I wrote Transformers from 1995 to 2003 (pen-name was Gryph) and attended three or four BotCons, then the muse left me and only returned with a vengeance when the movie came out. I couldn't resist. The Knight Rider Fire&Ice 'verse is almost as old, but equally the muse went dormant.

Then Barricade happened. Hell, the whole movie happened! sighs dramatically Couldn't resist. Just couldn't.

If you read this, bear in mind that I haven't been in these particular 'verses/fandoms for a while. My latest scribblings have been along the lines of House, CSI, FAKE, Yami no Matsuei, DN Angel, Good Omens and Stargate Atlantis.

If you're interested in the Fire&Ice 'verse and want to know more about it, the whole assembly of stories is here: http://home.arcor.de/macx/index.html.

Scroll a bit further down and you can find my TF page, too ;)

TITLE: Adaptation,
Crossover with the Knight Rider Fire&Ice 'verse
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: None of the canon characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money. But Nick's mine :P
WARNING: experimental fic. Wouldn't let me go. The bunny was too insistent. Gah!
Author's Voice of Warning (aka Author's Note):
English is not my first language; it's German. This is the best I can do. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how trustworthy those thingies are...
FEEDBACK: Loved

// is mind-to-mind communication between Karr and Nick, using the neuro link

More explanations about that follows. If by chance anyone ever read my AU, you know what to expect ;)

It had been fast. It had been painful.

It still was. Painful. Very, very much so.

His sensors had come online only spastically, sputtering and fizzing until Karr had nearly screamed in rage at his malfunctioning systems.

The whole case had been a stupid idea. He had told his driver as much, but Nick hadn't been inclined to listen to him. He was still dealing with personal issues, with things Karr understood, even empathized with, but to lose himself on a mission just shortly after such a painful event had been stupid.

Of course, it had to come down to a final confrontation between Nick's old controller and mentor, General Jackson Nash, the man who had created him, and Nick himself. Nash was dead now and Nick had been nearly killed. The moment he had been able to leave the hospital, he had gotten into Karr and they had disappeared. He had cut all ties with the Foundation and Michael Knight. He had gone off, without a specific aim or target, and Karr had come along.

He would always be there for Nick.

Kitt had tried to contact him several times, but he had told his younger brother that they needed time away, that they would be fine, not to worry. Of course Kitt would worry. Even after such a long time, he wouldn't stop it.

After days of driving, they had ended up in Mission City, one of those Nevada desert cities that had tried not to become a new Las Vegas. It really wasn't Las Vegas, but it had a decent city center, high rising office buildings, and in the last twenty years it had grown.

It had been because Karr had picked up curious radio signals and reports that they had stayed instead of passing through. Because of this curiosity they had ended up in the middle of a fight of apocalyptic proportions.

Explosions, shape-changing machines, giant robots, the military, people running screaming from the scene… and casualties. Too many to count. Karr had been too busy staying alive, keeping Nick alive, and whatever their case had been before, it had paled and disappeared in the light of these developments. Whole buildings had been destroyed, people had been buried underneath falling debris or killed by stray shots and missiles.

Suddenly the strange readings had made sense. Suddenly the weird transmissions and the curious sightings took on form. But it had been too late and Nick and Karr had been right in the middle of it. Swerving through debris-laden streets, impacts left and right, nearly getting hit by a missile from a transforming F-22… and all around them US military was firing at the giant mechanoids, trying to make them fall. Not all of them, though. There were two sides, but that was hardly of any interest to those fleeing from the carnage. Still, Karr kept cataloguing friend and foe.

Their flight had ended when another of the giant robots had blocked their way and tossed the Stealth aside with a swipe of massive, clawed hands. They were flung through the air and Karr had felt the impact of hitting first a building, then the street, coming to rest on his side. The passive restraint system had kept Nick from breaking his neck, but his driver and partner had ended up unconscious, head bouncing against the side window, and bleeding.

What had happened to them afterwards was still unclear to Karr. He knew he was damaged – not even a molecular bonded shield could prevent that when confronted with alien weaponry -- but he also didn't feel right. His whole body, the Stealth, was like a twisted version of himself now. He was aware of Nick, both through the implant and his still working inner sensors, and his partner was unconscious, though regaining consciousness fast.

Karr tried to scan his surroundings, but again he came up with contradicting readings. He was just too damaged.

Time passed. There were sirens, there were people running around, there was the sound of military vehicles, but no one found them in the collapsed building. Too many injured or dead were on the streets. Karr was keeping all senses trained on Nick.

In that time his body seemed to twitch and shift without Karr doing anything at all. There were ripples running across his skin and when his scanners suddenly went online again, the AI was stumped. More started to work, as if it had been miraculously repaired. Karr almost gasped in shock when he did a complete check and found his damaged exterior was suddenly smooth and almost perfect again.

What the hell was going on?

Reverse engineering.

Nick knew that he might never understand it all, but the few files of information he and Karr had been able to hack into had been enough to turn his world upside down. With the networks still vulnerable to outside forces, it had been ridiculously easy to enter the highly restricted areas and nose around. The US Defense system would be up and running again soon, but Nick had what he wanted anyway.

Reverse engineering.

Project Iceman.

It sounded so ridiculous. An alien robot crashing to Earth, landing in the ice, found by the US, kept in hiding and all data under heavy guard. The robot's systems and construction had laid the ground for all modern inventions – and with it even Karr himself.

Wilton Knight must have accessed government files to create the neuro link, the implant, even the advanced AIs Karr and Kitt were. So in a way, they were Earth relatives to these alien life forms.

//I'm not like them!// Karr growled, shifting a little.

Nick smiled slightly. //No, you're not// he agreed.

But in so many ways he was. Now more than ever.

Another growl, this time full of annoyance.

Nick gazed at his partner, took in the changes to his shape, and the smile grew even more.

The Allspark. Because of some weird alien gizmo Karr had been hit with, this had happened. Nick had spent hours in the still rather unprotected datafiles of the US Defense system, following leads as to what the Allspark had been, and it had been amazing. An energy source that had provided life to a whole race of autonomous robotic life forms. Alien life. It was a device of such magnitude, of such incredible design, and the government had had it locked under the Hoover dam for decades. Figure that.

Nothing in the world could have prepared either of them for the changes the contact with the Allspark had started. Nick thought he remembered something touching them, Karr directly and him indirectly through the link, then an explosion just outside had let Karr tumble and crash, followed by the alien robot tossing them aside like a toy.

Faint memories from after waking combined with the knowledge gleaned from the hacked files and things had unfolded. Alien robots, the Autobots and the Decepticons, fighting over a device called Allspark that could give life to mechanical things.

Like Karr.

Karr was already a life form, but now…

Nick scrubbed a hand over his tired features. Metal had come to life, changing, becoming more.

"How do you feel?" Nick asked softly.

He gazed into a dark face, golden-amber eyes looking back at him. Karr's face was strange but not really unfamiliar. Dark but handsome, Nick thought, even from a human point of view. His black color had stayed in robot form, the exposed 'skin' that peaked out from beneath the black armor anthracite or dark gray. His size was enormous in Nick's eyes, though sixteen feet and three inches wasn't spectacularly tall for the Cybertronians they had already seen. There were larger, taller ones. There were no obvious weapons, but Karr had demonstrated his familiarity with his new body by transforming one forearm into a gun.

"Not like myself," came the rumble.

Nick chuckled. "You and me both, pal."

He felt Karr scan him and he knew his partner saw the changes in him, too. His only mechanical addition was the neuro link in his skull and whatever this Allspark had done, it had affected the implant as well. And whatever it had 'sparked', it was developing. Growing inside his body.

"Your body shows no averse changes. Your biological functions are normal."

He could feel that. He knew he was fine, but the apparently growing device in his head might change that.

Nick had never been prone to feeling alone. He had always been alone, aside from the machine linked to him. Returning home, facing Michael and Kitt, wasn't even an option any more. Not before they had figured out what to do with this latest development.

Karr transformed and opened his door.

It was time to get on the road again.

Barricade had lain low. Very low. The first weeks after the battle that had destroyed Megatron and so many of his comrades had been spent trying to repair damage inflicted on him. It had been slow, energy-consuming, and always with the warranted fear that an Autobot might pick up his signal. Or a fellow Decepticon who would see a chance at taking out a rival. With Starscream still out there, probably waiting to strike back at the humans, the best Barricade could do was keep a low profile anyway. His and Starscream's history was rather… bad.

Nothing the like had happened though. Starscream was gone, not to be heard of since, and all channels were quiet. No Decepticon activity anywhere.

Low on energy from the extensive repairs, Barricade had cruised around mostly at night, blending in. He got his energon from gas stations that closed at night and were badly secured, always making sure he wasn't seen. The Autobots would be on his trail in no time if he left a path of destruction, though Barricade was tempted to leave nothing but debris behind to teach those insolent humans a lesson.

Now, two months after the battle, he was in a more or less repaired state and he was cruising the streets at daylight, still trying to pick up signals that told him of a Cybertronian near-by.

He was greeted by silence.

Calling for Frenzy had been just as unsuccessful. Wherever his partner was, if he was even still alive, he couldn't be found.

So he did his own computer hacking, though a lot less sophisticated than Frenzy had been. This had never been his job. Through the net he discovered that the humans had tried to keep the existence of alien robots under wraps, had come up with rather ingenious cover stories, and Barricade had to give them credit for managing something big scale as Megatron's return and the destruction of the Allspark, as well as almost the whole center of Mission City as they had done. Many of them had died, but explanations had been found that didn't involve an alien battle.

Barricade patrolled the streets of Mission City, still scanning, then widened his search. There was no trace of Cybertronian technology to be found. He went as far as Tranquility, even daring to drive by the house of the very human who had defied him. That was where he picked up traces of Bumblebee and he snarled. So the little bot was still around.

He was a strong fighter. He had defeated Barricade, left him at the scrap yard, and he had survived the final battle. Resilient bastard.

The Decepticon didn't want to risk a confrontation. Bumblebee would have back-up in form of three other Autobots while Barricade was on his own. His survival came first, revenge would have to wait, if executed at all. He wouldn't put his existence on the line for petty feelings.
It was outside Tranquility, heading toward the dam that had hidden the research facilities of Sector Seven that Barricade caught a blip of something interesting. It wasn't Cybertronian, not really, but it echoed of the touch of the Allspark. Like a faint glow, it surrounded a vehicle he passed by on the highway, and he slowed down a little, scanning. He was surprised to discover rather advanced technology, driven by a human with even stranger readings.

Intrigued, Barricade decided to follow.