Chapter Text
Behold, the Beast Arises
Chapter One: A Gift
He was excited and didn't care who knew it. It was Red Alert's fault, really. Why tell him he had a package waiting for him five minutes into his shift if he couldn't pick it up until the end? Twelve hours of wondering and speculating and twitching with no relief in sight.
"Honestly, kid, it's like you never got nothing before," Ironhide said with a small, bemused smile. A routine check up had turned into twice as long surely by making the mistake of asking how the apprentice's day was going.
"I haven't!" First Aid replied, a grin stuck on his face beneath the mask. "I wonder who it's from."
"I swear to Primus," Ratchet groused two beds over while he worked. "If you ask that one more time, I'm going to let Grimlock use it for a football before you open it."
"Aw, give the kid a break," Ironhide chuckled. "Ain't every day a young mech gets a surprise. Might be from an admirer."
His subsequent wink in First Aid's direction made him flush. "I only know a handful of people on Cybertron. I doubt it's an admirer, Ironhide."
"Knowing your luck, it's some more work from the Medical Academy," Ratchet grinned. Ever since the Protectobot's recent promotion to junior surgeon, one of the last remaining medical academies had been trying to recruit him. Ratchet put up with it, mostly, but let them know in no uncertain terms that there would be no relocation for his apprentice. First Aid was simply flattered and accepted any supplemental material to help him keep up with his peers.
"If it was, the dean would have simply sent me an electronic transfer as usual," First Aid said. And he would have known, too. Hammer, the dean and also the CMO's long-suffering creator, never missed a chance to rib his favorite medical team for anything.
True enough, the only response his mentor made was to grumble about finishing up his work while he returned to his own.
“Don’t let him get you down, kid,” Ironhide winked. “He’s just grumpy no one ever sends him gifts.”
First Aid muffled a giggle and switched out a finger tool for more delicate work. “I don’t know,” he quipped back lightly. “There was that time the Aerialbots got him that whole flock of—”
“Alright, that’s it!” Ratchet threw up his hands and glared over at the grinning pair. “Get down there and pick it up, and don’t let me hear another fragging word until tomorrow. You darken my doorstep before zero-five, and I’m giving you inventory for the next century. You got it?”
He didn’t want to look an angry gift horse in the face, but Ironhide was still his patient… “But what about—”
Ratchet shook his head adamantly. “He’s egging you on, he can wait his turn. Now git!”
The words had barely left Ratchet's mouth when First Aid flew out of the medbay and toward the room used as a makeshift post office. He knew for a fact that his brother Streetwise was working there at the moment; the mischievous mech had been radioing him various descriptions of the infernal box for the past two hours. At least it would be easier getting it from him than Red Alert, who’d likely blow it up on the sheer principle that it then couldn’t blow them up first.
“Little brother mine!” the interceptor crowed as he skidded in. “I was wondering when you’d escape the Hatchet’s clutches and get in here.”
“He let me out early.” First Aid’s optics scanned the large table that held myriad packages, new equipment, and his bored brother’s propped feet. The rest of the brother sat behind the table in a squeaky old chair, his hands resting behind his head.
“Good behavior?”
“Apparently, I’m being insufferable.”
Streetwise chuckled and tilted his head to the side in acknowledgement. “I don’t know where he got that idea.”
“Agreed.” He looked box after box over rifling through without touching until one small, unassuming package remained. “Is this it?”
“First Aid.” Streetwise read off the top of the box, written in near-calligraphic glyphs. “Junior Surgeon.”
It was an odd way to address the box, not formal enough to have been shipped from anywhere official or via courier, and yet not informal enough to avoid the mail room altogether. If it was someone from the Ark, they’d have just delivered it in person or left it in medical.
Certainly not from the Academy…
“Any idea who sent it?” First Aid asked, his head tilting from side to side as he observed the neat, little thing.
“None. It just showed up here.”
His brother leaned forward in his chair and put his feet on the ground with an eager expression. "So, hurry up and open it already!" He said. "It’s already scanned, so we know it won’t jump out and kill us all. We got a bet going."
"A bet?" First Aid lifted the box and gently jostled it from side to side. Whatever was in there seemed to be padded well.
"Well, Red thinks it's a mind control device from a Unicron cultist designed to turn you into a mindless zombie.”
Well, that tracks.
“And you?” the medic asked, pulling a scalpel from subspace to open the bindings.
“I think it’s from a ravenously devoted fangirl from that med school of yours planet-side who thinks it’s hot that you argue with the instructors over every slagging thing.”
First Aid paused for a moment but didn’t dare meet his brother’s optics. The more attention one gave the cheeky young mech, the worse he got. Not for the first time, he cursed whoever it was that gave Streetwise his first smut novel.
But still. “Did you just call me hot?”
“Open it! Primus Below!”
As he thought, whatever lay inside was well-padded beneath layers of foam. It took a few careful slices of the scalpel to get through it all, but before long, his prize lay revealed. Delicate tubes of glass connected in an intricate maze, and burnished steel shone with fragrant polish. Copper spirals connected triplet arched canisters that sat like three guardians of old on either side of the contraption. It was breathtaking.
“What is it?” his brother asked.
“I have no idea.” First Aid lifted the device from the box and held it up to look it over. “I feel like I’ve seen something like this before, but I couldn’t tell you what it does.”
His fingers hovered over one of the cannisters, his medic sensors trying to gain whatever information he could. He could have reported the elements contained within, many unknown to Earth altogether. He felt the invisible seams where a master engineer put the thing together. He could even tell the age of the contraption, older than the planet on which he stood.
But it prickled at the edge of his processor; he’d seen something like this before, but not quite so beautiful or well-crafted. From a textbook perhaps? A piece of equipment Ratchet had shown him once?
A nudge against his shoulder took him from his deep musings. “Hey,” Streetwise said. “It’s pretty cool looking regardless, right?”
“Quite.” He set the thing down for a moment and went back through the packaging. He’d missed it the first time, but tucked against the side of the foam was a single card with writing just as lovely as the top of the box.
“What’s it say?” his brother asked. “Any idea who it’s from?”
This writing was in an unusual dialect. Most of the Cybertronian dialects felt more foreign to First Aid than any of Earth’s. The only ones he was truly fluent in was the Standard Iaconian everyone spoke, Ratchet’s native Praxian, and Wheeljack’s Polyhesian. Even those, he spoke with an unmistakable accent; yet one more thing that made him and his brothers stand out. This dialect, however, was one he only knew because it had been programmed into him. The dialect of Kaon.
“A Decepticon sent this,” First Aid murmured, suddenly less sure of the beauty of the device.
“You don’t know that,” his brother said, taking the card and reading it himself. “For all we know, it could be a joke from someone trying to get a rise out of you.”
“It’s in Kaonese, Streets.”
“Lots of people know Kaonese. Hell, Blades knows about twenty excellent curses in Kaonese.”
But the card wasn’t filled with curses, nor any threats to him, his family, or his people. “Well done on your recent promotion,” it said instead. “Please tell your tutor that we are watching and are most impressed with your progress.”
His promotion to junior surgeon and Ratchet’s official second-ranking doctor was just a month prior, not long at all for any sort of word to spread. It would honestly be surprising if Megatron’s personal forces were aware, if they even cared.
Perhaps the Academy after all? But then, why the dialect?
“Maybe we should take it to Red,” First Aid murmured.
“And get a perfectly pretty… thing confiscated? Out of the question. Go show it off to your boss and maybe he’ll be able to shed some light on it.” Streetwise plucked the device up and carefully shoved it into his brother’s arms. “Go on, now. Shoo.”
The medic cradled the thing, whatever it was, in his arms even as he turned back. “Streets!” he said. “Will you at least follow up on the writing? I’m not sure I—”
“Primus, you really are insufferable today,” Streetwise said, but it was with a smile. He nudged First Aid again toward the door, this time letting him out into the hallway. “Go, Aid. Enjoy the gift. Let a mech work in peace, huh?”
He would have argued, but the medic found the door already closed when he turned around to argue. Now that the novelty of his package had worn out, and no one to collect on either bet outcome, it seemed Streetwise had better things to do than visit with his beloved baby brother.
Still, he has a point. Ratchet should see this.
He readjusted the device and made his way back to medical, hoping that the threat of not returning before the next day was just a joke. If nothing else, the older mech loved a good technological mystery, and this seemed just the thing.