Title: Steel and Steel
Author: AotA
Rating: K+
Warning: violence
Characters: Ironhide, Lennox
Setting: Bayverse AU
Summary: A coincidental meeting between brothers of two races. One Cybertronian, and one a warrior from a race that Cybertron had met once but vanished after the war between factions left that race's homeworld a burning cinder in space.
Notes: I've wanted to do a Transformers where humans aren't necessarily a match for Decepticons but are advanced enough that they can fight them off, and have been for a couple years before the Autobots even show their faces.
"It's a hunter-killer," the mech murmured in surprise, watching the four-legged serpentine frame whip by at speed with a sinuous twisting before ripping into the Decepticon rogues. "Oiiiii! Slag-faces! We've got a hunter-killer here! Hunter-killer!" he cried with vicious glee and the cry was taken up by his comrades.
"Hunter-killer! Hunter-killer! Hunter-killer!"
The battlefield was flooded with spilled coolant, lubricants, and energon, making an abstract artwork of glowing fluids.
Optics were bright when the last rogue was crushed and the hunter-killer eeled forward, helm held low, then high on that long, proud neck as sharp battle-ready points slowly slicking back to look more like fur than the armor piercing quills that they became when lit with a bit of charge. Patches of bare armor marked where they had been put to good use and the long, whipcord tail was practically entirely bare, smooth, hexagonal etched metal.
Green optics moved from one mech to the next, fields cautious as the hunter-killer tasted their fields and IFF, noting the red sigil they were marked with one and all.
"Autobots. It has been a long time since I have seen Autobots." The crest of spines protecting the more vulnerable joints along the hunter-killer's helm ruffled.
The hunter-killer's voice was a surprise-the last time they had known them, the hunter-killers had not been capable of speaking fluent Cybertronian.
"It has been a long time any Autobot has seen one of your kind as well," the mech said gruffly, "Quite a surprise you gave us."
Specialized denta modified to grip and cut through Cybertronian armor were bared and the mech only belatedly remembered that to hunter-killers that was not a threatening gesture and was supposed to be friendly even as it chilled the energon in his lines. Energon cultists... Urgh.
"There will be more," the hunter-killer said, padding closer as branching razor edged bits lazily transformed the hunter-killer from a razor edged deathtrap of stabbing points and cutting blades to a more touch friendly shape, "We are ready."
The mech smiled back, closed mouthed to not show off his own denta, before what the hunter-killer said finally parsed, "Wait. Ready?"
"It was decided that if the war was still going on when we were ready, we would fight," the hunter-killer said, coming to a stop in front of the mech, "So we will fight."
The mech was surprised as long unused protocols had him stretching out his hand toward the being, an odd gesture that had his hand rotated nearly vertical with his radial distal phalanx pointed upward, the rest adducted and pressed together into a single block.
The hunter-killer's helm tilted and the being laughed, flashing sharpened denta, before lifting a heavily clawed limb that shifted shapes into something that more resembled a hand and matched the gesture, hands slotting together and gripping firmly, moving a short distance up and down before they both released, "My name is Will."
"Ironhide," the mech returned, "Nice to meet you."
"Ironhide?" Will asked, "the same Ironhide from the Ark?"
"You know me?" Ironhide asked.
"Know you?" the hunter-killer barked a laugh, "I pulled your aft out of that wall you'd been embedded in for who knows how long!"
"Wait," Ironhide held up a hand, "You're Will, Will?" He scanned the sleek hunter-killer again but the body was so different... "I didn't recognize you."
"Heh," Will's helm lowered as fangs flashed again, "Well that's what a bunch of rebuilds get you when you keep getting told that your body's too outmoded to function properly in society anymore and you need to upgrade. Again. I didn't recognize you either, Ironhide. What's with the red?"
"Just felt like a change. How many rebuilds have you had? I mean, quadrupedal? Whatever happened to walking on two pedes?" Ironhide asked.
Will flicked a hand-pede dismissively, mobile audial cones flicking forward, "Meh. Lost count. Wasn't that important. And the quadrupedal frame's a damn sight more efficient when fighting than the old slag I had way back when. This is the current hunter-killer frame. Quick. Smooth. Deadly. Best of the best for the best of the best."
"That thing is a death trap," Ironhide said, moving a finger out to touch a shoulder guard that when extended was a vicious forward pointing blade made to cut through enemies as Will ran by, "way too many blades, but then there is no such thing as overkill when it comes to hunter-killers, right?"
"You remembered!" Will chuckled, "It's still true."
Ironhide looked up and saw the mechs that had gathered a short ways away. Giving a grunt he asked, "Want me to introduce you?"
Will followed his gaze, "Sure. Why not?"
"Come on then," Ironhide stumped towards the gathering, Will right behind him, "Hey slag-faces! I've got someone I'd like to introduce you to! It's an old friend of mine!"
"An old friend?" one of the young war frames asked, "You knew hunter-killers?"
"This is Will," Ironhide said, "And yea, we met all the way back in the orn when they didn't even know that Autobots even existed. Pit of a way to meet a new race-after they've been fighting off Decepticons for quite a while."
"What Ironhide doesn't like to admit," Will said, "was that he was stuck helm first into the wall of his ship, big black aft poking out like a particularly ugly wall decoration at the time when I dragged him out."
Ironhide hissed static at the hunter-killer as the rest of the mechs laughed but he was too cheered by the unexpected reunion to take it too badly.
"I have plently of blackmail on you myself," Ironhide grumped, "so you better watch it!"
"Just try me," Will said with another denta-baring smile.
Ironhide growled, but the familiar, wild, devil-may-care attitude warmed the his spark. Ahhh... There was his old friend. One he had thought had been long dead and missed with all his spark when his hunter-killer brother's race had vanished among the stars when the war with the Decepticons had left their homeworld a burning cinder.
"Hey, Will to Ironhide, anybody in there?" green optics were staring into his and Ironhide felt distinctly embarrassed.
"Dah!" Ironhide jerked back and had to make himself ignore Will's laughter and frown at him, "What?"
"Are you going to introduce your fellow Autobots?" Will prodded.
"Oh!" Ironhide felt utterly scatter-processored, "Right. This is Bitshift, our hacker of the bunch, Pummeler, an itty bitty baby war-spark," Pummeler's protestation went ignored, "Blue Watch, affectionately known as Batch by some is security a la Red Alert if you remember him, but a lot more sane, and White Noise, our communications temp while Soundcloud is down." Having gone through the handful that were physically present, Ironhide listed some of the other mechs that Will would be meeting if he stuck around, "And then there's Hollowpoint, Buffer, Downlink, Nightsong, Combine, Deflector..."
"I get the idea," Will said, "Lots of people to meet."
"I thought hunter-killers were squishies," Pummeler declared with all the tact of the newly sparked and children everywhere, "You look like a mech. A weird mech, but a mech. It makes a lot more sense than squishies having done all those things."
Ironhide covered his face, beseeching Primus to save him from the sparklings.
"Squishies?" Will said, eeling closer to the young war-spark and peering at him, "You mean humans right?"
"Yeah. Squishies," Pummeler said.
Will unceremoniously bashed his helm against Pummeler's, sending the mech crashing to the ground on his aft. Will loomed over the tactless mech, considering.
Ironhide quickly held up a hand to halt the others from doing anything to intervene. Quickly comming them to tell them to let it play out. Will wouldn't hurt him besides maybe scuffing him up a bit. Might do the fractious spark good.
"I'm pretty sure you meant human. We like being called human," Will repeated to the dazed mech, "We haven't been 'squishy' since before we met Cybertronians. We don't like being called squishies. It would be smarter for you to not be rude, don't you think? Then maybe you won't get your helm bashed in again. Get a good lesson out of this little inter-species interaction of ours, hey? Some humans won't be so nice about it. Got it? Good."
Ironhide stifled an guffaw at the delivery while Pummeler muttered dazed assents.
Oh Will... It's so good to have you back.