Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘Clank!’ ‘Clak!’ ‘Clank!’

“Faster, you bumbling scrapheap!” Starscream’s screeching voice rings out. “Even a rusted-processor scraplet can do better work than you lot!”

XB-143 briefly glances up from his work, spotting Starscream pacing at the front of the mine.

The seeker’s wings shoot straight up, twitching occasionally—whether from frustration, anxiousness, or a mix of both, XB-143 couldn’t say. Not that he particularly wants to find out.

‘Pang!’

Watching as Starscream throws a pebble at one of his fellow drones, XB-143 quickly returns to work.

Ever since the warlord’s sudden return, the seeker has been in a mood—not as bad as some of Lord Megatron’s dark energon-induced frenzies, but bad enough that most drones give Starscream a wide berth.

‘Pak!’ ‘Pak!’ ‘Pak!’ ‘Pak!’

As XB-143 busies himself, he can still picture Starscream stomping somewhere behind him toward one of the other drones.

Trying to look as occupied as possible, he focuses on his work and does his best not to turn around. Even a bot like him knows better than to mess with that seeker when he’s in a mood.

Hours of mining later, XB-143 leans against one of the cavern’s walls, inspecting his servos. When he flexes his digits, the joints grind against the metal with a sharp, unpleasant scrape. Waving his servo to shake off the discomfort, he sighs and makes a mental note to visit the medbay later—assuming the doctor isn’t busy or, worse, in one of his experimental phases.

“—which is when I said, ‘Your helm is in the gutters,’” Steve says, cutting into XB-143’s thoughts.

Steve chuckles to himself, though the sound quickly turns into an awkward cough when no one responds.

“Sorry,” XB-143 apologizes, tilting his helm to one side. “I didn’t notice you were there.”

Nodding, Steve pats XB-143 on the shoulder a few times before excusing himself.

As Steve quietly walks away, XB-143 hears him mutter something along the lines of, “Shockwave really did a number on the next generation.”

“Eh, I don’t see what the problem is,” another drone says, joining Steve. “Sure, they lost some things, but they look normal for the most part.”

Shrugging to himself, XB-143 pushes off the wall. Scanning the area for a pickaxe, he decides to get back to work before Starscream storms into the mine and throws him into the nearest lava pit—or something just as unpleasant.

As he grabs a pickaxe and prepares to continue, a message pings in his communication line.

“Some of you stay here,” Starscream shouts from outside the mine. “The rest of you, we’re returning to the Nemesis. Lord Megatron has inexplicably decided we need to retract for an important meeting.”

‘Fwoosh!’

A portal suddenly opens beside XB-143, nearly startling the drone backward. Before he can even think to react—if he was going to at all—Starscream is already shoving his way into the mine toward the portal.

“Stupid Soundwave,” the seeker mutters. “I swear he’s trying to piss me off by putting the groundbridge in here.”

XB-143 watches as Starscream strides through the groundbridge. He waits until a few of his fellow drones step through before following behind them.

Standing beside a cluster of other drones, XB-143 looks toward the front of the meeting center.

There, he spots a pile of strange, dark purple energon crystals.

One of the drone groups sent out to scout for new energon stands before the pile. Unlike him and most of the drones nearby, these have a sleek, polished sheen across their plating instead of scuffed or dirt-marred metal. Paired with their two sleek, silvery wings, it only makes the jealousy radiating from his fellow drones worse.

At the center of it all stands Megatron, holding a crystal almost the size of XB-143’s helm.

XB-143 watches as the warlord turns the crystal between his sharp digits, examining it carefully.

“Where did you say you found these?” Megatron finally speaks, his glower fixed on the drones standing before the energon pile.

“These are some of the samples we obtained from that mine—the one near a human settlement,” the drone at the forefront answers. “We’re not sure how it happened, but something caused the crystals to darken in color compared to most of the ones we’ve harvested so far. That, and…”

As the drone’s voice drifts from one audible range to the next, XB-143 lets his processor wander.

A sudden, blinding flash erupts from the pile of crystals, making it feel as though XB-143’s optics are about to sear from their sockets.

“What the—?!” Megatron’s voice rings out. “What is this?! Starscream?!”

“I don’t know, master,” Starscream says, his screechy voice edging toward a shriek. “It’s not my fault this time.”

As the light fades, XB-143 resets his optics several times. Scanning his surroundings, he detects no changes—no changes except…

Turning his helm back toward the front, XB-143 stares at the pile of energon crystals. If he could raise his eye ridges, they’d be halfway to his helm with what greets him.

Instead of the dark energon crystals that had been there before, the pile now glows with the familiar, almost comforting blue of regular energon.

The crystals themselves look almost purer—more potent, somehow. Something about them makes XB-143’s tanks churn with hunger despite having his ration several hours ago, which, in the drone’s honest opinion, isn’t enough to power him through most of the day.

“What the—?!” Megatron shouts, stomping toward the pile of crystals. “Is this some kind of joke?!”

Swiveling his helm around, the warlord bares his fangs at the rest of his soldiers. Some of the drones beside XB-143 flinch and lean back slightly.

“Perhaps it’s some kind of trick by the Autobots,” Starscream suggests, slinking toward the now-transformed pile of energon. “Maybe some kind of human trick or technology? It was found near one of those fleshy settlements.”

Soundwave stands off to the side, seemingly content with typing something into the computer.

The other drones, however, don’t seem to be too aware of the sight that is the command officers in front of them. Many besides XB-143 seem more focused on the pile of energon at the front.

"That much energon," a voice says, "I could fill my tanks with it for a week and still have enough to fill a wide hole to swim across."

"They look so good," another says, "...do you think any of the commands will share it?"

"You're joking, right?" someone else whispers. "They're probably just hogging it all to themselves again or blowing it up!"

As the others remain distracted, oohing and aahing over the new minerals—or something else—XB-143 catches a glimpse of something with a soft pink color from the corner of his optics.

Quickly swiveling his helm toward the direction, XB-143 sees only blank space. Raising an eyebrow, the drone stares at the spot for a moment before looking away.

“Eh ah?” A small cry rings out, barely audible to the drone. “Nehhehe.”

Looking around at his fellow drones, XB-143 notices their attention is fully focused on the front. 

Scratching the back of his helm, XB-143 wonders if he imagined it—or maybe it's some bot playing a prank on him.

“Ahh?” The small voice cries out again. “Ehhehe?”

Swiveling his helm sharply to the right, XB-143 curls his servo into a fist, preparing to knock some sense into the bot playing the trick on him.

As the drone turns around, XB-143 feels his entire frame freeze. On the far side of the ship’s wall, the farthest point from the drone, he spots what appears to be a speck of something pinkish. 

Zooming in reveals a human baby perched atop the large crevice in the wall. 

‘The frag is that?’ The drone thought blankly. 

Staring at the organic being, XB-143 feels his processor short-circuit at the sight. For the first time, something rattles the drone enough to stir emotions.

Chapter Text

Resetting his optics several times, XB-143 feels his processor glitching as it struggles to make sense of what he is seeing.

“Hey, XB-143,” a voice calls from beside him as a hand waves across his view. “You there?”

Jerking out of his self-induced crash, XB-143 turns to the drone beside him.

“You scared me there,” the drone says with a sigh. “You were just standing there motionless for a while.”

Glancing around quickly, XB-143 notices that he and the other drone are the only ones left in the room.

“The others already left,” the drone adds, answering XB-143’s unspoken question. “We’re the only ones here.”

Slowly raising a servo, XB-143 points a digit toward the baby as he turns back to the other drone.

“Are you seeing this?” XB-143 asks. “How did that thing get in here?”

The other drone tilts his helm and looks in the direction XB-143 is pointing, the two wheels on his shoulders shifting slightly to opposite sides.

“Uh… XB?” the drone says slowly. “There’s nothing there, though.”

Tensing his shoulders, XB-143 gestures aggressively at the spot where he saw the baby.

 “What do you mean? There’s clearly a human thing there!”

“See?” XB-143 insists, turning his head back toward the spot. “It should be—”

XB-143 pauses, staring silently at the wall. Instead of the human baby, there is only the same plain surface with the same crease line.

Resetting his optics, XB-143 slowly places a servo against the side of his helm. A part of him wonders if he should get a checkup—too many hits to the helm from Autobots and being thrown around like a ragdoll by Megatron might be catching up to him.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” the other drone asks, tilting his helm to one side. “Did too many hits to the helm mess up your processor, or something?”

Jerking back from the other drone, XB-143 makes a noise halfway between a grunt and a scoff.

 “Of course not,” he responds, somewhat surprising himself with the slight tinge of anger in his usually monotone voice. “Just because my production line was several years after yours doesn’t mean I am any less than—”

“Dave,” the other drone says. “My nickname is Dave.”

Crossing his arms, XB-143 shakes his helm.

 “First, it’s rude to interrupt a bot,” he says. “Second, no, it’s not. A nickname isn’t a name. Your name was—”

“Yeah, yeah,” the drone—Dave—interrupts again. “I just got lectured by another drone from your generation. I think my audials have had enough of that for one day.”

Staring down at the drone in front of him with the slightest annoyance, he is capable of feeling, XB-143 begins to walk away.

If there’s one thing XB-143 knows from his years of staying alive on this ship, it’s that there will always be idiots who cling to weird things. The best thing to do is ignore them and move on. Arguing with them is a waste of time.

Heading toward the entrance, XB-143 internally scans his HUD for the a list of work and other tasks requiring his attention.

‘Shiiek!’

The two doors slide open, revealing the usual desolate, metal hallway. As XB-143 walks past it, he navigates to one of the tasks and begins reading the description.

“Hey, wait up!” the other drone says, quickly catching up to him. “Jeez, you really don’t stop for any bot, do you?”

“Work waits for no one,” XB-143 replies, not sparing the other drone a passing glance. “After all, that is what we were made for.”

“Right…” the other drone says, letting his words trail off. “But what’s the point of working if you don’t enjoy life?”

Remaining silent, XB-143 continues to scan the list of tasks on his HUD, doing his best to ignore the other drone.

“Say,” Dave coughs, resetting his vocals. “A couple of us are planning this awesome energon party. What do you say to a few drinks and blacking out until the next day?”

Briefly glancing at the other drone, XB-143 regards him carefully.

 “No,” XB-143 answers. “Not only is it a waste of time, but also a waste of resources.”

“Please?” Dave pleads, clasping both servos together. “I’m sure you’ll like it. You don’t even have to join the drinking—you can just sit in the corner and do whatever it is your generation likes to do.”

Shaking his helm again, XB-143 pauses in his steps and turns to the other drone.

 “No, stop asking,” XB-143 says. “I do not want to involve myself in something so pointless—not now or ever.”

Turning away, XB-143 glances at the list of work on his HUD again.

 “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things requiring my attention,” he says, quickly marching away. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’ll have to decline.”

Several hours of hard work and a grueling day later, XB-143 manages to drag himself back to his quarters.

Stopping in front of his door, the drone uses both servos to push himself up with great effort.

Agonizing pain wracks his entire frame at the movement. Pebbles and debris that managed to sneak between his joints shift against his injuries, worsening the ache.

Leaning heavily against the wall, XB-143 stays still for a moment to gather himself. Turns out, being somewhat emotionless doesn’t stop him from feeling pain—an irritating fact he can’t help but find annoying at times.

Shaking off the discomfort, the drone begins typing in the code to his room.

Once inside, XB-143 will need several hours of patching up. He doubts the small stash of medical supplies he’s squirreled away will do much after the beating the Autobots gave him today—but the damage isn’t quite bad enough to justify a trip to the medbay.

With a glance at his HUD, XB-143 crosses one item off the list.

His current life isn’t ideal, but he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

As the drone’s door slides open, XB-143 dismisses the notifications cluttering his HUD.

His room is the same as always—plain metal berth, a small, empty desk on either side. The metal walls are the usual dark, unadorned interior, no different from any other room.

Yes, this is just how he likes it. Simple. Unchanging. Just a plain, normal room to rest in.

"Graaaahhhh!" The monster in the room roars, swinging its head wildly. "GRaaaaahhhh!"

The red, hulking creature thrashes, snapping its jaws frantically at him. Its bloodshot eyes bore down on XB-143 as it breathes in heavy, ragged bursts.

Behind the monster, the drone spots what looks like the same human baby he saw hours ago—clinging to its tail.

XB-143 stares blankly at the sight, resetting his optics several times.

He likes his normal, unchanging routine. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t seem to agree with him today.

Chapter Text

Staring at the sight before him, XB-143 feels his processor crash as it struggles to make sense of what’s happening.

The monster itself resembles one of the ancient organics XB-143 has seen before when peeking at his coworkers'' datapads. It has a large, almost triangular head with a somewhat proportional body. Its two twig-like arms each end in a single claw. That’s where the familiarity ends.

Its teeth resemble sharp, jagged daggers with a strange glint to them—XB-143 could swear they look plated in silver. These dagger-like teeth line the monster’s mouth, while the rest cluster behind in perfect rows along its gums.

What’s even stranger than the teeth are the scales along the monster’s back. They have a bright red color, unlike most animals on this planet that XB-143 has seen. There’s also a strange sheen to them, so that whenever it turned, the drone could have sworn there were sparks of fire.

“Kwwraaakkk!” the monster growls, lunging toward the drone.

His body sputters with sparks as he crawls away as fast as his pain-filled body will allow, distancing himself from the monster.

‘Bam!’

The monster slams its head against the entrance of the dorm, metal plates warping from the impact dent.

Despite the obvious barrier, the creature continues to snap its jaws repeatedly, trying in vain to reach XB-143.

‘Khiiieeek!’

The sharp pointy teeth, slide against the metal wall, casting sparks.

‘Bam!’

Rearing back, the monster slams into the wall again, further buckling and dislodging the metal plates.

Snapping out of his daze, XB-143 quickly shakes his helm. Raising his right servo—the one not seriously damaged—the drone aims it at the monster.

‘Kik!’ ‘Klak!’ Kik!’

Transforming his servo into a blaster, energy gathers along the internal barrel, warming the metal as it charges up.

‘Bam!’

The wall bulges, threatening to tear apart, dust and debris raining down all around him. With a steadfast spark, XB-143 aims, preparing to blast the monster.

Right before the drone could discharge the weapon, a bright light emitting from behind the monster, illuminating everything in optic searing brightness, momentarily blinding XB-143.

The light surrounds everything in a blinding white that could sear anybot’s optics.

“AHHHHHKKKKK!!!!” the monster roars, almost loud enough to blow out XB-143’s audibles.

When the light finally recedes, the drone quickly turns back to the sight before him. The monster has vanished, leaving no trace except for the dents in the metal walls.

A human baby sits where the monser once was, sucking on one of its digits.

“Gah?” The baby glances up at XB-143 with wide eyes.

Marching toward the spymaster’s office, XB-143 moves with such grace that one would never guess he had been used as a ragdoll by the Autobots earlier in the day.

Stopping beside the door, XB-143 cups the human baby with one servo while raising the other to the metal.

‘Kpok!’ ‘Kpok!’ ‘Kpok!’ 

Knocking on the door several times, XB-143 patiently waits for it to open. Despite his calm, neutral manner, the drone feels like he’s bursting inside from all sorts of… feelings after what recently happened.

As the seconds tick by with no response from inside the room, XB-143’s endless patience soon turns peevish.

Raising his servo again, the drone prepares to knock once more.

‘Shiekkk!’

The door to Soundwave’s office suddenly slides open, making XB-143 hurriedly lower his servo.

Gathering himself, the drone places his servo behind his back and gives Soundwave a slight bow.

“XB-143.” The voice of random clippings suddenly emits from Soundwave. “What. Brings. You here?”

“Good evening, Soundwave,” XB-143 greets. “My apologies for the late visit.”

Despite having encountered Soundwave several times before, the drone still feels a familiar knot of tension coil within him. For one thing—it’s Soundwave. The fact that he’s also part of the Decepticon higher command doesn’t make their interactions any easier.

Emotionless or not, meeting with a superior always triggers nerves. It seems even Shockwave’s conditioning couldn’t fully erase that response.

Slowly straightening himself, XB-143 extends his servo, revealing the human baby cradled within it.

“I’m sure you’ve already noticed from surveillance, but earlier, something strange happened,” the drone begins, shifting his servo slightly to draw attention to the baby. “I don’t know what’s going on, but this… thing seems to be part of it.”

Instead of responding, Soundwave tilts his helm slightly to one side.

“Even before I returned to my room, there was… this,” XB-143 continues, pointing a digit at the baby. “I’m not sure what to call it, but it keeps popping up.”

Letting his servo fall to his side, XB-143 meets Soundwave’s mask, trying in vain to decipher any emotions from the other bot. As usual, it is unreadable—almost rivaling Shockwave at times.

Taking the other bot’s continued silence as agreement, the drone continues.

“What’s even more surprising is what I found when I returned to my quarters,” XB-143 says. “Imagine my surprise when I found some kind of monster that looks like one of those ancient organics from this planet’s pictures.”

With a tired sigh, the drone places a servo on his hip. “While it’s not too bad, my room is a bit of a mess at the moment. I—”

Soundwave suddenly holds up a servo in front of XB-143’s optics as the words STOP flash in bold letters across the drone’s screen.

“You. Part of. Today mine?” Soundwave asks through a series of voice clips. “Part of. Casualties?”

“Yes?” The drone replies, his usual monotone voice carrying a slight tinge of confusion.

“Your helm. Looking pretty banged up,” Soundwave notes, pointing a digit at XB-143’s head. “Autobots did?”

“Yes,” XB-143 answers with a nod. “But I don’t see how any of this is relevant to the—”

A notification suddenly pops up on the drone’s HUD, making XB-143 pause mid-sentence.

It’s a clearance order, granting him permission to go to the medbay for a check-up. Below it, a note highly recommends he get his helm injuries examined—specifically his processor.

Slowly looking up at Soundwave, the drone stares at him blankly.

“Knock Out. Not the best medic, but,” Soundwave says, crossing his arms. “He gets the job done. Should be able to fix that dent. Processor.”

A long silence follows Soundwave’s statement as XB-143 slowly lets the words sink in.

“I’m not crazy!” XB-143 blurts out. “There really was a monster in my room!”

At the tilt of Soundwave’s helm— which the drone guesses is supposed to convey doubt— XB-143 feels a surge of frustration course through his circuits.

“Look!” The drone says, pointing a digit at the human baby cradled in his servo. “If you’re not going to believe me about the monster, then what about the baby?”

Instead of responding how XB-143 expects, Soundwave simply lets out a long sigh—the same one the commander usually makes when dealing with Starscream.

“There is nothing there,” Soundwave answers, shaking his helm. “What am I even supposed to be looking at?”

XB-143 resets his audials several times, swiveling his helm back and forth between the baby and Soundwave.

In the back of his processor, he feels something begin to glitch.

Deciding not to push the matter further, XB-143 looks away from Soundwave. His optics wander around the spymaster’s office, where several computers and screens hang from the walls. Many display video surveillance of familiar hallways, rooms, and other areas.

Consequences be damned, XB-143 pushes Soundwave out of the way and marches into the room.

“Hey. Hey. Hey,” Soundwave says from behind him. “Stop! Whatchu doing?”

Moving toward the surveillance computers, XB-143 begins scanning for the one that matches his room.

After a bit of searching—and digging his pedes into the floor to avoid being dragged out by Soundwave—the drone finally spots it on one of the lower-left monitors.

“See,” XB-143 says, jerking his helm toward the screen. “Just pressed rewind on that one.”

Pausing mid-pull, Soundwave flashes an impressed emoji across his mask. After a moment, the spymaster relents with a long, weary sigh.

“If it will get you to stop—crazy, crazy!” Soundwave says, pushing XB-143 toward the controls. “Promise me you’ll leave? Annnnndddd head to the medbay!”

“Of course,” XB-143 quickly agrees, unconsciously covering the servo holding the human baby as he’s shoved aside. “I promise I will leave you to your devices.”

The spymaster lets out another sigh before typing a series of codes into the controls.

Watching the bot somewhat impatiently, XB-143 taps his pede as he waits for Soundwave to finish. The drone glances down at the baby on his servo, half-surprised it’s still asleep despite the commotion.

After a few moments, the computer of interest begins to slowly rewind the video on its screen.

“There,” XB-143 says, pointing. “Pause there.”

The screen freezes on the moment where XB-143 can be seen dragging himself toward his quarters, a pool of energon trailing behind him.

XB-143 watches as the video resumes, letting the scene play out again. With a strange sense of nervousness, he leans in slightly as the door on-screen slowly slides open to reveal… absolutely nothing.

Resetting his optics several times, the drone stares in stunned stupor as he watches himself transform his servo into a blaster, aiming it toward the empty room with visible agitation.

“What?” the drone gasps. “That’s not—how?”

A servo suddenly pats XB-143 on the shoulder, making him nearly jump in alarm.

Slowly turning around to face the offender, XB-143 watches as Soundwave flashes him a tired emoji.

 “Now, you satisfied?” Soundwave asks, tilting his helm to one side. “Please. Leave me.”

“I swear it was there!” XB-143 cries out. “There was a—a thing there! I saw it with my own optics!”

At Soundwave’s continued silence, the drone quickly breathes in and out, trying to calm himself.

“This is not a prank!” XB-143 says, “Or something of that equivalent. It’s literally impossible for me! Do you think I would lie to you?”

Instead of responding, Soundwave remains silent. Another pop-up suddenly appears in XB-143’s HUD with a message that reads: Do you want my help escorting you to the medbay?

“No, I promise I’m not crazy!” XB-143 insists. “I’m not!”

‘Shieek!’

As the door slides open, XB-143 suddenly finds himself being shoved out of the room.

“Get. Some. Rest,” Soundwave instructs, using clippings of Megatron’s voice. “I can’t. Escort! You to medbay. Because of. Work. Go there yourself!”

‘Shieek!’

Before the drone can protest any further, the doors slide closed, locking XB-143 out of the room.

Left alone in the hallway again, XB-143 slowly glances down at the now very-much-awake organic on his servo.

“Bah!” the baby cries out, way too cheerfully.

Chapter Text

When XB-143 finally makes it back to his room, the first thing he does is dump the baby into a random box on his desk.

As annoying as it is that Soundwave didn’t believe a single word he said, he can’t even blame the bot. At this point, even he’s starting to question his own sanity.

‘Kok!’ ‘Kok!’ ‘Kok!’ ‘Kok!’

Ignoring the banging coming from the box, XB-143 gets himself onto the berth, preparing to recharge.

Despite the weird incident that happened, the drone is committed to pretending that nothing occurred and going on with his life. After all, the best way to deal with problems is to to let them brush over you until they’re no longer there.

As the drone lies down, a part of him considers taking the baby to Shockwave.

The image of a familiar drone who somehow manages to exude optimism briefly flashes across his processor.

Shaking his helm, XB-143 quickly dismisses the memory as a shudder runs down the length of his back.

Curling his servos into fists, the drone stares straight at the metal wall of his room.

‘No,’ XB-143 thinks. ‘Even if Primus himself drags me, I refuse to subject myself to his presence unless absolutely necessary.’

‘Kok!’ ‘Kok!’ ‘Kok!’ ‘Kok!’

Casting a brief glance at his desk, XB-143 lets out a small huff.

Too bad there isn’t a way to send that thing to the cyclops without being there. That scientist deserves to have his audibles blasted into oblivion.

Lying down on the berth, the drone tries to ignore the constant knocking and scratching. Many of his systems are already in the process of shutting down for recharge.

Right before XB-143 closes his optics, the knocking stops.

 “WAHHHHHHH!!!”

Staring up at the familiar metal ceiling, XB-143 feels an insurmountable wave of anger and exhaustion—more than he ever has in his entire life.

 “WAHHHHHHH!!!” The baby continues to cry, somehow not losing strength throughout the entire night.

Letting out a long sigh, the drone glances at the time on his HUD and realizes it’s almost time for his shift.

 With extreme reluctance, XB-143 rolls himself off the berth.

‘Bam!’

Landing on the metal floor, the drone continues to lie there, fighting the urge to close his optics.

 “WAHHHHHHH!!!”

 Another alert pops up on his HUD, reminding him again of his shift. Barely giving the notification a glance, XB-143 slowly slams his helm against the floor repeatedly.

Propping a servo on the ground, the drone gathers all his remaining strength and willpower to push himself up.

 “Maybe I can get something to stay awake,” XB-143 mutters, marching toward his quarter’s door. “Or sneak in a wink of recharge when the Autobots show up. No bot would notice a drone napping during all the chaos.”

As he approaches the door, the baby’s cries gradually fade into soft hiccups. The small break in noise immediately brings a sense of peace and calmness to XB-143’s audibles.

‘Shiek!’

The door slides open, revealing the outside hallway. Breathing in deeply, XB-143 gathers himself and steps one pede out of the room.

“WAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” the baby cries out.

The force of the baby's cries is strong enough to create a shockwave.

‘Sazik!’

XB-143’s audibles immediately short-circuit as his body is sent flying to the other side of the wall.

Several hours later, after trying to pull out the dents and patch his frame up as best as possible, XB-143 finally manages to drag himself to the mess hall.

He holds one servo up, palm spread out, with the human baby resting on top of it. To say the baby immediately makes a fuss is an understatement. XB-143 doesn’t know how, but the thing always— always —throws a tantrum whenever he’s even slightly out of a certain radius.

Glancing down at the baby, the drone watches it with wary eyes. The human lies dangerously close to one of his digits, right between the ends of two metal plates where a cluster of wires is exposed. Seemingly unbothered by the potential harm—or by XB-143’s exhausted state—the baby continues to nibble absentmindedly on one of his digits. The drone winces every time the baby’s teeth press down.

"Are human teeth supposed to be this sharp?" XB-143 mutters. "And what’s so interesting about the wires in my joints?"

Holding his servo a little closer, the drone tilts his helm slightly to one side. As annoying as the nibbling is, XB-143 can’t help but feel a flicker of fascination at the fact that the human baby is still chewing on his wires—without being burned to a crisp, that is.

He might not know much, but XB-143 is pretty sure most organics on this planet can’t survive electricity coursing through their veins.

Trying to contain his wincing, the drone slowly enters the mess hall.

The interior looks the same as any other place on the ship, outfitted with black metal walls and flooring. At the forefront are several dispensers—boxy, square machines with points almost as sharp and jagged as the ones on Megatron. Each dispenser has a line of three to four bots waiting.

Randomly picking one of the lines, XB-143 stands behind another drone. The moment he steps into place, the drone in front of him gives him a look before turning away.

Ignoring the glances, XB-143 patiently waits in line, trying not to fall into recharge. The only thing keeping him awake is the occasional pain from having his wires nibbled on.

“XB-143,” a voice suddenly calls out from behind him. “There you are!”

Not bothering to turn around, XB-143 continues to stare straight ahead, more focused on the slowly moving line.

“Hey,” the owner of the voice stops beside him. “Phew, managed to catch up with you. For a moment there, I thought you were actively ignoring me.”

Barely sparing the other drone a glance, XB-143 simply moves when the line begins to advance.

“Ah, the silent treatment again,” the annoying drone continues. “I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean, but it must be quite serious. Don’t worry, I can talk enough for the both of us.”

Seemingly unaware of the hints, the annoying newcomer continues to buzz around him like a persistent fly. With a human baby still nibbling on his wires like no tomorrow and some random drone is hovering around, it almost makes XB-143 want to pull out his spark.

“Wow, you look a lot more lifeless than usual,” the drone says as it circles XB-143. “You’re not gonna fall over from a gust of wind, are you?”

“No,” XB-143 answers as the line moves up slightly. “I assure you, my make isn’t that shoddy that I’d keel over and die from some breeze, uh…”

“It’s Dave,” the other drone supplies. “My nickname is Dave.”

“No, it’s—”

Pausing mid-sentence, XB-143 lets out a long sigh as the memory of this exact conversation flashes across his processor.

“Never mind,” XB-143 says flatly, deciding not to start another argument about a nickname that will go nowhere. “Yes, you’re Dave. Happy?”

As the line moves forward again, XB-143 quickly steps along, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the other drone.

Dave, of course, doesn’t take that hint either and keeps pace with XB-143, continuing his chatter.

Enduring the barrage of words, XB-143 does his best to let it all wash over him, focusing instead on the ache in the servo holding the baby.

Somehow, there’s a drone denser than a rock when it comes to social interaction—even denser than one who popped off the assembly line emotionless. XB-143 didn’t even know that was possible.

When they finally reach the front of the line, XB-143 can’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

Standing before him is the dispenser machine—an unremarkable thing with a single button and a nozzle underneath. Beside it, a small counter juts out slightly, holding a neatly stacked pile of square, cup-like containers.

Using his left servo, XB-143 reaches for one of the containers.

“Hey, what’s up with your servo?” Dave suddenly asks. “You’ve been holding it like that for a while.”

“I got a cramp,” XB-143 lies casually, his voice flatter than the flooring beneath him. “It hurts to try and put it down.”

Technically, it isn’t a lie. The moment he so much as lowers his servo, the baby will probably throw another tantrum—one he would rather not deal with right now.

Grabbing a container, XB-143 places it under the nozzle and presses the button on the machine.

‘Krrrrrr!’

Watching as the energon slowly fills the container, XB-143 impatiently taps his pede. Alerts flash across his HUD, reminding him how little time he has.

“Oh, wow,” Dave suddenly gasps beside him. “They’re here.”

Casting a brief glance behind him, XB-143 watches as some of the drones with wings begin to file into the mess hall.

As usual, their well-kept and polished metal plates gleam dangerously whenever the light hits them just right. Their wings are sharp but finely smoothed out—it’s like staring at a perfect, well-sculpted statue.

Some of the other drones, the ones without wings, glance up at the newcomers. Their expressions range from admiration and awe to hints of envy. But the most prominent emotion of all is a faint undercurrent of resentment and hostility.

Looking away with a shake of his helm, XB-143 lets out a quiet huff.

Maybe it’s because he can’t feel much, but he’ll never understand why drones with wings aren’t well-liked by others with a similar build to his own.

‘Kirrruk!’

When the container is finally filled almost to the brim, XB-143 slowly closes his servo around it and picks up his ration.

The baby in his other servo suddenly pauses in its nibbling, glancing up at the container with wide eyes. For some reason, the look immediately sets off something in him—something XB-143 can’t quite place his digits on.

“Wow, those Eradicons look as shiny as ever,” Dave murmurs beside him. “I bet they’d still sparkle even while rolling in the dirt.”

Without glancing away from the creepy eyes the baby is giving his energon, XB-143 slowly moves the servo holding the container farther away.

“That’s not possible,” XB-143 answers distractedly. “I’m pretty sure they just take better care of their frames.”

‘That, and it helps to have the same body frame as a certain commander,’ XB-143 thinks.

“Wait—Eradicons?” XB-143 says, jerking his helm toward Dave. “Who is what now?”

“Eradicons,” Dave repeats, tilting his helm to one side. “Those guys with the wings. Y’know.”

“No… I don’t. Is that some new term?”

“Really?” Dave says. “Wow, what are you? Some hermit crab recluse?”

A long moment of silence follows as XB-143 simply stares at the other drone.

“Okay, you kinda are, but I’m surprised you didn’t know, considering how often we use it,” Dave says. “We even mentioned it during that meeting yesterday. In fact—”

Already tuning out, XB-143 feels a slight pinch of annoyance—both at Dave and the fact that there are now more names he has to keep track of. 

This kind of thing wasn’t around when he was fresh off the factory line. Whatever bot thought it was a good idea deserves whatever comes their way.

As XB-143 starts to leave the line and make way for the drone behind him, a thought suddenly occurs to him.

“—oh, yeah, and those Eradicons were rolling in quite a lot of dirt too,” Dave’s voice drifts into XB-143’s audibles. “They said they had to cross over some backwater organic village—”

“Wait, what did you say?” XB-143 asks.

“Uh… that Megatron mentioned the word ‘Eradicons’ about a hundred times and counting?” Dave says in a confused voice.

“Not that,” XB-143 huffs. “I mean the part about the human village.”

“Ohhhh, that…”

As Dave continues to talk, XB-143’s processor is already spinning. One of his optics slowly drifts to the human baby in his servo.

Everything starts with the weird pile of energon crystals. Somehow along the way, those Eradicons— as they like to call themselves now—must have accidentally picked up this weird baby somewhere—

“Ahem,” a fake cough sounds out behind him. “Excuse me, but are you two done? We don’t have all day, y’know.”

Glancing behind him, XB-143 sees a long line of similar drones staring back at him with angry looks.

“Apologies,” XB-143 says, slowly stepping out of the line while nudging Dave along with him.

As XB-143 walks away, he can feel optics boring into his back. Instinctively, he strains his audibles to catch the murmurs and whispers.

“Aren’t those drones from that one generation line?” a voice whispers.

“Looks to be,” another whispers back.

“I don’t know what you mean. One of them looks pretty normal to me.”

“That one looks so creepy. I know we don’t really have faces, but how can one be so expressionless?”

“Don’t look at him! What if he suddenly decides to go all serial killer on us?”

Ignoring the murmurs from the inane drones, XB-143 continues walking away. He lets his audibles relax, allowing the words to flow past him as his processor begins to focus on solving his current problem.

Chapter Text

‘Bang!’ ‘Pew!’ ‘Pew!’ ‘Pew!’ 

Hiding behind some boulders deep within the mine, XB-143 schemes as the Autobots keep blasting away.

Pew!’ ‘Pew!’ ‘Pew!’ 

Dirt and debris rain down all around him, showering the drone in a powder of white. Some gather densely around his visor, making it harder to see.

Using a servo, XB-143 casually brushes some of the powder off—just enough to see.

A part of him is just glad that through all the noise and commotion, the baby somehow remains asleep, even after he spent several hours doing paperwork before being sent down to switch shifts with a couple of other drones. It allows him to tuck the baby inside his equivalent of a flier’s—more specifically, a seeker’s—cockpit, freeing his poor right servo.

“Jackie!” Some Autobot XB-143 hadn’t bothered remembering the name of calls out. “Some help over here.”

“A little busy over here, Bulkhead!”

‘Pew!’ ‘Pew!’ ‘Pew!’

XB-143 looks down at his servo, focusing on the joints connecting two of his digits.

The wires between them look like the work of a tiny scraplet—torn and frayed. Some of them give off faint sparks of electricity.

“Bulkhead, heads up!” some Autobot shouts. “Get ready for the shaker!”

Hearing his cue, the drone simply curls into a ball, making sure his vitals are shielded.

‘Boom!’

“Twenty in one!” some Autobot whoops. “That’s a new record!”

Uncurling from the fetal position, XB-143 continues to think, replaying Dave’s words several times in his processor.

From what XB-143 remembers, there were mentions of a village of humans from the group of winged drones—or Eradicons—who brought back that pile of energon crystals. If he can just get a hold of one of them, perhaps—

‘Boom!’

A bright light suddenly flashes as the ground vibrates beneath him. By the time his vision clears, he sees one of his fellow drones flying overhead.

‘Bam!’

The drone crashes in front of XB-143, looking like he just went through several rounds of a hurricane with lightning strikes in it.

 Most of the drone’s plates are charred, with smoke wafting from the metal. Sparks of electricity flicker across his body.

Using a pede, XB-143 gingerly moves toward the other drone.

Before the tip of XB-143’s pede can so much as touch him, the other suddenly springs up with a gasp.

 “You!” the drone gasps, pointing a digit at him.

Cocking his helm to one side, XB-143 regards the other drone carefully.

“The Autobots are outside, savagely pilfering our energon mine!” the drone says. “For the cause, we cannot allow them to advance further.”

As XB-143 watches him, a part of him lets out an internal groan.
Of all the drones he had to run into, it just had to be one of the diehard fans of Megatron and the Decepticons.

“Help me,” the other drone continues, his voice rising almost louder than the sound of the fighting. “If we work together, we are sure to fend them off.”

Putting a digit up, XB-143 frantically shakes his helm in a shushing motion.

“I know the situation seems grim, but reinforcements are coming,” the other drone continues, raising his voice even further. “We just need to hold on a little longer. Commander Starscream—”

Before the drone can say anything else, XB-143 suddenly grabs him and shakes him.

“Autobots-are-coming,” the drone manages to get out between shakes, somehow still not getting the hint to shut up. “We-need-to-defend-this-mine-with-our-lives.”

Despite his usual calm and neutral expression, XB-143 feels a slight pinch of panic as he frantically shakes the drone, willing him to be quiet.

If that drone wants a death wish, fine—XB-143 couldn’t care less. Just don’t drag him down with him!

“Well, look at what we have here,” a voice suddenly says from behind XB-143. “Those Decepti-creeps are getting better at hiding.”

Feeling his spark freeze, XB-143 pauses mid-shake.

 Slowly turning his helm, XB-143 meets two pairs of gleaming blue optics. The two Autobots look like they’re from the Pit, with the trail of energon and dust marring their frames and smiles so devious they could make Unicron himself turn tail in fear.

“They sure do, Bulkhead,” the other bot says. “Decepticons and their tricks.”

As XB-143 blankly stares at the two terrifying figures in front of him, the only thought that flashes across his processor is, ‘I should have just ended that drone instead.’

After the disastrous event at the mine, XB-143 manages to return to the Nemesis intact—well, as intact as a drone can be.

Dragging himself through one of the ship’s hallways, XB-143 tries to reach his quarters—a task made far more difficult when both legs are nearly ripped apart. Why the Autobots always go for his legs in particular, he’ll never know. But hey, at least he escaped with his life—something he can’t say about that other, foolish drone. Those lunatics usually don’t survive long for obvious reasons.

As XB-143 continues to drag himself forward, his digits start to chip under the strain. Occasionally, he checks on the human baby hidden inside him. Against all odds, the thing still manages to stay asleep through everything that’s happened. XB-143 isn’t sure whether he should feel relieved or concerned.

What he is relieved about is that his frame held up against two particular Autobots. He doesn’t want to imagine what would’ve happened if they found a human baby inside a drone working for their enemies. A shudder runs down his back as he recalls the two vicious bots—especially a certain sword-wielding one.

At least that wannabe ninja doesn’t seem to be a permanent part of the Autobots. Too busy trying to act cool, mysterious, and reckless. Thank Primus for small mercies.

As the drone drags himself farther down the hallway, he spots a shadowy figure approaching.

“Hey, XB,” a familiar voice calls out. “Did that mining operation go well?”

The moment the voice reaches his audials, XB-143 is already hauling his aft in the other direction.

With a speed he’s never had before—not even when fleeing Autobots or the sudden explosion of Megatron’s wrath—XB-143 books it. Yet, despite his best efforts, Dave still manages to catch up with him in a blink.

“XB—I… holy Primus, you look terrible,” Dave says, grabbing XB-143’s shoulder and holding him back. “The Autobots really went to town on you.”

“Yes, I can see that,” XB-143 mutters, frantically trying to escape Dave’s grip.

Despite scrambling around on the ground, XB-143 can’t so much as budge Dave’s digits. It’s like the other drone has an iron grip on him.

“Yeah, no,” Dave says, already dragging XB-143 along. “We need to get you to a doctor. You look halfway to deactivation.”

Before XB-143 can protest, he’s already slung over Dave’s shoulder and hauled off like a bag of feathers.

Deciding to give up entirely on staying awake, XB-143 simply flops his helm against Dave’s back.

Chapter Text

Standing at the console, Ratchet frowns as his optics scan the readings.

‘Pshhh!’

Without turning around, Ratchet can feel the distortion of a groundbridge opening behind him.

“Looks like the rest of the team are back,” Cliffjumper says from somewhere beside Ratchet. “I wonder if they manages to get some Decepticon afts in for me.”

Usually, Ratchet would have let out a loud scoffs or perhaps throw a remark at the statement. As it stands, he is too busy trying to analyze something else. 

 “Whooo!” Bulkhead’s voice rings out as the green Wrecker steps through the portal. “It’s been a while since we pulled that move off!”

Wheeljack enters next, letting out a chuckle as he playfully punches Bulkhead.

 “Couldn’t have done it without you, buddy,” Wheeljack says. “Looks like you haven’t lost your touch yet.”

“Heh, I don’t know about that,” Bulkhead replies, scratching the back of his helm. “Think I might be a little rusty in some areas.”

That comment sparks a loud conversation and some friendly roughhousing between the two mechs.

“I’m guessing mission is a success then?” Cliffjumper remarks, watching as the two wreckers enter through the groundbridge. 

“Haha,” Bulkhead lets out a bark of a laughter. “You should have seen them. Fighting those cons are like scaring off some robo-chickens.”

Wheeljack simply lets out a wolf-whistle as he put his swords away. “Ehhh, the cons were always questionable. With Megatron off to whoever knows, they are more like helm-less jackorabbits.”

Bulkhead bends down to the red bot’s level to showcase the blue energon that almost cover the entirety of his wrecking ball. 

“Those drones made for the best punching reliefs,” Bulkhead says, “It help scratches that annoying itch I have back there.”

“Sounds fun,” Cliffjumper simply comments. “Wish I could have been there.”

“Doc over there hasn’t clear you for duty yet?” Wheeljack asks, slightly tilting his helm toward Ratchet. “You’d think he released you by now.”

Cliffjumper simply shrugs. 

“Hey kid,” Wheeljack whispers, all too loudly, “If you want, I can give the doctor a little nudge here and there to get you back on the field.”

“...I think I will be fine,” Cliffjumper says with the most neutral expression as if he is navigating through a land mine. “...wouldn’t want to worry Ratchet, after all.”

While Bulkhead and Wheeljack are caught up in their banter with Cliffjumper seemingly contents to just stay in the background, Arcee—followed by Optimus and Bee—steps through the groundbridge.

 “Boys, boys,” Arcee says, clicking her tongue. “We can argue about who trashed the most 'Cons later.”

Crossing her arms, the motorcycle tilts her helm to the side. “Speaking of messes, weren’t you two on cleaning duty today?”

Bee lets out a series of cheerful beeps beside her, happily joining the conversation.

“Now, hold on just a moment there—” Wheeljack begins.

Watching the team casually chat among themselves, Optimus’s optics glimmer faintly with something almost like amusement.

But as he turns away from the group, their conversation fading into the background, a crease of worry worms its way into his spark at the sight of Ratchet.

The medic is intensely focused on the screen, seemingly unaware of the still-active groundbridge portal blowing hot winds and sand into the base.

“Ratchet,” Prime says gently, “I think you left something open.”

The medic glances up at him, quirking an optical ridge, before turning to look at the swirling groundbridge.

“Oh. Right,” Ratchet says, jolting slightly at the Prime’s words.

He quickly reaches for the groundbridge controls and shuts it down in a hurry.

The portal has barely closed before Ratchet is back to staring at the console screen with narrowed optics.

Optimus watches him for a moment, then slowly moves to stand beside the medic, a faint crease forming between his optic ridges.

“Is something wrong, old friend?” Optimus asks as he moves to stand beside Ratchet. “Something seems to be on your processor.”

Optics still glued to the screen, Ratchet lets out an incomprehensible murmur.

 “I don’t know, Optimus,” he finally says, pinching the bridge of his nasal ridge. “Something’s off.”

With an exasperated sigh, the medic gestures at the screen.

 “There’s a sudden burst of energy readings—scattered all over the place,” Ratchet explains.

“Is it an energon reading?” Prime asks.

Ratchet shakes his helm. “No. It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before.”

He suddenly zooms the screen out.

“I’m not sure why, but it all started from this place.” He zooms in on what looks like a location near the desert. “At some point while our team was recharging, there was a small blip. By the time I checked on it, everything looked like this.”

Staring at the screen with a flat expression, Optimus feels a small surge of worry gnawing at the back of his processor.

“I don’t know what this is supposed to mean,” Ratchet mutters. “Is it some kind of plan the 'Cons cooked up? Megatron returning?”

“I’m not sure either, old friend,” Prime replies. “It’s possible there’s something in the system.”

“Is something wrong?” Arcee asks, crossing her arms as she approaches the console. “It’s not often something can, as the organics say, ‘ruffle Ratchet’s feathers.’”

Rolling his optics, Ratchet lets out a loud snort.

 “The only thing ruffling my feathers is you kids giving me spark attacks with all your recklessness,” Ratchet scoffs. “There’s something called being cautious. Ever heard of it?”

“Maybe when you get some sleep,” Arcee counters teasingly.

Rolling his optics again, Ratchet mutters something under his breath at the motorcycle’s remark.

Arcee gives him a smug look before her expression softens into a smile.

“Just let us know if there’s something, okay?” she says with a tilt of her helm. “We’re Team Prime, after all.”

Before Ratchet can shoot back a retort, Optimus quickly steps in front of him.

“Of course, Arcee,” Optimus says. “We’ll let the rest of you know if something comes up.”

Watching as the blue slowly left with the other Autobots, Optimus slowly turns toward Ratchet.

“Do you propose we launch an investigation into the strange energy signals?” the Prime asks.

Pinching the bridge of his nasal ridge, Ratchet lets out a long sigh as he crouches over the console.

 “If the situation were different, I would have liked to investigate the matter more, but we don’t have the resources or the manpower,” Ratchet sighs, rolling his optics. “Wheeljack doesn’t count. The bot’s only here because he needs his ship fixed—then he’s going to bolt.”

“While Wheeljack might not have shown much enthusiasm about staying in one place, perhaps things could be different,” Prime suggests. “With his ship currently down, we might convince him to stay with us—or at least stick around a little longer once it's repaired.”

“Not likely,” Ratchet huffs. “I know that bot. If there’s one thing he hates more than anything, it’s being tied down or stuck under someone’s command.”

A long silence follows between the two bots before one of them breaks it. “For now, let’s just keep them in the dark about this,” Ratchet says. “No need to get them riled up over nothing.”

“Agreed,” Optimus nods. “It’s still unclear what the Decepticons are up to with Megatron currently out of the picture.”

Chapter Text

When XB-143 slowly boots up, the first thing that greets him is the searing light flashing into his optics.

For a brief moment, XB-143 thinks he sees the purple, blurry figure of Shockwave. Jerking up in his berth, XB-143 almost rolls off.

“Stay still,” the mech had said. “It will only be for a moment.”

Resetting his optics, the image quickly blurs away as the memory is pushed to the back of XB-143’s mind, replaced by the sight of a red bot instead.

Letting out a groan, XB-143 raises one of his servos. As he moves to cover his optics, a bot suddenly slaps the servo away.

“Don’t touch it,” a familiar voice says. “You’ll mess with the polish. Do you know how much trouble I went through?”

Resetting his optics again, XB-143 tries to wiggle his helm, attempting to lean away from the lights.

“Who…?” XB-143 begins.

“I don’t know if I should feel offended or worried that you don’t recognize me,” the voice continues. “Name’s Knockout. Ring any bells?”

Letting his helm fall back, XB-143 silently curses in his processor.

Of all the bots to run into, it had to be this one. At this point, he’d rather get a half-blind hack job instead. Why did he even decide to come here—

Suddenly jerking up, XB-143 hears the unmistakable gasp of the red bot.

Of all the medics, why did Dave drag him here? They have their own drone medic onboard! Sure, that bot might not be as skilled—or even close to it—as Knockout and is more likely to kill patients than save them, but at least he won’t charge an arm and a leg for treatment unless you’re the damn commanding staff! Sometimes quite literally!

“Oh no, mister,” Knockout chastises in a mock-concerned voice as two servos push him back onto the berth. “You’re not leaving until I clear you for duty.”

Instead of feeling reassured by the red bot’s words, XB-143 squirms harder.

XB-143 might not worry much about deactivation, but that doesn’t mean he wants it to be slow and torturous. An even worse fate would be living with whatever modifications the psychotic doctor fancies at the time.

Before the drone can debate further, a tapping sensation inside his torso makes him stop. The source of the sound is the trunk—where XB-143 just happens to be storing a certain human baby.

Remaining still, XB-143 feels a chill run down his back, reminding him all too well of the tantrums that had erupted earlier. A part of him starts to think he should sprint to the nearest window and hurl it out.

“Finally,” Knockout says. “I swear, some of you drones are even more dramatic than Screamer himself.”

XB-143 doesn’t bother paying much attention to the red bot—only keeping an ear out for any sudden attacks or suspicious activity as he glances down at where he placed the baby.

It’s only been a few minutes, but the drone can already feel the knocking and tapping growing rougher.

‘Shieeek!’

The doors behind Knockout suddenly slide open, revealing a familiar drone.

“Hey, Knockout,” Dave greets casually as he enters the medbay.

Barely glancing up to acknowledge the other drone, XB-143 watches as Knockout turns his back on him.

With the doctor distracted, XB-143’s optics drift toward a small metal counter nearby. On its surface sits a green metal tray.

There, he spots a variety of knives and other surgical tools laid out neatly. Despite their polished, clean appearance, XB-143 can still see faint blue stains on the metal.

Flicking his optics around, XB-143 starts weighing his options in case he needs to escape should the situation arise.

His optics occasionally wander to Dave, who stands near the front door, trying to decide if the other drone would try to hold him down during an escape—and, if so, how to beat him.

Dave, from what XB-143 can tell, is pretty strong—strong enough to carry him over his shoulder all the way to the medbay. If a fight does break out, XB-143 could aim for Dave’s leg joints or something along those lines.

As if sensing XB-143’s stare, Dave tilts his helm slightly to one side before giving XB-143 a cheerful wave.

“You’re one lucky bastard,” Knockout suddenly says, drawing XB-143’s attention back to him. “If any more energon had been lost... well, I’m sure you can guess what happens next.”

“So,” Dave trails off, “he’ll be fine, then?”

“Should be,” Knockout answers simply, briefly glancing down at his own digits. “As fine as one can be for a drone. It was a bit difficult trying to find the right legs to replace the old ones.”

The doctor suddenly reaches a servo toward XB-143’s face, the red digits far too close for XB-143’s liking.

“Although…” Knockout begins, letting his words trail off. “This is the first time I’ve had this particular line of drone in my medbay.”

XB-143 backs away as far from the servo as the medical berth allows. One of his servos slowly moves toward the tray of tools.

“I had heard rumors that you can’t feel emotions. Or perhaps…” The doctor muses, “There might be some other interesting variations as well.”

Without taking his optics off Knockout, XB-143 watches as the red bot continues to stare at him for an uncomfortably long time.

“Is that so?” Knockout hums.

XB-143’s optics track the red bot as he lowers his servo and takes a step back. Despite the slight retreat, XB-143 subtly moves his own servo closer to the tray beside him.

While Knockout is distracted, XB-143 discreetly pockets one of the smaller blades.

“While I would love to open you up,” Knockout says, slowly retracting his servo, “I’m afraid my time is up. The big mech upstairs isn’t going to like that I’m wasting precious resources.”

With a casual smirk, the red bot rolls his optics. “You wouldn’t believe how insufferable he is when he’s high on those purple crystals.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Dave says cheerfully. “Do I owe you anything?”

“Not this time, unfortunately,” Knockout answers. “Soundwave has specific orders for this one to be checked out. You’re off the hook—this time.”

The lights abruptly cut off, making XB-143’s processor spin as his optics struggle to adjust.

Slowly sitting up, XB-143 stares at Knockout warily, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

“Oh, right,” Knockout says, turning back to him. “You might want to be careful. There’s a weird puncture in your processor. Pretty minuscule and nothing too serious, so you should be fine as long as you avoid…”

XB-143 glares at Knockout, gingerly probing the back of his helm.

‘Wait,’ he pauses as a thought suddenly comes to him. ‘Knockout might be sketchy, but he’s a pretty good medic. Maybe I can get him to look at the human baby?’

“Knockout,” XB-143 begins, transforming his chest up. “I have a question.”

“Oh, so you can speak,” Knockout says. “Thought you were another Soundwave knockoff.”

Ignoring the red bot’s words, XB-143 reaches a servo inside his chest.

“Can you see this?” he asks, spreading his servo to reveal the baby.

Knockout cringes. “Well, the only thing I see is a very poorly kept servo. Seriously, when was the last time—”

Deciding not to push the matter further, XB-143 opens his trunk and places the baby back inside before it fully wakes. Closing the compartment, he does his best to ignore the strange look Knockout is giving him.

At this point, XB-143 can only conclude that he’s either the only one who can see the baby, or he’s actually going crazy. Neither thought brings him any solace.

“I see,” XB-143 says, lowering both legs to the ground. “I’ve taken enough of your time. If you’ll excuse—”

“Now, just wait a moment,” Knockout interjects, suddenly leaning in far too close. “I need to disconnect—”

The doctor’s servos hover near XB-143’s face, the sharp, pointy digits mere inches from scratching the visor that makes up the drone’s optics.

A memory suddenly flashes across XB-143’s processor, overriding everything else.

“Subject seems fine enough,” Shockwave’s voice emanates from somewhere beside him. “Interestingly enough, nothing seems to be out of place despite the… obvious. I’ll need to open him up to see what’s causing the glitch.”

Instinctively, XB-143 clutches the doctor’s servo and yanks it away from his optics, pressing the blade close to the red bot’s neck.

“Do. Not. Touch. Me,” XB-143 says, his flat voice still managing to convey a sense of warning.

Without another word, XB-143 releases his grip and quickly stands. Sliding the blade back into its proper place, the drone bows his helm before moving toward the exit.

As he walks away from the berth, a sharp sting pricks the back of his helm where something connects with his ports.

‘Kik!’ ‘Kik!’

As XB-143 marches toward the door, he notices cords sprawled across the ground near where his berth was.

“Sorry, doctor,” Dave’s voice drifts from inside the medbay. “He’s a bit of a… loner.”

Ignoring the voices, XB-143 continues marching on, his audibles still on high alert as he tries to tune into anything that feels like danger.

Dave lets out an awkward chuckle. “I’ll help you clean up anything when I’m free. See you later.”

Hunching his shoulders, XB-143 storms down the hallway toward his quarters.

“XB!” Dave calls from behind him. “Wait up!”

Without glancing back, XB-143 keeps marching. Despite quickening his pace, Dave manages to catch up with him in no time.

“Phew, you’re a fast walker, eh?” Dave says, falling into step beside him. “If there were a contest for speed walking, you’d be the reigning champion.”

XB-143 makes a sharp turn at the end of the hallway, still trying to shake off the unpleasant, unidentifiable feelings running through his lines.

Surprisingly, the knocking and scraping from the baby helps somewhat.

“I’m really sorry,” Dave says suddenly. “I don’t know what for or why, but I really am. Did I offend you, or—”

XB-143 stops in place and swivels around to face the other drone.

“You don’t even know what you did,” he chastises, his voice as flat as ever. “Why are you even apologizing?”

Letting out a long sigh, XB-143 briefly pinches the bridge of his nose.

As much as he dislikes being mech-handled and dragged to Knockout, he can’t entirely blame Dave. Considering the generation line he comes from, it’s like kicking a puppy for not understanding German.

“Look, I know you aren’t aware of stuff sometimes, given your generation line, but—” XB-143 inhales, clasping the tips of his digits together. “If something ever happens to a fellow drone, like an injury, do not send them to Knockout.”

“Did he reattach your legs wrong or something?”

“No, he did a pretty good job,” XB-143 admits, glancing down and gingerly testing his legs. “With how well they hold up, he’s honestly one of the better ones we’ve got around here… However, the bot has a reputation.”

Regarding the other drone carefully, XB-143 crosses his arms. “Why did you think he’s here as an Autobot in the first place? Even without access to that red bot’s extensive list of war crimes, any bot with two bits rubbed together can tell that Knockout has a few screws loose after one too many unfortunate ‘dances.’”

At Dave’s silence and blank expression, XB-143 taps his pedes.

‘Right,’ XB-143 thought. ‘I keep forgetting what line this one comes from.’

“He’s a bad bot,” XB-143 simplifies.

“He isn’t so bad,” Dave says, shrugging his shoulders. “Look.”

The other drone suddenly holds up a hand in front of XB-143. Jerking back slightly, XB-143 notices a few missing digits.

“Knockout can be quite reasonable if you talk to him,” Dave adds, putting his servo away as he walks.

Staring at the other drone with a blank expression, XB-143 remains silent.

‘I’m not getting anything through him, am I?’ XB-143 thinks. 

Shaking his helm, XB-143 decides to drop the subject.

“Thank you for bringing me to the medbay,” XB-143 says. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

At that moment, XB-143’s optics catch what looks like a pair of wings moving down the hallway.

It isn’t until several of the mechs’ figures disappear around the corner that it registers in XB-143’s processor—they’re Eradicons.

As he’s about to turn away with a shake of his helm, a thought suddenly comes to him.

‘Wait,’ XB-143 thought as he felt several knocks from his trunk. ‘Weren’t the Eradicons the ones who brought back that weird pile of energon? That was also when the strange human baby appeared…’

A plan begins to form in XB-143’s processor—a half-cooked plan with more holes than the number of times he’s been shot at by Autobots, but a plan nonetheless.

“Excuse my manners,” XB-143 begins, already turning away from Dave. “I need to take care of something first.”

As XB-143 is about to leave, a small part of his processor twinges with guilt.

 Pinching the bridge of his nose, he lets out a long sigh before turning back to face Dave.

 “Here,” XB-143 says, sending the other drone his comm line. “I owe you for this. Message me if you need a favor.”

With that, XB-143 turns and hurries after the Eradicons.

Chapter Text

Marching down the hallway, XB-143 does his best to catch up with the other Eradicons—a task far easier said than done.

Stopping at the cross-section of several hallways, XB-143 swivels his helm around, trying to determine which one the others went down.

“Great,” the drone mutters, trying his best to ignore the scraping in his trunk. “This is just getting better and better.”

While XB-143 is somewhat panicking—as much as one can, considering how limited he is when it comes to emotions—he almost doesn’t notice the panel on his trunk sliding open.

Jerking in place, he swivels his helm to the side just in time to see the human baby floating away.

Before XB-143 can even react, the baby has already disappeared. Staring at the empty spot where it had been, the drone resets his optics, then slowly tilts his helm toward the ceiling in silence.

His processor is completely blank—something he hasn’t experienced in quite a while.

‘Huh,” the drone thinks after a moment.. ‘Do I really need to go after the baby? Technically, it’s not my problem anymore.’

Shrugging his shoulders, XB-143 begins to walk away with an almost skip in his step at the thought of his problem removing itself.

“I should’ve done this in the first place,” he says. “It didn’t even scream at me to stay close this time.”

Just as XB-143 is about to turn the corner, feeling that odd skip in his steps, a thought suddenly hits him.

‘Wait,’ the drone halts mid-step. ‘Would this somehow trace back to me?’

As absurd as it sounds, XB-143 has a sinking feeling he’ll still get blamed—whether for the baby’s disappearance or for maiming it somehow. Given his luck, he wouldn’t be surprised.

Inhaling sharply, XB-143 curls his servos into fists.

Mentally steeling himself, the drone swivels around and marches down the nearest hallway.

As XB-143 runs around, desperately searching for the human baby, he is internally cursing everything under the sun.

After several hours of frantically searching through the Nemesis—short of flipping everything on its head—XB-143 still couldn’t find a trace of the baby, no matter how hard he tried.

“Where did that human go?” the drone mutters, swiveling his helm around frantically. “It has to be here some—”

‘Bang!’ 

A bright flash goes off at the end of the hallway as a small vibration shakes the metal floor beneath his pedes.

Quickly making his way toward it, XB-143 turns the corner just in time to see the human baby peacefully sleeping on the floor.

 The baby lies on its stomach with some suspicious-looking fluid smeared across its mouth.

Picking the baby up as gently as possible—lest he accidentally wake it—the drone lets the panel to his trunk slide open.

‘At least this thing is quiet now,’ XB-143 thought as he places the baby inside. ‘Why did it try to get out of my trunk in the first place?’

Glancing away from the baby, the drone inspects the hallway more carefully.

Like many of the hallways here, it has the same metal walls with several paths branching off in different directions.

The only subtle difference is a small soot mark a few inches from where the baby was lying—and what looks suspiciously like the bone remains he’s sometimes seen in the mines he was once stationed at.

Reaching a servo toward them, the drone gingerly picks the bones up and holds them near his face.

Upon closer inspection, the same weird fluid on the baby’s mouth is also smeared in blotches across the bones' surface.

As the drone inspects the strange remains, he catches a flash of silver in the corner of his optics.

Quickly shoving the remains into his trunk and slamming it shut, XB-143 looks up just as a drone rounds one of the corners leading into the same hallway.

It seems, perhaps, that Primus—or any other higher being—has finally granted him mercy, because the one that just so happens to be there is an Eradicon.

“...You,” XB-143 says, trying his best to compose himself as he leans heavily against the wall.

The Eradicon pauses before slowly turning to face him.

“Yes?” the other drone asks, crossing his arms. “Can I help you?”

The Eradicon’s visor-like optics stare into his own, as if silently questioning why a mech like him would approach so directly.

At that moment, XB-143’s processor finally kicks in, and he realizes this might not have been the wisest approach.

Though technically both drones, there’s a clear distinction in status—or societal roles, or something —that prevents him from casually addressing an Eradicon. Even a reclusive mech like XB-143 can recognize the divide between flyers and vehicle-type frames.

Internally sighing, XB-143 moves his body according to the etiquette programs running in his processor.

“Greetings...” XB-143 lets the word trail as he searches his database for the drone’s designation. “...Serrulate?”

In his HUD, a ping returns: S3R-UL8, with a note listing Serrulate as a preferred nickname.

A part of XB-143 recoils inward at the informality, but he’s not about to call out the other drone’s full designation unless he wants to be accused of being rude—or worse.

‘Am I one of the few drones who actually uses my real name?’ XB-143 briefly thought. ‘Why would anyone need a nickname, anyway?’

“Yes, last I checked,” Serrulate answers. “Do you need my help with something?”

Ignoring the faint scraping and knocking he can feel from inside his trunk, XB-143 tries to gather his thoughts.

Letting out a forced vent, he places both servos behind his back. “I wanted to talk about—”

Before he can finish the sentence, Serrulate raises a servo.

“Sorry, but I think I heard some knocking from you,” Serrulate says. “Sounds kind of serious... Did you get yourself checked out?”

Staring back at the other drone with what XB-143 hopes passes as immaculate casual mimicry, he leans against the wall and casually slaps an arm over his trunk.

“Yes,” XB-143 answers. “That’s not what’s important, though.”

“More important than whatever is making that noise in your frame?” Serrulate continues, tilting his helm to one side. “I really think you should get it checked out. Preferably by Knockout and not by a certain infamous drone—”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?” XB-143 interjects, using the most polite voice he can muster in his usual flat tone. “I think we’re straying a little off topic here. After all, I wouldn’t want to take you away from your duties for long.”

“Seriously though,” Serrulate says insisting. “No one should be sounding like that.”

Not responding to the other drone’s statement, XB-143 simply hold the Eradicon’s gaze with his usual neutral expression that is his way of signaling that the conversation was over.

Serrulate raises a servo as if he wants to argue more—or perhaps he's offended by the idea that XB-143 would even think of overstepping his boundaries—before he simply shakes his helm and crosses his arms.

“Fine,” Serrulate says, tilting his hip to one side as he stares down at XB-143 with what the drone assumes is supposed to be a combination of annoyance and displeasure. “What is it that you want to discuss?”

Gathering himself, XB-143’s processor races as he tries to think of a way to broach the topic of the group of Eradicons that went out to collect the weird energon crystals.

“There’s something that’s been bothering me ever since the group of Eradicons brought back the strange energon crystals,” XB-143 begins.

As if on cue, the very thing bothering him starts scraping or knocking against his trunk again.

Doing his best to ignore it—and the very obvious field of curiosity and worry coming from Serrulate—XB-143 continues.

“While it’s great that we seem to have found a new potential energon deposit,” XB-143 says, “I find that it’s—”

The drone pauses, watching as Serrulate tilts his helm to one side.

“I think you’re mistaken,” Serrulate says. “We didn’t find a new energon deposit.”

Processor reeling, XB-143 stares at him for a long moment.

“We didn’t?” XB-143 asks. “I assumed that with that much energon crystal—no, wait, how do you know this?”

“I was part of the scout group,” Serrulate replies casually with a dismissive shrug.

Freezing in place, XB-143 lets his arms stall halfway up, awkwardly suspended as he tries to digest what he just heard.

“Wait, what?” the drone begins, slowly turning his helm back to the Eradicon. "You?!"

“Why does that sound so unbelievable?” Serrulate responds, tilting his helm slightly.

Placing both arms behind his back, XB-143 begins to pace.

‘Primus must really be on my side today,’ the drone thinks. ‘Either that, or he’s planning to jump me with something later.’

Casting a brief glance back at the other drone, XB-143 quickly composed himself.

‘Well, no need to look a gift horse in the mouth, as so many of the other drones like to say lately,’ he thought, his processor already working on a way to use this to his advantage. ‘He might be my only way out of whatever this strange situation is.’

Say "strange situation" immediately made the metal panels of his trunk kick against each other, as if they knew they were being insulted.

Pausing in his musings, XB-143 glanced back at Serrulate, who, based on what the drone could tell, was giving him a weird look.

With all the media he had consumed, watching the other drones interact with each other, XB-143 quickly put on the most convincing act of a happy-go-lucky bot.

“Wow, that is so cool!” XB-143 said, his usual flat voice sounding higher-pitched and livelier than it ever had before. “It must be so rewarding to give those Autoscums something to fear.”

“…Yes?” Serrulate responded warily, slightly jerking his helm back.

“Oh, and look at you,” XB-143 continued, doing a fake scan of awe up and down the other drone’s frame. “I like what I can see with those pretty wings.”

Serrulate immediately flinched, staring at XB-143 as if he'd just grown an extra helm and declared his undying love.

A part of XB-143—the dumber, more suppressed part after... a certain incident—noticed that the Eradicon looked slightly uncomfortable.

Ignoring the Eradicon’s reactions, XB-143 decided to push forward.

‘It must be my imagination,’ XB-143 thought vehemently. ‘I saw how some of the other drones dropped those weird lines to each other. It sounds strange, but they always seem to get a positive reaction, so it must be effective.’

“Them pretty wings are looking spick and span,” XB-143 said in his most enthusiastic voice. “They’d glide across like a knife through butter. I bet they could slide easily through anything.”

Serrulate seemed to shrink even further. Seeing this, XB-143 let out a small hum.

‘Perhaps he’s one of those mechs who wants some kind of reward,’ XB-143 thought. ‘I don’t have much, but maybe I can offer him an energon cube or two.’

“If you want, perhaps we can go back to my quarters,” XB-143 offered, still in his happy, enthusiastic voice. “We can—”

The moment those words left his mouth, XB-143 watched as a variety of emotions—ones he couldn’t quite identify—flashed across Serrulate’s face in rapid succession.

All the color drained from the other drone’s face, something XB-143 had never thought possible, considering Serrulate was mostly silvery white already.

“What is wrong with you?!” Serrulate shrieked.

Staring at the other drone with a quizzical look, XB-143’s processor whirred at the fact that his acting seemed to be unnerving the other drone, if anything.

Serrulate, despite having the same visor optics as him, still managed to convey all sorts of emotions across his face. The main one being a mix of disgust, fear, worry, and something else XB-143 couldn’t quite place his digits on.

The Eradicon’s wings were even more expressive than his face, flickering and twitching in all directions—displaying such a wide range of emotions that even a bot without prior knowledge of a flyer’s language could understand.

‘That’s weird,’ XB-143 thought. ‘Based on my research, something like this should have calmed the other down if they considered them harmless or slightly empty in the helm.’

At the sight of the obviously distressed drone, XB-143 worries that he’s not doing a great job convincing the other drone to his side. That, and it makes him wonder if he’s such a bad actor.

Or maybe it's because of whatever weird lines he just vomited out of his mouth. Something tells XB-143 that the other drone reacted more strongly to those than anything else.

Dragging a servo down his face, XB-143 quickly decides it might be best to abandon trying to suck up to the other drone.

“Look,” XB-143 says, returning to his usual flat voice. “I need your help.”

Serrulate still regards XB-143 carefully, his wings flat against his back and tightly bunched together.

“I don’t know what idea you think I’m planning with my earlier actions,” XB-143 begins, crossing his arms. “But I promise you, it’s nothing you’re thinking of.”

‘At least, I hope so,’ XB-143 thinks. ‘It shouldn’t be, anyway.’

At Serrulate’s flat look, XB-143 simply shakes his helm and decides to continue with his explanation before the other drone decides to run away.

“Remember the place where you found those weird energon crystals?” XB-143 asks. “I just need you to take me there.”

Chapter Text

A long silence followed, the two drones just staring at each other. It was so quiet that XB-143 could have sworn he heard someone snoring from the other side of the ship.

It was only after a few more moments of this silence—save for the baby scratching and kicking at XB-143 from the inside—that Serrulate finally began to move.

“I see,” the Eradicon said, slowly turning away from XB-143. “Well, good luck with that.”

With that, the flyer left in such a hurry that XB-143 would have mistaken him for a flash of lightning.

Shaking himself out of his stupor, XB-143 quickly caught up to the other drone.

“Hey, wait up,” XB-143 called out. “We still haven’t finished our conversation yet.”

As he followed after the Eradicon, XB-143 noticed how the other drone seemed to quicken his pace the longer he was followed.

“Wait!” XB-143 said, also picking up his pace. “Come back!”

 A part of XB-143 couldn’t help but think it wasn’t a good idea to antagonize the other drone—especially since Serrulate was, in a way, a higher rank than him. And on top of that, he was trying to get him to do something.

The other part of him couldn’t care less—and was already annoyed at the fact that he’d gone out of his way to do a bunch of annoying things just to suck up to the other drone, with little success. Not only did it feel useless now, but it also went against what his data told him about drones like Serrulate.
This is why he didn’t bother interacting with other drones or mechs. They were way too annoying for his liking.

As XB-143 continued to follow after the other drone, Serrulate suddenly broke into a run—sprinting like there was no tomorrow. Well, tried to, anyway.

From XB-143’s point of view, the other drone was running like he had sticks for legs instead of metal. The Eradicon’s arms flailed awkwardly, and he hunched his back like he was trying to expel waste.

XB-143 momentarily stood there—not because he was stunned, but because of how awkward the whole display looked.
If he could, XB-143 would probably be bursting out in laughter by now.

Without a second thought—and spurred on by the continued scraping of the baby inside him—XB-143 began sprinting after the Eradicon.

“Should you really be pushing yourself like this, with how you run?” XB-143 asked, easily catching up. “Wouldn’t it be much better if you transformed into your alt mode?”

“Stop following me!” Serrulate yelled, somehow managing to stay ahead despite his legs not being made for running. “And are you crazy?! Transforming in this limited space!? Only Starsceam can do that!”

Now side by side, XB-143 simply stared at him in silence.

‘Ah, right, I forgot, the only one who can do that is bots with alt mode small enough like mine or Starscream,’ XB-143 thought. ‘When you spend so much time alone, it seems you start applying your own bias to everyone else.’ 

As he ran beside Serrulate—who was clearly struggling to put any distance between them—XB-143 began searching through his memory banks for how to calm someone down. He briefly reviewed a few entries before turning his helm back toward the other drone. 

Gathering all his mental strength, he opened his vocalizer and said the most reassuring thing he could think of: “You’re right. Only Starscream and drones with small or thin enough alt modes like mine can do that.”

Serrulate turns his head in disbelief, stumbling over his awkward legs, flailing as he is momentarily lifted in the air.

XB-143 watches as Serrulate begins to fall back down to the ground again. 

‘Pang!’ 

“Ow” Serrulate cries out. 

The Eradicon crashes onto the floor, the impact somehow managing to bounces him off the ground again. 

‘Pang!’ 

“Ow!” The flier shouts as he bounces against the ground again. 

‘Pang!’

“Ow!” Serrulate bounces off the floor again. 

‘Pang!’

“Ow!”

‘Pang!’

“Ow!”

‘Pang!’

“Ow!”

‘Pang!’

Stopping in place, XB-143 simply watches the other summersault several times down the hallway like a rag doll. 

In some of them, XB-143 could have sworn it hit the part he heard many human males is most vulnerable to. 

‘Pang!’

Serrulate landed on the ground, limbs splayed out at awkward angles.

The Eradicon is so still that XB-143 would’ve mistaken him for dead—if not for the faint ripple of pain radiating from his field.

‘....Is this drone really one of the sergeants on this ship?’ XB-143 quietly wonders ‘..Did they not find anyone better? How was he even promoted in the first place?

Carefully, XB-143 steps over Serrulate’s limbs, making especially sure to avoid the wings. The persistent knocking and scratching continue to echo from the baby inside his trunk. Somehow, despite all the strenuous activity he’s been through, the baby still has enough strength to kick around like it’s nothing.

In the back of his processor, XB-143 briefly wonders if it’s even possible for a regular human baby to survive all this, let alone still be strong enough to squirm so much.

“Ughhh,” a groan from the Eradicon pulls XB-143’s attention back.

As XB-143 bends down, Serrulate slowly tilts his helm upward.

“It has to do with space and skill,” Serrulate grits out, voice tight with pain and humiliation.

“Hmmm?” XB-143 hums, brow ridge twitching slightly.

“We fliers may not be as durable as you grounders, but we are highly skilled warriors,” Serrulate states, slowly forcing himself to his pedes. “May I remind you that I can kick your aft any day?”

As if to reclaim what’s left of his dignity, he suddenly transforms one servo into a blaster.

The blaster is held near XB-143’s chest, right over his spark. Serrulate stares him down, as if daring him to move.

“Yes, yes,” XB-143 says, emboldened mostly by a lack of sleep and a hectic, irritating day. “I suppose you are.”

Serrulate, caught off guard by the easy agreement, tilts his helm slightly. The blaster doesn’t move from XB-143’s chest.

Barely sparing the other drone a glance, XB-143 simply steps forward, pressing the end of the blaster slightly into his own chassis.

“Look,” XB-143 says, not even bothering to acknowledge the threat, “I need you to do something for me and then I’ll leave you alone.”

A long silence follows as the two of them stare each other down, neither backing off. In XB-143’s opinion, the tension is dulled somewhat by the continued activity inside his chest.

The silence is finally broken when Serrulate transforms his blaster back into a servo and clutches the area between his legs.

“Ughhh,” he groans. “Great. I think I broke something.”

“At least you weren’t a human,” XB-143 says, nodding sagely.

Serrulate just stares at him. From his field, XB-143 can guess the other drone’s expression is a confused blend of exhaustion, disbelief, and something else he can’t quite place.

“...What… does that have to do with anything?” Serrulate asks, voice tight with confusion.

Not bothering to answer, and recognizing the rabbit hole of conversation that would follow, XB-143 refocuses on his original goal.

“Anyway, that’s not important,” XB-143 says, smoothly sidestepping the question. “Let’s get back to the matter at hand.”

Before XB-143 can continue, Serrulate raises a servo.

“Alright, before you say anything else, I’m going to stop you right there,” he says, tone neutral. “I will, unfortunately, have to deny any request.”

Staring at the other drone’s face, XB-143 tries to tease out any emotion from his field, but gets nothing.

 Slightly backing away, XB-143 crosses his arms.

‘Is this really the end of the line?’ he thinks, glancing down at the ground. ‘If I can’t get him to agree, this is going to get difficult..’

His original plan was to get one of the Eradicons involved in the scout mission that brought back the weird energon crystal, and take him to where they found it. The human baby had just so happened to appear right when they returned. He was hoping it would lead him to whatever human settlement the baby came from, so he could dump it back to its creators and leave.

Glancing back at the Eradicon, XB-143 regards him carefully.

While the plan would technically still work without Serrulate, finding another flier would be a pain. Most flyer-based drones tend to stay far away from the main troops—it’s like dealing with seekers showing off their superiority, but slightly less obnoxious.

‘And after the way he reacted when I approached him earlier,’ XB-143 thinks, briefly recalling how he tried to appeal to Serrulate. ‘I doubt this one has anything nice to say about me. It’s going to get a lot more complicated if I don’t manage to convince him.’

Serrulate stares at XB-143 with an unreadable look as he slowly brings a digit to one of his audibles.

“Look,” the Eradicon says, slowly backing off, “I don’t know what business you have with me, but I don’t want any part of it. I’d ask that you leave me alone before I decide to—”

At that moment, something suddenly flashes in the corner of XB-143’s optics.

‘Ping!’

The object bounces off the floor in front of XB-143 before slowly beginning to roll away from him.

The object in question appears to be a piece of metal with a hexagonal head on one end and a long body attached to it.

‘Huh,’ XB-143 thought. ‘....That object eerily reminds me of one of the bolts or screws from the ship—’

Before XB-143 could think further, a blur of silver suddenly flashed in front of him, too quick for the drone to make out.

By the time he blinks his optics, XB-143 sees Serrulate several feet away, holding the shiny object between his digits.

There’s a new look in the Eradicon’s optics. Even with the distance between them, XB-143 could have sworn he saw something like adoration—and something else—glimmering in the other’s gaze.

Somehow, there are even sparkles coming off them, despite their optics being literal visors.

As XB-143 continues to observe the other drone, a thought suddenly occurs to him.

‘So the rumors about fliers being attracted to shiny objects are true,’ XB-143 quietly muses.

The drone pauses in his thoughts as he keeps staring at Serrulate with a neutral expression. Somehow, a soft glow of light now radiates from the Eradicon, simply from happiness.

“Huh,” XB-143 hums, slowly turning his helm toward the other drone. “You’re really not changing your mind?”

He slowly reaches a servo into his subspace and pulls out several shiny objects.

When XB-143 came up with this plan—to find the place where the group of Eradicons discovered the pile of energon that just happened to cause the appearance of the baby, and hopefully locate where the baby came from so he could return it to whatever human settlement existed and escape—he didn’t expect that sneaking off the Nemesis would be the easiest part of the ordeal.

XB-143 simply stares at Serrulate. ‘The hardest part was chasing this drone. Watching that sad sprint took years off my life.’

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re insulting me somehow?” Serrulate suddenly says, turning toward XB-143 with a look.

‘Sharp in weird times and places, apparently,’ XB-143 thinks, internally rolling his optics. ‘Guess he wasn’t all talk after all.’

Taking a step forward, XB-143 begins to look around. The place they’re in is nothing but a stretch of endless dry land.

Sand coats parts of the ground, some grains managing to slip between the drone’s joints whenever he moves or when the wind blows.

A strange silence and calmness settle over him, almost making XB-143’s frame relax. Glancing down at the compartment where he placed the human baby, the drone tilts his helm slightly.

‘Ever since we arrived, the scratching stopped,’ XB-143 thinks, gently tapping a digit against his trunk. ‘The scanner inside me says all of the baby’s functions are normal—well, as normal as it gets for a human baby.’

The drone pauses, a chilling thought suddenly occurring to him.

‘Could it be that it already knows something?’ XB-143 wonders.

Lowering his servo, XB-143 shakes his helm and dismisses the thought.

As he begins to walk, he hears faint pedesteps approaching from behind.

“I can’t believe we managed to avoid Soundwave’s detection,” Serrulate says, quickly catching up. “How did you manage that?”

XB-143 doesn’t look at him, too focused on scanning the area.

“I can understand it in my case, considering my rank,” Serrulate continues, giving XB-143 a once-over. “It’s easier to make excuses. But you ? What do you have that avoids suspicion?”

“It wasn’t much,” XB-143 answers calmly, raising a servo to shield his optics from the sun’s searing light. “Shockwave used to make a lot of interference blockers on Cybertron. I just memorized how he did it. Soundwave’s got his servos full with Starscream and whatever Megatron’s doing. As long as we don’t cause too much trouble, he doesn’t care what most drones are up to.”

Turning from him, XB-143 looks to the right, where something shiny catches his optic in the distance.

“That’s it?” Serrulate asks, incredulous. “You’re just going to lore-dump and move on?”

Ignoring him, XB-143 simply points toward the far-off glimmer, nestled between what looks like two massive mounds of sand.

“Just to reiterate,” XB-143 says, pointing a digit at the spot. “The place you found the weird energon crystals is right around there, correct?”

“Yes,” Serrulate answers, crossing his arms. “The place is a bit—”

Without another word, XB-143 quickly transforms into his alt mode and rushes off into the distance, leaving behind a trail of dust.

As the drone draws closer and closer to the site, the strange silence he hadn’t quite placed begins to make sense.

With every meter he closes between himself and the spot, a cloud of black smoke slowly comes into view. Charred remains are occasionally blown in XB-143’s direction by a passing gust of wind.

‘Oh no…’ XB-143 thinks at the back of his processor. ‘Don’t tell me…’

Suddenly coming to a stop, XB-143 quickly transforms back into his alt mode. As the drone begins to stand up, he slowly turns toward the sight before him.

Wind rushes past the drone, sending charred flakes everywhere, but it does little to obscure the scene.

Many fleshling-sized buildings are so badly burned that it’s nearly impossible to tell what they were supposed to be. The only things left are small, four-cornered patches of singed walls that XB-143 guesses used to form the foundations of several structures.

Rusted and half-melted rebar is scattered across the soot-covered ground, so thick it could be scraped up and used as paint on one of XB-143’s pedes.

Some parts of the soot-covered ground bear faint imprints that look suspiciously like full-grown adult humans, though no bodies can be seen.

As the drone stands silently, somewhere in the trunk, XB-143 feels a faint thumping against the metal.

Chapter Text

XB-143 doesn’t know how long he stands there as his processor reels from the scene before him, but it must be no more than a few minutes before Serrulate finally catches up.

The longer he stares at the charred buildings, the more a strange, unexplainable feeling begins to bubble in his spark. Before he can stop it, a memory suddenly surfaces in his processor.

A single drone stands before him as several buildings are engulfed in flames. A long silence follows before she slowly turns—

Shaking his helm, XB-143 quickly shoves the memory to the back of his processor. He places a servo over his optics.

‘Great,’ The drone thinks. ‘Why now, of all times?’

From the corner of his optics, XB-143 sees Serrulate transforming mid-air from his alt to his root mode. With the grace expected of most fliers, the other drone lands smoothly on the ground.

“What’s up with you now?” Serrulate asks as he strides toward XB-143. “Why did you take off so suddenly?”

Without taking his optics off the scene, XB-143 slowly crosses his arms. 

“What happened to this place?” he asks, noticing how his usually flat voice carries a faint trace of something else.

XB-143 watches from the corner of his optics as Serrulate slowly turns his helm toward the charred remains.

“This is nothing you need to concern yourself with,” Serrulate says, crossing his arms. “Standard procedure.”

“...Standard procedure?” XB-143 asks, finally mustering enough willpower to look away from the scene.

The Eradicon simply nods his helm.

“Any place not near a major civilization—military or otherwise—is to be destroyed if it's within Decepticon territory, or close enough to risk exposing our existence,” Serrulate explains, sounding as casual as if he's talking about the weather. “Especially not with the current state of the faction.”

Tilting his helm to one side, XB-143 stares at the other drone questioningly. “What do you mean?”

Serrulate hikes his wings up, as if preparing to discuss something unpleasant.

The Eradicon turns away from the charred remains to look at XB-143. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but command isn’t exactly in good shape.”

“You know how, ever since we arrived on Earth, Megatron accidentally consumed one of those purple energon crystals?”

XB-143 nods.

“Well, ever since then, our leader hasn’t exactly been right in the processor, shall we say. That’s why we’ve been trying our best to hide our existence—and the fact that Megatron is even with us.”

XB-143’s processor stalls at the revelation before it suddenly races, trying to piece things together.

Throughout the last several years after they landed on Earth, Megatron had been notably absent. Autobots would attack their mines, but the most the warlord would do was sit on his throne and yell expletives.

‘Now that I think about it,’ XB-143 glances. ‘I did find it strange how often Knockout was visiting him... and the heavy security escorting him between the command center and his quarters. I just… didn’t think it was something of this caliber.’

As a low-ranking drone, XB-143 never questioned much. There’s just… a lot he’s learned not to question over the years. For his safety.

Turning toward him with a serious look, Serrulate regards XB-143 carefully.

“I don’t know why you asked me to bring you here, but a word of advice,” Serrulate says, leaning forward—so close XB-143 can almost see the gears behind the other drone’s visor. “Just because you’re under less surveillance thanks to all this chaos doesn’t mean you’re safe. Soundwave and the rest of the command? They’ll devour low-ranking officers—let alone a random drone like you.”

Shrugging, Serrulate crosses his arms again. “I suggest you hold in any sentimentality you might have for the Earthlings. We’re in the middle of a war.”

Watching as the Eradicon leans back, XB-143 almost wants to argue… but thinks better of it.

‘I’ll let him think what he wants’, he decides. ‘It’s better than explaining my sudden interest in a human settlement.’

Serrulate turns away, pressing a servo to one of his audials.

“Anyway, I need to get back,” he says, shifting back into his alt mode. “Duty calls.”

Just as the Eradicon’s thrusters flare with smoke, the tip of the jet turns slightly toward XB-143.

“I would’ve said it was nice meeting you, but it’s not,” Serrulate says flatly. “Let’s never meet again.”

With that, the Eradicon blasts off, leaving XB-143 in a trail of smoke. He watches the figure shrink into the sky, then slowly turns back toward the charred remains.

The silence is deafening. A place that must have once been full of life is now nothing more than flakes of dust.

After getting back on the Nemesis and making sure his disappearance hadn’t triggered any alerts—not that it would’ve made much difference, given Starscream and Megatron’s recent… event—XB-143 quietly returned to the command center. Said event is currently unfolding before his very optics, judging by how loudly the two commanders are arguing.

“Starscream,” Megatron growls.

Soundwave, meanwhile, is in the background working diligently at the console. He tries to come off as unbothered, but XB-143, after eons of living with him, can tell the mech looks torn between throwing himself out the nearest airlock or resigning himself to the fate of being eternally stuck between Starscream and Megatron.

Turning away from the scene, XB-143 scans the room.

At the front of the command center, other drones—models similar to his own—are busy at their stations, whether gathering data, filing reports, or carrying out various other tasks.

Slowly moving past his two commanders in the midst of arguing, XB-143 marches toward his usual workstation.

“Are you crazy?” the seeker shrieks, almost blowing XB-143’s audibles off. “The only thing this plan of yours would accomplish is wasting most of our energon at best! At worst, it would leave us half-functioning!”

“Perhaps the power has gone to your helm,” Megatron growls. “Just because I am indisposed at the moment doesn’t make you the leader. I, unlike a certain cowardly snake twiddling their digits, am actually taking action to lure the Autobots out of hiding.”

Ignoring the two bickering commanders, XB-143 stops behind his station and gets to work.

“There’s a difference between being a commander,” Starscream hisses, “and being a complete suicidal buffoon! This is why we had you on bedrest for the past several years! I can’t even be bothered killing you anymore with how exhausted I am trying to wrangle your rusted, demented processor.”

Whatever else the two commanders are about to say just washes over XB-143 like static.

As surprising as it is to learn why Megatron hasn’t been active lately, XB-143 can’t bring himself to care—as long as it doesn’t affect him. Honestly? Considering he went several years in the dark about it, it probably didn’t make much of a difference anyway.

What does worry him, though, is the weird silence in his trunk. Pausing in his typing, XB-143 glances briefly down at where the baby is.

Ever since he witnessed the burnt-down human place, the thing has been oddly silent through the whole ordeal. If not for his sensors confirming it’s still alive, XB-143 would’ve assumed it was dead.

An unwelcome memory suddenly sparks across XB-143’s processor.

A single drone stands before him, several buildings engulfed in flames behind her. A long silence follows before she slowly turns to face him.

Her visor-like optics now carry a lifeless gleam. The light from the burning buildings only seems to enhance the sparkless sheen—eyes that once looked at him with so much life and curiosity.

Quickly pushing the memory sequence down, XB-143 digs the two shortest digits on both servos into his palms.

As he continues working, a part of him unconsciously glances from the corner of his optics, sensing someone walking up beside him.

‘Oh no,’ The drone internally groans. 

“Oh hey, XB,” Dave says casually, flopping himself onto the station next to him. “Thought you were gonna miss your shift.”

Not bothering to respond, XB-143 focuses on finishing his work at the console.

“Looks like it’s finally over,” Dave whispers, none too quietly. “Ugh, you have no idea how uncomfortable it was the whole time they were here. It’s even worse than being yelled at or shot by them. At least with that, you can sprint away or dissociate.”

From the corner of his optics, XB-143 watches Dave shift slightly to face him.

“I swear they don’t want us to work efficiently sometimes,” Dave continues. “They really should take one of those human leadership classes or something. ‘Intro to Management 101: Am I being a jack—”

Dave suddenly pauses mid-sentence, servo halfway raised.

Relieved but slightly suspicious of the sudden silence, XB-143 slowly turns toward the other drone.

"Is something wrong?" XB-143 asks, voice flat as usual.

Dave stays silent. The two wheels on his back twitch together in what XB-143 could assume to be nervousness.

"...How should I put this," Dave begins. "You seem a bit… stressed?"

"Stressed?"

"Yeah. That, and… maybe a little defensive?"

At those words, XB-143 suddenly registers the sharp pain in his palms where one of his digits has been digging in. He quickly relaxes his grip and forces his shoulders to lower.

 "...Are you okay, XB?" Dave asks hesitantly. "I mean, I’m not the most perceptive or smartest drone, but..."

“Of course I’m okay,” XB-143 answers, tilting his helm slightly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

His spark clenches painfully in his chest, and before he can stop himself, he lifts a servo to cover his optics.

‘What is going on?’ XB-143 asks himself. ‘Why am I feeling this way? Why does everything feel so heavy?’

In the back of his processor, a thought keeps nagging at him: ‘Why can’t I push down these memories? Why do they still hurt?’

Curling his servos into fists, XB-143 slowly breathes in. Dave tilts his helm slightly to one side, as if questioning him.

XB-143 simply turns back to the console, saving and shutting down everything before powering it off.

Pushing past Dave, he marches away from the console.

“Wait, where are you going?” Dave calls back.

At the door now, XB-143 glances over his shoulder just as it slides open.

“Somewhere,” he answers curtly.

 “What about your shift?” Dave asks. “You didn’t finish your work! Aren’t you afraid of—”

XB-143 steps through just as the door closes, cutting off whatever Dave was going to say.

Standing outside, XB-143 slowly breathes in and out as unwanted feelings begin to bubble to the surface.

Shaking his helm, he marches toward his quarters. His digits are curled so tightly into his fists that he begins to feel something wet trickling down.

Drones and other passersby either hurry out of his way or shove past him. Uncaring, XB-143 continues forward mindlessly.

‘I’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfine,’ his processor chants in a frantic loop.

Chapter Text

Punching in the code to his room, XB-143 didn’t bother waiting for the door to fully slide open before entering, his left arm barely squeezing through the gap.

‘Khieek!’

Little sparks fly from the scraping, sending an electrifying pain up his arm.

Despite this, XB-143 barely pays attention. The drone simply inputs codes for the door to slide shut. His processor is a whirling mess of thoughts, feelings, and everything else, tangled so badly he can’t make sense of any of it.

Turning away from the door, the drone marches toward the lone desk in his quarters. As the panel on his trunk slides open, XB-143 grabs the baby from inside.

With more gentleness than he intended, the drone places the baby on the desk.

Afterward, XB-143 begins to pace, rubbing his arms up and down furiously. Each time he does, more paint scrapes off. A few sparks occasionally ignite.

The persistent memory he’s been trying to suppress keeps flashing across his processor, its grip tightening by the second.

He stops in place and lets out a groan as one memory suddenly jolts into focus.

As she stands before the blazing, burning buildings, he watches the other drone slowly turn around to face her—

Curling his digits, the drone digs them deep into his arms. Some manage to pierce far enough to draw energon. The pain helps stabilize him against the whirlwind of emotions swirling through his body. With what little mental strength he has left, XB-143 pushes the memory to the back of his processor—barely.

Forcing his servos to relax, the drone pulls out the chair near his desk and slumps into it. He props his helm in both servos and lets out a long sigh, trying to ground himself.

“Bababa,” a small voice breaks the silence. “Bababa?”

Peeking through his digits, XB-143 glances down to see the human baby beginning to crawl toward him. The drone watches silently as the child stumbles a few times along the way.

The drone watched silently as the child stops crawling, just long enough to push itself up to a wobbly stand, taking a few unsteady steps towards him.

“Oohhh,” the baby groans, tripping over its own feet and flipping backward.

As it rises again, it reaches its little grubby hands toward him—like it wants to be held. But the movement throws it off balance, and it begins to fall.

“Gahhhh!” the baby groans, confused, as its head hurtles toward the metal desk.

XB-143 reacts instantly. One servo shoots forward, catching the baby just before impact. The child steadies itself on his hand, then wobbles and plops back down onto its rear.

Instead of crying, as XB-143 half expected, the baby lets out a bubbly laugh and claps its hands like it just witnessed something funny. His grasp on suppressing the memory momentarily slips.

The drone in front of XB-143 stands before the blazing buildings. 

As she slowly turns to him, a creeping dread begins to build in XB-143’s tanks.

The memory suddenly shifts, flashing to something else. 

Sharp digits dig deep into both his arms as that very same drone leans her face close to his.

One of XB-143’s servos—already transformed into a blaster—rests uncomfortably against his chest. It's also pressed against the other drone’s chest, the muzzle far too close to where her spark chamber lies for XB-143’s comfort.

“XB, please, I need your help,” the other drone says, her now-flat voice sending a jolt of fear through XB-143’s spark. “You’re the only one I can trust with this.”

XB-143 winces as the other drone digs her digits even deeper into his arms, hard enough that he could swear the metal is tearing.

Despite the pain electrifying his frame—and the sensation of something wet trickling down his arms, which he’s fairly sure is his own energy—he stands frozen like a statue.

“It’s hurt,” the other drone says, digging her digits further into his metal. “It’s hurt. It’s hurt. It’s hurt. It’s hurt.”

With every repetition of that mantra, XB-143 feels her digits driving deeper into his arms. Her chest presses harder against his blaster.

“Please, XB,” she continues. “I can’t take it anymore. Please. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.”

“Bahhh!”

 A shout yanks XB-143 out of the memory sequence, causing him to nearly jolt in his seat.

Resetting his optics several times, the drone lets his gaze drift back to the human baby, now blissfully sprawling across his desk. His spark tightens, threatening to squeeze itself into pieces.

He watches the baby in silence, a small part of his processor drifting back to those burned buildings on Earth.

Each time the memory resurfaces, it’s like his cables clog a little more. Even after cleaning himself up, even hours away from the ruins, XB-143 still feels the smoke clinging to his vents. Still smells the char.

‘That place,’ the drone thinks. ‘It was supposed to be where the baby’s caretaker was, wasn’t it?’

While the baby babbles away at nothing in particular, XB-143’s digits curl into fists. From what little he remembers—those rare moments of free time he’s had over the years—younglings on this planet are fragile. Especially the one crawling in front of him now.

Despite all the oddities the baby has shown so far, it doesn’t change the fact that the human in front of him is still a vulnerable fleshling, like every other youngling on this planet. The beings here are even more fragile than children.

‘Do I even have the capability to care for something like this?’ XB-143 wonders. ‘Wouldn’t I just end up adding more flame to the fire?’

At that thought, XB-143’s processor briefly drifts to a certain drone who keeps persistently popping into his helm lately.

“Please, please,” the other drone begs. “It hurts. Please, just end it. You’re hurting me.”

XB-143 sharply inhales, curling his servos into fists again. The baby is still crawling on the ground, looking around.

‘Am I just letting it suffer?’ the drone thinks. ‘Am I repeating the same mistake as back then?’

Even though XB-143 isn’t fond of the baby, he doesn’t want to do something that causes as much pain as what happened to a certain drone.

He watches as the baby scoots around again. One of his servos begins to shift, slowly transforming into a blaster.

‘It would be a mercy,’ XB-143 reasons to himself, watching the baby tumble across the desk. ‘Without proper caregivers, it won’t survive. It’s as good as dead in my servos. I’d only be prolonging its suffering.’

If there was one thing he had learned, it was better to get it over and done with. The sooner he does this, the less pain will be inflicted down the road.

The blaster warms, humming faintly as energy gathers, heating the surrounding metal.

‘It’s better to end it now,’ the drone thinks. ‘I don’t have the capacity to care for something like this.’

He raises the half-transformed servo toward the baby. Even as his logic insists this is the best course, something tugs at him—small, irrational, but unrelenting.

‘It’s just one little push,’ XB-143 thinks. ‘Come on. It’s not that difficult. Just one little push and it’ll be over.’

A soft touch suddenly grazes the metal of his blaster surface, jolting the drone out of his throng of thoughts.

Jerking in his seat, XB-143 turns his attention downward. There, the drone sees the human baby near the side of his blaster.

The baby has both hands pressed against the drone’s side. One cheek is smushed against the metal.

The soft feeling of skin against the cold metal causes part of XB-143’s spark to splinter. The baby’s eyes bore into XB-143’s own, causing the crack to widen further.

Those eyes are filled with so much innocence and happiness—not yet tainted by the darkness of the outside world.

Despite all the resistance and reassurances the drone tries to repeat in his processor, XB-143 finds he can’t will the servo transformed into a blaster to move.

The longer he stares into the baby’s eyes, the more the emotions buried deep in his processor begin to resurface.

A memory suddenly pops into his helm at that moment—the very one he had tried his best to bury, trying not to let it resurface.

“Oh hey, you there,” a feminine voice says from behind XB-143. “I think I saw you off the production line.”

As XB-143 slowly turns around, he sees a drone of the same model as him, with some modifications that indicate she was created a bit earlier.

“Hey, my name’s Li-F3,” the other drone says. Her usual flat voice—the one XB-143 is used to hearing from drones of his model—has a slight pitch, which he guesses is meant to convey emotion.

“So, what’s your name?” she asks, her EM field flickering with what XB-143 guesses is amusement. “Want to be friends?”

As she says this, the other drone stares into XB-143’s optics. Despite their identical visor-like optics, hers somehow shines with happiness and amusement. It’s as if she’s smiling at him.

Sharply digging his digits into his own servo, XB-143 uses the pain to pull himself out of the memory.

He then glances down at the baby, who is now using his transformed blaster as a pillow. Its chest rises and falls as it peacefully slumbers.

Closing his optics, XB-143 lets out a long sigh.

“Haaaa,” he drawls through his servos. “Frag it, frag it, frag it.”

Taking a deep breath, the drone slowly leans back in his chair. Dragging a servo down his face, XB-143 rubs his digits vigorously over his visor.

‘Great…’ XB-143 thinks. ‘Just great. Like back then, my cowardly spark can’t even go through with something like this. It’s almost the same situation with her again. It’s almost comical.’

Placing both servos on his helm, the drone lets out a grunt.

‘What would she have done if she were here?’ XB-143 wonders. ‘What would she have done if she was here?’

At that thought, the drone immediately curls within himself.

‘She would have loved it,’ XB-143 realizes. ‘That foolish drone would have protected and cared for it no matter what.’

His optics drift back to the baby. XB-143 silently regards it, something in his spark curling inward as his vision begins to blur.

He closes his optics and lets out a long sigh.

“…I suppose you’re fine, for now,” XB-143 finally grits out, glancing up at the ceiling. “...Let’s try our best to get along.”

He doesn’t know how long this strange arrangement will last—but he owes it to her to try, at least.

Chapter Text

Over the next couple of days, life became a whirlwind of activity. XB-143 would be lying if he said his life hadn’t changed after his decision—for the better, that is.

“Waghhhhhhh!” the baby screams, blasting XB-143’s audibles to smithereens.

While the baby wails, XB-143’s HUD clutters with videos and browser tabs on infant care. His helm occasionally jerks downward, nearly slipping into recharge after several sleepless weeks.

“Why are you crying again?” the drone asks, his voice even flatter and more lifeless than usual—if that was even possible.

Just because he decided to do something didn’t mean everything would suddenly work out. After all, this was reality—and Primus hated him.

That’s how most of his days played out over the next several cycles. There were some variations here and there, but the same basic pattern repeated itself:

Wake up sometime in the night to screaming. Run around trying to figure out why the baby was crying—whether he soothed it or the baby just got tired didn’t matter. Then, stay up until his shift started, carrying the baby around lest it wander off.

His workday began with processor-numbing tasks, followed by Starscream ranting about his life in the canteen, then more paperwork. The day usually ended with either the Autobots invading one of the mines he was assigned to, or Starscream taking things out on him and a few other drones.

When he finally returned to his quarters, there would usually be another round of screaming—if the baby hadn’t already been doing that during his shift. XB-143 would have to deal with it again, often turning to human parenting resources he found online. Whether or not those were helpful was still up for debate. (He still didn’t know how changing diapers was supposed to work, but he could sometimes manage to apply a new one. Somewhat.)

On one particular day, the drone was walking down a corridor of the Nemesis. He and a couple of other drones were the only ones present.

XB-143 was dragging himself forward through sheer willpower. The baby was cradled in his left servo, having refused to stay inside his trunk. After throwing a tantrum that made XB-143 want to smash his helm into the nearest wall, the baby had finally settled.

‘Should I name this baby “Screaming Menace”?’ he thought to himself. ‘That would suit its personality.’

Shaking his helm, the drone tried to stay awake by furiously rubbing at his visor. It only barely alleviated the drowsiness clouding his processor.

Straightening his back, XB-143 instinctively tuned into a nearby conversation.

“Ugh, everything’s getting tighter these days,” a passing drone said to another. “I can’t even sneak a few sips of high-grade.”

“You have high-grade?” the other energon asked, scandalized. “You son of Unicron. How?”

“Ehhh, it’s not that big a deal,” the first drone answered with a shrug. “I can show you how to synthesize it. Once security relaxes, anyway. Do you know why everyone’s on high alert?”

“It probably has something to do with that weird energon blip they detected on our ship. Soundwave still doesn’t know if it’s just a sensor error or something else.”

“You think it’s serious?”

“Nah. You know how old our computer systems are? And considering how many times Starscream and Megatron’s fights damage them... I’m surprised they’re still running.”

As the two drones passed by, XB-143 glanced briefly at their backs.

‘Huh,’ he thought. ‘Is that what’s going on?’

If he hadn’t already felt like he was living under a rock at the bottom of the ocean, XB-143 certainly did now. It was hard to focus on anything when your biggest concern was getting more than an hour of recharge.

‘Perhaps it’s time I catch up on what’s going on,’ he thought to himself. ‘It was okay to let a few things slip by, but not to this extent. Especially if said information is important.’

XB-143 walks away, servo still outstretched—ignoring the strange glances thrown his way, determined in his resolve.

Whatever resolve the drone had about gathering information quickly crumbles in under an hour.

Somehow, XB-143 finds himself in a random lounge area, currently unoccupied, holding a giant mirror in front of him. Singes that look suspiciously like blaster marks scar every surface of the wall.

In the center of it all is the human baby, its eyes scrunched into a frown, its entire body so red it rivals a certain medic’s searing crimson frame.

‘Is it normal for a human baby to be this red?’ XB-143 briefly wonders to himself.

‘Pzsst!’

Quickly holding up the mirror, the drone nonchalantly deflects another laser shot from the baby.

‘Ptong!’

The shot bounces off the mirror and into the metal ceiling above him, leaving behind a big, nasty searing mark.

‘I feel sorry for whoever has to fix that,’ XB-143 thinks to himself. ‘Well, at least this confirms the human baby isn’t a figment of my imagination.’

As if offended that the drone dared to deflect its shot, the baby puffs up even further.

“Graghhhhh!” the baby growls, its body beginning to morph.

The baby’s shoulders and back stretch grotesquely as scales pop through its skin. Small white bulbs of baby teeth sharpen and jut from its mouth.

Its head slowly transforms, growing large and triangular, now oddly proportional to its changing body. Each twig-like arm ends in a single claw. That’s where the familiarity ends.

XB-143 simply sits there, watching nonchalantly as the baby mutates into something oddly familiar—though he can’t quite place his digits on what. Either that, or his processor is too fried to bring up the memory.

‘So this is what those little human moms meant in the videos when they talked about cranky little monsters,’ XB-143 thinks to himself. ‘Who would’ve thought they meant it literally? Humans sure are a weird species.’

Momentarily placing a servo under his chin, the drone hums quietly, briefly taking his optics off the baby.

‘So does this mean human babies are dangerous, uncontrollable monsters when they’re young?’ XB-143 wonders.

A sudden gust of wind brushes against his side, snapping him out of his thoughts. XB-143 glances up—just in time to see a large, red, scaly paw lunging toward him.

‘Oh,’ the drone thinks, just as it stops inches from his face.

Chapter Text

After several hours of trying to subdue the baby—according to what the videos and browser tabs he found online said—the baby is now back inside his trunk, sleeping quite peacefully.

Rubbing the big dent in his face, XB-143 simply drags himself down the hallway.

“Aghhhh!” a voice yells from somewhere within the ship. “What happened to this lounge? It looks like a hurricane went through it!”

XB-143 briefly raises his helm toward the metal ceiling—the spot directly above where he and the baby were just moments ago.

A part of him, surprisingly the logical one, somewhat feels sorry for whoever has to deal with the aftermath. The rest of him just feels too dead inside to care.

By the time he manages to drag himself back to his quarters, the drone lets the panel to his trunk slide open.

Taking the baby out of it, XB-143 slumps himself into his chair—something he does quite often these days.

Sitting there, the drone stares off to the side, his processor wandering tiredly as he tries to mentally gather himself.

‘What am I doing here?’ XB-143 thinks to himself, a question that keeps repeating in his processor.

A small gurgle jolts the drone out of his processor-numbing thoughts. Resetting his optics, XB-143 slowly turns back to the sleeping baby.

The longer he watches the baby, the more he can feel the stinging dent from where it hit him.

‘I tried my best, and the only thing I got for my effort was pain,’ the drone thinks as he slowly stands. ‘What were all those sleepless nights—drains on my sanity, health, and everything—even for?’

Standing over the baby’s sleeping form, XB-143 curls his servos into fists. One is already halfway transformed into a blaster.

‘This is hopeless,’ the drone thinks. ‘Was this the right decision?’

The human baby curls in on itself before rolling onto its back. In the new position, XB-143 briefly sees its sleeping face.

As the baby lets out a soft yawn, it momentarily opens its eyes.

The instant their gazes meet, something stirs beneath XB-143’s processor—a feeling he’s been trying to bury ever since it began to resurface.

‘Pit-spawn of Unicron,’ XB-143 silently curses, quickly turning away from the baby.

 Striding toward the door, he punches in the access code.

‘Sheik!’

Watching as the door slid open, XB-143 quickly stepped out just before it closed again.

In the now-empty hallway, the drone leaned against the metal wall and let himself slide down to the floor.

With his aft hitting the freezing metal, XB-143 placed his helm in both servos.

“What am I doing?” he asked himself again. “Why am I doing this?”
There was no response—only the hanging silence and the chill of the floor beneath him.

After a moment, he dragged both servos down his face. He glanced briefly at the ceiling, as if hoping for an answer he already knew wouldn’t come.

Letting out a long sigh, XB-143 bowed his helm. With a grunt, he pushed himself off the floor and got back to his pedes.

“Let’s give this another try,” the drone said, now facing the door to his quarters again.
With that, he re-entered, though not fully resolved in his determination.

The next several days blur together even more than usual. At some point, XB-143 starts to sense the oncoming of another tantrum—of course, it does little good when he still can’t figure out what the baby even wants half the time.

With every day that passes, he finds himself standing over the baby with curled fists, questioning his decision. Each time, XB-143 barely manages to convince himself against doing something he'll regret.

Despite how torturous it is—or how long it feels like it drags at times—time still passes in the blink of an optic. The most obvious change is the baby.

It’s grown from a pudgy, blobby little creature into one that's less pudgy, with a full head of hair.

XB-143 simply observes all of this with tired, nonchalant optics. His processor is more focused on worrying about what tomorrow will bring and… other things.

On one particular day, after returning from another long shift, the drone immediately collapses into his chair. The furniture is starting to wear down from how many times he’s flopped onto it over the years. The seat’s surface has taken on a lighter shade compared to the rest of the frame.

Placing a servo over his face, XB-143 massages his visor-like optics. His vision flickers in and out—there’s a big crack running across the right side.

‘What a helmache,’ the drone thinks to himself. ‘This is getting more ridiculous.’

Today seems to be one of those days. The Autobots invaded the energon mine he just happened to be assigned to deposit at.

Thankfully, Wheeljack decided to frag off somewhere, so that green, hulking mech was less sadistic than usual. He and a few other temporarily captured drones were only used for target practice, at least… That shouldn’t sound as reassuring as it does—but it does.

Then what happened next was... something. Megatron just decided to frag off into space with one of the remaining escape pods on the ship. By the time anyone figured it out, all that was left was a note that said something along the lines of "Searching for ancient warriors to aid in the war effort."

 XB-143 suspects it was more of that purple energon nonsense talking—ever since they first found the stuff after arriving on this planet.

After that, Starscream crowned himself leader. Overall, not the worst day... but still something.

‘Creak!’

Jolting from his thoughts at the sound, XB-143 quickly lowers his servo and straightens his back. His sensors go on high alert, optics scanning everything for any potential danger.

“XB?” a small voice calls out, drawing the drone’s attention to his desk.

The desk now has a bit more stuff on it than the barren surface it used to be. In the left corner, there’s a stack of datapads. Next to that is a plastic cup—large enough for him to hold—filled with various writing utensils from this planet’s inhabitants. Mostly broken crayons he’s picked up over the years.

On the right corner of the desk is a small cardboard box with a red fabric drape over it. Behind it, a small head with long black hair peeks out. It’s none other than the once-screaming baby—now a toddler—he’s been taking care of.

“Did anything happen while I was away?” XB-143 asks. 

The toddler simply shakes her head at his question. 

It was only once she had grown up enough that XB-143 began leaving her to her own devices in his quarters. Surprisingly, she was able to part from him without bursting his audibles the first time he did this.

‘To think that baby grew up so much,’ XB-143 quietly thinks. ‘It still feels so surreal.’

Despite how long it’s been, the drone still can’t believe how much she’s changed. Sometimes he feels like if he blinked, he’d be right back in those days—scrambling around like a headless chicken trying to get her to sleep.

XB-143 jolts again when something soft touches his arm. Almost jerking out of his seat, he glances down.

The toddler now stands in front of him with her arms outstretched. Crayon and marker stains cover her hands as she holds out a folded piece of paper to him.

XB-143 slowly blinks his optics, tilting his helm to the side.

“Oh,” the drone says, pointing a sharp digit at the paper. “Is that for me?”

The girl nods, waving the paper up and down as if insisting he take it. XB-143 stares at her for a moment before reaching out two digits to carefully take it from her hands.

With the little paper in hand, the drone unfolds it. Inside, he finds a messily drawn set of stick figures. Most recognizably, one of them has a bright red V-shape on its helm.

‘Huh,’ XB-143 thinks. ‘Is that supposed to be me?’

The stick figure holds the servo of another, smaller figure with what looks like a pink bow on her head. Something about that image causes a strange twitch in the drone’s spark.

The drawing is colored over again and again, messily, with black and purple markers. XB-143 can still feel the flaking texture on the back where the ink bled through.

As he stares at the little drawing, somewhere deep within his spark, XB-143 feels a slight twinge.

Carefully folding the paper—a skill he’s developed over years of handling something soft and squishy with sharp digits—XB-143 tucks it into his subspace.

“It’s late,” XB-143 says, addressing the human girl. “Let’s get you to bed.”

When the toddler has long since fallen asleep, the drone takes out that same drawing again. His optics trace over every little line.

‘This drawing looks nothing like me,’ the drone thinks to himself.

Despite this, the drone still opens his subspace and gently places the drawing inside, as if it were a precious piece of ore.

Over the next several days, XB-143 finds more and more drawings. Sometimes they are personally handed to him by the toddler during the time he sets aside for lessons or during his own downtime. Other times, they simply appear in places he stumbles across while going about his day.

‘Did she get out again?’ the drone wonders, picking up another drawing stuck between the crevice of his console. ‘How does she keep getting out?’

Despite all the locks and security he’s put in place, that toddler always manages to bypass them somehow. Where she wanders off to, he doesn’t know. The human girl keeps her lips tighter than any high-clearance file, and her ability to sneak around unnoticed seems unmatched.

‘Is there a hole or crack somewhere I haven’t found?’ XB-143 wonders. ‘Looks like I need to search my quarters again.’

“Hey, nice drawing,” a familiar voice says from behind him.

Quickly folding the paper, XB-143 turns around, expecting jeers or snide remarks. What he finds instead is just Dave waving at him.

Any thoughts about someone mocking the illustration immediately dissipate from XB-143’s processor.

“Dave,” he greets. “Is there anything you need?”

The other drone simply shakes his helm with a small chuckle.

“Oh, I just wanted to greet you. Is that such a crime?” Dave says humorously, crossing his arms.

XB-143 gives the other drone a look. A long silence passes between them until Dave lets out a series of fake coughs.

“Anyway—oohhh, what was that?” Dave says, pointing to the servo holding the paper. “I wasn’t able to get a clear look, but it seemed pretty cool.”

Turning his back to the other drone, XB-143 opens his subspace compartment and places the drawing inside.

“It’s just some mindless, strange paper scraps,” XB-143 answers. “Nothing that concerns you.”

Dave lets out a hum, tilting his helm to one side. “From what I saw, it didn’t look that way to me.”

XB-143 gives him another look, to which Dave simply raises both servos in mock surrender.

“I mean, if it’s really just mindless scraps to you, I don’t think you’d be holding it like that,” Dave comments. “You looked like you were holding the sparkchamber of Primus or something.”

Narrowing his optics, XB-143 crosses his arms.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he says. “Why don’t you go bother someone else?”

The other drone lets out a grunt.

“Well, when most of the shift consists of being stuck with other drones who’d rather give me a wide berth,” Dave mumbles, “...or near a spymaster who practically radiates ‘I will sear you into the ground for looking at me’ energy…”

XB-143 stares at Dave for a long minute before finally letting out a sigh.

‘He does have a point, though,’ he quietly thought to himself. ‘Why am I acting like this toward some drawings?’

Shaking his helm, XB-143 simply turned away from the other drone as a notification popped up in his HUD.

"Alright, I gotta go," XB-143 said, quickly marching toward the door. "My next assignment is in a few minutes."

As he marched toward the exit of the console room, XB-143 heard Dave squawk behind him.

"Wait, when did you get an assignment after this?" the other drone asked.

‘Since I learned that you'd have almost the same shift as me,’ XB-143 answered silently in his processor.

Without replying aloud, XB-143 simply walked through the door just as it closed behind him.

"Aaaand he's gone," Dave sighed, his shoulders drooping. "Welp, the rest of the shift is gonna be reaaaal awkward."

After a long, exhausting hour of work, XB-143 slowly dragged himself toward his desk. As he neared his chair, he pulled it out and collapsed onto it like a stack of cards.

While in the midst of whirling thoughts and emotions threatening to sink him down, the drone suddenly felt something soft and squishy graze the metal of his left arm.

Jolting in place, the drone quickly glances up. There, using his arm as a pillow, is the human girl.

A part of him—the logical part—urges him to flick the girl off or jostle her awake. The rest is just a mix of whirling feelings: too fast for him to sort out or ones he can’t quite place a word for.

‘Huh,’ XB-143 thought, processor somewhat blank. ‘...This is strangely… nice.’

Deep in the corner of his processor, the drone unconsciously feels himself relax slightly at the sight of the human girl. Somewhere deep in his spark, XB-143 feels it twitch with some kind of feeling he can’t quite put his servo around.

Letting the toddler lean against his arm, XB-143 watches as her chest rises and falls in an even pattern. The longer this goes on, the more a strange sense of calmness descends over his entire frame.

With the increased calmness, the drone’s optics begin to grow heavy.

Taking the piece of fabric from the small box in the corner of his desk, he reveals the soft padding he had scavenged and meticulously assembled.

Gently cupping the toddler between his digits, XB-143 places the baby into the small box. She snuggles even deeper into the padding as a smile spreads across her face.

Using two digits, the drone then drapes the small fabric over her body. Only once he’s sure she is fully tucked in does XB-143 stand up and move to his recharge slab.