Chapter Text
They kept arriving , to Prowl’s confusion and dismay. It seemed that Sir Kup’s arrival and recognition by Optimus had started a cascade of his former squires crawling out of the woodwork.
Impactor, a grizzled mercenary knight whose file Prowl had once pursued with the idea of hiring him to kill Tarantulas, showed up a few days after Kup had settled into the royal household. A conjoined pair of twins named Rack’n’Ruin followed shortly after. Soon they were joined by Moonracer, a member of the Elite Guard who served alongside Elita. The next day brought a triple changer named Sandstorm, and the day after that heralded the arrival of a mech named Seaspray, whose conjunx was apparently an organic fey creature called a “mermaid.”
It was the kind of thing straight out of the storybooks that Prowl had read to Springer when he was younger. The gathering mechs were merry to be reunited with their mentor and foster-father, and they sparred, reminisced, and consumed obscene amounts of energon. Already, Prowl had a list of repairs for the Constructicons to work on as long as his arm, and many nobles had departed from the palace in a hurry to avoid the raucous, chaotic joy of the various knights (and a dragon, and Perceptor, who Prowl had expected to be above this, but apparently Moonracer was also a sniper, and the two of them had gotten overcharged and gotten into a competition that had ended up punching holes through several walls).
After a week of this, Prowl called Kup to his office. “Please do not restart the Knights of Cybertron in my household,” he pleaded. Today’s headache had been, unsurprisingly, Whirl related. Whirl had offered to take Springer flying, since he was also a helicopter, and had then decided that it was important to teach Springer how to keep flying while under literal fire. Prowl had informed Whirl in no uncertain terms that if he did such a thing ever again, he would set every knight in the kingdom at him until someone earned themselves the title of Dragon Slayer, but it was like bailing out a sinking ship with only his hands.
Kup looked at him, baffled. “General—Consort, sorry, friggin’ neo-pronouns,” he grumbled. “I don’t control that. That’s all on the Prime. He’s the only one who gets to declare that the knights are reformed.”
Prowl immediately drafted a memo to Optimus telling him that if he restarted the Knights of Cybertron before Springer received his adult upgrades, he was going to find a way to start another religious schism.
“I’m afraid,” Optimus said, tapping his chassis with a finger, having come to Prowl’s office after receiving the memo. “That I may not have a say in it. The Matrix—”
“Then you will take these living wreckers of my peace ,” Prowl snarled, his temples pounding from shouting at Bulkhead for attempting to build a swimming pool to accommodate Seaspray’s conjunx without consulting Prowl, “and you will take them to Iacon , because I am not going to play host to twelve knights!”
Optimus looked pained. “Thirteen. Hot Shot arrived an hour ago.”
Prowl did not know who that was. He was not particularly inclined to look it up.
“Then you will take all of them except Kup, and you will put them under Ultra Magnus’s command , and you will remove them from my city!”
“Prowl,” Optimus said, frowning at his lack of understanding for the situation, which just went to show that the Prime had never once been asked to play host to strange nobles in his house, because literally every consort that Prowl knew had been expressing nothing but pure sympathy for the situation. “They are here to see Kup.”
“And Kup will visit them. However, he has declared himself my son’s knight master, and Arcee and Hot Rod and Springer are now energon-siblings, so those two are also not going anywhere, and I refuse to allow Polyhex to become the center of this nonsense!”
In Iacon, they would not be his problem. Optimus and Megatron were neither inclined to handle social functions, so Ultra Magnus had delegated those responsibilities to housekeepers and a string of courtesans who were all jockeying to take Mirage’s former job, which Magnus preferred not to speak of.
Optimus looked at him with great pity. “Prowl,” he said. “I believe it already is. I do not believe you will be able to avoid this, especially since they are referring to Springer as the founder of their new order—”
Prowl considered his options, and then decided to go with the nuclear one. “So does Megatron know that you’re sparked, yet?”
“...Under Ultra Magnus’s command, you suggested? That may be reasonable,” Optimus said, pretending he hadn’t heard anything.
Polyhex was much quieter now that his kids had gone to Iacon to serve the Prime, Kup had to say. It wasn’t a bad thing; it was a lot easier to focus on teaching the new kids without the distraction of thirteen of his older kids constantly trying to catch up with him. He’d have to go to Iacon sometimes though. Now that he had the chance…
He hadn’t allowed himself to long for them. It had been pointless. Once they’d left his house, they might as well be dead, as far as he could know. He could use his trinkets, he could ask Rung for a true dream, he could hope, but his role in their lives ended the moment they passed back out of the mist.
But now they were here, or at least some of them were. Kup had been raising them for so long that plenty of them had died before him, and wasn’t that a pain? He’d given Prowl a few names, and slowly, the Consort was giving him answers. Battles where they’d fallen, graves and tombs and memorials if they’d made it into the stories, otherwise brief glimpses in censuses and other historical documents. A shocking amount of them had made their mark on Cybertron.
The kids were having a sleepover in Springer’s new and expanded rooms. Six mechs called the Constructicons had arrived a few days before, and had immediately set about tearing apart the palace and putting it back together. One of their first projects had been to expand Springer’s room, and provide it with secret passageways to the rooms that Hot Rod and Arcee now lived in. Kup wasn’t sure if Prowl had put that on the list, or if his three charges had begged for it, but either way, it was now a point of absolute delight for the younglings.
Kup had taken advantage of their distraction to go find a moment of peace and quiet on the roof of the palace.
There weren’t many stars to see in the city, but it was relatively dark, relatively quiet, and no one was around to try and lecture Kup about the dangers of smoking.
He was rolling over the size and shape of things in his mind, pondering the ominous warnings from Rung, and what he should do about them, when he spotted a purple jet soaring through the sky, evading the city’s defenses with ease.
Kup got to his feet, reaching for his sword, uncertain of what was going on. There were a lot of jets these days—it had been a pretty rare alt-mode in his day, all fliers had been—and he didn’t know their names. Supposedly, they were at peace, but Kup never really believed in that sort of thing. Peace was just the word for the period of time when people stopped fighting each other long enough to build things to start fighting over again. Or to stop fighting each other long enough to kick the Quintessons out, one of the two.
The jet swerved, apparently having spotted him, and dived towards the roof. Not aiming for Kup, probably, but to land near him. Kup’s battle protocols began to whir to life for a moment, before he paused, mouth agape as he recognized the frame as it grew closer.
The mech transformed several feet off the ground, landing on the roof with a loud clang of metal, and Kup could only stare as a tall, purple, horned mech straightened up out of the transformation.
“Kup,” Cyclonus said, hesitantly, looking at him.
Kup didn’t allow him to finish. He lunged forward, seizing hold of Cyclonus and pulling his first ward down into a hug.
Cyclonus would have once stoically stood there, tolerating the contact, but now, after all these millenia, he leaned into the embrace.
“You’re still around,” Kup said, voice hoarse. “I thought for sure you’d have gone to the Well by now.”
“No,” Cyclonus said with a shake of his head. “Even now, even if it is only by codeline, Heralds of Unicron do not die so easily, it seems.”
Kup grimaced at the reminder.
(Why Maximo’d had such slagging awful taste in mechs… Kup could’ve written a whole memoir just about that fraggery.)
“I heard that you had died,” Cyclonus said, finally. “But then I heard you were not, so I…came to seek answers.”
“Not dead,” Kup said, easily. “Just…back in the real world, I guess. Apparently I’m needed. Time for history to come alive, I guess.”
Cyclonus frowned.
“Don’t you worry about it,” Kup said. “I’ll explain later, and hopefully it won’t come for you, whatever is coming.”
Cyclonus did not look like he believed it. Kup wasn’t sure he should, either.
One Year Later
When Scrapper came and told Springer that he could go in and see Ori, he dropped Arcee from the grapple he’d gotten her in and ran, even though Kup hadn’t told him he could be excused from training yet.
Ori had been holed up in the emergence room for hours now, and Sira had told him that he should go to his lessons instead of staying and waiting. He’d taken a whole day to come out, according to Hook, and even though the new sparkling would probably be quicker, it wouldn’t be quick.
So Springer skidded through the palace, Hound following close behind, until he got to the room.
Long Haul and Bonecrusher were standing honor guard, grinning as he turned the corner. Mixmaster and Scavenger had been standing guard earlier, so they must have taken shifts.
“Is it here?” he demanded, bouncing in place.
“Yep,” Long Haul said, nodding at him. “Go on in.”
Bonecrusher opened the big, heavy door for him, and Springer barreled inside without remembering to say “thank you.”
Sira was sitting on the berth next to Ori, with Ratchet and Hook standing off to one side. Sira was holding something mostly blue, and very small.
Springer found himself hesitating for a moment, looking at them. Ori looked tired, propped up against the head of the berth, a line for feeding sparklings exposed on his wrist, but not connected to anything. Sira looked tired too, but happy, staring down at the little blob of blue protoform.
“Springer.” Ori spotted him. A tired, but happy expression bloomed across Ori’s face, bigger than normal because he was so tired, “Come here and meet your little brother.”
Springer hurried across the room, clambering onto the berth to sit next to Sira.
The sparkling was, like he’d seen from the distance, mostly blue, but there was red and grey there as well. His optics were really small, like Sira’s were under his visor. It was hard to tell with sparklings, but he definitely was a four wheeler, like Sira and Ori, not a triple changer or a flight model.
“Meet Siren,” Sira said, grinning at him. “Wanna hold him?”
Springer carefully accepted, letting Sira show him how to support the head. “Is he gonna wear a visor like you?”
“Maybe,” Sira said, tapping his visor with one finger. “Not everyone with optics like mine does, but a lot of us end up finding it pretty useful.
Springer looked closer at the sparkling. “No doorwings,” he said, critically. “ And no chevron. How’re people supposed to know he’s Ori’s?”
“He’ll be an enforcer vehicle,” Ori said, reaching out and putting a hand on Springer’s, moving it to touch a raised section on the sparkling. “You feel there, on his back? His light bar will go there when he gets his upgrades.”
“Oh,” Springer said, a little disappointed and not sure he could articulate why. “I guess that’s good?”
“It would have been good even if he’d been a race car or a helicopter or anything else,” Sira said with a laugh. “He’s healthy, you’re healthy, your ori’s going to be healthy once he’s had a nice long nap, and anyone who wants to gossip about it is just plain wrong.”
Springer looked at Ori for confirmation, and Ori just smiled.
“What do you think?” Ori asked him.
Springer looked down at the sparkling, whose eyes opened suddenly. Then the mouth opened and a noise came out, loud and wailing and awful.
Ori reached out and took Siren back quickly, letting Springer clap his hands over his ears. “I think he needs a mute button!” he yelled, even as Ori put the feeding line in Siren’s mouth. The wailing stopped, and Springer cautiously lowered his hands. “Other than that, I guess he’s alright,” he said.
Sira laughed, and Ori smiled at him.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
They’d had the dream again.
Hot Rod wasn’t sure what it meant, that the dreams kept happening even though Kup told them they weren’t supposed to go on their quest for a while now.
Springer had begun writing down theories, but none of them were very good. Most of the interesting things had been done already, and the dream didn’t make much sense yet. Apparently, it’d make more sense when the events were closer, or whatever, but for now, it was all a bunch of slag. (Hot Rod was not supposed to use that word, but he’d learned it from Megatron, and it was a good word. )
Whenever they had the dreams and woke up afterwards, he and Arcee, without ever having discussed it, went through the secret passages into Springer’s room.
But that night was the first night they’d had the dream since the sparkling was born, so Springer was already up, and he had their swords.
“We need to go guard Siren’s room,” Springer said. How he’d gotten their real swords out of the armory, Hot Rod didn’t know, but Hot Rod was more than happy to grab his shield and his sword and Arcee was delighted to see her swords, so neither of them were complaining.
“Won’t Hound stop us if we go there?” Arcee asked, checking that no one had dulled her swords while they’d been in the armory.
“No,” Springer said. “Scrapper made me a passage down to the new nursery so that I could visit! We won’t have to pass Hound at all!”
“Cool,” Hot Rod said, approving. He liked the Constructicons. Mixmaster was his favorite, because he’d make Hot Rod weird mixtures of things that would turn cool colors when he set them on fire.
The secret passage to Siren’s nursery was located in the back of Springer’s closet, and required a code. Springer put it in, and then the three of them clambered through until they got into the weird warren-room that Siren lived in. Apparently it was based on a petrorabbit warren for some reason? It made Springer’s ori happy, and it was pretty fun, so Hot Rod couldn’t complain, but it wasn’t fancy like all of the other rooms in the royal quarters, so it was still weird.
Siren was sleeping, which meant he was being quiet for once. Springer’s parents still wouldn’t let them install a mute button, so sleeping was pretty good of a state for the baby, because that baby was loud. Jazz said that it meant that Siren was going to be a singer. Hot Rod was skeptical, because music was supposed to sound nice, and the sparkling’s noises weren’t nice.
(Optimus had told him that was an “inside thought” and he shouldn’t tell people that. Hot Rod wasn’t sure why, because everyone thought that Siren was loud and wanted him to scream less.)
The three of them set up for guard duty, trying to do what they’d seen Hound do, standing at attention outside the door.
The problem was, doors only had two sides, and there were three of them, so they had to take turns, and then eventually they decided only one of them needed to be on guard at a time while the other two played cards, but when Arcee and Hot Rod played cards, they tended to fight, and after Hot Rod caught Arcee hiding aces in her subspace again, he set her cards on fire, and then she tackled him, and then Springer had to separate them so they wouldn’t wake up Siren, and then the three of them started playing cards all together, and forgot about keeping watch.
“How did you three get in here?” Prowl demanded, suddenly, and Arcee and Hot Rod jumped, because they were sensible people who knew that Springer’s ori was scary. Meanwhile Springer just grinned and waved.
“We used the secret passageways so we could guard Siren,” Springer said.
“...The secret passageways?” Prowl said, looking a little ill.
“Scavenger said that I needed to be able to get here in a hurry, so he put one in for me!” Springer said, beaming.
Prowl’s wings twitched. It was pretty funny. Hot Rod decided to see if he could get them to do it again. “Don’t worry, Prowl! There’s a code on it so it’s not a security issue, Scrapper said so!”
Yep, there was the twitch.
Arcee looked at him, eyes sparkling. “There’s a code on the passageways into our rooms too!” she assured Prowl. “Springer can lock us out if he really wants to.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Springer looked distressed, and missed Prowl’s wings really twitching.
“There’s three of them now,” Prowl said into thin air.
“Four of us,” Hot Rod corrected. “There’s also Siren!”
Hot Rod hadn’t even seen Jazz, but he heard his laugh as Springer’s sira poked his head out from behind Prowl. “He’s got you there, Prowler,” Jazz’s visor gleamed with delight. “We’ve got four whole sparklings in the palace now. Think we’ll be able to keep up?”
“No one can keep up with Hot Rod,” Springer said, because he’s awesome like that. “He’s faster than anyone! Except Blurr. And Drift. But he’ll probably get faster than them soon!”
Hot Rod high fived Springer, and then Arcee for good measure.
“Please,” Prowl said, as Siren woke up and apparently realized that he wasn’t being fed, because he started screaming. “You three just…go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning. And we can talk about those passages.”
“What’s to talk about?” Arcee wanted to know, but Jazz was already escorting them back to bed and away from the noise, so Hot Rod figured that question would be answered later, just like the dreams.