Prologue: Welcome to Remnant

Red like roses fill my dreams and brings me to the place you rest.

B-127 groaned as a red light flashed in his stasis pod. He pushed open the lid of the pod as his blue optics opened. He stretched his metal limbs with a yawn and gradually rose to his feet, stepping out of the pod and onto the soft ground.

"Alright Optimus," he started, "I'm ready to…" He paused when he noticed that he was no longer in the Ark. "By the AllSpark." The tiny Autobot glanced around his surroundings. His pod was partially buried at the bottom of a deep hole, and dark clouds blotted out the sky. "Well, might as well see what caused my pod to wake me up." B-127 walked over to his pod, and noticed that the homing beacon had been torn right out of the rusted metal. "Great, now how am I gonna find my way back to the Ark?" he groaned before looking up at the sky above. "Nowhere to go but up."

.

B-127 let out a sigh of relief as soon as he pulled himself out of the hole.

"Hopefully my homing beacon isn't too far from here," he remarked as he dusted off his hands and scanned the treeline, "The sooner I can find the others, the be-"

"Intruder, identify yourself!" a computerized voice ordered. B-127 groaned as 12 black robots with red visors stepped out of the treeline to surround him, each one holding a gun in its hands. A quick scan indicated that they were Sparkless drones. Simple mathematics indicated that each of the drones was half his height.

"I'm B-127 of the Autobot Resistance," the Autobot answered, "I mean you no harm."

"B-127, you are intruding on a Military excavation site," one of the drones replied, "By order of Specialist Winter Schnee, you are hereby under arrest. Step out of the mecha and put your hands in the air or we will open fire.."

"I can do the second…" B-127 remarked as he raised his hands in the air, "I don't want any trou-" The drones opened fire, and their shots plinked harmlessly on the Autobot's Projected Spark Field. "So that's how it's gonna be." An insectoid mask covered B-127's face as he deployed blasters from his wrists. "Sorry about this," he remarked, even if he knew the drones weren't alive and wouldn't feel a thing. Each blaster fired off six shots, and all twelve drones were reduced to smoking heaps. "Now to find that homing bea-"

"What is going on here?!"

White is cold and always yearning, burdened by a royal test.

Winter Schnee was not having a good day. Between being sent to investigate an excavation on Patch which had apparently uncovered a bomb from the great war only for said "bomb" to not only not have any Dust in it, but to also start beeping incessantly once she had "disarmed" it, she was having a bad day. With the rumors of White Fang sightings and increased Grimm activity that could only be drawn to what had been dug up, she was having a horrible week. So when a giant bipedal mech had climbed out of the hole and destroyed her Atlesian Knights, she was on her last nerve.

If not for my embarrassment of a mother I'd be reaching for a flask right now, she thought as she approached the mecha.

"They started it," the mecha's seemingly youthful pilot replied, retracting its weapons.

"Step out of the mecha now before I rip you out of it!" Winter shouted as she pointed her saber at the yellow mecha.

"Considering that I am the mecha, that's gonna be kinda hard to do," the voice replied. The wasp-like mask opened and retracted to reveal a face that was far too human for Winter's comfort. The mecha's hand went to scratch the back of its head as it flashed her an uneasy and far too human smile. "Sorry about your drones, by the way," the mecha replied, "I didn't want to trash your things, but I'd rather minimize damage to my Projected Spark Field in case something actually dangerous happens."

"Your what?" Winter asked, lowering her saber as she quirked an eyebrow.

"My Projected Spark Field," the mecha replied with a shrug, "Y'know, that thing where you shield your body with your very essence? Some folks even get superpowers out of it?"

"You have Aura!" Winter shouted. There was a day she would've written that off as impossible, but considering Pietro's pet project…

"Is that the local term?" the robot asked, "Anyway, if this misunderstanding has been cleared up, I'd like to figure out who ripped off a part of my stasis pod, because that's kinda important." Winter took a deep breath. Given that this robot had referred to Aura as a "Local Term", that meant that it probably wasn't from Remnant. So, she decided to press it for more intel.

"What was taken from your 'stasis pod'?" she asked.

"A homing beacon," the robot replied, "I need it to find my ship."

"And what's on your ship?" Winter pressed, "Why do you need to find it?"

"Oh, that's just standard procedure," the robot replied, "Ordinarily, my stasis pod would try to reestablish a connection with the ship when its ejected, mostly to determine whether or not its safe to wake me up, but considering the rust..."

"What is on your ship?" Winter repeated, pointing her saber at the robot, "Do not dodge the question."

"Oh! Uh let's see, there's a lot of classified stuff I'm not allowed to talk about, which was probably destroyed in the crash," the robot started, "the stasis ward, which was probably destroyed in the crash, Teletraan-1, which I hope wasn't destroyed in the crash, the arsenal, which might have caused the crash, the-"

"What kind of weapons do you have in your arsenal?" Winter asked, her grip on her weapon tightening.

"Erm... Aside from a bunch of standard-issue ion rifles and some random tech I don't know the name of, that's mostly classified," B-127 replied, "Can't risk that information getting to our enemies, I'm sure you under-"Winter stabbed her saber into the ground, and engulfed the robot's body in a blizzard.

.

B-127 shielded his face with his arms as a flakes of frozen water flew through the air in a blizzard localized entirely in the immediate area around him.

"Oh, so that's her Distinction," the Autobot remarked, then froze as a soulless eyes gazed at him through the storm. A lupine form, seemingly made of ice and fog, lunged forward. B-127 deployed his wrist-mounted blades and slashed through the creature, his eyes widening when the creature dissolved into nothing. "Oh… That's not normal…" He deployed his battle mask and traded out his left blade for the wrist-mounted blasters, with more soulless, blue eyes gazing out of the darkness at him. He raised his left arm and fired off shots at the eyes. He heard growls coming from behind, and swung around to slice through the creatures. "No Sparks, but I've never seen organic drones before." A screech sounded from overhead, and B-127 raised up an arm to shield his head from a barrage of dagger-like feathers, their source being an icy avian whose head was covered in what appeared to be a helmet of some kind. B-127 fired off several shots as the avian swooped down at him, talons first. B-127, realizing that the head was the only part of the creature that was armored, thrust his blade forward. Rather than take the bait, the avian creature course-corrected to do another fly-by. The Autobot grimaced as the dagger-like feathers and the freezing cold continued to whittle away at his Projected Spark Field. Scrap, I can't keep this up! B-127 thought, I need to get out of here! He lunged forward, the pieces of his body shifting and folding into a small, dual-wheeled vehicle.

.

Winter Schnee watched the dome of swirling snow as the soldiers under her command lined up behind her.

"Remember, we need to capture it alive!" Winter ordered, "My Summons should have weakened it enough to ensure minimal resistance!" Right as she said this, a yellow, riderless motorcycle with no seat burst from the localized blizzard, and fell right back into the hole. "What the-" The motorcycle shifted and unfolded back into the bipedal robot from before.

"Hey, there's no need for the cold shoulder!" the robot shouted. Winter growled and formed a Glyph line with claw marks and fangs.

"Open fire!" she ordered as the snow storm finally dispersed and her Nevermore Summon flew up above the hole to send in more feathers.

.

B-127 struggled as his feet refused to budge.

"Why does it feel like my feet are suddenly cuffed up?" he questioned. He got his answer when the soldiers opened fire, forcing him to duck down and shield his head with his hands With nowhere to look but down, he noticed the Glyph, and the clawed hands reaching out of it to hold his feet down. "Well, that's a flexible Distinction," he murmured, "I wonder…"

.

Winter's jaw dropped as the robot dropped its guard, deployed it's wrist-mounted guns, and shot her Glyph. The blast was strong enough to dispel the Glyph and partially-summoned Beowolves, letting the robot fold back into a motorcycle and drive along the edge of the hole, which in turn broke off a lot of the ice. It gradually picked up more and more speed, allowing it to scale the walls as it kicked up more and more dust.

"Stop it!" she shouted, "Don't let it escape!" Her Nevermore Summon divebombed the motorcycle as her soldier's bullets plinked of the machine's aura, only for it to unfold back into a robot, kick off the wall, deploy a blade from its left wrist and a double-barreled gun from its right, stab the Nevermore's underbelly, and then fire its gun into the Summon's body around the stab wound. The Nevermore dissolved, and the robot flew right towards her. "Shit!"

.

B-127 was quite surprised when he hit another white Glyph instead of barrelling into the organic being's body. Her Projected Spark Field would've shielded her from any serious damage, but that probably would've taken her out of the fight and made escaping easier.

"You've got one versatile Distinction," he noted, "Wanna see mine?"

"What?" the organic sputtered out. B-127 answered her question by channeling his Projected Spark Field through his right hand, and a translucent, blue Stinger materialized in the palm of his hand.

"Sorry about this!" B-127 remarked, before jabbing his stinger forward. The organic raised her blade to parry, but the Autobot's Distinction needed to only scratch her Projected Spark Field to trigger.

.

Winter froze, both literally and figuratively as her Aura hardened around her.

"Seeya!" the robot snipped before folding back into a motorcycle and speeding off into the woods, leaving the Atlesian Specialist trapped by her own soul. Fortunately for Winter, the robot's Semblance wore off after only a few seconds.

"What the hell? How does that thing have a Semblance?" Did that mean that the prototype… Winter shook her head. "Fan out now! We are not letting that thing get away!"

.

Gotta find my homing beacon, gotta find my homing beacon, gotta find my homing beacon, B-127 repeated the mantra in his processors as he weaved between the trees, Why didn't I memorize the fragging frequency when I had the chance? While the Autobot pondered his terrible life decisions, he came upon a clearing with a white tent in the center, surrounded by soldiers wearing the same armor as the ones whom had been accompanying the organic being from before. "What the Scrap?" He swiftly transformed back into his robot mode, stumbled across the ground, and collided with the fabric of the tent.

The structure of the tent collapsed on top of the Autobot, leaving him grumbling and cursing as it wrapped around his mechanisms. B-127 struggled against the cables and poles as he deployed both of his wrist-mounted blades, cutting his way out of the fabric, cables, and poles. As the tattered ruins of the tent settled around him, Bumblebee scanned his surroundings. The soldiers seemed to have shaken off their confusion and bafflement and were raising their guns to point at him. Among the ruins of the tent were pieces of destroyed furniture, scattered paper, what used to be fragile equipment, and a silver disk with a black screen on the front.

"There it is!" B-127 announced as he picked up his homing beacon, "Now let's see, it appears to still be working, which means Teletraan-1 is still functional, so time to figure out where the others are and…" His voice trailed off as red eyes peered at him and the soldiers from the darkness between the trees. One of the soldiers lowered his gun and glanced over his shoulder as something growled.

Black the beast descends from shadows.

"Grimm!

As if on cue, multiple, lupine, shadowy creatures emerged from the darkness. Each one had bone like spikes and claws, yellow pupils, red veins, and what appeared to be a skull-like helmet.

"Relax, it's just a pack of Beowolves!" one of the soldiers remarked while casually shooting one in the chest multiple times, it's body dissolving before it could reach him, "I hear Specialist Schnee fights these to blow off steam."

"Damn it, of all the days to not pack lightning rounds!" another of the soldiers shouted as he stabbed one of the creatures in the eye. B-127 scowled as he scanned the beasts, noticing that, much like the ones that had attacked him before, they didn't have Sparks.

"What is with this world's wildlife?" he muttered as he attached the homing beacon to his back, "Well, I'm not going to look a gift altmode under the hood." He shifted back into vehicle mode, the homing beacon now sitting on top of his vehicle mode, and sped into the woods, barreling right through a Beowolf that had somehow managed to break through a soldier's Projected Spark Field. "I seriously hope Optimus knows how we can get out of this mess."

.

Winter Schnee growled as she sliced through Beowolf after Beowolf with her saber's separated blades.

"If I ever see that stupid machine again, I'm going to give it a piece of my-" she paused as she heard the roar of a motorcycle's engine, then noticed a yellow, riderless motorcycle speeding through the trees. "Speak of the Grimm…" She smirked as she conjured up a Glyph depicting a lionine face, wings decorating the edges. A Manticore climbed out of the Glyph with a low growl, and fired off a blast of blue flame where the vehicle was heading. The robot let out a cry of pain as the blue flames struck it dead and center. The vehicle tumbled and unfolded as the tell-tale flicker of its Aura breaking covered its body. A stray lightning round hit its body at the same time.

"We've broken its Aura!" Winter shouted, "Finish off the Grimm so we can capture this thing!"

A red Atlesian dropship flew through the sky, no pilot at the controls, as a blip appeared on its radar.

"Dropkick, report!" a voice echoed from within the dropship, "I just detected an Autobot energy signature!"

"Are you sure you're not going senile in your old age, Shatter?" a blue and black armored car asked as it drove down a Valean highway, "There's nothing on this fragging planet but squishy humans, squishy humans with animal bits stapled on them, and those blasted Grimm that attack everyone but Starscream and the beasts."

"We were sparked one week apart you bucket of bolts!" Shatter's voice replied through the radio, "It came from the island of Patch. Find a place to shift into Bullhead mode and meet me at our usual meeting spot! If we hurry, we can kill the Autobot before Starscream swoops in and takes all the credit!"

"Great, I'll meetcha there as soon as I can get off this highway," Dropkick replied, "Hey, do you need me to grab anything on the way there? Dust might be completely useless off world, but they make for some very interesting ways of popping squishy organics when you mix them with Energon rounds!"

"Oh get your finger off the trigger and meet me at Patch!"

"All right, all right, no need to get your circuits in a twist!" Dropkick replied, "I'll be there in a couple of hours, this next exit leads to a road I can take to an abandoned village. Maybe they didn't bother burying their dead before fleeing this time!"

"… You have issues, Dropkick."

B-127 shifted back into vehicle mode, cursing mentally with every second.

Scrap scrap scrap, someone had to have noticed that energy wave, he thought to himself as he weaved between the trees, Looks like I'll have to stash my homing beacon somewhere and lay low until my Projected Spark Field can recharge. He soon came to a tree near a lot full of vehicles, a rock under its roots.

"Welp, it's better than nothing," he remarked, before shifting back into robot mode. B-127 detached the homing beacon from his back and dropped it to the ground. The rock was removed from its place, the homing beacon shoved into the hole under the tree, and the hole haphazardly covered by the same rock he had removed.

"It went this way!" he heard the commanding organic shout.

"Okay, time to throw them off my trail," B-127 muttered as he dashed for the lot on foot.

.

The Autobot''s optics glanced nervously from vehicle to vehicle as the voices of the pursuing soldiers got louder and louder.

Why aren't any of these things compatible with my build? B-127 wondered as he mentally tallied the number of cars and trucks, What do I have to do to get a- he saw a bunch of motorcycles on the other side of the lot, an empty spot between two of them. Bingo! He jumped onto the lot, transforming into vehicle mode before hitting the ground, and rushed over to the free space. As soon as he was comfortably parked between them, he scanned one, and felt his body shift as the external circuitry was covered by metal panels, a seat formed on the back, and his front shifted to accommodate controls for a driver.

"Remember, the motorcycle we're looking for doesn't have a seat!" Winter announced as she and her soldiers filled the lot, not noticing that one of the motorcycles put down its own kickstand without a rider, "We cannot let that machine escape!" B-127 silently chuckled.

Good luck with that!

Eventually, the soldiers moved on, B-127's Projected Spark Field recharged, and morning came.

Okay, I just have to wait for these organics to lock up for the night, then I can sneak away while nobody's looking, grab my homing beacon, and I'll be home free, the Autobot planned as the owner of the lot led a trio of organics around the lot. One of them was a blond, adult male, the other was a long-haired female with a lot of yellow, and the last was a young female primarily clad in black and red. As long as I blend in, I don't have to worry about a- Murphy decided to punish B-127's hubris in that moment, as the older of the two females singled him out. The Autobot bit down a yelp of surprise as he felt a comparatively light weight on the seat in his new altmode.

"I think I'll take this one sir!" the long-haired female announced, "I dunno, something about the paint job just speaks to me."

Yellow beauty burns...

Gold.

Scrap… B-127 thought as the garage door of the Rose/Xiao Long household closed in front of him, This just got a lot more complicated.

a/n: Okay so this is something I never expected to write, but here we are. B-127's Semblance is based off of his "Stingers" in Transformers: Cyberverse, while Winter being paranoid and having no chill is based off of who her mentor figure is and her very first scene in canon. Although I will admit, most of this prologue was just an excuse to explain why Winter was in Vale before Ruby's and Yang's first Semester at Beacon started, and "Getting sent to disarm what the public thinks is a Mantlite bomb left over from the Great War" was the only thing I could think of. I also tweaked this Prologue and a/n quite a bit over the past few days in an attempt to get something I was satisfied with. I actually remember switching around those last two lines quite a bit. As for the general structure of the Prologue, I wanted to get the same feeling as one of the "Color" Trailers or Character Shorts, but altered a bit for a written medium. Finally, the homing beacon didn't originally exist in the story, but was developed after I decided not to have B-127 lose his memories. Now that that's out of the way, tune in next time where B-127's new hosts learn that victory is in A Simple Spark.

Update 3/20/2020: This prologue was slightly tweaked to remove the Rotary Dust Chamber on Winter's Saber and make it more like her Saber on the show. This included replacing the Lightning Slash with Winter's Manticore Summon from "The Enemy of Trust" (which hadn't aired yet when I first published this Prologue). Don't worry, I WILL find some way to bring back the Lightning Slash. In case you're wondering, the Freeze Glyph that trapped B-127 in the hole was a Gravity Glyph in the first published version. I kept the Nevermore as full-sized instead of miniature because I couldn't figure out a good way to incorporate the Mini-Nevermores from canon, but I will probably use those in the future. I also decided to tweak Winter's entry scene to make her mounting fear and frustration more apparent, with her misreading B-127's statement as a threat being the tipping point. I hope this is still an enjoyable read!

Update 4/24/2020: I removed all of Winter's elemental Glyphs to be more in line with her canon abilities and added B-127 getting hit by a lightning round to provide a more plausible explanation for the energy wave.

Update 5/26/2020: I added three words to Dropkick's statement about Remnant for narrative cohesion.