Most mechs were brought into awareness with the connection of a net of others surrounding their consciousness. In many cases, these others were just as new as the one becoming aware. In some, though, the new being was met with the rich and varied experiences of elder ones.
It was not, and had not always been, true for every spark brought into being.
Sometimes there were needs in Cybertronian ranks for very specific mecha. Certain offices required the mecha to be bound to no one by compulsion from the beginning. When such a need resulted, the Prime would request a very carefully crafted frame be designed and then present it for the AllSpark's consideration. From the Lord High Protector's Circulator, to the coordinator for Cybertronian defenses, offices existed that needed uncompromised dedication. Prowl had been crafted as one such mech, during the reign of the previous Lord High Protector, and been presented to Megatron. Like Mirage, the newly made Protector had chosen to keep Prowl's services rather than bother with having Sentinel Prime create a new staff for him.
Unlike Mirage, Prowl had followed Megatron, swayed by the logic of overpopulation, dwindling resources, and promises of a swift war to alleviate both imbalances. The goal was, in Prowl's cut and dry estimation of percentages and probabilities, more than worth the losses.
Choosing to become a part of Prime's cohort had been a decision that had not taken him long to make. He knew Prime considered his choice hasty and coerced, but the option, once lined out, made the most sense to him for his own future goals. As the war had lengthened, the statistics behind Prowl's choice had lengthened, shortened, and fluctuated variably with more factors coming to light. The attack on Prime, during what was to be the end of the war with Megatron on top of it all had clinched Prowl's suspicions that the war, more than the professed goals, was all Megatron had ever wanted. Prowl planned to see Megatron fall hard, with every bit of his spark given over to making the Autobots more capable of meeting, and defeating, the threat of the Decepticons.
What Prowl had not calculated into his probabilities, having only intellectual knowledge of it, was just how strongly he would come to be affected by never being alone again.
The feeling of rage and impending violence was the only warning that penetrated Prowl's scan of the post battle review before he was jerked away from the counter his pads were scattered on and thrown into the wall.
"Those are mechs out there, not drones with neither thought nor feeling, to throw away!" Ironhide roared as he pinned Prowl to the wall with one grip and a cannon-armed forearm across Prowl's chest.
"I know." Prowl did. He'd been in medical. He had seen the results of his plans.
"Do you? Because your battle plans keep leading us to losses, to torn mechs, to fallen fighters!"
Prowl had not learned, not yet, that the cohort felt all those emotions he had struggled his entire existence to tamp down and hide. He felt Ironhide's grip on him slacken even as the arm across his chest fell away when his raw pain and regret spiraled out along the link they shared through Prime.
"Try harder," was all Ironhide told him, getting ready to walk away.
"I will," Prowl answered, but not until Ironhide was out of audial range, still struggling to cope with someone else knowing the emotions burning in his spark.
Having been created strictly for the ability to see potential outcomes of any given military action, and to likewise make decisions and offer guidelines to influence those outcomes, Prowl had little native talent for performing new tasks.
Being thrust by Ratchet into the role of performing triage on the incoming wounded was most definitely a new task, and one that nearly sent Prowl into a panic. He did not want to lose mechs any more than Prime did! What if he chose wrong? If he scanned a mech, and deemed his injuries non-critical, that mech could deactivate for something his inferior sensors failed to see.
The most obvious cases needing aid were picked out swiftly, and moved along by the twins. Those minimally injured helped to hold lines closed or covered gaping holes in their comrades with their own plates from less vital regions. That let Prowl cross them off the list of 'in-need'.
The panic was closing in around his spark, though, when he needed to choose between an exposed spark case and a mech with three minor but critical lines all leaking heavily. Neither was immediately critical, yet either one could quickly degrade, if the pursuing forces were not stopped by Springer's counterstrike.
::Prowl!:: Ratchet's sharp voice spiked the feelings of failure, that had become all too common since Science City had brought him to the understanding that he had been wrong about the most critical decision in all of Cybertron's history. Then a wave of patience, understanding, and need wrapped around him from the medic. ::Be my eyes there, and I will guide you as I repair in here. You're not alone in these decisions.::
Prowl stiffened… before he let that wrap into him, and he calmed considerably.
He wasn't alone, and he had an expert supporting his decisions. Such statistical improvement was impossible to ignore.
"It's too risky, regardless of gain, to follow this plan," Prowl told Jazz, as the pair of them studied a pad side by side.
"Mirage gave me sound data, Prowler. I can make this run, and squeak out with what we need." Jazz did not fail to feel the misgivings intensify at his words, and he turned to look at his cohort-mate and peer on the command council in surprise. "You don't trust him either? You, Prowl? Seriously?"
Prowl lashed out with quick and furious negatives across the touch-link between them, where lying was impossible to manage, even had Prowl been adept at the skill. "No, Jazz. I have been the unbonded, and I was a true Decepticon, whereas he was smart enough to see Megatron's true spark from the beginning. I worry, though, that he calculates risks differently than I have learned to."
Jazz sent a simple query across the link, to encourage an explanation. He learned, constantly, that Prowl was far more than just a sentient odds-fixer, the twins' dismissive term for the tactician.
"He does not know the truth of bonds, as I now do, and cannot grasp that one thing happening to you will also directly affect all of your cohort, especially Prime, as you are his anchor-mate."
The soft explanation struck deep in Jazz's spark. Let others say what they wanted about Prowl's logics and pragmatism; there was a deep nature in that spark roiling with emotion and care.
It was not the first time Prowl had arrived at Prime's quarters before the Prime himself. It wasn't even the first time he'd been met by Sideswipe or Sunstreaker. To say that the twins uneased him was an understatement. The very fact that they shared a quantum link so deep that they could literally do the processing in one frame and handle action from the other made them far more unpredictable than any other beings Prowl knew.
Unpredictable, as Prowl had learned from coping with certain fliers in the ranks beneath Megatron, was a trait to be coveted on one hand and blasted from existence on the other. He had never decided if he could handle envying those who had flaws in their binary which rendered as creativity, and had settled on thoroughly despising the concept of being a wild card for the sole sake of being one.
That this meant he and the twins remained on very questionable ground was the sole source of discontent Prowl had brought to Prime, and so the tactician had learned to mitigate his desire to lash out at them for interfering with his duties.
"Hey, Points." Sideswipe's smile was anything but friendly. The sobriquet was highly unwanted. Prowl, with a careful calculation of one of his favorite statistician's theorems, swore not to rise to the challenge they evidently had decided upon between them when Sunstreaker loomed up into his personal space. Not for the first time, Prowl wondered if he should accept a bulkier upgrade to gain some height advantage over the pair of infernal trials.
"Sideswipe; Sunstreaker." The voice, though quiet, was richly laden in disapproval, and Prowl silently thanked the AllSpark for the mercy of his arrival. That he hadn't noticed Prime's steps behind him was bothersome though. "Enough. You're both dismissed for the shift."
"Prime!" was Sunstreaker's immediate protest.
"Prowl is adequate to strengthen my own defenses, on the off chance something should penetrate this deep into our headquarters," Prime admonished, and Prowl was caught off guard by how strongly he felt pleasure to hear… and know it was real… Prime express confidence in his ability.
No more verbal words were spoken as both the bronze and the silver mech moved on, letting Prime rest a hand below Prowl's sensor panels and guide him into the private chambers.
"You really…" Prowl paused, realizing that his words could seem to be an accusation of falsehood.
Optimus wrapped his hand around the back of Prowl's helm as he stepped in front of him, thumb coming up to caress that chevron gently. "I know your spark, Prowl. I know your passion. I am safe with you here."
The backlash of emotion at that full, deep vote of confidence pushed at Prowl's stoicism… and then through, because he knew he was not alone, and his Prime would steady him.
Prowl's perceptions were knocked offline as the energy sizzled through his frame, countering every effort his body made to mitigate it. When the perceptions filtered back in, they came in bursts. He processed a roar that was either Prime or Ironhide, far too deep and enraged to be anything but. He wondered who else had been shot severely, that either one would be so agitated. He did not get an answer to his curiosity, as something or one picked him up and jarred loose the connection his processor had made with his audials.
The next time he could process anything beyond the lingering pain in his systems, it was to feel familiar digits not outside his armor where they belonged, but deep in the wires of his abdominal cavity.
::Ratchet?:: he queried, not understanding why the medic would be wasting time on him. He was fine. Mechs were down!
::Slag off, and tune out!:: came the gruff, surprised reply a tic before something filtered through his lines and left him completely without sensation, or a need for it.
His optics onlined finally to the interesting sight of Jazz's visor… upside down as Jazz's whole helm was peering at him from the top of a berth, and a smile was on the spy's faceplates. "Thought you were going to recharge through the rest of the war, Prowl."
"Jazz, leave him alone, while I make certain his processor has restored full connectivity." That was Ratchet, and after a moment of recalibration, Prowl was able to turn his helm and see the medic, hooked in via medical jacks, at the side. Behind him, hand on the medic's shoulder, was Ironhide.
The fields gently lapping at his own from the other side could only be Prime's and Prowl looked, seeing new plating where Prime had evidently been repaired.
::Took a hit getting you off the field because I didn't see Skywarp port in fast enough,:: Ironhide informed him gruffly.
The resounding shock of confusion and lack of understanding rippled through all of them, just as Ratchet withdrew his jacks.
"You are ours," Prime rumbled. "What would have been a minor hit on so many mechs was dangerously perilous for you, Ratchet informed me. None of us knew you had such a different internal arrangement as to have your processor in the lower portion of your frame. So we moved to retrieve you and made a fighting retreat."
"We nearly had the outpost," Prowl protested, but the words fell into disapproving audials.
"It was not worth the sacrifice of the mechs we would have lost to complete that push," Prime told him.
"Especially not you," Ironhide finished. "Think I want the planning back? Think again, if Ratchet's really got your processor hooked back in right!"
That, of course, got Ironhide hit by the medic's backswing, while Jazz shifted his legs a little to ease them. That let Prowl know his helm was cradled by the spy and saboteur. He tried to convey the fact he was not worth such effort, but it was swallowed whole by the feelings of his cohort, so relieved to still have him.
Created alone, Prowl knew now that mechs like him had been cheated of something vital, and he swore on the AllSpark itself that he would oppose Megatron all the harder, to protect what was so beautifully more whole than the sums of its parts.