"Broken Mold"

Continuity- Probably fits best in Dreamwave G1 continuity, pre-War Within. Although it probably wouldn't be hard to place it in any G1 continuity.


"Your name."

Bluestreak looked up with dim optics, confused. An Autobot Security Forces officer was standing before him, clutching a data pad and intently studying the information on it. The officer's optics never left the pad, even as he waited for Bluestreak's response.

"E-excuse me?" Bluestreak managed to sputter out.

"Your name," the officer repeated, without a change in tone.

"Bl-Bluestreak."

"Bluestreak…registered merchant. Yes, I have your information as verified by the Senate's records right here," the officer continued on in his toneless voice, immersed in the data pad as if it were the Covenant of Primus itself. "It appears that you are the only survivor of the Praxus incident."

The words left the officer's mouth in the same tone, as if he were describing the weather. Bluestreak just stared as the Autobot in front of him continued to collate and catalog data, not moving from the spot.

"In-incident?" Bluestreak whispered. The officer finally looked up at him.

"Yes," he responded.

"They-they really did it. They burned the whole city! The whole city!" Bluestreak began, anger rising in his throat.

"Yes," came the toneless response from the officer.

"All my friends, Hopper, Plates, Tiptop, Amalga, everyone! They killed them all!"

"Yes," the same damned toneless tone.

"And-and you, you call it an INCIDENT?" Bluestreak yelled.

The officer's optics did…something…and then he looked back to his data pad and set back to work as he responded.

"Yes."

"FRAG YOU!" Bluestreak shouted, trembling with rage. The officer didn't respond, just kept focused on his data pad as the young civilian before him glared hatefully, arms fighting to stay down. Finally, the officer spoke.

"This happens almost on a daily basis. Eventually you run out of terms monstrous enough to describe what they are doing out there."

"I don't care what else has happened, this was my home. My life," Bluestreak said in a calmer voice, trying to stifle the fury within. "You don't know how this feels. I'm the last son of Praxus."

The officer looked up, and while his expression didn't change, something in his voice did.

"No, you aren't. I hail from Praxus."

"What?" Bluestreak's expression turned to surprise. The officer's head tilted slightly, as if he was recalling something.

"Several members of the Security Forces were proto-hatched in Praxus as well. Fusion, Smokescreen, Ricochet…"

The names meant nothing to Bluestreak; he shook his head and looked at the floor.

"Well, whatever. You all don't…didn't live there when those filthy butchers attacked. You weren't in the Brokara Marketplace when a proton bomb hit it and killed everyone I loved. You didn't dig yourself out from under three-hundred tons of assorted wreckage and charred corpses. And you sure as SLAG weren't there to prevent the whole thing in the FIRST PLACE!"

The officer studied Bluestreak carefully for a moment, then spoke again.

"I saw what remained of the Helix Gardens. I…wish I could have visited there one more time beforehand."

The Helix Gardens. A place for scholars and poets and other people Bluestreak usually found stuffy and boring. Reduced to a crater, he had been told. Inwardly, Bluestreak felt a bit of shame that he had never once took the time to go beyond the Gardens' gates to admire the methane-suspended crystals that hung within.

A few seconds of silence passed, then Bluestreak spoke.

"I'd like to join the Autobot Security Forces."

"Autobot Army now. And I figured you might. I've been working on your commission this whole time."

Bluestreak blinked in surprise, then opened his mouth to speak again.

"What's your name?"

"Prowl. Welcome aboard."