Prompt: Hound turns into an actual Hound! Whether of organic or cybertronian origin is up to you :)
Here's a fun fact for you. I was seriously considering giving Hound a cyberwolf alt-mode when I first started writing this. Then I decided that would be too much author favoritism since he'd be a triple-changer.
However, his original alt-mode was a cyberwolf, he just got it changed when he started living with other people and a car fits his frame better than a mechanimal alt-mode did.
“Tracks, let go of Hound.” Jazz ordered. Hound looked sick as he stared at Jazz, optics wild with panic, silently asking for help.
“Listen, you’ve been hogging Hound’s attention this whole time. I just need to talk to him real quick. It’ll only take a few ticks.” Tracks said.
“No.” Jazz firmly said. Hound couldn’t speak for himself right now, so Jazz would have to speak for him. And Hound clearly did not want to go with Tracks. If he just used his processor for a second he would be able to tell that as well.
Even Click knew Hound didn’t want to go with Tracks because he started growling at Tracks. Hound startled when he first heard the noise before relaxing when he realized it came from the tiny sparkling. He wondered if Hound taught him that or if he already knew how to growl.
Track’s grip on Hound tightened as he snapped “It’ll only be for—”
Whatever Tracks was going to say was cut off when Hound suddenly jerked, punching Tracks in the face knocking him flat on his back. Rushing to Jazz and Click, Hound transformed. But not into his vehicle mode like Jazz expected. No, Hound transformed into what was unmistakably a cyberwolf. A very big scary cyberwolf that moved to protect Jazz and Click from Tracks. Baring his teeth Hound growled. It was much lower and more intimidating that Click’s earlier attempts at a howl. Jazz could feel his frame vibrating from its force.
Oh Primus, this was scarier than Jazz ever thought a cyberwolf would be.
“Guys, get Tracks out of here, and send Ratchet over. I’ll keep Hound distracted until Ratchet can get here and fix whatever is wrong with him.” Jazz ordered.
Bumblebee glanced between him, Click, and the now cyberwolf Hound. “You sure about that? We could take Click too.”
“No.” Jazz tightly said. “I don’t think Hound is in much of a state to think right now, he’ll probably take that as a threat. But he’s trying to protect us, so we should be fine.”
“If you're sure.” Bumblebee hesitantly said before helping the others drag Tracks out of the room.
Now alone, Hound stopped growling. Jazz had to resist the urge to flinch when Hound refocused his attention on him and Click. Walking over to them Hound studied them and started licking Click, ignoring the sparkling’s whines of protest.
Jazz hoped Ratchet would get here before Hound tried licking him as well.
May I suggest: Fatherhood! Hound fighting Guiding Light! Ravage to adopt Guiding Light! Soundwave.
Or, possibly, the Soundwave from the other fic. XD
I know who you are, just as you know this ended up not following the prompt and ended up being more of a "Hound meeting the Guiding Light" fic XD
Hound stalked towards where Prowl had pointed him to. Initially, Prowl didn’t want to send Hound out to scout the strange energy readings they found since, as a new caretaker of a sparkling, he was supposed to be working less. But he had to concede that as their best scout sending Hound out was the best decision.
Hound didn’t like being separated from his sparkling, but he knew it was for the best. Prowl was watching Click for him while he was gone, and they really did need to figure out what was going on with those readings. It was very strange.
While he was far enough away that what he sensed was somewhat unclear, Hound could tell there were several Decepticons near the anomaly. More concerning, however, was that Hound could tell Perceptor was there as well. There hadn’t been any alarms about his friend being captured by the Decepticons, and he almost never left the Arc anymore, but the Decepticons captured Perceptor for some reason, and it couldn’t be very good.
Hound debated telling Prowl about the Decepticon base before deciding not to. He needed to gather more information first before going to Prowl. There was no need to start a panic on the Arc before they knew anything for sure. Hound carefully made his way through the small forest the Decepticons have set up their current plan in. The one good thing so far was that the Decepticons weren’t involving humans in this plan.
When Hound made his way into view of the Decepticon’s base, Hound had to pause. He was expecting some structure set up to capture the area’s energy and convert it into Energon. What he found instead was a large ship. It was nowhere near the size of the Arc or Nemesis, but it was still larger than any personal ship would be, and could fit a larger crew. It also looked to be some strange mash up in design. There were certainly Cybertronian parts of the ship, but parts of it were also alien. It wasn’t human designs, but something else. Something Hound didn’t know.
Did the Decepticons manage to ally with another species, or did they just steal their tech? That could explain why they took the risk of kidnapping Perceptor. Kidnapping a Wrecker was a dangerous move, and Hound had no doubts that if the other Wreckers learned of this they would charge out to rescue Perceptor.
Well, that didn’t matter. Hound would figure out what they were planning soon enough, and if he could help rescue Perceptor that would be all for the better. Actually, Perceptor would probably know what was going on so Hound could go straight for him.
With a plan in mind, Hound sneaked on to the ship. Strangely enough there were no lookouts to get past, so Hound didn’t have to worry about getting past them to get onto the ship. And once on the ship, he was able to use his senses to avoid meeting anyone else as he went straight for Perceptor.
Perceptor was with someone else, but they could take care of one person together before escaping so Hound wasn’t too worried. If they were quick enough, no one would even realize they were gone until they were far away. Getting closer to the room, Hound heard voices.
“I don’t like the thought of trying to tell them. It’ll just end in another disaster.”
“The Autobots are reasonable.” That was Perceptor. His voice was off, but Hound knew that was his friend.
“And the Decepticons?” The other mech snarked.
There was a pause before Perceptor said, “The Decepticons tend to be unreasonable.”
“Hey!”
“It’s true. Decepticons have a tendency to attack first and talk later. The Autobots will likely at least be willing to hear us out.”
Hear them out for what?
The other mech groaned. “I still don’t see why we’re doing this. We could just leave and avoid the trouble.”
“Because they need to know. Besides, we can handle any trouble.”
A thought struck Hound. Was Perceptor seeing a Decepticon? Hound didn’t remember showing any interest in anyone, so he assumed his friend wasn’t interested. But maybe that was because he already had a partner?
It sounded ridiculous, but Perceptor clearly sounded fond as he talked to the other mech. Maybe Perceptor wasn’t kidnapped and just sneaked into the Decepticon ship to see his partner? It seemed ridiculous, but Perceptor was way too relaxed for this to be a kidnapping. At the very least, that Decepticon was his friend. Probably more.
Hound couldn’t take it, he needed to talk to Perceptor, and whoever was with him didn’t seem hostile, even if they were likely a Decepticon.
“Perceptor, when did you get a boyfriend?” Hound blurted out as he burst into the room Perceptor and the other mech was in. He froze as he took Perceptor in. It was clearly Perceptor, but he looked different. He was thinner than before, with his waist being particularly snatched except for his shoulders which each had a spike pointing up. His new thinness didn’t stop him from being taller as well. But despite his entirely new frame, Hound focused on one detail.
“Perceptor, what happened to your optics?”
Perceptor and the other mech froze when Hound burst into the room. Perceptor’s scope moved to focus on Hound. Was he using that to see?
“Hound?” Perceptor weakly asked.
“I—yes? Perceptor, what happened to you? You have a new frame, and your optics—what happened to your optics.”
“It’s fine.” Perceptor dismissed. “I can see through my scope perfectly well.”
“It’s not fine. Who—who hurt you? I can take care of them. Just give me a name.
“I think we may be having a bit of a miscommunication here.” The other mech said. “I’m Dead End, and this is from Perceptor. We’re from another dimension. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”
Traveling between dimensions. Perceptor had mentioned it before, it was theoretically possible, but the potential dangers were bad enough that they never bothered trying to actually make it work beyond theoretical thought experiments. And now that Hound was looking at it, there was no way that Perceptor was his Perceptor. There was too much wear at the joints for this to be a new frame, and the damage on his optics was too old for it to have happened to his Perceptor.
“I believe you.”
“Wait, really?” Dead End sounded surprised.
Hound shrugged. I mean, you’re Perceptor, but you're not my Perceptor. And there’s no way the Perceptor I know could get to your state in just a few days. Besides, I know dimensional travel is possible in theory. So, tell me, why are you here?”
Perceptor shook his head before straightening up. “We are the Guiding Light. A crew that is traveling between dimensions to wart them of the possibility of a Quintesson invasion.”
“I have never heard of Quintessons before, and I think this is a conversation you might want to have with Prowl or Optimus.” Hound said.
“Prowl?” Perceptor asked.
Hound nodded. “Yeah, Optimus will probably want to talk to you too, especially since it seems like you’re Autobots and Decepticons working together.”
Dead End shrugged. “I mean, the war is over in our dimension. And we picked up a lot of Decepticons in our last dimension because they wanted out.” Dead End wrinkled his nasal ridge. “I don’t really blame them. Apparently, the war is over there, but Megatron joined the Autobots and he and the humans are working together to lock up the Decepticons and treated them pretty horribly. So, they took their chance to escape with us.”
“Why would Optimus ever go along with that?” Hound asked, trying to reconcile that image with the Optimus he knew. He couldn’t even imagine Megatron doing that to his Decepticons. You could say a lot of things about Megatron, but he was loyal to his people and his cause.
The idea that he would abandon them for the Autobots and work together with them to lock up Decepticons? It was inconceivable. Perceptor mentioned that there could be an uncountable number of differences between dimensions, but Hound never imagined something even close to that could happen.
“Anyways, our captain would want to be the one to talk to your leader.” Perceptor said.
“Who is your captain anyways?” Hound asked.
“Hot Rod.” Perceptor and Dead End said at the same time.
Hound had never heard of a mech going by that name before. “And where can I meet Hot Rod?” Hound asked.
“He’s probably still in the map room. We were gathering information on this universe to figure out how to approach the Autobots and Decepticons. It. . . did not go well in the last dimension.” Perceptor said. Carefully grabbing Hound’s arm as if it was made of crystal instead of metal Perceptor began guiding Hound through the ship.
“Oh?” Hound asked.
“There was a fight with the Decepticons, and the Terrans didn’t take it too well. We’d prefer to avoid a repeat if we can afford it.” Perceptor explained.
The Terrans? Were they a group like the Dinobots?
Perceptor guided them through the ship and soon enough they made it to a room that had several mechs in it. “Captain, someone from this dimension found us and offered to help us meet Optimus Prime.”
“That’s grea—” The red mech started speaking before he looked up, saw Hound, and froze. “Hound? Is that you?” Hot Rod weakly asked.
“Yes. Is there something wrong with me?” Perceptor had reacted oddly as well when he first saw Hound.
“I—no, no you’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s actually great to see you! I’m glad you're doing well!” Hot Rod rushed to say.
The masked blue mech studied Hot Rod. The way his ears twitched reminded Hound of a bat from here on Earth.
Hot Rod awkwardly coughed. “Anyways, you said, you can help us meet Optimus?”
“Sure. Prowl sent me here to investigate some weird readings we picked up, so you could definitely meet him at the very least. But I’m sure when Optimus learns what’s going on he’d want to talk to you himself. At the very least to ask for advice on how to end the war with the Decepticons because you seem to be working together fine.” Hound said.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapter Summary: Jazz didn't like this. They had met up with Whirl and the sparklings in the direction of Nyon. Click and Hot Rod were now in Optimus' trailer with Hound and Ratchet. Whirl meanwhile followed them while talking about how excited he was to spar with Ultra Magnus. The fact that Hound was still asleep which was worrying, but Rachet was giving him a check up and hasn't found anything concerning yet. At least, nothing that he told them about—but that could change.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I can't believe that I almost to forgot that the next chapter is out, especially on Fatherhood's 1 year anniversary.
Chapter Summary: Hound was content to lean back in his chair and watch as Click clicked and beeped at the Bernard, grinning whenever Bernard made his own clicks in response. Jazz had returned to his data work with some grumbling. It was nice and peaceful.
