#i'm NOT shipping arcee and blurr!! they r just both blue and tiny so i had to make them besties

[favesgrave]

Cut the Heroics

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((this is the last time i try posting this. if it doesnt show up in the tags then i give up))

---

The mood had been… a bit odd lately. Recovering the Omega Key and Smokescreen was of course a success, but the loss of the Star Saber was not. A weapon that powerful had shattered like glass next to Megatron’s and had brought Optimus down to his knees in defeat. It was chilling, none of them could deny that. They knew a weapon like that in Megatron’s hands would only bring forth more suffering.

Not all was lost though. One key was in their possession, while the other three were unaccounted for. If they had any luck left, then the Decepticons wouldn’t discover the true purpose of them.

Their work was definitely cut out for them. Optimus knew, and was diligent as ever with his decoding. Blurr would watch him, studying the speed of his typing with interest. If he knew anything about how the technology here worked, or anything about this universe in general, then maybe he could help. Sadly, he was still learning.

He stood near Arcee and Bulkhead, the three of them behind Smokescreen.

“I’m gonna be a great warrior someday,” he said, fully confident in himself. “Like Optimus.”

“Well, train hard and gain some wisdom along the way, and I’m sure it’ll happen,” Bulkhead encouraged. 

“Oh, it will.” Smokescreen turned to look at them, a smile on his face. “It’s my destiny.”

“What was that now?” Bumblebee asked in a way that reminded Blurr of his Bumblebee back home.

Blurr made a face. “Sorry, could you repeat that? Did you say your destiny?”

“How so?” Arcee asked and he was glad that someone was on his side.

Smokescreen remained unbothered by their skepticism. “Well, one minute I’m running security detail at Iacon, the next I wake up on the other side of the galaxy to find myself under Optimus’s command! I mean, what are the chances, right? Things happen for a reason!”

“Smokescreen, I believe the word you’re looking for is a coincidence,” Blurr stated. “Do you need me to define it for you?”

He rolled his optics at that. “Haha, hilarious, Blurr. I’m serious though!”

Arcee raised a hand, cutting him off to spare the rest of them. “We get it, Smokescreen. You’re special, we’re lucky to have you,” she said dryly. 

“I’m just saying! I’ve come a long way, and this is one opportunity I don’t plan on messing up.” He was being genuine about it, Blurr could tell. But Smokescreen was prone to rushing into things without thinking. Judging on what he’d seen so far, that could cost him his life. He’d already faked them out once before, Team Prime did not need to experience the real deal.

“Autobots,” Optimus said, putting a stop to the conversation. “The next Iacon coordinates have been decoded. Ratchet, ready the groundbridge.”

“Last one to the Omega Key has to scrub the energon tanks for a week!” Smokescreen said, right before dashing off to the groundbridge in a typical Smokescreen manner leaving Arcee to remark about how she didn’t know they were keeping score.

Optimus seemed to have other plans, however. “Arcee, Bumblebee, prepare to roll out.”

“You got it, Optimus,” Bee beeped, buzzing with energy.

“Wait, what about me?” Smokescreen questioned. Bulkhead rested his servos on his hips while Blurr crossed his arms.

“Excuse me, I think you’re forgetting Bulkhead and I!”

Smokescreen looked over, cringed slightly at his error, and then quickly amended it. “I mean me, Bulkhead, and Blurr.” He stole a quick glance at the two, who still weren’t thrilled about being glossed over, but looked slightly more appeased than they had a few moments prior. 

“The three of you will remain here in the event I am able to decode a subsequent database entry before the others return,” Optimus explained. With that out of the way, he turned his focus back to decoding and let Ratchet take over the conversation.

“Optimus is right. Considering the very fate of Cybertron is at stake, response time is critical.” Then he finally opened up the groundbridge for Arcee and Bumblebee, who stood at the ready.

“Keep your engines idling, kid.” Arcee had looked over at the younger mech, preparing a jab at him. “Come on Bee, destiny awaits.” The two transformed and rolled off into the bridge, leaving behind a disappointed Smokescreen. All that eagerness had been sucked out of him in an instant. Now he’d been left behind in the base, cooped up until it was his turn for a mission. As he moved closer to him, Blurr found that he could sympathize with that. He always felt the need to be doing something as well, even if it was as meaningless as tapping his pede.

“We call it a pit stop,” Bulkhead said, proceeding to give Smokescreen a hard clap on the back that knocked him forward and made Blurr jump. He knew it was just Bulkhead being Bulkhead, but he also knew that if he ever got hit like that by the green mech, it would send him smackdown into the floor. He would like to avoid that scenario. He also thought about how Bulkhead was a bit of a hugger, with a very, very strong grip. Humans called it a bear hug. 

“I know you mean well Bulkhead but please never do that to me or hug me because I want to avoid getting crushed by you.“

Bulkhead laughed as he looked down at him. “Don’t worry, I’m smart enough to know not to try any of that. You’re not built like the rest of us.”

“You’re all very different from me, that’s true,” Blurr nodded. 

“So… is everyone as short as you back in your universe?” Smokescreen said, doing some thinking aloud. 

“No,” Blurr fixed him with a glare. “Autobots can vary in height following a certain range, though there are some exceptions such as Omega Supreme, but since most of us aren’t warframes like the Decepticons we tend to be much smaller than our opponents. It’s never a problem for civilians since they rarely ever encounter Decepticons considering the Tyrest Accord.”

Smokescreen and Bulkhead shared a look. “What’s the Tyrest Accord?”

“It’s what ended the war! The Decepticons were given a pardon for their actions during the war as long as they agreed to their exile from Cybertron. I can’t be surprised that you don’t know of it since your war never ended though that brings me to my own question; Once you revive Cybertron, what are your plans after that regarding the Decepticons? What’s stopping them from killing the planet all over again?”

There wasn’t an answer for a few seconds. “Sounds like an Optimus question,” Bulkhead said. “Or maybe a Ratchet one.”

The plan, as far as they knew, was that there was no plan. They’d never imagined getting a chance like this to revive their dead homeworld, not in a million years. For everyone’s sake, Blurr hoped they figured it out soon.

The last thing he wanted was to see Cybertron burn.

After all, the nightmares of it were already horrifying enough.

---

Not too long later, Arcee and Bumblebee stepped through the bridge covered in fresh scratches and holding no relic. Any doubt of them failing their mission had been erased as Ratchet ushered them both to the med-bay.

Another victory that was lost to the Decepticons, but their hope hadn’t been eliminated yet.

But they still had one key. They just had to hold onto that one. If they did that, then they could still hold onto their chance.

“While our quest to restore our planet may have reached a stalemate, securing the remaining keys is still the most prudent course of action.” As usual, Optimus spoke only facts.

And to no one’s surprise, Smokescreen wasn’t the most skilled at reading the room. “Man, it must’ve been crazy with Knockout going all sonic. Ugh, I wish I’d been there! I would’ve-“

“Would’ve what?” Arcee cut in, her wings flattened to her back as she glared at him. “Recover the key like you did the first one?”

“Maybe,” Smokescreen said. “Who knows? I just want us to be firing at all cylinders! You know, now that the Star Saber’s gone. And I have a pretty good track record so far.” 

Arcee scoffed and pushed herself to her pedes, stalking past him silently. Blurr watched, silently pondering on whether or not he should go after her. She had comforted him when he needed it, was it his turn to do the same? Arcee seemed to like her space, and he didn’t want to intrude on that. He didn’t actually know the first thing about comforting a bot. So, he stayed where he was.

“Look kid,” Blurr tuned back into the conversation to listen to Bulkhead begin to speak. “Arcee and Bumblebee are no slouches, and Optimus managed just fine for eons without the big sword. ‘Course you wouldn’t know about that, you’ve been locked in stasis the whole time we’ve been fighting this war.”

Blurr didn’t exactly know about any of that either, but it went without saying that he got a pass.

“Exactly!” Smokescreen agreed, like someone was finally getting it. “And I’m ready to make up for lost time!”

“When Optimus says you’re ready,” Bulkhead shot back. “You gotta be in this for the long haul. Slow and steady wins the race.”

“Not necessarily,” Blurr said. Speed had always gotten the job done for him… for better or for worse. It’d almost cost him his mission back on Earth with that whole street-racing scheme. He still hated thinking about it. 

“Sometimes, you gotta live life in the slow lane,” Bulkhead told him, ignoring the face he made. That sounded like an actual nightmare for him, so they would have to agree to disagree indefinitely on that one.

There wasn’t much more that could be said, on account of the familiar beeping that rang through the base. “The next Iacon coordinates are ready,” Optimus announced.

“There remains one set left to decode,” Ratchet said. He put in the required coordinates to give them a fix on the location, then pulled the switch that brought the groundbridge to life. 

“On it boss,” Bulkhead said.

“I’m gonna bring back that key,” Smokescreen promised. He took one look at Arcee, who looked skeptical but didn’t comment on it.

“Uh, Bulk?” she called out. Once he turned around, she held up the tracker for the relic. “Forgetting something?” He stared for a short moment before facepalming and shuffling on over to take the tracker. As Blurr passed them by to join Smokescreen, he couldn’t help but listen in as the two exchanged words, something about keeping an eye on destiny’s child. It didn’t take a genius to know Arcee meant Smokescreen.

Blurr was stopped by the voice of a red and blue “Blurr, I would like to request that you remain here.”

“What? With all due respect Optimus Prime sir, I can’t see the reason for me staying behind when there could be a larger advantage with me going, especially after the last attempt of grabbing an Omega Key went wrong, which I don’t mean any offense to Bumblebee and Arcee.”

“I understand your argument…” Optimus gave a nod to Bulkhead, telling him that he and Smokescreen could go. “Though I have my own concerns. While your quick-thinking has demonstrated to be useful in the heat of battle, you are still new to war.” Blurr’s face dropped at that. So Arcee had been right when she said everyone else had probably figured it out. He knew it would happen eventually, but he would have liked to be at least a bit more ready. “With Megatron’s power growing, there is no doubt his attempts to retrieve the Omega Keys will prove to be more harrowing. I will not put you in that danger.”

Blurr gaped up at him. “So are you saying that I’m not allowed to go on any more missions and that I’m confined to base?” He could practically already feel the claustrophobia setting in.

“No,” he answered. “I believe you need to learn more knowledge of our world before you are ready to engage in more perilous missions.” He would prefer not to send him into the field at all considering how young he was, but knew Blurr wouldn’t accept that. He was stubborn, after all.

“I can see the logic behind your reasoning,” Blurr admitted. “Will I be given datapads to read from or learn from a teacher?” His first guess was Ratchet since Optimus was too busy at the moment, and the medic was the second most knowledgeable Autobot they had.

“I think it would be best to use both methods,” Optimus said, looking in another direction. Blurr followed his optics, which landed on Arcee. That was a surprise, but a welcome one. “I have already discussed it with Arcee, and she has agreed to give you a few lessons. I suggest you begin now.” He nodded down at him and left him to join up with Arcee.

“Are you sure you’re willing to do this right now? If you’re injured, then you should rest to recover because not doing so could possibly worsen your wounds,” he chided.

Arcee chuckled. “I’m just a little sore, don’t worry. Come on,” she said and started down the hall. “Tell me what you learned in your Elite Guard.”

“Well before even joining the Guard, I had to go through training at Autobot Boot Camp where my platoon and I learned all the necessary skills any talented Autobot should know and my speed naturally made me stick out among my peers, giving me my name and allowing me to move onto the Autobot Academy which is a more prestigious institution where most Elite Guardsmen start out, with some exceptions.”

“You got your name from boot camp?”

“Of course! Most Autobots do,” he said. “I take your outrage as a sign of things being different here.”

“Sometimes we’re given names, but we’re allowed to choose our own names too,” she said. “Back on Cybertron before the war, there were lower caste bots who weren't ever given real names. And they chose them for themselves.” 

A caste system? It suddenly occurred to Blurr how little he actually knew about this universe’s Cybertron, besides the fact that it was dead. “Would you mind elaborating?” 

Her optics widened slightly, like she thought he had misspoke, but she obliged. Different universes meant different circumstances. “Cybertron had three classes. High, middle, and lower. Lower class belonged to the manual laborers, like miners and haulers. The caste system is the reason the war broke out in the first place. A miner-turned-gladiator started giving speeches, gaining a following…”

“Megatron,” Blurr guessed, feeling uneasy just saying his name. He hadn’t forgotten the cruel look in his optics, or the way he threatened to slice Arcee in half. He wouldn’t ever forget any of that. But what scared him most of all was the fact Megatron knew that there was something that marked Blurr as different from the rest of the Autobots. He wanted to have a little chat about it, but Megatron’s definition of a chat was more likely some kind of torture session, one Blurr wanted zero part of.

Arcee had nodded, confirming his theory. “It didn’t take long for the war to break out after that.” She stopped in front of a wide, empty room. This was supposed to be an old human base, so Blurr could only wonder what they used to cram in here. “What kind of training did they teach you?”

“Most of it was all battlefield simulations to sharpen our ability to think fast while in combat, but there were occasions where we would be put into pairs to spar or on teams to compete against each other. They would test us often in order to rank our strengths and weaknesses and those results would all factor into courses, sometimes increasing difficulty levels on assignments.”

“I can work with that,” she said. “But ‘Cons fight dirty. It’s not going to be like a simulation. It’s not fair, but we still have a few things that can even the odds. The Apex Armor, the Immobilizer, the Polarity Gauntlet, the Spark Extractor,” she listed. His optics widened at the last one. “Some we use only if we have to, but this is a war we’re outnumbered in. We have to do what we need to to survive. But, I’ll take a guess and say you don’t have any of those relics back home.” When he shook his head, she went into a quick summary that covered the basics of each weapon, but promised there was a more in depth version written down. “I’ll give you the datapads later.”

“When I first arrived here and told you about how your alternate self was a teacher you were very dismissive of the idea but look at you now,” Blurr said.

“Don’t push it,” she said, without any real venom in her tone. “Optimus thought I’d be a good match to train you.”

“Because we’re both small,” he said. He had been taller than his universe’s Bumblebee, but now he barely reached this one’s hips. If his Bumblebee ever saw, he would hold that over him while also despairing over the fact that he couldn’t be as tall as his other self. He hadn’t known him for that long, but he was a slightly annoying bot, so it seemed about right. Despite a few lapses in judgment, his spark was in the right place. He at least had that going for him. 

He pushed Bumblebee out of mind to focus on the lesson. He didn’t have a clue why he’d even been thinking of him in the first place, maybe it’d just been homesickness.

“Being small will get you underestimated,” Arcee continued. It’s what some of his instructors would repeat to all their students. “So use that to your advantage. Your speed’s already a good start, it can let you take down your opponent before they even know what hit them.”

He took half a second to think about what she said. “When you say ‘take down’ you mean kill, don’t you?”

She looked away from him. That in itself was already an answer. “Sometimes there isn’t a choice,” she said quietly. “And I hope you never get put in that position... I mean that.”

He believed her, he really did. But he remembered the way the Autobots had gunned down those Decepticons that had been after him the first day he arrived in this strange universe. There’d been no hesitation there, even from Smokescreen, who was pretty green as far as combat experience went. He was already preparing for the day he’d have to make that same life or death choice.

They both received a message from Ratchet, informing them that Bulkhead and Smokescreen were about to return.

“Guess lesson’s over for today,” Arcee said. She left the room to rejoin Ratchet and Optimus, and Blurr took that as his cue to follow. By the time they’d gotten there, Smokescreen and Bulkhead had already come back… neither of them carrying an Omega Key. They’d just finished explaining what had happened to Optimus and Ratchet, Smokescreen in particular looking like his pride had been beaten down.

“What happened?” Arcee asked.

“Smokescreen was sucker-punched.” Blurr’s optics widened at that. Who’d been fast enough to get the drop on him? “Could’ve happened to any of us.” Bulkhead tried to comfort him with his words and put a servo on the kid’s shoulder, but got shoved away.

“But it didn’t,” Smokescreen said. “Because I was the one who dropped his guard. I was the one who blew it. Some great warrior I’m turning out to be,” he said under his breath.

Arcee didn’t take that lightly. “You still don’t get it, do you? A couple of victories aren’t gonna make you a legend, and not every mission results in success. Not for me, not for Bee, not even for Optimus.” Blurr noticed Optimus glance over at his team at the mention of his name. His optics darted away from his leader and back to the others in a panic. Something was about to happen, and he had the feeling it wasn’t going to be good.

 “We’ve gained some relics and we’ve lost some. We’ve also lost friends. We’ve even lost a world!” she snapped at him. “But this is one time we get a do-over. We have a chance to bring back Cybertron and everyone in this room needs to be in sync. This isn’t about you or your destiny.” Smokescreen didn’t have any snappy comeback at the ready, only dropping his gaze to the floor. 

Optimus finally fully faced them all. “Arcee, you’ve made your point.” 

“Optimus, he needs to hear this. You might actually become a great warrior someday, and I sincerely hope that you do. But greatness begins and ends with putting the team first, not your personal scorecard.”

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you guys!” Smokescreen insisted.

“Then stop trying to be a hero and start being an Autobot,” she finished firmly.

Smokescreen looked to Optimus, maybe hoping for him to defend him, but he only got silence. Silence from Optimus, and silence from the rest of the team. “You know what? Maybe I’m just not good enough,” he snapped. Before anyone else could get another word in, he transformed and sped out of the base.

“Maybe next time Optimus advises you to stop, perhaps you should listen,” Ratchet suggested. Blurr felt a shred of sympathy for Smokescreen for getting chewed out by Arcee like that. She would make a good drill sergeant back home.

“I’ll bring him back.” Bulkhead took a step forward, but a servo placed on his chest by Optimus stopped him.

“Smokescreen is young, Bulkhead, and has much to learn. But right now, he needs to clear his thoughts. And I need to finish decoding the final Iacon entry.”

The final one.

The whole time Blurr had been here, it’d been all about the Iacon relics. What was supposed to come after that? They couldn’t just jump on over to Cybertron, considering they only possessed one key. Retrieving the other two from the Decepticons would be no easy task, considering they had a warship. Blurr was not feeling confident in their odds, but tried to keep quiet about that.

“Think the kid’ll be okay?” Bulkhead asked worriedly.

“He’ll get over it,” Bumblebee said. “Just give him a bit of space.”

Blurr wished he could be as optimistic as Bumblebee was, but his anxiety was telling him that there was still something wrong and the worst wasn’t over. Maybe he was just being paranoid. Yeah, that had to be it.

“Smokescreen’s a very confident and proud bot so one loss such as this will feel like the end of the world to him,” Blurr commented. Then, he realized he had not helped things and winced internally before trying to lighten the mood again. “But I’m sure Bumblebee’s right and that he’ll bounce back in no time!”

“We’ll see…” Bulkhead said.

There was at least some good news as Optimus told the others the final relic entry had been decoded.

“Has it?” Ratchet questioned, staring at a blank screen. It switched to reveal a clump of scattered blue pixels, but it was hard to tell what exactly it meant. Maybe it meant nothing and the file was somehow corrupted. 

“Hm… Perhaps it is a second encryption,” Optimus said. 

Red pixels gradually began to join the blue ones and as Blurr took a closer look, his optics widened. “They seem to be revealing some sort of image, maybe something along the lines of a map as an extra precaution but the more I look at it, the more it looks like a bot!”

“The relic’s a bot?” Bulkhead asked.

“How would that make any sense?” Ratchet said, ever the skeptic. “It’s the fourth Omega Key, it has to be a key as well.”

Optimus’s frown deepened. “I trust that Alpha Trion had his reasons.” 

Once the pixels finally finished assembling, the image was revealed to be…

“Smokescreen?” Bulkhead managed, wondering if he was seeing things wrong. The picture was undeniably him.

Arcee narrowed her optics. “Is this that hot shot’s idea of a joke?” 

“I don’t think he could pull something like this off,” Bumblebee said, and Blurr found himself agreeing.

“Maybe he knows where the key is!” Bulkhead tried, though even he knew that was a long shot.

“And not say anything to any of us? That doesn’t add up!” Blurr interjected. 

“A more likely possibility is that Smokescreen himself somehow is the key without knowing it,” Ratchet said. If they had decoded the final entry by now, then the Decepticons must’ve too. That meant they would have their sights set on him by now.

Blurr hated whenever his anxiety ended up being right.

“Whatever the case, Smokescreen could be in grave danger.” Optimus raised a digit to his commlink and attempted to summon him back, but there was only radio silence.

“He may have deactivated his commlink,” Ratchet said.

“Locate his position and prepare the groundbridge.” Even in a crisis, Optimus still maintained a levelhead. Blurr supposed that’s just one of the things that millions of years of what would get you as a leader.

The urgency of the situation was slowly setting in for everyone. It took mere seconds for Ratchet to get a fix on his signal that was moving rapidly down the roads of Jasper, Nevada. Until suddenly, it came to an abrupt stop. The bridge opened a moment later and the team, minus Ratchet, raced on through. Blurr nearly followed after them until he remembered his orders of staying behind on missions. If there were Decepticons there, then he was sure this counted as one of those times.

Begrudgingly, he stuck by Ratchet. 

His spark nearly gave out when he saw Smokescreen’s signal vanish from the screen. “Is he-?!”

“No,” Ratchet said quickly. “The Decepticons wouldn’t slaughter him so quickly knowing what we do. Since I can no longer track Smokescreen’s signal, then I fear he’s been taken prisoner aboard their ship.”

Another loss to the Decepticons.