A Girl and her Car (a Transformers x MHA crossover)

[Titanmaster_117]

​

At first, there was darkness.

There was nothing. No, there wasn't even nothing at the beginning. No concept existed, for there were no thoughts to create such concepts, for there was no life to have such thoughts. There was just absence. A void.

Then, something came into existence. A flicker, a pulse. A light in the darkness, slowly building until suddenly-

An explosion. A sudden rush of lights and sound as senses came into being, the world rushing into view as they saw the bright lights around them and heard the commotion of life coming into being and felt the ground beneath them and smelt the cool air and tasted the humidity in the air.

And then, the overload began to simmer and the information overflow began to cool, and the world began to make sense as liquid metal rose up from the soft, gelatinous ground below to gather around the spark of light that had emerged from the well behind it. Arms and legs grew out of the pool of metal to form a silver body, an exo-skeleton forming before being covered by the jelly-like metal.

Then, the metal began to cool and solidify, taking on colour and shape, growing distinguishable features and shades. Yellow skin began to grow over the body, the limbs taking on a boxy shape. Wheels and tyres took form as a horned head formed from the metal, and as the body stumbled forward and the ground beneath them solidified along with them, their kibble forming on their body and their form finally finding its shape-

"Hey, easy."

-The young bot, the new-born robot, looked up to see hundreds, thousands, millions of people emerging from the metal alongside him, the newly made sparks emerging from the well behind them and interacting with the liquid metal, taking on new shapes of their own.

A robot much larger than himself smiled down at the new-born bot and helped him onto her feet. He was but one of hundreds, maybe even thousands of other robots helping to coax this new generation into the world. The crowds behind them were massive, watching on with rapturous, reverent awe.

The world around him was made of metal. The sky was awash with distant nebulae behind a blue veil and half a dozen metal moons.

"You're going to do great things, B-127," the robot told him, "I'm certain of it."

He held out his hand.

"Let's find out what you're destined for."

The new-born robot took his hand-

-And the dream repeated for the rusted old car at the bottom of the ocean, being swept along the sea floor by the currents. Its body was tested by the violent pressure of the water around it, testing its strength and threatening to crumple it to pieces. Its body was smashed and battered and worn down from years of disuse. Time had not treated it with any kindness.

Yet, somehow, it still kept its shape, its frame and shell still intact as it was smashed against the sea floor, slowly being carried from one end of the ocean to the other.

Was the change in the ocean tide a natural occurrence? Divine intervention? The aftermath of a battle between this world's champions and their demons? Was its course made by the hand of whatever deity may reside high in the sky or a string of coincidences and circumstances brewing into the perfect storm? It was impossible to know.

But, as the dinky old car rolled along the ocean, approaching a distant shore...

As three women trained together in an undisclosed camp far away from the eyes of the public...

As a man looked over his kingdom of steel and the nightmares that he has cultivated...

As a young inventor searched the coastline for scraps and parts...

As a clan of refugees sheltered in the darkness...

As an legion of monsters made from the skin and meat of beings from another world readied themselves for battle...

And as an army of killers continued to wage war in the shadows of a peaceful planet...

A young girl and her kin would watch the coastlines, unaware of the future waiting for her, the destiny calling for her, laid out in a path marked as much by the hope that she would bring with the blood that would be spilt.

For better or worse, her path was set.

An encounter would be had, and a bond would be made...

And with it, the world would be changed forever.

---

So here we are, with another new story! This time, it's a Transformers/MHA crossover, of which I have called A Girl and her Car!

This has been a story that has been sitting in my head for a long time. Originally starting out as a simple idea in my Idea Pool, now I'm here, turning it into a full-fledged tale.

With some notable changes, of course. Suffice it to say, it's going to be pretty different to what I wrote before.

However, those aren't going to be the most noticeable differences. Suffice it to say, I am going to be doing things a lot differently than the average crossover, specifically the typical ones you'll find in MHA. There are a few trends in MHA's fanfic crossover catalogue that I'm sick and tired of, and I'd like to start changing things around a bit. You'll find out more about those in the next chapter.

(Let's just say, it's not going to be the typical hero vs villain/Autobot vs Decepticon struggle...)

Furthermore, while this story is going to be taking cues from all over the Transformers mythos in accordance with MHA, this is mainly going to be a G1 story. However, I am going to be pulling a lot of inspiration from all over Transformers, specifically the IDW comics, the Prime cartoon, and the War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron games. They're the Transformers media that I've grown up with, and they've been the ones to really influence how I see the series.

Combine that with some elements from Transformers One, Beast Wars and Beast Machines, the live action films (without the crappy Bayformer designs. Bumblebee and ROTB's designs are the only ones that I will give any measure of respect towards), and the Skybound comics, and I think we've got a good combo coming up.

I know that sounds like a lot, but trust me, there's a method to the madness.

To add onto this: this is going to be a strictly Transformers and MHA crossover. Bar a few references to some other Hasbro properties and some of Horikoshi's other works, we're going to be keeping it strictly to these two properties.

I will let you all know now, this story is going to get rather dark at points. Transformers is a war story at its core, after all. I'd be doing it a disservice if I didn't portray it with as much seriousness as I can afford. Don't worry, we're not going to be getting into any grimderp territory and being edgy for the sake of edgy, but...

Well, to all those who know me as a writer, you know how trigger-happy I am with my characters.

Also, I should probably mention now: romance is not going to be a major component in this story. In fact, I don't think it's going to really be a component at all. So no freaky derpy pairings here, thank you very much. I'd really not like to write about a human and a Cybertronian getting it on.

(Kiss Players isn't real Kiss Players isn't real Kiss Players isn't real KISS PLAYERS ISN'T REAL-)

And finally, please don't expect a consistent update schedule with this. I've got this chapter and two more written, and I'll release those in the next two weeks, but in-between writing an original novel and trying to find a job as I leave uni... yeah, there might be some long gaps between chapter uploads.

But, for those who decide to stick around, I sincerely hope that you enjoy the ride!

So, coming up, we've got themes of war and the consequences thereof, hope and despair, love and loss, the struggle to be good in the face of evil, the plight of family in a world out to get you, how good intentions can lead to the worst atrocities in history, how one's morality is subjective, how nothing is truly black and white, and how one can still be a good person when faced with the ugliness of the world.

It's going to be one hell of a ride.

 

[Howldawg]

Light Grey text on a white background can't actually read this

 

[Titanmaster_117]

Light Grey text on a white background can't actually read this

Click to shrink...

Wait, that filter is for everyone? I thought it was just for the individual user.

Hang on a tick.

Edit: How's this?

 

[Howldawg]

Still grey not sure how you would fix it though

 

[Titanmaster_117]

Still grey not sure how you would fix it though

Click to shrink...

Well, I've changed the colours again. If this doesn't solve it, then nothing will.

 

[Howldawg]

Ya still grey on my phone

 

[Titanmaster_117]

Ya still grey on my phone

Click to shrink...

Well I don't know what to do about that, my friend. This is my first time on this site and I'm doing this through a computer. Is it not something you can change on your side by going onto preferences and changing the site colours yourself?

 

[Howldawg]

As none of the other books I'm reading on this site have this problem I doubt it

 

[Titanmaster_117]

As none of the other books I'm reading on this site have this problem I doubt it

Click to shrink...

Right, I've realised the problem: I was directly copying the text over from SpaceBattles, and that site uses white text on a black/blue background whereas QQ's default background is white. I didn't notice this because I changed my background on QQ because I didn't like the white background. It should be fixed now (hopefully).

 

[Howldawg]

Looks good to me

 

[Titanmaster_117]

Ochako Uraraka let her hand glide through the air, feeling the soft breeze flow between her fingertips. The wind fluttered through her hair and caressed her cheek, as if holding her in a tender embrace. She closed her eyes and let herself be immersed in the flow, feeling as if she was the sun itself in flight, moving through the clouds.

She had never flown before, and she doubted that she ever would. However, as she leant out over the side of the beach pathway and pressed her hand out to feel the cold air hit her, she wondered if this would be what it felt like.

She closed her eyes, shielding her brown irises from the world. A hum parted from her lips as her brown bob of hair fluttered in the wind. Her rosy cheeks flushed against the chill as her white shirt and beige baggy trousers protected her from the cold. Her white and pink-accented shoes kicked gently against the sand and dirt beneath her, scraping against the chipped concrete pathway beneath her.

She imagined herself as some of the greatest heroes she could think of. Like Thirteen, flying through the air with her gravity quirk, or Ryukyu, spreading her wings to part the clouds like a knife. Or Air Jet, gliding through the heavens. Or even All Might, who, with a single jump, could cross over an entire city and back in a mere few seconds.

Ochako didn't think that she could ever reach those heights. But one day, she would like to try.

Her gaze flicked over to the horizon. The sun was cresting over the horizon, sinking into the sparkling blue ocean as the seagulls chirped and squawked, settling themselves down for the coming night. The sky was painted in shades of orange and pink as the world around them began to darken. The clouds above were cast in swirls and spirals, like a paintbrush stroke on a canvas. The whole world looked like a painting brought to life.

Ochako wondered, for a brief moment, what it would be like to chase the setting sun.

She heard someone call her name, and looked to the side to see her cousin staring back at her, her blue eyes – which complemented her black bob of hair and constantly stoic expression well – carrying confusion as to why she'd stopped. The white blouse and pale blue dress that she wore flickered in the gentle breeze, and the red and blue slip-on shoes that she wore fidgeted against the sand covered stone.

"Sorry Yui," Ochako apologised, though she didn't take her hand out of the air, "Just… thinking, is all," she turned her head back up to the sky, "About what it would be like to fly."

Yui blinked, "Nh?"

"Just… have you ever had a thought? About what it would be like to fly?" Ochako's gazes flickered between each cloud, "And not just in a plane or helicopter, I mean, really fly. Like a bird. Or a hero."

She leant herself back, catching herself on the hand railing as she kept her eyes up to the golden sun as it lowered to the ground.

"Feeling the wind blowing against you as soar up into the sky, passing through the clouds and piercing the heavens above, feeling the cold air breeze between your fingertips and around your body as you look down on the world moving beneath you, everything seeming so small as you fly high above, unbothered by the happenings of the people below as you embrace the boundless utopia that you've been given high above…"

She brought her hand down.

"That would probably be the most amazing feeling in the world, Yui. That would be freedom. That would be heaven."

"…Using your quirk without a license is illegal."

Ochako blinked, then laughed, "Yeah, it is, isn't it?"

Yui hummed, and they continued on their way once more. Ochako had long learnt not to take her cousin's typical silence as an offense. She'd been like that for as long as they'd known each other, quiet and practical-minded. Ochako felt like everyone needed someone like that in their lives. Someone who was down to earth and pragmatic. Someone who didn't have their heads up in the clouds like Ochako seemed to do all the time.

Ochako joined Yui's side as they walked once more. They'd left their apartment some time ago to walk along the beach near their shared apartment. It had become a routine for them, to walk along the beach when they didn't have homework to do or training for when they got into U.A.. A daily pilgrimage, if one could call it that. Ochako had come to savour their walks together. It helped to ease her mind from worries and kept the usual anxieties at bay.

She had a lot of anxieties recently, some bigger than others.

She stretched her arms out, feeling her joints click into place. Her gaze drifted up once more to the sky, and she saw two pro heroes gliding through the air, high above them. She didn't recognise either of them, but when she waved at them, one of them looked down and waved back.

She watched them soar away, wondering if she would ever find herself up there as well, helping people and getting the money for it too.

That was really the reason that she was aiming to go to U.A. and become a pro hero. Money. It wasn't a selfless goal, and she was aware of that. But her parents' construction company was in dire straits, and they needed the money desperately. She wanted to give them an easy life, to ease their struggles, and quite frankly, becoming a pro hero seemed like the best way to do it.

She had other reasons to become a pro hero though, she just… didn't want to think about them that much.

There was a lot that she regretted. Maybe being a pro hero would make up for them.

It was getting darker. The sun's light fled with it. The world was cast in a Hadean glow.

"I'm surprised you're aiming for the hero course as well," Ochako said as she walked alongside Yui. When she'd been told that her cousin was going to be aiming for U.A., she'd been majorly surprised. She still was, to that very moment, "I didn't think being a hero was your thing."

Yui shrugged, "Don't want to leave you on your own."

"Is that really your only reason? I thought you signed on before me."

Yui hummed noncommittally. She clearly believed that sometimes the best answers were no answers at all.

Ochako frowned, "I'm not a little kid anymore, you know? You don't need to protect me all the- WOAH!" she yelped as she tripped over a stray rock and fell-

Right before Yui caught her by the scruff of her shirt and pulled her back up to her feet.

"Clearly," Yui allowed herself the faintest, yet smuggest grin.

Ochako dusted herself off, "Thanks," she muttered, before looking down the beach and grinning at Yui, "The sun's going down. Fancy a race?"

Yui tilted her head, "No quirks?"

"No quirks."

The two cousins laughed and ran down the beach. This was something that they did regularly as well, their feet pushing into the soft ground beneath them and kicking up dirt and stones as they moved and laughed and danced.

Not too long ago, Ochako had been hit by a harsh truth, something that she'd never thought she'd learn, or ever wanted to learn: childhood is finite. One can only be small and youthful and naïve to the world for so long before reality catches back up with them and reminds them of their place in the world.

Childhood didn't last forever. Nothing ever did. Sooner or later, you were going to have to grow up.

As such, Ochako decided that she was going to savour every moment of her youth while she could. She's collect every moment and memory, every thought and event, everything that she could to remember how alive she felt in the here and now.

Mortality was a precious thing. Ochako wanted to cherish it in any way that she could.

(She'd had to learn that lesson the hard way.)

Yui was catching up to her. She had put more of her recent training into stamina. That wouldn't do.

Ochako cheekily giggled, then pressed her hands against her body.

A few seconds later, and her quirk negated the gravity holding her down, and she shot forward like a rocket.

She laughed victoriously and spun herself around to see the rapidly disappearing Yui curl her lips into a faint frown.

"You cheated," she called out.

"And you're slow!" Ochako laughed, spinning in the air giddily as she flew, moving about like she was in space. Yui had said earlier that quirk usage without a license was illegal, but eh, no one was around, were they? And how else was she supposed to practice for-

She noticed Yui's expression then change, morph into worry as she waved at her, indicating to something behind her. Ochako spun herself around to see where she was flying-

"Oh sh-"

-And then used her quirk once more, returning gravity to herself as she pressed her fingers together-

-And then immediately fell to the ground and ate dirt.

Ochako wretched herself up and spat out a wad of sand. Ugh, it was all in her hair, and even in her mouth now. She was going to be tasting dirt for an hour, now.

Yui ran up to her side, "Deserved," she said quietly.

"Ah, shut up," Ochako retorted with no shortage of mirth, before she looked up in confusion and pointed, "Has that always been there?"

Ochako and Yui looked forward to see what the former had almost smashed into.

It was a car. An old looking car, covered front bumper to rear in saltwater damage and rust. Its metal frame was oxidised and rusted over, blistering like skin over an open wound. Its metal was pitted and cracked open, like someone had been striking it with a hammer and cutting it open with a blowtorch.

And yet, underneath the water damage and the rust and age, it wasn't a car model that Ochako recognised. She wouldn't say that she was an expert on all things automobile, but she had become quite familiar with some of the brand whilst helping her father look for reliable brands of construction vehicle for their business (he hadn't exactly asked, of course, but she'd wanted to help regardless).

But this car? It didn't look anything like the models that she'd seen before. Underneath the rusted metal and pitted frame, it was a sleek vehicle, small and compact, with stone cold lighting and panelling where the numberplates should go. It looked like it had once been a golden colour, with a faint hint of faded yellow underneath the rust. The wheels were rounded and covered over with that same muddy-grey, yellowish metal, and even the tires looked like they were made out of metal. The windscreen was, amazing, perfectly intact, save for a few cracks and a spiderweb pattern in its centre. Segmented panelling covered the vehicle, divvying it up into sections of symmetrical metal slabs, with no signs of bolts or nails in it at all.

It was an incredibly… futuristic design.

Of course, there were plenty of models of cars nowadays that looked like they'd come out of a science fiction movie. Even the cheapest cars were all electric nowadays, and many of them bore sleek curves and panelling to them. Maybe this one was a prototype, an experimental model that got dumped somewhere.

Suddenly, Ochako was wondering how much this old rusted thing might sell for…

Of course, before she started to consider that, another problem came to mind.

"Hey, watch the merchandise!"

Standing before her and her cousin, with their arms stretched out wide and a furious look over their face was a girl about the same age as them, dressed in slacks and overalls and sporting rubber gloves, a toolbelt around her waist, and a pair of flip up welding goggles atop her head. Her pink hair was tightened into dreadlocks and her greenish yellow eyes – shaped like a pair of crosshairs – narrowed as she pointed her finger at the grounded Ochako.

"Hey, bobcut? Go get your own car before you start throwing yourself at them? This baby's mine to pick apart, not yours!"

"Er-"

"That's right, I proclaim this washed-up hunk of metal to be the property of I, Hatsume Mei, future CEO of Hatsume Industries from now until all of time! Feel free to bask in my awesomeness as I used this as the stepping stone to ensure my rise to the top of the support industry world!"

"Wha-"

"Unless you're future customers. Are you future customers? Oh my god, are you going to make tons and tons of babies with me!?"

"Babies?!"

"Yes, my babies! My darlings! My children of the future! My cute babies that will reshape the world and redefine the entire pro hero industry! Now, what do you wish of me, the great Hatsume Mei?!"

"…I would like you to get out of my face."

"…Oh," Hatsume blinked, before quickly pulling herself up and retracting herself from Ochako's personal space, "Sorry about that, you can relax. I have been told by multiple people that they enjoy their personal space. Which really shouldn't be a problem, as I also enjoy their personal space."

"…Er," Ochako grunted, "Who… are you?"

"Hatsume Mei," said Yui as she picked her cousin up, "You're Hatsume Mei."

"You know her?"

Yui gave Ochako a blunt stare, "She told us her name."

"…Oh."

"Nn. We also go to school together."

"Do we?" Mei asked with that same wide-eyed smile on her face, "I don't remember either of you. Or anyone from our school at all."

"Not surprising," Yui grunted, "You're always tinkering with your inventions."

"Yeah, and, um, I'm a recent transfer," Ochako dusted the sand off herself, "Only recently joined. What was that you said about… babies?"

"She means her inventions."

"You mean your inventions?"

"inventions, babies, darlings, whatever anyone calls them, they're what's going to make me famous!" Mei's grin somehow stretched wider, "The future of Hatsume Industries isn't going to just make itself, after all!"

"So, you're getting your start on that… by calling dibs on old cars on the beach?"

"Not just old cars – pretty much anything I can get my hands on! Plastics, cans, metals, anything and everything that people throw away! The future of the world is in recycling, after all! And though I would never want my babies to be made from subpar metal, there's no sense in wasting good materials, is there?"

"So that's why you're down here?" Yui asked the young inventor, "Scavenging for parts?"

"You bet! If nobody else wants it, then I'll happily take it! Old plastics, old boat parts, even old cars! Like this one!" Mei slammed her gloved hands on the rusty car behind her, "It's mine! You can't have it! Hisssssss!"

"Why are you so adamant about this?" Yui tilted her head as she looked over the rusty old thing, "It's just a car."

"But it isn't, is it?" Yui turned her head to Ochako as the brown-haired girl gazed over the ruined vehicle, "I don't recognise the model at all. I've never seen it in any of the catalogue, not even for the old vintage petrol-guzzlers from a hundred years ago."

"That's right, this baby's none of them!" Mei grinned, running around the car frantically and inspecting it with wild abandon, "It's not in the catalogue at all! I checked! This car is a one-of-a-kind deal! And it's doesn't run on fossil fuels! I don't know if this is a prototype car or a custom car that someone threw away, but this bad boy is special! Unique! Ooh, I can't wait to take it apart and-"

"Woah woah woah woah woah, you can't just take it apart!" Ochako almost tackled Mei away from the car as she rushed over to her side, "We don't know how much this thing is worth yet! We could be sitting on a goldmine, here!"

"We?" Mei shot her a questioning look, "Who's we? Last I checked, girlie, I'd staked a claim on this, not you."

"First of all, my name's Uraraka Ochako. That's my cousin, Kodai Yui," behind her, Yui waved. Ochako started talking again, "Second of all, you said that this is a one-of-a-kind, right? Well that means that anyone who finds it is going to want to pay a pretty penny for it."

"What, for a rusted car that doesn't run?"

"You'd be surprised how much car enthusiasts will spend on refurbishing old junks, especially when the cars are as rare as rare can be."

"Hmm, no deal," Mei shook her head, "I've got babies to make, and they need the metal. Even if it's rusty as hell, there're still good components here that I can use."

"Think about it like this," Ochako and Mei both jumped in place as Mei snaked in-between them, her demure voice cutting through the air, "You need tools to make your inventions, right?"

Mei nodded, "Right."

"And those tools are quite expensive, right?"

"When I'm not making them myself, yeah."

"So imagine the kind of tools you can buy with this kind of haul," she pointed her finger to the old car.

Mei narrowed her eyes, "You're trying to con me. I'm going to be the CEO of Hatsume Industries, you think I don't notice you trying to manipulate me?"

"Is it working?"

"Extremely," Mei flexed her arms and put them to her side, "Alright, fine, I'll let you two put it up for sale – on two conditions!" she counted down her commands on two fingers, "One, I give this thing the onceover before you try to sell it, and two, when you fail to do so – and trust me, you're going to fail – I'm stripping it down for parts," she held out her hand, "Deal."

"…Deal," Ochako said as she shook her hand.

"Wonderful," Mei let go of Ochako's hand (whilst Ochako wiped hers on her trousers to try and get rid of the dirt and grease) and looked back to the car, "Now, how are we supposed to get this off the beach? The water's not doing it any favours, and I was just going to scrap it here," she gestured to the tool kit in the sand near her.

"Don't worry," Ochako pulled out her phone, "I know someone."

---

"You know, you shouldn't be out in the dead of night looking over old cars," Moko Tamashi said as she pressed a button on the driver seat console, prompting the pickup truck to drop the chain and let the rusty old car drop to the floor of the garage, "You've not got the proper safety equipment for it. You could get tetanus from it. Or something else equally horrible."

"Hatsume's got the gear," Ochako said as she unbuckled her seatbelt, preparing to join Yui and Mei outside, "We'll be fine. I've been on site and tinkered with cars and crap all my life, you know that."

"Tell that to your mum and dad," Moko told her. She had swapped out her construction uniform for a pair of casual slacks. She obviously hadn't been planning on going anywhere tonight, "They'd have my job, my badge, and my head if anything happens to you."

Ochako laughed as she jumped out, closing the door behind her, "Thanks, Moko. I mean it. Tell them I'll call them later, okay?"

Moko laughed back, "Yeah, I will. Good night to you too, missy."

And a few seconds later, she was gone, the tow truck displaying her family company's logo on the side disappearing down the dark street into the night with her.

Ochako stepped back and joined Yui and Mei in the garage, lowering the roller door behind her as Mei turned on all the lights. She looked around and gazed upon all the scraps of metal and wiring strewn across the tables and the blueprints lining the walls, all detailing future projects and inventions yet-to-be. In the right corner of the room was a pile of broken metal and failed experiments, hidden behind a dirty tarp. In the left was a cabinet of tools next to a portable car battery charger.

All in all, it was an OSHA violation waiting to happen.

"I'm pretty sure if my parents saw all this, they'd have a heart attack," Ochako commented as she gazed over the strew of junk that Mei had piled up on her benches and desks, "Seriously, exposed wiring and metals, motherboards all over the place, nuts and bolts and joints all over the place, tools not stored away… it's a safety hazard waiting to happen."

"Don't remind me," Yui rubbed her head, "It's giving me a headache just looking at it."

"Hey, you have your systems, I have mine," Mei admonished them, "Trust me, everything in here is laid out where I need it, in the position that I need it in."

"How'd you even get a garage all to yourself?" Ochako asked as she gestured around to the wide room around them, "This place is pretty spacious."

"Ah, my parents got pissy about me filling the house up with fumes all the time, and rented this place out for me to do my work. I check in on them regularly and make sure I don't burn the place down, they promise to keep the lights on," she gestured to the naked bulbs hanging overhead, shining artificial light into the room.

"And the stuff under the tarp?"

"Ah, just the babies that I can't finish," Mei looked over the table and picked up a hammer, testing it for its weight, "I'm planning on completing them once I get into U.A.. As much as I want to work them out on my own and as sad as it is to leave my darling babies unfinished, U.A.'s got a lot more resources for me to use."

"Can't you just ask your parents for the stuff that you need to get it all done? They seem pretty well off…" Ochako didn't say it as a point of jealousy. It was just a statement of fact. Didn't stop the slight sting in her heart, though.

"Call it personal pride, but I'd rather sort these things out on my own than call my folks for help. I mean, I'm already taking up their cash as it is, and I would've preferred to have been inventing back home. You know what I mean?"

Ochako understood. She knew what Hatsume was talking about very well.

She blinked as Hatsume picked up a hammer from the side, and-

"Um, Hatsume, what are you-?"

{SMASH}

-Slammed it into the car's windscreen.

"-What the hell're ya doin'?" Ochako yelped after leaping back with a fright, first shocked out of her mind at Hatsume as the pink-haired girl twirled the hammer in her hand, then angry at the girl possibly ruining the car even further. So angry in fact that her Kansai accent was starting to slip out, "Ya know how much that could devalue this thing?!"

"What's there to devalue? This thing is a sack of rusted crap?" at Ochako's harsh glare, Hatsume grumbled, "Oh relax, there's not even a dent," she tapped the part of the windscreen that she'd hit. Not a scratch, "See that? No cracks, no marks, no nothing. Strong glass."

If Yui was shocked from Hatsume's improv test, she didn't let it show, "Bulletproof?"

"Probably," Hatsume tapped her hammer against her chin, "Though who would put bulletproof glass in an experimental car? Nothing about this thing seems military. A hero car, maybe? Definitely seems unique enough. I know that All Might and Endeavour have their own custom vehicles."

…Ochako actually hadn't considered that.

Suddenly, an even worse idea floated across her mind.

"Or a villain's car," Yui said what Ochako had been thinking, "Maybe we should've left it where it was. It might be a crime scene. Or a dead drop."

Ochako blinked, "Dead drop?"

"Something that criminals and villains do. They find a discreet location, dump drugs or payment for a job off, and someone else comes to collect it," the stoic girl's eyes darted down to the car, "There could be drugs in the car. Or blood money. Or evidence of a crime."

"Or a body," Ochako's voice suddenly became shaky. Yui nodded to her words, "Should we… I don't know, call the cops? Let them know?"

"Sure, you can tell 'em," Hatsume cut in with as she chucked the hammer onto the table with a loud {CLANG}, and went to pick up the battery pack on the floor, "After I've had my way with it."

"Wha- Hatsume! Wouldn't we be in trouble if we tried to tinker with this thing any further?"

"How much trouble do you think we're in already if the heroes learn we tampered with a crime scene?"

"…Oh."

"Yeah, and last I checked, you wanted to sell this thing. Don't start acting like a saint now."

"…Right," Ochako rubbed the back of her head awkwardly, "Sorry."

"How about this?" Hatsume began as she plugged the battery pack into the wall, "We give it the once over. If there's anything in it that belongs to a villain, we'll send it off to the cops and heroes. If we're lucky, they'll look the other way after seeing us pull out some amazing evidence of a crime for them. If there's nothing, then we'll just sell and/or scrap this baby and be done with it."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," Hatsume wiggled her eyebrows, "You're not the only one who can make deals, eh?"

"…Alright then," Ochako shrugged, "I mean, we're all already in trouble if it's a crime, isn't it?"

"And we did drag Hatsume along with us for this," Yui pointed out.

"That we did do, yes, Yui. Sorry about that Hatsume, by the way."

"Ah, whatever. I don't care. One doesn't get anything in the world without taking any risks!" Hatsume cheerfully pointed out as she began to circle the car like a shark, car battery charger clamps in hand.

"So… you're cool with us being in here? With you?"

"Absolutely!" Hatsume cried out, "I need someone to witness my genius, after all! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see if the engine is still working. If this really is a hero's car, then it's got to be made out of some powerful stuff! That means that the engine might still have some life in it! Just need to find a way to open the damn bonnet…"

Ochako frowned, then looked over the car itself. Now under a bright light, Ochako could make out a lot more details. There was no grill to the car, no doors or side windows, no boot or bumper. There wasn't even an electric charging port or fuel cap. It was as smooth as could be if it wasn't for the segmented metal and damage to the bonnet.

In fact, now that she was looking at it, this car had been through more than just sitting at the bottom of the sea for a couple of years. This car had been through absolute hell. There were slash marks and pulled metal, violently torn holes that looked like someone had fired a cannon into it, it looked like it had been through a war and back.

Despite that, it was still relatively intact. Hatsume was right, this thing was made out of stern stuff.

Her gaze flickered up to the top of the car. Atop the rusted and faded-yellow metal, there seemed to be… a tattoo? No, a logo. Like a red face. She couldn't make out the exact details, the damn car was too rusted over for her to see.

"Hatsume," Ochako said in thought, "You do know that electric cars have their batteries under the seats, right?"

Hatsume stopped in place, "I… would've figured that out. Eventually," she hissed, "Cars. Don't know nothing about them…"

Ochako couldn't help but giggle at that, lightening her mood, "You're an inventor, Hatsume. Shouldn't you know how a car works?"

"You're a money girl, pink cheeks," Hatsume shot her a dull look, "Can you make me a bank account?"

"…My name's Ochako Uraraka."

"I'll probably forget that later, I'll be honest with you."

Ochako walked over to Hatsume, "Why don't you hand those over to me? I can get under the car while Yui takes the pictures."

Yui gave her a look, as if to silently admonish her cousin for volunteering her for things when she'd rather sit back and let other people do the work for her, but Hatsume gave her a questioning look, "You know your way around cars?"

"Just the obvious things. Like how a car's engine is usually in the hood, not the bonnet. Or how a battery pack is supposed to connect to a car's battery, not its engine."

"Really?"

"Really," Ochako held out her hand, "Please?"

"…Just don't break them," Hatsume handed them over to her, and passed over a trolley crawler that she had leaning against the wall, Ochako took them and, after putting some gloves and a pair of goggles and mask on, placed herself on the trolley crawler, wheeling herself underneath the car and using the light on her flip phone to search for the battery. Hatsume then called out, "Just let us know if you find something criminal! Like a gun! Or a dead body!"

"I don't want to find a dead body," Ochako retched.

"I kind of hope it's a dead body," Yui hummed.

Hatsume went to inspect more of the car, looking over what could be scrapped versus what could be salvaged, whilst Yui leant herself down to watch Ochako underneath the car, just in case she needed help.

Ochako, meanwhile, was running her hands over the underside of the car, trying to find a manual battery port or a panel that she could pull over. She was glad to be wearing her mask and goggles, because there was so much rust and dirt down here, and she'd be damned if she got any of it in her eyes.

She looked around, and grasped her hands at another loose panel. A similarity that almost all cars, whether they run on fuels of batteries, was that all their most important components, such as the engines and the batteries and the motors, were all at the front of the car, underneath the hood.

The problem with this car was that they couldn't access the hood without prying it open, which would only damage the car more and decrease its value. However, that meant that they couldn't access the battery pack there, which would make starting up this lump of metal a lot more difficult if there was no charging port or fuel cap for them to access.

However, if she could find the traction battery packs, then they might have a shot at-

There. Underneath the old panel. A charging port.

Ochako grinned, "And now, the power," and then she gripped the booster clamps in her hands, attached them to the positive and negative charging posts-

{SPARK}

{CRACKLE}

-And then a shower of sparks flickered over her as the car's lights flickered and the lights to the garage went off, leaving all of them in total darkness.

A clang of metal sounded off, followed by Hatsume crying out, "Ah, this is the fifth time in the last week! Ah, I'm going to have fun explaining this to the rental guy…"

"Are you alright, Ochako?" it was only through Ochako's years of knowing her that she could recognise the slight tone of worry in her cousin's voice.

"I'm- I'm fine! I just-" Ochako reassured Yui before coughing through her mask. She used her phone to shine some light on her again, "I have no idea what happened! I just put the clamps on and-"

Then, suddenly, the car's lights blared with life. The headlights shone brightly, as did the bumper lights and the luminescent windows where the numberplates should be, the latter two glowing a warm red.

Then, the lights to the garage came back on.

"That was… eventful," Hatsume regained her smile, "But it's not something that I'm unfamiliar with! After all, I, the great Hatsume Mei, mother of invention and future CEO of Hatsume Industries, have pretty much made an arch-nemesis of the guy who my parents rent this place from! Seriously, let's try to knock out the power to the whole neighbourhood next time! That'll really get some heads rolling-"

"Hatsume," Yui cut her off with, "Has the car always been that… yellow?"

Indeed it was, as Yui, Hatsume, and even Ochako noticed, was that the car was seemingly regaining some of its colour, the yellow paint growing less faded with every second as the rust seemed to slowly fade away, replaced by pure yellow life.

It seemed like the battered car was coming back to life.

Hatsume blinked, "Is this, like, a car thing?"

Yui shook her head, "This is definitely not a car thing."

Underneath said car, Ochako watched in amazement as rust flickered off the old machine and gave way to black and silver metal, returning to life and colour. Tears in the metal still remained, and there was still a lot of work to be done, but-

"I'm surprised that the engine is still running in this thing," Ochako tried to return some normality to the conversation, "I mean, how many years has it been underwater? You'd think that-"

She then stopped, and blinked. Her mouth gaped open as her eyes darted through a torn hole in the metal above her, and she pulled off her mask and goggles to get a better look.

She gasped at what she saw.

"Um, guys," Ochako said out loud, "How many cars… have a face in them?"

Hatsume and Yui blinked, looked at each other, then crawled underneath the car to see what Ochako was talking about.

There, staring right back at them underneath a blistered shard of panelling, was a mouth, a nose, and a pair of empty eyes. A giant metal face, just as Ochako had indicated. A hollow silver skull.

And before anyone could say anything in shock and surprise-

The eyes lit up with bright blue light.

Then, the car above them began to shift. Metal folded against metal and twisted around itself, turning and shifting into a mess of wiring and steel and component pieces.

Was it falling apart? The girls feared that they might be crushed under a tidal wave of metal.

But then, they saw the twisting steel begin to take on a new shape.

It wasn't breaking, it was… transforming.

TSCHE-​

The headlamps and front tyres became feet, and the hood and front became legs-

-CHU-​

-The rear tyres became arms, connected to yellow and black forearms and shoulders sporting black hands at the end-

-CHU-​

The roof and the windscreen became a chest, the faded logo of a face humming with fresh red light as luminescent red lighting filled the abdomen, just above a yellow and black waist connected to the legs-

-CHU-​

-A horned yellow head with a silver face slid out of the top of the torso, brilliant blue eyes shining like pearls-

-TSCHE​

-Until finally, a figure stood tall before the three girls, shrouding them in a dark shadow.

A humanoid cast in metal hunched over before them, yellow and black in colour, with a silver face within a horned helmet, and shining blue eyes behind optical lenses. Red lights glowed brightly across its stomach and shoulders, and the face logo on its chest stood out as a crimson beacon.

Ochako, Yui, and Hatsume looked up at the figure, shocked and amazed and confused to all hell and back. Their eyes were wide, their mouths were agape. They were unable to move, frozen in place by their sheer surprise.

Then, the mechanical figure tilted its head down to see them, and as it leant up to its full size-

{SMACK}

-It bumped its head against the ceiling.

A long string of whirls and beeping noises left its mouth as it began to panic, stumbling about to try and find its footing only to smash into the wall and collapse onto one of the tables. it rocketed up, sparks flying from its body as it tripped over itself and collapsed to the floor.

Ochako, Yui, and Hatsume all screamed as they got up and threw themselves at the garage door, desperately trying to escape the mad machine as it seemingly went on a rampage.

"Is it trying to kill us!?" Yui shouted as she grabbed a stray sheet of metal and used her quirk on it, expanding it into a giant shield to protect the three of them.

"Oh god, it knows I hit it, it knows I smacked it with a hammer, oh god it wants revenge!" was Hatsume's helpful contribution to the situation.

But then, as Ochako was just about to grab the handle for the garage door to pull it up and allow the three to make their getaway, she looked back and saw the machine figure that had once been a rusty old car curl up on the ground, twitching and seizing up. Sounds of whirls and electronic beeps left the machine as something blue wept from its side. It looked like it was having a seizure.

"W-Wait," Ochako called out to Hatsume and Yui, "It's stopped…"

"So?!" was Hatsume's incredulous reply, "It trashed my workspace!"

"That's your first priority?" Yui couldn't help but ask.

"Just- just look, you two," Ochako pointed to the yellow and black machine, watching it rock on the floor, electronic sounds leaving its mouth. It sounded like… crying? "I think it's in pain."

"Again, so?"

"So just- just give me a sec," Ochako started to step out of cover. Yui tried to pull her back underneath the metal sheet, but she waved her off. Stepping closer to the machine, Ochako listened to its cries as it clutched its side, trying to see what was wrong with it.

It sounded like it was in pain. Ochako couldn't stand to hear it.

She went around to its back and saw what it was clutching. A sharp stick of metal, like a rebar, impaled in its side. Blue luminescent blood was leaking out, the machine desperately trying to stop it from escaping. It looked like it couldn't move right with the shard of metal inside.

Ochako grabbed at the rebar and began to pull.

The machine screamed and rocked in place, its body writhing in agony on the ground. Yui and Hatsume covered their ears at the awful sound, but Ochako found herself to be undeterred as she pulled at the rebar, constantly attempting to pull the foreign metal out.

Then, the rebar began to shift. Blue blood began to clot around the wound as Ochako inched the stick of steel out piece by piece. The machine whimpered as Ochako slowly retched the bar out, Yui and Hatsume watching in worry as she did so.

Then, with one final tug of exertion, Ochako pulled the rebar out of the machine's torso, but stumbled and, with a yelp, fell to the ground-

Or she would've, if the machine hadn't shot up and caught her in its hand before she had.

Ochako blinked, and looked at the machine. Pearly blue eyes looked at her in a worried, yet thankful expression. The bleeding in its abdomen had stopped. Ochako could see that the rebar had been caught in one of its torso joints. It was like the metal of the machine was sealing itself up, like a blister covering a wound.

Then, as Ochako looked over the machine, she saw how… wounded it really was. There was a massive slash mark on its chest, blisters and holes in its metal skin, dents and puncture wounds. The windscreen was still cracked like a stain glass painting. Underneath the yellow and black body that had regained its colour and life, parts of it looked like it had been badly burnt, steel skin warped by heat.

Then, she noticed the machine's throat. There was a long slash in it, so large that she could see the frayed wiring and mangled joints underneath. It looked like something had been ripped out.

Ochako pulled herself onto her feet, "Thank you," she couldn't help but say. She looked back at Hatsume and Yui, and saw them nervously pulling themselves out of the enlarged metal sheet they'd been using as cover and looking at the robot nervously.

Then, she turned herself back to the machine, and saw it pull itself to the wall and curl up into a ball, next to the tarp covering Hatsume's old wears and gear. The machine let out a mournful, almost apologetic sound as it looked at the destruction it had caused around Hatsume's garage, sounding something like an electronic warble.

It looked at her, then shied away its head. Ochako looked at her hands and saw that she was still holding the rebar. Dropping the blue blood-covered stick of metal to the ground, Ochako put her hands up placatingly.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she almost whispered as she slowly approached the machine. Yui and Hatsume joined her at her flanks as she walked over to the robot, listening in to its quiet whirls and clicks.

Ochako put her hands on the machine's arms as it repositioned itself, pulling its knees up to its chest. For something that was between two to three times her size, it looked so… small.

"Who are you…?" she asked it, "What are you…?"

The machine looked down, as if it was trying to answer that question itself.

"Do you have a name…?" she asked, "Do you remember where you came from…?"

No answer.

"Do you… remember anything?"

The machine hummed sadly. It tried to say something, but the mechanical joints in its throats tightened around nothing.

It couldn't speak. Not a single word.

"What happened to you…?" Ochako quietly asked, both to the machine and to herself.

The machine couldn't answer. It just whirled, tilting its head down to look at itself.

Curiously, Ochako reached her hands out to hold the machine's face. She could hear gasps from behind her, but she kept her hands gently on the metal man before her.

The mechanical being was surprised by the touch, but leant into it, closing its optics, a low hum escaping from it.

Ochako smiled.

"You're like a bumblebee…"

The machine murmured in acceptance, maybe not understanding the name or the words, but getting the meaning behind them.

---

"That's a robot."

"Hang on a minute, Hatsume-

"That's a robot! We've got a big ass robot in my garage!"

"Keep your voice down!"

"We don't know if it is a robot."

A bedraggled Hatsume swung her head from the placating Ochako to the stoic Yui, "Excuse me? Are you serious?! Robot! Big ass robot that turns into a car in my garage!"

"Hatsume!" Ochako hissed at her, "Voice! Down! Please!"

Hatsume glared at Ochako, but eventually took in a deep breath and collected herself, "Right," her voice returning to a quiet calm.

The night outside of the rental garage was quiet and clear, with a starry sky above. The moon was in full view amongst the pitch black sky, but the artificial lights of the streetlights around them obstructed their view. The old warehouses and tall apartment complexes were slowly flickering their lights off, ready to rest for whatever the next day may bring.

Everyone else in Japan was getting ready for bed, but Ochako and the two girls with her couldn't feel anymore awake.

Hatsume turned her head to Yui and said, "What do you mean, we don't know if that's a robot in there. It sure as hell looks like one."

"I've seen pro heroes before," Yui's voice was the beacon of reason for the two, "On the news and in person. It's – he's – probably just some poor guy with a quirk."

"Are you serious? The giant robot that turns into a car is just some guy with a quirk?"

"I'll admit, Yui," Ochako hummed, "It doesn't seem like right."

"It's not hard to believe," Yui started counting off her fingers, "All Might, can punch hard enough to change the weather. Endeavor, turns into a human firecracker. That Mount Lady that premiered the other day, grows to the size of an apartment complex. Mirko, is a human rabbit. Ryukyu, turns into a dragon. Godzillo, a giant lizard that also wears a leather jacket," she shrugged, "Is it really that hard to believe that the guy in your garage is just some poor fellow who's quirk turns him into a car and a robot?"

"…Ah, I guess you're right," Hatsume rubbed her brow, "Quirks did throw the idea of believability and normality of the window a long time ago. S'not that hard to believe when you think about it," she then muttered to herself, "Also threw out any need for technological innovation as well. Man, sometimes I really hate hero society and its obsession with quirks over tech and anything else…"

"All I know is that he's scared," Ochako pointed out to the both of them, "He's scared, and he's injured, and he doesn't remember anything. I don't think he even remembers his real name, and it's not like he can tell us."

"In that case, then he needs to go to the hospital, not stay here," Hatsume pointed to the garage, "I'm a mechanic, not a doctor. If that is just some guy, then he needs medical attention, not a mechanic's garage – and no, Pink Cheeks, I know you said that that wound with the rebar healed itself, but his other wounds aren't. I have about as much of an idea of how the human body works as I do how cars function."

"Hatsume's right," Yui told them, "If he is wounded, then he needs a doctor. And stat-"

"No, not yet," Ochako shook her head, "Don't call anyone yet."

"Wha- why not?!" Hatsume hissed, "We can't-"

Someone passed by, a man out with his dog, his gaze locked on his screen as a recording of a news video played, illuminating his face in the dead of night. The three girls shut themselves up and acted casual, waving at the man and smiling at the dog. The dog gave a happy yap to them, but the man kept his head in his phone, not paying any heed to them at all as he listened to the voice coming out of the device (Ochako couldn't make out what was specifically being said. Something about All Might and a sludge monster).

The man and his dog slipped away, and the three girls let out a sigh of relief, "We can't have this conversation out there," Ochako eventually said after a long silence.

"And we can't keep him in there," Hatsume hissed as she pointed at the garage door, "If he is just some guy, then he's badly wounded and he needs to see someone. Like a doctor! A healer. Someone who can take care of him better than we can-"

"We don't know the full story yet, Hatsume!" Ochako hissed back.

"What more is there to understand?!"

"She's right again," Yui nodded, "None of us are equipped or prepared for this. The best thing that we can do is hand him off to the heroes and be done with him."

"See, this?" Hatsume pointed to Yui, "This is why she's rapidly becoming my favourite of you two."

"Nh," Yui grunted, as if to say, Obviously.

"Look, we don't know the full story behind this guy, okay?" Ochako pointed out to them, "We don't know why he showed up on the beach, or how long he's been down in the water for- you saw what he looked like. He had to have been in the water for years. He probably washed up on his own."

"Have you seen the wounds on him?" Hatsume pointed out, "Poor guy looks like he's been through a war. I can do my best – he's pretty much technology, I'll admit – but that doesn't mean he's not biology. A different kind of biology, yes, but biology nonetheless. There's only so much that I can do. We can't assume that this self-healing thing he's got going on can extend to all his wounds."

"How did he even get them in the first place?" Yui asked, "Was he in a fight with a villain?"

"Possibly," Ochako shrugged, "Maybe he's a pro hero…"

"Then why was he at the bottom of the ocean?" Hatsume commented, "Why wouldn't he be with his fellow pros?"

"Or maybe…" Yui slowly said, "Maybe he was the one the pro heroes were fighting…?"

It was a dark idea, and it was one that Ochako was seriously forced to consider. The thought of having a villain in their garage… it didn't bear thinking about.

She'd had to deal with a villain before… she didn't want to ever go through with that again…

But still…

"Ultimately, he's in no condition to be doing anything or telling anyone anything at all," Ochako told the two girls, "He can't speak at all, you saw that. And even if he did, I don't think he remembers anything at all."

"Which is why we should hand him off to the heroes," Mei said, "This is way out of our league."

Yui nodded, "She's right, Ochako. And you know it."

"...Right," Ochako finally admitted, "Right..."

Because the truth was, they were right. They didn't know who this person was, they didn't know what to do with him, they didn't know his story or how he got to where he was now. They didn't know if he was a hero or a villain.

And if he was a villain? Then Hatsume and Yui were right; he probably did something to deserve it.

"What's he doing right now?" Yui asked, and Hatsume leant down and pulled up the garage door slightly, allowing the three girls to peer through and see the robot still crouched in the corner, curled in on himself.

The robot turned his optics over to them. He tilted his head... and then he lifted a hand and waved.

The three girls blinked, then waved back.

Hatsume closed the garage door and looked at the two other girls, "I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon. Should we call the heroes now-"

"Tomorrow."

Hatsume and Yui blinked, then looked at Ochako. Her cousin asked, "What?"

"Tomorrow, we call the heroes," Ochako told the two, "Let's just... go home for the night and think on it, okay?"

Pink cheeks, we can't just leave-"

"Will you just let me think for one-" Ochako stopped herself from shouting before taking in a deep breath, "I-I'll stay with him, okay? I'll stay with him, make sure he doesn't go anywhere, and then in the morning, we can-"

"I'm not leaving you alone in there with him," Yui told Ochako, "Who knows what he might do."

"And I'm not leaving him alone with all my babies," Hatsume stomped her foot down, "Either he leaves my garage tonight, or I'm not leaving at all."

"...Alright then," Ochako finally said, "Then we all stay here. Together. Until the morning."

"In my workshop garage."

"In Hatsume's workshop garage, yeah," Ochako pulled up the garage door open, earning the attention of the robot inside, looking at the three girls with wide blue optics, "Let's clean up and make some space for ourselves. It's going to be a long night."

---

It didn't feel right.

Ochako wasn't sleeping alongside Yui and Hatsume. They'd tried to stay awake for as long as they could, but (despite Hatsume's own stubbornness), they'd succumbed to the night's embrace and fallen into a slumber.

Ochako, meanwhile, was keeping her eyes on the robot before her, the machine's blue eyes dim as he looked down at himself, his eyes flickering over his form as if he was trying to understand what he was as well.

It didn't feel right, the explanation that they'd come up with for the robot's existence. It didn't feel right at all. Sure, logically speaking, it made sense. There were billions of people in the world, and with that came billions of quirks, all of them incredibly unique from each other, ranging from changing the colour of your nails to morphing the shape of your entire body. Ultimately, it made sense, Yui's conclusion, that this was just an ordinary person with a quirk.

And Hatsume was right as well. Whether or not this was a hero or villain or neither, he was still wounded and needed medical attention. Even if his biology was technology, that didn't mean that they understood it or were doctors themselves. They were severely out of their depth right now. It made sense to hand him over to the proper authorities as well.

And yet... it just didn't feel right, their conclusions. Not to Ochako. There were too many gaps, too much missing information for her to be satisfied with their decision.

For one, where did he come from? The American Federation? The United States of Russia? The British Imperium? The New African Alliance? The Free Asian Colonies? There were a million different places that he could've come from, and a million different places that he could've gone. Why did he come to Japan? Had he just washed up on his own?

Why had he been in the ocean? He had washed up onto the beach in his car form, having clearly spent years underwater. Why had he been down there? Was he hiding from something? Or someone?

Why was he so damaged? He was utterly beaten up, missing armour and metal skin and suffering from dents and slashes. How had he sustained those injuries? It couldn't have just been from seawater alone. He looked like he'd been in a fight. A battle. Was he being hunted? Was he at threat of something?

Was he a hero?

Was he a villain?

The robot raised its hand. Ochako froze for a second, only to relax as he smacked the side of his head, as if to try and coax himself into remembering more about himself.

And that brought another question to mind; why was he missing his memories? Far as she could tell, he had no recollection of his past, or anything at all. He was completely unable to recall anything at all. How on earth would he have lost his memory in the first place? Ochako had wondered if it was amnesia, but Yui had commented that there were different types of amnesia, and that it typically affected a person's ability to recall or store new information. So far, the robot seemed to be remembering things after his awakening, but none of them had any ability to verify this, seeing as he couldn't speak at all.

What the hell had he been through?

All she knew for certain was that he wasn't a threat, not to her and to anyone. He was lost and scared and confused, and she knew for certain that he could've broken out of this garage at any time he wanted, but he hadn't.

But if he was a villain, like Yui had stated he might be...

The robot tapped the side of his head again, trying to remember his past once more. Ochako noticed that there was something loose on the side of his head. A stray panel loosely connected by wiring, dangling off the side of his head.

Ochako stood up and approached the robot. The machine flinched, unsure of what to make of the girl's sudden movements, but she held up her hands in reassurance.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she whispered, repeating what she'd said earlier. The robot seemed to take her word for it, looking down at himself as he lowered his hand from his head.

Ochako clasped the robot's head and took hold of the dangling panel, untangling the wiring inside. They reminded her of veins with how they glowed a dull blue from the machine blood inside, but she was eventually able to get them back in order and clasp the metal yellow panel in hand.

"It's okay," Ochako reassured the machine, "You'll be okay... it won't hurt anymore. I promise."

The machine opened its mouth, but only a sound like a buzzing insect came out. The machine closed his mouth, frowned with sadness as his optical lenses closed, before tilting his head to make Ochako's job easier.

Ochako nodded in turn, and pushed the panel back into place, the mechanisms within making a clicking sound as she slotted the panel back into place and-

---

ERROR ERROR ERROR

INITIATING SYSTEM REBOOT

REBOOT FAILURE

INITIATING SYSTEM REBOOT

REBOOT FAILURE

who am i

RETRIEVING DATA

MEMORY FILES CORRUPTED

REBOOTING MEMORY CORE

MEMORY FILES CORRUPTED = PARTIAL DATA REMAINING

RECONSTRUCTING MEMORY

what is my name

ERROR = UNABLE TO RETRIEVE DATA

DAMAGE TO SYSTEMS = 64%

SELF-REPAIR SYSTEMS = 47%

ENERGY LEVELS INSUFFICIENT

why am i here

ALERT

ALERT

ALERT

RECOVERING PARTIAL DATA

"-senate has looked down upon us for too long-"

"-must be stopped, no matter the cost-"

"-isn't war, this is madness-"

"-must be abandoned-"

"-our world is gone-"

"B, where are you?"

"They're killing us!"

"B, B please-"

"PLEASE HELP US!"​

---

The machine collapsed to the ground, spasming and twitching violently as he rolled onto his back, his lights fluctuating wildly as Ochako screamed and jumped out of the way, falling onto her back as she rushed out of the way.

"What the hell did you do?!" Hatsume called out as she and Yui shot up to their feet, having woken up from Ochako's scream and the robot's loud collapse onto the floor.

"I was- I was tryna fix him!" Ochako called out as she got up, only to hear the machine's voice begin to drop octave by octave, becoming slower and more slurred with each passing second.

"His lights are fading," Yui pointed out, making sure to steer clear of the robot, "I think he's losing power!"

"Let him!" Hatsume shouted in a panic, "Before he kills us!"

"If he does, he might die!" Ochako shouted in turn, "We got no idea how his biology works!"

"He survived under the water, didn't he?!"

"Just get the fuckin' car battery charger!"

"He stepped on it when he first woke up!"

"There's a portable generator outside. I saw it on the way in," Yui opened the garage door slightly and slid underneath, before returning and using her quirk to enlarge the portable generator to its normal size (she'd obviously shrunk it to make carrying it about easier), and handed it to Ochako.

"What, you gonna give this fucking guy more power!?" Hatsume screeched, "He trashed my fucking garage-"

"I don't want him to die, Hatsume! That's that!" Ochako turned the generator on, jammed the cable into the robot, and shouted at Hastume, "Just let me-"

The robot's eyes exploded with light, and as power poured into it, colour began to pour out of his optics and into the garage around them, covering the three panicking girls in light...

…Before they opened their eyes and looked around to see that they were no longer in the garage, but...

A bar?

Yes, a bar. A bar with metal tables and metal stands and drink canisters lining the walls containing multicoloured liquids like a flowing rainbow, filled with robots like the one in their garage. Robots of all sorts of shapes and sizes, all with vehicular pieces attached to them and merged with their biology. Some of them walked on two legs whilst others rolled about on wheels. Some had faces whereas others had faceplates. Some were massive and bulky whilst others were slim and thin. Surprisingly enough, they were all the size of human beings. Or rather, as Ochako realised, the girls had all grown to their size as well.

One of the robots was walking right at Ochako. She tried to move out of the way-

Only for the robot to phase through her, as if she hadn't been there at all.

"A hologram," Hatsume quietly muttered to herself, eyes sparking with sudden wonder, "This is a hologram. We're in a hologram."

"This is so Ultraman," Yui whispered to herself.

"...This is his memory," Ochako said after a long pause, looking around at the metal bar and the robots drinking down multi-coloured liquids and the server drones bringing drinks to the patrons, "We're witnessing his memories."

Yui looked to the side, "Is that the robot?"

Ochako and Hatsume turned to the side to look at one of the tables, and saw that yes, it was indeed the yellow robot that Yui was referring to, kicking his legs at a table. Only there were some unique differences from him then to now. He wasn't damaged, his frame a pristine yellow, though there was a significant amount of dirt staining his frame, as if he hadn't been able to afford a clean or servicing in years. The red face logo on his chest wasn't there, and his bio-lights were a neutral blue instead of warm red. Compared to the other robots around him, he was rather small.

Sitting at his side was a red and blue robot that looked like he turned into an alien pickup truck, with wheels in his blue legs and a giant windshield across his chest, smokestacks on his shoulders, tires gutting out from his back, and headlamps in his grey waist. Yellow and black hazard stripes covered his shoulders and lined his body alongside neutral blue bio-lights, and his yellow eyes and silver face projected a light that was both young and wise, staring down at a sheet of metal that he was carving something into. There were modifications to his body that made him look like a miner, alongside dirt marks and metal scrapes like falling rocks had hit him repeatedly. His blue head was rounded and soft, with yellow and black stripes stretching across his forehead.

And sitting opposite the two of them was an imposing looking silver-framed robot, with red accents and those same blue bio-lights, which seemed to be a staple of all the robots in the hologram, with yellow optics and a black helmet with the same black and yellow hazard stripes as on his wide, rectangular chest. There were mechanical stacks jutting out from his back and treads in the back of his legs, looking like he turned into a turretless tank. He was much taller than the two robots sitting at the table, and even many of the other robots in the bar. His features seemed to be sharper than the other two robots in a way that no one could truly communicate.

Both the red and blue robot and his silver counterpart looked dirty as hell, covered head to toe in dust and soot that stained their armour, and all of them were talking in a language that they couldn't understand. It sounded like a turbine being crushed, something harsh and metal like a steel being smashed against each other.

"What are they saying?" Yui asked, confusion evident in her eyes even if she didn't let her face portray it.

"I've no idea," Hatsume commented, "I mean, I can speak a bunch of different languages, but- but this isn't anything I've ever heard of. Not Japanese, not English, not any of them."

Ochako looked forward in wonderment, and reached out her hand to touch the little yellow robot-

And when she did, the audio around them began to shift, changing in tone and sound, shifting from that harsh metal grating into-

"It's a good name, Orion Pax," the silver-coloured robot pointed to the red and blue robot, "As in Tyger Pax. You should keep it. It suits you."

"Thanks, but I wasn't the one to come up with it," the red and blue robot said in turn, still carving onto the metal sheet in his hand as his mouth curled in concentration, "Alpha Trion came up with it yesterday, when I was in the archives."

The silver robot rolled his eyes, "You need to stop volunteering in the archives so much. We barely have enough time outside of the mines as it is. Don't you want to do more than just hang around with a librarian all day?"

"Says the one who spends his free time in the gladiator pits," the red and blue robot commented with no small amount of humour.

"Maybe if you joined me in there, you'd get a bit more perspective on how the world works," the silver robot muttered.

"Cut him some slack, D-16," the yellow robot commented, "Alpha's good people. He's a good mentor. They don't make them any better."

"What the fuck...?" Ochako heard Hatsume mutter, only for her to wave a hand to quieten her down. She wanted to hear this.

"No, I get that, B-127," the silver robot – D-16 – said, "I'm happy for O-84 as much as you are, but the fact remains: now that Sentinel Prime and the Senate have shut down the Iron Rights, none of us are going to be able to get our real names. First, it's banning our writings. Next, it's determining our fates by the shape that we change into, and now it's banning the Iron Rights and preventing us from getting our own names..."

"I know," said O-84, finally putting down the slab of metal, "It's like the Quintessons never left. Functionism reigns supreme, even after the Functionist Council has been deposed and the Quintessons have been kicked off our world."

D-16 grunted, "Is this what our lives are to become? In and out of the mines every other cycle, rusting away as we dig for energon and spend our free time tanking ourselves stupid on engex while our masters in the Senate and Sentinel Prime himself reap the rewards of our hard work? All because we were forged this way?"

"It's unfair," O-84 agreed, "Horrifically unfair. All Cybertronians should be free, not living like this."

"What can we do?" B-127 asked, "We have about as much power as a speck of dirt against the Senate and Sentinel, and it's not like others haven't tried to speak up against them before. In the eyes of the powers that be, we're just a pair of mining bots and a courier. No power for any of us to make any kind of change."

"Have you forgotten the saying, B?" D-16 said, "'A single cog may be small, but it can still stall an engine-'"

"'-And a single cog can bring down an empire,'" O-84 finished for him, "You've been obsessing over the Thirteen Primes again. Prima isn't going to come down and save us, I'm afraid. They all died millions of years ago. We must be the ones to save ourselves."

"There's power in faith, O-84."

"In each other, yes. I just don't think that believing in old stories is going to be the key to victory."

"You truly don't believe, do you?"

"In the old stories? I still haven't formed an opinion on them. I doubt that the Thirteen Primes had the power to alter reality and seed worlds with life, and I doubt that the Matrix of Leadership was anything more than a shiny ornament than an object that could create life itself. Primus, Unicron, the Allspark, the Theomachy and the Covenant of Primus, even the Afterspark, I can't say that I believe that these ever existed."

O-84 closed his optics and looked through the window.

"I can see the appeal of religion, of believing in powers higher than oneself and that there will be a promised land after our sparks pass on... but I suppose I am a bot of proof. I need to see evidence first before I believe in anything. And I believe now that we need strength of unity as a people, a belief in each other and the strength that we can give others, rather than old stories."

"There's strength in the old stories," B-127 told O-84, gesturing to the tattoo of a orange ball within a pair of silver handles on his shoulder.

O-84 nodded, "That there is," then, he turned his gaze back to D-16, "You're the one that brought us together, D-16. What's your say?"

"...There is a tradition, down in the gladiator pits," D-16 commented, "That in order to claim your own name, you have to complete the Path of Conquest and become the top fighter in the pit."

"Like the Iron Rights?"

"Exactly," D-16 smiled, "And I already have a name in mind. Once I have claimed my name, we shall start a moment. Gather all the people in the mines together and prove to the Senate, even Sentinel Prime himself, that we are not to be trifled with."

O-84 looked at D-16 with a frown, "Violence won't solve the problem, D-16."

"It won't be violent," D-16 reassured him, "My writings have already spread out across Cybertron, and all its colonies. Caminus, Velocitron, Athenia, Belegaer, the people are chanting for freedom. 'You Are Being Deceived,' those are the words on their lips."

"The people deserve freedom," O-84 said, "But we can't do it through force of arms. We need to remind those who stand above us of our voice, our autonomy, our right to freedom as sentient beings. We need to gather all freethinking Cybertronians together, both the outspoken and the people who haven't found the courage to speak out," he showed the two the slab of metal that he'd been carving onto, "And we can use this as the face of our movement."

Upon the metal slab was the logo of a face. The same logo that was on the yellow robot's chest in the present.

D-16 hummed in approval, "The face of Primus."

"It seems appropriate enough."

"Even though you're not a believer?"

"Just because I am uncertain to the existence of Primus and the Afterspark... doesn't mean I don't want them to exist."

"I have my own idea for a logo."

"Do you? I would love to see it."

"It's a work in progress. I'm just stuck on a colour," D-16 produced his own slab of metal, with a logo of his own on it. It was sharp and angular, all pointed edges, like an upside-down triangle with two eyes in it, two triangles at its side for cheeks, and a hexagon-like shape in the centre of the forehead like a jewel.

O-84 observed D-16's logo, "...That would look good in purple, in my opinion."

D-16 smiled, "Thank you... yours would look fine in red."

The two mining bots shared a laugh, and then they clasped their hands together in a firm shake.

"Together?"

"Together."

Then, suddenly, the world around the three girls began to flicker, and fade...

…And suddenly they were back in the garage, surrounding the damaged robot on the ground and the scraps on the ground, the hum of a power generator filling the air.

"What... was that?" Yui asked.

"The... robot's past?" Hatsume commented, "But that... none of that could've ever happened on Earth. Cybertron, Caminus, all the other ones... those are worlds. Other worlds."

"The Senate, the Iron Rights and the Path of Conquest," Yui added in, looking as lost as Hatsume.

"Sentinel Prime, Alpha Trion, Primus, Prima, the Thirteen Primes..." Hatsume continued, "I've... never heard of these things. These... people."

Ochako looked around, still in awe from the visions of the past.

"An alien," she muttered in amazement, "He's not a hero, or a villain, or even a human being... he's an alien. From another world."

Then, the fresh information that she'd learnt suddenly soaked in, and she looked at the robot on the ground, now tired and still, recovering from his painful spasm as he let out an exhausted whine.

"...You never got a name," Ochako leant down and put her hand on his head, cradling it like a precious gem, "They never let you have one."

The robot hummed in sadness, hurt by the sudden rush of memory. It sounded like an insect flapping its wings.

Like a bumblebee.

"Bumblebee," she smiled, her voice soft and demure, "That can be your name."

The robot hummed, as if in approval.

Ochako and Bumblebee glanced into each other's eyes, and at that moment, a bond was formed between the human and the Cybertronian.

One that would shake the world itself.

---

And here we are, the first official chapter with the biggest difference visible for all to see:

That's right, Izuku is not the main character of this crossover! Instead, it's Ochako!

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Titanmaster, you sexy bastard, why would you go and change the main character of the entirety of MHA when it has always been Izuku helming these stories?"

Well, that's my point.

When it comes to the MHA fandom, Izuku has - for the very most part - been the face of every story that has been made, especially crossover fics, and when it comes to those fics, there are a few set patterns that most of these stories follow.

You know what I'm talking about, it's usually either: Izuku gets a power from another universe, Izuku journeys to another universe and becomes overpowered, or Izuku makes friends with someone from another world. All these fics end in Izuku becoming overpowered without the plot changing at all, his entire character being erased for the sake of making him into a chad and overpowered war god, and usually comes with either him getting a harem where all the female characters get their personalities and agencies erased for the sake of falling in love with the main protagonist because he showed them basic human decency and/or copious amounts of character bashing.

I'm so sick of having to read these fics. I know that there are some real gems amongst them, but there comes a point where, once you've read enough, you might as well have read them all.

Plus, there's a personal motto that I have when it comes to storytelling:

Never tell the exact same story twice.

And let's be fair, Izuku has already been the protagonist enough times before. I don't want to write the same story that someone else has done, and sometimes the fandom needs to be reminded that they don't have to be afraid of changing things up whenever they can.

So, for this story, Izuku is not going to be the protagonist. He's instead going to be a side character. He'll be there, of course, but he's not going to be in the protagonist hotseat this time. That honour goes to Ochako, who rarely gets a chance to have a story that doesn't revolve around her being shipped with Izuku or Toga or even being shipped at all. It's also because I feel like the female characters got shafted enough in the manga and the anime already, they deserve some time in the spotlight.

(That doesn't mean that he's going to be unimportant, of course... unless I have All for One get stomped on by a Cybertronian or die by some other means. That'd be kind of funny, honestly.)

Secondly, there's not going to be any romance in this fic, or at least it's not going to be a major component. Let our girl have a story that doesn't revolve around her being shipped with someone!

Thirdly, no chadification! No, I am not giving Ochako a harem. No, I am not making her overpowered. I want Ochako to be a flawed character with her own personal struggles and trials to overcome. It doesn't make for a good story if the main protagonist is perfect in every way. Ochako's going to get her moments in the future, I can promise you that. But she's got to earn them first.

And forty, MHA's canon timeline is going to be changing. A lot. The fact that the Transformers are now on Earth isn't going to go unnoticed. Things are going to be shaking up in major ways, I can guarantee that.

As for our resident Cybertronians, I'm pulling from a lot of inspirations for their designs. I've got it in my head that their looks are going to be G1-like, but with some Aligned continuity elements within them as well (I like the glowy bits). For our resident Bumblebee, his current/Cybertronian form is going to be looking like a mixture of this:

​

And this:

​

Meanwhile, O-84 (can you guess as to who that's supposed to be?) is going to be a combination of a lot of his Cybertronian/pre-Prime looks with yellow optics instead of blue, with his look being a mixture of this:

​

And these:

​

Finally, there's D-16, who's I've visualised in my mind to be similar to that of Alex Milne's design for him as a miner in the IDW comics, only in silver instead of black.

​

There's also the juxtaposition of D-16 and O-84's positions in the background, as well as what we know their futures are going to be. I like the idea of D-16 starting his life of as having incredible faith in the concept of the Primes whilst O-84 is sceptical of their power and not truly believing in the idea of Cybertronians having any form of divinity attached to them.

I will admit, while I have enjoyed most of IDW's Transformers run, what I didn't enjoy was the demystification of the Transformers mythos and trying to write out the idea of them having any sort of god or mysticism to them. Really felt like the writers had it out for the idea of there being a Transformer god or them having any sort of religion. So in this story, we're certainly going to be doing the opposite of that.

I like the idea of robot Jesus, sue me.

Continuing on from that, I'm actually quite excited to use the holograms as a way to show flashbacks. It's a unique use of the holomatter abilities that Cybertronians have, and it's a good way of getting past some pesky expositionary problems.

It also helps to clear up a few problems that I've had with some Transformers/MHA crossovers. Now, a lot of stories have the characters from MHA freaking out over the sight of a Cybertronian, panicking over having never seen something like it before. However, I always found that to be rather odd, as, logically speaking, wouldn't they just think that it's just the result of a quirk? After all, quirks are bullshit by their very nature, and there're stranger powers out there than just someone who's quirk lets them change between a giant robot and a vehicle. It's not too big of a leap of logic for someone in the world of MHA to believe that a Cybertronian is just someone with a quirk.

However, that then poses a bit of a problem, that being why the girls then don't just call the heroes and hand the Cybertronian over to them. After all, if it's just some rando with a quirk, then it's ultimately not their problem, and the most responsible thing that they can do is hand him over to the authorities and wash their hands of it.

So, holographic flashbacks come in to save the day! Thank you very much, holomatter avatars!

Lastly, I will say that this story... was inspired by another fic, as a review on FF did ask about. However, this was more based on my criticisms of that fic, and a reaction to my frustrations with it. I'm not going to name names, and please don't go attacking it based on my own opinions (that's a mistake that I'm not planning on making ever again), but there were problems that I had with that fic that this fic is going to be answering to the best of its (and my) abilities.

But with all that said and done, that's another chapter done and dusted. Next week's chapter is going to be the last of the premade chapters. After that, I've no idea what my update schedule will look like.

But with all of that said and done, please leave a comment/review, follow and favourite, and I shall see you all next time.

Titanmaster 117 out!

 

[Titanmaster_117]

"An alien."

"I know."

"An alien robot."

"I know."

"An alien robot from outer space."

"Hatsume-"

"This is the greatest day of my life."

"Hatsume-"

"The greatest day in anyone's life, in fact-"

"Hatsume!"

"What- don't interrupt me on this, Pink Cheeks!" Hatsume shouted out loud at Ochako, "I mean, I can't be the only one freaking out about this! An alien! An alien robot! From outer space! Who's made of technology! Oh my god, this- this changes everything! Everything we know about the universe itself has just been thrown out of the window!"

Hatsume began to pace around the garage, not minding the parts on the floor as she kicked around shards of old metal with steel-plated boots as she gesticulated wildly, a giddy expression on her face. She circled around the newly named Bumblebee with a skip in her step, whilst the robot – the Cybertronian, as they now knew him to be – was nursing the side of his head as he patted the portable generator, said machine feeding him energy.

"I mean, not only is this guy an alien, he's an alien robot! He's a being that isn't made of flesh and blood but metal and machinery! This- this doesn't just destroy every theory we have about evolution, it rips them to shreds, sets them on fire, and pisses on the ashes! I mean, what other species are out there that aren't made out of flesh and blood are out there? Are there species that out made out of silicon? Or calcium? And what about the babies – ooh, the babies that I can make with this guy! I mean, he's living technology! Living metal! And advanced to all hell and back to boot! Imagine the kind of stuff that I can make with him, from him! It would put every other support company, even the likes of Detnerat, to shame! And I get first dibs on him! Oh, Hatsume Mei is getting put on the map, I'll tell you that right now!"

"Weren't you the one that said that we should be handing him off to the heroes?" Yui asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Hell no! I'm not letting anyone else get first hands on this! I'm going to be the ones making the babies with this precious robot man, no one else!"

"You changed your tune pretty quick."

"I'm going to be a businesswoman in the future, Sizey! That means that I get a free pass on being a hypocrite!"

As Yui blinked at the 'Sizey' nickname, Ochako sent a stern glare Hatsume's way, "You're not stripping down Bumblebee for parts."

"Excuse me," Hatsume shot her a look, "My garage, my rules."

"Bumblebee's a living being," Ochako pointed out, "You said so yourself! He's alive! He's an alien from another world! You can't just- you can't strip him down for parts!"

"It's okay, I can just put him back together again!"

"We don't know how his biology works!"

"We can learn!"

"Whatever happened to that 'getting him to see a doctor' and 'treating him like a person' stuff?"

"Alien robot! Business woman! Hypocrisy! I've said this before!"

"Do we even know how he was born?" Yui asked, "Or if he was made in anyway? His existence may be artificial."

Ochako and Hatsume paused in their argument, looking back on the stoic girl with wide and curious eyes before looking back at each other.

Hatsume then ran to the side and grabbed a notebook, whilst Ochako pulled a pen from one of the side tables and passed it over to her. The inventor girl flipped through the busy and messy notebook and eventually found a blank page. Quickly, she scribbled down a title – What we know about the kickass alien robot in my garage – and began to jot notes down.

"Okay, so this alien robot-"

"Bumblebee."

"-His original designation is B-127. He is a Cybertronian from the aptly-named planet of Cybertron-"

"He's got two friends. O-84 and D-16."

"Those are their designations, yeah."

"Do they even have real names?" Yui asked.

Ochako shook her head, "They said something about the 'Iron Rights.' Apparently it was shut down, so no one can get a name."

"That O-something had a name, though. His mentor gave him one. Orion Plex, or something."

"Orion Pax, it was Orion Pax," Hatsume continued to scribble down notes, "He was one of the mining bots, I think. It wasn't his real name. He looked like he turned into a truck. An alien truck, like our friend here."

"Bumblebee turns into a car," Ochako pointed out.

"And that D-16 one – the other mining robot – looked like he could turn into a tank. A turretless tank," Yui threw in, "There were a couple other names mentioned as well. Alpha Trion, Sentinel Prime-"

"That last one might actually be a sign of status," Hatsume added, "They mentioned the Thirteen Primes, Prima, Primus."

"The way D-16 talked about the face of Primus… it sounded like it had religious connotations. Like there was an aspect of faith behind it."

"He said that the Thirteen Primes died millions of years ago."

"So, they've obviously become messianic figures in their history. Like their gods."

"Oh my god, robot religion. Holy shit, this is amazing."

"They mentioned other stuff," Ochako cut in with, "Like the Quintessence- no, the Quintessons. They sound like an alien race. One that made the Cybertronians their slaves."

"Or made them entirely," Yui commented, "They are machine after all."

"Does that mean that I can make my own Cybertronian?!" Hatsume asked with wild awe in her eyes.

Yui shrugged, "Maybe. It's like we said, we have no idea how their biology works. If it's even biology at all."

"They're not just machines, you two," Ochako said to them, "They're people. People that have made a society. That can drink in bars, that read in libraries and work in mines, that have senates and leaders and religions and writings-"

"And discrimination, from the sounds of it," Yui reminded them.

"…Functionism," Ochako looked over to Bumblebee as he sat on the ground, "That's what they called it. Functionism… I get the impression that they can't just change into anything they'd like. They're born or made or forged with a form and they're stuck with it. They have just about as much choice as we do with skin colour and race and quirk."

"Was he a villain?"

Ochako shot Yui a bewildered look, "What?"

"You remember his wounds?" Yui pointed a thumb to the robot, "He's been beat up, and bad. If he was in a fight, then it was probably against the people that they were talking about. Either these Quintessons… or it was the Senate and Sentinel Prime."

Yui's face became resolute.

"And that would mean that he's been fighting against the government… which would make him a villain."

Ochako frowned, and looked back at Bumblebee, whom was still sporting his many wounds.

She pondered Yui's words. They were similar to what she'd said before, about how Bumblebee had got into a fight, and may have done something to deserve it.

And it was true; those who went against heroes and the government were villains. It was the same lesson that had had been drilled into every child's head since the rise of All Might as the world's number one hero.

It was a lesson that made sense. Many hero/villain battles were incredibly destructive, and the earliest battles between the first heroes and the monsters of the world were incredibly destructive, killing countless people in the crossfire. It was only when All Might entered into the scene and helped form hero society around himself was there a form of control placed over the violence in the world.

As such, it was declared that anyone who used their quirk in violation of the quirk regulations laws. Which made sense, really. Anyone who broke the rules and used their quirk against the regulations was inviting chaos, and those rules had been set up by the government. So, anyone who went against the government was a villain, and anyone who fought for the government was a hero. Or a pro hero, more specifically.

Simple logic. Pure, brutal, simplistic logic that even a child could comprehend.

But, right now…

"It doesn't feel right," Ochako told the two, "To call him a villain. From the sounds of it, the people who ruled Cybertron… they weren't the nicest."

"It's not an excuse to cause havoc," Yui proffered, "People have disagreements with the government all the time. It doesn't give them the right to turn to villainy over it."

"Have you two considered," Hatstume looked up from her notebook, "That we're trying to push human values onto an alien species? For all we know, they believe in completely different ideals than us. I mean, I don't think any of us have had to fight to select our own names, or whatever the Iron Rights are," she shivered with glee, "Oh man, an alien culture of giant metal robots. Oh, the things I can learn from it."

"Hatsume's enthusiasm aside," Ochako said to Yui, "She's right. We're trying to push our morals onto Bumblebee without understanding his own, or his culture's. It's not fair to him for us to try and push our own ideals onto him, onto an alien."

"Alright then," Yui folded her arms, "Then you explain his injuries then. I don't have to be a mechanic or a doctor to tell that they're wounds he got from a fight."

Ochako looked back to Bumblebee, and hummed in thought. It was a good question. Probably one of the most important questions that they still didn't have an answer for.

But there was a simple solution for it.

"Hey, Bee," Ochako stepped forward and put her hands on Bumblebee's head once more (making sure to keep her pinkies out so he didn't go flying into the ceiling, of course) and let him guide himself up to meet her eyes, "Is there anything else you can remember? About how you got here?"

Bumblebee let out a low hum, then tapped his hand against the side of his head again. At first, there was a series of clicks and ticking underneath the armour of his head-

-And then his optics shone and the garage was filled with light once more, the world morphing into shapes and colours until-

"Well why the scrap can't I?"

-There was Bumblebee, then known as B-127, standing to the side as an angry D-16 and O-84 stood in front of a desk and glowered at a thin Cybertronian behind it, with a head in the shape of a cog and a single yellow optic encompassing their face. The office room around them was all metal browns and pale beiges with golden strip lights running down the walls and ceiling, and a symbol of a V-shape with a cog in its centre was stapled across the walls, flickering with holographic light. Behind the cog-headed Cybertronian was a pair of giant, imposing guards twice the size of both O-84 and D-16, with that same symbol stamped to their chests, covered in black and yellow armour and wearing yellow faceplates with red rims around the helmets, crimson lights around their bodies, and a pair of turrets and missile pods on their back. They looked like private policemen, and were armed to the teeth to boot.

"I'm sorry, my friends, but that's just the way it is," the cog-headed bot said with a dry quality to his voice, like he's had this conversation a million times before, "The Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy exists for a reason. If you are in the Manual Caste, then you are in the Manual Caste. If you are in the-"

"We know," O-84 said.

"-Astro Caste, then you are in the Astro Caste-"

"We know."

"-And that is how it has been and always shall be."

"Oh don't give me or anyone else that scrap about the Taxonomy!" D-16 said with a growl in his voice, "You speak to us knowing our place in the caste system, but then you and Sentinel Prime and the Senate automate the mines and put all of us out of a job, and now we have nowhere else to go! Now none of us can get any jobs because you decided that our alt-modes aren't suited for anything but labour! We've been in the mines for a hundred thousand years, ever since we left the Well of All Sparks! What are we supposed to do now?"

Ochako, Yui, and Hatsume gasped at that last statement. A hundred thousand years? Was that how long a Cybertronian could live for? How old did that make Bumblebee, then?

The cog-head's sneer could be heard in his voice, "A hundred thousand years? You're still young. Still protoforms finding their shapes. I was there when Sentinel Prime took over from Nominus Prime after the destruction of Lord Imperious Delirious and the Destructons two million years ago. I was there when Nominus Prime took the mantle from Guardian Prime, then from Prime Nova to Primon, all the way to when Nova Prime annihilated the Quintessons, avenged the Thirteen Primes, and brought about our Golden Age, eight million years ago. and do you know where I was sitting?" the cog-head pressed a finger against his desk, "I was sitting in this. Exact. Same. Seat. Doing the exact same job and having the exact same conversations with arrogant little upstarts like yourself who think that they know better than their place in the world."

The three girls peering through the hologram gasped once more. Eight million years. This Cybertronian had been around for eight million years?

"Eight million…" Yui muttered to herself.

"He would've been born – forged – during the Miocene epoch," Hatsume said in amazement, "Earth was only just beginning to cool into what we know today."

Ochako's eyes stayed on the holographic world around them.

Eight million years…

The cog-head leant into his seat, "You will remain as you are, as will every Cybertronian across this world and all our colonies. The system has worked for the past eight million years, and it will work for the next eight million. Cybertron and all the words we govern are at peace because of it."

"You're confusing peace with stagnation," O-84 told him.

"Peace, stagnation, different words with the same meaning in the end," the cog-head commented, "If everything functions as it should, then why should we change it?"

"You've robbed us of our functions!" D-16 slammed his hands against the desk, making the two guards behind the cog-head step forward as the cog-head flinched, "You and the other Functionaries, the Senate, Sentinel! You've automated the mines, and put millions of us manual caste bots out of a job! Where are we supposed to go now that you've taken away all that you've deemed us to be worth?! Either you make us all alt-mode exempt and let us switch to other jobs, or we're going to be left on the streets!"

"D, calm down," B-127 had to push himself in front of D-16 to try and get him to calm himself. However, the yellow bot was so small that the larger Cybertronian probably didn't even notice he was there.

The cog-head – the Functionary – regained his composure, and folded his hands together on his desk, "Well I'm sorry, but that is up to the Taxonomy to decide now, not I. I'm sure we can find you a good place with the beast-modes and the disposable caste," he let out a tsk sound, "Maybe if you had been born with a better alt-mode, this wouldn't have happened."

And that got D-16 into a rage.

"You snivelling little piece of-" D-16 went to throw a punch, right into the Functionary's face-

But O-84 intercepted it, catching it with his bare hand.

"He's not worth it, D," O-84 gestured to the guards that were stepping up behind him, "Don't get yourself killed over this."

D-16 looked at O-84 with a slight snarl in his voice, but he eventually cooled himself and stepped away, pulling his fist out of O-84's grasp and, with a growl, made for the door.

The Functionary, having returned to a sense of calm and control, lowered his hands from shielding his face (or rather, the massive yellow optical lens that encompassed his face), then gestured to the imposing Cybertronians behind him, "Guards, remove them-"

"Let me tell you this, Functionary," O-84 stepped to take D-16's place as he glowered at the cog-headed Cybertronian behind the desk. He folded his arms together and narrowed his yellow optics, "Sooner or later, there will be a reckoning, for you and everyone like you. One day, the people of Cybertron will rise up against this injustice, and show you just how much damage a single cog can do to your precious machine."

"No they won't," the Functionary said with no small amount of unearned confidence, "The people will stay exactly where they are, because they know what their function is to be."

"Tell that to the millions of Cybertronians you've just put out of a job."

The Functionary waved him off, "Have a nice cycle."

O-84 narrowed his optics and clenched his fists, but he didn't say a word. He just glared at the Functionary before stepping to what looked like an automatic door and joining D-16 in walking outside. B-127 followed behind them.

Then, the three Cybertronians exited the building, the automatic door slamming shut behind them, and the three girls witnessing the hologram widened their eyes in amazement.

"Oh my god..." Yui whispered.

"An alien world..." Hatsume said in awe.

"Cybertron..." Ochako muttered.

Indeed, as the three bots marched outside and the hologram shifted around them, they were greeted by the sight of an alien world made entirely of metal. Tall buildings stretched up high into the sky, painted in golds and greys and silvers and highlighted by luminescent yellow windows and blue lines stretching through their superstructures. Planes and flying cars of all sorts churned through the air in aerial speedways marked by floating barriers. Holographic signs were projected from buildings like billboards, displaying all sorts of signs in a language that none of the girls understood, though they didn't translate like with the vocal barrier. Some of them seemed to be advertisements for drinks and body modifications and repaints (there seemed to be a preference for greys and blacks) and oil changes and so on. Others seemed like news reports, talking about economics or reporting on tales from Cybertron's colonies and showing the latest happenings from across the planet itself. Others seemed to be floating symbols and logos, signs on metal barges showing phrases that none of them could understand.

The ground beneath them seemed to give way at points, revealing layers of city beneath them, with some buildings acting as pillars supporting the roads that foundations above. Some roads hung in the air around them, highways manually transforming and stretching out alongside drivers speeding down them in their alt-modes. A train flew overhead on no rails. Some buildings looked like they were segmented into multiple pieces, being only held together by invisible bonds as they free floated around each other. Others even seemed to be hovering above the ground, connected to the surface by tethers and pipes feeding them energy – energon, if Ochako remembered correctly.

Said buildings took on all sorts of shapes. Some were thin and tall, stretching up so high that they cut the clouds in half. Others were short and squat, taking on oval and hexagonal shapes, connecting to each other via tubes and tunnels. Rivers of what Ochako assumed to be liquid energon flowed through the city like waterways. In the centre of the city, Ochako could make out a series of golden buildings illuminated by neon blue lights, all centred around a giant citadel that – at its core – looked like it held a giant floating sculpture of Cybertron itself. The golden buildings themselves were surrounded by a circle of absolutely gargantuan robots, all identical to each other with blue and white bodies, faces that looked like astronaut helmets with a gun barrel poking out their backs, one hand ending in pronged claws and the other being a massive cannon, curved wings on their backs, and red eyes poking through the lenses of their helmets.

It was getting dark. The day was ending, and the sky was red and resting. The sun was cresting over the metallic horizon, and the black sky above was illuminated by a blue and green nebula. High above, five steel moons hung in the air amidst the white speckled stars. Spaceships launched themselves to and from the surface of Cybertron, rocketing themselves into the great beyond.

It was alien. It was unimaginable. It was-

"Beautiful," Ochako finally said.

And then, to spoil the sight, standing before the three bots that the girls were following as they stepped out of the giant golden building the size of an apartment complex (or more accurately, an apartment complex for the average Cybertronian) which they couldn't help but think looked like a giant golden cog, stood about a hundred different robots, all dirty and worn down and sporting the same hazard stripes and modifications of a mining bot.

"Hey, it's Orion and D-16!"

"Orion, what did they say?!"

"Did they make us alt-mode exempt?"

"Are they going to find new jobs for us?"

O-84 – the three girls remembered that the name that the one known as Alpha Trion had given him was Orion Pax – simply shook his head in apology, "I'm sorry."

This sent the miners into an uproar.

"What-"

"They can't do this!"

"First Kaon, then Rodion, and now Iacon? Is there nowhere that will take us?"

"I've got rent due soon!"

"Orion, there's got to be something that we can-"

"No nicknames out in public, please," O-84 told the crowd, "At least not so loud. Not so close to the Functionists. The last thing we need is them coming down on us."

D-16 scoffed, as if he wasn't afraid of whatever consequences they might face.

"This isn't fair at all," said one of the miners called out, "Ever since they've been automating the mines, the Senate has been starving us of work! And now, they want to make us all redundant! Who's next, the astro caste? The intellectuals? Hell, why not throw out the disposables as well?"

"Hey," went B-127, "Not cool, big bot."

"Oh sod off, B. At least you've got work-"

"Yeah, as a courier for the last hundred years, ever since my forging! They don't pay good enough shanix, you know? I'm just about to be thrown out onto the streets as it is!"

"At least you've got a function! At least you're still of use to someone! The rest of us have got nothing at all!"

Then, the shouting began, the arguments and the threatened blows.

And as the miners devolved into squabbling and shouting, the three girls looking over the hologram looked between each other.

"So, the Functionists and the Senate," Yui began, "Which I imagine are one in the same at this point… they've been ruling Cybertron through a caste system. One that rules based on your alt-mode."

"Their form dictates their fate," Ochako added, "That'd be like if we made up an entire system of discrimination based on our quirks."

Hatsume looked away from the hologram, "People do that. That system does exist."

"It does?"

"We're living in it, pink cheeks. Why do you think almost everyone with a powerful quirk becomes a pro hero?"

"Because they want to?"

"Because they've been taught that it's the best way to use their quirks. You know, like how people tell people that their quirks are perfect for being a hero. That kind of stuff."

…That had never crossed Ochako's mind, actually.

She wasn't stupid to the idea. Of course there would be some form of discrimination based around quirks. With how many quirks there were out there in the world and how many effects they had on the human body, it only made sense that there would be some form of quirkism out there in the world.

And it certainly wasn't like there were other forms of discrimination as well. Racism, sexism, classism, and so on. These had existed for a long time, ever since the dawn of man, and they'd exist for a long time after. It was simply human nature to see one put themselves above another.

It was, honestly, rather disappointing to see that another species in the universe practiced the exact same thing. Different words that carried the same meaning.

Ochako had long since hoped that she could meet an alien from another world. Really, in any other situation she'd be losing her mind right now and squealing with glee at the thought of meeting an alien from another world. She would've been eagerly wondering about their culture and their civilisation and how much more advanced and elevated they were in every single aspect of living.

And yet, here she was, having met an alien for the first time and learning about their world, and she was confronted with the fact that beyond the metal flesh and the morphing biology... they were ultimately just as human as her species was.

It wasn't fair for her to say that she was disappointed... but it didn't stop her from feeling it.

Besides… it wasn't like Ochako hadn't faced discrimination of any kind before. Her family was poor, and she'd been mocked for not being able to bring in her own lunches and having to rely on her schools for benefits, or not being able to afford nice new clothing that couldn't be brought in a thrift store or a charity shop. She remembered going back home and crying endlessly over the fact that she couldn't do all the things that every other child her age was doing.

And then, there was the quirkism…

Ochako instinctively ran her hands over each other, feeling the bumps on her fingertips that marked her quirk. The scars on them were long gone now, the knife marks healed over.

Children were cruel to each other.

Ochako looked Hatsume in the eyes, "You've faced it before? Quirkism, I mean."

Hatsume pointed to her eyes, "Plenty of people told me that I could be a great hero with my quirk. Zoom, that's what it's called. I can zoom my eyes in on things, either really up close or really far away. I got all sorts of comments from people my age about how I could be a hero with it, like with scouting and sniping and shit. When I told those same people that I didn't want to be a hero, that I wanted to be an inventor and work in the support industry, I got two swollen eyes for it. People thought I was looking down on them for it. Suddenly every hero hopeful was throwing rocks at me for a week, and ignoring me the rest."

She turned her eyes back to the hologram.

"All the people with the best quirks, very few of them become something other than a hero. You two have got good quirks. You want to become heroes, right?" Ochako and Yui didn't deny it, "Exactly. All the good quirks go into heroism, and as such all the weak quirks get left behind. S'why so many villains have such weak quirks, and no, don't give me that look, most of the villains that heroes fight? They've got weak as hell quirks. The guys that you see All Might and the top tens fight? They're the exceptions. They're the ones that makes the news. Average villain is just a thug with a gimmick."

Ochako blinked, lost in thought at Hatsume's comment.

Hatsume looked to her and added, "I know that not all heroes are like that. Most of them are just ordinary people trying to make a living. That's not evil, that doesn't make them evil. It's just that..." she sighed, "The smallest groups always have the loudest voices."

With that, Hatsume turned back to her notebook.

Ochako had never thought her quirk to be that strong, or even that interesting, but she had hoped that it would help her become a hero. But if Hatsume's words were correct, then she and Yui had strong quirks indeed. Ochako didn't think that it really applied to her, but she knew that Yui could be counted as one of said strong quirk users.

She wondered if that was part of the reason why she wanted to become a hero; not just to help her parents, but because it had become society's directive to shunt those with the best quirks into heroics and leave all the others behind. Was that their function? Were they truly living under a form of functionism themselves?

Ochako shook her head. No, they weren't. They weren't living under such a rule. That would imply that three will didn't exist, and she was most certainly free to make their own choices. Hatsume was wrong in that regard. If there was any form of functionism in their world, it was nowhere near as extreme as the inventor was making it out to be…

But the thought still lingered in her mind.

Her eyes drifted back to the hologram as O-84 and D-16 broke up the arguments, "This is exactly what the Functionists want from us!" D-16 called out to the crowd, "They want us squabbling with each other! They want us focused on ourselves and what we can gain from the other when we should be making a stand!"

"D-16 is right," O-84 spoke up, "We need to stand together and show the Senate and their Functionaries that we are people too! That we deserve all the freedoms of choice and opportunity that we are owed."

"Words alone aren't going to put shanix on the table or energon in our systems," one miner commented.

"Not alone, they won't," O-84 stated, "Give us some time. We'll sort something out."

"We have something in the works," D-16 reassured the crowd, "Trust us. When the time comes, we will send out the call, and not even Sentinel Prime will be able to deny us."

The ex-miners seemed… somewhat sated, though it was clear that it wouldn't be enough for them.

And as the crowd dispersed, Yui looked over to Ochako, "So, the Functionists and the Senate… Sentinel Prime too… they rule Cybertron through this… taxonomy?"

"The Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy, that's what they called it," Hatsume commented, "They put everyone into a caste depending on what they turn into. Tanks and trucks are in manual, little cars like B-12- I mean, Bumblebee – they're in the disposables-"

"That's awful," Ochako commented, "Your entire life dictated just because of what you turn into."

Hatsume looked like she was going to make a comment, but decided against it. Ochako could guess what it was going to be.

Yui spoke up, "From the sounds of it, they have people who have animal alt-modes. Beast modes."

"Yeah," Ochako commented, "And from the sounds of it, they don't have a place in the world at all. They were stated as something other than the disposable caste."

"They don't serve a purpose… so what use are they?"

"Horrible."

Yui hummed in agreement, "From what they've said, the Senate made the entire manual caste redundant. They automated the mines and cost them all a job."

"Rendered them all redundant," Ochako nodded, "Put millions of Cybertronians, maybe even billions, out of a job."

"And that's going to get the populace angry," Hatsume continued for them, "Rile up all the people who are now out of work and with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Especially if they don't get them new jobs," she paused as she looked up from her notebook, "The hologram's still going."

Ochako and Yui looked around them, and saw that the hologram had in fact changed. Now it was dark, and B-127 and O-84 were driving through the streets in their alt-modes. The three girls recognised B-127's compact car form, and marvelled at O-84's red and blue truck form, itself solid and looking something like a brick on wheels. The girls were worried that they'd have to run after them, but found that the world was shifting around them, the buildings and streets and lights and passers-by a blur.

"I think I'm going to get motion sickness," Ochako said queasily.

"I'm already getting it," Yui added.

"I'm sure you'll find another job soon, O," went B-127 as they drove through the empty street, "I mean, you can still be a dock worker, or even an police officer. You've got the alt-mode for it, after all."

"You know that's not how the system works, B," O-84 said back, "Once a miner, always a miner. The Functionists will never let us change jobs. We're all out of work now, and with nothing left for us."

"You can always crash at my place, you know?"

"Isn't your rent lord about to kick you out?"

"Yeah, but we should be good for a good few cycles."

"You're a good friend, B," O-84 told the little yellow car, "Better than I or anyone else deserves."

"Aw, come on, Orion Pax, you know that's not-"

"AUGH!"

B-127 and O-84 hit the brakes, and the three girls almost felt like they were going to trip over themselves as the two Cybertronians transformed and paused in the street, spotting the source of the cry for help.

A yellow and grey robot with a green face and blue eyes, lying on the ground, sporting not any wheels or treads, but robotic animal parts like a lower jaw across his chest and metal paws folded into his arms and legs.

He was currently on the ground, cut up and battered and leaking energon as a pair of robots – one a maroon and black robot with light cyan thighs, waist, and face within a maroon head, giant wheels for shoulders and door handles for wings on their back, bright purple eyes and blue luminescent lights patterning their body alongside pink stripes of paint, and the other was a lumbering brute of a Cybertronian coloured in blacks and browns, with back panels for wings jutting out of his back, wide pauldrons on his shoulders, a red visor covering his optics, and yellow luminescent highlights colouring his form – punched and kicked him repeatedly. The black and yellow badges on the former's chest and the latter's shoulders looked like cop badges.

"Fraggin' beast," the maroon robot snarled in a feminine voice, applying another kick to the downed robot's abdomen. The bot in question screamed and coughed up a wad of energon as his battered abdomen wept coolant and energon like blood, "Walking around like you own the place? You think you're better than us?"

"Why are you-" the robot screamed again as the black and brown robot stomped on his head, grinding it into the ground, "I have done nothing!"

"Can't you read, beast? This is an animal exclusion zone," the brown and black robot pressed his head down on the poor bot, "No beasts allowed here. Not on my watch."

"What are you-" the robot screamed again as the maroon robot stomped down on his battered arm, tearing at the metal and exposing the bloodied wires and gears underneath, "Iacon has no e-exclusion zone! Meant to be the most p-p-progressive city state!"

"Does now, the moment that you walked in," the black and brown robot picked him up by the head, "Now we're going to have to take you in. Ask some questions of you. Ask why you're walking around where you and your kind don't belong," the robot grinned, then grabbed the animal-modded robot by his jaw, "If you can talk at all by the end of it."

The yellow and grey robot screamed as the black and brown thug with a badge began to pull at his jaw, the three girls hearing the snapping and bending of metal as they all felt sick.

"Oh my god," Yui muttered. Hatsume, meanwhile, turned her head away, unable to keep looking.

Ochako refused to look away. Her eyes remained trained on the sight. Suddenly, her hands felt warm and wet and sticky, and her eyes were stained red. A familiar night began to play in her mind, a terrible night where she was begging it all to-

"Stop!"

The three girls jumped, and the two robot cops in the hologram looked up from their beating to see O-84 marching over to them, his hands up as B-127 looked worryingly at him, silently begging him to step away.

"Stop this," O-84 told the two cops, "Please."

The maroon robot laughed, "Or what? This is official police business, manual caste. Step off or get stepped on."

"O, let's just go," B-127 tugged at O-84's arm, "These guys are cops. This kind of scrap happens all the time."

"You should listen to your little yellow friend," the maroon robot pressed down on the yellow and grey animal-robot's arm, "Lest you want a piece too."

"Back off, Nightra. I know the yellow runt. He's as tame as a turborat," the brown and black robot told off the other officer.

The yellow and grey robot tried to take this brief distraction as a means to escape from the two thugs, but the black and brown robot simply lifted his foot up and stomped down hard on his head, almost flattening it and leaving the beast-mode Cybertronian whimpering in pain.

"You, shut it, before you get resisting arrest added to your charge," he turned back to O-84, "And you, get lost before you're next."

O-84 clenched his fists, then, surprisingly, cooled himself and reached for something on his back.

"Then, tools of the Senate, of the Functionists, of Sentinel Prime himself," he balled his hands into fists, "It would appear that I am next."

The two robot cops looked at each other, then, in shock of O-84's challenge, pulled out pistols from their sides and aimed them at him, "Shoot him, Nightra-"

The black and brown robot didn't get time to finish his command before O-84 lurched forward and launched a fist right into his chest. The three girls watching the hologram gasped once more as the black and brown robot let out a long cry of pain as his armour buckled and energon leaked out of the crumpled metal, lashing out at O-84 and firing a shot directly into the red and blue robot's shoulder.

However, contrast to the black and brown robot's panic, O-84 barely flinched as the metal skin on his shoulder turned to molten slag. With naught but a grunt in response, the red and blue ex-miner lifted up the other robot in a bear hug, then slammed him hard into the ground in what looked like a wrestling move, grabbing one of the fins on the robot cop's back and - as if it was a sword - stabbed it into his chest, pulling it down like a knife through butter and exposing the wiring and cables and energon underneath.

The girls winced and ooh'd as if they were watching a wrestling match, whilst the maroon robot – Nightra – yelled out, "RoughEdge!" and fired her pistol at O-84, sending a trio of orange bolts his way.

That didn't stop O-84, though, as he simply picked up the black and brown robot cop – RoughEdge – and used him as a human shield (or Cybertronian shield, in this case). The corrupt cop let out a shriek as the rounds impacted with his back, sending shrapnel and molten metal flying in all directions as he tried to reach for O-84, only for the ex-miner to throw him into the air and, after grabbing him by his leg, fling him through the air like a flail-

{SMASH}

-Into the charging Nightra, sending them both crashing into a wall.

"Wow," Ochako hummed.

"Woo, go O!" cheered Hatsume, "Kick their metal asses!"

"Hatsume!" Yui hissed, "Those are cops he's assaulting!"

"What, like they weren't assaulting some poor guy before he started tossing them around? And don't pretend you didn't want D to tear that Functionary's head off."

Yui didn't protest that.

Ochako, meanwhile, kept her eyes on the fight, as RoughEdge, after pulling himself free from the wall, transformed into his alt-mode (a jeep of some sorts)-

{CRASH}

-And slammed himself into O-84, sending the ex-miner crashing into the floor as the cop transformed and pinned him down, sending punch after punch into the red and blue bot with the intent on killing him.

Of course, the thug with a badge proved to be more brains than brawn, as he was too focused on whaling on O-84 that he missed the ex-miner press his foot against his bloody waist and kick him off, sending the corrupt cop rocketing back as O-84 picked himself back up. RoughEdge, catching himself, let out a roar and charged at O-84 once more, only for O-84 to flip around him, grab his arm, and-

{TEEEEAAAARRRRRR}

"AUGH!"

-Pulled it out of its socket in a spray of metal and luminescent blue blood.

RoughEdge fell back with another fresh scream, clutching his stump of an arm as O-84 swung it around like a Morningstar, smashing it into his head and bending the metal, leaving his face and helm a crumpled mess. However, his optics then widened as he spotted Nightra pulling herself off the wall and aiming her pistol right at his head, squeezing the trigger-

"Dammit!"

-Only for B-127 to transform into his alt-mode-

{SMASH}

-And slam himself into Nightra's side, almost cutting the thuggish cop in half as she slammed into the ground, letting out a cry of pain as B-127 smashed into the ground with her, transforming into his robot form and landing on the ground with a loud bang, wincing in pain as he felt over his dented armour from the fall. His optics then widened as Nightra pulled herself up onto her feet and lunged at him, only for him to grab the pistol that the cop had dropped, and aim it right at her head.

{CHOOM}

"AHH!"

Nightra screamed as she rocked back, the orange blast having struck her on the side of her head. The metal across her head superheated and dripped from her like liquid, and her optic came loose and dangled from its socket as the wiring and gears underneath her dome were exposed in a cloud of smoke and heat. One of her optics dangled carelessly from her exposed skull on a few loose wires.

RoughEdge let out a bark, and Nightra scowled through the pain and transformed into her Cybertronian pickup truck form. Clinging to it, RoughEdge allowed himself to be pulled away in a retreat, blue blood oozing from the stump where his arm used to be and leaving a trail behind him.

Picking B-127 off the ground as he himself stood up, O-84 deactivated and holstered his energon-axe, then walked over to the wounded beast-mode Cybertronian on the ground, kneeling down and slowly pulling him up onto his feet, "Can you move, my friend?"

"Y-Yeah," the yellow and grey Cybertronian said, though he didn't move his mouth, as his lower jaw was dangling loosely from his mouth via a bundle of wires. The voice that came out of his mouth was garbled and filled with static, like an old radio past its prime, "Yeah I can."

"Can you tell me your name?"

"It's, er, CC-88, but… my friends call me Chainclaw."

"Chainclaw, then," O-84 said, "Do you have anywhere to go?"

"Ah- no. I don't think so. I used to have a home in Polyhex, in the Dead End but that got ransacked," the sigh that left the beast-mode robot's – Chainclaw's – fractured mouth was choppy with static, "Now I've got nowhere to go."

"I see," Orion pulled out a datapad and tapped something onto it and handed it to the wounded Cybertronian, "Head for this address. There's a doctor there, R-12, who runs a free clinic, away from the Functionists and Senate's optics. You go there and tell him, 'Hello Ratchet, Orion sent me here,' and he'll see to you. After that, he'll direct to somewhere where you can recharge for the night."

"...You sure?" Chainclaw asked hesitantly.

"Trust me, he's got a big spark. He won't turn you away."

Chainclaw looked down at the datapad in his hands, then turned to O-84 and said, "T-Thank you."

Soon enough, Chainclaw was away, and O-84 and B-127 were left standing in the middle of the street, nursing their own wounds as well.

0-84 held a hand to his slagged shoulder and said, "Thank you, B."

"You need to stop jumping into fights like that," B-127 told him, "You might end up in one that you can't win."

O-84 shook his head, "That, I cannot promise," he looked to where the two cops had been beating Chainclaw, "What do you mean that it happens all the time? The police beating innocent Cybertronians?"

B-127 sighed, "You and D have been off world in the mines for too long. Things are only getting worse across the colonies, and even on Cybertron. The Senate is clamping down thanks to the protests, the Functionists are tightening their hold on the Constructed Cold spark stockpiles and the Well of All Sparks, and Sentinel Prime is refusing to bend for anyone. And there's-" he paused, looked around, "There's rumour that the Functionists are going to label the disposables as redundant next."

O-84 sighed, "I'm... sorry to hear that, B," he looked back to the scene of the fight, "Things are only going to keep getting worse from here, aren't they? We will need to make a stand soon enough."

"I'd love to see how you're going to do that."

"Well-"

"There they are!"

B-127 and 0-84 swung their heads around to see that the wounded RoughEdge and Nightra had returned, very much angry, and with a dozen other cops at their backs.

"Stun 'em!"

"Ah, slag-"

B-127 didn't get the chance to finish his sentence as he and O-84 were hit with a dozen taser rounds, jolting them with electricity as they collapsed to the floor-

And then the hologram turned static, filling the garage around Bumblebee and the three girls in flickering flashes of light.

"...Holy shit," Hatsume muttered, "That was awesome."

"Not the word I'd use," Yui commented, "But... yeah. Not sure how I feel about O-84 tearing that cop's arm off, but-"

"But those cops were beating the crap out of some poor guy who did nothing to deserve it."

Yui didn't argue against it. She clearly wasn't mourning the beating that those two thugs got either.

"Am I the only one who... wasn't entirely disturbed by that, by the way?" Ochako asked out loud, "I mean, O cutting off that guy's arm, Bumblebee shooting that lady cop in the head... I thought I'd be more disturbed than I was. Am. Whatever."

"Probably has to do with them being robots," Yui told her, "Living robots, I know, but... I suppose it's the fact that they're made of metal that we can distance ourselves. Disassociate ourselves from it. I imagine that if they were made of organic material... well, we'd be having a much more visceral reaction to it."

Ochako decided not to imagine what would've happened if they'd been made of skin and bone. She was feeling queasy just from the idea of it.

"No wonder Bee's been so beat up," Hatsume said as she gestured to the wonderstruck Bumblebee on the ground, "If that's what the Senate's gooks were doing on the regular, imagine what they'd do to someone in an actual fight."

"From the looks of it," Yui retorted, "Those two cops weren't used to someone putting up a fight against them. I doubt that a pair of thugs with badges would be able to render B-1- I mean, Bumblebee, into this kind of critical condition."

"Yeah, cops, not actual fighters."

"You think the Senate had heroes of their own? Or a military to deploy?"

"Either. Both, maybe?" Hatsume tapped her chin, "If the Senate did have heroes, then wouldn't that make Sentinel Prime the All Might of their world?"

That question seemed to throw Yui for a loop, and it certainly made Ochako suddenly uncomfortable, before her cousin added in, "If that's the case, then that really would make Bumblebee a villain," the look in her eyes made clear that she wasn't happy with that statement.

Ochako looked at Bumblebee. If he really had gone against Cybertron's government, then yeah, that would make Bumblebee a villain.

But that was by the standards of their world. For all they knew, Cybertron didn't have a hero system. If Ochako had to guess, they probably didn't.

And then there was the government that ruled over Cybertron. From what she'd seen, they weren't good at all. They were enablers of injustice and cruelty, ruled over Cybertron in a stagnant caste system for millions of years, and made an entire caste of people numbering in the millions at the very least redundant, and let its police officers brutalise people without any consequences.

"Maybe the guys in charge needed to be deposed," Ochako added.

Yui shot a look Ochako's way, "Ochako-"

Ochako waved a hand Yui's way. It was in her cousin's nature to be the logical one, the one to stick closest to the rules that made their world. Ochako appreciated her for that. But at the same time, that attitude wasn't helping them right now, "It's like we said before, Yui. We're trying to apply our people's standards to theirs. That's not fair on us to do so when our situations are so different."

"...Fine," Yui conceded, "Though the questions remain; how did he get to our world, and how did he get so beat up?"

"Probably the Senate," Hatsume added, "And Sentinel Prime."

"The All Might of their world," Yui repeated what Hatsume said earlier.

"From the sounds of it," Ochako said, "They're not exactly comparable."

"That's still not an excuse to start picking fights with the government."

"Why are you so insistent on this?" Hatsume asked.

"Why aren't you? We were all taught about the stories of the past, history, what happened when those with quirks tried to stir up chaos and the destruction that they led."

Ochako didn't deny that. She'd been taught the history of hero society too. She'd been taught about the past of the world.

A thousand years ago... something happened. No one knows what or why, but there had been a massive cataclysm that had ended the world as they knew it. The massive cities that had stretched for miles across their world had been turned to rubble and ashes, the forests had burned, life itself had been driven to near extinction, and humanity itself had been culled by the masses. What had once been several billion thriving and prosperous people, had been reduced to just a scant few million scattered across a shattered earth. The atmosphere had been poisoned, and the lands had been sterilised and rendered barren.

Mankind had barely survived extinction.

It had taken a thousand years for life to return to Earth, for the plants and forests to regrow and the cities to be rebuilt and mankind to reconnect and rebuild what had once been left behind.

But by that time, there was no one left who had any living memory of what had ended what had once been an entire people. Society was left to rebuild in blind ignorance of what had come before. Not even the previous cultures of society remained. The religions that walked the world today were pale imitations, born out of handed-down memories and misremembered traditions that had grown and evolved from the first religions and become unrecognisable over hundreds of years of hearsay and miscommunication. Landmarks were shattered, history books and memorials were turned to cinders, nothing but dust and echoes.

Millenia of culture, of history... lost.

The people of Earth today had been forced to relearn so many lessons.

Then came quirks, those strange ethereal powers that defied all known laws of reality itself. They had been key to rebuilding the world, helping to elevate mankind from a scattered realm of tribes and clans into a fully functioning society.

But, with quirks and the wonders that they brought... came the evils that lurked in every person's heart, and the greed and lust for power that came with it.

The wars that followed – the Quirk Wars, as they would later be known – threatened to shatter what fragile peace had been established. Massive armies of quirk users devastated countries in their battles, cities were rendered to ruin by a mere handful of quirk users battling it out, whole peoples and civilisations were enslaved or cut down by single men with the power of gods. The quirked and the quirkless would battle with each other, both sides threatening genocide and extinction onto the other.

It was war. Nothing but pointless, bloody war, for power, for glory, for the sake of war itself.

It was only when the first heroes walked the earth that the wars stopped.

It was only when hero society was established that peace was given a chance.

And it was only when All Might rose to become the number one hero and the Symbol of Peace did that chance pay off, and peace reigned across the world.

Forty years... that was how long All Might had been the number one hero. And it was those forty years that had been the most peaceful that Earth had seen for the last thousand years. The people of Earth had a lot to thank All Might for. After all, there were still people alive today who remembered the horrible violence and hatred that reigned before his time.

Now, the Earth had finally healed, though it still had no memory of what had brought about its near end. The atmosphere had finally healed, the forests had regrown, and nature had been restored to full health (quirks have certainly helped in that regard). The people that walked its surface finally knew a world where they didn't have to fight to survive, to catch every breath and struggle for every new sunrise.

Those that had lived throughout the violence were determined not to let such a thing happen again.

And so, those in the seats of power shared their memories of what had come before, what they'd had to live through, and begged of the world not to repeat their mistakes ever again. Children were taught to never seek chaos, adults were taught to restrain themselves, all were taught of what it meant to go against the peace that they'd built.

Those who rebelled against their peace, that would see their world sink into the chaos that came before, were villains to their core.

Those that sought to preserve that peace, that would protect all that they had built and come to cherish, were heroes in their hearts.

These were the lessons that all children had learnt and then passed down to their children in turn. Pure, unshakeable lessons that held nothing but truth to them.

But, now, in the face of this new truth and the viewpoint of another world, being choked by a darkness of its own, Ochako wondered if those same lessons truly were applicable.

"Hey, the hologram's starting up again," Hatsume said as the world flickered with light once more, and the three girls bore witness to B-127 picking himself up from a metal bench in what looked like a holding cell, then-

"Aggravated assault, battery of two officers, resisting arrest," said a grey, black, and blue robot with a yellow optical visor built within a helmet and faceplate that resembled a gasmask, red and blue luminescent siren lights stretching across his chest, waist, and back, blue lighting in the wheels on his shoulders and thighs, exhausts poking out of his back, knuckledusters and gun barrels built into his hands and lower arms, and long legs with sharpened kneepads. In the centre of his chest was the yellow and black badge of a Cybertronian police officer. The officer whistled, "And carrying an unlicensed weapon as well. Manual caste, I swear. You and the disposables are no better than the beasts. Always finding a way to disturb the peace."

"Nightra and RoughEdge were beating an innocent Cybertronian to death," O-84 tapped his finger against what must've been a hardlight barrier between him and the entrance to the holding cell, "I couldn't just stand there and watch it happen."

"Oh, so I can add interfering with a police investigation and letting a suspect escape, then?" the officer smiled, "Good to know. How about this, why don't I add weapons trafficking to the list as well? After all, Nightra had to get that wound on her head somehow," O-84 narrowed his optics, but the officer laughed, "You know what, let's throw stimulant usage into that pile as well. Just for the hell of it."

"Oh, that's a load of slag, Barricade," B-127 snapped as he marched over to the blue-tinged hardlight wall, "What, are you that high up on your little power trip that you'll start adding charges to a person's record just so that you can watch them squirm?"

The officer snarled at him, "You know, I've been wanting to get you in here for a long time, disposable. You've been a pain in my aft for long enough, and I'll have you know that RoughEdge and Nightra trained under me, so I'm feeling a bit petty today," he tapped on the datapad in his hands, "So why don't we just slap another resisting arrest charge on there as well? Really spice things up."

The three girls found themselves glaring at Barricade as B-127 snapped back, "Oh, spare me this mockery of justice."

Barricade grinned smugly, "Who said anything about justice?"

"What do you want?" O-84's voice was cool and stern.

"What do I want? I want another shipload of shanix in my pocket, a fresh paintjob, and another round of spare parts to sell on the market. I'm sure the bodyshops would be happy to strip you both for components and leave you on the streets with all the other empties. Isn't that right, Frenzy?"

"Oh yeah," said a little black and red robot (or blue. Or purple. Ochako couldn't tell from behind the hardlight wall) that was shorter than even Bumblebee and looked like he turned into a miniature twin-barreled tank with the barrels on his back and the treads on his shoulders, a mad grin on his face as his red visor glimmered with the promise of violence and his hands turned to drills, "I'd love to do it myself. Save 'em the trouble."

"That's right, he really would," Barricade tapped his datapad against the hardlight wall, "So, how about this? You hand over all your shanix, and all the scrap that you've got stored away in your homes, and maybe, just maybe, I'll look the other way this cycle and not have you handed over to the bodyshoppers to be turned into spare parts? What do you say, we have a deal?"

O-84 clenched his fists, "No deal," B-127 folded his hands in agreement.

Barricade mockingly sighed, "Always with the righteous ones. No matter. Frenzy, go get Aurik and Garboil. We've got a pair of dissidents that need to be-"

"Stand down, Barricade."

The three girls looked to the side along with the bots in the hologram, as a giant, bulky Cybertronan coloured in blues and reds, with bold blue eyes and pipes stretching up from his head, a constantly stern expression on his silver face, and a massive pair of silver and glowing blue smokestacks on his shoulder along with red-tipped missiles, stepped into what Ochako assumed to be the detention centre, followed shortly after by a prickly-looking black and white robot with red fins on the top of his head and parts that looked like he turned into a car.

"Wha- Ultra Magnus?" Barricade looked on with shock, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to assist you," the look on Ultra Magnus' face was knowing, "In letting these two Cybertronians go. Their bails have been paid."

"What? By who?"

"That's need to know."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning you don't need to know."

"Iacon's my city. This is my precinct. What goes on here is my business."

"You may be chief of police in Iacon, but I'm one of the joint chiefs of Cybertron's Primal Vanguard. One of the Magnus'. I outrank you by default."

"Who paid their bail?"

"Watch yourself, Barricade," Ultra Magnus warned, "You might find yourself making enemies wherever you go," Ochako could tell that it wasn't aimed at the corrupt cop and his diminutive partner alone. The bulky robot then turned to the bot at his side and went, "Prowl."

"On it, sir," said the black and white officer, marching over to the cell and dropping the hardlight wall.

O-84 and B-127 looked at each other, then made a move to follow Ultra Magnus and Prowl out, only for Barricade to step in their way.

"I don't know who you've got in your pocket, but let me tell you this," the officer hissed behind his gasmask-like faceplate, "This is my city, and I answer to Sentinel Prime himself. I make a call, and Xeon? Decimus? Kudon, Sherma, Momus, Ratbat, Contrail, Ulchtar, even Proteus? They'll be calling for your head on a silver platter and your energon drained from you. Do you understand?"

"...Perfectly," O-84 said in a low tone, and then left, "Have a good day, officer," he said on the way out, B-127 following behind him and leaving Barricade and Frenzy to stew in their anger.

The three girls watched as the robots marched out of the police station, wondering about what they'd just watched.

"I'm going to go on a limb and assume that RoughEdge and Nightra are the rule, not the exception," Hatsume said, "Seems like the cops on Cybertron have a corruption problem. Or Iacon. I think that's what the city they're in right now is called," she scribbled some more names into her notes, "Iacon, Polyhex, Rodion, Kaon..."

"If this Ultra Magnus guy knows that Barricade and his lot are corrupt," Ochako asked, "Why doesn't he just remove them from command? After all, he's part of, what, this Primal Vanguard thing? He outranks Barricade by a country mile."

"I imagine it's not as simple as that," Yui pointed out, "After all, there are legal processes that need to be taken for investigating officers in a police force. It's what internal affairs departments are for. It's not for anyone else to step in and intervene when it's not even their department or job to do so. That creates a lot of interservice friction."

"Plus, Barricade is corrupt as hell."

"As is the police force's internal affairs, most likely," Yui admitted, "And if what Barricade said is true, then he's got a lot of connections..."

As if on cue, once O-84 and B-127 were marched out of the Iacon police precinct, Ultra Magnus turned to the two and went, "Congratulations, you two have just made an enemy out of Sentinel Prime's top enforcer in Iacon. Not to mention the most corrupt cop in the city, too."

"Thank you, sir, for releasing us," O-84 told the larger bot, "I'm surprised that someone of your rank is down here for us."

The bulky bot sighed, "Don't thank me, O-84. Thank Alpha Trion. He's the one who paid your bail. I'm down here because I owe him a great deal. That, and there was no way that Barricade and his men were going to let you go without sacrificing something."

"You owe Alpha Trion?" B-127 asked, "You're part of colonial defence, the Primal Vanguard. Isn't he just a librarian?" Ochako and the other girls were wondering about that as well.

"It's... a long story," Ultra Magnus commented, "One that goes all the way back to before I earned the rank of Magnus."

Ochako hummed in thought. So, Magnus was a rank, just like Prime. She imagined that the Magnus Rank was lesser to the title of Prime, if what she'd learnt was correct.

"You're a member of the Primal Vanguard, aren't you?" O-84 began, "A member of the joint chiefs, alongside Turmoil Magnus and Pyra Magnus and all the other Magnuses. Don't you have the power to remove Barricade from command and reform the precinct?"

"Different department with a lot of bureaucracy designed to stop such a thing from happening. Believe me, I've tried, but there's only so much influence that a Magnus like me can have, especially against the word of a Prime," Ultra Magnus sighed, then said to O-84, "Look, Orion, was it? Alpha Trion put in a good word for you, but there's very little that I can do now save for this, and nothing I can do after. There are protocols for this, Prowl can attest. Just promise me that you won't go causing any more trouble after this. For Alpha's sake."

O-84 sighed, "Alpha Trion has taught me many things, Ultra Magnus. One of them was to never make a promise I know I can't keep."

And with that, the hologram ended, and Ochako, Yui, Hatsume, and Bumblebee were left in the garage once again.

"So, O and B- Bumblebee... I think they might be rebels," Hatsume said, pointing at Bumblebee, "That's probably why he's wearing the badge that O – Orion, whatever – came up with. It's probably their logo. And from how the cops were treating that beast-mode guy, then how that corrupt cop was threatening to strip them for parts, and how he's apparently the Senate's top dog-"

"Yeah," Ochako added, "The Senate probably clamped down hard on them, and, well..." she waved her hand over Bumblebee's wounds, "They probably gave him that."

Yui kept herself quiet.

"Maybe that's why he's here," Hatsume began, "Hiding away from the Senate."

"Maybe... probably," Ochako walked over to Bumblebee, patting the Cybertronian softly on the side of his head, "Do you remember anything else?"

The yellow robot looked at her sadly, then shook his head. A low hum left his lips, staticky and cut up.

Ochako sighed, and looked at the girls, "We're not going to be able to get anything else out of him. Not while he's damaged. I think we're going to have to fix him up to learn more."

"In that case, then we should really hand him off to the heroes," Yui threw out, "Ochako, Hatsume, this is so much bigger than either of us. This is first contact between humanity and an alien species, and we're just kids. We should be leaving this for people more professional than us to handle this."

"What, you want to give them free picks on whatever babies they want to make? Hell no," Hatsume glared at the stoic girl, "My find, our find. I found him first."

"Hatsume's not wrong," Ochako said, but she made it clear from the look on her face that she didn't agree with the reason behind the inventor's conclusion, "We can't let anyone else know about this. At all."

"Ochako-"

"We don't know how he landed here, Yui. We don't know if anyone followed him here. And his kind – the Cybertronians – can change themselves into vehicles, and probably other forms of machinery as well, not to mention animals. If the Senate and the Functionists really are hunting him, then they could be anywhere. They could already be on Earth looking for him as we speak. And from what we've seen... I don't think they've got any intention of taking him alive."

"So, you want to harbour an alien fugitive... in a garage?"

"My garage, by the way," Hatsume told them, "My garage, my babies."

"...In Hatsume's garage, then?"

"We'll find a better hiding place for him. Eventually. But for-" Ochako stuttered, then sighed, "For now, let's just... keep him here, for now. At least until we know it's safe."

"We can't keep him in here forever."

"I know."

"We're going to be going to U.A. in ten months."

"I know, but-"

"So we'd be having to look after him, whilst also studying and training, and- when we do get into U.A., what then? Are we just going to keep him forever?"

"I'll... I'll figure something out. I promise."

"..."

"Please, Yui. He deserves that much."

"...Fine," Yui leant against the wall, "But I don't like this, not one bit. I want that made clear."

Ochako nodded, "I know, cousin. I know."

She turned around to Bumblebee, and held him close.

"We'll fix you up, Bee. You'll be good as new soon enough."

Bumblebee hummed, as if trying to say 'thank you.' Ochako appreciated the sentiment.

Then, suddenly, the phone in her pocket started to ring. She released herself from Bumblebee and pulled her phone out, flipping it open and spotting the number on it. Her parents were calling her? She was supposed to that later that night. She looked between the cracks of the garage door, and-

"Oh shit, it's morning!?" Ochako cried out, looking down at the time on her phone and then to the two girls and Cybertronian sharing the room with her, "I'll be right back!"

Then, she pulled the garage door open and stepped outside, feeling the cool morning air hitting her skin as she lowered the shutter behind her. The sky was cresting over the horizon, casting long shadows over the ground. The sky was regaining its blue colour. The world was waking up for a brand-new day. She hadn't slept at all.

She tapped on the phone and put it to her ear, "Hi, Mum, Dad."

"Ochako, are you alright?" the voice of her father, Taiyo Uraraka, echoed out from the phone, "We never heard from you last night."

"Yeah, Moko said that you and Yui found some old car," Miwa Uraraka, her mother, said next, "And that you were going to take it apart with a friend you'd made. Oh, Ochako, please tell me that you didn't try to do that on your own-"

"I'm fine, Mum. We're all fine," Ochako said as she leant herself against the garage door and looked up at the sky. Rubbing her eyes, she came up with her best lie, "Actually, the car was a bust. We, um, put in on the web, and a couple heroes came around. Apparently, it was an old hero car, so they took it away. Police investigation, and all that."

There was a noise on the other end before her mother spoke again, "But you didn't get hurt?"

"No, we didn't get hurt. We're all fine," Ochako paused, "We didn't get in trouble either."

"Ochako-"

"I know, crime scene stuff and all that, but... we didn't get in trouble. They gave us a talking-to about it, but they let us go with a warning."

"Well, I'm glad to know that you're okay," her father said, "I was worried that you weren't going to be okay living from home."

"I know, Dad. And no, I'm doing fine. Yui's a good housemate."

"...Ochako," her mother began, "You know you can come back home whenever you want, right?"

Ochako's eyes peered down, looking over herself. She was tired, exhaustion suddenly hitting her and leaving her feeling nothing but low.

"...You know why I can't come back."

Silence reigned after that, followed by sad goodbyes.

Then, Ochako hung up the phone, and let a stray tear fall down her cheek, hating how much she's got used to lying to her parents.

She just hoped that those that were hunting her new friend wouldn't be coming to Earth any time soon...

---

Half a world away, in the cloak of night, a small army of men in uniforms, armed with guns and rifles and explosives, stepped out of vans and trucks and armoured cars, and gathered around an old town.

Hardly anyone had lived in the old, nameless town for decades. Save for the squatters and the desperate, the homeless and the castaways, very few people made their home in these parts. After all, why would they when all the best jobs and the action and the spectacle of the heroes and villains battling each other was all in the cities?

So, many old settlements were left to the wayside in favour of the cities, leaving their old homes to be left in the dust.

Now, the lands were being reclaimed by nature. Buildings were succumbing to erosion and time. Vines crept up the cracked walls and through the holes in the walls. Shattered windows left jagged shards in rotting frames. Old cars left to rust pilfer the streets.

But, despite the decrepit nature of the buildings themselves, there was still life that made their homes within. Beyond the birds roosting in the broken roofs and the insects and squirrels making their nests in the softening foundations, there were still people here. About a dozen humans, all of them outcasts...

Plus two aliens.

A man marched out of one of a black and teal truck that had driven with the convoy. The soldiers saluted him as he passed them by.

"General, sir!" one of the soldiers called to him. Much like the rest of the troopers under his command, the soldier was cloaked in green armour plating with a black body glove beneath it, with a black and green helmet containing green-tinted goggles atop a gasmask. The rifle in his hand was heavy and firm, bristling with violence. The general looked at him and the rest of his soldiers appreciatively, as well as the weapons of war that they had brought with them in the form of a phalanx of maroon-tinged bikes, his secret weapons, rolling out of the truck's trailer, much like what was hovering high above.

He was glad he didn't have to deal with heroes for this operation. He normally didn't have to, seeing as his organisation superseded even the World's Hero Association in terms of funding and importance in the eyes of the United Nations, and many of his operations took place far removed from the big cities and the wider populace. But there were of course times where his ops leaked into the bigger cities and the wider populace.

And when those times did come, well, the general could admit that heroes were much better at minimising civilian casulties and reassuring the public that nothing is wrong, along with keeping the wider world dark about the nature of their organisation and the shadow war that they waged, but for all their usefulness, he couldn't see them as anything other than annoying, with their flashy capes and constantly shouting their attacks. They had their usefulness, but he didn't want them anywhere near his operations.

They were key to keeping the populace calm, but he was key to keeping them safe.

"At ease, Savoy," the general told his second-in-command, marching up to the back of one of the car's and pulling open the boot to activate the dozens of cameras inside, "What are we looking at?"

"Heat cameras from our drones above are picking up about twenty-one signatures, nineteen humans and two Non-Biological Entities."

"A pair of cowards and their traitors," the general scoffed, "We got the cover story prepped and ready?"

"Yes sir. A villainous gang with dangerous quirks are hiding out in the town, and we were called in because they were too dangerous for the regular heroes to take down."

A tried and tested formula. It was in line with the official purpose of their organisation, after all, "Prep the mortars, and release the micro-drones."

As the soldiers got into position and moved their vehicles to do so, several of them released insect-shaped droids the size of their hands into the air, letting them buzz away on small rotors and turbines and remote-controlling them to search the house for hidden weapons and traps, marking the former and disabling the latter.

Then, soon enough, one of the micro-drones flew near the chipped wall of a barn, and the microphone in the drone began to record the conversation inside, transmitting it back to the general and his soldiers.

"-Not your fight."

"It is now. It always has been."

"Charlene, if you and the others go out there, you will be slaughtered! We've seen what they can do, what they have done to others, our friends!"

"Then what would you have us do, Skids? Run? Surrender?"

"Live!"

"Then I would rather die brave then live knowing I took the coward's way out."

"You're mad!"

"And you're our friend...! You saved us, Skids. You too, Shadowhawk Now let us save you-"

"In the barn," Savoy confirmed.

"Contact the drones above," ordered the general, "Prep the missiles."

Savoy obeyed and spoke into his earpiece, relaying the general's commands as the soldiers and vehicles moved into position, blocking all entrances and exits into the town, and putting snipers all around the perimeter to cover all angles and account for all possible avenues of escape.

Then, the general changed the video footage on the cameras to the heat footage from the drones above, zooming in on the barn and the three heat signatures inside.

"All units, call in. Get prepped to move in."

All his teams reported in, telling him that they were ready to roll.

"Launch missiles in three... two... one..." he turned to his subordinate, "Send it."

Savoy leant into his comms, "Crack steel."

A few seconds later, an orange glow pierced through the rainclouds above, then rocketed down as a trio of missiles shot down to the surface-

{KA-BOOM}

-And destroyed the barn in a massive ball of fire.

"Soften them up!" called out the general. As soon as he gave the order, dozens of mortars flew out from his men's ranks and smashed into the old town, shattering buildings and sending bricks and foundations flying in clouds of dust and fire. The air was blanketed with smoke as the few people within the old town scrambled back and forth in a panic, most of them scrambling for weapons whilst others went to set up traps and fortifications that would fail them. The general then ordered, "Second volley, open up! Snipers, pick them off! All ground teams, move in! Aerial units, drop support!"

As soon as the second volley of mortars was fired and smashed into the town, the soldiers began to march forward, pouring fire into anything within the town that moved, pinning them down for the driverless bikes to start moving in. Meanwhile, the blue-tinged drones swooped down and sprayed gunfire and missiles into the town, coating the buildings in fire and smoke. Then, as they soared back into the air, from their undersides they would drop blue and silver tanks onto the ground, the machines sending heavy fire into the buildings and shattering them even further.

From the flaming wreck of a bar, a car wreathed in fire sped out, skidding to a stop in the muck and the mud as the rain poured down. The boxy blue car with silver and red stripes going down the side transformed into a humanoid figure standing tall over everyone else, stumbling and collapsing to the floor and caking himself in mud.

Another robot slumped out of the barn, wheeling about in place as he tried to gain his footing. His blocky body and giant cannon on his back was rendered to scrap. His grey, beige, and light green paintwork bubbled and boiled under the heat. The purple logo on his chest turned to slag, and the bright red lens that covered his entire face went dark as his body dropped to the ground. It was clear that he'd taken the brunt of the missile strike. His body went still, his bio-lights went dark, and his skin turned to grey as he died.

The blue, white, and red robot, meanwhile, looked at the burning barn that he'd just escaped from and the metal corpse on the ground and gasped in horror.

"Shadowhawk... Charlene..." the robot whispered, his yellow optics wide with terror.

"One down. One to go," the general smiled, "All teams. Light him up."

The men armed their rifles as the tanks realigned their cannons, and the driverless bikes sped forward into the town, driving through disarmed traps and cutting down anyone that got in their way. The Cybertronian shouted in protest as he watched the humans around him die, but was struck by missiles and rockets, shrapnel flying off his body as his arm was shattered, leaking energon and staining the muddy ground blue as he tried to shield himself from the humans' attack.

Overhead, the flight of blue jets pierced through the clouds and swung back down, launching missiles at the Cybertronian once more. Though his left arm was now utterly torn and dangling from his shoulders by a few bloody wires, the Cybertronian wasn't deterred as he transformed his arm into a cluster of gun barrels. The wheels in his shoulders opened to reveal missile pods, and a pair of giant cannons sticking out from his back.

He aimed at the sky and fired, blue cannon fire and smoke streaks from launching missiles flying high into the air. A second later, two of the blue laser rounds impacted their targets, taking down two jets in a blast of fire. A trio of missiles slammed into a third jet, sending it spinning down to the ground and smashing into one of the buildings. A fireball stretched into the sky from the collision.

But then, the rest of the jets didn't veer off or crash into the ground.

Instead, they transformed.

Suddenly, the sky was filled with a flight of slender blue drones with red patterns, fan-like heads atop them with a single yellow optical visor in each of them. Massive jet engines jutted up from their shoulders as they hovered in the air, with thin legs merged into a single limb, and sharpened fingertips converting into rocket launchers and cannons.

The Aero Drones opened fire, spraying the Cybertronian down on the ground in orange blasts of energy. The blue and red Cybertronian fired his guns into the air, but was then distracted by the driverless bikes as they too converted into identical humanoid forms, revealing themselves to be boxy maroon droids balancing on a single wheel for a leg, with grey arms sporting cannon barrels at the ends of their clawed hands, letting them slash at the humans that tried to stop them and releasing orange blasts into the Cybertronian, turning his blue, black, and red skin into slag.

The Cybertronian poured fire into the Cycle Drones, ducking between buildings and even grabbing one of the drones and using it as a bludgeon against the others, smashing them all into pieces. But then he found himself under bombardment from the tanks surrounding the burning town, the machine transforming in turn into bulky blue and grey Tank Drones rolling about on treads instead of feet, claws instead of hands, blocky heads with red visors in them, and a massive cannon atop their shoulders, firing orange bolts into the town, blowing up more buildings and scattering the few people inside them.

"Skids, you need to run!" one of the humans in the town called out, his hand morphing into a blackened cannon via a quirk and firing a ball of acidic puss at one of the Cycle Drones, severing it in two and dropping the mangled drone to the ground.

"I'm not leaving you here, Wendell!" yelled Skids as he fired a missile into a Tank Drone, blowing it to pieces. He stomped his foot down to create a shockwave on the ground, disorientating one of the human militant teams that were trying to flank them. Superheated metal dripped down his body from the countless blasts ripping him to pieces as he did his best to fight back, firing another round of missiles into the drones around him.

"Skids, they've got us outnumbered and outgunned! You can still make a break for it if you-"

"They killed Charlene, Wendell! I'm not going to let them kill-"

A missile struck him in the chest, sending him flying. As he landed on the ground, he looked to the side to call out to Wendell, only to see a smoking hole where the man once was, a blackened cannon made of flesh and bone sitting severed a few feet away, leaking blood onto the wet floor.

Skids let out a cry of anger as he fired off another series of blue energy blasts into the droids around him, only to scream as a mortar round from the humans slammed into his back, destroying his cannons and sending him crashing into a building. He tried to pick himself up, but then a rocket from one of the human's RPG hit his waist, ripping him open with a spray of shrapnel and energon.

Then-

"Stop!"

Skids pulled himself onto his feet and raised his good hand into the air. The other arm dangled loosely at his side. His entire body was mangled and crumpled, missing most of his outer armour and revealing the exoskeleton and wiring underneath. Energon poured out of him as smoke leaked out of his gears. He resembled the walking dead; all blood and bones made of metal and steel.

The battlefield fell silent at his surrender, all the drones and humans going quiet.

"Stop this... please," at Skids' feet, the remaining humans that had been fighting alongside him gathered, trying to find shelter in his shadow. The rain poured down onto them as Skids waved his good hand to the humans at his side, "I'll surrender. Just- let them live. Let them leave. Please. They've done nothing to deserve this."

The general paused, then spoke through a megaphone, "Is that so?"

"It's an Autobot promise," Skids replied, "Let them go, and I'll do whatever you want. Please."

The general considered the Cybertronian's words.

Then, he reached his conclusion.

He's heard this a hundred times before, and he hasn't wavered from his mission yet.

"Kill them."

Before Skids could even react, an energy blast from one of the drones hit where he was standing, sending him crashing to the ground once more.

He looked up, and saw the advancing wall of soldiers aim their rifles at the humans with him, all of them crying out in fear-

{RATATATATATATATATA}

-Only to be cut down, their blood spilling on the ground, their bodies seconds later.

Skids let out a scream as he rearmed his guns, firing them into the drones around him and tearing them apart. Soldiers charged forward in their armoured cars, swerving around him and pouring rounds from their miniguns and armour-piercing weapons, picking him apart piece by piece.

And yet, he still stood tall and fought.

The general patted the black truck by his side. Its red windshields reflected a silent command, and it disconnected from its trailer and sped away. The control pad strapped around his arm flickered with life.

The Cybertronian in the centre of the town went to transform but found that there was no way out for him; all the entrances and exits to the devastated ghost town were blocked.

Instead, he continued to fire into the drones around him, and when he guns ran dry and his energon began to run low, he grabbed at the loose arm dangling from his side and – with an agonised scream – tore it off, using it as a bludgeon to beat down on the drones slashing at him, and overturning a speeding car that had thrown a rocket into his leg, sending the men inside flying.

He was prepared to fight to the bitter end, to give it his all and take down as many of the slagging bastards around him as he could.

But then, he heard the clicks and hisses, the familiar sound of a transformation cog spinning with life as one form changed into another, and spun around to-

An energon axe, coloured a deep red, smashed into his right shoulder.

Skids gasped, energon leaking from his lips as he looked up to see a large, imposing Cybertronian standing before him, his energon axe embedded in his mangled chest. He was all black and dirty grey, red windshields in his chest and teal patterns on his waist. A grill filled his torso and smokestacks rose up from the sides of his shoulders, sitting there alongside a pair of heavy miniguns. Crimson lights flickered across his body as his headlamps were coloured a brilliant teal.

And atop his body, a familiar head, a familiar helm, a familiar faceplate, but red optics that looked too alien, too violent, too evil.

"O-Optimus...?"

The Cybertronian that looked too much like Optimus grabbed Skids by his remaining arm-

"O-Optimus, it-it's me, Skids-"

-And with a tear, ripped it off.

Skids let out a scream as he stumbled away, now missing both his arms as the Optimus-lookalike swung his axe-

"AUGH!"

-And cleaved the wounded Cybertronian's leg off, sending the broken robot falling to the ground, caked in his own energon and oil-like blood.

The Optimus-imposter stepped forward, and Skids tried to kick him away with his one leg, only for the larger robot to grab it, press his foot down on his waist, and pull his last limb off with a scream of metal, spray of energon, and cry of agony.

Then, there was just Skids, lying in the mud and the muck as the rain poured down onto him, merely a mangled torso with no arms of legs to get him away. His armour had been peeled away, and his skin had been blistered open, revealing all the metal gore and organs inside. Wiring splayed out from him like wings. His face was half-melted, his skull was exposed, and his yellow optics were going dim. He looked like someone had been skinning a human being whilst they were still alive, peeling his steel flesh back as if he were fruit.

The soldiers and drones surrounded him; all weapons trained on his limbless form. The fires in the town were going out under the constant downpour. The dead humans on the ground were being trampled over. The Optimus-imposter loomed over him like a gargoyle.

The general marched forward, the soldiers and drones saluting him as he passed. He stopped and stood right before the downed Cybertronian, sneering at him with disgust.

"Cybertronians," the general scoffed, "All of you, like children. Coming to our world, tearing up the lands, destroying everything you touch and leaving the rest of us to clean up after you."

He tapped at the control pad on his lower arm, and the robot standing above Skids disengaged his energon axe, instead rocking his hand back and folding them together, as if he were going to pierce through something.

"I'd say that if you cooperate, you'd get to live. But we already know everything that we need to know from you. All you're good for now is spare parts."

The general smiled.

"And don't worry about the rest of your friends... we'll find them soon enough."

The Optimus-lookalike thrust his hand down, straight into Skids' chest.

The mangled and limbless robot let out one last scream of pain as the larger robot, in a spray of energon and wiring like gore, ripped out his spark, slowly pulling it out and severing it from his body cord by cord.

With one last rip, the fake-Prime pulled the spark free and crushed it in his hand.

Skids gave one last gasp of pain, one last grasp of agony, and then, as his body faded to grey, his head rocked against the floor, wide-eyed and mouth-agape, and he died, his last thoughts filled with absolute terror.

General Lenard Bishop – codenamed Silas – looked around at his forces – the best that his organisation had to offer, both in flesh and blood troops, and in Vehicons – and then finally looked up at the robot standing above them.

Sector Seven's greatest creation, and the ultimate tool in hunting down and destroying every Cybertronian that dared step foot on Earth.

His Nemesis Prime.

---

And here we are, onto the last of the premade chapters. After this, I've got no idea what my update schedule is going to look like!

First of all, we've got a continued look into the past of Cybertron, exploring the concept of functionism and the general oppression that the average Cybertronian was living under before the inevitable came to pass. I've got to be honest, I had a lot of fun coming up with what this version of Cybertron used to look like in the past. There's a lot of inspiration from a lot of different sources from across Transformers, from Dreamwave to IDW to the Cybertron games to the One film and so on. There're also some bits of my own added in, such as the Omega Sentinels surrounding the Decagon and the massive sculpture of Cybertron in the centre (well, there's a sculpture of Cybertron in the Iacon level of WFC in the Decepticon campaign, but I decided to size it up by a bajillion). Part of the original draft for that section was going to have the Winged Moon from the IDW 2019 continuity, but considering the purpose behind its creation and how it would've defeated the point of there being a caste of mining bots, I decided against it.

Fun fact, Nightra and RoughEdge are canon characters from the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon. Chainclaw, meanwhile, is a G1 character from one of the later lines, that being a Pretender Beast.

Trust me on this, all the Transformers that you're going to be seeing appearing or being mentioned are existing characters, if only with the occasional name change/modification if two characters with the same name show up. I don't like the idea of creating original Cybertronian characters, and Transformers had got plenty of characters to pick from.

Secondly, there's the talk about hero society. Now, I imagine that there are going to be quite a few people thinking that I am trying to bash hero society with the things that I've said about it, and I would just like to say that I am not. I don't consider hero society to be inherently evil. I don't consider it to be anywhere close to anything like the heroes in The Boys, where they're all evil bastards who do nothing but ruin the lives of others. This isn't that fic.

However, I will say that I consider hero society to be an outdated system that needs to evolve to survive. I'll explain this a lot more in the future, but there's a lot of grey morality regarding hero society that I want to explore and expand upon. It's not going to be as simple as heroes good or bad. That's something that I feel a lot of fanfic writers tend to forget.

Thirdly, there's the robots. When I was coming up with the designs for the robots in my heads, I realised that I didn't have to go by the set designs that had been set in G1 and other continuities. I could get a bit more creative with it.

For Frenzy, of course, I've got him as looking like his tank form from the United toyline (is he red, or is he blue? Ooh, it's a mystery!), but for Barricade, I'm envisioning him as a mix between his design from the War for Cybertron game and his Evergreen design, along with a gas mask over his face. I'm not keen on his design from the WFC toyline, it's terribly bland (purple knockoff Prowl looking-mofo). Meanwhile, I'm imagining Ultra Magnus in his IDW form, the one with the glowing blue panels in his shoulder stacks and Prowl in his pre-war Cybertronian form. Also, Skids in my mind is a fusion of his G1 and IDW forms.

Meanwhile, Shadowhawk doesn't actually have a toy or an image. He was an offhand mention in one of the comics, but it says on TFWiki that his name might be a reference to the Shadowhawk mech from the Battletech franchise, so I'm using that as the basis for his robot mode in the colours Shadowhawk Desert Type drones from the Energon cartoon.

I would also like to add that Shadowhawk... is a Decepticon, while Skids is an Autobot.

I told you this wasn't going to be a typical Autobot-Decepticon conflict.

And then we've got our introduction to some of our main antagonists, that being Sector Seven and Silas, not to mention their minions in the Vehicons and Nemesis Prime. Let me tell you this, they're going to be a fun faction to get into when the time comes.

I was originally planning on having Broadside appear in this chapter in the flashback, but then I started to consider his alt-mode. According to G1, his alt-modes (as he's a triple-changer) are a fighter jet and an aircraft carrier. When I saw that, I realised that, even by Transformers standards, the size difference between the two was just ridiculous.

So, I started to really consider what Broadside should turn into, and I eventually came to a conclusion: I'd replace his jet alt-mode with an Autobot/Cybertronian shuttle mode big enough for multiple Cybertronians to fit inside, something like the Ark from Dark of the Moon (because let's be honest, by Cybertronian standards that ship isn't that big. It's more like a shuttle than a massive craft). Meanwhile, his aircraft carrier mode would be swapped out for something more like a frigate or patrol carrier of equal size.

All this would mean that by the end of it, Broadside would be one hell of a big boy. Not as tall as a combiner, but still, pretty freakin' tall.

That's kind of the beauty of it, really. With Transformers, especially fanfics, you can really play around with the alt-modes of these guys. For instance, take the Combaticons. Swindle turns into a jeep, while Blast Off turns into a space shuttle. If you were going to really put them all to scale with each other, then Bruticus would look something like this:

​

So, let's change around their alt-modes a bit. Keep Brawl as a tank, but make him the baseline for scale. Vortex can stay as a helicopter (maybe change around the alt-mode to be like an Apache or a Hind, but Swindle can become an APC, something comparable to Brawl. Meanwhile, Onslaught would need to be a really massive truck or tank carrier, or an artillery truck scaled up to match the others, and Blast Off can become a jet like in Combiner Wars. The scales of their alt-modes are still going to be kind of wonky, but it feels a bit more in synergy with their overall theme of being military vehicles in my opinion, and a bit more in scale with each other.

It's actually a rather fun challenge. Keep the baseline theme for the characters (Optimus as a truck, Bumblebee as a car, Starscream as a jet), but really play around with the alt-modes a bit. Kind of like how sometimes Optimus is a fire truck instead of just a truck.

Then there's the ending. I knew I wanted to set the scene for this story and make clear the kind of tone that I'm aiming for with this story, so that meant that I had to kill off one of the Autobots in the beginning of the story. Specifically a member of the Ark crew. I didn't want to do Windcharger, another story's already done that, and I was really debating between Smokescreen, Brawn, Grapple, and Hoist.

But then I came to realise: Skids was a major character in the IDW 2005 continuity. Everyone knows who Skids is now thanks to James Roberts-

And suddenly everything clicked into place.

(Quick mention, Charlene and Wendell are all existing characters from the Marvel Transformers comics. They were both connected to Skids, so it felt right to use them in this moment. And then immediately kill them off. Sorry not sorry.)

But as a final point, I would like to state this because someone in my review section on FF has been asking about it, and I can't tell if they're passive-aggressively threatening me about it or not:

Yes, this story was inspired by Transformers: MHA by The Omni-Remnant. More specifically, it was inspired by my frustrations and criticisms of that fic, as it has done a lot that I don't agree with, and this fic is my attempts to address them in a creative way. Trust me, this is going to be doing a lot of its own stuff.

No, this is not a spite fic, and this is not an attack on their character. This is not me trying to throw shade on anyone, or attack anyone, or try to prove myself better than anyone. I'm nipping that in the bud right now. The reason that I didn't mention them or their fic by name is because I didn't want to be attacked for it or for anyone to attack him for it. I made that kind of mistake in a different fandom with a different fic, and I've been regretting that mistake ever since.

(Also I need to point out that it was the Bumblebee film that did the whole Bumblebee waking up in a garage bit, not The Omni-Remnant or I or anyone else. Just feel the need to clarify that.)

Also, one last point. I've cross-posted this onto SpaceBattles. It's the first full thread that I've ever started on there, so please come join the conversation over there if you feel like it!

But moving on from that, I hope that you've all enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you all next time (whenever that will be).

Titanmaster 117 out!

 

[Titanmaster_117]

Ochako leant over the balcony of her shared apartment and took in the early morning sky.

It was a decent place to live. Not luxurious, but she'd grown used to making due with the few things that were available to her. It was part of a block of greyed-out structures that had once been office buildings before being converted into apartment complexes, all being about the same height, being four floors tall, and being eleven apartment rooms across. The building that she was in was shaped like a topless square, with a car park right in the centre of the formation. The endless drones of cars filled the air thanks to the long main road stretching past the buildings as cars and trucks bikes and automobiles of all kinds passed by. There wasn't that many this early in the morning, though, so small mercies.

In the apartments around her, people were beginning to peek out from their windows and onto their balconies. A man stepped onto his balcony and stretched his arms with a yawn. A woman was hanging washing on a line on hers. Through a window, she could see a man doing his morning stretches as his wife slowly got out of bed and went to wake their child in the opposite room.

High above, the sky was a pale blue. The clouds were lined with an pinkish orange light as the sun began to rise over the horizon. Between the stale, uniform buildings, Ochako could make out the faraway visage of the beach, the ocean waves rippling against the shoreline. She closed her eyes and tried to make out the sounds of the sea through the morning traffic.

Down below, people were beginning to step out of their homes, ready for the daily grind of school and life. A few people were out on their morning jogs, but most others were setting out on foot to the nearby tram station to get to their jobs, or getting into their cars to drive there themselves. Not too far away, a stray cat uncurled from its slumber after sleeping on a rooftop, and, with a low purr, jumped down perfectly onto a nearby fence and began its daily hunt for food and fresh shelter.

The whole world was beginning to wake up, readying itself for the new day to come.

Ochako knew that she should be getting ready as well.

She turned back to the room that she'd just walked out of, and closed the balcony door behind her, her bedroom. It was a dull room with only a few identifying marks. On her side of the room was her bed, a nightstand, a cheap lamp that she'd found at a nearby charity shop, and a poster of thirteen on the walls. On the other side of the room was Yui, still sleeping in her ped, her nightstand having a scratched matryoshka doll that was missing one of its inner dolls and a half completed Ultraman kit.

Ochako sighed, having grown used to this part of her morning routine. An early morning riser, Yui Kodai was not.

She reached down over Yui's bed and began to shake her cousin awake. The snoring girl let out a quick snort and splutter as her eyes blinked open and looked at Ochako with the same messy bedhead and drool line escaping her cheek.

Ochako smiled. Oh, if only the boys at school could see her right now. The perfect idol of Yui Kodai that they all had in their minds would be ruined forever (not that Yui had any idea of it, of course. Girl was as dense as a brick when it came to romance).

"C'mon, Yui, let's get dressed and fed and cleaned up," Ochako told the sleepy girl, "We've got a tram to catch in a bit."

Yui grunted, "School?"

"No. Hatsume's place," her smile dropped. She'd been worrying all night, so much so that she'd hardly slept. The bags under her eyes suddenly became more pronounced, "We need to see how Bumblebee's doing."

---

"Okay, open wide!"

Bumblebee opened his mouth to allow Hatsume to put a piece of cooked fish in his jaw. A few seconds followed as the Cybertronian, crouched on the floor with his legs up to his chest, processed the piece of food in his mouth, before his bio-lights flickered and he retched, spitting the organic material out onto the floor and making a noise as if he was dry heaving.

"Easy there, Bee," Ochako patted the yellow bot's back as Yui picked up the wad of fish from the floor and dumped it into a bin, whilst Hatsume put the plate and cutlery in her hands down onto a nearby workbench.

"And that's fish," Hatsume muttered as she checked off fish on a list of foods in her notebook, then turned to the other girls, "It's official: Bumblebee can't ingest organic foods. His systems automatically reject it."

"Is it like poison for him?" Ochako adopted a worried expression across her face.

"I don't think so," Hatsume scribbled down something into her notebook, "At least, I'm pretty sure it's not. I think it's more like his body can't process it. It'd be like if we tried to eat metal. Different species, different dietary needs."

"Can he even eat anything?" Yui asked as she wiped her hands with a wet wipe from another workbench. She tilted her head to the portable generator on the floor, "Doesn't seem like he needs to. We can just hook him up to the car battery, and he'd feed on the electricity from that. The energy, I mean."

Hatsume hummed in thought, then set down her pen and notebook and picked up a torch from the ground, "Hey, think you can open your mouth?" Bumblebee nodded and opened his mouth wide, allowing Hatsume to turn on the torch and shine it into his silver mouth, "No tongue, no tonsils. Gears and pistons, but no..." she leant forward, "Wait, there is an oesophagus, I think," she slapped her head, "Of course there is, he was drinking stuff in the hologram. Engex. And energon is a liquid as well."

"Weren't there other Cybertronians in the holograms with faceplates on? And Barricade had a face like a gasmask."

"Maybe it's a helmet?"

"And the other Cybertronians? They were drinking at the bar without any mouths-"

"You're right! They were! Maybe having a mouth is just a cosmetic thing, then. Maybe there are Cybertronians with just one eye, or no face at all. Hell, maybe some of them aren't even humanoid."

"Is Bee going to starve?" Ochako broke into their conversation with.

Hatsume shook her head, "I don't think so."

"Lot's of 'I don't knows' and 'I don't think sos' right now."

"Look, you try learning everything about an alien species from scratch, see how easy it is," Hatsume shot her a glare, "And no, it's like Sizey said."

"Yui," said Yui.

"Whatever. It's like she said. We hooked him up to the generator, and he was back to life once more. I'm guessing that his internal systems are - were - converting the electricity from the generator into energon-" Hatsume let out a gasp, "Does that mean that energon is... liquid energy? Oh, that's so fucking cool..."

"Liquid energy," Yui muttered, "Is that even possible?"

"No idea! I mean, considering that we've got a giant alien robot living in my garage, anything's possible!"

"But he isn't going to starve, is he?" Ochako repeated her question.

"Again, I don't know," Hatsume shrugged, "But I doubt it. I mean, he probably isn't going to starve to death. He was sitting at the bottom of the ocean for years, after all. In a form of... stasis, yeah. Stasis. Like when you put a computer in standby mode. He was probably asleep for the longest time," she put the torch down and took back her notebook and pen, "That's probably what would happen if he ran out of energy. He'd go to sleep. Or whatever counts as sleep for Cybertronians."

"Is it... painful for him?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think he dreams while he sleeps?"

"I don't-"

"Do you think he has nightmares?"

"Pink cheeks, I'm going to keep saying I don't know because that's the only answer I can give you."

Ochako flinched, "Right," she muttered, "Sorry," she sighed, "Just... worried, is all."

"Eh, not much to be worried about," Hatsume didn't quail at Ochako's sudden glare, "If he loses power, then he'll go to sleep. Like us."

"That sounds like death."

"It really doesn't," Yui added. She tiled her head as Ochako gave her a look of her own, "She's not wrong Ochako, he has a completely different biological makeup to him - if there's even any biology to him. If he loses power, then he's go to sleep. Stasis, like he did at the bottom of the ocean. And how old is he at this point? A hundred years old? Maybe even older? I'm sure that if he was left without power, he'd be fine."

"He is right here," Ochako gestured to Bumblebee on the ground, "And has a name and a will of his own," Bumblebee let out a murmur like static, keeping his hands atop his shoulders.

Hatsume and Yui looked at the Cybertronian on the floor, and had the decency to look ashamed. They muttered their apologies, only for Yui to look up and say, "He can't stay here forever."

"I know that Yui, but-"

"No, I mean he can't stay here in this garage for the rest of his life, our lives," Yui began to explain, "Sooner or later, someone's going to wander in here and see him, or he's going to wander off. How are we supposed to hide a giant yellow robot going on a walkabout?"

"I mean..." Ochako didn't have a good answer for this, "He can turn into a car."

"An alien car."

"I'll think of something, okay?"

"You've been saying that since yesterday," and the night before, when they'd found him.

"And I've been saying that he's not going to be going anywhere anytime soon," Hatsume said as she grabbed a bundle of metal and wiring from the worktop and began to apply them to Bumblebee's wounds, "They're going to slow him down for the time being, and his memory loss isn't going to help us."

Ochako paused as Hatsume began to weld a piece of metal covering to an exposed joint on Bumblebee's leg, "Is that going to be enough? To fix him, I mean."

"Honestly, I haven't got a clue. I'm just treating it as putting a plaster on a wound. That's about the best frame of reference that I can give you."

"...Is there anything else that he remembers?" Yui asked, "It might help us if he remembers how he got to Earth in the first place?"

Ochako hummed, then turned to Bumblebee. She wasn't sure if fixing his wounds would help him regain his memories like last time, so instead she decided to try a different approach.

"Hatsume," she called out, and the inventor girl, upon realising what Ochako was about to do, turned off the blowtorch in her hands. Then, she turned to Bumblebee and went, "Okay, Bee? Try to focus on what I'm saying to you, okay? That might kick some things into place."

Bumblebee hummed, then nodded, and Ochako put her hands on his head.

"Okay then... Cybertron... Sentinel Prime... Chainclaw... Ultra Magnus... Functionism..."

Bumblebee let out a groan, and Ochako took in a breath.

"D-16... O-84... Orion Pax."

That kicked things into gears in Bumblebee's head, and the garage filled with light once more...

And the three girls and Bumblebee were treated to the inside of what looked like a massive library, with walls stretching high up to what looked like the sky itself filled to the brim with flickering records and holographic books. Little drones flickered along the grey walls and tracing over the blue lights, either pouring a wave of light-infused information into the walls or extracting them, whilst floating tablets and boxes filled with records flew through the air, searching for the people who requested them. Holographic screens lined the walls, displaying all sorts of information in that same language that the girls still couldn't understand. At each end of each tall shelf of holographic books, which looked like they were as tall as a skyscraper, was a massive golden statues of resplendent robots, none of which Ochako recognised, but all holding artifacts and objects that Ochako didn't recognise.

Cybertronians of all sorts marched through the hallways of the alien library, some of them carrying records and tablets holographic books and what looked like USB ports, others scanning over the walls in search of a specific book for them to claim, and some quietly talking with each other over one thing or another.

And then, within the centre of the library, within a circular desk that looked utterly mundane compared to the grandiose of the library around them-

"Paper books?"

-Was B-127, standing behind the desk as he watched an elderly looking robot - coloured in shades of purple and silver and maroon, with the lower half of his face shaped like a beard, blue bio-lights and optics that shone with ancient energy and wisdom, an old cape as ancient as he looked, and no disenable parts on him to allow them to see what his alt-mode was - scribbled into a paper book with what looked like a quill from an alien bird.

The elderly robot chuckled, "It is a rather treasured item of mine, this book. I made it myself from the bark of a Camien egg tree after taming a nest of Wildstriders. Everyone seems to think of such animals as mere beasts, but they are quite magnificent creatures when you take the time to appreciate their presence in the ecosystem."

Next to Ochako, Hatsume quickly began scribbling something into her notebook about the things that the elderly robot was saying, "Camien egg tree, probably on that Caminus world that they mentioned before. Wildstriders... are they organic creatures, or metal like the Cybertronians...?"

"No, I get that, but- a paper book?" B-127 asked, "As in paper? From wood? I don't think I've ever seen a paper book before in the last hundred years of my life."

"Hah, then it pleases me to be the first to show you such a thing," the old robot - who the three girls realised was Alpha Trion - said with a chuckle, "I'm not the one who pioneered this, though. Many of the organic species that I've encountered in my travels have utilised all sorts of methods to retain information. I remember coming across a species of space-faring Torovans that communicated with each other in a vast telepathic web. It truly is remarkable what you can see and learn from the universe itself."

"...Still seems like a poor way to keep records."

"He has a point, Alpha," O-84 said as he sat through a nearby desk, a stack of holographic records flickering before him as he read over lines of text and information, "All our information is kept on records, not paper. Paper is inefficient in holding information, and its inconvenient to store. Plus it doesn't last for as long as digital information."

"And I suppose it is less inconvenient for you to read each record that you have selected rather than download it straight into your brain module?" Alpha Trion asked with humour in his voice, "Sometimes I much prefer to feel something real in my hands than merely reading text on a screen," he then put down his quill and handed the book over to O-84, "Here. Take it."

O-84 quirked one of his yellow optics, then looked at the book that Alpha was holding, "Why?"

"When you are surrounded by metal all your life, you find yourself appreciating what you find on other worlds. Cybertron is a completely metal world. Finding organic material out there is a novel experience."

O-84 gave Alpha Trion a bemused look, then gingerly took the book into his hands and turned over the pages. His optics widened for a second as he turned the pages and felt the paper pages between his fingers, "It is... certainly something. A novel experience indeed," he closed the book, "I may need to find one of these books in the future. It is pleasant to be able to read off something other than a screen. Do all organic races utilise these?"

"Not all of them, but many."

"Fascinating," O-84 muttered as B-127 took the book from his hands, "It's amazing. These species, for as short as their lives are, can accomplish so much compared to us, who live for millions of years and yet seem to be unable to accomplish anything at all," he hummed as B-127 flipped through the pages, "We're such an old species, yet we still have so much to learn."

"The first key to a great leader is humility," Alpha commented.

O-84 shook his head, "I'm not a leader, Alpha."

"Come now, Orion Pax. You have the spark of a great bot within you. I can sense it. You just need to believe in yourself to see it."

"I can see many things, Alpha. Leadership is not one of them. Frankly, I would make for a terrible leader."

"Of course you would. An actual leader wouldn't keep his nose stuck in old journals and books all the time."

The feminine voice cut through the air, and O-84 looked up from his books to see a tall mech standing over his desk, coloured in reds and pinks, with a white waist and thighs and shoulders, along with black kneepads on her legs and glowing blue bio-lights across her being. A long pair of airplane wings protruded from her back, and jet engines were fused into her shoulders. The frame of a cockpit was embedded in the centre of her chest, and her pink head held four protrusions jutting out like wings, with two sharpened edges poking out of the top two. On her forehead was a glowing yellow stripe, sitting above her bright blue optics. A hand was at her hip, and her lips held a fond smile in them.

"E-1," O-84 smiled too as he stood up from his desk and took E-1's hand into his own, "I trust that you're doing well?"

"Hardly," E-1 let out a sigh of frustration, "The Senate's clamping down on the flight class. They're threatening to clamp inhibitor claws on me and other fliers so that we don't 'abuse our alt-modes' or something."

O-84 grew a worried look on his face, "They can't do that."

"Same as they rendered the manual caste redundant? Senate's been eager to control the populace, and having a caste of people with the ability to fly really puts some strain on that. Senator Ulcthar's attitude on the chamber floor hasn't been helping matters, and Momus being kicked out the Senate with the rest of the manual caste is only making things worse."

"They can't keep getting away with things like this."

"Yeah? Well sitting in a library reading holopads all day isn't going to help things."

"I'm researching," O-84 gestured to the pads, "The leaders of the past. I want to track the lineage of the Primes, try to find out where and how it all went wrong. In the past, Dai Atlas, Roadfire, and Sonic Boomer lead the Circle of Light in a protest across all of Cybertron and its colonies against the Nominus Prime, calling for the caste system to be abolished, and for all Cybertronians to have equal rights regardless of their alt-modes-"

"And since I've never heard of the Circle of Light, I'm to assume that they failed."

O-84 grimaced, "I would assume so too. Their names were expunged from the records. It's only on these old holopads that their names exist, and even then it doesn't tell of their fate," he shook his head, "The more I learn about the Primes, the more disappointed I am in them."

"Yeah," commented E-1, "It doesn't bold well for our plans of protest in the future."

"There's little that we can do about that, E-1," O-84 told her, "All we can do is try our best and hope that something good comes out of it. That is all that anyone can truly ever do."

"Indeed," Alpha commented behind them, holding a hand out for B-127 to give him his paper book back, "I've lived long enough to see such lessons play out countless times before."

"That just means that your brain module is rusting over, old bot," E-1 muttered, "If you think that there's any good to find in the world."

"Old?" if Alpha Trion took offense to E-1's comment, he didn't make it known. Instead, he simply chuckled and commented, "Not old enough for you."

E-1 blinked, having not expected Alpha to hear what she had said, and then looked to the side with an embarrassed expression across her. Then, she tilted her head over to the side and said, "I spoke to my contact in the Pavillons. A junior aid to the Senate named CC-95. He was able to reserve us a place in the Imperial Amphitheatre. I also got B-38 to reserve a spot on the air for us."

"Is that safe?" B-127 asked as he gave Alpha Trion his book back, to which the old robot began to write in it once more, "You know that Barricade's been gunning for us ever since Ultra Magnus bailed us out, right?"

Orion shot a glance over to Alpha Trion, indicating that there were questions that he wanted to ask his mentor, "Social gatherings aren't illegal. I've looked over the laws for any loopholes that can be used against us. It's all perfectly up to code. And Barricade knows that we've got people in our corner, now. He just doesn't know who. He's not going to take such a risk without covering all his bases, which he won't be able to do."

O-84 sighed, then allowed a smile to cross over him.

"Besides, I doubt that it'll be anymore than maybe a dozen or so people. I told D that booking out an entire amphitheatre would be unnecessary."

Then, the hologram flickered, and the girls and Bumblebee found themselves once more in the garage, the smell of cooked fish slowly beginning to fill the air.

"I feel like we're missing a bit of context with this one," Yui commented, "It feels like there's more going on that we're not seeing."

"I get that," Ochako commented, "Since when did O-84 - Orion - have the political pull to book an entire amphitheatre? Alpha's connections? That E-1 girl?"

"Cybertronians have genders..." Hatsume scribbled into her notebook, "I mean, she seemed like a lady... or what we'd consider to be a lady? I'm not sure if it's a cosmetic thing like with mouths and stuff, or if it's like us with gender and sexual identity. Do Cybertronians even comprehend gender in the same way that we do? Does it relate to how they reproduce? Ew, hopefully not."

"Maybe it's because we're not seeing full memories," Yui said above Hatsume's mutters, "We're only seeing snapshots of his life through his eyes. We might get more context if we start seeing more of them... which could take forever, by the way."

"I get it Yui, I do," Ochako told her, "But I'm not throwing Bumblebee into the wild. You can forget that much."

Yui sighed, "I imagine so... but it's like I keep saying, we're not going to be able to keep him here forever. What are we supposed to do when we get to U.A., or even when we're off as school tomorrow?"

"Look, I'll think of something, alright? I'll think of-"

Ochako blinked, then looked at her phone.

"Shit... we have school in an hour."

---

"Do you think he's going to be okay on his own?"

"I'm sure he'll be fine, Ochako."

"I know, but we're going to be leaving him on his own. We didn't leave him alone yesterday, or the night before. I mean, Hatsume was there for him last night while we went home, but it's going to be... all three of us today, leaving him alone. He's going to be all on his own for a whole day, what if someone wanders into the garage and sees him?"

"Hatsume locked up. No one's getting in-"

"But what if he gets out? He's in a world completely alien to him, and who knows who's trying to track him down. And he's only just beginning to recover his memories, he's not going to know what to do at all, and what if the Senate's already there and-"

"Ochako."

Ochako hissed to herself, having almost raised her whispering to talking, and took in a breath, "Right. Sorry. Thanks," she said to Yui after almost outing herself. She took a moment to make sure that no one was looking at them funny for their interaction (they weren't) and sighed as she continued to walk alongside the ever stoic girl beside her, "I just... I'm worried, is all. This is the first time we've really left him all on his own."

"He'll be fine, Ochako," Yui whispered back as they marched down the road from the tram station to their school, keeping their distance from the dozen other students around them as they worked to keep their conversation private, "Bumblebee's a big boy. He can take care of himself."

"Can he? Can he really?"

Yui made a grunting noise. A point of acknowledgement. Still, "He'll be there when we get back."

"We don't know that for certain."

"We can ask Hatsume to put in some cameras on the garage. She's probably already done that. To record herself inventing things. Seems like that type of girl."

"Good point. Hey, Hatsume-" Ochako looked to the side, only to see that the pink-haired girl was gone, "Where'd she- didn't you say that she was in the same school as us? Where did she-"

"She wandered off while you were talking to yourself."

Ochako felt her eye twitch, "Oh, for the love of- of course she did," she groaned, "Do you think she's going to tell anyone? About Bumblebee?"

"I don't know," Yui shrugged, "Probably not... hopefully not."

Ochako faltered for a moment. There were many things that Yui was good at in comparison to Ochako. Inspiring confidence in others was not one of them.

They reached the gates to their school. Batuu Middle School. A stone building that - supposedly - had been made from one of the earliest heroes, who had saved a chunk of a mountain from a villain and then carved it into the academy that stood before them now. There was nothing to verify that such a thing had ever happened, though, so it was entirely rumour and word of mouth that kept the story alive. The stone walls were beige and brown with pale blue windows, and yellow and blue flags displaying the school's name and logo (that of a world with two moons) hung between the maple trees lining the wat inside.

It was a pleasant sight, to summarise.

Ochako didn't want to go in. She never did.

Someone flicked something at her. A small paper ball. She didn't bother looking to the side to see who it was. Miko Hoshizaki, leaning against a wall and surrounded by her like-minded friends, rarely skipped out on a chance to take a shot at her. One glare from Yui, however, was enough to temper the blonde-haired girl, and she pushed herself off the tree and marched her way to the school's main entrance, her fellows following behind her.

Ochako silently thanked Yui for the support, but when they reached the main entrance, Yui began to step away from her. Ochako understood what this meant. They didn't have the same classes. For the better part of the day, she'd be on her own.

"I'll see you at the end of the day," Yui repeated the usual farewell, before stepping away to join her classmates and friends...

Leaving Ochako on her own, walking down to her classroom with a fretful, worried expression on her face.

She had become used to being on her own.

---

Ochako liked to think that she lived a humble life.

Her family was poor. Not living in poverty, they still had a roof over their heads. But poor enough that she couldn't afford to have all the nice things that the children her age could afford. Poor enough that she spent most of her time in shops and markets counting coupons and crunching prices. Poor enough that she'd learnt how to zone in on a deal and spot a swindler behind a counter. Poor enough that she'd spent long hours staring into stores and at passer-by's with their bags filled with excess and pointlessly expensive items and silently cursing them and herself for not being able to give her family all the things that they deserved.

As envious as she was of what others had that she didn't, she'd managed to temper it with appreciating the things that she already had. She loved her family that worked so hard for her, she appreciated the few comforts that she had, she made it her mission to work hard for them to get them the things that they rightfully deserved, not out of envy, but out of pride and acceptance for her lot in life.

She'd trained herself to appreciate what she had. It was a difficult task sometimes, but she refused to let herself slip into jealousy of others.

It was why she wanted to become a hero, of course. Not just to gain the things that she'd always wanted in life, but to give back to those who had done so much for her as well.

Or at least, that was her original goal.

Recent events in her life had... put many things into perspective.

She sighed as she sat in her desk, listening to the teacher, one Miss Nakawa (a stoic woman who rarely showed any emotion), begin her lesson. History, the subject of their lesson was. Not her best subject. Ochako wasn't about to go out and say that she was the smartest woman in the class. Even in her old school, she hadn't been the brainiest.

(Except at maths, of course. If the subject of the lesson had been maths, she'd have been schooling everyone in this class. Counting coins and crunching numbers and helping her parents in balancing their chequebooks had done her wonders in that regard.

Well, that and cars too. Ochako was quite fond of cars.)

Batuu Middle School wasn't a bad school, by any means. It wasn't terrible, she wasn't being bullied (that badly), and it wasn't filled with roughnecks and thugs or anyone nasty. It was an average school filled with average people.

It was just... lonely.

Ochako had had a good time in her old school. Sure, it was on the poorer end of things, but the people in there, both teachers and students, were good. She was friendly to all of them, and in turn they were all friendly to her. It was a good place, and she'd made a lot of good friends over there.

It was, overall, good. Just good.

But then she'd had to move away. She'd had to move away to go live with Yui, and that meant that she had to change schools as well. It had been a sad farewell. She'd made so many friends there, and it tore her heart in two to have to say goodbye to them all...

And now she was here, and she was lonely. She was in her new school, in her new uniform, and she felt nothing but loneliness. Aside from Yui, she didn't have any friends to call upon in this place, and everyone around her had already formed their groups and cliques. There wasn't anywhere for her to make her place.

It was painful. She was a social creature by her nature. She didn't like being alone.

And now here she was... all alone, and her heart was filled with agony for it.

Miss Nakawa was talking, but she wasn't paying attention. Her mind was elsewhere, fretting over the robot that she had stashed away in a dirty, dusty garage.

Was he okay? Was he safe? Had he wandered off on his own somewhere? Her mind was racing left right and centre, worrying about him endlessly. He was lost, without any memories, on a completely alien world, and with nowhere to turn. How long had he been on Earth? Had he come on his own? Were there other Cybertronians out there, searching for him? Or hunting him? He'd had to get his wounds from somewhere, after all. Were there agents of the Senate lurking about the world, lying in wait to strike against her new friend-

Friend.

That drew a faint smile from her.

So, she had made a friend when coming here.

Well, two to be exact, but she honestly had mixed feelings about Hatsume. It was a mean thing to think, she knew, but it didn't stop her from thinking it.

But regardless of that, Ochako was left paranoid of the idea that there were agents of the Senate currently on Earth right now, skulking about in the shadows, ready to strike out against Bumblebee and all of the people that she knew and loved. Though she wasn't sure how they would've been able to hide their alien alt-modes from the world without-

Unless they could take on different forms.

But that wouldn't make sense, because if functionism was a thing on Cybertron, then that would mean that Cybertronians couldn't take on new alt-modes.

But then again, Bumblebee could turn into a car...

Something to broach Hatsume on later.

(On the slide show displaying old historical badges that had just recently been discovered, Ochako swore that she saw something. Something red, shaped like a...

No. It couldn't be.)

 

[Titanmaster_117]

"Hey, Fataraka, got any food tips for me?"

Ochako didn't look up from her bento box as Hoshizaki sat herself opposite her table, propping her head up on one of her hands as she lazily smiled at Ochako, the black star-shaped pupils in her ruby-red eyes (evidence of her quirk, whatever that was) shining with unrestrained glee as she kept the rest of her face cool.

"So, I was looking for some tips on food recipes, and then I thought to myself, hey, why don't I ask my good friend Ochako Uraraka? After all, you eat so much that you've got to know something good, otherwise you wouldn't have all that weight on you?"

Ochako didn't respond. Instead of seeing that as a deterrent, Hoshizaki kept pressing the needle, running her finger over Ochako's desk.

"It's a bit of a contradiction, isn't it though? You say that you're from a poor family, yet you've got fat on you? Either you're the one behind your parents not being well-off, or you're lying and have been eating good this whole time," she mockingly tutted, "Not a very good look for you."

Ochako suppressed the urge to grimace. She was actually a lot skinner than she used to be. She was trying to lose weight. The only reason that she hadn't been skipping meals recently (to save money and other things) was because Yui had scolded her for it and reminded her how unhealthy such things were.

"You know, if we're rolling with that line of thinking... I wonder what would happen if everyone else found out about it?" Hoshizaki took in a breath, "I doubt it would be fun. For you, I mean?"

"Don't you have anything better to do?" Ochako finally said, a tired expression on her face. Hoshizaki let out a hum, and Ochako continued, "Everyday. Ever since I got here, you've been doing this every chance you get. For the last two weeks. Don't you have, I don't know, literally anything else that you can be doing right now?"

"Hm, not really, no," Hoshizaki shrugged, her lips curving into a smile, "I mean, I don't need to study. I'm already getting top marks on all my subjects as it is. As all around. Training my quirk? I already do that regularly, and I can't exactly use my quirk at school. Don't want to get a blemish on my record," her smile turned to a grin, "And honestly? Watching you squirm is probably the most entertaining thing that I can get out of this place. So much better than all the dull-minded people around me," she leant forward, "Out of everyone else in this academy, you're the only one that I can trust to keep my spirits high and my boredom at bay."

"Hey," said one of her posse, a pale-haired girl who constantly smelt like sugar, "What about me?"

Hoshizaki shot the girl a dry look, "I can't even trust you to feed yourself at night, Okayu."

"Oh..."

"What do you want from me?" Ochako was tempted to ask, 'Can't you bother someone else?' but the thought of it made her feel dirty, "I mean, really. Because you keep doing this."

"Didn't I already say? Goodness, not only are you chubby, but you're hard of hearing as well. How on Earth are you going to survive in the future? I mean, apart from eating everything at the buffet," the girls in Hoshizaki's posse laughed, but she silenced them with a wave of her hand, "And yeah, it's like I said. I've not nothing else to do here other than wait for the bell to ring and for school to let out, so what better thing to do than to spend my time playing with my favourite doll and seeing all the different ways that I can twist her around before she breaks?"

She reached forward and took the bento box from Ochako. It was only half full. She hadn't touched it.

"So why don't you let me take that from you? I've been feeling quite peckish from all the training, and you could definitely do without-"

A hand slammed down on the table, and both girls looked up to see Yui standing above them, a dark look on her face as she narrowed her eyes at Hoshizaki.

"Leave," left her mouth in a sharp whisper, "Now."

Koshizaki's smile dropped from her face, and she stared at Yui for a long moment. Then, she quietly groused, stood up, and slid Ochako's bento back onto the table.

"Fine," she muttered, "I don't need to be here. I've got my boyfriend waiting for me," then, as she reached the door with her posse in tow, she turned her head around and said with a glare, "You can't hide behind your cousin forever, Fataraka. Remember that."

And then, she was gone, leaving Yui and Ochako on their own.

"...You should stand up for yourself more," Yui said, "Stop letting her push you around."

"She doesn't listen to me," Ochako added, "She never will."

"If I was able to scare her off-"

"Because you're you."

"That doesn't mean anything."

Ochako looked around to the boys that were staring at Yui with hearts in their eyes. Poor Yui, as oblivious as ever.

Yui then added, "Why don't you-"

"Talk to a teacher?" Ochako leant back with a resigned look across her face, "You know for a fact that that won't work..."

And honestly?

It was the least that she deserved.

---

"Oh thank God," Ochako said as she marched into the garage and hugged the crouching Bumblebee. Well, tried to hug, his body was too large for her to hug properly, but she liked to think that the gesture of her arms spread out across his chest (pinkies raised up) and her cheek pressed against him communicated that well enough, "You're still here,"

"Er, yeah, he is," Ochako jumped at the sound of Hatsume's voice as she peeked out from behind Bumblebee, having clamped the power cords to the yellow Cybertronian and turned on the power generator, filling the garage with the sounds of a rumbling engine as Yui lowered the shutter door behind them, sealing them in once more, "I locked the garage earlier. He wasn't going anywhere."

"I know that, but-" Ochako blinked, then tilted her head to meet Hatsume's gaze, "Wait, how did you get here before us? School ended at the same time for all of us."

She shrugged, "I left my classes early."

"...Is that allowed?"

"Eh, probably. Hopefully. I mean, I don't really listen to my teachers about something or anything, really."

"Hatsume! How have you not got in trouble for that?"

The young inventor held out a sheet of paper, "Read 'em and weep," and Ochako disengaged herself from Bumblebee to take the paper into her own hands and - upon noticing that it was a report card - looked down to the general scores for all school subjects to see-

As and A+s all across the board.

Ochako looked at Hatsume with a bewildered stare, "How?"

Hatsume tapped the side of her head, "Big brain, baby."

"And yet you still can't figure out how to fix all the crap you've got under that tarp in the corner..." Yui's voice was blunt, yet cutting, "Or our resident metal alien, for that matter."

"Hush," Hatsume pointed a finger at Yui, "There's a learning curb to everything. You think I didn't get as high grades as I did from nowhere. I'm a learner, I'm an inventor. It comes with the trade. And he-" she pointed to Bumblebee, "-Is just another stumble that I need to overcome."

"Sure it is."

"I mean it."

"Sure you do."

"I'm serious."

"I'm sure you are."

"Hatsume, Yui, enough," Ochako stepped between them to break up what she could only theorise to be an impending argument and/or fight to the death, before turning to Hatsume and going, "Were you able to repair anymore of Bumblebee while you were here? Were you able to heal him?"

Hatsume frowned, "No, sorry. Cybertronian technology, biology, it's all literally alien to me. It's like tech, but different. I can't wrap my head around it. And I don't want to mess around with his insides in case I pull an artery or something out."

Ochako sighed, "Yeah, I figured..."

"Just saying, I don't want him to bleed out on my floor-"

"I get it, Hatsume," Ochako's voice was sharper than she intended, "Sorry, I just... frustrated. Bee's hurt, and I don't know what to do about it."

"Well, you're going to have to stay frustrated for a lot longer," Hatsume told her, unfazed by her outburst, "I'm going to figure this out. I will. I just... need time."

Ochako didn't know if they had time. Behind her, Yui gave her a look. She didn't notice.

"But, luckily, I think we've been able to make some progress on the memory front," Hatsume gestured to the Cybertronian besides them as she said, "He was tapping the side of his head when I got back. I think he's got one of his memories back!"

"Really?" Ochako turned to Bumblebee, "You can remember something? About Cybertron?"

Bumblebee nodded. Ochako was relieved that he could at least understand her. She'd been worried that he couldn't understand Japanese, but it seemed like the auto-translation on the holograms went both ways. The robot's eyes twinkled once more as the room was filled with light-

-And Ochako, Yui, Hatsume, and Bumblebee found themselves standing on a stage alongside O-84 and half a dozen other bots - B-127, E-1, and Alpha Trion amongst their number. It looked like they were standing in a massive amphitheatre with an open roof, revealing the starry green and black sky high above, punctuated by silver buildings alongside the nearby visage of a massive golden dome.

And right before them, standing in the stadium grounds and occupying the seats and pews high above them, were hundreds, thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of Cybertronians. All of them, of all shapes and sizes and alt-modes (from beasts to cars to planes to trucks), gathered together. Some of them were waist high to the average Cybertronian, around the same size as Bumblebee. A few of them were absolutely massive, looking like they were the size of an office building or an apartment complex. All of them were looking at the stage in rapt attention.

"Quite a few more than a dozen," B-127 said with a small smile on his face.

"Indeed there is. That's on me for not putting out the bunting for them all," O-84 said with equal humour in his voice, though a sudden wave of stage fright seemed to overcome him, "I'm... not sure I will be able to make a good speech for them."

"Just speak from the spark, O," E-1 patted him on the shoulder, "Sometimes, that's the only thing that we can do."

O-84 leant into the touch so slightly that he probably didn't notice it, "Right now, my spark is telling me to run for the Manganese Mountains and never look back."

"These guys will probably follow you there," E-1's expression turned serious, but she didn't lose her smile, "You wanted a rally? You got one. Now go rally them."

O-84 paused for a moment, then nodded and stepped forward. Not too far from them, a red and grey robot with a yellow chest and speakers in his legs, looking like he turned into some type of boombox on wheels, activated a silver camera that began to float in the air, a microphone attached to it as it hovered over to O-84 and projected his face to the massive screens across the open stadium.

"Do you actually believe in what you said to him?" B-127 quietly asked E-1 from behind O-84.

"Absolutely not, he's slagged."

O-84, not hearing this quick interaction, walked up to the edge of the stage, and looked over the crowd, all optics trained on him. He clenched his hands into fists, unclenched them, simulated taking in a breath...

And then he began to speak.

"I... have never been a believer," O-84 began, his voice carried over to the stadium as everyone's attention honed in on him, "In Primus, in Unicron, in all these things. Do I believe the Matrix of Leadership to be real, that the Thirteen Primes held the power to shape entire worlds to their liking? To this day, I am uncertain. I am a bot who can only believe what is right in front of him."

He took some time to let his words ferment in the crowd. Or maybe just to find his own words once more.

"But what I see before me... it is a sight that I am frightened by."

A murmur spread through the crowd, and O-84 stepped forward. A free-floating camera followed after him as he stepped down from the stage and into the crowd. On the stage, B-127 went to step forward, to tell O-84 that it wasn't safe, only for Alpha Trion put a hand on his shoulder and held him back with a shake of his head and a soft smile, his joints creaking as he did so.

O-84 was amongst the crowd now, the camerabot hovering just behind him. His voice echoed through the crowd.

"I see before me, a people oppressed. Their rights taken, their identities rendered forfeit, their names reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet. I see a ruling class standing high above us, dictating how our lives should be spent and made from the moment that we leave the Well of All Sparks. We toil in their mines, stack their shelves, keep the cogs in their machines running smoothly. And what do they show us in return? They take away our rights, our lives, our names. And the moment we step out of line, the bots in the Senate, those who would call themselves our masters, tighten the bonds that tie us down. They shut down our avenues of expression, they turn our lives into mockeries of life. They seek to turn us and our minds and sparks into as much of a machine as our bodies," he let out a sigh, "Some time ago, I and millions of other Cybertronians in the manual caste were let go from our jobs. The mines were automated, and we were dumped onto the streets without any purpose at all. The one thing that we were supposedly made for, and they decided that we were all irrelevant. We were all worthless. Not long after, I witnessed a Cybertronian being beaten to death by two police officers, all because he was forged with a beast mode. A matter of his existence completely outside of his control, and they deemed him worthy of death for it. The Senate and the powers that stand above us treat us like filth and throw us away the moment that we cease to be of any use... and they expect us to be grateful for it."

The crowd began to mutter, angry indignation across their faces and faceplates. They were growing angry, not at O-84, but at the world around them and what it had done to them.

"This is what I believe in. I believe that our potential is being squandered. I believe that we, as a people, are being trampled on by those who think they know better."

He looked around himself, catching the optics of all those who were standing around him.

"But do you know what else I see? Do you know what else I believe in?"

The crowd muttered to themselves, but were then silenced by his next words.

"I believe in you."

The crowd didn't speak up, confused by his words.

"I believe in each and everyone of you, and your capacity to change. I see the goodness in you, the strength to strive for your right to expression, your right to a name, your right to freedom, so long as you hold the will in yourselves to take that first step. I see within all of you, every single Cybertronian in this stadium, the strength to make the change in the world that you want to see!"

The crowd began to grow more active, cheering at O-84's words.

"They have a name for us, you know? The other races, both mechanical and organic. They have a name for us, for our race and the lives that we live. They call us 'Autobots'. I often wondered about the name, and I now realise that they are calling us automatons. Machines who do nothing but what they are programmed to do from the moment of their creation. And that is all that we are to them, to the Functionists and their Functionaries, to the Senate, to Sentinel Prime, to those that would say that they stand above us. Automatons. Machines. Unthinking tools that can do nothing but the functions and assignments given to us from the moment that we wake up in the world. Our lives made for us not by our own choice, but by the hand and will of others," he raised his voice, his yellow optics shining with light and life, "It doesn't have to be this way! We can be so much more than what those in power say that we are! Autobot, as in autonomous! Individual! A master of one's own fate!"

The crowd began to roar their agreements, and O-84 continued once more.

"But more than that, my mentor, Alpha Trion, parted onto me the most precious resource on this planet, more than energon itself! He gave me a name. He didn't wait for the Iron Rights, or for a bot in power to hand one down to me. He gave it to me because he knew it was my right to have one!"

He prodded his thumb against his chest.

"So it is that name that I claim right now. Henceforth, I am Orion Pax! Henceforth, I am an Autobot! Orion Pax the Autobot! And it is as an Autobot that I ask all of you to claim your autonomy as well, to remind the powers-that-be that what pulses in your chests is not a microchip or a CPU, but a spark! A soul!"

He turned to the side, and his gaze fell upon a blue and silver robot with a yellow pair of fins sitting above his equally yellow eyes.

"You. Tell me, do you have a name?"

"Er, n-no, sir," said the young robot, "My designation is FZ-7."

"Then if you could choose a name, what would it be?"

"...Bluestreak, sir," said the blue and silver Cybertronian, "I would want it to be Bluestreak."

"Then take it, Bluestreak," said Orion Pax the Autobot, "Take it, claim it, and scream it loud enough so that every corner of Cybertron and those that rule it can hear and be reminded of the person that you are and the machines that you defy."

"...Yeah," said Bluestreak, a smile growing across his face, "Yeah I will."

"And you?" the red and blue Cybertronian turned to a similar looking robot, only in silvers and greys and reds with a red pair of fins above his blue eyes, "What is your name?"

"B-08," said the robot, "But... I'd want to be called Silverstreak."

"And you?"

"Firestar," said a slim female robot in reds and oranges who had a trail of fire atop her head.

"And you?"

"Grapple!" yelled a yellow robot that looked like he turned into some kind of construction vehicle.

"And you?"

"Sky Lynx!" said a large dragon-like Cybertronian, with wings and panelling on him that resembled a space shuttle alt-mode.

"And you?"

"Broadside!" called out one of the biggest robots, a silver and red robot that loomed over everyone else and looked like he could change between some sort of naval frigate and a Cybertronian-sized shuttle craft.

"And you? You? You?"

"Hoist!"

"Sunstreaker!"

"Sideswipe!"

The crowd cheered, and soon enough, Cybertronians were calling out the names that they wished to claim, that they had been denied, one after the other.

"Inferno!"

"Arcee!"

"Smokescreen!"

"Greenlight!"

"Tailgate!"

"Brawn!"

"Skids!"

"Moonracer!"

"Swerve!"

"Powerglide!"

"Lancer!"

"Tracks!"

"Blurr!"

"Springer!"

"Chromia!"

"Sandstorm!"

One by one, the Cybertronians in the crowd named themselves. One by one, they freed themselves from the bonds that had been placed on them from the moment of their creation.

"Take your names, my friends! Tell the world that you are alive!" Orion Pax called out through the cheering, "Show them that you are an Autobot! That you are a Cybertronian! That you are alive! That you! Are! FREE!"

And with that, the stadium roared, and up on the stage, B-127 and E-1's optics widened as they took in Orion waving to the crowd, cheering them on and encouraging them to claim their names for themselves.

"So..." B-127 began, "What was that about him being slagged?"

E-1 didn't respond. She kept her optics trained on Orion as he climbed back onto the stage, moving back to them as he asked, "Do you think I did well?"

"...Yeah," E-1 said, "You were amazing out there."

"Really?" Orion asked with an earnest look on his face, "Because I was rather terrified when I was out there. I was afraid that I was going to mess it up."

"Like I said," E-1 adopted a smile on her face, "Amazing."

Orion looked like he was about to start blushing, so he turned his yellow optics to the side with a smile on his face and said, "Thank you, E-1."

"...Elita-One."

Orion turned to her, "What?"

"That's what I'd like my name to be," the red and pink flyer said, "Elita-One."

Orion looked at her for a second, a warm look in his optics, before he smiled at her, "Elita-One it is, then," and then inclined his head down to meet B-127's gaze, "And you, B? If you could choose a name, what would it be?"

"I'd still rather wait for the Iron Rights to be established," B-127 admitted, "But I am workshopping a few names. How's Baddassatron sound?"

Yui raised an eyebrow. Ochako and Hatsume giggled.

"Heh, you're right," said Elita-One, "It does need some work."

B-127 laughed, and Orion patted him on the shoulder, "I'm sure you'll think of something wonderful," the red and blue robot told him.

Then, he clasped his hands around theirs and raised them into the sky, eliciting a grand cheer from the crowd as behind them, the First Face of Primus, the Autobot insignia, was projected behind them. The crowd cheered as the robots on stage waved to them-

-And then the hologram flickered away, leaving the three girls and the Cybertronian in their garage once more.

"...So that's what the symbol means," Ochako stepped back to Bumblebee and ran a hand over the red insignia on his chest, "You're not just a Cybertronian... you're an Autobot."

"I'm starting to like this O-84 guy," Hatsume said, a smile on her face as she looked to the space where the hologram of the red and blue robot once was, "Orion Pax, I mean. He's a cool speaker."

"One rally isn't going to start a revolution," Yui commented, though she found a ghost of a smile gracing her lips as well, "But yes, I will admit, he is a...charismatic speaker. A good way with words. Drop the voice down a few octaves, and he'd be able to take over Cybertron itself."

"One speech might not be enough to change the world," Ochako told them as she turned herself to face the two.

Behind them, Bumblebee hummed.

"But it's a start."

---

And here we are with the next chapter! And so soon after the last of my premade chapters was released! Funny how things work out, isn't it?

Sorry that this isn't going immediately into U.A., but there's a lot of setup that I want to do before we get there. There's a lot of foundations that I need to lay for what is going to happen in the future, and exploring the time before our main characters get to U.A. is a good enough place to start building up what we're going to be seeing later in the line, such as exploring the beginning of Ochako's journey and showcasing Bumblebee's backstory and the beginnings of the War for Cybertron.

(Like I said before, using Cybertronian holomatter projections as a way to showcase flashbacks? A lot more fun than you'd think. It's like a reaction fic, but without getting transported to another world by a god.)

So, consider this to be the first arc of this story: setting up U.A. and all that we're going to be seeing in the future. We've got a lot to cover until we get there, so I want to take my time with getting it down. I'm planning on having two flashbacks for each of the next few chapters, along with two or more sections from Ochako and the girls' perspective, along with other characters. I want to really establish the relationships between the girls and Bumblebee, give them all some time in the spotlight, and showcase them learning about Cybertronian history and culture along with learning about each other and growing as people, alongside all the other things that I want to show before we get to U.A., of which I can't quite tell you without possibly dropping spoilers.

Again, a lot to cover beforehand.

Then again, I feel like a lot of the best stories in the fandom have been slow burns that take some time to explore the world before getting into U.A.. Ignited Spark, Green Tea Rescue, and Binding the Galaxy Together come to mind. Plus, it wouldn't feel like a fun story to me if I was just rushing through everything that I wanted/needed to showcase as soon as we get to the entrance exam.

But before that, let's go over some of the things that we've seen in this chapter. First of all, Batuu Middle School! Much of the architecture that was shown in this chapter was inspired by the planet of Batuu from Star Wars, more specifically the Galaxy's Edge attraction.

Second of all, we've got our first official O.C., Miko Hoshizaki! Yup, she's Ochako's bully. I knew that I wanted a character like that in this story, but I didn't want to be really over the top with how she bullies our poor girl (she's certainly not going to be telling anyone to jump off any bridges anytime soon), so I really had to hold myself back when I was writing her. She was made when I was looking through the Hololive archives, then decided to combine two of the talents together (Miko Sakura and Suisei Hochimachi the Suicopath, then ended up going with Hoshizaki when I kept getting Hoshimachi as a spelling error. She was originally supposed to have purple hair, but I figured that that was too on the nose, so instead I based her design on Ruby Hoshino from Oshi no Ko, the one with both eyes having the black stars in them. Don't worry, we're going to be seeing more of her in the future, I promise. There's a bigger purpose to her character here than just a bully.

Then there's the brief appearance of another character named Okayu, who's name and appearance I've based off Okayu Nekomata from Hololive as well, but with a sugar quirk instead of having a cat motif. I was tempted to have her have cat attributes as her quirk, but again, that would've been too on the nose.

Fun fact, I was originally going to have Monoma taking Hoshizaki's place, but then I got to thinking and I realised that made the world feel way too small and would've restricted me a lot more than I would've liked. So Hoshizaki was created to help fill out the world.

(Is it weird that I'm nowhere near as averse to making an O.C. character for MHA than I am for Transformers? The brain is weird like that.)

But moving on from that, we've also got our two flashbacks to Cybertron's past right before the war breaks out, with our main characters finally claiming their names, and the introduction of two new characters that we've totally never seen before and are completely original to this fic: Alpha Trion and Elita-One!

So, first of all, there's Alpha Trion, who I've designed in my head to be a combination of his G1 and IDW forms, along with elements of his design and his alt-mode from Transformers One (whoever thought of the idea of Alpha Trion turning into a unicorn lion, you deserve a promotion).

Secondly, there's Elita-One, and originally I was going to have her just be a car, but then I remembered that another Transformers/MHA crossover fic on Ao3 named The Quirk in our Sparks by The_Spartan_Sangheili that chose to have Elita-One have an aerial alt-mode like her Power of the Primes toy, and I thought that was really neat, so I've decided to go with how she looked in the POTP toyline, combined with some fanart that I found on Pinterest.

Then there's the final speech, with Orion Pax claiming his name and speaking out to thousands of Cybertronains, mainly the original G1 cartoon Autobot cast, which was a fun speech to write (if any of his speech sounds familiar, that's because I drew inspiration for it from one of the IDW comics, where Orion Pax spoke out to the Senate), and something that I really wanted to get right.

(Fun fact: I'm imagining Orion's voice (not Optimus', it's too soon for that) to sound like Garry Chalk's, Optimus' voice from the Armada, Energon, and Cybertron cartoons, along with Optimus Primal from Beast Wars/Beast Machines. His voice sounds young enough in those shows to fit in for Orion Pax, and so I'm writing him with that voice in mind.)

Also during the speech, you might find it a bit strange that we've got Bluestreak appearing, yet we've then got another character showing up with his second name, Silverstreak. That's because, like MadTitan9 on Ao3 pointed out, I've always found it weird that Bluestreak's official design barely has blue on it save for his eyes, whilst his original Diaclone design is almost completely blue and silver.

Thus, I've decided to split him into two separate characters. We'll have Bluestreak, based off his Diaclone/Binaltech/Combiner Wars colour scheme, and we'll have Silverstreak with his official design and secondary name. Everyone wins!

(Fun fun fact: I was originally going to have Bluestreak be in his original design and Silverstreak be his blue Diaclone design, just because I thought it would be funny.)

Final point, you might notice that there are some things going on with Ochako at the moment. I can't explain right now, but all will be revealed in time. Trust.

Regardless, that's it for now, so stay safe, stay healthy, and I shall see you all next time.

Titanmaster 117 out!

 

[Titanmaster_117]

"You're going to need to start training soon."

Ochako paused as she stopped in place, looking through the door of the classroom to Yui sitting at her desk, surrounded by her circle of friends. Said girl was quietly sitting in their seat, drinking out of a juice box with a curly straw in it. It was an odd combination, but then she saw that it had the face of a hero in knight's armour on the side, and suddenly it all made sense. Heroes always went weird and wild with their marketing. It was practically a staple of the pro hero industry at this point.

Yui's classroom was no different than her own, with polished white walls in contrast to the stony walls outside, smooth wooden floors and colourful banners sporting logos and symbols and names in kanji and all sorts of other languages, coming together to form a rainbow of fabric. The only difference between this classroom and hers was the group of male students in the other side of the room, occasionally throwing glances in Yui's direction. Yui, as usual, never noticed.

Ochako wanted to shake her head. How could one person be so dense, she didn't know?

She looked back to Yui's circle of friends. The three girls surrounding Yui looked pleasant enough, at least. She felt a little guilty about not recognising most of them, but supposed that that couldn't be helped. She'd never tried to introduce herself to them. Too shy, she supposed, which was ironic considering what she used to be like back in her old school. All smiles and bubbles.

She hadn't felt like that in a long time.

"Seriously, you're aiming to get into U.A., right?" said a teal-eyed girl with white pupils, her messy and spikey orange hair tied behind her head in a ponytail and her hands calloused from use, "You and your cousin. You need to start seriously training, and start training seriously. They're not going to just take anyone in, you know?"

"She's got a point," said a short girl with ruby red hair and eyes. Ochako couldn't tell what her quirk was, "Lot of people trying for U.A. and the other hero schools. They're only letting the best of the best of the very best in."

"Indeed, U.A. is a place for a great many warriors to gather," the girl who just spoke was the only one that Ochako recognised. Reiko Yanagi. She recognised the swept over silver hair covering one of her dark blue eyes from a photo that Yui had shown her once. According to her cousin, the two had known each other since their early childhoods, and had been best friends ever since. Ochako smiled to herself. It was nice to see that Yui had those connections and friendships with others. She'd never been the best at socialising with others. The ghostly girl continued, "To brave the gates of Hell is a burden only the mightiest of wills may face."

The orange-haired girl looked at Reiko with a questioning look on her face, "...Hm?"

"She means that there's a lot of strong fighters signing up for U.A.," said the red-haired girl, "You need to keep up on your Reikoisms, Kendo," the orange-haired girl - Kendo - gave the red-haired girl a look and spared a laugh.

"I will do. In time," Yui finally said after a comfortable silence, "I've... got things going on at the moment. So I'm busy."

The red-haired girl and Kendo looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and Reiko leant herself forward, "Do you require assistance?"

"...No," Yui said, "It's a... personal matter."

Ochako's frown turned sorrowful, a well of guilt forming in her heart. She hated being the reason that Yui couldn't talk to her friends or do the things that she wanted to do. The reason that she was here right now was because the school day had just ended-

She'd just been let out of her history class. Miss Nakawa had been an uninspiring teacher, as always. Ochako knew that she was dedicated to her job, but she wasn't exactly good as getting her students to pay attention to them (not that they ever paid much attention to any teacher or any lesson, of course. That was pretty much the same for all students in all schools).

Still, she liked her. Somewhat. She was a frank kind of woman, unemotive. It reminded her a lot of Yui (She did seem a bit stressed though. Ochako wasn't sure why).

-And she needed to drag her back to Hatsume's garage. She certainly didn't trust Hatsume to hang around Bumblebee on her own, and that meant that she had to drag Yui back there with her, as she wasn't confident that it was a fight that she could win on her own.

Her eyes gazed over the banners hanging over the walls. Batuu Middle School was known for its expressiveness. From what she'd read about it online, it had a yearly tradition where graduates would paint banners and posters of the school with their names on them, then find a wall to hang themselves onto. They would become a part of the school's history and therefore become immortalised in history itself.

No one deserved to be forgotten, as the principal would say. At least this way, those who walked through the halls of this school would be remembered forever.

Ochako liked that. She liked that idea. She just didn't know why the principal had been so insistent on making banners as a tradition. Rumour was that he'd lost someone in the past. Someone close to him. Ochako didn't know the full story - no one did - but she knew that everyone in the world had lost someone close to them before - that was just life - but that didn't make it any less tragic.

So the banner making... it was a lovely tradition, if she had to think about it. A nice way to leave a mark on the world, no matter how big or small.

Ochako looked into the classroom and wondered if Yui would make a banner with her at the end of this, or if she'd leave her to make it with the people that she actually liked.

It was a painful thought.

"You know, the dojo I go to is always open to you," Kendo waved her hand at Yui, "There're a lot of kids our age who are training there as well. A lot of them are aiming for U.A. too. I know that our teacher would love to have more students under his belt."

"Hn," Yui hummed, "...I'll think about it."

"You can't keep thinking about this stuff forever, Yui," said the red-haired girl, "Sooner or later, you've got to actually do something rather than just sit and stew all day."

"Indeed," Reiko muttered, "We all must overcome these trials sooner than later."

Yui looked like she was about to say something in response, but Ochako was broken out of her concentration as something bumped into her, shunting her out of the way and forcing her to stumble into the classroom entrance and catch the doorframe for support, barely stopping herself from tumbling over.

Then, she looked down the corridor with a scowl over her face to see Hoshizaki marching away from her, the star-eyed girl sparing a glance over her shoulder.

"Sorry about that," the blonde girl said unapologetically with a smile across her face, "You've got such a massive width that it's hard to miss."

And with that, she was gone, leaving Ochako to quietly sigh to herself and seethe at her own situation.

Again.

She felt someone tap her shoulder, and looked to the side. It was Yui. You're okay, she silently said.

Ochako smiled. She was okay.

It was the same lie she always told herself.

---

The crowd was raucous.

It was a much bigger crowd than when Orion had hosted his speech in the Imperial Amphitheatre. This time, thousands of Cybertronians filled the streets of Iacon on all side, some looking up from the roads and metal pathways, some watching from elevated positions on balconies and rooftops, and others hovering above in their alt-modes. They were all cheering and chanting a multitude of phrases that were hard to make out from the cacophony of noise. Many of the crowd were holding placards and banners and flags, either sporting phrases in Cybertronian or brandishing the crimson face of the Autobot logo. Camera bots hovered around the elevated platform, broadcasting every movement onto massive floating holographic screens free-floating in the air and projected onto billboards and buildings. The sky, meanwhile, was shielded behind a massive glass dome, supported by golden walls and buildings that stretched up like pillars and columns that held up the heavens themselves.

In the middle of the crowd was an elevated platform, holding up the statue of a golden spaceship in its centre. Surrounding the centrepiece were thirteen regal statues of unique-looking Cybertronians of all shapes and sizes. One of them resembled a female with a hammer in her hand. One of them looked like a cross between a person, an eagle, and a horse. Another looked like a knight with a sword, and one of the statues, bigger than the rest of them, looked like it was made out of five bots instead of one.

And standing before them all, atop the stage, was Orion Pax and D-16, standing side by side as they spoke to the masses. Behind them stood Elita-One, B-127, and Alpha Trion (leaning on a metal cane for support) on one side, and to D-16's side stood six other Cybertronians.

One of them being a grey and red bot with blue accents, a yellow metal plate like a cockpit in the middle of his torso, two piercing red optics atop a boxy black head with a grey face, red bio-light patterns stretching across his frame, a twin pair of sharp airplane wings sticking out of his back, and a smaller pair of wings acting as heels for his jet engine-like feet, along with a long pair of gun barrels sticking from his shoulders and stretching down to his hands. Behind him were two robots that were identical to him, one being blue with red and silver accents, red eyes and blue bio-lights, and the other being black and purple with yellow eyes and bio-lights.

The other was a boxy blue and grey robot with red and yellow accents along with blue bio-lights, what looked like a glass panel in his chest, a silver faceplate and a yellow visor under a blue helm, a large railgun-like energy cannon on his right shoulder, enlarged rectangular boxes on his shoulders with glowing blue-rimmed circles in them that resembled speakers, an antenna sticking out of his back, and tires sticking out of the sides of his shoulders and his lower legs. He looked like he turned into a mixture of a cassette player and either a jeep or an armoured personnel carrier. Perched on one of his arms was a small, red and black Cybertronian creature that looked like a bird with a glowing yellow visor for eyes, looking like it turned into some sort of alien data disk, and at his feet was a black and silver, puma-like creature with glowing yellow lines running through it, predatory yellow optics, and a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth.

The fifth was a white, red, and blue robot with kind blue eyes amidst a silver face and blue helmet, two prongs sticking up from his back that looked like the segmented portions of a nosecone, an enlarged windshield on his chest that hummed with blue light and life, engines in his legs, wings sticking out on angles from his lower arms, and smaller wings sticking out of his lower legs.

Behind him was a larger robot with blue eyes and red bio-lights, his frame coloured purple with grey and beige highlights, with wings for shoulders, a broad chest, and engines placed atop his shoulder blades. His silver face held a shy smile.

As the crowd began to cheer and applaud, Orion Pax and D-16 stepped forward. The two Cybertronians looked between each other, and Orion smiled and stepped back, allowing D-16 the chance to speak to the crowd.

"My fellow Cybertronians," D-16 began, earning the crowd's silence as he began to speak through what looked like a hardlight microphone floating around him. Up in the air, a yellow Cybertronian bird similar to the one sitting on the boombox robot's arm squawked as it perched itself on a floating camera that lowered itself to project the silver and red robot's face to the throngs of Cybertronains present, "Friends and family, brothers and sisters all... we are gathered here today, so that I may ask one question of you all."

He paused, taking in the air as the Cybertronians around him watched in awe.

"To whom do our leaders hold themselves accountable to?"

A murmur, a collective pondering. D-16 didn't give them the chance to ruminate for long.

"In the spires of Iacon, high above us all, within the grandiose buildings that they build for themselves, our government, our leaders, our Prime, tell us that they are beholden to the people. That they serve the average Cybertronian. They tell us that they act in our best interests, that they lead our lives to the betterment of Cybertron and the worlds under its protection. They say that they work to make our lives better for all of us."

D-16 didn't hide the outraged look on his face.

"And yet, what do they have to show for their services?! Here we are, standing here now, and I do not see an enriched population, an enlightened population, I see an oppressed people, denied what is rightfully theirs!"

A cheer of agreement echoed up from the crowd. D-16 allowed them to yell and shout their affirmatives before he continued once more.

"In a society governed by the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy, a system developed by the Functionists, instituted by the Senate, and enforced by the Prime, one defining trait stands out above all the rest. In a system that is constantly revised and rewritten, one single rule is, must, and will be, enforced above everything else: your alt-mode must be the deciding trait of your existence. From the moment that you are born, your life is mapped out before you, your path set. You can no more change your career and life and destiny so much as Cybertron can stop rotating around its sun. We are prisoners within a system that demands total compliance. Prisoners within a system, prisoners within our own bodies."

Another collective cheer of agreement.

"The Functionists, the Senate, Sentinel Prime himself, they say that they are acting in your best interests by placing you in a role from the moment of your creation. If you are born with a certain alt-mode, then it is because Primus has a plan for you, and you must carry it out. And yet, if we are all ordained by God, then why is they create a caste entirely of those they deem disposable? Why do there Cybertronians born with seemingly useless alt-modes, those who turn into laser pointers and and projectors and beast, when we have figures like Quintus Prime and Onyx Prime standing behind us?" he gestured to the statues behind him, highlighting the tentacled one and the bestial one with his pointer finger, "Why did they deign to revoke the purpose of an entire caste? Why did they render the Manual Caste, us miners and labourers and workers, obsolete?! Why do they deny us the right to claim our own names!?" this time, he didn't give them a chance to ponder his words, "Because in truth, it is not about religion. It is not about Primus. It is about control. A multi-talented populace is a dangerous people, and the most dangerous people are those that question the rules that their leaders have set out for them. Because as soon as we start to question, they begin to lose their power.

"So, the Functionists and the Senate and Sentinel Prime enforce the Taxonomy as a form of societal segregation. They give us someone to consider lesser, something to consider other. They tell us that the Janitorial Caste stands above the Disposables, and then they tell the Construction Caste that they themselves stand above the Janitorials. They give us someone else to oppress so that we ourselves never realise that we too are being oppressed. So long as we have an enemy, we will never realise the gun at our heads and the knife at our necks. And they do it all so that we may never doubt them, that we may never ask the dangerous questions, the questions that they dread the most. So long as we are divided, they can continue to enrich themselves and lord themselves over us and pretend that they are acting in our interests instead of their own.

"Ask yourselves: why should there be an order? Why should our lives be dictated to us from the moment that our spark ignites and our protoforms take their shapes? Why should we be given a job and a role and a purpose and denied any chance to pursue our hopes and dreams and ambitions? No matter how long you may ponder this question, you will always land on the same answer: there shouldn't be. There shouldn't be a Taxonomy. There shouldn't be an order. There should be freedom for us all. We are not mindless, nameless machines! We are people, alive and real and here!

"And that is the answer that the Senate fears the most. In arriving at this answer and understanding the trap that they have laid out for us, all of the power that they hold over us fades away, and we realise that, the truth is, we are the ones that hold the power! We are the ones that can decide our fates for our own!"

The crowd roared their agreement.

"This is what I tell you, right here, right now! Take your names, and make your choices your own! Reject those that consider themselves your betters! Be the ones to decide what your futures should be! Make your own destiny, and rise up with us! Rise up against their deceptions! Rise up as one, and show them that we will not be deceived!"

The crowd cheered, and threw their fists into the air.

"Rise up!

"Rise up!

"Rise up!

"Rise up!

"Rise up!

"Rise up!

"Rise up!"

"Rise up!" cheered Hatsume as she, Ochako, and Yui looked over the hologram with intrigue, stepping through the flickering crowds as they watched D-16 raise his arms to the crowd, soaking in their raucous applaud.

"You're getting into it," Ochako commented, wringing her hands together as she kept her eyes on the holographic stage.

Hatsume turned her head over to Ochako, a wide smile across her face, "Oh c'mon, you have to admit, he's as good a speaker as Orion!"

"How come you can remember his name but you can't remember mine?"

"Because, Pink Cheeks, their names are interesting! They're not- they're not weird! Like, Elita-One, Ultra Magnus, Alpha Trion, Orion Pax, Sentinel Prime, those are easy names! They're distinctive! Then you get guys like Greg and Steve and Dave and Ichigo! How am I suppose to remember those!?"

Ochako was about to say something, only for Yui to pat her on the shoulder and go, "No no, she's got a point."

"Don't you go taking her side in this again," Ochako tweezed the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

Hatsume turned her eyes back to the hologram that Bumblebee was projecting into the garage, her hands on her notebook and pencil, "Still though, there's a ton of new things here? Who're the guys with D-16? And what's with the little birds and the cat?"

"It looked more like a dog to me," Yui said.

"Dog, cat, whatever. It looked like a pet, I've got no idea what kind of alt-mode it could have. I'm not even sure if it has an alt-mode. And those two birds, the red and yellow ones! I think they might have some sort of disk alt-mode! That doesn't just mean that there are Cybertronians that can turn into beasts: there are beast Cybertronians that can turn into- into other things! Or are they domesticated animals, like pets like we have on Earth?!"

As Hatsume continued to ramble, Ochako turned to Yui and whispered, "I'm sorry," Yui turned her head to look at her, "From pulling you away from your friends."

Yui paused for a long while as she looked at her, "It's... fine."

"No, it's not. Especially with..." Ochako trailed off, "...You've been doing so much for me already."

Yui blinked, "...We're family," then turned away.

Ochako took that to mean that the conversation was over. She didn't want to end it there, though, "Yui-"

"The hologram's still going."

Ochako paused at Yui's sudden words, then sighed, "You enjoying what we're learning so far?"

Yui tapped a finger against her chin, "There's something about this D-16 guy that... doesn't sit right with me."

The pink-cheeked girl raised an eyebrow, "D-16? What about him? He's fighting the good fight. Against injustice. Like Orion and Bee."

Yui kept her eyes on the hologram, "It's the way he's talking. About himself. There's something off about it but... I just can't put my finger on it."

Yui was silent after that.

She turned her head over to Bumblebee - who had been sitting in the corner the entire time - and patted the big bot on his knee, "How're you doing, Bee?"

The robot groaned in response. Ochako didn't know what it meant, so she turned back to the hologram, seeing D-16 shaking hands with a smaller black, red, and yellow robot that looked like she turned into a motorcycle, with a slim build and two wheels on her back, headlamps in her waist, and hope in her yellow optics.

"Can I just say, that me and the other Empties downtown? In the shelters? We're all routing for you," said the cycle-looking bot, "Rotorbolt, Wheezel, and Telus? We're all on your side if you need us."

"I should hope so," said D-16 with a smile, "Thank you, Flamewar," the little robot named Flamewar was escorted off by a bulky blue and green robot with a pair of Autobot badges on his shoulders and what looked like the kibble of an oversized artillery truck across him, and the silver and red Cybertronian turned to Orion.

Orion's optics wrinkled, "Flamewar... that's an odd name."

"These are odd times," D-16 muttered back, "And a name is a name, is it not? Better than a number."

"A fair point. Are you close to claiming yours?"

"The final rite of the Path of Conquest is right before me, I can sense it," D-16 smiled triumphantly, "Just as I know that I killed it out there, talking to the crowd like that."

"Well, it's good to see that you haven't lost your confidence," Orion replied with a smile as the two walked back to the centre of the stage to join the rest of their compatriots, "I glad I decided to let you handle the speeches from now on. You're much better at this than I ever could be."

"Don't sell yourself so short, Orion," D-16 patted him on the back, "You sold it back in the Amphitheatre. There are very few bots I know who can rile up a crowd as well as you can."

"Speak for yourself, D," Orion said as they reunited with their allies at the back of the stage, next to the display of golden statues. Elita-One, Alpha Trion, and B-127 stood at Orion's side as the red and blue bot gestured a hand to the robots that D-16 had gathered as well, "Not just Senator Ulchtar, but Headmaster Shockwave as well? That is admirable."

"Don't just write me off like I'm not here," the red and grey jet Cybertronian - Ulchtar - folded his arms and tutted. The blue, silver, and red jet behind him patted him on the arm. The black and purple one laughed and smiled.

Meanwhile, the blue, white, and red jet robot - who had to be the Headmaster Shockwave that Orion had mentioned - smiled and shook Orion's hand, "Well I can't speak for everyone, but I must say that it was your speech that convinced me to come down here in the first place."

Orion blinked, his yellow optics twinkling with surprise, "Really?"

"Really. You and D-16 here have been the talk of the town back at the Academy. Everyone's buzzing their afterburners over it, especially Zeta here," he gestured to the purple and red robot behind him.

Said robot - Zeta - waved his hand nervously, "Hello... hi."

Orion hummed, then shook Zeta's hand in turn, "It's good to meet you, Zeta. Any student of Headmaster Shockwave is a friend of mine. Though I'm curious; did you get your name through the Iron Rights?"

"Er, no, sir," Zeta rubbed the back of his head, "I... picked it myself. Same with everyone else at the academy."

"It's certainly catching on, thanks to you," Shockwave took over for his nervous student, relieving the shy robot of his burden - allowing the purple and red Cybertronian to simulate a sigh of relief - as the headmaster looked over to Elita-One and said, "And E-1, it's excellent to see that you're in good company. Such a thing is hard to come by these days."

"Heh," Elita nodded, "No kidding. It's good to see you again as well, Headmaster. And it's Elita-One, now."

"Ah, a superb name for one of my best students. I expect nothing less."

Orion blinked and looked between the two, "You... know each other?"

"Yep," Elita turned her head to him, "I used to study in the A.A.T.. Was one of the first students when Headmaster Shockwave founded it. He taught me everything I know."

"Well," Shockwave smiled, a humbleness in his tone, "Not everything. To find yourself in the company of such good friends, that was all on you. And that's on top of being mentored by Alpha Trion himself."

"Hah!" Alpha Trion waved his hand dismissively, tapping his cane on the ground, "I'm an old bot. Teaching is the only thing I have left in me."

"And you're a brilliant teacher, Alpha. Don't sell yourself so short," Orion said, before turning to D-16 and going, "This is brilliant, D. Gathering together a senator and the headmaster of Cybertron's most prestigious academy? That's a game changer."

"Thank Soundwave more than anyone else," D-16 gestured to the boxy blue robot - Soundwave - with a grateful expression on his face, "He's the one who brought these people together for us."

"Affirmative," was Soundwave's response, his voice more robotic than everyone else's. The red and black robot bird on Soundwave's arm squawked in turn, and the black and grey feline robot at his feet purred, "Operation: Conjunction."

Orion nodded, "Well, thank you very much, Soundwave."

He then looked to the side, back to the stage, and to the crowds of Cybertronians standing and hovering around them. Many of them were still cheering and chanting, calling out a variety of phrases like "Rise up!" and "We will not be deceived!" whilst waving their flags and banners. Many others were talking amongst themselves, discussing the new symbols that they were going to be wearing in support. Around them, reporters spoke into their free-floating camerabots and gesticulated to the crowds, expressed their thoughts and views and what they saw the event to be, and spoke with all sorts of Cybertronians and allowed them to share their political opinions on the air for all to see.

Around the crowds, multiple Cybertronians with Manual Caste vehicle alt-modes - all of them former miners - walked the premise armed with what looked like batons and improvised riot shields, seemingly acting as security guards, and five robots with military alt-modes - one of them being the robot with the artillery truck alt-mode and the yellow visor and black faceplate, the second big and bulky with a yellow visor and black head and faceplate and looking like he turned into a green tank, another with a jet or space shuttle as his alt-mode judging from his body frame and vehicle pieces, with a purple torso and eyes, and brown and black limbs along with a brown head and faceplate, the fourth a grey and blue robot with a purple-plated chest and helicopter blades sticking out of his back, a red visor across his face and blank faceplate, and the last a yellow and purple robot with purple optics, a swarmy smile and kibble that looked like he transformed into an armoured personal carrier with a giant cannon on his right arm - stood as guards between the crowd and Orion and D-16's group, all with red bio-lights covering them and wearing the Autobot logo on their chests, pistols at their hips.

Orion was in awe at all the people who had shown up to hear their words. His widened eyes and opened mouth was proof enough of that.

Ochako shared in that awe. To see this many people standing together, as one... she'd never seen anything like it before. It filled her heart with something that she couldn't place.

Seeing everyone there, smiling over the promise of a better tomorrow... it warmed her heart.

It was part of the reason why she wanted to become a hero, beyond supporting her parents.

When she was younger, she'd always wanted to make people smile. It was something she'd learnt from watching a pro hero in action. There was so much about her early life that was foggy and unclear to her (the degradation of memory that everyone suffered from the passing of time), but this memory she remembered clearly:

It was when she was four years old, and walking with her parents one day. They'd just left a meeting with a rival construction company after losing out on a contract, couldn't afford a babysitter to look after her, and were utterly exhausted. Ochako may have been young, but she'd been smart enough to know that they'd been struggling with money for a long time. She'd become wise to the ways that they'd attempt to ease her mind as much as they'd attempt to ease their own.

But, they'd still put on smiles for her. They'd fought past their exhaustion to smile with her, to life up her spirits and to show her that the world wasn't as cruel as she'd thought it to be.

After all, the world had to be a cruel place to deny her family the chance of a better life, right?

(A part of Ochako still believed that.)

She'd smiled back to them for their efforts, but it never reached her ears. She'd been very... self-aware of her situation as a child. It came with the territory of growing up in perpetual poverty. There was a perpetual air of sadness around her, fuelled by her inability to understand why they were in the situation that they were in and why she couldn't do anything about it.

And then, on that day, they passed by a cheering crowd, and went in to see what they were all celebrating-

And Ochako saw a group of pro heroes in action, pulling people out of a burning building. It had caught fire thanks to a gas leak, and about a dozen pro heroes were either running in and out of the burning property, pulling out civilians with each trip, or spraying water onto the raging inferno to try and control it.

But when all the civilians had been pulled out of the building, that was when one pro hero in particular took to the field.

Thirteen, Ochako's favourite pro hero. She'd been there right for her debut to the public.

Back then, she'd still been a hero student, but it was the first time that Ochako had ever laid eyes on her, and it filled her with wonder, with that big puffy suit that looked like an astronaut, and that big globe-like helmet and those silly yellow sneakers that looked comical in comparison to everything else. Ochako was starstruck by every single aspect of it.

Then, her eyes lit up with wonder as Thirteen held out her hands, and her quirk, Black Hole, flared to life and sucked up all the heat and smoke and oxygen surrounding the building, putting out the fire in just a few seconds.

And the crowd?

The crowd cheered their amazement.

And Ochako cheered with them.

It was the first time she'd ever seen a hero, and it filled her with astonishment.

Then she looked around her at the people cheering on the heroes, and it filled her with wonder.

To see such smiling faces in the face of such danger, such tragedy-that-had-barely-been-averted, the young girl couldn't understand it at all. Even now, she still struggled to do so.

But what she did know, was that she wanted to see people smiling and happy, and that it made her smile and feel happy as well. She'd gained a better understanding of her parents too, as that was what they'd wanted of her too.

So, she'd resolved to help people to smile in any way that she could. She resolved to make the people around her happy in whatever way that she could.

And the best way to do that, she'd decided, was to become a pro hero.

Ochako hummed to herself, stepped back, and patted Bumblebee on his arm. The yellow Cybertronian let out a low groan of noise, too staticky for her to make out any words.

"I'm going to fix you, Bee," she whispered to him, "I promise."

Bee groaned back, nodding his head every so gently.

Ochako was going to fix Bee, she was going to find out what happened to him and why he was on Earth, and she was going to try her damn best to make him happy.

She promised, both to him and herself.

With that, she turned her attention back to the hologram, watching Orion look at D-16 with a smile.

"I'm telling you, D, this is the start of something big," Orion told his silver and red friend, patting him on the shoulder as he said, "The amount of people that are here, that've heard us, it's unbelievable."

"People don't want to be deceived anymore," D-16 smiled back, "They're waking up for the first time."

"And we're the ones waking them up. You're the one waking them up."

D-16 didn't deny it, "You're right, Orion, this is the start of something big, and something wonderful. This is how we bring real change into the world."

"Indeed."

Orion and D-16 froze at the booming voice that echoed not just over the stage, but over the crowd itself, and, along with the rest of their group, looked up to see a gargantuan plane hanging over them, coloured in blues and golds and carrying what looked like a black tank underneath it, escorted by a dozen alien jets of identical build and coloured in cyans and silvers with orange bio-lights and exhaust trails.

"But do you know what change is?" the voice thundering from the jet hovering in the air above, "It is an invitation to madness, to anarchy and insanity-"

On the ground, dozens, maybe even hundreds of police officers marched around the crowds of thousands, sirens and lights built into their bodies flashing red and blue as the one leading them-

"Ah hell," muttered B-127 as Barricade and Frenzy ordered the police from one end of the crowd to the other.

Up above, the giant plane disconnected its cargo from itself and began to drop to the golden stage below. The tank hit the ground first, and transformed into a bulky black robot with yellow eyes, blue bio-lights running through his frame, missile pods on his shoulders, giant spiked pauldrons, treads in his lower legs acting as heels, and a massive cannon where his right arm should be.

Then, the jet landed, and with a grandiose-

{TSCHE-TSCHE-TK-TK-TK}

-It transformed and took shape, uncurling itself to reveal a robot bespeckled in royalty and magnificence.

"-And that," Sentinel Prime stood tall like a lighthouse, towering over everyone around him, "Is what I must battle against every single day."

He made for a grandiose figure, tall and bulky and coloured in blues and silvers and golds, with a broad chest divided by orange bio-lights and a golden chest piece like that of a plane's cockpit. along with gold and silver plane wings resembling that of an angel's protruding from his back. Two massive black cannons stuck out over his shoulders behind wide pauldrons, and silver panels cut into sections covered his abdomen. His lower arms and grey and blue hands were covered in what looked like blue and golden gauntlets with orange bio-light patterns and blue twin gun barrels attached to them, and his legs were shielded by blue armour with feet built like boots, with golden kneepads and silver upper legs attached to a blue crotch covered in blue and gold faulds. His face was hidden behind a segmented gold faceplate, attached to a dark blue helmet-like head with orange bio-lights running along its helm, with fins sticking out from the sides and a silver headpiece where the symbol of the Senate and of Cybertron itself was painted on like a tattoo.

"Sentinel Prime..." she muttered to herself.

"What's he doing there?" Yui asked, an raised eyebrow and a parted lip betraying her stoic expression.

"He's shorter than I expected."

Ochako and Yui looked at Hatsume, who blankly looked back at them.

"What?"

He looked like a robotic knight, leaping out from the imagination and into the real world in all his majestic glory, towering over everyone around him.

And yet, when Ochako looked at him, she saw in his cold blue eyes an arrogance that could doom an entire world.

The way that many of the Cybertronians in the crowd seemed to fret and panic around him before kowtowing and kneeling in the Prime's presence only unnerved her more.

"D-16... O-84," Sentinel Prime ignored the kneeling crowd and stepped forward towards the two smaller Cybertronians, "Or is it Orion Pax, now? I've been so busy lately that it's hard to keep track."

The blue and green Autobot with the artillery truck alt-mode stepped forward to place himself between the Prime and his charges, only for Orion to pat him on the side, "Ease up, Onslaught," then stepped up himself and went, "Sentinel Prime. Sir. It's... an honour to meet you."

"Hm," Sentinel Prime murmured in response.

Behind him and his black-armoured accomplice, the cyan and silver jets dropped to the ground and converted into their humanoid forms, with jet engines in their legs, massive gatling guns on their arms, and the stamp of the Senate on their chests. Leading them was a pair of female robots with car alt-modes and heavy weaponry in their hands, one of them coloured in gold and black with purple legs, an engine in her chest, blue eyes and a silver face within a yellow head, and a silver frame to her alt-mode, her car bonnet and roof serving as a shield on her left arm, whilst the other was an almost-entirely purple robot with tires in her shoulders and heels, a grey waist and face, a red pair of scope-like goggles over her crimson eyes, a windshield in her chest, and a large sniper rifle in her hands.

They marched forward and stood in formation to their leader, whilst the black-armoured robot held the giant cannon on his right arm in place. Orion, D-16, and the rest of their group hesitantly took a step back.

Sentinel stepped forward, "What an interesting display you've put up here," he folded his arms behind his back, soaking in the silence of the crowd as he looked around, observing the banners and the posters, "And a... fascinating cause as well," he turned his eyes down to the Cybertronians beneath him, "You've certainly had a lot of time to think about all of this."

"Yeah, well, sir," D-16 spoke with some hesitance in his voice. A sharp contrast to his earlier confidence, "With the mines being automated... we haven't had anything else to do."

"Yes, I will admit, that is a failing on my part," Sentinel commented, to the shock of Orion and D-16's group, "And to see what it has all led you too... truly, a shame that I will have to deal with," he then looked past the two robots and to the Cybertronians behind them, "Not to mention the Cybertronians that you've managed to pull into this. Senator Ulchtar, I thought you had better things to do than mingle around the 'rabble', as you put it," Ulchtar looked away with a scoff as Sentinel turned his sight to Shockwave and Zeta, the latter trying to make himself look small to avoid the Prime's gaze, "And Headmaster Shockwave... I'm surprised you're letting your students soak in this... misinformation."

"Investigating differentiating opinions is the mark of a true academic," Shockwave shot Sentinel a frown, putting himself in front of Zeta protectively, "You should know that."

"Indeed," Sentinel then turned his head to the side, then saw Alpha Trion standing amongst their number, "And you... Alpha Trion," Sentinel scoffed dismissively, "Shouldn't you be rusting away in the archives by now?"

"Sometimes an old bot wants to get out and see the world," Alpha was unintimidated by Sentinel's stare, "And so far, I have been unimpressed by what I have seen."

"Heh, like anything impresses you anymore, old bot," the black-armoured robot stepped forward and handed Sentinel a red badge. The Autobot logo, "The first face of Primus," he showed the badge in his hand, "I assume this is your work, Alpha?"

"Perhaps," Alpha Trion narrowed his optics, tightening his grip on his cane, "Or perhaps there are those who are more discontented with how Cybertron and its colonies are today than I am?"

"I can imagine. Your being here is proof enough of that," Sentinel turned to face the thousands of Cybertronians standing before the stage and the memorial, his face and voice projected across the entire square and over the monitors transmitting across all of Cybertron and its colonies, "Hear me now, my fellow Cybertronians! You seek change, but you do not understand the consequences that must come with it. I do not blame you, nor do I blame those who seek to spread their message. You are young, unsure about your place in the world. So allow me to clear these uncertainties for you! I was forged on the day that Nova Prime overthrew the Quintessons and liberated Cybertron. I was part of Nova Prime's Progenitors as we expanded across the galaxy and established our colonies worlds. I was a soldier on the front lines of the Destructon Wars when Lord Imperious Delirious led the Destructons against Nominus Prime's forces. I personally led the charge against the pretender who would call himself Prime, Logos, and Devil Z and their army of Godmasters. I have been there since the dawn itself!

"I have been there since the beginning of our recorded history, and I have seen the cycles of change and violence play out in repetition across the span of eons. Each and every time someone calls out for any kind of change, any kind of transformation to our species, they accompany it with violence. Cities fall, planets burn thousands die, and we learn nothing from it. We fail to stop the call to anarchy and the fall to madness because we refuse to learn our lesson: whenever we call for change, we fail to understand the violence that may come with it.

"You talk of a peaceful revolution, but understand this: there is no such thing. The stories you watch on the holofeeds and the datastories that you download into your neural nets, they are all lies. Embellishments of the truth made to romanticise the past. I have lived through that past, and I have seen its truth. I have seen the blood and the gore that comes with the demand for revolution. It is a terrible price, and one that we must not allow ourselves to pay.

"Where you may see stagnancy, I see stability! I see true peace across all of Cybertron and the worlds we call our own! I see a golden age, a peace that has been hard fought across millions of years! I see a world where a Cybertronian can know their purpose and the reason for their birth without having to worry about whether or not they would live to see the next solar cycle! This is a peace that we claimed from the jaws of the Quintessons and the malcontents and those who would wish to do us harm! This is the peace that our precursors and forerunners have fought and bled and died for! Do not let their sacrifice go to waste! Do not allow the deception of revolution to blind you all that we have endured!

"And you," the Prime raised his arm, and showed the crowd the Autobot logo in his hands, "Do not wish to be deceived."

The crowd seemed hesitant now, uncertain of what to do. They looked to each other, to the stage, to the bots and speakers standing there and to the Prime himself, questioning, silently asking what they were supposed to do now. Any fight that had been in them before had been thoroughly drained.

B-127 noticed D-16 clench his hands into fists. Evidently, he didn't like his speeches being hijacked like that.

Ochako clenched her hands as well. The things that Sentinel said in his speech... it all sounded eerily similar to what she'd heard from heroes and authority figures and elders of all kinds over the course of her life.

She turned her eyes over to Yui. No doubt she was thinking the same as well. She'd parroted those same words not too long ago.

"Go home, all of you," Sentinel tossed the Autobot logo in his hand to the side, letting it clatter on the floor, "Go home, and ask yourselves what cost you are willing to incur to pursue the innate violence of change."

The Cybertronians on the ground ceased kneeling and stood up, joining the throngs of other Cybertronians around them in looking at the Prime and each other, unsure of what to do.

Then, slowly, the crowd began to disperse, walking and rolling back to their homes, unwilling to stand up to the Prime and the forces at his disposal. The crowd went from thousands to hundreds, hundreds to dozens, dozens to singles...

And then to no one at all, leaving the grounds empty and hollow, save for the scattered Autobot badges left as litter on the ground.

Ochako tasted bitterness. To see all that Orion and D-16 were working to build turn to dust and dirt, it filled her with sadness and sympathy for the two bots.

And anger. She felt anger grow inside her as well. It felt wrong, immoral, an insult to everything that they were trying to build, and no doubt Orion and D-16 felt the same as well.

The only ones left in the streets were the ex-Manual Caste bots who'd volunteered as security, and they were all being disarmed and escorted away from the memorial by Barricade's officers.

"Make sure they all get home, Barricade," Sentinel spoke into his communicator. Then, he turned around, and glared at the bots that had started this entire gathering.

"...You can't do this," D-16 finally grounded out after a long silence, "I don't- please, sir, we've worked so hard for this, you can't just-"

"I should have you all arrested," Sentinel coldly stated through his faceplate, much to the shock of the group of Autobots and Cybertronians, and even the three girls watching it all unfold. Not even Onslaught's Autobot guards had the courage to do anything as Sentinel stepped forward, "Illegal gatherings, hijacking public broadcasts, inciting rebellion against the state, the whole works."

"Y-You can't do that!" Orion threw out, "We haven't done anything illegal?"

"Oh, so spreading banned writings across Cybertron and her colonies is perfectly fine as well?" Orion and D-16 froze, and Sentinel scoffed, "That's what I thought."

He then folded his arms behind his back and walked over to the memorial, looking up at the golden statues of the spaceship and the figures surrounding it as if to inspect them for their worth, disinterested in the Cybertronians that he had just been threatening.

"You know, when I was on my way down here, I was originally just going to have you all arrested for treason against Cybertron," he said slowly, as if to draw out the tension, "But then I thought to myself, 'That would be a waste of talent'. Two young, promising bots rusting away in Rura Penthe? A waste indeed. So, I wanted to propose something to you."

He turned to look down at the two robots and their allies.

"Join me, in my council at the Senate. You needn't worry about the Functionaries throwing a fit over taking up a practice outside of your alt-modes, they answer to me. Not even the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy can stand against the world of a Prime," Sentinel held out his hand to them, "Join me, and we can make Cybertron into something... beautiful."

Orion and D-16 looked at the outstretched hand for a long time. Ochako had no idea what they were thinking, but she imagined that it was a tempting proposition.

Had she been in their position, she would've considered taking the Prime up on it.

Having a job, a stable future, for themselves and their friends and family... it was a dream that she'd held for a long time, so to see an easy and clear path to it in front of her...

It shamed her to admit it, but it was something that she would've found hard to turn down.

However, Orion showed himself to have much more moral character than she ever could, as he looked at Sentinel and gave hm the proverbial pig's eye.

"If you can convince the Functionists to change our jobs and look the other way at the same time, then why haven't you done that already?"

Sentinel flinched at Orion's question.

"Better yet," Orion continued, a defiant look across his face, "If you want Cybertron to be peaceful and stable, then why did you dissolve the Manual Caste in the first place and automate the mines? Your actions and words are completely contradictory to each other."

Sentinel's hand curled into a fist, "Boy-"

"In fact, why did you close the mines in the first place? Why did you automate them? You committed evils before and allowed them to fester, creating the Disposable Caste and leaving those with beast modes to rust and die, and banning the Iron Rights and revoking our right and ability to name ourselves... but even you must've known that letting millions of disenfranchised Cybertronians wander freely without a purpose left in the world was a reckless and foolhardy move. Rash. It screams of a..." Orion's optics widened with realisation, "A panic move."

The Prime's optics narrowed, "Orion-"

"That's what it was, wasn't it?" Orion was on a roll now. There was no stopping him, "A panic move. Something happened, and you panicked. You panicked, and recalled the miners from our mining colonies to silence whatever it is you found. It's the same reason you're down here, speaking to us right now; you acted rashly out of fear, and you're attempting to regain control," Orion thrusted a finger at Sentinel, "You're terrified. You being here, right now, proves that," he lowered his hand, "So what is it you're so afraid of?"

D-16 blinked, looked at Orion, as did his group, as did Sentinel's guards, as did the three girls and one Cybertronian watching it all unfold. All of them were amazed by his deductions and how blatantly defiant he was, to say such things to the leader of Cybertron himself.

"Wow..." muttered Ochako.

Bumblebee let out an electronic babble of amazement.

"Damn..." whispered Hatsume.

"Drop the voice a couple octaves..." blushed Yui.

Ochako and Hatsume blinked, them looked at Yui.

Yui looked at the two in turn, "What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing!"

Yui rolled her eyes at the two, and turned her eyes back to the hologram. Ochako and Hatsume followed her gaze, where they noticed Sentinel Prime giving Orion a silent stare, his blue eyes quiet and cold.

Then, he pivoted himself and slowly strode over to the memorial, leaning against the golden spaceship statue and tapping his finger against a plaque, no doubt containing the names of the statues and those who served aboard the ship with them.

"The Ark..." he muttered to himself, "Legend says that Prima, the first of the Primes, built it himself, and used it to lead the Thirteen Primes and the first generation of Cybertronians across the galaxy, to seed worlds with life and banish Unicron from the universe itself. Tritonus Prime, Nexus Prime, Amalgamous and Alchemist, even the Thirteenth, who's name is lost to history..."

He turned to look at Alpha Trion.

"Did I get any of that right, Alpha? You were ancient by the time that Nova Prime kicked the Quintessons off our world. Surely you would've been alive to see it all unfold."

"...There is... some truth, in legends," Ochako wasn't sure why Alpha had paused in his response.

Sentinel grunted, then turned to his black-armoured compatriot, "You know what, Turmoil, you're right; this would make a good site. Order the drop here."

Turmoil? That name sounded familiar. Ochako thought back, and remembered that Orion had once made comment of a Turmoil Magnus, and realised that the black-armoured robot must've been him.

Turmoil nodded, and raised his arm to speak into a communicator. Orion and D-16, meanwhile, looked at Sentinel in confusion, and D-16 asked, "Um, sir, what was-"

"You should be proud," Sentinel tilted his head to look back to D-16 and Orion Pax, "You've both saved me quite a bit of work."

"What... what do you mean?"

"Oh, well you see, recently, there have been concerns in the Senate about housing issues. Considering the amount of bots in need of homes, many Senators," he spared an aside to Ulchtar, who was unapologetic in his glare back, "Have been working hard to identify new places for us to build new homes and complexes to house everyone. I've been running up and down Iacon itself, trying to find a good place for us to expand the city."

He tapped the memorial once again.

"And you know what? You've helped me find just the place for us to start."

The Autobots' and Cybertronians' eyes widened in shock, and D-16 held a look of abhorrence across his face, "What are you... what are you saying?"

Sentinel rolled his optics, clearly annoyed that they weren't picking up on the subtext, "I'm ordering this place torn down. All of it, the statues, the monuments, we're paving it over. Effective immediately."

The Cybertronians looked on in horror, whilst Sentinel's guards showed no reaction to his words. D-16 looked like he was about to burst with anger, "You can't do this! This is a memorial to our past! A religious site! A monument to the Primus, to the Thirteen Primes and everything that they sacrificed to save us from-"

"I," Sentinel interrupted D-16's rant with a sharp tone, "Am going to rid Cybertron of the greatest lie that the Quintessons ever told us: that there is such a thing as a god."

"...What?"

"You may not see it, boy," Sentinel spun himself around to glare not just at D-16, but Orion and all the other Cybertronians with them, "For lack of looking... but ever action I take, I do so for Cybertron. And this," he gestured his hand to the statues behind him, "Is nothing but poison to the mind. The belief in myth and old tales is a lie. Cybertronians should be looking forward to the future, not looking back and drinking ourselves drunk on ancient legends and lies."

"But- you're a Prime! You were chosen by the Matrix Flame itself!"

"A trivial gimmick," he dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand, "Gears and levers and lights and shadows, nothing more. The Matrix Flame is nothing more than a religious paperweight created by the Quintessons to blind us, along with the Thirteen Primes, the Covenant, Primus, Unicron, and the entire Theocracy. Religion as a form of control, a way to keep us enslaved, like happy, ignorant little servants, all to willing to serve our masters for the sake of a divinity that never existed in the first place."

"But-"

"But nothing!" Sentinel's tone made it clear that the conversation was over, "There's nothing sacred about our species, little bot. There's no god waiting for us when our gears stop turning and our sparks stop flaring, there's no afterlife, there is nothing special or divine about us. It's all a lie that we've been willing to live with for far too long," Sentinel turned back to the memorial, and clenched his fist, "It's time to stop believing in divinity, and turn that belief into the future."

He turned to his agents and guards as construction vehicles began to roll into the square, transforming themselves and setting up posts and oversized building machines around the premises. Ochako, through her time with her parents' construction business, was able to look past the alien vehicle designs and see the various functions and purposes of each of them, with some being bulldozers, some being diggers, and others being dump trucks and the Cybertronian equivalent of a cement mixer.

"Shadow Striker, Roulette, make sure that these bots get home safely," his faux polite mask was back up, the venom in his voice having faded away, "Take the Elite Guard with you if you have to. Just make sure that they don't get up to any trouble," he said the last words with emphasis, keeping his optics on the group before turning back to the memorial as the construction bots (Constructibots, Ochako shortened in her mind) began to apply scaffolding and gravity lifts around the site.

"...So there's nothing divine about us?" D-16's voice was quiet and low. His head was lowered, and it was hard to see his expression.

Sentinel nodded, "Nothing at all."

"...Not even a Prime?" D-16's hands clenched into fists.

Sentinel hummed, then nodded again, "Not even a Prime..."

He missed the intent behind D-16's words.

And so, the bots were led off the stage by Shadow Striker, Roulette, and Sentinel's Elite Guard, and Orion turned to D-16-

Right before the hologram fizzled out and faded from existence, returning the three girls to the garage once more as Bumblebee slumped to the ground behind them.

"Bee!" Ochako ran to his side, almost tripping up on the stray bits of wires and metal on the ground (if her parents saw this place, they'd have a heart attack), before running to the yellow Autobot's side and putting her hands on his arm and chest, trying to hold the robot up despite their difference in size and bodily composition, "What's wrong?"

He let out another groan in response, but one quieter than the others as he leant himself against the wall, his lights disturbingly dim. Ochako was panicking, not understanding what was going on. Why did Bee looked so tired? Was he dying? She didn't know, and she feared for her friend.

Thankfully, Yui seemed to have an answer, "We need more batteries," Ochako looked to him with an expression between confusion and fear, and the stoic Yui gestured to the wires from the battery on the floor connected to Bumblebee's chest, "It's the power that he's getting: it isn't enough. It might be enough to keep him out of... stasis," she said the last word carefully, "But it's only just enough."

Ochako looked over to Bumblebee and noticed how his crimson bio-lights were incredibly dim. His blue optics were losing their shine, and his internal gears and mechanisms weren't as bright or spinning as fast as they should've been.

"She's right," Hatsume had put away her notebook when the hologram ended, and patted Bee on his other arm, "We're drip-feeding him energy - energon. He's not getting a full meal. The more power he gets, the more his internals will kick in, I imagine. The more he'll self-repair, and maybe the more he'll remember."

Ochako didn't know. She understood what they were saying, but the main problem was, "Where are we going to get more batteries? We're only, what, fourteen years old? We're not going to be able to buy them from a repair shop or hardware store without raising some massive eyebrows," she was also pretty sure that some of them might just say no to them buying car batteries out of the blue. She didn't think there was an age limit on it, but shops still had the right to refuse sales for one reason or another.

"We could always order them online," Ochako frowned at Yui's suggestion, "You don't like it?"

"If the Senate and Sentinel Prime did go to war with Orion and D's Autobots, then they must've followed Bee here," Hatsume filled in for her, stating it as a matter of fact rather than a point of concern, "That's probably why he's so beat up."

"So?" Yui asked

"So, they might have ways of tracking him, probably through the internet or electronic payments, as well as IP addresses and stuff. We have to assume that Sentinel and his goons have got some way of keeping tabs on us."

"If they could track us, don't you think they would've already found us?"

"That's because we've been keeping on the downlow. At least as low as we can get," Hatsume added, "Electronic payments still leave a paper trail, even if we use a VPN or firewalls."

"That, and I don't trust online payments," Ochako shook her head, "Shipping prices and hidden costs, an absolute nightmare... but that doesn't solve the problem of how we get Bee the energy he needs. We can't just plug him into the mains again."

"...Well," Hatsume began, "I do know a place..."

---

The warehouse looked like it had been made out of tarp and scraps of rusty metal.

Ochako felt like she was going to get tetanus just from looking at the oversized shed. It was covered in rain coverings and slapdash metal sheets, all welded together to cover up holes and tears in the metal. The windows of the building were mismatched, with the colours and designs of their frames differentiating between each pane of chipped glass. Outside the building was a collection of half-disassembled cars and trucks and so on, all sitting and resting in the sun whilst the shells of others, gutted and hollow, sat in rows atop one another, lining the sides of the warehouse whilst a battered magnetic crane cast a wide shadow in the setting sun. Over the wide sliding door at the front of the warehouse was a rickety old sign spelt with what looked like flickering Christmas lighting:

Claptrap and Slaptrap's Scrap Shack
​

Forget Hatsume's garage, her parents would die on the spot if they saw this place.

"This is... where you get all your stuff for your inventions from?" Ochako quietly asked Hatsume, unable to take her eyes of the rusty death-trap that stood before her.

"Yep!" Hatsume chirped happily as she dragged a pull along trolley behind her, "Whenever I can't get what I need from whatever washes up on a beach, I get it from here!"

"A rusty old scrapyard that looks like it should've been shut down for health violations years ago?"

"Yep yep!"

"I'm not going in there," Yui firmly stated.

"Oh come on, don't be a downer Sizey!"

"I'm not going in there."

"Yui, let's just go in. Hatsume wouldn't bring us here if it wasn't safe," Ochako paused, then looked at Hatsume, "It is safe, right?"

"Oh yeah, totally," Hatsume nodded, then paused and pulled something out of their pockets, "Just... put on some gloves. Just in case."

Ochako and Yui looked between each other, then hesitantly put on the gloves that Hatsume gave them.

With that done, Hatsume quickly strolled over to the wide front doors and rapped her gloved knuckles against the door. Ochako swore that she could see flakes of rusty metal bounce off the door as the inventor slammed her hand against it.

What followed next was a comical series of sounds, from crashing metal to shouting voices to what sounded like a screeching cat, all before the door opened up and-

Was that a fucking gun?

"Oh Hatsume, my main girl, what's up?" chirped a girl just a few years older than them, with bright blue skin, strawberry red hair, sharp purple eyes, tattoos across her whole body, and dressed in a dirty brown apron over dark blue overalls with heavy boots and gloves hands, as well as a toolbelt around their waist and a face shield that'd been lifted up.

Oh, as well as what looked like a homemade stun gun currently pointed at Hatsume's head.

"Nothing much, Claptrap, what's up with you?" Hatsume cheerfully replied, completely unfazed by the custom electric gun that was currently aimed at her face, "You finally got your custom electro-pistol working?"

"Working, just not patented yet!" the girl named Claptrap happily smiled before an angry frown took over her face, "S'taking me a biitch and a half for it. Fucking Detnerat, always trying to stir shit for us young inventors."

"Ugh, tell me about it. Did you know that they're trying to claim the rights to oversee hero school contracts for support item development?"

"What, that's bullshit!"

"I know right!"

"I thought they only did lifestyle support items?"

"Yeah, well, they're wanting to branch into the hero industry!"

"Ah, fucking corpos, man."

"Well, I'm aiming to be a corpo myself, remember?"

"Yeah, and when that day comes, we'll be mortal enemies destined to die on the battlefield."

"But until then, I'm still your favourite customer?"

Claptrap grinned and pulled the stun gun away from Hatsume's head, "Obviously," she turned her head to the side, spotting the shocked and frozen Ochako and Yui still staring at her, "Who're these guys? Are you finally socialising like I've been screaming at you to do for the last three years?"

"Sort of," Hatsume made a So-So gesture with her hand, "They're... clients, and we need some parts. A couple car batteries, specifically."

"For your babies?"

"Something like that."

"They paying you?"

"Something like that."

Claptrap gave the girls an aside look, narrowed her eyes and silently judged them, before nodding to Hatsume and turning her head back into the warehouse, "Yo bro, Hatsume's here!"

"Eh!?" was the cry that came from inside the warehouse, "Little pink lady's here?!"

"Yeah, and she brought customers! So get your fucking business face on!" Claptrap turned back to Hatsume, "In you come. Slaptrap'll show you where the batteries are," and then to Ochako and Yui, "And you two? You can look around if you want. You touch anything, you're buying it, got it?"

Ochako and Yui looked at each other, then nodded, "Got it."

With that, Claptrap stepped aside and let a happy-go-lucky Hatsume stroll inside, with a hesitant Yui and Ochako following shortly after, Claptrap shutting the door behind them. The inside of the warehouse was only slightly more organised than the outside, with stacks and stacks of shelves reaching up to the ceiling, filled with metal scraps and parts all bundled together in rows and orders with labels denoting part names and sizes and models.

Then, they saw someone jump out from behind the stacks. An older man with similar features to Claptrap, but with pale blue skin instead of rich blue, scraggly black hair, bandoleers filled with tools covering his chest, and a third eye in the middle of his forehead. If it wasn't for the dirt and muck covering him, and his general unkempt appearance, Ochako might've considered him handsome.

"Yo yo yo, little pink lady! You're still alive!" called the scraggly worker man, "I figured that you would've blown yourself up with all your inventions by now!"

"Ha, it's gonna take a bit more than a few explosions to kill me, Slappy, you know that!" Hatsume chortled in response.

"Ha, should've known! I wouldn't have taught ya anything if I didn't think you'd go down taking everyone else down with you!" Slappy, or Slaptrap as Ochako realised, then asked, "So, what can I do for my favourite customer?"

"Favourite customer? I'm your only customer! I'm the only person who ever bothers to come down to this place and all its health hazards!" Hatsume grinned before holding out her hand, "And I need car batteries. As many as I can take with me."

"Oh, you inventing cars now?"

"What, am I due explanations? I thought your slogan was, 'You buy it, we don't ask why.'"

"Ah, so hush hush then. It's gotta be something special then, eh?" Slaptrap patted himself on the side, then thumbed a shelf off to the side, "You're lucky, today. Had some misty guy come in the other day, buy almost all our batteries. Kuro-something, I don't know. Lucky for you, I've got three or four left over."

"Four is better than none," Hatsume nodded, "Lead the way, my man."

Hatsume and Slaptrap marched off to the shelf, with Ochako and Yui watching from behind.

Yui, meanwhile, looked at Claptrap, who'd been standing behind them, "So..."

Claptrap looked at Yui in turn, "So...?"

"Claptrap."

"Yeah?"

"And Slaptrap."

"Not our real names."

Yui blinked, "And what are your real names?"

"What are you, a cop? A hero? Get of my back, little lady."

Yui hummed, "Is that why you had a gun when you opened the door?"

"A stun gun. And no, it's because there've been people trying to take stuff from our shop before. Like very recently, before. Best to stay on your toes when dealing with rowdy customers, eh?"

"Aren't we your only customers?"

"And the misty guy."

"..."

"We're constantly in the red."

"Thought so."

Ochako paid no mind to their conversation. She kept her eyes on Slaptrap, feeling uneasy around him. To see Hatsume being so close to this strange man... well, they may not be close, but she still felt concerned. She turned to Claptrap and pointed a finger at the two yapping inventors, "So... those two."

"My brother and Hatsume," Claptrap raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah... what's the deal with..." Ochako wiggled a finger at the two, the latter showing off the car batteries that they had and the former trying to barter and haggle the prices, both with smiles on their face, "That?"

"Oh, Hatsume used to come here all the time when she was younger," Claptrap explained, "Still does. We're practically her babysitters," Ochako looked to her for clarification, "Her parents and us are close with each other, and they'd drop her off with us. We all go way back."

"And those two?"

Claptrap, Ochako, and Yui turned their heads over to Hatsume and Slaptrap, who was currently bragging about his latest inventions and tech to the smaller girl.

"You still been using those metal cleaning methods like I taught you?"

"Heck yeah I have! Rust knows no safety around me!"

"That's my girl!"

"Oh, Slaptrap is Hatsume's mentor," Claptrap told them, "He taught her everything she knows in inventing. I'm pretty sure that's where she gets all her habits from."

"Ah," Ochako hummed, staring at the two for a while.

Claptrap raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Well, it's just... those two. What is he... doing with her?"

"Doing with her, what are you..." Claptrap took a moment to digest her question, before an offended look stretched across her face and she hissed, "Wha- that is my brother you're talking about!"

"W- no, I mean-"

"God, I mean I hate that guy's guts, but Jesus Christ, that is- he's obsessed with inventing, okay? Even more than me. He doesn't give a slag about sex or romance, and even if he did, he'd never want to do with someone younger than him."

Ochako spared a glance over to Hatsume and Slaptrap, the younger girl trying to hold his arm to convey her excitement, and the older man pulling it away and making a gagging motion before the two erupted with laughter, "Huh," she turned back to Claptrap, "Sorry."

The blue-skinned girl let out a harrumph noise, "It's fine. I'd be weirded out if my friend was talking with a older man that I didn't know," she paused for a moment, then asked, "What about you?"

"What?"

"You and quiet girl," she gestured to Yui, "What's your deal? Why're you with her?"

"I..." Ochako paused. They couldn't exactly tell her the truth, that they'd been hiding an alien robot that was on the run from an oppressive government on another planet in Hatsume's garage, and calling Hatsume a friend felt... awkward, so she settled for, "We're... clients. Yeah. Hatsume working with us on something."

Claptrap gave her a scrutinising look, "Is that so?"

"Yeah..." Ochako murmured.

Claptrap stared at her for a long time, then turned her eyes back to Hatsume and her brother, as Slaptrap hefted the few remaining batteries that he had into Hatsume's reinforced trolley.

"So... what's she building for you?" the blue-skinned woman asked.

Ochako wasn't sure how to answer, but luckily Yui cut in with, "Can't say, I'm afraid," her words were emotionless in tone, "Client confidentiality."

Claptrap scrunched up her mouth like she'd just chewed on a bitter lemon, "Huh," then looked back to her brother and Hatsume, "And where did you Hatsume?"

This one, Ochako could answer, "Oh, we met her on the beach, trying to scrap an old car," that part wasn't a lie, at least. She could say that with confidence.

Claptrap hummed, "Well, my brother does love using what other people leave behind. Go figure that Mei got that from him too."

Nearby, Hatsume and Slaptrap seemed like they wanted to talk with each other more, Slaptrap gesturing to all the tools that he had on his bandoleers and Hatsume looking on with awe.

"I worry about that girl. I really do," Claptrap said, "I mean, I've been with that girl since she was in her younger years. I babysat for her, I helped raise her into-" she stopped herself, took in a breath, then looked at Ochako and Yui, "I'm just worried. That's all."

Ochako looked at Claptrap, finding something familiar about her words. She smiled as she said, "You've got a right to worried. I get it. God knows my parents are worried for me everyday of the week as well," they didn't try to communicate it much during their phone calls, but she could tell it was still there.

Claptrap sighed, "Yeah, I know. It's... embarrassing."

"It's not embarrassing to be concerned for someone you've helped raise."

"But it's embarrassing to call her your friend?"

Ochako clammed up. Claptrap gave her a scrutinising look, narrowing her eyes and furrowing her brow, before folding her arms together and leaning against the shelf behind her.

The brown-haired girl looked at her with cautious eyes, "It's... complicated."

"Uncomplicate it."

"I can't."

"You can't," Claptrap leant forward, "Or you won't?"

Yui stepped forward, putting herself between Ochako and the taller woman, "Hatsume is not in any danger, if that's what you're concerned about."

"Is that so?"

"It's exactly so," Yui stated, "Hell, I could say the same for this place."

Claptrap narrowed her eyes, "We're not selling to villains, if that's what you're wondering."

"Is that so?"

"S'exactly so."

"So we're supposed to just assume that you haven't had any suspicious people coming around?" Yui pressed further, "No one of questionable character? Because you said it yourself that you and your brother are constantly in the red. You mean to tell me that there aren't any under-the-table deals going on in here to keep this place from going broke? You pointed a stun gun at someone's head when we walked in. Who were you waiting for? Customers, heroes, or one of your deals gone badly?"

Yui prodded forward and poked Claptrap in her chest.

"Because I guarantee you that if I sent a tip in to the local heroes, it won't just be health code violations that they find here."

"You're not in any position to make threats. None at all."

Claptrap stared at Yui with narrow eyes. Yui stared back with a blank expression.

Ochako looked between the two of them with a bewildered look on her face, concerned over what would happen next. Yui wasn't one to make idle threats. If she said she was going to do something, then she was going to do it.

And she doubted that Claptrap would want the authorities snooping around in her business, either police or hero.

Her palm grew sweaty as she waited for the inevitable fight to break out, trying to formulate a plan in her head on how to respond-

Then Claptrap did something neither of them had expected.

She laughed. Like proper guffawed and slapped her knee.

"Ha! For a little runt, you've got spunk, kid!" Claptrap bellyached as she gestured a finger to the stoic girl, "I like you. You got guts and you're not afraid to show it," she gestured a finger at Ochako, "You though? You're on thin ice."

Ochako paused. She was still processing the sudden loss of killing intent. Yui was too. It was one hell of a whiplash, to say the least.

Nearby, Hatsume and Slaptrap had finished their conversation and filled her trolley up with batteries, with Hatsume handing Slaptrap a wad of cash and Slaptrap giggling as he counted it all up, muttering to himself about all the parts for his inventions that he was going to buy.

Hatsume, with a smile, turned her head to Ochako, Yui and Claptrap, then tilted her head at the nervous expressions the former two had, "Er... what's up with you guys?"

"Ah, nothing at all," Claptrap waved it off, a smile on her face, "These guys were just telling me how happy they are to be here."

"Oh, cool," Hatsume said obliviously.

Claptrap smiled and nodded, before patting the two quiet girls on their shoulder, pulling them close to her, and whispering:

"You hurt her, and I hurt you. And I won't care about any legal bullshit."

Ochako nodded furiously, then jabbed Yui in the side to get her to do the same.

Ochako definitely didn't drag her cousin out by her arm when they were leaving that place.

"Hatsume," Ochako finally said after they walked a block of distance between them and the warehouse, "You know some... interesting people."

"Well," Hatsume grinned, "All the best people are."