ghost, it was one of the things their new friends had been playing with for the past year. It had a field, like a ghost, but it didn’t radiate the same way ectoplasm did. Danny thought it felt like a wavelength diagonally down from ectoplasm. 

The new thing radiated pain loudly for a couple hours and Danny tried not to stare at the massive eye made of an odd metalloid construct. It was from the last new thing, and when the new people were done with it the GiW had stuck it in a jar of ectoplasm. 

It had started blinking at Danny and shifting in shape a week ago. 

The new thing abruptly shifted from broadcasting pain to absolutely blaring rage and determination. An explosion sounded above Danny’s cage and he squeezed his eyes shut as the room rattled. 

The room shook with another resounding boom, and continued to shake as if the very foundation was possessed. Danny watched as the jars and tools lining the shelves of the room wobbled towards the edge. The jar with the eye landed at the same time as two others. One contained Danny’s heart, it had grown back, but the first had been on the shelf for a year and a half now. The other contained his blood. 

The eye began to emit a shrill sound as it interacted with the ecto and the organic material surrounding it. Danny watched impassively as he gently coaxed some of the ectoplasm away from it to thread into the lock. It was writhing now and shifting between metallic and organic material. 

The cage door shattered at the hinges and the ectoplasm began to thread itself into the collar. The instant it broke Danny took in a deep breath and revelled in his own ecto flowing properly for the first time in a year and a half. 

The thing stopped moving now, stuck in a much smaller puddle than before. A baby, maybe a little younger than two blinked at him. They looked like Danny, in the same way that Ellie did. Facial features were softer but identical, the baby’s ears were pointed, and lines of the metal from the eye traced paths on the baby’s body. 

The baby blinked at Danny with luminous golden eyes and cooed. Danny hummed as his core reached out. Danny grabbed a hazmat kit and yanked through it for a fire blanket. The contents were left strewn along the floor as Danny yanked the baby up into the blanket and ran. 

He wrapped it tight, ignoring the quiet babbling, and ran as fast as he could. Stairs up good, flashing alarms bad, door that had stars and wind outside good, fence and people with guns bad. 

Danny had been careful to stay in Phantom form as much as he could while the GiW had him. Now he shifted human and ran full tilt for the fence throwing every scrap of energy into phasing through it. 

He glanced at Baby after they were through. Baby’s eyes were less gold now, only in the irises, and Baby’s hair was a soft amber instead of the teal from before. He smiled weakly at Baby and slipped between the trees. He needed to find shelter. 

There was an abandoned car up ahead. Danny could smash a window if the door was locked. Baby murmured quietly as Danny wilted with exhaustion and relief. It’d do. 

Jazz had known the risks. The war was centered on Earth right now, with bots and cons joining as they could, but both sides were staying in hiding, in secret, in caughteous undercover bases. 

The government of the humans was squirrelly, but they had a few splinter groups dedicated to unethical things. These groups were officially illegal, and unsanctioned, but no one really did anything. 

Bureaucrats. The same on Earth as they were on Cybertron. Regardless, Jazz had received the brief in the data pack sent to any space bound autobots. He knew about sector seven, about MECH, about the various other smaller groups. 

It did not make it rankle any less to have landed directly in a trap. It was stupid really, Jazz had a minor sensitivity to weaponized electricity, as any cybertronian did, but due to his advanced spec ops systems the modified stun gun they used had been so much more debilitating. 

The cables shot through him had currents that kept frying his systems all over again every two minutes which certainly didn’t help. By the time he’d managed to get any level of coherence gathered he’d already been strapped to the trailer of a semi and dragged into their hanger. 

Jazz rolled his helm to the side and glared. The humans in his sight line were not bothered. One of them smirked at him and fiddled with a small device. The cables holding him to paralysis sparked and flared to life as Jazz tipped his helm back and groaned through his denta. 

For a very long while all Jazz could see were the displays on his hud. Damage reports rolling in, all minor, his chronometer ticking on, his internal informing him of his stored energy nearing depletion. By the time he could online his visor after the short out Jazz was too busy pushing past the pain to try to access his comms system for a distress signal. 

Then one of the humans lifted a tool to the plating directly over his spark chamber and Jazz snarled with a sudden rage. He yanked at his arms, paralysis and shocks be damned to the Pit, they weren’t touching his spark. 

Three of the cables pulled out as Jazz rolled and he pulled a small grenade from his subspace. Optimus had instructed that no humans be harmed. 

Optimus didn’t need to know. 

Jazz pulled the pin and rolled it. It was concussive, bright and loud. It let him pull the last two cables out and rise to his pedes and pull another out. The human still holding the frankly impressive drill looked up at him impassively as she raised a gun to point at his visor. 

Jazz laughed meanly. He was spec ops, his armor was sturdy, his visor moreso. He pulled the pin, dropped the second grenade, a real one this time. Then Jazz got the hell out of dodge. 

There were woods nearby. Jazz was exhausted, low on energy and hitting his reserves on energon. He needed rest before he could do anything, and time to let his self repair work on his comms suite. The second Jazz was far enough he shifted and drifted off to recharge. 

At least he tried to. He’d been in recharge for maybe two breems before an organic opened his door and climbed in. Jazz carefully trained his sensors on the human and accessed his files from Optimus on human classifications. 

The human was about fifteen or sixteen by the scan he’d taken, as well as injured and underweight. He was cradling another smaller human.they both scanned oddly, with static and gaps in Jazz’s ability to read the results. The teen had a small paper tag bracelet on his wrist. 

Jazz focused a sensor to read it. “Subject 3047, GiW Custody, Status: Inhuman,” it read and Jazz let his em field dim. The kid had been experimented on by the same splinter group that had nabbed Jazz. The kid curled into Jazz’s driver’s seat and sobbed lowly into the small human’s blanket. 

Jazz let his seat soften and warm slightly. Then he scanned the small human with a more focused scan to get a baseline for Ratchet. It was a baby girl according to the file data, about fourteen months old. She had biometal embedded in her, and her vitals and characteristics matched the teen. 

Jazz wondered if that had anything to do with the inhuman tag. The teen dropped off to sleep curled around the baby and Jazz followed him into recharge after a final sensor sweep and locking the doors. 

Jazz woke first, several joor later when this planet’s sun was at its apex. The teen stirs shortly afterward and abruptly goes stiff as a board. Jazz’s em field projects as much comfort and safety as he can while he runs an internal systems check. His comm suite is still down, how inconvenient. Ratchet might need to fix it. 

The teen is knocking in a long repeating pattern on the wheel, gentle soft taps of his knuckles. Jazz runs a quick decoding program, it’s Morse code and English. The teen is knocking out, “Sorry, I’m, Danny, sorry,” over and over and Jazz hums all the way through his cab in response. 

The teen stills and Jazz chirps a Cybertronian greeting on instinct as he uses his radio to talk to the teen, “Hi, Danny. I’m Jazz. Why are you sorry?” 

Jazz figures the kid is sorry for sleeping in what is a sentient being, but he still wants to ask. the kid pauses, so still that Jazz has to strain his sensors to detect a heartbeat. A feeling of profound sorrow flits across the kid’s pseudo-em field. Then he starts knocking again. 

“Slept, in, you, no, permission,” the kid pauses and Jazz gears up to reassure him before he’s tapping again, ”You, made, booms, let, escape.” 

“Yeah, I did. They were over the line when they captured me, but going for my spark was my limit. Grenades in the subspace are useful when you have limited mobility,” Jazz says with a pleased purr of his engine. It hadn’t been his best work, but for something borne of desperation it had worked. 

The final implication of Danny’s tapped words sinks in and Jazz lets out a subsonic snarl without meaning to, immediately cutting it off as the teen curls up in his seat in apparent terror, “Was that to mean my escape or yours? Man, I gotta tell you, I’m gonna be real pissed at those afthelms if they had a captive kid back there.” 

“Not, a, kid,” is tapped out with a trembling hand as the tiny baby begins to stir. 

Jazz had known, logically, that the kid had been held by the splinter group. He’d hoped that it was semi willing though, and that the kid had been escaping the explosion, not his own kind. Doctors could get all kinds of creepy levels of passionate, even on Cybertron. 

Sparklings, younglings, and bitlets were just shy of sacred though. No one hurt them, even medics were insanely cautious, and any originators were protective long after their bits were in their adult frames. The only sparklets that Jazz had ever heard of suffering from any level of abuse were the twins during the quiet beginning stages of the war. 

The baby fusses for a moment then outright wails, and Jazz jerks as he frantically dials down his audio input. Danny is patting her gently and making soft sounds at her, no words, and nothing louder than Jazz’s own nigh silent systems. There is trauma there, Jazz knows. 

The kid was the opposite of Bluestreak. Jazz adds his own comforting hum to Danny’s murmur and lets his engine fully come out of idle as he thinks on the youngling he and his bond mate had adopted so long ago. 

Bluestreak’s trauma had manifested as a near inability to talk without babbling, or indeed stop talking. He had been working on it with Smokescreen before, Jazz wondered how much progress had been made. 

Jazz turned onto the road and accessed the internet fully for some research and thoughts. Baby was still fussy, and Jazz was figuring that she was hungry according to several parenting sites and Wikipedia. She most likely also needed a new diaper. 

Jazz scanned her again at that horrifying thought. She was not wearing a diaper, or clothes. She was wrapped in a fire blanket, a now soiled one. Jazz sank on his struts as some of her— leakage, dripped on his floor. 

She definitely needed diapers. He would also put up with the ridiculous baby seat contraption so that wouldn’t happen again. Danny also needed clothes and food, albeit different sorts. 

Jazz spun a different part of his processor into compiling a list of what growing children needed. There was a Target in the town after next, which was a good stopping place in the four day drive to the coordinates Bossbot had sent. There was a thing called online pickup. 

This would work, Jazz would make it work. 

“Hey, Danny,” he began, “Do you have colors or things you enjoy?” 

Danny cocks his head slowly at the steering wheel, the interface that the teen had chosen to direct his focus at. A quick comparison search tells Jazz that the expression is confusion. He commits to a new database in his files to build a profile on Danny and what his facial expressions mean. 

“Space, green, red, black, purple, orange, space, stars, why,” is tapped out and Jazz immediately keys those into the clothes order as keywords. 

“How about the baby? Does she have a name? What does she like?” 

Danny squints at the wheel, peers under the baby’s blanket with a wrinkled nose, hums, and shrugs. Jazz- does not know what that means. He uses the same keywords for Baby. He funnels funds from various corrupt bankers to pay and schedules the pickup for an hour from now. 

Danny is humming again, an odd echoing sound, a melody folding back in on itself in triplicate no louder than a murmur. Jazz digs through his deep files and lets a truly ancient Polyhexian lullaby play out of his radio. 

A ghost of a smile hovers on Danny’s face as the teen’s hum shifts to follow the song. It grows into a tiny grin as Jazz sings softly in Polyhexian. He hadn’t sung this since Blue was in his second frame fresh from Praxus’ ruins. 

When that song ends Jazz plays another. He switches between Cybertronian music and Earth songs, and Danny hums along to them all. By the time that they are pulling into the Target parking lot, gently since Baby is asleep, Danny hasn’t tapped anything else out, but is relaxed and leaning into Jazz’s seat half asleep. 

Jazz notes that there’s an option for no interaction, just to put the order into the vehicle and he activates it with a moment’s concentration. He also connects his trunk loosely to his subspace until he can unpack the stuff in a safer place. It’s uncomfortable, but it won’t wake Danny or Baby up. 

Twenty minutes later Jazz is having some thoughts. All of the new things in his subspace means that they are accessible, but only the food for Danny is immediately useful. He’s also not sure that Morse code is viable for the long term. 

Jazz really needs to figure out who this kid is, but he doesn’t have an easy method of communication, and he can’t hack too deep into the human servers. He’s pretty sure that he wouldn’t get caught, but that doesn't mean he’s willing to risk it when he’s this far from backup. 

Jazz considers the sign language the humans have. There are-there’s a lot of different dialects. It is also an entire language for Danny to learn, which wouldn't help with the speed factor. An aside pops up in his internet trawling. 

Speech aids for delayed talkers or autistic children. It doesn't quite fit Danny, but the ideas are useful. Little flimsies with pictures and words to point at to build sentences, and premade flashcards, and something called an AAC tablet. 

Jazz lingers on the AAC tablet for a second. Its design is a bit clunky for Danny, and it’s not readily available. He’s going to want to be able to go faster than that, but Jazz could probably program something intuitive for the kid. Jazz pulls the references into his files and puts an order for a regular human tablet in for the next town. 

The next town has something called a campground, where it has a place for humans to clean themselves and recuperate. Jazz isn’t sure what he thinks of the concept of camping, or of recharging in organic forests, but it seems like the safest option. 

He’ll probably still try to learn one of the human sign dialects with Danny. It seems useful. Just for the heck of it Jazz rearranges his systems slightly so that he can access part of his hud where Danny can also see it. He starts manually learning the ASL alphabet. 

Manual learning sticks longer in deep memory than downloads did, and it lets Danny start practicing the signs with him with a groggy sort of cheer as he wakes gradually. 

Baby gurgles from her dirty blanket on Danny’s lap. She still has no name and Jazz doesnt know enough about human naming conventions to suggest one. His one suggestion of Sharpwail had made Danny outright cackle, the loudest he had been that Jazz knew of. 

Danny pats on his console and painstakingly signs out, “S.E.P.H.I.E. Hungry.” 

Jazz swerves very slightly then continues on towards the campground with its advertised showers, “Sephie? Is that the baby’s name?” 

“P.E.R.S.E.P.H.O.N.E,” Danny spells out with a gleeful grin, “Persephone Sharpwail Seren Nightingale.” 

Jazz snickers at the lengthy name and pulls onto the rough road leading to the campground. Danny is already unbuckling and lifting the bundle of stinky Sephie to climb out as Jazz pulls to a stop and opens the door. Then he pops the trunk and Danny lifts an astronomical amount of bags and several boxes out. 

Danny plops down on the ground beside Sephie after they’re all out and huffs at the sky. Jazz shifts forms and snags the tablet to connect with for reprogramming. Danny blinks at him and Jazz realizes that this is the first time that Danny has seen him out of his alt mode. 

Danny slowly reaches for Sephie and then, in a burst of light that registers oddly to his sensors, he shifts as well. In the place of what was previously a relatively normal human as far as Jazz could tell floated an odd entity. They were both Danny, both babies were Sephie, but there were definite differences. 

Danny’s hair had bled from black to a white so silvered that it resembled a spark glow. His eyes were a vibrant green glowing stronger than the blue that had admittedly glowed before. The freckles that were previously static were silvered and slowly shifted in determined patterns across his skin that was just as greyed as it had been tanned. 

His em field poked at Jazz’s, a curl of what-like-me-not-who-how. Jazz flared his back. He didn’t have the ability for complication with his field, that’s what comms were usually for, but he could get across the basics of, not-you-similar-protect-Protect-PROTECT. 

Danny beamed at him, his greenish glow flaring brighter for a long moment, then he lifted Sephie for his observation. Jazz dutifully peered closer at the baby. She had also changed, albeit less than Danny. 

The gold of her irises was brighter and had overtaken her eyes entirely. The soft amber of her tiny shock of hair was now a vibrant indigo-teal color, and the biometal framing her face previously was much more prominent now. It was silvery in the same way as Danny’s freckles, but was raised like tiny armor panels over any vulnerable spots, following a pattern like her bones interposed overtop her skin. 

Her skin was the exact same greyed out shade. This was not normal human behavior, Jazz thought. This bore more careful research. For now Jazz carefully reached towards the absolute pile of new things and tugged out the box with the baby bath in it. 

Danny chirps with acknowledgment and excitement, a sound so similar to a sparklings’ proto language that Jazz automatically trills back. Danny chirrs at him and darts up through the air to twirl around his helm excitedly, before he is carrying the bath towards the shower house to fill it. 

Jazz kneels on the grass and dirt to gently poke through the bags. Shampoo, soap, washcloths, towels, and several bags of clothes are retrieved and set in a little pile to the side. Diapers are torn open so that Jazz can stuff several into a tote advertised as a diaper bag. There’s a lot of room left. 

Danny whirls back into the clearing with the bath basin and sets it down before he pokes through the pile. Almost immediately he pulls out a grey NASA hoodie. He hums happily, the eery echo much more pronounced in this other form. Then he drops it in favor of the shampoo, a towel, a onesie for Sephie, and puts the baby into the tub. 

Sephie does not go happily. She wails, and fusses, and flails angrily at Danny, but she gets cleaned, and she gets fluffed down with the towel before getting put in her first diaper. She sniffles sullenly and pouts at Danny as he brandishes the planet covered pjs at her. 

Danny digs through the bags of clothes and sets aside a little pile of them. Sephie is settled in a nest of what remains. Danny shifts back to his more human passing form and runs for the shower house with his small pile of clothes. Jazz watches Sephie calmly. 

Sephie watches him back. She stuffs her whole fist in her mouth grinning at him around her few denta. Jazz chirps at her experimentally and receives a tiny chirp back. Jazz trains several of his sensors at her and idly plays a game of chirps and trills with her as he focuses on the tablet for Danny. It's nearly done, but he’s leaving a back door for further edits. 

The rest of the evening goes smoothly. Danny comes back out in a pair of galaxy leggings and his NASA sweatshirt and helps sort the piles of stuff. The diaper bag is prepped, and Danny feeds a jar of truly foul goop to Sephie. 

By the time everything is squared away and Jazz has shifted back to his alt mode, they’re all exhausted. The diaper bag goes on the floorboard of Jazz’s passenger seat, with the car seat for Sephie strapped in above it in the only available seat. Jazz has never regretted his base size so much as he did right now with such a small cabin. 

Danny curls up in the driver's seat around Sephie, wrapped in a little blanket nest, and Jazz lets ancient music from before the war send them off to sleep. Jazz slips into recharge as well, he’s got three more days of driving, two children, and not enough stored energon. 

Danny is admittedly rolling with the punches right now. Jazz is nice, protective, often confused, and Danny still isn’t sure what he is. He is the thing from the GiW base, but his not-quite-ecto signature is so telling. 

He’s not hostile, at least not to Danny, but he doesn’t seem like he’s from Earth. 

(Danny’s first alien and they’re pulling him from the wreckage of his life with the same name as his dead sister.) 

Jazz keeps singing to Danny in his voice, and in voices older than the now. Recordings, Danny thinks, but ones that ping his old time sensitivity as they echo with death and grief. Jazz sings in English and old languages from far away that a human throat can’t say. 

Danny might try anyways. 

(Later. Not now. Now everything hurts and he can’t talk, can’t scream, they’ll find him again, hurt him again.) 

He also knows something like ghost speech, chirps and trills and chirrs that satisfy something deep in Danny’s core. Jazz even chirps with Sephie, and gets food, a bath, and clothes for her. 

(Just a Baby, only a day old and she’s going to be hunted, and cut open, and she’s too small, too little, they can’t-)

Danny curls tighter around Sephie. He doesn’t want to be a teen parent. He will, for her, for the odd eye child from his heart and blood and fear-Fear-FEAR. 

Maybe Jazz can be her parent, and his. His core is already bonding. 

(He’s so tired.)

(His last parents shot him-hurt him-sold him. They didn’t want him anymore.) 

Sephie has been feeding off of Danny’s ecto, and Danny has been feeding off of Jazz’s weird not-ecto energy, and maybe it's a cycle. Jazz pulls a cube of Pink liquid and drains it in the morning. 

His aura perks up and Danny purrs as his guardian-friend-protector feels stronger. Jazz pokes the iPad closer. They’ll leave the forest soon, Jazz is going somewhere. Sephie coos from her seat and gums at the empty applesauce squeeze. 

Danny swipes the iPad open. The screen says, “Hello, Danny.” It has a little series of pictures and words. Danny taps one hesitantly. 

The picture is of an apple. The tablet chirps out, “Apple.” 

Jazz rolls an apple towards him. Danny snaps his head up, and then refocuses on the tablet. It has pictures of things, a little typing bar, and basic words lining the top. If Danny taps the hamburger menu it has different options for modes. Danny immediately starts tapping at the screen. 

“Thank you,” says the iPad in its cheery mechanized voice. Jazz beams at him, not with his face, though he does smile, but with his aura. 

Danny hesitates, then taps out, “Where are we going?” 

Jazz had modeled the iPad voice after something, Danny isn’t sure what, but his aura perks every time the tablet talks. He also is poking gently at Danny’s aura pretty frequently. If he isn’t more careful he’s going to initiate a parent bond long before Danny is. 

(Maybe it's on purpose. Maybe someone wants him. Maybe he won’t hurt anymore.) 

“We’re heading to a place between Jasper and Mission city. It's been set up as a base by my people, and I was supposed to get there before the Ark. I still will,” Jazz says, “I just landed wrong. I’m going to be coordinating a lot before the Ark lands.” 

Danny has so many questions, “Ark?” 

“Eh. It's a ship. There’s a war on, so. Technically it's a colony ship, but it was repurposed. We’re not colonizing Earth, too few resources, too many allies, but colony ships are really great for transit and home bases.” 

“War,” Danny types out for the tablet to say. Jazz snickers. The following hour is Jazz explaining the war the best he can, the whole thing is entrenched in politics that he keeps having to go back and explain better, while Danny learns his new tablet by asking questions. 

By the time they’re on the road Danny is more concerned by the random space ware encroaching on Nevada apparently than the risk of new people. He’s arguing politics of the caste system with Jazz as they drive today instead of music, and Danny is still happy. 

Eventually Jazz mentions a Ratchet already being here and Danny is nervous all over again. Doctors are bad in Danny’s experience. That makes Jazz trail off into a lecture on who’s who in hierarchy. 

Optimus is the leader, a Prime, which seems to be a mix between a King and a diplomat. During peacetime he is a neutral arbitrator between cities, and his predecessors neglected their duties leading to the current war. He leads the Autobots. 

His direct counterpart is Megatron who leads the Decepticons. He started with the ideals of freedom and abolishing an oppressive caste system. He went mad with power and now fights for a twisted reframing of the first system, Optimus fights for his first goal. 

(Jazz recites poetry by Megatron. It's good. He’s wistful.) 

Prowl is Optimus’ Second-in-Command, and also his strategist and main coordinator. It seems like a lot of work. The strongest core bond tugs as Jazz talks about him. Husbands is Danny’s theory. 

His counterpart is Starscream, who seems like- a lot. 

Jazz himself is the Third-in Command, as well as head of Spec Ops, and morale officer, and field lieutenant. This also seems like a lot. Danny resolves to actually put effort into learning Cybertronian. He could help. 

His counterpart is Soundwave, who Jazz describes as misguided, but he seems to genuinely admire. Apparently the mech is very good at what he does, and a good person, just loyal to Megatron. 

Danny will reserve judgement. 

The Decepticon leadership has people with authority, but no more delegation than that. It seems shortsighted to Danny. The Autobot side has more to break down. 

Ratchet is apparently the CMO, Chief medical officer, he has apprentices and authority, and is very good. He is also caring according to Jazz and pseudo adopted twin younglings with his partner. 

Danny isn’t sure why the pseudo is important. Apparently the twins didn’t know they were adopted. Trauma, Jazz says, and an initial mistrust of both authority and adults in general. 

There is also Wheeljack, inventor and head of the science division, Red Alert, security director, Ironhide, Optimus’ bodyguard as well as weapons specialist, and Blaster, communications specialist. 

Jazz clearly likes his teammates, and friends quite a deal. Danny approved wholeheartedly. 

Jazz is also still learning how humans work and is mildly grumpy when he has to pull into a gas station only a few hours down the road for Danny and Sephie to have a bathroom break. 

Chapter Text

Optimus can admit that he’s worried. The Ark is due to quietly arrive in only five months. Jazz was supposed to arrive a week ago to coordinate from this end while Prowl coordinated from the Ark. 

The hope was of course that the war stayed relatively inactive, and hidden from the humans for now, small skirmishes, and such was Jazz’s area of expertise. Optimus was not good at subtlety. 

He could admit his weaknesses, see Ratchet?

Optimus sat outside the base watching the horizon. His team was inside, playing with the children, working with their military allies, also worried, but productive. 

Optimus couldn’t be productive. MECH had been resurging with a new unknown ally, Jazz had been registered as entering the atmosphere six days ago, at a point that should’ve been a four day drive. Jazz had a tendency to speed, and cut corners, and get away with because of his skills with stealth. 

Jazz hadn’t checked in. Optimus was worried about his friend, but they were too busy to send anyone with Ratchet to check. Epps came up behind him and Optimus tilted his helm to indicate he was listening. 

“There’s a vehicle approaching, about twenty minutes off. We’re setting up a perimeter,” he says, and Optimus fully looks at him now, “You comin’?” 

Optimus nods once and stands to follow the man to where Bumblebee and Ratchet are waiting with a smaller group of humans by the south perimeter line. 

There really is a vehicle approaching, a white muscle car with racer stripes like what Jazz usually sports. Its lagging in the dust, and Ratchet is muttering about exhaustion and energon deprivation symptoms. 

About a half mile away from the perimeter Jazz drifts to a halt and lets a human out. Then he shifts and carefully sets the human on his shoulder. The human is wearing a backpack and carrying something else on his front. 

Optimus reviews the data pack he’d sent in a mild panic. He’d mentioned the human allies in the military, he’d mentioned their young friends, he’d mentioned to leave all others alone. 

Jazz keeps walking towards them, salutes as he gets close, and drawls out, “Hey, Bossbot,” the second he’s close enough. He’s swaying on his pedes. The human waves. 

Lennox curses vividly from beside him, and Fowler snorts a clear agreement. 

Epps lets out a distinct, “What the fuck-“ 

The human has a baby wrapped to his chest. The baby coos. Optimus comms Arcee a request to call Jack’s mother for a consult, or a visit. He does not explain. 

The human is also an adolescent, a boy in purple galactic patterned leggings, a baggy nasa sweatshirt, and a black lace skirt matching Miko’s. Miko will be pleased and loud with this development. Jack frequently pokes fun at her clothing choices. 

Jazz drops the smile and quietly asks Ratchet if he has any energon on him. Ratchet does. Optimus’ worry increases. Jazz offers no explanation, not even over comm. 

“Jazz,” he asks tentatively, “Are you well? Injured?” 

Jazz stares for a moment at nothing in particular. Ratchet edges closer and unspools his medical hardline. The teen hisses at the medic. 

“Nah,” Jazz says and everyone but Ratchet and the teen staring each other down relax, “Well-“ 

“You utter lunkhead! Are you injured or not, bolts-for-brains?” Ratchets snarls and the teen’s hiss morphs to a snarling growl. 

“Technically I'm not injured, per se,” Jazz hedges, “I just have a slag ton of fried systems is all.” 

Ratchet swells with indignation as Jazz’s helm twitches oddly. The teen turns his head towards Jazz and chirps. It's a sparkling cry of concern and automatically every Cybertronian present answers with the soft churr-click of an outsider’s reassurance.

Everyone except Jazz who responds with a creator’s chirp-purr of safety-calm. Optimus suddenly feels a helmache coming on. This- this has the potential to be a mess. 

Ratchet eyes the teen and deflates into the calm careful posture he uses on his more skittish patients. He’s never used it on Jazz, but now as he talks to him and the teen he is serene. 

“Alright, well let's get the two of you inside. I’ll see what I can do for your systems, and we’ll get your passengers checked out as well.” 

The teen lifts his tablet and taps a few times and smugs at Ratchet as the tablet says in a solid mix of Prowl and Bluestreak’s voices, “Come at me Glitch.” 

Optimus truly cannot help his laugh and he will stick to this defense later when questioned. So will the military men and Bumblebee, no doubt. Ratchet glares at them all. 

Bumblebee isn’t totally sure what’s happening. He knew Jazz would like Earth, Jazz loved new cultures, music, the chaos inherent in humanity would endear itself to Jazz, he knew that. 

Jazz’s comms weren’t working. He always connected comms with Bee right off, even if he was busy. Bee tried to connect. It clicked with odd static warbles and didn’t connect. 

Jazz had two humans, one of them too young to be really interesting to Jazz. The older one chirped like a sparkling. That wasn’t right at all. 

Jazz is visibly exhausted and underfueled even though he always keeps enough energon in his subspace for two mechs to last a week. Jazz is just as alert and aware as he always is, but he’s wary of the humans for some reason. 

Jazz has patchy paint, and a deep score in the plating over his spark, and his transformation seams glimmer green around the edges. 

Bumblebee is Spec Ops, Jazz trained him himself, he’s good at what he does. Bee opens a file of observations for him and Mirage. 

It’ll be long distant as far as communications with the other agent, but he gets an acknowledgment ping back immediately so at least Mirage is paying attention. He starts recording as Arcee walks up with Jack standing carefully on her pauldron. 

Carrying a human or having one ride on a bot in root mode is tricky, both for balance and dignity. It is safer while the base is preparing for the Ark though, and Bee snickers at the sight. Only the bots can tell, and Jazz shoots him an amused look. 

The teen on Jazz’s shoulder freezes when he sees Jack. Jack in turn perks up and waves. 

“Hey, I’m Jack! Where did you come from?” 

Bee watches the new teen tap at his tablet before an eerily familiar voice says, “A lab. Illinois. Earth. I don’t know the right answer. Parents?” 

Jack startles slightly, “Uh. What?” 

“I got caught by a joint organization of MECH and something called GiW upon arrival,” Jazz elaborates for the teen, “Danny escaped with Sephie at the same time I did. I was held for, mm, five hours or so. I’m not sure how long Danny was.” 

“What.” Arcee says, and Bee can feel her field flaring from here. So is Bee’s. The teen, Danny, taps for a second. 

“A year and two months. I looked at a date.” Danny scowls at the air in frustration for a moment, “I’m fifteen now.” 

“Uh, cool, I guess. Who’s Sephie?” Jack stutters out and Bee can feel Arcee’s judgment from here. 

Danny beams and lifts the baby up. Jack startles and laughs. Then he stops as a look of horror crosses his face. 

“Wait-“ he says. Jazz is already walking away. Jack tugs gently at Arcee’s helm fin, “Wait, the baby was-“ 

Bumblebee ends the recording and lets it rest for Mirage to review. Then he follows Jazz. By the time Jazz has been installed in Ratchet’s tender merciful domain he has uploaded several clips of the sparkling noises from both Danny and Sephie as well as Jazz’s responses for further perusal. 

He wonders if Jazz will program one of those tablets for him. He’ll donate a data pad to the cause. He wants to use his voice but also the option of Red Alert’s voice for the hilarity potential is tempting. 

Bumblebee isn’t sure what’s going on yet, but Primus is he glad he volunteered for the scouting mission as part of Optimus’s advance squad. He can’t imagine missing this like Mirage is. He sends back a laughing emote to Mirage’s absolutely furious pings. 

This’ll be hilarious when the Ark lands. 

Jazz is tired. He is exhausted in a way he hasn’t been since the rocky chaotic second centivorn of the war. Since Blue was newly adopted with so many issues.

Danny has perched himself on a support beam above Ratchet as the mech does what he can for Jazz. He doesn’t have more than rudimentary supplies, so there isn’t much. 

The electricity had a mild radioactive component to it that is apparently cannibalising Jazz’s systems somewhat. His energon levels also have a drain that Ratchet can’t identify. Jazz knows it's Danny. He says nothing. 

Ratchet welds a patch over the spot where the human scientists had tried to drill to his spark. He’s still reeling over that, and Ratchet was uncharacteristically silent as he welded the patch on with more care than expected, and much thicker than usual. 

Then he is still gentle as he tells Jazz that he can’t fix everything yet. Two of the processor chips in his comms relay have burnt out entirely, a third is on the verge. Ratchet just doesn’t have the parts until the Ark touches down. 

The nanites in his paint are overtaxed, and plenty of those had burnt out. Ratchet is going to introduce a new colony to replenish them, but any scuffs or scratches are going to self repair slowly. Jazz’s paint isn’t in the best repair now, that isn’t going to improve apparently. 

His maintenance systems are overwrought so he needs a day or so of rest, but he’ll also need to up his energon ration to account for the drain that Ratchet can’t find. He is also going to need regular checks with Ratchet to monitor the mystery radioactivity. 

Then Ratchet turns his attention to the feral Danny in the rafters. Danny bares his teeth in a hiss. A woman is let in by Arcee, the traitor, and Ratchet lifts her up to the table Jazz is sitting on. 

“Hello, My name is June Darby, I think you met my son earlier. I’m a nurse at Jasper Memorial, Ratchet calls me in for any human patients he has. I’m guessing you’re Jazz? Bee has been very excited for your arrival.”

Danny is letting out a rumbling growl from the rafters. He still doesn’t talk, but over the past five days of driving he has gotten more comfortable with other sounds. Jazz glances up and hums at him as he flicks his field against Danny’s. Ratchet startles a half step away. 

Jazz’s hum is one he learned from Danny, it is echoing up one chord and down an octave as it wavers in triplicate. It carries the same message as his field to Danny, the repetition of safe-protect-no-danger-calm-calm-calm. 

Danny watches him for a second then he leaps for Jazz’s closest sensor horn and tucks his feet carefully into the seam between Jazz’s visor and his nasal ridge. He clings there staring June down. Sephie giggles happily from her carrier on Danny’s chest and Jazz simply levels an amused smile at Ratchet.  

Eventually Danny climbs down Jazz in a flurry of practiced motions to shift on his feet in front of the woman waiting patiently. Jazz withdraws a familiar bundle of blankets from his subspace and Danny carefully rearranges them into a nest on Jazz’s palm for Sephie to rest in. Then he goes to stand in front of the nurse like he’s facing an execution. 

Ratchet huffs softly and Jazz catches the glimmer that indicates a recording with amusement. June hands a paper gown to Danny and the teen slowly changes into it as the woman visibly pushes down her reaction. 

Danny wasn’t injured, Jazz knew that for certain after watching Danny accidentally slice his hand open a day ago only for the deep cut to have closed within a couple hours, but the scars were impressive admittedly. He was also very thin. 

June was thorough and gentle in her examination, and she concluded it with a playful prescription of food, sleep, and TLC. Jazz snorted, the translation was slightly off, but the same concept on Cybertron was a frequent prescription of Ratchet’s. 

June then moved towards Sephie and did another exam just as gently while Danny hovered over her. The biometal tracings clearly caught her off guard, but she pressed on. Sephie needed more food, and she needed people to talk to her so she could start learning words. 

June began picking up to leave and Jazz flared out his field in confusion-not-done-why. June didn’t respond but Danny froze as Ratchet grumbled softly. 

“June, stay a second please,” Ratchet said, then he turned to Jazz with frustration, “She is done, that is a basic examination.” 

Jazz ignored Ratchet in favor of poking Danny gently, “Shift. She needs to make sure you’re ok.” 

Danny leveled a baleful look at him and stroked Sephie’s hair as he switched forms with the same flash of light that Jazz had gotten used to. Ratchet and June were not, judging by their startled curses. 

June stuttered for a very long minute before she cautiously stepped closer to retake Danny’s vitals. She got increasingly more rattled by his lack of heartbeat, breath, and warmth. Sephie was likewise and she was visibly unsettled. 

Jazz very hesitantly thumbs upped at her and grinned weakly. She did not smile back. Her eyes slid to Ratchet who shrugged. She very carefully considered the kids and then Jazz, and Ratchet as a final lingering glance. 

“Is this a larval form? Do they grow a car shell later?” 

Jazz snorted as Ratchet blue screened right there in his own med bay, temporary as it was. “Nah. Kiddos are just weird. They good though?” 

“There are no life signs,” she says slowly, “Obviously they’re alive, but I don’t know how to quantify this. Medically speaking they’re dead.” 

Danny shrugs theatrically and shifts back to get dressed again. Sephie gurgles and tries to match the shift, the first time without Danny assisting her. It is partially successful and Jazz coos at her gold optics and exoskeleton paired with her amber curls and living skin. 

Ratchet visibly gives up. Jazz figures he’ll just keep playing it by ear with his sparklets. 

“Right. June, thank you for helping out.” Ratchet says with a finality that makes the woman snort, “Jazz, you’ve still got a job to do, but with your comms suite busted we’re going to have to find a workaround.” 

Danny hums softly and signs out, “Video call? Zoom zoom, throw back.” 

Jazz has to take a moment to translate the signs, Danny is faster than him, and then he has to take a moment to deep dive into recent Earth history and culture. Ratchet just keeps muttering expletives about his inability to fix the damage while Jazz processes. Ratchet never likes being undersupplied.

Covid. Zoom calls and conferences as the human race sheltered in place like Cybertron used to during acid storms or rust outbreaks. Jazz shutters his optics behind his visor and sighs deeply, “Yeah, that could work. Ratch, thoughts on a computer and office setup big enough to work from? I have Prowl’s codes in deep memory.” 

Ratchet thinks for a moment and nods. He is already striding out the door and down the hall by the time Jazz has scooped Danny back up to follow him. A few turns away they enter the initial silo based the first team had used and there really is an impressive setup there. 

Several teenagers, including Jack from earlier, are using it to play a video game. Arcee and Bulkhead are supervising as they spectate and Danny snickers loudly. 

“Wonder if they have Doom,” he signs, “Or Zelda.” 

“Wrap it up, Jazz needs the computer.” Ratchet snaps and the group of teens groans in unison. The girl turns and grins at the newcomers. 

“Hi, I’m Miko! You’re Danny, right? Jack mentioned you!” She chirps and Danny glances up at Jazz nervously before waving at the hyper girl. 

Jazz scans the area critically and spots an area beside the holoscreens that’s perfect for Danny and Sephie’s nest of blankets. It's just out of frame but if Danny needs him he’s still within reach. 

Danny chirrs softly as he fusses with Sephie and settles in. He had played slightly with his shifts while they walked, clearly trying to figure out what Sephie had done. At the moment his eyes glowed green and his fingers have claws like Jazz’s servos. The girl bounces over to sit on the edge of the nest. 

She coos at Sephie while Danny watches her warily. Jack and the other two follow her sedately. Danny pulls out his tablet, lowers the volume, and starts asking questions. All five teens gradually relax into cautious conversation and play gently with Sephie. 

Jazz types in the Prowl’s comm code manually and pings a quiet holo-interface request. He tags it with his identification code and waits while it’s processed. Prowl pings back an acknowledgment code almost immediately and Jazz waits for him and Red Alert to set up a secure line. 

Jazz has had to push a manual call through three times in the course of the war, this is the fourth. Two of those times were because he was compromised in Decepticon territory and avoiding the sweeps from Soundwave’s sensors. 

The third was because Jazz was too injured to interface with a direct line and power a tracker for extraction. Standard protocol for manual comms is paranoia, Jazz helped write the rules. 

The call connects with a cheery chime and Jazz immediately hits accept with, “Heya, Prowler, don’t be mad, but-“ 

“Report, injuries, status? Is the line secure?” Red Alert interrupts. His horns are sparking faintly as Prowl hovers behind him on the bridge. Blaster is sitting at the terminal, also worried but focused on stabilizing the call. 

“Lines secure, injuries are minimal, but Ratchet ain’t got the parts for full repairs ‘til the Ark touches down. My comm suite is fried until then, ain’t even got even working parts to jury rig a bypass. We’re going to have to coordinate with calls like this.” 

Red Alert relaxes minutely and steps off frame with a resounding, “Thank Primus,” leaving Prowl front and center. Prowl’s optics linger on the patch and the weaker nanotech spots and scuffs. 

“This might be difficult,” Prowl says slowly, “But we can make it work. Have you looked at the data yet?” 

“Nope. Just got here and even more just got cleared by Ratch. Pulling up the data points now.” Jazz is only two files in and he switches away from English, Prowl is better at numbers, but Jazz is here to relay the messier data points, “Weather pattern predictions are unideal, its difficult to predict that far out, general projection based on past patterns indicates low temperatures and storms with freezing rain.” 

Prowl pings an acknowledgement and visibly winces as it bounces of the disconnect, Jazz snickers and refocuses on coordinates and atmospheric pressure for Prowl’s number crunching. By the time they’ve moved to patterns of life in the surrounding cities and the status of shields they nearly have the landing plan hashed out. 

The group of kids to Jazz’s left has gotten increasingly bored and Jack and Miko snuck off a while ago. Sam and Raf remain by Danny, and Jazz flicks his field against Danny’s in a general check. 

Danny rolls his back in quiet contentment and Jazz flicks his door wing in pure glee as he gets a sleepy flick from Sephie. Jazz moves onto the data he’s really good at, the interactions between the military men helping host them at the moment and how that setup might change when the Ark lands. 

Prowl shifts on his pedes on screen and Smokescreen comes up behind him. Jazz flashes a grin at his agent and friend. 

“Hey, boss,” Smokescreen says, slow and cautious, Mirage seems to have tagged him into the conversation Bee thought he was subtle with, “While you’re on the topic of human relations, Bee passed through ‘Raj the reason your comms are down. You look a bit like slag still, you good?” 

Prowl hums and turns to Smokey, “Jazz said that Ratchet did what he could with the supplies available. That has nothing to do with human relations.” 

“Eh,” Jazz mutters, and Prowl whips around to glare as Blaster lifts his helm suspiciously, “Well, you remember those splinter groups bossbot mentioned in the data pack brief?” 

“Aw, slag, Jazzy, you didn’t get caught by organics?” Blaster says and Smokescreen outright grins. Jazz flicks his fingers in a nervous tic that is well below their sight line. 

“Nah, I did. You would’ve too, they were trackin’ me somehow. No permanent damage though, they were just real trigger happy with the electricity and it fried a bunch of systems. Nothing really.” 

“That is a security risk,” Red Alert calls, and there’s a collective noise of amusement, “You should figure that out.” 

Sam lends Raf a hand up and they both climb down the stairs heading off. Jazz watches them go and sends a questioning pulse of his field at Danny. He gets a soft flick of hungry-long-time-they-go-fix back. Jazz turns that over for a second as he checks the log of when the Ark should arrive against viable days for landing her with Prowl. 

Jazz checks his chronometer. It really has been about three hours now. Jazz falls back on the habit he and Danny had fallen into on the road here and pulls a rust stick out of his subspace to share. It’s not healthy fuel per se, but it’s enjoyable and Danny enjoys them as well. He breaks off the end for Danny to nibble from until he’s full, and crunches the rest down easily. 

Blaster bends over his console with helpless giggles and Smokescreen ducks back off screen laughing. Prowl stares and it takes Jazz a minute to realize why. He was technically eating on shift, and candy at that. Jazz wasn’t known as a stickler for the rules, but he did try with the basic courtesy ones. 

Jazz’s field flushed with embarrassment and he avoided Prowl’s optics as he shunted the final data through. 

Danny chirps loudly in concern, his field flaring in worry-worry-why-curiosity? 

Automatically Jazz chirps back a reassurance and receives a warbling purr of contentment from his sparklet. The laughter stops as Prowl gapes openly. Blaster edges away from the Second, and eyes the screen warily. The sparkling call was distinct, and Jazz almost cut the connection out of sheer panic. 

Instead he just shunted more data and ignored the problem. He was not explaining this over open comm lines. They could figure it out when they landed. 

“Mech, was that-“ Blaster starts. 

“So!” Jazz interrupts smoothly, “How’s about those data points on the alt mode catalogue for mecha to go through?” 

Prowl hums, “I will put it up on the subnet and make sure everyone registers their pick. Jazz, sparkling?” 

“Not technically, also yes. There’s two, I’m keeping them.” 

Blaster snorts inelegantly and Smokescreen cackles loudly from offscreen. He had helped with Bluestreak frequently after Jazz and Prowl had taken him in. Prowl just melts in the quiet way he did after Jazz had brought home a traumatized youngling from Praxus’ ruins the last time. 

His doorwings droop just slightly, his optics warm, and his bond with Jazz warms with excitement. Prowl is taciturn, but he is also surprisingly good with young sparks. Jazz doesn't want to explain the chaotic weirdness of having found a pair of odd humans that had fields and fed off energon, so he doesn’t. 

“They’re called Danny and Sephie. A sparklet and a bitlet. You’ll meet them when you get here and I’ll explain better then. You don’t mind?” 

Prowl flicks his doorwing and shrugs. That is that apparently. Jazz is willing to let it lie, he’s more interested in wrapping this up for the day and getting a cube. Danny’s drain is more active at the moment and Jazz’s energy levels are low. 

Prowl likes sparklets. Part of it is coding, Praxians live in clans, trines and couplings raising any bit or sparklet in the clan together. Another part of it is mild trauma, Prowl’s clan was small, and they died when Praxus fell. 

When Prowl and Jazz bonded after the bombs fell, clinging to each other in the wake of the very public death of Prowl’s whole city, and the much less known eradication of the remnants of Jazz’s city in the same strafing run they had made an agreement. 

Polyhex had fallen under Zeta Prime’s rule and the survivors had scattered. The largest part had been offered shelter by Praxus, and had built a new City of clans and catacombs and canals beneath their host city of crystal towers and gardens and seclusion. 

Jazz and Prowl had been part of the Autobots when Praxus fell and Old Polyhex fell with it, climbing the ranks steadily as the war was in its starting throes. when their home, their clans, their sparklets by clan ties had all perished in one blow they had agreed to wait on their own bitlets until the war was over. 

The agreement was amended when Jazz found Blue as an orphaned youngling with no clan, and the remnants of Praxus and Old Polyhex drew together into one tiny makeshift clan of autobots. Any bits that needed a clan could be taken in, and both Jazz and Prowl’s coding was satisfied by that. 

Bluestreak was the only sparkling they adopted, but the clan maintained a soft spot for the twins, who had been taken in by Ratchet and needed no clan. 

Now though, now Prowl’s creator code purred at the news of the two new sparks found by his mate, the two new additions to the clan. Smokescreen stood by Prowl watching the blank screen after the call had ended with a thoughtful lilt to his field. 

Blaster was grumbling about logistics. Blaster may have been technically Polyhexian, but his clan had long been based in Iacon, and had lost the dynamics of clan relationships and protection that Praxus and Polyhex had. 

Smokescreen finally let out the trill of delight and excitement that had been building since the call ended and his door wings flared to their full spread as he turned to go find Blue. Prowl eyed the wary Altihexian as he passed Red Alert as he followed his clan mate. There was a reason that Jazz was reluctant over open comms. 

There was a reason for clanless bits being on Earth for Jazz to find. Red Alert being from Altihex, worked in his favor here. Altihexian warrens were insular, but they were programmed with similarly strong creator codes. If something was dangerous to the new sparks in Prowl’s clan then Red would find it. 

Prowl trusted his friend with that. Red Alert nodded at him determinedly. Prowl went to tell Bluestreak he was a sibling now. This was important, the war was important, but the clan came first. Optimus understood. 

Besides, the hope was that the war was entering the final stages. Prowl hummed softly under his vents in satisfaction and ignored Sideswipe startling as he passed. Danny, and Sephie. Either they were false names for safety, or they were shortened names for safety. Soundwave was on Earth, open comms weren’t the place for solid information to be passed outside of data packs and monitored transmissions. 

Four and a half orbital cycles, five months, and he’d meet them. Prowl just hoped the Ark could keep it quiet until then. 

Chapter Text

Danny giggled as he orbited Jazz’s helm in lazy loops. Jazz wasn’t even slightly interested in hiding Danny and Sephie’s weirdness, or in holding them back from anything. If someone started something he would protect them, but otherwise Danny was just the resident weird human to the Autobots, and the weird human that Jazz found with MECH to the humans. 

Danny didn’t talk to Sephie in anything other than ghost speak, but Jazz did, and so did everyone else. Danny focused on teaching Sephie other things. 

Like not to bite with her new baby fangs. 

Sephie let out an outraged squeal as she floated two feet off of Jazz’s palm and flipped back down. Danny churred at her mockingly and stuck his tongue out. She narrowed her eyes and lifted, floated one foot, two, and stayed steady in the air. Danny turned a lazy flip in the air by Jazz’s visor in celebration as Sephie wobbled through the air towards him. 

She had started feeding off of Jazz’s weird systems two days ago, about the time Jazz’s aura began taking in ambient echo from the air. Danny knew that meant a solid bond really had formed. 

Bumblebee warbled out a laugh from across the room as Jazz pretended to be working instead of watching Sephie learn to float. Sephie gurgled at Jazz’s visor, a cute attempt at a lecture composed of chirps, purrs, and warbles, backed by her tiny aura flare saying watch-me-watch-me-watch!

Jazz blew at her then and she tumbled gently through the air, giggling as she went. Danny chased her and tried to show her control. Sephie just cooed and turned upside down to stare at Bumblebee. 

Danny sighed and sailed back to Jazz. There were snacks beside him where he was tapping on a holoscreen. Danny had been craving weird things, he’d learned his lesson when his core had developed. He ate the weird things. 

Danny crunched a bite out of a thick piece of mildly corroded copper, blue-green and red in the middle. It tasted odd, and yesterday he’d craver iron bad enough to eat one of Lennox’s guns. Copper was fine. 

The exoskeleton of metal was tracing its way up Danny’s scars, his ribs, his spine. Little gears and joints of clockwork in his ghost for that sank into silver tracings as a human. Danny didn’t care, it was one more thing to get poked if the GiW found him, and one more thing to tie him to his new guardian. 

Danny turned a bit as one of the shades drifted through the wall. Sephie stared at them and stilled in the air like a glitch in reality. Danny hummed a greeting to them. The shade fizzed at the edges and left again. 

The shades were mostly an alarm system. A moment later the door let Optimus and Ratchet into the main bay with Fowler arguing loudly with them. Sephie settled on the top of Jazz’s helm and made grabby hands at Danny’s copper. 

Danny climbed Jazz's frame to hand it to her. There’s another four and a half months until Jazz’s other people get here, and they’ve got that long to make sure it's secure. Danny has been helping by trying to establish the edges of a proper haunt along the edges of the perimeter. 

He is a little worried it’ll attract the GiW. The shades patrol for him though, and he’s pretty sure that Jazz will blow them up if they come back. Jazz is already trying to find them to make sure they don’t, even if he’s mostly trying to track MECH, who worked with them but weren’t them. 

A new presence pokes at the edge of the haunt, then it sidles in. Danny tilts to the side, listening with his core to the edges of his haunt. Huh. It’s new new. Danny peeks at Jazz. He’s distracted by his holonet while he tries not to move. Sephie fell asleep on his helm. 

Danny floats towards the door and ducks out. He half shifts human, gravity bound, colored right, but claws and fangs and haunt are pulling-pulling-pulling him away. Danny wanders towards the new thing. A shade follows him, flickery and lost. He’s been calling this one Spike. 

There’s a bird. Danny shifts back and floats up chirping. A bird! The bird wavers back and forth and glances at the vent it came out of. There is a cat in the vent, it’s bigger than Danny. 

The cat looks between the floor, the bird, and Danny and its field flares with confusion. Danny bounces up and down with excitement in the air. He chirps again and the cat warbles at him. Danny darts forward and hugs the cat's snout. The cat’s confusion increases. 

Danny circles around and grabs the cat and lifts it out of the vent. It flails in the air and the bird starts trilling in mild distress, chasing Danny as he carries the cat down the hall. He wants a pet, he wasn’t allowed one with them. 

(He wouldn’t have wanted one, it wasn’t safe, not there, he wasn’t safe there.)

Danny twirls with the cat in midair and it squeaks. Then he swoops into the room with Jazz and beams at his dad-guardian. Jazz scrambles to his pedes, gently catching the startled Sephie. Bumblebee shrieks a static noise of alarm and Optimus and Ratchet are alarmed as well. 

The bird flies in and trills at Danny again. Danny carries the flailing cat closer to Jazz and trills. His aura flares and batters at Jazz’s in a steady rush of keep-it-please-please-please-keep-it-mine! 

Jazz gapes for a moment then he cackles. The bird is in the rafters now scolding the room in baleful trills. The cat has gone limp and miserable. Danny shifts his grip to scratch behind the plating ear. 

“Buddy,” Jazz says through his laughter, “You can’t keep Ravage. She’s gotta home to go back too.” 

Danny wilts and turns his gaze to the bird. 

“You can’t keep Lazerbeak either. They’re not pets, either of them.” 

Danny scowls fiercely and hitches the cat up in his grip. Ironhide walks in, takes one look, and ducks back out howling in laughter. Danny glares at him. He’s embarrassing Ravage the Cat. Bumblebee giggles across the room and Ravage hisses. 

Danny jostles her a bit and baps her on the top of her head. Hissing is rude, Jazz is firm on that point. She looks at Jazz and meows plaintively. Jazz swallows another laugh, “Buddy, why don’t we take them outside and let them go? They should really head home now.” 

Jazz shifts forward on his pedes and lifts a servo for the bird to land on. Danny sullenly floats after him to the edges of his haunt. He doesn’t want to let the cat go. Arcee does a double take as they pass her. She’s giggling too now, Danny doesn't get the joke. 

Ravage runs the second Danny sets her down, a black streak fleeing across the sand. Danny waves miserably as the bird follows. Jazz looks at him with a strange expression. 

“Buddy, I think I need to sit down with you and some files. Those were deceptions.” 

Danny freezes and grins up at Jazz sheepishly. Oops. He hums an apology, and signs it for good measure. Jazz ruffles his hair with one finger. They go back inside. 

“Danny just tried to adopt two deceptions,” he announces to the room in general, ignoring the reactions of all occupants, “Thoughts?” 

“And prayers,” Ironhide responds immediately, “You’ll need them.” 

Jazz glares at him and goes back to his holoscreen. 

Jazz has been enjoying his time coordinating from Earth far more than he expected. Partly it is because of Danny and Sephie, it has been a very long time since his creator protocols were this active, and longer since with sparks this young. 

Part of it is Earth culture, which is truly fascinating with excellent music. Some of it is his Ops coding taking pleasure in his ongoing data catalogue of his kids and their odddities. 

All of that is superseded by this one moment as Jazz’s field swells with pride and joy. Danny hovers in front of him holding Sephie gently. Danny’s field is also proud, with a strong undercurrent of mischief, while Sephie’s bitty field radiates a childish joy and curiosity. 

Sephie is cooing out her first words over and over, repeating them as Jazz’s field gets more affectionate with each clumsy repetition. 

“J’zz, J’zz, D’nny, J’zz.” Jazz beams at her and Danny and she adds a third word now with a small frown, “J’zz, D’nny, Hun’gry.” 

Danny turns over cackling and Jazz quickly offers one of the glass sheets covered in crystallized energon that he’s been hiding from Ratchet. Ratchet is insistent that the silica and metals that his bitlets loved so much weren’t healthy for humans. 

The only thing happening was the slowly growing exoskeleton on Danny, now present in both forms, and a healthy development for Sephie’s quickly developing frame. What Ratchet didn’t know didn’t hurt him.

Danny had quietly explained after Ratchet’s first lecture when he had caught Jazz letting both kids wade and play in the dregs of his cube. Apparently most of it was being consumed as nutrients and matter storage for healthy development for whatever human adjacent being the two of them were. Danny quoted the last time this had happened and he had gained a stable secondary form. 

Jazz’s curiosity at the time had thrummed through his field and Danny had shifted to what was technically his third form. The void being of cold plasma laced with tiny stars had twined itself around Jazz’s arms like a massive razor-snake made of galaxies and shadows. 

The green eyes blazing through the crest of andromedas on Danny’s head in this form had pleaded at Jazz over the green mouth filled with fangs, rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth filling his mouth. Jazz had smiled and petted the crest of stars and not allowed himself to shudder at the chill. 

Sephie had burbled delightedly at her brother's new form at the time and turned her feet to a tail of trailing seawater complete with sparkling nodes of bioluminescent lights blinking in patterns. Jazz had winced at that, resolving to take some of Seaspray’s saline resistant finish when the Ark landed. 

Danny had added a new button to his tablet and called Sephie a jellyfish half the time now. It fit from the images Jazz could find. Danny remained nervous around his void form, and only shifted in the privacy of Jazz’s temporary quarters. 

The warning still stood though. The silica and metals and energon treats were for safe development and Jazz would make sure they got them. Danny’s aside of falling unconscious when he was developing his third form, before the GiW got him, because he wasn’t eating enough had Jazz on the edge of paranoia. 

Sephie was developing two forms, she had salt supplements and ate fish sticks for dinner almost every night, much to Lennox’s amusement. The fact that both bits seemed to be developing the habits and characteristics inherent in Old Polyhexian frame types only made Jazz more intrigued. 

The developing biolights on both sparks were also carefully hidden by a paranoid Danny. Jazz protected them, but he knew the threat of the organization that had kept the both of them was elusive. 

He spent much of his time on the holoscreen pretending that he was working diligently on projections for the Ark when in reality he was trying to track down the GiW. He really only needed a few hours a day to update Prowl’s numbers. The rest of the time was spent satisfying his own paranoia and need to protect the kids. 

They had held Danny for over a year, Sephie had been born with them, there was no way they weren’t going to try to recapture his bitlets. Jazz wouldn’t let them of course, but the lack of any information, intelligence, data, anything useful was getting to him. He was spec ops, this was his strong point, but an entire organization was in the wind and it was driving Jazz up the wall. 

He supposed that he should just count himself lucky that his clan had been so accepting. Even Prowl asked after them each video call, receiving carefully phrased stories of their antics. 

He was very careful to not spread it around the Ark, and Mirage, in the know from both Bumblebee and Smokescreen, had relayed how Prowl was more cheerful, Smokescren was gleeful and anticipatory, and Bluestreak was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. The residents of the Ark could not discern the reason for these mood changes. 

Apparently an old rumor had resurfaced that Praxians were related to seekers, and that all three were getting this way over the Ark landing soon because of cabin fever. It was also apparently scaring many a bot to see Prowl cheerful to any degree. Jazz had laughed helplessly as Mirage relayed this with an entertained twist to his mouth. 

Still, as well as it was going as far as adjustment, Jazz still trawled deeper into the financials of the defense department of the US. His helm hurt. He wished Prowl were here, his bondmate was so much better with numbers. 

Jazz flicked his field in annoyance as he scrolled through another dataset. Danny purred sleepily and pulsed contentment through his own field from his spot curled in a divot where Jazz’s doorwing met his shoulder. 

There was a discrepancy there. There were surprisingly many actually, the US seemed to hemorrhage funding, but this one was odd. This one led nowhere, and its trail seemed to glitch in portions. The amount flickered between two thousand and two hundred thousand. 

Jazz carefully plugged into the holoscreen port. Tracing the data manually was going nowhere, Jazz would do this his way, if he blew another circuit then so be it. 

Jazz dove after the single glitching trail of where the transfer had gone. It shifted between the numerals used by most of Earth, and odd squiggles that a quick search told him were ancient Egyptian. Random glyphs that didn’t turn up a search at all drifted by in the data. 

The money transfer ended in a single server connected to a bank that was local to a small town in Illinois called Elmerton. It was within two major dead spots. The first was linked to a town that no longer had a media presence or governmental connection, as if it had dropped off the planet. 

The second was close to Lake Eerie, and was officially labeled as a military training base. Jazz traced deeper into the dead spots, looking for anything recent, anything relevant anything-

Something was hacking him back. Successfully. The presence was coding in a mixture of the Egyptian numbers and the mystery glyphs. Jazz gave it a digital shove and it paused. Then it started building firewalls around Jazz’s own code. Jazz considered and let them be as a bludgeon of code rams into the firewalls built by the first backhacker. 

Jazz pinned the traces to the holoscreen for later tracking and began to withdraw his consciousness from the data streams. The bludgeon code came after him again as he withdrew and Jazz began coding new firewalls on the fly as the bludgeon tore crudely at his databanks. 

This wasn’t the careful precision of Soundwave’s hacks, the clinical attention of Shockwave’s data mining. This wasn’t the reckless attention to detail of an interrogator, or the meticulousness of a medic. This was a cruel and unrefined attack, not to gain anything but harm, and information gleaned was a byproduct. 

Jazz howled into the code between the binary paths as it made another pass at him, clawing past his firewalls as if they weren’t there, only pausing at the mystery hacker’s temporary shield. Jazz drew the tatters of that firewall, already failing-fading-broken, around his processor and he pulled himself out of the data streams faster than was strictly safe. 

Jazz blinked down at his wrist. His connector port was overheated, and the plug attached to the holoscreen was melted. He yanked it out woozily and watched as the entire holoscreen filled with binary code and commands in ancient Egyptian. It began to shut down in patches, the screen dying in inches before the whole thing went dark with a puff of smoke and the smell of its inner working melting. 

An alarm was blaring. It was shrill and repetitive and it was making Jazz’s helm spin. His vision grayed out, and he swayed. The dead smoking holoscreen chirped ominously and began radiating green. Jazz could see it, but his visor registered nothing at all. 

The glass acrylic of the holoscreen frame began to drip and run. Danny whined high in distress and Jazz craned his helm to locate him. He was across the room with Sephie held tight as he perched on the ledge along the wall. He was frantically hitting the alarm button over and over. 

Something scraped at his code. 

Jazz screamed. 

This was worse than a battle, he couldn’t defend himself properly, he was in a safe place and still his battle protocols were online and he couldn’t vent-

Jazz’s vision blanked as he passed out. 

Ratchet swam into view. Something shadowed hovered behind him. It wasn’t Danny and Jazz snarled at it. His vision shimmered and went black. 

Color bled in from the outside in. Something was watching him. It tick ticked ticked in echoes that reached his spark and Jazz clung to his bond with Prowl in a burst of irrational and overwhelming fear. 

Something reached out and the ticking got closer and louder and-

Sound was the first thing Jazz registered. Ratchet was cursing and Danny was crying softly. Jazz tried to online his visor. It didn’t work, he couldn’t see-!

Green pulsed at the edges of his awareness like a spark beat, green and green and green. 

His engine hiccuped and warbled with his keen of distress. 

Jazz couldn’t think like this, it hurt but it was numb. It hurt-ached-twisted-numb-too-much-input! 

Jazz hissed out a static curse. He didn’t know what he said. He said something, who was he talking to? 

It h u r T. 

Claws raked through his code-his firewalls- his defense- his self. Memories and data flaked off and shattered and reattached with green shimmers and unfamiliar numbers and Runes floating through his scattered processor. 

Claws raked through his-

His Spark and processor felt raw and scraped apart. Jazz sobbed into the black of his offline senses. 

The awful white-white-white was back and it hurt-hurt-hurt! 

Scraping-scraping-Scraping- 

Jazz was clinging to his bond- practically trying to climb it- Prowl reached back- the white paused and turned and- 

The white thing was intrigued by his bond and Jazz cut it off and firewalled and blocked his Prowl off with a frantic desperation and they turned back to him and- 

Scrape-! 

Jazz came online with a ragged invent. Ratchet was plugged into his cortex directly and Optimus hovered behind him cradling a trembling Danny and Sephie. Ironhide stood just behind the Prime with Lennox and Epps beside him. All three were armed. 

Jazz used far too much effort to turn his helm to see Bumblebee plugged into his spinal interface. Jazz whined and shifted to sit up. Ratchet pressed him down without looking up from his relay medipad. Jazz could see his code scrolling across it from here. 

Whole sections were missing or gibberish. 

Jazz frantically ran a self-diagnostic. His code was complete, his firewalls were stable, Prowl was walled off from his sparkbond. 

(Good, safe, protect-) 

The glitching code spiked on Ratchet’s data pad and Bumblebee whirred in distress. Jazz didn't know what they were reacting to, his diagnostic came back fine. 

His helm spun and he reread the diagnostic. His firewalls had just been shredded- how were they? 

An ominous Tick-tick-tick echoed through his code. Jazz poked its origin. Ratchet snapped his helm up and glared as the green overtook Jazz’s vision. 

Jazz went stiff and frozen as his code blinked at him in patches. Ratchet’s medipad began to blare a soft tinny alarm. The areas that were blinking were the ones that had reconstructed themselves after the scrapi-

(Jazz shunted those memories to the back of his processor. He’d defrag them later, he couldn’t-)

They were the information that had been harvested by the- by them. As soon as Jazz acknowledged this and flagged the areas for later review they stopped blinking and settled back into normal code patterns. 

The green at the back of Jazz’s processor hummed in satisfaction. He ignored it. 

It was inconsequential, an old memory from the Academy on a lesson about sparks, a sound byte from his sparklinghood of he and his sibling playing in the catacombs, a file on safety procedures during evacuation of Tiger Pax, a base long since destroyed. 

Jazz vented steadily as Ratchet and Bumblebee quietly disconnected from his ports. 

“What happened,” he rasped. 

“You tell us,” Ratchet snapped, “Your human set the alarm off and Optimus was first on scene. I was second, and you were laid out on the floor glitching worse than your own damned mate! The pit did you do, you reckless fragger?” 

Jazz sits up slowly with Bee’s support for balance as he tries to remember. He was doing something before the scrapi-

He's not thinking about that now. 

“I-“ he starts and frowns, “I was trying to trace the group that had Danny and Sephie, the one that captured me for a grand total of not that long.” 

Optimus hums, and Lennox snorts, “And, what? You traced them to a virus or something? Why were you even looking, you already got them out.” 

“No. I was tracing finances. The scientist, the one that tried to get to my spark, she said it was government sanctioned. I can’t defend my sparklets against a threat I don’t know.” 

“No government agencies have the right for human experimentation without explicit informed consent,” Epps says, and Jazz levels him with a look of disappointment, “Yeah, I deserved that one. Just because it’s against the rules doesn't mean they asked permission.” 

Danny taps at Optimus' servo and the Prime deposits both children against Jazz’s chest plates. Jazz lifts his servos to cradle them close. Danny is still crying quietly. 

Sephie quietly sings in Old Polyhex, a lullaby that Jazz had been teaching them both. Her pronunciation is off, but Jazz lets the song play from his deep files for her. It's what he usually plays after Danny has a bad flux during recharge. 

Ironhide kneels down and watches Jazz quietly. The old mech is more observant than most give him credit for. Jazz meets his gaze head on. 

“Kid, take the orn off to recover. You’re rattled, the kids are rattled. There’s no urgent data to get to Prowl, and you need to rest.” 

Jazz nods and Ironhide gets back up. Optimus turns to Ratchet and asks, “Is this likely to happen again?” 

Ratchet hums, “I don’t know. You leave whatever thread of data you were chasing alone.” He points at Jazz accusingly, and Jazz nods frantically. He’s not doing that again, “You’re also going to get a medical alert patch as soon as I code one. I need to monitor if this does happen again.” 

Jazz nods, and Bumblebee lifts his servos to form the signs he’s learned from Danny, “What did happen? Is he ok?” 

“The glitching code was my big worry, that’s cleared up,” Ratchet says slowly, “From the looks of it though, what happened is that he got back hacked, and the hacker had the power to puncture his firewalls but not the finesse to do it. Essentially Jazz’s systems recognized an intruder but for lack of a target they attacked his own systems. Like I said, a glitch.” 

Jazz does not like how basic it sounds. If this was what it was like every time Prowl or Red Alert felt when they glitched then Jazz wasn’t sure how they were still functioning as well as they were. 

The tick-tick-tick looms again and Jazz twitches his helm in an attempt to make it stop. It does with a cheery completion chime and Jazz stares with horror at the tracking program notification on his hud. It is marked with a cheery complete and it had been running off his code. 

It's not Jazz’s program. 

It’s not the White’s either, or maybe it is. The whole thing was three way, but Jazz bore the brunt of the damage. The location code Jazz received is for the second dead spot he’d been looking at. 

Jazz doesnt need to pursue that data thread, he has the answer already. Jazz deletes the program and any traces of it. He accepts the cube from Ratchet, and sneaks a fingertip of energon to his bitlets when the crotchety medic isn’t looking. 

Jazz grins grimly and he quietly basks in his progress, and rests his aching helm against the wall. Danny dips his water bottle into Jazz’s cube and sips it serenely. Sephie whines at her brother and receives a sip as well. 

Today he made progress. It was all worth it for that. 

Chapter Text

Jazz missed his call. The data updates may have been what they were exchanging, but with Jazz’s comms suite out of commission he couldn’t even activate a panic button if something went wrong. Jazz had blocked off his bond, and had missed his call. 

Prowl paced the bridge in agitation. Blaster was glancing at him in irritation and mutual worry frequently. Smokescreen was perched on the rail around the top deck as he fidgeted with a fold’em chip nervously. Bluestreak was leaning on the back of an empty seat, uncharacteristically silent. 

Prowl took a moment to define the factors in the situation again. 

Something had hurt his new sparks, Jazz had taken them away from it, but was convinced that it was still after the bitlets. Jazz was careful in what he said over open link, and protective of the bits to the point that they had stories to the name before faces. 

Jazz had reached for their bond earlier today with a fierceness and a fear that Prowl had rarely felt from him before. He had clung with desperation for several breems before Jazz had fire-walled the bond off for the first time since their bonding centivvorns before. Every time Prowl scratched at the block he received a burst of mild panic and the wall was shored up. 

Jazz had missed his call. He knew Prowl was worried, but he had missed the call, and no one on Earth had commed with news. 

The factors had not changed since the last time he ran the numbers. Prowl ground his denta and turned to Blaster, “You are sure you cannot simply call Jazz?” 

Blaster sighed, “No, I can’t. Jazz is doing that by directing old codes through what seems to be a custom program on the Earth based computers. It imitates a comm line, but it isn’t one, which is why I have to stabilize every transmission. His codes won’t work, and the one from the holo he was using isn’t patching through.” 

Prowl grumbled, and paced again. He poked at the bond and winced as the firewall shored back up. A soft chirp came from the screen and Blaster immediately linked in to connect the transmission. 

Jazz was not on screen, Ratchet was, and he looked exhausted. Prowl’s wings flared in distress and worry and Smokescreen was watching the screen intently. 

“Hello, Prowl, he’s fine, relatively speaking, just exhausted. I need to speak to First Aid, if you’ll get him? This is much less of an energy suck than long-comms.” 

Prowl commed First Aid at the same time as Bluestreak and Smokescren did and his flustered reply was rushed. Prowl continued to stare down Ratchet and the bot huffed grumpily. 

“Do I need to go wake him from his recharge so you can see that he’s alive?” 

Prowl flicked his doorwings nervously, “…Yes.” 

Ratchet grumbled and strode off screen. By the time he was back with Jazz in tow First Aid had joined the group on the bridge, wringing his servos in anxiety. 

Jazz was unsteady on his pedes, and visibly more rundown than before. Bluestreak stifled a gasp and Smokescreen fumbled his chip and dropped it. Prowl leaned forward with narrow optics and catalogued the state of his mate. 

The nanite colony that Ratchet had introduced to help his paint had either not taken, or had also been damaged, as Jazz’s paint was dull, and flaking. He was swaying where he stood and one side of his visor was duller than the other. That meant his optics were self repairing from something, or that a processor issue was causing some unevenness. 

Prowl’s optics did that after a glitch. So did Red Alert’s. 

Jazz’s doorwings hung low in exhaustion, and his plating was clamped down tight in a defensive posture typically reserved for when Jazz was in a tight place, or was fresh from a bad recharge flux. 

The edge of the connection glitched slightly and unfamiliar glyphs encroached across the screen. Blaster cursed in tandem with Ratchet as they both tapped at the controls. 

Prowl eyed Jazz through the static of the poor connection. There was green around the edge of his visor, and shining dully from his transformation seams. The call stabilized and it was gone. Prowl dismissed it as a bug in the connection. 

Jazz shifted on his pedes and brought his wings up in an attempt to smile at Prowl. Prowl poked their bond and Jazz flinched hard. It shored back up as Jazz’s visor flickered badly. Ratchet spun around as a quiet alarm blared from Jazz’s position. 

First Aid scrambled up to the screen and watched as Ratchet rounded on Jazz, spitting as much medical jargon as his mentor was. Prowl gaped in mild horror as Jazz carefully sat down with Ratchet's support. Bumblebee stepped quietly into the room and handed a cube of blue med grade energon to Jazz. 

Prowl quietly walled off his side of the bond on a hunch, and watched as the tremors wracking Jazz’s frame slowed to a halt. 

He has several questions for Ratchet, but the phrase from First Aid caught his attention first. Hack induced processing glitch. Someone had hacked his mate and the damage was causing issues with a sparkbond that had long preceded the issue. 

Prowl glanced at Red Alert, who was eerily still. He would be joining the mech on his search for the threat on Earth instead of just receiving updates as he had been. This was a problem. 

Bumblebee helped Jazz back to wherever he had been recharging and Ratchet came back to talk to First Aid on supplies and texts that Ratchet didn’t currently have access to. He ignored the other mechs on screen. 

Jazz seemed to be back to normal the next day, if slightly less cheerful. His visor still glimmered green at the edges occasionally. The bond was still blocked off to the point of barely letting a hint past of Jazz's wellbeing. 

Prowl wondered if they could push the Ark to go any faster. 

Danny tapped on Jazz’s faceplate. He and Sephie had grown into their new forms overnight and he thought it would make Jazz feel better to see them. Jazz had been really stressed the past few days. 

He knew why of course, Jazz had a full fledged aura now, and understood ghost speak perfectly, but he also had ecto tracing along his wires and his Spark pulsing with it like a secondary core. 

Danny had phased his head into Jazz’s arm two days ago to see, and it looked like synapses spreading from his spark-core. Very cool, excellent development. 

Jazz didn't seem to actually know what was happening though, and Danny didn't have the vocabulary to really explain, the history, culture, biology, and existence of ghosts was rather a lot. 

He had tried to warn him about the GiW though, and Jazz hadn’t understood. Or he had and was stubborn, Danny wasn’t sure. 

He had poked the GiW though, Jazz had pressed and looked and they had looked back. Jazz was subtle, quiet, shrewd, and very very skilled. Jazz took the concept of his ghostly attributes in stride even as he didnt know what was happening. 

The GiW wasn’t. The GiW depended on shock-and-awe tactics, on brute force and fear, and on heavy handed manipulation and propaganda. They were vicious as well, and disproportionate. Jazz had poked them, and they shot him in the face for it. 

Danny could read the traces of their doctored computers after they spent so long using Danny’s own ecto to build the things. The second Jazz had entered his mind-wander-computer Danny had watched. 

He hadn’t encountered Them first, he’d run into the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh had tried to get him to leave, and then to protect Jazz. The Pharaoh didn't have much power away from his Purlieu and Danny had panicked when They had noticed Jazz. 

Then Jazz had shrieked once in the data, once out loud, then once over ghost speak, long and pained. Jazz had been in pain, and Their systems were battering at his in a way that had made Dani (his mirror-sister-cousin-HIS) melt before. 

Danny had panicked. He had flooded Jazz’s system with ecto, which was used to help him climb back into his own spark, but also provided a target for Them. Then They had seen Jazz’s bonds and Danny had watched as Jazz yanked all of his system ecto into defending his spark-core-bonds. 

It could have drained back out naturally before that. Now it was stuck. It had helped the Pharaoh pull Them out of Jazz’s systems though, and that had helped. Then Jazz’s systems just had to readjust. Danny had warned him. 

He wanted Jazz to protect him from the GiW, not get killed by them. 

It had been four days since then, and Danny and Sephie had gotten their new forms. They’re going to help, Danny knows it. He pats as Jazz’s face again and croons softly teeming his field into Jazz’s.

It works. Jazz’s visor lights up slowly, then all at once. Then he registers the sight of the two tiny mecha, one perched on his chest plate, the other floating above her brother’s helm. 

Jazz flares his field out with such pride and love that Danny chirps a sob out. Then Jazz is holding him, rocking side to side and Danny lets himself cry. Danny had already explored this new form, but now he lets Jazz get a good look. 

He’s black and white, similar to Jazz, with white servos and pedes and neck crest. The rest of his frame is deep black with green detailing. Starlike biolights glimmer and flash in constellations over his frame and Danny flaps his tiny wings in time with his flexed claws. 

Jazz coos at him and gently rubs at the white sensor horns on his new helm. Danny grins at him with a mouth full of sharp denta-fangs. His new frame came with a bunch of new words and Danny still couldn’t bring himself to say them. 

Sephie drifts closer to Jazz, she has no such qualms, “J’zz! Look like you!” 

She does not, not in anything but the shape. Sephie is colored in teals and deep blues, with swirling patterns of vibrant red biolights tracing the pattern of the bones she no longer has. Her own wings flick up and down rapidly and she presents her tiny pedes for closer inspection of both her sets of claws. 

Jazz cups her frame closer to him and squishes them both to him with a poorly hidden glee, “Would you like to scare the others?” He asks and Danny nods rapidly. 

Jazz grins sharply in response. His kids look Cybertronian, there is no claim a human can make while they are in these forms. Let them come, Jazz would tear them apart. 

In the meantime though, his kids can probably still turn invisible and Jazz can probably convince Miko to have a horror night with a secret theme. 

Agent Q steps towards the barrier constructed and maintained by the town of sympathizers and scum. She glares at the small council of defenders that have come to talk. It is the same group every time, but none of Q’s subordinates or attempts have shifted the barrier, and so negotiations continue. 

She focuses specifically on the black teen in the center left of the group. Their files inform her that he is Tucker Foley, wholly unremarkable. Her experience negotiating and fighting this particular group tells her that he is a remarkable nuisance. 

He goes by King Tuck in situations like this, the odd group following naming rules like they were in a fae court from the homeland of her grandmother. He is a hacker, constantly in their systems, and constantly making a mess in them. 

Agent Q steps forward again until her nose is even with the boy’s beanie, glaring down at him with only the shimmering green-gold shield separating them. His breath hitches, but he doesn't move. The last time she had to try this particular intimidation move he was five inches shorter, and he had flinched hard enough to knock into his ever present shadow of a girl. 

“You lost us an asset.” She says stonily, and King Tuck’s shadow snarls. 

Samantha Manson the files say. Q knows better. She is Danu-Due, the Death Nature, the shade between life and death. 

”You attacked a sentient being,” she says, and her voice is layered and laced with the static hum of decay. 

King Tuck leans forward, “He hacked your bank, not your servers, I stepped in and you broke the agreement first. He had not done anything more than trace your own sloppy trail, and you ignored my claim.” 

Q feels a frisson of unease trickle down her spine as the Beast shifts behind her King and his shadow. The Beast looks at her. The beast is rumoured to be the Valarie Gray in their files, there is no confirmation. 

“Perhaps I have come to renegotiate.” She says steadily, and the thing in a teenager’s skin looks at her. 

“You know our terms. We are missing our brother and our sisters. You bring one or both to renegotiate.” The Beast's voice is steady, and guttural. Their scarlet armor shifts and flows over their face just enough to reveal the vicious smile of fangs and dripping ectoplasmic drool. Q blinks and it's just a normal mouth again, meanly grinning at her. 

She steps back from the barrier and lifts her hand to signal her agents. They drop a crate on the ground twenty feet behind her. It is the size of a large refrigerator, and it is padlocked shut. She levels a glare on the little group as the last two step forward to take part. 

The Prophet, and the Crone. The Crone watches the crate then turns away. She will not contribute, this is probably better for Q. The Prophet stares at it then nods. He has confirmed its value. The Prophet is good with possibilities and reading people. He is not omniscient. 

“We will not withdraw our protection from him,” King Tuck says slowly. 

“No,” Agent Q says, “I didn’t think you would.” 

The Prophet scoffs, his red/fire-static-/red-red-red hair flopping slightly to reveal a baleful eye. It is blind. The Prophet sees nothing and everything. 

“Then what do you want?” Dana-Due asks harshly. 

Old footage had surfaced recently. Data from decades before corroborated by old traffic footage from this town, and a tip off from someone else entirely that let them dig up old files that her predecessors had buried. Operatives O and K had been sloppy. 

“I will give you this,” she sweeps an arm at the crate magnanimously, “containing you so-called sisters. I will give it to you now, as a sign of good faith. All I ask in return is that you give me your mayor, Vladimir Masters, who seems to be causing us both issues.” 

There is no hesitation before the group agrees. Her men bring the casket over and set it four feet from the barrier. They leave a pair of bolt cutters three feet further. Taking great care to not let any panic, anticipation, nervousness, or triumph show itself in her posture, Agent Q climbs back into her van and drives off. Behind her the barrier flickers back to its invisible passive state and she watches the teens circle the casket in her rear view mirror. 

She knows what they will find. The only reason this was possible at all was that they could gain nothing more from these particular specimens, and they need the storage space back. 

A screeching roar of grief and anger rages from behind them, with enough force to rattle the van slightly. A keening wail follows it. Agent Q smiles. 

The casket contained their sisters, technically. The smaller one had melted, in a distinctly inhuman fashion, emitting a horridly shrill wail at the time. The casket contained her useless goo, and the tiny crystal that had remained after her meltdown. If they left it alone the goo and crystal had an interesting reaction to each other. 

It was a rather cyclical one, and the timing on this one had worked perfectly. 

The other sister had been interesting, a fighter to the bone. She had been a fascinating study in long term ectoplasm exposure. When they were done with her they had simply put her with the other one until the bargaining chip was useful. 

Their prime specimen was still going strong, they didn’t need experiments that had run their course. She was heading back to meet with her favorite coworker now to work on that one. Agent M truly was a delight to work with, and so generous. 

Their facility in Illinois was quant, but very well positioned with its proximity to Amity. Their facility in Alaska however was simply wonderful. Multiple smaller sites, spread out to prevent cross contamination, with one holding facility for specimens, it was their pièce de résistance. 

She truly was glad to be rid of the casket though. It was getting difficult to justify keeping a sealed container with a half rotted girl that had already been dissected and the gooey remnants of another that kept reforming her face before it melted again. 

It was indicative of the inhumanity of these ectoplasmic scum that neither could so much as die properly. Even the girl given by her partner refused to fully rot, her face keeping form and her eyes blinking occasionally. 

At least the one they caught had learned to stop acting for sympathy points before it had melted. 

Those kids must’ve gotten a shock to open that box and find the blinking corpse floating in goo with a face. Q wished it could have been safe enough to stay to watch their faces.  

The eery scum children deserved the shock, Q thought uncharitably. Besides, everyone knew their emotions were faked. The dead couldn’t feel true emotion, they weren’t sentient enough for it. This was them playing a long game of a war, and they had just lost more players. 

Agent Q yawned and cracked open her laptop to sift through the information they’d gained during the digital interface fight last night. Much of it was corrupted, unfamiliar runes, not even the death ones she was passably aware of, filled the databanks. Egyptian runes and coding ran up and down her screen. 

The Agent irritably rebooted her screen. There, that was better. Ah. Much of this was useless. 

This, though, was interesting. Q settled in her seat to learn about Cybertronian and their sparks. How remarkably similar to a core that was. She wondered if they shattered the same way. She wondered if she could track them the same way, with a scanner to target their frequency. 

How terribly kind of this hacker to be so knowledgeable in such an interesting thing. 

Truly, she couldn’t wait to get back to base. Their new allies had made a mess, and Q had just spent a month fixing it, but now she could head back, and these files would make such a good gift for her partner. Agent M was so intrigued by cores. 

M would love the concept of sparks. Maybe she could catch one of these Cybertronians for her as a gift. Maddie would love to take one apart with her. 

Chapter Text

The next three months went much smoother. Jazz had saved a memory file of Ratchet's exhausted exasperation when reintroduced to the newly Cybertronian Bitlets, but Danny and Sephie adjusted rapidly afterwards. 

They were still in danger, they were still extremely Eldritch sparklings, but the armor and size increase meant that they couldn’t be claimed by any humans, government or otherwise. It also made it easier for the Earth side mecha to accept the bits as Jazz’s kith. 

It wasn’t as if they were against it before, but all of them had been dubious and unsure about Jazz’s spontaneous adoption of human children. The distance was gone now. The confusion and caution remained. 

Unfortunately the medical alert patch had remained. Jazz had two more minor glitches, none as terrible or debilitating as the first, but still unexplained as far as Ratchet could tell. 

In Jazz’s own defense he wasn’t ever following the same data thread, he was chasing the same goal however, and he kept falling prey to minor traps in the mystery glyphs. He couldn’t read them, though he was learning some, which left him vulnerable to hidden codes they sprung. 

The Egyptian rune coder occasionally left markers on the mystery codes, which left Jazz a warning and a suspicion that he was not the only person tracing this group. With a distinct lack of back-hacking, only malicious code, Jazz had eventually let the block on his bond fall, but the firewalls were on a constant hair trigger. 

The past week though Jazz had left the tracking programs alone. The Ark had hit the edge of the solar system, and was beginning the deceleration process, which meant final preparations and clearing the landing site. 

It also meant that Jazz was spending as much of his time wrangling the bits as he was coordinating. They were excited and nervous to meet the rest of Jazz’s clan, but they’d also fully settled in now and were all over the place constantly. 

Danny had caught Ravage twice more, the second time he had been sleepy and had trapped the cyber-panther in a cuddle pile with the rest of the teens piled in with Sam watching them amusedly. 

By the time Jazz had been able to extricate the mortified casseticon Sam had already saved multiple videos. The nineteen year old was determined to be able to blackmail the cat into letting Danny tie a ribbon on her neck. 

Danny had made a solid friend group with the teens of the NEST base, in both his humanoid form and his Cybertronian one, having bonded over video games and pranks. 

Jazz had never heard anybot scream so loud or shrilly as the time the teens had teamed up with Danny to convince Ironhide of the existence of zombies. It had been an impressive long con culminating in a faked death where Danny had stood up from the pile of false viscera to shamble towards Ironhide. 

He had gently bitten Miko on his path and his lack of heartbeat combined with Miko’s ability to faint on command had convinced him thoroughly. 

Lennox had needed to talk the old warrior down from his path to paranoia lined with human horror films and mythology. Epps hadn’t helped by laughing himself breathless in the door with Danny hovering behind him. 

Sephie still either followed Danny or Jazz around, too small to go off on her own yet, but on occasion Lennox would bring his daughter to the base to play, and Sephie had become fast friends with the other toddler. They were both far too obsessed with glittery stickers, and Bumblebee, the default babysitter, had given up on preventing them from sticking them to his plating. 

He still had a pink unicorn stuck to the side of his helm, and no one else was safe either. Sephie was very determined to “prettify” them all, and had easily dragged a gleeful Annabel into her antics. 

None of this was the current issue however. 

There were a lot more people on base for set up and Jazz could not find his bitlets. Annabel was missing as well, and Lennox was standing stiffly at the landing site desperately clinging to the fact that she was probably with Danny. 

Jazz couldn’t leave to find them. He was needed to help coordinate with the Ark, so was Lennox. None of the Earth-based autobots could leave to look right now. They had to trust that they wouldn’t leave the perimeter of the base, which Jazz knew that Danny wouldn’t. 

There was so much room left for mishaps still. 

A loud alarm sounded as the foundation was settled on one end. The massive construction of concrete and steel beams had to be placed perfectly to prevent burn back when the Ark landed and Jazz was directing the other autobots in the heavy lifting and placement. 

It was going smoothly, the perimeter guard wasn’t reporting any incidents at the border, nothing was going wrong, so why did Jazz feel like something was about to go to the Pit. 

Jazz nervously stretched his burgeoning new sense, what he had been calling his Green. 

A soft beeping came from the patch over Jazz’s cortex port, and Ratchet eyed him sideways. It wasn’t the warning for a glitch, it was the warning Ratchet had been compiling that told him whenever the radioactivity levels he was monitoring rose. 

Jazz caught a glimpse of his mate on the screen for data relay lifting his helm in worry.  Jazz flicked his doorwing in greeting at him and received one back. 

Jazz flared his green sense again and froze. 

Casually, keeping his usual posture and behavior, Jazz locked his frame and dialed up the glow on his visor to disguise his shuttering of his optics. Jazz focused on flaring his green sense again, down the halls of the base, onto the human parts, and the mixed spaces, all the way to the perimeter. 

There was something in the base that wasn’t supposed to be there. 

Danny had been teaching him how to use his green sense to establish and monitor a set territory. It was the only thing, beyond lacing his firewalls with the green, that Jazz could do. At this point he could tell the difference between a new human, a cybertronian presence, and he could recognize the feeling of Soundwave’s cassettes when they crossed the border. 

Jazz didn't know what this was. 

Jazz flicked his green again, specifically looking for the bits. Danny and Sephie were coming towards him at rapid speed, and a smaller bright presence was with them. Danny felt terrified. Sephie radiated curiosity and wary alarm. 

He immediately unlocked his frame and spun to stride towards the door to the complex the bitties were coming from in one movement. Ironhide startled as Jazz carefully scooped up Lennox as he passed the warrior. 

By the time Jazz had halved the distance between his previous position at the landing site and the complex, the pulsing sensation of wrongness was growing to press at his awareness instead of simply niggling at the edge of his processor. 

The door to the complex cracked open just wide enough to let Danny out, who immediately ran for Jazz, with Sephie clutched to his chest and Annabel sitting beside her friend on Danny’s arm guard. 

Danny dropped both femmes to sign at Jazz frantically, “Here, something here, not white, not friend, here!” 

Sephie watched the signs with confusion, and Annabel, not knowing much sign language yet, only picked up on one word. 

“Oh! Friend! Is the kitty back?” 

Lennox shushed her softly as he picked up his daughter and held her close as Jazz lifted him back to his shoulder. Sephie was cradled close to them, and Lennox let them chatter as he watched Jazz follow Danny back into the complex to whatever Danny was so worried about. 

Until Ratchet had the supplies to fix Jazz’s comms system he was careful to make sure he had someone with him to contact the others if needed. Lennox was  clutching his walkie as Jazz followed Danny to the southern border at a fast pace. 

A woman was waiting patiently there, floating enough off the ground that the train of her dress could sway in the slight breeze. She smiled at Jazz, more so bared her teeth, and turned her attention to Danny. Her dress dripped. 

She wasn’t human, that much Jazz could tell, and Lennox had gone still and silent on his shoulder, the walkie talkie spitting static. 

“Daddy,” Annabel whispered, “Her dress is bleeding.” 

The woman inclined her head at the group and one after another the crows lining the barbed wire behind her cawed. There were seven of them. Jazz could hear Lennox’s trembling breaths. 

“Greetings, I bring a warning, a tale, and a message.” Her voice was harsh, crackling like a fire, but her tone was warm. 

“Who are ya?” Jazz asked, evenly. He flared his green, and felt her spot of absence again. It felt empty, but if Jazz focused it also felt like a battle high, the sense of mourning, the calculating worry that went into Prowl’s plans, and like the feeling of his long dead clan. 

She hummed, and it was underscored with a crow’s call, “I am called the Morrigan.” 

War, death, fate, motherhood. Her presence matched her claimed aspects. Jazz reached out and tucked Danny behind him. 

She laughed at that, and Jazz fluffed his armor out in a primal defense mechanism. She wasn’t his goddess, but he’d never met any gods before now, this was unknown. 

“The warning first, I should think. You are not as hidden as you think you are.” 

Lennox tensed on Jazz’s shoulder and glared. He and Epps had taken a lot of pride in the set up of this base, and in its secrecy. Jazz didn't think she was talking about the base. 

“Who is looking?” He tried, since the Cybertronians were a secret, even to much of the government providing oversight to Lennox’s group. 

She snapped her teeth, sharp and bloody, in either a threat or a warning, “Many. The humans look for they like to take apart for the sake of knowing. The humans look for they dislike what is different to them. The warped humans look for they destroy what they dislike. You are being looked for and you will be found. Perhaps you could stop declaring your position, however?” 

“We’re not,” Lennox snarled. 

She did not look at him, and she did not move her gaze from Jazz’s visor. 

“All will be as it will be,” she says gently, “And the Pharaoh Child cannot protect you forever. My Crone helps, but she is limited. If you stop poking the hive then you shan’t be stung.” 

Jazz scoffs, “They my kids. I can’t protect them if I don’t know who is hunting them. An’ I don’t know who this Pharaoh or crone is that I should care?” 

“I have warned you. Heed it or don’t.” She shrugs and a fresh slew of blood trickles down onto the sand, “the tale is as follows.” 

She lifts her hands and reveals a series of images in flame, “The king is dead, at the hands of a child. With the foe defeated rises the starchild, avatar of the in between. With the fall of the king rises an imbalance in the power. The king is no more yet the star child remains. Ask yourself Little-Cousin, if you can raise your Uncle-Child well?” 

“Is the starchild the new king?” Jazz asks, sotto voice, for a sheer lack of anything else to say. That was really not a good story. She was not a good storyteller. That was a riddle. 

“No, I think the starchild is dead,” Lennox mutters back. 

“No.” Then she inclines her head, a bone dropping from her tangled hair, “And yes. The last King declared himself so and destroyed too many for those who remained to protest. He was trapped for a time, but a king was never intended for a realm that needs no ruler.” 

“Who was the king?” Lennox asks, and she turns her gaze to Danny instead of answering. Danny is typing on his repurposed datapad. 

“Pariah Dark,” it says for him, “He woke up, and I ate his core. It was mostly an accident.” 

Jazz is going to unpack that later. 

“Yes,” the Morrigan coos, “Yes, Pariah. Zeus. Lugh, Loki, Hêlêl, known first as Unicron.” 

Jazz is also going to unpack that later. 

Danny clings to his leg and Sephie is still watching curiously. 

“Jazz calls me little all the time. Am I a cousin? What is a cousin?” She asks, and the Morrigan laughs, a cruel cackling sound. 

“No. Jazz is the cousin. You were a cousin, now you are ours, and of the Realms. You are his Uncle’s children, an heir to the space between.” 

Jazz had a sneaking suspicion that Unicron is the uncle in question and that Prime’s weird familiarity and fondness of humanity is not unrelated. 

“If the realms, whatever they are, aren’t meant for a ruler, then why’re you picking on Danny?” Jazz asks her, and she eyes him thoughtfully. 

“Clever Little-Cousin. The Realms appreciate voices. When the In Between must interact with the Material it takes an avatar.” She lifts her hand to point at Danny, “This Starchild claimed responsibility as a Voice when he claimed the consequences for his Clan head’s enmity with the Realms.” 

Danny whined softly and pressed his faceplate into Jazz’s knee joint. 

“A voice,” Lennox says, “Meaning there’s more than one and still you claimed a fraudulent king?” 

She snarls, and ephemeral voices scream just at the edge of audible sound, “A voice is a role, a what not a who. Power is as Power does. His stolen strength provided his stolen sovereignty, but with his fall were his boons redistributed rightly. The Starchild has no more responsibility now but to grow into what he is.” 

“And what is he?” Jazz asks staunchly, even as Danny shakes behind him. There is a right answer here, and the Morrigan meets his gaze steadily. She has the right answer, and she knows it. 

“A child.” 

Danny sobs, and Jazz nods firmly. She had asked him if he could raise Danny well, but he could at least do this. He could let his kid grow with support, safety, and love. He could provide a clan, what could this disquieting goddess do? 

“The message then, before I depart.” 

She swelled, her dress melting into feathers dripping with gore, and she bared her teeth at the group, “Those that have warped themselves draw close. The Pharaoh child has claimed your seeking presence as his to protect, but he will soon do battle on too many fronts. 

“Your message is as follows: Falter not, the regent sister dies yet, but she and the knight sister have been borne to safety. Stay well, and return not to those who bore you. We will come to you when the stars align. Trust the clocks no more, for those that watch have tightened the chain to a noose. Find comfort in the arms of your shield.” 

The Morrigan melts into a puddle of blood and feathers right there on the sand, and the crows scatter, three left, then none. Jazz stares in blank shock. 

Danny hiccups slightly and Sephie tugs at one of Jazz’s sensor horn, too hard for comfort, “Did she just die?”

”You know, it was really unclear.” Lennox says. 

Jazz thinks that she probably just went back where she came from. 

Bluestreak was annoying multiple mech, he was aware. Smokescreen and prowl were being equally obnoxious in different ways, but Blue really couldn't help it. New Sparks were huge in general, New Sparks in the Clan was a huge step, and it meant that Bluestreak was a big brother now. 

He used to ask for siblings when he was a mechling, and Jazz and Prowl had brushed him off and redirected him until Smokey had taken him aside and explained how the clan was affected by the war. 

He wasn’t supposed to get any siblings until the war was over and Jazz and Prowl could actually dedicate time to bitlets. The exception to that was any adoptions like Blue’s. Blue had always known that encountering any other orphaned Praxian or Polyhexian sparklets was nigh impossible. 

Now he has bitty siblings, but he couldn’t meet them until they got to Earth, and they were a secret as well. He couldn’t brag about his bitty sibs’ antics that Jazz told them about to anyone except Smokey and Prowl, who also knew them. 

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker could tell that he knew a secret, and they were getting gradually more upset that he wouldn’t tell them. Normally Bluestreak told them everything, even secrets, but the bittys were being hunted by something on Earth and Bluestreak was willing to trust Prowl when he said it was best not to put them on the Decepticon’s radar as well. 

Bluestreak wasn’t sure how they weren’t already since Danny kept catching Ravage. He had briefly been introduced to Danny’s servos exactly once when the sparkling had held up the limp, humiliated con to show the watching bots on the bridge. 

It was the first time that Bluestreak had ever seen Red Alert laugh on shift. 

Bluestreak supposed that if he kept getting caught by a bitty and treated like a mesh-wirelion  that he’d be too embarrassed to tell anyone as well. 

Sephie seemed like a force of nature, and more than once some bot would show up for a coordination call with something on their helm and blame the bitty. The most memorable incident had been Ironhide talking security with Red Alert with a massive smear of bright yellow paint down his helm. 

Jazz would turn to ask a question, visibly choke on his laughter and refocus on running numbers with Prowl. Ironhide kept rubbing it, and making it worse. He had revealed the clashing glittery pink underlayer. Bluestreak had an image capture saved in his files labeled as “Sephie’s First Art Project.” 

He was going to put it in a holocube to display one day. It would embarrass both Sephie and Ironhide. It was going to be amazing. 

Danny was more reserved, but Bluestreak was determinedly learning sign language for him, as fast as Jazz could teach it, and practicing with Prowl, Smokescreen, and an oddly invested Mirage. 

Danny liked stars, and horror stories, and cats. Sephie liked the ocean, bright colors, and stories in general. Bluestreak had pestered Jazz with questions about the bits until he had these answers, and then with more questions about the ocean. 

Apparently it was like the Rust Sea, but it was teeming with life forms. Sephie liked the ones like the kind that live in the deep canals and sink-rivers on Cybertron. 

Bluestreak was working on a storybook of the old stories from Praxus, and from the Undercity where Jazz was from. Prowl was great for the ones from Praxus, and so was Smokey, but the ones from Old Polyhex were harder to pin down. 

Blue was working on it. 

He was also working a collection of sparkling paints for both of them with Wheeljack. All of the officers were aware, but Wheeljack was almost as excited as the Clan was. Wheeljack was also working on false-pets for them. 

Bluestreak still remembered his false-pet from when Jazz and Prowl had adopted him. She had been a dexi-squirrel named Hadsy, and Bluestreak had loved her. She had been lost sometime in the latter stages of the war during his mechlinghood. 

False-pets were partially sentient protectors for sparklets, meant for comfort and companionship. Before the war they were mostly for bitlets whose parents worked a lot, or were too busy for their sparklings, most;y nobles. After the war started their popularity had skyrocketed as basic defenses could be coded in. 

Hadsy had been destroyed during a seeker attack when someone had thought that one of the Praxus Survivors was a good target. She had taken the con with her. Bluestreak was helping Wheeljack put as many protections in as he could since the bitties would need them as much as he had. 

Danny was getting a little green and silver cybercat. She was lithe, and small, and good for cuddles, Blue was very firm on that. Wheeljack was careful with her personality programming to keep that. 

Sephie was getting a miniature deep canals Jellyfish. Wheeljack’s confusion when Bluestreak had picked that had flashed wildly from his helmfins. He had rolled with it though, and put good effort into making it able to float after its assigned billet. It was creepy, Bluestreak acknowledged, but so were the image captures of Sephie’s favorite Earth fish that Jazz had shown them. 

There was a little over half an orbital cycle before Bluestreak could meet his new siblings, and he was determined to be their favorite. 

Amity park was almost fully integrated into the Ghost Zone. Spector Speeders had been replicated by modifying cars, and anyone in Amity could access one. 

The Portal’s implosion had far reaching consequences, thankfully contained to Amity, but they weren’t fixable. Sam spared a thoroughly unkind thought for the Fenton’s that had played with forces out of their control and doomed a whole town in the process. 

Then she buckled down and finished painting the runes for her piece of the trap for Plasmius. This was partially, mostly, his fault. He could suffer in GiW’s dubious care and see how he liked it.

Dan hovered behind her, fully adjusted to his new clone body, and so, so vindictive. He didn’t have a ghost form anymore, the Fenton’s had seen to that before they’d sold their children to a farce of an organization. 

He was still as liminal as any of them though, and he leaned on that out of sheer desperation. He missed it, she knew. He’d been a ghost longer than he’d been human, and trapped for longer than that thanks to Clockwork’s machinations. 

He wasn’t allowed to come negotiate when the GiW came knocking because of that. He couldn’t pass as human well enough. None of them could, not really, not anymore, but no one else had attempted to tear an agent's throat out with their teeth. 

Or succeeded. 

He mostly ran interference and worked on establishing his own identity separate from Danny’s. He was half Vlad after all, and the resemblance was definitely there. He was a creepy thing, but he was useful. 

Especially when they asked for his help catching Plasmius from the GiW and he’d torn himself from his little sanctuary of loud action films and stuffed animals. 

He couldn’t stand silence, too long in the thermos, and even now a tinny glitching cd of Queen played from the player attached to his hip as he chattered to Sam about dinosaurs of all things. 

Sam wrapped up her last circle of ghost traps and traipsed back towards the town. Plasmius was predictable. The smallest hint of Maddie changing her mind and he’d be rushing for the town limits to meet her. 

Tucker had her email account pegged, it would not be hard to fake. 

Sam was getting ever so good at the curses her Móraí Nanna was teaching her. She was quite sure she could turn the oldest halfa into a ticking time bomb before they handed him over to the murderous white-coated, close-minded monsters that had taken apart her sisters. 

Jazz and Dani were still reforming in the medical bay Frostbite ran with an icy fist, and he was predicting that it could be decades before they reemerge from their cores safely. 

Sam fully intended to kill all of the GiW so thoroughly that they didn’t dare to reform in the Realms. They could fade in pain and fear, and regret being born when she was done with them. 

Tucker joined her as she traipsed for Nasty Burger, where Valarie had set up her Lair. Wes was her ever present shadow, even now, and he turned his sightless eyes towards them as soon as she crossed the threshold. He tilted his head and she shuddered. 

Wes had not taken the influx of ecto wheat he portal had imploded well. He only spoke in prophecy and full truths now, even truths he wasn’t aware of. He saw too much, and it was hard on him. 

Sam passed him her chalk from the circles and he turned it over in his hands slowly, shifting his gaze to Dan. 

“It will work, but so dies the last defense, secrets revealed rarely have anything but suspense. The Starchild’s clan has much to learn, their last safe place left to burn. Much at once, too much for words, war is rarely won on broken defense.” 

He hands her chalk back and wanders towards the little room filled with broken clocks that he sleeps in. Valarie watches him quietly, she still feels responsible for the incident that had blinded the boy. 

Sam maintained that it had been Wes’ fault. You shouldn’t look for trouble if you didn’t want it to find you. You didn’t look for a god unless you knew they were kind or cruel. 

Móraí Nanna had looked for her Goddess, and as much as Sam adored her grandmother, she had no desire to bind herself to a death deity at this time. 

Ida Manson sat on the edge of the table with her ever shifting cane present at her side, watching, always watching. Her cane was watching as well today, the eyes of the carved raven’s head blinking sporadically with blood red ecto. 

The Morrigan was surprisingly fond of Ida, and Sam by extension. She did not however manifest anywhere but the Homeland, and the Realms. That didn’t stop the group from talking to Ida’s cane as if it were able to do anything in the Morrigan’s stead. 

Tucker collapsed into his usual seat and booted up his computer system. He had been tussling with the GiW every chance he got, putting viruses in their systems, ruining their files, slowing them down anyway he could. He was also running interference on the behalf of someone else looking into them, but he never could say who. 

Sam thought he didn’t know. He just refused to let anyone else fall into their clutches after what had happened to Jazz and Dani, after what was still happening to Danny, to them. 

He leaned back and Addressed the cane for the first time, all echoing syllables and layered harmonics of the Pharaoh, half in his computer as he was. 

“Hey, Morgs, if you ever see Danny, tell him something from us?” 

The cane pulsed, and Tucker kept going. Ida smiled meanly, an edge that usually meant that she was pulling one over on Sam’s parents. 

“Don’t worry, we got Jazz and Dani back. Get somewhere safe, and stay there. We’ll find you. Just don’t trust anything from Clockwork, the Observants are extra controlling right now.” 

Tucker fully dives into his computers and Sam flips the jukebox on for an increasingly stressed Dan. She’s pretty sure the Morrigan can’t do anything until they get Danny out themselves. 

Chapter Text

Danny digs the toes of his pedes into the seams of Jazz’s hip strut and ignores his groan. His new form, his frame, is extra weird and it comes with a new set of instincts and desires. 

Danny wants to climb everything, and swim, and occasionally he sees something moving and he wants to pounce and bite it. Generally, the others are obliging, and Danny gets to do things like climb all over Ironhide and Optimus, and sometimes everyone is busy and all Danny can do is cling in a high place or scurry off to the hidey-spot he and Miko had found and play in the tunnels he’d been expanding. 

Jack called it the labyrinth, and said that Danny was the best Minotaur. Raf was making a map, and by mutual agreement no one told the adults, mech or human. Sometimes Ravage, or the twins, would come explore the tunnels with them, and Danny would get to play-wrestle with them. 

Laserbeak only visited above ground, she didn’t like the tunnels. 

Sephie made a matching grumble from her own perch on Jazz’s other hip, clinging with her little magnets. Miko called them her toe beans, and Danny had displayed his own with a newfound glee. 

Jazz was making them sit still right now and listen to all the boring rules and schedules. Lennox and Optimus were being uncharacteristically boring by listing all of these off to the whole base. 

Apparently the Ark was landing within the next week and the new rules were only for the transition period. They were good rules for everyone else, humans should stay off the Ark until everyone was familiar with each other, cooperate with each other, be kind, et cetera. 

They were boring and Danny wanted to go catch Ravage again. She was visiting the tunnels, and sending pulses of Can’t-Find-Me-Hiding-Play-Play-Play at him. Danny had extended his haunt to include the little tunnel system, which was technically off base, but that meant Ravage couldn’t come closer without Jazz feeling her cross the perimeter and Danny wanted to go play. 

Sephie could feel Danny’s frustration and Play-Play-Play pulsing through his field and she wanted to move to. Her aura pulsed with Bored-Play-Bored and Jazz vented quietly as he dug Danny’s pedes out of his hip joint gently. 

Jazz was always so careful and gentle with him. Jack-dad hadn’t been, Mom hadn’t been, even Jazz-sister had yelled frequently and flared exasperation-exhaustion at him. 

Tucker had been gentle, Sam had been careful, Jazz-sister had loved him, but Jazz did them all so effortlessly and with such intention that sometimes Danny couldn’t help but cling to him with magnets and claws and shadows like he could melt into Jazz’s seams and never leave. 

Jazz would hug him close on those days, and sing in Polyhexian, and tell old, old stories about tunnels of the long dead and canals of treacherous rapids and great city-state that had predated them. He’d video call Prowl, and Danny would curl under the screen as the Praxian would tell stories of his city of crystal towers and shining spires of twisting silicate glass. 

Danny was nervous to meet Jazz’s husband, and the other two, but no one had minded talking at him while Danny cuddled his baby sister close out of sight. He could hear Jazz giving them sign language lessons, and he watched from odd angles sometimes. They were all as determined to learn it as Danny was his new languages. 

Jazz had been teaching him Polyhexian and Praxian with great enthusiasm, ignoring Ratchet’s admonishments to teach him and Sephie Neo-Cybex first. 

Danny arched backwards, flaring his little glass wings, and whined. Bumblebee twittered a laugh from in front of him and Sephie whined in unison. 

Jazz magnetized his servo to Danny’s backplates, refusing to let him fall. Rude. Danny was trying to leave, thank you. 

Sephie flared Mischief-glee and began to melt at the edges, seawater and phosphorescent algae dripping from her protoform. Danny giggled and followed suit, drifting shadows and the scent of burning metal curling from his frame. 

Arcee jerked from a few groups of humans away and looked over, her aura flicking at Jazz’s in concern. Danny grinned wickedly as he flopped backwards and wailed. Optimus made a sputtering sound from the front of the room as he tried not to laugh. 

“Fine,” Jazz hissed, equally amused, trying to look stern, and failing as his aura twisted with love-bemusement-affection, “Go play, take someone with you that has a phone, stay on base.” 

Danny chirped gleefully and scampered off to where Miko and Jack stood with Jack’s mom and Epps. Jack shook his head after a glance at his disapproving mother, but Miko climbed onto Danny’s wing and clung hard. 

Technically speaking the military base property extended about twenty miles around into the desert. Technically, since the tunnels were within that legal limit, it counted. 

Danny went to chase Ravage until they were both tired and could cuddle in the room with pilfered soft things and bean bags made of ectoplasm. 

Miko liked to sleep in the curl of Ravage’s audioshell, and she’d play video games until Danny and Ravage were done playing hide-and-chase. Poor Sephie had to stay behind, magnetized to Jazz’s plating and complaining bitterly about it with disgruntled chirps and warbles. 

Danny had found a new home, he hadn’t thought he would, but he had. He’d keep it, for as long as he could. 

The GiW still made him nervous, Jazz had slowed in looking after the visit, but only after talking safety rules with Danny. He had also given Danny an energy blade and taught him to use it during that conversation. Jazz was the best. 

He knew they were still out there, looking. They didn’t give up, not really. But there were a lot of people protecting him, and each other, something She had said wouldn’t happen. 

She had said a lot of things, done a lot. Jazz-sister had been killed by Her, and Mirror-sister. Danny had seen his mirror sister’s floating shattered core and had cried. 

She had thought it was funny, and She had shown him the stiff corpse of his Jazz-sister hiding her scared, trembling core to see if he’d do it again. Danny had. 

He had cried, and screamed, and Wailed until the walls had broken and his sobs had thrown Her into a wall. 

She had cut his throat out for it. Again and again and again, until She had gotten bored and She had cut his head open instead and muttered about imitation brains. 

(Danny knew his Jazz-sister and his Mirror-sister would wake up again eventually. Not yet though, he was broken, and they were broken, and it wasn’t safe-) 

Danny stopped in a tunnel and curled in the air, floating in place as he screamed just to prove that he could. 

Ravage chirped at him and then herded him back down towards the cuddle-room. She was tired, nap time. She nuzzled him softly and purred loud enough to rattle Danny’s proto-plating. Miko giggled as she was dislodged from where she was climbing Ravage’s side. 

They were still looking, but Jazz would protect him, and Sephie, and Optimus could protect Jazz. Optimus felt like an ancient, like old Wisdom and steady Love. He had an aura like Pandora, but older like Nocturne’s. It made Danny nervous sometimes, but that was ok, lots of things did. 

Danny flicked his plating in a settling gesture and yawned as he went limp on top of his friend. He was bigger than Ravage like this, but not by much, and only in height. Ravage curled around him and licked softly at Danny’s horns. 

He giggled at the tickling sensation and Miko took a selfie of herself perched on Ravage as she groomed Danny. There were lots of these pictures printed and pinned to the walls of their cuddle room. Jack did it for them, with his mom’s printer. 

Danny let his optics flicker off as he let go of his nervousness for now. Nothing would change yet. 

The eery little shades had started showing up about two months after Jazz had. The creepy Poly had seen them first, closely following his creepier kids. He’d just started talking to walls randomly, asking them to keep an eye on his bits or let him know if they were getting in trouble while Jazz worked. 

Ratchet had dragged him to med bay for a full work up and processor check. Nothing had been wrong and Ratchet had adjusted Jazz’s alert patch. 

A week later NEST had started seeing things out of the corners of their eyes. Pretty soon after that Arcee and Bumblebee had as well. 

Then they were all seeing them, even if Jazz was still the only one that talked to them. Little shifting shadows, humanoid only in the display of misshapen limbs and distorted faces. They were everywhere. Little blank masks with empty voids for eyes and a gaping mouth like they were eternally screaming, clinging to the walls, and the ceilings, and scurrying or drifting to and fro aimlessly. 

They’d start rattling randomly, and their heads would tick-tick-tock in jerky motions making a hollow knocking sound. The things were an infestation but no one could touch the fraggers much less remove them. Even Lennox was pretty alarmed by the things, but they were cautiously left alone for lack of anything else to do about them. 

There were maybe three dozen of them total, not much comparatively to the amount of mecha coming, or the several dozen soldiers working on base under Lennox and Epps, or the couple dozen more humans working in basic maintenance for the base, and their families. 

Perhaps, Ironhide reflected, that was what made it so much creepier to see all of the little shades gathered to click-tick-rattle their heads at the Ark’s descent. 

A loud ker-THunk sounded as the Ark settled fully on her to the accompaniment of dozens of hollow rattles. Danny giggled softly from his perch on Jazz’s hip strut ahead of Ironhide, and Arcee drew her own armor in with a shudder beside him. One edged closer to the Ark doors only to retreat back to its perch against the wall when Jazz clicked his glossa. 

Ironhide was so glad the things listened to Jazz even if no one, least of all Jazz himself, knew why. 

The little scraplets were scattered along the edges of the landing perimeter and perched along the walls of the compound surrounding. They were rattling incessantly. 

The Ark doors clicked loudly before they began to swish open. The shades all went silent and still, glitching out of the corners of Ironhide’s optics. Then they dispersed and he shuddered out of sheer relief. 

Only a few lingered, rattling away merrily, as the doors locked into an open position for the inner blast doors to lift. Prowl stood at the front of the greeting group with his servo lifted. Ironhide watched with amusement as he got bowled over by an impassive medic dragging his mate to the medical wing. 

Sephie’s giggling chirps floated back to the group and Ironhide joined Optimus in laughing at the panicked saboteur being dragged off to get repaired. Ratchet truly had been fragged off at his inability to properly repair Jazz or check the bitlet’s systems. 

Prowl stared after the retreating frames in dismay. He stepped forward to coordinate. Prowl was remarkably good at compartmentalization, Ironhide sympathised with the mech who kept working despite clearly wishing to check on his mate. 

Red Alert stepped up behind Prowl to speak to Epps. He did not leave the confines of the Ark airlock entry. His horns sparked occasionally. Ironhide wondered idly why the mech wasn’t freaking out about the shades. 

The Ark had landed at night, basic coordination and patrols would be set up, and then the earth based mecha and humans alike would need to recharge. Ironhide’s role was to make sure that happened and keep everyone on track. 

Lennox leaned closer to his audial with a poorly stifled yawn, “After this, when everything is settled, I’m looking into how to get rid of the creepy little tickers. I saw you watching them too, there’s got to be some sort of exterminator for them.” 

Ironhide hums and curls his field around his charge, despite the human’s inability to feel it or respond properly. That sounded nice. Polyhexian creepiness, their naturally silent systems and frames designed for hunting, was one thing. Weird shadows that watched everything were quite another. 

Smokescreen went to the med bay as soon as the Ark was in her final landing stages. Prowl was sure that he would get to meet the new sparks during the coordination after landing. Smokescreen knew better. 

Ratchet took it as a personal offense to be unable to fix a mech. Jazz, who had as many mods as systems could function with, would be dragged to the med bay as soon as Ratchet had a path. The bits would come with, Jazz had been ridiculously protective when they’d taken in Blue as a bitty, and Smokescreen would have laid bets on that not changing if the whole situation weren’t a secret. 

Bluestreak had a shift at first joor, and was in recharge, fully unaware of the Ark’s landing at all. Smokescreen would not wake him, he wanted first pass meeting the bitties. Mirage was shadowing him to the med bay, pretending as if Smokescreen didn’t know he was there. 

Mirage’s mods may have been impressive but Smokescreen was Spec Ops too, if he missed Mirage tailing him then Jazz would have his helm, clan or otherwise. 

Sure as sure, within the next few breems the old familiar sound of Ratchet dragging their whining boss to med bay drifted towards Smokescreen’s audios. He smiled and grinned sharply at the noble mech playing Kaon Hold’em with him. 

Jazz really did look terrible. His paint was less dull, but equally patchy and scratched as before, and the thick weld on his chest plate was peeling at the edges. A sure sign of repair nanites either being too fried, or too overworked to incorporate the new biometal. 

His visor flashed at the pair of mecha on the berth waiting for him and he sighed. The youngling clinging to his side whined in distress, and Jazz tucked his EM field around him with an impressive amount of control. Smokescreen poked it. 

The truly tiny newling puffed herself up on Jazz’s helm and hissed at him, thrusting her own field back into Smokescreen’s with a pulse of loud displeasure. Smokescreen chirped at her and she rattled her vents at him. 

He could hear Mirage cycling his optics beside him as he stared at the bit. That was not a typical sparkling sound. It really wasn’t a typical vocalization at all. 

Jazz reached up and tapped his digits on the bit's helm gently, “Sephie, tha’s Smokescreen and Mirage. You remember I tol’ you about them?” 

She hummed and hunkered down to stare at them with big, suspicious gold optics. Danny unhooked himself from Jazz’s side just enough to peer at them. 

He looked at Smokescreen curiously, but most of his focus was on Mirage. A moment later he blinked out of visibility with nary a sound. Smokescreen hiccuped as his vents stuttered in shock. Mirage leaned forward in interest, and blinked invisible as well. 

A moment later Danny was visible again, still attached to Jazz, but relaxed, interested. His EM field flared playfulness, and he blinked out of sight again. Smokescreen flared his wings in alarm as a short scraping sound came from the little group. Mirage blinked visible beside him and stared at Jazz’s hip strut intently for the next visibility blink of the youngling. 

A warbling chirp sounded from directly next to Mirage on the medical berth he had commandeered with Smokescreen. Mirage shrieked loudly in surprise as he jerked back into Smokecreen who had also let out an inadvertent screech. 

The sparklet let out a clicking laugh with a rattling undertone, still an unusual sound from a bitlet and Mirage vented rapidly on top of Smokescreen. Sephie was giggling from on top of Jazz’s helm and Smokescreen let his own helm hit the berth with a clang. 

“Aight,” Jazz said, prying the new spark from his helm to drop her on top of Mirage, “If y’all are volunteering to spark sit fo’ me, I ain’t gonna say no. I’mma go get my comms fixed, if it's all the same.” 

Jazz wanders after where Ratchet had gone and the operational room swishes shut behind him. Danny warbles sadly after him and reaches towards the door. 

Mirage frantically engages the sparkling in the game of blinking again. Smokescreen holds Sephie as they watch. There’s nothing else to do for now, and Smokescreen is happy to bond with his new clan mates however he can. 

By the time the Ark is beginning to stir for her first cycle on Earth Smokescreen has curled around his bitty cousins, both in recharge. Mirage sits with him and they talk softly. Mirage is here for an update from Jazz, one he won’t get until Ratchet is done with him. They can talk about the bitties instead. 

The shades are a collective, were a collective. They have individuals, are individuals, but they are one nonetheless. The Jazz names them, sketches them into something he calls a Red Alert Record. Sometimes the Little Ones doodle beside them, sometimes the Jazz allows the little ones to Name them. 

They had names before, long ago, not so long ago, when they were different-same-changed. 

One of the oldest shades, the one assigned by the Jazz to scream if the Cat-Friend-Ravage came too close to the Jazz’s haunt, he will lead the rattle of his cohort.

The Jazz named him Bones. The Jazz trusts him to watch the children, the Little Ones. Bones watches the King-Eater, the Void-Realmer. Bones watches the Sea-Child, the Princess-Heir. 

Bones has help. His cohort are the Little One Watchers. They rattle for changes, for threats, for location. Bones has a small cohort. Bones has the help of Aeon, and Echo, and Snakeshake with the Sea-Child. Bones has the help of Fox, and Despair, and Eyes with the King-Eater. 

The other Cohorts do different tasks, and Bones wonders if the Jazz is aware that he is helping them grow in strength with the tasks and his bleed off. 

The cohort led by Smiles has Ash, Knock-Knock, Wisher, Hunger, Lego, and Skellie for hall patrols. They focus only on what can change. Bones likes Smiles, he rattles to warn the King-Eater of changes. 

The other two cohorts are bigger. Smog leads one. Smog’s cohort watches the humans in the compound. They must ensure safety from the ones that don’t like the Shades. The ones that don’t like the Shades don’t like the Little One’s. Smog rattles to warn of those ones and Jazz makes them be silent around the Little Ones. 

Griefer leads the last cohort. They watch the outside, the tunnels, and the desert. They drift in and out, and they watch the Ravage-Cat. They are the first to spot the Flame-Hot-Descending-Thing from the sky. 

Griefer leads his cohort in a warning rattle, and the other cohorts join. This needs to be a long rattle, it is a big change. The thing lands, it is loud and jarring, and it scares the Little Ones. The Jazz is not alarmed. The Jazz should be alarmed, they are rattling to alarm the Jazz. He must fix this to prevent the Little One’s distress. 

The Ironhide is alarmed. He is good. Bones rattles louder at him in gratitude. The Lennox-Human on the Ironhide’s shoulder shudders. It is an appropriate thanks for the warning, even if it is the wrong sound. 

Most of the Shade cores they protect here are bad at rattling. They pull their shells in tight without the proper shake-release. The Arcee does this now. Her shell pulls in, she shakes, and there is no rattle. Bones rattles at her to show her how. Bones can teach the Arcee to rattle-speak properly. 

The Thing opens. There are more Shade cores inside. The cohorts relax. Their role is to protect the Little Ones. The Shade cores were never a threat. Too much soft. 

The Ratchet-Yell pulls the Jazz inside the Thing. A collective rattle goes up from Bones' cohort. The Little Ones are inside the Thing. Bones tick—tick-ticks. They must protect the Little Ones, the Little Ones are inside the Thing with the Jazz. 

Bones and his Cohort enter the Thing. Jazz had already stopped Sorrow from Griefer’s cohort from investigating earlier. They must be hidden. 

They enter the vents, and scurry-scamper-scuttle through after the Ratchet-Yell and the Jazz. They do not rattle, must be quiet. 

The Ratchet-Yell takes the Jazz to a place that smells like the Before-Life-Not-Known. The Jazz is relaxed. There are strangers there, their Shade cores are not familiar. The Jazz relaxes anyway. Bones rattles softly. 

Observation. Learn, learn, watch. 

The new Shade cores play with the Little Ones, and the Jazz leaves the Little Ones behind. Echo and Fox stay to watch the Little Ones. Bones leads Aeon and Eyes to watch the Jazz. 

Snakeshake and Despair follow the vents to learn-watch-know about the Thing. 

These are not strangers to the Jazz. They are not known to the Shades. Bones rattles lowly. The Ratchet-Yell flinches and mutters in the tweety language. 

The Jazz speaks the smoke-emotion-not-alive-never-alive language of the Shades. The Little Ones do too. The Ratchet-Yell does not. Bones settles in to watch over the Jazz. 

He tick-tick—tocks as he watches. He does not need to rattle, not yet. He hopes he never needs to scream. 

Bones likes the Jazz. He gives names and roles and he feeds the Shades. He cannot let the Jazz fade. 

Aeon rattles a low warning from the next vent opening. It is the warning to another cohort. Stay-away. Stay-away. 

Bones scuttles over. The new Shade isn’t strong, not yet. He’ll need to ask the Jazz to assign his cohort. They huddle behind their cohort Old Gloom. Bones ticks a greeting at the other Old Gloom and receives one back. Aeon returns to watching the Jazz. 

The new cohort is slightly different. They came from Before-Where-Different. They have color to the edges of their flare-aura-fields. They have sparks floating in their sense voids. They are still monochrome. 

This is a new word. Bones heard it from the Jazz in the last moon change. It means one color, or flat. The other Old Gloom is edged in blue, they are all edged in blue, but the Old Gloom’s is deeper. 

Bones begins to rattle out a story. A history-song-update. The new cohort listens. They rattle along. They know the Jazz, but not well. They want names, role-functions. The Jazz is asleep-dead-recharging as the Ratchet-Yell makes him not as broken-hurt-pain. 

The Ratchet-Yell is very good at the fix-heal-live function. Bones will bring his cohort to the Ratchet-Yell if they ever have to scream. Screaming hurts, but it alarms. The Jazz needed an alarm system. The Little Ones have hunter-hurter-chasers after them. 

Bones considers. Bones starts a new rattle-song about his Little Ones. The new cohort listens. Their aura-flare-fields teem with protection and stubborn intent. 

Good. Bones thinks every cohort should protect the Little Ones. 

Chapter Text

There is a lot happening right now. Danny isn’t totally sure what to think about it all. He meets his new cousin during the Ark landing, and Mirage who works with Jazz. 

They’re nice, he supposes. He falls asleep where he met them, while Jazz is in another room with Ratchet. When Jazz comes back he feels a little more complete. Danny doesn't fully wake up when Jazz comes back, but he is muzzily dozey as Jazz carries him through the Ark. 

He doesn’t wake up when Jazz puts him and Sephie down in a much bigger bed and they all go to sleep together. Danny doesn’t have his ceiling stars here, the ones Jazz had put up so carefully. It's not home, not really. 

He wakes up in the morning and there’s two new people in the room. 

One of them he knows, Prowl, Jazz’s husband. He’s on all of the video calls, and Danny sees him a lot. The other one is probably Bluestreak, since Danny has already met Smokescreen. They never introduced themselves, so Danny hadn’t been able to tell them apart before. 

Bluestreak is still sleeping, his wings twitching softly as he mutters in Praxian that Danny is only half getting. Prowl is awake and talking lowly with Jazz in an easy mix of Polyhexian and Praxian, one the Jazz uses so much that Danny knows the mixed dialect better than either individual language despite lessons. 

Prowl glances at the little pile of blankets and meshes nested around Danny and Sephie and his wings perk happily with a little wiggle at the ends. Happiness, delight, anticipation. Danny twitches one of his wings nervously. He tracks his sight off of his other adoptive parent that he’s only now meeting. 

Bones is perched above Jazz, the rest of Bones’s cohort is edging the room evenly. Fox is above the door phasing in and out in even intervals. None of them are ticking, or rattling, just watching. Safe. 

Danny looks back at Prowl. He chirps, and Prowl beams at him. It's a small smile, and his wings lift incrementally, but his field wraps Danny in as much love and affection and joy as he could convey. Danny gasps, and warbles softly. He smiles like Jazz, you can’t watch his face or body, it's all in his aura and core bonds. 

He smiles like a ghost, like Danny and Sephie do. 

“Hello, Danny,” he says, as soft and steady as Jazz is wild and strong, “I’m Prowl. I’m so happy to finally meet you.” 

He lifts his servos and clumsily signs, “Happy meet you,” and Jazz snickers quietly at the same time as Danny purrs happily as his wings lift. 

Danny lifts his own servos and signs, “Good to meet you. What you talking about?” 

Prowl starts to talk, reconsiders, and then clumsily signs out, “Plan for today, morning is busy.” 

Jazz’s snickers break into full laughter, “Prowler, is this why Ratch has been annoyed by yer questions on audio damage?” 

“You said he talks with a variation of chirolinguistics,” Prowl says to Jazz, then turns to Danny and signs, “Would you like plan?” 

Danny giggles, then he digs his tablet out from wherever it had ended up in the meshes, it always came unmagnetized when he slept. He unlocks it and begins to tap out a long message. 

“I can hear. I can’t talk. Scares me. Could if I wanted to, I don’t. Is it a busy day for everyone? Can I just go play with Miko and Raf?” 

Prowl relaxes from a stiffness in his arms that Danny didn’t realize he was holding. He had been worried about not being good enough at sign, even though he looked almost as good as Sephie was. Danny and Bee were still the best. 

“Boo, Miko and Raf have school today. It's a Tuesday.” Jazz is too logical for this early in the morning. Danny tells him so with his tablet and a disgruntled aura flare. Prowl laughs at that, Danny isn’t sure why it's funny. 

“Jazz is busy, and so am I. We have a lot to do to get settled during the official first day cycle. Specifically I need to meet with Optimus and the human contracts while everyone is awake and rested. Jazz has a meeting with his bots, and with Red Alert for security set up.” 

Danny flicks his aura and thinks about this, “Could play by myself. Not a baby.” 

Jazz presses his field against Danny’s in a quiet reminder of Sephie. Danny shoves back with the impression of his sister snoozing as she clings to Jazz’s chest. Jazz snorts and pushes the image of a very hyper Sephie distracting him while she clings. 

It happened last week, Jazz’s point is made. Danny acquiesces with a gentle roll of acceptance. Prowl is flicking his optical focuses between them with a frozen field and a confused tilt to his doorwings. Jazz leans into him with a wry grin. 

“Aw, Prowler, ain’t no thing. Danny communicates with his field a lot. I’ve gotten better at it, is all, you’ll get there.”  Jazz nudges Prowl gently with his shoulder and Prowl gracefully shrugs it off as he refocuses on Danny. 

“Our meetings cannot have either of you present, despite wishes on both parties ends-“ 

Danny is staring blankly and Jazz interjects, “He means as much as we want ya with us, and as much as you want to be there.” 

“Yes, quite,” Prowl says and flicks his wing just so, and it bops Jazz gently on his helm, “We don’t necessarily want you unsupervised either, you are known to the human element, but not to the Autobots as a whole. For your safety we would rather you stay with Bluestreak and Smokescreen until Jazz and I are done with our meetings and can intercede if needed in defense.” 

Danny whines petulantly, because he can, and Prowl faltered amusement at him. He wants to go play, and eat something, and not be in boring meetings though, which is what he’s usually doing. Playing video games on whatever interface is available while Jazz has meetings, and then he plays with Jazz. 

He can accept his new sort of brother as a replacement for his watcher. If he’s away from Jazz he always has one, Miko, Raf, Jack, or Bee usually, and the first three are aware of Ravage who also watches without Jazz’s knowledge. Danny has all the watchers. 

Bluestreak stirs as Prowl prods him with a lazy pede poke, and then he shoots awake, “Are they awake? Did you decide if I get to sparksit or Smokey does? Can I meet them, oh! Hello, I’m Blue!”

Danny just giggles and waves. He shakes Sephie to wake her up. She chatters, she’ll be better at this. 

“You will be joint spark-sitting,” Jazz says to Bluestreak, “You’ll be watching them, Prowl tells me ya been getting gifts? Good time for those. Smokescreen will be supervising since you’ve never Spark-sat before and he’s got work to do. Your schedules have both been modified to reflect this.”

Danny feels his aura go all gooey and soft. He has never met his sort of brother, but Blue is so excited, and he has gifts. 

He feels a bit like a fraud actually. His last family gave him away to be cut apart, and hurt, and destroyed in every way they could think of. His town had been destroyed utterly, nuked in its trans-dimensional bridge in a way that killed everyone, they’d shown him videos and pictures. 

He hadn’t been wanted, had killed everyone he knew. Then came these crazy aliens that had decided they wanted him and loved him months before they met him on the whim of the only one who had. 

It didn’t feel real, and Danny felt like a fake for loving it so much. 

He didn’t let any of this spill into his pulled tight aura as Jazz carried him, clinging tight, claws in seams and magnet holding firm, towards the rec room. It was going to be where he would be spending the morning with Blue and Smokey, and they were all going to refuel together first. 

The Ark wasn’t alive with ecto. It wasn’t part of his haunt, or Jazz’s yet. He wouldn’t be able to send a distress pulse along the trace lines, or feel where his parent was. This was going to be the first time he was actually separate from Jazz since they escaped. 

Danny whined into Jazz’s chest plate. Jazz cood at him and Sephie chirps curiously from her perch in Prowl’s arms as Blue chatters at her. Danny doesn't want Jazz to leave. 

He drinks his cube of energy grumpily with a rust stick clutched in his free servo on Jazz’s lap. Prowl has handed Sephie to Blue to be fed her energon. Clever, she’s a messy eater. Blue is already streaked with her spills. 

There is someone staring. A smaller bot, red plated, who looks similar to Bee. He looks mad, snarling slightly. Danny hisses at him. 

“Cliffjumper!” Prowl barks, “You are late for your shift by a half-breem. Go.” 

The bot scarpers and Danny hisses after him, his aura flared with triumph and glee. 

Smokescreen drops into the empty seat with his own cube, “Oh yeah, you are definitely Jazz’s kid.”

Danny chirps an affirmative and drains his cube. It tastes like metallic sweet nonsense, in the same way that ecto tastes like sweet rotted meat, and it's much more tolerable when Jazz mixes additives in. Phosphorus today, tastes like something vaguely between lemons and coconuts. 

Prowl leaves first, he’ll be back first too, Jazz had shown Danny the schedule, paperwork can be done in the rec room. He presses his chevron to Sephie’s, and then to Danny’s sensor horns on his way. Jazz leaves soon after that and Danny croons after him. 

Bones lets out a single rattle as he follows Jazz, Echo and Eyes rattle as well, but they stay put. Smokescreen and Blue don’t seem to notice them. Danny sniffs the auras around him. They have the same spark-cores as Jazz, and the bots, but they’re starved, and low on ecto. 

Danny thinks maybe that the Earth bound bots adjusted to Earth’s ecto, and the Jazz maybe adjusted to Danny and Sephie. They’ll adjust as soon as Danny and Jazz can extend their haunt and let the ecto sink in. 

Danny flexes his claws in and out on the floor panels as he starts that, distracted by pressing ecto in fractal patterns around himself. He hears Sephie’s delighted cry, and ignores it. She’s been alive for five months now, she’s excited by everything. 

There's a quiet purr by Danny’s knee. He pulls out of his fractal field and stares at the tiny metal cat by his pede. She is silver with dark green lines, and she chirps at him again. 

“She’s for you!” Blue trills, “A false-pet.” 

That’s a phrase in Praxian that translates poorly. Danny stares at her. A false-pet. She is a built cat, but Danny presses a tiny bit of ecto into her and feels it integrate into her existing programs. There. Real-pet now. She’ll build her own mind, wake up bits at a time. 

“Do you want to name her?” Smokescreen asks gently, looking up from his datawork at the table near them, “Sephie named hers already, Stinger, she said.” 

Danny looks up, awed and overwhelmed. This was a really thoughtful gift. He considers the tiny cybercat again. Then he reaches for his tablet as she rubs against his pedes purring and types in her name. 

“Spook,” and then he looks up at them. Bluestreak has two boxes by him. Sephie is digging in one, a little metal jellyfish, the same size as her practically, floating by her helm. 

The other one is pushed gently towards Danny. There’s a myriad of little cat toys in it. Danny pulls out a bundle of wires hanging off of a stick out and plays with his new pet. She’s sweet, and cuddly. He loves her. 

There’s also a big pad of paper and tubs of color and brushes in the box. Danny wasn’t much of a painter before. He unscrews the tub of blue to paint the stories his new family keeps telling him about the city of crystal gardens and towers above its mirror city of catacombs beneath. 

It is fine, peaceful. It’ll be ok until Jazz comes back. Sephie starts putting servo prints all over her own paper. She puts them all over Smokey’s pedes and Blue as well. 

Sideswipe snarls his engine as he and Sunstreaker stalk towards the rec room, Bumblebee trailing after them. They were supposed to have been on patrol with Bluestreak. Instead they did it with Bee. 

Because he knew the area better. What slag. Bluestreak had been keeping a secret for whole orbital cycles now. Then, as soon as they hit earth, on a patrol that should have been an excellent time for him to have spilled, he cancelled. 

No, he got Jazz to cancel, which was so much worse. If Prowl did it then at least you knew it wasn’t personal, mech was cold. Jazz’s codes on the reschedule meant that he’d targeted Blue for the reschedule. 

Fragging Jazz, fragging Blue, frelling secrets. 

Sideswipe wanted fuel, a defrag, and to recharge. In that order. Then he wanted to track his friend down and shake him. 

Sunstreaker paused as they got to the entrance to the rec room, and Sideswipe paused with him. Bluestreak was in there, he’d just laughed. Smokescreen was as well, wings twitching from his seat on the couch. 

Sideswipe changed his mind, storming towards Bluestreak, he wanted fuel after he’d figured out what Blue was up to. 

A chirp sounds from the floor in front of Blue and Sideswipe slows down out of sheer confusion. Sunstreaker does not, rounding the couch to snarl in Blue’s face plates. 

“What happened,” he demands and something shrills as Smokescreen yanks himself to attention. Something flies through the air to hit his twin's faceplate. 

A small pot of paint explodes on Sunny’s face as his twin glares at the floor in horrified fury. Muddy taupe drips from his face down his chest plate and Sideswipe sucks in a startled vent. 

A scolding of chirps, warbles, and whistles comes from the floor and Sunny is just staring frozen. Everyone is frozen. Smokescreen is eerily still, and Sideswipe is a little afraid to move with how furious he is, and his twin’s inevitable rage isn’t helping. 

Then-then Sunstreaker just drops to sit on the floor by Blue’s pedes. 

“Did you paint that?” He asks gently, and Sideswipe bluescreens. He rounds the couch to look. There are two tiny cybertronians sitting there, bitlets, Sideswipe realizes even though he’s only seen them in holovids and records. 

The bigger sparkling nods and Sunny nods back at him, “It's very good. May I paint with you?” 

Sideswipe looks at the flimsies on the floor. One is covered in servo prints and crude scribbles. The other is a passable rendition of Praxus, but beyond amateurish by Sunny’s usual standards. 

The sparkling nods and pushes a pad towards Sunny. Then he brandishes a brush to scrape some paint off of Sunny’s helm to use in his drawing. There’s paint all over the floor panels, in many more colors than the one thrown at Sunstreaker. 

Bluestreak had servo prints on his face and chest, and the smaller bitty is curled up recharging in his lap. She is extremely coated in paint. Sideswipe sits next to Blue and is introduced to his friend’s new siblings. 

Mirage has been tagged for a meeting between Red Alert and Jazz. Jazz has his comms repaired, but in a new environment Red gets twitchy around new input. Jazz is going to relay the security setups so that Red Alert doesn't need to involve himself with the locals yet. It is a sound stratagem that has been used before. 

Jazz is in the meeting room early, a whole joor early, twitchy, and he hasn’t noticed Mirage yet. That is out of the norm. He is talking to the computers, very out of the norm. He is muttering in English, and Mirage refreshes his language download so he can translate. 

“You need to get out of the Ark systems,” Jazz is saying, “You’re not supposed to be there.” 

Mirage and Jazz are the only ones in this particular debrief room. Mirage runs a quiet sensor sweep to double check. It is just the two of them and the active computers for debrief. They both have clearance for the systems, Jazz even more so than Mirage. 

“We going to be talkin’ about stuff ya don’t need to know. Get out the computer,” Jazz says and Mirage recalibrates his optical feed. Hard. 

There is green text scrolling across the screen, not unusual. There is green text scrolling across the screen in an unfamiliar script as if it is actively being typed. 

M̷̝͎͇͍̅͂́â̶̢̞̲͉̐̎Ḳ̷͖͋̍̈́̏̇͘͜͜ẽ̸̢̛͈̻̺̊̂͝ ̴̡̭̜͍̪̥̿̒̿̆̚͘M̸̫̱͔̪̥̈́͆̈̆͝e̵͖̩̐͘ it says. And Mirage squints at the screen. 

“I shouldn’t havte’ta.” Jazz says. “You’ve already hacked me, ain’t that enough?”

n̶̲̈̐̽͠ǫ̴̀̌̚̕

Mirage starts a recording and links Red Alert in. There had been a suspicion passed around that Jazz had been hacked, leading to the initial glitch, but there hadn’t been any further movements from the hacker. Until now apparently. 

“Fine, I suppose technically you didn’t hack me, you hacked my firewalls, and then gave me new ones. They hacked me. Still gotta get outta the computer. Ain’t your circus, ain’t your monkeys.” 

L̵̞̗̒ô̸̮̭̖̞̠̝͂ǫ̸̧͈̻̫̌̆ͅk̸̩͍͒́i̷̪̤͌̇n̴̡̠̤̼̘̋͘ͅg̷̼̳̮̺͍͋̃ͅ.̵̛͙̘̥͔͙̟̓̐͗̓ ̷̳̠̆Y̵͎̔̍ͅo̸͚͙͖͇̣̎̾̚̚u̷̢͒̑̽̌̕ ̸̤̯̺̥͉͑̚ͅẃ̶̘̬̳̩̍̂̌̚͜į̶͎̹̖̦́͑l̶̞̏͗l̶̨̬͙̍̽ ̷̺͚̋͊̾͂̏͠ḣ̷̯͉̙̞̥̔̏͆̑ḙ̸͖̪͓͌ͅl̷̥̈́̏̀̈͂p̸̞̩̠̼̩̐́̆͑ ̴̻̞̞̔m̸͈̘̀ę̸̣̜̱̫̃̄̀̈͝ ̷̡͍̯̌̏̐͒̽͐l̶̪̖͈͙̜̀̀̈o̶̧̭̯̦̦͋́̊͂͠o̵̥̍͛́̈̏͜k̶̛̛̋̾ͅ.̶̡̥̹͉̤̗̔̌

”Yeah??” Jazz challenges, and Red Alert slips in behind Mirage, horns sparking slightly, “Lookin’ for what? Because I think you crazy for thinking I’d help you just because. Who are ya?” 

P̵̟̼̝̦̄̏̓͘͜͝h̴͈͊̈́̓͋̚a̴̳̻͔̯̫̋͛̄̍̑̕r̸͔̍ͅa̸̺̱̟͕̍͝ơ̷̢̬͉̱̅̊̈́̑͜ḩ̴̮͌͌̋̀̕͝.̵͚̙͔͎̔͗́̑͊͠ ̶̡̡̝̩̖̈́Î̸̡͎̭̮̟͘ ̷̱̜͈͉̰̐̑a̴͉̦̤͔̜̰͋̚m̷̪̤̞͗̿͜͝ ̸̛̜̝̮͍͓̞̈̋̈́P̷̜̟̱͔̬̠͌h̷̢̦̏̍̽͘a̵͚͈̱̼͐̚r̷̨̩͈͉͋̍̍̈́̀ȃ̸͕̽͑́ṏ̴̘͚̰͓̄ͅh̸̛̬̟͌͒̈́͜͜.̶̞̦̮͍̮̆̎̒̋ ̷̳̤̱͙̔̾͊̂ͅL̷͓͓̗̑́͑̍̃o̵̧̼̺͇̗̔͛́͛͘o̵͓͚̹̎̾k̴͕͂̐͝i̵̮̣̳̥̒͋͝n̴̡̤̜̋̈́͛͒̐̂ǵ̵̭̤͔̄̈́͛͌̕ ̵͙̳̤̯́̑̎̂͆f̶̰͕̐͐́̕ö̸̱̠̟̬́̄r̴̫̼̲̠̍̍̕ ̵̪̞͔͌͛̓-̸̨̼͐́̒͗̕ ̷̥͔̘̅͋̐̊̾f̵̟̻̺̫͈͋̇̓̔̆o̸͎͂͆̐͊̌͝r̶̳̥̖̳̝̂̅̅͐̐̌-̵̧̛̮͙̯̜̙̓̔̉̄ ̵̡̡̛̙͇̫́͜͝F̵̼̠̜͊̈́̎Ö̴̢́̃R̸̳̙͖͈̒͋̋̏͐̇

Jazz snorts and finishes the hard reset on the computer, “Yeah, yeah, you’re Pharaoh. Say it every time.” 

“What,” Red Alert starts, “was that.” 

Jazz shrugs, “Friendly neighborhood hacker. He tries to mark the traps in the coding I been tracing in my free time. He don’t get them all, I'm still falling into the stupid coding traps that are triggering the processor glitch, but he does what he can. He’s helpful, just nosy.” 

“He’s a security risk,” Red Alert spits. 

“Sure is. Whatcha gonna do about it? Because I cannot trace him, he’s gotten more active in the last week, but I can boot him off a system, nothing more.” 

Mirage hums, “I think I’d like to see those coding traps. Then I think we should focus on talking to him about what he wants to get him to stop. It’ll help Red’s risk assessment.” 

Jazz nods, and grins at Mirage, “Sounds like a plan, he’s back, by the way. You want to talk security, trap, or observations first?” 

Red Alert stares at the glitching data on the screen. He sighs deeply. 

“Security and observations. Kick him off for it. Then we can talk to him. I want to know what he says now.” 

Jazz grins and resets the computer again, “Sounds like a plan, Red.”

Security goes well, Observations go less well. too much of Jazz’s data is compromised by the glitch, unverifiable by sheer impossibility, or simply hard to digest. Red Alert receives a copy of an updating record of something called a shade. Mirage peeks. 

They’re creepy. They seem useful. Red Alert starts in on the human organizations and is incensed by the fact that Jazz hadn’t taken the time to hack the data of the group that got him when he had first landed. 

Mirage is stressed but the sheer amount that he knows his commander is holding back. Jazz has tells, they are all pinging. Jazz knows more of what is going on, but not enough data to share. 

Mirage wants to ask this Pharaoh questions. They wrap up, all three frustrated and stressed. Jazz knocks on the edge of the holoscreen. 

Mirage wonders if he is glitching again. Green writing fills the screen. 

There is a very long moment while Mirage reconsiders exactly how much Jazz had been leaving out, and the shape of the data left by those gaps. 

H̴̗̃e̸̳͠l̶͉͑l̸̻͘ō̶̳ says the screen. 

Jazz waves sarcastically, and leans against the wall. Red takes point. 

“Explain your presence,” he demands. 

I̷͔͐ ̴͕̂à̵̤m̴̛̙ ̸͉͋K̵̀͜ì̸̠n̷̰͑g̴̙̃ ̸̭͗T̵͚̚u̵͖͠c̴͉̆k̷̨̏.̴̡̉ ̵̘̅I̸̭͗ ̵̞̇w̵̳͆ȃ̸̮r̷͐͜n̸̬̆ ̸̜̓á̵̤ṋ̴̏d̵͍͌ ̴̃͜ḋ̶̙e̵̢̅f̴̣́e̷͇͊n̶̟͐d̷̻̈́.̸̢̛ ̵̡̑Ì̴̠ ̸̺͗c̶̹̊l̶̜̐ȧ̶͉i̵̯̿m̴̩͛ẽ̴͔ḍ̸͝ ̸̹͝h̶͔͋i̵̮̓m̴͍̓.̸͚̈́ ̷̡̏I̵̹̍ ̶̻̔d̴͉͗ȅ̶͉f̵̩̌e̷̫̐ṇ̵̈d̶̬̃ ̵̥̉h̵̬͂i̶͌͜m̷̑ͅ.̶̤̽ ̷̼͛Ȋ̸̡ ̸̝̓ẘ̸̼a̸̺͂s̸̪͆ ̴͖͆ć̴̠u̵̜͆r̶̈́͜i̴͔͒o̶͚̍ủ̷̪s̸̭̔.̶̧̎ ̶̹̔Í̸͙ ̶̹̓p̵̹͌ō̶̳k̴͙̽e̶̹̚.̵̩͘

That isn’t helpful, Mirage muses silently. 

“You claimed Jazz?” He asks? 

Red snaps his helm to Mirage at the question, then to Jazz. Jazz is watching the computer, blank faced, but wary curiosity is in his field, tucked close as it was. 

Y̶̛̳̩͈̦̺̣͋͝ę̵͚̠̪̪͂̑̂̃͋͘s̷̡̻̱̲̻̾̚͝ͅ

”Claimed him as what.” Red Alert asks through gritted denta. 

M̶̠͑í̵̬n̴̟̚e̴̦͆.̸̡͑ ̶̡̒N̶̺̋õ̵̘ẗ̶̤́ ̵̹͘m̴̩̃i̴̠͠n̵̟̅é̵͎.̵̬̍ ̶̟̓A̶͇͝s̸̹͒s̷͙̋e̸̙̕t̸̝̒.̴̛͓ ̷͒͜C̸̨͐u̴͚̓R̵̭̅i̶͙͂o̴̘͌s̸̰͛i̶̳̽T̸̩̎y̴̮̐.̸͎͗ ̷̬̀Ẇ̷̖à̸̯ǹ̴̠t̷̢͝e̶̺̚d̷͙̏ ̵͚̾t̴͎͠ó̸͔ ̶̗̃K̸̮̏Ṅ̵̗ó̵͓w̸͖̌.̵͙́ ̸͖̕G̷͇͝I̴̜͆W̸̩͝ ̴̨̍w̶̦̒o̸͕͗u̷̙͗l̵̳͝d̷̩̏ ̸̪̎r̷̤͑ů̵͕Ĭ̷̫n̷̦̒,̸̼̍ ̸̛͈d̷͔̃í̴̳d̸̙͆n̸͉̉’̶̤̍t̷̪͘ ̶͙̄w̷̨͌a̵̢̕N̴̼̿t̸͆͜ ̷̛̬Ţ̵̀ẖ̸́ȧ̶͍Ț̷̊.̸̪͒ ̴͈̿

“That,” Jazz says lazily, “Is true enough. They tried to get at my spark within five hours of my capture. Impatient fraggers, yes, but definitely capable of ruin.” 

Y̶̛̳̩͈̦̺̣͋͝ę̵͚̠̪̪͂̑̂̃͋͘s̷̡̻̱̲̻̾̚͝ͅ

Mirage can feel his spark pulse in his throat cabling. Jazz doesn’t exaggerate threats, not ever, not to them, “Who are the GiW?” 

Ṭ̵̚h̵̻͋ŗ̵͒e̶̹͑ả̴̱t̵̤̊.̵͚̇ ̸̹̅H̴̻̀u̶̢̒r̶̬̐t̴͔͊.̷̯͠ ̸̘̔Ȩ̴̚x̶̲̃P̴̻̚ẻ̸͍r̴̠͆i̴̠̚M̸̱̄E̸̐ͅN̸̰͒t̷̥͠è̸͎r̴̘̎s̴̨͝.̴̡̈́ ̸̬̂C̸̤̆r̶̰̚u̸͑͜ě̶͔l̸͕͝.̷͇͒ ̸̞͋K̴̭͗i̴̳͝l̷̳̈́L̴͈͐Ȩ̷̔R̷̯̔Ś̸̬.̷͍̔ ̵̡͂Ǵ̴̠o̸̡̕v̷̖̐ě̸̪r̴̂͜n̸̰̎m̸̲̂ȩ̸̋n̸̻͐t̷̺̊.̷̦̽ ̸͍͋Ġ̶͚ọ̵͒o̸̯̓n̸̯̚s̶̯̏.̸̛̗ ̶͕͒G̸̯̊U̶̦͗Ỷ̶̳S̴̨̍ ̷̭͌Ï̶͔N̴̖̾ ̵̱͒W̴̮̓Ḩ̴̀Ȉ̸͍T̷̲̉Ȇ̸ͅ.̷̼̇ ̵͉́

That. Is not helpful. Mirage reflects on his question. 

Jazz gestures at the screen, “Yeah that’s about where I’ve been getting before it's all gibberish.” 

Red Alert hums, “You’re looking for something, what?” 

B̷̹̊r̵̜͘o̷̟̚t̴͈̚h̷̯͝e̵͉̚r̸̥͊.̷̗́ ̴̟̑M̸̩̈́y̸̙̋ ̷̩͋b̷̗̓r̷͖̀o̶̻͐t̸̤̽h̷̜̎e̵͔͊r̸̔ͅ.̷̻́ ̷̻̊S̵̬̾ḯ̷͇s̴̝͐t̷̬͝e̶̻͂r̶̻͝s̶̥͝ ̵͕̈́d̸̥̐e̶̺͌a̷͉͠d̸͔̒,̵̃͜ ̸͎̈́t̵̢̓õ̴͖w̶̼̽n̴͔̒ ̷͈̚d̵̨͐e̷͉͂a̴͈̔d̴̝̈́,̶̨̉ ̷͖̐b̶̼̏r̴̜̔o̶͉͑t̵̺̉h̴̳̃ë̴̥́r̴͙̍ ̵͚͑t̵̻͊a̴̖͂k̸̢̀ḛ̶̽ņ̸͝.̸̻̍

”By the GiW,” Red infers. 

Y̶̛̳̩͈̦̺̣͋͝ę̵͚̠̪̪͂̑̂̃͋͘s̷̡̻̱̲̻̾̚͝ͅ

“Huh,” Jazz says, “Well, that’s something. Still ain’t sure what that’s got to do with us though. Ain’t gotcha brother.” 

The computer flares with intent. There are faint traces of green spiderwebbing from its terminal. Mirage tracks their spread and Red Alert ekes out an alarmed sound as he dives to cut the wires, power lines, datcable, anything he can reach. 

Jazz is no longer leaning on the wall. He is glaring at the screen that will not shut off. A single message blinks in time with each panicked vent from Jazz. 

D̸̢̰͔̔̓̀̈́̈́͝Ǫ̷̗͙̱̓̚ ̷̪̥͉̜̙̅̓͗̑̒̒ͅS̶̯͌͊̚ͅƠ̶͓̳̫͗̇͛̌ ̶̧̧̰͔̂̎̌͂̚͝Ȟ̷̢̖̹̼͙̼̏̓A̷̧̦̯͈̥͆͒̓͝V̶̳̏͛̈́Ê̸̱̖͠ ̸̢̬͚̙͒̾̄͌̾͜Ĥ̷̢̘̍̓̃̓̀I̸͕̞̖̦̅̓̎M̴̫̊́̂͊͜

The holoscreen finally goes blank and black, and with it collapses Jazz. The spiderwebbing of green pulses. Red Alert comms Ratchet, open line, he lets Mirage piggyback its track. 

Mirage heads right for Jazz and plugs in to stop the context glitch, he hopes that’s what it is. 

Any active spec ops agent has to maintain a Medic-3 certification level. Jazz makes them all maintain a Medic-4 level. It is useful for triage on an active battlefield, but it's more useful when a mission goes south and you have to repair yourself to get back to base safely. 

Mirage has never regretted not upping his Med-level like Smokescreen had as much as he does in this moment. 

Jazz’s processor is an active battlefield. Jazz is pulling firewalls up and discarding them just as fast, unusual sparking green ones. There is a thing in his code trying to slip in. 

It's foreign, entirely. It's not coded in binary, or even in familiar runes, and it is slipping through Jazz’s firewalls like a ghost. Mirage pokes it with a data-probe. It snarls at him and climb the spike of data like it's a live wire. 

Pharaoh. 

Mirage, for lack of any better ideas, swirls his provisional med-codes around his code presence like a shield, and he triggers a hard reset. The Pharaoh flickers and roots itself in Jazz’s code. 

Fair enough. Mirage had only reset the partition of Jazz’s processor around the leech. Mirage withdraws to the connection port, floats an apology across in lieu of a handshake protocol, and triggers a full frame and processor reset in Jazz. 

Its what usually works on Prowl, he just has a medical patch that does it for him instead of a medic. Mirage just hopes that this glitch doesn’t melt circuits in Jazz’s helm, like Red Alert’s do. He might’ve made it worse. 

The leech seems gone. Mirage stays connected as jazz begins boot up procedures to monitor that. Ratchet slams into the room, with all the grace of an overcharged Ironhide. 

“Thank Primus,” Mirage says, “Help.” 

Chapter Text

In retrospect, Tucker may have made a mistake. 

He’d known he was hacking the same guy, but he had thought that he was going in a bit less blind than before after he’d had a week to track him. The guy was an alien robot, first off cool, second off, way too many unknowns. 

After they’d passed Vlad to the GiW, they’d only been fighting off the siege by the government, instead of fighting Vlad as well. He’d been able to really focus on his hacking, and had both scraped the GiW systems and gotten a good trace in on the other guys. 

Apparently the group that Tucker had briefly hacked months ago and the new group that was working with the GiW were not the same. Tucker had realized this after he’d hacked the computer terminals and watched both the soldiers gossipin, and the massive alien robots having conversations. 

Tucker had taken a week to process the raw data he had from both ends before proceeding to spy on the new dude. New Dude was incredibly liminal, he had also vibed briefly with the GiW for a short bad time. 

Tucker had the video files, standard for both the GiW and their new friends. It had been five hours of intermittent screaming, electrified robot man, and a panicked escape after someone narrated their attempt to drill to his proto-core. 

He had escaped with something the GiW were only calling the asset. Tucker was pretty sure now that the asset was Danny. He’d also gotten a new slew of their files on Danny when he’d scraped their servers. 

They had opened Danny’s brain up, flayed his ghost form open and picked pieces off of his core until his form wavered and shifted and roiled. He was gradually retreating further into his core the further into the files that Tucker got. 

His brother was hurt/hurting/hurt and Tucker wanted him back. He stalked the new dude harder. If Tucker spread his synapse along the circuits of whichever computer he was chasing New Dude with he could read the ecto slightly. There was an established haunt in the way, New Dude’s proto core and his service Shades interfering. 

He couldn’t focus. Then there were new systems, and they were clean. He could focus, could taste the New Dude’s ecto, could sense the overwhelming amount of Danny on him. Tucker was furious. 

Danny had been rescued, or taken, or kidnapped, or something. Because otherwise Danny would’ve at least called, would have let them know he was alive. Tucker lets his fury use him, Pharaoh takes over and King Tuck enters the nearest computer when they try to boot him again. 

It is New Dude’s mind and Tucker demands information as the guy goes down hard, entering his own mind to defend against Tucker’s invasion. Tucker calmed just enough for a measure of control and did a surface pass. 

There was a lot of confusion and terror. Tucker paused, New Dude genuinely did not know what was happening. Tucker felt himself begin to get kicked out and he withdrew to the first computer. 

He was going to leave a link active, he was coming back, and he might try Technus’ screen-portal trick in order to get real answers. Otherwise, this was a good time to research the new friends, this MECH entity. 

Jazz had recovered suspiciously quickly from his latest mystery hack. It had helped that his hacker had retreated as soon as he’d entered. The Pharaoh seemed like a scared kid, one that was still learning how to function if the mutual surface scan told him anything. 

Relatively speaking though, all was well that ended well. Not that Jazz harbored any delusions that this was over. Not when Red Alert and Mirage both had small flickers of the green tracing their protoforms, and Ratchet was gaining more green in his energon lines by the day. 

Ratchet’s medbay was beginning to look like a scientist’s lair with them sheer amount of slides and vials of energon that had increasing amounts of green flecks in it. 

Danny now refused to enter the medbay, and quite frankly Jazz wasn’t very far behind him in that decision. It was really creepy to have Ratchet in the throes of medical inquiry to this point. 

Still the war marched on, and Jazz had a job to do. As soon as he had been cleared from medical he’d sat down its his department and hashed everything out with updates and information. 

Data on the Cons and their movements was woefully out of date, as was their data on the minor human threats. Jazz hadn’t needed to fully deploy his department since they’d had multiple bases to defend on Cybertron. 

Smokescreen was investigating the two dead zone areas in northern Illinois, he was expected to be out of contact for any amount of time beyond scheduled check ins. He was mainly doing recon and data gathering, as the second best hacker in the department. 

Bumblebee was heading to the last known MECH base for any clues on where they may have relocated too. Hound was with him as backup, and to track any traces as was his specialty. They were expected to stay in contact, as well as scheduled check ins, since MECH had proven themselves an active threat. 

This left Jazz and Mirage to the infiltration of the Nemesis for information and data scrapes. Soundwave had long since been confirmed on earth, which meant that they were the only officially radio silent team at the moment. Their mission was predicted to be the shortest, as per Prowl’s planning session, but if it ran long then Jazz could pull out to receive his other agent’s sitreps. 

None of this altered the utter inanity of sitting next to Mirage in a vent while Starscream screeched out a rant below them to an entirely ambivalent Soundwave. The dataslug scraping the systems would only stay hidden as long as Soundwave was sufficiently distracted, the second he found it they were made. 

They had been startled into the vents while Mirage had clipped the dataslug into the wires of the main terminal and Jazz had been flipping through files. The dataslug was in place and draining the information, but Mirage hadn’t finished tucking it away yet when Jazz had yanked him away to hide. 

Ratbat, perched on Soundwave’s helm letting out soft chirps and warbles, was the only Con consistently able to detect Mirage with his disrupter up. Ratbat was Mirage’s worst enemy when it came to his stealth, right along with the smog traps favored by Shockwave. 

The cheery chime of a complete dataslug starts to whistle and is covered by Ravage’s yowl as she leaps onto the monitor desk. Starscream stalls in his rant on, Jazz backtracks his audio-listening, atmospheric pressure. Soundwave turns to look at his oldest cassette and Jazz stalls his vents in nervousness. 

The room is silent save the whir of systems. Jazz and Mirage double-check their mods with a simultaneous near silent click. Ravage lashes her tail once and stares patiently at her host. There is a ribbon around her neck cabling. 

It is a fetching shade of hot pink, and a little bell dangles from the bow. A teeny tiny deceptibrand is painted on the bell. Jazz knows that bell, Danny had convinced Sunstreaker to paint it for him, and the brand was poorly hidden in a design of purple and pink flowers. 

Starscream snickers loudly and then doubles over cackling. 

“Ravage: wish ribbon removed,” Soundwave ventures. Ravage hisses and draws back from his servos. Soundwave freezes and visibly buffers. Ravage yowls again and leaps down to wait by the door. 

Starscream chokes back his laughter, and gestures at the cyberpanther, “I think your little pet wants to show you something.” 

Ratbat chirps from Soundwave’s helm and Soundwave hesitantly steps after Ravage. He pauses, lets his other cassettes out of his compartment. Rumble and Frenzy start cackling and Soundwave scoops them up before he follows Ravage down the hall slowly. 

Lazerbeak stays behind perched on the monitor. She watches Starscream impassively. Starscream flicks a dismissive hand at her and follows after the train of Soundwave and his still giggling twins. 

Jazz scooches up the vent just enough to watch as Starscream splits off at the corridor break to breakdown laughing again. 

Mirage taps at the vent plating and signs at Jazz, “You follow, I will retrieve.” 

Jazz pings an affirmative at him and follows the sound of Frenzy’s wild laughter down the Nemesis halls as he uses his mags to crawl along the top of the vent. He scoots when he’s with Mirage, but when there’s no one around to be alarmed, Jazz does like to move like a proper Poly. 

Soundwave does too, if no one is watching. Jazz has seen it, the carrier mech with his cassettes either magged on or in his compartment as he uses his mags and data cable grips to fling himself down a vent or cliff side. 

Soundwave has veered into a corridor in poor repair and is peering into a room. Ravage has already entered, as has Rumble. Frenzy cheers and scrambles in as well. 

“Boss, this is our friend. Ravage knows his name, but she won’t tell,“ Frenzy rambles out, “We’ve been calling him Fang because he bit Rumble once.” 

Jazz feels an irrational burst of panic and he scrambles to the next vent, no longer cautious about noise. Danny is in fact sat in the corner of the stockroom of ammo crates with Ravage wrapped around him purring. He is tying another ribbon around Ravage’s front pede. 

Soundwave lifts his helm to stare directly at the vent hiding Jazz, and he retracts his mask. It's a common courtesy between Polys, and not one that has ever been observed between them. When Old Polyhexians come to the surface it isn’t uncommon for optics to struggle to adjust to the drastic light differences, deep Polys especially become extremely photophobic. 

Soundwave was from a catacomb clan that had migrated to Kaon during the first war shifts in politics. Jazz was from another catacombs clan, one that had a deep oil river flowing through it. The practicalities of removing their visors and succumbing to that vulnerability had never been either mecha’s preference. 

Now though Soundwave lowered the lights on this hall, shut the store room door behind him and retracted his mask. He looked at Jazz with white-gold optics and bared fangs. 

Jazz retracted his own visor and dropped down, wary and tense, his plating flared defensively. Danny coos behind him, and his bitlet flares his field with joy and trust. 

Jazz has cut off Soundwave’s bitty in the defense of his own, and Frenzy edges around Jazz to join the pile of Ravage, Rumble, and Danny. Ravage emits a mreep and starts to groom Frenzy. 

Soundwave inclines his helm, no horns, he is clanless, and flashes his Biolights at Jazz. He has an adult configuration, but the message is clear, even without the vocoder in Soundwave’s mask. Safe, no harm. 

The only sound is the quiet chatter of the twins and Ravage playing with Danny. Jazz does not relax, cannot relax. He bares his own fangs at Soundwave. 

Soundwave sighs and deliberately loses any tension in his frame, “Bitling: a blessing. Harm: unintended. Threat: posed by Lord Megatron.” 

Jazz hums, “Sure. Ol’ Megs would kill ‘em dead just for being mine. Harm may be unintended, but it's still there. How long you known?” 

“Known: now. Cassettes: not forthcoming.” Soundwave frowns at Ravage specifically and gets a dismissive roll of her helm in response. 

Jazz snickers and finally relaxes, “Ya ain’t gonna tell Megs?” 

“Affirmative. Lord Megatron-“ Soundwave pauses. His voice is composed of internet snippets and old Polyhexian trawl-dialect, Jazz wonders if the vocoder is truly only hiding the impressively thick Poly-Kaonite accent, “is not clan. Will not understand. Announcement: wished?” 

Jazz pauses to consider that. He rolls his silvery optics towards the ceiling in thought, they’ve not been uncovered for anything but medical for centivorns. An announcement between clans of a new bitty was an old, important tradition. Clans had kept it up religiously before the war, even between mixed clans in other cities. 

You were no longer considered Polyhexian when your clan no longer announced its growth to be celebrated, and the loss of the Poly-Iaconite clan had been mourned for deca-cycles when Jazz had been a youngling for that reason. 

The only other clan to announce to was Soundwave’s, which was not a proper clan until he could reestablish a territory. In lieu of a clan it could be announced to their cousin frames of Praxus or Vos to be passed down to the catacombs. 

The last Praxians were in Jazz’s clan with the single exceptions of Barricade and Deadlock of the decepticons. The remnants of Vos were decepticon as well. 

“I really don’t know how I could.” He says finally. Soundwave hums an acknowledgement. 

“Soundwave: would be willing to set up small neutral meeting for purposes of announcement.” He hesitates, before bulling ahead, “Soundwave: hopes opportunity may be shared. Twins and Ratbat: unable to be announced due to fall of Praxus and Undercity.” 

A distinct flare of old grief ripples through Soundwave’s field and Jazz echoes it. Jazz feels a swell of longing and nostalgia ping back and forth between them, neither aware who it originated from. 

“That’d be nice, if’n you can swing it,” Jazz admits, “Gotta do it safely though. There’s too many humans tryna get my bits for me t’ be comfortable adding Megs into the mix.” 

Soundwave nods with appropriate solemnity, and lets his mask and visor close back. According to the traditional manners the truce was over now, and anything spoken during would be kept as secret as a spark-code. 

Jazz triggers his visor back down and turns to detangle Danny from the pile of dozy cassettes. He pauses to look back at Soundwave. 

“Did he follow me or did Ravage kidnap my bitty.” It is only barely a question, he’s pretty sure that his little troublemaker with too many tricks under his plating followed him. 

Soundwave considers for a long, too long moment, “Affirmative. Bitlet: arrived on Nemesis in unknown manner. Bitlet: wandered. Ravage: placed in storeroom for safety. Action: could be construed as kidnapping.” 

The lights flicker back on and Jazz snickers ruefully as Danny magnetizes to his plating, “Nah, all good. I’ll count it as a clan-cousin doin’ her job.” 

Soundwave chirps an affirmative in trawler. It has been a very long time since Jazz had used the miner’s glyphs, and he grins at Soundwave as he chirrs back. Then he leaps back into the vents and scrambles back towards Mirage. They’ve got to get out of dodge before the grace period of truce ends. 

They’ve got two breems before Soundwave hits the alarm. A ping hits his long comms, and Jazz accepts the data pack warily. It has Soundwave’s direct-line, as well as a list of places and dates to choose from. 

Jazz grins with manic glee, and signs a, “Hurry, hurry,” at Mirage. Mirage cycles his optics at Danny. 

The dataslug is passed to Jazz to be stored in his secondary subspace for safe keeping, and Mirage flickers invisible to pull ahead. 

Jazz cannot wait to see his mate’s panic when he realizes that Danny snuck so far off base. It's gonna be glorious. 

Agent G yawns as she fields another call. So many people think to treat their line like they’re the ghostbusters, she’s had three calls from the Las Vegas FBI department about a haunting today in Nye County. 

She straightens at her desk. This caller is actually hitting the correct keywords. 

“Yes, sir,” she says, “Yes, I hear you. You said you work under the UN? Not the Us Government?” 

The voice on the other line clarifies, and she jots down some notes, absently tapping the notification button to alert her higher ups to a valid tip. Green-gilt Egyptian flickers at the edge of her screen and she refreshes it absently. 

“Alright. Well, you definitely called the correct department, Captain Lennox. We don’t do extermination per se, mind, we mainly work with containment and prevention. Is that acceptable?” 

Agents M and Q come up behind her, blatantly reading her notes. Leland and Banachek are talking quietly as well, intrigued by her name drop, she’d thought they might be. 

“Well, sir, if you would like to describe the issue in greater detail, I may offer some insight and advice for you to use before we can make it down there to assist?” 

His tinny voice echoes from the recording device Agent M handed her to plug in for later perusal. It flickers with green along its analog pieces. Agent J’s preferred final touch grins at her from the casing. 

“Ah. It sounds like you’ve got an infestation of poltergeists, probably a kodama variety from your description. Containment of those will require some time and we will need to set up a small center of operations in their territory. Kodama tend to group in large areas and territories, and increase in number drastically once settled.” 

Agent Q offers her a sticky note, it reads, NDAs? Where? 

“Ah, sir,” she interjects, “Our signing Non Disclosure Agreements won’t be an issue, your, ah, group will need to sign them as well. Our agency is currently top secret whilst we conduct research due to the inherently unsettling nature of our work.” 

He talks some more, and Agent G scribbles some flowers around the edges of her notes while he spits legal jargon. None of it matters, of course, they have ways to make sure Lennox and his people won’t talk after they leave. She really just needs the information for pack up crews. 

“Right, sir. That all sounds lovely. Where are we headed, and when would you prefer we arrive?” 

Nevada, he says, a military base located in Nye County. The time frame though, Agent G taps her lip with her pen, considering. Agent Q is frantically trying to get her to suggest sooner times. 

“Well, sir, I do have to advise that the longer before we arrive, the more your infestation grows.” 

He grumbles about them not doing any harm, just creepy, he says, and G hums. That is fascinating. Kodama may be the calmest poltergeist variety, but Grace has still seen them do plants of damage. She remembers the utter destruction of a logging company that had targeted a thriving Kodama colony some four years ago. 

For a Kodama to be seen there needs to be some malice intended in her experience, for the whole colony to be visible, and not actively causing harm, that should be impossible. 

“Very well, if that is what you would prefer. We will prepare to be there in three months time. Would you like a confirmation call a week beforehand, sir?”

He says yes and after the perfunctory goodbyes and wish-you-wells, she hangs up. M is glaring as much as Q is. 

“Just because the colony is not currently causing harm, does not mean that it won’t,” Agent M spits, “We should be going now.” 

“I think,” G says, tapping the number at the top of her page idly. It reads forty-three, “That if they do begin to cause active harm that they’ll notify us and we can move the timeline up.” 

Q watches her, “Why did you agree? That is an insufficient reason.” 

“Because the current census, as far as the good Captain Lennox could tell, was fourth-three. Because it was thirty-nine as of two months ago. That indicates both active growth, and more equipment than we can pull together on short notice.” 

Q nods and sweeps out of the room, M after her. G grins like a satisfied cat in her wake. Banachek leans over and peers at her notes. He smirks at her. 

His target is in this area as well, she knows. They’re going to try and bring some back. She hopes she’ll get to help. She’d grown up helping her Da in the mechanics garage, before the moors banshee had put paid to that. 

She had proved useful to both organizations in the past, and she wanted to see the difference between a core and the spark from the stolen literature. The structure seemed similar, but a shell of a snail seemed similar to a hermit crab’s until you looked inside. 

Smokescreen wished Jazz a wonderful vacation in the direction of a smelter. He couldn’t get to the fragging coordinates. He reaches his first checkpoint and calls Prowl. 

:Smokescreen: he says, accepting the commlink, :Please tell me Danny followed you, and so you called early.: 

Smokescreen pauses. He checks his chronometer. Two of the numbers are backwards. It glitches as he watches it. :Uh. No. No bitties on the potentially dangerous scouting mission, no. I may have run into an issue, however.: 

Prowl grumbles into the comm, :G*hrk/ksh. What issue.: 

The static translation of vocalizations never fails to amuse Smokey, :Uh, well. I’m at the coordinates from Jazz, only there’s nothing here, and my chronometer is glitching.: 

Prowl is silent for a too long moment. Smokescreen checks his nav systems on a whim. Compass is spinning uselessly, gyro readouts are spitting gibberish, despite Smokescreen’s perfect balance. 

:Ratchet relays that both Danny and Sephie have displayed an ability similar to Mirage’s disrupter. Possibility that the organization holding them previously attempted to reactivate this ability is high.: 

:Right. So your advice on proceeding to coordinates I can’t see with useless nav systems is?: 

Prowl hums, a static relay not of a vocal stim, but of his tac net churning suggestions and percentages out. :Follow the inconsistencies.: he says, and Smokescreen sighs dramatically. 

:Gotcha.: 

Smokescreen affords his compass a place of pride on his hud, and he meanders in whatever direction it is the spinniest. By the time a massive white building is glitching into view with flickers of visual snow plaguing Smokescreen’s hud he is wishing he’d turned back. 

Instead he sighs and hopes that Jazz’ prediction of abandonment of this facility is correct. A vine curls from the ground and flops gracefully on top of his pede. It has a dark green stem and a blooming indigo flower on top. 

Smokescreen gently flicks it off, and keeps going. Another waves at him. He ignores it. 

Chapter Text

In retrospect, Smokescreen is way over his helm. The facility had not been abandoned, but it was lightly staffed, as if it were waiting for its occupants to return. It hadn’t been hard to make his way to a server to hack in without being caught. 

Three files in and any plans of this being an information only mission went out the window. Jazz might be the best at sabotage work, but Smokecreen would certainly be trying his servo at being a saboteur today. 

These sorry excuses for people had so much death and destruction and torture in their history. An alarming amount of the files were depicting his little cousin’s torture, and the reveal of his spark. 

Danny’s human form was an open secret, known to the clan and spec ops, and anyone else who paid attention, but a surprising amount of mechs didn’t and missed it entirely. 

Smokescreen was watching as the so-called scientists cut into Danny until his spark was exposed and they cut into it too, and scolding him as he pleaded for them to stop. Scolding him, for using words. Because he shouldn’t have feelings and he’s manipulating them. 

The edge of the table the computer systems were settled on crumbled beneath Smokescreen’s grip. Slowly he peeled his servo up to splice a dataslug in. He was going to rip their files out and shred their systems behind him. 

By the time he had made the files they had on their brief time in possession of Jazz, Smokescreen was both fully distracted and trembling with fury, his doorwings high and shaking at the tips. 

That was his downfall. There was a lot of raw data and information in these files, in addition to the trauma fuel, and Smokescreen was processing that as fast as he could for quick relay to his clan when he got back to the Ark. 

Ghosts, poltergeists, cores, zones and realms, and an energy source native to Earth that was relative to energon. It was admittedly fascinating, and very overwhelming. 

This did not make it any better when the data scrape was done, for Smokey to have exited directly into a trap. He’d prepared for the electrical weapons that had incapacitated Jazz, extra insulation and bleed off was easy for Ratchet to install for a short mission. 

He was not prepared for a blaster to shoot some level of energy ray at him, set high enough to put a hole through him. 

Smokescreen slowly moved his optics from the human group in front of him to the smoking hole through his chassis. It oozed thick burnt energon, cauterized at the edges. 

It hurt. 

Smokescreen grit his denta as the lead human lifted his green edged rail gun to point and aim. It whined high pitched as it powered up and Smokescreen spun on his pede to run. 

Another shot hit him, through his shoulder this time, grazing his sensor panel above it. Smokescreen keened through his denta as he ducked down a hall. He couldn’t transform, three of his key seams were melted together. 

Another shot pierced the air with a whine and Smokescreen veers away from it on instinct, activating every stealth mod he has. The smog he’s known for fills the air and he hears a loud curse from the group. He’s too deep in the facility, there isn’t a good way out without being noticed.  

Smokescreen pulls a grenade out of his subspace, attaches a pad of the sticky gum usually used to blow locks, and he sticks it to the wall. Its load bearing, it’ll fall nastily. 

Optimus did not approve of the loss of human life. Optimus did not need to know, not when Jazz was the boss. 

Jazz had taken him aside prior to this mission and told him to do what he had to in order to come back alive. He’d given Smokescreen a compound to add to his cover smog if it became necessary. 

It was necessary, the tear gas began to emit along with the smog. 

The second the wall blew Smokescreen began clawing at the rubble that remained. It did not lead outside, and Smokescreen pulled another grenade out to attach to a load bearing wall. 

Then he went tearing down the hall again, putting distance between the humans now sporting some frankly intimidating gas masks for their otherwise high tech options. 

This time the wall had access to the outside, and Smokescreen tumbled out onto the grass with much more relief for the organic substance than before. 

The little vine with indigo flowers had spread and it now surrounded the facility, teeming and tangling with itself as it twined up the walls. Something niggled at Smokescreen’s processor about proper vegetation behavior. 

An agent peered out and aimed at Smokescreen. One of the vines snaked its way up his leg before suddenly sprouting thorns. Then it swiftly finished constricting its way around him so fast and tight that the man only had time for a panicked shriek before his helm popped. 

Blood and brain matter hits Smokescreen and he flinches. 

A girl steps her way through the vines around the corner of the building and watches him. She smiles with more fang than either of his baby cousin’s human forms. 

“Hello, thing,” she says calmly, “It’s not really safe here. Come along then.” 

Smokescreen would like to lodge a complaint about being called a thing, but the girl’s tone is all wry amusement and he decides that’s good enough as another shot whines past his helm close enough to burn. She turns to run and Smokescreen scrambles after her. 

Deep purple biolights flare and fade along her arms in patterns that match the patches of flowering vines attacking the facility behind them. They didn’t truly glow, more sucked in the light surrounding each patch in a vaguely purple sort of fashion. The second they passed the limit of the facility and the building glitched out of sight behind them all of her biolights lit up at once. 

A veritable wall of indigo vines rose behind them and a terrible crunch hailed the renewed visibility of the white brick edifice as it was crushed and torn to shreds amidst the occasional scream. 

The girl shrugged and kept moving after a single satisfied glance backwards, “It’s war. They started it, we’ll damn well finish though.” 

Smokescreen does his level best not to think too hard about which faction that sounds more like. 

About an hour’s walk in, according to Smokescreen’s still glitchy chronometer, the girl resorts to climbing Smokescreen’s frame with an impressive speed and pointing directions. She isn’t talkative, but she doesn't answer questions. 

Her name is Sam, her war is with the GiW, and they just ended a year long stalemate after the GiW killed her sisters. She does not explain what she is, nor where they are going. 

Most of the walk is conducted in silence, the teen knows where she’s going, directing Smokescreen with nudges and pointed fingers, which is helpful for Smokescreens spinning useless nav systems. 

Three hours in and they’re ambling up a crumbling asphalt road. A sign by the road declares, “Amity Park: A Nice Place to Live!” 

The sign has been vandalized, it still holds the Amity Park notation, painted over with greens and black and an eery glimmering gold until it is almost shifty in its boldness. The tagline however has had the words nice and live blocked out poorly in deep grey spray paint. 

Overtop of the greyed out words, in the same green glimmering gold, are painted the words dire and die. Behind the words was scrawled graffitied warnings, beware, turn back, and one single solitary message carefully spelled out along the top of the sign. 

“This City is currently under Martial law, you may be shot. Turn back now,” it read, and Smokescreen hesitated at it nervously. It was maybe twice the height of most welcome signs for the human cities he had driven through, still much shorter than him. 

It was unreasonably ominous. Smokescreen took an image capture, it might be useful later. 

He stepped past the sign and continued towards the town in the distance. A forest encroached around, stopping shy of the road and there was movement in the trees. Something peered out at them, head lolling atop a long serpentine neck. Its jaw split almost the length of its head to reveal saliva slathered sharp teeth all the way back. 

It looked like a deer. Smokescreen had seen deer on his drive up, had almost hit one even. This was not a deer. Another peeked out with bony growths erupting from its helm like thorny black pincers, shiny and smooth. 

“It’s just a not-deer,” Sam whispered, “Keep going, they don’t leave the trees.” 

Smokescreen edged past, desperately trying to ignore how their helms followed his movement with slow disjointed twitches. The first building he passed on the edge of the town had a faded sign reading: Axion. 

Smokescreen kept going at Sam’s urging. It was late afternoon, but there was still plenty time in the day. There should be more people. A shadow darted from the shadow of an abandoned laundromat to the flickering refuge of a gas station. Smokescreen focused his optics on it and caught a glimpse of a human that looked almost plasticine with coiffed blond hair. 

He glitched slightly and seemed to melt before Smokescreen’s optics, his hair charring to a mess, one eye running down his face, and raw flesh exposed beneath the flickering paper thin facade of perfection. He bared broken teeth at Smokescreen and darted away again. 

A hulking figure ambled up to them, two heads atop a twisted mangled mess of a body with four arms, two legs, and a torso that seemed to split and twine together like a half melted braid. The brunette head smirked meanly. 

“Aww, Sammy,” she said as the bland head tittered and ran bloodied fingers through her hair, “Did you bring home a pet? Weren’t you busy stealing from and killing the goons in witless idiocy?” 

“Oh, go away Paulina,” Sam drawled, flicking a hand at the other girl and rolling her eyes with poorly hidden disdain coloring her jaundiced face. Paulina’s face darkened and scales erupted on her arms, claws from her hands, which scraped a line of blood down the other head’s scalp. 

The blond head grinned cheerily, “Oh, give Paulie, you like Sammy. Sammy, look! We got better at it!” 

The thing waves all four hands at them displaying claws and scales alike, and a tail whips behind them lazily, reptilian and sturdy. The Paulina head rolls her eyes and spits a mouthful of blood to the ground in front of them. It sizzles. 

Smokescreen gags on a rising tank-purge as the Star head twists oddly and a crunching squelching sound emanates from them. The two heads twist apart in a series of cracking sounds and squishing noises until two girls stand before Smokescreen and Sam, both swishing their tails with scales and claws. 

The sheer amount of bone reformatting itself as flesh rearranged and blood sloshed lazily between the two bodies had been well past Smokescreen’s limit. He places a servo on Sam to steady her as he leans down to purge messily. 

That was horrific in all the wrong ways. 

Sam claps sarcastically from his shoulder and the girls skip away, Star beaming happily at the sky with vacant eyes as Paulina drags her with a scowl.

“What-what is this place?” 

“A case study in why you don’t rip portals open to other dimensions when you don’t know what you’re doing. A secondary study in why you don’t shove an active nuke into said portal as if it wont have consequences.” 

Smokescreen does not know what that means, does not want to. Wheeljack probably would, but Wheeljack is not here. 

A mishmash of a building comes into view, what looks like what was once a residence that had been jury rigged to support an amalgamation of a satellite base on top. It is falling apart, the satellite base on top has melted in parts, dripped down to form new attachment points to the building below, and the windows have long since been blown out. 

The brickwork is crumbling and the metal support struts beneath are rusting, contrasting with the areas of the building that seem untouched by the ravages of time. As Smokescreen watches a swirling, green, dripping mass of something melts out of nowhere over a section of window and groans in a register that hurts Smokescreen’s audios. 

A deformed rat-bird flies out, its naked tail wrapped tightly around a struggling snake that seems to be formed entirely of green tinged bone. The oozy green portal of unknown origin gloops out of existence leaving the building it had formed on visibly aged and scorched where it had sat. 

The rat-bird veers over Smokescreen and Sam snatches away the bone snake. It tears in half with an echoing crack, and she stuffs it in her mouth, her needle-like fangs ripping a massive bite off. 

The rat-bird chitters at her balefully from the powerline pole it perched on before it tears into the remnant of its bone-snake roughly. The wires have long fallen from the pole itself and Smokescreen nudges them with his pede. 

Sam pokes his helm with an elbow, tearing another bite from her snake, “C’mon. We should keep going. When it hits dark the remnants come out and I’m too low on energy after the GiW to defend us properly from them. The Lair will adjust for your size, but we do have to get there.” 

Smokescreen keeps trooping after her directions, feeling rather low on energy himself, and apprehensive about whatever a remnant was besides. He wonders idly if he’ll get an explanation whenever they get where she’s been directing him. He wonders if they’ll be able to help him repair his system’s enough to call Ratchet for a pickup. 

He is so tired of this, and the dataslug feels like it's burning through his subspace. A dilapidated diner is down the next street and in place of the door is another oozing mass, less bright and sucking more light into its deep green than emitting it, as if it's inactive. 

“Dude, it's a door.” Sam says as Smokescreen freezes. 

She lets herself into a controlled fall down his frame and steps into the mass fearlessly. Smokescreen follows her jerkily for sheer lack of any other ideas. 

Inside is almost a whole other world. It seems to have warped to fit his dimensions as Sam had theorized, but the dinky diner tables and chairs shoved to the edges of the room still don’t seem as dwarfed as they ought. 

Or, Smokescreen reconsiders, they don’t all seem that way. They seem to be getting gradually smaller the further in they are, leaving the outermost set perfectly sized for him. 

At the furthest table is sat another teenager surrounded by computers and wires and monitors as he is nesting in materials of hacker capability. The dingy red beanie on his head has a golden chain dangling out of a threadbare hole, looping back to connect to an earring in the other ear with turquoise beads glinting along the length. 

The teen glances up and stares intently at Smokescreen, “Aw, man. I’m gonna have to track down New Dude. I messed up so bad last time too!” 

Smokescreen thinks that maybe that’s Jazz, and the teen is his mystery stalker that’s been activating every paranoia instinct that Red Alert has. 

“Hello?” Smokescreen says, “Are you talking about Jazz?” 

The room goes still and silent before several of the weird humans let out loud rattling snarls of such potent rage that Smokescreen can feel it in his field. the teen in the beanie whips around to stalk up to his pedes, the only one in the room not snarling. 

“Yes, I am. It's not your fault that your mech shares a name with our dead sister, but it is unsettling. I’m calling him New Dude until I have another Name.” The capitalization on name is audible and Smokescreen isn’t sure what the significance is, though he can fix the issue. 

“One of Jazz’s long term aliases is Meister. You could call him that.” 

The teen on the counter across the room rolls her teal and black optics as the odd red metallic plating over her helm clatters softly like shifting scales. The redhead beside her scoffs softly and plays with a tiny basketball stress toy. 

“It is acceptable,” the redhead says, tilting his helm so that his shaggy hair flops. His eyes are clouded, dim, and scarred over. He focuses unerringly on Smokescreen anyways, and offers a mean smile, “He’ll leave soon anyways. His people will meet him past city limits. It is not time yet.” 

The girl in the shifting armor hops up and floats towards him, her feet firmly planted on a board that glitches in and out of reality. She stares him down firmly, “We will help you get a message out. Then you leave, and you stay gone. This is our war, our fight, our people. Agreed?” 

Smokescreen considers her, “No. I don’t make that call, it's not my decision, but they’ve already attacked my people, hurt them, and that’s including both of my bitty cousins. Pretty sure that makes this my fight too.” 

“Hmmpf,” she says, then she floats away again, “Call your people. Whatever man. Die if you want to, I guess. Moron.” 

Smokescreen grumbles curses in Praxian. The beanie teen scales him as easily as Sam had earlier to fiddle with the wiring by his audio relay. He introduces himself as Tucker, and he is much chattier than Sam. 

Smokescreen will be leaving with plenty of information for Jazz. This will work just fine. 

It was a twenty-six hour drive, that was plenty of time to do some self repairs and gather information from the teens. 

Starscream sat in his quarters on the Nemesis opposite his trinemates. Soundwave had come to him with a request, the first one he had ever made of the air commander. 

It was a welcome request, if an odd one. Starscream was aware of Soundwave’s origin in the Kaonite clan of Polyhexians, they had almost been decimated when Kaon’s mines had reached the catacombs, and all the survivors were known to Vos, who kept the records for Polyhex. 

As winglord of Vos, Starscream knew the traditions and history of the secret Polyhexians, his framekin may have centered themselves under Praxus, but their secondary nexus was under Vos. 

Starscream was even aware of Jazz’s mixed clan of survivors, and approving. When Vos had fallen he had taken the records with him, and still received updates from Jazz, both mecha feigning ignorance. 

Polyhex maintained the catacombs, grew them even, and Vos was amongst the few cities that gave their frames back to Primus by submitting them to the care of the catacombs instead of the smelter. Polyhex was practically an order of priests to the cities of catacombs, to Vos, Praxus, Simfur, Nyon, and Gygax. 

Once Polyhex would have been counted amongst that number, but the once great city had been driven underground under Zeta Prime’s rule when he and his council had begun by razing the city, and continued by hunting down every Poly they could in an attempt to solidify his power as Prime. 

It was still legal to hunt a Polyhexian based purely on frame specs, even if that law was not upheld. 

Still. With a war on Starscream had not expected to be called on to witness a formal clan expansion. It meant either that Jazz had emerged a sparkling, unlikely with his mate so logical, or more likely, that Jazz had claimed a foundling from somewhere. 

The last clans had retreated to the deep catacombs and shut the ways behind them. For all intents and purposes they were dead, and would remain so until the war was over and it was safe to reemerge. Starscream held their records safe, and updated the surface content, his counterpart in the depths, a Poly named Protoscrape, holding the depths records. 

Jazz could not present to anyone else, his clan being his only contact. A clan could not receive their own presentation, it was ineligible for proper clan rites. That was how the Iaconite clan was stricken from record. 

The decepticon clan could receive, but they were scattered, and Soundwave and the seekers were on Earth. This was the best option, but Megatron posed a threat even to a youngling. 

Skywarp stared at him, uncharacteristically solemn. Thundercracker shifted restlessly next to him. This was the first request Soundwave had ever brought to him, a safe time and place for Jazz to present his foundling, and Soundwave to present his youngest cassettes. 

He had to do it, but logistically there wasn’t a good way. He’d have to find a way to distract Megatron first, and usually he distracted him with himself for the others’ sakes. He couldn’t do that this time, he held the records, he had to be there. 

Starscream sighed deeply, the things he did for tradition and frame kin, ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. 

Danny stared at the green door, the one that Ratchet had quarantined. He dug his claws into the energy web tracing out again and stuck the resulting ecto into his mouth. It was good, an odd sort of familiar, and he liked it. 

No one else liked it, except Sephie who also licked it. She got caught, still a baby. 

The hall that Jazz got hacked on was avoided like a plague by the autobots, and Danny still liked to come and listen to the hum. It sounded like a door that wasn’t open yet. Danny figured it would open when it was ready too. 

Jazz didn’t seem to be upset about the hack, only somewhat annoyed that he’d crashed again. It was a good attitude, meant he played well in a proper fight, no hard feelings. Skulker could visit soon, Jazz would probably enjoy fighting him. 

Sephie floated up beside him, Stinger at her side. Stinger was already getting their first thoughts, which was impressive since Stinger was only feeding off of Sephie’s spare ecto. 

Spook could eat Danny’s and the ecto from the door, and was already learning new things from Ravage. She was a clever kitten, and Danny loved her. Danny scraped at the spiderwebbing of pulsing ecto and licked his claws. 

Prowl had been mad at him for following Jazz, and Danny had been nervous about doing so, but he hadn’t realized that he’d worry Prowl. He’d gotten to meet Ravage’s Soundwave though, which was cool. 

Soundwave didn’t talk normally either, using old recordings and vines and images across his visor. Then he took his visor off and talked in Polyhexian to Jazz. Ravage’s last brother had been there too, Ratbat. Ratbat was Sephie sized, and Ravage promised to bring him next time so they could meet. 

Danny scooped another claw of the ecto. It tasted really familiar, like old gold and sand and late night Doom. It crackled with power and fury but the memories spun away from where they were supposed to sit in his head. 

They did that a lot. Danny ran on instinct, fear, and new things to learn again. He was pretty sure that his brain was broken. The GiW had scooped it out and blended it up and shoved it back while it leaked out his eyes. 

He’d said that to Smokescreen once, and his new cousin-brother had gotten worried and asked lots of questions. Danny had needed to clarify that they’d really only cut his head open and poked, but they’d done so much that his head didn’t work anymore. 

Smokescreen said he had valid trauma and that he would try to help. Danny had shrugged. Trauma sounded real boring. Smokescreen looked sad when Danny signed that out though so Danny let it be. 

Still. His brain didn’t work anymore and this ecto was familiar and he didn’t know why. Maybe Miko or Jack knew, they were still mostly human, they probably knew the human that this came from. All the bots knew each other after all. 

Danny scooped more ecto into his mouth and then scooped more up to show Miko. 

Chapter Text

Sam grumbled as he aimed the hose at the group of slippery kids again. Miko whined loudly as Danny just sat quietly, pouting as Sam washed the green gunk off of them both. It was familiar, was the mantra from the protesting pair when he’d caught both kids playing in the stuff, Danny was completely coated and licking it occasionally.

Miko was at least somewhat more cautious, coated in it mainly on her clothes and hands. The stuff was mildly corrosive and steadily radioactive, Sam had never been so panicked as when he’d popped down to the little bunker claimed by the kids to see them. 

Raf sat on a nearby desk, his feet swinging below them. He fidgeted with the little RC car Bee had programmed for him. Raf was probably his favorite resident troublemaker; they were united under Bee’s guardianship. The little RC car warbled slightly, it wasn’t equipped with cameras but it did have a relay system to allow the twelve year old to talk to Bee. 

No one wanted to tell the bots about their hideout, even Sam, but a meeting point was set for supply drops and guardian checks at Sam’s insistence. Sam listened to Bee’s double check on the first aid supplies he was dropping for Miko’s burns, thank Primus the girl kept spare clothes in the Labyrinth. 

Lennox had been talking about finding people to get rid of the shades, the green spiderwebbing veins everywhere, the green energy that radiated from certain people. A week ago Sam would’ve been in complete agreement, two weeks ago he’d’ve helped. 

Now even Lennox was hesitating, and regretting looking into it, even if his efforts were kept quiet. The continued disappearance of Smokescreen didn’t help either, only flickers of a connected comm clicking emptily on Saturday’s. The only connection that had worked was the glitched out fragmented distress beacon.

A new signal burst would flicker randomly around the map at odd times with little discernible pattern, and after three weeks of that the triangulation of pinned beacon locations was getting clustered over North Illinois. Jazz was the only bot not displaying open worry whenever the screeching beacon signal popped back up. 

Danny blinked slowly at Sam and sneezed hard. When he looked back up, slightly dazed, his eyes were green and his freckles were glowing faintly. His tag-along shade rattled from its sideways perch on the wall in time with Sam’s own laugh. 

Danny’s massive NASA sweatshirt hung off his slight body, and Sam resolved to push more food at him. The kid still had visible ribs under all the scarring. Miko bounced out of the little cubicle they’d rigged as a changing room for her and swooped at Sam. 

After five years with the bots Sam might not have been a sports person still, but he was now capable of supporting the teenaged girl hanging off of him. He swung his arm slightly so that Miko swayed from her position with her feet on his hips and scrunched to hang from his upper arm. 

Danny charges at him to do the same from his other side and Sam thanks Primus that Danny is still far too light to be healthy even as he braces himself. Not even a full minute into balancing both lanky children his phone rings and drops both of them with no hesitation. 

Jazz was heading to Illinois with Ratchet and First Aid for an extraction, hoping to get a clearer signal a little closer. Prowl and Bluestreak were in charge of Danny while Jazz was gone, which really meant that Sam was every time Danny snuck away. 

It was unfortunately frequent and Sam had gotten used to Prowl calling to check in. This time though it was Mikaela on the other line. She didn’t call often anymore, she lived a few states away, publicly running a mechanics garage with her dad. 

Privately though she rebuilt parts for Ratchet as needed, and served as a safehouse for cross country drives for the Autobots. She and Sam were still good friends, but they were very different people at this point. 

He wandered away from the pile of playing Miko and Danny to pick up where Miko’s shrill shrieks wouldn’t be deafening. The usual chatter of Wheelie and Brains encrypting her line sounds before the screen clears to show Mikaela’s face. 

“Hey, Sam,” she says, and Bones huffs behind her from his bed, “Care to tell me why my current guests are all fascinated with ghosts of all things?” 

She tilts her screen to show a gesticulating Jazz and Smokescreen, the latter of whom sports several dents and half-repaired holes, and a very exasperated Ratchet in her massive garage. First Aid is near the far wall fiddling with a welder. 

Danny pops up behind Sam and signs rapidly at the screen. Mikaela regards him blankly, she hasn’t even been informed of the Ark’s descent much less Danny’s presence, they’d been saving it for Ratchet’s supply run. 

Miko scrabbles at his wrist to tilt the phone down towards her as well, “Hi, ‘Kaela!” 

“Hello, Miko,” Mikaela replies patiently, and she waves hello to Raf in the background as well. Raf doesn't hold the older woman in as high a regard as Miko does, but he still calls a greeting back from his perch on the desk obligingly. 

Miko is rambling about Danny to Mikaela and Sam lets her; cats out of the bag anyways, he might as well. Mikaela is watching Danny instead, nodding at the appropriate intervals, and texting rapidly with Sam as Miko rambles for clarification. 

By the time the younger girl is wrapping up Mikaela’s eyes are sharp and she has shifted to sit with the familiar posture that she always used in high school when she was taking notes, “That sounds very exciting Miko. Danny, I hope you’ll stop by and say hello next time you pass through Kansas. Sam, tell Bee I said hello.” 

Miko whines in disappointment and drags Danny off with her as she wanders closer to Raf, and the shelf of video games on the desk beside him. Sam notes that he really is going to have to go meet Bee soon for the burn cream, she is starting to look severely sunburned up her forearms and on a decent patch of her face. 

He switches the call back to audio to answer Mikaela’s more pressing questions. The woman has been working through similar college programs as him, and the ones he’d suggested to miles. Diplomacy, negotiation, and psychology chief amongst them, but Mikaela had also taken mechanics and engineering. 

She had helped Sam study for his child care and teen psychology classes after the sudden entry of Jack, Miko, and Raf to the base however, and she’d taken her own courses to register as a foster parent. She hadn’t taken anyone in yet, but she had wanted the ability if such a thing were needed for her cousin whose mom had cancer, or if Miko’s placement parents fell through.

She was well able to recognize the trauma shrouding Danny, possibly more able than Sam who didn’t have the luxury of looking without the filter of having seen it from a bot perspective with Jazz and Ratchet, or having watched the younger boy’s progress. 

Eventually she ran out of questions and the silence stretched for a long moment. 

“Is Miles still working on his communications degree?” She asks finally, and Sam scrunches his face in confusion. 

His oldest friend had gotten increasingly curious about Sam’s secret until Sam had snapped and given him a goal to work towards before he could tell his friend the secret that had been slowly stealing him away for years. Miles was taking his time on the necessary courses for an ambassador that Sam had suggested, doubling in communications and child development with Sam, and cramming occasional courses in special education. 

“Uh. I think so?” Sam worries his lip between his teeth for a moment, “I think he’s almost done actually, with all his courses. He keeps doing way too many summer classes. Why?” 

“Your job is to represent the Autobots to civilians. Right now they’re a secret still, and you haven’t finished your degree, so the fact that you’re only doing that to Miko, Jack, and Raf is fine. You mostly babysit the younger kids and provide the mentor that you and I probably needed when the bots first landed.” 

Sam nods, “Right. Lennox and Epps handle the military, and they’ve got lots of help. I’m not sure where you’re going with that.” 

“The Autobots aren’t human, Sam.” 

“I know that, Kaela. So what? You aren’t regretting getting in that car now, are you?” 

Mikaela laughs. It's a tired, bitter sound, “No, never.” 

It’s a lie and they both know it. It isn’t always a lie, and sometimes the old question, turned into a mantra and joke between them, tastes like a lie on Sam’s tongue too. They don’t regret it, not really, except that they always will. 

“Sam, Danny is a kid, and half the time a human one. You can’t watch the kids and help raise Danny whenever he wanders away. He’s got more trauma than the other kids, more trauma than us. He needs focus, and he needs a human guardian.” 

Sam winces slightly, and he leans on the wall, halfway into the hall. If he turns his head he can see the kids playing Chicken Horse. Mikaela is right. Optimus had been right when he’d assigned Bee to be Sam’s guardian when Sam had gotten inexorably tied into the cybertronian goingson. Sam needed a steady Autobots presence both for questions and stability as his entire world adjusted. 

He didn’t need Bee as a guardian anymore, even if the role and the friendship remained steady. 

Danny needed something different. He needed a human guardian to help him keep his ties to humanity and help with the very human reactions to trauma he displayed. He needed someone able to track him in his wandering in human form, and provide companionship in a more stable form than Sam could provide. 

Miles wasn’t a bad choice for that. Ms. Darby frightened Danny, as did many of the soldiers, and they were busy besides. Sam was busy as well, and he couldn’t track the three other kids and keep track of Danny at the attention level he needed. 

Miles was still a bit crazy, very hyper, and he’d gotten good at connecting with people, kids especially. As far as guardianship went, he really would make a decent au pair to Danny, and he could still have plenty of time to work on other things when Danny was being sufficiently watched by the Autobots. 

“That’s not a bad thought. I’ll see what Optimus says first though, before I ask Jazz. If I get permission from both of them I’ll approach Miles.” 

Mikaela hummed, “Good. Be fast about it? I think you must’ve missed a check in because he’s been calling me again to ask.” 

Sam cackled loudly. Miles did that to annoy Sam through Mikaela, a petty holdover from when Sam had kicked his friend out to give Mikaela a ride, at the very start of all this. 

The funniest part was that it still worked after five years, a breakup, several rises and falls in both ends of friendships, and all three of them moving away from Tranquility. 

Optimus groaned lightly into his battle mask, the sound distorted by the vocal filters. He had too many issues for one day, for one year. They all had one trigger, Optimus knew it. He did not know what the trigger was, however. 

Life was much easier when he had been a simple data clerk that worked the docks for extra Shanix to pay for book files.

Lennox had sought permission to find someone able to remove the shades. Optimus had given permission only for an expert to be found. He wanted more information, both for records, and for Prowl and Red Alert’s peace of mind. 

Lennox had found someone and immediately reported a very overeager response from their end, as well as this new organization's eagerness to remove the shades posthaste. Lennox had given a date months out in order to delay them, it fast approached, and then they would come directly to the base for a consult. 

That was Optimus’ first issue. The shades were disquieting, yes, but they were useful. They listened to Jazz and to Red Alert. There had been even more aboard the Ark, and upon their visibility had lined up to be named and sketched by Jazz and Red Alert. 

That had been an odd day in the Rec room. Optimus had been treated to a lecture on the inner workings of cohorts led by Old Glooms, and the old glooms being led by an Elder Gloom. Jazz had also demonstrated the difference between the three types of shades with glee. 

Lennox’s contact called them poltergeists, and said they were the variety of kodama. Jazz pointed out the three different groups and speculated on the cause. The black and grey bodied ones that seemed to suck the light in were of Earth. The deep black bodied ones that faintly glowed blue were Autobot in origin, the ones that were dark, smoky charcoal color glowing rich scarlet were supposedly Decepticon. 

Jazz had theorized that they were Sparks that faded and watched instead of going to the well upon deactivation. It was a profoundly unsettling notion, but it rang true to the matrix. 

That was almost more unsettling. A great many things were these days. 

Optimus had put a great deal of work into not being uneasy around his third, around Polyhexians in general, a practice from long before he was Prime. He had found the unaltered records of the Polyhexian Purge from Zeta Prime’s reign back when he was a data clerk, before he had even become an archivist. 

It was nearly coded into the frames and program subroutines of all the cities loyal to the Primacy from the reign of Zeta to be viscerally rattled by Polyhexian frames. It had helped in the Purge and the subsequent hunting of the remaining mecha from Zeta Prime’s assault on the city. 

Darkmount had been built over the remains, a Primal residence at the time, since claimed by the Decepticons and Shockwave specifically, and the city of Polyhex had been rebuilt around it, but the Polyhexian frame type never truly returned to their city of origin. The mecha never truly faded, the frame type did not go extinct, but the coding remained. 

The urge to be unnerved by the smooth grace and private adaptations of a Polyhexian frame was coding deep, but Optimus had previously been proud of his rewrites and subroutines to override that instinct. 

They no longer worked. This was the second issue. 

Even Ironhide had noted his own increasing unease, which was unusual for the mech. He had hailed from Simfur before the Senate had deactivated and assimilated the City into Iacon. Mecha from Simfur famously were much less by Polyhexians, and seemed to lack the code for a hunt-purge, only the code for unease. 

Danny and Sephie activated the same sense of quiet alarm for Optimus, and as much as the Prime genuinely liked the bitlets, he was never quite sure what to make of them, or of the Matrix’s sense of protectiveness tied with fear. 

It was almost a different instinct altogether, but since Optimus could not pin it down in his coding he could not override it. 

The third issue was the bitlets themselves. The Decepticons would not remain silent forever, and Optimus could not figure out a reliable way to provide efficient protection. Danny was slippery and wily, and Sephie was not far behind her brother. The only mech able to reliably handle either one for long was Jazz, and Optimus needed him. 

Prowl could for a time, and Bluestreak and Smokescreen were able to distract but unable to track them when they inevitably wandered off. All three were also needed frequently. 

It worked for now, but it was not sustainable long term. 

The fourth issue was the quarantined corridor in the security wing and Ratchet’s increasing paranoia about the odd substance he had cordoned off. The webbing of green spreading from the room centered from the computer, and the substance was volatile and oddly contagious. 

It was also highly volatile, as Wheeljack had discovered with a memorable explosion that spread more of the stuff in the lab, where it had promptly began spreading again. Wheeljack’s lab was summarily quarantined, and Ratchet had stared in dismay at the green light edging Wheeljack’s protoform. 

It made him the seventh mech to present with unidentifiable radiation of no effect that colored his protoform. The others included Jazz and both his bitlets, Mirage, Red Alert, and Ratchet himself. 

All of these issues were superseded by the comm message pulled up on his holoscreen as he’d worked through his datawork. 

It was from Starscream of all mecha. It was poorly phrased, but it sounded like he was attempting to use the Ark as a safe place to throw a baby shower. 

Optimus did not wish to know. 

The list of attendees at the bottom of the request was staggering for all the wrong reasons. Barricade, all seekers accounted for, Dreadbot, Deadlock, and Soundwave. Optimus rubbed at his olfactory ridge. 

This was not a reasonable request. Optimus swiped across his holoscreen to locate an uninhabited island to offer for the occasion. That was more reasonably defended. 

Optimus had a sneaking feeling that the issue was not solved, and that more were cropping up that simply hadn’t made their way to him yet. 

Ravage took great delight in sneaking on the Ark with her little bell ribbon still around her neck. Her little cousin would find her, and then she could play with her little cousin, the kitten, and her bitty cousin as well. 

It was easy enough to silence her bell, and it made Danny happy to see it on her, even if Frenzy’s attempt to retie it was clumsier than Danny’s floppy bow. 

True to form by the time she was midway into the Ark she had gained a tiny cousin following in her pede steps. He wandered in the corridor below her, his green optics fixed to the vent she was in steadily. 

Ravage purred quietly, receiving an answering purr from Spook, and a soft chirp from Danny. There was a quiet sound from up ahead, and Ravage stilled. 

It was a confused yowl that ended in a curious chirp. It was Steeljaw, conducting a patrol of the Ark, who had spotted Danny and overheard Ravage. 

Danny adored cats, one of the only sounds he consistently made that was close to a word was the “K’t’y” he would spit out in a staticky murmur at Ravage. If Ravage was reading the situation right, she most likely was, Danny would not have been introduced to many bots yet, and specifically not Steeljaw to avoid exactly this. 

Danny was frozen staring at Steeljaw with genuine awe and excitement in his field as Spook radiated curious bemusement beside him. Steeljaw stared back in abject confusion. 

Ravage carefully creeps to the next grate in order to drop down at the right moment to make the situation funnier and then she tensed up to wait. Her cousin was possessed of the ability to float, and to carry a great deal of weight as if it were weightless. Ravage had seen him pick up an utterly flabbergasted Ratchet once in order to chase the toy Jazz had rolled. 

This was going to be hilarious. 

The standoff ended as Danny squealed loudly with an ending chirp of his almost-kitty sound. He surged towards an alarmed Steeljaw who scrambled to run. 

Ravage dropped from the vent on top of Steeljaw with a healthy amount of vindictiveness for the larger wirelion that usually chased her off with fresh injuries and didn’t even have the basic decency to come off worse for wear when he invaded her territory. 

Steeljaw thunks to the floor under her and flails. It was the perfect opportunity for Danny to get a good grip on his scruff bar and wrap him into a floating, spinning hug as the wirelion went limp in embarrassment and refusal to injure the sparkling. 

Danny squeals again, cooing into Steeljaw audioshell without words and Ravage curls her tail around her feet smugly. Steeljaw attempts to kick her and he misses as Danny simply floats higher. 

This is amazing. Ravage takes multiple captures and begins recording. This must be shared. 

Ravage scans for Jazz’s presence and begins herding Spook towards it. Spook picks up quickly, which is good because Danny immediately scoops Ravage up as well, squishing her against Steeljaw and smothering them both in his field, teeking sheer delight and affection. Steeljaw squirms. 

It is ineffective, and Ravage purrs because she can. It annoys Steeljaw and that is what she intended. Danny twirls with them again and Steeljaw whines loudly. Then Danny is drifting after Spook, and Ravage pings the kitten for a secondary angle of recording. 

Spook agrees and Ravage receives a link-feed that shows an amazing angle of Steeljaw hanging limply beside her. 

They reach a closed door and Spook scratches at it once. Ravage cannot hack it, she is being held by her cousin, she is delighted in Steeljaw’s capture by way of beloved cousin. 

The door does not open to Spook’s request and so Spook yowls in time with Danny’s delighted twitter as Steeljaw attempts to free himself, a new thread of panicked anticipation weaving through his field. It pushes the wirelion up instead of freeing him and Danny nuzzles at him in a calming gesture. 

It absolutely does not work and Ravage desperately wishes she had the capacity to giggle. 

Spook glares at the door and pings Ravage with a request to walk her through hacking the door herself. Ravage obliges happily, that is a necessary skill for a kitten. 

The door swishes open to reveal what is clearly an officer’s meeting, the top bots all seated around a table. Steeljaw’s dismay makes sense and Ravage feels her spark soar in newfound delight. 

Ratchet and Wheeljack are the first to spot them, and Ratchet’s choked sound of dismay and confusion is enough to alert the whole room. The Prime notices next, and his gusty sigh is the only reaction. Disappointing. 

Prowl’s optics flare alarmingly and much of the table turns to him out of concern. It is an excellent distraction for Jazz to turn and look subtly. He does a severe double take and groans dramatically. 

Excellent, a proper reaction. It alerts Blaster who also starts to turn as Steeljaw’s field explodes with mortification. 

“What the-“ the carrier mech starts. 

Jazz interrupts as he hops out of his seat to approach. 

“Danny, buddy, why.” 

It's not a question, but Danny beams up at him and flares his field with mine-mine-keep-look-look-look!

Jazz groans as Steeljaw twists to escape again. It fails, and Ravage jabs a paw into his side to prevent another try, it hits a sensor node to numb the wirelion’s side. 

“Buddy, no. You gotta let Steeljaw go. Ya ain’t keepin’ him.” 

Danny whines loudly. Jazz gently attempts to release Danny’s grip on Steeljaw to no avail. Ravage purrs and reeks the sheer frustration from Steeljaw in amusement. 

“How did you even get in here,” Jazz mutters as he wiggles a servo digit between Danny’s grip and Steeljaw’s scruff. Danny’s grip tightens and Jazz tugs at his now trapped digit experimentally. He doesn’t get it back. 

Spook straightens her posture proudly beside Jazz’s pedes and chirps up at him. He stares at her, looks to the door, looks back at her, and manages a dazed, “What the frag?” 

Spook was a false-pet, she shouldn’t have been able to hack a door, it's not a capability even for the advanced type of drone that makes a false pet. Ravage thinks it is extra amusing that Jazz hasn’t noticed that the Kitten has woken properly. 

“Right, not the point. Danny, you need to let go of Steely, he ain’t wanting to be held by ya.” 

Danny scowls at his adoptive creator in pure affront and drops Steeljaw and Jazz’s digit in one petulant move. Steeljaw sprints for Blaster and paws at his case for entry frantically, and is granted it immediately. Danny brings his now freed servo to hold Ravage closer and sticks his glossa out at Jazz. 

Jazz’s sigh of exasperation is a thing of beauty. The mech brings his fingers to his external comm, clearly he wants this to be public. Whether it's to shame whoever had failed to watch Danny, or to embarrass Danny himself remains unclear. 

“Yo, Smokes, you and Mirage lost someone?” 

There is a flurry of relieved tones from the other end and Jazz signs off a moment later. Danny grins sheepishly at his guardian. Ravage flicks her audial shell. Her cousin was fine, she’d scrap anyone that hurt or scared him herself. 

“Primus.” Jazz mutters sotto voice, “Sam was right. You need a guardian that does a better job when I’m not around.” 

Ravage ends the recording. It is good footage, and Jazz is glitched. That is what Ravage comes for. 

Steeljaw isn’t going to look her in the optics for decaorns. This was a good visit. 

Chapter Text

Smokescreen has been stuck in this ruined podunk town for a week and a half now. The only computer they could reliably connect to was never attended, and Smokescreen suspected that it was the weird quarantined one that was rumored to be cursed. 

Tucker was friendly at least, much friendlier than the others. He was also the most normal, followed by Sam, both to Smokescreen’s files on humans and to his sensory net in general. 

Tucker’s eyes were a solid burnished gold, the color spreading down his face in tearlike patterns of circuitry. His teeth were sharp, all of theirs were, but Tucker’s were shaped similar to a Vosnian Seekers, as if he needed the ability to tear into humans to crunch at their protoforms.

Bones, the Earth word was bones. The structural similarities between Cybertronians and humans was fascinating but Smokescreen was still learning the language. 

That was the only difference about Tucker, right up until he connected with his computer systems and he got fuzzy around the edges and began emitting binary sounds. That was normal though, Jazz started muttering in binary during deeper hacks as well. 

Sam had her vine patterns, and her organic biolights, but other than those and her sharp teeth, she was relatively normal. Her field was disconcerting when she flared it though, jagged and confused and so angry and grief filled that Smokescreen had staggered the last time she released it. 

Wes was probably the third least odd, he was eery, and startling in wildly different ways. He looked normal save his sharp teeth until Smokescreen had met his eyes. They were clouded over and scarred, the flesh around them melted slightly. He still looked at things, and Smokescreen could feel him watching with a weight usually reserved for a suspicious Red Alert. 

The human’s presence had no field, but Smokescreen could somehow read Wes’s lack of field anyways, impressions of wistful sensations flitting beneath his armor in a terrifying parody of emf communication. Wes also saw the world oddly, and interacted worse. Smokescreen was pretty sure he could see the future. 

Ida was just creepy. The ancient femme was the only one without sharp teeth, which she compensated for by having the sharpest optics and mind of them all. The shadows around her were constantly shifting as the creak-groan of rot and decay played a constant with her presence. The smell of death, both organic and mechanical, pervaded the base emanating from her presence. 

Sometimes if Smokescreen saw her from his peripheral sensors it looked as if she had been shot, the back of her skull missing, a hole in her forehead, her head lolling on a limp neck as her eyes stared straight at him. 

Smokescreen did not like Ida.

Val scared him the most. She was the most Cybertronian of them all, shifting fluidly between six and eight feet tall at any given moment, and properly armored down to her optics. 

She was not Cybertronian, not even close, she was something else, something that scared him to his spark. He was getting more comfortable with her as time wore on, but she set every sensor off as  something primally horrific, as if she were every legend of a sparkeater come to life.

Her armor shifted and flowed, not like liquid, but as if it were an alt form of interlocking scales and protoform. Her face would be red plating and bared fangs lit by dull titanium blue optics one moment, the next it would be blue eyes over a soft smile on her organic face. 

Her field stretched the farthest, dull, but varied, and constantly simmering with rage and fury. Grief would twist through at times, as well as amusement, and worry. 

There were a couple others that popped in and out, the amalgamation of Star and Paulina, a man they called Lancer who was constantly projecting worry and protectiveness, a group of faceless beings that the odd humans could tell apart as Dash, Kwan, and Trent. 

Smokescreen could not tell them apart. The melty forms of red and white with blank grey faceplates lent no more distinction than the destroyed back of the helm they all had. Lancer, the three forms, the shapeless beings that darted from shadow to shadow outside, even more plentifully after dark. 

Paulina and Star under their carefully maintained hair. Ida when Smokescreen was looking peripherally. 

Smokescreen didn’t know what that meant. He was learning some, about the Infinite Realms, ghosts, and ectology, as much as Tucker and Sam were willing to pass on under Val’s watchful paranoid eye. None of it made sense, and not a lick of it explained recent events.

The town was silent and haunted by something that had already happened, and no one would talk about it. 

By the time he’d gotten a comm call out and First Aid and Ironhide had been dispatched to pick him up he’d gotten no closer to discovering the connection between the creepy town and the hostile facility not so far away, nor the information he’d come for. 

Clockwork strained to see. Something had gone wrong, he didn’t know where. 

The Observants had wrapped him in chains and rules and bound him to his time streams so thoroughly that he could barely see his domain, flashes and glimpses of his favored sustaining him. 

Nocturne twisted over his head, trailing the crystallized ectoplasm that composed his sand of dreams. 

“Old friend,” he rumbles, dozy toned and indulgent, “I do believe that the council of watchers has overstepped their bounds.” 

Clockwork hisses lowly, a sound of steam escaping gears and ticking mechanisms. It does nothing to deter his fellow ancient, but Clockwork has not got the energy for words. Pandora sighs from somewhere in front of him. 

With so much development on Earth her form has largely been that of Pandora, the ancient connected with her student in the way she thought best, but now the golden chiton and breastplate worn for Danny was shifting slowly to her first form of purple armor and golden optics. 

Pandora gave way to Solus, the two one and the same, and both-as-one were worried about Clockwork. 

“Really, Vector, have you no dignity?” 

Nocturne cackles from somewhere behind him, gleeful at the use of his living name, a rudity only tolerated from Pandora. Clockwork musters the energy to snap his teeth, the sharp child’s milk teeth at the moment, to his trailing fingers.

The offended shriek from Nocturne is entirely satisfying, as is the burst of energy from the ecto in his mouth from the bite. Pandora giggles slightly in front of him, and she threads his fingers through the hair beneath his hood gently. 

There is a shift in the timelines, instability and chaos and an anchor point unknown colliding into a nexus. Clockwork lurches to the left as he burrows his whole self into the nexus for a glimpse of the now. He is bound to it now, no past, no future, no possibilities or alternate choices, and no influence. 

The nexus narrows and he can feel the regard of the observants, and Clockwork tips in headfirst before they pull him back, like every other time. He connects to Danny, his king, his child, his chosen for a split second, then he hurtles away. 

He gets a brief glance of a healthy core, young, and playing with an even younger one, and the resultant confusion follows him to where the nexus is truly focused. 

Vlad Masters’ core is beginning to fade. He is strapped to a table, focusing inward. He is detaching from his human body, from life herself, by his own choice. His core will not survive this, he was always an uneven balance, more attached to his humanity than his connection to the Realms. 

He had encouraged the Observants to this course of action. He had started this, and as the tugs begin to pull him back to his bonds, Clockwork worms into the flares of Vlad’s core. 

What remains after his death will come to Clockwork now. He will consume it gladly, and with great pleasure. 

No one bound him in the trappings of Time and escaped unscathed, even the council of watchers, incompetent fools swelled with their own bureaucratic delusions of power, would fall to him eventually. 

Mirage peered at his disruptor. It had begun slowly changing after the computer incident, starting with the green lining his protoform. The green had stayed, glowing faintly, but coalescing along his fuel lines, and increasing around his disruptor. 

Then his disruptor had begun to shift, a part here, a new wire there, new plating at the edges as if he were a youngling finishing their final frame. He didn’t show Ratchet, he wanted to keep his disruptor, and the grumpy medic was confiscating and quarantining anything infected by the green at the moment. 

It felt done now, no more shifting and the green felt settled, like a secondary fuel line through his disruptor. It was odd, but it didn’t hurt. 

Hound snickered at him as he craned around, twisted to peer in the mirror at the new changes to the kibble over his disruptor, “You gonna tell me why you’ve been so interested in a mod you’ve had since before the war now?” 

Mirage slicked his plating back with a soft smile instead of answering. Then he activated his disruptor for the first time in a cycle. 

It felt different. It was buzzy before, a low vibration that dampened his own field slightly with activation, and the slide of light particles over him had left his vision impaired and foggy before. 

Now it felt cool, almost soothing against his plating that always ran somewhat overheated when his mods were active. His fuel pumped evenly, as a tingling sensation ran over his plating, rippling outwards from his disruptor. His vision was unaffected, even somewhat clearer, a faint aura surrounding his conjunx, somehow interpreted as curiosity. 

“Whoa,” Hound said softly, and he reached a servo out to tangle with Mirage’s. His vents were flaring, and his field stretched out to sync with Mirage’s. 

Hound lifted their twined servos and turned them over. Mirage could see his own servo, an oddity which inclined him to direct slightly more power into his disruptor. Hound began cycling his lenses in response, his specialized optics audibly whirring with effort, as his vents flared more to help. 

“Mirage, I don’t know what you did, but this is impressive. You’re barely a blip in my sensors,” Hound tugged Mirage into him, and Mirage hooked his chin into Hound’s kibble as he let his disruptor power down, “Have you told Ratch, or are you doing unauthorized mods again?” 

Mirage flicked his plating again, and Hound snickered. His conjunx had no room to judge, nearly all of the programs and tracking that allowed him to track Mirage at all was written and installed by Hound himself, and he sat through Ratchet's lecture afterward only if it went wrong or he got caught. 

There was a faint flicker in his green, a tug, and Mirage swayed towards it slightly. The shade he and Hound had practically adopted was crawling through the wall, its odd empty optic sockets peering at them. 

“Hello, Ventshake,” Mirage offered, and the shade stretched its maw open to drop something on the floor in response. The shades who had taken to particular bots tended to act like magnajays, bringing random trinkets and prizes to them. 

Hound thought it was adorable and had an entire shelf dedicated to Ventshake’s offerings. Mirage knelt to pick up the newest trinket and turned it over in his servos with wry amusement. 

He offered it to Hound, who took the broken paintbrush wrapped in crinkled fuel line patches and goopy sealant with a snort. It quickly joined the shelf and Ventshake scampered up the wall to rearrange the shelf to his liking again. 

Ventshake rattled ominously and stared directly at Mirage before he flickered out of sight, still rattling hollowly. Mirage flicked his disruptor back on in response, as if he were playing with Danny again. 

Ventshake stopped rattling and faded back into view, still and frozen. Mirage followed suit, and Hound stepped back slightly, optics over bright as he recorded the interaction. 

Ventshake let out a loud rattle-purr, and began to bounce energetically on his spindly charcoal grey body. Mirage flickered out again, and Ventshake spun in place on his shelf, before it flickered away as well. 

The game continued for a few clicks more, before Ventshake curled up on the cushion Hound had put up there for him. He was still purring lowly, and Mirage glanced at Hound in pure amusement. 

Really, the sheer amusement of the shades was worth the weirdness of mystery upgrades, and an extra confusing Jazz. 

Probably not worth the haunted hallway though, that was still weird, and he would never recover from watching Jazz go down so hard as he had. 

Rewind was stalking the new sparkling. The video of Steeljaw’s humiliation had been passed through Rumble on one of their online games, and Rewind had a new favorite bot now. Blaster had known about him, but hadn’t shared, and now he was confused and protective. 

Too bad for Blaster, Rewind was going to make friends. He’d done his research, the new bot’s name was Danny, he didn’t talk, and he adored cats. Rewind was setting a trap for a new friend, and his brother was going to be the bait that Rewind tested it with. 

Not Steely, that brother had been extra cautious lately and had barely left Blaster’s side or his docks. Scaredy cat. 

Eject vibrated from beside him as they watched both parties follow the line of energon treats down the hall towards each other. Ramhorn paused to nibble on a particularly large treat and both of them turned to regard their new friend. 

Danny was scampering down the hall collecting the treats, and feeding the occasional ones to his false pet. That was weird, but not their business. 

The second Danny spotted Ramhorn they could tell. His plating all flicked out and he chirped loudly. Ramhorn startled, then ran. Danny stumbled after him clumsily, then simply began to float in pursuit. 

Rewind giggled hysterically and scrambled out of his hiding spot to join the impromptu game of chase, Eject on his heels. 

They blew past a startled Cliffjumper and Bumblebee, and the telltale signal of a comm began to ping behind them. Eject cackled gleefully and Rewind bumped into him gently as they ran. At some point Ramhorn peeled off and Danny turned the opposite way, chirping excitedly. 

They were treated to the dubious sight of Prowl cradling a gesturing sparkling, and watching his frantic signing with gentle attention. Rewind stepped back carefully, and froze. Prowl was watching him, wings raised, and optic ridge drawn down, even as Danny pressed an energon treat against his intake insistently. 

Prowl opened his derma, and choked as Danny shoved his whole servo in to deposit his treat. 

Rewind stopped the recording. 

Eject made a grinding sound next to him as he attempted to swallow his laugh. It failed. Eject snorted, which set Rewind off, and they both collapsed into helpless giggles on the floor. Danny began to tap another treat against Prowl’s dermas and Prowl eyed the sparkling warily. 

Prowl leaned his helm back and glared at them, “I believe Blaster was very clear with you. You will report for du-aaghh.” 

Another treat was shoved down his intake and Prowl gagged. There was a long moment as Prowl fought to swallow and tilted Danny away to address them again, “Report for duty with Red Alert for monitor duty. You have an extra half-shift, starting now.” 

It was rushed, and the updated roster pinged them immediately, and Prowl snapped his derma shut just as Danny began to tap his fisted servo against his faceplate once more. Eject nodded once and they scampered off without argument. 

Rewind was pretty sure they could trade that clip of Prowl for quite a lot from Sideswipe. That was gold. 

Tucker groans, shoving away from his computer. He exchanges a look with Val and Wes, before all three of them look over to Sam. She hums, oblivious. She was the most affected by the events a year and a half ago, nearly two years now. By the Fentons’ betrayal. 

Ida stares at them from her seat behind her granddaughter solemnly. She knows what has to happen, and Ida isn’t going to fight. The canny old woman is tired. She’ll welcome the rest, Tucker knows. 

It had been child’s play to slip a tracking trace onto Smokescreen before the giant had left Amity to meet his friends, they had the codes and coordinates for a door to where Danny was now. If they leave Amity, they won’t be able to return. Tucker knows it, Val had known first, Sam refuses to know such a thing though. 

Sam refuses to know a lot. 

She has an enemy to fight, they got Jazz and Dani back, but Sam’s only goal is to destroy the GiW. 

Dan looks over from his corner by the jukebox. He sets down his headphones. 

“What's wrong now?” He asks, fidgeting with the plastic dinosaur necklace he doesn’t take off. 

Sam snaps her attention over to Tucker. Tucker sighs. If they’re going to do this, fix the problem, they’re going to have to leave Amity. Sam has to acknowledge what happened before then, or she’ll try to come back to something that hasn’t been real for a long time. 

Tucker steels himself to hurt one of his oldest friends in order to help his other one. 

Sam looks at Tucker steadily. He’ll explain, he always does. Bubela is a steady presence behind her. 

“The GiW have a tipoff to the place Danny’s been hiding. They’re planning to head there in the next month, invited or not.” 

Sam shrugs. They’ll stop them again. The GiW are stupid, they always have been. Just got to sabotage a few vans, steal their guns, and they’re no longer a threat. 

Tucker is watching her like she’s going to break, why-something’s wrong- why-

Dan scrambles over to Val and buries his face into her side as Wes retreats to sit with Bubela and Tucker comes to stand in front of her. Tucker is half a head taller than her now, but he’s hunched slightly, and he looks nervous. 

“Sam, we’re going to have to leave Amity to help, all of us.” 

Sam pauses. Sam and Val are the only ones that have left Amity since the Fentons joined the GiW. That’s different. 

“Sam,” Bubela starts behind her, “You’re going to have to let go.” 

Sam doesn’t know what that means. 

“Do you remember what happened?” Tucker asks. 

Of course she does. The Fentons joined the GiW and Jazz and Danny were gone, the GiW had them. Vlad was a sleaze, but it didn’t work, and they shut the borders of the town to the GiW until they got Danny and Jazz and Dani back, and because the portal was leaking everywhere. They had to fix that. 

It was fine, everything was fine, they just still needed Danny back, then it would all be fine. 

“Do you remember the bomb, Sam? Or the invasion?” Val asks, and Dan presses into her side a little more. He’s smaller than he was, than he used to be. Why? 

(Vlad was a sleaze. They broke in to check-Dan was supposed to be fourteen, clone body full grown- (he was six). (Not right, wrong wrong wrong!) they took him away, Vlad swore revenge- what-?)

There was a calculated reveal of Phantom, the Fentons went mad. Jazz was gone, Danny was gone-

There had been a lot of white vans coming in, and white suited soldiers lining the streets, and lining the people on the streets. 

Sam and Tucker had gone looking. They were team Phantom, they had to find Danny, had to help. They snuck into Danny’s house, down to the lab. 

The GiW had set up. There was a device aimed at the portal, a nuke, Tucker had breathed out horrified. 

(NO. This hadn’t happened, it hadn’t!)

The GiW swarmed out, the device was beeping. Tucker was frantically trying to deactivate it. They were running, watching from the top of the stairs as it propelled itself into the portal. It was silent, it was fine. 

(It wasn’t.) 

The world had exploded in green and purple and despair. They’d run and run. Screaming was everywhere, the bang of guns permeated every breath. 

(NO! Not real!) 

Guns weren’t supposed to go bang, energon rays whined then popped. Thy weren’t loud, what-

They passed the school. There was a younger class lined against the wall as an agent walked down the line with a beeping device. He reached the end and nodded grimly. 

The line of agents raised their arms-and- fired- and- 

Sam knew them. Sally-Ann had just moved from Milwaukee two years ago. She stared at Sam with empty eyes, her brains were along the wall. 

Sam screamed. 

Tucker grabbed her and they ran, twisting they knew these streets. They turned onto his street, the Foleys were against the wall with the other parents from the neighborhood. Star was swinging a frying pan at an agent, Mr. Foley mouthed at them to run- shots- 

They ran. 

(No. This couldn’t have happened.) 

Her mom twisted as she fell, her dad stood in front of Bubela- bang- running. 

They took shelter in the Nasty Burger, where they’d stashed Dan at the start of this. Sam had held the kid, as Tucker cried, and Val guarded the door. No said anything.The lights faded, the GiW left. 

(No.)

(She refused. She’d fixed things before, she just had to wish- just had to-)

Bubela was stroking her hair when she woke up. The town was different now, darker, things in the shadows. The Ghost Zone was like that sometimes, it’d be fine. 

It was a nightmare, Bubela was fine, she was right there. Wes was fine, he hadn’t been in the burning school, he was right there. 

Nightmares are just dreams, you’re supposed to forget them when you wake up. 

So Sam did.

(Remember. Do you remember?)

(No.)

(I don’t want to.)

(She did.)

Sam screamed and the town came down around her, everyone was dead- her home- they had killed everyone! 

Sam screamed and screamed and screamed, and Tucker wrapped her in a hug, too tight, Dan and Val joined. 

Sam squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to see the hole in Bubela’s head, or the broken neck. She didn't want to see Wes’s melted feature’s doubled over with the green facsimiles. She didn’t. 

She wanted to forget again. She couldn’t. 

She cried. 

Chapter Text

The Ark alarms were blaring, a siren through the halls with flashing red lights turning the orange halls deep with a strobing scarlet. This wasn’t a rare occurrence, but usually it was Red Alert during one of his episodes, or accompanied by a Decepticon alert. 

Prowl was sitting directly across from Red Alert and Inferno in the mess, while they went over the plan for when the supposed experts that Lennox had found came sometime in the next month. Red Alert had clearly not hit any alarms, and was only just beginning to look panicky as the alarms continued. 

:Sideswipe:, Prowl barked down his comm line, :Report!: 

:Uh. So the creepy corridor that Ratchet sealed off? Yeah, something’s happening down there.: 

:What.: 

There is an intake across the line, Sideswipe steeling himself, or perhaps trying to decide on phrasing. Sunstreaker, working the security monitoring with his brother, cuts in. :Danny and Spook went down the corridor with his watcher. Then the cameras all cut out and the corridor is just green right now, enough that surviving cameras can’t get anything. Danny is still down there. Not security per se, but we couldn’t get ahold of Jazz.: 

Prowl flicks his doorwings hard in alarm, and immediately regrets it as Red Alert’s horns start sparking. Jazz is off base at the moment, meeting at predetermined coordinates with the other clans. Prowl had stayed behind with Danny and Sephie, but Bluestreak and Smokescreen had both gone with Jazz for the clan rites. 

Prowl immediately starts heading for the quarantined hall, the one sealed off after Jazz had nearly off lined after being hacked by an unknown party. Prowl did not like that hall, arriving after Ratchet’s emergency comm to find his mate coming out of a hard reset was not a good association. 

Danny had Sephie at the moment. His caretaker, a human called Miles that Sam had found and Jazz had interviewed, has only been around a week, and has just been trusted with both sparklings. 

It being a Saturday meant that the human children were on base for the day, and a base wide game of hide and seek had been implemented, all cleared humans equipped with key cards for access to certain areas on the Ark. As such, Danny and Sephie alike were in their tiny organic forms, accompanied by their false pets, and their caretaker. 

Prowl had left them be the third time his hovering had given away their hiding spot. Miles had laughed at him, and promised to call if they got in trouble. 

Prowl was pretty sure that Sephie’s chattering was giving them away just as much. The bitling could and would chatter about nothing and everything for moors on end, well matched with her oldest brother. 

Several mecha pressed themselves against the walls as Prowl stalked towards the hall, his wings raised high. Sunstreaker stepped out of the security room as he passed and fell into step behind Prowl, his vicious gladiator’s claws on display. 

Red Alert slipped into the security room in his place, with Inferno behind him. He was good with cameras, hopefully they’d get them back up easily enough. 

The hall was indeed somewhat blocked off, green lines intersecting the very air and glowing across the jagged walls warping inward in shrieking screeches of tearing metal. It was a long held secret that the Ark was a titan class, long in stasis. All colony ships were. 

This hall wasn’t central, the torn and missing plating shouldn’t be detrimental if they ever had to wake the Ark, but the repairs were extensive, and they didn't have the spare materials. Prowl grazed a servo against one of the edges of the walls wrenched inwards. 

It hummed under his touch. Prowl did not touch the walls again. 

The debrief room Jazz had used, the one he’d used for centivorn and would never use again, was at the end of the hall against an emergency airlock. All of the damage was aimed at that one central point, as if the airlock had been opened and the room wasn't sealed properly. 

They weren’t in deep space, there was no vacuum to do this. Prowl pulled his acid rifle from his subspace and armed it easily. Sunstreaker shifted into an offensive stance behind him, systems running high and silent. 

The door to the room was gone entirely, and movement was inside. Prowl stepped in without hesitation, rifle raised. His bitlets were in there, there wasn’t a force on Cybertron or Earth that would keep him out. 

He was met with the snarling red faceplates of a bot a helm and a half taller than him that he’d never met. Their teal optics marked them at least not a decepticon, along with the lack of brand. Prowl knew every registered autobot, by face and file at least. 

Prowl did not know them. 

“Val!” barked another mech from behind the snarling red plated one. The chiding twitter from Danny joined in and Prowl was an excellent tactician. He knew his strengths, and more importantly, he knew how to use others. 

He stepped to the side to let Sunstreaker barrel into the red mecha, his claws outstretched and snarling to match the other mecha’s hostility. The two fighters hit the wall beside the door hard as Sunstreaker slammed them around to clear the path for Prowl’s entry without providing a danger for the sparklets. 

The red mecha clawed a line up Sunstreaker’s arm in an attempt to twist away, and Sunstreaker slammed them into the wall again, with a loud animalistic growl. Sideswipe skidded into the room behind them, and threw himself into the fight. 

Prowl let his ATS track that fight in the background. He was focused on the other group. A bronze and gold mech stared at him in blatant shock from a defensive position in front of another two mecha. Behind those mecha was Spook with Miles, Danny, and Sephie on her back. 

Miles looks at him solemnly and grins with a level of mischief usually assigned to the red mech backing up his brother in a fight at the moment. Prowl stalls for a second. 

“Hey, boss,” Miles says with the casual tone he’d adopted from Jazz, who is consistently much less formal than Prowl, “Danny apparently wanted to invite some friends over. I’m afraid I don’t really know what to tell you on how, they kinda walked through the computer and ate the walls.” 

That-

No, that-  how would they eat- ?

Danny was human adjacent first. He and Sephie had eaten scrap metal, energon, and silicates over months of growth. Prowl eyes his bits cautiously, if they’d compressed that into a much shorter timeframe, maybe. 

But how-? 

You can’t travel through the computer. (_-3.02%_) 

The damage is inward, the screen is cracked, the black and purple mecha in front of his bits rises to their pedes. The webs of glimmering green slides through the air towards her, shatter points in reality repairing themselves as the green trails back to the computer. 

The screen is no longer cracked. 

(_-1.005%_) 

His ATS does not like this. He pings Ratchet. Sunstreaker pulls off of the mystery red mecha, leaving Sideswipe to pin them against the wall. 

The screen is not big enough for any of the new mecha to crawl through. It is no longer broken. 

(A tunnel of swirling green and tarnished wires and corroding plating hovers behind the screen, Prowl can see it, but it isn’t there and he can only see it between optic cycles. He isn’t looking.) 

The screen isn’t broken. It was shattered when they sealed this corridor off. 

(_2.079%_) 

Danny chirps a sound of concern and scrambles down from Spook. He is caught by the pale green and black mech, and Danny scrambles out of their servo. The bronze mech turns to look. 

Danny was human adjacent first. The hall has been consumed. His sparkling is being held captive by strange mecha. 

His ATS finishes running the odds on Miles’s statement. Positive confirmation. 

Prowl locks up. His processor aches, then goes black with a flicker of damaged code scrolling across his HUD. 

Prowl wakes a moment later to Danny on his nasal ridge patting softly at his forehelm, still in his organic form. Sunstreaker is standing over him facing off with the bronze mech. The faulty code blinks insistently at him, and Prowl applies a patch code until Ratchet can defrag those files. 

Prowl slides his pedes out from under Sunstreaker’s protective stance and curls his arms around Danny’s rapidly expanding form. His mechling clings to Prowl’s chest plates, whining softly. The black and purple mecha bares her denta at him. 

“What did you do to him? Why can’t he talk?” 

“And you are?” Prowl asks coolly in return, he sees no reason to answer anything at this moment. 

“Sam,” spits the bronze mech, “She’s Sam, I’m Tucker, that’s Dan and Val. We were attempting to blend, based on what I could scan from when Smokescreen stayed with us. Did he make it back?”

“Yes,” Prowl says simply. He runs the designations through recent files. The mission report from Smokescreen does indeed flag. Sam is noted as a combatant, though Smokescreen’s actual incident report of such is poorly done. 

“Answer her questions,” growls Val from where Sideswipe is pinning her. 

“I did nothing. Trauma is your answer, caused by your kind not mine. Your imitation of my species is impressive, but not appreciated.” 

“Then why is Danny here? What did you do,” Sam grits out harshly. 

”In that sense I suppose I did do something,” Prowl acknowledges, rising back to his pedes, swaying slightly, “I embraced my mate’s decision to adopt two random sparklings without hesitation. Miles, bring Sephie over here please.” 

Miles taps Spook on the head gently and the cybercat, bigger than Prowl remembers her being, weaves through the strange mecha, rubbing against Sunstreaker’s pedes as she passes. Prowl gently reaches down, and Sephie grasps the tip of his servo. 

She tends to use him or Jazz as an anchor point for frame shifts, and Danny as such for the opposite way. She curls in the air, no longer holding his digit, as her frame clicks into place around her from its place in her fledgling subspace. 

Prowl clutches her blue and red frame close, as she twitters happily at Danny beside her. His sparklings reclaimed, he pings Ironhide for backup. The reaction of the room is telling. 

The simple activation of his comm has every new mecha in the room firmly in fighting mode, save the green minibot, who has half curled in, his servos clamped over his audios. 

His comm breaks into static nonsense as the red designs on Tucker’s faceplates bleed golden-green and trail further down his faceplate. His finials lift in a blatant threat display, as Val jerks around in a twisting maneuver that flings Sideswipe across the room. 

Sideswipe rolls across the remnants of the table and falls into Sam, whose purple and green biolights detach into cables from their twisting designs up and down her limbs. Three of the tendrils wind around Sideswipe’s flailing limbs, trapping him in place, and the fourth jams itself into his neck port. He falls still. 

Sunstreaker lets out a static shriek of furious rage and charges Sam. The static over the comm lines grows louder and louder until it’s nearly a whine in Prowl’s audials, making his perception fuzzy, and with his processor still slow from a glitch, his only real option is to up the bandwidth on his ATS. 

 Val slams into Sunstreaker from the side and they roll together for a moment, clawing and biting, both going for throats and optics. Then Dan, the smallest of them, steps over and bursts into white-blue flame, centered on his servos and helm. 

He holds one fire wreathed hand to one of Sunstreaker’s helm fins and a pained scream rattles through the air. Dan backs up as Sunstreaker lays still in Val’s hold, vents heaving and rattling with stress. His optics dart from his twin’s frame, limp and held halfway aloft by a nastily grinning Sam, and Prowl, frozen with his scared sparklings clinging to him. 

Sephie has started crying softly, she doesn't know what's going on, not really. She’s not even in her second frame yet. She can teek  Prowl and Danny’s fields though, and the pain, fear, and stress are rattling through her. 

Sunstreaker wrenches experimentally at Val’s hold. His helm fin is melted, dripping down the side of his helm in a mass of silver protoform and burnt out wires. The gold paint he’s so proud of is blistered and peeling all the way across his helm and partway down his neck cabling. 

Dan lights one servo back up and Sunstreaker freezes. He looks at Prowl pleadingly and Prowl doesn’t know what to do. Jazz is the fighter, even Smokescreen is better at it than Prowl. Prowl plans, but there’s not enough variables here, and he has to protect Danny and Sephie and Miles behind his pedes on Spook. 

Tucker glares at him, the facial designs still glowing ominously. The alarms are still blaring, muted in this torn apart hall, devoid of cameras and life, save them, and Prowl flares his wings to their fullest spread. 

It is both a threat display and a useful way to sense if the split second ping to Ironhide before it was cutoff gets through enough for the requisite backup to come. 

“Let him go,” Sam growls, “now.” 

Prowl freezes. Danny squirms closer to him and turns his helm just enough to display a baleful green optic. There is a clatter from the vents above them, and Prowl scuffs his pede against some loose wire on the floor to disguise it. 

At this point Prowl doesn’t care who is up there, casseticons, Jazz, or mini bots, anyone able to report a need for backup is useful. The static increases again, and Prowl wavers on his pedes, the sensitivity on his wings beginning to go numb with the buzzing across his sensor net. 

“Who?” He asks. 

“Danny,” Tucker snaps, “Let Danny go. We want to talk to him. You said your mate adopted him? Well, from what I know Danny wouldn’t just go with anyone, and he wouldn’t want new parents. He can talk for himself, let him go.” 

Prowl shutters his optics with a deep sigh. Danny is scared, and while he usually clings to Jazz at times like this, Prowl still knows how it works. The magnets attached to his plating speaks volumes, especially with the first joints of Danny’s digits curled under his plating for added security and grip. 

Prowl theatrically shifts Sephie over slightly and spreads his arms wide. Danny is still clinging to his plating like a barnacle and Prowl is no longer holding him in any way. Danny whines loudly and presses closer still. 

“What.” Tucker says flatly. 

Val coos obnoxiously from where she is still holding Sunstreaker in a pin, “Aww, he’s like a koala. Happy over there, ghost boy?” 

Danny detaches one servo to brandish his middle digit at her, and uses the same servo to adjust his grip on Prowl so that his helm crest can bump the bottom of Prowl’s chin. Prowl wishes the static wasn’t so loud. He can’t focus to run a file search, but Miles’ snort of amusement behind him says that the gesture probably has some sort of connotation. 

Sam drops Sideswipe suddenly, who is still limp, but no longer wrapped or restrained, “Danny? Can you say something, please?” 

Danny grumbles loudly into Prowl’s throat cabling, and ignores her. One of his digits taps a ‘no’ into Prowl’s plating, audibly. Surprisingly all of them wilt in disappointment. 

A faint clang down the hall announces backup, and Bee stares at him solemnly from the vent now. Prowl meets his optics and nods. The static spikes as Tucker flares his plating out in shock. These imitations have no control over what they protect, by frame or field, and Prowl offers no reaction as Mirage melts into view with a vibroblade pressed to Val’s throat cables. 

“Let him go, slowly and without any sudden movements,” the noble mech purrs into her audial, and Val carefully unwraps her hold on Sunstreaker. She holds her servos in the air like Miko does whenever she professes her innocence about the antics of the day. 

Mirage doesn’t lower the knife. 

Sunstreaker scrambles across the floor, without any of his deadly grace, to Sideswipe. Sam steps away from him, her cables rewrapping around her limbs, inert once more. She edges closer to both Tucker and Dan, eying Prowl uncertainly. 

She holds her servos up and glares at a point behind Prowl. Prowl carefully steps back and to the side to allow Ironhide to enter. Inferno and Bukhead file in after him, steady and solemn. All three are carrying stasis cuffs, and the new mecha all shrink in at the sight. 

Dan makes an odd hiccuping sound, and Danny chirps just once. Dan chirps back, and whines lowly. Prowl cycles his optics and hums. Another sparkling, most excellent. He gets to surprise Jazz this time. 

The static cuts off as Ironhide cuffs Tucker, correctly picking him as leader of the small group. Inferno cuffs Val, and leads her past to the hall. She starts to struggle as he leads her out of the room, only to slump as Inferno increases the drain-percentage of the cuffs. 

Bulkhead faces Sam, and she holds her servos out, all aggression and sarcasm, even as she’s led out of the room after Val. She glares at Prowl as they pass. Ironhide grips Tucker’s shoulder pauldron and reaches slowly for Dan. 

Dan squeaks and curls slightly, field flaring with panic and Prowl pings Ironhide to hold for a moment. He edges closer to the mechling. Dan seems fully in his third frame, ahead of Danny, but not in his adult frame yet. His finials cant back as he watches Prowl with wide magenta optics. 

His fire flickers out with a choked sob, and Danny twists to look at him. Danny wriggles a servo away from Prowl and digs his tablet out of his subspace. Danny onlines it and taps at the screen quietly as Prowl watches his sparkling and the scared mechling in turns. 

“Older brother, keep?” Chirps the tablet. Prowl hums, as Ironhide snorts loudly. 

“Kid, you sure are determined to make your new creators a pit of new reasons to be tired, ain’t’cha?” The words sink in as Danny perks up and taps at Prowl’s plating excitedly. Tucker lets out a rattling snarl in response and begins to twist as Ironhide practically carries him out of the room. 

Dan huddles on the floor with rattling plating as Prowl carefully reaches out and tugs him closer. With only the twins, Prowl, and the sparklings left in the room, while Miles observes from his perch on a quiet Spook, Ratchet bulls into the room loudly. 

Dan whines into Prowl’s torso as Ratchet begins to curse loudly behind him. Prowl strokes the mechling’s back plates. He has no sensor wings, like all of Prowl’s other adopted creations, but he can still scratch at the kibble down his back. Dan’s plating relaxes in increments. Danny taps at his tablet again. 

“No two Dannies,” he says, “I pick new name. You too. Mine is Deneb, still Danny. From Jazz. You?” 

Dan hums, then, softly, “Danymite.” 

There is a long moment of silence as Prowl ruthlessly quashes his desire to laugh. Then Sephie pipes in, “That sounds stupid.” 

The sparklet is brutal in her opinions of what qualifies as stupid or not. Prowl recalls a data file from Jazz of Hound’s sheer dismay upon being deemed stupid by the combined force of Sephie and Annabelle when he’d tried to impress them by using his holograms for their game. 

The two had ignored him for the remainder of the game when Trailbreaker had walked through one of the holograms without thinking, prompting the two toddlers to be entirely offended by the supposed cheat in their pretend game. 

Prowl was still unsure of the actual rules to the game of calvinball they’d been playing at the time, but Hound’s “cheating” with holograms had prompted a slew of new rules. 

He hums and threads his field through the mechlet’s, feeling the old sorrow, as deep as a scar on the mechling’s field, and the unsurity, and the fear. The hope through his field was strongest, twined as deep as the sorrow, but far newer. Prowl teeked the spark deep loneliness as well, and he gathered the mechling as close as Danny and Sephie were. 

“Requiem,” he offers, and all three consider. 

“Ok,” the mechling says, softly, “I like it. Kinda feel like I should go by Emmi to match Elle.” 

Prowl flicks his wings in confusion. Sparklets had full designations, and the mechling hood ones rarely mattered as much. He could be Dan until he wanted to be Requiem easily. 

Danny has a different thought entirely, “Echo.” 

Dan flicks his plating with a ripple of flare-clamp-relax, “I like that. You can be Danny, you were first. I’ll be Echo, because I wasn’t technically supposed to exist anyways.” 

Danny chirps happily and pats clumsily at Echo’s faceplate. Prowl studies his newest mechling. Echo has a nearly identical frame to Darkmount Polyhexians, the oldest frames of the empties from the Dead End. 

He isn’t a true Poly, but he has enough coding in the Kaonite-Poly frame that Prowl suspects that his finials are as sensitive as Jazz’s sensor horns. Prowl carefully sweeps his own rarely used magnets over them gently. 

The resultant purr is deeply relieving. Jazz isn’t due back for another cycle, and Prowl really hopes that Echo will take as well to his mate. Sideswipe is already groggily sitting up and worrying about Sunstreaker across the room, as Ratchet fusses with his melted audio fin. 

Prowl can’t leave yet, Ratchet would tear him a new exhaust pipe. He’s crashed once already, Danny’s systems are still whining with old stress, Sephie is clinging and quiet, and alarmingly quivery against him. His newest mechlet has already burst into fire once, and had a minor breakdown. 

If Prowl leaves now, before Ratchet has had a chance to check them over, he risks multiple complications. He will simply wait, leaning against the wall for Ratchet to finish fussing over Sunstreaker. Spook carefully climbs Prowl to settle between his hip strut and Danny. Miles keeps climbing to settle himself on Prowl's shoulder. 

He starts signing at Danny, and Sephie watches his signs as well, with bleary gold optics. 

He is telling a story, an old Earth one. Orion, a legend that the humans assigned to a constellation in the stars. Prowl starts softly translating for Echo’s benefit, and all three sparklets are entertained for the moment. 

Prowl dearly hopes that the interrogation of the other intruders goes well. He is beyond done with the excitement for a while. It is beginning to feel as if he is fighting multiple wars. 

The only other thing on the agenda is the visit from Lenox’s experts, though, and hopefully that will be less explosive. 

It’s just intel after all, Prowl consulted experts on Cybertron, and the process can’t be that different on Earth. 

Chapter Text

Sam is pacing her cell, her knifelike limbs and tendrils swaying in a deadly dance around her as she gestures. Her ongoing lecture of complaints is beginning to stretch the edge of redundancy. Tucker sits curled in his own cell listening with half an ear as he explores the divide between his new code and his year old protocore. 

Val sits in her cell firmly ignoring everything. Her new robotic body comes with energy weapons, like her old suit, but the variety of them is staggering, even with the switching between a gentle blue and the toxic green of ecto-tech. 

The only other person there is the absolutely massive mech, red and blue and regal, who is calmly sitting, politely listening to Sam’s furious rambles. He’d introduced himself as Optimus, and asked if there was anything he could do. Sam’s fury manifested as a sharp tongue, always had, since her, Tucker, and Danny were in Elementary, but Optimus didn’t seem to mind. 

“And you took both of our little brothers and won’t let us go! What do you think is wrong, you utter pillock?” Sam finishes with a furious scream, her vents rattling in a facsimile of heavy breathing. Tucker claps sarcastically and Val joins in with a mean laugh. 

Val is still a half head taller than regal robot, and much bulkier, something she seems inordinately pleased with. She bares her oddly human fans at him and hisses, a thoroughly ghostly sound. For all of her previous anti-ghost fervor prior to their private war with the GiW, she has embraced her protocore and everything that comes with it since. 

She flicks one her energy blades out of her wrist again, half blue and half green. She flicks a feral grin at Tucker, and he smirks back. He was a technopath before this, training with Technus between GiW raids, but now his technopathy sense has a couple extra levels to it. 

He curls his lovely new static tenrils through the air, a noise to drown out comms and ghostspeak and radio, then he flicks it back in, scraping any stray thoughts from regal robot. 

He gets a sense of the dude’s own protocore, a general feeling of protective gentleness, and serene rage. Then he gets a shot of impression from the core-parasite attached. There is a moment of overwhelmingly ancient wisdom and pride, then he gets the thoughts he was trying to rake in with his static net. 

The thought isn’t fully formed, or perhaps isn’t linguistically compatible. He couldn’t read Clockwork or Pandora because of that. The thoughts ring of curiosity and goodwill, though, and of genuine helpful patience. 

Tucker reconsiders. 

“Why,” he asks slowly, “do you care so much? Your Prowl character called it, we’re imitations.” 

Optimus hums gently, “Do you know what you are imitations of? Or who?” 

“Does it matter?” Sam asks acidly. 

“I think it does,” he says, wistful and almost soft, “Because I don’t consider any of you imitations at all.”

Tucker opens his mouth and finds that he truly has nothing to say. Val and Sam look just as bewildered. They’ve been abominations, imitations, ghosts for years now. Before that they were weirdos, and before that Sam, Tucker, and Danny were outcasts. 

“Huh?” He manages, and Optimus lowers himself to sit in a way that he can see all three of them. 

“What do you know about my people?” He asks and Tucker doesn't know. He’d scraped Smokescreen’s thoughts plenty while they’d hosted the bot, and he’d certainly gotten plenty off of Meister whenever Tucker had tangled with the mech’s slippery coding. 

Mostly that info ran along the lines of here is how the alien robots function. They look like gundam, but aren’t, and look, they’ve got Danny. He’d gotten an impression of their core and its structural differences to a human one, to theirs, and how to translate his coding to theirs. 

Beyond that he hadn’t cared to look. He had enough to force the portal to give them new bodies, but why would he have needed more. The goal had been to grab Danny and get out, he could’ve recovered with Frostbite. 

They’d failed. 

Optimus hums knowingly, “Well, for one, you’re related to Danny, and Echo, I presume. Sephie as well by association. As all three are the adopted children of my dear friends, that makes you similarly related. Already you cannot be an imitation.” 

“That’s stupid,” Val spits, and Tucker flings static at her. They’d agreed that he’d talk, he was the only diplomatic one, and the network Wes had become when Amity fell after they’d left wasn’t settled yet, his technopathy let him talk to Wes’s remnant, but only him so far. 

She glares at him sullenly, and Tucker presses the weight of Wes’s loopy core stretched between their minds at her. She settles with a last hiss of defiance, “Fine, nerd. Negotiate, I’m sure you’ll do better than all those times it resulted in Dash shoving you in a locker.” 

Sam is up in arms now, hissing obscenities at Val, remembering the incident that both of them remember. Danny was the best fast talker, usually took the brunt of Dash’s jockish ire. The one time he’d been out sick Tucker had tried his hand at it. Dash had shoved him into the locker hard enough to break his nose and two of his teeth. 

Dash was suspended for two practices. Tucker still had a crick in his nose, two newly false teeth, and missed school for a week. 

He’d gotten better at the sort of fast talking this situation required, but Val’s jab of a callback to freshman year, the year being extra stressful due to Danny’s accident and hospitalization at the start of it was unappreciated. Tucker pressed his static between her ears and buzzed it until she winced in retaliation. 

She flicked a blade at him and cackled as a tiny ecto ray hit him. It devolved from there as Sam went feral, throwing herself at the bars for a play fight with Val. The jab was a low blow, but the instincts to play were strong. The two of them bat and claw at each other for several long moments before Tucker chirps loudly in reprimand. 

Sam grins at him and Val cackles. They settle again and Tucker turns his attention back to Optimus, who looks bemused at their byplay. “Explain,” Tucker demands. 

“I was an archivist before the war,” the bot starts, and Tucker feels their connected minds wilt in the disappointed anticipation of a long rambling story like one of Lancer’s best, “That means that my function was to organize, protect, and know history. It also meant I followed current events, and even now I look at the world through the lens of one who sees as many angles as I can.”

Optimus settles more firmly, and flicks his field out lightly, an invitation, “Do you know what functionalism is?” 

Tucker knows they left Lancer behind, with his after death lectures and classes on literature and themes. Here they sit anyways, eternally accosted with a teacher. Joy. 

“It’s the concept of making a building suited for its purpose, but not really useful for other things. Schools have desks and alarms, churches have pews and stages, grocery stores have aisles and stuff. It makes community spaces difficult to find or make.” Sam offers hesitantly. 

This is a topic she’s protested before. She likes community spaces, thinks they’re important. Tucker had helped her advocate for turning the old Best Buy into a community center with Danny. It had just reopened as such when the GiW bombed Amity. 

Optimus hums, “Yes, that is the human concept I’ve explored. Functionalism, or Functionism, is one of the main drives behind our war, and our definition is somewhat more complicated. We Cybertronians have a concept of being onlined, or born, with a purpose. Many centivorn ago one of the Primes, Zeta, took that belief and twisted it. He edited history, and used his position as a Prime to make declarations to that effect that birthed functionism.” 

“If he edited history,” Val interjected snidely, “Then how do you know it happened?” 

The booming laugh from Optimus makes all three of them startle, “Oh, excellent question! The Archives do not take kindly to erasure or edits. The mainframe is semi sentient, possibly fully but no one is quite sure. She hid it, if an archivist looks they can always find the unedited history. I was among the few that did. I did not make the wisest decisions with that knowledge at first, but I learned.” 

Sam cackles at that, and Tucker snickers in time with her. Unwise decisions are the bread and butter of high school, and Danny especially was good at them. He could talk his way out of anything, but he’d wander into such situations it was comical. 

“Yes, quite,” Optimus says, amused, “In any case, I do know the unedited history, and I am not shy to share it. I digress, the point there was functionism, I apologize. Functionism as a concept was practically invented by Zeta Prime and his council. It is the practice of confining a Cybertronian to the job their frame dictates, despite their wishes or desires.” 

Tucker stares blankly, “What is a prime, and what does that mean?” 

“Ah,” Optimus is silent as he muses for a moment, “A prime is the holder of the Matrix of the Primes, which is an ancient artifact that allows a communion with Primus, our creator. At the time of Zeta’s reign the Matrix was lost, and the Prime was an elected leader chosen by the council of the senate. It was an imperfect system.” 

“Clearly,” Sam says, and Optimus joins the sarcastic laughter that follows with a wry chuckle. 

“Indeed. What that means is that if a bot were onlined with an ambulance alt form then they were a medic, despite if they wished to be a singer for example. For the most part this system didn't have an argument, but as time passed it grew stricter, and problems surfaced. When the system was implemented frametypes were restricted to city-states, and they did not mix. This meant that Zeta’s edict did not get fully integrated for a long time, until the cities began to mix.” 

Optimus offered a sad smile, “This lead to the exploitation and cruelties commonplace when I was onlined handed down by the Senate, and the then Prime, Sentinal. Those lead to dissatisfaction and rebellion by those exploited. That led to war. Megatronus, a miner turned gladiator, exploited multiple ways, led those fighting to dissolve the council, fighting for freedom.” 

Tucker considers that, “You work for this Megatronus then?” 

Optimus laughs, “No. I was once friends with him, even helped him rise to lead his Decepticons in overthrowing the council. Turns out what he really wished to do was to reverse the situation. He began abusing those under him, and the status quo twisted when he had not even finished his goal. I lead the Autobots, and we stand for freedom for all sentient beings. For example, Megatron doesn’t value organic life, believes them to be beneath him. I do not.” 

Quiet reigns for a long minute. “Well, dang,” says Val, and her confused respect echoes to Tucker and Sam alike, “What does that have to do with us though? We aren’t yours.” 

“If you wish to stay, you could be.” Optimus offers, and he winces at the sharp disapproval they all push forward. It is only right and polite to negotiate in all common languages, and the mech has an aura. Pandora is big on proper manners, and broadcasting your aura is open communication. Tucker doesn’t know why he’s cringing back. 

“We do have neutral mecha on board,” Optimus clarifies, “You do not have to join the Autobots, I am merely offering a home and a function if you wish to retain a position close to your brothers and their new family. We can always host more crew. We could possibly teach you to hold your fields properly?” 

Tucker presses at the web of Wes’s web connecting their minds and they all sink together. Ha, sync. Danny would’ve loved that pun. General curiosity and wariness wins out, and they separate into different people again. 

They cannot return to Amity, it is gone, sunk into the depths of the Infinite Realms, with Jazz and Dani’s cores healing there guarded by the entire town of the vicious dead unjustly killed. The forest is all that remains, surrounding lifeless ruins, and Sam is the only one that would be happy there. It is nothing more than an abandoned portal, a ghost town with the swinging door off of its hinges. 

They cannot return to the Infinite Realms, not permanently. They are too alive for that,too touched by death for any regular human town or city. They have their portal that they came by, but it's only for visits and escapes, now. 

They do not know these beings however, and although it rings true, what Optimus has told them, both to Sam’s innate sense of honesty and the jangling truth echoes from Wes connecting them, it doesn't mean they trust him yet. 

Danny is here though, and the GiW will be too. Val has a stray thought, reminding all of them of the plentiful shades, the rich ambient ecto, and the ecto contamination rapidly spreading here, like a decay or a mold. 

Tucker surfaces from their meta, more of Wes slips away the more that they connect their minds, and the network he leaves behind is welcomed. He looks at Optimus solemnly. 

“We’ll stay, for a trial period at least. We want to see Danny and Dan regularly, and you won’t separate us if we don’t want to go. And you won’t experiment on us, or give us to any scientists.” 

Optimus nods regally at them, “Those are reasonable requests. I would appreciate it if you have a checkup with Ratchet, my chief medical officer, so he has your baselines if you are injured, but I will not force you.” 

Tucker considers then agrees, “You can’t make us fight your war, either.” 

“Agreed. That is your right and your choice. If you'll allow it, however, I would like to assign you guardians, both to learn politics and learn how our peoples function, and because you are not used to these forms.” 

“And because we;re still teenagers?” Val snarks, and there’s a whirring from Optimus. 

“Yes,” he says eventually with hesitation, “I was not aware of such, but yes, definitely now that I know. Your Guardian will not have any real authority, mainly a guidance role, but their protocols will demand they protect you in any defining event if necessary. Younglings of any sort are sacred to Cybertronians.” 

Sam snickers, which sets them all off. Danny goes and escapes and gets adopted by an alien robot in the process, and now they all get the privilege. Isn’t that just how it always works. Danny has an accident and becomes a halfa, all their lives go down the toilet as ghosts are now everywhere causing messes they’ve got to clean up. 

Danny gets caught, and the mess left behind gets them caught up in it, with protocores and bombs and military occupation of a small town and nuclear bombs. Danny kills the king of a realm, and they now all have direct ties to the Ancients. Danny gets cloned, and goes on a time adventure, and gets a nemesis who’s actually insane and now everyone’s dead. 

Sam is laughing like a crazy woman, and Tucker starts giggling with her until they’re both sobbing as Val stares at them with horror and fear. Val has been around for a lot of it, but until the GiW invaded, she’d had a degree of separation. Sam’s hysterical cackles morph to sos, staticky and rasping in the mechanic form that none of them can quite figure out how to shift out of. 

“Do your worst,” she sobs out, and Tucker stretches his arm out to hold her hand. She clutches at him desperately, breathing heavily and gasping raggedly through her hysteria. 

Optimus nods solemnly and rises to his feet, knocking softly at the door behind him. Three new mechs file in, the door shutting behind them. The cells all slide open. Sam darts at Tucker and he holds her close, their new angles juxtaposed to each other. Val hovers protectively in front of them, half in the hug anyways. 

”This is Ironhide,” Optimus says, gesturing to the big red mech behind him gently, and Ironhide nods solemnly, “He has a human charge, Captain Lennox, who is already familiar with Danny and his family. Val, I was hoping you might accept him as your guardian.” 

Val eyes him. She nods curtly, and does not move an inch. Ironhide chuffs a laugh at her. Optimus gestures at the boxy green mech to his other side. 

“This is Hound, he is one of my best scouts. I would like him as primary guardian, with his mate’s help to be your guardian, Sam. I feel you may get along well.”

Sam sniffs haughtily and agrees with an aggressive shove of her aura. Val wraps hers around with reassurance as Tucker radiates support. All of the bots wince, and Tucker bares his own fangs at them. Usually he leaves the aggression to his sisters, to Val and Sam, but really. Effective communication is the basis of a healthy relationship, that’s common knowledge. 

The last mech steps forward, “I am Wheeljack, my mate, Ratchet, and I will take you, if you’re willing.” 

He smiles gently at Tucker and Tucker does not smile back. He’s nervous about this all, but they need help, and they need to be here to help when the GiW get here, to protect Danny and Dan. Tucker just nods at the mech with the flashing helm fins. The whole group of them follow their guardians up several floors then, to what is obviously a medical room. 

Optimus leaves them there, and Tucker isn’t sure he likes that. Ratchet is a boxy mech, red and white and mean looking. Tucker steps back into Wheeljack, which sets Sam off into flared plating and hissing. Val puffs herself up as well, her snarl filling the room. 

Ratchet watches them steadily, and he deliberately flares his aura out in calm reassurance. Val’s snarl peters out slowly and confusion fills their combined auras. Ironhide steps forward, his servo on Val’s shoulder, the two of an equal height. 

“Hey, Ratch. We’re here for a baseline checkup for these three, then we’ll take the lot to the rec room.” He directs Val forward a step, and she tosses a panicked look at Tucker. 

“Alright,” Ratchet agrees easily, then he focuses on them, “That’s easy and quick by the way. I’ll plug in to your wrist port with a medical interface data pad, and I’ll run a system scan. It’ll tell me if anything’s wrong that I’ll fix, and it’ll give me your base specs to start your medical profiles. It’ll take a breem at most. Is that okay?” 

“What’s a breem?” Val asks even as she offers her wrist. 

“Ten minutes, roughly.” Ratchet answers. It really is that quick for each of them. Apparently they’re all deficient in certain minerals and their guardians are given little powder packs to feed them. Ironhide snorts crudely. 

“That’s what you get for eating walls. Danny and Sephie were clever enough to take their time.” 

By the time they’re being taken to the rec room for food and a deeper conversation Tucker is exhausted and Sam and Val are projecting a deep tired state as well. 

It’s all worth it though to see their brothers when they enter the rec room. Danny, black and white and so small, far too small, is sitting on the floor with a group around him as he draws lazily on a massive sheet of paper. He waves just once then twitters at the red mech beside him, the one that had tackled Val earlier. 

The golden mech with them as well, studiously ignoring them as he cradles a truly tiny red and blue mech on his lap as she plays with a floating metal jellyfish. It's a vaguely eldritch construction and Sam grins at it gleefully. His helm fin is missing, a bare skeleton of its form jutting out, wrapped in welds and ashy residue. 

A grey and red mech sits with the group now, glaring at them as he holds Dan on his lap protectively. Dan waves and refocuses on the data pad in his lap. Tucker flares his aura across the room in a greeting. Hello-hello-protection-love-hello, he says. Wheeljack snorts behind him. 

“You are definitely the same as Danny and Sephie. Bitlets communicate the same way. You aren’t as traumatized as Danny though, or at least not in the same way. Danny can’t talk, so he gets away with it, but it is generally considered rude to shove your field at everyone like that.” 

Tucker reels his field in immediately. He stares in shocked dismay at his new guardian as Sam and Val broadcast the same. Danny glances at them from across the room and bobs his little wings. Tucker isn’t so sure about this anymore. 

Then he gets a cube of the so called energon, and mixes the additives in. It tastes horrible. Tucker kind of wants to cry. He misses pop tarts and beef jerky and his mom’s meat loaf. He’d lived off of scrounged food as the produce rotted almost immediately, and off of scavenged ecto for two years. 

Now he had to survive off of this weird liquid that tasted like gasoline and pennies had a child, and the child was rancid. Tucker pressed into Sam’s side and leaned back into Val. This was for a month at most. Once they drove the GiW off they could split, probably. 

They’d come back to check on Danny sometimes. It would be fine. Tucker sipped his cube miserably, and ignored the mech sitting with Danny. The one with the same name as Jazz, that had stolen his brother. The one he’d hurt, first by accident, then out of spite. 

He couldn’t deal with that now. He didn’t want to. 

Chapter Text

Maddie tucked into her husband’s side, calm and content as they drove away from the Alaska facility in one of the larger mobile labs. The blueprints from their old family GAV had come remarkably in handy as a basis for the mobile labs. The kids would have been proud, before they’d been killed by the scum Maddie had exposed them too. 

She knew that now, ghosts lied. Lied, and lied, and lied. The portal had worked the first time with Vlad, and twisted their friend into a malevolent shadow of himself. It had worked the second time too, hiding itself at first, empty and cold in its frame as they’d turned away. 

Then it had taken their son. 

Slowly, slowly, it had overtaken their daughter too. Their Danny-boy, their Jazzy-pants, both gone and they hadn’t noticed, not for far too long. 

It had been an offhand comment by one of Danny’s classmates on the similarities between the ghost boy and their son. It was ridiculous, blatantly untrue, no one would really entertain such thoughts. But the comment had stuck with Maddie, and the more she looked, the more she saw. 

All of their instruments would train onto Danny automatically, immediately, as if they’d been built to do so. Danny’s eyes were blue, like Jack’s, until she saw him from the corner of her eye, then her son had blatantly green eyes, the same pulsating green of ectoplasm samples in their fridge. 

Jazz’s eyes were the same. Both of them would forget to breathe, Danny more often than Jazz, and then with a great stutter, they’d be breathing again as if they never stopped. 

Maddie started looking through the backlogs of footage in the lab cameras. There was so much there. Danny had been replaced, months and months ago, and Jazz was helping cover it up. 

No, Jazz had clearly been replaced too. Jack had pointed that one out, highlighting her odd competency with just about everything. No teenaged girl should know how to call her brother off of school without tipping the teachers off. 

She and Jack had contacted their allies in the government and offered the beings that had taken their children’s places without a second thought, as they’d pored over the myths of changelings and stolen babes. They knew they were getting their babies back, but a final check had never truly hurt.  

The next steps had been meticulously planned out. Maddie regretted the sacrifice of her town, truly she did, but the Fentons had been the only ones that followed any kind of decontamination protocols even after the portal had stopped playing possum and ghost attacks had been both public and widespread. 

The whole town was contaminated. For the safety of the world itself, they’d all have to be contained and eliminated. It wasn’t personal, just safer. It was just safer. 

Maddie leaned in to tap at one of the diagrams on the screen of the laptop balanced on Jack’s lap, “The structure is different here. More crystalline in format, whereas the ectoplasmic sampling has a far more fluid shape.” 

The areas highlight as she manipulates them and Grace and Quinn sitting across both hum in curiosity. The senior agent and junior agent share Maddie’s passion for the cores and ectobiology of their subjects. Jack found his match with their new acquaintances whose interest lay with the ghost machines. 

“Huh,” Quinn mused, flipping through the images of different cores, “You’re right. They all resemble different elements, but the fluidity of the structure is undeniable. Even the pattern is unique, but unstructured.” 

Grace leaned over Quinn’s shoulder, her blond ponytail flopping in Quinn’s face, “The crystal structures seem to show unique signatures as well, I really would love to take one apart.” 

Banachek barks a laugh, “Wouldn’t we all, sweetcheeks? We got the Saleen in the trailer, we tear that one open when we get to our halfway facility.” 

“Still, are we pretending that we don’t see the little one it’s hiding? It’s small enough that we could work on it in this lab right now.” Grace presses her cheek to Quinn’s head as she switches over to the camera in the transport trailer following them. 

They’d nabbed the pair by pure accident on the Canadian border just about to hit Washington, and the three hours of capture without escape had been an excellent test of their newly improved restraints. They worked, and the little one may not have been restrained, but it certainly wasn’t leaving its protector behind. 

“We could,” Quinn concedes, ”but this is a good time to test whether or not these physically structured entities display similar emotional facades, and if the smaller one is a child of some fashion then this may be an unprecedented opportunity to gather unfiltered data.” 

“Besides,” Banachek cut in, “gives us some chance to see how they interact, and figure the language in. The translator tool from Mister F over there is nice, but the insight is nicer.” 

Maddie grins, and zooms in on the little blue and silver robot tucked under the big one’s wing. It chitters lowly, the first either of them has made a sound since they’d been captured. She activated the translation software, the ecto powered microphones in the trailer already recording. 

“Is Soundwave coming?” 

The bigger robot lowered its wings further, “I don’t know. My comms are down. You still can’t get through to any of yours?” 

The tiny robot shakes with the force of its no, “Mm. Can’t. No Rumble, no ‘Wave, no anyone. Why haven’t you busted the chains yet?” 

Maddie leans forward, and idly notes Quinn and Banachek doing the same as they focus on their own screens. The bigger robot tucks its knees up and shivers. 

“I can’t. Something is weird about the chains, like stasis cuffs, but more draining. I think it’s the same people Jazz passed a warning on about.” 

Jack looks up sharply, “Our Jazzy would never. Our Jazzy has more sense than to cooperate with these things. They’re still using her face.” 

Quinn taps her nails against the tablet sharply for a moment, she wears long, sharp stiletto nails, laced with a cyanide blood blossom powder, and it makes them an intimidating threat. “It’s possible they’re referencing Subject 3976. We briefly held them in Alaska, and brief encounters since have informed the records department that they use the name Jazz. We don’t have confirmation, but it may be unconnected.” 

Jack snarls anyway and Banachek leans away from him. Maddie feels her own rage rise, an acid in her gorge and fuzzing in the back of her mind that threatened her sense. She shoved it down. Jazz was dead, Danny too. They had been taken, they would be avenged. 

The little robot whines on the camera, his whisper barely audible to be translated to the scrolling subtitles, “Oh. Are they going to try to cut our sparks out too? Jazz said they were like sparkeaters.” 

“I won’t let them, not to you,” the saleen offers, “I should’ve made you go with Soundwave. I like hanging out with you, but Earth isn't safe. I’m sorry, Frenzy.” 

“I wanted to. I wanted to tell you about the cousin that Ravage found too, I didn't get to do that either.” The little one makes an odd sound, rattling and crunchy, and tucks himself half under the bigger one’s plating, “Danny’s really cool actually. He likes stars, and cats.” 

Maddie feels her blood run cold. Jack is frozen beside her as well, both of them staring at the words scrolling across the screen. She meets Quinn’s gaze, her eyes hard and bloodthirsty. 

“I have no problem with you taking point on the littler ones' interrogation and vivisection. Remain methodical and controlled, we need the data, and you may use the opportunity to see if the corpse of your son is still being desecrated.” 

Maddie feels her grin baring her teeth as she looks down at the robot, measured through the cameras at a mere four foot seven, that she will get to tear apart for answers in a day's time once they’ve settled at the facility in Salt Lake. 

Megatron claws his way back to lucidity again. It has been easier to do, in the fact that he could do so at all, recently, and so much harder for as much as he had to fight. 

At the start of this revolution, this war, this rebellion, what had been intended as simply a union, it had all been so simple. Workers were being exploited, mecha were being enslaved, and war frames were being subjected to prejudice. He’d been working to improve, and eventually fix that. 

He’d had noble goals, achievable ones, he wasn’t sure how he ended up like this. 

That was a lie, he knew, he knew exactly how. 

He’d been working with friends, trusted allies, less trusted allies. That had all been fine. 

Orion Pax had been a friend, a pen pal who had enjoyed his poetry, and had supplied him with literature. He had both encouraged the sedition and offered his own in his quiet, curse laden way, surprisingly foul mouthed for an archivist.

Soundwave had been his oldest friend, practically a brother, who had been a gladiator with him, and they’d sworn to mutual protection in the face of the Senate’s scorn towards their frametypes, a thing they could no more control than the weather itself. 

Starscream had been a trusted ally, who had needed to claw his way into the science academy despite his status as Winglord of Vos because of the Senate’s prejudice, only to be expelled the instant something went wrong, when his partner was lost in a catastrophe that wasn’t preventable in the least. 

Shockwave had been a trusted ally prior to his empurata, but held at arm's length afterwards. The friendly mecha who had fought the senate with his bleeding spark and hard fact had been twisted into a wreck of a mech without morals, who was unerringly loyal to Megatron. Because of the statistics, and the rescue. 

The scientist had been mightily creepy after they’d taken his helm. 

The Dreamer tried to reach back into control and Megatron shunted them aside. This was his processor. He hadn’t had control for centivorn upon centivorn now, and in the span of perhaps three earth years he had just become aware of it. 

He could recall everything perfectly, as if it were through a haze, a puppeteer directing his very will from behind the curtain. 

{Pay no attention to the Man behind the Curtain. He is of no Consequence.} 

Megatron vented in and out, in and out, and looked. He was sprawled on his throne staring at the crumpled, sniveling form of Starscream on the floor in front of him. Thundercracker and Skywarp hovered at the back of the room, resentment and worry poorly masked on their faces. 

Megatron’s spark ached at the sight of one of his old friends brought so low. The Dreamer shoved memory files of betrayals and anger at him, snarling lowly in the recesses of his processor. 

Megatron shoved them deeper. He was in control now. He accessed the newest memory files, what had set the Dreamer off? Starscream had disappeared, along with his trine, Soundwave, and several others. He refused to explain. Hmm. 

Perhaps the Dreamer was stupider than Megatron realized. Those were all Polyhexian connections, Soundwave had explained some, when he’d had to go deep into the catacombs after Ravage’s emergence all those vorn ago. 

“Dismissed,” he said, and the room cleared rapidly. Soundwave hesitated as he left, and Megatron tilted his helm, he always had time for Soundwave, even when he was fighting the Dreamer with a nasty helm ache. 

“Frenzy was on patrol with Barricade,” Soundwave says, in miner’s cant, an old code, just between the two of them now, for secrets and worries and fears, “They have not returned. I may leave to search.” 

Megatron nodded immediately, “Of course, old friend. Is there a known danger? Should you take backup?”

Soundwave looks searchingly at him, a brush of his meta that Megatron relaxes into instinctively, that alarmingly seems to put Soundwave more on edge, his stilted vocoder back online, “Unknown. Possibility: there.” 

“Alright,” Megatron responds, his spark sinking. The Dreamer has ruined even this most valued of his friendships. 

Soundwave strides out, the door sliding shut behind him. Megatron is alone. The Dreamer slides back up, oily, claws outstretched, ready to take back over like a mnemosurgeon from the senate, making pretty little puppets from people. 

Megatron hadn’t gone into it thinking he’d get a master, he’d looked for advice. At the time Sentinel Prime was in charge, the little Senate pet, that danced to their tune and was just as cruel. Unicron had fought Primes, he hadn’t wanted this, just advice. 

Megatron vented in and out, in and out. His claws shredded curling ribbons out of his armrests. There was a sarcophagus in the tomb of the primes, many of them actually, but a hidden one towards the very back where the thirteen’s memorial markers were laid, that was rumored to be Unicron’s. 

Megatron hadn’t been religious, no laymech was, the council was intertwined with the temple was intertwined with the senate, and all three took advantage. But, he’d prayed anyways, asked for advice on how to displace a corrupt prime and overthrow the senate. 

Then he’d left to meet Orion for drinks at Maccadam’s, they’d watched the assassination of Sentinel on the news holos, and raised a cube of high grade in a toast to celebrate. 

He’d woken the next morning and the Dreamer was in charge, there was a war, and Orion had become Optimus Prime. Soundwave, Screamer, and Shockwave were siding with him on principle, for freedom and abolishment of the castes. 

It had steadily gone downhill from there. The DJD‘s formation had been an abomination. If a mech wants to leave they should, that’s freedom. Not torture and death, not fear so great a mech cannot leave. The bombing of Praxus was horrible, and it may have been Strascream’s idea, but it had been Megatron’s job to shoot Starcream’s outlandish ideas down so the plan could be refined better, always had been. 

The Dreamer hadn’t thought so, and so Praxus fell, and Soundwave mourned his kin. 

Cybertron began to die and they took to the skies, then to space, then to the next galaxy. They lost their way. The Decepticons were winning the war, but had long since lost sight of what they fought for. Megatron could acknowledge that, even if his Dreamer couldn’t. 

The Dreamer simply wanted chaos, death, an ending to a long history. Unicron had tried to kill the primes before there were other mecha to contend with, and now he tried again with the whole species via possession of one reluctant warlord. 

Megatron would not let him. 

The Dreamer shrieked, the casket cracking, it was long broken, whatever shockwave had happened those few years ago, it had weakened him. Megatron might have to relinquish control this time, but the Dreamer was fading and soon he would be gone. 

Then Megatron could fix what he broke. Starting with his scared, broken friend, then his dying planet. 

But first his mind had to be his own. 

The Dreamers claws rose up and slipped back into place, and Megatron fell back under, he’d wake again. And then the Dreamer wouldn’t, he’d make them leave, he’d have to. There had been far too much damage already. 

Chapter Text

Ember had died in 1997. That made her the youngest of Baby Pop’s rogues, the most recently deceased. A lot of the other ghosts thought she was naive, too obsessed with fulfilling her obsession on the mortal plane rather rather than the realms. 

It had resulted in a lot of questions after Baby Pop showed up. Some of them her friends could answer, some of them they couldn’t. Most of the time it had been idle curiosity, biding time until she could slip through another portal, and not knowing hadn’t mattered. 

Then Pariah had woken for the first time and they’d all helped Baby Pop shave him back under. Frighty had been extra edgy and ominous after that, and they’d left him alone, all the more modern ghosts somewhat freaked by the ancient tyrant’s resurgence. 

Ember had taken some time to fire questions at an increasingly annoyed Ghost Writer about ancient history. She didn’t regret the decision. 

The Realms as a whole were on a collision course, with far reaches folding in on themselves that would’ve taken ages to fly to being only a short distance away now. Something was waking, awake, was stirring and changing and no one knew what. 

Even the stupid Observants were on edge. 

The sarcophagus dissolved into nothingness and Pariah stood, only to get devoured, core and all, by Baby Pop. All at once, like a rubber band snapping, a tension that Ember hadn’t realized was there had released in the Realms. 

She’d gone back to the library, partly to answer her own questions, partly to borrow books to back up her own teasing when she went to poke fun at the new King Baby Pop. 

She had come back to devastation around the portal, and Frighty guarding the mutated remnant of the Portal that had previously been tied to Baby Pop, like a tether for any other baby ghost. The tether had long since broken, frayed as he grew and learned, but the door remained. 

Now the door was off its hinges as it yawned like a hallway to a void between worlds. It technically was, but it had been more controlled before. Less of an active leak. 

Frighty had watched her as she’d approached, immovable, and resolute in a way he hadn’t been before. 

“The King is dead, Long live the King. The king is captured, a Regent must reign,” he looks at her, his eyes blazing, and Ember wishes she hadn’t stayed so long in the deep archives of the library. Time is more disconnected there. “Who is the King’s regent?” 

“Uh.” Ember scrambles for any knowledge that might be helpful. Her knowledge of royalty comes from needling Dorothea about her brother and bodice ripper novels from her living time, “Probably his sister? We are talking about Baby Pop, right? Since he ate Pariah and all?” 

“Indeed.” Fright Knight hovers in front of the portal, then drifts to the side slightly, “Go then, Bard of the King’s chosen council, who gathered knowledge for his ascendancy. I am tasked with his protection and I cannot protect the King nor his Regent Queen, bring them to me, or knowledge of their other protectors.” 

Ember really feels like the new title is cool, but not a great sign, actually. Still, she flits through the portal in search of literally anything to explain what had happened. 

The answer is that Amity was blown up by Baby Pop’s psycho folks, and all of them are missing. Ember gets the new job of coordinating between the mostly humans and newly dead of the town that Baby Pop had protected, had made his haunt, and an increasingly furious Fright Knight. 

The Court of the Phantom King forms slowly. Baby Pop isn't the king of the whole Realms, they don’t need it, but enough of the realms that had answered to Pariah have declared loyalty to Danny, and the ones that were loyal to Danny have doubled down. “Leader, more than king, but important all the same”, is how Frostbite puts it, from his claimed position as Healer and Advisor. 

Then they get Jazz and Ellie back. No one is happy about it, even if they’re all relieved. Jazz is dead, all the way dead, liminal and contaminated since birth, and violently killed enough that the power contained in her still forming core impresses Fright Knight. She isn’t awake when they bring her to Frostbite and they can still already feel her protective fury and sheer will. 

Ellie has partially destabilized and attached to Jazz in such a way that she will likely reform as more of a baby ghost than a full halfa. Fright Knight has taken to cradling Ellie’s cracked core close as if he could protect her from every past trauma himself. 

Ember is there when Jazz wakes up all the way, in the center of Parih’s keep. 

She is there when she feels the fundamental shift that she’s sure that only the Elder’s and Clockwork saw coming, maybe Pandora. 

“No more,” she says, hisses, in a voice of pure maternal crackling fury, “No more.” 

The Keep of the King reforms around her. The Observatory, half formed in preparation for Danny shifts into a library tower, a nursery grows out of the west wing, already cradling Fright Knight and Ellie, and the Courtyard grows a garden of beautiful flowers and herbs surrounded by a shifting maze of hedges, vengeful shades patrolling its thorned corridors. 

If Ember squints the hedges look like the neurological patterns from her old high school textbook from Psychology. 

The Queen’s keep is a Sanctum, a Sanctuary, and Jazz gasps in a ragged breath and shatters into sobs. Her twisted, tangled braids of teal and red hair trail behind her, lengthening as Ember hugs her, as if her hair is crying with her. 

Fright Knight steps in quietly, Ellie cradled in his arms, “Orders, my Regent?” 

“No. No, I am your queen. I will not let my brother take this crown, neither of them, nor my sister. They are children, it is too much. I am the Queen.” 

“Orders, my Queen,” he corrects, and Jazz looks at him, tears evident, and she bares her fangs, mouth bristling with them and she blazes fury out strong enough to fuel bloodlust across the Realms themselves. 

Ember feels it and lets it sing through her. It is a gift, this strength of honest anger and righteous fury, it will power many ghosts. 

“The liminals will work on the mortal side, I will have Wes assist them inn exchange for him setting this all in motion, whether he meant to or not he did. We will work here.” Jazz curls her clawed fingers into the bed she lay in shredding both the mattress and the stone fram under it. 

“The Realms are out of balance with their Mortal Mirror, and themselves. I want that fixed. I want my siblings safe here, or there. I want the Mortal realm safe for them, and when they eventually decide they are ready to come home to me, it will be safe here.” 

Ember can see a lot of room for her to fight in there, and she likes that, “How can I help?” 

Jazz looks at her, and Ember gets the unsettling feeling that Jazz is looking through her, through time, through what should be done, not at her at all. 

Jazz tilts her head to the side, so suddenly and sharply that Ember winces. Either Jazz has neglected to regrow a spine or she has rebroken it. 

“Take Wulf. The GiW has captured two beings they ought not have, and many more besides. Raid them, bleed them dry. Leve them no one they can cut apart.” 

Ember nods slowly. That sounds like she might like to take Skulker with her, and maybe Technus, for backup. Doable though. 

Frenzy would like to know when exactly he got caught up in one of his cousin’s crazy stories, and why Barricade had been dragged along. Sure his new clan cousin had a weird sigma ability, a human form was bizarre, but this was the right planet for it, but the capture by mutual association crazies was just rude. 

This was just meant to a short drive to catch up with Barricade, share the trashy music they both liked from the humans that Rumble hated, and talk slag about other deceptions. now he was being held by his chassis bar as leverage to get Barricade to behave and go in a cell. 

Humiliatingly it was working. Frenzy couldn’t get the momentum to swing around to land a hit on the human, and no one was as flexible as Ravage. The stupid human giggling as she threw him in the cell after Barricade was just the cherry on top of his utter ruination of his reputation. 

Frenzy took a few precious kliks to curse at the door before he trailed off. The odd green glow around the edge reminded him of Danny, which was not a god thing given how terrified his cousin was of nearly everything from before he was adopted by Jazz. 

The green increased into a high pitched whining shrill and Frenzy lunged to the side. He saw Barricade follow suit just in time for the door to hoist the opposite wall, hard. A girl, same hight as Danny’s organic form floated in the doorway, with her hands on her hips. 

“Wulf!” She called over her shoulder, “Portal time, got’em, let’s go!” 

A floating beast leaned in and grumbled something nonsensical at her. The girl tossed her flames like they were hair. They didn’t move. 

“Fine, send them home then. Technus is gonna send this place sky high, and Skulks and I are gonna be killing as many of these nutcases for sport before he does. Honesty. You saw what they did! To Jazziepop, and Itsy Pop, and Baby Pop, and all’a them.” 

The beast wavers and says something else, then tears a massive gaping hole in reality in the air. It’s green and brackish. It looks like a ground bridge, if a ground bridge were inside out an also designed by an overcharged engineer. Barricade presses himself against the wall, and tucks Frenzy close. 

“Yeah, yeah, hunt the child torturers for sport with us. Ain’t like anyone with sense is gonna care. And Jazziepop’s lil boost will let us.” The girl looks at them, “Hey! Go home. Back to your weird ship or whatever. We’ve gotta kill humans what think its fine to hurt folks. Honestly, don’t matter if it’s called a spark or a core, why would you cut a kid’s out?” 

The beast shrugs, and Frenzy decides he doesn’t want to find out if the kid in question was him or Danny the hard way. He and Barricade take the fragged up ground bridge out. It’s safer. 

[Something is happening.] 

It blinks in Jazz’s inbox, and Mirage leans over Jazz’s shoulder, equally stumped. They’ve been trying to puzzle out the cryptic message from Soundwave for a day now. He hasn’t answered any of their clarification query pings. 

[Something is happening.] 

They have more immediate issues of course. Echo, avoiding any questions about his past, but embracing every tidbit of Cybertronian culture and history he can get. Jazz is worried he’ll lose his roots, something that is important to the bitling, even if he’s Polyhexian too now. 

Sam’s continued aggression with everyone save what she called her fraid, which consisted of Val, Tucker, Danny, and Echo, no one else. She tolerated Hound since he’d argue environmental issues with her, and Beachcomber for the same. She seemed to have an odd hatred of Mirage, and had attempted to stab him twice, and succeeded a third. 

Tucker had the same overdeveloped technopathy as Soundwave, and nowhere near the same control. None of them knew how to help, and Tucker himself had no interest in reigning himself in. 

Val had an ongoing rivalry with the twins, would spar with them, fight in the halls, insult and catcall, and prank, and as well as Sideswipe took it, Sunstreaker only liked the spars. Sunstreaker was also extremely wary of both Echo and protective of Sideswipe around Sam, which made the hallway fights much more fraught. 

[Something is happening.] 

The message isn’t high priority, not really. There is a lot happening that is much higher priority. Soundwave always follows up the few times in this long war that he’s been forced to reach out though, and promptly. 

Jazz looks at the metdata under the message again, it hasn’t changed. It’s still an ancient prewar poem, from Megatron’s gladiator days. It wasn’t even one of his better ones. 

{The Dreamer sees the Best in the World,

The World has more than that. 

The Dreamer sees the worst, 

And no longer does he dream.}

Jazz pings a new response to Soundwave. 

[Is this a defection?] 

This of all things garners a response, and Jazz feels his processor begin took ache behind his optics as he reads the response. Mirage groans behind him, equally frustrated.  

[No.] 

It clarifies nothing. The metadata is blank this time, and Jazz closes out of his external inbox. If Soundwave wants to give a proper warning, he will, until then, they are busy. All of them. The mechlings are a servofull, and that was before they had Lennox’s weird experts setting up on base. 

The lot of them are making everyone edgy, and even Jazz has found himself passing a few of the human’s here to look at the shades for categorization purposes and found himself deactivating battle protocols. Red Alert has already disallowed them from the Ark. 

The Ghost Investigation Ward were perfectly professional so far as anyone could tell, even were providing resources where they’d researched in other places already. Jazz didn’t know why every instinct he had was telling him to take the kids and book it. 

[Something is happening.] 

Yes, Jazz thinks, something is. He sure doesn’t know what, though. 

Val goes to find her new fight buddy. It feels important to get as much practice in right now as she can. They all feel that way, Wes especially, which is making it all that much worse. 

All of them except Dan and Danny and the Baby, or Echo and Sephie, which Dan has chosen and Danny calls the Baby with the tablet. Sephie doesn't sound right, but none of them know what does. 

No one begrudges Echo for being left out of Wes’s weird Fight Club network energy either, or Danny. They’re kids, and they’re here to keep Danny safe. He’s more kid-like here, they all are, but Wes flickers between them like an anchor to rational thought, keeping them from slipping into the mindset of little kids that Echo and Danny have. 

During the immediate aftermath of the fallout Ember had walked them through basic prayers and requests for an ancient’s blessing. Danny knowing so many of them helped. Normally, for a ghost, all it did was a minor boost in a territory dispute or an obsession fight. 

For Liminals, it was different. 

Val had to get as much practice in as she could for what was coming as she could, so did Sam and Tucker. They didn’t know what was coming, only that it was, through Wes’s anticipation and stress, and that it was going to be bad. 

“Pandora, Solus, Prime of Warriors, grant me your strength, that I may be a weapon in my own arsenal,” she mutters, and the rush of strength through her core is heady. Her biolights gleam purple and she bares her fangs at her sparring buddy. He sighs back at her and jerks his head at the door. 

She follows him to the fighting room, the golden brother following them, his head all fixed by now. Echo regrets doing that, she knows. He won’t apologize though, as prideful as the mech he injured. 

The door slides shut and Val throws herself forward into a punch at her sparring buddy’s face. He dodges into her sidekick and she has to duck Sunstreaker’s first swipe with a gleeful laugh. 

They won’t have long before Ironhide comes looking. 

She clings to the strength of Pandora Solus filling her core, and to Wes anchoring her mind, long fractured by the fall of her town and death of her father, and she swings a haymaker at Sideswipe, vicious and mean. 

Her core bubbles, deep within her, filled with hot rage, and fiery obsession, and old, ancient grudges. She grins as she feels the first flexing of her protocore in this form, magma bubbling at the edges of her plating, dripping to the floor, and she expanded her size and shrank again just a smidgen. 

Grew as she cooled again, venting deeply, and shrinks as she banked her fury into a fire, melty at her edges. She bares her teeth at her new friends in a mockery of a smile and flames lick behind her fangs. 

“What are you?” Sideswipe asks, pure confusion coloring his tone, as he hops over a sweeping kick and tries to flip her. 

“Something long dead that lived anyways,” She spits out, “Do we all need new names, you reckon? Like how Dan got stuck with Echo?” 

“Uh,” Sunstreaker grunts as he takes a hit, distracted, to his chassis, and hits back, twice as hard, “You could? I think it’s short for Requiem.” 

“Fitting. I’ll be Eris Typhon.” 

Sideswipe pulls back from the fight to stare at her for a solemn moment, “Do you want us to call you that?” 

“Oh, Ancients, no. Just thought I’d let you know. Wes thinks it’ll be important eventually.” 

Sunstreaker punches her again and Val swings back into the fight with a wild laugh. By the time Ironhide shows up to seperate them all three have to go to the medbay. Again. 

It’s worth it. She’s getting better. She’s hasn’t got long now. Tucker’s been practicing with his dusty underground minds and computers, and Sam has been playing with her plants, and her fancy words, but Val’s a fighter. So she fights.