Hiya peeps, sorry for the delay. Believe it or not, the second half of this was written on – drum roll, please – a plane to Hawaii. That's right, be jealous! Haha, actually, I have a killer headache that even a bunch of pre-flight ibuprofen can't alleviate. Anyways, be glad that I'm writing this on vacation; I'm just that devoted to you. So devoted, in fact, that I'm using a really crappy hotel landline internet connection just to post this for all you good people, and I haven't slept in about 23 hours. Bow to me! Or give me something with caffiene, that works too.
Big, and I mean BIG plot developments this chapter. Like, MAJOR big. So, enjoy!
Sakura Star: A few Seeker family moments, definitely more to come in the future. And I would love any kind of cookies! ;) Thanks!
Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers or any of its characters; I do own the gestalt and anyone/thing you don't know. The lyrics to "Stranger Than Fiction" belong to Five Finger Death Punch.
"Verbal grenades
You throw in vain
I can't believe you'd stoop so low
Of all the things you took away
I miss my mind the most"
~ "Stranger Than Fiction" – Five Finger Death Punch
It took about ten Earth minutes to convince the Decepticon trine to come peacefully to the Autobot base. They would have argued more, but Crash had cut in, telling them that, no matter what they thought, Blitz was going back to the Autobot base, and that was that, and they could tag along if they wanted to, but they had better hold their glossas because otherwise he was going to frag them up. That, plus the reminder that their newfound sparkling was in need of medical care that they were incapable of providing at the Decepticon headquarters.
Grudgingly, the trine had agreed to follow to the Autobot base; disconcertingly enough, they already knew where it was. Had Red Alert been there, he would have fallen over in shock and begun glitching. As it were, Sly almost did so himself, even though he had never been to the Autobot's current base. It could always be counted on the 'Bots to have at least one paranoid glitchy mech in attendance.
The only real problem was convincing Sly that he could still trust the Autobots. Crash had muttered something to him to placate him for the moment, but even Crash himself was sending cautious, guarded looks at the other Cybertronians. In the end Phantom and Blitz were loaded into the back of Optimus Prime's alt mode, where Crash kept watch over his brothers' vitals, succeeding in stabilizing their sparks. Sly, though he didn't like it, was sent to pick up Miles from where he had been all but stranded at the gestalt's warehouse; he would then head to the Autobots' base using coordinates sent to him by Crash.
Upon reaching the Autobot's base, Crash took over all medical proceedings involving his brothers, much to Ratchet's disdain. All of the humans and most of the 'Bots, excluding Ratchet, Optimus, and Perceptor, had been forced to remain outside the medbay, as both Ratchet and Crash insisted it was too small to have them all standing around, and those in the medbay were at the mercy of Crash's wrath. Every time the more seasoned medic attempted to do something without Crash's express approval, the young field medic would, as Sam would say, "freak out". Crash had already went through multiple angry rants and temper tantrums, slinging hisses and curse words at any and all who dared to come anywhere near his gestalt, including the Seekers, who restricted themselves to a patch of wall near the medical berth where Blitz lay.
The Autobots were baffled. Crash had always been so amiable and friendly towards others. Now he treated them like they were Decepticons. Slag, he treated them just like he did the Decepticons, the same as he did the Seeker trine. Crash was curt and angry towards both Ratchet and Optimus Prime, two of the few mechs in the world who he had, at least in the past, respected and followed without doubt or hesitation.
Ratchet decided that he'd had enough as Crash continued to rant and rave, carefully placing a cloth sheet over Blitz's faceplates as he went so he no longer had to keep blocking it from view. "Crash, by Primus if you don't hold your glossa and let someone help I will have you bodily removed from the room."
Crash's head shot up, optics glowing unnaturally bright under his visor. With slow, dangerous movements, he turned from his place over Phantom's body. With slow, precise words, he said in a quiet, monotonous and slightly insane tone, "If you tried, I would rip you limb from limb."
The Autobots reeled. Who the slag was this, and what had happened to the Crash they knew? Phantom they could see making a statement like that, but Crash, never. The Seekers, unsurprisingly, snickered at the angered remark.
Cannon shots rang out from outside the medbay doors, and all present turned and tensed, ready for a fight. Slamming through the doors came a disheveled, dented, dirty, and disgruntled Slysight, the same manic look in his optics that Crash had. Ironhide stood behind him, rubbing at a singe mark on his leg.
"Fragger shot me!" he complained loudly. Hound and the twins peeked into the room behind him, but were not permitted entrance as the door shut behind Ironhide and Sly.
"Shut it!" hissed the short mech, optics wide. He'd left Miles in the outer room with Sam, Bumblebee, and all others not allowed in the room, so he had no qualms about having one of his own infamous glitch fests to outdo Crash.
Before he could begin, Crash sent him a brief message requesting assistance in fixing Phantom and Nightshade's leg. Letting his glitch fall to the background if only for the moment, the mech walked briskly to his brother's side, the pair repairing the wound in silence.
Once again, Ratchet tried to figure out what exactly had so upset the pair. "Will you at least let me look over Blitz?"
That glares he received were the only answer.
"What is wrong with you two?" the medic pushed on.
"Nothing's wrong, Ratchet," seethed Crash, dental plates gritted. Ratchet was slightly stunned. Ratch, Hatchet, Medic Extraordinaire, Grumpy – all were names the CMO was used to Crash calling him. He had never before heard Crash refer to him by his true designation.
A new thought struck the elder medic, one that could possibly explain a little about the canyon of space that had opened between the gestalt and the other Autobots. He thought of a simple question.
"Crash," began Ratchet carefully. "How long have you been on Earth?"
The silver medic froze. His mouth opened and he paused once again, thinking something over. A strangled sound came out, and he finally said, "Not too long."
"Give me an exact range of time; an estimation." Ratchet watched carefully for the mech's response and reaction.
Again he struggled to respond, and then mumbled in a strangled voice, "Dunno, maybe thousand years or so."
A small voice came from one of the humans who had crept into the room behind Ironhide to watch the proceedings, unnoticed. "But you said you came here back in Ancient Greek times," Miles Lancaster said with wide eyes. "That's way over a thousand years ago."
"Is this true?" inquired Ratchet with a measured tone.
"No," Crash replied simply. At the same time, Slysight said, "Yeah."
The CMO stared in shock at the pair. "You just lied to me," Ratchet murmured in shocked disbelief.
"No," the young medic repeated, sounding slightly unnerved and more than a little upset.
Ratchet silently com'ed Prime on a private channel.
Yes, Ratchet? inquired the Prime upon receiving the ping.
Crash lied to me.
I believe you already said that aloud. If someone could sound amused over a com. link, Optimus did.
Stop being a smartaft! Ratchet admonished his leader. He lied to me. Crash hasn't lied to me since his first few orns on the Ark.
Even with his glitch?
I told him to tell me the truth, no matter what. You know I can take it.
Why would he lie to you? Prime sounded truly bemused.
Optimus, when Crash trusts someone, he can moderate his glitch to the point where he can consciously choose to tell the truth or not, though to what degree is another matter.
Prime felt a sense of unease and trepidation come over him. What do you mean, exactly?
I mean that I don't think Crash trusts me any longer. Ratchet, the grumpy, battle-hardened Chief Medical Officer of the Autobots actually sounded upset by this. If he trusted me, or any of us, for that matter, he wouldn't be so antagonistic and he would have told me the truth. He struggled when trying to answer my question, a sign that he realized he was lying, but his distrust combined with his glitch overrode his response, forcing him to say what he didn't intend to.
What do you suggest we do?
Ratchet paused for a moment, thinking, before responding, Proceed with caution. Don't do anything that any of the gestalt may take as a threat. Ignore their rudeness, don't go near any of them without their express permission, and do not get angry or annoyed with them; doing so will only alienate them further.
I shall tell the others, Prime sent before cutting the link.
While Ratchet and Prime had been silently communicating, Crash and Sly had been hard at work, or rather, Crash had while he used his brother as an assistant and lackey. The leg of the eldest gestalt member was almost completely repaired in all forms but aesthetics when a knock was heard on the doors, the only prelude for the doors being kicked in. Behind them stood Grimlock, looking quite satisfied with his handiwork. As an explanation, he only said in broken English, "Us Dinobots wanted to see gestalt." Behind him, his brothers nodded.
Upon seeing said gestalt, the conscious members of which were looking at the newcomers warily, the Dinobots burst into the room. Slysight was promptly snatched up in a hug by Sludge, while Swoop crushed Crash against him, the entire time telling him joyously how happy he was to see him again. Slag and Snarl were glaring at the Seekers and contemplating if they should ignore their orders to let them be and just kill them already. Grimlock watched these proceedings, refusing to openly show how happy he was to see the gestalt again, and also feeling smug that his continued insistence that the gestalt was alive all these vorns hadn't been in vain. For once, the Dinobots were right. How's that for irony?
"Down!" a muffled voice called out, coming from Slysight, whose faceplates were being crushed against Sludge's chest plating. The special operations mech was very still and stiff in the Dinobot's embrace, not at all comfortable with the current situation. Crash, too, had stiffened, though he wasn't on the brink of glitching, unlike his younger brother. Reluctantly, the Dinobots released the gestalt members.
"You let the behemoth idiots in but not your actual soldiers?" Starscream mocked deprecatingly, using English so even the worthless fleshbags could understand the wittiness of his remark.
Nobody had the chance to rebuke this statement, because a scraping, wrenching noise came from the berth in front of the Seeker trine. More precisely, the sound came from the Seeker on the berth attempting to move though he had more than a few busted joints and struts. Crash quickly abandoned his post at Nightshade's side and rushed to Blitz, muttering softly and soothingly to him all the while.
"Hey, hey, Blitzy, calm down, yer okay, were all okay." He paused and watched the mech for a moment. "There's a sheet on yer head 'cause ya got yer mask broken. It don't matter, anyways, 'cause yer optics are completely screwed over, at least one of 'em is. I'm gonna have to do a lot of work on ya, Bro."
Crash once again paused, and then continued speaking in a way that confused all others present, excluding Slysight. "Yeah, technically some of 'em saw yer faceplates...Primus above, stop shriekin' will ya, ya emotionally unstable femme!" This was extremely odd, considering that Blitz, per usual, had not verbally uttered a sound. Though most of the Autobots, excluding Bumblebee, soon understood that a conversation was being had both verbally and mentally across the gestalt bond, the humans and the Decepticons were baffled and more than a little unnerved at Crash's apparent display of insanity.
"Blitz, shut yer freakin' mouth! It ain't my fault y'all run 'round all reckless just 'cause yer upset." His voice changed to a much more friendly tone as he said, "By the by, the 'Con trine are yer creators...they're standin' right next to ya...Stop with the screechin', yer gonna mess with my CPU! Primus above, jus' 'cause yer pissy don't mean ya gotta behave like a mech with sparklin' who just got told that they were outta energon goodies."
Slysight approached his brothers, swiping at his audios and checking to be sure that no energon was leaking from them. "Feels like my circuits fried," he mutter quietly to himself, referring to the phantom sensation brought on by Blitz's mental screaming as he railed against everything he had been told upon onlining.
Blitz continued his vain attempts to move, to the point where Crash lightly slapped the side of his helm, where the injuries were but scratches. "Cut it out," he admonished his brother softly, but with no real anger. "Yer gonna mess yerself up more."
"Can he hear us?" inquired Skywarp nervously, wringing his talons. His trinemates leaned forward as well, eager to hear about their sparkling who they hadn't seen in oh so long.
Crash looked to Blitz momentarily, and then back at the trine. He told them, "I ain't gonna repeat what he just said, 'cause he didn't know who said it." Turning back to his brother, he muttered in response to the silently posed question, "Skywarp."
Silence reigned for a long moment, Crash watching the injured Seeker intently, before he returned his gaze to the Decepticons. "He says he's sorry for his earlier remark."
"What did he say?" huffed Starscream, arms crossed over his cockpit in defiance of, well, nothing.
"Ya don't wanna know," Crash murmured, Slysight nodding vigorously in agreement beside him.
"What did he say?" inquired dangerously the trine leader with narrowed ruby optics.
Crash exhaled loudly. "He said, and I quote, 'Do those slaggers think I'm deaf again, 'cause I swear I'll frag them up when I get off this Primus-forsaken berth. Pit-spawned creator-interfacers think that just 'cause I don't talk I'm suddenly a complete invalid. I'll show them invalid when my pede is shoved up their fragged afts.'"
All were quiet, except for Sly, who supplied congenially, "Blitz has a dirty glossa."
"Apparently," Prime said, trying to break the silence that had taken over. Everyone stared at him until Blitz feebly lifted a singed arm and used it to smack Crash in the abdomen.
"Frag!" exclaimed the assailed as he brought his servos to the point of contact, pressing on the plating there. "Slagger's confined to a freakin' berth and he still hits hard." The trine looked perversely proud at this.
"May we have some time alone with our creation?" asked Thundercracker, speaking for the first time since arriving on the base. Crash and Slysight stared at him, until the former nodded slowly.
"Let me fix him up so he's not lookin' like such a sorry sight and I'll give ya some time with 'em. No tryin' to recruit him, though. Trust me, I will know." Crash gestured to his own helm, waggling his fingers in a poor attempt to symbolize the gestalt bond.
Crash and Slysight began to work on repairing Blitz's wing. After Blitz learned what an "idiotic, overly-prideful pile of scrap" Crash had been acting like, the young Seeker demanded that Ratchet and Perceptor, and even Swoop, who, like his brothers had refused to leave the medbay, assist in the repairs, which allowed for things to be fixed much more quickly. The humans, forgotten in the activity, ran interference between the medbay and the mechs outside it, passing along information on the new occurrences. Soon, Blitz's wing had been reattached, though he still needed a lot of buffing and a new paintjob.
Because Blitz refused to allow anyone but his brothers to see his faceplates, the others had to be shooed from the medbay, save for the Decepticons, who refused to leave, declaring that they had already seen everything, anyway, and they didn't plan on leaving soon. Crash quickly replaced Blitz's broken optic. Until he could get some green glass, Blitz had to deal with blue, giving him two mismatched optics – one an Autobot blue, one the original green. Blitz still refused to see anybody knowing that they could see his faceplates, leading Crash to remove his own visor and place it over Blitz's visage, covering the majority of the damage. Anything else, he said, Blitz would just have to deal with. The young Seeker, never one to be ungrateful, sent a silent message of thanks to his brother, who only smiled slightly in response before pulling a partition around the group of Seekers and leaving the area, dragging Slysight behind him.
The Seekers watched Blitz for a while; he watched them as well, thinking about how this meeting was reminiscent of the one he'd had with the Aerialbots so long ago, only now he was looking at the newcomers through Crash's visor instead of his own.
Grabbing a stray datapad that Crash had "just happened" to leave next to his berth, Blitz scrawled a greeting to the Seeker trine, his creators.
Uh, hi.
The elder Seekers read this message as if it was a sign from Primus. Their first real direct contact with their creation! They were ecstatic, but, being Decepticons, did not show this, leading Blitz to feel that maybe he had done something wrong. Looking for anything to end the awkward silence, Blitz quickly wrote another message.
You know, I remember you guys, a little bit at least. I sorta remember when you put me on the ship to, uh, Praxus, right? I remember thinking about you guys when I first met the Autobots, too.
This small note, this little grouping of characters, was the most wonderful thing that the Decepticon trine had seen in so very long. Their creation remembered them! He knew who they were, and he didn't seem to be angry with them! Unable to restrain himself any longer, Skywarp launched himself at the black and blue youngling, tackling him back onto the berth with a resounding CLANG.
The purple Decepticon hugged his creation to him, close to sobbing in relief and joy. Blitz, still aching from his earlier attack, mentally groaned at the movement and impact, but did not protest the embrace. It was...comforting, oddly. It felt the way he had always expected a hug from a creator to feel, except it was even better. There were no words to describe the intense feeling of love, of protection, of belonging completely and totally, of knowing that you were wanted and cherished. Shakily, Blitz raised an arm and wrapped it around the Seeker's back and cinched it lightly, his own soft return of the hug.
That was all the motivation Starscream and Thundercracker needed to join the hug, forming a pile of quivering wings and limbs on the medical berth, all shaking with pent up emotion. Finally, they were complete. They were a family again.
Crash smiled briefly as he felt the torrent of emotions sliding across the bond from Blitz. He would admit he had been worried about how the reunion between creators and creation would go. Luckily, the happy family was together again. Crash released air from his vents. If only they all could be so lucky.
He walked to the other end of the medbay, going to check up on Phantom. The others had been allowed into the medbay, as no procedures were currently being performed. All had been forced to agree to leave the Seekers in peace if they wished to enter, something that was hard for the twins and Ironhide to agree with. Still, they had relented.
Hound held a silent vigil next to Nightshade's berth, holding the black mech's servo between his own. The twins stood behind him looking remorseful. Off to the side, Sam was interrogating Miles, the yellow runt, er, Bumblebee, standing behind him, arms crossed, mirroring his charge's position.
"I was wondering how you could have gotten a Porsche," Sam was muttering, shaking his head tiredly.
"Crash is a Porsche?" asked Miles, clueless. "Huh, I never would've guessed." Sadly, he wasn't being sarcastic.
His best friend chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder. Crash grinned once more, vaguely realizing that he was still visor-less and ignoring the odd feeling, and moved to stand next to Ratchet, who was scanning Nightshade's helm and frowning.
"What up?" Crash inquired quietly, feeling awkward around his old mentor after his behavior. Blitz insisted that it was all a big misunderstanding, an unusual thing for him, which lead Crash to believe that maybe he, too, had overreacted, and should give the Autobots a second chance. In trepidation he waited for the CMO's reply.
"Must you use improper grammar?" the elder medic sighed exasperatedly. Crash grinned broadly, delighted to have been forgiven.
"Ya know," the silver medic muttered to his mentor. "I did medic work out of my holoform durin' a bunch of wars, and do ya know what method was employed a lot, especially during the 18th and 19th centuries?" Ratchet shook his helm, still glaring unhappily at the scanner in his servos. Crash was only too happy to tell him.
"They taught this to all medics and doctors: When in doubt, cut it off."
Ratchet finally looked up from his scanner to stare incredulously at the silver mech, who was giving him a shit-eating grin. Checking the World Wide Web to confirm what he had been told, the medic groaned audibly. "Not a word," he hissed at the field medic, who continued to grin at him smugly.
The CMO checked the scan's results, and once again scowled at the them.
"What's wrong?" asked Crash, leaning over the other's shoulder for a better view.
"It's this scan – it keeps giving me odd results."
"How so?"
Ratchet entered his "serious medic" mode. "I know from working on Nightshade vorns ago that the dominant part of the personality, Nightshade, is housed in this area of the CPU." He pointed to a region on the scan. "The secondary personality, the one attached to the glitch, is over here." Ratchet pointed to the other area, one that Crash recognized as being directly related to glitches.
"Phantom was the last conscious personality, correct?" Ratchet looked to the younger for affirmation, which he promptly received. "Well, the scanner keeps showing that the last physically conscious and active personality was the dominant personality, though you know for sure that Phantom was the last personality in control of their body, right?" Again, Crash nodded. Ratchet was then silent, thinking hard as a new idea occurred to him.
"Crash," he asked, "When you first met Nightshade, when you were gestalt bonded to him, Phantom already existed, correct?"
"Yeah; we were all glitched before the bondin', except for possibly Blitzy. Ha, we just helped frag 'im up."
Ignoring the comment, Ratchet continued. "You never knew for sure who the first personality was, did you?"
Crash's optics moved closer in confusion. "What do ya mean? Nightshade's the dominant personality; he's always out the most."
"I understand that, but could it be possible that Nightshade is the...secondary personality? I've used multiple scanners and a multitude of scans, and all results suggest that the dominant personality was last in control, and we know the last conscious personality to be Phantom. Could it be that Nightshade was the personality created by the glitch?"
"No," Crash responded immediately, but the facts did add up. He then muttered, "Maybe, but it seems farfetched."
"I know, but think about it. Phantom could be the dominant personality, but remain dormant more than his secondary personality. Especially in young sparklings, secondary personalities are often created when the original finds it hard to connect with the outside world – that describes Phantom perfectly, antisocial with problems with properly communicating with others. If Phantom needed a way to communicate with the world around him, he may have created Nightshade to do so. Nightshade is kind, caring, friendly – everything that Phantom's not. After a while, Phantom may have subconsciously realized that Nightshade had an easier time with others, and decided to place that personality on the forefront more often, to make life easier for the spark as a whole. Because he was so young when it happened, neither he nor Nightshade would remember being without the other, so nobody would be the wiser as to who came first."
Crash numbly sat on a free berth, CPU reeling at the influx of information. Luckily, Blitz was too wrapped up in his reunion to notice this new piece of information, and Slysight was too busy staring uneasily at the yellow runt.
"They're not gonna like this, Shaders and Van," Crash muttered, sending a glance at said brothers, ensuring that Hound and the twins had not hear the conversation taking place. "Van, he doesn't have the whole issue with harmin' others, I'm sure ya know. He thought of himself as a part of 'Shade, and that was that; he never had any remorse about 'messin' with Night's life'. Nightshade, though – he'd feel guilty as all get out if he knew that he was supposedly harmin' Van, holdin' him back, makin' him glitch. Slag, it hurts my head just to think 'bout it. I need some busywork, somethin' to do with my servos." Sadly, all medic work, it seemed, was done for the moment.
Ratchet watched the young medic sadly, sorry to have brought such a solemn revelation on him. Grabbing the other by the shoulders, he brought the maskless medic to his feet. "Come with me."
Crash followed Ratchet to a small room set off of the rest of the medbay, one used for long-term occupants. There, on a berth, lay the offlined body of Jazz, painted silver instead of his old black and white.
"Holy Primus," Crash murmured, optics wide and fearful. "Is he-?" He couldn't bring himself to finish the statement. Ratchet alleviated his fears quickly.
"Not deactivated, but badly damaged. Megatron literally tore him in two during the battle of Mission City, if you've heard of it."
"Heard of it? Ha, that's what brought us here in the first place. Leave it to Jazz to take on Megs by himself. How bad is he?"
"We almost lost him. We thought his spark flickered out multiple times, but somehow it held on. We were able to repair him physically, but he entered stasis lock. Being that the idiot is healthy, physically, we think that only a direct link to his spark, one of mate, creator, or creation could wake him up now. Sadly, we haven't heard from Prowl yet."
"It's sad," Crash muttered, watching the saboteur's darkened visor morosely. "The two of 'em bein' split up. They're good together, those two." Ratchet grunted his agreement.
Feeling oddly sentimental, as he was prone to be, Crash reached out a servo and lay it over the third in command's chassis, lightly tracing the faint weld lines that only a trained optic would notice, bringing it to rest over the other's spark chamber, feeling the faintest of pulses there. The something supremely strange happened.
Under Crash's palm, the young medic was sure he could feel the faint sparkbeat pick up, pulsing faster and stronger. He tore his servo from the cold chassis, only to have Ratchet replace it there as soon as it stopped making contact. The elder medic pressed Crash's servo to Jazz's spark chamber, nodding for the young medic to see what the contact was doing. Bright blue light began to seep through the seams of Jazz's armor, all resonating from his spark chamber.
"What's happenin'?" inquired Crash fearfully.
Ratchet only pressed his hand harder to Jazz's chassis. "I don't know, but whatever it is, it's working."
A large pulse of light shot through the unconscious saboteur, all resonating from the mech's spark chamber, over which Crash's servo lay. Jazz's limbs convulsed as if seizing before lying still once more. Abruptly, the sounds of systems whirring to life echoed through the room, and a visor glowed a bright, Caribbean blue.
Lifting his helm wearily, Jazz looked around the room, optics and visor resting on the mech whose servo rested over his spark. Shock coursed through him, and a grin lit his features.
"You're alive," he breathed joyfully.
Crash's optics dimmed as, for the first time in his existence, his processors locked up.
Haha, you got THAT right people! Crash IS Prowl and Jazz's creation! I dumped a crudload of hints this chapter - Crash is a Porsche, like Jazz's alt mode in G1, I've always implied that Crash looks like Bayformers Jazz but taller, Crash fancies himself a statistician, he likes music a lot, and, as the last sentence says, his processors lock up at something really shocking.
The final total for the poll on who the readers believed their creation to be (you can see the closed poll on my profile): out of 18 participants (none of which were me, mind you), we had 8 for Slysight, 7 for Nightshade/Phantom, and 3, that's right, 3 people who were correct in that Crash is the mystery creation. Those three people, cyber-cookies for you! Everyone else, well, I'm happy to know that I AM that confusing. Aw, what the hell, cookies for everyone! YAY!
By the way, a review would be much obliged, thanks much!