#iacon

If your life was a show, it would be a slice-of-life one. You know, the one that gets cancelled right after one season because of low ratings?

"See ya soon! Take a little overtime for me? Me and my fiance are going out tonight, okay?"

"But I already-"

"Great, thanks, (Y/N)!"

You were ordinary, painfully ordinary. Working an ordinary corporate job, ate ordinary convenience store food. You were the corporate fixer, the person they called when the ship was sinking and the captain was incompetent. You lived on caffeine, spite, and the sheer refusal to let idiocy win. Though your obsession with sentient robots seemed to be on another level.. It seems. It was your escape, a world where 'Freedom' and 'Hope' weren't just words in another meeting and hopeless campaigns. It was something genuinely made you have hope for yourself, and maybe your life too. You remember the cold light of your smartphone screen illuminating your face, even with your computer open in front of you, you were busy scrolling through several sites on your break.

Your fingers flew across the glass screen. You were too busy arguing with a stranger named 'StarScreamValveplug101' about the socio-economics of pre-war Cybertron. You were dissecting the inevitable collapse of the caste system.

Too focused, you failed to notice the stinging pain on your chest. It worsened with each type and breath you took, it slowly became unbearable.

Your hands reached.. Well, attempted to, for the telephone. You were clutching the device that could save you, yet your panicked brain sought the outdated relic on the table. It didn't take long before you found yourself lurching over the chair, hitting the floor with a dull thud, and keening in agony. The carpet scratched your cheek. The forum argument on your screen was the last thing you saw.

‘I’m dying,’ the realization hit you with a bitter, cynical clarity. ‘I’m dying of a heart attack while arguing about alien robot politics..!'

[ SYSTEM INITIALIZING... ]

[ ERROR: USER VITALS: 0 ]

[ SOUL INTEGRITY: 100% ]

[ ANALYZING INTERESTS... MATCH FOUND. ]

[ TARGET: CYBERTRON ]

[ CASTE: ARISTOCRACY ]

[ FRAME TYPE: ?? ]

The darkness wasn't empty.. In fact, it was filled with scrolling blue text. You tried to scoff, to roll your eyes at the sheer absurdity of the Gamer interface appearing before you, but you had no eyes to roll. Too dead to do so.

[ WELCOME, USER! ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა ]

[ PLEASE WAIT FOR A MOMENT AS WE ARE TRANSFERRING CONSCIOUSNESS... ]

What?

Why were they using emoticons at this situation???????

— — — — — — — —

When you woke up, it wasn't with a groggy grunt, instead, it was with a small click and hiss of your body. Wow, it sounded.. Expensive. It felt like standing beside a generator, except the generator was inside of you! It all felt new and refreshing, you felt like you could run laps around several football fields with how energetic you felt.

'..Highness [Y/N]? Have you awoken yet?'

The voice was timid, making you spring into action, but realizing you were made of metal, you didn't realize the amount of noise you had made. You didn't recognize your name, no maybe you kind of did, it sounded similar to your.. Human? Name?.. Whatever.

'Y-Yes, I.. Am well.'

You managed to sputter out hesitantly. It was quiet before the door slowly slid open with a hiss. The thing.. pink game thing let out a ding, as if it had forgotten something.

'..Highness! Master! Are you not well?'

The servant asked, a tiny bot who skittered it's way over to you. Before you could speak, a screen popped up in front of your eyes. HUD..? Whatever it was.

[ SPEECH LOCK ENABLED. ]

[ CHOOSE YOUR WORDS UNTIL YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY DISABLED THE SPEECH LOCK! ]

Option A: 'Get away! Who told you to come inside of my habsuite so easily?! Get out!'

Option B: 'Do you think I am so weak? Do not underestimate your Master.'

Option C: 'Hmph. Leave. I have no need for dire attention.'

What the hell were these choices?! You decided to pick the 'safest' option.

"Take your leave. I have no need for attention so dire from a processor-dead bot meant to serve me."

?!

That was NOT what was said in the options.

The tiny servant bot didn’t just leave. It flinched so hard its optics shuttered, a high-pitched whine of terror escaping its vocalizer, it basically scrambled backward, its metal feet skidding on the polished floor, before bowing frantically.

"F-forgive me! Forgive this unit's intrusion! I will go recharge immediately! Please do not recycle me!"

The door hissed shut behind it, leaving you in silence.

Recycle? You froze, your hand?? Servo? A sleek, terrifyingly sharp one. It hovered in the air, I just wanted to tell him to leave. I didn't want to threaten his life!

[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ]

[ AUTO-CORRECTION COMPLETE! (˘³˘) ♡ ]

[ SKILL ACTIVATED: 'Noblesse Oblige' (Passive) ]

[ EFFECT: Lower caste dialogue is automatically filtered to match your Status. Why speak politely when you can speak with Authority? ]

[NOTE: This passive only takes effect when SPEECH LOCK is yet to be disabled.]

"You have got to be kidding me!" you hissed, frantic. You didn't even know which continuity you were in! This time, the words came out normally, likely because there was no one around to hear them. "I'm not living a life, it's like I'm playing a PR nightmare!.." You turned your head, which felt heavier than you were used to, you scanned the room, It was opulent. Ridiculously so. The walls were lined with shifting geometric art, and the berth you had woken up on was large enough to nest a Combiner. Yikes.

You found a reflective surface, deciding to take a look at your bod..frame?.. Whatever you were still calling it a body.

"Oh."

The breath left your intake vents. You were... magnificent, and terrifying. You hummed, watching yourself proudly pose in front of the surface before a Ding! caught your attention.

[ CHARACTER PROFILE LOADED ]

Designation: [Y/N]

Class: High Caste Aristocrat / Senatorial Aide

Affiliation: Neutral (So far! >3<)

Reputation: -500

Current Wealth: [∞]

You stood there, baffled. You scanned through, over and over.. Senatorial Aide??? Oh your life was.. Done, to say the least. You feared slightly for your future, an aristocrat meant bad, especially before the war. Not to mention that reputation, -500? Am I really that bad? You decided to continue scanning through, maybe the stats were better! It had to be!

[ ATTRIBUTES ]

Strength: 2/10 (Don't lift things, have servants do it! Hehe!)

Speed: 9/10 (Engineered for fleeing responsibility! You might like that since you were so tired in your previous life! ♡)

Charisma: 10/10 (Intimidation focused..mostly?)

You stared at the stats. Strength 2? Was this thing actually serious?? A human toddler could probably tip you over if they caught you off balance, at this point You were built of glass and money.

Suddenly, a loud chime echoed through the room, making you jump. A notification appeared in red text, vibrating with urgency it almost made you slip on your pedes.

[ MAIN QUEST: MET HIM GALA ]

[ TIME REMAINING: 2 HOURS ]

Objective: Attend the Gala hosted by Senator [REDACTED].

Mission Requirement: Do not get assassinated.

Bonus Objective: Make contact with the gladiator known as Mega■tro■■ without triggering his [REDACTED].

[ SYSTEM GLITCH DETECTED! CLOSING WINDOW TO FIX! ]

You panicked, not being able to fully even finish reading it. Oh, Oh what were you gonna do? You did see the objective briefly. Not.. Get assassinated? It seems this world had it out for you.

Prowl led the way once the light faded, Rook only three paces behind him and following him more by listening than actually seeing him. They’d been walking for 3 joors already, without sight, sound, or clue that they were on the right track. Rook was beginning to get antsy, and it was annoying Prowl. It was distracting!!!

Prowl stopped when his doorwings picked up limping footsteps, barely there, some distance away down several turns. He stopped, doorwings snapping up to try to get a better read on it, but Rook walked right into him with a clang that couldn’t have been loud, but sounded almost deafening in the silence.

The footsteps stopped, then broke into a run away from them. Ignoring his orders to stay with Rook- he could find him again, after all- Prowl dashed after the runner. The other was fast, but their energy seemed to run out quickly, though they didn’t give up running. Some sort of vibration assaulted his doorwings, making him stagger slightly, before he realized it was the ultrasonic humming that Polyhexians used for submetalline navigation. His foot splashed into a faintly glowing blue puddle, and he stopped a moment to look- Energon. Fresh, but dull, which didn’t bode well for the injured mech.

Prowl turned his attention back to the fleeing Polyhexian, running him down, able to track him just by the droplets of Energon on the ground. He rounded a corner and saw the mech- Jazz. His name was Jazz. He had to remember that.

Jazz shook, listening to the stranger approach. Why was there a Praxian chasing him? He wasn’t in Praxus. He was in Iacon, as much as he didn’t want to be. He heard the mech round the corner, gaining ground. Jazz was too tired, too weak, and too injured. His systems stuttered, and he crashed to the ground misstep as he tried to keep running, a whimper escaping as he felt the lines in his shoulder split open, dripping Energon sluggishly onto the ground.

The Praxian chasing him knelt at his side, then placed temp patches on both his leg and shoulder. Jazz made a confused sound, why was he being helped? Who was this strange mech? The questions slowly faded as he began to slip into stasis, unable to stay awake.

Prowl felt a bolt of something through him when the Polyhexian fell, sliding to a stop and dropping to his knees next to him to check the injuries, dropping all 3 emergency beacons to convey the urgency of arrival. A quick scan showed this to truly be the Jazz they’d been searching for, injured and critically low on Energon. Prowl snagged several temporary med-patches out of his subspace and flattened them over the injuries, taking care not to harm the mech further. He watched the Jazz slip into stasis all too soon, pulling out a med-grade cube of Energon and trying to help Jazz drink to replenish his lines, but had little luck. He set the cube down, looking up as light streamed into the tunnel from a short ways away, darkening as Ironhide dropped down. Prowl flashed his high beams to allow them to locate him.

“Good work kid- where’s Rook?” Ironhide asked. Prowl shrugged, he didn’t know.

Ironhide sighed, “I’ll have Groove go find him. How’d the squirt get hurt?”

Prowl sent a memory file over in a close-proximity ping, showing the fall as how Jazz’s shoulder was injured, then sent over the ‘weapons’ ping while pointing at the Polyhexian’s injured leg.

“Blaster?” Ironhide inquired, and Prowl nodded. Ironhide grunted, “bad?”

Prowl nodded again.