Chapter Text
Blaster will have to admit, this has got to be the weirdest day in his…what do humans say? Life cycle?
It had all started when he tried to play music from his speakers, only to get garbled nonsense instead. He swore he could hear some unfamiliar human male on the other side, and...was that Mirage? It was quickly covered by static, so Blaster didn't bother worrying about it anymore. Kind of a bummer that the radio wasn't working, but that’s why he always has song recordings at the ready, so it was no big deal.
He hadn’t thought much of it until the morning after, when he was woken by the sounds of faint yet frantic knocking on his habsuite door.
"Why can't we ever get a peaceful morning?" Ramhorn muttered, cuddled against Blaster's side, as were the rest of his cassettes.
“You act as if you’re the one always going onto the battlefield.” Steeljaw scolded, paws tucked underneath him, and Blaster supposed he had a point. Unlike the Decepticons TIC, he didn’t enjoy sending his cassettes into battle unless absolutely necessary, which was why they either stayed in his habsuite or with Tracks.
“From the sound of it, seems to be…Sparkplug?” Blaster hummed, tilting his helm.Why would Sparkplug be wanting to see him this early in the morning? He didn’t know the older human that well, perhaps maybe a greeting or two, but Blaster’s human interactions were sadly scarce.
Would being an uncertified DJ in a club count?
"You should probably see what he wants before he breaks down the door." Eject joked, already sitting up and swinging his legs on the edge of the berth, causing the rest of his cassettes to chuckle.
Blaster gave his mini-cassette a small pat on the helm, grinning as he slid off the berth, careful not to disturb his cassettes too much. He pressed the button beside the habsuite door, allowing it to slide open and reveal the older human man. “What’s grooving, Sparkplug? Need anything this fine morning?” He gave the human a ‘finger gun’, as Tracks’ human said it was the ‘cool way’ of greeting, though Sparkplug didn’t seem to be in a finger gunning mood. No, the human looked pale, his hands clenched to fists.
"Blaster, have you seen Spike anywhere? Or...anyone anywhere for that matter?" Sparkplug questioned, his eyes hopeful.
The red mech hummed, leaning out the doorway and glancing around. Now that he thought about it, it had seemed eerily quiet. Normally the day would start with Wheeljack exploding something or a comm from Jazz telling him to go on patrol. He had seen neither mechs since the night before.
“Hm…maybe he went off with Bumblebee on a mission somewhere?” Blaster suggested, snapping his digits as he grinned down at Sparkplug, who didn’t look reassured.
“As close as those two are, Spike always tells me where he’s going! He’s a good kid, he wouldn’t disappear without letting me know first, and it seems like half the Autobot base is empty!”
Okay…now Blaster will admit that was weird. He would’ve gotten a notice from Optimus or any of the high command if half the bots in the Ark were going out. Red Alert would have blown a circuit if the ship was nothing less than secure.
Whatever was happening, it was certainly worth investigating, and Blaster couldn’t say no to an interesting mystery. “Alrighty man, let’s go see if we can find anyone. I bet this is just one of those human games, hide and seek, right?” He kept his tone light as he stepped out of his habsuite, careful not to accidentally step on Sparkplug. No need to panic. At best, it was probably a surprise party that he didn’t get notified of. At worst, an elaborate Decepticon plan. Silently, he commed Steeljaw, alerting the lion of the situation.
"Search the Ark for any bots and tell them to go to the main room for their own safety. Keep the other cassettes out of trouble as well."
"On it, boss." Came the stoic reply.
Blaster felt something inside him relax at the confirmation, and began the search with Sparkplug.
To his surprise, it seemed the man’s words rang true. The halls of the Ark were near silent, barely any bot around. Bumblebee, Ironhide, Prowl, Jazz, even Ratchet wasn’t where he would normally be. He checked his comm notices again. Nothing out of the ordinary, the most recent being the announcement of the victory against the Decepticons from the day before, along with the similar messages from weeks before. Nothing out of the ordinary.
They did manage to stumble upon the twins, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, but the two mechs reported to have seen no one else either.
"I bet it was a dirty Decepticon!" Sideswipe declared, with his yellow twin nodding along.
"It's the only explanation. There's no way Prowl or Red Alert would leave the Ark unattended like this." He hummed.
“Truest words I’ve ever heard, Sunshine. You two head to the main room and wait for us there. We need to see just how many bots are missing.” Blaster ordered, and after some mild protesting the two were transforming into their vehicle modes and speeding off.
Wow, that felt weird. Unless they were his cassettes, he wasn’t usually the one giving orders, and his orders at best were to ‘drop that’ or ‘don’t eat those treats before drinking your energon cube’. They needed to find the other Autobots fast.
“Doesn’t this ship have cameras?” Sparkplug piped up, and Blaster wanted to hug the man.
He snapped his digits again, optics brightening. “Red Alert’s cameras! You sir, are a genius!” He declared, causing the older man to chuckle, his posture finally relaxing slightly. Blaster was sure that they'll find their answers all in the cameras, and they'll have nothing to worry about.
Never mind, Blaster doesn’t have a clue what was going on. They had managed to get into Red Alert’s office (which had been locked, but nothing Blaster’s…blaster couldn’t handle. It was the blaring alarms that he truly had trouble deactivating) and checked the cameras.
Everything had seemed normal, mechs going into their habsuites, but then…never coming out. Blaster rewound the footage again and again, speeding it up throughout the night to the morning where Sparkplug could be seen banging on all the habsuite doors, but no bot but Blaster opened theirs.
“And…when did you last see Spike?” Blaster hummed, leaning back against the chair to glance at the human, who was standing on the desk that held the cameras.
“Last night at dinner. He was telling me he might go to the beach with Bumblebee and Carly during the weekend, then went up to his room. I went to check on him the morning after and he wasn’t there. I called everyone I knew, no one’s seen him!” Sparkplug’s voice grew louder, waving his arms wildly. It was obvious the older human was worried for his son, so Blaster pressed a digit against his back, rubbing it soothingly.
“Hey man, it’ll be alright, we’ll find him and the rest of the Autobots.” He hummed, switching to the cameras in the lab.
The only one there at the time was Wheeljack, the accident-prone mech seeming to be fidgeting with some kind of gadget. The time showed 12 A.M., before the camera footage turned to static, only coming back online five minutes later, showing Wheeljack had vanished.
Blaster couldn’t help but feel slightly frustrated, and was now wishing he had agreed to Red Alert’s plan to install cameras in all their habsuites, if only to solve this mystery. “Well, either all the bots and Spike just somehow mysteriously vanished, or we’re looking at the biggest Decepticon plot yet.”
Sparkplug gave him an incredulous look. “Megatron tried to bring your planet to Earth and enslaved the human race.”
Blaster paused, then shrugged. “Alright, second biggest Decepticon plot yet.”
“If this is a Decepticon scheme, then Megatron better not hurt my son, or he’ll answer to me.” Sparkplug growled, and Blaster had to admire the human for his bravery. Being small in comparison to Cybertronians made humans easily scared of them, with Megatron being the scariest of them all, and yet Sparkplug looked like he was ready to fight the warlord himself if it came down to it.
“If only we had our scientists still here, maybe we’d be able to come up with a solution or something.” Blaster muttered, rubbing his chin with his servo, until he heard someone clear their vocaliser behind them. A certain red mech stepped into the room, arms crossed over his chassis.
“You seem to forget that I’m head of the Autobot Science Division, Blaster.” Perceptor huffed, though he didn’t seem too offended. “And I have some fairly interesting information you two might want to know about.”
“Any information is good information. Hit us with it, Percy.” Blaster rolled his chair to face the scientist, leaning forward.
Perceptor gave him a small smile, then straightened up. “Well…I assume you’ve both noticed that most of our friends seem to be missing?” At both their nods, the red bot stepped over to the computer, plugging something in and downloading the camera footage. “Teletraan 1 received a call from the Decepticons, or well, the few Decepticons on Nemesis. They say Megatron and half the Decepticon army are missing, and think we’re the ones who stole them.”
Blaster stared at the scientist for a moment, glanced at Sparkplug, whose eyes had widened immensely, then he finally registered Perceptor’s words. “Wait, what?”