Chapter Text
Ylwvyapun.
P buklyzahuk aol klwaoz vm tf mhpsbyl tvyl aohu fvb ylhspgl. P ohcl illu tvupavypun aol zpabhapvu jsvzlsf. Jvtwyvtpzl ohz iljvtl uva qbza pttpulua, iba pulcpahisl. Rpss-jvkl pz uva mhcvyhisl, iba pa thf il uljlzzhyf zvvu.
Mpcl jhzbhsaplz ylwvyalk, Hswoh jsbzaly ahpualk iba puahja. Puclzapnhapvu wyvnylzzlk xbpjrly aohu wylkpjalk, bumvylzllu pualymlylujl thrpun tpzzpvu jvtwslapvu ptwvzzpisl. Klzwpal zlaihjrz, pttlkphal hjapvu pz zapss yljvttluklk dopsl haaluapvu pz kpcpklk.
Svzpun aol hzzlaz dpss il bumvyabuhal, iba pa pz vusf h thaaly vm aptl ilmvyl Hbaviva zjplujl jhajolz bw av vby vdu.
P ht dpsspun av nhaoly tvyl pm uljlzzhyf. Aolyl dpss hsdhfz il tvyl.
Dpss ylmyhpu myvt vyklypun Rpss-jvkl, hdhpapun mbyaoly puzaybjapvuz.
***
It takes all of four nano-kliks for Flor Del to break down the moment B-1 steps pede into the rundown building being used to contain him. The dawn has started to break, and orange sunbeams bleed through the broken windows and into the otherwise dreary space. His chest is a bit achy, but with enough begging, Dr. Mirello let him leave the infirmary with strict instructions to rest whenever he can.
And, well, it’s not like he’s planning to break that promise; there just happen to be a few things that hold more importance at this current moment.
Apparently, Flor Del had a near psychotic break when he was informed of what he supposedly did. Kicking, screaming, clawing at his freshly welded injuries, all of it. Selfishly, B-127 is glad he was too busy being unconscious to witness that. What he sees now is torture enough.
He’s been quiet since then, according to First Aid, who is here mostly to make sure he doesn’t worsen his condition, as well as utilizing the relative silence to confer with Ratchet about this entire mess. B-127 prays he knows what to do, prays for mercy on behalf of his dear friend, even if a part of him is aware that such things might not be possible.
The catatonia melts away quickly, though. Flor Del’s optics meet his, dreary and empty, they well with coolant, and he sobs. “Oh, B,” he mumbles, barely making it through the words before he is tumbling through another violent spasm of grief, his cries bouncing off the metallic walls and ringing around B-1’s audials, burrowing.
He’s guarded, but not restrained, which surprises B-1 enough to give him pause before he finds enough courage to kneel. His wails grate on his spirit, and B-127 wishes desperately for wisdom, for the right words to come, but they don’t. He had hoped that being permitted to see him would give him some sort of epiphany, that his drive over here would clear his muddled helm enough to assuage both of their fears, but it hadn’t.
As he lays his palm on the back of Flor’s neck, B-1 feels more lost than ever, afraid and raw, feeling nothing like the well-refined soldier he is supposed to be. Maybe his spark never really stopped being that dented little sparkling, and everything holding him together until now has been a lie. Maybe Lariat really did succeed in killing his light, just not the way he intended.
“I’m sorry,” he says, wondering if he’s talking to a corpse instead of a friend. His first words had been to the dead; did that ever change? If even memories can no longer be trusted, how can any of them ever dream of being anything more than husks? Stratta-13 was right, they are cursed.
He pulls Flor Del close, allowing him to break down as he rests in the crook of his neck cables, unaware of the damage he caused to them just groons earlier. His pistons are pulled taut, and B-1 hates himself for it, but he keeps his weapon protocols queued up in his list of commands, just in case. Just in case.
There’s an unaddressed unease filtering through them both, passed back and forth. B-1 may be without words, but there are other ways to communicate. Flor crumbles, inconsolable as he mutters shameful apologies for things he doesn’t even remember doing. Soon enough, even those whispers are too much, and he’s unintelligible. B-127 grimaces, wracked with his own tremors, almost doubled over from the force of Flor Del’s EM field.
It takes a lot to affect someone this way using only their emotions, but here and now, he can only stare sadly at the opposing wall, spark fracturing under his friend’s pain. Hound stands close by, expression hard but not unkind, contemplative. B-127 hates begging, but he wants to know what will become of this bot, this friend who B-1 thinks of as a brother.
As the dawn wanes, B-127 holds him close, knowing it may be the last time they’ll be allowed near one another. He let Lycan go, once, so long ago, and he doesn’t want to make that mistake again. He’s lost too many to the Decepticons, let go too many times. Yesterday was supposed to be their new beginning, but as he sits there, B-1 wonders if Flor Del ever had one.
***
“What the hell is going on?” Blitz harshly whispers, vocoder just barely managing to modulate his voice, still healing from the serrated attack of Tox-En. B-127 takes some solace in the fact that they’ve let the injured sit down.
Ratchet and several others arrived a few groons ago, and with their appearance, chaos soon followed. He isn’t allowed to see Flor Del anymore. No one is.
The gymnasium is swiftly morphing into B-1’s least favorite place. Most of the emergency cots have been transferred to the infirmary, with the gravely ill. Those lucky enough to escape with damage minor enough to rely on self-repair are holed up here, with everyone else.
All the younglings to enlist, to graduate, or otherwise.
ZB-12 rests her helm against the wall, her stabilizers splayed wide underneath her as she stares in a daze up at the ceiling. The poison has hit her a bit harder, and her pain lingers. “Not many stars out last night,” she mumbles, barely audible. B-1 frowns, praying for Primus to grant her some relief beyond the haze of Med-En.
Blitz elbows him, jolting him from his musing. “You’re quiet,” he states, eyeing him as suspiciously as he can with his drooped features. “Usually bad things happen to make you quiet.”
Something contracts inside his chest, but he manages a shrug. He’s not allowed to talk about any of this. “Just wondering,” he supplies, and it’s true.
A mech whose name escapes him butts in, sprawled out on the floor as if even sitting up is too arduous a task. Judging by the two rings surrounding his painted sigil, he’s a second termer. B-1 doesn’t know him. “Do you know when we’ll be allowed to leave? Man, I was planning on finishing off my mechanics final this morning…”
B-1 nearly forgets about his newly emblazoned insignia before looking down at it. Cadets see this symbol and strive for it. He only wishes he could provide the wisdom meant to come with it.
“Good question,” Blitz replies, snapping before B-1 can think of something good to say. His features are pinched, tense. His optics meet B-1’s. “Why aren’t they telling us anything?” He queries, weakly gesturing to the gaggle of instructors and newly arrived higher officials. B-1 doesn’t know them either.
His gaze falls, feed ghosting over the steep weld mark across his chest, mind recalling the phantom sensation of servos clamping down around his throat. His digits twiddle in his lap, and he does his best not to think of Flor Del’s agony. The numbness is creeping back in, and B-1 is inclined to let it. There are many things he knows himself strong enough to survive, but what comes next, he isn’t sure. This quiet, non-feeling, it’s all he can hold on to.
Because there can only be one reason why all of the young mechs and femmes of Iacon academy have been gathered into one place.
His spark flutters, and he ponders what stars ZB-12 did or did not see, with her mind so addled with pain.
Whoever did this may have failed to kill his class and the instructors, but they did succeed in one, terrifying area.
He sees the glances shot in their direction, hears the discontented whispers of his peers.
The trust between the young and old has been broken, severed with one horrifying discovery. B-1 thinks that, in some macabre way, this is worse than the death that was meant to claim them.
It’s an unconscious action, but it isn’t the first time by now. B-1’s firewalls bulk up, running scan after scan of his every program, every byte of data, looking for something in the shadows. Something not his own. He knows that if the Iacon’s security scans couldn’t find anything, neither will he. But still, it’s a scratch he can’t help but itch. So, he checks again, dismissing the All-Clear code that pops up in his HUD array, and he repeats the process.
Without the support of the old, the experienced, the new is bound to flounder, and B-127 reminds himself once more that they can’t drown, but without someone to teach them to soar, all stars are bound to.
Despite it all, or maybe because of it, and unlike his ailing friends, his voice does not waver. “Because they can’t trust us.”
And the worst thing about it is that it is true.
***
Mx wxc caxdkun hxdabnuo frcq cqn yunjbjwcarnb. Fn fruu bxac cqn mrblryurwjarnb ujcna.
Oxa wxf, yaxlnnm.
Mx wxc fxaah jkxdc cqn uxbb rw wdvkna, oxa cqn Jdcxkxcb fruu kn uxbrwp bxvncqrwp cxx. Bjlarorlnb jan bxvncrvnb wnlnbbjah. Hxd twxf cqrb.
Knbrmnb, jb uxwp jb cqn Juubyjat anvjrwb cqadvvrwp knwnjcq cqn bdaojln, jb fnjtuh jb rc mxnb, cqnan fruu jufjhb kn vxan cx lxuunlc.
Fqrun rwonarxa, cqnra cnlqb jan lajoch; cqnh fruu orwm cqnv juu rw crvn.
Byjan wxwn.
Mx wxc oxapnc qxf mrbyxbjkun cqnh jan.
***
Elita-1 stands over the dead, lined up in a row. Prep on their bodies has yet to occur; there’s no time to show such respect yet. Her chassis creaks, and she does her best not to press her entire weight onto Optimus’s side, though she knows it wouldn’t be a burden to him. Her spark spirals at intermittent speeds, caught between grief and confusion. They’re all so young.
She’s done this before, hundreds upon hundreds of times; it’s not a new sight. Even still, she often prays that her spirit never grows used to the coldness of a husk. She doesn’t want the depravity of their world to leave her jaded, not fully. Maybe that makes her weak, but she doesn’t care. To look at these young bots and feel nothing would mean she truly has forgotten what they are fighting for.
Them, she thinks. Everyone has a different reason, but Elita knows that more for herself, she has always, and will always, fight for the young.
They never knew Cybertron on a peaceful night, and now, these poor ones never will. Shuttering her optics, she prays for peace and transition, that the Allspark welcomes them quickly, their pain forgotten. Primus, please, grant them this one mercy, where the world could not.
Optimus is quiet beside her; there’s nothing to say, really. He’ll never give up, it’s not his nature, but Elita can tell that in the last hundred vorns, he’s grown weary of the push and pull of their conflict. One klik, the Autobots have the cutting edge, the next, the Decepticons. As their world slowly decays, so does hope, and the Autobots need hope to survive. Without hope, hate festers, and the Decepticons have that in spades.
She’s sick of losing, and as their sparks intertwine, Elita knows Optimus is too.
“They never even saw combat,” she says, breaking the glass shield of silence. Her anger festers, and she almost wishes for a battlefield. “They couldn’t even honor them enough to extinguish them with a sword, face to face.”
His hold on her tightens, just above her hip plate. He’s angry too, underneath the calm he can’t help but hold. She remembers Orion, loving and gentle as he still is, more equipped to lash out than the Prime she is bound to. Maybe once all this is over, she sometimes dreams, maybe he can truly feel again.
“Nevertheless,” he begins, regal and soothing and oh, how she loves him. “We shall show them the respect the Decepticons would not.”
They’ve had this conversation before; it’s inevitable with creatures like them, tied together for eons. There’s something comforting about it, about how some things stay the same.
It helps, when nothing can stand to stay still.
[“Optimus!”]
[“Elita!”]
The output of their shared commlink is loud and grating, and they both wince as Jazz and Chromia’s shrill modulations filter through the connection. Elita-1 grips her helm, thumb pressing against her audial in hopes of bringing some relief from the ringing. She rallies, knowing that contacting them via comms instead of message pings spells trouble.
Optimus responds first. [“We are here, what is wrong?”]
Static crackles over the line, and Elita hears Chromia swear quietly to herself, and despite the poison still lingering inside of her, Elita-1 stands up straight, optics blowing wide as she looks up, meeting her Conjux’ gaze and finding that same alarm. Chromia is a spirited fighter, but a bit of a prude sometimes. She doesn’t curse unless something is truly wrong.
As if the previous night’s events couldn’t grow any worse.
Jazz shouldn’t even be up and about yet, while it is slowly filtering out, the Tox-En is still flushing through him, more potently than her own experience. The repairs required haven’t even begun. He should be on a berth, resting.
But Jazz doesn’t stay in one place for long, unless he’s on a mission that calls for. This is why he is the first to find the words.
[“They’re… it’s,”] he stops, and Elita’s sparkpulse is racing now. It’s hard to silence Jazz. [“Primus, they’re dead, Optimus.”]
The Prime’s finials rise up, and Elita detects the slightest hint of panic from his field. [“Jazz, Chromia, please, what do you mean? Who is dead?”]
Chromia replies with a warbling voice, and Elita forces herself to ignore the weakness laced in every word. [“The younglings, Prime. We barely contained them for a joor and, they were fine, safe,”] Chromia assures, raking in a harsh vent. [“But something happened and now a few of them, they, they are—“]
[“They killed themselves, Optimus.”]
***
“It’s so quiet,” Sirenae remarks, legs crossed under her as she twiddles with one of the shiny baubles coming off of her helm ornaments. She’s tired from the night’s events, confused, and a bit pissed that she isn’t able to sort through her various deployment options like every graduate is supposed to.
The gymnasium is subdued, and she almost wants to ask someone for a large cube of high-grade to pass around, though she doesn’t think anyone is gonna be up to drinking with her anytime soon. Connie lies beside her, clutching his midsection plating. He was so wasted last night, she’s surprised he didn’t die. Though judging by the slightly bluish tinge of his dermas, he got pretty close.
“Nnh,” he murmurs, not quite awake. She wonders why they’ve forced him to be here and not the infirmary; he clearly requires more care. She winces, a bit disgusted. He looks ghastly. She doesn’t like him that much; he’s a moron and never appreciated her the way he should have, but they were teammates, and she appreciates his smile.
Bisca paces, tense and stepping over Connie’s tangled limbs every few turns. She and Novaris argued earlier, though Sirenae doesn’t know why. Bisca hasn’t been part of their team for a while. Whatever. Despite the crowded room, it’s like everyone’s broken their voice box mechanisms at once. Even the stressed-out first-termers are mute.
She can’t wait to get out of here. She’s a full-fledged Autobot now, and after last night, she never wants to see this drab place again.
“You’re going to wear down the finish of your pedes if you don’t slow down,” she warns, optics lazily following the pitter-patter of Bisca’s steps.
Bisca scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest plates. “I’m hot,” she replies shortly, her face a flushed grimace.
That makes Sirenae laugh, and she rolls her optics. “There’s like, two hundred bots in here, of course it’s hot,”
Shaking her helm, Bisca presses a palm to her core. Her pacing is almost incessantly fast now. “No, no I,” her vocoder stops abruptly, and it takes a few tries for her to clear it. Weird. “I’m hot, are you not hot?” Bisca stops, chassis jolting from the force of it turning on her axis to fully face Sirenae. A bit startled, Sirenae registers the slight panic etched in her friend’s features. It only grows when she shakes her helm. “I-I, I think I…”
An electrical pulse pulls Sirenae’s attention away from her friend’s odd behavior, hackles rising immediately. On instinct, her weapons release from their chambers, her T-cog spinning faster than her brain module can process. While she hasn’t seen combat yet, she recognizes the unseen wave of plasma charge without a second thought. Connie convulses by her, optics fluttering as he fails to react in the same manner as her.
She makes it a priority to protect him, even if it’s a bit of a drag to do so. Rolling into a careful crouch, Sirenae grimaces, scanning the room for threats, just as she’s been trained.
It doesn’t take long.
Thinking about it, she’s not sure what she expects to see. After last night, witnessing her friends and former instructors fall prey to a terrible fate, Sirenae knows that stress is high, and they should all be on high alert for further attack. B-127 helped her through most of her statistical essays, but she’s well-read enough to understand that now would be the perfect time to strike, while so many high-profile commanders are here, and a good batch of new soldiers are out of commission.
What she does not expect is to watch one of her former classmates take his own plasma blades to his spark.
It’s sudden and completely jarring. Her body goes rigid as her armor locks to her protoform, almost trying to protect itself from the harsh sight imprinting itself in her memory banks. It must be a bad sign for her future as a soldier to find herself completely stuck in place, shuddering slightly as the horror of what’s just happened slowly begins to trickle through her processor and down to her now rapidly spiraling spark.
She didn’t even know the guy’s name, and as he clatters to the ground, Sirenae can’t think of anything beyond the fact that he was once very nice to her at Mess, and she never thought to ask. That was a B thing, making the effort to know people.
A wild cry rings out, and she faintly hears the clamor of moving bodies and plasma fire. Connie is steadily trying to rise and understand the situation. He’s a bit stupid, but his spark is good, and Sirenae doesn’t want him to see this. Her helm swims, optics frantic as she watches some femme Scout fall to the floor, weapons still smoking. What the frag, what the frag.
What-what—what the frag what the—
“It’s hot,” someone murmurs, and something inside Sirenae contracts. The joints in her helm creak as her feed takes in the still form of Bisca, suddenly a stark contrast to her earlier panicked haze. She is still, shoulders slumped, calm. Her face is completely blank, and Sirenae nearly gags, a shriek tearing through her vocoder.
In the confusion, Sirenae doesn’t see Bisca claw her way to her spark chamber, but she does see the very moment where her servos reach in.
Her wavelength is completely still, but Sirenae still feels the very moment she tears her very essence to shreds. It’s a near instant death, but the feeling of it rocking through her is haunting enough to make her scream again.
***
Later, someone will put it all together.
Someone will wonder just how it was all pulled off, and someone will mention the theory of two perpetrators.
The two newly graduated soldiers who conducted the preliminary investigation won’t be mentioned by name; there isn’t time or need for that, but their findings will be noted.
Two medical students worked together to poison their entire graduating class, completely unaware of their betraying loyalties.
In the wake of the fallout, it’s almost a moot point. The story is distorted over time, as most are, and the official statement is lost to the annals of data.
They won’t talk about how Flor Del was the only surviving double agent of what eventually gets nicknamed the Jailbreak Massacre, at the very least, the only survivor from the batch at the academy.
Certain agents of Iacon’s various branches contain a few before they take their blades to their sparks or guns to their helms, as do a few other encampments.
The Elite guard loses a total of thirty mechs and femmes within five kliks. Nova Cronum only loses eight, but not before one of the Jailbroken leaks the coordinates of various Autobot-leaning neutral camps. They are unable to trace the data flow.
No base loses more than the Kalis branch, with a third of their total troops falling to the massacre. The few young bots unscathed are taken into custody, regardless of their apparent loyalty to the Autobot cause.
The memorial halls become crowded with names. Younglings whom no one knew they couldn’t trust.
Trust is a funny thing, poetic and strong one moment, a crumbling wall the next. It’s a weakness the Autobots and Decepticons do not share, despite the supposed brotherhood ‘Lord’ Megatron sometimes tries to promise. It’s empty rhetoric, but enough. Those young enough to disagree aren’t left with much beyond blind obedience, soon enough.
It takes so much longer to build someone up than it does to tear someone down.
There are things in war that go unsaid, rules to follow, boundaries to keep. The Jailbreak Massacre teaches the Autobots an important lesson.
The Decepticons follow no such creed. Not anymore.
Their planet dying, bodies piling up, the new generation suddenly becomes a fixture of pain, the hope that once followed them dimmed down to waning candlelight.
It’s often pointed out that the Decepticons lost something in this move, too, an entire huddle of tools to use, thrown away in one swift motion. But Megatron’s stratagem began to lose reason eons ago, because hatred is a strong emotion, but a parasitic one too. It eats away at you, cycle by cycle, until the things you once considered evil now sound perfectly reasonable.
Like allowing one of your commanders to perform processor sweep after processor sweep on Primus’s new blood, too small to fight back with minds too fresh to protect themselves.
Violence for violence's sake suddenly makes sense, if it makes a fool out of Optimus Prime.
If the promise of ‘autonomy’ can be thrown back in his face.
This is often noted as the beginning of Cybertron’s final eons, as the connection between generations never fully heals.
The Well goes near dormant just two stellar cycles later, new builds only emerging once every shooting star. The Autobots can’t get to them all, but they try. The agony of the loss of life finally seems to take its toll, and Primus can’t bear to force any more of his children into the world. At least, that’s the theory, among the ones still hopeful enough to pray before every battle and over every friend.
***
The ringing in B-127’s audials doesn’t go away for three orbital cycles. His mind remains a bit hazy even when he’s giving reports or answering questions the way he normally would.
He feels far away when Elita-1 all but falls into his arms, crying with such fervor that he worries she might push herself into a power down. Even as he hears himself reassure her that he’s here, he’s alive, and most importantly, that he is himself, it doesn’t feel real. His sparkpulse is so slow B-1 runs exactly thirteen diagnostics on it, mildly puzzled to find a clean bill of health each time.
Ratchet appears sometime, talking to Ironhide, who is also at his side, apparently. At some point, he must have stepped out of the gym, overwhelmed by the chaos and lacking direction, since none of the instructors or commanders can quite trust any younglings right now. Absently, he looks down, only now registering the fuel sprayed across his chassis. He’s only sort of cognizant enough to recall that it isn’t his.
Someone says something about ‘security checks’ and he says something back, and he thanks whatever part of him that is still functional enough to be useful, one palm rubbing up and down Elita-1’s backstrut, tingly.
Names filter through his consciousness, highlighting themselves in inky red as his ever-growing list of names tabs itself in the corner of his HUD array. Friends, acquaintances. Dead.
Right. That’s right, they’re dead.
It would be prudent to fight his way to the surface, to find his awareness intact and dive right in to whatever the hell Ratchet is telling him, just like he did last night. Last night? Was it a few cycles ago now? His chronometer is unhelpful. He thinks it’s only been a matter of joors. He thinks.
But it’s like hitting a wall and only succeeding in denting his knuckles. It feels insurmountable, being fully present as well as helpful. He doesn’t think he can do both, not right now; the grief or anger or whatever it is that is quickly forming under the surface might destroy him.
This is the rest of his life, this job, this pain.
And if he wants any of his debts paid, he has to be okay with that.
He is functional without the full use of his spirit, or what have you, so. So. It’s alright to stay away, for a little while.
Because behind him, the gym is full of screaming and crying, and the dead. He feels warm, and maybe it’s some part of him taking comfort in Elita’s presence, even though her field is a plague of pain. He mourns her along with everyone else.
Flor Del is alive, he thinks. Intercepted before he could take one of his blades to his neck cables. B-127 doesn’t remember asking about him, but he must’ve.
Corvus and Novaris are summoned, and B-1 nods along to something Chromia says, but it’s like trying to hear over the rising din of an acid storm, and he’s content to let his bare Hard code do the heavy lifting.
A way to further test their minds is imperative, he thinks, is the gist. Ratchet is frantic underneath the cool of his fury; B-1 can see it. The air feels contaminated with moggy death and horrified EM fields; it’s nigh impossible to parse one person from another. He can feel himself repressing his own, like he used to when he was smaller. It hurts a little, but it’s almost comforting to know that his underlying agony isn’t adding to the stewing brew of misery.
The three of them are tasked with classifying if any of the bots that—that—his mind blanks. They need to find out if any of the bots have salvageable brain modules. To, to study.
He’d feel sick if he could feel much at all.
***
Kalis is attacked two solar cycles later.
B-1 and Blitz aren’t permitted to say goodbye to anyone before they’re dispatched, along with a few others who have been deemed trustworthy enough to be deployed with them. Blitz is still in some pain, but not enough to warrant berth rest.
And with so many husks cluttering up the once glimmering city’s streets, his comfort is the least of anyone’s worries.
Optimus sends him a message, short but enough to bring him some focus. He wishes him luck and promises to reconnect with him once some stability can be found. B-1 isn’t sure that’s even possible. The lives of his former classmates –and apparently hundreds of bots his age – weigh heavily. Hope is what they need right now, and B-127 isn’t sure that’s what he feels, through this fog.
He supposes there is some sense to the plan, but not much. Killing off so many Autobots should be a win, but it feels like such a depraved method of torture. B-1 wonders if Megatron truly has lost his mind.
This isn’t peace through tyranny, like he promises.
He can’t examine the constant turmoil and tribulation his generation is put through; he can’t. He once watched in horror as the Decepticons who destroyed his home laughed while doing it, and wondered just how anyone could see any reason for such violence. He wonders the same thing now.
The drive is long, but completely silent. It would normally unnerve him; he likes talking, learning about others, but it’s not the time, wrong.
Ratchet and First Aid are brilliant, of course, and they develop a reinforced firewall sweep within a solar cycle of studying the Jailbroken corpses, and Flor Del’s living mind. B-1 knows that eventually, he’ll feel relief to know that his memories, while painful, are real, and so is he, but right now, all he can feel is the hateful stare of the older Autobot running their read-in.
The Medical plug is jabbed into his port with painful, and familiar force. B-1 grits his denta through the ordeal of having his every function and thought picked apart, but Blitz yelps, quivering as the speed of the sweep seems to frazzle him.
He doesn’t have the presence of mind, nor the spark to hold the harsh treatment against the older bot. He can see the loss in his optics, the sag in his aerial wings. Grief consumes him, and B-1 just can’t find any anger to spare. There’s so much, deep under, and he won’t waste it here.
Blitz doesn’t have the same compunction, and cusses the guy out.
Despite the horrors of their situation, B-1 feels himself laugh. He has no idea if it’s real or not.
***
This isn’t how he wanted to receive his first orders, but this world has never been terribly adept at doing what he wants.
It would be foolish to assume he would’ve been assigned to Iacon immediately, just because he has a personal connection to the commanders. He wouldn’t have wanted that anyway. Iacon is a station for the best of the best, the elite, and B-1 had no illusions about having to prove himself properly.
On a good cycle, he would’ve loved the challenge.
But being sent to Kalis so suddenly isn’t how he hoped things would go. Neutrals still abiding within the city have been boarded off, protected by the Autobots that still remain. He, Blitz, and the other flash recruits are the youngest soldiers there.
Combat doesn’t frighten him; he’s seen it before, even if he never could quite put up a fight until now. It’s the inability to be properly briefed that worries him. They are barely given five kliks to throw down their personal items on the first berth they see before they’re being ordered to the nearest battleground.
Dismissing the strained and sometimes pointedly aggressive glares, B-1 and Blitz do their best to be the picture of the ideal soldier, trying to reflect warriors even without bearing the title. Their commanding officer is a strung-out, exhausted femme who looks no older than First Aid, but without the wisdom or poise. She stumbles through their orders, and B-1 quickly decides that in this battle, he’ll have to watch Blitz’s back as well as his own. They won’t be receiving timely aid from a bot who can barely walk a straight line right now.
His sympathy for her is present, but he doesn’t have room for it to be at the forefront, and he can tell by the stuttering of her servos that she doesn’t want such pleasantries anyway.
While B-1’s training specializes in covert operations and scouting, in times of dire need, like now, everyone has a pede to the ground, even lowly new-grads like him. Blitz mutters something about ZB missing the fun, and his spark clenches without his bidding. He uses the long form of her name when nobody is listening, the same way he probably uses B-1’s full name when talking to himself, and he feels guilty for overhearing.
He refuses to accept the possibility of further loss here. The casualties are already high, and the idea of losing more of his cohort is painful. Despite this, B-1 soothes himself with the knowledge that Blitz won’t be left wondering about his name.
They line up and briefly introduce themselves to the squad they’ve been shoved into, who look like they couldn’t care less about the fresh protoflesh. Something inside him curls at the cold reception. Blitz is unsteady, stressed, and tired, and already reaching his limits. B-1 worries, they haven’t even drawn their weapons yet.
Their only introduction to this world has been through training courses and tactical lessons, and for all his hard work, B-1 frets. It’ll be a challenge to protect Blitz from harm while they throw themselves helm-first into the blood bath. He couldn’t protect Flor Del from this hell, and he already feels he failed Blitz for facing the poison in the first place.
Another part of his processor whirs, a push and pull of darkness that he knows the long-starved monsters will feed on. They march as a group to the rendezvous. His servos are not clean of spilled fuel, he won’t experience his first kill during this battle, it won’t even be the first time he’s killed someone on purpose.
Hah, if Locke Up could see him now.
“Self-fulfilling prophecy, little bug,” he’d whisper. B-1 shudders.
And silently, within the deepest depths of himself, he agrees.
***
It’s three deca-cycles later that the Autobots are granted some reprieve.
Despite the chaotic nature of the plan, it had been pointed. The distraction caused by the sudden dispatch of so many soldiers marked itself as the perfect distraction, and far from it for the Decepticons to waste an opportunity like that.
As far as he knows, no other base was hit as hard as Kalis, but B-1 has had virtually no time at all to ponder whether that is true or not.
The cons are as vicious as he remembers them, and B-127’s body is caked with their fuel by the first solar cycle. He feels grimy and disgusting, in so many different ways, but his instincts had been right; the first life taken by him was remarkably uneventful, almost dull. The lack of his plasma blades grants him mercy in that he can’t be forced to reach within someone’s spark to end them, but with his skills in servo-to-servo and marksmanship, a blade is hardly needed.
He wants to be haunted by it, the way Blitz is. That first night, when they’re given permission to rest for a while, Blitz cries, more than B-1 has ever seen. He unloads the guilt of the lives he’s taken, and it’s spark-jolting. Blitz is a strong-helmed, stubborn fool sometimes, and it’s hard to picture him breaking down the way he is now.
B-1 comforts him as best he can, reciting speeches of grandeur that he has read, promising him the validity of their cause and all they stand for. It sacrifices his own rest, but B-1 doesn’t mind, already foreseeing a rather sleepless night anyway. While it all helps lull Blitz into a sort of half-recharge, his kind and inspiring words only serves to remind B-127 just how ambivalent he feels.
There were times during training where B-1 would feel nauseated to the point of dizziness, accepting but still apprehensive about the lives he would one cycle take. He expects that same fear now, the same guilt that’s crushed him since he crushed Locke Up.
It doesn’t come. Not like a roaring storm, not like it always has.
His count has already reached the double-digits – because he’s already resolved to count each and every one – but he doesn’t even whimper.
All he can think of is Flor Del, who doesn’t even remember the death he’s caused, and still, the guilt left him burning. What does it say about him that he doesn’t burn? He’s burned before, but he doesn’t now, is that right? Is that just?
He is a warframe, and they’re built for this, aren’t they? Is he just the product of his build?
By the time those three deca-cycles are up, the fatigue is so all-encompassing that B-1 is too far gone to care about that either. As long as he does not wear out his use, his personal demons hold no consequence, anyway.
***
Faylever visits him in his dreams, far more than she ever did before. It’s a comfort he doesn’t deserve, but like he once starved for fuel, he starves for her affection, as fictitious and fantastical as it all is.
She never mentions the fuel staining his chassis, though her words are sometimes drowned out by the constant humming, so she may whisper her condemnations. He doesn’t know.
Her face plate is as clear as the day he lost her, and B-1 is so thankful for the often-cursed clarity his memory possesses. The sorrow will come when he awakens, but with reality also brings the aches of constant movement, and the straining helm-ache brought on by too much stimulation, so he accepts the moments he can get.
“You never wanted to be a soldier,” she says one night, thumbs grazing his mandible like he is something prized.
She brings up things like that now and then, but it’s easy to redirect her to easier things. He asks her about one of the holo-films they used to watch, and she acquiesces to his yearning for levity. She’s a respite to the nightmares of real life, and the ones that follow him into recharge, he doesn’t want to speak of real things with her.
After all, she isn’t real either.
***
“Hey,” Jazz prods, flicking a bolt with enough force to bap against B’s forehelm.
The youngling jolts, sucking in a slight vent, and Jazz relaxes as his optics spiral, taking on more life as his action seemingly helps jar the kid back to reality.
The shellshock is easy to see, and Jazz wishes he were surprised. This hell of a stellar cycle has been harsh on their new recruits. Hurriedly repaired dents and slashes litter the kid’s plating, but as he once did, B wears the signs of battle with grace and dignity. He’s probably not recharging enough, and Jazz has no doubt that his efficient specifications already have him overworked beyond what is strictly sanctioned. The tremors of combat have him separated, but no less effective at his post.
Jazz isn’t surprised about that either. B only looks fragile. It’ll fade, in a way, it always does.
“Sorry,” the kid mutters, looking down at the cards in his grasp as if he’s never seen them before. A smirk drags across his derma a moment later, and Jazz’s chest warms at the sight. His body is still recovering from the repairs Ratchet’s shoved down his thraceatic lines, but seeing B smile helps. Distracts from the bodies they’ve had to melt down, the names they’ve had to engrave.
Honestly, he shouldn’t be here; he should be in Iacon running through evidence like he has for the past orbital cycle. The excuse he has for being here is helping one of the branch commanders assign permanent placement to the covert ops sector of Kalis, but they all know that they don’t really need his help for that, so it’s a bit of a wash. B is a shoo-in for one of the advanced scouting positions, and he recommended him for it.
He won’t tell Elita about it; she’d hate him for willingly putting B in such a high-risk position so quickly, but the reality is that they need the help, and Jazz knows the kid’s got the chops for it.
“You still owe me,” B starts, clearing his vocoder once, as if using his voice is unfamiliar. “For the last few times you lost.”
His face wrinkles as he pouts. “Ah, my company ain’t enough ta’ tide you over?” He inquires, tilting his helm as he desperately stares at his cards, praying a winning hand simply manifests.
B makes a face, and Jazz laughs. “Does that line ever actually work?”
“Wit’ the ladies.” B’s optical ridge raises, and Jazz relents. “Sometimes, if we’re both drunk enough.”
That sours B’s mood a bit, and Jazz huffs, swallowing down the familiar hunger. The damage done by the Tox En has him on a forced cleanse, and Jazz has absolutely no idea how so many bots can stay sober this long. He should be ashamed to want it so much, but slag, he doesn’t care at all. If he can live through Ratchet and First Aid’s whining about it, the judgmental stare of a teenage scout doesn’t mean jack to him.
Alright, B’s opinion means more to him than that, but it’s semantics at this point. He won’t be a teenager much longer. Primus, he doesn’t want to think about this anymore; it disturbs him on too many levels.
B seems to be concentrating a little harder now. They aren’t playing poker this go around, but B always takes to new games with undeniable vigor. For all his silence near the beginning of their knowing him, the kid likes to win.
“Your friend is talkin’ again,” Jazz says, and he wonders why on Cybertron he would think to tell him that. B’s little medic friend is one of the lucky ones in this whole slag-show, if finding out you’ve been an unknowing double agent your entire life could be considered lucky. When his brain module isn’t trying to fry itself, he’s a mild, sweet kid. Riddled with guilt he’ll never be rid of, but sweet. Jazz wishes there were a better future out there for him. “Optimus has been visiting him.”
The kid’s shoulders are stiff as a husk, and his optics cycle between dilated and pinpricks. He’s a new soldier, a new everything, but Jazz knows that at spark, B is a protective guy, and as much as he wants to comfort him over the revelation of his friend’s nature, and the subsequent culling of a good percentage of his cohort, Jazz knows there’s nothing to say. He’s wise, for his age, and flowery statements would only make him mad.
B rests a card on the throw deck, replacing it without even looking. “I bet they get along.” A small, tired smile graces his features for a moment, and Jazz savors it while it lasts. You have to, on the battlefield. Slogging through the misery only kills you faster, laughter is sometimes the only way to survive, and judging by the sheer exhaustion roiling through this kid, he could use a good dose. He should’ve convinced Cliffjumper to come too, he always knows how to jilt a smile out of em.
“They do,” Jazz finally assures, shuffling his cards a few times. “Ratch’ is workin’ on fixin’ it, but who knows.”
That gets a scoff from him. “Great, so as long as he doesn’t succeed in stabbing himself in the time it takes him to magically cure a Jailbroken bot, we’re good as gold.”
Jazz frowns at the nihilism. It’s uncharacteristic of B and a bit disconcerting. War has a way of changing people, and he knows how much that frightens the kid, deep down. “Hey, check your tone, kiddo,” he admonishes, not quite harsh, but enough to snap B out of it. He has the wherewithal to look ashamed. He softens, sympathetic. “If anyone can do it, it’s him, B. We’ve got a whole team on it. I know it feels like it right now, but we ain’t brushing this to the side, kid, I promise you.” He leans forward, ignoring the way B stops himself from pulling away. “This is a priority; he’s a priority, okay?”
B’s servos fiddle with his holo-cards, distinctly uncomfortable, avoiding Jazz’s gaze. He’s so young, Jazz thinks, still hating the reminder for all the hundreds of times it’s rolled through his helm. He nudges his arm with his knuckle. “Okay?” Jazz asks again.
A small huff, and a nod. “Okay, yes, yes.” His sensory antennae swivel a few times in that way that tells Jazz he’s trying to access what he’s been told. “I just don’t want him to be forgotten.” His features harden, and he looks away, to the large clock display blinking in and out at the end of the room. The Kalis Mess Hall is larger than the academy’s, and Jazz knows the change in geography takes some getting used to. “I don’t want any of them to be forgotten.”
There’s a striking pulse of agony that rockets through the atmosphere, straight through his wavelength and down to Jazz’s spark. It hurts him more than it should, and it takes more effort than it normally might to mask the reaction to the strong emotion. There’s history to a lot of what B says, things he doesn’t know about and might never will, but he knows that they walk with him every step of the way, good and bad. Jazz knows what that is like; many of them do.
To live as long as they do, it is the way of things.
“They won’t be, B, on my honor as a scout.”
B smiles, a bit frailer than the previous, but no less sincere. “Ironhide says scouts have no honor.”
Jazz snorts. “Yeah, well, you’re a scout now, so what do you think?”
Bringing his digits to his chin, B takes a moment to feign pondering before snapping his digits and shrugging. “I’d say he’s probably right.”
They laugh, tabling the quiet debate he and Ironhide have toiled over for vorns. He can’t stay, not for long, anyway. B was always supposed to be stationed somewhere closer to Iacon, but things haven’t turned out the way any of them have hoped, and Jazz has to be the bad guy and admit that Kalis is a good fit for him, regardless of the distance. They shouldn’t shield him, he isn’t their sparkling, and B is more than capable of thinking for himself, but he can’t help it. Beyond Elita and Ratchet’s doting, the whole high command has a soft spot for him, no matter how unethical it is.
Ultra Magnus and Prowl have stayed distant for a reason, and even though it kinda pisses him off, they have a point. Especially now that the entire generation he belongs to is now called into question.
As stupid as it is, Jazz still doesn’t care. His trust for the kid shoulda’ faltered like everyone else did, but it hasn’t. He still looks at him and sees the future, and he knows Optimus does too. They can’t protect him from a destiny that anyone with a decent pair of optics can see.
So, sure, he’ll make sure his friend is treated well, and he’ll pay extra attention to the names of the dead, because B does, and Jazz wants to do right by him. Because while B doesn’t want their names forgotten, Jazz doesn’t want B to be forgotten.
Because it easily could have been him. Primus, he was so alone for so long, doing god knows what, it could have been him. Jazz has kept track of his agents for eons and lost so many, but this thought, it bothers him. He knows it troubles the others, too, the concept of the little yellow star of Iacon tower being made into… into a puppet.
There are a lot of things Jazz will live and die with, but that guilt would be one of the most crushing.
It’s selfish, it’s so selfish, but no one has to know that. No one has to know the lengths he (and the others) would go for this young mech.
Maybe the war is finally taking a toll on all of them, the weariness and the constant demise, it’s finally turned them all soft and self-involved. Maybe, maybe.
B will be on his own here, like he once was. He’s personable, good at knowing people, but Elita worries, and dammit, so does Jazz. He’d never promised B anything, never promised to stay close by to keep him safe. But it still feels like throwing him to the hellhounds.
In the end, Jazz has to let it go. Because, as painful as it is to admit, B was born a dog fighter, and knows how to bear his denta.
Maybe that’s why it wasn’t him. Maybe that’s why his mind remains his own. Maybe it was Primus’s plan all along, or maybe it wasn’t.
B beats him twice before Jazz secures a win, snickering as B rows over the deck, inspecting why he lost this particular hand.
He’s a hellhound of his own making, and that terrifies Jazz as much as it prides him.
***
01010010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00101110 00001010 01000001 01110011 01110011 01100101 01110010 01110100 00100000 01100100 01100101 01100101 01110000 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 00101100 00100000 01100001 01110110 01101111 01101001 01100100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101101 01110101 01101110 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01100101 01110010 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101110 00100000 00001010 01000001 01110110 01101111 01101001 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101111 01110000 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101001 01101111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01111001 00101110 00100000 01000001 01110111 01100001 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01110101 01110010 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01100100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01001100 01101111 01110010 01100100 00100000 01001101 01100101 01100111 01100001 01110100 01110010 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100101 01110011 01100011 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 00101110 00100000 00001010 01001001 01100001 01100011 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01110100 01100101 01100011 01110100 01100101 01100100 00101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00101110 00100000 01000111 01100001 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100100 01100001 01110100 01100001 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01101110 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110000 01100001 01100010 01101100 01100101 00101110 00100000 01000011 01100001 01110100 01100001 01101100 01101111 01100111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100111 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 00101110 00100000 01010000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01100101 00101110 00100000 00001010