Chapter Text
The kaiju's head crumbled, bits of skull and brain matter flying in a splatter of gore across the broken ground, underneath the waves of his pulse blaster. Regrettably, drops of neon blue were smeared across the grey soil, stealing what little chance it had of one day growing green again. Jazz sighed, lowering the arm of his mecha, closing the taloned fist and shutting off his sonic weapon. His sensors cased out a long look at his surroundings, the dead world stretching into the horizon in front of him and the mountain like wall to Behop's back. The ground littered with alien corpses all around him. Jazz might have never been a very outdoorsy type of person, but there was this sense of grief that came to baring witness to the slow poisoning of his planet's life, as the invaders, even in death stole what little life was left on earth.
His comm-link alerted a call from Tower Control, and Jazz opened it, "Hey, Henry. I'm not dead."
"Yeah, I figured that numb-nose. I got your vitals on screen, remember? You ready for pick up?" The bored voice of one Henry Masterson echoed through his cockpit.
"Yep, southside of the wall is clear. Latest wave of Kaiju taken care of," Jazz answered, "How's everyone else doing?"
"Twins reported in the north-end of the wall wasn't hit very hard, they handled it fine. It was center sector that got the category 4, Dinobots took it down, but Swoop reported her arm might have gotten messed up when her mecha was knocked into the wall. I got medics standing by for her," Henry yawned into his mic, "Your choppers are t-minus 3 minutes out. Will you be fine until then? I really got to bounce back to bed before I got to report to Sumdac in two hours."
Jazz kept himself from snorting, the attack had started around 2:00 am, and judging by the newborn dawn in front of him, likely it was around 6 now. Unlike the pilots who lived in the kaiju's schedule and were allowed to sleep in, Henry being their guy in the chair wasn't so lucky. Needing to run point with all the engineer teams and money holders during the day to keep the Detroit Mecha Branch running, because god forbit you wake up the richer man at a inconvenient time.
"Yeah, man get some sleep," Jazz replied, looking at the blue stained ground and the storm clouds gathering in the sky, "But you might want to message Prometheus Black about a Kaiju Blue spill on the southside, before you hit the sack."
Henry groaned like a dying man, "Again?! You know that we have to let him have the corpses if we ask him for clean up, and who knows what mad science he's doing with those things."
"We got rain in the weather schedule Henry, we can't risk runoff carrying this stuff into the lake and poisoning it."
"Yeah I know. I know. I'll make the call. See you in a few hours."
Comm-link cut off before Jazz could reply, thankfully the thumping of chopper blades was already being carried across the wind and towards Jazz. His way home coming in the form of a black shadow creeping across a dying world hooking his mecha like a fish.
The first thing that Jazz did after docking Behop in the hanger at the base of Sumdac Tower, beside checking in on Swoop, or Susan as her real name was (she was fine, just minor shoulder sprain), was take a long hot shower. One of the perks that came with being stationed in Detroit.
In terms of pilot-living, Jazz had it pretty good. Lake Eire was one of the largest sources of freshwater left on the continent, kaiju blood having poisoned most of the others beyond saving, and as such it was guarded by it's own personal team of mecha. For the five passed years I was Jazz's sole purpose to protect that lake, along side the Detroit Sanctuary.
Once politicians got their shit together and realized that the attacks weren't going to stop, in-land cities were converted to into large guarded sanctuaries, humanity's greatest minds coming together to redesign places with natural resources to house as many people as possible behind giant, seemingly impenetrable walls. Detroit was one of these city sanctuaries for a number of reasons. Not only was Lake Erie here, but so was Sumdac Industries. Now Jazz wasn't entirely how it happened, but it took a number of years before Issac Sumdac for all of his robotic's knowledge actually got involved and started designing and building mecha to fight off Kaiju. From what he could tell the man was passicifist at heart, and while Jazz commended Sumdac for his non-violent stance, he did wish the CEO had started helping the Mecha program sooner.
Yes, Sumdac Industries had started sending out supplies and aid as early as the first attack on New York, but when Sumdac himself started building mecha there was a major turn in the tide of the seemingly endless war. The man was a genius who completely changed the game. Suddenly, mecha had smoother, faster movements, better weapons and life support integration for the pilots. They could be mass produced while still having an R&D department for more experiments, some of which often had really rough test runs. There was a reason that every pilot who was stationed at Detroit long term were either really young, like the twins who were barely eighteen, or near crazy like the Dinobots.
Thankfully, there was a trade off for working in one of the more targeted sanctuaries. Sumdac took good care of his pilots. Jazz wasn't sure if it was gratitude for their sacrifice or pity for their situation, but the professor let the pilots live in an apartment floor on Sumdac Tower. There were seven units on that floor, all of which were fully stocked with food delivery, maid bot staff, two bedroom, two bath, and all in all really really nice. Only four of them were filled however. The Dinobots shared one, as did the twins, while Henry was next door to Jazz's own. Though, technically Jazz didn't have to stay in on the pilot floor.
After brushing his teeth, and securing a bonnet on his curls, Jazz donned a comfy pair of blue fleece Christmas covered in singing snowmen and a cheap band t-shirt, the mecha pilot dived headfirst into plush bedding. He was out like a light in mere moments.
According to his alarm clock, he had been sleeping for about three hours when someone had started taking a sledge hammer to his front door, but Jazz honestly though the digital demon box was lying. He felt way too tired for having gotten three hours of peaceful horizonal-ness. Still, wiping drool from the corner of his mouth, Jazz rolled himself up and out of pillow heaven to check to see who needed him at this unreasonable hour of 9:30 am. Though, when he opened the door to big brown eyes and a pair of red pigtails, any annoyance for interrupting his dream time melted away.
"Morning Jazz!" Sari chirped.
A smile split his face at the sight of his younger sister, and Jazz chuckled, "Hey kid, c'mon in."
The 7-year-old skipped in, a bright ball of sunshine that bounced after him as Jazz trekked passed the giant TV in the living room to the attached kitchen. The 19 year age gap between the siblings might be jarring for most people outside of the family, but Jazz had seven years to get used to it, while it was always like this for Sari. Though, Jazz was certainly surprised when Dad had messaged him about a baby sister only months after he had moved away for college. Honestly he thought that Dad had kidnapped Sari for a week or two, because the pilot had no idea that his father was even seeing someone much less having a kid anytime soon. Even too this day Jazz wasn't entirely sure who exactly was Sari's mom. His own mom having passed away when he was twelve, so she was out as a candidate, unless Dad a few embryos frozen and used a surrogate which wasn't out of the realm of possibility. Still, a total shock or not, Jazz didn't hold it against the little girl.
"Have you eaten yet?" He asked.
Sari shrugged, "I had cereal."
Translation, "yes I did, but it was hours ago and I'm starving big brother!" with giant set of doe eyes to go with it. Jazz playfully rolled his eyes and turned on his stove burner, "Pancakes then?"
Sari nodded enthusiastically, making Jazz laugh as he pulled down a large glass bowl from the top shelf. The little girl grabbed the child stool that Jazz always kept in the corner of the kitchen and scooted it up to the counter where ingredients started going into the mixing bowl. Bouncing on her toes as she watched breakfast being made, making her pigtails bob slightly. Only jumping off her perch when Jazz told her to go pick out some fruit to put into the pancakes from his fridge.
"Do you know if Dad has eaten yet?" Jazz asked.
Sari shrugged walking over with a metal strain bowl filled with blueberries Jazz had washed the previous day, "I don't know. He's been in his private lab all day. I don't think he went to bed last night either."
Yeah that sounded like Dad. Issac Sumdac was what Jazz called a passive workaholic, he wasn't obsessed with working and felt guilty for not working, it was more like when the man got a project in his head he couldn't put it down to save his life. This bad habit was only reinforced when the world came to an end. Kaiju were bad for off-time, who knew?
"Henry said there was another attack last night," Sari looked up with sparkling eyes as Jazz only hummed noncommittally, "Well, are you going to tell me about it?!" she squealed.
"There's not much to say Sari," Jazz spoke.
No, actually there's tons to say - I crushed another being's head in on itself, I stumbled and thought it was my last mistake more then a million times, I looked out into the wastes and wondered how much longer we can hold on - but I can't say it too you.
Sari groaned dramatically and slumped against the low cabinets, "Of course my big brother has the coolest job in the world and he refuses to tell me anything about it!"
Jazz let himself smile at that. His baby sister thought he was cool! Though, it was really the media that made her think he was cool. In order to get funding for the mecha program, the politicians marketed the bots and their pilots like they were the best thing since man's discovery of fire. Merchandise, interviews, cartoons, toys etc. And while some part of Jazz did marvel at the idea of being an action figure, the media only really told a white-washed tale of a mecha pilot's life. You couldn't glorify the nightmares, flashbacks, the strain of the linkage, or all the less flashy bits of fighting aliens. You can't easily explain all of that to a seven year old either.
Sari huffed, "Well, when I get big enough to be a pilot I'll have all the cool adventures I want!"
Jazz sighed, secretly hoping that this war didn't last another decade to allow that too happen, and just said softly, "I'm sure you will Apricot. I'm sure you will."
Henry Masterson loved robots.
As a kid he would play with small models (lego until he finally managed to convince his parents that he was mature enough to not blow up a real kit on accident), loved any movie or show that surrounded the concept of giant fighting mecha, and threw himself into studying them as early as middle school. He was going to be a robotics genius, just like his hero, Issac Sumdac. The man who literally built the industry, taking tiny bots on wheels and turning them into revolutionizing automatons for the betterment of humanity. That's what Henry's goal was, to be like his hero. When a scout for Sumdac Systems approached him at his high school science fair, offering a full-ride scholarship to MIT and later a job! It was a dream come true! He was going to do i! He was going to follow in Issac Sumdac's footsteps! Sure, the company had a strict policy against any military robotics and that was what he really wanted to build, but Henry was sure he could convince Sumdac that they had a use beyond mindless destruction, that they could be used to protect people. He knew he could.
Henry didn't get the chance. Aliens beat him too the punch.
New York was the first to be hit, no one had seen it coming. Over 3 million people died in the three days it took for the military to push back the aliens. People marked it off as a tragedy, a one off, but for those like Henry, who had watched way too much mecha anime growing up, there was this sense of dread. By the third attack, everyone had figured out. They weren't going to stop.
Maybe a year later, Henry got reassigned to the west coast branch of Sumdac Systems. It was the beginning of the company getting involved with the mecha program, and some of their youngest minds were being sent off to all corners of the world to help develop the first of the mechas. Henry worked alongside other engineers and the pilots themselves on the front lines of the attacks. At first it was awesome! Talking shop with his peers and chatting with pilots on their few off hours.
But it didn't last long. One by one, over and over again, Henry had to watch his friends die in machines he built with his own hands. Either from prototype neural links frying their brains, or the aliens crushing them in their cockpits. War wasn't cool after that. It was raw and ugly and some part of him couldn't believe he wanted to apart of it at one point. He loved giant robots, he loved explosions and the spectacle of it all, but he hadn't realized how much death weighed on a person. He tried to protect the pilots, really he did, every failure he'd go back over the blueprints to figure out what went wrong and how to stop it, but sometimes there was no flaw he could fix, and he had run out of fingers to count the number of pilots he lost.
They lost the west coast base Henry was stationed at, and he took the first opportunity to transfer in-land he got. Just his luck it was a one-way ticket to the heart of Sumdac Systems, Detroit. His job now was to maintain the protection mecha team assigned to the repurposed city, and help the pilots that often stayed temporally for training on the simulators in the Tower. At least, the trainees almost always were assigned elsewhere and Henry wouldn't have to watch them die.
Speaking of dying, he was pretty sure he was going to die from a lack of sleep if he couldn't sneak away for a nap soon. Grumbling as he rapped his knuckles on the big boss's private lab door, Henry contemplated how his sleep schedule ended up in such a mess. He's 24, he shouldn't be this tired on just a few hours a sleep.
"Access Denied."
The Lab's AI responded to the persistent knocking.
"Yeah, yeah," Henry mumbled, "Don't worry dumb door, not trying to break in just need a word with the prof."
Thankfully, it only took another few minutes of knocking to rouse Sumdac from whatever was keeping him busy. Which given the man's drowsy expression he was probably sleeping at his workbench again.
"Mr. Masterson, what is the matter?" Professor Sumdac yawned.
"Morning to you too prof," Henry sighed tiredly, handing over the first tablet he had been holding underneath his arm, "Here's the weekly report for you to review before shipping it off to the Mecha program."
"Oh it is that time of week again? Thank you very much, I'll get these sent off immediately," Professor Sumdac said, gently taking the tablet.
"And!" Henry cut in again, pulling out the second tablet, "Here's the report of this morning's attack."
Professor Sumdac's eyes bugged out of his head, "This morning?"
"Yep! This morning. At 0200 hours Dweeby Kaijus decided to get another loss on their rep. North-end, Center Sector, and Southside were all hit, but no damage done to the wall. Dets are in the file about how it went down."
"Oh dear," Professor Sumdac pressed a gloved hand to his mouth, "There weren't any injuries, were there?"
Henry shrugged, "Other then a mildly sprained shoulder, no."
"Good, good," Professor drummed his fingers on the tablet worryingly, "We weren't supposed to have another attack for at least another week," his voice volume dropped, "Do you think the Kaiju could be escalating?"
"I'd have to check the chatbox," Henry shrugged, "But it's not impossible. Maybe these noob aliens are getting as sick of this invasion as we are. Or they're pissed off because we keep flaming them with the mechas."
Professor Sumdac shuttered, "The mechas were built to stop the invasion. Not cause it to escalation."
Henry sighed, "Look Prof. I know you don't like it, but the mechas are our only working defense against this lamo army of aliens. Traditional military strats is too predictable and weak a F against their scales."
"It might not be that way forever, Prometheus told me in the last meeting that he's working on a chemical based weapon. He thinks if he can deconstruct the Kaiju biology he could develop a compound that could attack them on the cellular level upon injection. Like a poison dart."
Henry hummed, "Eh, could work. Still would need to be fired off a mecha though. Nothing else gets close enough or has enough fire power to actually shoot a Kaiju with one of those."
"Perhaps, Mr. Masterson. Even still a more efficient way to defend ourselves would be welcome right now. Anything to keep up moral and give hope at this point."
That.
Henry couldn't argue with.
"Hello Mr. Jazz Sir!" A chorus of greetings from the twins as Jazz entered the pilot lounge.
Jazz couldn't help a smile at the younger pilots. The Samlot Twins, or Jetfire and Jetstorm, named after their mecha (they had other legal names, but they believed their mecha ones sounded so cooler) were eighteen-year-old transfers fresh from Russia, having arrived stateside barely a week after their birthday for pilot training. Identical twins who could only be differenced by their dyed hair color; one orange, one blue, to match their mecha of course. Apparently they were raised in a dual-lingual household before there their parents' death and their great English skills allowed them to train else where other then their home country, whose mecha program was overrun with volunteers and drafties. Frankly, Jazz was of the opinion this was the right move, only piloting real time for four months and those boys were better then some veterans that Jazz had done drops with. Just a shame they had to start so young.
"Hey boys," Jazz greeted, "What are you up too?"
"Mr. Grimlock was going to be showing us a new videogames," Jetstorm said.
"The dances of revolution!" Jetfire exclaimed.
Didn't help they acted so young too.
"Dance Dance Revolution?" Jazz asked, smiling at the enthusiastic nods.
"Jes! A soon as he be done checking in on Ms. Susan," Jetstorm said.
"hehe, I might have to join ya. You know, I was the Dance Dance Revolution champion in my College Dorm once upon a time," Jazz lightly gloated, while the boys eyes grew sparkly, "I'll have to show you all my secrets."
"Jes! Please! Mr. Jazz Sir!"
The older pilot laughed, if anyone could light up a room it was these two.
The door to their right opened with a large creek, clearly needing its hinge to be oiled and Jazz made a mental note to in form the maintenance drones to handle it. A woman with pale red hair worn in a messy braided pig-tails, and her arm in a sling walked into the lounge, followed by a literal mountain of a man with tanned skin and similar colored shaggy hair.
Jazz waved to his fellow Pilots, "Susan, Grim! Hey!"
"MusicMan! Hello!" Grimlock spoke, while Susan just merely waved back, clearly too tired to even attempt at speaking.
Grimlock (or Greg Locket), Susan, and Snarl (or Sandy Locket), were a group of siblings who's unique speech patterns were the result of a number of different factors. They were all hearing children of deaf parents who worked on an extremely rural farm, and were immigrants from a country where English was not the main language. So, all three of the Dinobot Mecha Pilots grew up signing to each other in another language and didn't learn to speak in general until after they became pilots. Meaning that they had a very interesting dialect, when they did decide to speak. At the moment Grim was the only one who really liked using his voice, unlike his brother and sister whom seemed to prefer to remain quiet unless absolutely necessary. They understood verbal English with only some slight confusion over less commonly used words, but as a former foreign language student Jazz could tell you that sometimes speaking was harder then listening.
"Susan, how's the arm?" Jazz said gesturing to the mentioned limb.
She smiled, giving a so-so gesture, before holding up two fingers and whispering, "two days," then giving a thumbs up.
Jazz nodded, understanding. Medical wanted her out of the field for two days just to be safe.
"Mr. Grimlock we begin with the dances of revolution?" Jetfire said.
"Yes!" Grimlsamoletock exclaimed, before looking around confused, "MusicMan! Where is Little Sissy?"
"Sari?"
"Yes! She wanted to dance with pilots!"
"Sorry, Grim she won't be allowed down here for another hour at least. It's her study time."
At that announcement, three out of the five pilots present whined in protest at the plight of Jazz's younger sister. The older brother in question couldn't help but laugh at the reaction. Honestly, it was really sweet. Dad had a lot of worries about how military personal like Pilots would react to a little girl sneaking into hangers (which Sari would and had, she was a Sumdac and could easily hack any security code she wanted), and while not everyone of the engineers enjoyed her presence, the pilots themselves, had practically adopted Sari as a their little mascot and cheerleader. The twins would watch cartoons and movies with her, Susan would sneak cookies that Snarl baked to her, and Grim would usually let her ride around on his shoulders while on the hanger ground floor.
"bah, Little Sissy little! She should be playing, not tutoring!" Grimlock grumbled, "Me Grimlock go rescue her."
"We be helping Mr. Grimlock rescue Ms. Sari Brother?" Jetstorm looked at Jetfire.
"Guys. I'm sorry but-"
Jazz was cut off. Not by another pilot but by a wail that ripped through the entirety of the mecha hanger, the sound raw and horribly familiar, sending adrenaline running fast through their hot blood and pulsing veins.
Clapping his hands over his hears at the siren's scream, Jazz yelled, "Kajiu breach alarm! Every able pilot to your mechas! Susan go get Snarl if he doesn't know yet! You can join Henry in mission control afterward! Let's go!"
"Already?" He heard one of the Twins scream as they all ran out of the lounge and down to the main hanger room.
Henry stumbled into the mission control box, running on only three hours of solid sleep and a half a cup of coffee. His totally tricked out office chair, spun around at least once before he gripped the desk with an urgent purchase and dragged himself into place. Headset shoved onto his scalp, as he activated the the mission control systems. The screen in front of him light up with, mecha specs, vital signs, maps of Detroit Sanctuary and beyond, and several different energy trackers.
"Alright gamers! Ready to bring total ownage to these Alien Noobs!" He exclaimed into the mic, trying not to sound half dead.
"Mecha 1061, code name Behop, linked up and ready."
"Mecha 1236, code name Jetstorm, ready!"
"Mecha 1237, code name Jetfire, ready!"
"Grimlock Ready!"
"Snarl ready!"
"All we need's a location Henry, where we heading?" Jazz asked.
"One second," Henry said pulling up the breach scanner and connecting it's data to the GPS map of the territory, only taking his eyes of the screen once to glance at Susan when she ran into mission control and stood at his right.
It took barely a tick of the clock for the map to pull up, but that felt like forever when there's a Kaiju attack imminent. In order to locate a breech they needed to hone in on the unknown energy spikes that the aliens caused upon their arrival. The strongest point usually was where the breech had formed, and right now the levels were spiking hard. Henry waited with baited breath while the system sorted out all the excess chatter clouding the sensors from pin-pointing the hell hole that was ripped into their world. The coordinates popped up on screen and Henry didn't let his breath go...
"Henry?"
"The breech...it's at the bottom of Lake Erie...inside the shatterdome."
Susan whispered, "Fuck."
Coming out of stasis was never pleasant for Prowl. It left a shaky cold feeling in his joints and struts, that made him want to do a hundred training stretches over to rid himself of the stiffness. Getting his helm abruptly slammed into the glass shell of the stasis pod did not make him enjoy the experience anymore then before. With his limbs weak, sluggish and cold, and now his faceplate smushed into the glass, of course this is the moment the pod's hydraulics come to life with gentle hissing and the door releases. He did not fall onto his faceplate, no Prowl's reflexes, even with his still stasis addled state, were thankfully too honed to let something as embarrassing as that to happen in front of these repair bots.
Or anyone really. Falling on his faceplate was not something he wanted to do in-front of anyone.
After catching his frame on the edge of his pod, Prowl straightened, lightly adjusting his back struts just enough to make standing comfortable. Groans filled the stasis pod bay as the rest of the Orion's crew were also rudely brought online. While, Ratchet and Prime seemed to be able, just a little stiff. Bulkhead caught Bumblebee went the yellow mini-bot tripped over his own pedes trying to stand too quickly.
"How long have we been in stasis?" Optimus voiced the obvious question.
The ship suddenly jerked, floor jumping and shoving underneath Prowls pedes. All occupants were sent tumbling to the floor, crashing into each other in a tangle of flailing limbs, no matter their reflexes. The rumbling of ship hull scrapping against something was blaring in their audials until it was drowned out, but a sound that sent shivers through Prowl's spark. A low growing feral call that morphed into a bellowing high shriek.
"What was that?!" Bumblebee nearly screamed, from where he was shaking in his plating. For once Prowl agreed with the minibot.
He had never heard such a noise. Closest the ninja-bot could compare it too was a the shriek of an energon feeder, but even then, there was something more haunting about whatever made that cry.
Ratchet was stumbling onto his pedes faster then any bot else and running over to teletran1, bringing the ship computer online and sending out a scouting drone. The rest of them were quick to join the medibot, Prowl included, curiosity about the situation driving his frame. Video from the drone however did little to bring anything into clarity. The screens flashed with video of a large monstrous creature, large claws and blackened peely shell made of something that Prowl couldn't recognize. It rose of out some dull blue fluid pool, letting out another audial scraping scream, with a cluster of smaller beasts at its legs, snarling and snapping.
"What is that thing?" Bulkhead practically shivering at the sight.
"Whatever it is, its probably what hit the ship and woke us up," Ratchet grumbled.
"It attacked the ship?" Optimus spoke up.
"Probably not on purpose, otherwise it'd be going after us and not that," Ratchet stated, as the drone's camera feed shifted, revealing a collection of metal spires and looping roads in the background.
"A city?" Optimus leaned closer to the screen, suddenly his optical lenses blew wide, "Teletran1 zoom in on lower camera section one."
The view of the screen tightened, closing in on a thrash of flailing fluid between the shore line of the reservoir and the larger creature. Out of the splashes, popping out of the liquid in the oddly shallow banks was what appeared to be a cybertronian. The image from the drone, though slightly fuzzed with distance, revealed their odd build. Multiple joints in their lower limbs, large thick chest plate and faceless helms. Something about it was oddly disturbing, uncanny, maybe it was the way it moved with almost sludgy fluidness as it battled the beast, like it's limbs were a klik too slow to react in real time. Or maybe it had to do with the limbs and helm that looked only slightly disfigured, like some cosmetic surgery needed to be salvaged after ruining their frame.
"Looks like those guys could use some help," Bumblebee spoke up as they watched the strange mech and several others of their kind tangle with the odd beasts above.
"Even so," Optimus said, "We can't risk the decepticons discovering where we crashed. The return of the Allspark to cybertron still needs to be our primary directive."
"Uhm, Bossbot, as much as I agree with you," Bulkhead timidly chimed in, "We have no idea how much damaged the Orion took when we landed. We might need help from the locals if she's ever going to fly again."
The prime hummed, stepping forward to the console and reaching for the drone controls, "Teletran1 scan the local lifeforms. We can take on their appearance and hopefully it will be enough to keep the decepticons off our trail."
Prowl had a feeling this was probably going to be the most interesting solar cycle he had had in a long time.