Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day began differently for the Decepticons.

A faint unease lingered in the air from the moment the first patrols reported in, a subtle disruption in the rhythm of the Nemesis. For once, it wasn’t the echo of battle or the low growl of Megatron’s temper that disturbed the silence—it was the absence of a voice that had always been there.

Starscream, the proud Second-in-Command of the Decepticon army, Commander of the Aerial Forces—was nowhere to be found.

He did not appear for his morning briefings, where he was meant to organize the flight formations and distribute tasks among the Seekers. He did not attend the energon delivery, an irritatingly meticulous duty he insisted on handling personally for his trine and the rest of the aerial units. He was absent from the High Echelon meeting, where his sharp tongue usually caused more tension than strategy.

Total silence.

For the first time in vorns, the corridors of the Nemesis felt hollow without his voice echoing through them—no sarcasm, no complaints, no smug laughter. Just… nothing.

At first, the Decepticons whispered among themselves, exchanging confused glances as they worked. Maybe he was sulking again, hiding after an argument with Megatron. Maybe he had been detained in the laboratories for another one of Shockwave’s experiments. But hours passed, and still no sign of the tricolor Seeker.

Finally, Megatron’s patience broke.

Furious at yet another apparent display of defiance, the Warlord stormed down the corridor toward Starscream’s private quarters, his heavy pedes striking the metal floor with a thunderous rhythm. His field burned with anger, every movement radiating command and threat.

When the door refused to open quickly enough, Megatron slammed his servo against it, tearing it nearly from its hinges as he forced his way inside—

—and stopped.

The room was empty.

Silent.

Only the faint hum of the ventilation system filled the space. The berth was stripped bare, the datapads gone, the usual clutter of tools, notes, and scraps of half-finished inventions nowhere to be seen. The faint scent of flight lubricant and ozone that usually marked the Seeker’s presence was fading, already cold.

And on the berth, placed with deliberate precision, lay Starscream’s Decepticon badge.

Megatron froze, the sight of it hitting him like a physical blow.

The closet doors stood open, their insides stripped clean. Only a few meaningless items were left behind—a datachip cracked in half, a broken energon vial, a few fragments of metal that might once have been part of an experiment. Nothing personal. Nothing alive.

It was as though Starscream had erased himself.

Megatron’s optics burned crimson as fury overtook disbelief. His roar shattered the silence of the entire ship, echoing through the corridors like thunder.

“STAAARSCREAAAAAAAM!!!!!”

The cry reverberated through every level of the Nemesis, rattling armor plates and sparking panic among the ranks. The Decepticons froze where they stood; even the strongest of them flinched at the sound of their leader’s rage.

In the command center, orders came fast and ruthless. Megatron wanted Starscream’s location. He wanted the Seeker found. Brought back—no matter the cost.

“Soundwave—trace him. Now.”

The communications officer bowed silently, his visor flickering as he extended his reach across every encrypted channel, every trace signal. Nothing. The frequency that once carried Starscream’s code was dead, as though it had been severed.

“Tarn,” Megatron growled into the open channel, his tone a weapon in itself, “you and your Division will locate Starscream. You will find him. And you will bring him back—alive.”

The order was absolute. None dared question it.

But the more they searched, the clearer it became: Starscream had planned this.

Thundercracker and Skywarp, his trinemates, were summoned before Megatron, their expressions a mix of disbelief and grief. Both denied knowing anything.

“He didn’t tell us,” Thundercracker said, his tone low, shoulders tense with restrained anger. “He just—disappeared.”

“Not even a message,” Skywarp added softly, optics flickering. “We can’t reach him, Lord Megatron. His comm… it’s dead. Like he ripped it out himself.”

They weren’t wrong.

Shockwave, ever the scientist, entered Starscream’s quarters later that cycle to investigate. His single optic swept across the room with clinical precision until it paused near the corner of the berth. There, against the dark floor plates, lay a small, dried pool of energon—faint traces of blue and violet shimmer marking where a spark pulse had once been active.

And within that small puddle of dried energon rested the twisted remains of Starscream’s internal communicator.

Next to it, his internal GPS. His tracker. Both forcibly removed.

Starscream had torn out the very devices that tied him to the Decepticons—the implants that allowed Megatron to find any soldier, anywhere, at any time.

He hadn’t simply fled. He had made himself untraceable.

Shockwave stared at the components for a long moment, the hum of his lab-sensors cutting through the silence. Finally, in that flat, emotionless voice, he delivered his report:

“Starscream removed his own tracking network. He did not wish to be found.”

And as that truth sank into the walls of the Nemesis, even the most loyal Decepticons began to whisper what none dared say aloud: Starscream was gone.

The events that followed were nothing but an endless cycle of searches, patrols, and interrogations—each one driven by desperation, each one ending in failure.

Every order, every command, revolved around a single objective: locate the cowardly tricolor Seeker. The traitor who had dared to abandon the Decepticon cause. The one who had made a mockery of Megatron’s command and vanished like a ghost into the void of Cybertron’s ruins.

Tarn and his team, the dreaded Decepticon Justice Division, were dispatched first. For months, they scoured every border, every ravaged city, every abandoned outpost across the planet and beyond. Their search stretched through the wastelands of Kaon’s outskirts, across the shattered spires of Vos, through the hollow skeletons of orbital stations where Seekers once trained.

But there was nothing. No trace. No data trail. Not even a rumor.

For the first time since the DJD’s formation, Tarn could not find his target.

It was an impossible truth for the perfectionist executioner to accept. His record had always been immaculate—his hunts swift, precise, and final. Yet Starscream had slipped through the unrelenting grasp of the DJD as though he had never existed at all. The failure burned through Tarn’s systems like acid.

When he and his team finally returned to the Nemesis, it was not in triumph, but in silence.

Their armor was scarred, their steps heavy, and for once, Tarn’s mask seemed to carry the faintest shadow of defeat. The Decepticon warlord watched as the DJD stood before him—his finest instruments of justice—now powerless, unable to fulfill his will.

Megatron’s optics flared. The tension in the command hall was suffocating. The hum of the ship seemed to hold its breath.

Tarn bowed his head and spoke, his deep modulated voice reverberating through the chamber.

“We searched every sector, Lord Megatron. No trace remains. It is as though Starscream… erased himself.”

The silence that followed was unbearable.

For months, the Decepticon base lived beneath the weight of Megatron’s silent fury.

Soundwave, ever efficient, ever precise, also took to the task. His network spanned entire systems, his reach extending into encrypted Autobot frequencies, smuggler transmissions, and the faintest scraps of static carried on Cybertron’s dead air. But even he—Soundwave, the mind that could decode a whisper from a galaxy away—found nothing.

No signal.
No image.
No sound.
Not even a whisper of the tricolor Seeker.

Starscream had truly vanished.

Megatron, consumed by rage and disbelief, tore through the halls of the Nemesis like a storm. His commands grew sharper, his punishments more severe, and yet, deep beneath his fury was the one thing he despised most: helplessness.

He was forced—against every fiber of his will—to accept the truth.

Starscream had won.

Not by power.
Not by betrayal.
But by silence.

He had slipped beyond Megatron’s reach completely, leaving behind a void that no amount of discipline or violence could fill.

The months bled into vorns, and the war continued.

Nearly two years passed since that day—the day Starscream’s quarters were found empty, his badge left cold upon the berth. The Decepticons fought on, brutal and relentless, but the skies were not the same.

Without the sharp gleam of red and silver wings cutting through the horizon, the aerial battlefield lost its cunning precision. The Autobots gained ground, emboldened by the absence of their most dangerous aerial strategist.

Still, the Decepticons adapted, as they always did.

Dreadwing, loyal and stoic, rose to fill the position of Aerial Commander. His leadership was strong, measured, and dutiful. His presence in the air restored a degree of order to the scattered flight divisions.

But he was not Starscream.

He did not prepare energon cubes by hand, ensuring the exact chemical balance for every unique aerial frame. He did not reconfigure formations mid-flight based on subtle shifts of air current or enemy signal. He did not inspire the same awe—or fear—that Starscream had among the wings.

Dreadwing’s rule was disciplined, structured, dependable. But the elegance, the sharp ingenuity, the unpredictable brilliance that once defined the Aerial Forces had vanished with their former commander.

Slowly, the Seekers adapted to Dreadwing’s style of command. They learned to obey without question, to fight without emotion. The skies once filled with Starscream’s cunning strategies and defiant laughter now echoed only with the heavy silence of obedience.

The change was gradual, inevitable. The tricolor commander had been erased not just from the Decepticons’ ranks, but from the very rhythm of their war.

And yet… every time the sky darkened with smoke and lightning, every time the wind howled through the canyons of metal and ash, some could almost swear they heard the faint, ghostly echo of thrusters—light, sharp, distant.

A sound that belonged to no one else.

It was tough.

It was brutal.

The Decepticons had to lose Starscream to truly understand the value of what he had been doing for them all along.

At first, they thought his absence was merely an inconvenience — a gap in the chain of command, a missing voice in the strategy meetings. But as the cycles turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, the reality began to set in like rust corroding metal.

The perfect reports that once guided the Decepticon army — those flawless, detailed records that made operations run smoothly, that mapped the skies, that listed every resource, every aerial formation, every predicted weakness in the Autobot defense — were gone.

No one could replicate them.

Because it had always been Starscream who wrote them.

The Aerial Commanders, now under Dreadwing’s stoic hand, struggled to manage without the Seeker’s meticulous oversight. Every plan that Starscream had once fine-tuned by instinct and intellect was now clumsy, inefficient, full of gaps that no one saw until it was too late.

The battle formations that once cut through Autobot lines like lightning now faltered mid-air, misaligned or mistimed. Energon reserves dropped faster. Missions grew longer. The cost in bodies and repairs grew unbearable.

The Decepticon medbay, once merely a chamber for occasional maintenance and patchwork, became a battlefield of its own. The air reeked of burned metal and scorched energon.

Bots limped in with blaster wounds, scorched armor, deep energon leaks. Others were dragged in by their comrades, pieces of plating hanging by cables, limbs half-severed and optics dimming.

They hadn’t realized it before, but it had been Starscream’s battle strategies — his calculations, his contingency plans, his constant interference — that had kept so many of them alive. Even when they disobeyed his orders, even when they mocked him, he had found a way to minimize the damage, to adjust mid-battle and compensate for their recklessness.

He had been their unseen protector.

And without him, the cost of every skirmish multiplied tenfold.

Even Megatron, in his towering pride, began to feel the slow consequences of that absence.

His fusion cannon — the infamous arm weapon that had once made Autobots flee at the mere sight of its glow — now sat useless, cold, and silent. The calibrations were off, the compression systems unstable. The weapon’s power cells flickered dangerously every time he tried to fire it.

Because it had been Starscream who built it.

It had been Starscream who had maintained it, who had known every microcircuit, every power conduit, every delicate calibration required to keep that monstrous weapon balanced and safe. Without him, even Megatron’s fury had to remain dormant.

And that wasn’t all.

The Nemesis itself suffered. The great warship, pride of the Decepticon army, had grown weaker in his absence. The massive plasma cannon — the weapon that had once terrified the Autobots, capable of leveling entire strongholds — lay dark and silent, its energy conduits unstable and its core refusing to charge properly.

Starscream had designed that weapon.

He had tuned it by hand, running calculations that even Shockwave admitted were beyond his logic models. Only Starscream knew its patterns, its delicate harmony between heat compression and energon flow. Without him, no one dared to ignite it again.

The same went for the Nemesis’s shields — the invisible barrier that had once protected them from Autobot airstrikes and orbital bombardments. It still flickered faintly, but only because Soundwave, ever the observant one, had quietly learned from Starscream before his disappearance. The Seeker had shared his method, his coding structure, almost absentmindedly — and it was that small act of foresight that kept the base from becoming vulnerable to destruction.

Without that, even the sky fortress itself would have fallen.

Cycle after cycle, the truth became impossible to deny.

Starscream had been vital to the Decepticons — not as a soldier, not as a second-in-command, not even as a voice of dissent — but as the mind that made their survival possible.

Every report, every mechanism, every success had carried his invisible signature.

He had been the one holding them together while they all scorned him.

And it was only in losing him that they finally realized how much of their strength had been his doing.

The Decepticons learned, far too late, that Starscream had been more than their commander.

He had been their foundation.

And the foundation was now gone.

Or they had thinked as it.

 

It was a quiet afternoon aboard the Nemesis—unnaturally quiet for a Decepticon warship. The long metallic corridors hummed with the low vibration of machinery and the distant thrum of generators, but the usual tension, the constant movement of troops, and the commanding presence of Megatron’s voice were absent.

Most of the Decepticons were scattered across sectors, engaged in minimal repairs or routine patrols. There were no battles that day, no urgent reports from Soundwave’s surveillance, no strategy meetings. Only silence and the faint weight of monotony hung over the ship like a heavy shroud.

That silence broke when Soundwave entered the throne room.

He moved with his usual silent precision—each step measured, each motion exact. The great doors opened with a soft hiss, revealing the imposing chamber where Megatron sat upon his throne, half lost in thought, his massive frame carved from shadow and light.

“Lord Megatron,” Soundwave’s modulated voice echoed softly, calm and mechanical as ever. “Transmission received. Lugnut requests direct communication.”

Megatron’s optics flickered open, glowing like molten embers. “Lugnut?” His tone carried a mixture of irritation and curiosity. “That traitorous brute still breathes?”

“Affirmative.” Soundwave paused, his visor gleaming faintly as he replayed fragments of the message. “Lugnut claims to possess information of great value to the Decepticon cause. He requests personal audience with you, Lord Megatron.”

The warlord straightened, his claws curling slightly over the armrests of his throne. “Information? About what?”

“He would not specify. Only that it is something you would ‘wish to know’.”

For a moment, the chamber filled with the low hum of the ship’s engines, vibrating through the floor beneath them. Megatron’s optics narrowed in suspicion. Lugnut was an unpredictable one—fanatically loyal once, but since the end of the great campaigns, he had vanished into the chaos of the outer systems, living by barter and scavenged honor.

And now he came with an offer.

Megatron leaned forward, his voice low and commanding. “Open the bridge. Let him through. If he lies, I will silence him myself.”

Soundwave inclined his head and extended his hand, the deep hum of his systems filling the air as he initiated the bridge sequence.

A swirling vortex of teal light opened in the middle of the throne chamber, crackling with raw energy. The air distorted, shimmering like liquid glass as the space bridge stabilized—and from its heart, a massive frame emerged.

Lugnut stepped through the light.

The old warrior was broader than most, his purple armor dulled with age and the grime of travel, yet his posture was as imposing as ever. His optics glowed with pride and cunning, and, strangely, a smile—wide, almost triumphant—curved his scarred faceplate.

He looked pleased with himself.

Megatron’s optics followed him closely as the bridge faded behind. The Decepticon leader did not rise, but his presence was overwhelming, the weight of his gaze enough to silence the hum of machinery in the room.

Lugnut bowed slightly, then straightened, clutching two datapads in his thick claws. His grin didn’t falter. “Lord Megatron,” he began, his voice deep, heavy with the gravel of time and confidence, “I bring you something you want. Something worth far more than my words could describe. Information that, for the right price, could once again be yours.”

The chamber stirred. A low murmur of interest spread among the Decepticons who had gathered near the edges of the room—guards, commanders, and idle soldiers who had never seen Lugnut since the war’s fading years.

Megatron’s expression hardened. “You play a dangerous game, Lugnut,” he growled, rising slightly from his throne, the shadows of the chamber crawling across his armor. “You presume to barter with me? Speak. What do you have that is worth my time?”

Lugnut’s grin widened. “Not what, my lord. Who.”

That single word drew every optic in the room toward him.

He raised the first datapad slowly, reverently, like one presenting an offering to a god. “In this datapad,” he said, his tone almost gloating, “is the location of your lost Second-in-Command. The tricolor Seeker… Starscream.”

The word hung in the air like a thunderclap.

Megatron’s optics burned brighter. Every Decepticon in the chamber froze, even Soundwave, whose normally stoic stance stiffened imperceptibly.

“Continue,” Megatron ordered, his voice dark and calm, but trembling faintly beneath with something—anticipation, rage, or perhaps something he refused to name.

Lugnut’s smile grew sharper. He raised the second datapad. “And in this one,” he said slowly, savoring the attention, “you will find not only his location—but the reason he disappeared. The truth behind his vanishing act. Everything you never knew.”

He tilted his head slightly, optics glinting. “Both are for sale. Separate prices. You choose which knowledge you desire.”

Megatron’s claws twitched. “You dare to sell me what already belongs to me?”

Lugnut chuckled darkly, shaking his head. “Ah, but that’s the beauty of it, Lord Megatron. These datapads work only with my personal access code. If you try to take them by force…” He tapped the devices, the faint blue lights flickering. “…the encryption will self-destruct. And with it, all the information—gone forever.”

A wave of tension rippled through the chamber.

Lugnut’s tone turned measured, almost casual. “So, my lord, let us speak of price.”

He named the first amount—high, obscene even by Decepticon standards. But when he mentioned the cost of the second datapad, the one containing the truth, the number was far greater—so great that even Soundwave’s visor flickered with disbelief.

Lugnut smiled again, broad and certain of his power. “The second one, of course,” he said, “costs far more. Knowledge of why he left… is far more valuable than knowing where he is.”

And there, in the silence that followed, Megatron’s expression shifted—cold fury restrained beneath iron composure, optics burning as the faintest hint of curiosity took hold.

Starscream’s name still carried weight. Even after two years.

Megatron leaned back against his throne, the great steel frame groaning beneath the movement. The warlord’s optics glowed faintly in the dim light of the command chamber, his claws resting against the carved armrests as he allowed the tension in the air to stretch—slow and deliberate.

Then, in that voice that could silence an army with a whisper, Megatron spoke—calm, controlled, and deadly in its composure.

“Tarn.”

The name sliced through the silence like a blade.

The towering enforcer stepped forward from among the gathered crowd, his field restrained but his frame radiating unease.

Megatron’s optics burned into him, unreadable. “You will purchase the datapad.”

No other words. No explanation. But everyone in the chamber understood what it meant.

It wasn’t an order—it was a test.

Tarn knew it immediately. He knew that this was Megatron’s way of forcing him to redeem his past failure—the failure to find the tricolor Seeker after months of relentless searching. And every Decepticon in that room knew it too, though none dared to speak.

The silence was heavy, suffocating, filled with the sound of restrained field pressure and the distant hum of machinery.

Tarn moved forward. His heavy pedes struck the floor with measured precision as he approached Lugnut, who still stood proudly before the throne. The old warrior’s grin remained unshaken, the satisfaction of victory already gleaming in his optics. He knew he had won—no matter how the exchange played out, he would leave richer.

The Decepticon Justice Division commander stopped just in front of him, looming with quiet menace. His voice came out low, deep, and mechanical, vibrating with restrained anger.

“I want the second datapad,” Tarn said. “The one with the full information.”

He reached into his data wrist port and opened a secured transfer line. “The transaction will be paid through my own and the DJD’s funds.”

There was a flicker in Lugnut’s optics—amusement, greed, and the smug satisfaction of knowing the scale of his own advantage.

He waited patiently, optics flicking to the small interface on his gauntlet as the shanix transfer began. The loading bar crawled across the screen—slow, agonizingly slow.

When the transaction finally completed, a deep click sounded through the chamber.

Lugnut’s smile widened, almost gleeful. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said, his tone dripping with mock politeness as he extended the datapad toward Tarn. The faint blue light of its screen pulsed gently, now unlocked and active.

Tarn took it in silence. The weight of it felt heavy—not just in his servos, but in his spark.

Lugnut gave a last, self-satisfied nod toward Megatron. “May this information serve you well, my lord,” he said, his grin almost taunting. “I suspect it will change more than you expect.”

Then, without waiting for permission to leave, he turned toward the still-active portal.

The space bridge swirled open once more, teal energy flashing across the chamber as Lugnut stepped into its light. The vortex swallowed him whole, his laughter faintly echoing before the gate sealed shut behind him.

And just like that, he was gone—richer than ever, and fully aware that the DJD had likely emptied every remaining reserve they had. Tarn and his Division had sacrificed everything for that datapad—credits, pride, and perhaps even favor.

The silence that followed was thick enough to crush the air from the room.

Tarn turned, still holding the datapad carefully in both hands. The light from its screen glowed faintly across his mask as he approached the throne. Then, in a gesture of absolute submission, he lowered himself to one knee before Megatron and lifted the device upward.

“My lord,” he said softly, voice reverberating with mechanical reverence.

Megatron reached forward slightly, but instead of taking it, his optics flicked toward Soundwave.

“Give it to Soundwave,” he ordered. “Let him connect it to the main console. I want this broadcast.”

Tarn rose without a word, obeying instantly. He crossed the chamber and handed the datapad to Soundwave, who received it with his usual silent precision. Within seconds, thin cables extended from his wrists and connected to the central computer embedded into the wall behind the throne.

The large screen flared to life, filling the room with cold light. Data lines flickered across it, decrypting, loading, expanding—until the faint silhouette of a file emerged.

Megatron rose from his throne, slow and deliberate, the weight of his presence commanding absolute silence. He stood before the screen, arms crossed, optics narrowed to slits of molten red.

He wanted every Decepticon present to see this.

He wanted them to witness what kind of betrayal Starscream had committed—not only against him, but against the Decepticon cause, against his trine, against the sacred bond shared by the aerials themselves.

There was a deep rumble in his voice as he spoke:
“Let all see the truth. Let all understand what treachery looks like.”

The data finished loading.

For a moment, nothing happened. The screen flickered. A soft hum filled the room as the system stabilized.

Megatron’s optics glowed, expectant, ready to see the trivial—perhaps proof of cowardice, perhaps a record of secret deals or a pathetic attempt at defection. He expected something petty, something typical of Starscream’s selfish ambition.

But as the screen finally shifted into focus, revealing the first image, the first recording—

—what Megatron and the rest of the Decepticons were about to see was not, by any measure, what they imagined.

It would change everything.

Chapter Text

When Soundwave connected the datapad to the central computer in the command room, a hushed stillness fell upon the entire hall. The faint hum of the screens, the low thrumming of the Nemesis’ engines, and the static in the air were the only sounds that dared to exist. Every Decepticon present—high-ranking officers, soldiers, and drones alike—focused entirely on that single small datapad, now glowing faintly blue in Soundwave’s hands.

The data took only a moment to load. Two files appeared on the large central screen—only two: one containing coordinates from just a few hours ago, and the other, a video file.

Soundwave glanced up, silently awaiting Megatron’s permission. The Warlord gave a slight nod, one clawed servo lifting in silent command.

Without a word, Soundwave pressed play.

The video flickered to life, static crackling briefly before the image sharpened. The sound was faint at first—the soft whir of wind, the distant hum of machinery—and then came the sight that made every optic in the room widen.

Starscream.

The tricolor Seeker stood alone beneath the dim light of a small hangar—or perhaps a cave, it was difficult to tell. The walls around him were rough, uneven, scarred by time and heat. The air shimmered faintly with static dust. And there he was, crouched beside what appeared to be an old Cybertronian aircraft—ancient, compact, weather-worn, its surface patched with rough plating and dented panels.

It wasn’t sleek or powerful like the ships the Decepticons used. No, this one was humble, almost fragile in design—something from the pre-war era, used for short-range deliveries or private transport across Cybertron’s industrial sectors.

It was, in its simplicity, perfect. Small enough to hide in the shadows of moons or drift behind asteroids. No transwarp drive, no quantum jump systems, no traceable signal frequencies. No registration code, no energon signature beyond its pilot’s spark.

A ghost ship—unseen, unheard, and untraceable.

And Starscream was repairing it.

He was bent over one of the wings, his once-pristine plating now dulled and marred by age and wear. His digits, stained with black grease, moved deftly across a scorched panel that bore the unmistakable mark of a meteor strike or planetary debris. Beside him lay an open toolkit, neatly arranged despite the dust and grime that covered everything else. His movements were methodical, precise, even tired—but there was a quiet patience in them, a care that none of them had ever seen in him before.

To his right, a metal basket rested on the ground, half in shadow. It seemed out of place—ordinary, domestic, not the kind of thing that belonged beside a war machine.

For a moment, none of the Decepticons breathed.

They could not reconcile what they saw with the Starscream they once knew.

He looked… thinner. Fragile. The sharpness of his frame had diminished, the proud gleam of his wings long faded beneath layers of dust and neglect. There were cracks along the translucent glass of his cockpit, small dents and faint discolorations where energon once ran bright. His plating showed signs of malnutrition—the uneven glow of a spark burning on limited fuel.

And yet—even like this—there was still something commanding about him. No insignia marked his chest now, but there was a quiet, undeniable strength emanating from him, something almost regal in the way he carried himself even in solitude.

Then, the sound came.

A cry.

High-pitched, raw, and alive.

It pierced the air like an electric pulse.

The noise startled even those watching from afar through the screen; in the video, Starscream’s optics widened instantly, his hands freezing mid-motion. The clatter of his tools echoed faintly as he set them down with uncharacteristic gentleness.

He turned toward the source of the sound—toward the small metal basket. His movements were quick but careful, deliberate. Wiping his hands against a rag to clean the streaks of grease, he approached and knelt beside it.

Then he reached inside.

Every Decepticon in that control room—warriors who had seen millennia of battle, who had crushed and burned without hesitation—fell utterly silent.

Because what Starscream lifted from that basket was no weapon.

It was a protoform.

A living, breathing, newly sparked protoform—small, fragile, its metallic surface still uncolored, soft grey with faint glimmers of silver and black beneath. It was barely formed, its plating thin and unfinished, its optics glowing with the innocent light of new life—wide, lilac-hued optics that flickered weakly as it let out another cry.

Starscream’s entire expression softened.

He cradled the protoform close, his wings trembling faintly as he rocked it against his chest. His voice, though faint on the video, carried through the speakers—gentle, cooing, the kind of tone none of them had ever imagined from him.

The protoform’s cries faded into soft hiccups, its tiny servos clutching weakly at the plating of Starscream’s chest. It was wrapped—not in a blanket, nor in any official protoform wrap—but in a dark blue scarf with touches of deep violet.

Thundercracker and Skywarp, standing among the crowd, froze.

They knew that scarf.

They had given it to Starscream eons ago—for the celebration of his sparkbirth. It had been a rare gift, a symbol of trine-bonded devotion. Yet, neither of them had ever seen him wear it. Not once. Not even during the harshest storms over Vos, when the winds could cut through armor.

He had kept it hidden. Preserved. Untouched.

And now, in the video, that very scarf was wrapped carefully around a living protoform—perfectly clean, perfectly whole, as if it had been guarded all these vorns with the kind of care Starscream gave to nothing else in the universe.

The tiny protoform began to calm, a soft hum escaping its still-developing vocalizer as it curled closer into the warmth of Starscream’s frame. Then, with a small, almost comical motion, it lifted one digitless hand to its mouth and began to suck on it—a protoform’s instinctive comfort reflex.

A few of the soldiers watching actually flinched. None had seen such innocence since the war began.

Starscream smiled.

Not his usual smirk, not the arrogant curve of a schemer’s lips—but something soft, tired, and full of quiet peace.

He gently lifted the metal basket in one servo and balanced the small protoform in the crook of his other arm. The protoform’s optics fluttered, its small frame relaxing as it pressed against his armor, feeling the faint pulse of his spark through the plating.

Without another word, Starscream turned and walked toward the small, weathered aircraft.

He stepped inside, carrying both the basket and the little one with him.

The last image the Decepticons saw before the screen faded was Starscream’s back disappearing into the dim interior of the ship—the faint light glinting off his battered wings, one servo protectively cradling the protoform close to his spark.

And then the screen went dark.

For a long, endless moment, no one in the control room moved. No one spoke.

The silence was total.

For a long, unbearable moment after the screen went dark, no one moved.

The silence that fell over the command room was suffocating—so deep that even the hum of the Nemesis’ engines seemed distant, unreal. Dozens of optics were still fixed on the screen as if refusing to accept what they had just witnessed.

It was not Soundwave who moved first, nor Megatron, whose expression had gone completely unreadable, optics burning faintly crimson as though in disbelief.

It was Nickel.

The medic’s small frame darted forward in a blur of motion. Her tiny claws clinked against the metal console as she scaled the computer panel with surprising speed and precision, her movements fueled by something between shock and instinctive urgency. The little medic’s voice cut through the silence, sharp and commanding in that way only a doctor’s tone could be when something demanded attention.

“Rewind that,” she snapped, already reaching the controls before anyone else reacted.

The screen flickered, and the last seconds of the video returned—the moment when the protoform, still half-exposed from the blanket of the dark blue and lilac scarf, moved weakly in Starscream’s arms. Nickel froze the image there, then magnified it. The pixels sharpened, the light adjusted. She fine-tuned the resolution, bringing the image into painfully clear focus.

The protoform filled the screen—delicate, small, and impossibly alive.

Nickel’s optics glowed bright, scanning with trained precision as she spoke aloud, her voice steady but full of astonishment. “Protoform appears to be… very young. A few weeks at most. Possibly less than eighteen solar days old.”

The room stayed utterly still.

She leaned closer, studying the contours, her medic’s scanners clicking quietly as she analyzed every visible feature. “Femme designation,” she continued clinically, though her voice softened faintly at the word. “And aerial type. See here—two small wing bulbs on the dorsal plating. Still forming structure. That’s not decorative plating; that’s proto-wing development.”

Her gaze flicked to Megatron for half a second before she looked back to the screen, tone sharp and focused. “Cybertronian carriers carry for approximately fifteen months under normal gestation. Assuming no complications or premature spark-separation, that means Starscream would have been sparked nearly two solar years ago.” Nickel’s optics narrowed, calculating. “Right around the time of his disappearance.”

Her claws tapped rapidly over the controls again, zooming further in. The image showed the protoform’s soft metal surface, its small hands, and the faint glow of its core flickering under the translucent chest plating. “Healthy,” Nickel murmured. “Rounded spark casing, no visible malformations. Fed regularly. Stable core glow. Whoever cared for her did it properly.”

A beat passed, and Nickel’s voice grew quieter, almost reverent. “Starscream took care of her.”

No one dared speak.

Then Nickel pointed to the optics—the faint, luminous color that still glowed even through the recording. “Lilac eyes,” she said, almost whispering now. “Extremely rare in protoforms. That color is only possible when both progenitors carry a pure recessive variation of the lilac pigment gene. It doesn’t just appear. It has to be inherited from both lines.”

Murmurs rippled faintly among the Decepticons, low and disbelieving. Nickel ignored them completely, zooming in once more. She adjusted the saturation, analyzing the protoform’s skin tone—the faint variation between dark grey, pale silver, and soft ash grey.

“Three tonal layers,” she observed quietly. “Almost certainly she’ll be tricolored when her armor hardens. The same pattern variance seen in Seekers with complex pigmentation lines—like Starscream’s.” She paused, letting that implication hang in the air. “Too early to confirm the exact palette, but all indicators match.”

She leaned back a little, optics narrowing as if to finalize her assessment. “It’s impossible to determine the sire from visuals alone, not without spark resonance data,” she said slowly. “But…” She turned her gaze toward Megatron, her tone absolute. “From the way she responded, from the way she recognized his voice, his touch… there’s no question. Starscream is her Carrier.”

The words hit the room like a detonation.

Nickel looked back at the frozen image on the screen—the protoform half-wrapped in the blue-and-lilac scarf, optics half-lidded, tiny hand clutching Starscream’s plating. Her expression softened, almost tender despite the harshness of the truth she’d just laid bare.

“She knows him,” Nickel said quietly. “You can tell. The way she calmed when he held her—she recognized his spark-field immediately. That only happens with a Carrier. Every chirp, every sound… he knew what it meant. He’s been raising her. Alone.”

And then, as if the revelation itself finally solidified in every spark present, Nickel exhaled slowly, her voice lowering into something like awe.

“That explains everything,” she whispered. “It all makes sense now. The timeline, his disappearance, the secrecy…”

She turned toward the crowd of silent Decepticons, optics wide. “Starscream didn’t defect. He didn’t flee. He left because he was sparked. Because he was carrying.”

A shudder went through the room—an intake released somewhere, a whisper, a stunned curse—but no one truly spoke. Not yet.

Because now, for the first time, they understood.

Starscream hadn’t abandoned them.
He had been protecting something.
Someone.

And the war, the betrayal, the chaos—it all suddenly felt unbearably small compared to the image frozen on that screen: a once-feared commander, alone and worn, holding life in his arms with the kind of care none of them had ever imagined him capable of.

Hook was the first to move after the heavy silence that followed Nickel’s revelation.
The Constructicon surgeon, ever sharp, ever calculating, could already read what would come next—the flickering shift in Megatron’s optics, the twitch of his clawed servos against the throne’s armrest, the tightening of cables along his massive shoulders.

He had seen that expression before.
It was the expression Megatron wore just before destruction—just before issuing an order that would burn the sky itself.

Hook knew that if he did not speak now, someone—perhaps several someones—would pay for it.

He approached slowly, his steps deliberate and measured, plating glinting in the dim crimson light of the command room. He bowed his helm respectfully but not submissively, his tone even and precise, the voice of a medic who understood far more than most about the fragility of life.

“Lord Megatron,” Hook began, his voice cutting through the still air with quiet authority. “I know what you are thinking. But if you send any unit after Starscream now—if you make any sudden move—it will not end in victory.”

Megatron’s optics flicked toward him, the crimson glow sharp, unreadable.

Hook did not flinch. “It would put the protoform’s life in jeopardy.”

The statement hung in the air, heavy and absolute.

A few murmurs rippled through the surrounding Decepticons, but Hook pressed on before anyone dared interrupt. “It’s not the Autobots you should be concerned about—it’s the protoform itself. At her stage of development, any sudden fright, any exposure to shock or extreme emotional resonance could cause her spark to misfire. A protoform that young doesn’t yet know how to regulate her field. Fear alone could kill her.”

He paused, watching Megatron’s expression shift—subtle, but real. “If you send a squadron, or worse, if you appear before Starscream yourself, that fear alone could ignite her spark pulse out of sync with her core.” His tone softened just enough to carry the weight of warning. “She could die… literally from the shock.”

Nickel, still perched atop the control console, nodded firmly, her expression grave. “Hook’s right. She’s still in her critical period—her systems aren’t stable yet. The smallest disturbance to her environment, or even Starscream’s emotional field reacting to stress, could have catastrophic effects. His spark and hers are linked through a carrier resonance. If he panics, she will too. And if she panics, her spark could destabilize.”

She crossed her arms, tiny optics gleaming with determination. “If we confront him now, we risk killing her.”

That sentence silenced even Megatron.

For a long, unbearable moment, the Warlord sat perfectly still upon his throne, optics dimmed to a low, flickering glow. His hand flexed once against the armrest—metal grinding faintly beneath the pressure of his claws.

When he finally exhaled, it wasn’t rage that filled the room anymore. It was confusion.

For the first time in ages, Megatron did not know what to do.

The fury that had once burned so violently inside him—rage at betrayal, at perceived cowardice, at the thought that Starscream had abandoned him—seemed to dissolve like smoke. It was replaced by something heavier, harder to define.

Shock.
Disbelief.
A dawning, reluctant understanding.

He had thought Starscream’s disappearance an act of rebellion. A personal insult. A coward’s escape.
Now, that illusion shattered completely.

And it wasn’t only Megatron who felt it.
Across the command room, countless Decepticons stood in silence, their expressions uneasy, their thoughts shaken. They, too, were realizing the same thing—that all this time, while they had cursed Starscream’s name, he had been alone, carrying life. Protecting it.

Nickel’s small voice broke the silence again, pragmatic but almost gentle. “If he’s still in the same location, we could… monitor him. Observe. Not interfere.”

Megatron’s optics flickered toward her sharply. Nickel held his gaze, unflinching despite her size. “At least until the protoform’s first vorn. That’s when the critical period ends—the armor hardens, the wings develop, the spark stabilizes. After that, she’ll be strong enough to survive brief stress surges without spark failure.”

Tarn, standing near the base of the throne, tilted his helm slightly. His deep voice rumbled, low and resonant. “You have a plan, then?”

Nickel’s optics gleamed faintly. “Of course I do.”

She looked toward Soundwave, who had not moved once since the video had played. “We could send one of your cassette units. The smallest one. Laserbeak.”

Soundwave’s helm turned slightly, the faint hum of his systems indicating he was listening. Nickel continued, already climbing back down to stand near the projection console.

“She’s small, quiet, and fast—perfect for infiltration. You can attach a micro-spy camera and an audio relay to her chestplate. She won’t need to interact, only observe. If she can find a way inside that small aircraft—ventilation ports, fuel conduits, hull seams—she can hide and transmit everything in real time. We could see the interior layout, assess their living conditions, maybe even learn how much energon Starscream has left.”

Her small servos gestured as she spoke, her medic’s mind already turning with the practicality of it. “It’s the safest option. No contact, no interference. We’d just… watch. Until it’s safe to act.”

For several long seconds, Megatron said nothing.

Then he raised his servo—a single, silent command.

Soundwave moved immediately. His chest compartment opened with a soft mechanical whir, light spilling out in thin bands of neon blue.

A sharp trill echoed through the air as Laserbeak emerged, sleek and dark, wings unfolding with a metallic flutter. The small avian casseticon perched momentarily on Soundwave’s arm, optics glowing faint red as Soundwave bent closer to install the miniature camera into the narrow plate along her breast.

The operation was precise and efficient. A tiny spark of static, a soft click—and the connection was live.

Soundwave’s visor flared once, confirming the link.

Megatron gave a slow, deliberate nod. “Proceed.”

Without another sound, Laserbeak launched from Soundwave’s arm, slicing through the air with a soft screech of turbines. Her wings shimmered briefly before she vanished out the open hangar bay, a streak of red and black against the steel-grey clouds.

Soundwave watched her go, his internal systems already tuning to her signal, monitoring the live feed as it began to flicker to life across the Decepticon command screens.

In the heavy quiet that followed, Nickel folded her arms and exhaled softly. “Let’s hope,” she murmured, mostly to herself, “that we’re not already too late.”

The only reply was the soft, fading echo of Laserbeak’s flight—disappearing into the endless metallic horizon in search of a Seeker who had left war behind… and found something worth protecting instead.

By the time Laserbeak reached the coordinates Soundwave had transmitted, the feed on the Decepticon command screen flickered to life, static at first, before the faint outline of a small, isolated aircraft came into focus. It sat upon a quiet stretch of metallic plain, its surface weathered and dull, the once-polished plating dulled by time and dust.

Soundwave’s visor brightened the moment her signal aligned perfectly with the coordinates. The soft hum of his systems filled the room as he activated the miniature spy camera fixed to Laserbeak’s chest. The connection stabilized, and the live feed began to project clearly before the gathered Decepticons.

Through the faint distortion of the transmission, they saw Laserbeak glide soundlessly down toward the vessel. The main door of the small craft was slightly ajar, allowing a narrow slit of pale light to escape into the dim outside air. She approached cautiously, sensors low, and with a delicate push of her talons, slipped inside.

The interior was small—painfully small for someone like Starscream, who once ruled the skies and commanded entire squadrons. The walls were close, the lighting soft and uneven. It was not a soldier’s den, nor a warrior’s base. It was a refuge. A home.

Laserbeak perched silently in the shadows, her optics adjusting to the low glow emanating from a single flickering lamp above the pilot’s seat.

The camera panned slowly across the cramped space, capturing everything.

There were no quarters, no proper table, no storage compartments save for a few makeshift shelves built crudely into the walls. Only the pilot’s chair stood at the front, and beside it—something that made every Decepticon watching fall silent.

A cradle.

It was small and imperfectly shaped, made by hand from cut metal and reinforced with wire seams and softened plating—handcrafted by Starscream himself. Inside the cradle lay a soft, neatly arranged mattress, its corners tucked with meticulous care. Clean blankets, their edges carefully hemmed, were folded within.

And there—nestled between the blankets—was a body pillow, small enough for a sparkling to cling to. It was clearly handmade as well, its seams slightly uneven, but within it was embedded a faintly glowing apparatus—one of Starscream’s own inventions, most likely—designed to radiate gentle warmth. The small heater was currently disconnected, but even now, the cradle exuded comfort and safety.

Laserbeak’s camera shifted slightly, turning toward the rear of the cockpit. There, behind the pilot’s chair, stood a larger seat—taller and thinner, the kind made for sparklings who had just learned to balance upright. Near it, on the floor, was a tiny laboratory: a humble collection of tools, a heating module, and a small conversion unit meant for refining raw energon crystals into a safe, liquid form suitable for ingestion.

Two storage boxes rested nearby. One was already empty, its contents depleted long ago. The other was half-filled with shimmering shards of unprocessed energon, their faint blue light casting soft reflections across the cramped space.

Then the camera focused again—and what it revealed next drew an audible intake of air from every mech watching in the Decepticon command center.

The protoform sat in that small chair near the pilot’s seat, a tiny figure of shimmering silver-gray, her plating still smooth and new, unfinished in texture. Her little arms waved up and down with bright, spontaneous joy. Every movement was clumsy yet full of life—tiny servos twitching, optics wide and luminous. The lilac glow in her eyes was unmistakable, radiant and pure, the kind of color only nature’s rarest coding could create.

She chirped—a series of high, clicking sounds that filled the quiet ship with warmth.

And before her, kneeling on the floor, was Starscream.

He was not the proud, razor-edged Seeker they all remembered. His wings were folded low, his frame thinner, plating dulled by time and fatigue. Yet even in his weariness, there was a gentleness in his movements—delicate, precise, protective.

He was bent over a small heating pad, carefully stirring what could only be described as energon porridge—a soft mixture meant for sparkling consumption. The faint glow of the fluid reflected off his faceplate as he tested its temperature with the tip of one claw, his optics warm and utterly focused.

When he deemed it ready, Starscream rose gracefully, his wings shifting slightly for balance as he approached the little protoform.

In his hands, he carried a small bowl and a spoon—both clearly handmade from scrap material, polished smooth so as not to hurt delicate plating.

The protoform greeted him with a bright chirp, tiny fingers reaching for him the moment he neared.

Starscream’s entire expression softened—his fierce, proud features transformed into something tender, almost fragile. He smiled, just faintly, and made a soft cooing sound in return, a language not of words but of spark resonance, soothing and instinctive.

He lifted the spoon, gently offering her a small portion of the energon porridge. The protoform accepted eagerly, her optics narrowing into bright crescents as she let out a delighted hum. Some of the mixture dripped down her chin, and Starscream, patient and unhurried, wiped it away with the corner of the soft cloth he had slung over his arm.

There was no sound in the Decepticon command center. No one moved.

Even Megatron, who stood watching from the shadows of the viewing chamber, said nothing. His optics glowed faintly, their red dimmed to a strange, distant hue.

On the screen, Starscream smiled again—soft, weary, and filled with something no one had ever seen in him before.

Love.

And for the first time, perhaps in all their long and violent history, the Decepticons looked upon their former Air Commander not as a traitor, nor a rival, nor even an enemy.

But as a carrier.
As a creator.
As someone who had found something worth more than war.

Starscream’s voice filled the small cabin, deep and gentle, the kind of tone no Decepticon had ever heard from him before. It was soft, almost melodic, carrying the patient warmth of a parent speaking to their sparkling.

“Easy now, Tempestra,” he murmured, his voice low and steady, a gentle rumble beneath the quiet hum of the ship’s systems. “Slowly, little one. The food isn’t going anywhere—it won’t sprout legs and walk away.”

The tiny protoform let out a high, cheerful chirp in response, optics bright and playful as she waved her little arms with all the insistence of a sparkling certain that the next spoonful must arrive now. Her movements were so eager, so trusting, that even through the static of the camera feed, a ripple of warmth passed over the room full of Decepticons watching.

Starscream’s lips curved into a faint smile—a small, private expression of amusement that carried no arrogance, only tenderness. With infinite patience, he dipped the spoon again into the bowl of energon porridge, the luminescent mixture glowing faintly in the dim light. He held the spoon steady and offered it to her, and Tempestra leaned forward, chirping again as she accepted it.

He continued this careful ritual—feeding her small portions, pausing between each one to wipe her chin or to let her tiny frame rest before the next mouthful. With every spoon, Tempestra’s motions slowed, her optics dimming with satisfaction. When she was finally full, she gave a small, contented trill, her tiny frame round and warm from nourishment, her plating faintly gleaming.

Starscream gave a quiet hum, setting the empty bowl aside. His wings flickered faintly as he reached for her, and with practiced grace, he lifted Tempestra into his arms. She was so small in comparison—her tiny servos no larger than the tip of his clawed fingers.

He supported her gently against his chest and began to pat her back in slow, rhythmic motions. The sound of it was soft, almost like a lullaby’s rhythm, punctuated only by the little protoform’s chirps and squeaks. Then, at last, she released a high, delighted burst—half chirp, half protoform laugh—and Starscream chuckled under his breath, his expression so calm, so full of quiet affection that even the feed seemed to capture the warmth of it.

After a few moments, when her frame went slack with drowsy comfort, Starscream turned and lowered her carefully into her cradle. He adjusted the clean blankets around her, tucking her in with precision and care, before reconnecting the small heating apparatus hidden within the handmade body pillow.

The pillow began to emit a faint warmth, a soft hum filling the air. The instant the heat activated, Tempestra instinctively reached for it, her little arms wrapping around the pillow. She pressed her cheek to it, optics fluttering, and within seconds, her systems entered recharge.

Just like that—she was asleep.

At least now, the Decepticons knew the protoform’s name. Tempestra.

The word itself lingered in the air, resonating like something sacred.

The live feed continued to play, and they watched as Starscream stood quietly over the cradle for a moment longer, his optics lingering on the sleeping protoform. There was a weariness in his gaze—a heaviness of someone who carried the entire universe’s responsibility on his own shoulders—but also peace. He exhaled softly, brushing a stray wire from his face, before turning back toward the small table.

Starscream took the half-empty bowl and, to the quiet astonishment of those watching, began to eat what remained of the energon porridge himself. The spoon moved mechanically, and though he ate without complaint, the sight was a jarring one. That mixture—thick, pale, and specifically formulated for protoforms—was nutritious only to the smallest and most delicate Cybertronian frames. For a full-grown Seeker, it offered little.

He was eating it not because it was sufficient—but because it was all he had left.

The sound of the spoon clinking faintly against the metal bowl seemed unbearably loud in the Decepticon command room. No one spoke. Even Megatron’s optics dimmed, the faint light in them reflecting something uncertain, almost uneasy.

When he finished, Starscream rinsed the bowl and spoon with methodical precision, using water he poured from a sealed metal jar he kept in a small compartment near the lab station. He dried the utensils with a scrap of cloth, folded it neatly, and stored everything back in place.

Then, without delay, he walked toward the control panel of the small ship. The camera followed his movement as he settled into the pilot’s chair, his wings arching slightly to fit the narrow confines of the cockpit. His claws moved over the controls with expert familiarity, lighting up the main console.

The screens came alive with flickering blue and orange hues, lines of data scrolling across as Starscream checked each system. The ship was operational—barely. The energy readings pulsed weakly in the corner of the display, and even from the video feed, it was obvious the craft was running low on power.

Starscream’s wings flicked back with a small grunt of irritation. Under his breath, his voice was picked up by the microphone embedded in Laserbeak’s camera.

“Shannix reserves… already low,” he muttered quietly, exhaustion edging his tone. “Can’t stretch what’s left much longer. Need more energon soon. I’ll have to find a place—somewhere cheap, neutral… no questions asked.”

He opened a star map on the central screen, the holographic projection spreading faint light across his face. His optics scanned the map with the same precision he once used for battle strategy, searching for a sector that would keep him and Tempestra safe.

His claw hovered over several options before finally selecting one—a small neutral trading zone deep in Sector D-27, far from both Autobot and Decepticon patrol routes.

“There,” he murmured. “D-27. No security checks. I can refuel there… if the fates are kind.”

He began typing a series of commands into the flight control system, entering the coordinates manually. The engines hummed to life, soft and uneven at first before stabilizing. The air inside the craft vibrated faintly as energy coursed through its worn frame.

Starscream rose briefly to close the front hatch, sealing the ship from the outside world. The faint hiss of pressurization filled the cabin before he returned to the pilot’s chair. His claws danced across the interface, adjusting navigation settings and setting speed restrictions to conserve fuel.

The small aircraft began to rise slowly, the landscape outside shrinking as it ascended. Starlight spilled through the front viewport, painting his armor in shifting silver and violet hues.

From the feed, they could see him glance once more toward the cradle—toward Tempestra, who slept peacefully, wrapped in warmth and safety.

Only then did he focus forward again.

The engines grew steadier, louder, and soon, the ship slipped free of the planet’s atmosphere, vanishing into the open galaxy—just one small light among countless others.

Starscream adjusted the controls with practiced ease, aligning the craft’s path toward Sector D-27.

“It’ll take two days…” he murmured to himself. “Two days of careful flight. If all goes well… the fuel will last that long.”

And as the stars stretched into long, bright lines outside the viewport, Starscream leaned back into his seat, his expression solemn and resolute.

He was alone—save for the tiny life that slept behind him.

And yet, for the first time in ages, there was peace.

Laserbeak was now effectively trapped inside the small craft, sealed in along with Starscream and the fragile protoform that slumbered only a few paces away. The spy feed held steady, the image crisp and clear despite the ship’s constant hum. Every faint sound—Starscream’s quiet movements, the rhythmic pulse of the engines, even Tempestra’s tiny recharge purrs—was transmitted perfectly back to the Decepticon command room.

The gathered Decepticons stood frozen before the massive viewing screen. The silence that filled the room was deafening, heavy enough to make the air itself feel solid. Not even the faint hum of the Nemesis’ systems seemed willing to intrude upon it. The image before them—a former Second-in-Command cradling a sparkling—had shaken them to their very cores.

Many didn’t even know what to think, much less what to do. Should they treat this as treason? As weakness? As something sacred? No one dared to speak those questions aloud.

Their optics shifted instead toward the throne, toward the one figure who could break the paralysis of uncertainty.

Megatron.

The warlord remained seated in silence for several long, unbearable minutes. His expression was unreadable, his crimson optics dimmed to a low burn, as though he were still processing the sight before him. The warlord who once commanded entire legions with nothing more than a gesture now looked—if only for a moment—unsure.

Then, slowly, he rose from his throne. The sound of his massive frame moving echoed sharply in the quiet. All optics followed him as he took one step forward, the dim lights glinting across the battle-worn edges of his armor.

He inhaled deeply through his vents, forcing control back into his tone. When he spoke, his voice was steady—calm, but low and edged with something none of them could quite name.

“Soundwave.”

The Communications Chief straightened immediately, silent as ever but with his full attention locked on his commander.

Megatron’s optics flicked briefly toward the feed again—toward the small image of Starscream hunched over the ship’s controls, and then toward the cradle resting just behind him.

“Select a small team,” Megatron ordered quietly. “Bots you trust. Send them ahead to the coordinates where Starscream is headed. They are to speak with the leader of that zone—personally.”

A murmur rippled through the room, quickly silenced by the sheer weight of his tone.

“Ensure,” Megatron continued, “that when Starscream arrives, his fuel tanks are filled to capacity. The aircraft must leave with full reserves—and more than that. Make certain he also departs with a supply of energon crystals. Whatever it costs… pay it. Quietly.”

He lifted one clawed hand, the faint gleam of his optics cutting through the stunned air.

“No one must know,” he said, his voice deep and final. “Not the Autobots. Not the neutrals. Not anyone. Let this transaction pass as dust in the wind.”

For a long moment, there was no sound at all.

Then Soundwave inclined his head, the single word rumbling from his vocoder, precise and unwavering.

“Affirmative. Soundwave will handle.”

The spymaster turned, already moving with efficient precision, his mind no doubt calculating who could be trusted, which routes were safe, and how to ensure the secrecy of Megatron’s command.

When the doors closed behind him, the room seemed to exhale collectively. The other Decepticons, however ruthless they might have been in battle, now found themselves strangely adrift—caught between loyalty, confusion, and an emotion none of them had the courage to name aloud: sympathy.

Megatron, meanwhile, sank back into his throne. The movement was heavy, deliberate. The air around him seemed to weigh even more than before, the silence of his warriors pressing down upon him like static. His servos flexed slightly on the armrests, his optics dimming until they were no more than faint crimson embers.

This time, it was not anger that filled him, nor the cold, calculated fury that once defined every decision he made. This was something different—something heavier.

He was tired. Not physically. Mentally. Deeply.

Tired of war.
Tired of loss.
Tired of realizing too late the worth of what he had already destroyed.

He leaned back, the light from the monitor still illuminating the distant image of Starscream and the protoform. His helm tilted slightly as his gaze lingered on the cradle, on the soft glow of the little sparkling sleeping there.

And though none dared to voice it aloud, the question that burned through every mind in that control room was the same—an unspoken thought that shimmered like a spark waiting to ignite.

If Starscream was truly Tempestra’s carrier…

Who was her sire?

That question hung in the air like a ghost, echoing in the silence long after the live feed flickered into static.

Chapter Text

Soundwave opened a bridge without hesitation, his movements silent and precise, his visor reflecting the cold blue flare of the GroundBridge as it roared to life. He stepped through it in one fluid motion, vanishing from the Decepticon base before the swirling energy even stabilized behind him.

He needed to reach Zone D-27 quickly—faster, safer—so that everything would be arranged before Starscream arrived. There was no room for delay, no space for error. The mission was delicate, and secrecy was paramount.

Behind him, however, the base was anything but solemn. The moment Soundwave’s shadow disappeared into the bridge, the silence shattered like brittle glass.

Knockout leaned lazily against a console, arms crossed, optics glittering with mischief. He had that unmistakable gleam—the look of a mech who had just found a new form of entertainment to fill the void of military monotony.

“Well,” Knockout drawled, flicking a stylus between his digits, “if that doesn’t stir the energon in everyone’s tanks, I don’t know what will.”

Moments later, the inevitable happened. A small group of Decepticons began gathering around him, and before long, Knockout had organized what he proudly called the most exciting pool in Decepticon history:

Who was the sire of Tempestra?

The betting pool expanded rapidly, spreading like wildfire across the base. Some pretended outrage. Others laughed until static crackled from their vents. But nearly all of them placed bets.

And the list of names that filled the data screen soon became the stuff of legend.

Tarn.
Megatron.
Thundercracker.
Soundwave.
Shockwave.
Predaking.
Airachnid.
Windblade.
Skywarp.
Dreadwing.
Ultra Magnus.
Optimus Prime.
Ratchet.
Even Bumblebee.

No one was spared.

It was absurd—and yet, in that absurdity, something else stirred: a reluctant acknowledgment that Starscream was a beautiful mech. No one, not even the most cynical Decepticon, could deny that.

Like all Seekers, his frame had been built with the perfection of function and elegance in motion. His armor caught light like glass spun into silk, his wings poised with unconscious grace even in exhaustion. There was charisma in his voice, allure in his movement, and mystery in his optics.

So when Knockout quipped that “a mech like that doesn’t stay cold forever,” no one argued.

Seekers, after all, had needs—biological, instinctual, undeniable. It was simply the nature of their kind. Thundercracker, Skywarp, and countless others met those needs in their own ways—Trines, open bonds, casual companionships.

But Starscream… Starscream had never been one for leisure.

As Second-in-Command and Air Commander, his time was swallowed by war, strategy, maintenance, and the constant struggle to keep Megatron’s wrath at bay. He rarely visited the trine quarters, rarely lingered long enough to let anyone close. Those biological needs within him—drives as natural as the hum of his wings—simply built up in silence until they could no longer be ignored.

When that happened, it was said that he’d choose whoever was nearest, whoever happened to be within reach in a rare moment of unguarded vulnerability—Autobot or Decepticon, it didn’t matter.

And since Seekers rarely conceived naturally, no one could say how long it took before the first signs appeared. The creation of a new spark—one born separate from the carrier’s own—was unpredictable. It could happen days, cycles, or even years after the moment of conception.

No one in all of Cybertronian science had ever fully understood why.

Which meant… now, anyone Starscream had ever been with could be Tempestra’s sire.

And so, the bets multiplied. Laughter filled the corridors. Credits changed hands in secret and in public. The grimness of war gave way—briefly—to scandalous entertainment.

But not for Soundwave.

He left that chaos behind without a thought. There was no space in his processor for gossip, no use for foolish speculation. His only concern was the task Megatron had assigned him: ensuring Starscream’s safety and comfort—quietly, efficiently, without a trace.

The bridge reopened with a hum, spilling him into the muted twilight of Sector D-27. The neutral zone spread before him—dusty plains broken by clusters of low metal structures and a modest refueling outpost surrounded by the faint glow of shield generators.

Soundwave’s optics flickered once, scanning the area. He moved quickly, like a shadow given purpose, until he found the leader of the outpost.

The bot was tall, his plating a deep crimson with streaks of black tracing the edges of his armor. His stance was confident but calm—one used to dealing with travelers from every faction without flinching.

Soundwave wasted no time. He transmitted the codes, provided the serial number of Starscream’s craft, and listed the necessary supplies: full fuel tanks, energon cubes suited for an adult Seeker, energon crystals, clean blankets, and soft pillows for a protoform cradle. He spoke little, his vocoder issuing only clipped, concise bursts of sound.

The leader blinked once, mildly surprised at the efficiency. Then, as if recalling something, he tilted his helm and said with casual ease,

“You’re the second bot to ask for that.”

The words hit like a cold spark against metal.

Soundwave’s visor flared sharply. In one swift motion, he grabbed the red mech by the chassis and pulled him close, his vocoder crackling with low static.

“Clarify,” Soundwave hissed, voice quiet but laden with authority. “Second to ask—explain.”

The red mech didn’t resist. He simply lifted both servos, speaking quickly.

“Another bot was here. Just a few minutes ago! He asked for the same preparations—the same ship, same specifications. Said he wanted to buy more supplies himself. He should still be in the market district!”

Soundwave’s grip tightened for a second, then slowly released.

“Identify.”

The leader pointed toward the nearby square, where rows of vendors sold basic components and energon packs.

“There. That one, by the far stall. He’s still here.”

Soundwave’s optics followed the direction—and froze.

The mech the leader had pointed to stood with his back turned, his crisp white armor marked by the familiar black and blue of Autobot insignia. The lines of his plating were unmistakable.

Prowl.

The logic officer himself, deep in conversation with another Autobot beside him.

And then Soundwave’s sensors caught the second signature—bright, easygoing, impossible to mistake.

Jazz.

The white mech was holding up a small stuffed turbofox, its soft frame squeezed between his servos as he grinned up at Prowl.

“C’mon, Prowler,” Jazz was saying cheerfully. “You know she’s gonna love this. Look at it! Little protoform’s gotta have somethin’ soft to hold onto.”

Prowl sighed, clearly trying to appear unaffected but not succeeding. “Jazz, we are not here to buy toys. We are here to ensure basic necessities are secured for—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jazz cut him off with a grin. “For the lil’ Seekerlet. I got it. But she’s still a kid, man. Even protoforms need a hug once in a while.”

Soundwave stood completely still, his processors momentarily blank.

Two Autobots.
Buying supplies.
For Starscream’s protoform.

The implications hit him with quiet, seismic force.

Soundwave released the red mech at once, letting the other stumble back, vents rasping as he clutched at his dented plating. The Decepticon did not even look at him again. His focus had already shifted, every sensor recalibrating to silent observation.

Moving with liquid precision, Soundwave melted into the shadows of a nearby structure, the blue glow of his visor fading until it was a thin, ghostly slit of light in the dark. The neutral zone was dimly lit, perfect for surveillance—corridors of metal and dust illuminated only by flickering market lamps and the occasional shimmer of a passing ship’s thrusters.

In that concealment, Soundwave entered what the Decepticons called his spy mode—every circuit tuned for silence, his presence vanishing into the background hum of the environment.

Without a sound, a compartment on his chest slid open, and a low, feline shape slinked out from the darkness within.

Ravage.

The sleek, black cyber-cat landed without a single clang of metal, his optics flaring faint red in the gloom. He waited for Soundwave’s silent command—an almost imperceptible hand movement, two fingers lowered, one raised—and immediately began to move.

Ravage darted between crates, through the scattered shadows of vendor stalls, closing the distance between himself and the two Autobots. He moved like a living shadow, invisible among the chatter of merchants and the mechanical clatter of tools.

The feline paused, then crouched low behind a stack of fuel cells—close enough now for his sensitive audio receptors to catch every word.

What Ravage transmitted back to Soundwave revealed far more than expected.

Prowl’s voice came first, low and clipped as ever, his tone betraying faint irritation.

“Focus on the task, Jazz. We are not here for souvenirs. Optimus Prime made it clear—our priority is to secure the necessities for Starscream and his protoform. Especially energon cubes. Ratchet was very specific about that.”

Jazz’s voice, warm and casual as always, followed immediately, his tone laced with his trademark charm.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, Prowler. I just figured the little Seeker’s gonna need somethin’ soft to hug, y’know? Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”

Prowl exhaled sharply, the sound half sigh, half irritation.

“This is not a sentimental mission. Ratchet said the recordings from Wheeljack and Skyfire’s micro-drone show that Starscream’s own nutrient intake is insufficient. His systems are depleted—he’s prioritizing the protoform’s nourishment. If that continues, both of them will destabilize.”

“Which is why we’re here,” Jazz interrupted with a grin audible even in his voice. “Don’t worry, boss-bot, I ain’t gonna forget the energon cubes. But hey, you gotta admit—it was worth buyin’ Lugnut’s info. Saved us cycles of guesswork.”

Soundwave, still hidden, froze.

Prowl nodded grimly. “Agreed. Though I dislike dealing with ex-Decepticon mercenaries, the data Lugnut sold us was… precise. Even Ultra Magnus had reservations about the price, but he still contributed to the payment.”

“Yeah,” Jazz said lightly. “Everyone chipped in—Magnus, Ratchet, even Bee. And man, it paid off. That datapad had everything: coordinates, energy signatures, even the seeker’s flight pattern. Made it easy to slip our own drone in—just a little piece of debris floating by. Wheeljack’s idea.”

Prowl’s tone softened just a fraction. “Effective. Skyfire’s engineering stabilized the transmission. The drone’s still functioning inside Starscream’s ship, sending visuals and sound directly to Autobot Command.”

Jazz gave a low whistle. “Kinda wild, huh? Never thought we’d be spyin’ on ol’ Screamer just to make sure he’s eatin’ his meals.”

The two laughed quietly, oblivious to the silent predator crouched behind them, recording every word.

The moment Soundwave heard that last sentence, his servos clenched so tightly that a faint, sharp crack echoed from the wall beside him. His digits dug into the metal, leaving small dents as fury lanced through his calm exterior.

Lugnut.

That traitorous, loudmouthed fanatic.

He had sold information—to both sides. And worse yet, from what Soundwave pieced together in seconds, Lugnut had sold the intel to the Autobots first.

That single act had given them a precious window of time to infiltrate the site, to send their own drone aboard the aircraft long before Laserbeak had arrived. The Autobots had been one step ahead—watching, recording, interfering.

And now, it was only a matter of time before they spotted Laserbeak’s presence on the feed.

Soundwave’s processor burned with icy precision. He moved instantly, his voice a silent pulse transmitted through encrypted frequency.

“Laserbeak: Directive.”

From across the void of distance, Laserbeak’s soft chirp of acknowledgment came back through the comm link.

“Hide the visual device. Relocate—high vantage. Concealed position. Maintain visual coverage of target environment. Upon detection window: exit immediately.”

Laserbeak’s response came fast and obedient, her voice crisp and mechanical through the secure link:

“Affirmative. Directive received. Executing.”

Soundwave’s optics dimmed in acknowledgment. He trusted her. She would obey.

Then, with the situation still fresh and burning in his circuits, Soundwave opened a second channel—this one encrypted on the highest possible level.

The comm crackled faintly as the signal connected.

“Megatron,” Soundwave said at last, his vocoder quiet but cold, every word deliberate.

“Report,” came the deep, gravelly reply from the warlord’s end.

And so Soundwave spoke—every discovery, every detail—his voice calm and precise even as restrained fury flickered beneath the surface.

He told Megatron everything.

Megatron rose from his throne so violently that the very metal beneath his feet screeched, the sound slicing through the air like a blade. His optics flared crimson, burning brighter than the Nemesis’s core, and his voice thundered through the entire command chamber, shaking the walls.

“LUGNUT DID WHAT?!”

The roar echoed through every corridor of the Decepticon base. Conversation stopped. The clang of tools in the workshops fell silent. Even the constant hum of the Nemesis’s engines seemed to falter for a heartbeat as the Warlord’s fury filled the air.

Every Decepticon present froze. The casual noise of the betting pool—laughs, shouts, and metallic clinks of shannix—vanished in an instant. Helmets turned. Optics widened. The massive mural board filled with scribbled names—Megatron, Tarn, Optimus Prime, Ratchet, even Bumblebee—suddenly meant nothing. Every gaze fixed on Megatron, whose frame radiated such rage that it felt almost tangible, like waves of static searing through the room.

He wasn’t just angry. He was betrayed.

The Warlord’s ventilations came in deep, ragged bursts as he paced before his throne, claws flexing, armor plates scraping audibly. His commlink was still active, the private channel to Soundwave open, Soundwave’s calm voice feeding him every detail of the treachery.

Lugnut—his old zealot, his loyal fanatic, the bot who once worshipped him as a living god—had sold them out. Not only to outsiders, but to the Autobots.

And worse—sold the same information to both sides, turning the Decepticons into fools dancing in someone else’s game.

Megatron’s optics flared again, so bright they almost seared through the dark. His voice came low now, vibrating with lethal control, the kind of cold calm that promised violence more terrifying than shouting ever could.

“Lugnut… sold theintelligence. Our advantage about Starscream and his ship...to the Autobots…” He paused, venting hard through clenched denta, before the fury surged again, shaking his entire frame.

“—two full solar cycles before we even received it!”

He slammed one massive fist against the side of his throne. The shockwave cracked the black metal plating and made several nearby Decepticons stumble. The sound reverberated through every circuit in the room.

When he spoke again, his tone was low, deadly—each word like a shard of molten steel.

“Tarn.”

The DJD leader, who had been among the silent crowd near the back wall, immediately straightened. His visor gleamed with a faint red reflection of Megatron’s fury as he stepped forward and bowed slightly, silent but waiting.

Megatron’s optics locked on him, blazing with command and hatred.

“I want his head,” he hissed. “I want Lugnut’s head—on a silver platter.”

The room went utterly still. Even the air seemed to vibrate with the power behind those words.

Megatron continued, each phrase sharper than the last:

“That fool dared to make a mockery of my cause! He dared to sell the information to my enemies first! He made the Decepticons—me—look like clowns!”

The word spat from his mouth as though it were poison.

Tarn nodded once, voice steady but brimming with a dark eagerness. “Understood, my lord. Lugnut’s spark will not survive the next solar cycle.”

“See that it doesn’t,” Megatron growled. “And Tarn—make it slow. I want every Decepticon to remember what happens to traitors who sell us for shannix.”

The DJD leader inclined his helm and turned, silent as a shadow, exiting the command room with a purposeful stride that made the others instinctively step aside. No one dared speak. No one dared even move.

When Tarn disappeared beyond the towering doors, Megatron slowly sank back onto his throne—not in ease, but in exhaustion. His claws drummed once against the metal armrest, optics dimming to a deeper crimson. The fury remained, but now it coiled inward, silent, venomous, controlled.

The great Warlord of the Decepticons stared ahead, his mind racing.

Lugnut had played them both.

Starscream had a protoform.

And now… the Autobots had known it first.

The humiliation burned hotter than plasma in his chest.

“Soundwave,” Megatron said at last, his tone a low rumble like distant thunder. “Keep eyes on Starscream. But no one—no one—acts without my command.”

The response came at once, calm and absolute: “Acknowledged.”

Only then did Megatron lean back, claws curling over the throne’s arms, optics still glowing faintly in the dark. His rage did not fade. It merely changed shape—into something far colder and infinitely more dangerous.

Soundwave’s visor glowed faintly in the dim light of the hangar, the steady rhythm of his systems quiet, analytical, patient. He stood where he had been for the last several hours — silent as a shadow — watching the exchange take place not far from him.

Prowl and Jazz were there again, the familiar pair of Autobots whose presence always brought that strange mixture of order and chaos wherever they appeared. Soundwave’s attention sharpened as Prowl now held a small but sturdy metal box in his hands — a container marked with faint heat traces and careful seals. With the precision of a tactician, Prowl handed it to the dark red mech Soundwave had spoken with earlier, the courier whose neutrality and greed had made him useful.

Soundwave’s scanners picked up the faint hum from within the box — energon cubes, compressed crystals, and… pillows? His audio receptors tilted slightly in intrigue. Such an odd assortment. Fuel, minerals, and comfort. Whoever this package was meant for, it was clear they were not simply surviving — they were being cared for.

The courier — a crimson and maroon bot with scuffed armor and the confident smirk of one used to dealing with both sides — gave a low chuckle as he took the box. “I’ll deliver it to the owner of the aircraft,” he said, his tone casual, practiced. “Gonna tell him it was leftovers from me. Easy lie. The pilot looks like needs it more than I do anyway.”

He shrugged and grinned wide, optics glinting with satisfaction.

Jazz stepped closer, his usual smooth grin softening just a little. “You got your end of the deal, right?”

At that, the Autobot handed him a small, jingling pouch heavy with shannix. The metallic sound filled the hangar as the courier caught it and tucked it away swiftly, optics glimmering at the weight.

“Pleasure doin’ business,” Jazz said.

“Always,” the bot replied with a chuckle, saluting lazily before he turned and disappeared into the bright light of the active space bridge, Prowl following just behind him. The energy vortex closed in a swirl of light and static, leaving behind only the faint hum of Soundwave’s sensors and the echo of departing footsteps.

Soundwave continued watching, visor gleaming. His sensors followed the crimson bot as he carefully placed the box among a separate pile — the same stack of supplies that Soundwave had arranged personally under Megatron’s directive. The courier’s movements were casual, unguarded, as he muttered happily to himself.

“Don’t know who the pilot is,” he said with a grin as he locked the box in place, “but that mech’s a lucky one. Keeps showin’ up, I keep earnin’. Hope he drops by more often.”

He let out a small laugh and continued working, oblivious to the faint shift in Soundwave’s posture.

Soundwave did not intervene. He merely observed.

The action, in truth, didn’t bother him. Whatever extra Starscream received — extra energon, extra comfort, even meaningless trinkets — it only ensured his continued survival. And Soundwave, loyal to Megatron’s current arrangement, would rather see the seeker stabilized with the protoform. Whatever kept him alive, rested, and flying was, in Megatron’s logic, beneficial to them all.

So Soundwave stayed. Silent guardian, unseen overseer. His helm tilted slightly, optics flickering with thought as he ensured that every single item reached its intended destination. The box, the cubes, the soft padding — everything had to be delivered intact. The Warlord’s orders had been precise, and Soundwave’s loyalty to precision was absolute.

He watched the courier leave the hangar, venting quietly as the shadows swallowed the mech’s form.

“Observation: complete,” Soundwave murmured softly through his vocoder, almost to himself. “Delivery: in progress. Directive: sustained.”

Meanwhile, across the vastness of space — through the swirl of the bridge and into the heart of the Ark — two familiar Autobots emerged from the bridge’s light.

Prowl stepped out first, his movements exact and deliberate as always, while Jazz followed close behind, his steps loose, irritated. The instant they were through, Jazz’s vents flared in a half-sigh, half-grumble.

“Still can’t believe you didn’t let me grab that Turbofox plushie, man. It was cute!”

Prowl didn’t even look back. “It was unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary? It was adorable! That thing had a tail, Prowl!”

“It’s a toy,” Prowl replied flatly, never breaking stride. “And we had higher priorities than indulging in your sentimental shopping habits.”

Jazz muttered something under his breath that sounded distinctly like, “You’re just jealous I got taste.”

The banter carried them down the gleaming corridor until they reached the command deck, where the glow of data screens bathed everything in cold light.

Optimus Prime stood at the forefront of the room, tall and motionless, his optics fixed on the largest monitor. Ratchet was beside him, arms crossed, while Ultra Magnus and a cluster of other Autobots watched in tense silence.

On the screen, the live feed from their spy drone flickered and stabilized, showing the inside of a small, cramped cockpit.

A deep silence settled across the room.

None of them yet knew that this same image was being mirrored elsewhere — that on another ship, through another encrypted line, the Decepticons were watching the same feed.

On the screen, Starscream appeared — recharging lightly in the pilot’s seat, his wings drooping slightly in fatigue. The cabin around him was narrow, barely large enough to contain him; there was no berth, no quarters — only the pilot’s chair and a few personal modifications hastily added over time.

Next to him, curled against his side, Tempestra slept peacefully, her frame wrapped around a heated body pillow,The ship’s console lights dimmed to mimic night cycle, bathing the cabin in soft blue glow.

Outside the cockpit, through the viewport, the stars glided by in slow motion.

The ship was on autopilot, its quiet hum steady as it drifted through the void — its coordinates set for a remote sector: Area D-27.

In that silent moment, the Autobots watched.

And far away, Soundwave did too — their unseen mirror in the dark, ensuring that the seeker’s course remained untouched.

Optimus Prime stood at the center of the Ark’s command deck, the faint reflection of the live feed shimmering across his blue optics. The quiet hum of the ship’s consoles filled the air, and the image of Starscream and Tempestra remained on the large central screen — a tranquil, fragile scene of rare calm amid the chaos of war.

Starscream, the seeker who had once filled the skies with sharp words and sharper claws, now sat slumped in the pilot’s chair, wings slightly lowered, armor dimmed in gentle recharge mode. His protoform — Tempestra — nestled close to his side, small, warm, and flickering faintly with new spark energy. The sight was almost peaceful, almost serene… almost unthinkable.

Optimus’s deep, steady voice finally broke the silence.
“Excellent work, Jazz. Prowl. You’ve done well.”

He turned slightly toward them, his tone warm but heavy with the weight of command. “Because of your efforts, Starscream and Tempestra will have enough energon to sustain them for a good while — at least until their next refueling stop.”

Prowl inclined his head in silent acknowledgment, calm and efficient as always. Jazz, however, crossed his arms, the unease written all over his plating. His optics flicked toward the feed again — to the small protoform breathing softly against the Seeker’s side — and his vents released a small huff of disbelief.

“Yeah, yeah, I get that,” he muttered. “But tell me again why we can’t just bring ‘em in? We got a ground bridge, we got the medbay — it ain’t that hard to—”

He didn’t get to finish.

Ratchet’s servo came down hard on the back of Jazz’s helm with a sharp clang, loud enough to echo across the room. Jazz yelped, staggering forward slightly, rubbing the dent that was definitely going to leave a mark.

“Because,” Ratchet snapped, optics flashing with irritation, “that sparkling would die before she ever made it through the bridge, you half-functioning soundboard!”

“Hey! That was uncalled for!” Jazz shot back, though his tone carried more guilt than anger.

Ratchet ignored him, gesturing sharply at the feed, his faceplates tightening in grim concern. “Tempestra hasn’t even reached her first lunar cycle. Her spark’s still forming. It hasn’t stabilized yet — any kind of shock, even minor spatial distortion, could shatter the balance in her core. She’d go into immediate spark arrest. Instantaneous.”

The medic’s tone softened as he continued, his optics dimming slightly. “She’s in her most vulnerable phase. That protoform’s life hangs by a thread until her spark fully settles. We have to wait. She’ll need nearly a full year before it’s safe to move her… until her frame, colors, and spark matrix align and fuse completely. Until then, even the slightest stress could—”

He cut himself off, ex-venting hard, unwilling to finish the sentence.

Optimus lowered his helm slightly, absorbing every word. The tension in his frame was visible, the weight of responsibility pressing against his spark. Around him, the Autobots fell silent — each one understanding that no weapon, no strategy, no miracle of engineering could accelerate what nature itself demanded time to heal.

Ratchet’s voice softened, almost gentle now. “Right now, what they both need most… is peace. Quiet. Stability. No chaos, no chases, no weapons aimed their way. The Seeker’s instincts will keep her safe — but he needs to believe he’s safe too. For both their sakes.”

Optimus nodded slowly, his optics fixed on the screen once more. Starscream’s wing twitched slightly in recharge, a reflexive motion — protective, unconscious. He had curled just a little closer to Tempestra, as though his body alone could shield her from every threat in the universe.

A deep silence fell over the room. Even Jazz didn’t speak this time.

The hum of the Ark’s systems continued, and on the screen, the faint blue light of the cockpit glowed softly — one spark protecting another, drifting through the endless stars toward sector D-27.

Optimus’s voice, when it came again, was quiet — but resolute.
“Then we give them that peace. No pursuit, no interference. Until that protoform reaches her full cycle, we will not endanger her or the one protecting her.”

His optics narrowed faintly, and though his tone remained calm, there was an undertone of iron resolve. “Starscream may not be one of us… but today, his fight is not ours to interrupt.”

The command room of the Ark was alive with low, heavy murmurs and the hum of powerlines that filled the silence between screens. The soft, flickering light from the live feed still illuminated the Autobots' faces — Starscream, the infamous Seeker, was there before their optics, in recharge.The image itself seemed impossible — like a dream too fragile to belong in their brutal reality.

The silence broke when heavy footsteps echoed through the chamber. Ironhide entered with his conjunx, Chromia, both carrying expressions of disbelief carved into their metal faces.

“I still can’t fraggin’ believe it,” Ironhide grumbled, his tone low but filled with something between awe and confusion. “Starscream. Carrier. Of all the things I thought I’d see before rusting out… this sure as the Pit wasn’t one of ’em.”

Chromia gave a soft, incredulous vent beside him, her optics fixed on the image of the tricolor Seeker cradling the small protoform. “Believe me, neither can I,” she admitted, folding her arms. “When Lugnut — Lugnut, of all mechs — came to Optimus with information to sell, I thought it was a trap. A former Decepticon, turned mercenary? Sounded like a setup waiting to happen. I didn’t think for a second the data would lead to this.”

Her voice softened as her gaze lingered on the screen, optics tracing the faint rise and fall of the protoform’s tiny chassis. “When the credits were paid and the drone finally got in position… I thought we’d see a hidden lab, or maybe a Decepticon base. But instead…” she trailed off, her tone falling to a whisper. “It was him. Alone. Taking care of a femme protoform.”

The words hung in the air like static. Even now, no one seemed to know what to say.

Ratchet stood at the console, hands braced against its edge, optics locked on the image with the practiced focus of a medic — though the faint tremor in his voice betrayed the memory of that first discovery.

“I remember when we first got the feed,” Ratchet said quietly, his tone slow, reflective. “At first, I thought it was some sort of malfunction. The readings didn’t make sense. Then I saw her — the spark signature. Small, unstable, but bright. And Starscream… holding her like she was the only thing keeping his own spark from fracturing.”

He paused, his vocalizer glitching for just a moment. “I went into full medical protocol. Monitored every flicker of her energy output, every vent of his systems, frame posture, spark rhythm — I tore that data apart frame by frame. It wasn’t until I’d reviewed everything twice over that I realized… she’s healthy. Stronger than most protoforms I’ve ever seen at that stage. And that Seeker is doing everything right — frag, better than some actual trained Carriers I’ve treated.”

The medic’s optics softened at the memory, though his mouth curved with exasperated fondness as another recollection surfaced.

“And of course,” Ratchet continued, “Bumblebee was there when I was analyzing the feed. Primus help me. The kid nearly drove me into early deactivation with his questions.”

The Autobots chuckled faintly, some exchanging knowing looks as Ratchet’s vents puffed in irritation.

“He wouldn’t stop asking,” Ratchet muttered. “What’s a protoform? How are they made? Why’s she small? What’s that noise she makes? Why is Starscream warming her like that? How can she sleep like that? What happens when she grows?” Ratchet threw up a servo dramatically. “By the Allspark, I had to shove an energon cube in his mouth just to get some silence.”

The laughter that followed was brief, genuine, and almost foreign in the tense atmosphere — a fleeting moment of warmth amid the storm of uncertainty.

But that moment didn’t last.

Ultra Magnus’s voice cut through the air — steady, calm, but cold as steel. He had been silent up until now, standing slightly apart from the others, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Touching,” Magnus said bluntly, though not without a glimmer of restrained respect in his tone. “It’s… admirable, what he’s doing for the youngling.” His optics, however, narrowed slightly as he looked up at the screen. “But let’s not let sentiment blind us.”

The laughter died immediately.

Magnus continued, voice unyielding. “Starscream is still an enemy. He deserted the Decepticons, yes, but that does not make him an ally of ours. Whatever his reasons, whatever his… condition, he is still a dangerous mech with a long record of betrayal. The presence of a protoform changes nothing about that reality.”

Optimus looked toward Magnus, but said nothing — not yet.

Magnus took a few measured steps forward, the weight of command in every movement. “We can’t forget who he is just because he’s acting as a caretaker now. And there’s still another matter that remains unresolved.”

He looked to Ratchet, then to Optimus. “We still don’t know who the sire of this protoform is.”

That statement dropped like a live pulse grenade in the room. The Autobots exchanged glances — some uneasy, others openly curious, a few even whispering under their vents.

Even Ratchet, for all his professionalism, looked momentarily uncertain. His optics flicked back to the feed, where Starscream remained in recharge, Tempestra’s small frame pressed safely against his side.

The medic’s voice came out quieter this time. “Whoever it is… he’s not in that picture.”

And the silence that followed was long and heavy — filled with unspoken questions, unanswered truths, and the faint sound of a protoform’s spark pulsing gently somewhere far, far away in the void.

The tension in the command room was nearly palpable, thick with static as the Autobots processed Ultra Magnus’s words. The soft hum of the console screens and the faint pulse of the live feed from Starscream’s ship were the only sounds that dared to fill the silence that followed. Then Elita-One, ever composed yet never afraid to cut through discomfort, stepped forward. Her optics gleamed faintly in the dim light as she spoke, her voice measured but firm.

“Magnus isn’t wrong,” she began, folding her arms. “But before anyone starts pointing fingers, we should consider all possibilities.” She looked from one face to another, letting the weight of her words settle. “The sire could be a Decepticon — that’s more likely, considering Starscream’s rank and his place among them. But it could just as easily be an Autobot.”

That statement drew a few quiet intakes of air from the room. No one interrupted her. Elita continued with the calm authority of someone who had seen far too much of war to cling to illusions.

“It’s no secret,” she said quietly, “that during the war… some of us crossed boundaries for survival, for alliance, or simply because of what we are — living beings driven by needs our creators designed into us. Cybertronian biology isn’t something one can reason away. In the middle of battlefields, with death surrounding us, sometimes the line between enemy and companion blurred.”

Her optics softened, just barely. “And Starscream… is beautiful. Intelligent. Proud. He had a presence that drew attention whether he wanted it or not. No one can claim surprise if one or two among us… shared recharge with him, willingly or not.”

Around the room, a few Autobots looked away, some fidgeting with their servos, others trying to maintain their composure. It was an uncomfortable truth, but one that couldn’t be denied.

Elita’s tone grew heavier, more analytical. “And since no one knows exactly when the new spark separates from the carrier’s own, the timeline is impossible to define. It could have been days… or vorns after the initial interface. That means none of us can exclude the possibility that the sire could be Autobot — even if the odds favor the Decepticons. If Starscream discovered his sparkling’s existence when Tempestra was already forming in his gestation tank…”

She paused, the weight of her next words settling in the room like falling ash.

“…then panic was a certainty. To find oneself sparkled, alone, during wartime — especially him — it must have been a shock so deep it tore him apart. He left everything behind: his Trine, the only beings he saw as family, the cause he bled for, and a warlord who would never forgive such a defection. He didn’t just abandon the Decepticons — he betrayed Megatron.”

That final word seemed to hum with its own gravity. Even now, in the safety of Autobot walls, Megatron’s name carried a shadow of dread.

Optimus, who had been silent until now, finally spoke — his deep voice slow, contemplative. “Elita is right,” he said softly, his optics still fixed on the faint image of Starscream asleep on the screen. “No one should dismiss the possibility. And…”

He hesitated, straightening slightly, his tone shifting to something more personal. “If we are to speak honestly, then I won’t deny that I, too, have shared moments with him.”

The room went still. Even Ratchet froze mid-gesture, tools in hand.

Optimus’s expression remained composed, though his words carried a weight of memory. “It happened a few times during the war,” he continued. “The first was long ago — we were trapped together inside a collapsed energon mine during a siege. The atmosphere was toxic, our systems were failing… and the biological call took hold. The second time was during solo patrols — an encounter neither of us had planned, nor stopped. And again, later, when—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish.

Ratchet, optics wide, quickly grabbed the nearest energon cube and shoved it unceremoniously into the Prime’s mouth. “That’s enough, you great fool,” the medic barked, half mortified, half exasperated. “No one needs the details!”

The sound of the cube thunking against Optimus’s mouth echoed sharply across the chamber. Jazz snorted a laugh; Ironhide tried — and failed — to hide a grin. Even Elita raised a servo to her face, trying not to show amusement, though her optics sparkled with barely contained laughter.

Ratchet glared around the room, making sure everyone knew he meant business. “Cybertronians have multiple partners if they aren’t spark-bound. It’s not a scandal, it’s biology. But our Prime doesn’t need to give us a public report on his fragging history!”

Optimus, expression unreadable, simply removed the cube from his mouth and set it aside with his usual calm dignity — though the faint crimson flicker in his optics betrayed his embarrassment.

“Point taken,” he said dryly.

A ripple of restrained laughter moved through the Autobots, breaking the tension just enough to let everyone breathe again. Yet beneath the brief levity, the truth remained: Starscream’s situation had changed everything.

For the first time, both factions were seeing him not as an enemy or a schemer — but as something else entirely. A carrier. A protector. A mech capable of creating life in a galaxy drowning in death.

And though the question of who the sire was still hung heavy in the air, another thought, quieter but stronger, began to take root among them all:

Perhaps Starscream — and the small protoform named Tempestra — were not just another mystery of war… but the beginning of something greater.

Chapter Text

A tremor, deep and resonant, vibrated through his very struts, not a jolt of pain but a wave of pure, unadulterated sensation. Starscream’s optics flew online, but they registered only an oppressive, velvety blackness. He tried to move, to lift a wing, to clench a fist, but his frame was heavy, languid, paralyzed by a profound and unfamiliar warmth.

Then, the touch.

A vast, impossibly gentle hand, its palm broad and smooth, glided over the armor of his cockpit. It was a slow, deliberate caress, tracing the lines of his fuselage with a reverence that stole the air from his intakes. A static-filled gasp caught in his vocalizer. Who…?

A voice answered, though he heard no words, only their essence. It was a low, resonant rumble that seemed to originate from the darkness itself, seeping into his plating and settling deep within his spark. It spoke of perfection. Of beauty. Of a decades-long wait finally over. The sound was a physical thing, a dark blue wave of sound that washed over him, comforting and immense.

The huge hand continued its exploration, sliding down to the sensitive cabling at the small of his back, and Starscream arched into the touch with a soft, involuntary whirr. His spark spun faster, a frantic pulse of light in the consuming dark. Don’t stop. The thought was a desperate prayer. Please, don’t ever stop.

The touch migrated upward again, over the curve of a wing, making the delicate metal tremble, and then, with unbearable slowness, it cupped his face. A thumb, vast and warm, stroked his cheekplate. He strained his optics, desperately trying to pierce the shadows that hid his admirer. Let me see you.

Fragments of light, or perhaps color, bled into the edges of his vision. A shimmer of silver, elegant and strong, adorning a powerful silhouette. The barest glimpse of a broad chestplate. And optics… optics that glowed with a gentle, patient light. Was it a soft, sky blue? Or a profound, deep navy? The colors swirled and merged, impossible to define, but he knew, with absolute certainty, that they were beautiful.

The face, still mostly hidden, leaned closer. The warmth intensified, a radiant heat that promised protection, desire, something more… The voice murmured again, that sweet, gravelly whisper that vibrated in his spark chamber. “Mine.”

And then, a press against his lip components.

It wasn’t a clash of metal, not a fierce claim of dominance he was so used to. This was… different. Softer. The kiss was a gentle, searching pressure, a silent question that he answered by parting his lips with a sigh. It was sweet, achingly so, a taste of energies mingling, promising a connection he had never known he craved.

He reached up, his own claws seeking purchase on the stranger’s broad shoulders, trying to pull him closer, to finally see—

BRRRAAAAWWWKKK! BRRRAAAAWWWKKK!

The world shattered.

The darkness, the warmth, the gentle optics, the sweet kiss—all of it evaporated into the ear-splitting, obnoxious blare of his internal alarm. Starscream’s optics onlined for real this time, snapping to the dimly lit ceiling of his small, private aircraft’s cockpit.

Reality was a cold splash of energon to the face.

He was slumped in the pilot’s chair, his frame stiff. The only light came from the console’s hypnotic glow and the silent, infinite starfield stretching out beyond the viewport. The alarm continued its relentless bleating. Proximity Alert. Approaching destination. Prepare for atmospheric entry.

“Ugh, silence that wretched noise!” he snarled, his voice a dry croak. He slammed a fist on the console, and the cockpit fell into a blessed, ringing quiet.

For a long moment, he just sat there, the phantom sensations of the dream clinging to his plating like static. He could still feel the ghost of that huge hand on his back, the lingering, impossible sweetness on his lips. His spark continued its frantic rhythm, a dull, throbbing echo of the dream’s passion.

He pushed himself upright, the joints of his wings complaining. Ridiculous. A foolish processor fantasy. A malfunction brought on by low-grade energon and stress. He was Starscream, Air Commander of the Decepticons. He didn’t have time for such… sentimental weakness.

Yet, as he guided his ship toward the coordinates for this clandestine meeting, his gaze kept drifting to his reflection in the darkened viewport. His normally sharp, perpetually annoyed features looked… different. Softer. The memory of being looked at with such pure, unadulterated awe was a hook in his spark, pulling at something deep and neglected.

He replayed the fragments. The dark blue… no, light blue… silver… the sheer size and gentleness of the hands. Whose hands were those? They weren't Megatron’s brutal, crushing grasp. Not Skywarp’s playful, annoying pokes. Certainly not any Autobot’s. Or was it? He didn't know anymore.

The ship gave a gentle shiver as it began to pierce the exosphere of the planet below. Starscream’s long fingers danced over the controls, the movements automatic, his processor a million light-years away.

The aircraft descended through the pale evening haze, its engines releasing a low, exhausted hum as the landing struts extended and touched the uneven metallic ground with a dull clang. Dust rose in a fine mist of oxidized rust and coolant vapors, swirling gently around the vessel’s hull. Inside, the faint illumination of the cabin panels bathed the narrow interior in soft blue light.

Starscream moved with deliberate care, his motions slow and fluid despite the stiffness in his limbs from the long flight. The soft ventilator hum of the small cabin contrasted with the quiet, rhythmic sound of a spark pulsing faintly — not his, but the tiny, fragile one he carried.

He turned toward the cradle, where Tempestra still rested. The little protoform was curled in deep recharge, her soft plates faintly glowing under the thin sheen of energy around her chest — the steady, innocent pulse of new life.

Starscream’s expression softened. His wings shifted slightly beneath his heavy mantle as he leaned closer, the crimson of his optics dimmed to a gentler hue. He reached out and, with a care that defied his reputation as a ruthless aerial warrior, lifted her from the berth. His servos cradled her small form as if she were made of glass.

“She sleeps deeply,” he murmured almost to himself, his voice faint and warm with a tenderness he rarely allowed anyone to hear.

He placed her gently inside a small metal basket lined with thick, soft blankets. The woven thermals were folded precisely, tucked around her tiny frame to ensure no chill from the outside air could touch her. Around her, he wrapped his own scarf-the gift from Thundercracker and Skywarp to him- snugging it around the protoform like a cocoon, until she resembled a small energon burrito. Only her faintly glowing helm and the soft hum of her spark were visible.

Satisfied, Starscream adjusted the folds one last time, the motion instinctive, protective — the kind of gesture born from love rather than duty. Then, lifting the basket into his arms, he straightened his posture and made his way toward the ship’s exit.

The ramp lowered with a hiss, releasing a faint rush of cold, recycled air. Outside, the metallic platform stretched into the dim expanse of a remote outpost — utilitarian and silent except for the flicker of energy torches marking the landing pads.

As soon as Starscream stepped out, the light from the facility reflected off his hooded silhouette — the long mantle cloaking his form in shadows, masking every familiar contour of his tricolor frame. Only the faint red glow beneath the hood hinted at who he was.

Waiting at the base of the ramp stood a tall mech — dark red with matte black accents tracing his armor lines. His stance was that of someone used to labor and discretion, optics half-lidded with disinterest until they flickered with mild curiosity upon seeing the cloaked stranger.

He stepped forward, his tone professional but laced with the subtle edge of someone who’d dealt with too many suspicious clients. “Welcome,” he said, voice low and rough. “What’ll it be, traveler? Repairs? Storage? Or something a little less official?”

He folded his arms, servo joints clicking faintly. “Fair warning, I’ve already been paid twice tonight — two different mechs, both wanting separate jobs. So if you’re here to add another secret to my list, make it worth my while.”

Starscream didn’t lift his head. His hood concealed his face, his voice coming out calm, distant — layered in neutrality that barely concealed exhaustion. “Just the tank,” he said softly. “Fill the fuel tank. Nothing more.”

The mech blinked, caught off guard by the faint, polished accent in the stranger’s voice — elegant, aristocratic, out of place in such a desolate port. He nodded silently and moved toward the refueling station, muttering under his breath but saying no more.

From the shadows of a nearby structure, another figure observed the entire exchange. Soundwave — silent, towering, his visor reflecting the pale lights of the docking bay. He had remained hidden long enough to ensure the operation unfolded exactly as planned. Every signal, every transmission, every minor variable was being recorded and encrypted under his careful monitoring.

When the confirmation finally came — that the seeker had landed safely, that no tracking beacons had followed — Soundwave’s servo moved with precision. He raised his communicator and sent a brief, encrypted transmission across the silent commline, the pulse sharp and sure.

“Report: Starscream—arrived at destination. Coordinates confirmed. No interference detected.”

The message was short, efficient, and delivered directly to Megatron.

The Decepticon warlord’s response would come later — but for now, Soundwave remained still, watching the cloaked seeker move with quiet dignity beneath the floodlights, a small basket cradled protectively against his chest.

The image lingered in his optics longer than he expected — the once-proud Air Commander reduced to a lone shadow carrying new life through a war-torn galaxy. And though Soundwave said nothing, deep in his silent mind, he recorded one unspoken note of observation:

Starscream was no longer merely fleeing.
He was protecting.

Soundwave gave a single, subtle motion of his hand — a silent signal, perfectly understood by the dark red bot who had been waiting nearby. Without hesitation, the mech turned and began to bark orders to the workers scattered around the hangar. The sounds of shifting gears and metallic footsteps filled the space as the laborers hurried to obey.

Under the pale floodlights, teams of mechs began moving the heavy boxes — the same crates that Soundwave and the bot from before had prepared — toward Starscream’s aircraft. The containers, laden with energon cubes, raw crystals, and soft materials carefully wrapped within, were loaded efficiently into the cargo bay. Each thud of metal echoed softly through the landing area as the vessel’s hold filled with the supplies meant to sustain its occupants for the cycles to come.

Another group of workers positioned themselves near the fuel lines. The moment they opened the connection ports on the aircraft’s wings, the hollow clang and hiss of decompression reverberated through the dock. They quickly realized the tanks were almost completely dry — a dangerous state for any flier, let alone one with a passenger as vulnerable as a protoform. Thick, glowing streams of energon began flowing through the cables, filling the tanks as soft vibrations resonated through the floor.

Soundwave stood at a distance, visor glowing faintly beneath the dim light. His expressionless faceplate reflected the rhythmic flicker of the refueling indicators. From his silent watch, a small shape detached itself from the shadow of the aircraft — Laserbeak. The avian cassette glided soundlessly through the air, her crimson optics gleaming faintly before she perched delicately upon Soundwave’s shoulder.

“Mission: accomplished,” she whispered in her clipped, metallic tone, transmitting the full report directly through their private comm frequency. “Camera spy: installed. Perfect positioning. Visual range: total interior. No detection.”

Soundwave’s visor flickered as he received the stream — a silent acknowledgment.

Laserbeak continued, lowering her vocal pitch, a trace of irritation in her tone. “Autobot camera spy — debris-format — not located. Scans negative. Possibly mobile, or integrated into environment. Hidden well.”

Soundwave processed the data instantly, parsing every probability, every angle of possible placement. After a few seconds of calculation, he responded with calm efficiency. “Acknowledged. Mission success rate: ninety-eight point seven percent. Acceptable parameters.”

Laserbeak fluttered her wings proudly, her task complete.

Soundwave inclined his helm slightly. “Directive: rest. Recharge protocol: engage.”

Without another word, Laserbeak chirped softly — a sound almost affectionate — before dissolving into a stream of red light and entering the secure compartment on Soundwave’s chest. Inside, she rejoined the rest of the cassette team in their dormant state, the soft hum of containment sealing around her.

With the matter settled, Soundwave returned his attention to the cloaked seeker. Starscream, now carrying the basket where Tempestra slept soundly, was moving through the edge of the outpost. He walked with graceful caution, occasionally pausing to glance at the small market stalls and shacks that formed the heart of the settlement. The low hum of vendors and scavengers bartering echoed faintly — a strange calm after so much chaos.

Soundwave shadowed him from a distance, silent as a wraith, ensuring everything proceeded without interference.

—

Meanwhile, far from the quiet outpost, the oppressive air of Kaon’s Decepticon stronghold was broken by the heavy sound of armored footsteps. Tarn entered the great hall, his massive frame casting long shadows beneath the crimson torchlights. Behind him marched the rest of the Decepticon Justice Division. Their armor bore scars from recent battle, streaked with faint traces of dry energon — the metallic residue of spilled life force that clung to them like proof of their deeds.

Helex lumbered forward, carrying a sealed metal container, still dripping faintly at the seams. The scent of scorched circuitry hung in the air.

Reaching the base of the throne, Tarn knelt, his optics lowered but his voice steady and proud. “Lord Megatron,” he began, the deep modulation of his voice vibrating through the hall. “As promised — Lugnut’s head, and the entirety of his stolen Shannix funds. All transferred to your account.”

He lowered the box before the throne with a heavy clang. Megatron’s optics glowed faintly in the dim light, a flash of crimson flickering in their depths.

Tarn continued, explaining with the precision of a soldier giving a report, “Finding Lugnut was not difficult. He was flaunting his wealth, drinking refined energon, surrounded by indulgence. A few hours of observation — and he was within our grasp. A brief application of... incentive” — his tone sharpened, darkly amused — “was all it took for him to speak.”

Kaon stepped forward, his grin sharp and feral beneath the glow of his visor. “He told us everything. Lugnut found Starscream purely by chance. His words — ‘a gift from fate.’ He was scavenging, saw an aircraft crash from a meteorite strike, and followed it down hoping to loot it. When he realized who came out to make repairs — and that Starscream wasn’t alone — he couldn’t believe his optics.”

Kaon’s smile widened. “Starscream had a protoform with him. A femme. Lugnut recorded everything — coordinates, video, proof — and decided to sell it.”

Tarn inclined his head slightly toward Megatron. “He sold it first to the Autobots. Claimed that an Autobot scout — Cliffjumper — was the first he encountered. Optimus Prime initially refused the deal, but Ultra Magnus and others persuaded him otherwise. They gathered the sum piece by piece, each Autobot contributing Shannix until the full price was met. Lugnut’s greed won.”

Helex spoke next, his voice low, heavy, mechanical. “Before leaving, Lugnut overheard Ultra Magnus shouting orders. He called for Skyfire and Wheeljack, said they needed a mini spy drone — immediately.”

The words lingered in the heavy air like static, their implication clear.

Megatron’s optics narrowed, his claws curling around the armrests of his throne. His silence was more terrifying than any roar — the weight of contained fury simmering beneath his composed exterior. The dim crimson light reflected off the Decepticon insignia carved into the walls, flickering like a heartbeat in the darkness.

Somewhere far away, Soundwave’s silent transmission blinked across the secure commlink:

“Starscream — safe. Refueling in progress.”

And though Megatron’s fury still coiled within him like molten metal, a single thought crystallized through the storm of his rage —

The seeker lived.
The child lived.
And for now… that was enough.

Megatron leaned back upon his throne, the faint rasp of metal against metal echoing through the great chamber as the tension of his rage settled into a more deliberate, calculating stillness. The crimson glow of his optics softened—though it remained dangerous, like molten energon beneath cooling armor. Tarn and the members of the DJD still knelt before him, motionless, awaiting judgment.

“You have served the Decepticon cause with efficiency and loyalty,” Megatron finally said, his tone heavy, resonant, carrying the command of a warlord who rarely gave praise but whose every word carried immense weight. “Your mission was executed flawlessly. The traitor’s debt has been paid.” His gaze flickered toward the sealed box Helex had set before him—Lugnut’s remains—and a faint, dark smirk crossed his lips. “Lugnut’s betrayal has been answered in kind. His silence now serves as a warning to all who think they may profit from my trust.”

He gestured with one great servo, dismissing them. “You have earned your rest, my executioners. Recharge and replenish your energon. The war will require you again soon.”

Tarn bowed deeply, his voice solemn. “Glory to you, Lord Megatron. The DJD stands ready.” With that, the group rose and departed, the heavy thrum of their footfalls fading through the steel corridors until only silence—and the faint hum of Cybertron’s dying air systems—remained.

From the shadows beside the throne, a single optic flared to life. Shockwave, silent observer and scientist supreme, stepped forward. His tone was perfectly calm, almost clinical. “My analysis suggests that the Autobots’ surveillance method was… unconventional. The probability is high that their spy drone is mobile.”

Megatron turned his head slightly, his optics narrowing. “Explain.”

Shockwave clasped his hands behind his back, his single optic dimming and brightening in rhythm with his logic calculations. “Wheeljack is known for his experimental tendencies and his obsession with innovation. If he had the opportunity to build a drone to infiltrate Starscream’s craft, it is highly likely he engineered a movable design. Something autonomous, capable of traversing tight spaces without detection.”

He began pacing slowly, the echo of his steps sharp against the floor. “Given what we know of Wheeljack’s history of energy-efficient constructs, the drone could easily be powered by a solar micro-core. That would eliminate the need for energon fuel or internal combustion—thus, no sound emissions, no heat signatures detectable by Starscream’s scanners.”

Megatron exhaled, a deep growl rumbling in his chestplate. His claws tightened against the armrest. “So while my soldiers watched from our feed… the Autobots were doing the same. Two days ahead of us.”

Shockwave inclined his head once, a single motion of acknowledgment. “Precisely. Their early access explains why they were already aware of the protoform’s existence and prepared resources accordingly. Starscream’s current aircraft is outdated and poorly equipped for surveillance detection. Even if he had the inclination to check for trackers or interference, his priority at present remains the protoform’s stability, not his own security. His focus on the youngling would blind him to any subtle infiltration.”

Megatron’s optics darkened further, anger simmering low and cold. “He is too distracted. Too vulnerable. And the Autobots—ever the opportunists—prey on sentiment as though it were a weakness.”

Shockwave’s optic flared slightly. “Emotion is a weakness, Lord Megatron. However… in this case, it ensures that Starscream remains unaware of our own surveillance as well. His distraction shields us as effectively as it shields them.”

For a long moment, Megatron said nothing. The flicker of data readouts reflected off the crimson light of his optics as he processed the implications. Both factions now watched the same feed, both seeing the same fragile picture of Starscream and the tiny sparkling resting in his arms.

He leaned forward slowly, one servo pressing against his chin in thought. “So the Autobots believe themselves clever,” he murmured, voice low, almost a growl. “Let them watch. Let them think themselves the first to discover him. They will see only what I permit.”

Shockwave bowed his head slightly. “As you command.”

Megatron’s optics burned brighter for a moment, the fury within him tempered into cold purpose. “Keep monitoring both feeds. If their drone moves again, I want its signal traced and destroyed. And Soundwave—” he paused, glancing toward the distant communicator still linked to his most loyal lieutenant “—is to remain with Starscream until further notice. Neither Autobot nor Decepticon will interfere with him without my consent.”

“Understood,” Shockwave replied.

As the scientist turned away, Megatron’s gaze lingered on the fading holographic image of Starscream—hooded, tired, but cradling the small protoform protectively against his chest.

For the briefest fraction of a second, something flickered across the Warlord’s optics. Not rage. Not contempt. Something older. Something dangerously close to recognition.

Then it was gone.

The throne room fell silent once more—save for the soft hum of machinery and the quiet, relentless pulse of two live feeds, both locked upon the same fragile scene.

Starscream wandered through the narrow lanes of the neutral zone’s market, his hood drawn low to shadow his faceplates, hiding the gleam of his tricolored frame beneath layers of dark fabric. The air was heavy with the mingled scent of raw energon, old oil, and the faint metallic tang of oxidized alloy. Around him, mechs of all factions—neutral, deserter, mercenary—haggled over parts and rations, their voices a dull hum lost in the background of flickering lights and the hiss of leaky vents.

He moved carefully, almost reverently, between the small vendor stalls and makeshift shops, clutching his dwindling shannix storage tightly against his side. Every coin mattered. Every choice had weight.

And then, as he turned a corner, something caught his optics—a familiar shop, small and cluttered, its front display crowded with miscellaneous trinkets, cloth scraps, and faded mechanical toys. It was the very same store where, not long ago, Jazz had tried (and failed) to convince Prowl to buy the small stuffed turbofox.

Starscream stopped.

For a long moment, he simply stood there, staring at the toy through the glass—its simple stitched seams, its button-like optics that glowed faintly blue, and the soft worn metal of its tail. It was such a small, meaningless thing in the grand machinery of the universe. Yet to him, it felt colossal.

He stepped inside quietly, the chime above the door tinkling a faint, welcoming note. The merchant, a wiry mech with dull silver plating and one optic slightly dimmer than the other, looked up with a practiced smile.

Starscream didn’t speak at first. His gaze remained fixed on the toy. When he finally did, his voice was low, soft—almost fragile. “That one,” he said, pointing to the stuffed turbofox. “How much?”

The merchant gave a figure, far too high for something so simple. Starscream didn’t argue. He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he reached into his storage compartment, withdrew the last few shannix he had, and transferred the payment.

The transaction chimed softly—an electronic ping, final and absolute.

He held the toy carefully in his claws, tracing its seams with delicate fingers. “You’ll like this one, Tempestra,” he murmured to himself, so quietly that no one around could hear. “You’ll need your own toys… and this will be your first.”

Then, without another word, he turned and left the shop, the merchant watching him go with mild curiosity, unaware that the seeker he had just served was the most infamous name in Cybertron’s history.

When Starscream returned to his aircraft, the merchant—the same red and black mech who’d been paid by both Soundwave and Prowl—spotted him immediately. As the hooded seeker approached, the merchant straightened up, his expression bright and practiced, slipping easily into the part of the benevolent helper.

“Ah! You’re back, traveler!” he called, his voice full of artificial cheer. “I saw the cradle inside your ship, so I took the liberty of giving you a few extra things. Supplies I don’t need, but you might. Consider it a small kindness.”

His words flowed smooth as oil, a lie dressed in warmth, carefully rehearsed for both sides that had bought his cooperation.

Starscream looked at him from beneath his hood, silent and unreadable. For a brief instant, the merchant could swear he saw gratitude flicker in those faintly glowing optics—muted, weary, but genuine. The seeker inclined his helm slightly. “Thank you,” he said simply, his tone faintly hoarse.

The merchant nodded eagerly, continuing in a rush of chatter. “You’ll want to avoid the trade routes near the moons, and any planetary systems with high gravity fields. Not safe for older crafts like yours—markets there sell more for the new makes. You’ll find better parts and cleaner fuel lines along the D sectors.”

Starscream inclined his helm again, a small, graceful motion. “Understood.”

He stepped inside the aircraft, the door hissing softly behind him.

There, on the floor beside the pilot’s chair, lay two sealed boxes—stacked neatly, labels intact. Inside them, sealed and untainted, were energon cubes, small crystals, soft blankets, and clean pillows. Gifts, or so they were meant to appear. Everything was new, untouched. It was suspicious—painfully so—but his logic processor knew he couldn’t afford to refuse it.

His reserves were dangerously low. Tempestra’s needs came first.

He exhaled a quiet sigh, setting the turbofox toy down beside the cradle. The little protoform still slept peacefully, her tiny frame curled around the warm body pillow, vents humming softly in her recharge rhythm.

Starscream knelt, careful not to wake her, and tucked the stuffed turbofox beside her, adjusting her little servos so she held it against her small chassis. The sight made his spark ache—a strange, deep warmth that chased away, for a moment, the cold vastness of space.

He brushed a claw lightly over her helm, whispering, “Sweet dreams, little one.”

Across the void, within the Autobot base, the reaction was instant.

“Aha!!”

Jazz’s triumphant shout startled nearly everyone in the room. He jumped up from his chair, pointing dramatically at the screen showing the live feed. “SEE? I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU HE’D GET IT!”

Prowl groaned, optics narrowing in annoyance. “Jazz—”

“No, no, don’t even start!” Jazz grinned wide, gesturing emphatically. “You said it wasn’t a necessity, that it was impractical, but look—look right there! He bought it! Our pretty Seeker’s got good taste! That’s my victory, baby!”

The other Autobots couldn’t help but smirk, even Ratchet trying—unsuccessfully—to hide a small grin behind his hand.

And somewhere, in that small, quiet ship crossing the cold stars, Starscream settled into the pilot’s seat once more, the faint hum of the engines rising as he guided the aircraft into the endless dark—unaware that both factions were watching, and that a small stuffed turbofox had just become the symbol of something far more profound than either side yet understood.

Starscream guided his small, weathered aircraft back into the open sky. The engines groaned softly beneath his touch, old but loyal, responding to every minute adjustment of his fingers. The soft glow of the planet’s atmosphere spread behind him, painting his wings in shades of gold and violet as he ascended. The world below—a neutral outpost, quiet and half-forgotten—grew smaller and smaller until it was little more than a pale blue sphere drifting amid the darkness.

Inside the cockpit, everything was still. Only the faint rhythmic hum of the engines broke the silence. Starscream’s optics flicked briefly toward the small cradle at his side. Tempestra slept soundly within, wrapped in a silken blanket, the small turbofox plush clutched against her tiny chest. Her vents whispered softly, rising and falling in peaceful rhythm.

Starscream’s lips curled faintly at the edges—an expression neither smile nor sigh. His spark ached with exhaustion, with quiet determination. He didn’t know where to go, not truly. There was no safe harbor left for him, no coordinates that promised peace. But he didn’t need one. All that mattered now was keeping her hidden—keeping her safe from both Autobot and Decepticon claws.

He pushed the throttle forward, the aircraft gliding into the shadow of the distant stars, a streak of silver vanishing into the void.

What Starscream did not realize, however, was that the shadows he trusted for concealment had long since betrayed him. His name—his image—had been burning across both sides’ surveillance grids for days.

Soundwave stood silently within the darkened Decepticon command room, the only sound the faint electronic whisper of his internal systems. Around him, a dozen holo-screens glowed in blue and crimson hues, each displaying fragments of the same feed—Starscream’s small ship cutting through deep space, his movements recorded in eerie precision.

Behind Soundwave, Megatron watched with folded arms, optics narrowed, expression carved in tempered steel. He said nothing, but the slow clenching of his fists betrayed the storm building beneath his surface.

Soundwave’s voice, when it came, was low and mechanical, resonant as static. “Target—Starscream—located. Visual maintained. Tracking protocol established.”

On one of the side panels, the rest of the Decepticons—Tarn, Shockwave, and others—had gathered, murmuring lowly, processing the sight of the Seeker who had once been theirs.

Megatron’s optics glowed crimson. “Maintain distance,” he ordered, his tone sharp, final. “Do not approach. He must not sense us.”

Shockwave adjusted his instruments with cold precision. “Observation will remain covert. We will continue to study both Starscream and the sparkling. When the appropriate time arrives, action will be... efficient.”

Tarn’s mouth curled into something resembling a smirk beneath his mask, his optics flashing dangerously. “And when that time comes… we’ll see if he still calls himself free.”

Soundwave inclined his helm slightly in acknowledgment. “Acknowledged.”

The screens dimmed slightly, casting the room into half-darkness, the steady pulse of the feed still alive—a ghostly reminder of their target moving silently through the void.

Across the galaxy, the same image flickered in the Autobot command center.

Jazz leaned over the console, his fingers tapping rapidly at the screen. “He’s still goin’ strong,” he muttered, admiration and worry mingling in his tone. “Primus, that seeker’s got more luck than sense.”

Prowl stood nearby, arms crossed, optics sharp and calculating. “Luck won’t keep him hidden forever,” he replied evenly. “If we can track him, so can the Decepticons. We must act with restraint. Too much interference and we’ll drive him right into Megatron’s claws.”

Ratchet leaned over the display, expression weary but soft. “He’s not looking for either side,” the medic murmured. “He just wants to keep the sparkling safe. The least we can do is make sure he doesn’t get himself killed out there.”

Optimus stood behind them all, silent for a long moment as the faint outline of Starscream’s ship drifted across the screen. His optics flickered with a subtle, unspoken sorrow.

“Let him have his time,” Optimus finally said, voice deep and calm, though burdened. “For a year, we do nothing. He deserves peace, even if it is fragile.”

Jazz blinked, turning. “A whole year? You sure about that, boss?”

Optimus nodded slowly. “Yes. Both sides will wait—watch—but not act. The moment either faction moves, we’ll trigger a war neither of us can afford.”

The room fell into a tense quiet, the weight of his decision settling like dust.

And so the universe held its breath.

For one planetary cycle—an entire Cybertronian year—the Autobots and Decepticons watched from afar. Their optics, their satellites, their drones—all turned toward the same fragile spark glimmering against the infinite dark.

Neither side dared make the first move.

Starscream, unaware of the silent war building in the shadows, continued to drift through the stars, charting aimless routes across the void, nurturing his sparkling, living each day in quiet solitude. To him, it was peace. To them, it was the calm before the storm.

And when that long year finally reached its end—when both factions’ patience had burned itself thin—the stillness would shatter.

A race would begin.

Autobots and Decepticons alike would surge into motion, each one desperate to claim what they had watched for so long.

The prize: Starscream—and his innocent little Tempestra.

Chapter Text

Tempestra was growing—thriving, transforming before their very optics with each passing rotation. What had once been a tiny, fragile Protoform, all soft metals and glowing circuits, was now beginning to take shape—her body lengthening, armor plates hardening into the delicate, resilient sheen of a young Seeker sparkling. Her frame had nearly doubled in size; the translucent alloys of her protoform had shifted into the shimmering hues of her future plating, the faint blush of silver, violet, and pale blue dancing beneath her surface whenever light touched her.

Her wings, once little more than stubs, now began to unfurl and strengthen—first trembling, uncertain things, then gradually extending, gleaming faintly as if catching the light of the stars themselves. The process was beautiful in its own way, but it was not without agony. Every transformation in a sparkling’s life came with pain—metal expanding, lines fusing, energy channels rerouting to accommodate the new frame.

And Starscream, ever the watchful Carrier, was utterly exhausted.

Tempestra cried through entire cycles—thin, piercing wails that filled the small cabin of the ship. She cried when her plating cracked and reformed, when her new vocalizer struggled to calibrate, when her energy lines pulsed too brightly from the rapid growth. Her vents flared and stuttered, her small wings twitching helplessly against the nest of blankets. Starscream could only hold her, murmuring soft Vosian words in her audial, rocking her gently until she quieted, even as fatigue clawed mercilessly at his own frame.

There were moments when even his refined self-control faltered. The exhaustion was beyond comprehension. He had gone cycles without proper recharge, refusing to let himself power down while she whimpered. Eventually, his body betrayed him—his systems flickering into forced recharge. One quiet cycle, with one arm draped protectively over the edge of her cradle and his helm resting beside her, Starscream finally succumbed. Half of his body was still leaning over the crib, one hand loosely curled near Tempestra’s side, as if even unconscious he refused to release her from his protection.

The image, transmitted in silent real-time across the void, stirred unexpected reactions on both sides.

At the Autobot base, Bumblebee was nearly frantic. His optics widened at the sight of Tempestra’s still form in the cradle and Starscream’s motionless frame beside her. “Ratchet! She’s not moving—she’s not moving! What if—what if she’s dying?!”

Ratchet pinched the bridge of his nasal ridge, the weariness clear in his voice as he responded. “She’s not dying, Bumblebee.”

“But—!”

“She’s growing,” Ratchet interrupted, more firmly this time, optics softening as he turned back toward the feed. “Protoforms shed their first layer of metallic composition during the early stages of development. It’s painful, yes, but entirely normal. She’s transitioning into a true sparkling. That exhaustion you’re seeing? That’s just her systems adjusting. The same goes for her carrier. They’ll both recover.”

Bumblebee still hovered nervously beside him, optics bright with concern, but the medic’s reassurance finally made him settle. Ratchet even allowed a small smile as he continued to study the feed, seeing Starscream’s servo twitch faintly as though instinctively checking that the sparkling was still near. “You’re doing fine, seeker…” Ratchet murmured quietly, almost to himself.

Elsewhere, within the cold corridors of the Decepticon warship, Soundwave was having a nearly identical problem.

Frenzy’s voice was sharp and anxious, cutting through the static. “She’s not moving! You see that, boss? She’s not moving!”

Rumble echoed him immediately, his smaller frame pacing rapidly. “Yeah, she’s all still and fraggin’ quiet! Something’s wrong! We should—”

“—interfere: unnecessary,” Soundwave interrupted, his monotone voice carrying calm authority. “Vital signs: stable. Growth phase: in progress.”

The twins exchanged uneasy glances.

Soundwave continued, more softly now, his visor flickering faintly as he adjusted the readouts on his internal display. “Protoform metamorphosis: requires energy expenditure. Temporary stasis: expected.”

Ravage, stretched lazily near his side, flicked her tail and murmured lowly, “She grows strong.”

Soundwave’s helm tilted slightly, his gaze lingering on the image of Starscream and Tempestra. His visor dimmed for a long, thoughtful moment. “Affirmative.”

Tempestra’s transformation, though natural, rippled through both factions like a signal flare. Each day, her developing form revealed a little more—her protoform’s metals shifting toward defined armor plates, her frame elongating, her wings spreading wider. And with every change, anticipation deepened.

Because soon—very soon—her colors would stabilize.

Then the truth would be laid bare for all to see.

Both the Autobots and the Decepticons waited with bated breath, the tension growing unbearable. Because once Tempestra’s armor fully formed, her pattern and hues would no longer be a mystery—they would finally reveal her heritage.

And with it… the identity of her sire.

That revelation, both factions knew, would change everything.

Clearly, what both the Autobots and the Decepticons had awaited with such restless eagerness — the final revelation of Tempestra’s full form — did not bring the clarity they had so desperately anticipated.
Instead, it brought only deeper confusion, more questions than either side had the courage or the logic to answer.

For ten long months, the world seemed to hold its breath.
Ten months of sleepless cycles, of anxious speculation and hushed discussions across encrypted comm lines. Ten months of fragmented recharges, of both factions glued to their monitors, watching the grainy live feeds that captured Starscream’s every exhausted movement and Tempestra’s every flicker of transformation.

And through it all, one thing remained constant — Starscream stood alone.

With no sire to share the burden, no companion to ease the endless cycles of feeding, soothing, and repairing, it was Starscream who carried every responsibility upon his own weary wings. The toll was written across his frame — his armor dulled by lack of proper maintenance, his optics faintly dim from rest deprivation, his once-fluid grace reduced to slow, deliberate efficiency. Yet he never wavered. Every cry from Tempestra brought him instantly awake, his tired hands cradling her with infinite gentleness, his voice a quiet, steady rhythm that lulled her back into calm recharge.

But at last… that difficult stage had passed.

Tempestra had grown.
The long, painful metamorphosis was over.

She was nearly a full year old now — no longer a protoform, but a true sparkling. And she was breathtaking.

Tempestra’s tiny talons were sharp and neatly formed, her fingers tipped with elegant silver claws reminiscent of her carrier’s own. Her armor plating had solidified into a tricolor brilliance that seemed almost too vivid for the dull metallic world she had been born into. Her small cockpit shone with an ethereal silver hue — not the flat tone of steel, but a gleaming, living radiance, like the full glow of a moon at its zenith.

Nickel’s early observation had been right — Tempestra was tricolored. Her armor shimmered with a soft, celestial blue as pure as the skies above Vos on its clearest days, while deeper streaks of midnight blue curved along her frame, echoing the dusk-like tones of Starscream’s own plating. But overlaying it all was that impossible silver — not gray, not chrome, but luminous, like light given physical form. Her wings, proportionally large for her body, bore intricate vein-like patterns that hinted at both strength and grace. Even now, at her tender age, one could tell that when she matured, those wings would stretch long and slender — faster and lighter than Starscream’s ever were.

And Starscream, in his prime, had been the fastest flier Cybertron had ever known.

In the golden age of combat, it had been said that only Blurr — the Autobot whose speed was legendary even among mechs — could rival him. It was Starscream who had learned to predict Blurr’s movements mid-flight, who could anticipate where the Autobot would reappear between his blinks of motion, who could aim and fire with precision that bordered on impossible.

Yet now, his own sparkling might one day surpass him.

But perhaps the most extraordinary thing about Tempestra — the thing that made every optic on both sides widen with awe — were the glowing circles scattered across her body. Tiny circular markings of radiant azure energy pulsed faintly along her plating, most visible beneath the curve of her wings and around her spark chamber.

Such markings had not been seen on Cybertron in countless millennia.

They were the unmistakable sign of a rare and ancient CNA lineage — one believed to have been lost before the War of Primes, when Cybertron still bathed in light and peace. Only a handful of mechs from the Golden Age had carried that gene: those capable of extraordinary spark resonance and raw energy output, mechs said to have been born directly from the Well of All Sparks without need of forges.

Tempestra was living proof that the gene still existed.

Among the Autobots, the revelation sent waves of disbelief through their command center.
They stared at the feed in reverent silence, the glowing blue circles reflected in their optics.

“This… this shouldn’t be possible,” murmured Ratchet, optics narrowing, his medical logic overwhelmed by sheer wonder.

Across from him, Bumblebee whispered, almost in awe, “She’s beautiful…”

Even Prowl’s emotionless façade cracked for a fleeting moment, his processor trying to make sense of what his optics reported. Elita-One pressed a servo to her mouth, unable to contain a faint tremor of astonishment.

Meanwhile, among the Decepticons, the reaction was more visceral — disbelief giving way to chaotic emotion.

“She carries the marks of the Old Spark!” thundered one of the scientists, optics gleaming wide. “Impossible! Those lines of CNA were purged before the first uprising!”

Even Megatron’s optics widened slightly before narrowing into deep contemplation.
If Tempestra truly carried those traits… she was more than Starscream’s sparkling. She was an heir to something ancient, something powerful — a living relic of Cybertron’s forgotten divinity.

Shockwave’s monotone voice broke the silence. “Conclusion: genetic anomaly or revival of long-dormant CNA strand. Potential significance: incalculable.”

And through all the commotion, Starscream remained unaware.

He was slumped in the pilot’s chair of his small, aging aircraft, finally in deep recharge for the first time in stellar cycles. Tempestra lay curled peacefully atop his chest, her wings fluttering faintly as she dreamed. The faint hum of the engines filled the cabin, steady and rhythmic, as the ship flew on autopilot through the dark expanse.

Her cradle had become far too small for her growing frame, and the little ship — once cozy — now felt stifling for the two of them. Supplies were running low again. Energon reserves were dwindling. The tanks would not last another long flight.

Both factions knew it.

Their monitors tracked the soft, steady pulse of the aircraft’s engines, watching as its trajectory aligned toward neutral space — Sector F. A vast, lawless territory filled with scattered settlements, free mechs, drifters, and merchants of every sort. There were dwellings there, markets, black markets, and small outposts that answered to no banner.

Starscream’s autopilot was taking him there — to a place where neither Autobot nor Decepticon had full control.

A place where, perhaps, he might finally rest in peace with his young daughter.

But both factions knew what Starscream did not:
He was no longer invisible to them.
And as Tempestra’s first year neared completion, the clock began to count down toward the inevitable.

The race for Starscream — and his miraculous sparkling — was about to begin.

It was Ultra Magnus who first understood why Starscream was going to that specific sector. He didn’t need to voice it immediately — his optics dimmed in quiet realization, his massive frame shifting slightly as if the thought alone weighed on him. Of course Starscream would go there. Sector F was vast, neutral, and thick with anonymity; a territory where the rules of factions blurred into survival and barter. With his brilliance and resourcefulness, Starscream could easily find work — repair jobs, design commissions, or technical consulting for less-than-legal merchants. His mind alone could earn shanix enough to survive, perhaps even thrive, for a time.

But Magnus also knew that it was a dangerous gamble. Even if many bots in the sector wouldn’t recognize the former Air Commander at first glance — his armor dulled, his wings perhaps repainted, his once-proud insignia long gone — there was always someone in the black markets who remembered too much. Someone who had seen him once, on the battlefield or in the skies above Kaon, and could connect the dots. And if one of those mercenaries or traders realized that Starscream was not only alive, but carrying a sparkling — a sparkling that bore traces of ancient CNA once believed extinct since the Golden Age — then the consequences would be catastrophic.

Ultra Magnus didn’t need to finish his thought. The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. Every Autobot present understood precisely what he meant. If someone discovered what Tempestra was, they would try to take her. To sell her. To dissect her.

On the Decepticon side, it was Soundwave who reached the same grim realization. His visor flickered faintly, the faint tremor of unease crossing the comm line he opened with Megatron. His report was succinct, quiet, and unnervingly calm — but the meaning within it was sharp enough to cut metal. Megatron’s optics narrowed at the mention of the ancient CNA. The warlord said nothing for several kliks, but his servo curled into a fist that creaked under its own pressure.

And yet… as dangerous as it was, Soundwave knew it was the only viable plan Starscream had. Hunted by both factions, with a growing sparkling who required energy, protection, and stability — he had no other choice but to risk the one place where both Autobots and Decepticons avoided for different reasons.

While the leaders of both sides debated their next course of action — voices rising, logic clashing with emotion — far away, the subject of their frantic concern stirred.

Tempestra awoke.

Her bright lilac optics flickered open slowly, twin galaxies blooming to life beneath delicate armor plating. A tiny yawn escaped her vocalizer, high-pitched and soft, her small servos curling and uncurling as she blinked against the gentle dim light of the aircraft cabin. Her gaze wandered curiously around — the ceiling, the faint hum of the ship’s systems — before finding her Carrier. Starscream, exhausted beyond measure, was still deep in recharge, his helm tilted slightly forward in the pilot chair.

And then Tempestra saw it. Her toy — the small, well-loved stuffed Turbofox that had fallen into her cradle during recharge.

What happened next left everyone — Autobots, Decepticons, and anyone monitoring the situation remotely — completely speechless.

The little sparkling began to move.

Careful not to disturb her Carrier, she wiggled and shifted, slowly sliding down Starscream’s chestplate. Her tiny talons found purchase in the seams of the armor, and she lowered herself with remarkable precision for one so young. Her peds touched the cool metal floor with a soft clink. She turned her head toward the cradle, optics bright with focus, and toddled unsteadily toward it, each step determined and endearingly clumsy.

Gripping the bars of the cradle, she steadied herself and began to climb. Her small claws hooked expertly into the grooves until she was standing inside. She looked down at her stuffed Turbofox, considered her options — and then, with surprising strength, she tossed it out of the cradle. The toy landed softly on the floor, rolling once before stopping near the base of Starscream’s chair.

Tempestra looked down at her accomplishment, then followed it with the same seriousness a warrior might show when jumping into battle. With another careful descent, she slid back down the cradle bars, padded across the floor, and picked up her toy in both servos. Hugging it tightly against her chest, she toddled back to where her Carrier sat.

The next challenge was height — but Tempestra was Starscream’s creation through and through, stubborn and unyielding. With delicate, determined motions, she began to climb. One claw at a time. One seam at a time. The metal of the chair groaned faintly as she hauled herself upward, the small sparkling grunting with the effort but never stopping until she reached the familiar chestplate that radiated the comforting pulse of her Carrier’s spark.

Finally, she settled back against Starscream’s frame, her little wings fluttering once before folding. She nestled herself onto his chest, pressing her helm against the faint glow of his spark chamber. With the Turbofox toy still clutched tightly in her arms, Tempestra released a soft, contented chirp — and drifted back into recharge.

The monitors flickered with quiet static. No one — neither Autobot nor Decepticon — spoke a word.

When the reality of what they had just witnessed truly settled in — when the image of that tiny, impossibly clever sparkling climbing down from her Carrier, retrieving her toy, and climbing back up again finally processed through their systems — both factions reacted in perfect, chaotic unison.

A collective cry, loud and disbelieving, thundered through the comm channels and base halls alike:

“WHAAAAAAAT?!!”

The exclamation echoed across Cybertronian frequencies, shaking even the most disciplined of soldiers out of composure. It wasn’t often that Autobots and Decepticons reacted exactly the same way — but Tempestra’s display of uncanny coordination and intelligence managed the impossible.

At the Decepticon base, Megatron was the first to recover his voice, though his expression betrayed something dangerously close to bewilderment. His optics narrowed, his servo slamming down on the table with a clang that reverberated through the room.

“Nickel,” he barked, his tone sharp and demanding, “explain this!”

The medic froze. For once, the ever-confident field doctor looked… lost. Nickel’s helm tilted, her optics flicking rapidly as she reviewed the data again and again. Her vocalizer crackled before she finally spoke.

“I… I don’t know, Lord Megatron,” she admitted, almost hesitant. “By all logical and biological parameters, she shouldn’t even be capable of that yet. At ten months, she should still be barely stable in motor control, let alone have the cognitive awareness to— to climb down and plan her movements like that. It’s… it’s impossible.”

Megatron’s optics burned brighter. He turned his gaze on Knockout and Hook, both standing stiffly nearby.

“Well?” Megatron demanded. “Does anyone have an explanation for this?!”

Knockout’s optics darted between Megatron and the monitor. The normally smug medic seemed uncharacteristically unsure, his finials twitching. “Lord Megatron,” he began, trying to maintain composure, “in all my stellar cycles of studying Cybertronian development, I’ve never seen a protoform mature like that. Even accounting for her heritage, the speed of Tempestra’s neurological growth is… staggering. She’s developing at a rate ten times faster than the projected curve.”

Hook, ever the pragmatic surgeon, added grimly, “Her neural lattice must be undergoing accelerated fusion — something beyond standard spark influence. Perhaps a genetic anomaly.”

But when Megatron’s gaze swung toward Shockwave, the room fell completely silent.

The one-eyed scientist — the cold, logical voice of Decepticon science — stood utterly still. His optic flickered once, then again. For the first time in all their memories, Shockwave looked… uncertain.

“I possess no sufficient data,” Shockwave finally admitted, his tone flat yet unnervingly quiet. “No known Cybertronian — not even in the archives of the Golden Age — has displayed such rapid and refined development. It defies all established metrics.”

The words I don’t know hung in the air like a seismic shockwave of their own.

Across the war-torn planet, in the Autobot base, the same chaos erupted.

Optimus had watched the footage in silence, but even he could not mask his surprise. His optics flicked to Ratchet, silently demanding answers that the medic didn’t have.

“Ratchet,” Optimus began, voice deep but measured, “is this… normal?”

The outburst that followed was anything but measured.

“Normal?!” Ratchet’s vocalizer practically spiked. His servos threw up in exasperation, field flaring with disbelief. “Optimus, that was not normal! Not even remotely! At ten months, a sparkling is barely learning to process visual depth and movement! She shouldn’t be able to stand on her own, much less plan and execute an entire sequence of actions!”

He gestured wildly at the holographic display, where the image of Tempestra hugging her toy and curling against Starscream replayed in a loop. “That — that level of motor precision and spatial reasoning — it’s not just early development! It’s advanced cognition! That sparkling knew exactly what she was doing! She chose to get her toy and return to her Carrier!”

Bumblebee, watching from the side, let out a low whistle. “She’s… kinda scary smart for a baby.”

Ratchet snapped, “Scary smart doesn’t even begin to cover it, Bumblebee!”

Optimus, however, remained quiet — though his optics were thoughtful, almost troubled. His gaze lingered on the still frame of Tempestra’s optics, glowing faintly lilac in the dim light. There was something in that look — awareness, will, intelligence — that went far beyond any ordinary sparkling.

Whatever Starscream had given life to… it wasn’t just rare. It was impossible.

Across both factions, the same unease settled in.

Tempestra — the sparkling born of secrecy and ancient CNA — had already done something no Cybertronian her age ever had.

And none of them, not even Shockwave or Ratchet, could explain how.

While the Autobots continued to argue—voices rising and clashing in a storm of disbelief, theories, and scientific outrage—one bot stayed silent.

Bumblebee.

He wasn’t listening anymore to Ratchet’s frantic explanations or to Prowl’s insistence that what they’d seen could be a trick of the camera. His optics were glued to the live feed screen, watching the faint flickering static that had begun crawling across the image.

“Uh… guys?” he murmured, but no one heard him. The static thickened, spreading like fog across the transmission, lines of interference rippling through the image of Starscream and Tempestra inside the small, dimly lit aircraft.

For a moment, everything blurred—shadows bending, pixels distorting. Through the hazy signal, Bumblebee could swear he saw something. A shape.

Something was there.

Floating.

It hovered above the slumbering forms of Starscream and his sparkling, not metallic, not mechanical—but something faint, ethereal, like a shimmer of energy condensed into form. It loomed there for barely a second, a silhouette of light surrounded by static, and then—

The feed cleared.

And when the image steadied again, Bumblebee’s optics widened. Both Starscream and Tempestra were now covered by a blanket that hadn’t been there before, carefully draped over them, protecting the little sparkling nestled against her Carrier’s chest.

Bumblebee blinked hard, rubbing at his optics with both servos. “What the—?” he mumbled under his breath. “No way. No way I just saw that.”

He leaned closer to the monitor, replaying the feed, trying to see if maybe he’d imagined it. But no—there was a flicker of something. He could see the faint glimmer again just before the signal stabilized. A presence. A movement that wasn’t mechanical, wasn’t Starscream’s.

“Optimus!” Bumblebee called out, his voice sharp now, breaking through the cacophony of voices. “Ratchet! You guys— you gotta look at this!”

The argument stilled, and both Optimus and Ratchet turned toward him, optics narrowing.

“What is it, Bumblebee?” Optimus asked, stepping closer, his calm voice cutting through the tension.

Bee pointed at the screen. “There was—something—on the feed! I swear I saw it! Right before the static stopped! Something was floating over Starscream and Tempestra, and then—then the blanket was suddenly over them! I’m telling you, it wasn’t him who did it!”

Ratchet huffed, crossing his arms, his tone exasperated as he leaned forward to examine the screen. “Static interference, Bumblebee. What you think you saw was most likely Starscream moving too fast for the feed to process properly. He probably realized they were entering Zone D—it’s one of the colder atmospheric belts in that sector—and got up to cover himself and the sparkling. The glitch just made it look… strange.”

“But that’s not what I saw!” Bumblebee protested, turning from the screen to face him. “He didn’t move! He didn’t even twitch! One second they were uncovered—then static—and then they were wrapped up like someone had tucked them in!”

Ratchet scoffed, waving a servo dismissively. “Bee, do you realize how many times you’ve claimed to see ghost signals or sensor phantoms when the transmission glitches? It’s a lag, not a spirit of the Allspark tucking them in for recharge!”

But Bumblebee wasn’t convinced. His optics stayed fixed on the frozen image of Starscream and Tempestra—so peaceful, blanketed in quiet protection.

The blanket hadn’t been grabbed or thrown. It looked placed.

Gently.

With care.

As if someone—or something—had reached out in that fleeting storm of static and decided that the seeker and his child should not shiver in the cold.

Ratchet continued to explain away the anomaly, and Optimus simply watched in silence, his expression unreadable. But Bumblebee’s words lingered in the air like a spark that refused to fade.

Because deep down, even the Prime could not fully dismiss the possibility that Bumblebee had seen something beyond explanation—something that didn’t belong to logic or science,but to the quiet, ancient mysteries of the spark.

What Bumblebee saw, Soundwave also saw—and for once, even he could not fully believe what his sensors were showing him.

The static that had interrupted the live feed moments earlier had drawn his attention immediately; his internal systems reacted on instinct, decrypting, enhancing, replaying every fraction of a frame. But no matter how many times he ran the analysis, the result remained the same: a brief surge of interference, a faint silhouette of something hovering above Starscream and Tempestra… and then, the image clearing to reveal them both wrapped beneath a blanket that hadn’t been there before.

Soundwave’s optics narrowed in thought, the faintest flicker of confusion crossing the otherwise impassive helm. His processors, fine-tuned for logic and pattern recognition, could not reconcile what he had seen with what the data now showed.

Silence filled his private quarters as he replayed the segment again and again. Each time, the same unsettling blank space appeared in the recording—an exact fragment of time missing from the memory stream, as though someone or something had reached into his systems and carefully cut out the evidence.

He tried to recover it, running multiple reconstruction algorithms, signal restoration cycles, and energy trace extractions. But it was gone.

Completely erased.

Not corrupted. Not damaged.
Erased.

Soundwave’s vents exhaled softly, a low mechanical hum resonating through the quiet space. He leaned closer to the screen, his optic reflecting the image of Starscream and the small sparkling curled against his chest, both deep in recharge beneath that mysterious blanket.

The gesture—the positioning—it all looked deliberate. Protective. Almost tender.

There was no trace of external energy signatures, no remaining data pulse that could identify what had caused the interference. Yet the faint electromagnetic residue on the feed didn’t match any known Decepticon, Autobot, or environmental source. It was… other.

Something else.

He sat back slowly, hands clasped behind his back, his towering frame casting long shadows against the dim glow of the monitors. His tapes stirred slightly within his chest compartment, reacting to the faint tension that pulsed through their master’s systems.

Soundwave, ever the collector of secrets, knew patterns. He lived for order, for clarity.
But this—this did not fit.

He had seen the inexplicable. He had felt it through the subfrequencies, a flicker of something almost alive in the static, and now that fragment of truth was simply… gone.

Erased, with precision.

His gaze lingered once more on the image of Starscream and Tempestra, both utterly still, enveloped in a calm that seemed untouched by the chaos of their world.

Something was happening.
Something beyond comprehension—beyond logic, beyond the reach of even his sensors.

Soundwave did not yet know what it was.

But he would find out.

And whatever force had the power to hide itself from him—to erase data from his systems—was not something to be ignored.

Not anymore.

Chapter Text

The vast, warm darkness cradled him again. Not the cold emptiness of space, but a living, breathing shadow that held him with impossible tenderness. The memory of the kiss was still a phantom pressure on his lips, a sweetness that made his energy feel thin, insubstantial.

Then, a shift.

A new pressure, immense and solid, slid beneath him. A single, huge hand, its palm broader than his entire chestplate, pressed against his underside with a possessive weight that was both thrilling and terrifying. It wasn't cruel, but it was undeniable. He was pinned not by force, but by sheer, monumental presence.

The voice returned, a low, thick rumble that vibrated through the hand and directly into his spark. It was sweet, gentle, each syllable a caress that belied the raw power behind it. “You are so beautiful. A masterpiece of form and fury. They do not deserve you. I will not allow this era to tarnish your light.”

The words were a balm and a brand. Starscream tried to speak, to demand answers, but his vocalizer produced only a static hum of overwhelmed sensors. Who are you? What are you talking about?

The hand beneath him began to change. A soft, internal luminescence bloomed from within the massive palm, a light that was impossibly bright yet did not hurt his optics. It was a pure, energon-blue glow that poured into his own plating, seeking, searching. For a glorious nanoklik, it felt like being filled with sunlight, warm and invigorating.

Then, the pain.

It was a white-hot, searing agony that erupted from the very core of his being, as if his spark was being torn in two. It was a pain so profound, so absolute, that it short-circuited every other process in his system. A raw, undignified scream was ripped from his vocalizer, a sound of pure, unadulterated torment that shattered the sacred silence of the dark.

Before the echo could even fade, a second colossal hand appeared. It moved with a speed that defied its size, pressing firmly over his mouthplate. A thick, warm digit slid between his lips, pressing down on his glossa, silencing him effectively, muffling any further cries. The taste of the digit was… familiar. Ozone and starlight. The taste from the kiss.

The deep, resonant voice was closer now, a whisper directly by his audial, calm and unbearably gentle against the storm of pain in his chest. “Shhh, my star. I know. I know it hurts. Just a few more seconds. Be strong for me. It will be finished, and you will be perfect.”

Terror and a strange, twisted sense of comfort warred within him. The pain was excruciating, a violation of his very essence, yet the being causing it held him with a reverence he had never known. The hand over his mouth was not a punishment; it was an anchor, holding him together as he felt he might fly apart. He focused on the pressure, on the soothing cadence of that voice, using them as a lifeline against the agony.

He felt a shift, a press of a formidable forehead against his own helmet. A kiss was placed there, not on the lips, but a chaste, calming gesture that somehow carried the weight of an entire covenant. The pain began to recede as suddenly as it had arrived, leaving his frame trembling and his spark… different. It wasn't weaker. It was more. It pulsed with a frantic, powerful rhythm, beating against his chamber like it was trying to escape, charged with a new, unknown energy.

The hand slowly, reluctantly, left his chest. The light faded. The hand withdrew from his mouth, the digit grazing his lip in a final, fleeting caress.

The voice spoke again, a promise woven into the fabric of the darkness itself. “It is done. You are safe. We will meet again, my beautiful one. When the stars above this wretched rock align as they should. Wait for me.”

The immense presence began to withdraw, the warmth receding, the darkness becoming mere emptiness again. Starscream fought to online his optics, to see, to get one clear glimpse—

BANG

Starscream woke when the empty energon cube, balanced precariously atop the flight console, slipped from its resting place and clattered against the metal floor. The hollow clang reverberated through the small cockpit, pulling him abruptly from the haze of recharge—and from the edge of a dream that lingered just beyond his reach.

For a fleeting instant, he almost caught it—almost saw the face that had haunted his recharge for cycles now. The mysterious figure that came to him in the dark recesses of his dreams, speaking words he could never quite remember upon waking, a silhouette that glowed with familiar energy yet remained just out of clarity. Every time he tried to hold onto it, to see who it was, consciousness stole it away.

Starscream ex-vented slowly, the soft sound escaping between his lips as he blinked himself fully awake. His optics drifted downward—and his entire frame softened.

There, nestled against his chest, lay Tempestra.

She was fast asleep, her tiny form rising and falling with the slow rhythm of recharge. Her little claws twitched occasionally as if chasing dreams of her own, and the faint luminescent circles along her armor pulsed gently, glowing in a mesmerizing dance of color. The soft, celestial blue now intertwined with faint lilac hues—delicate swirls of light that shimmered like distant galaxies across her protoform plating. It was as though the cosmos themselves had left their mark upon her.

Starscream stared, silently captivated. That tiny, radiant creature—the spark he carried, nurtured, and protected—was his entire world now. The faintest smile touched the corners of his lips. Tempestra, small and fragile though she was, radiated a strength and beauty unlike anything Cybertron had seen in millennia.

Under her arm, clutched tightly as though it were the most precious thing in existence, was her little stuffed Turbofox. The soft toy was almost hidden beneath her arm plates, its faux fur pressed against her chest.

It was then that Starscream noticed something else.

They were covered.

A thick, soft blanket—one he didn’t remember retrieving—had been draped over both of them. The edges were neatly folded, tucked around their bodies with care. He frowned faintly, running a claw over the fabric. He couldn’t recall moving after he’d fallen into recharge. The exhaustion had been too deep, his body too heavy from countless sleepless cycles.

Had he done this without realizing it? Or had… someone else?

His optics lingered on the blanket for a moment longer, mind whispering questions he didn’t dare voice aloud. But in the end, he shook his helm, dismissing the thought with quiet logic. It must have been his doing—nothing more than a moment lost to fatigue.

Still… there was a faint warmth in the air. A hum of something else. Something unseen, gentle, almost protective.

Starscream exhaled and carefully, delicately, slid his servos beneath Tempestra’s small frame. He lifted her with infinite tenderness, mindful not to wake her. The little femme murmured faintly, curling closer to his chest before he placed her into her cradle. He adjusted the blanket—the same one that had mysteriously appeared—around her small body, ensuring she was cocooned in warmth.

For a long moment, he simply stood there, watching her. Her light reflected softly off the polished metal walls, filling the small cabin with hues of silver, blue, and lavender.

Turning away, Starscream’s optics drifted toward the ship’s navigation panel. The readings blinked steadily—coordinates scrolling across the screen in pale Cybertronian glyphs. The ship had entered Sector D.

A quiet sense of purpose settled within him.

Each passing day brought him closer to the destination he’d chosen—a quiet corner of the neutral zone where neither Decepticon nor Autobot would think to look. A place where Tempestra could grow safely, away from war, away from command chains and battlefield cries.

Starscream touched the glass above the control panel, optics glinting faintly with resolve.

Tempestra was nearly eleven months old now. Soon, she would be one full cycle—strong, stable, ready for the world.

And when that day came… they would begin again.

Far from the shadows of Megatron.
Far from the reach of Optimus Prime.

Just Starscream and his sparkling, at peace beneath the endless stars.

That was his plan. His only plan.
To reach the neutral colonies, settle among the scattered outposts of forgotten Cybertronians, and finally—finally—give Tempestra the peaceful life she deserved. A life far from the war, far from the reach of either Megatron’s tyranny or Optimus’s ideals.

But that fragile dream began to crumble the instant the soft hum of the ship’s engines was pierced by the shrill, blaring cry of alarms.

The warning lights flared crimson across the small cockpit, casting violent flashes over the walls and over Starscream’s pale plating. The tricolor Seeker straightened immediately, optics narrowing, processor racing. The sensors screamed in every frequency—something massive was interfering with the ship’s flight path.

He hadn’t even reached the controls when a small movement beside him drew his attention.

Tempestra stirred. The soft chime of her inner systems activating filled the confined space as she slowly sat upright, her tiny form still wrapped in her blanket. She rubbed her small hands over her optics with an almost human gesture, vents releasing a soft coo of air.

Despite the blaring alarms, she showed no fear.

Her calmness was almost eerie—she blinked, serene, as if she were an ancient spark inside a child’s frame, her lilac optics gleaming faintly with awareness. She tilted her head, looking toward the flashing red lights, curious rather than frightened.

Starscream’s spark clenched. There was no time for marvel or confusion—he had to protect her.

His servos flew across the controls, flipping switches, rerouting power, forcing the engines to maximum output. He could feel the vibration of the thrusters intensifying beneath his pedes—but the ship wasn’t responding.

The next moment, the entire world shook.

A violent jolt threw the aircraft off-balance, metal creaking and groaning under impossible pressure. Outside the viewport, the stars distorted—bent—until something vast and unnatural filled the void.

And then, he saw them.

The first of the tentacles erupted from the swirling white light that tore open space itself—a shimmering portal pulsing with otherworldly energy. The tendrils were colossal, sleek, and unnaturally smooth, their surface glinting with a sickly metallic sheen that shifted like liquid. They moved with impossible precision, coiling around his small ship as though they were alive, constricting with terrifying strength.

The aircraft shuddered violently, alarms screaming in protest, warning of structural strain. Sparks rained from the ceiling as the cockpit lights flickered.

Starscream’s optics widened. His wings flared instinctively, and his spark pulsed in pure, cold fear.

He knew that shape. He knew that light.

Only one species in the universe had technology capable of warping through dimensions with such grotesque elegance. Only one species crafted machines that moved like flesh.

“...Quintesson,” Starscream hissed, the word leaving his vocalizer in a mixture of disbelief and horror.

The name alone sent a shiver through his circuits. The Quintessons—ancient manipulators, the shadowy creators of horrors long buried in Cybertron’s past. Their influence was whispered of, their cruelty legendary. To most, they were myths. To Starscream… they were nightmares given form.

He tightened his grip on the controls, determination flaring even as the cockpit quaked around him. “You will not take us!” he snarled, forcing the engines beyond their safe limits. The vessel screamed as thrusters roared, pushing against the suffocating pull of the tentacles.

Metal screeched. Energy flared. The portal’s pull deepened, white light spilling across the stars like an open wound.

Tempestra looked up, optics wide now—not in fear, but in quiet focus—as if she recognized what was happening, her small talons clutching the edge of her blanket.

Starscream’s spark raced, processor scrambling through evasive protocols and escape subroutines. The entire ship trembled beneath him, systems straining to obey his every command.

But the tentacles only tightened their grip.

And in the suffocating silence between each alarm’s pulse, Starscream’s fear was no longer for himself—
it was for her.

The Quintessons.
A name that still made the oldest sparks in Cybertronian history recoil with dread.

They were well known across the stars for their hatred of Cybertronians—a cold, ancient disdain that went beyond reason or rivalry. To them, Cybertronians were defects, an abomination of self-awareness born from what they once considered their property. To them, the sentient race that had once been their creations were now insolent, unworthy of existence. Inferior. Indignos.

Their contempt was the kind that could be felt in the air whenever their ships cut through space—an oppressive, mechanical arrogance that pressed on the very spark.

Even Optimus Prime himself had once crossed paths with Quintessa, the Queen of the Quintessons—a being of impossible intellect and boundless cruelty. Her interest had been singular: the Matrix of Leadership. She had called it “the Heart of Creation,” claiming it rightfully belonged to her people, that Cybertronians were not worthy of wielding it.

It had taken all of Optimus’s strength and the will of Primus himself to survive that encounter.

And now—by Starscream’s terrible fortune—it seemed history was poised to repeat itself.

Somewhere, out in the void of the galaxy, one of the Quintessons must have felt the faint pulse of Cybertronian energy signatures encroaching too close to their dominion. And, true to their merciless nature, they had not bothered to ask questions. They simply attacked.

Starscream’s wings trembled from the stress as he forced the aircraft’s engines to maximum thrust. Every servo and joint in his arms screamed as he pulled back on the controls, the cockpit shaking violently. The air around him was alive with the shrill screams of alarms and the red strobe of emergency lights, painting the cabin in desperate crimson.

The tentacles tightened their grip, their metallic flesh groaning, coiling tighter around the ship’s hull. Every second felt like eternity, every vibration threatening to rip the small craft apart.

Starscream’s optics darted to Tempestra—she was clutching her blanket, optics wide but eerily calm, her small frame illuminated by the flashes of the console. He felt the panic rise within his spark, hotter than fire, colder than space. He had to protect her—he had to.

The engines roared, the craft shuddered violently—and for a heartbeat, the ship lurched forward, dragging against the coils. It was moving. Slowly, painfully, but moving.

Then—

A thunderous impact threw the cockpit sideways. The metal screamed as a new tentacle burst from the white rift, slamming into the side of the ship like a spear. The hull dented inward, panels split open, sparks and smoke burst into the cabin.

Starscream’s optics widened. He could feel the structure giving way under the sheer force.

He was running out of choices—fast.

His mind raced, calculating every possible option, every desperate measure. He could try to force the ship free—but that would risk tearing the craft apart, maybe even igniting the energon reserves. The only other choice was to eject, take Tempestra, and abandon ship.

Neither option was truly an option. One would destroy them instantly. The other would leave them stranded—adrift in the void, at the mercy of the Quintessons.

For a brief moment, his spark felt the crushing weight of hopelessness.

And then—
as if the universe itself wanted to mock him—things became worse.

The sensors screamed, reading sudden gravitational distortions. The very stars outside twisted, warped—space bent unnaturally.

Two massive wormholes tore open, one on each side of the aircraft. Brilliant light poured from their cores, distorting everything around them. The violent pull of their gravity nearly tore the small ship apart where it hung, trapped in the Quintesson’s grasp.

Starscream’s optics flared wide in terror and disbelief.

From one wormhole, a familiar silhouette emerged—sleek, angular, and burning with orange thrusters.

From the other, a massive black shadow rose like a predator, its hull lined with glowing red optics.

“The Ark… and the Nemesis…” Starscream whispered, the words barely leaving his vocalizer. His wings trembled, spark fluttering violently in his chest.

Two titans of war—Autobot and Decepticon—had come face to face again.

And he, with his sparkling in his arms, was caught right between them.

Moments earlier—before the sky itself had torn open and before the two colossal ships emerged from the void—the Decepticon warship Nemesis had erupted into chaos.

Sirens blared through the steel corridors, crimson lights flashing like pulses from a living, enraged beast. Soundwave’s voice—usually calm, controlled, and monotone—boomed through the intercom system, sharp and commanding in a way that sent shivers through even the hardest Decepticon warriors.

“Alert. Alert. Quintesson presence detected. Starscream’s vessel under attack. Coordinates transmitting.”

Every bot on the Nemesis froze for a fraction of a second—long enough for disbelief to register. Then the ship came alive.

Megatron was already tearing down the main corridor, his heavy pedesteps striking the floor like cannon fire. His crimson optics burned with fury and fear, emotions he would never name aloud. One clawed hand pressed to his communicator as he barked orders that echoed across the entire ship.

“All Decepticons—battle stations! Prepare for immediate deployment! Soundwave, patch coordinates to Shockwave. I want a Wormhole ready in sixty nano kliks!”

is deep growl thundered through the halls as he shoved open the tactical bridge doors.

“We are going after them. Starscream and Tempestra are not to fall into Quintesson hands—do you understand me?!”

Every Decepticon within earshot answered at once, their voices blending into a roar of loyalty and determination.

Shockwave was already at his station, optic flickering rapidly as his clawed hands danced across the control panel. “Wormhole generation in progress. Estimated stability—seventy-five percent and rising. Energy drain acceptable.”

Megatron didn’t even slow down. “Push it to maximum! If the gate tears itself apart, we still go through!”

Elsewhere on the ship, Hook, Knockout, and Nickel were racing through the medical bay, snapping out commands at the medics scrambling to prepare. The sound of equipment clattering and energon tanks being sealed filled the air.

“Medkits! Stabilizers! I want stasis gel ready in five kliks!” Hook barked.
“Bring me the quantum scanners and the energon infuser!” Knockout shouted, optics wide with genuine fear.
Nickel, small but fierce, was already packing sparkling-grade medpacks. “Move, all of you! If she’s hurt or destabilizes, she won’t survive a standard dose—we need pure energon, not refined!”

Every Decepticon present knew what was at stake. Tempestra wasn’t just a sparkling—she was a miracle, living proof of ancient Cybertronian CNA thought extinct for millennia. If she fell into Quintesson hands, the consequences would be catastrophic.

While the Nemesis roared to life, across the void of space, on the Ark, the same pandemonium unfolded—this time in Autobot gold and steel.

Prowl was the first to react, his normally composed voice slicing through the comm systems with rare alarm.

“Quintesson assault confirmed—Starscream’s ship is under attack!”

Instantly, the corridors filled with the sound of running metal feet, alarms echoing through the vast halls. Autobot insignias flickered under red warning lights as systems came online.

Ratchet, already in the medbay, spun around with a frustrated shout. “FIRST AID! I want the medkits now! Shock paddles charged and ready! Get the spark stabilizers! And bring me every pure energon cube we have in the emergency vault!”

First Aid nodded, scrambling to follow orders while Ratchet muttered furiously under his breath. “If that sparkling’s injured… if that seeker didn’t recharge properly…” He cut himself off and yelled louder, “MOVE IT, EVERYONE!”

On the bridge, Optimus Prime stood tall and commanding, his optics narrowing with grim determination. His voice filled every comm channel on the ship.

“Autobots—prepare for immediate deployment! Wheeljack, I need a Wormhole generator powered and calibrated. Coordinates locked to Starscream’s vessel.”

Wheeljack’s voice crackled back through static: “Already on it, Prime! But if I push the drive this hard, we might blow a few relays.”

“Then blow them,” Optimus answered without hesitation. “We cannot allow the Quintessons to take them.”

Behind him, Ultra Magnus was already assuming his usual command role, his posture rigid and his tone cutting through the rising chaos.

“Autobots, defensive formations A through F—prepare for aerial and boarding combat! Shield units front, heavy artillery at the rear! No one fires until I give the signal!”

Even amid the surge of activity, Optimus felt the faint flicker of something deeper—an emotion he could not fully describe. Fear, perhaps. Concern. Or maybe it was something more profound.

Because somewhere out there, Starscream—once an enemy, always a complicated soul—and his sparkling, barely eleven months old, were fighting for their lives.

And both factions, for once in history, moved with the same purpose: to save them.

Chapter Text

Megatron and Optimus Prime — two leaders, two titans, two eternal enemies — gave the same order at precisely the same instant, their voices merging through space like the toll of a shared fate.

“FIRE!!!”

The command tore through the comm systems of both armadas. The universe seemed to hold its breath before Nemesis and Ark unleashed their fury.

From the belly of the Nemesis, the massive plasma cannon charged, its deep red glow expanding until it bathed the Decepticon warship in light like a burning sun. The recoil of the blast rippled through the void — a roaring inferno of raw energy tearing through one of the colossal tentacles that held Starscream’s ship captive. The tentacle convulsed, twisting and retracting with an inhuman scream that vibrated through space.

At the same time, the Ark’s golden hull blazed to life. Every gun, every turret, every long-range missile system roared simultaneously. Streams of searing plasma and electric fire sliced through the black, hitting the other tentacles in a synchronized barrage so bright it burned against the darkness of the cosmos. Metal, organic matter, and energy ruptured together in a dazzling explosion of green and white.

The tentacles recoiled — one by one snapping apart, molten fluids bursting like dark stars across the void — but the damage was already done.

Starscream’s small transport, already weakened, groaned in protest. Its stabilizers failed, wings trembling as sparks exploded across its hull. With a shriek of metal and flame, the craft began to spiral downward — end over end, the tricolor seeker inside struggling with every desperate motion of his servos to regain control.

“Come on, come on!” Starscream’s voice broke, desperation thick in his tone as he fought the controls that no longer responded.

Tempestra cried out from the back compartment — the high, frightened sound of a sparkling who didn’t understand the chaos around her. Without a thought, without hesitation, Starscream unfastened himself from the pilot’s chair and threw himself toward her.

He caught her in his arms, shielding her small frame with his own body. The world around them became a blur of fire, light, and noise.

“It’s all right, little one… I’ve got you,” he whispered, just before the ship hit.

The impact was devastating — a deafening CRASH as the craft slammed into a nearby meteor, scraping across its jagged surface until it came to rest in a cloud of shattered debris and glowing embers.

For a single breath, everything was still.
Then the universe erupted again.

Two ground bridges opened above the wreckage — one blazing red and violet, the other white and gold. From them, squads of medics from both factions emerged simultaneously.

Autobots and Decepticons stood side by side — no words exchanged, no weapons drawn. For the first time in countless vorns, their colors and insignias didn’t matter. They were doctors, and a sparkling’s life hung in the balance.

Nickel darted forward first, small frame moving with impossible speed as she directed medics. “Get the cutters! We need to reach them now!”

Blitzwing landed heavily on the meteor, his thrusters burning blue as he transformed mid-air, Dreadwing right beside him. Both bots rushed to the shattered hull, their hands gripping the warped metal around the cockpit.

“It’s jammed!” Blitzwing growled, his triple-face flickering with strain. “It’s welded shut!”

Then — two massive shadows fell over them. Bulkhead and Ironhide leaped into view, both slamming their servos against the wreck. The four bots, two Autobots and two Decepticons, exchanged a single silent nod — then pulled together. Metal screamed, bolts exploded, and with a thunderous crack, the hatch tore open.

Above them, chaos reigned once more.

Both Nemesis and Ark had opened secondary portals, and through them poured the full might of both armadas. Autobot fliers and Decepticon seekers took formation, weaving through space in perfect coordination, blasting the remaining tentacles with laser precision.

The void became a battlefield of light and motion — energy flares, engine trails, and the dying screams of a Quintesson creature that writhed against the combined assault.

On the decks of both flagships, four of Cybertron’s brightest minds worked furiously — Soundwave, Shockwave, Wheeljack, and Jazz — each at a separate console, each channeling their genius into a single impossible task: hack the portal. Close the breach before the Quintesson could summon reinforcements.

Soundwave’s visor flickered with streams of encrypted data. “Lock… unstable. Resistance: extreme.”
Wheeljack’s servos sparked as he shouted, “Then make it stable! Push the feedback loop through the gate core!”
Shockwave’s monotone was calm but quick. “Converging frequency waves. Synchronize algorithms in three… two…”
Jazz grinned under his visor, fingers flying. “Let’s slam that door shut, mech!”

The combined surge of energy blasted through the network — a massive feedback wave that rippled across the portal, forcing its edges to fold inward, sparks flying like collapsing stars.

And then, through the haze of fire and static, two figures appeared on the outer decks of their respective flagships.

Optimus Prime — righteous, resolute, his optics blazing blue — and Megatron — fierce, unstoppable, his optics burning red — locked optics across the distance.

No words passed between them. None were needed.

They jumped.

Both leaders hurled themselves into the chaos below, their massive frames igniting the void as they dove straight toward the wreckage where Starscream and Tempestra lay.

Autobots and Decepticons alike followed their lead.
For once, there was no war — only one shared purpose:

Protect Starscream and his sparkling.

The massive tentacles began to recoil, writhing violently as the shimmering Quintesson portal started to collapse upon itself. The monstrous appendages shuddered, their sinewy forms twisting and curling backward toward the shrinking vortex as though pulled by an unseen gravity. The sound was horrifying — a deep, resonant groan that echoed through the vacuum, the sound of dimensions folding in on themselves.

Every second felt like an eternity. The tentacles fought to remain in this plane, clawing at space, their serrated edges sparking against fragments of asteroids and the debris of Starscream’s fallen craft. But as the portal continued to constrict, their resistance became futile. The energy field around the wormhole crackled violently — beams of white and violet light surging outward in waves. And finally, with a sickening snap that reverberated across the battlefield, the last tentacle was yanked back into the void.

The portal sealed shut.

A low, collective exhale followed — Autobots and Decepticons alike gasping for breath. The silence that fell over the sector was eerie, heavy, filled with exhaustion and disbelief. Plasma smoke drifted through the cold air, the afterglow of the battle still burning faintly on the surfaces of the ships and the asteroid field around them.

Every bot could feel their joints ache, their energon pumps thundering in their chests. Fighting a Quintesson — even just its extensions — was nothing short of a nightmare. Those tentacles could crush titanium hulls and snap protoforms in half with a single strike. The fact that they’d survived — that all of them had survived — felt like a miracle in itself.

Then, the silence shattered.

From the wreckage came a sound — a sharp, panicked cry. High-pitched, frantic. A sparkling’s cry.

Heads turned instantly. Knockout emerged from the mangled hull of the downed ship, his crimson armor scorched and his faceplate streaked with grime, holding Tempestra in his arms. The tiny sparkling struggled with all her strength, thrashing and pushing against Knockout’s servos, her optics bright with fear and distress. She wanted to go back — back to the one she had been separated from.

“Easy, easy there, little one!” Knockout’s usually smooth, smug voice trembled with rare desperation. “You’re safe, I promise—stay still, frag it—”

First Aid, rushing to his side, unfurled a soft, thermal blanket across the ground and gestured hurriedly. “Here! Put her down here!”

Knockout complied, kneeling and gently placing the squirming sparkling onto the warm surface. Tempestra let out another piercing wail, her tiny frame shaking with fear. Both medics began scanning her rapidly, their tools glowing faintly as they worked in tandem. The readings scrolled across their visors — and to everyone’s astonishment, they showed stability.

Megatron arrived first, his massive shadow falling across the scene, with Optimus Prime close behind, his steps equally heavy, equally urgent. The two leaders—so long defined by conflict—stood side by side, their gazes fixed on the small figure before them.

“Report,” Megatron demanded, his tone sharp yet laced with something that almost sounded like concern.

Knockout straightened slightly, still kneeling beside the sparkling. “By the Allspark… she’s stable. Her spark signature’s strong. No ruptures, no trauma. Somehow…”—he glanced down at Tempestra, who was still sobbing softly—“she came out of that completely unharmed.”

Optimus’s optics softened. “A miracle,” he murmured.

Knockout nodded, the glow of his optics reflecting faintly in Tempestra’s shining silver plating. “No… not a miracle. Her Carrier.”

That was when the question hit — the one every bot feared to ask but needed to know. Optimus turned toward the wreckage, his voice low, tense.

“Starscream… how is he?”

First Aid’s faceplate tightened. His optics flicked toward the twisted remains of the cockpit, where medics swarmed under the harsh glow of emergency lights. “Not good,” he said gravely. “He… he shielded her completely. The front half of the hull collapsed on him when they hit the meteor. He’s impaled through the side—still alive, but barely.”

Ratchet’s voice echoed faintly from within the ship, his usual sharpness dulled by strain. “Keep those stabilizers steady! Nickel, increase spark output regulation by two percent—Hook, careful with that saw!”

Through the smoke, the silhouettes of the medics could be seen — Hook’s massive frame cutting through metal, sparks flying as he severed the jagged rod that had pierced through Starscream’s torso. Ratchet and Nickel worked furiously beside him, one recalibrating energon lines, the other monitoring the seeker’s fading pulse.

Starscream’s optics flickered weakly, dim but still alive — his arms still curled protectively around the space where Tempestra had been moments before. Even in pain, his systems failing, his only movement was an instinctive twitch of his servo as if to make sure she was safe.

And as if hearing the truth of those words — as if her spark recognized his pain — Tempestra let out a scream unlike any before.

It was raw, piercing, and filled with such panic and anguish that it tore through the air like a sonic wave. Her optics flared, glowing with a light too bright for a sparkling so young, her tiny frame trembling violently as she called out for her Carrier.

“Carrier!”

Her voice, small and breaking, echoed across the asteroid field — and every bot, Autobot and Decepticon alike, froze in place.

Her cry wasn’t just a sound. It was energy. A pulse that rippled outward, stirring something in the sparks of all who heard it — a reminder of what they had nearly lost, of the fragile miracle that connected them all.

And somewhere, amid the pain and the chaos, Starscream’s optics flickered open again. Dimly. Weakly. But open — his first thought, his first movement, his first word:

“Tempestra…”

First Aid and Knockout froze, optics wide to their fullest brightness. For a long second, neither of them spoke, neither of them breathed — they simply stared at the sparkling before them, at the tiny frame of Tempestra whose small, trembling mouth had just formed a word.

Knockout’s optics flicked to First Aid, disbelief written across his polished faceplate. “You… you heard that too, didn’t you?” His usually smooth, confident tone broke, trembling at the edges.

First Aid swallowed hard, his vocalizer stuttering before he managed to speak. He didn’t even need to say the words — he just nodded, slow and mechanical, his gaze never leaving the little one. The two medics looked back at Tempestra together, as if trying to comprehend the impossible. The sparkling was still crying, optics wide, trembling, and trying with all her might to crawl back toward the wreckage — toward where she knew her Carrier still was.

Knockout reached out instinctively, scooping her back into his arms before she could hurt herself on the jagged metal. “No, no, no, little one—you can’t go back in there, you’ll get hurt,” he whispered, his voice raw. She squirmed, her tiny servos pushing weakly against him, her cries splitting the air.

That was when movement rippled across the battlefield.

Prowl, Jazz, Bumblebee, Elita One, Soundwave, and Shockwave approached rapidly, weapons still ready though none raised them. Their steps slowed as they drew close to the two leaders standing side by side — Optimus Prime and Megatron — each framed by the dim, sparking ruins of Starscream’s downed ship.

The officers gathered in a loose semicircle around their commanders, optics darting from one to another, reading the atmosphere — the tension, the exhaustion, the confusion.

“Report,” Prowl demanded, his tone clipped, though it lacked its usual coldness.

Optimus turned toward him, his optics briefly flickering toward the small sparkling being held by Knockout. “Starscream is gravely injured,” he said solemnly, “but his sparkling lives.”

Megatron crossed his arms, his crimson optics fixed firmly on the little one. “Lives… and speaks,” he rumbled darkly. “Tell me, Prime — have you ever heard a newborn do that before?”

Before anyone could answer, Shockwave stepped forward, his single optic narrowing as he studied the trembling sparkling from a cautious distance. The scientist’s voice was low and measured, yet tinged with intrigue. “No ordinary sparkling,” he concluded after only a moment of observation. “Her CNA structure—if I am not mistaken—is heavily influenced by Elder coding. There are markers I recognize from ancient Vosian experiments. She may be developing differently… accelerated, even.”

His optic brightened slightly as he leaned forward. “Her vocal resonance patterns—”

First Aid interrupted with a sudden, uneasy sound. “Uh—guys—” He hesitated, glancing down at his scanner. “Her rings… they’re changing color.”

Knockout frowned, looking at Tempestra’s face. The soft celestial-blue glow in her rings was deepening, pulsing, turning to a burning crimson hue that almost mirrored Megatron’s. “Oh, slag,” Knockout muttered, “that can’t be good—”

Shockwave instantly straightened, his single optic flaring. “Everyone, back away from the sparkling! NOW!”

No one questioned him. Instinct took over. They scattered — and not a moment too soon.

A piercing scream tore from Tempestra’s throat, louder than any before — a sound so sharp and powerful it felt as if it split the air itself. The vibration hit first — a low, thunderous hum that built up in their armor — and then the shockwave.

The energy burst outward like an expanding ring of light and sound, slamming into the bots nearest her with explosive force. Metal groaned, glass shattered, and those standing within several meters were thrown back, skidding across the ground. Knockout and First Aid barely managed to shield themselves before being flung aside.

The air rippled with unstable sonic energy, forming a visible distortion around Tempestra — a shimmering sound barrier that quaked with every sob that left her. The more she cried, the stronger the storm became.

Cracks split across the scorched ground beneath her tiny frame, spiderwebbing outward until a small crater began to form. Dust and fragments of metal were pulled inward by the vibrating energy field, trembling in midair before shattering apart.

Thundercracker and Skywarp, who had been watching from nearby, froze in horror as they realized what was happening. The energy signatures, the sound waves — they recognized them. It was Seeker resonance.

Without a second thought, they charged forward, shielding their faces from the intense vibration. Their wings strained against the pulsing air, each step feeling like they were walking through a hurricane of sound.

“Tempestra!” Thundercracker called out, his voice breaking through the roar. “Little one—listen to me!”

“It’s all right!” Skywarp added, crouching low, his optics soft and pleading. “You’re safe! We’re here, you hear? You’re family, sparkling! Starscream’s trine—your trine!”

They knelt before her, struggling to keep their balance as the sonic wind tore at them, their servos shaking from the resonance pressure. They spoke anyway — words half-lost to the storm, desperate, gentle, filled with love they hadn’t realized they could show.

“You know us, don’t you?” Skywarp said quietly, reaching out a trembling hand. “Your Carrier told you about us. About how we fly together. About how much he loves you.”

It sounded mad — a fragile, impossible hope whispered into chaos.

And yet… somehow, it worked.

The trembling in the air began to slow. The wild vibrations faded, the red in Tempestra’s optics dimming back toward a softer pink. Her cries quieted from screams to whimpers, the sound barrier dissolving like mist.

Thundercracker slowly gathered her into his arms, feeling her tiny frame shiver against his chest. “There you go, little one,” he murmured softly, optics misted with emotion. “It’s all right now… we’ve got you. Your uncles are here.”

Skywarp rested a servo gently over her helm, his voice a low whisper. “We’re your trine. Starscream’s trine. You’re safe, Tempestra. You’re safe.”

And as the last echoes of her cries faded into silence, the battlefield finally stilled once more — the only sound the faint hum of energy subsiding in the cold, fractured air.

Tempestra slowly calmed down, her cries subsiding into soft, shuddering breaths that trembled in the air like the after-echo of a melody. Her optics, still faintly glowing, blinked once—then twice—and then she simply… stopped crying. The wild pulses of energy that had erupted from her tiny frame faded, dissolving into the stillness that followed the storm. She looked around her with a strange, impossible awareness for a sparkling her age, as if she understood what was happening—who everyone was, and what had just taken place.

Skywarp, still kneeling beside her, let out a breathless laugh of disbelief. “Primus… she’s got Starscream’s processor, doesn’t she?” he said with a crooked grin, shaking his helm in awe. “No normal sparkling figures things out that fast. Clearly, she inherited that side of the family.”

Thundercracker snorted softly, his optics flicking between Tempestra and Skywarp. “Oh, definitely,” he replied, his voice warm despite the exhaustion lining it. “And look at those wings—thin, sharp, aerodynamic. Even as a sparkling, she’s built like a Seeker. I’d say she’s already understanding the Seeker Codex instinctively… a seekerling through and through.”

Their words brought a brief ripple of uneasy laughter from the surrounding Autobots and Decepticons who were still recovering from the shockwave. Those who had been thrown by Tempestra’s sonic outburst began to recompose themselves—dusting off armor, recalibrating systems, exchanging glances of disbelief and admiration toward the little one who had caused such chaos.

The faint luminescent rings coursing through Tempestra’s protoform—the telltale “storm marks” that danced faintly beneath her armor—shifted color again. They deepened into a dark, velvety blue that shimmered faintly across her plating like rippling waves.

Shockwave adjusted his lens, analyzing her immediately. “Observe,” he said, his tone steady, clinical, yet carrying an undertone of fascination. “The chromatic shift in her energy rings—dark blue. This hue indicates reduced emotional volatility. She is calm… though it is worth noting that this particular tone is often associated with residual fear.”

As if to confirm his observation, Tempestra’s small frame trembled slightly before relaxing again, her optics focusing on the twisted wreckage of the ship.

It was then that movement stirred from the shattered craft.

Hook appeared first, stepping out through the smoke with visible exhaustion etched into his posture. His tools clattered faintly at his sides as he looked toward Megatron and the gathered medics. “He’s stable,” Hook announced, his voice gruff but relieved. “But it’s going to take time. A long time. We’ve managed to stop the bleeding and repair the ruptured energon lines, but the internal cabling and joint servos are badly damaged. We’ll need to rebuild large sections manually once he’s back aboard.”

A small figure leapt down right after him—Nickel, her tone fierce despite her size. “He’s not out of the woods yet, but Hook’s right. We managed to keep his spark stable. He’s holding on.”

And then Ratchet emerged, his frame bearing the weight of Starscream himself. The tricolor Seeker hung limp and barely conscious in the medic’s arms, his once-pristine armor marred by cracks and scorched plating. The place where he had been impaled was sealed, the wound carefully bound and glowing faintly with temporary patches of energon field.

Gasps and murmurs rippled through both factions—Autobots and Decepticons alike falling silent at the sight of him.

Thundercracker and Skywarp exchanged a look that needed no words. Without hesitation, they rushed forward, Tempestra cradled between them, their movements gentle but desperate.

Starscream’s optics flickered faintly as they approached—bright, then dim, then bright again, his consciousness wavering like a flame in the wind. Through the haze of pain and exhaustion, he saw them: Thundercracker, Skywarp… and Tempestra. His trine. His creation. His spark.

He tried to move, tried to speak—but the strength simply wasn’t there. Still, a faint smile ghosted across his lips.

Thundercracker knelt beside him, his voice breaking softly as he pressed Tempestra gently against Starscream’s chest. “Easy, Screamer,” he murmured, his tone trembling but full of fierce determination. “You’re going to be fine. We’ll make sure of it. Somehow, everything’s going to be fine.”

As Tempestra’s tiny servos touched Starscream’s chestplate, something extraordinary began to happen.

The glowing rings that pulsed across her small body changed again—shifting from deep blue to the soft, serene hue of a pure celestial sky. Threads of light lilac intertwined within the blue, pulsing in rhythm with the gentle hum now emanating from her spark.

Shockwave’s optic widened in astonishment. “Fascinating…” he whispered, voice uncharacteristically soft. “Her emotional stabilizers are responding directly to proximity. The hue—she feels completely safe near her Carrier. It confirms the bond theory…”

Tempestra let out a tiny coo, lying down against Starscream’s chestplate. Her optics flickered softly before closing, and a faint humming sound began to resonate from her core—a frequency both melodic and pure, vibrating in the air like the whisper of a lullaby.

Then, without warning, her tiny frame began to glow.

A soft radiance enveloped her—a mixture of white, lilac, and pale gold light that shimmered with every beat of her spark. The glow spread slowly outward from her, forming a warm, gentle aura that bathed Starscream in its light.

Ratchet froze where he stood, his optics wide, disbelief etched into every movement. The others around him did the same—Hook, Nickel, Thundercracker, Skywarp, even Megatron and Optimus stood transfixed.

The light thickened, wrapping Starscream’s damaged body in its glow. And before their very optics, the impossible unfolded.

The ragged metal around the wound began to shift and realign. Torn cables slithered back into their proper connections, sealing themselves with soft flickers of light. Fractured plating reformed, smooth and flawless once more. The faint leaking of energon ceased completely as the cracks sealed, leaving behind no trace of damage.

Each spark pulse of Tempestra’s songlike hum sent another wave of energy across her Carrier’s frame—repairing, restoring, recreating.

Ratchet, barely able to process what he was witnessing, whispered in awe, “Primus above… she’s healing him. She’s actually… rebuilding him.”

No one dared to move. No one dared to breathe.

And as the light dimmed, Starscream’s optics fluttered faintly, his vents drawing a steadier breath. Tempestra’s glow softened until it was little more than a halo of warmth around them both.

In less than two klicks, Starscream’s broken frame was whole again—seamlessly restored as if the brutal impalement and near-fatal damage had never happened. His plating gleamed faintly beneath the residual golden shimmer that still lingered from Tempestra’s light, the edges of once-shattered armor now perfectly reformed. Only faint traces remained—burn marks, tiny streaks of scorched metal along his chassis and wings that stood as silent proof of what he had endured. Nothing, he thought distantly, that a good solvent bath and a long immersion in heated energon water couldn’t cleanse away.

And then, with a sudden shudder of vents, Starscream’s optics flickered online again. A low intake escaped him as his systems rebooted, his processors reestablishing balance. Instinct took over before logic could catch up. His arms tightened protectively around Tempestra the instant he felt her small frame against him. The faint hum of her spark resonated against his chassis—familiar, alive, steady. She was safe.

But the next thing his optics registered made his field spike in alarm.

He was being held.

By Ratchet.

An Autobot.

The realization struck like a thunderbolt, and in a fraction of a second, Starscream reacted with the sharp precision only a Seeker could manage. With a violent twist and a flash of his wings, he lashed out—his pede connecting hard with Ratchet’s chin in a perfectly aimed upward kick. The medic’s head jerked back with a startled curse as Starscream tore himself free from his hold.

In the same motion, Starscream clutched Tempestra tightly in one arm, wings flaring wide for balance, and propelled himself several yards away from the entire group in a single, graceful leap. His optics blazed in alert confusion, his vents cycling fast as he scanned the scene—Autobots and Decepticons, all standing side by side, weapons lowered, no one firing. The air was still heavy with the scent of plasma discharge and burnt metal from the earlier battle, but now… no one moved against him.

Starscream crouched protectively around his sparkling, one servo shielding Tempestra against his chest as his optics darted between them all—Megatron, Optimus, Shockwave, Soundwave, Ultra Magnus, Jazz, Knockout, Ratchet, First Aid. Every single one of them. His wings twitched, betraying his rising panic.

Ratchet, rubbing his chin with one servo, muttered something very unflattering under his breath. “Fragging Seekers and their goddamn reflexes,” he grumbled, his tone both irritated and grudgingly impressed. “Kick first, think later, every single time.”

Starscream’s ventilations hissed sharply as the memories flooded back—the glint of the Quintesson portal, the monstrous white tentacles wrapping around his ship, the shriek of tearing metal. The desperate struggle to keep the aircraft from breaking apart. Then Ark and Nemesis emerging from wormholes in opposite directions, their cannons firing in unison. He remembered shielding Tempestra with his own frame… and after that, only darkness.

Now he stood in the aftermath, both factions surrounding him in an impossible ceasefire, his aircraft half-buried in debris, and his daughter alive and unharmed against his chest. His processor spun with questions and disbelief.

His optics narrowed.

He straightened slowly, his wings still held defensively but his stance no longer purely hostile. His voice, when he spoke, trembled faintly—not from fear, but from the sheer weight of what he was seeing.

“What… happened?” he asked, his tone both wary and demanding. “How—how are you all here? Autobots and Decepticons—together? How did you find me?”

The last words came with a spark of sharp realization, his optics widening as he looked from one faction to the other. “You located me,” he murmured, almost to himself, his tone hardening with the edge of accusation. “Didn’t you?”

The tricolor Seeker’s wings lifted higher in reflexive tension, his spark field flickering with a volatile mix of confusion, suspicion, and protective instinct. Tempestra stirred faintly against him, letting out a small, soft chirp that instantly quieted him, his optics lowering to her before snapping back up.

Now that the initial shock had worn off, Starscream’s stance was pure Seeker—defensive, elegant, alert, his field alive with restrained electricity. Whatever this strange alliance before him was, whatever fragile truce had brought them together—it didn’t change one thing.

He wanted answers.

And he wanted them now.

Chapter Text

Starscream was afraid.
Painfully, visibly afraid—no matter how fiercely he tried to conceal it.

His wings, normally held high with proud Seeker poise, now hung low and trembling against his back. The faint shivers running along their edges betrayed everything he desperately wanted to hide: the shame, the humiliation, the fear for his sparkling. His vents stuttered in uneven intakes he tried to mask with sharp posture and narrowed optics.

Yet Tempestra, his tiny sparkling, nestled peacefully against his chassis, absolutely serene. Her small helm rested against the steady thrum of her Carrier’s spark, her little frame relaxing completely as she absorbed the warmth and rhythm of him. She felt safe—utterly, unquestionably safe—held against Starscream’s chest. Her optics were already fluttering with the beginnings of sleep, unaware of the storm brewing around her.

Optimus Prime approached first.
Slowly. Carefully.
As if he were approaching a frightened creature in the wild—one ready to bolt or attack if pushed too quickly.

“Starscream,” Optimus said softly, his voice carrying that deep, gentle warmth only a Prime could summon. “We are here to help you.”

His tone held no threat, no judgment. Only patience. Only understanding.

He continued, speaking with the kind of deliberate calm meant to soothe tension rather than inflame it.

He explained everything.

How Lugnut—by sheer, absurd luck—had stumbled across Starscream’s location.
How Lugnut had then sold the information, including the existence of the protoform, directly to the Autobots.
How Wheeljack had employed a tiny, mobile spy drone disguised among debris—so small and unremarkable that even Starscream, in all his brilliance, had not detected it while repairing the aircraft.
How, for months, that little drone had sent back snippets of visual and audio feed, giving the Autobots a long-distance window into his life.

At every word, Starscream’s wings trembled harder.

Each revelation struck him like a physical blow.

He had been watched.
Observed.
Tracked.

For months.

He hadn’t noticed. He—Starscream—legendary tactician, prodigy scientist, Cybertron’s most feared aerial warrior, always three steps ahead of enemies and allies alike—had not seen it coming.

His spark clenched with humiliation, rage, and a deep, twisting guilt that made his cables ache.

He had allowed this to happen.
He had exposed Tempestra—his little sparkling, his responsibility—to danger because he failed to detect the threat.

That failure cut deeper than the impalement ever had.

Optimus continued, gently:

“And if the Decepticons arrived during the Quintesson attack… then Lugnut likely sold Megatron the same information.”

Megatron exhaled sharply—a harsh, thunderous sound.
“He did,” Megatron growled. “And the problem has already been dealt with.”

The Decepticon leader took a step forward, massive frame casting a broad shadow over the ground as he approached Starscream. His expression was unreadable steel, yet something tight and restrained flickered in his optics.

“It is time for you to return,” Megatron said, voice firm and absolute.

But before Starscream could even react, Optimus moved.
With a single decisive stride, the Prime stepped between them—planting himself squarely in Megatron’s path.

“Starscream and Tempestra,” Optimus said, voice suddenly iron beneath velvet, “will not return to the Decepticons. They are under Autobot protection now.”

The words hit the air like an explosive charge.

Whatever brief, fragile alliance had existed moments ago—an unspoken unity forged in necessity, created to protect Starscream and Tempestra from the Quintesson threat—shattered instantly.

In a blink, both sides raised their weapons.

Autobots aimed blasters.
Decepticons primed cannons.
Soundwave’s visor brightened; Shockwave’s arm-cannon charged; Jazz, Prowl, Bumblebee, and Elita-1 took battle stances; Knockout cursed under his breath; Thundercracker and Skywarp shielded Starscream with their bodies.

The tension was electric—so thick and volatile it felt like a spark away from detonation.

Starscream, clutching Tempestra against his chest, stared at the scene in utter disbelief as the air filled with the cold hum of weapon systems locking into place.

In an instant, the universe had gone from unified in purpose—
—to one heartbeat away from a new type of war.

Megatron spoke first—
his voice the deep, immovable command of a warlord who expected the universe itself to obey.

“Starscream is a Decepticon,” he declared, unwavering. “He has his Trine here. He belongs with us.”

But Optimus did not flinch. Not from Megatron’s tone, nor his size, nor the authority behind the words.

“No,” Optimus said quietly—but with a firmness that cut sharper than any blade. “You are not thinking of Starscream’s well-being… and certainly not of Tempestra’s.”

His optics narrowed, the edge of righteous anger beginning to burn in their depths.

“All you see,” Optimus continued, “is what profit you might gain from a sparkling who carries ANCIENT CNA.”

The words hit the ground like a seismic shock.

Starscream froze.
He felt something inside him lurch—hard.

“…Ancient what?” he whispered, voice thinning with confusion, trembling on the edge of fear.

He knew nothing of this. Nothing.
And the sudden implication—this secret surrounding his sparkling, this thing he never knew—hit him hard enough that his vents seized.

Ratchet reacted immediately. He pushed past a towering Decepticon with surprising force for his age, optics widening as he caught the subtle tremor in Starscream’s wings, the way the seeker’s knees bent slightly—
one more shock and he would collapse.

Nickel saw the same thing.
She hurried to Ratchet’s side without hesitation.

Together, the two medics—Autobot and Decepticon—guided Starscream down to sit on the ground, avoiding the risk of a fall, of a spark attack, of catastrophic collapse.

Starscream was shaking so violently he barely felt the soil beneath him. Tempestra wriggled in his arms, confused but calm, sensing her Carrier’s distress but cushioned by his sparkbeat.

Between the leaders now stepping forward to argue again, Knockout suddenly inserted himself, arms spread, optics wide with equal parts fear and determination.

“Oh absolutely NOT!” Knockout barked, voice ringing sharply across the battlefield. “This is not the place and definitely not the time!”

His vents fluttered as he glared at both warlords with every ounce of courage he possessed.

“The priority,” Knockout insisted, “is making sure Starscream and Tempestra are well. A sparkling is a miracle—one hasn’t been born in millennia. And Tempestra is that miracle.”

His voice cracked with sincerity.
Even Megatron’s glare wavered.
Even Optimus softened.

Ratchet knelt beside Starscream, placing a steadying servo on his shoulder.

“Easy, Starscream,” he murmured, trying to steady the seeker’s spiraling panic.

Nickel, meanwhile, tore open her bag and began mixing a cube—miners’ energon with a precise dose of soothing agents to keep Starscream from tipping into meltdown.

She worked fast.
She worked like she’d done this a thousand times.

Ratchet continued explaining, his voice low and calm—but the words themselves were like thunder.

“Tempestra’s chassis patterns… her energy rings… they indicate she carries ANCIENT CNA,” Ratchet said, optics deep with concern and awe. “The kind believed extinct since the Golden Age—when titans and primeval Cybertronian lineages walked among us.”

He met Starscream’s wide, panicked optics.

“For this to happen, there are two possibilities: either both you and her Sire carry deeply recessive ancient genes… or one of you possesses them in abundance.”

Starscream’s arms tightened instinctively around Tempestra.
He hugged her so close she curled her tiny servos into his plating.

He knew nothing.
Nothing about ancient lines, nothing about old CNA, nothing about anything beyond Tempestra simply being—
his daughter, his sparkling, his tiny miracle.

Nothing more.

Nickel pressed the energon cube to Starscream’s lips.
He resisted—just for a second—
then drank.

She cupped the side of his helm with both of her tiny servos.

“It’s going to be all right,” Nickel said softly. “Whichever faction you choose… we’ll be here. Me, Ratchet, Knockout… even Hook. We’ll help you. As doctors.”

That sentence struck the battlefield harder than any blaster ever could.
Every Autobot.
Every Decepticon.
All stared in stunned silence.

Doctors—
Autobot and Decepticon—
standing together, united not by faction but by duty.

Even Optimus froze.
Even Megatron blinked.
Even Tarn—silent, menacing, unshakable Tarn—looked genuinely startled.

Nickel had defied him.
Ratchet had defied Optimus’s usual lines.
Knockout had risked his own neck.
Hook had joined without question.

For a moment—
a brief, fragile, impossible moment—
the medical corps of Cybertron had become one.

Bound not by insignia—
but by compassion.

And Starscream, trembling and clutching his little miracle, felt the entire world shift under him.

For a moment—
a rare, fragile, almost impossible moment—
Megatron stopped.

The battlefield, tense and fever-hot only klikks earlier, now hovered in a strange, suspended silence. And Megatron, warlord of the Decepticons, terror of Cybertron, stared not at Optimus…
but at Starscream.
At the trembling Carrier.
At the tiny sparkling in his arms whose rings still glowed with residual ancient power.

And something shifted.

He realized—
truly realized—
that whatever decision he made next would shape the fate of a frightened Seeker and his newborn child.

Megatron lifted one servo.
A sharp signal.
Decisive.

The Decepticons lowered their weapons instantly.

Soundwave stepped to Megatron’s side, posture relaxed, visor dimming in acknowledgment. He knew Megatron far too well not to recognize what that signal meant:

Megatron had reached a conclusion. A permanent one.

Megatron exhaled, gaze steady, then spoke with the iron weight of final authority:

“Starscream will stay with me,” Megatron declared. “With the Decepticons. That is final.”

A murmur rippled through both factions.
Starscream stiffened.
Thundercracker and Skywarp subtly moved closer to him, wings high in protective instinct.

And then—
Megatron added something nobody expected.

“I will not forbid Ratchet from visiting him,” Megatron continued. “Nor from checking on the sparkling. Ratchet’s medical expertise exceeds most of our own. Only Ratchet—” he pointed directly at the Autobot medic “—and one other bot of his choosing may enter the Nemesis without threat. They will be treated as neutral during the war.”

The gasp that followed seemed to shake the asteroid field.

It wasn’t a cease-fire.
It wasn’t peace.
But in that moment, it was a miracle all its own.
The first step toward something different.
And for now—
it was enough.

Optimus lowered his blaster entirely, thoughtful and steady, processing everything with careful consideration. Then he nodded.

“I accept this,” Optimus said softly. “And the bot accompanying Ratchet will be Bumblebee.”

Many bots turned in surprise.

Optimus continued, voice warm with a rare fondness:
“Bumblebee has always assisted Ratchet. He has a gentle spark, and he will make the perfect bridge between us.”

Megatron paused—then let out a low exhale.

Because the truth was: he remembered.
He remembered being D-16.
He remembered Orion Pax.
He remembered when Elita-One, Orion, and a much younger Bumblebee had made an unlikely trio of friends with him—
when Bee’s brightness had eased countless arguments.

Megatron inclined his helm once.
“Yes. Ratchet and Bumblebee are neutral from this moment onward. If they wish to see Starscream or Tempestra, they will contact Soundwave. He will open a space bridge in a neutral zone.”

Optimus accepted—
but raised one single, iron-bound condition.

“If the Decepticons are overwhelmed,” Optimus said, voice carving through the silence, “or if Starscream and Tempestra are attacked again—especially by a Quintesson—you will contact the Autobots immediately. For assistance. Without hesitation.”

Megatron bristled—an instinctive grunt vibrating in his chest.
He despised anything that resembled admitting weakness.
But then—

“Ah—choo.”

A tiny sneeze cut through the tension.

Tempestra’s tiny helm bobbed with the motion, dust still sprinkled on her cheek plating. Ratchet gently wiped her face clean, and she gave another soft chuff of sound.

Megatron’s expression flickered.
Just for a moment.
Something ancient and protective.

Then he lifted his helm with finality.

“…Very well,” Megatron agreed. “But beyond that—this conflict remains.”

A tense silence.
A flicker of spark-fire between opposing leaders.

Then—
Optimus extended his servo.

Megatron stared at it.
The battlefield held its breath.

And finally—
he took it.

Large servos, different ideals, millennia of warfare—
meeting in a single, earth-shaking handshake.

Not peace.
Not forgiveness.
Not an ending.

But a pact.
A bridge.
A vow to protect a Carrier and his miracle sparkling.

And for this moment—
that was enough.

Megatron calls for Dreadwing, his voice a deep, commanding growl that cut through the lingering tension like a blade. The Seeker captain approaches immediately, wings angled in rigid attention, optics narrowed in solemn understanding. Without hesitation, Megatron orders him to take a squad of bots and enter what remained of Starscream’s downed aircraft. The wreckage still smoked faintly in the distance—twisted metal, torn plating, the charred skeleton of what was once Starscream’s personal space, his sanctuary, now broken open by battle and the violent crash.

Megatron commands Dreadwing to salvage everything that has not been swallowed by fire, impact, or collapse: personal items, scientific equipment, the smallest trinkets—anything that could still serve, comfort, or belong to Starscream and Tempestra. Every fragment mattered now. Every shard was a connection to the life Starscream had built and nearly lost.

Dreadwing bows his helm, wordless but resolute. Then he turns sharply and calls several bots by name—warriors, flyers, labor-class Decepticons—who immediately fall in behind him. Together they head toward the shattered remains of the aircraft, their silhouettes shrinking against the horizon as they begin the delicate work of retrieving the pieces of Starscream’s past.

Elita-One steps forward then, her footsteps light but her presence unignorable, and she places herself squarely between Optimus and Megatron. Her optics blaze with a sharp, commanding strength—one that even a Warlord respected. She addresses Megatron directly, her tone low, unwavering, and colder than plasma.

She tells him that he and Soundwave have done well, but now that an agreement has been forged—fragile though it is—there were expectations. Clear ones.

From time to time, she says, Soundwave was to send the Autobots images and video captures of Tempestra’s growth and Starscream’s condition. Proof of their safety. Proof that the Decepticons were honoring the agreement—not twisting it. Not hiding behind vague claims or empty promises.

“And if Ratchet and Bumblebee report even one detail that says otherwise,” Elita adds, her voice an icy blade, “then the Decepticons will learn the fury the Autobots are capable of when Optimus is no longer holding them back.”

She wasn’t shouting. She didn’t need to. The threat was clean, precise, and unmistakable.

Megatron’s optics narrow, but he doesn’t snarl—not this time. He merely answers that Soundwave may share such recordings if he chooses to… but only with Starscream’s permission, or with authorization from someone in Starscream’s Trine.

And that was no small concession.

Megatron—perhaps more than any grounder alive—understood Trines and aerial culture intimately. He had commanded countless squads of Seekers over the vorns. He knew their code, their instinctive unity, their almost sacred interdependence, and the lethal consequences of violating it.

He remembered vividly—too vividly—the day he had tried to physically restrain Starscream over a disagreement, driven by a storm of uncontrolled fury. He reached for the tricolor Seeker, a moment of brute impulse—

—and nearly lost his arm to Thundercracker’s electricity when the blue Seeker reacted on pure Trine instinct, defending his lead even against Megatron himself.

That was the moment Megatron truly understood what it meant to provoke a Trine.

Shockwave’s data later reinforced it, but the lesson had been learned in pain, burned into armor and memory:
Never corner a Seeker, never break a Trine, and never attempt to control an aerial without respecting the rules of their sky-born unity.

Since then, with Shockwave’s guidance, Megatron studied their culture—adapted, learned, evolved—and it was that knowledge that now shaped his restraint. His caution. His acknowledgment that permission must come from Starscream or those bound to him, not from Megatron’s own authority.

He would not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Not now.
Not with Starscream.
Not with a sparkling involved.

Ratchet approaches Megatron and Optimus, his field steady but carrying the faint edge of exhaustion only a medic could conceal. Dust still coated parts of his plating, evidence of the chaos he had been working through moments earlier. He squares his shoulders and addresses them both with clinical certainty.

He tells them that everything was fine with the seeker and the sparkling.

Starscream’s vitals were stable. Tempestra’s small frame rested peacefully, her spark’s soft pulsing rhythmic and healthy. No contamination, no internal damage. The faint sneeze before had only been from dust.

Ratchet then turns to Optimus and speaks with the kind of tone that allowed no room for negotiation. He informs him that he would be staying a few days with the Decepticons. They needed his expertise to create a new quarter for Starscream—one suitable, safe, and properly prepared for a carrier and a newborn sparkling.

The seeker could no longer share a single room with Skywarp and Thundercracker. Too many in-fields clustered around a newborn could overwhelm the sparkling’s own developing field and disrupt her recharge patterns. The recharge cycle of a sparkling was sacred—intimate moments where they attuned to the carrier’s in-field, learned their rhythms, and deepened the bond that kept their sparks aligned. Even if Tempestra had already formed her bond—very likely, in Ratchet’s estimation—he would not take chances with something this delicate.

And clearly, despite their brute efficiency, the Decepticons desperately needed guidance in building a proper nursery.

Optimus accepts this without hesitation. His optics soften with a mix of trust and worry. Then he calls for Bumblebee—quick, sharp, commanding. Bumblebee immediately runs to him, pausing only long enough for Optimus to tell him that he would be accompanying Ratchet. The scout doesn’t question it; he simply nods, yellow optics bright, understanding instinctively what was being asked. He falls into step beside Ratchet without a word.

One by one, the Decepticons begin to return toward the Nemesis. The battlefield around them slowly quiets, the frantic energy settling into weary resignation.

Thundercracker and Skywarp kneel beside Starscream. With gentle but urgent hands, they help him to his pedes, wings trembling in low-frequency distress. Starscream’s frame sways, drained and heavy. Thundercracker shifts, slipping an arm beneath Starscream’s knees and another behind his back, lifting him effortlessly into a cradle carry—protective, reverent. Skywarp keeps pace at his side, gaze darting constantly, guarding every direction at once.

Ratchet and Bumblebee reunite behind them, falling into formation with the group. Megatron steps forward, joining his army, his presence casting a long shadow across the clearing.

Dreadwing and the bots return from the wreck carrying the few items that survived the destruction. Some plating, shattered datapads, a few personal objects. Among the things that did not survive was the beloved turbofox plush. It had burned, consumed entirely by the flames, leaving behind only twisted blackened patches of fabric.

Optimus Prime finds what remains—a small, charred fragment, barely recognizable—and he picks it up with a tenderness that contrasts sharply with the battlefield around him. He turns and hands it to Elita-One. She accepts it gently, optics softening. She knew how to sew. She could repair it. She could give the toy back to Starscream, or at least give Tempestra something to hold onto.

Ultra Magnus approaches Optimus then, voice restrained but edged with concern. He asks whether Optimus truly intended to let the Decepticons leave with Starscream—whether he would allow them to walk away unchallenged. Other Autobots had whispered the same complaints behind their vents, unwilling to voice them outright.

But when Ultra Magnus looks into Optimus’s optics, he realizes it instantly—everything was planned.

Optimus says nothing. He simply lifts his servo and taps once on the Autobot insignia on his chestplate.

That was all it took.

Every nearby Autobot’s optics widen in silent understanding. In that moment, without alerting the Decepticons or Megatron, each Autobot realized the truth:

They were the ones with the advantage now
—not Megatron.
Not after taking Starscream back.

Because the Autobot insignias, despite their appearance, carried embedded micro-cameras—sound-capable, fully synced to their systems, transmitting without sound-wave emissions. Undetectable to Soundwave. Undetectable to Decepticon scanners.

Everything was being recorded. Everything was being fed directly to Autobot command.

Ratchet and Bumblebee would go with the Decepticons as Neutrals…
but also as spies perfect in function and nearly impossible to detect by Soundwave’s scrutiny or any Decepticon device.

Optimus Prime was kind. He was honest. He was noble.

But even he knew when to play dirty—especially when he didn’t trust the other side of the agreement.

And he did not trust Megatron.

Not with Starscream.
Not with a sparkling.
Not with the fate of two innocent lives hanging in the balance.

Optimus Prime had made the first move.

Chapter Text

Quintessa sat upon her colossal throne—an impossibly intricate structure of living circuitry and refined metal, forged from the purest and most advanced Quintesson technology. Her form, as always, hovered between eerie perfection and unsettling familiarity. Smooth pale plating shaped her face into something reminiscent of a human woman—one of those fragile, primitive organics from a forgotten backwater planet spiraling around an insignificant sun. Her features were soft, beautiful even, but far too flawless, far too symmetrical. Everything about her radiated superiority… and yet she bore the faint echo of a species that had barely managed to evolve.

She rested there with her long, slender fingers draped over the crystalline armrests, her optics shuttered. Perfectly still. Perfectly serene. As if the universe itself could not stir her unless she allowed it.

The chamber around her glowed faintly, walls shifting like liquid metal under iridescent pulses of energy. Silence reigned—deep, reverent, absolute.

Until something disturbed her.

Quintessa’s optics snapped open, glowing with cold cyan light as a ripple of awareness passed through her. She sensed the imbalance instantly—an intrusion, a spark extinguishing where it should not have been.

A heavy thud echoed through the throne room.

One of her Quintessons—one of her multi-faced servants, floating on tentacles and self-importance—collapsed at the base of her steps, its dormant shell striking the floor with a hollow crack. Its faces were blank, extinguished. Its tentacles lay severed and scattered around the room, sliced with such precision they still twitched momentarily, trying to move despite the impossibility.

Dead.
Violently.
Instantly.

Quintessa’s expression did not change. She did not flinch. Not even her optics brightened. She simply breathed out, slow and controlled, as if this interruption were a minor inconvenience rather than the slaughter of one of her own.

She did not look at the corpse.
She did not acknowledge the mess.

Instead, she spoke—her voice smooth, melodic, dangerously calm.

“Do not,” she said, articulating each word with almost affectionate coldness, “unleash your anger upon the Quintesson who attacked you new toy… he did not know what the seeker truly was.”

Her tone suggested amusement—gentle, almost tender amusement—as if the death at her feet meant nothing, as if everything was proceeding exactly as she intended.

As if the real danger in the room was not her.
But the one who had torn the Quintesson apart for daring to touch Starscream.

Quintessa crossed her legs with slow, elegant precision, the gleaming armor of her limbs whispering softly as metal met metal. She shifted her weight on the throne and rested her delicate, impossibly graceful face against the back of her hand—an almost lazy pose, one that contrasted sharply with the carnage still staining the floor at her feet.

Her optics glimmered with amusement as she tilted her head slightly and spoke in that deceptively gentle tone of hers:

“Please… do be a dear and assume another form. Preferably the one you used when you invaded the dreams of that tricolor seeker.”
A soft smile tugged at her lips, sharp and knowing.
“I wish to see it. You know how curious I am. And, frankly…”

She waved one elegant hand dismissively.

“…your current state is hurting my optics. Pure energy is quite difficult to look at directly.”

Before her, only a few meters away, stood—or rather swirled—the being she addressed. A silhouette made entirely of cosmos, a living embodiment of creation itself. His body was a constantly shifting tapestry of dark lilac light, threaded with spiraling galaxies and glittering nebulae, whole universes shimmering and collapsing within his form as though time folded against him. His optics—if they could be called that—radiated a luminous, soft lilac, ancient and immeasurable.

The Divinity pulsed, clearly displeased at being instructed by anyone, even by her. His energy rippled with agitation, stars within him flaring and dying in an instant. But even he, the creator of creators, the architect of countless cosmic lines—including Cybertron itself—knew better than to defy Quintessa in her own domain.

With a sound like collapsing starlight, the energy of his form intensified, glowing brighter and brighter until it forced even the throne room’s walls—sentient metal and light—to contract away in instinctive fear. The radiance distorted gravity for a moment, warping the shimmering floor.

Then the brilliance condensed.

Energy twisted inward, pulled tight, hardened into shape.

Light folded into metal.

And where a living galaxy had stood, now towered a massive Cybertronian-like body—immense, breathtaking, and terrifying. His plating was dark, like the void between stars, yet alive with swirling galactic patterns. Constellations pulsed faintly beneath his armor as if they were veins. Energy rings coursed across his frame, pulsing from red into deeper and deeper crimson, edged with black—visual proof of how furious he truly was.

He resembled a grounder in shape, broad-shouldered, powerful, impossibly beautiful. A being sculpted from the cosmos, anger glowing through every seam.

Quintessa’s lips curved, utterly delighted.

“Oh, this is amusing,” she purred, voice warm with wicked amusement. “All this fury… because you simply wished to have a little fun with Starscream.”
She leaned forward slightly, optics shining.
“And technically, you’re not wrong. He is remarkably beautiful. One of the finest Cybertronians your creations ever managed to produce. And far, far more intelligent than most of the little metal toys that evolved from your original designs.”

Her laughter—soft at first—echoed gently through the chamber, crystalline and cruel.

She looked him over, slowly, boldly.

“And you…” she continued, her tone dripping with mock sympathy, “were an absolute fool. Sneaking into the seeker’s dreams to interface with him—oh yes, do not pretend otherwise, I know everything. You thought it was harmless, didn’t you?”

She tilted her head, smile sharpening.

“Just a few pleasurable little connections. A bit of entertainment. Nothing that would leave any mark upon reality.”
Her laughter rang sharper this time, amused and merciless.
“Even greater fool,” she said, “to think those interfaces—those dream-entanglements for your amusement—would remain merely that.”

She tapped a single finger against her face, optics gleaming with wicked satisfaction.

“Dreams,” she repeated softly, “are never just dreams… especially when you are involved.”

The voice that rolled out of the enormous bot was nothing short of cosmic thunder—deep, resonant, the kind of sound that didn’t merely echo through the throne room but vibrated through the metal, through the air, through Quintessa herself. It was a voice made of ancient power, of collapsing suns and birthing galaxies, a voice that could shatter the mind of a lesser being.

And that voice spoke her name like a warning.

It silenced the chamber instantly.

Even Quintessa, poised on her throne of shifting metal and living circuitry, felt her smirk falter—just for a fraction of a moment—at the raw force behind that sound.

He did not tolerate mockery.
He did not tolerate games—not when it came to Starscream.
He stepped forward once, the metallic floor groaning beneath the weight of a being forged before the universe had shape.

His optics burned, a cold lilac flame.

He stated his purpose with a clarity that stripped all pretense from the air:
He was here to warn her.
To make absolutely certain she understood.

She would keep the Quintessons away from Starscream.
And away from the creation born of the union between him and the seeker.

Not a threat—because threats were beneath beings like him.
A decree.

But Quintessa only laughed.

And this time, she didn’t hide her teeth.

“Oh, spare me the cosmic fatherly rage,” she purred, waving one graceful hand through the air. “You dare command me to keep my little pets away from your precious seeker—yet you seem to forget something rather important.”

She leaned forward, smile widening, her optics bright with mischief.

“You went too far this time.''

Her voice dripped amusement, each word twisting deeper.

“You didn’t just invade Starscream’s dreams. No, no—you reshaped his spark. You turned it into an immortal spark. And all without the seeker knowing a thing.”

Her laughter grew louder—richer, delighted, cruel.

“All so you could slip into his dreams whenever your boredom struck. So you could have your little… amusements. No consequences, right? Just a bit of pleasure, a bit of diversion.”

She snapped her fingers mockingly.

“And look what you made.”

Her grin was wicked and satisfied.

“A sparkling.”

The chamber seemed to pulse with her mirth.

Quintessa threw her head back and laughed fully now, the sound echoing like chimes through a storm.

“Oh, how I ache to see the faces of your other two precious creations,” she teased. “Primus and Unicron—two ancient beings who think themselves so wise, so untouchable.”

She leaned back against her throne, legs crossing again with the elegance of someone who enjoyed every fragment of chaos she observed.

“It will be glorious to watch,” she mused. “When they discover they now have a half-sister. One made through you and a Cybertronian. One whose Carrier is a tricolor seeker you’ve secretly turned immortal—and who still has absolutely no idea.”

Her optics gleamed brighter, nearly feral.

“And imagine the moment they feel her spark mature. The moment they realize what she is. What you have done.”

She sighed blissfully.

“It will be… wonderfully entertaining.”

The bot—no, the cosmic force wearing the shape of a bot—did not share her amusement.

His growl was a low, tectonic rumble.

A sound like shifting planets.

A sound like the deep core of a star collapsing.

And as it rolled through the throne room, the ground shuddered under their feet—as if the very world felt his anger and answered it.

The bot speaks again—his voice a deep, cosmic thunder that vibrates the very matter around them—warning Quintessa with a finality that could crush stars. He tells her, with no room for misinterpretation, not to meddle further and to keep her Quintessons under control. His tone grows heavier, darker, ancient as a collapsing universe, and the air trembles with the weight of his threat.

If she failed, if she allowed her creations to harm Starscream or the newborn sparkling again, then next time it would not be only the individual Quintessons who dared such an act who would perish…
but her entire race.
Eradicated. Wiped out. Unmade.

Quintessa releases a laugh—shrill, crystalline, edged with nerves she hoped he could not detect. Yet even as the sound echoes through her chamber, even she knows he is serious. Deadly serious. She lifts her chin with feigned poise and reminds him—carefully, almost gently—that he cannot interfere forever in the affairs of the creations of his sons, Primus and Unicron. That there are lines even he should not cross again.

The huge bot’s presence grows colder than the void between galaxies.
He does not argue.
He does not repeat himself.
He simply states that she has been warned.

And then he leaves exactly as he arrived—through nowhere, as though reality itself bends open to let him pass, then seals shut like he had never been there at all. The oppressive weight of him evaporates, leaving a sudden cavernous silence.

Quintessa releases a soft exhale and turns her gaze toward the crumpled Quintesson corpse on the floor. She clicks her fingers. “Clean it up,” she orders flatly. Several remaining Quintessons scuttle forward, dragging away the broken body without question.

She returns to her throne—tall, mechanical, shifting like a living structure—and sinks into it with a slow, serpentine grace. A cruel, satisfied smile curves her lips.

“It will be fun to watch the mess you created, The One,” she murmurs, leaning back as though settling in to enjoy a show.

Her smile widens.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun this time and I can't wait to see it.”

Chapter Text

On the Decepticon side, Ratchet had effectively become a mini-dictator—an impossible blend of medic, engineer, architect, field commander, and tyrant-by-necessity. And he ruled with an iron scalpel. His voice echoed constantly through the Nemesis, snapping orders, assigning tasks, correcting every error with the ruthless precision of someone who refused to accept anything less than absolute perfection.

He was not alone, either.
Knockout and Nickel stood at his sides like loyal lieutenants, fully supportive of the medic’s authoritarian transformation. With Hook now officially merged into the Constructicons’ collective work unit, Ratchet had the freedom—and the audacity—to commandeer the entire old Nemesis storage wing, turning what had once been a deposit of weapons and old nemesis relics into what he declared would be the perfect quarter for a Carrier and his sparkling.

Starscream, fortunately, was nowhere near this chaos.
Oh, no.
He had retreated to his old personal quarters—the ones he once shared with Thundercracker and Skywarp as part of their Trine—and he intended to remain there until the new quarter was completed.

The room was exactly as it had been for vorns. His Trine had kept everything meticulously unchanged, preserving it as though Starscream might return at any moment. The shelves, the berth, the scattered flight trinkets… all untouched. That loyalty, that nostalgic familiarity, wrapped around the space like a protective aura.

Thundercracker and Skywarp were behaving like absolute fools—soft, ridiculous, doting uncles who had completely lost their sense of dignity the moment Tempestra came online.

Starscream, finally, was in recharge. A deep, peaceful recharge he hadn’t truly tasted in ages. He trusted Thundercracker and Skywarp more than enough to watch over Tempestra, and with that trust came a serenity that allowed him to sleep without fear.

Meanwhile, his Trine was one moment away from actually drooling over their niece.

Skywarp, especially, was in rare form. He held Tempestra carefully cupped in his servos, then tossed her lightly into the air—just high enough to make her wings flutter in delight—and caught her again with dramatic flair. The sparkling shrieked with laughter, a cascade of bright little chirps that practically illuminated the room. Thundercracker watched proudly, shaking his head like a mech who pretended to be the responsible one but was absolutely entertained.

While Starscream slept soundly and Tempestra reveled in the full attention of her absurdly affectionate uncles, a very different mood brewed among the rest of the Decepticons.

Because several Decepticons…
were ready to kill Ratchet.

They had reached their limit with the Autobot medic’s demands, corrections, impossible standards, and constantly shifting instructions. Ratchet’s perfectionism regarding the Carrier’s new quarters was legendary at this point—tyrannical, even. Every vent had to have calibrated temperature control. The lights needed voice activation, multiple power settings, and backup illumination modes. An emergency button had to be installed so Starscream could instantly alert Ratchet, Nickel, Knockout, Hook, and First Aid of any danger.

Then came the berth—a specialized soft-mattress model designed specifically for Seekers and wings, because Ratchet outright refused to allow Starscream to rest on “inferior Decepticon slabs.”

Next was Tempestra’s cradle—reinforced safety grids, layered blankets with adjustable heating, a mattress with impact resistance, and softness levels so precise Ratchet tested them himself.

And then… the interactive toys.
Complex.
Engineer-level toys.
Some with mild internal heating units.
Some with sensory stimulators.
Some Ratchet rebuilt twice because “If she’s going to gnaw on something, it shall be properly sterilizable!”

Even Megatron—Megatron—wanted to silence the Autobot doctor. There were moments he genuinely looked one step away from grabbing Ratchet and hurling him out an airlock. But he had made a promise. And Megatron, for all his faults, would not go back on his own word.

So he swallowed his irritation like molten metal.

In the end, Bumblebee—miraculously—stepped in to help Ratchet. With a mixture of diplomacy, cheerfulness, and the ability to remind others that Ratchet had Starscream’s and Tempestra’s safety as his highest priority, Bumblebee managed to calm the Decepticons down.

He kept them from mutiny.
He kept Ratchet from being murdered.
And somehow, he kept the construction project moving forward.

Ratchet, in the middle of his work, paused just long enough to glance back toward Bumblebee. The medic’s optics lingered on the scout with a mixture of exasperation, reluctant admiration, and a quiet, protective worry that never truly left him.

Bumblebee still didn’t understand the real reason Optimus had chosen him for this role. He still thought it was because of morale, or his optimism, or his ability to cross faction lines with his natural friendliness. But Ratchet knew better. He knew exactly what Bumblebee had forgotten about the duties Autobots had once trained him for, and he knew exactly what hidden protocol Bumblebee was unknowingly fulfilling now.

Every time Bumblebee walked through the Nemesis corridors, soothing tempers, patting Decepticons on the arm, and projecting calm like a walking beacon… he was helping someone else.

Someone watching.

Prowl.
Observing through the insignia-embedded surveillance nodes, no doubt analyzing every centimeter Bumblebee passed through, building an internal layout of the Nemesis corridor structure piece by meticulous piece. The scout was unknowingly feeding the most terrifying tactical mind the Autobots had with everything he needed.

Ratchet kept his mouth firmly shut.
Bumblebee was still too innocent, too good, too unaware of the heavy political machinery surrounding them. Ratchet would spare him from that knowledge for as long as he possibly could.

After calming down a particularly agitated Decepticon group—a cluster of Vehicons who looked ready to riot—Bumblebee returned to Ratchet just as the medic was handing Megatron a datapad.

The datapad contained the completed design for the new quarters for Starscream and Tempestra. Not just one blueprint—multiple layers, cross sections, sub-layouts, emergency map routes, and energy distribution plans. Ratchet had practically rewritten the Nemesis architecture by hand.

Megatron accepted the datapad with the stern, grim face of someone who could already feel a new headache forming. Without hesitation, he passed it into Soundwave’s awaiting servos.

“Review with Shockwave, Scrapper, and Dreadwing,” Megatron ordered. “Assess domains. Begin construction.”

Soundwave bowed his helm silently and glided out.

Ratchet then asked the question he needed to know to finalize his next steps.
“Where is Starscream?”

Megatron didn’t hesitate.
“With his Trine. According to Thundercracker’s transmission, the tricolor Seeker is in deep recharge. They are caring for Tempestra.”

Ratchet nodded, unsurprised.
“That is expected. Starscream handled Tempestra and himself alone during the sparkling phase. The accumulated exhaustion in his frame must be astronomical. Now that he has bots he trusts to care for his sparkling, his systems have finally crashed.”

There was emotion in Ratchet’s voice—worry, respect, understanding.

“I’ll head to the medical ward,” Ratchet continued, “Nickel and Knockout need help manufacturing the energon supplies for Starscream and Tempestra.”

He turned to leave—

“Ratchet.”

Megatron’s voice halted him like a command coded into his frame.

“Do not go yet.” The warlord stepped closer. “I want to know… if you can run tests to determine who the sparkling’s Sire is.”

The room froze.
Of course this question would come. Ratchet had been waiting for it since the very moment Starscream was brought to the medical bay with Tempestra’s spark signature faintly detectable.

Ratchet slowly turned back toward Megatron, not intimidated, not hesitant—just completely, absolutely certain.

“No,” Ratchet said, with the unwavering authority of a medic whose morality was older than the war itself. “I will not run that exam.”

He stared Megatron straight in the optics.

“And any doctor with even the smallest shred of decency would refuse to do it without Starscream’s explicit permission. Even Decepticon medics—those who truly consider themselves physicians—would not violate that.”

His tone left no room for debate.
No hesitation.
No fear.
Only the unbreakable principle of a healer.

Megatron grunted—a low, dangerous vibration that rippled through the air like the growl of a caged predator. His optics narrowed, his servos tightening as though he wanted to argue, to demand, to force an answer from Ratchet through sheer authority alone.

But even he knew he could not.

To push further would be to violate a universal medical boundary, one even Decepticons respected. Worse still, his army would see it. They would see their Warlord trying to command a medic into unethical action, and that would crack something fragile but vital: their respect.

And Megatron knew far too well how lethal it was to lose the respect of his soldiers.

So he swallowed it.
Hard.
Sharp.
Humiliating.

Ratchet didn’t hide the small, victorious curl at the corner of his mouthplate. It wasn’t smug—just deeply satisfied. A quiet triumph that tasted better because Megatron clearly hated every moment of it.

The Autobot medic pivoted and strode away with his head held high, savoring the rare experience of shutting down the Decepticon warlord. Bumblebee hurried after him, bright and loyal as always, but with that little extra bounce in his step as if sharing in Ratchet’s victory.

Inside the medical ward, the scent of sterilizer, cooling metals, and fresh energon filled the air. Nickel and Knockout were in the middle of handling the new influx of specialized supplies Ratchet had demanded.

“Knockout,” Ratchet called as he stepped inside, already slipping into command mode, “pass a message to Thundercracker. Once Starscream wakes up, I want him and Tempestra brought here immediately.”

Knockout arched an optic ridge, curious and slightly amused.

Ratchet continued, voice strict but gentle beneath the surface:
“I need to run full tests and create a complete medical record for both of them. This is extremely important. We must document everything—Tempestra’s exact birth cycle count, her spark development stage, her interface patterns, her field reactions, and gather material samples to ensure everything is functioning correctly.”

Nickel paused her work to listen, nodding approvingly.

“We also need to prepare the first firewall vaccine doses for Tempestra,” Ratchet added. “She needs to receive them early, especially given how unique her spark origin is.”

Knockout lifted a servo in elegant acknowledgment.
“Of course. I’ll forward the message to Thundercracker immediately.”

At that moment, Nickel released a cube from the dispenser with a sharp hiss of pressure. Bumblebee darted forward automatically, catching it mid-air with both servos to prevent it from crashing to the floor.

Nickel didn’t waste a second.
“Come on, Bee. Don’t just stand there—help me move these crates.”

She gestured toward a tall stack of boxes already sealed, labeled, and ready.

“We need them transferred to the private storage room we cleaned out,” she explained briskly. “The one Knockout and I set aside exclusively for Starscream and Tempestra’s supplies. Everything goes there from now on. No exceptions.”

Bumblebee perked up, eager to be useful, and immediately started hauling boxes after her as Ratchet rolled up his sleeves, already immersing himself in preparations for the two most important patients currently under their protection.

Megatron watched everything from the control room, seated upon his massive throne of forged obsidian metal and sharpened design — a structure that radiated dominance, authority, and the heavy shadow of the warlord he was. The glow of screens and holographic panels lit the chamber in shifting lights that played over the angular planes of his armor.

Below him, Soundwave stood in perfect stillness, fingers gliding across controls with the precision of a surgeon as he monitored Ratchet and Bumblebee through Nemesis internal surveillance.

“Autobots: clean,” Soundwave reported in his monotone, vocoded cadence. “No unauthorized equipment detected. No subcortical waves. No transmissions.”

On the screens, the Autobots moved innocently — Bumblebee helping Nickel, Ratchet coordinating the construction of Starscream’s new quarters, not a single irregular pulse in their energy signatures.

Everything looked perfect.

Too perfect.

Megatron leaned back, massive servos curling around the arms of his throne. His optics narrowed, burning with suspicion. Soundwave’s readings were rarely wrong — the spymaster was meticulous, almost impossibly thorough. If Soundwave said something was clean, normally Megatron would believe it.

But not this time.

Not when the subject was Optimus Prime.

Megatron’s lip curled in a silent snarl.

Optimus, so noble, so self-righteous, so predictable in his heroism… would never have surrendered so smoothly. He would not simply bow his helm and accept that Starscream — a Seeker, a Carrier, a vulnerable target holding a newborn sparkling — would live under Decepticon custody without fight, without questioning, without conditions.

Optimus Prime giving up anything “for the good of Starscream and his sparkling” was possible — Starscream had earned Prime’s compassion before. But giving up with no hidden plan?

Impossible.

Megatron knew him too well.

He had fought him too long.

He could see the way Optimus thought, the way his mind worked — and the unease curled in Megatron’s tanks like cold acid.

No matter how silent the Autobots’ insignias were…

No matter how natural Bumblebee acted…

No matter how earnest Ratchet seemed…

No matter how calm and cooperative Optimus had appeared during the negotiations…

Something was wrong.

Deeply wrong.

Megatron’s optics darkened, his claws tapping rhythmically against the throne’s armrest — small metallic clinks echoing through the chamber with increasing tension.

Optimus Prime does not give up. He does not surrender ground. Not without purpose.

Something was happening behind his back.

Something he couldn’t see yet.

Something that made Megatron’s engines growl low in his chest with instinctive warning.

He just didn’t know what…
Not yet.

But he would find out.
He always did.

Chapter Text

DURING THIS WEEK I RECEIVED SEVERAL EMAILS FROM A03 SAYING I ASKED FOR A PASSWORD EXCHANGE AND I DIDN'T ASK FOR IT.

SOMETHING TELLS ME THAT THE HACKER-HATER OF MY ACCOUNT AND MY STORIES HAS RETURNED AND IS WANTING TO HACK ME AGAIN TO DELETE THIS NEW ACCOUNT OF MINE JUST AS HE DID WITH MY OLD ACCOUNT,OTOMEGIRL,IF THIS ACCOUNT DISAPPEARS IT IS BECAUSE I WAS HACKEAD AGAIN BY THE HATER AND HE DELETED THE ACCOUNT.

I AM WARNING WITH ANTECED ~ I URGE READERS NOT TO THINK THAT I HAVE DELETED OR THAT I HAVE DISSAPEAR.

PLEASE DOWNLOAD YOUR FAVORITE STORIES BECAUSE IN CASE HACK WINS, I WILL NOT RE-POST THE STORIES, I WILL CREATE ONLY A THIRD ACCOUNT WITH SIMILAR AND START OVER FROM SCRATCH WITH NEW STORIES!!

Chapter Text

Starscream sat in the medical ward, perched upon the polished berth Ratchet insisted on using for all detailed examinations. Harsh white lights softened only slightly by Nickel’s adjustments washed over the room, reflecting off the brushed steel walls and the neat arrangement of medical tools. The scent of sterilizing solvents and energon additives filled the air.

Tempestra—Storm, as Starscream sometimes affectionately called her—was settled on the edge of the berth, tiny legs dangling, wings fluttering in little tremors of uncontained excitement as Knockout and Nickel prepared the first doses of her firewalls. The two Decepticon medics moved with purposeful grace, combining their talents to brew the protective compounds the sparkling would need.

Meanwhile, Ratchet stood before Starscream, datapad in hand, asking question after question about the sparkling’s development. Starscream, still a bit weary but more composed now, answered each inquiry with surprising patience, determined to provide every detail. His optics softened whenever he glanced at Tempestra.

“She can already speak some words,” Starscream explained, venting softly with both pride and a little fatigue. “Carrier… and…”

Before he could continue, a sharp, delighted chirp broke the air.

“Goldbug!”

Tempestra lifted her little arms high in the universal gesture of take me, take me, wings flicking with joy as she aimed herself toward Bumblebee.

Bumblebee froze like he’d been hit by a stun blast.

“Uh—Tempestra,” Bumblebee said gently, crouching down with a warm smile. “My name is Bumblebee. Bum-ble-bee. Not Goldbug.”

“Goldbug!” Tempestra insisted, giggling as she leaned forward even more.

Bumblebee tried again, pointing to his own chest. “Bee. Bumblebee.”

But the sparkling only giggled harder, wings fluttering like a tiny storm of amusement.

“Goldbug!”

Starscream didn’t even get the chance to finish his explanation. Ratchet, who had been paying attention with increasing curiosity, now stared at Bumblebee and Tempestra with the kind of expression he reserved for witnessing cosmic irony unfold before his optics.

Nickel covered her mouth to hide the laughter trembling through her vents. Knockout didn’t even try to hide it—he outright smirked, arms crossed, thoroughly enjoying Bumblebee’s plight.

Bumblebee, cheeks heating, ran both hands down his faceplates as if to wipe away the humiliation.

Starscream watched the exchange with an expression that hovered between confused amusement and resigned acceptance. Tempestra had spoken the word with such certainty, such delight, that there was no arguing with her tiny spark.

Ratchet vented deeply, shaking his helm, and finally announced in his dry, unimpressed doctor tone:

“It’s going to be easier for you to accept being called Goldbug by Tempestra than to convince her to use your proper name. Clearly, she’s having far too much fun with it. And knowing sparklings—she won’t be stopping any time soon.”

At that, Tempestra squealed—

“Goldbug!”

—and flung herself into Bumblebee’s arms, sealing the matter permanently.

And all Ratchet, Nickel, Knockout, and Starscream could do was watch Bumblebee’s slow descent into sparkling-bestowed identity with helpless, irrepressible amusement.

Everything was going well—peaceful even—until Starscream, with that deceptively casual tone he used whenever something genuinely worried him, suddenly asked how much life-time Tempestra had. The question cut through the quiet hum of the medbay like a blade.

He spoke without hesitation, as though the words had been waiting at the edge of his vocalizer: today marked exactly one full year since her creation. And every single day that passed, her wings seemed to grow a little more—stretching broader, stronger, shimmering with new layers of plating—much like the rest of her body did. Not to mention, Starscream added with a strained, half-nervous flick of his wing joints, that Tempestra was definitely getting heavier as well.

The instant those words left his mouth, Ratchet froze.

The datapad he had been steadily writing on slipped from his hands and clattered loudly against the floor, the sound echoing through the medbay like an alarm. In two sharp strides the medic was in front of Starscream, gripping his shoulders with a force that startled even the seeker.

“Why,” Ratchet demanded, optics wide with disbelief and frustration, “did you think it was a good idea NOT to inform anyone that TODAY was the completion of Tempestra’s first full year?!”

His voice rose, something between fury and genuine concern, the kind of tone he reserved only for monumental, life-shaking revelations. Ratchet didn’t even let Starscream attempt an answer—words poured out of him in a flood, each one sharper than the last. Because the first full anniversary of a Cybertronian was huge. Monumental. A triumph of life. So many protoforms never even reached the stage of becoming Sparklings. And those who did… many never survived the excruciating pain of the transformation that reshaped their protoform into a true, stable body.

It was a miracle each and every time. A miracle Ratchet respected with all the weight of his centuries of experience.

Starscream, wings slowly folding in tight, his gaze dropping to the ground, murmured—almost as though confessing a crime—“I didn’t even know if Tempestra could be considered Cybertronian…”

The silence that followed was instant and heavy.

Ratchet’s face hardened, becoming even more serious than his already formidable normal expression. His optics narrowed, voice dropping low with controlled tension as he asked, “What do you mean by that?”

Starscream knew immediately he had said too much. A visible tremor went through his wings as he backed away, instinctively retreating until the edge of the berth caught him behind the knees. He sat down, slow and uncertain, clutching Tempestra close to his chest. Carefully, protectively, he placed her in his lap, cradling her as though she could be taken from him at any moment.

His voice dropped to a whisper, shame and fear weaving through every word.

“There were… dreams,” Starscream admitted. “Before Tempestra was born. Dreams that were… different. Many of them were erotic.”

He winced, wings trembling, but he forced himself to continue.

“I thought that’s all they were—just dreams—about an unknown bot. A grounder, I think, judging by the parts I could see clearly. And when I found out I was sparkled… the dreams stopped.”

He swallowed, glancing down at Tempestra as though she might vanish if he looked away.

“I didn’t think much of it. I wouldn’t be the first bot to have erotic dreams, after all…” He vented shakily. “But when I was discovered—when both Decepticons and Autobots found me, when I was in trouble with that Quintesson—and when they revealed that Tempestra had Ancient CNA…”

His optics lifted, wide with the fragile horror of someone suddenly questioning everything they believed.

“That’s when I started to think… that maybe those dreams weren’t dreams at all.”

Total silence fell across the medical ward.

Not the ordinary kind—the heavy, suffocating kind that settles when everyone present has just watched the foundations of their understanding shift beneath their peds. The air felt frozen, thick enough to taste. No one moved. No one even ventilated loudly.

Only the soft, tinkling giggles of Tempestra—light, airy, oblivious—broke through the stillness. Her tiny vents hiccuped with happy squeaks, her little claws batting at nothing in particular, the innocence of a sparkling echoing like starlight through the quiet.

Even Bumblebee, normally so energetic he could hardly stand still for a full second, had gone rigid. His optics were wide, hands half-lifted as if frozen mid-motion. He looked stunned, overwhelmed, and ever so slightly terrified by what he had just heard.

Ratchet ex-vented deeply. Not just a sigh—an ancient, weary, heavy ex-vent that came from centuries of knowing far too much and still never enough. He rubbed a hand across his helm and finally spoke, his tone quieter than usual, weighted with reluctant honesty.

“There are… stories,” Ratchet began. “Old ones. Older than anything recorded. Stories that say sometimes—only sometimes—Cybertronian gods would walk among ordinary bots. Or appear in dreams. And a few tales say they might give ‘gifts’ to certain Cybertronians they favored.”

His optics narrowed slightly with skepticism.

“But they’re just that—stories. Tales told in ages when Titans still roamed freely. Nothing proven. Nothing concrete. Just fragments of folklore mixed into history.”

He looked Starscream directly in the optics, steady and firm.

“Tempestra’s Elder CNA is almost certainly from recessive genes. A fluke—a grain of sand on a planet-wide beach. An unbelievably small statistical chance, but not impossible. Every Cybertronian—naturally born or built cold—carries CNA data that stretches back centuries, sometimes millennia. Passed through endless generations.”

Ratchet gestured vaguely, as if displaying a cosmic lottery no one could ever hope to win.

“Your sparkling simply hit the CNA jackpot, Starscream. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing miraculous or divine. No myths. Just genetics. And your dreams…” he added, softer but also final, “were dreams. Nothing beyond that.”

Starscream’s relief was immediate and visible—his entire frame softened, wings lowering from their tense, defensive curl. His vents released a shaky, grateful breath as though a massive, crushing weight had finally lifted off him. Even his shoulders slumped, body releasing tension he hadn’t consciously noticed holding.

Tempestra giggled again, reaching out instinctively toward Bumblebee.

Starscream gave a small, knowing smirk and carefully placed the sparkling into Bumblebee’s arms—because clearly, unmistakably, Tempestra wanted him. Her little wings fluttered with excitement the moment she felt Bee’s field brush against hers.

Bumblebee stiffened even further, holding her with the delicacy of someone trying to cradle a drop of living energon. His arms curled around her like a protective cage, terrified of moving wrong and letting her slip.

Tempestra stood in his arms—wobbly but confident—still calling him “Goldbug” in her tiny, chiming voice. Her optics gleamed with delight as she pressed a servo to Bumblebee’s chassis, right over his spark chamber.

Then, in a small whisper so soft even Ratchet leaned in to be sure he heard it, Tempestra murmured something about a gentle spark.

And then, another whisper—fragile, dreamy, barely formed—something like:

“Pri’s favorite…”

Before anyone could ask what she meant, Tempestra sagged forward with a tiny sigh, drifting into recharge right there in Bumblebee’s arms. Bee froze entirely, holding her with the terrified reverence of someone who believed even a molecule of movement might send her tumbling from his grasp.

He remained perfectly still, spark fluttering, optics wide—cradling her like the single most precious thing in the universe.

Ratchet ex-vented again—this time strong and sharp, the kind of ex-vent that carried a mix of resignation, amusement, and long-suffering experience. He shook his helm as he looked at Bumblebee.

“Bumblebee really is an imam,” Ratchet muttered, half in disbelief, half in reluctant admiration. “That scout always attracts smaller bots like a magnet. The Minicon Autobots adore him. And clearly Tempestra has decided he’s her favorite, too.”

Starscream lifted a servo dismissively, wings flicking without hostility. “I have nothing against it. Out of all the Autobots here, Bumblebee is the least dangerous.”

“HEY!” Bumblebee squawked immediately, his field flaring with indignation. His faceplates twisted in protest. “I am not the least dangerous Autobot! I can be as dangerous as Megatron when I want to!”

Nickel and Knockout erupted into hysterical laughter—deep, uncontrollable, doubled-over laughter. Nickel slapped a servo on the nearest counter for support while Knockout nearly fell onto the floor.

The idea of Bumblebee—sweet, kind, earnest Bumblebee—matching Megatron in danger level was so absurd it may as well have been a cosmic-level joke.

Even Ratchet had to bite down a snort, plating twitching as he tried to maintain some semblance of professional composure. What finally broke him was the sight of Tempestra sleeping peacefully in Bumblebee’s arms, completely trusting the very bot who had just tried to sound terrifying.

Ratchet focused on the sparkling, gently administering the first doses of her Firewalls through a vaccine. The injector made only a tiny, quick sting—barely a whisper of sensation. Tempestra didn’t even wake. She only shifted slightly, murmuring a tiny little sound before settling right back into deep, sweet recharge in Bumblebee’s trembling arms.

Bumblebee stood there like someone balancing a live explosive. His optics were wide, vents shaking, every servo stiff. He looked one step away from falling to his knees and begging someone—anyone—to take her away before he dropped her.

It was his first time holding a sparkling, and panic was starting to crawl across his field like static lightning.

Starscream watched him slowly unravel, optics glimmering with wicked amusement. After giving Bumblebee just enough time to suffer, the seeker finally reached out and lifted Tempestra from his arms.

Bumblebee practically melted with relief, shoulders collapsing and vents releasing a long, shaky exhale.

Ratchet, after noting their conditions, gave both Starscream and Tempestra one last look-over.

“You two are doing very well,” the doctor said, tone warming into genuine care. “Starscream, your malnourishment has stabilized. And Tempestra is healthy—more than healthy. Growing exactly as a sparkling should grow. Only…”

He gestured vaguely toward her wings and size.

“She’s growing a bit faster than usual. Which means,” Ratchet paused, optics narrowing knowingly, “you might want to ask Primus for some extra patience.”

Starscream blinked. “Why?”

“Because when Tempestra starts speaking in full sentences—and if she inherited your intelligence—Primus help us all. A sparkling telling truths with no censorship? I don’t even want to imagine the chaos.”

Starscream stared at Tempestra in horror.

And Tempestra giggled in recharge, completely unaware that every adult in the room was suddenly picturing a tiny, brutally honest genius wreaking havoc simply by speaking her mind.

While Starscream amused himself with the spectacle of Bumblebee’s outrage—those exaggerated expressions, the puffed plating, the indignant buzzing vocalizer desperately insisting he could be terrifying—Soundwave was simultaneously occupied with a far less humorous task.

Once again, the Communications Chief stood beside Megatron in the control room, fields tuned low and calm, attempting to soothe the warlord’s ever-tightening suspicion.

“Autobots present onboard: clean,” Soundwave stated in his characteristically steady monotone. “No concealed devices. No subcortical transmissions. No soundwave emissions. No anomalies detected.”

He had repeated this reassurance several times in the last cycles, but Megatron—Megatron, who trusted almost no one and even less so when the subject involved Optimus Prime—remained rigid and unconvinced.

Megatron stood before the massive window of the control deck, the sharp silhouette of his frame stark against the starscape. His arms were folded, jaw tight, optics narrowed in silent contemplation. The vastness of space sprawled before him like a cold, indifferent sea, glittering with distant galaxies and the silent shimmer of cosmic dust.

Then—two distant stars suddenly flared.

A sharp, blinding pulse.
Another flash.
A third, fainter tremor of light.
And then both stars vanished, swallowed abruptly by the black.

Megatron’s optics narrowed further, crimson flaring like the beginning of a storm.

Even this cosmic phenomenon—which could have been a simple collision, a nova, or some other natural occurrence—did nothing to ease the knot of suspicion twisting inside him.

Soundwave, calm as always, repeated softly:

“Autobots: harmless.”

But Megatron’s vents exhaled slowly, deeply, with the weight of someone who sensed the faint tremor of danger long before it became visible.

His gaze remained locked on the dark where the stars had disappeared.

Even with Soundwave’s flawless reports, even with no evidence of sabotage, even with strict surveillance proving Bumblebee and Ratchet were working openly and innocently—

Megatron did not trust it.

Not fully.

Not for a single klik.

Because Megatron knew Optimus Prime—and Optimus never surrendered anything “for the good” of someone else unless there was something deeper, something hidden, something that would eventually shift the balance.

And Megatron hated mysteries.

Especially ones involving Starscream.

Especially ones involving sparklings.

Especially ones involving Optimus Prime.

Soundwave said everything was fine.

Megatron knew it wasn’t.

He just didn’t know why yet,he knows something would happen sooner or later.

And the sooner would be happening very fast and soon...

Chapter Text

At the Autobot base, the atmosphere inside the main command chamber was tense—quiet, but charged with the kind of disciplined anticipation only Autobots knew how to maintain. Screens flickered with gentle blue light, consoles hummed softly, and the distant echo of maintenance crews moving equipment down the hallways formed a steady backdrop.

Prowl approached Optimus Prime with his characteristic silent precision, holding a holo-projector in one hand. With a tap of his finger, a detailed holographic map unfolded between them—a glowing, mid-air projection of the Nemesis’s interior.

The image was incomplete, with entire sectors still blobbed out in static, but what was visible was astonishing.

Almost half the Nemesis.

Forty-eight percent of its main corridors, ventilation shafts, auxiliary arteries, and complex sub-routes now hovered above the table in luminous blue.

Optimus leaned forward slightly, his optics narrowing with calm focus as Prowl spoke.

“Bumblebee,” Prowl began, tone clipped and analytical, “is proving more effective than projected. His activity calming the Decepticons has resulted in consistent positional data streaming through his insignia. Without any awareness of what he’s transmitting, he has already mapped close to half of the Nemesis’s interconnected corridors.”

He adjusted the projection, expanding it.

“The only inaccessible sections are the private quarters of the Elite Trine and the restricted region reserved for High Command and the hangar space where the aerial specialists reside. But even without those, we now possess sufficient knowledge of the general corridors for a potential direct infiltration.”

Jazz, always moving with rhythmic swagger even during briefing, slid into the conversation with a datapad in hand.

“And that’s not all,” he grinned, tapping the datapad. “First Aid pulled a copy of everything Ratchet’s been prepping for Starscream and Tempestra. We’ve got the formulas for their special energon, their med-chips, and even the schematics for the Decepticon nursery they’re building. Every ounce of it.”

Optimus nodded slowly, absorbing every detail with careful, measured intent.

“Progress is steady,” he replied at last. “But we must continue with caution. Megatron will already be suspicious—and he is dangerous when cornered by uncertainty.”

His attention shifted from the holo-map to Jazz.

“Speak to First Aid. Have her assist Wheeljack in converting the east wing of the base into a full nursery. Starscream will require such a facility for both himself and Tempestra once they are extracted.” His voice softened, faintly, but it carried indescribable gravity. “We must ensure their safety. Their comfort. Their future.”

Jazz saluted, flashed a grin, and departed to relay the orders.

Optimus remained at the table until a soft footstep approached him from behind.

Elita-One.

She carried something small and familiar—a plush Turbofox.

The worn seams had been carefully re-stitched, the faded fabric reinforced, the stuffing smoothed and reshaped. It was not flawless, but it was whole again—restored with love.

Optimus took it gently from her hands.

His large fingers cradled the toy delicately, as though it were made of glass.

He looked at it, optics dimming with quiet, profound resolve.

“I will not,” he murmured, voice deep with an emotion far heavier than anger, “allow Megatron to twist this child’s future for his own cruelty. Tempestra will never be used. Never.”

Before Elita could reply, Cliffjumper came bursting through the doorway, wide-eyed and breathless.

“Prime! You need to hear this!”

He held up a datapad linked to the live feed being captured through the insignia of Bumblebee and Ratchet. Audio snippets were still playing—Ratchet’s voice, Starscream’s voice, Nickel’s laughter, Bumblebee’s confused buzzing.

Cliffjumper grinned brightly.

“Starscream just said today is Tempestra’s sparkbirth—she’s officially a full year old today! And Ratchet says she’s not just healthy—she’s thriving! The little one’s growing fast, strong wings, strong spark, everything!”

He flicked through the recording with a fingertip.

“And get this—she keeps calling Bumblebee ‘Goldbug.’ Won’t stop. Ratchet thinks it’s just her way of trying to say his name.”

He paused, chuckling under his vents.

“And apparently Tempestra can already say a few words. Ratchet thinks at this rate she’ll be forming full sentences in another couple cycles.”

The room was silent for a moment.

Not with fear.

But with the weight of something brighter, something rare in war:

Hope.

Hope wrapped in small wings, tiny giggles, and a stubborn nickname for their youngest scout.

Optimus stared at the repaired plush Turbofox… and for the first time in many cycles, he allowed himself a small, fragile smile behind the mask.

Elita placed a steady hand on Optimus’s arm, her touch gentle but full of a quiet command that only she could wield over him.

“Optimus,” she said softly, “everything will be fine.”

Her voice carried the same ironclad confidence she used on the battlefield—only tempered now with something warmer, something deeply personal.

“Starscream trusts Ratchet to protect both him and Tempestra. And the seeker knows Bumblebee isn’t a real threat. He understands the difference between innocence and danger.” She tilted her helm slightly. “Megatron is the true risk. He always was.”

Optimus bowed his head slightly. He knew she was right—he always knew. But that knowledge did nothing to soothe the burning weight in his chest.

Elita continued, calm and unwavering.

“The only complication that could arise is Starscream not wanting to be separated from his Trine again. Skywarp and Thundercracker are bonded to him as deeply as any sparkbound family. But if Starscream and Tempestra come to us?” She smiled faintly. “Then the other two seekers will follow. They will not lose him again. Trines stay together to the bitter end. That will never change.”

Optimus inhaled deeply, vents pulling a slow, heavy breath. His optics lowered, contemplative, absorbing her reassurance like a balm on a wound that never fully healed.

He wanted everything—everything—to be perfect. No missteps. No danger. No pain. Not for Starscream, and especially not for Tempestra. Too much had been taken from them already.

Before he could speak, Smokescreen hurried into the room, practically buzzing with urgency.

“Prime! You should see this!” he said, pulling up the live feed on the main computer screen. “Megatron just announced the nursery is ready.”

The screen expanded, and the image sharpened—

Megatron’s back filled the camera’s view, the warlord striding forward with slow, heavy authority. Bumblebee and Ratchet followed him closely. And on Megatron’s opposite flank…

Starscream.

Holding Tempestra gently in his arms, wings tucked in protectively around her.

Soundwave walked beside them, silent as ever.

And faint movement behind the Autobots suggested there were more Decepticons escorting them—Shrapnel silhouettes, indistinct but present.

Megatron stopped before a massive sealed door. He raised his hand and entered his master code, each tap echoing faintly through the feed. The mechanisms unlocked, and the door slid open with a heavy hydraulic sigh.

Everyone stepped inside.

The reveal was startling.

The nursery—no, the sanctuary—was enormous.

Warm air drifted visibly through the space, a contrast to the Nemesis’s normally frigid corridors. Light panels washed the room in soft illumination. A large berth, clearly designed for an aerial frame, stood against the far wall with a specialized mattress molded for wings, accompanied by perfectly arranged pillows.

Beside it stood a smaller berth—Tempestra’s—with built-in anti-fall safety grids and miniature pillows and blankets folded with immaculate precision.

A wide open closet to the left displayed stacks upon stacks of blankets, extra pillows, and a huge box overflowing with adult energon cubes.

A second open closet revealed three organized boxes of miniature energon cubes, bottom plates, feeding spoons, utensils, and carefully sterilized nipples arranged in neat rows.

On the floor, a large dark lilac carpet covered the entire play area. Its texture even through the feed looked soft enough to cushion even the clumsiest of sparkling tumbles.

And atop the carpet sat a wide metal toy container filled to the brim with interactive playthings—blocks carved with Cybertronian glyphs and numbers, small plush versions of Cybertronian wildlife, mechanical puzzle spheres, rotating heads, soft rattles. Every piece was handmade.

Megatron gestured toward the carpet.

“The toys and flooring were crafted by Soundwave,” he declared. “He insisted the area be insulated to prevent Tempestra from catching cold during her… pranks.”

Soundwave turned slightly at the mention, his visor softening ever so subtly.

“The berths,” Megatron continued, “and the remaining installations were constructed exactly as Ratchet requested. The emergency button is placed along the wall. Pressing it will alert Ratchet, Nickel, Knockout, Hook, and First Aid immediately.”

The camera caught Starscream stepping closer to Soundwave, whispering something barely audible but unmistakably gentle.

A thank you.

Ever since he became a Carrier, Starscream had shifted—his movements softer, his voice warmer, his edges smoothed into something tender and unguarded. More than gentle, even Soundwave seemed affected by it.

Megatron then pointed toward a smaller door within the nursery.

“Through there is the washracks,” he said. “There is a shower for you, Starscream, and a metal basin prepared for Tempestra’s baths. Clean towels are stocked inside.”

Then, turning fully to Starscream, Megatron gestured toward a nearby table with a large reclining chair.

“Shockwave designed and programmed two maintenance drones,” he said. “They will clean this room daily and replace anything dirty or broken. The datapad on the table is linked directly to the drones. You will write down whatever you require there.”

Ratchet, for once, seemed impressed. He opened his mouth to comment on the craftsmanship—

—and then he saw them.

Tiny security cameras.

Subtle, barely noticeable, but present.

He pointed sharply.

Megatron gave a half-smile, the kind that never reached his optics.

“They are for your security. Starscream’s and the sparkling’s. So that response time is immediate.”

Ratchet’s lip plates parted with a retort already forming, sharp and unforgiving—

—but Starscream laid a hand on his shoulder.

A gentle shake of his head.

A silent message:

Don’t fight this. Not here. Not now.

This was Megatron. Nothing came without a catch. Nothing was ever pure.

And Starscream had expected it.

He always expected it.

Ratchet immediately understood the meaning behind Starscream’s quiet gesture.
That slight tilt of the helm, the soft press of his hand against Ratchet’s shoulder—subtle, almost invisible to anyone except those who truly knew the Seeker. It was not fear. It was acceptance. A quiet acknowledgment that of course Megatron would never grant them anything without hidden strings, that vigilance and control were inevitable. Starscream had expected it long before he ever set foot inside the nursery.

And because Starscream expected it, Ratchet swallowed every protest.
Every instinct in him screamed to challenge Megatron, to rip those cameras off the wall and throw them at the warlord’s pedes. But the moment Starscream’s optics met his, Ratchet understood the message:
Don't. Not now. Not here. This is the safest it gets.

So Ratchet said nothing.

Starscream, holding Tempestra lightly against his chest, moved with slow measured steps around the new nursery—testing the softness of the flooring, running his talons along the edges of the berth, touching the freshly-installed energon dispensers. He said nothing, though his wings trembled with something between disbelief and cautious relief.

Then he set Tempestra down onto the plush, dark-lilac carpet.

The sparkling landed with a soft little whump, immediately stabilizing herself on her tiny servos. Her vents puffed in small, curious huffs, and then—with the boundless focus of a youngling—she turned toward the oversized toy box.

And dove in.

She rummaged through it like a tiny whirlwind, her little wings fluttering with pure excitement. First she grabbed a stuffed cyberwolf, examined it with the solemn intensity of a judge… then promptly threw it back into the pile. Then a plush razorbeast. Rejected. Then a stuffed glitch-rat. No interest. She continued this merciless evaluation—lift, inspect, reject—until her small servos found something that made her pause.

A small stuffed Cyberbee.

Perfectly crafted.
Rounded black-and-yellow plating.
Soft metallic fuzz.
Tiny blue optics.
Two little antennae that wiggled when squeezed.

Tempestra stared at the bee.
Then she stared at Bumblebee.
Then back at the bee.
Then again at Bumblebee.

Slowly, her tiny face blossomed into a look of awe, adoration, and triumph—as if she had just discovered an ancient relic of infinite importance.

She hugged the stuffed bee to her tiny chest and announced, in a bright, delighted chirp that echoed across the nursery:

“Goldbug!!”

Her voice was so earnest, so full of joy, that even the Decepticons flinched in surprise.

Bumblebee didn’t even try correcting her this time. He had given up cycles ago. He only raised his servos in defeat and said with resigned acceptance,

“Yeah, yeah… I’m Goldbug.”

But Tempestra wasn’t done.

Still hugging the Cyberbee plush, she looked straight at Bumblebee with those brilliant, ancient-violet optics and proclaimed, with the importance of someone delivering a royal decree:

“Goldbug counselor!”

Every bot in the room froze.
Even Megatron blinked.

Starscream stepped closer, kneeling beside her, confusion rippling through his wings.

“And what,” he asked gently, “do you mean by that, little one?”

Tempestra tilted her helm as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
She pointed to herself, and then to Starscream and then to Bumblebee.

“Immortals.”

Starscream’s wings jolted. Megatron stiffened. Soundwave paused mid-recording. Bumblebee opened his mouth and then closed it again. Even Ratchet’s processor stumbled.

Then Tempestra pointed again—to herself, then to her carrier, then to Bumblebee.

“Princess,” she declared, tapping her own tiny chest.

“Emperor,” she said proudly, poking Starscream’s plating.

And then, with absolute conviction, she turned to Bumblebee.

“Counselor.”

Then she giggled, hugging the bee plush so tightly its antennae bent sideways.

Silence.
Total, absolute, heavy silence.

Starscream’s optics widened, glancing from his sparkling to Megatron, then to Ratchet, wings twitching with growing alarm.
Megatron’s expression was unreadable—stunned, offended, shaken, calculating.
The Decepticons behind him shared looks of uncertain fear.
Even Soundwave tilted his helm, recording every frame.

Ratchet snapped into action.

He stepped in smoothly, voice calm, tone light, hands held up in a there’s nothing here to see gesture.

“Ah—well, you know how sparklings are,” he said, voice overly cheerful. “Big imaginations. Big stories. She’s clearly made up a whole… narrative. Harmless play. Sparkling stuff.”

But inside Ratchet’s processor, alarms were blaring.

Because Tempestra wasn’t imagining anything.

Her CNA—ancient, powerful, Elder-level—is something no modern Cybertronian fully understands. She had already displayed unusual abilities: perception beyond her age, sparksense abilities, intuitive spark-reading. And now? Titles? Roles? Predictions?

No, Ratchet realized.
This wasn’t pretend. This was instinct.

And if Megatron suspected even a fraction of what that meant…

It would be catastrophic.

He could never know.
Never.

For Starscream.
For Tempestra.
For every bot tied to them.

Without moving his lips, Ratchet tapped his Autobot insignia twice—quiet, subtle, but unmistakable to those monitoring the feed. A coded signal.

Accelerate the plan.
It’s no longer safe.
We’re out of time.

Tempestra clung to her stuffed Cyberbee, still smiling.

And Ratchet could not shake the chilling truth forming inside him:

The little sparkling wasn’t wrong.

Not even a little.

She was simply… stating the future.

Chapter Text

Quintessa lounged upon her throne like a deity sculpted from cold starlight and impossible elegance. Her optics remained closed, her posture languid, her expression one of bored serenity. The great hall around her pulsed faintly with the rhythm of the cosmos—walls alive with drifting glyphs, constellations spiraling leisurely across vaulted ceilings. It was a space built for a goddess with too much time and too much power.

For once, she seemed content.
Relaxed.
Unconcerned.

Until a faint tremor in the ether brushed her senses—a ripple of presence—and she exhaled a soft sigh.

“So many visitors lately…” she murmured in annoyance, not even opening her optics yet. “One would think I’d posted a welcome sign.”

Only then did her eyes flutter open, their glow illuminating the chamber as two massive figures materialized before her.

Both were aerials, but the contrast between them was almost comically severe.

The first was immaculate—his plating the purest, polished silver that gleamed like a living mirror. He stood tall and composed, wings beautifully maintained, long and elegant, sweeping gracefully behind him like banners of moonlight. His entire presence radiated quiet power and ancient calm.

The second… was the opposite.

His armor was copper-toned but tarnished, scarred, neglected. Plates dented, seams rusted. His wings were a tragedy—one torn beyond repair, the other little more than exposed framework, skeletal and half-destroyed. His posture radiated irritation and exhaustion, as though centuries had worn him down past all patience.

The damaged aerial was the first to speak, his voice rough and cutting.

“Quintessa,” he snapped, “stop playing games. What did you do? We felt them. Two immortal signatures—out of nowhere—with mere months separating their emergence.”

The silver aerial lifted a calming servo toward him, his voice a gentle breeze compared to the other’s storm.

“Brother… ease yourself. Accusations will accomplish nothing.”

But the copper aerial wasn’t easing. His optics burned with agitation.

Quintessa, however, only laughed.

A full, unrestrained, delighted laugh that echoed through the chamber like ringing bells. She rose from her throne with fluid grace, stretching her limbs as if waking from an indulgent nap.

“Oh please,” she purred, smiling with wicked amusement, “I did nothing. Not this time, anyway.”

The way she said it made both aerials exchange glances of wary suspicion.

Quintessa strolled down the steps of her throne platform, hands clasped behind her back, expression bright with mischief.

“If you’re seeking answers, perhaps,” she said sweetly, “you should aim your questions a bit… higher. Toward your Creator.”

That stopped them cold.

Both ancient aerials stiffened, optics widening with genuine shock.
They—immortals themselves, born of impossibly old power—had not expected that.

Quintessa’s smile widened.

“Yes,” she continued, pacing lazily, “it seems that The One has been… indulging himself. Rather boldly, I might add. Granting immortality to a Cybertronian aerial. A charming little thing, I imagine.”

Quintessa twitched with suppressed laughter.

“You see… he invaded one of their dreams. To entertain himself. To have a bit of…” she waved her servo dismissively, “fun. Oh, what boredom drives a being filled with such limitless power to do, hmm?”

The copper aerial looked horrified.
The silver one looked speechless.

Quintessa’s optics glinted like twin stars as she turned back to them, her voice velvet-smooth and far too pleased.

“And the best part?”
She leaned in conspiratorially, unable to contain a bubbling laugh.

“Because of his little escapade… the two of you now have a half-sister.”

The chamber fell silent.

The silver aerial’s wings froze mid-movement.
The copper one actually staggered.
Both stared at her with disbelief so profound it bordered on existential crisis.

Quintessa only smiled wider, basking in their shock like sunlight.

“Oh, don’t look so offended,” she teased. “Family is such a precious thing… isn’t it?”

Her laughter echoed long after the silence reclaimed the hall.

The rust-colored bot—wings skeletal, armor dull beneath the chamber’s pale cosmic light—let out a harsh, disbelieving sound. His damaged plating rattled as he pointed an accusing servo at Quintessa.

“You’re lying,” he growled, voice jagged with frustration. “You must be lying.”

Quintessa only arched an elegant brow, amusement flickering across her features like a ripple of starlight.

“Lying?” she echoed, almost offended but mostly entertained. “Why would I need to lie? After all…” She stepped closer, optics narrowing with smug delight. “You both felt them, didn’t you? Two new immortal sparks igniting in the cosmic field—bright enough to shake the lattice of existence.”

The copper aerial clenched his servos, but he said nothing.
The silver one shifted uncomfortably, wings twitching in restrained tension.

Quintessa now turned her attention to the gleaming silver bot—the well-behaved one, the composed one who usually knew better than to question a deity.

“Oh, and you,” she purred, a teasing sweetness laced with venom. “Despite all your careful planning…”

His optics widened slightly, wings freezing.
She had struck the nerve.

“…your little project to elevate an Autobot into immortality,” she continued smoothly, “all because of his gentle spark.”

Her grin widened as the silver bot stiffened further.

“You already prepared the path, didn’t you? The trials he would face… the transformation he would undergo… even the new name he would take once ascended.”

Her laughter shimmered like crystal as she made a small circle around him, inspecting invisible details of his shame.

“You arranged everything. Meticulously. The universe perfectly aligned, all the threads placed where they should be, with the slow, proper patience of one who understands cosmic order.”

The copper bot muttered a profanity under his breath.
The silver one looked as though his processor might implode.

Quintessa stopped in front of them again, lifting her chin.

“And yet,” she finished with a flourish of cruel satisfaction, “your Creator simply… decided to make an immortal out of nothing. On a whim. And through this little divine distraction…” She clicked her claws together. “He ended up earning a bonus. A second immortal. Conceived among mortals. Born—quite literally—right under your noses.”

Silence.
Absolute, suffocating silence.

Then Quintessa’s expression brightened, becoming downright jubilant.

“Oh! Speaking of which—” she clasped her hands together, optics glowing mischievously. “I must extend my congratulations.”

She gestured elegantly toward both aerials.

“Primus. Unicron.” She used their names with a casual intimacy only an ancient deity could dare. “Congratulations on becoming older brothers.”

Both immortals recoiled, optics flaring wide.

Quintessa giggled—actually giggled—as she continued:

“Yes, yes, don’t look so scandalized. A little seekerling, half-Cybertronian and half-god.” She tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully. “A femme, from what my network of spies has gathered. Quite adorable, really.”

The copper aerial sputtered, speechless in fury.

The silver aerial looked like reality itself had betrayed him.

Quintessa’s smile gleamed like a blade.

“Truly,” she said, bowing with theatrical grace, “my felicitations to the family. Such blessings don’t happen every millennium.”

Her laughter echoed again—sharp, delighted, merciless—as the two ancient beings stood frozen in utter shock, processing the unimaginable truth she had so casually delivered.

Unicron was a mere breath away from silencing Quintessa’s mouth permanently. His optics burned with molten fury, wings trembling with the barely contained force of a cosmic storm. The air itself vibrated, the throne room’s shimmering walls distorting under the pressure of the Dark Brother’s rage. One more word—one more giggle—would have been enough for him to end her with a single thought.

But before that wrath could snap free, a large silver servo closed around his forearm.

Primus.

The gentler brother, but no less powerful, held him firmly. His voice, deep as planetary cores and resonant as creation’s first pulse, rumbled through the chamber.

“Brother,” Primus warned, “we exist to maintain the balance—between creation and destruction. We cannot act with full free will. We cannot indulge every impulse.”

Unicron snarled, vents cycling hard, optics burning like eclipsed suns. Yet he did not pull away. Not from Primus.
Not from him.

Quintessa watched the moment with clear delight, lounging back on her throne, and with a smooth, feline grace she recrossed her legs. She tilted her head, smiling with all the smug superiority of a deity who knew she was safe, if only because killing her would cause more trouble than satisfaction.

“Well,” she said brightly, “none of that stops either of you from visiting your new family member.”

Two sets of immortal optics snapped toward her, both in disbelief and irritation.

Quintessa simply continued, unfazed.

“After all,” she purred, “you’ve walked among mortals for eons. False frames, altered signatures… you blend in when you wish. A harmless ‘visit’ would hardly be a violation.”

The silver and copper brothers stiffened—because she was right, infuriatingly so.

Then Quintessa leaned back further into the high, curving throne, tapping her claws against the armrest.

“And I’ll even help.” Her smile sharpened. “The two new immortals you’re looking for are currently among the Decepticons, under the… protection…” she rolled her optics playfully, “…of Warlord Megatron.”

Both brothers shifted, tension rippling like a thunderclap.

“But you should hurry,” she added sweetly. “The Autobots are already preparing to take the little immortals into the care of the new owner of the Matrix. Your new Prime seems quite determined.”

That was the last straw.

Unicron’s frame shuddered with untempered fury. A sound tore from him—cracking, roaring, cosmic, like a planet fracturing. Without another word, he turned sharply, wings slicing through the air, and stormed out of the chamber in a streak of green-black energy.

Primus immediately followed, calling after him, trying to soothe, trying to pull his brother back from yet another destructive spiral. Their powers rippled through the hall as they left, two divine titans trying to keep themselves—and the universe—in balance.

Behind them, Quintessa remained lounging on her throne, now wearing the widest grin yet.

Left alone with her amusement, she tapped a single finger against her chin.

“Should I pay a visit too?” she mused softly to herself, optics bright and hungry. “Hmm… yes. Perhaps I should.”

Her laughter, airy and wicked, echoed throughout the chamber as she contemplated the chaos to come.

Primus managed—barely—to cool the storm raging inside his brother. He stood before Unicron with the calmness of an ancient mountain, a stabilizing force against Unicron’s unrestrained cosmic fury. His hands rested on Unicron’s shoulders, firm yet gentle, grounding him.

“Brother,” Primus murmured, “would you like to meet her? Our sister.”

The word sister held weight neither had spoken aloud before. It seemed to echo through the space between them, resonant and strange.

Primus continued, his tone carrying both reason and curiosity.
“I will not lie—Even I am curious. She is something new. Something neither of us has seen before.”

Unicron’s vents slowed. His wings finally stilled from their trembling wrath. He looked away for a moment, optics dimming with a strange, contemplative glow.

“A naturally generated immortal…” he murmured. “Not forged by The One. Not created by design. Not shaped as we were. Not like the bot our Creator elevated to immortality.” His voice was quieter, almost reverent. “I am… curious, brother. Very much so.”

Primus nodded, relieved to feel his brother’s fury melting into wonder.

“Then,” he said softly, “let us meet her. But without arousing suspicion.”

Unicron’s optics narrowed in interest.

Primus’ body began to shift—quietly at first, then rapidly. His silver plating receded and reshaped, glowing lines of creation energy crawling across his frame. His wings folded inward, collapsing into a compact structure. His towering silhouette shrank until he stood as—

—one of Shockwave’s drones.

A perfect copy. Every bolt, every cable, every scratch, even the dull violet glow in the optic-lens was exact.

Primus rotated his head with the signature mechanical click the drones used, then looked at Unicron through the faceless visor.

“We can move through the Nemesis unseen, unrestricted. Drones are everywhere. No one questions them.”

Unicron stared for a moment—then threw his head back and laughed, a deep, thunderous sound far too large for the tiny drone body Primus now wore.

“Your imagination still astonishes me, Primus,” he said, amusement rumbling in his tone. “Very well.”

A dark ripple spread from Unicron’s frame, swallowing him in shadow. His towering body folded inward, collapsing into swirling darkness that reformed as—

Another drone.

But his was unmistakably different.
Where Primus’ drone was clean and precise, Unicron’s was darker in hue, slightly crooked, the kind of drone that looked functional but unsettling—an overshadowed presence, as if corrupted energon pulsed beneath its plating.

Two drones.
One of creation.
One of destruction.
Identical enough to pass, different enough to betray their natures to anyone who truly looked.

“Let us find our sister,” Unicron said, voice distorted through the drone’s vox but unmistakably carrying his razor-edged undertone.

In a blink, they slipped through a swirling distortion in reality and reappeared inside the Nemesis—materializing in the darkest corner of an unlit corridor. Their small drone bodies blended seamlessly with the low hum of machinery and the constant movement of Decepticon tech.

They stepped out of the shadows.

Their mission was clear.

Find their sister.
Find the tiny immortal who had appeared out of nowhere—
the little femme born of Cybertronian spark and godly essence—
the seekerling they had never known they would one day call family.

Chapter Text

Unicron and Primus did not have to wander far inside the Nemesis in search of the new immortals. They barely crossed the shadowed hallway before the answer came sprinting toward them. Nickel, sharp-eyed as ever, spotted their drone forms and waved them over with the authority of someone who had no patience for incompetence.

“You two—yes, you. Grab those crates and follow,” she ordered, not even glancing twice at them. For her, Shockwave’s drones were just another set of hands.

Primus and Unicron exchanged the briefest glimmer of a look—silent agreement, silent strategy—before falling into step behind the tiny medic. To protect their cover, they moved with rigid, mechanical precision, the way real drones did. Nickel led them through twisting corridors bathed in Decepticon violet, scolding a passing trooper on the way, until she finally stopped at a sealed door.

With a soft chirp of her access code, Nickel opened the quarters of Starscream and Tempestra.

She poked her head inside, then spun toward the “drones,” raising a finger sharply.

“Put the energon cubes in the closet, tidy the room, and do it silently,” she hissed. “Tempestra and her Carrier are sleeping. Starscream only rests when the sparkling is out—and if you two wake that seekerling up…” Nickel’s voice dropped to a grim whisper. “Starscream will turn you into scrap. Understood?”

Neither ancient god spoke. They merely nodded like obedient machinery.

Satisfied, Nickel marched away, leaving the door open behind her.

Primus and Unicron stepped inside—and froze.

The room was chaos incarnate.

Toys of every color and shape littered the floor like a miniature battlefield: wobbling holo-blocks, squeaking stim-orbs, tiny plastic seeker wings chewed by infant denta. Someone—likely the sparkling—had drawn constellations on the wall with glowing paint sticks. An unfinished data-tablet played soft lullaby frequencies on loop.

They set the boxes of energon on a table that was also cluttered with bottles, blankets, and what looked like a half-built sonic rattle.

Then their gazes drifted upward.

There, sprawled across the berth in deep recharge, lay Starscream.

The tricolor seeker was curled protectively around an empty space beside him—likely where Tempestra had rested before moving to the crib. And even in sleep, Starscream was undeniably beautiful by Cybertronian standards: fine-lined armor, elegant wings folded with unconscious grace, long lashes resting against cheek plating softly illuminated by the room’s dim lights. His frame rose and fell slowly with each peaceful ventilation.

Unicron’s optics narrowed. This was the mortal their Creator had once wanted to toy with? This fragile-looking, proud, battle-scarred creature curled around a child?

Primus felt the sudden spike of his brother’s temper and laid a reassuring servo on his arm. Now was not the time.

Together, silently, they approached the crib.

Their footsteps softened instinctively, like even gods feared waking the little one.

And then—they saw her.

Curled in the nest of blankets lay their half-sister.

For a moment, neither of them vented.

She was so small… impossibly small for what she carried within her.

The tiny femme slept clutching a plush cyberbee to her chest, her little vents puffing in soft whirls, her helm nuzzled into the worn fabric. Her armor was a pale, luminous silver with a faint iridescent sheen—impossible for a normal seekerling. Soft rings of energy shimmered gently around her frame, pulsing like the echo of a star being born, flickering with the same pattern… as The One.

The same radiance as their Creator.

Primus placed a hand on the edge of the crib, awe softening his features. Unicron leaned closer, red optics uncharacteristically wide, the usual fury replaced by something like… reverence.

She truly was half Cybertronian, half god.

And naturally born.

Not created through ritual or decree.

Not forged.

Not shaped by cosmic instruction.

But brought into being by the universe itself, by love, by sparkbond, by circumstance no prophecy had ever accounted for.

A phenomenon beyond even their ancient understanding.

Unicron’s voice dropped to a whisper, trembling with something he would never admit was tenderness:

“…She looks like Him.”

Primus nodded slowly. “Yes. She carries His light.”

The seekerling stirred, little fingers tightening around her cyberbee. A fragile chirp escaped her vocalizer before she nestled deeper into sleep.

Both brothers froze—even Unicron held his nonexistent breath.

After a long, still moment, she settled again.

Primus finally allowed himself a soft, quiet vent of relief. Unicron simply stared at her, unable to look away.

Two immortal beings—older than the moon cycles, older than the war, older than Cybertron’s metal deserts—stood defeated by the miracle of a sleeping baby.

Their sister.

Their kin.

Their balance.

And in that silent room—filled with scattered toys, soft lights, gentle dreams—the two gods understood something:

Their universe had changed.

Forever.

Tempestra stirred with a soft, tiny yawn—one of those delicate seekerling sounds that fluttered like a pulse of energon across the room. Her optics flickered online, glowing a pale lilac far lighter than The One’s ancient gaze. Unlike their Creator’s fathomless, star-swallowing eyes, Tempestra’s were bright, alive, sparkling with innocent curiosity.

She blinked at the two “drones” looming by her crib. Her helm tilted to the side, confusion crumpling into silent judgment.

Then, flatly:

“You’re ugly.”

She pointed directly at Unicron.

Primus jerked slightly, vents hitching as he swallowed a laugh so forceful it almost shook his disguise apart.

Tempestra, still blinking sleepily, turned those glowing lilac optics toward Primus.

“And you’re stupid.”

This time, Unicron choked—actually choked—trying not to burst into delighted laughter. His shoulders trembled, optics bright with admiration. The god of destruction looked like someone had handed him the galaxy’s finest gift.

Primus pinched the bridge of his fake drone nose, composing himself.

Unicron leaned slightly toward Primus and whispered, almost giddy:

“I like her.”

Primus shot him a look—half warning, half exasperated big brother.

“We have a situation to prepare for,” Primus murmured firmly, still keeping his voice low in the presence of the sleeping Seeker. “The Cybertronian on that berth clearly has no idea he’s an immortal. And once he wakes up—things will not be simple.”

Unicron opened his mouth to retort—but froze.

Footsteps echoed down the hallway.

Both brothers instantly straightened, bodies snapping back into rigid, obedient drone posture. Their faces blanked into cold logic. Their movements became mechanical, efficient, identical to Shockwave’s emotionless constructs.

Primus began methodically storing toys, carefully collecting scattered plushes, rattles, and energon-ring teething pieces with perfect drone-like order.
Unicron carried the crates of cubes, stacking them silently in the closet with unnerving precision.

The door slid open.

Ratchet stepped inside—tired, wary, optics already scanning for trouble.

Behind him came Bumblebee.

Tempestra sat up fully, wings fluttering.

Her optics lit with immediate fascination.

“Goldbug!” she chirped loudly, pointing straight at Bumblebee.

Primus froze.

Unicron froze.

Their optics snapped toward each other in silent, thunderstruck understanding.

Goldbug.
The name Primus had chosen.
The identity he had prepared.
The path he designed for Bumblebee during the trials…
The destiny he had woven into the universe itself.

Primus felt something inside him lurch—ancient recognition, cosmic déjà vu. She shouldn’t know that name. No one should know that name except—

Unicron’s voice echoed silently in the bond between brothers:

She sees threads.

Primus gave a single, subtle nod.

Meanwhile, Bumblebee began to panic, wings buzzing nervously.

"I am not...oh forget it..."'

Ratchet gently cupped Bee’s arm, hushing him.

“Keep your voice down. You’ll wake Starscream,” he warned. “She’s a sparkling. They blurt things. No need to overthink it.”

As if on cue, Starscream stirred on the berth—venting softly, shifting closer into the blankets. His wings twitched, one knee drawing upward protectively in sleep.

Ratchet immediately checked on him, lowering the lights another fraction.

When he glanced back toward the two “drones,” he found them already hard at work—silent, dedicated, precise. Exactly what he expected from Shockwave’s machines.

He nodded approvingly.

“Good. Keep organizing. This place is a disaster.”

Primus bowed his head like a perfect drone.

Unicron did the same.

But behind those motionless visors, two gods were panicking, exhilarated, and deeply, deeply curious.

Because the sparkling knew things.

Things no mortal should know.

And Starscream—the sleeping Seeker who had no idea of his own immortality—was about to awaken into a universe far larger, more dangerous, and more divine than he ever imagined.

Ratchet moved with the quiet tenderness of someone who had seen countless sparklings across countless vorns. With careful, practiced motions, he lifted Tempestra from her crib. The little seekerling immediately curled against his chassis, optics fluttering closed again, trusting him without question. Ratchet’s face softened despite himself.

He carried her to the berth and placed her gently beside Starscream.

The young Seeker, even in recharge, reacted instantly. His vents hitched once, wings giving a faint tremor of instinct, and his arms rose as if guided by spark-memory. He pulled Tempestra close, curling around her like a shield. Tempestra snuggled in, tiny frame disappearing in the curve of Starscream’s chestplate, and both immediately went slack in peaceful, synchronized rest.

It was a scene so disarmingly sweet that even Bumblebee froze at the doorway, optics wide and lips forming a silent aww. His wings buzzed in soft joy. To see Starscream—sharp, dramatic, traumatized Starscream—sleep with such innocence, holding his child with such instinctive protection… it melted something deep inside the little scout.

Ratchet straightened, then turned toward the crib. With a sigh, he began stripping off the sparkling’s blankets—soaked with the day’s play, scattered bits of energon dust, and crumbs from Tempestra’s snack earlier. The old medic wrinkled his nose.

“Primus above, she makes a mess for someone so small,” he muttered.

He bundled up the dirty blanket and, without hesitation, handed it off.

Primus—still perfectly disguised as one of Shockwave's emotionless drones—caught the blanket mechanically. No flinch, no hesitation, no reaction. Just two dim red optics and the absolute stillness of a machine.

Next to him, Unicron matched the posture flawlessly: expressionless, silent, the perfect picture of Shockwave’s cold craftsmanship.

But behind their blank faces, two divine minds were reeling.

Primus held in his hands the blanket of an immortal.

Their sister.

Their Creator’s daughter.

And no one—not Ratchet, not Bumblebee, not even the Carrier asleep on the berth—understood the enormity of the moment.

Bumblebee, oblivious to the tension behind the drone masks, watched Starscream and Tempestra snuggle closer together, both shifting deeper into each other’s warmth. The scout’s wings fluttered in delight.

“Aw… cute overload…” he whispered, barely keeping his voice down so as not to wake them.

Tempestra burrowed deeper into Starscream’s chest armor. Starscream shifted reflexively, arm tightening around her.

Ratchet finished making up the cradle with fresh blankets—soft, clean, and freshly warmed by the base’s heating grid. When he was done, he turned toward Bumblebee.

“Bee, grab a few toys and toss them into the box by the wall. The one with the green lid,” he instructed softly. “And put some blankets in there, too. They need cleaning or replacements.”

“Okay!” Bumblebee whispered brightly.

He immediately reached down and plucked up the worn Cyberwolf plush and the Cyberbee stuffing Tempestra adored—her precious "Goldbug" plush. He placed them carefully in the box, adding a bundle of small blankets.

Primus and Unicron, still in perfect drone posture, continued their work:
Primus folding toys into neat stacks,
Unicron aligning the cubes in the closet with precise, identical movements.

Ratchet gave them both a final approving nod.

“And don’t forget to clean the floor and the carpet where Tempestra plays,” the medic instructed, voice firm but quiet. “Sanitize it thoroughly.”

Both drones bowed their heads in unison, acknowledging the command.

Satisfied, Ratchet gestured for Bumblebee to follow.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Let them rest.”

The door slid shut behind them with a soft hiss.

Inside the now-quiet room, under dim lights, two gods disguised as drones stood in the shadows—holding blankets, toys, and the knowledge of a truth that would soon reshape the fate of Cybertron and the universe itself.

And on the berth, unaware of the cosmic storm brewing around them, Starscream slept peacefully—curling protectively around his divine daughter.

Unicron’s lip plates twitched in amusement the moment his optics registered the boxes stacked neatly near the wall—each one marked for “replacement,” “upgrade,” or “sanitization.” To a mortal’s optics, they looked like routine maintenance containers. But to Unicron… they were adorable.

Perfectly clean toys? Flawless blankets? Not a single loose thread or cracked seam?

Ratchet wasn’t fooling anyone.

Unicron almost snorted out loud. These boxes aren’t for repair—they’re for quick extraction. The Autobots were preparing everything to be portable, organized, and ready for rapid movement.

Amusing. Clever. Predictable.

Primus, still holding the blanket he’d been pretending to replace, finally let it fall into the designated bin and straightened his posture. His voice—silent, transmitted only across the bond they shared as brothers—was calm, certain.

“Quintessa spoke the truth. The Autobots are preparing to take them.”
His optics shifted toward the nearest security camera.

The small lens gleamed faintly… but showed nothing. The moment Unicron and Primus entered, they had woven a field of interference—fine-tuned static, layered fractal patterns, and coded subharmonics—effectively blinding and deafening every device in the room.

Every camera and microphone believed it saw nothing but scrambled noise.

Primus and Unicron shared a look.

They had learned long ago that mortals feared the dark most when they believed they could see.

But that moment ended abruptly when both sensed a presence approaching. Heavy, measured footfalls—a commander’s stride—accompanied by the soft, almost soundless glide of another.

Immediately, Primus and Unicron dropped back into drone behavior: stiff posture, unfocused optics, minimal movement, and silent obedience.

The door hissed open.

Soundwave entered first, graceful despite his tall, imposing frame. Behind him came Megatron—broad shoulders tense, jaw clenched, optics narrowed at the static-filled datapad clutched in his hand. The warlord radiated displeasure like cold radiation.

He was not happy.

Soundwave strode to one corner of the nursery, reached up, and plucked a small camera module from its recessed slot. He turned it over in his hands, scanning it with his visor.

The two disguised gods continued working, heads bowed, hands moving with the hollow precision expected of Shockwave’s creations.

Megatron’s voice was a low growl of frustration.

“What is wrong with these blasted systems? All feeds are dead. Every single one.”

Soundwave tilted the camera, turning it toward his audio receptors, then toward the ceiling, then toward Tempestra’s play area. His visor flickered with calculating pulses.

Finally he spoke, voice modulated, calm as an ocean of zeroes and ones.

“Explanation: Possible traversal of Nemesis through region of abnormal magnetic flux.”

Megatron bristled. “Possible?”

Soundwave adjusted the ruined camera, sweeping it once more. Steady. Analytical.

“Affirmation: Magnetic disruption occurring ship-wide. Not localized. All cameras experiencing identical failure.”

Unicron, behind his blank mask, nearly chuckled. Not at Soundwave—who, frankly, was impressive—but at the irony.

The mighty Megatron, Warlord of the Decepticons, overlord of countless worlds, was completely unaware that the system malfunction plaguing his entire warship was caused by the two drones obediently organizing toys and blankets behind him.

Primus, calm as always, kept his movements exact and emotionless, folding a plush toy as if nothing unusual was happening.

Unicron stacked the newly “replaced” energon blankets with mechanical precision.

Neither dared reveal anything—not even a flicker—despite the delightful absurdity swirling around them.

Megatron huffed angrily and began pacing.

Soundwave replaced the camera in its bracket and bowed his head to Megatron.
“Repairs: Estimated once magnetic flux subsides.”

Megatron snarled under his breath, optics flashing red, and stormed out of the room—footfalls echoing down the corridor.

Soundwave lingered a few moments more, scanning the drones. His visor passed over Primus. Over Unicron. Over the stacked toys. Over Tempestra curled safely with Starscream on the berth.

Then, apparently satisfied, Soundwave turned and followed his lord out the door.

The room fell silent again.

Only then did Primus allow a whisper through their private divine channel:

“Brother… do behave.”

Unicron’s internal laughter rippled like distant thunder.

“How can I, when mortals make chaos without us even touching them?”

He reached for another blanket, posture rigid, perfect, obedient.

And in the berth behind them, the immortal child slept on—protected by a Carrier who still had no idea he was something far greater than mortal.

Starscream stirred.

At first it was only the subtle twitch of his wings, the instinctive tightening of his arms around Tempestra’s tiny frame. Then his optics fluttered faintly, adjusting to the low amber lights of the nursery. The room was quiet—too quiet. Almost unnaturally so.

Primus and Unicron froze.

Their drone chassis didn’t so much as emit a servomotor whine. Both stood statue-still, locked in the rigid posture typical of Shockwave’s emotionless constructs. And yet… behind their unmoving visors, their attention sharpened like twin blades.

Starscream slowly pushed himself upright, exhaustion still weighing heavily on his limbs. Tempestra shifted in his lap, murmuring softly, nuzzling into his chest. He supported her automatically, the protective reflex so deeply ingrained it happened even in half-consciousness.

Primus was the first to move—so subtly it could have been mistaken for a flicker of light.

He reached toward a prepared cube of energon. Then, with the finesse of someone who had watched mortals for thousands of years, he added two measured drops of a nutrient enhancer Ratchet had recommended earlier, then stirred it with perfect mimicry of drone precision. No emotion. No hesitation.

When Starscream looked up, optics still hazy from sleep, Primus stepped forward with mechanical grace and extended the cube toward him.

Starscream accepted it without suspicion, murmuring a soft, weary:

“…thank you.”

The moment the cube left Primus’s hands, both gods dissolved backward into silence—unmoving, undetectable, slipping to the opposite side of the room with inhuman precision.

By the time Starscream looked again—

They were gone.

Not a footstep. Not a shadow. Not the sound of a door.

Just… gone.

Starscream blinked rapidly.

Once. Twice. A third time.

“…What?”

He looked around, optics sweeping the nursery. Only Tempestra’s soft recharge-breaths filled the room—the slow ventilation cycle of a content sparkling. No drones. No assistants. No hovering medics.

Just him. Tempestra. And complete, baffling stillness.

Starscream rubbed his optics with the heel of his hand, wings fluttering irritably behind him.

“…I must be more exhausted than I thought…” he muttered, voice rough with fatigue.

Because clearly he had started hallucinating helpful drones.

He sighed, tilting the energon cube to his lips for a cautious sip—

And froze.

The taste was perfect.

Not just good. Perfect. The exact ratio of purity and density he preferred—smooth, sweet, balanced with a faint warmth at the end. Precisely the way he mixed energon for himself when he had the time and energy to be meticulous.

Starscream stared down at the cube in disbelief.

“…But… how did I even get this?” he whispered.

He hadn’t prepared anything. Ratchet hadn’t been near him. No one had placed a cube on the table by the berth. And he certainly didn’t recall waking enough earlier to fetch it.

His wings drew closer to his back in a nervous fold.

He looked around again, slower this time, scanning each corner of the nursery as if an answer might reveal itself from the walls.

Nothing.

Only Tempestra’s soft little servo reaching out in recharge, her tiny frame curled with total trust against him.

Starscream exhaled, uncertain and uneasy.

“Primus… I really am tired,” he whispered to himself.

And he took another sip.

Even if it made no sense, exhaustion shut down the part of him that should have questioned it harder.

But Primus and Unicron—silent, invisible in their disguised forms—watched the immortal seeker drink the cube prepared by a god himself.

And both exchanged a glance that said:

He has no idea.

Primus and Unicron slipped soundlessly through the hallway, still wrapped in their invisibility fields as they withdrew their interference from the security cameras. The moment they let the systems run freely again, the Nemesis regained its usual metallic vigilance—screens flickering back to normal, red diagnostics scrolling across the walls.

Yet neither god bothered to hurry away. Instead, they stood at the far corner of the corridor, unseen, watching the Autobot medic below.

Ratchet muttered to himself—his voice low, tense, preoccupied—before tapping twice, then thrice, against his armor in that crisp, practiced rhythm. A series of short clicks and taps followed. Autobot Morse, their old battlefield code. Primus immediately recognized the pattern: a schedule. A message meant for someone else. A rendezvous time set for the middle of the night.

Primus folded his arms and tilted his helm, intrigued.
Unicron, however, smirked sharply.

“Do you want to stay?” Primus whispered, though neither of them needed to whisper—no living spark could sense them like this. “Invisible… only to observe the confusion?”

Unicron’s laugh was soft, low, delighted.
“Oh, absolutely. And don’t pretend you’re above this, brother. Everyone says you’re the perfect one, the patient one, the balanced one—but I know better. You’re just as desperate to witness the coming chaos as I am.”

Primus didn’t flinch at the tease, didn’t bristle or defend himself. Instead, he simply inclined his helm, serene as ever.

“We could remain for a few more days,” he admitted. “Invisible. Observing. It might… prove informative. Cybertronians are always at their most revealing during moments of upheaval.”

Unicron snorted—a pleased, wicked sound—but offered no argument. They both turned their attention back to the medic.

Ratchet opened his subspace compartment, pulling out something small—something carefully wrapped, something clearly prepared ahead of time. Primus and Unicron felt a simultaneous spike of curiosity.

Whatever Ratchet had planned… it was ready.

Primus leaned forward slightly.
Unicron’s optics narrowed with predatory interest.

Whatever would happen within a few hours, it was going to be fascinating. And neither of them had any intention of missing a single moment.

Chapter Text

Unicron and Primus did not need to wait long. Exactly as Ratchet’s coded message predicted, when the Nemesis slipped into the first shadows of night, the medic finally acted.

They watched from the ceiling, invisible and silent, as Ratchet moved with the caution of a veteran surgeon and the determination of someone who knew the smallest mistake could cost everything. His hands were steady—unnervingly steady—as he uncapped a small vial and released a few carefully measured drops into Starscream’s energon cube.

Then, with even more delicacy, he leaned over Tempestra’s cradle and placed only the faintest number of drops into the feeding nipple he had prepared earlier. He tested it, ensuring the scent was unchanged. No seeker, not even a half-divine seekerling, would detect anything wrong.

Primus noted the precision.
Unicron noted the intent.

Starscream, exhausted from cycles of vigilance, did not question it. He lifted Tempestra first, instinctively feeding her before himself. The seeker’s wings fluttered with soft, unconscious affection every time the little femme chirped or squirmed. Tempestra finished her feeding quickly, her optics dimming as sleep overtook her almost instantly.

Only then did Starscream bring the cube to his own lips.

He drank.

The change was subtle—first a slow blink, then a second, longer one. His wings drooped, his posture slackening, his helm tilting slightly to one side. Within minutes, he collapsed gently beside Tempestra, both of them sinking into a deep, absolute, medic-induced sleep that even a battlefield explosion wouldn’t break.

Primus exhaled through his vents, impressed.
Unicron raised a nonexistent brow ridge, amused.

Ratchet stepped back, his expression tightening as he confirmed both patients were fully under. Then, with decisive finality, he tapped twice on his Autobot insignia—sharp, clear metallic knocks—and whispered into the comm channel.

Bumblebee answered at once.

The scout hurried in, confusion bright across his field, optics darting between the unconscious seeker and the medic.

“Close the door,” Ratchet ordered in a low voice. “And barricade it. Everything you can find. Now.”

Bumblebee didn’t understand why—didn’t need to understand. His loyalty to Ratchet was instinctive, unquestioning.
He shoved crates, tool cabinets, spare plating, and a half-disassembled console against the door, building a barrier thick enough to stall even Soundwave.

Unicron smirked.
Primus quietly folded his arms, waiting.

The moment Bumblebee backed away—

Nemesis alarms detonated.

Harsh, shrieking sirens filled the hallways. Red emergency lights flashed violently against the metal walls. The entire warship shuddered as if something massive had slammed into its frame.

Then came the unmistakable sound that froze Unicron and Primus in shared astonishment:

Portals. Multiple. Not ground bridges—but Autobot long-range infiltration portals—opening inside the Nemesis itself.

Blue-white rings of light cracked open across the ship’s corridors like fractures in reality, spilling armed Autobots straight into the heart of the Decepticon flagship.

The extraction was beginning.

And Primus and Unicron, unseen, had front-row seats to history unraveling.

The Nemesis descended into instant chaos.

Explosions rattled the decks, blaster fire sliced through corridors, and shouting voices echoed in every direction. Red emergency lights strobed wildly, drowning the ship in pulses of crimson panic. The hull groaned as though the vessel itself feared what was happening inside it.

The Autobots had breached the flagship.
Not in one place—
in dozens.

Megatron stormed down the main corridor, energon blade already crackling to life in his palm. His face twisted into a snarl that could curdle fresh energon.

“AUTOBOTS, in my ship?! In my domain?!” His roar shook the walls.

Soundwave glided beside him, screens flashing warnings in a frantic cascade. His sensors strained through interference, but nothing was consistent—everything was scrambled.

“‖WARNING: MULTIPLE HOSTILES. INTERNAL BREACHES DETECTED.‖”

Megatron slammed his fist into a wall so hard it dented.

“Find them! FIND THEM NOW!”

Soundwave recalibrated, fingers lifting as he attempted to break through the static flooding the Nemesis’s feed. The jamming was unusual, untraceable, unnatural.
Even he—master of frequencies—couldn’t cut through it.

“‖VISUAL FEED… OBSTRUCTED. AUDIO FEED… STATIC.‖”

Megatron rounded on him.

“Then MOVE, Soundwave! We will crush them corridor by corridor!”

But he felt it—deep in his spark—
the Autobots weren’t here for war.

They were here for something… someone.

His eyes twitched with sudden, visceral dread.

“Starscream.”

Ratchet stood stiff and tense, one servo on his scanner, the other on Starscream’s unconscious form. Bumblebee held Tempestra carefully, protectively, rocking the tiny femme as distant explosions made the walls tremble.

Then—

A soft hum.
A swell of brilliant blue-white light.
A swirling distortion in the air.

A portal opened inside the room.

Arcee leapt through first, blades out, sweeping the space. Elita-One followed, rifle ready, scanning for threats.

“No Decepticons in sight,” Arcee confirmed. “We’re clear.”

Elita stepped directly to Ratchet. “We need to move. The corridors are burning. Soundwave’s already locked down half the ship.”

Ratchet nodded sharply and pointed toward the pile of boxes near the wall—those the Autobots had pre-marked earlier.

“Elita, Arcee — grab those! They contain all of Tempestra’s essentials.”

Arcee didn’t hesitate; she scooped up the box with all the speed of a seasoned field agent. Elita took the other, securing it under her arm as though it were sacred.

Ratchet lifted Starscream into his arms, cradling the seeker close to his chest. Despite the chaos, despite the alarms, Starscream remained deeply unconscious, head resting against Ratchet’s shoulder, vents soft and steady.

“Come on, Screamer…” Ratchet muttered under his breath. “We’ve got you. Both of you.”

Bumblebee held Tempestra carefully against his chassis. The little sparkling, deeply asleep, let out a soft coo when the ship shook again.

“Shh… it’s okay, Goldbug’s got you,” Bumblebee whispered, voice trembling with emotion.

From the ceiling shadows, unseen, unheard, Primus and Unicron watched the scene unfold with rare stillness.

Primus murmured, “The mortals are determined. Their loyalty to the seeker and the child runs deeper than I anticipated.”

Unicron smirked darkly. “And Megatron hasn’t learned a thing. If he thinks he can keep an immortal child under his command, he deserves the destruction that follows.”

Another explosion rocked the ship.

Primus folded his arms. “They’ll have to hurry. Megatron is only minutes away.”

Unicron leaned forward slightly, amused. “Let chaos entertain us a little longer.”

Ratchet glanced toward the glowing portal crackling in the center of the room.

“Everyone through! Now!”

Arcee dashed in first, carrying both boxes like a warrior guarding royal treasure.

Elita followed with a final sweep of the room.

Ratchet shifted Starscream’s unconscious weight in his arms and moved quickly.

“Bumblebee—go!”

The scout didn’t need to be told twice. He held Tempestra close and sprinted into the portal, wings buzzing with panic and determination.

Ratchet stepped through after him—

—but paused for a half-breath, taking one last look at the room where Starscream and Tempestra had spent their last peaceful cycles on the Nemesis.

Then he disappeared into the light.

The portal closed behind them with a soft snap of displaced air.

Megatron slammed the door open—

—or tried to.

The barricade held. Crates and plating shuddered but did not give way.

He roared, punching the barrier until it cracked.

“STAAAAAARSCREEEEAM!!”

Soundwave scanned the empty room beyond the barricade, his visor flickering.

“‖TARGETS… GONE. PORTAL SIGNATURE DETECTED.‖”

Megatron’s enraged scream shook the entire corridor.

Unicron chuckled in the shadows.
Primus simply sighed.

Their sister was gone.

With the Autobots.

And Cybertron’s fate had just changed forever.

The barricade shattered under the violent force of Megatron’s fusion cannon.

Metal screamed. The door split down the middle.
The makeshift wall of crates and plating exploded inward, scattering across the nursery like broken bones.

Smoke rolled into the room as Megatron stepped through, frame trembling with rage so profound it bordered on madness.

The Room Was Empty.

Starscream—gone.

Tempestra—gone.

The berths, still warm but empty.
The soft lilac carpet disturbed, toys missing from the box.
The blanket Ratchet had “replaced”? Gone too.
The boxes against the wall—those Ratchet claimed needed swapping?

All missing.

Megatron froze, optics widening in something he rarely allowed himself to feel.

Realization.
And humiliation.

He had been played.
He—Megatron, Warlord of the Decepticons—had been outmaneuvered inside his own throne room, by a medic and a scout who never once had weapons in their hands.

Soundwave stepped in behind him, visor flickering rapidly as he processed the visual feed.

“‖NEGATIVE LIFE SIGNS DETECTED. ROOM… VACATED.‖”

Megatron’s vents rasped harshly.

Ratchet. Bumblebee.

The quiet ones. The careful ones.
Always under watch, always so harmless.

And yet—

“They deceived me,” Megatron whispered, disbelief shaking his voice. “Under my optic… they deceived me!”

He clenched his servos so hard the metal protested.

He had believed Ratchet’s talk about “needing exchanges.”
He had believed Bumblebee’s wide optics and innocence.

He had believed Soundwave’s reports that everything was stable.

But the truth was painfully clear:

The Autobots had been communicating right under his nose.
Successfully.
Repeatedly.
Undetected.

And now Starscream and Tempestra—two beings far too important to lose—were gone.

Megatron’s comm crackled. “My lord—Autobot portals are closing. They are retreating.”

Megatron turned sharply. “What do you mean retreating? Where is Prime?!”

“No sign of Optimus,” came the reply. “Only Ultra Magnus’s division and—”

The floor shook with the force of another explosion deeper in the ship.

“—The Wreckers, my lord.”

Megatron’s optics narrowed.

The Wreckers.

They were a hurricane in Autobot form—pure, tactical destruction.
And he had felt their signature all across the ship: walls torn down, weapon arrays ripped apart, entire corridors rendered unusable.

Soundwave stiffened as multiple messages flooded him.

“‖REPORT: HEAVY DAMAGE THROUGHOUT NEMESIS. INTERNAL SYSTEMS… COMPROMISED.‖
‖REPORT: MULTIPLE DECEPTICONS INJURED. NO CASUALTIES.‖
‖REPAIRS… WILL REQUIRE TIME.‖”

Megatron’s lip curled.

Time.
The one thing he did not have.

Before he could respond, another comm pinged his audio sharply.

Dreadwing.

“Lord Megatron,” Dreadwing said, voice low but urgent. “I cannot find Thundercracker. Nor Skywarp.”

The words hit like a plasma bolt.

Thundercracker and Skywarp—missing.

Megatron felt static crawl up his spine.

“Search everywhere,” he growled. “Every hangar, every maintenance shaft, every single vent. They would not abandon Starscream. Find them!”

But deep down, he already knew.

They were gone because Starscream was gone.
They had followed their trine-brother, even unconscious, even stolen away.

And it gutted him.

The Warlord stood in the ruined nursery—at the center of his own ship, surrounded by evidence of his failure—and felt anger coil into something larger, darker, more dangerous than fury.

Soundwave lowered his head.

The Decepticons would survive this.
But Megatron would not forgive it.

Not the deception.

Not the infiltration.

Not losing Starscream.

And certainly not losing Tempestra.

Megatron stepped deeper into the room, his shadow engulfing the empty berth where Starscream had slept only hours before.

“Prime…” he whispered, voice dropping into a quiet, lethal growl.

“…you have no idea what you have just started.”

The ground bridge portals rip open one after another, casting blinding spirals of blue-green light through the main hangar of the Autobot base. Shockwaves of displaced air blast outward as teams pour through.

The first to stumble out are Ratchet, carrying Starscream limp in his arms, and Bumblebee, trembling and clutching Tempestra tightly to his chest.

Behind them, the Wreckers thunder through the portal with their usual lack of subtlety—Bulkhead, Roadbuster, Topspin, Whirl, and the others, armor scorched and dented but triumphant as always.

And then—

Thundercracker and Skywarp emerge.

Not dragged.
Not restrained.
Not fighting.

They walk out willingly, wings low, vents trembling, optics searching the room for their trine-brother the moment their pedes hit Autobot ground. Their paint is scuffed, their plating marked with smoke—signs of the frantic escape through Nemesis corridors as they followed Starscream’s signal.

Behind them, the last portal flickers and shuts with a final crackle of energy.

The battle is over.

The rescue… completed.

Wrecker-leader Springer slaps Ultra Magnus on the shoulder—hard enough that even Magnus winces slightly.

“Mission accomplished,” Springer says with a proud, wolfish grin. “And we picked up two extra fliers on the way. Once we told ’em their trine-brother was being smuggled out—they didn’t even hesitate.”

Skywarp lowers his helm, almost shameful.
Thundercracker straightens, proud but exhausted.

“We were never staying behind without Starscream and his sparkling,” Thundercracker says quietly. “Our place is with him.”

Ultra Magnus studies them carefully, analyzing every twitch, every flicker of wings. Then he nods once.

“Then your place will be secured here,” Magnus states. “But first—we must ensure your return does not endanger anyone.

Magnus turns sharply.

“You two—come with me.”

Thundercracker and Skywarp obey without protest, tension thrumming in their wing struts as Magnus leads them down a long corridor toward the medbay.

Inside, First Aid is already preparing scanners, datapads, restraining clamps, and chip removers.

Thundercracker glances around. “Is… all this necessary?”

First Aid doesn’t even look up. “If Megatron installed trackers, bombs, backdoor commands, kill-switches, or location flags in your frames—then yes. Every bit of this is necessary.”

Skywarp gulps.

Ultra Magnus folds his arms. “And your Decepticon insignias will be removed. Permanently.”

The Seekers exchange one silent glance.

And then nod.

For Starscream, they would endure anything.

Back in the main hangar, Optimus stands in the center of the chaos—calm, steady, and waiting.

Ratchet approaches him, holding Starscream carefully against his chassis. The seeker’s helm rests against Ratchet’s shoulder, wings limp, vents slow and deep in artificial sleep.

“Optimus,” Ratchet says softly, “take him. You’re the only one big enough to stabilize him if he jolts awake.”

Optimus doesn’t hesitate.

His massive servos slide beneath Starscream’s frame with unexpected gentleness, lifting him against his chest as if he were made of glass. Starscream instinctively folds closer, seeking warmth and security even unconscious.

Optimus’s optics soften.

“Starscream is safe now,” he murmurs, voice barely above a whisper.

Bumblebee stands frozen nearby, still clutching Tempestra so tightly that she looks like part of his armor. His optics are huge, bright, and confused beyond belief.

Ratchet walks straight to him.

“Bee—give her here.”

Bumblebee hesitates, as if afraid she’ll vanish if he lets go.

“Ratchet… what just happened? How did—why did—what was—?”

Ratchet gently pries Tempestra out of his arms. The seekerling, still deeply unconscious from the sedative drops, sags into Ratchet’s hold and releases a tiny recharge chirp.

“The plan,” Ratchet says as he checks the sparkling’s vitals. “It worked perfectly.”

“The plan?” Bumblebee squeaks. “Wait—you had a PLAN?! Since when?! Why didn’t anyone tell me there was a plan?!”

Jazz appears beside them, laughing so hard his shoulders shake.

“Bee, c’mon,” Jazz says, clapping the scout on the back. “You seriously don’t remember what your insignia does?”

Bumblebee blinks. “…It looks cool?”

Jazz stares at him.

Ratchet groans.

Optimus pinches the bridge of his noseplate.

Jazz gestures dramatically. “Your insignia, genius! The Autobot signal flags inside your frame—they link to our systems. Location. Audio. Video.”

He taps Bee’s chestplate.

“That little badge right there has been recording everything you’ve seen, heard, and done since you stepped foot on the Nemesis.”

Bumblebee freezes, optics widening in horror.

“All of it?” he whispers. “Even when—when Tempestra called me—Goldbug?”

Jazz bursts into laughter again.

Ratchet mutters, “Sadly, yes. All of it.”

Optimus sighs, but there is warmth behind his optics.

“Bumblebee,” he says gently, “your presence saved them.”

And Bumblebee, for once in his life, is left speechless.

Primus and Unicron drifted unseen above the Autobots like twin shadows cast by opposite stars—one weary, one delighted, both ancient enough to see the entire battlefield at once. The Nemesis, the Ark, the sky between them, all were nothing but a diorama below.

Unicron, ever amused, let out a low rumbling laugh and smacked Primus lightly on the back, a playful tapa that for beings of their scale shook the ether itself.

“Well, look at that,” Unicron purred, copper eyes burning like dying suns. “At least now Bumblebee has passed his first test to becoming mature… and immortal. A step closer to your little Goldbug project. Although…” His smirk widened. “It’s happening far earlier than you planned.”

Primus exhaled—an exasperated, ancient, exhausted sound that rippled through the void like wind over desert stone.

“This is not how it was meant to happen,” Primus muttered, rubbing his face with both hands. “He was supposed to grow, yes… but not through betrayal. Not like this. Not by suffering at the hands of his own. It was meant to come slowly—learning, maturing, seeing the world less innocently. Not—” he gestured helplessly toward the chaos unfolding around the portal, “—this mess.”

Unicron laughed even harder, folding his arms in pure amusement.

“Oh, stop pouting. It’s hilarious.”

Optimus and Ratchet emerged through the still-glimmering portal, each carrying precious cargo—Optimus with Starscream limp in his arms, Ratchet holding Tempestra securely against his chest.

They stepped into the quarters prepared inside the Ark: a soft-lit, warm chamber made to feel nothing like a cell. Elita-One and Arcee were already inside, finishing the setup.
On the walls, shelves had been carefully arranged, and the boxes Ratchet ordered them to collect now stood unpacked—Tempestra’s toys lined neatly on display. Soft plushes, tiny holo-books, small tools, delicate ornaments—things meant to comfort a sparkling, lovingly restored to their places.

Optimus crossed to the berth and gently, reverently, laid Starscream down. The Seeker barely stirred, wings twitching in instinctive distress even in unconsciousness.

Ratchet approached the cradle—a specially aligned, softly padded station built to cradle a sparkling’s protoform safely—and lowered Tempestra into it, his hands surprisingly gentle for a medic who usually barked more than he soothed.

She whimpered once, then curled into the blankets, wings folding in tight exhaustion.

Ratchet exhaled shakily. “They’re stable. For now.”

Optimus’ optics dimmed in relief.

The door slid open with its familiar hydraulic sigh.

Ultra Magnus stepped inside, towering, rigid, serious as ever—but for once his faceplate carried something like softness.

Behind him were Thundercracker and Skywarp, armor polished clean, energon wiped away, wings unruffled. Clearly Ratchet’s orders of “make sure they’re clean before they step anywhere near Starscream’s room” had been followed to the letter.

Magnus bowed his head slightly.
“The Seekers are clean.”

Optimus nodded gratefully.

“Good. Come in.”

The trine stepped forward cautiously—Thundercracker solemn, Skywarp visibly anxious, wings stiff with worry. Their optics flicked immediately to Starscream on the berth, then to Tempestra in the cradle.

Optimus stepped aside so they could approach.

“I want you two to stay with him,” Optimus said, voice low but certain. “When Starscream wakes… he will be disoriented. Possibly frightened. He trusts you. He always has. Tell him everything—what happened, where he is, that he and Tempestra are safe.”

Thundercracker nodded, throat tight.
Skywarp swallowed hard.

Optimus’ tone hardened—not unkind, but resolute.

“And hear me clearly:
Starscream and Tempestra are now under Autobot protection.
Megatron will not touch them again. Not in this lifetime. Not in any.”

The declaration hung in the air like a boundary etched into reality itself.

Thundercracker and Skywarp froze.

Their optics met.

A silent exchange.

A terrifying one.

Because they knew something Optimus didn’t.

They knew exactly how Megatron would respond.

Skywarp’s wings trembled first.

Thundercracker’s expression tightened.

They both realized the same thing:

Megatron would not simply react.

He would obliterate, rage, burn, destroy—
he would come for Starscream, for Tempestra,
and for any Autobot who dared stand between him and what he believed was his.

Their wings twitched in sync, the same silent, fearful thought echoing through both their minds:

Primus help us all… Megatron is going to unleash hell they knew it.