Chapter Text
When his optics first online, B-127 first sees the sky. The Well surges with power only feet from him, giving him a fond farewell even as his memory of crawling from it fades only moments after. His protoform is new and small, his body whirs with clicks and hissing as parts fall into place and his spark begins to glow all on its own, no longer sustained by Primus’ crafting hand.
It will grow, with time, his plating still a shining, unburdened silver. Glistening with its lack of abrasions and experience. Efficiency programs slot into place, and his processor works to teach him what little it already knows. His T-cog spins in his side, inactive now as New Sparks usually are, but it will burst with Energon and life soon enough. In the backlog of his thinking, B-1 can already sense the way the wind will whip around him, struggling to keep up.
But B-127 doesn’t pay that any mind right now. There are far more pressing matters.
They are stars, his infodex supplies, but it doesn’t teach him anything else. They are bright and glimmering in the deep purple sky, so very far but close enough that B-127 desperately wishes to reach for them. His logic center provides the sobering information that he cannot, even if it does not tell him why. Millions of them, his optics struggle to keep track of the shapes he traces following them. They remind him of something, even if he has nothing to think back on. Not yet.
They glimmer and entrance him for kliks that become groons, and by the time B-1 thinks to look around, he has analyzed the sky so thoroughly that even as he offlines his optics for a moment, the image of the shining gems bedazzling the heavens remains in his view. His head tilts, thinking for a moment that he should get up. He’s a young bot, too young, so very young – but something in his spark tells him he should move.
And besides, the pretty purples of the Cybertron nights have melted into a more mellow pink, nearly lavender at the edges.
Just as his interest wanes, the stratosphere blesses him with one more gift, one more present for his very first Spark day. His optics widen, and in the last several groons, B-127 has discovered the extent his lenses can zoom, the clarity he can achieve with ease. There’s no one around to tell or show, but somehow, B-1 knows this is impressive.
It does not feel like enough, though. Not as a brilliant star moves – soars – across the airspace lightyears away. No, comet, his processor provides. B-127 does not yet know the difference in definition, but he supposes he can guess. His view becomes distorted as he pushes his lenses to their limit, running his newborn clarity protocols over and over again. Hoping desperately to see the comet as it falls, runs from the skies. He wonders where it intends to go.
Pretty. His mind thinks, his first real opinion. The heavens, the stars – even the falling ones – are pretty. The edges of it burn bright with raw power of the velocity and it gushes with a brilliant, bright yellow, sailing at a speed B-1 cannot truly perceive, not even with his eyesight. Disappearing into the inky blackness of the universe, far beyond the new morning sky. Yes, very, very pretty.
Tingling erupts across his plating, and B-127 jumps with a series of colorful clicking and buzzing following. His eye is drawn away from the object of his awe to himself, for the first time. Sitting up in a slightly irritated huff, he takes in his sparkling protoform. His servos rub across his frame in piqued interest. The silver he knows he was born with has hidden itself away under a fresh, shimmering coat of golden, shimmering yellow, with black tracing along his edges. B-1 chirps, eyeing the last of the change as the nanites work to finish his paint across his pede.
It only takes an attentive glance before he decides with a nod that he likes it. which is good, since he was the one who changed it.
Perhaps in hopes that they also like it, B-127 looks up. To his dismay, the stars have faded beyond even his advanced optic’s reach, and all he is greeted with is the mauve morning light. It’s not as pretty as the stars and clearly doesn’t care about his paint.
The area around him is vast and lonely, his index supplies. He isn’t quite fond of those words or their meanings. His pedes are wobbly and unstable, holding him up. The oversized door wings hung across his back create a difficult counterbalance to which he will have to adjust. His sensory antennae calculate and recalculate as they grow active with his movement, turning and rotating as they try to provide him with the necessary information to stand.
The struts of his stabilizers stretch and pulse with Energon, flushing his helm with sensory information he has never felt. In the distance, B-127’s audials pick up the faint trill of a whistle, but there’s no telling from which direction it came. There’s some pride when he stops falling over after a while, but the ground around him is not smooth nor easy to traverse. Craters litter the surface and a twist in B-1’s spark tells him this should not be so.
In the new light of his first day alive, B-127 finds he is not very impressed. The stars were much better. There should be more bots, should there not? His processor is still developing, could there be an interloop somewhere? Does he already have a glitch? There should be more. Someone to greet him in his first moments. But the Well, a place even a new spark knows to be deeply sacred, is empty. Devoid of life with the exception of one of it’s last progeny.
His optics turn to it. The very center of his chassis pulses with familiarity, and he almost thinks to simply crawl back into it. This world he has been born to is quietly screaming, something B-127 isn’t sure to even be possible. But he feels it, down to his very spark. Already the dread of this place has crawled under his plating, making a home in the dark edges of his brain modules. Does he wish to be a part of that?
But the Well is dim, now, much dimmer than it should be, he thinks. It worked so hard to help him emerge; he can’t simply run back to it now. Not yet.
So, he sets his gaze in the distance. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to go this way, but his pedes don’t waver when he does. Unpracticed in all ways, but even still, B-127 moves with purpose.
He is small, he is new, and B-127 is alone.
***
There is not much else to do but walk, his grace growing with each ill-planned step or tumble he takes. It is a large planet, and B-127 gets the distinct feeling it should shine with proud glory. Instead, he finds rusted ground and devoid hollows. The lonely canvas of his homeworld slowly populates with thick plumes of smoke, and buildings that raze into the sky. B-1 ponders whether he could touch a star, were he to climb to the top.
New warnings pop into his HUD, and B-127 discovers he has been moving for a very long time. The stars are back, but they don’t seem to shine with the same excitement as before. Dimmer in the smog of the settlement he has found. His Energon has dipped below an acceptable level for the very first time, and B-127 discovers that to be very uncomfortable. Warnings of an essential recharge flash across his vision, but for the first time, B-1 blinks them away. His specs are efficient, even as a small new spark with limited access to his frame.
And in his walk alone, B-1 deduces that if he wants Energon, he will need to find it on his own. This “recharge” will have to come later. That’s fine, B-127 enjoys finding things, probably. He is pretty sure he does.
The settlement is large, but abandoned, B-127 is unsure of what to make of it. His legs creak with overuse, but he pushes them to continue searching. Destroyed buildings and debris clutter the area and B-127 finds several deposits of old and corroded Energon. Some are large puddles, while some are more dribbled across the rubble, all slowly evaporating over time. B-1’s logic center instructs that he should not try and intake this Energon, despite his rather furious curiosity.
Though tired and a tad peeved that the stars don’t shine as bright here, B-1 inspects all the intact buildings he can with a certain astonishment, cataloging everything he can even if his infodex cannot provide him with a definition. B-1 thinks that he likes to learn, very much. And though alone, this is all so new and exciting, any stimuli to keep him occupied is a joy.
This excitement screeches to a halt in one, spark-shuddering moment.
It is in one of the last doorways he can access that he sees it. The light is dim through the rusted holes in the walls, but B-1’s optics catch it immediately regardless.
A stiff, clawed servo reaches for the ceiling, frozen in place beyond a collection of rubble. B-127 freezes, a new emotion flushing through his processor and down to his pedes. Fear. His infodex does not have to define it for him, B-127 simply knows. This word needs no introduction. His finials pull sharply back.
He hasn’t met another Cybertronian before. He wishes to believe that he would be treated well, were he to meet another of his kind, but, well. The destruction and disarray of the planet had to come from somewhere, and B-127 is learning that he is observant – and he has observed much, though he has barely been online two solar cycles.
But, perhaps, they may appreciate his paint more than the morning light or the stars have.
This prospect is enough to convince him, infantile and Energon boiling for praise. So, he steels his fluttering spark and shudders forward, keeping his pede-falls silent as he maneuvers around the rubble. His language programs have successfully installed, and have been for some time, B-1 simply has not had a reason to use them.
What should he say? Would “hello” suffice, or would that be unremarkable? B-127 doesn’t really like the idea of being unremarkable.
His programming supplies him with plenty of interesting things to say, but it is exceedingly difficult to be interesting when you’ve only been alive for two solar cycles with no one else to practice with.
The frustration of this thought builds to the point that B-127 is stomping his pedes in a childish huff as he lands in front of the bot he hopes to introduce himself to. Utterly forgoing his attempt at stealth.
B-1 pauses, now fully taking in the state of his older and likely wiser brethren. The bot in question hasn’t moved since B-1 entered the room and has remained static as he approached. A coldness flushes the depths of B-127’s spark, and his form grows rigid. The bot is a mech, easily three times his size and they are… his optics take it in, the detail sharp. Too sharp.
Bright purple with neon green accents, this bot is all sharp angles and clawed digits. They don’t have door wings – at least not ones that look similar to his – and there are no sensory antennae to speak of.
Rationally, B-127’s brain module tells him that Cybertronians are meant to be different, unique in their own way exactly per Primus’ design, but he had at least expected to see some resemblance. He had hoped to feel a kinship in his spark.
Not that it truly matters, since evidently, this mech is dead.
There is a drawn out moment where B-127 fights this realization, straining his audials for a sign of a spark, pushing his young and erratic EM field around hoping to find another. All he hears is the rush of his own burning engine, and the creak of rusted scaffolding. His field rushes back to his center with a punching force, finding nothing. The sensation leaves him feeling hollow and distinctly more lonely than he had been a klik ago.
His servo shakes as he runs it along the bot’s cadulen, swiftly breaking the contact when the touch returns sickeningly cold. His own chassis radiates a living warmth, his spark bursting with life and his body thrumming with Energon. That is what his kind should feel like, body and spark… this… this is not how it should be.
The bot’s face is set, and B-127’s tanks flip at how distinctly disturbing it is. Intake held in an eternal scream, offlined optics wide with a fear he will never be free of. This bot’s fear wasn’t like his own, it was not a feeble anxiety over meeting a new friend. No, this fear was terror, his processor says. B-1 backs away, slowly and then quickly, exventing heavily when he makes contact with the opposing wall, door wings flush and bent at awkward angles. His operating system stacks with increasingly urgent warnings of overheat and buffer fatigue.
He is small, he is new, but B-127 is alive.
This bot is not. The lance through the mech’s abdomen attest to it.
And with a horrible tremble, B-1 reconciles that he died afraid. Horror present in his every feature. His optics follow the bot’s dead stare, and the outreached servo, a constant plea for mercy.
The bot had died wailing toward the sky, to the stars.
Did he hope for salvation, in his last moments? Did he plead for deliverance? If he had screamed for their help, for their aid, and the heavens had done nothing, what hope did B-127 have that they would come for him if he asked? A lone new spark, so new even his T-cog has not come online yet? This bot was a warrior, a warframe, who better to save than him?
If even he hadn’t been granted mercy… then…
The pumping of his Energon increases as the cold plunge in his spark begins to freeze over to the point of burning, and his venting is erratic. Hexagonal grids appear in his periphery, blinking in and out in frayed static as his optics struggle to understand the conflicting orders his neural net sends them. He doesn’t want to look, doesn’t want to see. But it’s all he can do.
“I’m sorry,” he voices, his first words said in a frantic rush. He doesn’t know who he speaks to, his optics fixed solely on the bot, husk, corpse. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, certain warnings in his HUD glowing a menacing red. His voice, he hasn’t heard it before, but it crackles with panic. He apologizes over and over, and he doesn’t know why.
There is no Energon to be found tonight, so B-1 slips into an exhausted recharge, his buffers unable to handle the input and crashing. His infant frame shivering and the chill of his spark never quite leaving. When he reboots, he does not look up to the sky even once.
***
The unpleasant experience continues the more he moves.
Eventually, B-127 finds a small Energon reservoir that appears to be stagnant and has been for ages. But there is enough to fill two small canisters and B-1 is thankful to be so new that he does not yet require much more than that. His chassis quivers as he is forced to crawl over the husks of two femmes to get to it. Their Energon has long since evaporated, but remnants of it stain the floor and the walls. Their plating is freezing where he touches it. The same as the bot before.
He notes with some alarm that despite the fact that neither of them are – were – warframes, they are both armed with weapons. New additions made in plasma guns and blades built into their biology. He knows they are additions because while the rest their frames are frozen, stuck in their last moments, the weapons have begun to rust. Bio-weapons don’t rust, not without outside help.
Optics eyeing them warily, B-1 bitterly mourns what little their added firepower did for them, in the end. They share matching insignia on their helms, but B-127 doesn’t care much for that while his joints creak and tanks shudder. His episode has left his helm light and unfortunately slow, no more aided by his already depleted resources.
He refuels in a rather unbecoming frenzy, but has enough sense left to only intake half of one of the canisters he collects. They’re small, but still too large for him to carry with ease, and with his T-cog laying dormant inside him, he has no access to his storage chamber yet. B-1 fastens them across his back with a loose coil – it’s not like anyone around here will be needing it. His currently useless door wings, at the very least, help keep them from sliding off his back.
It’s unfortunate, but it is easier to clamber over the two husks a second time. B-1 isn’t sure whether to classify this as a good or bad development. The way he is already jaded to their deaths. The sight of them still inspires great unease, and he hopes in his spark that the gaping holes in each of their chest plates extinguished them quickly.
But, well, he needs to survive. Something stronger than himself tells him so, he must. They do not.
A selfish thought and B-127 decides he does not like thinking that way at all. His spark squirms in his chest against it – if only he had much choice.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers for perhaps the hundredth time, digits clenching the coil holding the lifeblood of his people with a vice grip. He stops, just as he is passing the threshold to the dingy and decayed outside. His optics find the femmes, and he turns to them fully, bowing his head. “… Thank you, too.”
He doesn’t know if they were protecting the Energon or fighting over it – so desperate that they offlined each other. What he does know is that without them, there may not have been any.
That feels a bit better.
***
Solar cycles pass and B-1 wanders the settlement. Searching for something. He isn’t exactly sure what, but Primus made him an inquisitive spark so he doesn’t mind the quandary.
More offline bots emerge as his optics become more seasoned in what to look for, and B-127 sees agony in each one of them. It had felt so deserted before, but the more he looks, the more he finds. He wonders if Cybertronians do something for their dead, but his infodex doesn’t know the answer no matter how much he probes. There’s only so much data a new spark can be equipped with.
His processor develops more each cycle, small updates already queued to download once he has a certain amount of Energon and memory space. The file sizes aren’t too big, which B-1 thinks to be good, so he allows them in one at a time.
Despite the fact that he has evidently awoken to a home torn asunder, B-127 quickly struggles with boredom. The settlement is a horror scene, but it does appear to be safe, for the moment, so he remains while he tries to get his bearings. Many of the taller structures are either unstable or completely inaccessible. B-127 ponders as to why this place would necessitate buildings so tall. The stars are so dim here, he doesn’t like it at all – even if he is having a little disagreement with them right now.
He wants to make a smart, calculated decision. He needs to if he wants to survive, which B-127 is fairly certain he does. But it is difficult to when he has no idea what is going on.
New sparks don’t come online clueless – he was born with intelligence and basic knowledge, but even so B-127 is all too aware of his newborn naivety and limitations. His protoform is still brittle and a quarter of the size of even a femme bot. Here, a bot without access to their T-cog is a dead one, this, B-127 is certain. He has no one to protect him, and no way to protect himself.
Now if he just had some context, for anything, he may be able to remedy that – just a little. He can learn to work smart, work with what he has, which is almost nothing. If he could just understand what is going on.
B-127 is quite annoyed to have been born this way.
This is why he is thrilled when he comes across a small library. Well, it’s sort of a library.
In reality, it is more of a nook in the back of some sort of… it’s a room lined with berths, but he has no idea what the purpose of it is. He scarcely manages trudging through a small crawlspace to get inside. The lights above flicker as they struggle to remain online, likely burning up the last of whatever source of Energon is powering it. Beyond the room is some form of lounge, with tables and chairs that B-1 can just barely reach. The area where he assumes is supposed to hold an Energon reserve is, of course, completely empty. Depleted in whatever exodus had to be made of this place.
That disappointment is overshadowed immediately by the walls of datapads. Some are handheld and some require the use of a data port, which B-127 finds with relative ease near the edge of the room.
Resting his Energon canisters (which at this point are basically empty) in a nearby corner, B-1 gathers as many datapads as he can with his small wingspan, spilling them onto the center of the floor. They fall with flourish and many glow to life from the movement, illuminating the dim space.
The data console seems to have its own power source, so B-1 is confident that even if the central power system dies, he’ll still be able to read some of the data chips later on. Thank Primus.
The organization of the pads seems to be rather disorganized, whoever tasked with putting them together apparently not the most orderly. This would be more annoying to an older bot, but B-127, a small tired sparkling, doesn’t mind starting in the wrong order. This is more than he had hoped to find here.
A nervous trepidation spreads along his plating and B-1 is seized with tension, his servos gripping the first data pad with unnecessary force. He hesitates in turning it on. He wants more information, wants to understand the hunger for survival he has been programmed with, but his spark shrivels at the idea of having to find out on his own.
That itself is puzzling to him. Why should he care? He has been alone thus far, what good would having a bot around do now? Integrating information is as easy as venting to any Cybertronian.
It just. It bothers him, and his emotional centers are frustratingly underdeveloped to deal with it. What is more infuriating is the fact that he knows it. How useless is it to be born so helpless and yet be given the knowledge of it? He would prefer ignorance. Instead, he is trapped in this middle ground new sparks are onlined in.
Had he been taken in by caretakers – which B-127 thinks is supposed to be the norm – then perhaps it would not be so bothersome. Because even though he knows he is naïve, at the very least he would have bots to guide him through understanding. They would know what to do.
But that is not how things have happened, and his lack of awareness will only risk him being deactivated sooner. He was not built a quitter and that is not about to change.
With shaking digits, B-127 powers on the data pad.
***
A war. Of course it is a war.
He already knew that. Sort of. In his spark, he knew.
A majority of the files on each data pad are debrief notes. B-1 discovers that the building he is in is a rather poor excuse for a barracks for a faction known as the Autobots. The paragraphs he reads are thankfully rather informal, mostly complaints about lack of Energon and the weather or, to put it simply, petty gossip. B-127 makes a notation with no small amount of disappointment that there is a shortage of Energon everywhere, not just here. This place, at some point, was a very stagnant place to be stationed.
The Decepticons are the enemy of the Autobots, B-1 is able to put this together fairly easily. Aside from some more well-worded reports about scouting missions or “seeker sightings,” the bots often leave scathing or sarcastic remarks about them in the margins. B-127 is very amused by this and giggles more than once while reading.
There are a few video recordings on file that don’t seem to be anything important. Mostly video logs of the bots inside the barracks, added from their own optic records. B-127 watches them over several times, even after the central power system gives and he is plunged into ambient darkness. It is strange to hear the voices of other mechs and femmes. They each sound differently from each other and B-1 loves to listen to them simply speak to each other. He learns several rather colorful curse words as they mess around. The logs have absolutely no value to anyone, and B-127 deduces that they’ve been added to the archive simply just… for fun.
“—I’m tellin’ you, if you leave that nasty thing on my berth again, I’ll turn ya over to the cons!” One femme threatens, and it sounds scary, but she’s smiling at whoever is recording and has a laugh lodged in her intake. B-1 catalogs the nuance.
“Oh please, you’d have to catch me first!” Replies the mech – Dasher, according to the file description.
B-1 listens to them bicker until he cannot take it anymore, swiping the feed away. His spark is cold in his chest once again. Lonely, and aching in a way he hasn’t felt in days. His jaded attitude peels away from him so fast he shivers.
It had been easy to forget that the shells outside had once lived. B-127 knew, and understood that as fact, but really how much could he truly care when he has never seen one before? Now he has, and they were so… they were so close. A unit, as the datapad had told him. They were alive and hopeful of better days, so much so that they had grown bored of their post and spent their solar cycles simply being a community.
In the end, that must have been what killed them.
Now hurting with the loss of bots he has never, and will never meet, B-127 truly knows the consequences of his curiosity. The weight of life is suddenly so heavy, and B-1 feels stellar-cycles older. He doesn’t smile anymore as he continues to look through the archive.
A new pad reveals a list of names, of each member of the unit. B-127 studies each one and recognizes several from the corpses he has come across, or from the video logs. Some, though, he has never seen before. He holds hope that they escaped whatever came and destroyed their peaceful boredom. The Decepticons. Nothing else makes sense.
The purple and green one from his first day here was the unit scout, designation Briskcharge, a new recruit. This place was his first assignment.
The two femmes in the Energon reservoir were sisters, a split spark. El-0 and Em-2. One was a trainee medic and the other a warrior class. They both have excellent marks noted in their files. They would have been amazing, if given time.
The list continues and B-127 mourns for the bots with his newly deepened empathy, feeling utterly out of place on this planet. What good is a new spark in a war?
It has been going on for vorns now, according to some records. The factions are split aggressively, with neutral parties tragically stuck in the middle. B-1 is not quite sure which of the factions holds the moral high ground, but the Decepticons have a much higher death toll.
He moves to the data chips once he has gone through everything. He intakes a small amount of Energon when he realizes just how long he has been sitting here. He wants to deny it, but his chronometer is blaringly accurate in its display on his HUD.
B-127 searches and finds much of the same – though he is certain these contain more sensitive information. He is proved right when there are several chips he simply cannot get access to. They hide behind encryptions he does not even hope to decipher with such inexperienced programs, and even if they were more viable, it would take serious schooling and upgrades to get through the first firewall.
Well, it may be asking a bit too much to be fresh out of the Well and cracking intricate codes. He loses interest in the inaccessible chips and sets them aside.
All in all, B-127 learns a lot that day. Learns the names of each of the soldiers who once lived here. Learns of the war he hadn’t asked to be born into. Learns about protocol and weaponry and Energon reserves, though unfortunately not their locations. Of the state of cities and the Decepticon’s recent unrest. Too much for a Sparkling with a budding neural net, but he reads it anyway.
He also learns of the existence of a certain Optimus Prime.
***
The settlement is left behind soon after his educational experience. Now that he understands the purpose of the place, the phantoms of what once was haunt him, more than his subroutines can try to convince him to stay. He can’t, not when he feels he knew these people, like his spark connected. He didn’t, and he hasn’t, but he simply cannot shake it, no matter how irrational it is.
So he leaves. Near-empty canisters lazily strapped across his back. He leaves.
Energon is nigh impossible to locate, and B-1 only finds success by using the maps he integrated into his geo-cortex in the barracks. Cybertron is large and the atlas diagram is, for the most part, unmarked. Major cities are labeled clearly but smaller encampments are missing. B-1 guesses that if he had the right clearance or passwords, more information would be labeled.
Not one to be deterred, B-127 pushes on anyway.
To keep his mind occupied – and to distract from his sore struts and pulsing pistons – B-127 keeps his own company. One-sided conversations aren’t really as fun as he would like, but at the very least he never argues with himself. He reenacts many of the conversations from the video logs, word for word, even acting them out when he finds a place to stop for the cycle. It’s not that exciting, but at least it is even somewhat stimulating. The heavens above don’t seem too impressed, but B-1 doesn’t really care. It only makes the idea of one day having a real conversation all the more enticing.
An unending ache in his brain module makes itself known as more and more sensory updates stack on top of each other and his cache becomes clogged as he forces them to the back of his subroutines. When he does find a source of Energon, he allows one or two to flow through, but the new inputs and optimizations do little to ease his over-taxed CPU. The error screens that are irritatingly present on his HUD make this expressly clear. His buffers feel likely to snap any cycle now.
His build is efficient, and his operating system handles the excess information with tired poise, considering his state, but it’s not enough. He needs Energon, resources, and a pleasant recharge. In the orbital cycles he wanders the ruins of his planet, B-127 is seldom rewarded for his efforts.
***
He keeps to the shadows, even when he finds a small colony that appears relatively intact. In his travels he has learned what a “seeker sighting” is and does his very best not to be shot at by any platoon of Decepticon flyers. They apparently have a reputation of shooting first, asking questions later.
So, staying hidden is good. There are not too many bots here, but B-1 can’t tell their allegiance, so he takes great caution. He wishes to think that Autobots would treat him well, but he isn’t sure, he is even less so about the Decepticons. Neutrals would be best. The time spent alone has made him a tad cynical. Regardless of faction, he isn’t sure any of them would want to take on another intake to fuel. Not when B-127 has virtually nothing to offer them.
Getting the courage to test his luck has been rather strenuous and B-1 hates how he trembles at the idea. He wants to meet, to talk to other bots. He does.
Flush drains line the perimeter of the colony, and B-127 makes one of them a sort of base of operations. He has a small amount of Energon collected from his ambling through ruins or forgotten battlefields. It’s not ideal, but he has been able to cope with it. He has a several step plan to finally introduce himself at some point, each step mostly involving him procrastinating. He goes over it day after day, refining it and adding more steps that might help him appear somewhat… useful.
If he can just prove his worth for even a solar cycle, that’ll be enough. He can scrub floors, buff bots, something. He’s small, sure. Inexperienced, yes! But don’t let it be said he isn’t a hard worker. Well, he doesn’t really know if he is – he has spent all his time surviving, does that count as work? It should count for something, at least, right?
His processor whines, hurting and already so exhausted, it can’t take more of his overthinking.
He has yet to imagine exactly how to prove he can do anything, but surely they’d be willing to give him a chance. It’s the instinct of bots to help a poor helpless new spark, isn’t it? If they just give him a chance. It’ll work. It will, he has hope. There’s always hope.
If they don’t want him… he’ll leave, that’s fine, he will. He can be alone, he knows alone.
The plan is flawless, sort of. Not really. It’s really rather bad, actually. Maybe he should just scrap it and start over –
These thoughts wrack his neural cortex for solar cycles. He pushes off action over and over until his own betraying spark forces his servo.
After a rather fitful recharge session, B-127’s body awakens tense. His optics stare blankly for ages as he silently digests the information blinking across his HUD.
There is urgency thrumming through him. On top of all of his delayed downloads, a fated frame update has scheduled itself. His first of many meant to happen over the next several orbital cycles. The first weary spin of his T-cog as it rearranges his frame into what will eventually become him. His whole self. Rationally, B-127 is aware that it would happen, it’s common knowledge even to him, but he had hoped to be in a better spot to deal with the strain.
With the Energon pumping through his fuel lines, he’ll fry his motherboards before any of his joints even begin to shift. The first update is never a large one, but it’s enough that B-1 knows he just simply doesn’t have enough fuel.
Even if it doesn’t, there is the issue of his growth, period. More mass means more Energon to keep his spark alive, and even with an infant protoform, he has been struggling.
He won’t last long. His processor can’t make up for a weak frame. It won’t matter how determined he is, once his engines give out, so will his spark.
His chronometer sits menacingly in the corner of his HUD, counting down to the inevitable. Static fills his stack as the weight of the files bears down on the smaller, less essential ones. It’s probably not smart to ignore them all, but B-127 knows no better. Or maybe he does, and simply doesn’t care.
With dizzy spells and near blue-screens becoming an increasingly volatile issue, B-1 knows he has no chance of sneaking into the settlement. Not without tripping over himself and alerting every bot there to his existence. There’s no time to wait until the cover of night, either.
No, if B-127 wants to survive this, he’ll have to ask for help. He’ll have to be seen.
By living, functional bots.
Cycles ago, that prospect was exciting. Now it just leaves an unpleasant burning on the underside of his plating. He wants to be liked, valued, but Primus there is a war, what on Cybertron can he do?
Ah well, needs must. He has to try. Weak and small as he is, B-1 has to try.
So, as he hobbles from his dank sanctuary, B-127 tries to remember the video logs of the lost soldiers, orbital cycles ago but still fresh in his data cache. Thinks of the lost scout and the sisters, who all met a bitter end. He chooses to see their hopeful expressions from the logs rather than the final lock of their dying faceplates.
Whatever the Autobot cause is, those bots believed in it. Enough to die for it. In B-1’s version of the story, the sisters died with fury and courage in their eyes, defending their Energon from the tyrannical Decepticons. Briskcharge took that lance to his chassis moments after delivering vital information to whatever major headquarters he reported to. They may have lost that battle, but their mettle was proven through their sacrifice.
It’s a heroic picture, and B-127 uses it to spur him on.
His pedes are unsteady and worn, but he marches with a fiery confidence he does not fully believe. The crest of the colony is close, and two mechs guarding the perimeter spot him immediately. This is definitely not how his plan was supposed to go – how exactly was it supposed to go? His memory banks are annoyingly uncooperative. He stops where he is, taking in a deep ventilation. He squares his shoulders and pulls his antennae back, standing as tall as a new spark riddled with update errors can.
Meeting their wide and puzzled optics is easy, he sees them so clearly. He wonders if Briskcharge felt this way when he arrived at his first and only station.
Well, no need to mix bolts.
“Hey!” He yells, vocoder crackling slightly. His door wings shudder with a twinge of shame. Great start, dynamo they’ll totally let you in now.
The two bots jump, startled by his sudden outburst. They are both armed, B-127 scans the small blasters mounted to their forearms, but neither of them pull their weapons on him, which is a relief considering he had expected to have been fired upon by now. “Is that a sparkling?” One of them whispers to the other, confusion and astonishment laced in his tone. B-127’s audials barely pick up the frequency.
Unwilling to let his resolve slip away, B-127 pushes on, taking another badly telegraphed step forward. He sees no reason to lie, so he doesn’t. His plan was slag anyway, and he doesn’t want to die in such a stupid way. With a cleared vocoder and another shuddering vent, B-1 makes his very first demand.
***
“Honestly, I am amazed that you’ve survived this long, it’s incredible,” says the medic. She is rather fussy and seems more enamored by B-127’s existence than caring for his current predicament. Still, she doesn’t hesitate to hand him his second Energon cube, bringing out a third to give to him later. B-127 accepts it with ravenous gratitude. The medic gives him a keen smile, which B-1 likes very much – making people smile, that is. Especially her, since she’s the first person to ever smile at him, it feels special.
She had hastily introduced herself as Toxrine, barely getting the words out before she forces all of the curious bots away from her… clinic? It’s more of a shed. B-1 is both saddened and relieved when the crowd has to leave. While he is overjoyed that he has been welcomed into the settlement, the sudden rush of attention is a tad overwhelming.
Toxrine must know this and kicks them all out, but B-1 can tell a lot of them are hovering just outside. They don’t know just how well he notices stuff like that, not yet, Toxrine seems none the wiser. She is a flyer, but her wings are a lot smaller than the ones of the seekers he has seen zoom through the skies. Maybe they get bigger? Robot modes can sometime be disproportionate to their alt-mode. Do doctors have to fly very often? Does she enjoy it? If B-1 could get a word in, he would ask.
She also talks a lot. B-127 is pretty sure her intake hasn’t stopped moving since they met all but a handful of kliks ago. So, needless to say, B-1 quite likes her. She’s a lot more interesting to listen to than himself.
He shrugs. “I did my best,” he explains, finding his voice rather soft in comparison to hers. Childish, his infodex unhelpfully defines.
Tutting her denta, she shakes her helm at the data pouring in from his processor, the display a wash of information that B-1 can’t even begin to understand. “Goodness, child, you are two processes away from creating an interloop!” She exclaims with no small amount of dismay. “What a mess,” she then mutters, mostly to herself.
More of that uncomfortable shame spreads and B-1 casts his optics to the floor. “Sorry,” he whispers, unsure of what exactly he has done wrong. This is what he feared, only just accepted and she has already found something wrong with him. The viewing of his processor isn’t something about this experience he particularly enjoys, and it leaves a strange fog in his helm. Like optics are sifting through his every thought.
Apparently having realized her tone, the femme returns her optics to him, pulling her servos from her display console and kneeling to where he is sat on a rather large recharge berth. “Don’t be, little one. You’ve done what you’ve had to, in order to remain online, yes?” Toxrine inquires, voice gentler than before.
Nodding, he places his empty cube beside him, finials pulling back despite his waning attempts to keep them in place.
She exvents, placing a reassuring hand on his helm. “Well, you’re here now. I’m sorry there was no one at the Well when you emerged…” she leans back on her pedes, canary-yellow and maroon paint flashing under the overhead lights. B-1 reads her expression as pensive. “I had thought the Autobots had scouts stationed there…”
His helm tilts, and he gives her a shake of his helm. “There was no one.”
While clearly not exactly pleased with this information, Toxrine hums her understanding. “Regardless, now it won’t be necessary for you to backlog all of these patches,” she gestures to the insurmountable wall of code on the screen. “It’s not safe, nor is it healthy. With this much stored in your buffers, you risk a few errors evolving into full blown corruption.”
That sounds very bad. “Oh,” is all he manages to say. He’s so stupid, a glitch of a spark, of course that was a horrible idea.
“Yes, ‘oh’ indeed. You’re far too young to have to deal with that.” Replies Toxrine, returning to her full height to examine the wall of text once more. “Corrupted files are one thing, that, a medic can fix. I’ve already kickstarted your self-repair, your errors will be corrected in kliks. Now, corrupted hardware? Another unfortunate story.” Her wings sag. “Bio-components like that cannot be healed that easily.” For a moment, she is silent, optics staring at the data-screen but taking in nothing.
Then, in an instant, she shakes herself back to vibrance, stretching a grin across her derma. “So! Let’s try to avoid this in the future. Should it happen again, it could stunt your frame – or even lock you out of essential programs and that would be so awful for a new spark and there’s no telling what it cou—”
Her rambling continues and B-1 tries to keep up with her instructions as best he can, because of course it’s all important and essential and every new spark should already know this stuff yadda yadda yadda. You’re stupid and you should have known better and now I’ve got to fix you.
It’s mostly helpful if not a little embarrassing.
His attention is mostly occupied by the swirl of information on the screen, and even more so the frame update which slowly counts down in the corner of his HUD. Toxrine is supposed to be helping him with it, afterwards she is then supposed to escort him to a couple of bots who are willing to house him, if not permanently then just for the night. He isn’t exactly clear on that yet and he doesn’t have the courage to ask.
As the numbers tick lower and lower, the medic only seems to talk more and more.
While his Energon levels are now even above optimal levels, which he hasn’t experienced since he first onlined, he still remains wildly unprepared for the change. In theory his CPU will do all of the heavy lifting, he just has to allow it to. However, with the proverbial junk pile of ignored updates piled on his drives, B-1 has his doubts about how smoothly his frame will handle it. He doesn’t want to interrupt, not when she is going out of her way to help him. It would be rude, and the last thing he needs to do is upset these people.
This isn’t exactly how he’d hoped for his first experience with other bots to go.
***
“Oh Primus! We really don’t have a lot of time, do we?” Exclaims Toxrine, having finally cut herself off from her endless chatter about the importance of “fuel line care” and “pre-mature information creep” to actually look at B-1’s schedule log.
His optics roll, but he allows a smile to spread across his intake. “No, not really. That’s why I barged in here.” He mentally kicks himself, that is not how you make people like you. Just because it feels natural doesn’t mean you should say it! This is all his fault, talking to himself for so long, he’s forgotten all his social protocols in the back of his slogged processor.
Only, Toxrine doesn’t pay his tone any mind. Pressing her palms together, she shakes her helm swiftly, and B-1 can practically see her brain module kicking into overdrive. The pinch of her derma, the squaring of her shoulders, he sees it all. “Right, of course – let’s see.” Her expression grows further thoughtful, roaming over the screen and actively avoiding B-127’s inquisitive stare. She’s uncomfortable. Why?
Her cheery demeanor becomes disconnected and clinical in a flicker of the optics. “We’ll have to do a batch upload of all these updates before your frame shifts – it’ll just cause more problems if we wait.”
He nods, that makes sense.
She drums her digits across the console. “Unfortunately, it may not be the most… pleasant.” She explains, turning from the screens to him, looking down on him with professional empathy. “Normally, these don’t take up much processing power as they download – they’re important enough, but they can still be sent to the back of your neural net so a budding sparkling can worry about other things.” Her persona breaks for a moment to give an encouraging smile, before it drops to something more somber. “But doing them all at once…”
“It’s gonna give me a helm-ache,” he surmises simply, more so in unfortunate acceptance than in question.
“—it will put stress on your processor,” Toxrine amends with an amused laugh, optics gazing at him in some form of awe. “You’ll be alright, your wiring is new and still – thankfully – in near-perfect condition. I’d put you into recharge for it if I could, but a frame update necessitates a conscious mind.” She adds, her professionalism swiftly failing as she immediately turns apologetic.
B-127 is pretty sure he already knew that, an inherent fact to ensure a new spark’s smooth growth, but he appreciates her kindness and intent to keep him informed. It’s nice, leaves his chassis buzzing with warmth that isn’t simply because of his engines. “That’s okay,” he tells her, because it is. He isn’t exactly fond of pain, but earlier today he wasn’t sure he would even survive the cycle. So, some discomfort is certainly tolerable.
Besides, he’d hate to upset her more.
His reassurance helps, and she visibly brightens, her optics shining like the stars he so enjoys.
“Alright, then let’s get started. You’ve got nothing to fear, little spark.”
Fear seems like a big word. He wants to tell her he’s scared, but he has no fear. No, fear is what has held him captive since the very solar cycle he emerged. Fear is what has had him hiding from the light, from the stars, from his people. Fear is what clung to Briskcharge, El-0 and Em-2, in their last moments.
Fear is what keeps him clinging to life even with a quivering frame.
***
It’s worse than he was expecting.
Pain lances through his helm like nothing he has felt before and it is nothing like the dull throb that follows him in his Energon deficiency. He can feel the heat building in his neural cortex as it slogs through the excess information. His optics flicker from the stress, and they cast a hazy feed as opposed to his normal pristine picture.
He can’t help it, his vocoder crackles to life. “Hurts,” he whines, clawing at his helm as if he could pull the exhausted wires from his head.
Toxrine gives him a remorseful glance, but keeps her attention on the data console. Shockingly silent as opposed to her earlier demeanor. “Almost done,” she quietly reassures, and despite the pain, B-1’s plating tingles with the warmth of it. He hones in on it, on the comfort of another. She’s so nice, and nice to him. Not just nice to someone on a video log he replays over and over. She honestly cares for his wellbeing.
And in spite of the discomfort, B-127 can actively feel his CPU optimizing, and it is so very annoying. He is glad and equally peeved that this pain is already feeling very worth it.
Seemingly reading his thoughts, Toxrine chirps, daring to look at him with hopeful optics. “Just think, once all of this is over, you’ll have the beginnings of a processor, and a frame fit for such a lovely paint job!”
That leaves him barking with laughter and for a moment, B-127 forgets the pain. He knew it. He knew bots would appreciate his paint! Take that, stars!
***
In comparison, the frame update is so very mild. When his chronometer finally meets zero, the quiet whir of his T-cog and the rearranging of his plating only takes a matter of kliks. Thankfully, it does not hurt in the slightest, not like the batch updates. Though it does leave him in desperate need of a recharge, and upon the last click of his pistons, Toxrine shoves his last cube of Energon nearly straight into his intake.
The change had been smaller than either of them were expecting. He’s a decent few inches taller and in rotating his helm as much as he can, B-1 discovers that his already over-sized wings have somehow grown even more awkwardly large on his back. This is a little annoying, but at least it didn’t fry him.
His chestplate holds more definition, and along his forearms now end in twin razor-like edges. His pedes and cadulens have significantly more plating. He feels strong, reinforced despite his lean frame. Completely different from his infant protofrom.
“Huh, I wouldn’t have guessed that,” Toxrine mumbles to herself.
He’s inclined to agree.
It had been difficult to tell, without their first frame, most new sparks are indistinguishable from each other in terms of build or class. There are signs, of course, but nothing can be confirmed until the first shift of their plating.
B-127 had hoped that with this new update – given he survived it – his first frame would help him to find some sort of worth to offer the settlement. It’s pretty clear that he’ll never be construction class, but maybe something more… menial? Like maybe some sort of tech or assistant.
It appears that B-127 is neither.
He feels them folding into place, twin barrels on either forearm just under his plating, waiting to be brought out once his T-cog grows active. There are empty slots in his neural cortex where combat protocols can easily be inserted with proper teaching.
No, B-1 is no construction class.
Toxrine voices her thoughts, staring openly. “I haven’t seen the Well make warframes in a long, long time.”