Notes: Written for Starfire201/Skywinder on Ao3. This takes place roughly half a teravorn/ 20 megavorns/ 70,812 years before the start of Animated.
Measurements used in this verse can be found on my profile.

(..I think I wrote something light hearted. Ish.)
Shockwave was several rods into the main control hub before he noticed where the voices were coming from.

"I swear they treat me like some sort of pet."

"I think you are, pinhead."

"... It fixed yet?"

"Nope. Still erroring."

"Slag it. If we didn't need this console I'd say scrap it."

Shockwave paused, mid stride and did a double take at the hashtags attached to the technician half buried one of the consoles. One of the warriors stood guard - no, helped, given the technician would occasionally appear, ask for some tool or see if things had been fixed, then vanish back into the innards of the console. Shockwave raised an optic.

Most mechs sported several hash-tags but only one unit-tag: This mech sported two unit-tags.

Odd.

"I've never heard of a mech belonging to two units."

The red jet grimaced, straightening somewhat. "Yea... That. Uh. It's complicated. Like, really complicated and totally not worth your time, sir."

Shockwave flicked an antennae curiously. He had some breems before he was due to report for his new mission. "Explain."

"Uh well.. He was sorta assigned to us by the higher ups which is weird because of uh. Reasons." The red jet grinned weakly.

"Yet he still bears the unit tag of -"

"Like I said, complicated." Misfire held up his hands when Shockwave did a dammed good job of managing toloom given they were roughly the same height. "It's reall-"

"I'm on loan." The support mech wriggled his way free of the console. "Misfire, datapad. I'm not hardlining in to see what the fragging problem is with the code."

Shockwave nodded. "I am admittedly surprised..."

"Thanks." The tan and orange took the pad before disappearing into the console again. "They uh. Don't need me hanging around all the time."

Shockwave got the feeling the technician was hiding something, but he didn't press it. It wasn't that important in the long term and it had no bearing on his mission. What a combat-unit chose to do with their assigned support-classes was entirely up to them. Most stationed them at the supply lines where they were the most use. Mumu-Obscura was, technically, one of those worlds, but it was also a staging point for infiltration teams given it's proximity to Autobot space. Hidden, of course under the guise of a neutral colony. "I see."

"So we got him." Misfire added helpfully, letting out a small cheer when the erroring screen flickered back to its normal readouts. There was some static, but the more magic Fulcrum worked, the more it cleared up. "Oi, loser, you fixed it."

"Fragging finally." Fulcrum extracted himself from the console and replaced the access hatch before turning to Shockwave. "Is there something I can help you with, sir?"

"I have never encountered a mech with two unit-tags."

"They're not forged."

"They are both real, I assure you that."

Both Fulcrum and Misfire yelped and snapped to attention at the new voice; the yelp was more Fulcrum, but the smaller was soon at attention too. Shockwave took a step back with a slight nod in respect. The larger purple tank ignored Shockwave and simple held out a datapad to the technical-support.

Fulcrum made a face as he looked it over. "Uh... This is a tall order - most of the crews are-."

There was a rumble from the tank; half amused half not and the red jet seemed to squeak and do a good impression of a junior cadet trying to impress one of High Command while Fulcrum jumped several feet in the air and held up his hands with a something of a nervous look on his face. "Ok. Ok. I'll get it organised as soon as possible."

The tank's field bled amusement before he patted the techie's shoulder. "See that you do."

Fulcrum cringed down a little but as soon as it was ok to do so, he was gone, Misfire running after him. Tarn turned to consider Shockwave. "Lord Megatron is expecting you. It would be unwise to keep him waiting. Comm. Room 3."

"Ah, of course. My apologies." A quick salute to the superior officer and Shockwave hurried off to his meeting as Tarn's reminder had his spark skip a few times and not in a good way.

Urk.

There's several concepts here that will be explained over in Dystopia proper in due time.

Thoughts, comments and feedback very much encouraged.