Chapter Text
When squirrels scattered up a particular redwood tree, their claws would scratch at something completely inorganic at the base of it. Lichen and vines had made the dark green panels their new home, at least for the past decade after realizing it wouldn’t move anymore. Despite the surrounding plant life not caring for the figure’s immobility, the remaining fauna had tried their best to not come close.
Because every night, the figure emanated a gentle, pulsing light from its chest, which tended to scare off most of the creatures in the vicinity. For those brave enough, little critters and crawlies stayed near its light, warm enough for chilly nights (at least, if it got cold enough).
But in the morning, one glance towards the figure wouldn’t bat anyone’s eye– the light was too dim against the sun’s rays. The humans that managed to pass by would be too busy to get back on the closest trail, and anyone else would figure it to be an old, abandoned piece of machinery; Unloved and thrown aside to waste away.
That’s how it was usually seen, anyways. Plants obscured most of the figure and it was hard to pick up anyways, so why bother?
But it wouldn’t be long for it to be rediscovered, its light still pulsing in the dark of the night as gentle footfalls made its way towards the curious sight.
“Oh my stars… How did I miss you?” A whispering voice cut through the stillness of the forest. “I’m sorry. Let’s get you fixed up.”
The voice came from a large, white and red Autobot. It kneeled in front of the figure and switched on a light from its helm. The medic was glad that the trees were larger than life itself as it stretched its wings around. Once it kneeled in front of the figure, it started to pry off vines and various plants, tossing the organic material to the side in a pile. It wouldn’t be long until it revealed the worn frame of a fellow Autobot; The insignia engraved onto its arm panel (perhaps a spy for their team?) but hard to parse from the dents. It was also clear to the medic that there should be a visor over their optics, given the shattered, dark blue glass surrounding their optics and hanging onto the edges of their helm.
The mere sight of it made the medic much more curious.
Once most of the plant matter was off, the medic gently set the body on its back on the forest floor. A beam emanated from its visor and scanned the figure for information on who it found while preparing its instruments.
“Trailblazer… Huh. Sounds familiar.”
The stabilizers on its helm dropped slightly as it tried recalling where it heard that name, but pushed its thoughts to the side as the medic narrowed its focus into repairing Trailblazer.
By the time the sun’s rays poked past the horizon and through the trees, the medic had finished restoring their frame. It made sure to remove any roots that remained inside of Trailblazer, replacing them with cables and screws. Restoration was an art, it thought when it stood up and set the last instrument in its storage unit.
Gone were the dents that wrinkled the metal; The helm polished so well, you’d think that the edges could cut through air. Trailblazer’s wheels on the back of their legs were realigned after adding more air pressure (and it was thankful it didn’t have to replace them; It didn’t carry any spares), while a shiny new visor was fitted on their helm that slid back easily.
Its optics traced back up to something it was extremely proud of; The Autobot insignia, re-engraved into Trailblazer’s right arm panel, was still hidden in plain sight. This was its best work yet.
“Alright, bud. Let’s get you online,” it said again, before opening their intake and plopping a cube of energon into it. As soon as the energon was absorbed into its systems, the light in Trailblazer’s chest steadied its blinking. Red lights loaded and lit up around its whole body, and slowly but surely, its optics went online; And just like their frame, or the plant life surrounding them, they emitted a bright green. The apertures adjusted and focused to the natural light.
Trailblazer’s visor immediately slotted back over their face, then sat up immediately before they hopped on their pedes and balled their servos into fists. “Where are they?!”
“Hold your horsepower,” the medic looked up at them, surprised (and a little disturbed) that they were so raring to go. “Sit back down, please.”
Pointing their fists at the medic, Trailblazer did just that and stared at it.
“Who are you? Where’s Buzzkill and Lacewing?” They peered over at the medic.
“My name is Kelvin. I’m a medic that just repaired you, and I don’t know who Buzzkill and Lacewing are.” It reached out, and with no resistance, put Trailblazer’s fists down. “You still need time to recover. I don’t want you undoing all this work!”
Trailblazer calmed down slightly and retracted their visor. “Hi Kelvin… You repaired me? You’re serious?”
“Of course. You were in, no offense, a really bad state when I found you here. Had to tear out a lot of plants off of your body,” Kelvin smiled. “But you seem to be running fine, physically, at least.”
Silence.
Taking a shaky inhale, Trailblazer lifted a digit and waved it in the air. “Okay. So that nightmare wasn’t a nightmare. They cornered me. Is it the next mornin’?”
“Uh–”
“C’mon doc, I can get back to the fight! I’m ready!” With that last sentence, Trailblazer grinned, shook off the thought of losing a battle, and playfully punched Kelvin’s shoulder guard, despite the medic frowning.
“Oh, no no no. There’s no fight anymore.” Kelvin reached out to hold Trailblazer’s arm, making sure they didn’t scratch their servo.
“Really? Where’d it move to?”
“No, Trailblazer,” Kelvin sighed. “I mean… The war ended.”
Trailblazer’s apertures narrowed in shock. “ What? ” They stood back up, only to struggle as they were held back down by the much larger seeker. “No, you’re jokin’ with me. Ain’t no way. We’re still here on Earth? Or is everyone back on Cybertron and you’re just, I dunno, a part of some rescue mission? Please say it’s the latter.”
Kelvin let go of Trailblazer and the two took a couple steps back from each other. Despite its visors blocking the top half of its face, Kelvin made a pained and bittersweet expression. It adjusted the brim of its helm, clicking it back one notch away from its face, and reset its vocals.
“Still on Earth. The space bridge linking Cybertron and Earth was destroyed. Among other things,” Kelvin’s voice got quiet. “But… Let me do your assessment first. It’s just a questionnaire, and then a scan on your performance. I can definitely tell you’re physically fine, but I need to make sure your software is still running well. Is this okay?”
“Is this okay?” Trailblazer scoffed. “Is this okay? We can’t get back home, and this is okay? I don’t think anything’s okay! I–”
“Calm down, Trailblazer,” Kelvin kneeled. “Breathe. I can tell you everything after the assessment, I promise. Just trust me.”
Flickering their optics to the familiar red insignia on its chest, Trailblazer conceded. They couldn’t just disappoint another member of their team.
With an annoyed sigh, Trailblazer pouted and forced themself to relax, sitting on the forest floor and staring at the twigs, leaves, and all the little plants poking through the soil while answering a slew of questions. They were simple enough– Questions about their pain, how everything felt, typical check-up stuff. Unfortunately, it was a lengthy questionnaire, and sitting on the ground was way too boring.
So, of course, Trailblazer passed the time by looking around the forest. Their optics darted around and they noticed that the sun was much higher in the sky now, the trees shading both of them while light streamed between the gaps of the leaves and trunks. The sight of it made Trailblazer’s spark feel funny; Emotions unknown, hard to form into words… Something that they hadn’t felt in a very, very long time.
Their contemplation was cut abruptly when Kelvin opened a panel from its palm and extended a cord from it. “Alright. Seems that you’re having issues with your memory. There should be a panel on the back of your head where I could plug this in, but I will have to touch you. Is that okay?” Kelvin’s voice was too soft.
“Yeah, I guess,” Trailblazer sighed. Kelvin noted Trailblazer’s tone to be that of a whiny sparkling.
It shifted its position to Trailblazer’s side, knee guards shuffling away leaves and revealing the soil. Kelvin then reached out and gently tilted Trailblazer’s head forward. A small panel with a single socket revealed itself, and the wire was plugged into it. The feeling made Trailblazer shiver in pain, but they eventually got used to the feeling and pretended that it wasn’t there, still staring down at the ground while Kelvin did its thing.
“Say…” Kelvin hummed, “you don’t happen to remember anything from before your fight, do you?”
Trailblazer opened their mouth, then quickly shut it.
“All I remember is that I raced in Iacon and that I was a scout. Other than that… Nothin’.” They blinked, then turned their head to face the medic. In front of it was a hologram of all sorts of charts and lines of text, too confusing for Trailblazer to make any conclusions on what Kelvin was looking at.
“Really? You can’t recall anything else?” Kelvin frowned and shuffled forward. “Do you remember having any friends? Remember an important event? Anything?”
The scout shook their head. “Nope. Anythin’ past that is a blur to me.”
“Do the names Optimus Prime sound familiar? Or Megatron?”
“Kinda? They’re leaders, I know that much.”
“Oh dear.” Kelvin sighed, muttering something under its breath before turning its attention back to Trailblazer. “You said you remembered your last fight… Called it a nightmare. Would you say that it repeated itself?”
The question confused Trailblazer, but then they nodded. “Yeah, now that you mention it! Felt like it was on loop. Weird, huh?”
After that confirmation, the hologram closed itself and the beam emitting from its arm shut down. Kelvin kept quiet for a moment, pondering on how to explain it to Trailblazer.
“Not weird at all. Some mechs have their own methods to keep them from fully offlining. Usually it’s programmed in from your creation, but it really just depends. As for yours, I’ve seen it before, but it’s not super common; I mean, who wants to relive their last moments before being powered down?”
Trailblazer nodded despite their puzzled expression. “Alright. So…?”
“... What I’m trying to get at,” Kelvin’s wings folded back a little as it waved its servos around, the wire still dangling from its palm, “is that you have memory loss– amnesia– at least, partially. There should be a backup somewhere in your module considering that most of your personality is intact and that you seem to still have a basic grasp on certain things. I just need to start the memory recovery program…”
Nodding, Trailblazer stared at Kelvin in slight fear. “You’re not a nmenosurgeon, are you?”
“Primus, no. Do you see drills on these?” Kelvin wiggled its ordinary and plain digits. “Also, it’s pronounced ‘mnemosurgeon’. See, that’s why it’s probably somewhere in that big, beautiful brain module of yours. Just need to fish it out.”
A smile spread onto Trailblazer’s face, finally feeling themself calm down. Kelvin was their beacon of hope. It was nice having someone else talk through their condition, and while Trailblazer was trying not to seem so weak, they were relieved that there was somebody out there who still cared. Who knows what would’ve happened had Kelvin skipped over them? Would they have been in that state for the rest of their life?
Trailblazer shook those thoughts out of their head. Not the avenue to go down, it seems.
“Now, let me preface that the program will take up a lot of resources and energy out of you,” Kelvin said, booting it up. Once the program loaded in, Trailblazer froze momentarily, optics and lights suddenly dimming for a couple seconds. When they came back online, Trailblazer gasped and clutched at their head.
“Ow ow ow ow ow!” they hissed.
“Don’t worry, that’s normal. It’ll go away in a few kliks. Now,” Kelvin slowly unplugged its cable from Trailblazer’s head and retracted it back into its hand, “while the program is running, I don’t want you doing anything too crazy, or too fast, or whatever. You run the risk of seriously messing your memories up if you damage yourself, especially with how you were programmed…”
“What? But I feel perfectly fine, doc!” Trailblazer whined. “Also, what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Kelvin chuckled nervously. “Nothing. You just remind me of someone.”
“Oh?”
The medic shuffled a little. “Ah. Just an old friend.” Kelvin waved. “Now, repeat what I just said, I wanna make sure you know what you’re doing.”
For a moment, Trailblazer furrowed their brows. Then, they crossed their arms. “No runnin’, no jumpin’, no skippin’, no nothin’. Nothing fun or excitin’ or fast. Slow down or else. That enough for you, doc?”
“That’s one way to put it,” Kelvin shrugged, “but yes, you got it.”
“Can I still transform?”
“Of course! Actually, I recommend hibernating in your alt mode. It might speed up the process a little.”
The medic stood up and extended a servo out to Trailblazer, who took it and got back up. They looked up at Kelvin, who was already walking South of where they stood, then to the trees surrounding them. They practically dwarfed both Autobots, lording over them like hibernating titans. Trailblazer froze in place, wondering how they didn’t notice the sheer size of it all.
Kelvin noticed that Trailblazer wasn’t following it and looked behind it.
“You okay?” Kelvin called out to them.
Trailblazer blinked once, twice, and then snapped out of their daze. “I’m fine!” they said, catching up to Kelvin, “it’s just… this is such huge nature! And I thought we were big.” Trailblazer laughed.
“Earth is a much smaller planet than Cybertron for sure,” Kelvin said, “but it’s full of all sorts of wonders, too. Like these redwoods.”
“Is that what they’re called? Cowabunga, dude.”
Kelvin snorted. “ Cowabunga? ”
“What, I can’t say cowabunga?”
“No! It’s not that,” it laughed. “It’s… Oh stars, Never mind…”
They continued their walk through the redwood forest; Kelvin offered the scout to take them around while they talked about the current state of the world, y’know, a little tour. Trailblazer, finally able to stretch their cables, was more than ready to leave the forest. They left behind their bed of Earth and plants, or so they thought– In one of their wrist joints was a small, four-leaf clover poking out. It blended in well, at least for the first twenty minutes of their hike, until Trailblazer stared down at it.
“Hey, you missed a spot, Kelvin!” Trailblazer chuckled, plucking the clover. Kelvin looked over and gasped quietly.
“Oh shoot, I missed a spo– Woah! You do know what this means, right Trailblazer?” It said.
“Uh, no, not really.”
“Right, uh,” Kelvin stammered. “It’s a four-leaf clover. Means you got luck on your side, pal.” Kelvin smiled and patted Trailblazer’s back, around where the fuel tank is, and continued its trek towards the clearing in the forest.
“Huh,” Trailblazer blinked at the tiny plant, perfectly green with its leaves spread out to the sun. They twirled it between their digits, then flicked it away, letting the clover gently float down to the forest floor behind them as Trailblazer followed Kelvin.