"How did we get here?"
It is a question often asked, and you might have difficulty accepting the humble beginning of the events that have since changed Remnant as we know it.
But even the greatest conflagration begins with a single spark.
And this story begins - as many great stories do - with a girl. And a tragedy.
Volume I: Episode 1: A Girl and Her Car
"MY BIKE!" Yang stared at the burning wreckage where some idiot had plowed his truck over her beloved Bumblebee and into a storefront.
"You know, sis," Ruby said gently, "maybe next time, you should get something a bit more, umm… durable?"
Yang did not reply, but instead slowly turned her head to look at her sister, eyes glowing red with fury.
"Okay, too soon, point taken."
Ruby, Weiss, and Blake peered at the fourth member of their team as she lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.
"She's been like this ever since the accident," Blake noted quietly. "Is that... normal for her?"
"She… really liked that bike," Ruby whispered back with a shrug.
"This is ridiculous," Weiss hissed. "It's just a bike!"
"It wasn't just a bike," Ruby retorted, trying to keep her voice low. "It was her bike. It was Bumblebee."
"You three know I can hear you, right?"
"Eep!"
Blake shook her head. "This is ridiculous. Listen, if the bike is such a big deal, why not just get it fixed? Even if it's beyond a regular auto shop… I know some people."
"Who?" Yang demanded.
Blake blinked, stepping back in surprise at finding the blonde suddenly in her face. Since when could Yang move that fast?
"Uh, right," Blake hedged, "there's one girl, genius mechanic, but the thing is, she charges… quite a lot for her services."
"Don't worry about that," Weiss interjected. "I have a generous allowance, and in the name of team unity, I'm willing to cover it." Her eyes narrowed. "Just so long as this 'genius mechanic' of yours can actually deliver."
"Hey, trust me," Blake assured her. "She can fix anything."
"I can't fix this," Maple said, shaking her head and tossing her gloves on the tool cart.
"You told me you could fix anything," Blake pointed out.
"'Almost anything,'" the faunus mechanic corrected, pulling the scrunchie she wore out of her light brown hair, shaking her hair loose from the ponytail she'd been wearing. "This?" she waved at the pile of parts. "I know exactly who you can talk to about this. At the scrap yard."
Weiss scowled. "And just how much are you planning to charge us for this wonderful bit of news?"
Maple blanched slightly, then shook her head, her beaver tail beating rapidly against the back of her legs. "Nothing!" she replied quickly. "Nothing at all. Estimates are free for an… old friend like Blake."
Weiss's eyes widened slightly, and she hummed appreciatively. "That's rather surprising. In fact, it might just be the best service I've ever gotten from a mechanic. You really do know some good people, Blake."
Both Blake and Maple smiled nervously. "Oh, you know me, always trying to meet the best of the best," the raven-haired girl with the bow on her head chuckled. "Yang, what do you think?"
Yang's reply was a pair of ocular daggers directed at her teammates and a scowl that almost covered up the fresh tears in her eyes. "I think that this was an insulting waste of time."
"By the way," Weiss added to the mechanic as the blonde stormed out of the garage, slamming the door in Ruby's face, "do you have a business card? If I ever acquire a vehicle here in Vale, I'll want a good mechanic."
"Yaaang…" moaned Ruby in sympathetic despair.
"What is it, Rubes?" the blonde asked, not moving. She'd never before realized how fascinating the ceiling of their dorm room could be.
"I baked cookies."
Cookies? Ruby had cookies and wasn't eating them herself?
She rolled over and sat up on the edge of her bed, letting her legs dangle down to where Blake's bed sat below. "Cookies? Really?" she asked, looking down to see her sister, oven mitts on, carrying a baking pan half-filled with fresh cookies. There were rather suspicious-looking crumbs on Ruby's face and the empty half of the pan.
She cocked an eyebrow, and Ruby blushed.
"Wellll…" Ruby hedged, then blurted out, "you still seemed so upset, and I figured cookies always make me feel better, but they smelled so good, and I kind of got hungry, and-"
Yang couldn't help it. She laughed. That was so Ruby.
"All right, all right," she said, hopping down and grabbing a cookie. "You got me, sis."
"I try my best," Ruby said with a smile and a shrug as her sister bit into the cookie.
Yang chewed the cookie appreciatively, stopped with almost wide eyes, and then continued before swallowing. "This is... almost like the cookies Mom used to make."
"Oh, no!" Ruby worried. "Did I make you sad again?"
Yang shook her head with a forlorn smile. "No, Ruby, these are almost tears of joy."
The hooded girl's eyebrows rose. "Are you messing with me?" Before Yang could reply, though, Ruby continued, "Doesn't matter! Because after this, we're going therapy shopping!"
"I don't need therapy!" Yang countered hotly. "And I certainly don't need it in the form of shopping!"
"Yang," Weiss cut in, breaking the silence she and Blake had held up till that point. "In Professor Port's class today, you were asked, 'What is best in life?' And your reply was, 'What is life but another form of death?'"
"It didn't even make grammatical sense!" Blake complained from directly behind the blonde girl. "Your answer did not follow from his question. That's just nonsensical diction."
Yang quickly scarfed down the rest of her cookie before replying. "Okay, I admit, I might need a little bit of a pick-me-up."
Ruby grinned happily. "Don't worry, Yang. Weiss will get you whatever you need."
"I'll do what now?"
"But you said you can afford it."
"I can afford to repair a bike, not buy a brand new one!"
"Really, Ruby?" Yang asked flatly. "'Therapy shopping,' and you bring me to a car dealership?" She turned her head to give her sister a withering glare, then paused.
"But Yaaang…" Ruby pleaded. There were times Yang wondered if her sister was actually secretly a faunus. This was one of them. Mostly because of the puppy dog eyes. She usually just chalked it up to Ruby learning from Zwei.
"Ugh, fine," the blonde relented, then swept her gaze across the car lot toward the motorcycle section.
Hmm. Cheap. Junk. Cheap junk. Overpriced. Too many miles. Junk. Faked to look good. Cheap. Cheap. Decent, but even Weiss flinched at the price tag on that one.
Yang found herself wandering from car to truck to motorcycle, but none of them caught her eye. None, that is, until her despondent gaze fell upon a car in the back. Upon sight of it, all her negativity flowed away. Glinting golden in the sun with black highlights that shone keenly in that same light, she found herself taken in by the wonderful angles and curves of the four-wheeled vehicle.
With steps unthought of, she moved next to the object of her desire.
"Yang?" asked Ruby expectantly. "Have you found one you like?"
"Yeah," answered Yang in a distant voice as she reached out and started to run her hand over the roof.
"A car?" Ruby asked curiously. "Not another bike?"
"Hey, we've got a team now, sis," Yang pointed out. "This way, I'll be able to drive all of us together. It's only fair, since Weiss is bankrolling this."
"Finally," scoffed Weiss. "How much for this one, anyways?"
"Doesn't matter, I'm getting this," was Yang's immediate reply.
"Shh!" hissed the heiress. "Don't let the salesman hear that."
Blake cocked a small smile at the Schnee's distress, but kept her focus on Yang. "So, what is it?"
"It's a Folkcar Bug. It's an economy car that made in Atlas a few decades ago; it was designed to be small enough to fit into the narrow streets of the floating city and cheap enough that the people of Mantle would be able to buy it without selling their lives to the mining companies," explained Yang as she kept her eyes on the vehicle.
"That is a horrible stereotype!" complained Weiss. "I'll have you know that Mantle is quite wealthy compared to kingdoms like Vacuo."
Ruby jumped in at that. "Weiss, even I know that's a strawman argument. Vacuo doesn't keep enough records to have a proper comparison to any other kingdom about anything."
"They do," Blake told her succinctly.
"What?! Since when?" asked Ruby hotly.
"Apparently, since Yang started liking small cute things," was the raven-haired girl's quip.
Ruby glanced over and saw Yang cooing over the tiny trunk. "Oh, that's nothing," the younger sibling said. "You should see her around our dog."
Blake's eyes widened ever so slightly while Weiss made a quip of her own. "Well, at least it's yellow. Have you thought of a name for it yet, Yang?"
"Bumblebee II, of course. Or Bumblebee for short."
The eyes of all three of Yang's teammates went wide, and they looked at each other in worry. As always, it was Ruby that broached the sensitive topic with her sister.
"Uh, Yang, don't you think that's a little... unhealthy?"
"No, why would you say that?"
"It's just that you seem to be using your car as a replacement for genuine human interaction," explained Pyrrha as she kept her eyes locked to the sky above.
"Shouldn't you be talking to another blond right now?" asked Yang as she reached her sponge into the soapy water of her bucket before leaning over Bumblebee's hood in a manner that was unintentionally provocative.
"Oh, lay off her; she'll confront her painfully obvious feelings when she's good and ready," countered Nora to Pyrrha's blushing shame. "She's not the one leaning over a car in the parking lot in nothing but a bikini."
"I am being perfectly normal here," Yang shot back. "After all, I don't want to get my clothes wet, and there's no way I'm wearing one of those weird corset things you girls wear."
"Hey!" Ruby spoke up from between the two JNPR members. "Corsets are awesome!"
She crossed her arms in front of her, palms up, and then, in perfect synchronicity, Pyrrha and Nora brought their palms down to clap loudly against Ruby's.
Yang quirked an eyebrow at the trio's actions. "Riiiiight. Listen, the swimsuit thing is just a matter of practicality. After all, I still need to do two more washes before I can get down to giving this boy a proper tune-up. I'm going to see him transform into something beautiful."
"I thought it was already beautiful?" Nora asked.
"More beautiful, whatever. Point is that he's getting some much needed TLC."
"He?" asked Ruby. "'Boy'?"
Yang rolled her eyes. "It's a figure of speech, sis. Guys call their cars 'girls' and 'her' all the time. Same thing with boats. What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is that you're spending far too much time with that car, and not nearly enough time studying," explained Weiss.
"Oh, come on, Weiss. Haven't you ever gotten something new that you can't get out of your mind?" asked Yang as she finished putting on Ember Celica's bracelets to complete the set of her town outfit.
"No," the Atlesian heiress replied simply. "I've never had a material possession bring me joy."
Blake looked up from her book at that. "That's kind of sad."
Weiss rolled her eyes and focused back on Yang. "My own preferences for sources of elation aside, I hope you realize how frustrating it can be to see you going out for a night on the town of all things when we're here reading up for Professor Port's test tomorrow."
"Are we supposed to be doing that? I was reading comic books," Ruby said from atop her bed.
"Yeah, and I'm in the middle of a historical romance novel," Blake admitted embarrassedly.
Weiss valiantly kept her temper under control and flexed her hand threateningly.
"Hey, don't worry, guys," chirped Yang. "Tell you what, after I get done warming Bumblebee's rubber, I'll lay off on it and devote myself to studying with the team."
"Promise?" asked Weiss.
"Promise," said Yang with a smile before walking for the door. "I should be back in a few hours, but don't wait up for me if you have any plans."
"Bye, Yang!" said Ruby. "Have fun!"
"Oh, I'm having more fun than you can imagine, little sister!" Yang whooped from behind the wheel of Bumblebee as she drove along one of Vale's famous raised highways, the open window allowing the wind to blow through her hair. It wasn't quite the same as on the old Bumblebee, but it was close.
This, she reflected, was what she lived for: the open road, no direction planned, and adventure around every corner. It was pure bliss.
"Hey, Bumblebee, what do you say we get into some illegal late night street racing?" asked Yang of her dashboard. Naturally, there was no reply. Nevertheless, she took the next exit and started the well known drive to some of Vale's seedier sections.
It was when she was driving close to a construction site closed for the night that it happened. Another car went speeding past her, and before she could formulate a non-instinctual response, a police car flew by at an even higher speed. The police vehicle hit the car at an angle, sending it spinning off into the construction site, where it hit a ridge, flipping end over end.
Thought left her, and Bumblebee's tires howled as she came to an abrupt stop by the dividing fence of the construction yard. In one swift motion, she shut the car down, pulled the keys, opened the door, and vaulted over the fence. She was running as soon as she hit the ground.
She pounded across the gravel and came to a stop next to the upside down car. Inside was a collection of faunus of various ages and both sexes, all looking far worse for wear. They were clearly afraid, though it didn't seem to be because of her.
"Help us!" a middle-aged man cried. "I think the dust tank was hit! Please, we're not criminals!"
"Don't worry," Yang said calmly, reassuringly. "I'm here to help."
The door in front of her was stuck, and she raced around the car just as the police car from earlier pulled up. She looked up over the overturned vehicle, about ready to give the cop a piece of her mind; she knew she could be a bit reckless, but this was way too far.
Her scathing remark died in her throat as the police car… changed.
She found herself look up… and up… and up as it shifted its weight upwards and forwards, pieces of it splitting apart into limbs. What is that? she wondered. Some sort of… Atlesian robot in disguise?
That didn't make any sense, though.
Finally, it stood, towering over her, like a small building. And it spoke.
"You really should have just kept going," it rumbled from a metal mouth set in a mechanical face all too human in appearance as it raised a gun as big as she was. "Sorry, kid. Nothing personal."
The visible threat snapped her into action, and she snapped her arms down behind her, arming Ember Celica with a "ka-chunk!" She unloaded both barrels into the ground behind her and rode the recoil as she drew her fist back.
BAM!
Another round from Ember Celica fired as she drove the uppercut into the robot's chin, sending it stumbling back. She spread her arms out and twisted in mid-air. She fired again, away from the robot, the recoil propelling her other arm forward into a follow-up punch-shot. As the recoil from that shot sent her back into the air, she reset and fired, again and again, pelting the robot repeatedly.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
THWACK!
Yang's body hurt all over, as she suddenly found her trajectory rudely redirected by the back of the robot's hand. As she hit the ground, bouncing into an uncontrolled roll, she heaved and gasped for breath.
She'd never been hit that hard before.
She shook her head, trying to clear it, as the robot walked up, seemingly unhurt by her assault. She was going to have to compliment Weiss on the superior Atlesian engineering.
"That's far enough, Barricade!" another voice interjected as something - that was Bumblebee! - landed on the robot from behind, sending it face-first into the ground and bouncing off. Bumblebee landed and swerved to a stop beside her… and then he also began to change.
…
What the hell were they doing up in Atlas these days?!
"You okay, Yang?" the robot-that-was-Bumblebee asked, giving her a concerned look with a pair glowing blue eyes.
"I dunno," she replied numbly. "I think I'm hallucinating."
He nodded, then inclined his head to the side. "That- that's fair." He looked back over at - Barricade, was it? - and added, "'Scuse me." He charged.
Barricade was just getting up when Bumblebee's fist smashed into the hostile robot's face. Yang shook her head again to clear it and forced herself to her feet. Maybe she was hallucinating, maybe she wasn't. Didn't matter.
Bumblebee was twisted and thrown out of a grapple by the time she centered herself. Barricade was bringing his gun to bear on his downed opponent. He wouldn't get the chance to fire.
Firing off another pair of gravity dust rounds, she recoil boosted towards the fell automaton once more, but unlike before, she aimed for his gun. She hit feet first, and fired once more to trigger yet more recoil. The sudden double hit of force sent Barricade's blaster off-target, and when it fired, it let out a bright burst of purple energy that gouged a glassy crater into the gravel underfoot ten feet deep and twenty across.
Bumblebee was unharmed though, and even as Yang was sailing up into the air, he extended a large blade from his forearm. In response, Barricade reached for a neat stack of I-beams and hefted one experimentally.
The two charged past each other this time, and as Barricade straightened, he glared at the much shorter length of metal in his hand.
"Useless," he growled, tossing it aside negligently, where it smashed into the cab of a crane, caving it in.
Bumblebee took another swipe at Barricade, who blocked with his forearm. The blade seemed to bounce off an aura-like field with a shower of sparks, and the transformed police car bounced back to dodge another swipe. Then, with a sadistic grin, he aimed his gun at the construction site's partially built skyscraper and fired three quick shots.
The purple energy blasts connected with the structure and blew away its supports on one side. Ominously, the building began to collapse and topple onto one side, the same side where the car full of civilians was still overturned. Before Yang could even let out a cry, Bumblebee jumped in to shield the vehicle with his body as untold tons of material fell upon them.
"Such heroic nonsense," scoffed Barricade derisively.
"You bastard!" bellowed Yang before launching a quartet of micro-missiles into the fiend's upper back.
Barricade grunted and turned to see the human girl flying towards him once more, and once more, he swept out his hand to knock her out of the air. This time, though, Yang fired her dual ranged shot gauntlets towards the sky with a pair of gravity rounds at the last possible second, sending her down and out of the way of the swipe. She hit the gravel and rolled between her opponent's legs at incredible speed before abruptly coming to a stop with her feet digging two small trenches to shadowbox out a pair of orange dust blasts.
Before she could maneuver again, a blast from Barricade's gun hit the ground behind her, sending Yang flying through the air to land on the ground in a heap where her aura started to flicker and pulse dangerously.
"End of the line, insect," sneered Barricade as he once more pointed his gun at her.
However, before the massive weapon could fire, he was hit from the side by another blast, much larger than Yang's. He turned and found Bumblebee now standing above the dusty ruins, worse for wear but with the car intact behind him in a clear area surrounded by a halo of rubble; his right arm had transformed into some kind of energy weapon. For the young human, that was a sight for sore eyes, one which was matched by what she believed to be Barricade's aura flickering and breaking as well.
He still looked ready to fight, but then the air was split by a loud truck horn of all things. Barricade's face distorted into an expression of pure terror, and the horn sounded once more, echoing through the night. Their foe then broke just as his aura had, and he transformed back into a police car to roar away.
A red, white, and blue tractor-trailer appeared at the edge of the site, and Barricade accelerated even faster. Before leaving entirely, however, he partially transformed and sent out one final energy blast towards the civilian car. Then, without Yang realizing what was even happening, the truck transformed into a giant robot of similar colors and jumped in front of the car, taking the brunt of the blast.
A red pickup truck and a medical vehicle appeared on the edge as well, but by then, Barricade had well and truly fled.
Yang shook her head. This was all too much for her to sort out right now, but there was one thing she was certain of. She bolted for the car full of faunus. They needed help, and she was a Huntress. Or would be, at least.
As she helped the last of the faunus out of the car, the pickup truck and ambulance also changed shape, the pickup moving to - stand guard? - while the ambulance approached the red, white, and blue former tractor-trailer, who waved him - it? - off.
What was the world coming to these days?
"I'm fine, Ratchet," the former tractor-trailer rumbled. "Check on the civilians."
"Of course, Prime," Ratchet said, turning toward the faunus. A wave of energy scanned the faunus, and he nodded. "Well, the good news is, no one's sporting any broken bones or ruptured organs, but beyond that, I'm still learning the details of your physiology. I recommend you seek professional medical advice immediately."
"Uh, yes, sir, Mister Ratchet, sir," one of the faunus said.
Meanwhile, Bumblebee walked up to Prime.
"Hey, Optimus," he said..
"Good work, B-127," was the big robot's reply. B-127? Was that his real name? Designation? Whatever?
"Actually..." the yellow bot hedged, looking away briefly, before turning his gaze over to Yang, "...I'm kinda partial to 'Bumblebee' these days."
Yang couldn't help but smile at that.
"I see," acknowledged - Prime? Optimus? - with a nod. He followed Bumblebee's gaze. "And who might this be?"
"This is Yang Xiao Long," Bumblebee replied. "She did a number on Barricade, helped me knock down his structural integrity field."
Optimus turned and genuflected before her, looking her in the eyes. "Then you have my thanks, Miss Xiao Long, and I am pleased to meet you. Bumblebee is a close friend and a valued comrade. My name is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, and I'm sure you have many questions."
"Just one, actually: What the hell is going on?!"
"That," Optimus said, looking compassionately at the faunus, "is a question we were wondering ourselves."
One faunus, male with bat ears, stepped forward and looked ready to say something, but glanced briefly at Yang with what looked like concern.
"Don't worry about me," said the blonde. "I just want to know what's going on."
Taking a moment to gather himself, the faunus said, "We're… escapees. From a dust facility up north."
"'Escapees'?" Optimus asked.
He glanced side to side furtively and said, "Yes. Look, we were desperate. The SDC came to Vacuo, offered us jobs, off the books, sure, but…" he trailed off, shaking his head. Squaring his shoulders, he continued, "When we got there, we were treated like slaves. Constant, backbreaking work, sixteen hours a day, barely enough food to get by. All to process dust into something they called… energon."
Whatever "energon" was, it meant something to the Autobots, judging from the looks they exchanged.
Before anyone could say any more, the sound of sirens echoed from the distance. The crunch of gravel startled Yang, and she looked over to see where the red pickup truck Autobot had set the faunus's car back on the ground upright.
"We must be going," Optimus said as he rose to his feet.
"But-" Yang broke off, unsure what she was about to say.
"Go with Bumblebee," he said. "We'll talk more in a few cycles. Autobots, transform and roll out!"
Author's Note:
As noted from the summary, this 'fic is being reposted from the Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity forums, originally started two years ago, so please let me know if any formatting errors cropped up in the transfer. Since FFN does not allow links or embedded media, we recommend you visit Spacebattles or Sufficient Velocity and read the story there for the full experience. We also have a Discord server for this story and SAPR by ScipioSmith. Links can be found in the 'fics threads on Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity. The alphabetical code for the invite link is acKKNXR.