#menasor soon.. hopefully

[0wldn0]

Finally drew the fullbody designs of my Earthspark Stunticons!! 🥹💕

[blueikeproductions]

So instead of BotBots, today we’ll discuss EarthSpark for a moment. Some new info cropped up about its upcoming toy line, which hey look at that, is still for KIDS.

Now that we got that band-aid ripped off, here’s some copy pasta:

““Transformers: Earthspark presents many firsts for Transformers that we’re bringing to life for kids. Leaning into insights, we’ve identified core pillars of play that allow us to take conversion to another level and connect with kids to deliver on the magic they want [to be] brought to life in toys. Surprise Conversion, Classic Conversion, and Magic Conversion will create a true show-to-shelf moment for the line and an innovative new way to convert Earthspark’s greatest heroes.””

I’m no expert on toys, as much as I advocate for Transformers to lean more into its toyetic roots (looking at you Prime, RiD15, WFC and Cyberverse), I’m not suuuper sure what Surprise and Magic would refer to. I’m guessing both could be a return to older semi-automatic Transformation gimmicks like Automorph? Are these gimmicks something the EarthSpark Transformers can do that … uh CybertronSpark(?) TFs can’t? (That would be neat if so.)

Are these just new names for things like One Step Changers so as to not piss off everyone and their Great Aunt Arcee who hates this gimmick (I don’t dislike it personally, but I have seen SO MUCH HATRED for a small cog in the scheme of things….).

I mean Magic Conversion mostly makes me think of the red drone guy in a top hat waving a wand around, probably having talked Bee into being part of the bit. “With a flick of my wand, you are now a Volkswagen! A Jeep! A Camero! A Dinosaur! A steam engine!“ Bee: Slow down! Phew! I need to do some Transform Ups again…!

Still hopefully the upcoming toys look cool. I liked the Action Attack gimmick in Cyberverse, the other stuff not so much… (Why do you include Volcanicus and have a return to Crash Combiners, but not actually have a set of Dinobots that can combine into him…? Oh well maybe that was for the best considering Ultra Bee and Menasor not looking … quite up to snuff anyway.)

The only thing I really ask for at this point, and RiD15, the Movie toys and Cyberverse were REALLY bad with this: have some Decepticon variety. The lines have skewed near exclusively to being almost all Autobots, with practically the only Decepticons being Megatron, Starscream and the Waves in some capacity or another. I really want to see Insecticons and as many new EarthSpark Decepticons as possible. Not Megatron and a bajillion Bumblebees, Sideswipes, and Windblades. I don’t want to miss out on possible toys like RiD15 Chop Shop (why wasn’t he a toy? he could’ve been in Combiner Force! It was RIGHT there. Yes I’m still bitter because he was my favorite guy in the show besides Bisk and Clampdown).

I hope we start seeing more toys and character roll calls for EarthSpark soon though. Now that BotBots has settled for now, let’s get some deets on the new bigger Transformers!

[afterspark-podcast]

Intro: Transcript

Episode Show Notes

[This can also be found on AO3!]

O: Welcome to the AfterSpark Podcast, an episode by episode recap of the original G1 Transformers cartoon. I’m Owls!

S: And I’m Specs!

O: And we’re here to talk to you about giant robots. Or at least, we will be! This is actually our intro. What we’d like to do is recap all of generation 1 because it is full of glorious, glorious cheese. Delightful, cheesy goodness and honestly we just want to talk about it, because it’s fun.

S: Yeah

O: And we just wanted to introduce ourselves and kind of our experience with fandom and what things we like before we got into actually talking about the episodes. You should be able to check out our actual first episode the same time we post this. So if you’re like, “Hey, I don’t really care about any of this stuff,” it’s cool, I get it. The other episode’s over there. It’s fine, we’ll see you in a few minutes. For the rest of you that are sticking around, allow us to introduce ourselves. We’ve been friends for nine (9) years.

S: Mm-hmm.

O: Uhh, we went to college together. We were both in art degrees so we like art and comics and media and all that junk.

S: Yep, yep.

O: We’re also neighbors that live in the same building, so one day I was like, “Hey, hey, Specs, want to talk about giant robots?”

S: And I’m like, “Yes!”

O: So here we are, getting ready to talk to you about giant robots, hopefully. We are both first time podcasters, and a shoutout to my husband Chezni for helping us out with sound, so hopefully we don’t sound like complete shit while you’re listening to us. Hopefully it’s a little bit slightly, well, cultured shit -

S: [Laughter]

O: -Or at least our sound quality doesn’t sound awful, because that’s a big deal in podcasting. One of my biggest inspirations was the Jem Jam, which is another podcast that does episode by episode recaps of Jem and the Holograms, which is another Eighties (80’s) Hasbro-

S: -Franchise.

O: Thank you. That is equally ridiculous in vastly different ways. Mostly involving the Eighties (80’s) and music and hair and fashion and all these lovely things.

S: And Soap Opera Drama~!

O: And Soap Opera level of drama. It was also delightful. Go was the show or listen to the podcast because it is completely ridiculous and highly entertaining. But! Something I noticed when I was trying to kind of look around at Transformers podcasts was that I didn’t see anything that quite had that same vibe of just a bunch of friends talking about something ridiculous and I really wanted that and realized it wasn't there and thought, “Eh, maybe we can do that?”

O: And yeah, that’s what we’re trying to do.

S: So. Hi, I’m Specs. I’m been, uhm. Oh, this feels- [sigh] - This feels like I’m in a support group.

O: [Laughter] Welcome! Tell us how Transformers has affected your life. Tell us, Specs! Tell us!

S: Eh, I got into Transformers in like 2002-2003 and I got into it with fanfic. Because of course I did. So much fanfic over the last, like, sixteen (16) years. Oh my god. [huff of laughter]

O: She has quite a collection downloaded.

S: I save things. Habitually. After, uh, there was the great ezboard wipeout of, like, 2005. So, I got into fanfic. Or got into Transformers through fanfic basically I’d been poking through the Medabots thing [category] on fanfiction.net and oh. This person who wrote this thing that I read has also written about these other robots. And I was like, “Ok, let me check this out,” and I had no idea what was going on, so I was like, “I’m going to read through this entire category or at least look through, find whatever the heck looks interesting and then read it,” and that was like  4000 things [fics/works] in the category at that point.

O: Which is significantly less than what’s in there now, I do feel the need to point out. But!

S: I still went through that, and yeah there was a lot of stuff. Yeah, there’s actually still things I really like that I read way back when but basically that was my first exposure to transformers. My first complete canon experience was the G1 [Marvel] comics, but US and UK runs. So I’ve read the entirety of that and I think I read that before 2003 was done, so before 2004. I’ve still got it. It’s been a long time since I’ve read it. Basically, my dad bought a CD, two CD’s actually that had scan of the comics and that’s how I read it and that’s my complete G1 comic experience.

O: So accidentally pirating. [Laughter]

S: [Laughter] Kind of, yeah.

O: Not intentional, but, uh, y’know.

S: Yeah, and then I ended up on the Padded Cell, which was like the- the major sort of transformative fandom hub at the time? A lot of the stuff you see in fanfic now came from people who were on that forum from like 2000-2008. It wasn’t really the hub of anything anymore as things shifted to Lifejournal and [later] Tumblr, People moved away from forums and into, y’know-

O: Other social media accounts.

S: Yeah

O: That were easier and, y’know, they didn’t have to keep servers up and all that junk.

S: Yeah, but it was- it was neat, because I got to see a lot of the fandom stuff, like evolving firsthand, but, uh, so yeah. My fave G1 characters are Ratchet, because I really thought that he was the main character-

O: [Stifled laughter]

S: - in the comics for awhile, because, like, everyone is frigging, like all the Autobots are frigging out.[Laughter] LIke really quickly after they wake up and Ratchet’s just off doing whatever with Buster and then he has to do like a blood-fuel? Pact with Megatron-

O: [Laughing]

S: [Laughing] -and it’s weird. Yeah.

O: I have no frame of reference for any of this.

S: Well, maybe you will soon.

O: She’s lending them to me. Oh no.

S: And then there’s Dead End because like the first DVD’s that I got- I got the second half of season two, and was like, “I like lIke Dead End’s voice, oh no, he’s depressed. Let me hug this- hug this poor robot and so I got the entire. I have an entire, like, complete original G1 Stunticon toys. Set of the G1 toys with all of their combiner stuff. Never actually got around to combining them because I’m lazy and I was more interested in the characters themselves than in Menasor. So yeah, I’ve got those and I’ll bring them up to show them to you and I’ll bring the Alternator Dead End up, too

O: Yes, show me more toys!

S: And- And Wheeljack., which I don’t have an original Wheeljack toy, but I do have a Wheeljack Alternator. Basically G1 sort of got me on the kick for medics and scientists. I like most of the medics that pop up in various series. And yeah, so, favorite overall character is Ratchet and Rescue Bot Blades, who is coincidentally, the Rescue Bots medic. [Laughter]

O: He was before he got turned into a helicopter [laughter]

S: Yeah

O: Which is a great out of context thing to say.

S: Yes, it is.

O: Blade’s is adorable!

S: Like all of the Rescue Bots characters are adorable and you should watch that right now. Go watch it.

O: It is better than it has any right to be. I know, you’re sitting here going- if you haven’t seen it already- why would I watch something that was made for preschoolers? It is written better than it has any right to be. I do not know why, I don’t care why. It is actually quite good and very entertaining even if you’re an adult and you like transformers.

S: It’s got some of the most consistent writing out of any of the shows, like they knew what they had to do, they worked well within the guidelines they had to work with. Like, no one can die, no one can be seriously injured.

O: Right. Because preschoolers. Right.

S: And so it doesn’t have any of the weird tonal inconsistencies that sometimes Prime could get and it wasn’t, like, canceled like Animated was.

O: [softly] Yeah.

S: [sighs] And then Rewind. He’s basically kind of a librarian, and I think. Just Rewind and Chromedome are really neat. I like them both. I like most of the IDW characters.

O: They’re very, very good.

S: Mm-hmm. Favorite series: IDW G1, especially phase two. My favorites are Lost Light and More Than Meets The Eye. I still have a really soft spot for the original G1 comics, cuz they’re the first things that I read.

O: That makes sense.

S: Mm-hmm. And so, let’s - let’s go over to Owls.

O: Hi! My name is Owls. Uh, so in contrast to my friend, I’ve been in the fandom for three months, maybe. It all started a fateful day when I watched someone on YouTube talk about Beast Wars. I had the sneaking suspicion of I vaguely liked Beast Machine’s growing up? Didn’t remember anything else and thought, “Hey! I should watch Beast Wars!” This was my first mistake. At which point I, ah, messaged Specs and I was like, “Hey! You’ve got a copy of Beast Wars, right?”

S: Yep, mm-hmm.

O: And she did, and I watched it and then I rapidly ascended into Transformers madness. And I now lie at the bottom of a ravine getting buried by toys, comics, and various amounts of DVD’s.

S: Yep. Ones [Comics and DVD’s] that I’ve mostly lent you, but… [Laughter]

O: Mostly. I did buy Beast Machines, because she didn’t have it and I wanted to watch it and I have Opinions™. I have Opinions that I won’t get into right now. But I have opinions.

S: You also have Beast Wars.

O: I also bought Beast Wars, but that’s because it is my favorite Transformers thing. SO I’ve probably watched about six different animated series, uh, and the Bay movies and now I know enough to hate the Bay movies. Oh my god! I didn’t know before but now I do. [Laughter] Now I do.

S: Now you know the pain.

O: Now I do, yes. My desk is rapidly accumulating Transformers. Help.

S: [Laughter]

O: We’ve got Grumpy Desk Raptor, and we’ve got 99.9% Done-With-Your-Shit-Rodimus-Grandpa, and smaller, more murderous Desk Raptor. I��ll leave it you to figure out who those three are. [Laughter]

S: I like your desk raptors-

O: My desk-

S: and grumpy grandpa.

O: I-I-I collect grumpy, grumpy characters. This is going to become a theme. Ah, my favorite characters are Dinobot from Beast Wars, who is AWESOME! And I’m so mad he doesn’t show up in anything else! But I guess I should be happy he’s alive in the IDW comics and presumably in a good place?!

S: He’s in the Christmas ep- He’s in the Christmas episode, basically.

O: There’s an adorable panel, it is my life. Ahem. Anyway, so Dinobot from Beast Wars, Lost Light Megatron, which, if you’ve not read the comics, I won’t tell you we’re going to be spoiler free here, but I also don’t want to like be blatant about it so, he’s really well written and I really enjoy him and there’s a very, very obvious reason for that if you’ve read the comics. I also really like Transformers Prime Ratchet, who is just a serious Mood. Uh, he, y’know, is trying to do his job and then he’s like “What the hell are all these human children doing here? And you’re breaking my shit,” And honestly, that’s kind of how I feel most days if I’m around children, yeah.

S: And then he takes over their science projects, because of course he does.

O: Transformers Prime, though I love it, has some weird tonal issues.

S: It does.

O: We’ll get to that eventually.

S:  [Softly] It does.

O: I-I feel like I have to do some honorable mentions for pretty much any version of Soundwave, Grimlock, and Starscream in existence. Except for Grimlock from Car Robots or the 2001 Robots in Disguise, because he doesn’t really act like Grimlock. Regardless, they’re all delightful and I love them. And that basically sums up the characters I like for G1 pretty well, which is Soundwave and Grimlock are probably my favorites. Uh, I also rather enjoy Perceptor and I enjoy Megatron for the pure, pure delightful camp factor. [Laughter] He has no redeeming qualities and I love him.

Both: [Laughter]

O: None. So obviously,  I have been here for, oh, three months. I know nothing about fandom. I really wanted to do something to get involved, and was like, “Oh dear gog, I can’t draw robots, I don’t really think I feel competent enough to post fanfic,” and I thought, ‘By god  , my executive function must surely be worth something.’ And then I decided to put together a podcast, because through the powers of organization, anything is possible.

S: It is, it is. [laughter]

O: And here we are. Through the power of organization. That being said, ah, with us doing this podcast we really wanted to try to put some emphasis on fanworks and fanart and so what we would like to do with the episodes we release is recommend a fanfic and maybe some fanart with our episodes because Specs has been in the fandom for so long she;s got this great stash of ~vintage~ transformers work. Not all of it we can share because some of it’s been taken down and we don’t want to post something without the original authors’ permission or it being posted somewhere, but basically we’re hoping we can give you some good fanfics to kinda go with the theme of the episode . So, should be fun. That being said, if you’re got recommendations for fanart or fanworks-

S: Or questions, or complaints. I’m our complaints department for the record.

O: You can shoot us a message. You can find us on Tumblr. We are AfterSpark-Podcast on Tumblr and you can find other methods in which to contact us there. All that being said, I think we’ve kind of come to the end of our intro here. Hopefully you’ll come join us on our delight ride

through generation 1 and the waves of pure cheesiness we are about to embark on, because trust me, we are.

S: Our delightful ride on jousting jets.

O: A delightful ride on jousting jets. Just wait for it. Um, well, this is Owls!

S: And Specs!

O: Signing off. Thanks for listening to AfterSpark Podcast.

S: Toodles!

[roseymoseyberry]

Samsara (1/?)

So this is what happens when you talk about how Wildbreak being a KOBD baby is very cute, but boy do you wish there was more of Wildbreak being reincarnated Breakdown instead.

You end up writing it yourself.

And then quickly find yourself drowning in Stunticon headcanons.

So I guess this is my new ongoing project. There won’t be a posting schedule, and I’m actually going to try to put off posting to AO3 until I fully finish the fic. But I also have over half the fic (hopefully) written so (hopefully) it shouldn’t take long to finish.

Till then, have this first little taste.

(and shoutout to @meridianbarony for the title <3 )

Title: Samsara

Series: RID15 and TFP (and some tidbits grabbed from Aligned wiki pages)

Ship(s): Wildbreak/Knockout, Breakdown/Knockout

Tags/warnings: Reincarnation AU, hurt/comfort, verbal/physical abuse (though the worst of the physical abuse is barely described or off screen), past character death, age difference (but still consenting adult alien robots), a lot of filling in worldbuilding gaps and making shit up, and a lot of Wildbreak being a sweet boy who just needs some love and affection.

Fic Summary: 

From the day he was forged, Wildbreak had felt like there was something missing; some motivation or drive or desire that had been left behind in the Allspark.

Something he should know but didn’t.

“Why you always getting distracted by cars like that?”

“What?” Wildbreak stammered, blinking as he tore his gaze away from the road and back to his partner. Dragstrip didn’t look the least bit amused.

“Don’t you ‘what’ me. You know what I’m talking about.” he insisted as he punched Wildbreak in the shoulder. Wildbreak yelped and tried to scoot away, but Dragstrip had him by the arm in the blink of an optic. “Oh no you don’t. If I’m gonna be the one actually coming up with plans to get us places, the least you could do is try to help! Instead you get all misty-opticked every time a pretty red car whizzes by.”

Wildbreak sullenly looked away, back out to the highway in the distance. The squishies wouldn’t see them up here, but it was easy to just watch the traffic go by while Dragstrip did the thinking for them.

The red sports car that had caught his optic was long gone.

“Dunno,” Wildbreak mumbled with a shrug. Dragstrip’s grip on his arm softened some with that. “Guess I just like looking at ‘em.”

Dragstrip was quiet before his grip tightened. Wildbreak whined, about to complain – he had just waxed! – but then Dragstrip was accusing, “You don’t wanna frag that Autobot brat, do ya? I swear, Wildbreak--”

“What--No! Don’t be gross, Dragstrip, you know I wouldn’t—come on, buddy, you gotta believe me!”

It took several minutes of shoving and shouting before Dragstrip finally settled down, though it was on top of Wildbreak’s back as he was forced to sprawl across the ground. Still, it meant that Dragstrip wasn’t asking anymore questions and was instead back to talking out loud about possible plans and schemes. This time, Wildbreak did his best to pay attention now and again so he could agree with Dragstrip and keep him content.

And Wildbreak could still stare out towards the highway, confused about the longing in his spark but knowing that keeping an optic open and searching was the best he could do to keep it content too.

Wildbreak wasn’t sure what he was looking for, just that he hadn’t seen it yet and needed to keep looking.

And that his spark did always skip a pulse when he saw a red paintjob.

From the day he was forged, Wildbreak had felt like there was something missing; some motivation or drive or desire that had been left behind in the Allspark.

Something he should know but didn’t.

Which was how he ended up here. Dragstrip had snapped him up days after he had been forged and Wildbreak went along with it. He didn’t have any plans or aspirations of his own, after all, so why not? And then Motormaster had grabbed them both and along they went.

For that reason, combining hadn’t been difficult for Wildbreak to learn. If anything, it felt like an extension of how he already lived his life: following other mecha and making himself useful when asked.

Becoming Dragbreak was the ultimate in teamwork, making them bigger and stronger, boosting Wildbreak’s confidence by proxy. They weren’t as big or powerful as Menasor, but it was comfortable as Dragbreak. It was easy. Menasor was a trickier balance to maintain with that many personalities, especially when his teammates were all so much more assertive than Wildbreak. Learning to create Menasor had taken a while, during which Wildbreak had just hung back and let them all yell and fight until they finally figured it out.

Which meant that Motormaster had beat the stunticons enough times that they finally gave up.

Wildbreak didn’t ever try to gain control in any of his combiner forms, or really any facet of his life. He readily gave it away and followed commands as best he could to avoid trouble.

Dragstrip complained constantly about how Wildbreak didn’t have any initiative, would grab him by the shoulders and yell, “Come on, ya gotta want something, don’tcha? What do you want? What keeps you driving?!”

And Wildbreak couldn’t do anything but shrug and say, “Dunno.”

Only once, late at night, when Dragstrip was being nice and laughing and sharing some highgrade they had managed to nab, had Wildbreak elaborated.

“It’s not that I don’t want nothing. I do want something! But I just don’t know what that something is.”

“What d’ya mean you don’t know?”

“I dun--”

Dragstrip had elbowed him and said, “Oh no, none of that! Come on, you can tell your old pal.”

Wildbreak took a swig of the highgrade, grimacing and choking on it before swallowing.

“I can’t because it’s just – it’s always been this way for me, I guess. There’s something I want, something I’ve always wanted, but it’s just this big blank spot in my processor. Like my spark knows but my processor doesn’t know what it’s talking about.”

After a moment of silence, Dragstrip snorted, muttering, “Weirdo” as he sat up, grabbed the highgrade and took a long swig.

“Well, don’t you worry, Wildbreak. If you stick with me, I’ll make sure we get what we want, ya hear? Motormaster better watch himself because--”

Wildbreak laid there, watching Dragstrip, and wondered what it was like to know what he was driving after.

They totally had the Autobots beat. Dragbreak had them beat! Dragstrip’s presence swelled around Wildbreak, bright and victorious and dragging him up into the triumph with him, because they were going to win! With this weapons cache they would really be able to bring the heat, show Motormaster they weren’t to be messed with, that he should promote them, respect them—

“Someone call a doctor?”

Dragbreak didn’t have a chance to do anything before a car rammed into the side of his legs, sending him toppling over with a loud and painful crash. Dragstrip roared with outrage while Wildbreak drew himself in further, as if he could escape the pain in their shared frame by giving more control of it over to Dragstrip.

With a growl of their combined engines, Dragbreak got to his pedes, scanning for this new opponent.

A perfectly buffed and waxed and very red sports car swung his back wheels around towards the Autobots before transforming.

Dragstrip made to sprint forward.

Wildbreak was frozen to the spot.

Dragbreak faltered, stumbling over his pedes.

“Knockout? What’re you doing here?!” stammered the Autobot leader.

“What? I’m not allowed to visit an old friend?” he asked with blatant amusement, though his optics never left Dragbreak and he pulled a weapon from his back, some staff that was suddenly flashing with charge. His smile was cruel looking and beautiful. “Or make a few enemies?”

Dragstrip raged and made to rush the new enemy.

Wildbreak’s spark raced and wobbled and something he couldn’t name was choking him.

Dragbreak faltered again before, with a great shudder, he splintered.

They both landed on their afts, completely unprepared for the abrupt separation. Wildbreak’s processor spun because they had never fallen out of synch like that, why was his spark roiling in his chest, what was happening to him, who was this Knockout guy—

A servo grabbed Wildbreak by the audial finial, threatening to rip it off with how strongly it pulled, and that managed to snap Wildbreak out of it. His optics left the crimson paintjob to see Dragstrip glaring at him murderously.

Wildbreak never questioned a retreat, but as they transformed and made a run for it, his spark thrashed in its casing.

But he didn’t dare question Dragstrip. He was so mad already and there was no doubt that Wildbreak would be feeling the brunt of that anger as soon as they were safe, so why make it worse for himself?

“What happened?! Why did you separate from me?!”

“I didn’t mean to—ow! Dragstrip, please—!“

“You don’t stand up to me! You don’t ever stand up to me!!” It was hard to tell if it was a command or just a bewildered statement of fact. His name was Wildbreak and his paintjob was blue and he never stood up to anyone.

“I know, I know, and I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened—hey, hey, come on, that hurts!”

“Not until I know what that scrap out there was!”

Dragstrip was livid, but worse than that he was confused, and Wildbreak wished he had an answer for his partner. But he had nothing, no matter how Dragstrip yelled or shoved. Wildbreak worried if he was sick, or his spark was failing, or any of the multitudes of things that could be wrong that were causing the ache in his chest.

It wasn’t until late that night, when Dragstrip had finally tired himself out and left Wildbreak staring up at the stars, dinged and dented with ringing audials and his servo resting on his chest over his spark, that he realized. It was something Wildbreak had only experienced peripherally from Dragstrip, from Heatseeker and Slashmark and Motormaster, when they were wrapped up together in combination.

It felt like motivation.

Night after night, day after day, drive after drive after drive, and Wildbreak couldn’t so much as catch a glimpse of that mech. Sometimes he would slip away when Dragstrip was busy or recharging. Sometimes Dragstrip saw him leaving and Wildbreak would have to quietly admit it was his spark.

“It’s just not agreeing with my processor is all. Figure a drive will help, you know?”

And Dragstrip would glower, but each time he let Wildbreak go.

“Sort yourself out, idiot.”

They hadn’t tried combining again. It was only a matter of time, but for once they were both hesitating, and Wildbreak worried about how much Dragstrip thought about the sensation of their minds and frames rejecting each other for the first time in their lives.

Wildbreak was desperately afraid he would mess it up again.

So when Wildbreak wasn’t meekly following Dragstrip, he was off driving down every road he could find. Busy streets, long never-ending highways, winding forest routes. Every red paintjob caught his attention, but every time it was the wrong car and disappointment overwhelmed him.

And every time Wildbreak returned to Dragstrip’s side, unsuccessful and dejected, he would swear to himself he’d just give it up. It wasn’t worth all this stress.

And then out Wildbreak would go again, engine roaring as he searched.

It had been over a week before finally Wildbreak spotted him. The right frame, the right colors, the right decals and detailing.

Wildbreak’s spark pulsed hard and he revved his engine as he drifted into a sharp u-turn to get onto the other side of the highway.

The sun was setting in the distance, throwing shades of yellow, orange, and red across the road where it could get through the trees flanking the road. It was quiet, only a couple other cars on the road, and none of them going nearly as fast as that crimson speedster as he swerved around them and raced down the asphalt. Wildbreak picked up his pace, and with each car he passed he was one closer to his goal.

However, the sneaking question of what, exactly, he wanted to do when he caught up with Knockout was finally starting to dawn on him. It wasn’t like Wildbreak could just ask “Why do you make my spark feel like it’s going to burn itself out?”

Maybe he should have talked to Dragstrip about it. Dragstrip would know what to do. Course, Dragstrip would have also been furious because Knockout seemed to be an Autobot, and Wildbreak didn’t want to fight him, so—

Without slowing down at all, Knockout took an exit that led further into the woods, and Wildbreak raced to follow after.

Wildbreak would just have to figure it out later.

The new road was full of sharp corners, forcing Wildbreak to drift and brake and really push his driving skills to the tests to keep up. Every time the road curved behind trees, hiding Knockout for moments at a time, Wildbreak would fret that when he took the corner himself, the red mech would be gone. Yet, every time he made his way around the corner, he’d spot a flash of crimson before Knockout sped around another turn.

Until Wildbreak took a turn and found himself staring at a long road and Knockout nowhere to be seen.

Wildbreak skidded to a halt and transformed, swinging his helm around wildly to find nothing but road and trees and dirt.

“Uh, hey, where’d you go?” Wildbreak called out, spinning to check behind him. “I promise I don’t wanna fight or nothing!” There was shuffling in the woods off to one side and Wildbreak turned towards the area, servos up and flat in a placating manner as he moved that way. “I just, uh. I guess I just wanted to meet you?” Up close, it was clear there were pede tracks in the soft earth, so Wildbreak carefully crept between the two trees that the trail led through. “Your name’s Knockout, right? Sorry if I freaked you out.”

It was a little darker in the shade of the trees, but not so much that Wildbreak couldn’t still follow the tracks. However, they suddenly took a sharp left, and when Wildbreak turned his helm to follow the path, noticing them heading back towards the road, that’s when something heavy slammed into his back, sending him sprawling to the ground. Wildbreak yelped as he went down, rolling over onto his back to complain.

However, the sharp pressure of a staff against his neck had Wildbreak going completely still.

Knockout peered down at him, crimson optics bright and his mouth curled into a sneer. Every inch of the mech was menacing, yet Wildbreak’s spark fluttered with something that definitely wasn’t fear.

“Why are you following me?” Knockout demanded, his voice rich despite the sharpness of his tone. Wildbreak squirmed which just earned him that sharp point pressing down harder, threatening to just scrape his paintjob if he was lucky.

“To meet you?” Wildbreak managed, aware that his optics were wide.

Knockout’s gaze narrowed.

“Well, consider yourself acquainted.”

After a moment of psyching himself up, Wildbreak said, “And maybe to talk?”

Knockout snorted.

“What could you possibly want with a dirty traitor like me? One of your little friends get himself scrapped bad enough that you would come crawling to scum like me?” Knockout mocked as he moved the staff under Wildbreak’s chin, lifting it up and evaluating Wildbreak. “And this time, try to not make your answer sound like a question.”

Wildbreak blinked.

“What?”

Knockout’s optics rolled and the staff finally lifted away from Wildbreak’s plating, but only far enough away that when it lit up and snapped with charge it didn’t immediately arc into Wildbreak’s frame.

But the staff did linger and Wildbreak knew a threat when he saw one.

“W-wait, wait, listen, I really don’t know what you’re talking about!” Wildbreak insisted, lifting his servos up with open palms. “If this is about the war then I don’t know nothing about it!”

Knockout looked unconvinced as he said, “You knew my name.”

“Because that Autobot said it! I-I swear, that’s the only reason I know it. I’ve never seen or heard about you before that, honest.”

There was a moment when the only sound was the crackling of the staff.

“When were you forged.”

“After the war,” Wildbreak admitted. “First batch of new sparks.”

And then it powered down.

“Explains a lot,” Knockout said snidely. “So then, what’s a new forged like you doing chasing after me?”

Wildbreak’s frame relaxed some against the soft dirt.

“Uh, well--”

“It better not sound like a question.”

Wildbreak swallowed hard before starting again. “But I don’t really know exactly. Which I know sounds dumb, but I just – I wanted to meet you and talk to you, at least, and I guess I thought I’d figure it out from there.”

Knockout stared down at him before smirking.

Wildbreak’s spark fluttered again.

“While that’s flattering, I’m a bit old for you, kid.” The staff finally lifted away completely and Knockout slipped it into his subspace. “Why don’t you go stalk someone your own age?”

Wildbreak sat up quickly when Knockout turned to walk away, scrambling as he said, “Whoa, that’s not—I mean, I guess maybe that’s part of it, I dunno.” It took a couple seconds to get back up onto his pedes and Wildbreak could feel the dirt and debris cascading off his back, every inch of him dying to wash it off, but for now he was focused on the bemused look on Knockout’s face as he looked over his shoulder. “But it’s not just that, I swear.”

Knockout’s gaze trailed down his frame and back up, evaluating, and Wildbreak twitched when it lingered on his face, on his optics.

“Then what is it?”

That there had never been a ‘something’ before, a motivation or a drive, something that had Wildbreak frantic and working when he could have been just relaxing and avoiding trouble, never something that made his spark want like this, and he still didn’t know what this ‘something’ was, but it had to do with Knockout, he knew it did, but he didn’t know how, he didn’t—

“I dunno.”

After a beat, Knockout sighed.

“What’s your name?”

“Wildbreak,” he replied, glad to have a question he could answer.

Something odd crossed Knockout’s face, surprised and almost sad, but it was there and gone within moments.

“Alright then, Wildbreak,” Knockout said as he turned his helm away and continued towards the road. “It’s been a while since I’ve had some actual competition, so if you can keep up with me, maybe I’ll be up for a little chat.”

Wildbreak perked up and grinned as he quickly chased after Knockout.