Transformers fanfic (www.gazliter.co.uk)

Profile: Nightbeat
By Martin McVay

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Detective
MOTTO: "Truth is revealed in the smallest detail."

HISTORY: Nightbeat was one of the many Autobots who flocked to join Emirate Xaaron's resistance movement after the fall of Iacon to War-Lord Trannis. A detective in peace-time, he put his talents to good use piecing together the recent history of any spot where the Autobots set up base, to determine whether or not Decepticons had been there and if there were any other potential threats in the area. He often went undercover among neutrals and drop-outs in the less reputable areas of Cybertron, gathering intelligence for his leader Emirate Xaaron.

In 1989, the Autobot starship Thunder Raider was sent to Nebulos for three years, and nine Nebulans who had been followers of Galen Kord reciprocated by joining the Autobots. Their codenames were Lug, Muzzle, Quig, Flintlock, Silencer, Boomer, Ricochet, Holepunch and Tracer, and they were sent to Cybertron to be binary-bonded to six Autobots there, three of whom became the Double Targetmasters while the other three - Hosehead, Nightbeat and Siren - added to the number of Autobot Headmasters. After personality comparisons, Nightbeat was binary-bonded to Muzzle, a Nebulan who worked as a detective until he was framed in a scandal that put him out of business. They discovered that they had one of the smoothest-working binary bonds out of all the Headmasters. Muzzle's eye for detail made Nightbeat an even better detective than he was without him.

Nightbeat and Siren were sent to Earth in 1989 and were both given Earthen car modes in order to blend in. While investigating the death of the Autobot Playback they met up with Hosehead, whom neither of them had worked with before, being in different units under Xaaron. Hosehead's companion Horsepower was killed by the Decepticon Thunderwing, and the three Headmasters would have shared his fate had not Nightbeat incapacitated him by detonating Playback's fuel tanks. Thunderwing was an unknown quantity, for while he had been a high-ranking officer under Megadeath 4,000,000 years previously, he had lain low during Straxus' reign, pursuing his own secret agenda trying to capture the Autobots' Matrix Flame.

Nightbeat, Siren and Hosehead faced Thunderwing again during an attack on the Ark, and the year after Nightbeat's investigation of an insane Deathbringer they formed a team in the Matrix Quest and were captured by their Decepticon nemesis on Pz-Zazz. When Thunderwing finally secured the Creation Matrix, Nightbeat saved the day by shooting him with a grappling hook attached to an Autobot shuttle that was sucked out into space and exploded.

In late 1990 Optimus Prime asked Nightbeat to determine the fate of his friend, the Autobot surgeon Ratchet. Nightbeat deduced he had been blown through Megatron's Space Bridge portal into a void between dimensions. They succeeded in pulling him out, but inadvertently saved Megatron at the same time. Nightbeat was injured by Circuit-Breaker during the attempt to forge an alliance with Scorponok, but was still fit to take part in the battle against Unicron in 1991. He was also present during the battles on Klo and Hydrus Four that same year, and the battle with the Swarm in 1994. In that last battle he was forced to self-destruct, and Muzzle died as a result.

Nightbeat was eventually rebuilt with a non-sentient scout robot head, but after the great battle with the Liege Maximo's forces in 1996 and Megatron's attempt to over-run Earthbase in 1997, he felt he couldn't fight any more, at least not for a while. When Carnivac received the Rite of Autobrand at the end of 1997, Nightbeat requested an assignment in neutral space and was sent to the Grand Central Space Station. He worked there happily for several months as a detective and law-enforcement official before agreeing to join Prowl's shuttle crew hoping to make peace with Star Saber's Cybertronian Empire.

Nightbeat and Prowl have found their ways of thinking to be in accord in almost every situation, and the Autobots' Chief Military Strategist has come to treat the detective as his unofficial second-in-command, somewhat to the annoyance of Kup.

PROFILE: Nightbeat is a tough, no-nonsense type who is not afraid to break the rules to get what he wants. Usually what he wants is the solution to some mystery... and he'll go anywhere to get it. He feels as comfortable driving down a dark alley as he does cruising along a six-lane superhighway. He has an intuition for finding the truth that defies all known theories of programming. In trying to account for Nightbeat's remarkable talent, Optimus Prime suspects that the circuitry in the digital detective's logic centre may accidentally have been wired in a way contrary to accepted robotic engineering procedures. But the Autobot Leader is still at a loss to explain why Nightbeat thinks the way he does.

Nightbeat prefers to work alone. Most partners don't understand his methods and his reasoning, and often wind up hindering his investigations more than helping them, Siren being the most notable example. But, being a good soldier, he doesn't complain about his fellow Autobots... instead he tries to compensate for their investigatory deficiencies by working even harder.

Nightbeat sometimes imagines himself as a fictional human detective when on a case, but he usually gets by just with cool-headed logic. He is somewhat more serious and sombre after his self-destruction in the battle with the Swarm, and the resulting death of Muzzle, for which he feels responsible.

ABILITIES: Nightbeat carries two photon pistols and a high-powered plasma blaster with an infra-red sight for use in the dark, and is also equipped with specially enhanced audio and video sensors that aid in his investigatory work. If it's a clear, quiet day, he can hear a screw fall from five miles away and count the threads on it. In car mode he can travel at speeds of up to 620 miles per hour and has a range of 1500 miles.

From 1989 to 1994 he was a Headmaster, binary-bonded to the Nebulan Muzzle. Now he makes do with the ability to transform his head into a small remote-controlled scout robot / driver when he changes into his car mode, and uses it to search areas where he himself would not fit, though he hasn't ruled out the possibility of one day replacing his partner when he overcomes his feelings of guilt about Muzzle's death. In 1997 Wheeljack built him a Pretender shell to hide his robotic nature from the organic life-forms he invariably meets in the course of a long investigation.

WEAKNESSES: Nightbeat sometimes becomes so engrossed in his fictional detective personality that he forgets real-life priorities. His overconfidence in his abilities makes him think he can handle almost any situation by himself. Given his preference for working alone, he often suffers damage that a more team-oriented Autobot might avoid. He is also reluctant to return to the war after all the carnage he has witnessed in recent years, particularly the death of Muzzle.

Strength: 5 (6 in Pretender shell)
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 7 (4 in Pretender shell)
Endurance: 6 (8 in Pretender shell)
Rank: 7
Courage: 9
Firepower: 7
Skill: 9

UPDATE: Nightbeat did indeed take a new human partner, this time one from Earth. When a human working as a detective in the early years of the 21st Century found out that an Autobot with training in detective work was looking for a Headmaster partner, he volunteered immediately, considering this an opportunity to continue doing what he loved to do best. He even took the codename Muzzle in honour of Nightbeat's original Nebulan companion. But as organic life-forms tend to do, he too died, and as before Nightbeat took it a lot worse than other binary-bonded Transformers who lost their partners. This time his depression almost cost him his life, and he only just pulled himself together in time to ensure his surviving a time-jump to 1984 during the Eugenesis Wars by means of an emergency memory-dump and full-body rebuild.

Further details have been revealed regarding Nightbeat's early career on Cybertron. Throughout the millennia of war preceding the fall of Iacon to Trannis, Nightbeat was a civilian, only joining the Autobot army when his home was over-run. While Optimus Prime and Megatron fought great battles over disputed territory, pitting legions of Guardian and Harvester Units, Obliterators, Hunter-Seeker Skyships, Strike Planes, armoured walkers, hovercar troops, drill tanks and Seacon drones against one another in the Manganese Mountains, on the Terbium Plains and under the Sea of Mercury, Nightbeat was a private detective, wandering the streets of Iacon under curfew, earning his livelihood in the shadows, finding things out for people. One of his most important cases from the war effort's point of view was his uncovering of the plot of the Decepticon Transformer Decoys, but 99% of his adventures remain unrecorded in the annals of history - at least until he chooses to reveal their details to an eager public.

ENDS