Fox Season

By Jazzfox


"Did you ever think it would come to this?"

"What? The war or the boredom?" Ambush pushed his head over the ridge.

"Bore- Well, both I guess." Scuttle, the smaller of the two mused as he followed Ambush's example to peer over, "I mean, I used to campaign AGAINST Turbofox hunting with Mirage back in the day, you know?"

There was their game in a silver field of patchwork metals that jutted from the ground, a group of at least five or six of the small technological creatures.

Each was small, only up to knee height of the average Cybertronian, plain silver hides with pointed heads and ears and a large rudder like tail to each, with a body built for speed; the Turbofox was the fastest example of Cybertronian fauna there was, which made it all the more prize worthy for hunting.

"Looks like Swindle's tip was on the money," Ambush peered from under a darkened visor to ensure no wayward glint caught his optics to warn their targets. "The planet's an overcooked ball of mechwaste, but there are still some scraps of life kicking about pulling themselves together...

"And I'll wager you, the so called Auto-cops have much more on their mind than you and me blowing off some steam right now."

Scuttle looked from Ambush back to the nest of creatures, watching them apprehensively through his own set of goggles, "I don't know about this, I-"

He stopped as Ambush's heavier hand fell on his shoulder, threatening to indent the plated skin. "Don't go into 'safe mode' on me. We paid good Shanix for this. We wanted an experience; let's go get one, alright?"

The larger bot's face remained placid even as sparks began to break free of the shoulder plate that he was crushing, waiting until Scuttle seethed, "Okay, okay, I'll do it alright?"

Ambush let go, sliding back down the peak a few meters, "Good. You remember your part in this?"

"How can I forget?" Scuttle's mouth held tight together as he wrung his shoulder joint and tested its movement.

"Then bring it!"

Scuttle didn't wait for a second warning as armor plating swung in all directions. His body fell forward when a set of tracks sprouted underneath him and strung together as he reconfigured into tank mode. And then two small turrets now turned to aim toward the Turbofox.

He had to remind himself that they barely counted as life, just a flicker of a spark, no purpose, just forever wandering around, fighting over scraps... Why did the two small ones have to be playing like that?

"Fire already!"

Scuttle felt Ambush's voice like a squeeze on the trigger, his small gun set peppering the ground of the clearing, but missing every single Turbofox.

Instantly the foxes were up and away. They took off like peels of lightning, silver streaks that tore away across the plains in panic.

And Ambush grinned. After all, there had to be sport to make it enjoyable.

"Let's roll right over them!" Ambush roared as loudly as the engine that kicked into life in his chassis, his body shifting rapidly from robot to a wide, streamlined speeder, right before the newly formed red vehicle took after the Cybertronian fauna.

"Wait! Wait up!" Scuttle struggled to get over the peak, barely stopping himself from tipping over it when he rattled down the other side and after his would-be partner.

But the difference was worlds apart, the Turbofox were darting back and forth like light across circuit boards, in and out they weaved between petrified cables and jagged metal crags to evade their pursuers: but even so Scuttle still pushed himself to try and keep up.

Ambush however was a far different matter; the sleek vehicle hugged the planes and let the wind slip over his spoiler: if the Turbofox were like lightning, then he was the thunder following after.

"Ambush, dead ahead! Watch that overhead!"

Whether or not Ambush listened to Scuttle was one thing, but he certainly didn't reply, instead the front of his vehicle mode twisted back to reveal a hardened plough, just in time to ram through one of the vine like cables and send rotten metal debris in his trail.

Some of it bounced off the mini-tank's shell, leaving more than a few dents as it flew straight at him. His engine choking on Ambush's fumes, his treads squealed in agony as they threatened to come undone and skid away, but still Scuttle pushed on.

"Careful!"

"Careful?" Ambush finally replied with a harsh laugh, "Careful is for cannon fodder!"

Finally Ambush had caught up.

One of the Turbofox had lagged behind, and now he was in striking distance. The spoiler atop his alt mode split in two, each half folding to his side and extending like a set of bladed wings.

"Eat this, flotsam!" He cried out over his engine when a burst of fuel sent him rushing forward, right past the Turbofox.

And as he did, the bladed weapon went right through the creature's neck.

Ambush watched the rear view of its head spiraling upward, but the rest of its body carried on with its former momentum, hitting the ground suddenly far more fragile, disintegrating with each impact into component scraps and circuits until there was nothing left.

"Hey, Scuttle, make sure you don't flatten my trophy!" He laughed as he poured on speed once more to catch up to the rest of the pack.

The chase was coming to an end now, the planes now made way to an expanse where the planets plate curved down like a giant dent, filled with flowing, fetid rust.

With the rust ocean at their front and nothing but ruins of scrap piled far too high to scale, Ambush's game was nearly at an end: but his fun certainly wasn't as he pulled up towards a smaller member of the nest.

He didn't overtake it, instead he put all effort to stay alongside the creature, lining up until he had his wheel arches in line with the Turbofox's head.

The wheel suddenly sprouted spikes, rotating into a vicious spinning blade that began to slowly extend closer and closer to its victim, the Turbofox looking back and forth as it tried to maneuver away.

"I already got one head, so I won't need yours!" With a hiss of Ambush's pneumatics, the blade punched forward, and with it came a flash of silver and a sudden, terrible crunching noise that ended it.

Ambush would only wonder why the Turbofox was unharmed for a micro-second. The rest of his attention would wonder why the blade and its axel had suddenly snapped, and with it torn away half his wheel housing, sending his alt mode crashing in flame into one of the mountains of scrap metal.

It was Scuttle whom had been able to see it unfold, but had been far too late to alert Ambush.

The silver flash had not been a Turbofox running away from Ambush's concealed weapon: it had turned on him instead.

The flash had collided with the long bladespokes and now the visual result was standing there. As all the other Turbofox would come to a halt, they would begin to turn back to the new figure that stood holding Ambush's axel prominently in its maw.

It was a Turbofox, but it couldn't have been one. This one was far larger than any normal turbofox, five, six times larger than them. The others gathered around it nipping at its heels, barking for attention or nuzzling close in any way they could.

Scuttle thought frantically but couldn't work out what he was looking at, only that he needed to find a way to haul Ambush away for repairs.

Of course, by then Scuttle realized that the thing was staring right at him.

It spat out Ambush's wheel housing and he was already throwing his treads in reverse. It came leaping at him even as he sprayed the ground in fire while the other Turbofox fled.

"Stay away from me!" He cried over his own covering fire, raising his seldom-used main gun instead.

"I didn't even want to be here!" He pleaded as his direct interface switched to the cannon's targeting system, right in time to see the giant Turbofox's face fill the screen.

He blasted and it dodged, a plume of purple smoke igniting on the distance where his payload fell instead. And then the terrible noise came again, as fangs came crushing down on his turret's barrel with the same force that had nearly torn Ambush's alt mode in half.

He scrabbled uselessly for grip with those worn treads, but the thing wouldn't let go. Suddenly it swung it's head and his tiny tank mode might as well have been made of tin as he was sent flying.

Scuttle lay there, engine spluttering over as he struggled to transform, parts scraping and wrenching at each other where the damage had mounted up, but finally there he was in robot form, looking up to see all of the Turbofox now gathered around him, circling and snarling.

He reached for a weapon, a blaster, a pipe, anything to hold them back, but found instead the largest ones claws in his forearm. Its claws sheared through his arm's metal before another leg caught his shoulder, pinning him helpless and left staring up into the beast's yellow eyes.

Scuttle tried to imagine if this was how he had seen his end, or if it was the end he had cheated too long. He remembered the day on Terran 5 when Megatron's fusion cannon had framed his face, and a sudden volley of fire distracted tyrant long enough for him to run.

And by Primus he had ran long and hard.

He looked in the optics of this terrible Turbofox and saw the same waiting glint of a gun barrel, and knew his time had finally ran out.

He tried to think what to say but found nothing but static in his voice box.

"Stay... Away..." Spoke the Turbofox, the words curled and alien upon a muzzled face.

Scuttle stared at it, a new creeping horror shorting through his struts, "What?"

Fangs were bared and ground against the words as they came out twisted and far more forceful when the Turbofox spoke again, "Stay! Away!"

~~~~~~~~~~

"...I take it you obtained the proper license for Turbofox hunting before this all began?"

Scuttle looked up incredulous at the Autobot in front of him in the crowded medical booth, "What?"

"Turbofox are an endangered, and protected species, you did know there are strict regulations regarding their number control?"

Scuttle's jaw hung loose, and it wasn't because Fixit had missed the loose rivet holding it in place, as he tried to make sense of what had just been asked, "I just told you... I was attacked! Me and Ambush, attacked! By a thing that looks like a Turbofox - a Turbofox that SPOKE to me - and he's still missing!

"And- And you're trying to pull me up on a.. On a... Hunting ticket?"

"Indeed," In the time Scuttle had wasted to even ask, Prowl had already had time enough to send a cross reference against Ambush and Scuttle's serial numbers; recognize they had neither permission nor request lodged for any Gaming permit, and even filed them away for later reference, "I apologize. Forgive my... Insensitivity."

Scuttle was a mess. There he was laid out on a recharge slab, his weapons array completely removed and his left arm held together by a skeletal fixation as Fixit went about trying to connect so many severed servos.

Still, he didn't consider that as bad as when the two Autobot officers had entered the small, soulless booth: Prowl scowling in all his harsh black and whites, displaying the Autobrand on his chest as if thrusting it in Scuttle's face, and a second bot he didn't recognize with a ridiculous face plate and antennae so wide they looked like the handles for the Matrix.

Although he couldn't help be terrified by the head security officer, he couldn't stop glancing in irritation at the second Autobot who kept getting in Fixit's way at every turn trying to examine his injuries.

"So then what happened?" Wheeljack spoke up before Fixit blocked his way again.

"Then?" Scuttle looked at the other Autobot, and faltered, his head titling downward slowly, "Then... it just... let go of me.

"And I ran," his body shook, "I couldn't get Ambush, I just ran, again."

Prowl nodded aside to Wheeljack, waiting until the scientist was sufficiently heading out of the door before holding a small, quiet conversation amidst himself and the scientist.

Scuttle tried to tune in, using his good hand to adjust an antennae aside his helmet, but before he could even get past Fixit's quiet mumblings, Prowl had turned on him with a look almost incriminating.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Scuttle, but I'm going to have to ask you to come with us."

"Wha-"

"He's in no condition to go anywhere!" Fixit declared with a sudden burst of authority, "You barge in here and start questioning my patient before I've even finished soldering the seams? I bet Ratchet never put up with half the disrespect you give me!"

"You're right," Prowl looked to the medic, "Ratchet didn't. Now give him a patch job, just enough to get him on his feet."

As Fixit resigned himself, Scuttle spoke up, "Why? Where are we going?"

Prowl took out a datapad and began to tap it rhythmically, "Because you're going back to that outcrop where that Turbofox attacked you."

"What?!" Scuttle struggled to try and get off the recharge slab from the crazed security enforcer, "No I'm not!"

Prowl looked up from the pad, then offered it to Scuttle instead, "Considering I just filed you for hunting violations, either you come with us for community service, or I let you work in the scrapyard with all these cons."

Scuttle took one look at the list then felt his voicebox burnout in his throat when he couldn't think up a single thing to say to save himself.

~~~~~~~~~

"Well, at least now you don't need to worry about your friend being missing anymore," Prowl drily commented, a cold hand on Scuttle's shoulder.

The smaller bot had been patched up, patched being the adequate word as several dozen metal plates had been riveted on over his wounds. Still covered in dents and missing his weapons and backpack and with his injured arm held rigid in a support frame, he looked quite the sight.

Although at least he looked better than Ambush.

Back they were before the sea of rust, surrounded by mounds of waste metal and open wastes, but gone were the turbofoxes and gone was his fellow cybertronian.

In the place where Ambush had been now lay a pile of miscellaneous parts littered across the rusted beach, so badly torn up that the red paint hardly even showed anymore, and while only the odd recognizable limb was visible, the scraped clean skull casing told the rest of the story enough for the small bot.

And while Scuttle covered his mouth at the sight of it the other Autobot was rummaging through Ambush like a drawer to pick out parts and examine them more thoroughly.

"What do you make of it?" Prowl spoke again.

"All the armor plating is there..." Wheeljack held up the skull, turning it over and squinting until he could see the light pouring through the open optic sockets, "But all the internal circuitry has been plucked right out of him."

Scuttle felt like he was going to vomit.

"Not the body, our attacker." Prowl ignored Scuttle as he passed by the Neutral.

"You know? The way this T Cog scraped right through its casing? I reckon the poor spawn of a glitch was still trying to turn back to robot mode while they picked him clean."

"Wheeljack?"

Scuttle stumbled back a step or two and fell into a seated position against one of the junkpiles as he held his head.

"Check out these marks." Wheeljack indicated as he held up a bladed fin.

"Turbofox are nasty little critters with two sets of fangs. The first row acts like a clamp, they got a small magnet in each one: it's the second set that you gotta watch out for, they vibrate at high speed - kinda like an oscillating blade - to cut through anything they latch onto.

"Long story short? Once these guys get hold of you, they don't let go until they take a piece of you with them!"

"Wheeljack."

"I tell you, it's been a long while since I've seen anything look as bad as this one, it's not the end I'd wish for."

"Wheeljack."

Finally Wheeljack looked up from the less-than-corpse. It was amazing how Prowl could repeat the same word without raising pitch or tone and everyone knew when he was getting more annoyed with them.

"Our attacker, what do you make of it?"

"Well..." Wheeljack's hand rubbed over his faceplate in consideration, "Everything I see here is pretty much in line with any turbofox attack... but a Turbofox that can talk? I'm skeptical."

He turned back to the body he'd just been examining, "Only way we're going to be able to ID him now is by running the serial numbers, but safe to say, this is probably our NAIL."

"Don't call him that."

Wheeljack sighed, but Prowl didn't skip a beat when he turned back in Scuttle's direction, "Pardon?"

Scuttle tiredly looked up, "You know... I'm one of those 'non-aligned-indigenous-lifeforms' too. I've been torn to shreds; Ambush was LITERALLY torn to bits; and I STILL came out here with you. The least you could do is NOT use that word."

Scuttle suddenly stood up, striding over and staring up at Prowl's steadfast scowl, "We have names.

"HE had a name too. His name was Ambush. It was a good name! And- And..." Scuttle's free hand made a fist, shaking at his side as his head fell forward, "And... He- he's dead.

"Ambush is dead... and... and it's my fault... because I ran. Again. It's my fault..."

A hand lay on his back, and Wheeljack gently eased the smaller bot away from Prowl and back towards his former seat, "Kid, there was nothing you could've done. You were lucky just to get back as is."

Each word came with a gentle hum as his antennae would glow and dim alongside them, "It's not like we don't know what it's like to lose a friend, but there's a time and a place for this, and it ain't over your dead pal's body.

"I promise you, later we'll talk more, right now-"

"Right now we have more pressing issues." Prowl interjected.

Wheeljack peered over his shoulder, suddenly self-conscious that Prowl's optics had been fixed on them the entire time, looking back to Scuttle, "The thing that got your pal, we need to find out whatever we can, before it does something like this all over again. You understand?"

Scuttle felt like Fixit had welded iron to his every joint, he just sat there and slumped, he fidgeted with his goggles and finally looked back to Wheeljack wearily, "I've shown you where we came... and I've told you everything I know. Can I just... go home now?

"I swear, every moment I'm here I'm terrified that Turbofox is going to come back and get me."

Prowl glanced over, "Actually I'm counting on it."

"Wait, what?"

"So, are we doing crazy monster of the week shenanigans like the old days again?"
A voice hollered down from the tp of the junk heap Scuttle was sitting upon, he yanked his head back to try and see the owner, but the figure was already sliding down the hill towards them.

"Because I tell you what, that would be just a treat compared to life in the slow lane lately." The blue Autobot was sleek and dynamic - apart from the being blue - everything Scuttle wasn't, and unlike the other Autobots, this one he knew well.

"Blurr?" Scuttle tested, hesitant to trust his optics after his afternoon of being used as a Turbofox chew toy, "'Twelve time Iacon 5000 Speedracer Champ' Blurr?"

The speedster turned to Scuttle with a winning grin he'd seen on vid-discs a hundred times over, "That's my name, don't wear it out."

Blurr extended a hand and stepped forward, but Scuttle could see his step was awkward, a limp in his gait, "Always nice to meet a fan, been a while though. Four million years of killing each other, you know?"

"Blurr." Prowl spoke just loud enough to be heard, loud enough for Blurr to turn and see him standing waiting, "How's the leg?"

The blue Autobot stood for a second, his gaze fixed on Prowl's before he spoke carefully, "Just peachy, Prowl."

And then just as curtly, Blurr turned back to Scuttle and disregarding the security officer, "So, what's your name, sport?"

Scuttle took the hand and shook it eagerly, "Y-yeah, my name's Scuttle, it's- it's an honor to meet you?"

But Scuttle's peripheral vision and the sight of Ambush ended the elation and reminded him starkly where they were, "I- I just wish this was under better circumstances."

"Hmm?" Blurr followed Scuttle's look to Wheeljack examining the parts, "Wait a click, is that Ambush?"

Just for a second Prowl's unreadable expression slipped, unable to hide the surprise there when he looked up from his datapad, "You knew him, Blurr?"

Wheeljack's surprise however seemed fixed upon the barely recognizable part in hand, looking from the bent and buckled wing back to Blurr, "There's, uh... not much of him to really recognize, is there?"

Blurr walked over - again Scuttle noticed it, every right step - and took the fin from Wheeljack, turning it over and examining it from every angle, "I might not be able to tell you guys serial codes or nothing, but I never, ever forget a weapon somebody used on me.

"Ambush used to be another circuit runner and these things used to be his calling card on the tracks. Only other racer I've seen take Drag Strip off the track."

"That was the Velocitron Run," Scuttle chipped in quickly, "When Override made her big debut?"

"Now THAT was a race night," Blurr's grin widened before he laid the blade out ceremoniously before Ambush's remains, before looking to Scuttle, "I'm guessing you used to be one of his pit crew, right?"

"Y-yeah," Scuttle replied a little unsure how to respond, "Ambush, he, he was never really the same after the day they shut the races down, I've always tried to stick close to him..."

Scuttle would've continued, but he stopped when Blurr's hand settled on his shoulder, "Tell you what, I own a bar these days, how about when this is all over you swing by and we can talk track stories some?"

Scuttle settled slowly, and looked up at Blurr with a relief that he hadn't felt in a good long time, he adjusted his goggles for a second before they leaked coolant, "I... I gotta tell you, that would be just- just get away!"

If Blurr was any other bot he wouldn't have had time to move, but that was for other bots, he was Blurr. He had time enough to turn; time enough to see the thing that pounced from the top of the scrapheaps; time enough to see where it was going; and then in one sweep grabbed Scuttle and threw them both back past the outstretched claws of the beast just before it collided with the opposite wall of metal where they had been a second previous.

Blurr skidded round, planting Scuttle face down to the ground and looked back at it: a sleek white body built for speed, claws and fangs fixed upon both of them, and - he had to laugh - glowing red optics.

"Stay... away..." The turbofox spoke, even as Prowl drew his blaster and Wheeljack bolted to his feet.

"It-it's back!" Scuttle went to shuffle up and away as quickly as he could, but found a hand stopping him.

"Everyone, quiet," Blurr kept the smaller bot close to the ground as he got up instead and shook his head back at Prowl, looking quickly back to the Turbofox, "Why should we, huh?"

He kept moving, watching as the Turbofox's head went from Scuttle to him, those optics fixed and narrowing, "Tell me that, you got a mouth on you, you should use it, right?"

The Turbofox began to growl, and its mouth curled and twisted trying to carve out new words, so slow they may have been words never spoken before, "Home... Our... Home..."

The words got faster, more confident, that mouth curling into a snarl instead now as the words barked aggressively instead at them, "Our... Home. Stay... away... our home!"

"Your home? That's fine, that's cool," Blurr kept his hands raised passively.

A bite, he stepped back just short of its fangs and a set of small metal spines began to rise on its hackles, but Blurr kept the distance close, kept moving it back from the others, "We don't want to hurt anyone, so why don't you keep talking, tell us what's going on, huh?"

The Turbofox moved and Blurr moved with it, it prowled forward, the others were silent and watching as the pair began circling each other, but Blurr kept talking, "Your home, our home, y'know? No reason to get snappy here..."

Blurr fired a quick glance back at Wheeljack and Prowl, "What do you guys say, this the Turbofox you were looking for?"

The fox's fangs gnarled together, its rudder like tail shook uneasily, and its optics swung over them one and all, then began to turn, fixed on Blurr, "Stay... away... our home."

And then with nothing more to say it fled, rushing off toward the plains.

Blurr turned back to Scuttle, helping the smaller bot up, "You okay there, sport?"

"I'm- I'm okay, thanks..."

"What do you think you're doing, Blurr?" Prowl yelled out as he came storming forward, "We're here to catch that thing, not talk to it! Get after that thing for Cybertron's sake!"

Blurr didn't do anything until he was sure Scuttle was up and Wheeljack had a hold of him. Then he took his time and turned to Prowl, looking at the gun in his hand, "I notice you didn't take a shot yourself?

"Guess you still don't like getting your own hands dirty, huh?"

Blurr didn't leave chance for reply; he just turned and ran, set on the white streak in the distance. A high pitched whine struck when his backpack swung up into a set of boosters, his awkward stride picked up speed until finally one foot lifted off the ground.

Faster than the optic could catch it blue panels rapidly switched and swapped mid-stride, fixing secure and flat before anti-gravs and engines flung to life, Blurr new alt mode skimmed over the ground and picked up speed, the whine kept building until his boosters kicked in and he almost seemed to transform again into a blue blur that ghosted after the trail of the turbofox.

Scuttle was the first one to talk, watching the white and blue gleams in the distance growing fainter and fainter, "...Do you think Blurr still has enough speed to catch up with that thing?"

Prowl glanced back, "Did you think I'd come out here without my ace in the hole?"

~~~~~~~~~

The Turbofox was fast, but Blurr was faster.

The fox leapt in ways so fast it was instinct, from one wall to another it climbed before it could even have the chance to register the angles, climbing as it ran to try and evade Blurr until all that was left was a jagged lightning bolt of white in its trail.

Blurr however was a speedster by experience, he throttled forward, straight for the sheer wall climbing ahead of him and didn't stop, not wanting to move until the last moment.

Turbofoxes were made fast to survive, but Blurr was built to be faster than everything else.

Before he could plough into the wall, Blurr flicked the front of his vehicle up; the boosters let loose another burst as his alt mode now instead of ramming the wall was sent flying toward it instead.

Still he waited, knowing this had to be split second timing.

Just about to hit the wall, his feet and panels slid apart inches from touching the surface, his arms split out and flew forward, grabbing at the metal outcrop then flinging his body upward, cartwheeling to land atop the cliff as his robot self, then falling forward once more into a vehicle in a final fluid change.

The turbofox glanced back at him but didn't waste a moment to turn back and start running again, it was still somehow picking up speed.

But now they were firmly in the plains now with no obstacles in their way.

The entire surface was an arid and bare pattern of craggy metal, as if the planet's surface had melted and reformed entirely before them. Out here on the straights there was nothing left but a burst to finish this.

It had been a long time since he'd been asked to go full pelt, but he didn't plan on drawing it out just for enjoyment.

Still, that didn't mean he couldn't do this with just a little flash.

He poured on the speed, pushing himself until he sat right behind the Turbofox and its ankles. Then just before he could hit it he swerved aside, slicing right past the Turbofox and then curving round in one motion.

The Turbofox skidded for a halt and Blurr kept going, he pulled the turn as tight as possible until he made a full circle around the Turbofox and pinned it in place, faster and faster until he'd penned it inside a blue spinning circle.

The fox turned its head back and forth incredulous, staggering back and forth in the tight space it had. It was pinned and without any room to try and leap over its new enclosure, it began to back up, trying to ready itself.

Then finally, Blurr made his move.

He suddenly swung his steering, his body splitting apart and his arms reaching out even as they were still forming.

And there as the boosters folded back, his head rose out of the apparatus before that winning grin shone, "Gotcha."

Blurr grabbed hold of the Turbofox round the waist and braced himself as it yelped and the two of them were flung into a spin. Blurr tightened his grip even while the thing tried to haul itself free, balling them both up as debris and dust clouds were sent in a path behind them. He was built to take spills, the fox wasn't.

Finally they'd come to a stop with his armor dented and buckled, but triumphant as he looked at the Turbofox in his grasp. One arm pinned across its waist, the other pulling its neck back to keep those teeth out of trouble.

It's legs squirmed back and forth, smacking off metal aimlessly, "Sorry little guy, back in the day I played by catch and release, but this time you gotta come with me."

"No..." It hissed past the hold Blurr had on its throat, flailing further. "No!"

That was when it got lucky. One flailing limb hit the metal plate of Blurr's right leg and the speedster grimaced, trying to tighten his grip to compensate.

Encouraged by his reaction, the hind legs of the fox kicked together again and again until metal buckled and the front of Blurr's already-damaged limb gave way, his arms fell loose as he seethed and seized and the Turbofox burst free, leaping away from his hold.

Blurr gripped his hand over the damaged and sparking limb, looking to get back up but found himself confronted again by the fox.

There he was grounded, and there it was standing in front of him as he tried to think of a way to turn the tables again.

It stood there with red optics fixed on him and for a moment Blurr had to wonder if it was the same feeling Ambush had experienced, if it was some kind of fate that two bots of the track would be felled by the fangs of something born for speed as well.

"Stay... away." The turbofox spoke, its stance relaxing as it began to pad forward tiredly, "Stay away... from... our home."

Blurr kept his mouth tight shut, not sure what to think here, but the Turbofox didn't wait for his answer, turning to run once more across the plains when the sound rang out across the empty land with an echo.

The gunshot caught Blurr by surprise but it more importantly caught the Turbofox by surprise as well. One moment it was bounding forward the next it fell and hit the ground with a hollow crash, its severed leg clattering to the ground afterwards.

The siren followed before Blurr could get up and move towards the quivering fox, but across the plane came a security vehicle followed by a small van that deposited Scuttle before turning into Wheeljack.

"Y'alright there, Blurr?" Wheeljack made his way over with Scuttle.

"Yeah... I've had worse tumbles. You wanna tell me what just happened there?"

"Like I said," Prowl transformed from the security vehicle back to robot mode as well, bearing a grin far more repulsive than any Blurr had ever used, "I kept my ace in the hole."

~~~~~~~~~

On a further off outcrop Sideswipe slowly stood, a still smoking rifle in arm, the black armored bot threw it over his bandolier and grinned at the far off sight of Prowl and the others gathered around his former target.

"Gotcha."

~~~~~~~~~

Scuttle looked at the workshop door.

He'd never been to Kimia before, but much like any building left standing in the planet's single city it was all repurposed. What had once been the Autobot's best and brightest scientific hive was now reduced to a council building where the most notable Autobot brass would huddle from the outside world.

He'd garnered more than a few cautious glances at his lack of any emblem from the residents, but at least the rest of him was a better sight now that Fixit had been given more time for repairs.

His armor repaired and his backpack in place once more, along with a fully functional arm, Scuttle had to marvel that it was a miracle what a day in the CR chambers could do. If no-one had seen him before they would never have even imagined any of the previous day's incidents that had befallen him.

He raised a hand and tentatively tapped the intercom, "Wheeljack? It's Scuttle, from yesterday, I-"

"Hey, come in!" The door swung upward without warning, "And make sure to close the door after when you do!"

Scuttle shuffled inside and hit the switch almost automatically, but stopped to try and take in the sheer sight of the workshop.

Possibly Wheeljack's office was the only room of the whole structure still dedicated to its purpose and it looked as if it was trying to compensate for every other workshop, desks were covered in strange tools in untidy stacks and inventions lay forgotten in various states of completion that piled to the ceiling.

"How you feeling anyhow, Scuttle?" The inventor stood stooped over a slab in the middle, his antennae still glowing and dimming with each word.

"Well, Fixit said I'm on the mend?" Scuttle flexed his arm just to test the new connections, "But... I wanted to come and ask, about... you know?"

"Gotta admit, I had you picked out wrong, kid," Wheeljack stepped back and allowed Scuttle the first glimpse at the table. That was where the Turbofox lay with its optics dimmed. "After the wringer Prowl threw you into yesterday, I thought you wouldn't want a thing to do with this anymore."

The Turbofox was hooked up to several monitors and instruments from where it was laid out on a recharge slab and restrained by a half dozen restraints. Scuttle couldn't help but still feel nervous, but his eye automatically slid to its leg, a visible seam showing it had been reattached.

"I... I figured I owed it to Ambush to see this through," He shuffled uncomfortably, "Thank you for letting me come and ask you about all this."

"Eh, after everything you went through, it's only fair I figure," Wheeljack kept rummaging through various tools far too intricate and strange for Scuttle to name.

"Anyhow, I wasn't lying when I told you I knew what you were feeling."

Scuttle fixed back on Wheeljack there, looking at the back of the inventor as he continued to try and sort though parts.

"Lost more apprentices than I can count: Sparkplug, Padlock, Ironfist... Figure that it'd be good to at least someone else get a bit of closure."

Scuttle wasn't quite sure how to take the thought, he still wasn't sure where to go next himself without Ambush, but he wasn't sure how ready he was to talk about it, switching his gaze back to the fox instead, "I guess... first things first... did you guys find out anything new since yesterday?"

The scientist was quiet just for a moment, but when he about turned with his chosen tools, he certainly seemed as energetic as the day prior, "Stuff like you wouldn't believe!"

He made a beeline round to the other side of the fox, opening a panel on the Turbofox's back, "I knew it from the start."

"Knew what?" Scuttle tried to edge Wheeljack forward.

"Talking Turbofoxes, hah! I knew something didn't add up from the get go!"

"Did I miss something?"

"This isn't a Turbofox." Wheeljack stepped back, and held the panel open where Scuttle could see inside, pulling his goggles down and narrowing in on the strange mechanisms.

"What... What am I looking at here?"

"Well I'm no Swerve, but, Scuttle my boy; you are gazing at a bona fide transformation cog."

"A transformation cog?" Scuttle squinted until he caught a faint glimmer but nothing more of the spherical object, and then suddenly pulled back, "But that would mean it's-"

"Yup."

"It's- I mean this- This... THING is one of us? Another cybertronian?"

A sudden horrible feeling began spreading through Scuttle.

He'd barely come to terms with losing Ambush through a freak accident, that was bad enough. But now he was standing next to an Autobot telling him his best friend wasn't killed by wild animals, but murdered by one of their own.

And expecting him to be excited about it no less?

"Yup, go figure. Robots in disguise and all." Wheeljack replied in a lax tone, undoing each set of harnesses from the Turbofox, catching the troubled expression on Scuttle's face, "Oh, and don't worry, he's perfectly harmless right now until I deactivate the suppressors."

He paused a second, "But you may want to stand back anyhow."

And then he twirled a sparking instrument in his hand before plunging it into the open panel on the Turbofox, "Clear!"

A jolt spasmed through the thing's body, a ripple effect overtook the fox as panels sprang up and began a complex mechanism of moving parts that would elongate and compound against each other, changing into something different.

But even when it stopped, the pair waited for something more to happen.

"Looks like a straight shock to the T Cog got the kneejerk reaction I figured..." Wheeljack's finger brushed over his faceplate thoughtfully.

"It... he... doesn't look like any cybertronian I've ever seen yet?" Scuttle looked over the figure there.

"He's a she." Wheeljack added thoughtfully.

She was bare, her limbs skeletal and sleek and thin, as much so as any Turbofox, with each digit ending in a set of claws.

She simply looked like a Turbofox that had stood up on both legs, and there lay dormant still with a muzzled face curled into a frown and a visored helmet covering its expression any further.

"What... or who is she? And why did she kill Ambush?" Scuttle could barely contain his frustration as he looked to the scientist for the answers, trying to stop himself from outright yelling aloud, his fist clenched at his side.

"That's a lot of big questions at once," Wheeljack again reached for the collection of parts he had piled ready, "But I think we'd be best asking her ourselves."

"Ask her?"

"You heard her, her and Blurr had a dialog going."

"She had a five word vocabulary!"

"I think I got an idea on that one," Wheeljack retrieved something that resembled a silver headband with a set of protruding ports and batteries, "We got a hundred ships a day coming in with neutrals who fled from the war.

"Who's to say all of them made it intact?"

Scuttle looked from the fox to Wheeljack, waiting for him to continue.

"I'm thinking she got damaged out in the wilderness, took some damage to the brain module, because there certainly isn't much activity registered here...

"And I'm willing to bet with all the wilderness out there, there's a ship downed somewhere close to where we found this one."

"So... the Turbofox thing...?"

"She blacks out, systems kick in and does whatever repairs it can figure for itself, scans a Turbofox for an alt mode and up she gets. She sees another Turbofox and presto.

"I reckon even SHE doesn't know who she is, she's just been following instinct, saw you and your friend attacking the other Turbofoxes and that was her defending them."

Scuttle turned between the thing on the table and Wheeljack attaching the headband to the unconscious form, "You realize that all of this sounds insane, right?

"I mean... if a ship went down out there, we'd know it, right?"

"Would we? We only got one city left with any functioning systems." Wheeljack's hand staggered around for a ratchet, tightening the band there, "That's why Prowl's out there hunting for a ship right now."

"And... and... You're saying she doesn't even know what she's done?"

"That's why I got something here that's just what the Doc-bot ordered." Wheeljack plugged a set of cables into the headband to various other monitors, "I did use to be an inventor before the war you know."

"And, what is it?" Scuttle chipped in, picking up an identical band from the box.

"I invented these Memory Components back in the day for protoforms that had difficulty retaining information during educational programming, I figure if we give this one enough of a boost, maybe she can tell us herself what happened out there.

"Rung's theory of self-existentialism, a few thousand Autopedia articles, basic Neo-Cybex, oh, and Fisitron's Wrecker's Declassified couldn't hurt. Although we'll skip 128 and 129, not his best."

Scuttle could only look aghast between the inventor and his work, holding out hands in exasperation.

"And what do we do if she's a Decepticon?" Scuttle pointed out, "Or she remembers the beating you guys gave her?"

Wheeljack shrugged, "Only one way to find out."

He flipped the switch. The Turbofox was nearly lifted from the table by the rush of input fed through the device into her, limbs began thrashing back and forth on the table.

Scuttle nearly hid behind Wheeljack when the light from the instruments became an eclectic pulse blinking back and forth, up until the moment they died down and the Turbofox fell back to the table with smoke rising from the device.

"...Is... is that it?"

"Yup!" Wheeljack clapped hands enthusiastically before unplugging the cables one by one, "Just as good as they were out of the box!"

Depositing the headband in a waste receptacle with a backwards flick, Wheeljack then removed a bolt attached to the Turbofox's shoulder, "Now let's see the moment of truth... She'll still be weak, but..."

The red glow returned to the fox's eyes, but they were still low, and a wheeze came like smoke still escaping body in a low, tired groan.

Scuttle still had no idea what to feel, looking at the strange Cybertronian on the table, Wheeljack was certainly acting excited, but he was still looking at the thing responsible for Ambush being killed, "What do we ask her first?"

"I..." The first word from the Turbofox made both bystander and the brains of this event stand stock still.

But it was the far more inquisitive mind that spoke up first when Wheeljack encouraged her, hitting the switch on a small recording device, "Yes? Come on?"

"I..."

"That's it, a little more..." He leaned slowly in.

"Ironfist... should have lived..."

"...Well, congratulations, you've brought a Turbofox to life and taught it to read popular fan fiction." Scuttle grated his hand down over his forehead.

"Do you know who you are?" Wheeljack continued determined, but shot Scuttle a warning look while keeping his voice low.

"Don't... know..." The Turbofox's words growled out slowly and painfully.

"Do you know where you are?"

The response ticked over like a computer in lag, but slowly optics slid in Wheeljack's direction. "...Don't know."

"Do you know who you are?" He tried again.

"...Don't know."

Frustration building up, Scuttle tried next, "What's two plus two?"

"...Four?"

"Congratulations," Wheeljack smacked the switch to turn off the recording device, "We've established basic math."

The Turbofox moved, but nowhere near as fast as before as every servo seemed to ache to move, sitting up there on the slab, and looking back and forth over them. "Where... I?"

"You're on Cybertron, in the city." Wheeljack opened a small spotlight and tracked across her optics, the fox following entranced even afterward at the light, "With friends."

Scuttle sank into a seat with a sigh, "That's a bit of a stretch. Are we getting anywhere with this?"

"Well I certainly think so." Wheeljack watched as the new fox levered off the table and struggled to find her feet, "She ain't attacking you on sight, and she certainly appears to be self-aware now... At least enough, I think."

The fox walked past them both on uncertain legs to a table, trying to take in everything she saw before picking up a model of an alt mode prototype instead, turning it over in her clawed hands.

"I think we just gotta ask the RIGHT questions." Wheeljack followed the fox whilst keping a decent distance from her, "Hey, kid?"

The fox turned to Wheeljack with a model version of his alt mode in her molars, looking up with perked ears. Wheeljack could only grimace behind his faceplate, but started slowly, "Do you remember anything? From before?"

Their strange patient let go of the model only to begin playing with it in her hands, "...Before?"

"Before you woke up. Before here." Wheeljack gestured around the workshop offhandedly.

This seemed to stump the creature, for a moment it might have seemed she had ignored the question, more interested in trying to pries the arms out of the model in her claws, eyes set firmly upon the task at hand.

"Remember..." She began, "...not much."

Suddenly the head popped up from the toy and she nearly dropped it altogether, taking a moment to calm before looking back to them, optics training slowly on Scuttle, the small bot instinctively beginning to shuffle backward, "Remember... you?"

"That's good!" Wheeljack quickly moved to distract her, "But keep going, what do you remember before that?"

There was a pause, "...Other foxes?"

"And before that?"

"...Other foxes."

"Before that?"

"Foxes."

"...Before anything fox-related."

"..." She stared up at him blankly. "Before foxes? ...No 'before'."

Wheeljack surrendered himself to join Scuttle, collapsing into his own seat, "Alright, you can say it first."

"...So... it didn't work?"

"Of course it worked!" Wheeljack snapped instantly, "You just saw a fox turn into a femmebot, then start talking in half-constructed sentences!

"She's got all the frameworks, just needs a little work is all..."

"So... what?" Scuttle tried not to smack the desk, "How long is it going to take before she can even remember anything?"

"Well, you heard her, she remembers you!" Wheeljack waved at the fox just as the head popped off the model in her hand, "Just, whatever caused her to lose her memories...

"Times like this I wish Chromedome hadn't gone on that blasted ship." Wheeljack stopped for a moment, watching the fox there.

"She's responding on automatic."

"Huh?"

"Every answer we feed her, she takes it. No surprise, no shock, no leaping to rip your optics out, no jumping from the bed.

"That's not a regular response."

"So? You said she was messed up in the head, doesn't surprise does it?"

"Not unless I still haven't asked the right question." Wheeljack pushed his motors into action again to get up, moving back to the fox and kneeling down, "Hey, kid?

"Can you remember at all, where you came from?"

The fox looked at Wheeljack once more, and then just nodded, before elongating a claw and pointing, out of the workshop window. "Out there."

Scuttle finally got up, looking to the window and the empty horizon beyond, looking back to Wheeljack. "Well? Was that the right question?"

Wheeljack pondered for a moment more, moving towards the window, "Scuttle... do you know where Turbofoxes come from?"

~~~~~~~~~~

Prowl crested the hill.

There wasn't much more to do when he had sent off Sideswipe with the others to comb the area.

Sense said it was an open and shut ordeal: that all the pieces were in place, that it would be the Turbofoxes head on a mounted plaque and a win for the hard working Autobot badge for removing such a creature.

But sense didn't send the Turbofox with Wheeljack to be anything other than dissected. Sense didn't have Sideswipe still in place in case another appeared.

Sense was a comforting firewall, it repelled all thought and sight, but it also trapped the holder inside, keeping them from seeing what lay outside Sense, from understanding it.

In millennia and eons and ages, Prowl had learned to keep Sense in one ledger, and the universe in another when it came to policing.

He despised calling it a hunch and knew that the niggle he held was nothing but a simple and automatic reminder that this case was not closed.

This would remain so until he was satisfied, and he found whatever he needed to fill the gaps in the image being built slowly before him.

Like where had the Turbofox come from?

It was the barking that drew him, the sound far across the plains that had pulled him to this pile of metal debris, the scrap metal sliding away from every footstep he created, the trash slipping down like a snow peak in thaw.

And on the other side, Prowl gazed down, away from the wasteland and the rusted metal ore stood a field in perfect cybertronian spring.

There was no other side, and Prowl could see now how they'd missed it, a small valley within, surrounded on all sides by the wall of metal ruin.

But it wasn't the wall he was looking at.

It was the ferrous fauna within.

The Turbofox were sitting, fixed on the object placed before them. An entire nest of ten - maybe a dozen in all - sat before a standing oblong object, near cylindrical if not for the bulbous protrusions, silver with a cable that wound vine-like from its top and down around its body all the way to the ground where it submerged away from sight.

They would occasionally circle it, bark at it, yip at it, and Prowl for a moment considered simply unholstering his blaster and making some well placed shots to remove them from the equation.

But that was an old Prowl talking. He continued instead and waited for whatever it was they were waiting for, trying to assemble what part of the puzzle this comprised.

Then finally it happened.

There was a slick and wet popping noise from the pod, the cable was pushed out of the top with a sluice of strange fluids.

And then a stem appeared from the pod, it rose and split from a single metal rod into an antennae like array, and Prowl, a bot who knew more than fifty different regulations relating to Turbofox, but who had never known anything else of them, knew he was witnessing a seldom seen sight.

Suddenly the array burst open with light; it wasn't a flash or a glow, but a wave almost that swept over the other Turbofox, causing them to suddenly erupt in attention, their barks and cries becoming more fervent and frenzied.

The light swept over them one by one until they were dancing around the pod, and Prowl stepped back, just that one footstep to remain out of its reach.

The light then died down, and the array slicked back to a single metal rod.

Bit by bit, seams began to split along the pods sides, more liquid began to pour out of it until a shape began make itself prominent within.

The pod was about to bloom when it burst, that second when the walls shook then gave way and the body of a turbofox fell to the ground, glistening in the gelatinous material still sluicing out of the hole it had created.

The crescendo of foxes from moments previous went quiet. They waited as Prowl did, watching expectantly.

But the Turbofox newly born before them wouldn't move, it lay there still as the other creatures began to sense something was wrong.

A few dared move forward, nudging its body, some tugged lightly, yipping at it to move but it would not.

It couldn't. As moments passed and the light died away from its body, the glisten gone, all that was left was a prone turbofox, its skin turned a gun metal grey.

Silence ruled over the nest until one by one they would each get up, then move away to whatever other business Turbofoxes filled their lives with.

Prowl gave them enough time to move away, for himself to slide down the inner wall of this craterous valley, going with all due care to be conservative with his steps and making his way to the pod. The thing hung open and hollowed out but still stood as a monolith cast over its former occupant.

He looked at the Turbofox; it was certainly bigger than the others, around the same size as the one he'd taken in. He reached forward to examine it before came a sound so familiar he wouldn't have believed it.

His hand nearly snapped back in alarm towards his holster when the Turbofox's lifeless body twitched, when panels began to twist and sections and limbs turned from fox to something else.

"...Rigor Morphis?"

Before Prowl now lay a beast transformed, a dead Cybertronian placed before him.

A cold realization began to sink through his circuits, something that began to place with everything else he had seen today.

Prowl looked up, and saw a field filled with identical pods as far as the eye could see.

~~~~~~~

EPILOGUE ONE:


"I'm not doing it."

"Scuttle, I know this is a pretty big request to put on you, but I need you to understand that this is important."

Despite the only other member of the room was the Turbofox - now transformed back to her feral form on the recharge slab - Wheeljack had suddenly instructed Scuttle to speak through internal communications.

It was as if workshop suddenly seemed to be conspiring against Wheeljack and Scuttle: from the half-formed mechanisms and half-baked inventions that were pretending not to listen, right down to the instruments huddled in the tool chest which may have been arguing over their loyalties to their master.

"You need to get away from here, and you need to take the fox with you."

Scuttle looked at the leash that had been thrust into his hand and then flung his own look back to the scientist, "Why can't you do it?"

"Kid, you're not getting this.

"I've known Prowl for four millions years and I know his way of thinking. This is an entirely new kind of Cybertronian, maybe even one of a kind. And anything that doesn't fit in Prowl's perfect little plan for the universe, he finds a way to shuffle them out of it."

Wheeljack looked back to the turbofox currently curled in placed on the slab with a set of wires effectively hooking her in place, "A cycle or two he was ready to have her disassembled, if he finds out she's one of us, I'm guessing he won't be as kind when he brings out the rulebook."

The small blue bot looked back across the workshop at the dormant Turbofox, still chewing on the miniature model of Wheeljack in her maw. The image still did not settle easily. "Then let him. He's the one in charge of security and justice, right?"

Wheeljack heaved a sigh, "Scuttle, I know what you're thinking-"

"You may have known Prowl for four million years, but you haven't even known ME four days!"

Even Scuttle adding an exclamation point to his replies seemed to spook the scientist to try and hush him, the smaller bot shoved the leash to the table when he stood up, "And I've done a lot more than my fair share, taking you and Prowl out there into that wilderness to find that fox. I even came back to see this was over with! Finished, even!

"That's my limit. Thank you, but I'm done." His piece said the smaller bot nodded his head assertively before beginning to exit, ensuring that he put an extra emphasis in every footfall.

"Scuttle, wait!" Wheeljack suddenly spoke aloud, only paused to grab the leash, slapping the door lock mechanism before it could open and shut it down once more.

Scuttle had been just a step away from seeing the front plate of his foot sheared off before the door stopped him and he quickly threw his angered gaze back at the scientist, "You can't make me."

"Scuttle-"

"What even made you think to begin with I'd say yes to this?"

Suddenly the Autobot grabbed him and shook hold of Scuttle, "Because you came back!"

There was a pause, a silence there as Scuttle looked up to Wheeljack, and the scientist took his time before kneeling down to the smaller bot's height, "Scuttle. I haven't known you long and I don't know what happened to make you throw away your badge.

"But what you did in these last two days, just by coming back for Ambush's sake took a lot of guts, it tells me that you're still an Autobot under that hood. That you still know what's right.

"What I'm asking ain't easy, but the kid needs someone like you to take care of her. To teach her what's right, so she can learn why what she did was wrong, and so she can stop it ever happening again."

"But…" Scuttle struggled, trying to find a way to look at the scientist, glancing back at the fox again, "There's got to be someone better suited than me."

"Scuttle," Wheeljack grimaced at the lack of subtlety suddenly required; "Only a few of us know about her, and apart from you, every single one of those names is under Prowl's jurisdiction. You are quite LITERALLY the only candidate possible for this."

Wheeljack held out his hand with the leash in it and Scuttle looked to it, his fingers lurching over it uneasily, "You really think I can do this?"

"Keep her as in her alt mode, there's been more than a few NAI- Neutrals walking about with pets, it won't look unnatural, stick to the outskirts, the camps, and whatever happens, keep moving. I'll cover your tracks here."

Scuttle's fingers hovered and then finally clasped the leash, "I did say I'd see this through for Ambush. I guess this is it."

"That's the spirit. Now before you go there's something very important we gotta get straight before you go?"

Scuttle raised a goggle with his perplexed expression, "What's that?"

Wheeljack glanced back at the fox, "What are we going to call her?"

~~~~~~~~~

EPILOGUE TWO:

"On final analysis, we believe this is a new and indigenous species of Cybertronian.

"Neither Autobot or Decepticon, birthed without forging or cold construction.

"Cybertronians that are being effectively grown by the planet itself."

Prowl kept his optics on the datapad in hand, it made the conversation easier in his mind for him to have himself simply reiterating the details aloud than have to stop and start each time the yellow framed Autobot sat behind the desk interject new details.

"We counted approximately one hundred and thirteen pods in the field that were not yet hatched, seventeen others were hatched but identical in each case that the cybertronian within was deceased."

Prowl finally stopped and placed the pad to a magnetic hold on his hip, looking to the desk installed leader now, waiting expectantly.

The office was as small as any other workshop in Kimia that they had repurposed, but Prowl had at least the small pleasure of knowing from the original schematics that Bumblebee was now working out of the old janitorial closet store. The desk was covered in datapads and communications requests that formed a wall between the two of them.

Bumblebee was already small enough, but now his horns barely poked into view with his head down and working through them all.

It seemed to take a good delay to let the information bleed through to Bumblebee, the smaller robot realizing Prowl was waiting for him, "Well, what do you make of it?"

Prowl kept features placid, he avoided the temptation to bring the pad back up to have something more productive to have the discussion with as he measured the tone of his conclusions, "Since our return to Cybertron and its effective reboot, we have yet to invest any actual technical expedition to try and take stock of how the planet has been affected.

"The planet is still in a state of change. Thus far we've seen cybernetic fauna begin to grow and wildlife returning to the badlands. I believe this is a further continuation of its evolution."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Bumblebee raised his head finally, "I mean, Cybertron's on the mend, and maybe now we can start acting like a people again?"

Prowl paused again, the edges of his mouth tugging further downward, "No, Bee."

He decided it didn't bear mentioning the moral or philological implications of Cybertronians simply popping out of the ground like insects and simply cut to the point, "We're discussing an influx of new Cybertronians, over a hundred of them.

"Cybertronians for whom we have neither the resources to sustain nor the room to accommodate them.

"Not to mention how we would presume to integrate them into the city, educate them and otherwise prevent the Decepticons from indoctrinating an entire battalion of unwitting new insurgents."

Bumblebee finally looked back to Prowl, placing down his workload, "Well… I don't think we need to worry this soon. I mean, how's this any different from any other new arrivals we get each day?"

Prowl finally felt the tension ease of his expression, but kept it placid if only to ensure he didn't hint anything yet, "We normally do not have the opportunity to anticipate the numbers we have now.

"There is also the implication of these protoforms being born prematurely as it would appear, being unable to support themselves. If we're to make a decision before needing to allot large reserves of our own energon to try and support these… newborns, I believe we need to make it quickly."

Bumblebee's digits trailed on the desk toward his cane, leaving him to idle over the situation, before proposing with all the authority and decisiveness Prowl had come to expect of him, "Alright, I'll bring this up in the next meeting of the council with Metalhawk and see what we can come up with."

Prowl nodded, taking hold of his datapad, "I don't think that will be necessary, I've already dispatched Inferno to see to the situation."

Bumblebee simply nodded in acknowledgment, returning to his work as Prowl made his way to the door, "Fine."

But as Prowl hit the door mechanism, Bumblebee's head rose when he suddenly realized what Prowl had said, "Wait, Inferno? He was on the Lost Light with Red Alert."

Prowl paused conservatively, "I meant the 'other' Inferno."

Prowl only reached two steps out into the corridor before Bumblebee stumbled out of his office without his cane, several piles of datapads sliding out after in his hurry, gaping at his second in command in horror. "Prowl. What did you do?"

~~~~~~~~

Inferno crested the hill.

His red armature glowed a flaming red in the evening hue, one that reflected and danced over the field now placed before him. There the Turbofoxes danced back and forth between the lines of pods, all of them ants before him.

Why had he taken the job?

Decepticon. Autobot. They were all the same labels, they all burnt the same.

The simple truth was that Inferno didn't care which side he worked for, his clawed digits feeding the gas line into his flamethrower, his needle-like teeth fitting together into a twisted grin as it flared to life.

For all of this, he couldn't help but remember what Prowl had said when he had offered him the job.

What Prowl had told him when he sent him here seemed so perfect.

Laughing raucously he raised his gun, and let the valley fill with flame, "For the colony!"

good stuff