So why'd you really do it?

by Dreamingsinger

The last thing the Autobots expected was that Knockout would ever switch sides to join them. But why'd he do it? It's out of character. There are bound to be a few trust issues. But when he is badly injured, saving his team without even thinking about it, the 'bots begin to discover that their suspicious defector is far less confidant than they thought, and far more broken.

1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer; Don't own Transformers Prime, any characters, etc… same old usual disclaimer business. Hasbro owns it and I think they should keep it, as they write it better than I try to. I'm just doing this for fun, and not making any profit.

Notes / I wanted to write a fanfic for while centered somehow around the basic idea of a 'con defecting to the Autobot side. But the question was which one, and how? Imagine my surprise when I finally finished the last season of TFP and then Predicons Rising and basically discovered I had been given a ready-made defector scenario just begging to become my plot. Yeah it's been done before… a lot! But hey I still want to write this anyway. Knockout deciding to join the Autobots, was not something I would have imagined the series actually doing in a million years. He was always a bad guy and he clearly loved it. I thought he was just a little too good at being bad, and had too much fun doing it. And of course we never got to see in the series how he would actually have done as a 'bot, or even if he was actually serious. I'm going to assume so, 'cause fanfiction, and 'cause I can. But how to make a very bad guy into at least a somewhat good guy? This got me thinking, and plotting…. And assuming there just had to be far more to the story, and that was just waiting to be written.

I have a few chapters planned out already and I'll keep on writing. This shouldn't get too long I'm thinking. Hopefully everyone likes, or at least comment even if you don't.

Arcee gave a groan of frustration as she reached for the next in a stack of little data discs, and took notice of the still overwhelming pile on the work table in front of her. She'd been busy with data entry and records updates for what felt like it had already been ages. Clearly she was getting pretty close to nowhere. Shaking her head, she inserted the little disc into the nearby drive, and looked back to the monitor as the info the disc contained scrolled up into the screen. She tapped her fingers against the work table in growing annoyance at the task, just as soon as she realized she was looking straight at another group of files full of horribly outdated information, and in need of updating.

"Bee," she called across the room. "Have you seen Smokescreen around? There is no file for him in the records. I need to grab his info. He has no maintenance reports, no service record..." She shook her head again, and backed up from the monitor and keyboard. She was giving this a rest even if that rest was only moments. Her processor was surely in danger of exploding from staring at green on black text. She muttered to herself, "I should have expected the kid would have no file. He showed up from nowhere."

On the other side of the large and still mostly empty, barely yet functional room, Bumblebee was busy assembling the supports to what would soon be shelving units and supply cabinets. He had already finished installing the doors leading to a couple of passageways leading further into the new base. He got up from where he had been working close to the floor and came over to join her at the monitor.

"Smoky's out with the wreckers. They went out to look over a couple of the new construction builds. I could comm him. Oh, and Knockout is with them too."

"The file can wait," Acree said, backing away further to sit on a nearby bench. "No reason to interrupt the construction. Wait... what?"

She jumped right back up from the wall mounted bench she had just sat down on. "Knockout left the base?"

'Bee sat down himself and pulled her down next to him by the hand. "Arcee, he's part of our team now. He's got to be allowed to contribute."

"It's just weird is all. Not to mention completely unexpected. We've had countless run ins with Knockout over the years, and he never once showed any indication of wanting to join the Autobots. He wanted us dead as much as the rest of them did, or so it looked."

"Why not him? is that idea really any stranger than imagine it having been any of the others? I think we can all see how he's trying still so awkwardly to belong with us, just looking for a place here. I can only imagine how it must feel to switch sides like that. We see an enemy among us, yeah. But he was taught to hate us too. I think he took a huge leap of faith in this. He's barely talking to any of us yet, but one day sure he'll tell us why."

"I just don't trust him, as far as I could throw him. He could have killed any of us more than once."

"I don't think anyone trusts him. At least not yet. That will take a while. He's gotta earn that from us. So let him earn it."

"I can't dare hope this war is actually over. Nice as it would be to sit back and enjoy the thought of that, I just can't. We've all been fighting just too long. Now we are supposed to protect a 'con defector?"

'Bee shrugged and grinned with his usual optimism. "It seems that's the plan."

"Thanks for making sense," Arcee grinned back herself, before looking serious again, and forcing herself to stand up and turn toward the dreaded workstation. "Well back to my fraggin' pile of information updates. In years of shooting and running for my life, I forgot just how boring is to be just some paperwork flunky."

"Want to do some light indoor construction for a while instead? I never actually minded a little paperwork."

She was considering his offer to switch tasks with her, when the comm unit on the wall by the workstation went off.

'Bee, Arcee... send the ground-bridge to our location... now." Smokescreen's voice on the other end sounded not quite right. The crew that had gone out had not been expected to call for a bridge back nearly this soon. Arcee immediately swallowed the dread that was creeping through her circuits. She ran for the control panels, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the comm.

"What happened out there?"

"It's knockout..."

Arcee felt the fluids in her body begin to boil. She looked toward the weapons hold, seriously debating heavily arming herself, before opening the bridge.

"What did that dirty heap of scrap do?" That was uncalled for and she knew it. But she was strangely on edge and she didn't like it.

A reply came back at once, over background noise and general chaos. "He didn't. We have an emergency. He's sustained damage. This is bad. Real bad."

She dropped all thought of arming herself, and hurried for the bridge controls. But Bumblebee was closer and had seen reason faster. He was on it already, yanking up on the lever, and calling up a swirling vortex at the front of the room.

It was only seconds before Bulkhead and Wheeljack ran through the bridge with Knockout. Clearly he should ideally not yet have been moved at all, let alone picked up and carried through the ground-bridge, but then life never did like to wait for ideal conditions. Arcee uttered some of the strongest language she had picked up back on Earth.

Smokescreen he called it bad, but that was far beyond an understatement. The fallen bot looked at first like a pile of drenched red scrap metal. His body armor had been ripped open badly in too many places to count quickly, and in a few it had been torn away entirely in large jagged pieces, right down to the framework. One leg had been all but completely crushed, and the other one hung sickeningly by only a handful of connecting wires. Spilled energon, and dirty coolant fluid, covered the nearly destroyed body, both of the wreckers, and the floor, leaving a trail from the ground-bridge. The liquid substances were still spilling and running everywhere.

"Medbay, now." Arcee shouted louder than she wanted to, but the two were already on it, and making for the door to the next room.

Bumblebee was at the comm in seconds, already giving commands to the system, via the keyboard. "I'm calling back to Nevada, Earth. We need to call Ratchet in on this one. He can space-bridge back here in minutes."

"Nobody panic, nobody panic," Acree mumbled quickly, as she and Bulkhead hurriedly grabbed any supplies that might be of any use in the least, and started to do quick field repairs. She managed to hook up monitors too, and nearly wished she hadn't looked at the read outs. Every vital function was so low. As it was, he was actually slightly awake, though plainly not exactly aware. Red optics stared in front of him, wide open, falling into focus for a fraction of a second, only to lose it again, and dim. His vocalizer was now in a constant glitch, and he was making entirely nonsensical noise.

"He tried to save us... saw it before we did... said 'go, run for cover.' Was too late..." Smokescreen spoke from the edge of the room. Arcee spared a quick look in his direction. The kid was visibly shaken, and looked about to fall to the floor. Wheeljack grabbed him gently from behind and led him away.

"Come on, Kid. Let's find somewhere you can sit down before you fall down. You held up long enough to find help. That's what most matters. Even the wreckers would have nearly lost it the first time we found a mess like that."

'Bee hurried in at the same moment. "Ratchet is going to bridge right over. I knew he would. In the meantime, maybe I can help."

Arcee replied quickly, without looking up. "We still can't get the fluid loss stopped. At this rate, he'll offline in minutes. While you're on that side, please try and deactivate the pain receptors. He's completely in shock, and near full on shut down. Won't feel pain yet. Once even slightly more stable though all bets are off."

"Working on it."

Ratchet rushed in as soon as he left the bridge. He must have been at least a little shocked and shaken by the degree of damage, but as was so typical, none of that showed. He had afterall once been a field medic in the heat of the worst of the battles for Cybertron. Such damage was unheard of in the base, but certainly not quite the worst of it he had ever come upon.

"Good job on patch ups. Because of that effort, I believe we might have a chance. Nobody run for the door just yet. I need all the help I can get..." He was already giving directions to his still slightly shaking crew mates, before any of the three remaining could bolt for the door.

"We still have no real idea what happened," Arcee said absently, suddenly somehow saddened and regretting her past comments while doing her filing work. "So far it looks like something happened at a building site..."

"Not the time to worry about that. Work out what happened later." Ratchet dismissed absently waving an arm in her face. "'Bee, hold his right leg straight and keep it steady. Try not to bend any of the wires. I need to find the main fuel line, stop the energon bleeding, and then I can temporarily weld it to stabilize it for the moment. Bad as it looks, it's not the worst of it. Bulkhead, I need rolls of wiring and a welder, at this exact second. Go! Hmm... I don't like that internal scraping sound at all. Could be nothing, could turn into something serious. Every one of you pay attention to that sound. Say something if you even think it might be getting louder."

A terrible shriek of something between shock, and terror caught Arcee's attention at once, as she stood waiting to run at any second to follow an order herself. She found herself staring into Knockout's wide open optics, now in focus and looking right at her, as he snapped into his awareness at the worst time possible. One of his hands, the one closest and mostly having escaped any great damage grabbed hers unexpectedly and a little too roughly. Arcee forced down a gasp of surprise and fright. She collected herself quickly. He hadn't meant to grab her like that, and probably had not meant to nearly hurt her. He had only meant to hold onto... someone.

"Okay, okay." she said slowly, quietly and with some uncertainty, as he just kept screaming.

"What are we screaming for, my friend?" Ratchet spoke slow, somehow impossibly calm, but firm and serious all at once. Clearly he had seen such things so many times it barely shook him anymore. He handed off the welding tool to the closest waiting hand, and reached behind him for a new device, without breaking the eye contact he had finally made. "You were brought back the base medbay. We've got this under control. Watch my light for a second, please."

"Good job," he said after a few seconds of struggling to make a panicking patent follow direction, and finally succeeding, "Yes, keep holding onto Arcee. Very good. just get your bearings for a moment. 'Bee, keep your hands right where they are. You aren't hurting him. He's just disoriented and panicking a bit."

The helpless awful screaming finally stopped. For many long minutes, Knockout just lay where he was, not moving and perfectly silent now. The expression frozen on his face, still spattered with fluids and mess, was entirely telling. He had never been among the worrier class, never been any great asset in the height of a battle. He could very well be downright dangerous in the right circumstance, but all the same he had always been the quickest to run away. This was a medical officer. He had only put those in such states back together, and never gotten used to being anywhere close to this condition himself. None of the others could say they had ever seen a teammate quite so terrified. He stared with wide frightened optics at no one in particular.

"Not off-lining... not off-lining..." he mumbled, mostly coherent, quiet, confused and shaking. "Not ready... can't be over yet..."

"Shh, of course you aren't off-lining," Arcee said slowly, calmly. She only hoped she hadn't lied. He still held onto one of her hands, clearly still not willing to let go of it. Ratchet had grabbed his welder again and managed to make the repair on the badly leaking line, while his patient was slightly distracted.

He spoke to him again. All the while part of his attention was on the monitors. "Look at my light again. Just try to follow it a bit. Right. Now, your pain receptors are shut down, but you should still have a sense of your own body. Can you feel the tops and bottoms of both feet?"

Knockout only mumbled something barely audible about only one of them and barely the other one, and looked far more terrified.

"You're still doing good. Don't be too scared if you can't feel anything yet. You're fixable." Ratchet reached behind him and retrieved a length of hollow rigid tubing. He handed one end to 'Bee, instructing him to simply hold it for a moment, and then connect it to a nearby energon feed when he said so. The other end, he carefully worked to quickly, but still carefully feed through a space the body armor of one of Knockout's lower arms, the one that wasn't still franticly holding into his teammate. The injured bot was mostly compliant in letting him, but even that caused his optics to open wider with alarm, and it was obvious that he was trying not to pull his arm away.

"I need you to keep that arm still," Ratchet held his calm tone, still never failing at that. "I need to find a main fuel line, and this is just not working. Arcee can you try placing your other hand maybe over his for a second. Just like that, thank you. 'Bee, connect your end to the machine now, quickly."

"This is just not a very good day," Knockout mumbled shakily.

Ratchet spoke to him again. "We've got a bit of work ahead of us now, to get you put back together. I'm going to force you right into power down now, and unless something goes wrong, we're just going to let you sleep for a while."

Knockout's optics opened wide again, and he begged urgently. "Please Don't. I don't want to power down." The shaking only got worse.

"It'll be easier for you, if you are powered right down," Arcee said. She looked at his optics and hoped to hold his gaze for a moment, but he was only looking around the room franticly. She hadn't lied about the main motivation for powering him down of course, but it the same time she knew how much easier it would be for Ratchet and the team trying to assist as well. Any bot with any level of basic field training could tell a difficult patient within seconds. She knew that Knockout would be more than a little difficult. She knew that no one was holding it against him. But he was far too terrified, showing unexpected signs of strange trust issues, and more than likely felt trapped and cornered, because he could barely move.

"Please, please…. Don't make me, don't make me…" Knockout was on the verge of starting to scream again in panic.

All four of the team in the room, exchanged quick concerned glances. No one said a thing about it out loud, but all of them had the same kind of sinking feeling. Ratchet was the first to recover from the second of speechless dread. Turning back to work a few controls behind him he spoke again, with surprising understanding. "We'll try to do this without a power down. If at any point though, you're feeling too panicked, or you just don't want to do it anymore, let me know right away. I don't like these readings in the least. If we can't get it all to even out soon, down you go. We'll have no choice."

Another slight nod in response. The oddly scared patient had calmed a fair bit again- or likely was just well beyond emotionally spent. His optics did widen again though somewhat and the look of panic began to creep back in as he demanded, "Where are the others? Did the rest make it back?"

Arcee slowly nodded. "Bulk is here helping. The other two are here in the base somewhere. No one else was even hurt."

"I guess I've busted myself up pretty bad?" Knockout said. His voice was so quiet, but was clearly he was doing a better job of holding himself together now, at least for the moment. He stared at Arcee, obviously trusting her to give an honest answer. Finally realizing he was holding onto her quite hard, he let her go.

"I think you've done so much more than just scuffed up your finish this time." She forced a slight laugh, forcing herself to make light of it. Halfheartedly, he tried to look at her with his usual smirking expression. It faded again quickly. Even with his pain receptors deactivated, a good deal of discomfort was unavoidable. Between that and the obvious tendency towards panic, he was alternating quickly and often, between near rigid with fright, and barely able to force himself to not move.

Ratchet, acting quickly, but as carefully as possible, worked to straighten and assess the crushed left leg. Arcee nearly let her composure slip entirely when she caught a good glimpse of the full extent of the damage, while trying to make sure Knockout didn't notice it himself. All that was left of the body armor was a mess of crushed, busted up, and bent twisted metal. But the supporting framework underneath had broken into at least five pieces, and half of those was facing backwards. Energon, combined with every other needed vital fluid poured from too many places, as soon as anything was moved even slightly. It was seconds before it once again covered the floor and most of the team. The medic wondered aloud, but at barely above a whispered mutter, if it might worth rebuilding, or best to replace whole limb with a newly constructed replacement. A shattered piece of the body armor tore away from the frame, and hit the floor with a sickening bang. Two separate monitors began to beep and buzz in alarm at once. Arcee placed her hands lightly on Knockout's chest panel.

"Alright, alright. Hold still. We've got this," she spoke slowly. Knockout's optics had lost all focus, and dimmed again. He appeared to stare off into space without seeing anything. He had gone from the constant trembling to an almost violent shaking.

"Are you sure you don't want to be powered down through most of this?" she asked calmly, when he had managed somehow to gather his senses again. She could clearly see a stream of thin liquid still seeping from somewhere beneath his faceplate.

He looked like he was considering for a brief second, before he finally shook his head slowly. "I... I'll be... I'll be alright. Could you... just keep talking to me?"

Arcee nodded. She reached behind her for a clean white cloth from the top of a pile of them in a cupboard. Gently she brushed a corner of it against the damaged faceplate, wiping away any leaking fluid, and trying to work out where it was still coming from. She searched her processor for something, anything, to talk to him about. Most of her stories that she might tell, related to the long endless war. But he had spent his own life on the opposite side of that war. She could hardly relay any great stories from her own side of it. Now was not a time for that to be acceptable.

Searching her memories again, she gave a tiny laugh. "I could tell you about a day, when we first landed back on Earth. Not one of us knew very much about what anything was, or what it did. All we had was our information data base, and the power of reasoning skills. It was all trail or error really, to figure anything out and usually the hard way. So me and Bulkhead found ourselves out scouting some rocky terrain outside Jasper Nevada, and both of us nervous of anything that moved out there. Well of course leave it to that big clumsy brute to walk face first into a tree, and face to face with a hornets nest, high up in the branches. Hornets obviously can't sting metal, and we should have keep right on going. But he was instantly reminded somehow of scraplets. That was the day I learned just how well he can scream like girl. One wrong step backwards and down he goes, right over the cliff, and bouncing down to the bottom, out near the highway. Caused a rock slide. We got out of there before anyone saw us, and broke our cover. But good old secondary highway 48 was closed for a day and a half."

Arcee was not entirely sure that Bulkhead would not let her have it later for relying that tale, but it did make Knockout grin slightly. She found the crack in the side of the faceplate. It was hardly a serious injury compared to the rest, but was hardly minor either. Surely at least one main fluid line underneath had been cut, and she could clearly see a couple of bare, broken wires. She tried hard to think of another story to tell. Silly stories seemed to be helpful, and surely there were so many more for her to tell. But her processor had drawn a blank.

"Maybe 'Bee and Smoky will go racing with you one day," she said, determined to keep speaking while Ratchet tried hard to repair a terribe, still badly leaking gash across the left side panel. Welding was barely holding and the shininess of the framework was showing under the tear, as soon as any liquid was wiped away. "We need to look for a good long stretch of road, nice for the tires of your vehicle modes. Show Cybertron the human art of high speed street racing."

"That noise," Bumblebee said, interrupting her as she was about to keep speaking. "It sounds worse."

Ratchet dropped what he was doing that second, and tipped his head a bit to listen closely. The worsening noise had been a subtle thing initially. But suddenly and quickly, it went from bad to far worse. It was now a steady gasping rattling sound with undertones of grinding metal noises.

"Sounds like the intake system is failing. I had hoped it was minor damage and would self-repair, but now it sounds like clearly something has been jarred loose in there. Someone grab me that light again." he spoke quickly, and then instantly shifted his tone slightly. "Sorry, my friend. I've got to get that front panel open quickly, while it's still a quite dented out of shape. Might be a bit of a rough job."

Knockout nodded only slightly. He looked entirely defeated by that point. He could only have known well himself what would happen from there. He was a medic too after all.

"Forced power down will be inevitable now," he said quietly.

Ratchet had at first tried to simply pull the panel open, but that hadn't worked any better than he thought it would have. No matter how hard he pulled, the effort was met only with the sound of it bending up worse from the strain on the metal body panel. Quickly he reached for a small prying tool and with a quick look of apology, tried to jam it as gently as possible between the edge of the panel and the rest of the front plating.

"Slow, gentle intakes for a moment. Nice and slowly, as best you can do."

"Hurts... hurts..." Knockout mumbled. He looked so scared again.

"It will. I'm sorry. Once more, slowly, nice and gently. Good job. We've got it open. Sorry I know this is pretty horrible." Ratchet reached behind him. "Pass me the light."

He shined his light into the open front maintenance panel, and took several moments to make his assessment. Finally he shook his head slightly, and mumbled something too quiet for anyone to make it out. He looked again, and reached for a pair of pilers, which he used to carefully remove a shard of busted metal, with a steady hand. Another smaller piece and another shake of his head. More muttering, and finally a positive nod, as he removed a few more bits, just as carefully as ever.

"What were those pieces of metal?" Arcee asked, almost fearing the answer.

"A little of the casing, and part of the circulation fan's spinner. There's more in there, underneath the whole unit, but it's not so simple to get to."

"So what happens now?"

"Removal of the secondary panel, disassembly of the fans... routers... bearings... I know the intake is breaking apart..." Knockout spoke slowly, quietly and clearly horrified. He had grasped the reality of the situation already himself.

"Gotta do full power down for this my friend," Ratchet said, already reaching for some new piece of equipment. "We tried our best."

"Yeah," Knockout nodded just slightly. He was having so much trouble by now just keeping his intake system working well enough to circulate any air at all. There was no denying he looked exhausted, and ready to give in anyway. He had grabbed Acree's hand again and was holding on tightly as before, but she didn't stop him. "We tried."

"Hey the power down can only do you good anyways," Arcee said, forcing a smile across her faceplate. She squeezed back for a second. "How long since you've gotten in a good long recharge."

Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break

When Arcee and Bulkhead shakily made their way back into the common room a short while later, having left 'Bee to assist Ratchet, they found Smokescreen and Wheeljack sitting around casually on a couple of the benches, conversing quietly. Smokescreen thankfully looked better. He looked up fast as the two wandered in, and came to sit down.

"How is Knockout? Tell me he's not going to offline on us."

"He's still in very bad shape." Arcee leaned back on the bench, letting her processor finally catch up to her body. "He should have offlined from energon loss that bad, but he didn't. Legs are nearly destroyed. Air intake is scrap. Ratchet will likely find more internal system damage once he's done with that intake system."

She stopped for a moment, to steady her hands, which had started to shake again as she spoke, and then continued on. "He didn't want to power down. He's terrified and I'm not sure why. Strange. I've never managed to end up scrapped nearly that bad myself, thank Primus for that. But last time I did get myself injured enough to need hauling back to base disabled, I was grateful to be powered down and quickly. That look in his optics though… honestly it was awful. Like he really thought he'd never been powered back up again.

Bulkhead nodded silently, agreeing with her.

"Hey sorry for that little flip out of mine," Smokescreen mumbled, obviously disappointed with himself. He shrugged and leaned forward in his seat. "You train for this kind of thing, ya know, just in case. And you think, yeah great, good to know, got it. Most of the time I can think on my feet, but this time I guess I just lost it. I guess when I know something is going to get bad and then worse, it's all good. Just keep doing it all one step at a time, and let it get even worse, because we all know it will anyways. But when things turn from fine to disaster out of nowhere..."

He stopped dead in mid-sentence, and just stared for several seconds. Finally, he spoke again, his tone more serious than before. "I don't suppose anyone's had time yet to explain what actually happened in the first place.

Arcee shook her head. "For a while I was assuming construction site collapse. But then I can only assume that would be too straightforward. No, for us, it's never just a matter of good old bad luck."

"You'd be right about the building falling down," Bulkhead said grimly "It went crashing down, right after it was bombed from the air."

"Autobots under attack again?" Arcee jumped to her feet and began to pace slightly. Already strangely on edge, this news only made it infinitely worse. "This has got to be a special delivery curtesy of..."

"'Cons?" Smokescreen said. "Just one of them. Acting alone, or at least it seems so. If he had back up anywhere, no one saw them. Small flyer. Very fast jetmode. Came from the west, circled once overhead, attacked from above with no warning and took right off without a word."

"White, blue and red paint job," Bulkhead said, thinking. "Color's all wrong. Doesn't look like any 'con I know. But that's gotta be..."

"Starscream," Arcee growled. She stopped her pacing and stood with a mix of dread and rage across her faceplate. "He's obviously decided to change his color-scheme. I knew that frag pile would resurface sooner or later. He's never going to just give up this war and fly away politely."

"What did we think he'd do with his life now that the war should be over?" Bulkhead mumbled. "Join the construction crew and put his flying skills to use transporting materials?"

"I should have crushed that spoiled, skinny little piece of work when I had a chance at him," he went on, and growing angry. He slammed his large fists together with a great thud to make his point. "Show him how the wreckers get things done!"

They all had a slight laugh when Wheeljack mumbled something about a few spare grenades he still had just laying around.

"It's hard to say anything for sure, when it comes to Starscream," Arcee said, musing aloud. "He's always been unpredictable. We know he'll rebuild the 'con troops eventually. This won't just go away. But I can only assume this incident today was just him alone, looking for revenge on Knockout for betraying him."

"Then we need to protect him for the time being." Smokescreen explained with determination. "He tried to protect us. Saw that flyer coming right toward us and tried to get all four of us to safety before the whole structure could blow. He was behind us, last one to the edge of the wall. It's no secret that among the 'cons he was the first to dodge a blow, and yell retreat, but this time he just couldn't retreat in time. He could have knocked any of us to the ground trying to save himself, but he didn't. We all tried to escape together. The three of us all made it in time to see the whole thing explode and fall around us, and when we looked back over the cloud of dust, Knockout wasn't behind us."

Arcee nodded her head slowly, taking it all in. "He wanted to know, when he woke up for a while, if everyone had made it out of there safely. Just like any one of us would have done."

She sat for a minute or two, confused and shaking her head. letting so many reactions, delayed by a need for urgent focus, catch up to her. "I never could quite trust him. Still can't fully. But this defecting to join the 'winning team,' I questioned it as much as any of us did. What I saw today, this may not just be about placing himself among winners for some selfish reason. No wonder he's so terrified and shaken up so bad. Nearly blown away by a former ally. He did say 'Scream might have fired him out the airlock, but I thought he was being dramatic. Anyway this is a new low, even for that scrap pile. He always did like to play dirty but..."

"Dirty got him so far up through the ranks," Bulk' grumbled, still clenching fists. "I still say I shoulda crushed him."

One more quick note/ okay so as I started writing, I realized just how weird it actually is writing anything, when your characters are giant living robotic machines. How does one even put together anything involving Cybertronian medical care? Wow, a bit like a mix of medical drama and a visit to my mechanic to discuss a possible car accident write-off? I've read it written quite a bit, but never tired it before myself. If anything is outright wrong about the anatomy of a Transformer, or anything else for that matter, sorry about that.