TITLE: Expo(sed)
Kind of a crossover, faintly based on 'Thirteen'
SERIES: Imperfection Deviation
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money :)
FEEDBACK: Loved

Note: The Expo was taken from the second Iron Man movie. The Matrix Key is copyrighted to the second Transformers movie. Some elements appear in my story.

Note 2: this idea came to me after writing ‘Thirteen’ and thinking of the mechs as artifacts in the eyes of the Warehouse agents. Then the last sentence of the first scene of this story came to mind. Everything else wasn’t planned. Well, as you can see, it happened anyway.




The area was the size of several dozen football fields. It was huge; gigantic even. People could get lost without a map and spend their lifetime trying to find home. Futuristic buildings rose between pretzel and waffle stands, refreshment booths and ice cream parlors. There were stylish plants along the foot paths, intrinsic statues and future-tomorrow art that defied gravity. Lights dotted the paths, illuminating the snaking lengths that disappeared between the buildings.

Agent Pete Lattimer stood in the shadow of the Cars of the Future expo building, which housed several large US, Asian and European car companies. Car company logos lit up the roof.

A soft whistle had him turn to his companion. Claudia Donovan, her hair featuring teal blue stripes today, looked around wide-eyed.

“So cool!” she whispered. “So cool! I wanted to come here if I could get away from Artie for a day or two. This is THE event. The Stark Expo is the most prominent media hype. Do you know just what he has here?”

“No, but I guess I’ll know soon.”

The place to do the impossible. A place to unleash ideas, was the motto of the event. From the looks of it, it was dead on right for the Expo.

Claudia scowled, but her attention was immediately back on her mobile pad. Her flingers flew over the computer, which had been her creation. Lattimer had no idea what she had done to the original pad, but now it interfaced with Warehouse systems and it hacked into whatever Claudia wanted it to.

Except Stark’s systems, it seemed. She had had no luck getting into the systems, aside from the Expo ones. She had disabled certain routines, so they could slip in undetected.

The Expo was undergoing a last security check, which had the area locked down for twenty-four hours while security was run. No one who didn’t have to be here was around.

Okay, technically Pete and Claudia had no official clearance to be anywhere around here at any time, but this was Warehouse business, so the clearance was a given.

The pad emitted a soft beeping sound and Claudia whipped out a handheld device with moving antennae at the side. Pete had jokingly called it her ‘PKE meter’,

Her frown deepened.

“What?” he asked.

Claudia turned in a half circle and walked off to an open pavilion-like construct that was the size of a good-sized church. It was lit up in an electric blue, the dome roof was transparent with more dots of blue light, and there were dozens of screens everywhere that explained the development of eco-friendly engines.

“This can’t be right,” Claudia said.

“What?”

“You know how I made this so it picks up residual artifact energy?”

“Sure.”

Claudia sighed and gestured at the silver car that sat outside the pavilion.

“That’s an artifact?” Pete asked.

“According to this, yeah.”

It was an Audi R8 Spyder. A sleek convertible that cost more than Pete would ever be willing to spend on a car if he had to pay for it out of his own money. It was also a lot more than he earned for a living.

“We need a bigger bag,” he only remarked wryly.

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The plans for this world-wide event had been in his drawer for ages. Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, billionaire, certified genius and creator of the Iron Man armor, had wanted the Stark Expo to happen ever since finding the original plans from his father’s drawing board. Back then it hadn’t been humanly possible to make it happen. Times had been different. Smaller scale Expos had been the annual event, but Howard Stark had made it his goal to create a gathering place of a different kind. The Stark Expo had been held every ten years and Stark senior had leveled the playing field for inventors by building a city. An idealized city. A city of the future. Every ten years, five months were set aside for the minds of tomorrow, for the creative thinkers, for scientists, CEOs and world leaders to come together to pursue one goal: to advance mankind.

But it had never become what Howard Stark had wanted it to be, what had been in his drawers. It had never been so enormous.

Today, decades his death, it was different.

The area the Expo had been built on was owned by Stark Industries and would later, after the final day of public access, be converted to a technology park. Tony had plans for that already, too. For now, though, he was busy with checking last minute details, shaking hands of a hundred and one representatives, and schmoozing his way through parties. Not something he was bad at. Actually, he excelled at it. He was charming and suave and exuded money and sex and power. He had good-looking models hanging on his arms throughout each reception or party, but he didn’t take them home. There had been two quick occasions, but nothing that required him to show the arc reactor in his chest.

Actually, this was more about getting into Tony’s pants than ripping his shirt off. He was fine with that. It was an arrangement he could live with.

This Friday would be the opening of the Stark Expo and four days prior to that had been scheduled for the final security checks. Only trusted personnel was on site, though the numbers were small. The security was run almost on automatic, with a few live controllers present.

So Tony had used that set-up to invite over some friends who would normally not have the chance to move this freely among the exhibits. At least not in their natural forms. Jazz, Bumblebee and Rodimus Prime had immediately taken him up on the offer. Jazz was rather excited to see some of the pavilions and buildings. Sam had come along with Bumblebee, which had been no great surprise. Will Lennox had arrived without Ironhide, who was on a special mission with Optimus Prime to Washington. For Lennox it was a unique opportunity to be himself. He didn’t need to cover up his rune-riddled skin and Tony had smiled to himself when he had seen the man in a black t-shirt and without a jacket.

Their relationship had changed in the past years. It had turned into a friendship that, if asked about, Tony couldn’t really define or start to explain. Like Rhodey, Lennox was military and Tony understood military, having worked with them for all his life. He understood their thinking and their goals and, while he didn’t live it himself, he understood the life-style. But Will Lennox had ceased being military a very long time ago, even if the bearing was hard to get out of the man, and he had turned into something different.

It was the difference that had forged this friendship.

Tony had Extremis that set him apart from humanity and that had, as it turned out later, made him a Prime. Lennox was the embodiment of all things Cybertronian. He had absorbed the last Allspark shard – completely by accident and rather violently. He was by now far less human than anything Tony had ever done to himself, and with it changed his own body, and despite the powers accompanying that change, he had suffered from being set apart.

Things had gotten weird and also very interesting a few months ago. The Expo had been primary on Tony’s mind and he had appreciated Will’s input on security matters – making him his consultant – but they had also found time to hang around the basement lab and go over different schematics and test new additions to Tony’s Iron Man armor.

It was when Stark had tried out a few gimmicks that he had discovered something new. Something really, absolutely impossible new.

“Will?”

“Hm?”

“Do you feel something?”

That had gotten Lennox’s full attention. “Feel what?”

“Scanning?” Tony elaborated carefully.

“No… Why?”

“Because I’m scanning you right now and fuck, it’s surreal!”

It had been. Still was. Looking at Will Lennox, human hybrid, Avatar Prime, had been like glimpsing what surrealist H.R.Giger would make of the whole Cybertronian-human hybrid thing. It hadn’t been repulsing, just… not normal. No one had been able to scan Will since the accident and no one knew what he looked like inside. His skin or the runes or whatever else was reflecting scans back at the one doing the scanning – and never in a good way. Those backlashes hurt.

This moment had launched a flurry of experiments and weeks of dogged work on Will’s part, together with Tony when he could cut the chain Pepper had on him. He argued it was for a good cause – and no, he couldn’t tell her – and she pointed out that playing with toys in his basement wasn’t a good cause.

In the end they had a lot of data that was on Jarvis’ server and heavily protected, and not really a lot of answers. Will still didn’t want any of the mechs to know about this new development since he was showing signs of further changes. So far Tony could scan him, look right into his hybrid body with any and all means available. X-ray, ultra sound, CAT… you name it, Tony’s Extremis-enhanced sight had it. He had to interface with the Iron Man armor to reach his full potential, though.

Nothing Will did changed the facts. They had tried fully human looking, altered skin, Protoform, even while pulling energy to defend himself. That particular test had shown Tony more than anything how powerful the other man was. The scan had been blinding, all readings off the chart, and for a second there had been nothing human to see.

Scary. Fascinating.

And no one but Tony was apparently able to see this. Jarvis was blind to Will in that regard, even after Tony had patched him into the suit’s systems and gave him access to the data. Apparently it was the uniqueness of Extremis plus Tony plus the armor, all channeled through Tony’s brain, that gave him this ability.

Rodimus Prime had been the first to get wind of the new developments. Mostly because it was hard for Stark to keep a secret from his guardian/baby-sitter/best non-human friend for long. Knowing Tony gave Rodimus an advantage he used when he had to.

“Keep it to yourself for now,” Tony told him, voice dead serious. “Don’t tell Optimus. Will wants to work out the kinks first.”

Blue optics regarded him dubiously. “This is something he should know, Tony.”

“I know, I know. But not right away, ‘kay? It’s Will’s body, Will’s life and ultimately Will’s decision. I respect that.”

It got him a half-smile. He grumbled a little to himself, but Tony was secretly glad that Rodimus agreed to keep it their secret for now.

It would come out.

Sooner or later.

Especially when Ironhide would be back from Australia – where he had left for after Washington, to accompany Optimus Prime. Something about the Australian base and security and safety matters. Whatever.

For now the Expo was a kind of distraction, giving Will something else to look after. And he was doing a really good job, working almost seamlessly with the security detail present. Tonight, though, he was off-duty, like everyone else. This was their time to enjoy what would soon be open to the public, roam and look at the different buildings with their different themes.

Sitting on the low-rise building of the Green Lands eco structure, made of recycled wood and ecologically sound products, Stark let his eyes roam over the lit-up Expo. It filled him with pride to see the dream of his father come true. He had finally accomplished it.

“This is a really great place,” Lennox said as he sat down next to him, the light from the many lamps making the slowly moving runes visible.

“Yeah,” Tony said softly. “It is.”

“Thanks for the invite. From all of us. I think Jazz is almost glitching over the whole Planet Earth exhibit. You’ll have to pry him off that with a crow bar.”

Stark laughed softly. “I figured. Sam and Bumblebee are exploring everything all over. I think Roddy is making rounds. And you hang out on a roof with me?”

“Nah. I’ve been over in the Aviation section and got my fill for now.”

Tony reached over into a fancy looking ice box and took out two tubs of ice cream. He held one out to Will, who took it with a grin. Spoons followed.

Halfway through the chunky chocolate delight Tony suddenly stiffened and looked over the area to one of the spectacular buildings, this a free standing dome-like structure close to the unisphere, which was the center of the Expo grounds.

“Tony?” Will asked neutrally.

“Guests,” the other replied.

Lennox put down the ice cream. “Unexpected or uninvited?”

Tony rose. “Both. Roddy’s close to them and keeping an optic on their movements. Wanna come?”

Lennox grinned. “Sure.”

* * *

Claudia was still grumbling about false positive readings as both Warehouse agents moved along the footpath to a tall building that housed an exhibit on the Evolution of Technology, from cave men to space travel.

“Looks like you need to work out a few bugs,” Pete remarked amiably, eyes darting over the deserted pathways.

“More than a few. This is so embarrassing!”

Cars and even ships or planes had proven to be artifacts or influenced by something artifacty that had been put into them in the past, but she had never been this easily fooled before.

Claudia punched a few keys and Pete waited for the security lock to disengage. The pad was like a universal key, though it still couldn’t get into the Stark Industries computer system. Whatever the company used, it was way beyond anything Claudia had ever tackled. It also fascinated her and presented a challenge she was ready to take on. Not now; at a later date.

The door to the exhibit clicked open and both slipped inside. Neither noticed the silver R8 convertible roll noiselessly closer and park itself just a few feet away.

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The Evolution of Technology exhibit was cast in dim light. It was enough to see by and the larger exhibits had their own spot lights. Nothing moved, no music played, no one was narrating. Everything was crisp and clean and ready to be run over by kids and adults alike. Claudia ran appreciating eyes over some of the exhibits, visibly tempted to explore more. Pete kept her on track, steering her along the main walkway.

The pad kept them heading for one of the side rooms. Many dealt with early inventions and ground-breaking ideas. Pete glimpsed a list on the pad and Claudia read it out loud.

“Code breaking device,” she said and nodded at what looked like a very big, very basic type-writer. “Can apparently break every known code in the universe.”

“Cool,” Lattimer commented, but it wasn’t the usual boyish enthusiasm.

Claudia couldn’t fault him for it. Myka Bering leaving the Warehouse had really put a dent in a lot of things. Artie was more grumpy than usual, Mrs. Frederic hadn’t been around in weeks, Leena had locked Myka’s room and spent a lot of time filing at the Warehouse to keep herself distracted, and Pete was… Pete was a lot more subdued. Claudia missed Myka, too. She had been her big sister, a confidant, a really good friend… Claudia missed her terribly.

But Pete was probably the one most affected. They had known each other way before the Warehouse had partnered them, and they had become really good friends. They had gone through a lot together and had come out stronger. Now Myka had quit and it had shaken Lattimer up.

“Thing is, it’s not the machine. It’s the paper,” Claudia went on, walking around the exhibit. “It tells all your deepest, darkest secrets.” She waggled her eyebrows.

Pete looked interested. “How?”

“No clue, but Artie said to get it.”

“With the machine?”

Claudia shrugged. “When in doubt…”

Pete snapped on the purple gloves that were made of the same neutralizer material they used for the bags.

“Gotcha.” He reached out for the type-writer/codebreaker, then stopped. “Are there alarms?”

She checked the pad. “Give it five more minutes. Security is almost done here and we’ll have about a minute to nab the thing.”

“I’d advice against it,” a new voice startled them and Pete turned around sharply, Tesla in hand.

How the figure in the red and golden armor had sneaked up on them so soundlessly was anyone’s guess, but it had. There were no discernible facial features, just the coldly glowing eye slits and a mouth that looked like the face was scowling at them.

Claudia had taken a step back, clearly impressed and slightly frightened, and Pete kept the Tesla trained on the newcomer.

“Who are you?” Lattimer demanded.

“I believe the question is: who are you?”

Claudia etched even closer to her temporary partner. “Uh, security check?” she tried.

It got her a chuckle. “You wish it was that easy. You’re not security. Actually, I’m running your files right now and I’m impressed you got this far.”

Claudia gaped and Pete’s grip on the Tesla tightened. “How can you run our files?” he demanded.

“Peter Lattimer, Secret Service,” the armored figure said easily. “Quite a service record. Claudia Donovan. Impressive, though in a more criminal way.”

“Hey!” she protested.

“Please put away the gun,” the figure requested.

“No way. I want to know who you are and how you know who we are,” Pete replied.

“I’m part of this Expo’s security. You can call me Iron Man. I think Mr. Stark will be very interested to meet you if just half of the information on file for you is true. As for how I know… that is my trade secret.”

Iron Man made an inviting gesture toward the exit.

Pete held his ground.

“You think you can shoot me with this?” Iron Man asked pleasantly.

“I know I can.”

“What if that thing’s a robot?” Claudia whispered.

“It’s not,” Lattimer growled, trigger finger twitching.

“Hardly,” Iron Man replied.

“We’re leaving now.”

Iron Man raised his right arm, palm outward, the center of the palm glowing in a cold, blue-white light. “Mr. Stark requests you stay.”

“Tell Mr. Stark thank you, but no thanks.”

Before either of the two parties could say anything else, or act upon what had been said, something went off with a flash of light not far away.

Iron Man’s head whipped around and without another word he suddenly blasted off. Claudia whispered an almost reverent ‘cool!’.

“What the…?” Pete started, then the pad in Claudia’s hands started screeching.

“Major spike!” she announced. “And I mean major major spike!”

Pete grabbed the paper from the code machine and stuffed it unceremoniously into the bag that would neutralize it. He quickly closed it over the flash it produced, then raced off to where the pad said another artifact was going haywire.

“What is it?” he demanded of his current partner.

“No idea! This section back there is for Wonders of Modern Tech, derived from ancient findings. Rather broad field.”

Claudia couldn’t type a lot while running and she nearly ran into Lattimer when the agent stopped abruptly.

“Well, hell…”

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Will had let Iron Man take the lead in cornering the two intruders. Rodimus Prime was outside, ready. The others hadn’t been informed yet. Tony wanted to take care of matters and keep them from having to break off from whatever they were doing. Will had agreed, for now, and would be Iron Man’s back-up if he needed it.

Taking the route through the exhibit back to back with the Evolution of Technology one, he let his eyes stray over the multitude of displays.

One had him stop without even thinking about.

Something tingled along his spine and energy whispered over his fingers as he flexed them.

The runes rose to the surface, bright and prominent and demanding.

Lennox stared at the smooth metal shape, looking like netted metal cage, elongated, with sharp points at the end that twisted in opposite directions. In the middle was a spherical shape that looked empty, but to Will’s eyes it had a contents. Something was there. Something flickering, begging him to come closer.

‘Unknown relic, found at Petra, Jordania’, the cardboard card said.

Lennox reached out without thinking.

The glass case around the relic cracked before his fingers reached it.

It shattered.

Runes flared brighter, all accumulating on the back of his hands, his fingers, his palms.

He touched the netted case and…

… everything exploded.

Sight, sound, touch… everything was heightened one second, the next it dulled to nothing. Lennox felt something pull him into one direction while he was also rooted firmly to the spot. He couldn’t move, but he was also running very fast. He was no longer in the exhibition hall, but he was aware that he still was. It was like an out of body experience, like he was drawn away, but only so much that he was still there.

Something moved and he tried to turn, but he couldn’t. Still he saw the approach of a figure he knew, one he recognized, and one that was clearly a Prime. He could see the sigil imprinted on the figure, knew this was a fellow Prime, knew it was Tony Stark, and he knew the connection that formed between them instantaneously when Iron Man was close.

“Tony?” he tried.

He got no reply.

All he heard was a dull hum. All he saw was the basic shape and the Prime glyph.

And he saw fine connections branching from Stark to something not in the room. His own body was reaching out for Stark’s and while he tried to warn his friend or stop the tendrils, it was to no avail. A net formed, encasing Tony, but there seemed to be no harm from that.

The Prime glyph flared.

The netted case in his hands dulled and within the sphere a light flickered, then died.

Lennox’s hand opened and the relic clattered to the ground.

His vision cleared and he became aware of someone grabbing his upper arms and yelling his name. He blinked, looking into the intense eyes of Tony Stark, peering out at him from the open visor of his helmet. Tony appeared paler than normal and he was repeating Will’s name.

“Uh,” Lennox managed.

“Will, snap out of it! What the hell is going on?”

Will flexed his fingers and raised one hand, staring stupidly at the rune-covered skin. It was bronzed skin, burned golden or blackish in places.

“Shit,” he managed.

It got him a wry smile. “Yeah. You changed. You look like some pigeon lover’s delight.”

Will twitched a smile. “What happened?”

“You tell me.”

Will blinked as he saw something flicker through Tony’s eyes. It was something electric blue. He blinked again.

For a fraction of a second he saw Stark without the armor, covered in what looked like a multitude – millions upon millions! - of wire-like lines. They sank into his skin and disappeared, but the eyes remained a strange electric blue. Not unlike what Will’s looked when he turned protoform, or what the armor’s eye slits appeared when the HUD was switched on.

Around Tony, the world shimmered, like some weird special effect from a movie, and for another fraction of a second the whole fabric of space ripped open and peeled back, showing Will another place. A completely different place. It was a world of metal. They stood on metal ground, looked into a dark sky with millions of stars, and around them there was nothing but destruction. A gigantic scrap heap. A war-scarred planet.

Stark inhaled sharply, fingers digging into Will’s skin. “What the hell…?” he started.

And then the moment was broken, the portal closed, the world realigned itself.

Portal.

Will blinked.

Portal?

“Lennox?” came the sharp question.

“Huh?”

Damn. Nothing made sense! He didn’t make sense!

He looked down at his feet where the netted cage lay. It looked dull and lifeless, without the shine it had had before, and it almost appeared brittle.

“Will!” Tony insisted, his own voice shaky. “Get a grip, man!”

“I… I… What happened?” he managed.

“I have no fucking clue. I was hoping you did this.”

“N-no. You. It was you. You… I think it was… a portal.”

“Portal? I can’t create portals!” Tony insisted sharply. “Sub space pockets, yes. Portals? No.” He finally released Lennox’s arms. “Roddy’s coming. He alerted the others. I think we need to get you out of here and back to base,” Tony decided, voice business-like and beyond argument. All tremors were gone, erased by iron control and years of experience in hiding his emotions.

It didn’t stop Lennox from arguing anyway. “I’m fine. It was just… I don’t know. It was weird, but I’m okay.”

Right… Okay. Okay wasn’t the definition of what he was, really. He kept seeing fine lines dancing around him and Tony. He saw the weird wires on Tony himself. He kept hearing echoes of something coming closer… and then he saw the echo. Rodimus rolled into the exhibition hall and it set off another flare of the blue lines, of weird wiring and tendrils wrapped around them. This time Will could see the strong connection between Tony and his guardian, could see the Prime glyph glow brightly on both of them, and he had an unhindered view of the spark inside Rodimus’ armored frame. The spark was young and bright and strong, and it was strongly linking to Tony… to the Extremis within Tony.

Lennox reached out to touch one of the tendrils and it felt cool and smooth and very familiar. The blue light wrapped itself around his fingers and the hum increased. It was almost like a symphony of song and light, something beautiful and unique.

He could hear it whisper, could feel it touch his very soul, and it made him shiver. He felt the presence of more people through the tendrils. There were Rodimus and Tony, of course. He was touching them almost directly. There was Sam, coming closer. There was Optimus, like an ancient shadow in the background, powerful and strong.

Something snapped him back to the present and he heard Tony demand to know what was going on, repeating his name again and again. Stark was holding the strange relic, the dull metal cage with the empty sphere inside. And the sphere seemed to leak energy despite being empty, creeping up Tony’s fingers and over his metal skin.

“It’s Cybertronian,” Will managed. “It’s… Prime. It’s reacting to us…”

“What is? This?” Tony held up the metal relic and then stared at it; hard. His eyes looked strange. “Well, hell… What is this?!”

“I don’t know. But it’s… it’s like part of the Allspark. Not a shard. Nothing like a shard. Just a part… something strong… I can see it touching you.”

Tony stared at him, then at the relic. “It’s touching me?” he repeated, voice level.

“Yeah. Tendrils of energy. Like it’s touching Rodimus. And me.”

He knew Tony understood the implications the moment he had said the words. Primes. They were all Primes. And this thing was something ancient and Cybertronian. Maybe not even created by the Prime; maybe something the Allspark had added somehow.

Tony’s expression took on a faraway quality for a second, then he smiled humorlessly. “Jazz and the others apprehended our intruders. I think we need to deal with them first, then get a grip on this.”

Rodimus transformed, just about able to stand up to his full height in this room. The building was enormous and easily accommodated him.

“Where did this come from?” he asked evenly.

Key, key, key, echoed through Will’s head. But a key to what? He already had the Matrix key on his back. And the Allspark had never needed a key. It had worked keyless.

He almost laughed at that.

“I’ll check the inventory,” Tony replied, already doing that via Extremis. “I also want to know what those two were after.”

“Who are they?” Lennox asked.

“The guy is Peter Lattimer, Secret Service. The young woman is Claudia Donovan, currently employed by the government as well, but not Secret Service.”

“Not just that,” Sam said as he walked in, looking serious. “Remember Thirteen?”

They all did. Sam had briefed them on the existence of the sentient being that might be what was left of an ancient Cybertronian who had arrived on Earth a long time ago.

“Lattimer works for Warehouse 13. Donovan, too.”

“So they were looking for artifacts. Cybertronian tech. Here.”

“Like that one?” Sam nodded at the relic in Tony’s hands.

“No. They went for something completely different. This…” Stark glanced at Lennox. “Well, Lennox here triggered that one.”

Will grimaced. Tony held it out to him, a challenging expression in his eyes. Lennox hesitated, then touched the relic. It didn’t react, didn’t flare, didn’t hum. It was just a husk of dead metal – until it started to crumble in his hands.

With wide eyes Will watched it turn into nothing but flakes that sank into his skin like the runes tended to… and disappear.

“Shit!” Stark exclaimed.

Bright blue optics stared down at them and Rodimus’ expression was one of disbelief and shock.
The tendrils Lennox could see strengthened, spreading out like a web between the five Primes, one of them not physically present, and then everything disappeared. Like the flakes had.

“Shit…” he echoed Tony’s statement.

* * *

Tony had left dealings with Lattimer and Donovan to Sam and Jazz. He didn’t care about the culture shock those two were in for, nor did he want to end up in the middle of inter-agency politics. Banachek was already informed and would probably be on the phone with Mrs. Frederic, the woman who was Thirteeen’s Caretaker. While Thirteen was clearly of Cybertronian origin and would fall under his responsibility as a Prime, Tony had different priorities.

Like a fellow messed-up human and Prime.

Looking at Will, who was studying the palms of his hands where the shards had disappeared into, he wondered if it was his imagination that there were far less runes at the moment, and those present were close to invisible. Normally, when Lennox was agitated, the runes reflected that. Right now there was almost zilch.

Scanning his friend, Tony cocked his head thoughtfully. Everything was tightly coiled within the hybrid. Dense energy registered on his ‘radar’. But the runes were invisible.

Tony didn’t say anything, just filed his observation for later evaluation and maybe study. For now they had a lot of other things to handle.

“Coffee?” he offered.

Will gave him a weak smile. “The good stuff?”

He chuckled. “Always the good stuff. C’mon. There’s a coffee shop on the premises. They won’t miss a cup or two.”

He pushed the other man ahead of him, telling Rodimus where they were going. The R8 sent an affirmative through their Extremis connection. AIDDE personnel was already coming to keep a lid on matters. Tony couldn’t care less. Feeling the quiet tension radiating through Will had him on the edge, too. He hadn’t switched off his Will Vision, as he started to call it, and the dense pockets of energy underneath the now deceptively rune-free, almost human looking skin had him worried.

“You’re accumulating energy,” he told his friend when they were out of the building.

“Don’t feel like I do.”

Tony gave him his ‘cut the crap’ look and Lennox sighed.

“Do something about it before we end up with an Expo-sized crater,” Stark suggested almost casually.

“Like what?”

“Change. Give this some time to bleed off.”

Will grimaced, but he followed the suggestion and smoothly changed into his less-human looks. His skin was now a burned golden, bronze and darkish brown, crawling with stationary glyphs, and his eyes had transformed into white-blue optics. Walking Allspark. Tony knew never to call him that because it would be bad. Will was rather sensitive in that matter.

The energy knots were untangling, flowing through the hybrid’s whole body, and Tony gave him a nod. “Better.”

Rodimus approached, rolling almost silently toward where both humans were, and Tony shot him a wry smile.

::Baby-sitting?:: he teased.

::Offering company::

Stark leaned against the silver R8 Spyder, unconsciously relaxing a little more. Rodimus didn’t comment on it.

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An hour later the area was swarming with AIDDE soldiers and whatnot. A lieutenant saluted smartly as he approached Will and Tony.

“Sir, I have orders to accompany you and the remains of the relic back to Nevada,” he told Lennox.

Will shrugged. He looked human once more, aside from the glyphs down one side of his face.

“What about me?” Tony asked.

The lieutenant hesitated, then shrugged. “My orders were for Major Lennox only.”

Twenty years and he was still addressed by his military rank. Things never changed, Will mused. Then again, it was better than being addressed as ‘Prime’.

“Well, I’ll keep an eye on things here,” Tony simply said. “Can’t have you guys mess up my Expo.”

“Sir.”

“See ya,” Lennox only said and followed his guide.

Tony watched him go, fingers drumming against Rodimus’ paint job.

::How much of what happened did you get:: he finally asked.

::Not as much as you, apparently. I felt a wave of something coming through the Extremis link, but I couldn’t say what happened.::

Tony grunted. He couldn’t really say what had happened either. Whatever it had been, it had felt weird. And Lennox said it had been a portal opening. A portal! Shit… His mind was fascinated by the very idea, he wanted to experiment and learn, but another part was really freaked out about it.

He needed a drink.

Something other than coffee.

Badly!

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Lattimer and Donovan, both looking a little shell-shocked despite their past experience with the fantastic, were allowed to remove the type-writer for storage inside Warehouse 13. Mrs. Frederic was on the scene, her quiet competence and no-nonsense attitude diffusing the situation further. Banachek came in almost at the same time and both were seen talking seriously and quietly for a while. Sam and Jazz were with them, Bumblebee keeping an eye on things.

Optimus Prime was kept in the loop via a live-chat function from one of the pavilions. Tony had made sure it was a heavily encrypted and super-secure connection. Tony himself was digging through his memories for any experience that came close to what had occurred, but no sub-space pocket had ever torn the fabric of space like that.

While he kept Extremis on this new development, Stark had also looked into how the two Warehouse agents had managed to get onto the Expo grounds undetected. He had pulled files from the deepest, darkest corner of the net, and he had been only mildly surprised by how well-protected they were. Then again, there was only so much protection out there. With the right access, anyone could read about the Warehouse. Still, it wasn’t an official branch of the government, just like Sector Seven had never appeared anywhere on official records, and it was an exclusive little club.

The file on Claudia Donovan had Tony smirk. He read a lot of himself in her dossier.

Young, hip, brilliant techno-wiz.

And she was. Brilliant, of course. She had a grasp on this technology that rivaled Tony’s. She had dug into the alien hardware and implemented her own programs, had taken Warehouse systems apart and rearranged them to fit the needs of the agents.

What had Tony mark her file for further investigation was the mention of her supposedly dead brother. He had been trapped between dimensions and that device alone had all alarms go off inside Tony. He really, really needed to get everything on the Warehouse and the artifacts. Some of those things sounded very much like they didn’t belong into anyone’s hands.

::You want to go there:. Rodimus remarked.

::Peeping Tom::

::You think very loudly. And I happen to know you::

He smiled at that. Yeah. Something he hadn’t been able to prevent from happening. In the years they had known each other, Rodimus had come to understand and see a lot of Tony Stark that the billionaire would have rather hidden.

::Yes, I want to look at that stuff. Badly. I know Sam’s been at the warehouse and he’s been talking to Thirteen. We could get access::

::One step at a time. The artifacts are secure where they are. I wouldn’t want to get them on base and near Wheeljack:: Rodimus remarked. ::You know what happened with the Sector Seven experiments::

He grimaced.

::The artifacts are potentially volatile and dangerous when not handled correctly. Cooperation of the Warehouse agents would help us. Especially Mrs. Frederic and Mr. Nielsen::

Yes, Arthur Nielsen. That file had been interesting as well. Born Arthur Weisfelt, Artie was the Secret Service Agent-in-Charge at Warehouse 13. A former cryptographer, most of his personal past was kept under lock and key. Tony had skimmed over those locked files – after breaking the lock – and had learned that Artie had once been convicted of treason for selling State secrets to the Soviets. He also seemed to have died recently and been brought back by what was called the ‘Phoenix Charm’. Another artifact Tony wanted to badly examine.

::But one step at a time:. Rodimus added. ::We need to handle this first and worry about everything else later. How do you feel?::

Tony blinked. “What?” he asked out loud.

A wave of amusement touched him and he glared at his guardian.

“Very funny. And I’m fine.”

Tired, but fine. He had so much still to do and so many thoughts racing around his head.

“You leaving?”

“No, I’m here to stay for now.”

Tony shrugged. “Then you can play taxi. I need to get back to HQ. Pepper’s been buzzing me for an hour or more.”

“One hour and ten minutes, thirty-seven seconds,” came the helpful answer. “She keeps sending me the same requests simultaneously. With the addition to kick your ass over to Stark Towers or else.”

“Got you whipped, too, hm?”

“She’s a formidable woman.”

Tony chuckled and slid into the driver’s seat. “Home first. I need to shower and change or that formidable woman will do more than ass-kicking. Then we get more coffee and then I’m ready to take on the world.”

Rodimus started his engine. “I believe Pepper mentioned that she has your clothes at the office already and she doesn’t care whether you look like a Yeti or not. Or smell like one. There’s a last meeting she will drag you to by the scruff of your neck.”

Tony groaned. “She’s turning into a Valkyrie,” he muttered.

But he did as Pepper had ordered.

At least today.

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The few remains – dust particles, really -- found of the relic had been flown to Nevada. Under heightened security measures and accompanied by Will. There had been just a few sprinkles of dust on the ground, but those might prove to be the key to knowing what this thing had been. Tony had had to opt out. The Expo was opening this weekend and Pepper was monopolizing his time. He had speeches to give and hands to shake. He also wanted to look into where the relic had come from. Stark knew suspicious when he saw it and his people were already digging for the truth. Knowing the grind and slow progress of the official inquiry, Tony had freed a substantial amount of cash to make things move smoother.

Ratchet and Wheeljack were awaiting the transport. Contained within a secure box, kept under lock and protected by a strong force shield, the debris particles were placed into the high security lab deep within the base. Even tiny fragments of the Allspark and anything related to it were regarded as immensely dangerous. With good reason. The Cybertronians had been in possession of the Allspark for millennia and, while they had no real understanding of what it truly was, they knew how dangerous it could be.

Just look at what had happened to Lennox.

“No readings,” Wheeljack announced after intense minutes of calibrating and recalibrating his equipment. “Nothing registers. It’s… dead.”

Lennox regarded the mysterious debris and shook his head. “It didn’t feel dead when Tony and I touched it. It somehow doesn’t feel dead now.”

“You can feel it?” Ratchet wanted to know, voice intense.

“Yes… no… well, I know it’s there and that it reacts to the runes. Like a tickle.”

Ratchet stared at him, clearly flustered. Wheeljack regarded him silently for a moment.

“Maybe you depleted it and the remains react to the energy inside you?” the scientist hazarded a guess.

The human Prime snorted. “I have a habit of doing that. Absorbing stuff.”

Wheeljack was about to scan him, then thought better of it. “This time Mr. Stark seems to be in on your talent,” he simply remarked. “From what you told us, something happened that had you… teleport?”

Will shook his head. “No. We weren’t there. Physically, I mean. Really there. It was like standing inside a photograph. Like a hologram. I could see the landscape and it was Cybertron. I recognized it from what Ironhide has shown me in the past. But I didn’t breathe the air or felt or tasted anything.”

“Curious,” the scientist remarked.

Ratchet hummed thoughtfully, still trying to get anything out of the debris. His instruments showed no blip either.

“Did it feel like the time you absorbed the Allspark shard?” Wheeljack wanted to know.

It got him a snort of dark humor. “Wheeljack, I was out like a light and didn’t wake up for a while. And afterwards I had no scar, no injuries, nothing at all, except weird runes and even weirder powers.”

“Maybe the energy you are surrounded with, the one acquired through the hybridization, triggered the relic,” Ratchet spoke up.

Lennox felt like strangling the mech when he said ‘hybridization’. It sounded like he had been transformed with his consent.

“Possible,” Wheeljack agreed. “But unless we find out what it is, it’ll be difficult to interpret events.”

Which was why Will sketched the relic and Tony was asked for his version, which promptly came as a kind of screen capture image through Extremis. Wheeljack then started the needle in a haystack hunt.

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“So… most of the artifacts are what? Alien?” Claudia asked.

The sun was up, it was a bright late morning, and breakfast had come in form of fast food bags. Sam didn’t care. His metabolism made short work of anything others would call fattening or unhealthy. His body had finally made a few adjustments where the technopathic backlashes were concerned, but he still needed the energy. The coffee that went with the food was eagerly consumed.

“Yes and no,” Sam answered, pouring himself another cup. “The technology is clearly derived from Cybertronian tech, but it was adjusted to fit human thinking and skills. Everyone who worked with an artifact or created something with the help of Cybertronian technology changed it. It became a kind of ancient hybrid tech, something not unlike what Stark Industries puts out.”

Pete shook his head, clearly still not very much adjusted to the whole idea. It had taken him a very short time to accept the Warehouse and the strangeness there, but this…? Alien robots? Alien tech crashing on Earth millennia ago? Way past the normal weirdo-meter.

“Now what?” he asked, shooting glances at Bumblebee, who was parked near-by.

“Nothing much. You go back to your job, we go back to ours,” Sam answered easily. “Mr. Banachek has cleared things with the people you call The Regents and your Caretaker, Mrs. Frederik. I know there were a few heated discussions with your man at home.”

Claudia snorted. “Oh, Artie will give us an earful.”

“The Autobots don’t claim any of the artifacts and what you’ve been doing for centuries has helped prevent a lot of trouble.”

“That’s us. Troubleshooters,” Claudia proclaimed with a grin, pumping her fist into the air.

Sam chuckled. “I guess we’ll hear of and see each other more often in the future. For my part, I’m glad to know there is a way to neutralize old tech and that it is stored safely.”

“Guess the big guys don’t have to worry about that stuff,” Pete said.

Claudia nodded. “We wouldn’t have enough of the slime to neutralize a foot. Well, maybe Jazz’s foot. But it’s not like we get mass production. What we got is needed to keep the Warehouse from overloading and the artifacts calmed down.”

Sam nodded. He knew what had been discussed behind closed doors, thanks to Jazz being in on it and giving him a direct technopathic line to listen in. It wasn’t that they had wanted to keep him outside, but Sam had been busy going through the exhibits and scanning for anything that might be classified as an artifact – thereby being of Cybertronian descent. He had found nothing, much to his and everyone else’s relief.

Optimus had been slightly apprehensive when he had heard about the potent fluid that temporarily neutralized an artifact. Mrs. Frederic had assured them it wasn’t produced in large quantities, that it was actually quite difficult to store it in larger barrels, and she had offered to send samples for examination. The older Prime had agreed and those samples would be shipped to Yuma base for the Constructicons to look at. Ratchet, who had been reviewing the effects the small containment bag had had on the artifact of the Expo, believed that the fluids only influenced hybrid tech. It would have to be seen.

A black SUV pulled up, accompanied by a well-known black-and-white. Sam felt a buzz of conversation in the back of his mind as Jazz greeted his bonded and he grinned secretly to himself. He should have known that Barricade wouldn’t stay away from this.

The driver of the SUV got out. He was a heavily muscled man of Asian descent, bald, with granite features. He was dressed in a spiffy suit that couldn’t hide the fact that he was armed. Apparently Pete and Claudia knew him, since they gave him a nod.

::Mrs. Frederic sent her driver:: Bumblebee told Sam.

So that cleared that up.

“Well, see ya around,” Claudia said brightly.

Sam smiled back. “We probably will.”

Pete just nodded at him, then followed his colleague.

Sam watched the two Warehouse agents go, an uneasy feeling in his stomach region. The SUV pulled away, followed by Barricade.

::Sam?:: Bumblebee asked through the link.

He leaned back against the Camaro with a sigh. “I don’t know, Bee,” the technopath answered quietly.

“Are you worried that they will pose a danger?”

“No. Not like that. It’s just… they had the technology to detect your presence for ages and they’ve been in close contact with your technology, too. They can find you guys, Bee.”

“You think they might stumble over one of our kind, Autobot or Decepticon, and will get hurt?”
“If they find a Decepticon, probably,” Sam replied darkly. “Any Con hiding on Earth doesn’t want to be found, for one reason or another. If they run across an Autobot… well, I’d wonder why the mech hadn’t contacted Optimus or anyone else prior to their discovery.”

“True. So far they’ve been lucky.”

Sam chewed on his lower lip, thinking. Bumblebee waited.

Finally, “I think I need to talk to Tom about getting the Warehouse files. Thirteen would cooperate, I’m sure. I’d like to get them officially if possible, but if that raises too many flags, I can always sneak in and strike a deal with Thirteen.”

Because there might be hints as to locations of mechs in those files. The Warehouse had a very detailed list of artifacts, all ever discovered, created or stored. It would be a long and tedious, mind-numbing and dry job to go over the files, but maybe they could gain something from it.

Bumblebee, listening in to his partner’s thoughts, agreed silently.

Walking back onto the Expo grounds, Bumblebee following him with a soft rumble of his engine, Sam went looking for Tony. He knew Stark was still around, making sure that all traces of their midnight adventures were gone from any kind of surveillance equipment.

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Nothing of the events remained on any kind of surveillance equipment and those who had been on duty throughout the night knew when to claim nothing had happened. Tony paid them very, very well for turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to anything that might compromise the Autobots.

* * *

Will Lennox had chosen to spend some quality time in Los Angeles, specifically at Point Dume, Tony Stark’s home. Tony had extended an open invitation to all of them a long time ago and Will had been paying visits a few times already. It was easy to talk to Tony when the shields were gone and he was facing the man underneath all the layers of make-belief and defenses. They had an easy camaraderie and since Tony could really see what was happening inside him, Lennox had found that doing his daily training routine at the house benefitted them both. Tony trained his new senses, Will found out more about himself.

So he had come back for a little R&R after the events at the Expo.

At least for the day it took him to grow stir-crazy and take Tony up on the offer to fly to Montana. Stark had a mountain retreat there.

Everyone who might have expected a cabin was way off course. It was a cabin, but it looked more like some abandoned resort than the house of a single man with the occasional female visitor along for fun. The whole thing was situated at the end of a narrow canyon that was probably almost inaccessible by road in winter – for which Tony had a helicopter landing pad. It overlooked a near-perfect vista of nature and was prepared for all and every wish of the home owner or the guests.

Lennox was slightly bemused by the luxury, but he didn’t really mind. He hadn’t come here for hideously expensive food or a hot soak in the Jacuzzi, but he wouldn’t say no to not caring for a while. He hoped Ironhide would respect his wishes to be alone and not fly back from Australia in a flurry of panic over the latest developments.

Spending a week at the cabin was probably the best right now. There was hardly anyone here, aside from assorted wildlife, and Will had time to explore the latest changes – as well as enjoy the out-of-this-world flatscreen and access to a satellite of endless TV programs. Being away from the Autobots helped immensely, especially since Ratchet and Wheeljack usually looked quite closely at everything that changed around or with him.

Gazing at himself in the full length mirror, Will wondered if the most prominent change, the runes, was simply temporary or for good. They weren’t really gone, just hovering under the surface, invisible unless something spiked their activity levels. Drawing on his energy, for example. Or touching a mech, which still had the result of the mech’s name crawling over Will’s hand or forearm. The tattoo around his wrist, the one that was Ironhide’s name in Cybertronian, had migrated. It had been kind of disturbing, really. For the past two decades it had sat wrapped around his right wrist. Nothing had changed that fact. Now it was a pale line of glyphs running from his temple to his jaw-line, incorporating the Prime glyph rather neatly and elegantly. He could actually make the pale runes become quite visible if he just thought about it. Otherwise they almost looked like faded scars.

The matrix tattoo on his back hadn’t changed at all. It still looked like one massive tramp stamp across his back, but that was easy to hide. Trying to make it fade had been met without success.


It was throughout the second night at the cabin that the dreams started. He couldn’t recall them when he woke, just that they were disturbing, trying to worm into his mind and tell him something, but so far no luck. He woke twice because of them and no amount of coffee could stop him from feeling fuzzy around the edges for the whole day. When he almost zoned out throughout his regular training sessions – calling his energy and reabsorbing it – Will stopped and went for a run. Followed by a rigorous exercise regimen that had a lot of military attached to it, Lennox felt a bit more at balance, but the fuzziness wouldn’t face completely.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

“What is this?”

“The Matrix.”

“You said the glyphs on my back are the Matrix!”

“This is the original Key, Avatar Prime. You are its new vessel.”

“It was part of the Allspark?”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

“It’s part of you.”

“I’m not the Allspark!” he insisted.

“No. You are a Prime. You are William Lennox. You are Ironhide’s bonded partner. You can be whatever you want to be.”

He frowned at the obscure figures. Exoskeletal. Protoform. The blinding light from behind them made it almost impossible to discern individuals.

“What?”

“You control what you are.”

The runes. The powers. Everything.

“It is your choice, Avatar Prime. Yours alone.”

“Like the shape-shifting?”

“All is shape-shifting, Prime. Your appearance is what you make of it.”

He could be a Protoform. He could be something weirdly hybrid. He could be human. Completely?

“So the runes… I control them now?”

“Yes.”

“Except the Matrix Key?”

“In time.”

He swallowed. Human. He could go out into the world again. Something struck him. A terrible thought.

“So if I want to be the Protoform, I am it completely?”

“Yes. Shape-shifting is always complete.”

It hadn’t been in the beginning. He had been mostly human underneath.

“So I can transform?” his voice rose a little with the panic that thought launched.

“You are able to. You can make the choice.”

“No!”

Images flashed through his mind. Air, water, land, space. All was possible. Unlimited. He wasn’t a transformer. He was a shape-changer. A Shifter.

His body rippled and for a second he thought his mind was playing tricks on him as he saw a strangely organic looking, but clearly mechanoid, animal. It went through several phases, from cat-like, to winged, to running like a horse, to swimming like a dolphin, to human again.

Lennox drew back, terrified. This was far more than a single step forward. This was one gigantic leap.

Amusement flooded through him; not his own.

“In time, Prime. In time. You have yet to learn about your past.”

“What are you talking about? What about my past?”

“Your past is our past. You are one of us.”

“No. I’m what the Allspark made of me!” Lennox argued hotly. “I was born human!”

“Your birth doesn’t change your past.”

“Can you be more obscure please?!”

Eddies of light moved around him.

“The Matrix is a force capable of great good,” one of the ancient Primes told him. “Or great destruction. You are its keeper. You possess the Key. Your strength will keep you and your kind safe.”

“What about the others? About Tony? The Matrix Key touched him, too.”

“Yes. He will have to explore his abilities as well.”

“What abilities?”

Around him the world cracked open, splitting in places, ripping apart, showing him glimpses, like looking through the crack of a window. One crack was wider. Behind it was the dead metal husk of Cybertron and Will slightly recoiled from the death and destruction visible even through such a tiny opening.

“He can open portals?” he asked, swallowing.

“He can bridge space.”

Hell… he thought. Fucking hell!

“Why can’t Optimus do this? Why the human Primes?”

And had Sam changed, too?

“Nothing is just the ability of one.”

Now there was a stupidly ominous answer. Will glowered at the nothingness around him.

“You are connected. All Primes are. Once there were Thirteen. Now Five share the power and responsibility.”

“And only we puny humans have a problem with it?” he asked sarcastically.

“Might is not determined by size, Avatar Prime.”

He gave the nothingness a narrow-eyed frown. “So why do we humans get the heap of the trouble?”

“You are young. You still need to get used to what you can do.”

Like Shifting? Will didn’t think so. It felt like they had tried to find a sucker to dump the problematic stuff on and he had been in the way. In the way of the Allspark shard… Sometimes he wondered if this had really been an accident or something different. He didn’t believe one moment that any of the mechs had planned it; the shard was too much of a revered object to have someone try and stick it into a human being and see what happened. But no one knew a lot about the Allspark as such and Lennox, as well as Sam and Tony and some others, suspected that the thing was a lot more than just a cube that had spewed out sparks and given life to machine bodies.

Around him the whispers of what he believed were the old shadows and echoes of the Primes past drew closer.

“No harm was intended,” the voice that was probably the speaker for them all said calmly.

“Yeah, well, it hurt anyway.”

It had left no scars, but a lot of other stuff. Scars would have been preferable.

“So now what?” Lennox demanded.

“The Matrix Key is safe with you. The dead husk that was displayed is inactive.”

“But a lot of stuff still floats around. Like Thirteen.”

There was no answer. He hadn’t really expected one.

There was the feeling of dragging himself out of a deep, dark swamp and he knew his mind was about to wake up.

Convenient, huh? he thought. Convenient for those who could only contact him when he was asleep and receptive.



And then he blinked his eyes open, feeling moderately well-rested, though not as awake as after a good night’s sleep. The sound of rain drops splashing against the bedroom window had him stay in bed, sorting through his mind. The memories of the dream were all there and when he looked at his hands, the runes were close to normal, playing over his skin. He thought them away and they obediently sank into invisibility.

At least something good had come of the latest evolutionary step, Lennox mused. Even if everything else was already hitting the fan again.

* * *

Tony dropped by more or less unannounced throughout the late afternoon. He had taken the Iron Man armor out for a spin, he claimed. Will knew that the other Prime just needed to get out and be what he wanted to be. For all his riches and fame and life-style, Tony Stark was an engineer at heart. He loved tinkering around, creating new devices or gadgets or constructing the impossible in his high-end lab in the basement of his home. Give him a tool box and he was happy as a clam. Everything else was a necessary evil for him to keep up the pretense and appease the board and the investors.

The Expo had opened with a bang and the press was falling all over themselves to praise it. People were flocking and millions of world-wide visitors were expected. The Expo would run for five months and then wind down. Until then, it would be a publicity and money machine, no doubt. It also promoted Stark Industries’ eco-friendly business branch, one that had replaced the weapons manufacturing a decade ago. SI had taken a bad hit on the market after Tony had pulled out of the weapons business, but he had made more than up for it by promoting eco-friendly technology.

Lennox doubted that the man had truly lost more than a few bucks by turning 180 degrees and making sure the world was a safer place.

“So, any profoundly deep realizations?” Tony asked as he sent the armor into subspace and slipped into jeans and a t-shirt after the underarmor had dissolved back into his skin.

“A few,” Will shrugged and handed Tony a beer.

“Like?”

“Even when they’re dead and long gone, the past Primes are meddling jackasses.”

Stark laughed and flopped down onto a deck chair. It was a rather warm afternoon. The rain had stopped, the sun had come out, and while it would soon be dark and cold again, right now it was pleasant. And Lennox had stopped being bothered by the elements a long time ago.

“Tell,” Tony prodded.

So he did.

When he mentioned the ‘bridging space’ part, Stark stared at him with wide eyes. “What?!” he blurted.

“I think they’re telling you that you might be able to… teleport. Cybertronian style.”

“How?!” came the demand.

Will shrugged and opened a second beer. “No clue. I’m up to my eyebrows and off the deep end with my own abilities. You go and figure this out yourself. Without blowing up yourself or this planet.”

Tony chuckled, but there was a thoughtful expression in his eyes. “Teleporting. Cool. Too damn bad we don’t come with a handbook, huh?”

“I drink to that,” Will answered and raised his bottle.

Silence descended between them and Will gazed into the distance, the mountains, the darkening sky, watching an eagle circle lazily.

“We need to talk to Optimus about all this,” he finally said, almost to himself.

Alert dark eyes regarded him silently. Tony was waiting. He knew just like Will that they were in this together, all five Primes. They had a responsibility and they had to share this. With the connections existing between some of them, maybe Optimus had gotten a hint of the changes already. Roddy had probably reported back to him in detail about the events at the Expo and Optimus wasn’t stupid. He was anything but. He could add one and one and come up with something really weird happening once more. Then again, maybe for a mech his age ‘weird’ had become part of the everyday routine. Maybe the whole thing about the Matrix Key and the ‘bridging space’ part were nothing but regular occurrences.

Lennox sighed. Wishful thinking, he knew.

“Optimus says to unwind for the rest of the week, then meet him at Arctic,” Tony interrupted his thoughts.

Lennox shot him a quizzical look, then rolled his eyes. “Extremis,” he only muttered.

Stark grinned and reached for a third beer. “Yep. Comes in handy.”

Lennox stretched, feeling his back creak and pop. Despite all his changes, there was still a very human side to him. Sure, he hadn’t gotten sick in close to twenty years, he hadn’t aged, he was faster and stronger and more resilient, he didn’t need so much sleep any more, could go on for four days without a nap, and his body seemed to make the most of whatever he ate, but right now he felt as human as anyone.

“Any news as to where this Key came from?”

Tony grimaced. “According to Wheeljack, it’s truly ancient, even for their kind. It was last seen in some obscure museum or shrine or temple. The mechs never knew what it was, since it apparently came with the Allspark and no one has a manual for that one either.”

Will smiled darkly.

“According to my contacts,” Tony went on, “and their investigations, it was found in Petra two hundred years ago. Robbers tried to get into the city and they pried loose stone coverings to crawl inside, looking for something valuable to loot. They found the relic and got some money for it. Not a lot, since it wasn’t really something the black market was looking for. The relic changed hands a few times, even spent time in Warehouse 12 for three years, then was removed by persons unknown.”

“How did it end up here?”

“That’s where it gets tricky. No one knows. It was in the crates shipped to the Expo, but not on the manifest. The Evolution of Technology pavilion if shared by three larger companies, and this stand is from DeMains. Victor DeMains, son of Franco DeMains, the CEO, thought it was a loan from his father’s collection of ancient tech. With everything they set up, the relic was just one of many exhibits and nothing special.”

Will scrubbed a hand over his face. “Just fucking great.”

“It gets better.” Tony smiled humorlessly. “DeMains senior has no idea this thing even existed. He said he never laid eyes on it before.”

“Mysteriously appearing alien objects.” Lennox shook his head. “Not good.”

“Whatever happened, however this thing got here, it wasn’t part of the Expo.”

“Don’t tell me it was planned by a bunch of dead Primes to get me in contact with the former shell of what’s tattooed on my back,” the hybrid growled.

Stark shrugged. “I stopped questioning the fantastic at the age of three. Talk to Lattimer or whoever works at the Warehouse and you get a whole new appreciation of freaky. They deal with rampaging alien tech without even knowing it, and they have done so for a long, long time, and their stories are even weirder and wilder.”

“Being part of the freaky, wild and weird isn’t what’s it all about,” Will growled.

“But,” Tony pointed out, grinning, “you now have control over the runes, right? Theoretically you could go out, have fun, be human.”

“Stark, shut up.”

“Just noticin’.”

“Go notice something else. And for the record: I am human.”

It got him an even wider grin. “As much as any of us still is.”

Will gave him a dark look, then frowned a little more. “You’re going to experiment with this space-bridging thing, right?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Not without back-up.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“No, I’m threatening, oh so subtly, to sic Roddy on you if you don’t get back-up.”

“Like Roddy?”

“Yes.”

Tony sighed theatrically. “He’s the worst baby-sitter there is.”

“He’s still your guardian and he’s doing a great job.”

“Like Ironhide?”

Will laughed, eyes glinting. “I didn’t know you were into mechs, Tony.”

Tony blinked, then snorted. “I’m not that desperate.”

“Wait a few more decades…”

He grimaced and Lennox smirked.

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The rest of the week was spent alternating between running laps for hours through the canyon-riddled landscape, taking it easy in front of the TV and carefully looking into the proclaimed Shifting abilities. So far he hadn’t found any way to trigger them, but then again, Will wasn’t really looking forward to transforming.

He should be going into a full fledged panic, he mused. He should be screaming and tearing into anything in his way. But he wasn’t. he felt strangely calm about the changes. Running helped. Running until even his hybrid body told him he needed a rest, which was a long, long time after any human super athlete would have stopped. Endurance like that was fun.

The Will Lennox version of a panic attack was to work out, to let his mind wander, let things work themselves out. It was how he had made it to Major. It was how he lad led teams and had them survive – until the Cybertronians had shown up and dumped their war on humanity. It was how he had dealt with being bonded to Ironhide, becoming a Prime, looking like the darn Allspark, and now this.

Afterwards he enjoyed the long, hot soaks in Tony’s hideously large and impossibly expensive tub. The thing had more functions than the average smart phone and it could probably place long-distance calls, too. Two beers later, sitting in sweat pants and a worn t-shirt in front of the dream-come-true TV, Will tackled the problem of a million channels and too many good sports programs to choose from.

So he zapped around until he hit a good game.

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After nine days, two of which Tony had spent holed up with him, trying to evade Pepper, work and whatever else, a black Topkick pulled up in the driveway. Will leaned against the porch, smiling a little as the hardlight hologram came to life. There was no one else around and Ironhide had no one to hide from, but still he used the ‘extension’. Fully human features, too.

“Back from your vacation?” the hybrid teased.

“I could ask you the same.”

Will shrugged. “Officially I’m still off duty.”

Ironhide regarded him silently, scanners tracking over the human form. Lennox felt them and he knew there was nothing for him to see. Finally Ironhide reached out and ran explorative fingers over the faint marks on his temple. His name, the Prime glyph.

“Still feels the same?” Will asked softly.

“Yes. Quite intensely.”

He had seen the mech shiver and he knew how potent contact with the runes of the Matrix for his bonded was. Apparently the new location and looks of the other script was, too.

“Still hoping I’m done with the changes,” Will sighed.

Ironhide’s expression was serious. “Stark mentioned some things. As did Optimus.”

It was an offering to share, to talk, and Will knew he would have to tell his partner sooner or later. This was about them as well. He nodded and walked over to the silent mech, climbing into the Topkick.

This would take a while to explain.

And then he knew the questions would start.

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He wasn’t wrong.

And Ironhide focused immediately on the possibility of his Shifting. Lennox knew his sometimes very single-minded partner and he had anticipated the reaction.

No, he had no idea how to trigger a shift.

No, he hadn’t tried it.

Yes, he was scared shitless, though he didn’t word it that way.

No, he didn’t tend to practice right away – because he might end up stuck as something far less human than the hybrid he was.

And no, no discussions. For now he was glad nothing even more freaky had happened. He had a measure of control over the runes, which was good, and he would handle everything else in time.
Ironhide’s reaction was misgiving, but he respected Will’s wishes.

“I’m ready to go home,” Lennox said into the silence that had followed the discussion.

“Tomorrow,” Ironhide replied. “Get some rest. I believe Ratchet and Optimus will keep you busy when we get back.”

Will rolled his eyes as he slid from the cab. “I’m not Ratchet’s personal lab rat, you know. And we’re leaving.”

The holoform appeared on the porch, smiling. “He means well.”

Lennox glared and walked into the cabin, followed by Ironhide. “You haven’t been under his scrutiny for almost two decades!”

“I’ve only known him for a few millennia, true.”

Will intensified his glare at the wry delivery, then walked into the bedroom and started to pack.

Two hours later the cabin was locked down, secured, and they were on their way to the pick-up point. Will felt more relaxed again and let Ironhide do the driving.

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It was like starting a new life when he walked into a burger joint and ordered a large value meal, added a super-size milk shake, and went out without having disturbed anyone. There had been hardly a second look, despite the faint runes on his face that looked like a scar pattern. He preferred that to a moving pattern that freaked people out.

“Congratulations,” Ironhide rumbled as he drove and Will ate. “Don’t get mayo on me,” he added testily.

Will grinned.

He felt good. For the first time in nearly twenty years he was free.

“I’ll give you a personal bath should there be any offensive stains, Hide.”

The mech grumbled softly, but he didn’t object to the food inside him.

* * *

Try as he might, Tony Stark was unable to duplicate the effect the first contact with the Matrix shell had had on him. He had no idea how to ‘bridge space’. He had tried the simple version of thinking of another place, imagining himself there – without success – to the more complicated and dangerous variety: he had used the armor and charged it with an incredible amount of energy. Extremis was no help – except that he came out of his fruitless attempts almost unhurt.

Jarvis had been less thrilled by some ideas his creator had had, mainly because Tony had blown a hole through the ceiling one time.

“I always wanted a skylight,” had been the AI’s wry remark.

“Shut it, Jarvis.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Rodimus Prime had come in after Jarvis had called him – and after Tony had ruined his living room and the kitchen because of a misfire.

“I knew it,” Tony growled.

Rodimus just smiled down at him.

“You are a nuisance! Both of you.”

“I take that as a compliment, sir,” Jarvis replied blithely.

“You would. As for you,” Tony glared at Rodimus, “what do you think you can do to stop me?”

“I’m not here to stop you. I’m here to clean up the pieces after you’ve blown yourself up again,” was the calm reply.

“I won’t blow myself up!”

“Past experience begs to differ. You have no idea how to use this new ability and unless you find the correct trigger, anything can happen.”

Tony scowled. “And you think you being here will change that, Roddy?”

“I’m not sure I can change anything about you, Tony.”

“Very funny.” Tony stopped, suddenly thoughtful.

Rodimus’ optics narrowed suspiciously. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, no,” the young Prime shook his head. “That’s not your nothing face. That’s the something face.”

“I’ve got a something face?” Tony laughed.

“You have a lot of faces and most mean trouble. Like right now. Spill.”

“You’re all sympathy and friendship, Roddy.”

“I’ll be very sympathetically kicking your ass if you don’t tell me what’s going on in that brain of yours.”

“I love you, too. And it’s just an idea.”

Rodimus gave him a hard look. Tony sighed and shrugged.

“The idea is that maybe whatever I am apparently able to do was triggered by Will and Will alone. Maybe it needs him to make it happen again.”

“Hopefully,” came the mutter from the silver mech.

Tony scowled.

“Oh, I know you won’t give up until you have duplicated this space hopping technique,” Rodimus told him levelly. “Just keep in mind that Cybertron is currently lost, trapped in a reality bubble, and not exactly the perfect ground for a quick vacation.”

“Spoil-sport.”

But he was right, Tony knew. Cybertron was a dangerous place; lost, but dangerous. Tony didn’t plan on jumping there on a good day without back-up, but there was nothing working against trying to hop to the Ark.

He held up his hand in a solemn vow. “I won’t try to space hop to Cybertron. Honest-to-god oath.”

It got him a narrowed-optics stare.

::Really:: he insisted. ::I won’t::

Rodimus gave an electronic sigh and shook his head. ::You will, Tony. I know you too well::

::Hey, with you as my constant nag and baby-sitter I won’t have the time to try anything funky.::

Before Rodimus could reply there was an insistent beep and Jarvis announced, “Ms. Potts wants to talk to you, sir. She sounds insistent.”

“She sounds cranky,” Tony muttered, but he gave the image of Pepper a brilliant smile when Jarvis patched her through.

It was back to business as usual and Rodimus simply transformed and took his normal parking spot in the garage.

For now, no fancy space hopping trials. But later was another matter.

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They met in their usual place, The Watering Hole, and sought out their usual table in the back. It was a booth that gave them some privacy, though no one would actually think about interrupting the three men. Will was on his second beer, Sam was still nursing his first, and Lieutenant Commander Trent Di Marco was sticking to his first like glue. He was officially off duty, but that didn’t mean getting drunk. He had a wife and kids to come home to. Arcee was parked in the lot outside, waiting patiently, being the designated driver, but it wasn’t a free pass. He also had nothing to get drunk for.

It was different with his two friends. Lennox had the problem that no matter how much he drank, he didn’t get so much as a buzz, and Sam refused to go through the hangover ever again since he had been drunk off his ass years ago – and had had the expected morning after.

“We heard back from Mrs. Frederic,” Sam said, playing with a cracker, then finally eating it. “She wants a meeting.”

“That’s good.”

He shrugged. “Depends. They know where these artifacts come from now. We know who they are. I suspect Tom did some more digging and knows all there is to know.”

Trent nodded. Of course he did. Banachek had connections and a free pass. He could dig wherever he wanted to and was able to find what he needed, with no one looking over his shoulder. The Warehouse was a government institution and therefore registered files existed.

“Jolt’s already in Egypt,” Sam went on. “He’s secured the area and is keeping unwanted visitors away. We have full cooperation of the authorities. The deaths of those three kids shook up a few people and while it was swept under the rug, knowing there is a very dangerous sentient being buried under the sand makes them nervous.”

Will smiled humorlessly. “And you still plan on flying there to make contact?”

Sam looked indecisive. “Not right now. Two isn’t a lose canon and contact with Thirteen right now is more important. Jolt’s only watching. Blaster’s keeping sensors peeled and at the slightest glitch I’m over there. For now it’s reconnaissance, not contact.”

“If Two is the prior incarnation of Thirteen… and if it needs a Caretaker, waking it up again would probably not be a good idea,” Trent mused.

“Nope. Which is why the reconnaissance is important. I don’t think the Warehouse entities are clones of each other. It’s more like a genetic line that continues on and on. Thirteen’s creation is still a mystery and I want to look deeper into who built the Warehouses and who activated the entity, and where they got the core program from. The first one went online a very long time after the Allspark crashed on Earth, so I doubt it’s connected to it. Maybe it was another mech who came here, looking for or following the Allspark’s trace.”

“Have fun,” Will muttered.

“I could use some help.”

It got him a laugh. “Oh no. No way. I have enough on my plate, Sam. You do your thing, I do mine.”

Sam shrugged, grinning. “Call it a change of routine if you need one. Thirteen’s always happy to meet new people.”

“Nope, not interested.”

Because he knew how mechs, of whatever descent, reacted to the runes. He didn’t want to end up with another worshippy sentient life-form on his heels. And who knew, Thirteen might just react the opposite.

“I can do some computer digging,” Trent offered. “It’s quiet on the base front. Routine stuff. Prowl keeps life interesting, but it’s nothing I haven’t handled before.”

“I bet.”

Conversation turned to normal things from there, like Trent’s twin daughters, home life, base life at Nellis where his wife was still working, their planned expansion of the family home on base, and so on. There had been a call from Mikaela, who was planning to drag her husband Chris to the Expo in LA, and they wanted to meet Sam and Trent. Will gave them updates on his daughter Annabelle’s studies and how Raoul and Drift had dropped by to visit her a week ago. The former Decepticon assassin was still keeping a low profile and hadn’t talked to anyone but Optimus Prime a few times in the past. Raoul worked with Tony sometimes and he had a lot of new customers because of Stark. The invitation for an advance visit of the Expo grounds had been turned down because Drift wasn’t looking forward to exposing himself like that.

They called it a night just before midnight and Trent let Arcee drive him home. Bumblebee picked up both human Primes and made sure they arrived safe and sound as well. Sam went to crash and sleep in the next day. Will, currently not feeling the need of a ‘recharge’, sought out Ironhide, who was in his weapons lab. His partner was only too happy to demonstrate his latest forays into the fun world of blowing things up with big guns.

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A rather eventless week went by. Routine had settled in once more.

It was the first week of October when a flight went out from Nellis to a small airport in South Dakota. The unmarked helicopter had barely landed when the doors opened and Sam Witwicky got out, hurrying over to a waiting car. It was a white, sleek Dodge Charger.

“Welcome to South Dakota,” Prowl greeted the human Prime.

“Thanks. Had a nice drive?”

It got him a wry whirr, almost a laugh. “It was informative.”

Prowl had actually been in the area, more or less. He had insisted on coming along, providing back-up and protection, as he claimed. Optimus hadn’t been happy about Sam going on his own in the first place, but Sam had insisted he could handle himself. And he wasn’t alone. He would be meeting up with Tom Banachek at the Warehouse. Sure, it meant no Autobot was with him, but he wasn’t about to be abducted by Decepticons. And he could defend himself.

But here Prowl was.

“You know that we have picked up a shadow?” Prowl asked calmly as he drove along the deserted road.

Sam frowned, then almost laughed as he picked up a faint, well-known echo. Barricade.

“When did he turn up?”

“The same time you landed. Apparently he deems it necessary to be here.”

“He’s kind of protective.”

“I noticed,” Prowl replied coolly.

Ever since Prowl had come on-line after spending millennia encased in a glacier in Iceland, those two had been silently watching each other, suspicious of every move, unable to trust the other. Sam understood Barricade’s reluctance to trust the tactical officer. And he understood Prowl’s own reluctance to give a Decepticon the benefit of a doubt. But it had been years now. To him it had taken on a childish quality, almost like a game between the two very different mechs, and it was something Jazz watched with rising amusement. He called it entertaining.

“He has the right instincts, though,” Prowl broke the silence.

“Huh?”

“You need protection, Prime.”

Sam rolled his eyes. He didn’t even fall for that. He didn’t want to start another lengthy argument and discussion on what he needed because of who he was. Prowl was a little old-fashioned and a lot single-minded in that regard.

The Charger turned left and past a gate. They were on unpaved road, dust kicking up behind the white car that was now turning a distinct shade of reddish brown. Sam shoved all musings about Prowl and Barricade into the back of his mind and concentrated on what lay ahead.

* * *

Thirteen was delighted to greet the visiting Prime. Sam smiled as the presence he touched technopathically grew and willingly let him link to it. Banachek had arrived just a minute ahead of him and was waiting outside the impressive structure that housed Warehouse 13. Mrs. Frederic was at his side, looking her calm and very centered self. Sam briefly smiled at the figure next to Banachek’s car. Mike Bowman. He could sense WiFi with him, though the tiny mech was hiding for now. Bowman looked military despite wearing civilian clothes. They were joined by a guy named Artie, who seemed to be lead agent of Warehouse 13, or something along the lines.

::Artie has been with me for a very long time:: Thirteen told Sam. ::The others are the new kids::

He chuckled, then put on a neutral expression.

“Hi,” Sam greeted the one man he didn’t know, trying to look harmless. “I’m Sam Witwicky.”

Artie was looking suspiciously at Sam, as if he was a hacker about to steal his best-kept secret. Well, in a way he was. He had hacked into the Warehouse systems by technopathy and he had talked to the sentient being.

“So you say,” Artie replied, sounding more than unhappy to have him here.

Sam gave him a neutral look and a nod. Well, it was time to introduce these people to the world of mechanoid life-forms, hybrids and a technology they and their organization had handled for centuries – without knowing what it really was.

Thirteen sent positive thoughts, convinced that its Caretaker and agents would accept what Sam was about to tell them, that he needed complete access for a while.

Sam really hoped so. Because even if they protested, no one would be able to stop him. Technopathy allowed him to browse through the files without a password or official access.

All of them walked into the building, past security and defense mechanisms that Sam briefly scanned over, and then entered the inner sanctum.

Only when they were inside did WiFi show himself; their tiny little ambassador of sorts. Sam almost laughed when he picked up that stray thought from the cell phone transformer. From the look on Artie Nielsen’s face, he knew that the ball was now in their court.

It was time to start the explaining.

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Knowing he could transform and getting the courage together to train it, to actually *want* it were two very different things. Lennox had tried to ignore the knowledge sitting in his brain, had done everything possible to not think of it, but it always came back. Mostly when things got quiet, when thoughts wandered, or when Ironhide gave him that Look. His partner hadn’t said anything so far, hadn’t commented on him not exploring this possibility, but the looks said it.

Will had fled to Yuma, running mission scenarios with Mixmaster and Scrapper, but from their expressions they knew of this new development, too. It was Scavenger who approached him one evening, telling him that bottling up what he might be able to do wouldn’t help.

“It will come out,” he told the hybrid. “Probably when you least need it.”

“I’m not a shape-changing mech,” Lennox had argued back.

“No, you’re a shape-shifting human hybrid.”

It had taken him another two days to mull over the consequences and possibilities, and he finally decided that he needed to get this over with. He had to find the trigger before something did it for him and, as Scrapper had pointed out, it would most likely be when he least needed it.

The next question was how. He had found new defense and offense abilities within him when the Constructicons had pushed him to the limit throughout their training sessions. He had developed new weaponry when Optimus Prime had agreed to teach him a few tricks. Lennox didn’t want to find the trigger throughout a battle scenario.

“How do you trigger your transformations?” he asked as he joined Scavenger in his lab.

“It’s in our programming, Will.”

He sighed. That figured. Since he was human he didn’t have programs running his body.

“For you, it’s almost the same,” the Constructicon added, a smile swinging in his voice.

“I’m not a mech.”

“Everything runs on programs, organic or not. You don’t tell your blood to convert oxygen or your stomach to digest food. It’s programmed to do it. Your heart pumps your blood, your nervous systems runs your body.”

“Shape-shifting is not the same.”

“It’s a new ability. Like learning a new sport or a new language. Your have to train.”

“How do I train something I don’t know anything about?” Will challenged.

Scavenger cocked his head. “You know about it. You see us do it all the time. You have a protoform shape. Use that and find what you want to be.”

“I’d have to transscan first.”

It got him an amused chuckle. “From what you told me, your abilities are different in that regard. It seems you are even way beyond a triple-changer. It’s a matter of thinking what you want to be and then letting your body do the rest.”

It sounded so easy, but it was still so hard to do. There was still the fear of what this meant, of getting stuck as what he might turn into, and no amount of relaxation techniques helped.

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When it happened, it was when Will least expected it. He wasn’t thinking about possible transformations, shifting or shape-shifting. He was doing his normal morning rounds, running his half-marathon. While he had more endurance than that, the running helped him relax, let his mind wander, let things be.

Maybe that was the reason why it happened.

His brain was running mindlessly, going over stupid things that never made it to the forefront except throughout those times.

‘It’s the key.’

Huh? Where had that come from?

‘It’s the key. Use it.’

He kept running, slightly bemused at the thoughts, but running was automatic.

‘You can be what you want to be. Key, key, key…’

Key to what?

‘Yourself.’

Okay, now it was getting creepy.

Something dashed across his path and from one second to the next things started to flash in front of his eyes.

Animal shapes. Big, small, furry, scaled, winged, four legs, two legs, predator, prey, feathers, leather-skinned. Sky, ground, underground, dark, night, bright, day, water, ice, air…

The images burned through him.

Four legs, fast. Fast as the wind.

His skin rippled.

And then he was running. Hooves thundered over hard-packed earth, kicking up dust in his wake. He had never felt such power, such immense strength coiled in his muscles, and while part of him knew he was no longer human, another part just rejoiced in the unleashed force of nature.

Lennox stopped at an outlook, not even breathing hard. And he shouldn’t be breathing anyway. He wasn’t flesh-and-blood. He was a hybrid and he didn’t run out of breath when he was in his protoform. This was way more than the protoform. This was the next step.

Skin that shifted like a million particles that took on a new shape. He didn’t transform. He truly shifted. Everything about him flowed into a new shape.

The change had been… strangely painless and without complications. There had been no true shifting, just… he was human one moment, then something else. No grinding and rearranging of body parts, no pulling and pushing and weird noises.

He hadn’t changed into a car or a plane or something like that. He was four-legged, long-legged, with hooves. There was no reflective surface near-by, but from what he could see of himself, he looked horse-like. With a lot of Cybertronian touches.

Wow. Just wow…

A cloud of dust approached his position and senses far sharper and more finely tuned than human ones recognized a familiar shape. The large truck transformed and Optimus Prime looked at his fellow Prime, now looking like… a metal equine thing.

“I see you worked out your issues, Will,” came the very amused sounding comment.

Lennox almost laughed at the wry delivery. “Looks like it. And as usual, it’s not the way you do it.”

“I would have been surprised if it had been.”

Will felt his body shift at the thought of becoming his protoform self again and he flexed his fingers, looking at the lazily swirling runes that quickly sank back under his armor.

“Cool,” he muttered.

Optimus smiled briefly. “I believe you will need to train your abilities even more now.”

“And I believe there will be five volunteers who’ll be only too happy to kick my ass – protoform or otherwise.”

Optimus gave a rumble of amusement. “Probably.”

“Why are you here?”

“I felt the shift, Will.”

Lennox blinked, stunned. “You… felt it? How?”

“I believe that as Primes we share more than just a name. We share a link that’s privy to such changes.”

Will was silent, only too aware of what he had seen himself. The Primes shared something that was not a bond, not a normal link, not a connection. It was something only they had access to and that couldn’t be controlled. He knew that Optimus and Rodimus had already developed their link and that they used it frequently, but so far the human Primes had been exempt from that. Not him anymore. He was more and more removed from his human origin.

“I believe with the right amount of training you can master your transformation abilities, Will,” Optimus told him, voice calm and reasonable. He had a very grounding effect on Lennox and Will appreciated it.

“So far it seems that vehicles of any kind are out of my reach.”

“The abilities to transscan and shift to blend in is something connected to Cybertronians. You cannot expect to mimic this ability. You’re human, Will. Your body and mind act accordingly.”

“So I look like some alien horse?”

The older Prime chuckled. “I’m not sure that what I saw has much to do with your planet’s horses.”

A holographic projection appeared and Will stared at it in a mix of horror and fascination. “That’s me?”

“This is what I saw when I arrived.”

It had a very faint resemblance to a horse. Really faint. Four legs and what could be hooves, but since the hooves were split and had the shape of jagged-edge claws, he wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t been in this shape long enough to explore what he could do in the limb department. The creature had a long neck, segmented, covered by a mane that didn’t look like hair. More like fine tendrils, snake-like and metallic. The eyes were ice-blue optics, covered by a thick brow that appeared almost boney but was metallic as well. The head was wedge-shaped and instead of ears he had two short, thick horns. The body was armor-plated but didn’t appear heavy and ungainly.

The overall color was a dark bronze with wild slashes of dark gold and copper, almost as if the Allspark skin had tried to break through and had been completely warped.

“I look like some Halloween special,” Will muttered.

Optimus tilted his head, whirring slightly. “I believe that is in the eye of the beholder. You’ll have to see what you can do, if you can blend in like my kind does, or if your abilities to shift only go so far.”

He nodded. “Like I said, I believe there are five mechs who’ll be only too happy to help.”

Optimus transformed and opened the driver side door. “Do you want a ride back or do you want to run?”

Lennox hesitated a moment, then climbed inside. “Got enough of running for today. Who knows what happens if I go for another round.”

“You might end up learning how to fly.”

He only groaned. Flying! He didn’t need that added complication at all!

As they drove back over the bumpy ground, Optimus dropped a little bomb in his lap when he remarked, “Tony and I talked about his ability to scan you.”

Lennox was silent, staring out the windscreen.

“You should have mentioned it before, Will.”

“Rodimus knew.”

It got him a hum of amusement. “Rodimus is also very loyal to Tony and would have kept this information as requested unless it endangered us.”

Will tore his eyes away from the desert. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, he didn’t,” the other Prime agreed. “I simply believed that you would trust me with this information, Will.”

He groaned and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I do, Optimus. I really do. But you know what happens the moment anyone gets wind of what Tony can see. Ratchet won’t leave me alone for a minute and there will be files and scans and whatnot. I don’t want that anymore! I’m done being the guinea pig, being prodded and poked and taken apart. It doesn’t do anyone any good to know that Tony can see what’s going on inside me. No one else can!”

Optimus was silent, but he had stopped throughout Will’s rant. He finally said, “I understand. This information should be for us only then. I won’t tell Ratchet.” He sounded almost amused.

Lennox clenched his hands briefly around the steering wheel, then released a sharp breath. “Thanks.”

“Tell Sam, too.”

“Yeah, I will.”

“I believe Tony has been working on interpreting what he can see.”

“I know. We… cooperated on that.”

“Then continue doing so.”

Lennox nodded and Optimus started his engine again, rolling toward the base. They passed the rest of the drive in mutual, comfortable silence, and Will only gave his fellow Prime a nod when they went their separate ways after arrival. Optimus’ smile was barely perceptible, but it had been there.

Will smiled to himself, then ducked into the base and headed for the rec room where he knew the best coffee of the base was hidden. Right now he needed it.

Then he had a few calls to make.

* * *


Lennox had been correct in his assumption that the Constructicons would be happy to help him train, especially Mixmaster, who had made it his personal mission to prepare their human hybrid Prime for all eventualities in a fight. Scrapper watched it with careful optics, reigning in his team mate when things got hairy, but Lennox knew how to give as good as he got. He also got the hang of shifting while in battle. It was difficult, though.

Trying to appear more like a creature of Earth was equally tough. Try as he might, mimicking an animal skin was beyond him. Just like shifting into a vehicle of any kind.

Oh well.

One step at a time.

His new forms had firepower, hidden inside his body, just like a Cybertronian. What was absent were the runes. Not a single one showed on the surface and it was puzzling, but he accepted it. Just one more weirdness to deal with.

What did develop in leaps was his sense of the other Primes. They each had their own ‘feel’, like Optimus was this deep, dark calmness and Rodimus was a tightly coiled ball of energy. Sometimes, when Lennox concentrated on these sensations, he also got a kind of ‘sense’ of the individuals. Optimus was associated with ‘leader’. They might all be Primes, but Optimus was the designated leader. None of the others would try and take that from him. He was the Center. He was Control. Tony was associated with ‘Protector’ and ‘Shield’. Stark was the one who did everything in his powers – not inconsiderable ones at that – to keep their secret, to help, to protect in his own way. Rodimus had this uncanny sense of ‘Balance’ around him, as if Optimus needed him to balance his control, his powers, be the guide to keep the older Prime level and calm sometimes. He was the sounding board, the one who shared a burden Optimus had had to carry alone for so long.

None of the human Primes could take this from Optimus either. Lennox himself could barely wrap his mind around the fact that these people had fought against each other for millennia, destroying their planet and almost themselves.

Sam was hard to interpret. Sometimes Will thought he was a connection, a link, the counselor and ambassador, but then he wasn’t. Sam was the first contact and the important figure who had made so much possible. He had been the one to bond to Bumblebee, to accept a destiny so far beyond anything a human being had ever been asked to do. His abilities made him a capable warrior, a dangerous one, too. He was a technopath. Lennox sensed ‘Spear’ or ‘Spike’, referring to his technopathic powers.

His sense of himself was muted. He had no idea where he fit in. Something like ‘Vault’ drifted through him. ‘Key’. Yeah, the Matrix Key. He wasn’t sure what he was any more, and ‘hybrid’ wasn’t part of his perception.

Ironhide gave him the necessary distance to acquaint himself with his new abilities. It had always been like this, their partnership. Ironhide stepped back, watched, waited, and Will dealt with whatever he needed to deal. It had nothing to do with what he was – a Prime – but just the way Ironhide worked. Lennox appreciated it immensely. He hated coddling. What he needed was to test his limits and see whether there were weaknesses he had to work around or balance, or something even worse.

He could do this, he told himself. He had managed so much already and he could get a hang of this as well. This was his body, his mind, his abilities, and he would have to live with it all for quite a long time to come.

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“Shield, hm?” Tony sounded almost amused when they talked a few days later. “I never saw myself as a protector.”

“Somehow ‘Crazy Scientist’ didn’t come up,” Lennox replied, grinning.

“Oh well. So should I tag a ‘Prime’ to that? Protector Prime? Shield Prime? Guardian Prime?”

Somehow the last rang a bell with Will, but he didn’t comment on it.

“It’s only a sense, not a name,” he said instead.

“As if that makes it any better. Roddy is probably ‘Nagging Aunt’.”

“I hardly get a good sense of the mechs. Rodimus feels like he provides balance and Optimus is our voice.”

“Balance? Roddy? Try spoilsport.”

Lennox knew how to take the grumbling. And he knew that Rodimus was a balancing effect. He was younger than Optimus in age, but he wasn’t unlike the other Prime in his own younger years. Optimus had remarked on it once.

Optimus Prime would always be their leader, no matter what. The four new Primes would always relate to him and would support him to their powers.

Tony switched to complaining about the stupidity of politicians, the powerplay he was so sick and tired of, and he was musing about whether or not to finally take a step back from Stark Industries and let someone else deal with the morons. Lennox knew he would never give up control of his empire, though the idea to have Pepper step in as the new CEO was amusing. Will had no doubt that the red-head could handle herself, but it was Tony who was the face of the company. It was Tony who had made everything work. And it was Tony who protected them all because of Stark Industries. SI was their shield. It was their way to slowly but surely introduce the mechs’ technology into the world and then some.

No, Tony wouldn’t give that up. One day he might have to come up with a plan to continue being around, since he didn’t age and that would get awkward in a decade or two. Not everything could be explained by cosmetic surgery.

But one step after another.

It was how Will lived his life, had been living it ever since his first tour into a battle zone, and ever since meeting the mechs it had become his motto.

It was a good one.

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The rain passed over the mountains and the low hanging clouds shrouded them in a misty fog, clinging to the bare peaks. Showers were frequent this time of the year. Brief, intense, followed by bright spells of sunshine. Rain drops evaporated and turned into mist, like cotton balls stretched between tree tops.

The morning had started sunny but cool. The mist had evaporated soon and the blooming grass, now a reddish brown color, sparkled in the rising sun. A trail sloped down from the mountain-side to the rough coast line.

Will stood halfway up the trail on an outcropping, overlooking the beach. Storm Beach, it was called. Rightly so. Waves broke against rocks and sand, the autumn storms leaving wood and debris behind. Even up here, his senses registered the salt of the sea and the rotting algae.

The hybrid started to trot down toward the shore. As the slop evened out his trot became a gallop. Soon he was running faster and faster. Legs stretched, hooves hit soft earth and the fresh ground mixed with the smell of the sea. A low stone wall was cleared in an effortless jump.

Speeding up even more, the human Prime raced across the sand cleared from the tide. Water sprayed up around him. Will felt exhilaration spread through him. Everything fell away from him; he was free. Free to choose.

ey, key, key.

He chose.

There was no transition phase. There was no inner click or any kind of audible trigger. It simply happened. He shifted, still running, but smaller, predatory, with sleek muscles and a long tail. Cat-like and still not truly a cat of terrestrian origin. Not like Ravage, not like anything of Cybertronian birth.

Claws dug into the ground and he easily jumped from boulder to boulder, then took toward the water. Will didn’t stop as he hit the waves and his shape shifted once more, becoming something more adjusted to water. Not a dolphin, not a shark, something more primal and more at home in an era long gone. He went deep, able to see just as well as on land, scanning, finding marine life around him. Turning sharply he headed back toward the surface at full speed. He broke through the water, letting his instincts turn over and create wings that lifted him higher, away from the ocean, and he glided back to the beach where someone was already waiting. Swooping down he landed gracefully, taking on his original shape.

Slightly out of breath and feeling light-headed from the shifts, Will gave his visitor a quizzical look.

Tony Stark, dressed in his Iron Man armor, grinned. “I’ve gotten a lot of kicks in my life, but looking at you while you change, scanning your energy output, I’ve to tell you: it’s better than anything I ever tried.”

Lennox laughed. “I’m a drug?”

Tony grinned even more. “Kinda. Seeing what I see, it’s just mind-blowing. I tried seeing the whole thing happening with Roddy when he transforms, but there’s just the shifting circuits. You, on the other hand, are something else.”

The runes were running over his Allspark-looking skin and Will settled onto the cool beach sand.

“It feels weird, but strangely natural.”

Key, key, key.

Yes. Key. Whatever this thing had been, it had opened a door inside him. He could shift. He could become something else with a mere thought.

A slight sizzle along the edge of senses alerted him to the approach of their host and he smiled at Seaspray as the massive serpentine mech left the water and approached them. She had been in the water around Jan Mayen for the whole time he had been training here and she had watched. Beachcomber was probably somewhere further inland, also scanning, but the scientist was a bit more hostile toward visitors than his partner.

“You are improving,” Seaspray told him.

“I hope so.”

“You have learned an impressive number of shapes in a very short time.”

Will shrugged. “Instinct.”

Seaspray curled up her massive form, the opaque optics shimmering softly. “Not just instinct, Prime. You are constantly adjusting to something that you weren’t born with. That is what impresses me.” She inclined her head. “And I’m honored you chose this base for your continued training.”

He smiled at the sentinel. “Well, it’s out of the way, there aren’t too many people around, and accidental discovery is close to zero.”

“Correct.”

“And you don’t accidentally blow up something important,” Tony quipped.

He laughed. “That’s more in your corner of the playing field, Stark.”

“Speaking of which, I’m off,” Tony declared and donned his helmet. “Got an important meeting in Reykjavik. Pepper’s already dropping reminders into my inbox on a minutely basis.”

“See ya,” Lennox only said.

He got a grin, then the face plate closed and Iron Man launched himself into the air. Seaspray followed his flight path, rumbling in soft amusement.

“He is cutting it close.”

“Always. Gives him a kick.”

“Care for a dive?” she invited, swiftly changing topics.

Lennox hesitated, regarding the cold, dark ocean.

“You’ll be safe, Avatar Prime,” the large mech told him calmly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I know you won’t. Moving underwater is just a bit more frightening than flying at the moment.”

She slithered toward the ocean. “One more reason to train.”

Will smiled and walked after the mech. Yeah, one more reason to train.

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In Nevada, Optimus Prime carefully closed the link he shared with his fellow Primes. He had felt faint echoes from Will and he knew the human hybrid was doing just fine. Humans were very adaptable and in time, Lennox would learn how to handle his new-found abilities. He had so in the past, he would so in the future.

The hull of the Matrix Key had been like a last addition to what the Allspark had started. Optimus didn’t think anything else would happen to their very powerful hybrid friend in addition to what already had. The Key was inside him, the powers released through the shard were under Will’s control. He was a Prime, one of five, and he was an important part of this alliance.

That Tony Stark had apparently been gifted the abilities to bridge space was something very unexpected. For all parties involved. So far Tony had been unable to do it again, but Optimus knew it was only a matter of time. The ancient Cybertronians had been able to warp space and create portals, but that ability had perished with them. Rumors had it that the Seeker Skywarp had shown slight talents toward teleportation, but Optimus had never seen him do it. Nor had anyone else.

Starscream might be able to confirm or deny it, he mused. He would have to find him, though. Talk to him. It wasn’t a pressing matter, but should he talk to his undercover agent one day once more, he would bring up the point.

Gazing at the dusky landscape outside the base, Optimus Prime let his spark relax a little more. Feeling the echoes of Rodimus close by, he allowed himself the luxury to not worry for just today.

* * *

Starscream had kept himself up to date through various means when it came to Earth matters. Hidden within the Kuiper Belt, he had carefully erected the hide-out that sheltered whoever came to request refuge. The Nemesis had been gutted and whatever had been salvageable had been put to good use. It was a primitive place, but it gave them a home.

Starscream almost laughed at that. They had lost Cybertron. To the war, then later to Soundwave’s insane idea of getting a whole planet into this solar system by a technology hardly anyone could claim to understand. Now the planet was lost. The Autobots and their allies had found a home on Earth. The Decepticons who were still loyal to Megatron had fled to wherever. Starscream had lost track of many of his former ‘comrades’. The ones who were loyal to him were a different matter.

His wing mates, Skywarp and Thundercracker, followed him not because of who he had been – Megatron’s second-in-command. Or because he claimed he would give them power and a new world to rule. They followed because alone they would surely perish. They followed because they were all Seekers and he was their wing commander. They followed because the choice was between surrendering to the Autobots to be deactivated and imprisoned, and disappearing into nothingness. They were all homeless; every single one of them. As a group they were stronger.
And neither had plans to overthrow their leader or attack Earth. That would be suicide.

Starscream looked out into the vastness of the Kuiper Belt. New-arrivals were scarce. There had been a few, all of them Seekers. They were scared, even if they would never confess to it, because Cybertron was gone; lost. The war had decimated their ranks, had pushed them over the edge and crippled their minds. There had even been two Neutrals and one Autobot, who had died shortly after arrival. He had been too damaged to survive. Starscream had yet to inform Optimus of that tid-bit.

A dark purple and black form swooped in from within the thicker cluster of asteroids and Starscream acknowledged Skywarp’s arrival.

He wondered briefly what the reaction of the others would be if they ever found out just who and what he had been all those millennia: an undercover agent for Optimus Prime. He smiled darkly. He wouldn’t survive, he supposed.

Walking back into the gaping maw of the gutted Nemesis he made plans to sneak off to Earth and meet with Prime. There had been changes back there, he knew. New events, new developments. He would have to know and keep himself informed. The occasional fragment they caught from the com lines wasn’t enough.

Catching up with Skywarp, he snapped his mind back to matters at hand. His wing mate would need to get debriefed and Starscream wanted to look into the possibility of an energon source within the Belt. He was also still waiting for Dirge to get back to him from their reconnaissance around the outer edges of the Belt. Starscream suspected that Soundwave was still around, keeping a low profile, testing the waters, so to speak. There had been the occasional blip that had looked like one of the symbiotes. They never came too close, but they were here.

“Skywarp, report!” he demanded.

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Thundercracker, like everyone else, listened to Skywarp’s report, but his optics occasionally strayed to their leader. Starscream was a far cry, no pun intended, from the submissive and sometimes slightly crazy second-in-command they had followed for all those millennia. With the death of Megatron and the victory of the Autobots, something had changed. For a while everyone had been at a loss. Some had simply left, some had disappeared completely, some had fought against whoever they had found willing to play the game, and some had grouped around Starscream, hoping for a new age.

Almost all of them were Seekers.

They knew each other from before the war, had been in the same wings, had fought side by side, had shared triumph and loss, victory and pain.

Starscream had changed with Megatron’s demise. Gone was the craziness. Instead there was a quiet aura of command that he never used actively. He didn’t order them to attack Earth or devised wild plans. He had gathered them to survive, had brought the wrecked Nemesis to this place, and they were holding it all together. Energon was scarce, but they had enough to keep functioning, and through hard work they had managed to get the energon plant of the Nemesis working.

Thundercracker had wondered time and again, like Skywarp, what the Pits was going on. Maybe Megatron’s death had triggered something in all of them. Neither of them felt the need to kill an Autobot. They wanted to live and exist. The purpose of before, creating a Cybertron in Megatron’s vision, had made way for the naked need of survival. Megatron had managed to destroy their world and then Soundwave had made it disappear.

It couldn’t get any worse.

Thundercracker hadn’t joined the Decepticons’ ranks for this. The end of the war and its results had woken many from their battle stupor and shown them what a mistake this had been. He wasn’t ready to crawl to the Autobots and beg their forgiveness, mainly because he knew none of them would ever get it. They might let them live, but not outside a stasis chamber or deactivated in a storage area. No, this here, as a refugee, was way better than the alternatives.

Even if Starscream had become a strange puzzle to them. Even if it meant being even more paranoid than before. Even if it meant burying those who hadn’t made it.

Everything was better than the mindless existence some seemed to prefer. Thundercracker wasn’t a mech to simply give up.

One thing he wouldn’t give up on was the idea to solve this puzzle Starscream had become. Something had happened and it had probably started a long time ago – and the former second-in-command had managed to hide it well. Well, with nothing much else to do, Thundercracker would set out to discover what it had been.

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Archie Nielsen stood in the vastness that was the Warehouse, surrounded by the seemingly endless shelves that were filled to capacity. Between the shelves, knick-knacks, machines and weird gadgets littered the floor. Artefacts that had been gathered, retrieved and stolen from wherever they had been a nuisance or danger to humanity. He had dedicated his life to this job: retrieve and protect.

His eyes were drawn to the ceiling that seemed far, far above. The Warehouse was of mind-baffling size and there were corners in here that defied the three dimensions, adding multiple more to them, and vaults were no one dared to tread any more. The Warehouse was his home, but it was a dangerous one.

And it was aware.

He had always talked to it, but never expected an answer. Sure, with all the energy in here from the various artefacts things had happened; weird and freaky things. But it had been just that: energy. Now he knew there was more. Somewhere deep within this place was the heart and brain and maybe even the soul of a sentient, rather alien being. They were unable to hear it or see any kind of corporeal form other than the Warehouse, but it was there. It listened to them. Whether it always understood was another matter. It couldn’t interact, it couldn’t stop a catastrophe from happening, least of all its own demise.

There had been dangerous, almost fatal situations in the past.

Now Artie knew that not only human life was at risk.

Something else was here.

He smiled at the ceiling.

Mrs. Frederic was the Warehouse’s Caretaker, but she couldn’t talk to it either. Her connection was different, for a different task, for a different reason.

As much as it pained him to confess to it, they needed an interpreter of a different kind. Witwicky had told them he wasn’t here to stay, just to bridge a few gaps and then they would leave again. The Warehouse and the agents would be left to do what they had always done. No other supervision than Mrs. Frederic and the Regents.

He could live with that, though Claudia was bursting with questions and was currently grilling that Witwicky guy. Artie didn’t fault her for it. He knew that Claudia’s fate was close to sealed. She would one day be a Warehouse Caretaker, be it for Thirteen or another one.

“Hope you know how lucky you’ll be if she lands the job with you,” he muttered, then started the slow walk back to the main office.

He got no answer, nor were there any signs that Thirteen understood. Or had heard.



But it had.

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So, that's it for now. More stories to come, don't worry.