Dents and Bruises

Talking:

"English or other Earth language"

"Cybertronian"

'Thoughts'

:Comm. Links:

(Bond talk)

**(Bumblebee talking)**

"Recordings or telephone conversations"

Flashback or change of time or place

Time changes:

Nano-klick=1/2 a klik. Klik= less than a second. Breem (cybertronian minute) = 8 minutes. Cycle=hour. Joor (Cybertronian hour) = 6 hours. Solar cycle=day. Megacycle= 1 week. Orn= 13 days. Groon= 1 month. Deca-orn = 3 months. Stellar cycle= 1 year. Vorn=83 years.

Rated T for good reasons, the ones in this chapter being language, mentions of slash, talks about sensitive topics and anything else I might have missed.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except my OC's or any original ideas I patched in to fill in any blanks left by the show. If you recognize it from somewhere else it's probably not mine.

Cody Burns rode down the streets of Griffin Rock as fast as his hover board could go. He was late for school because his family was the Rescue Team and he had been helping with an emergency but everyone else was still finishing up at the scene so he was on his own getting to school.

"Come on, come on," He didn't slow down until he got to the school and had to fold up his hover board and fast-walked to his classroom; he was already late he didn't want to get into trouble for running in the halls too.

He walked into his classroom just as the bell rang and went to sit next to Frankie, who leaned closer to him to whisper "Cutting it a bit close, aren't you?"

Cody whispered back. "I know, but there was an emergency and I was helping out in the command center but it took longer than I thought it would,"

Frankie snorted with amusement. "You're just lucky Mr. Robbins isn't here yet,"

Just then said teacher, a middle aged man with thinning gray hair and a pot belly wearing a brown suit, came into the classroom.

Cody looked up and noticed a girl standing next to Mr. Robbins, she about his and Frankie's age with dark hair that went down to her shoulders and was wearing a dark blue vest over a black turtleneck with blue jeans and cowboy boots.

He realized he never seen her before and leaned closer to Frankie. "Who's she? I don't think I've seen her before"

Frankie looked "I don't know,"

Mr. Robbins stood at the front of the classroom to address the class. "Settle down children, settle down," he waited until the kids sat down and listened. "I would like to announce we are getting a new classmate today. Say hello to Sasha everyone,"

The girl turned to look at the class but no one greeted her, instead they all started whispering amongst themselves so Mr. Robbins told her to go sit at the empty desk that just so happened to be on the other side of Cody.

Cody leaned closer to the girl and whispered. "Hi, I'm Cody,"

Sasha looked at him and whispered "H-hi,"

Her nervousness and hazel eyes somehow reminded Cody of Blades but he didn't have time to dwell on it as she quickly looked down at her backpack and took out a wire bound notebook and a pencil to start taking notes on what Mr. Robbins was talking about.

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At lunch, Cody and Frankie sat at their usual spot in the lunch room with their lunches and sat down to eat.

Cody was about to bite into his sandwich when he saw someone out of the corner of his eye and looked to see Sasha look around at the tables before going to sit at an empty one.

Frankie saw he was looking at something and turned around to look. "Why is she sitting at the gross table?"

Cody frowned, the reason that table was empty is because it was by the garbage cans and not only was the smell unpleasant but sometimes kids threw their leftovers at the trash cans and when they missed it splattered on the table, hence the nickname "The gross table"

At the table next to theirs, a group of boys also noticed the new girl was alone and decided to have a little fun with her.

One of the boys, an eighth grader wearing and orange shirt, brown stocking cap and ripped jeans, grabbed his milk carton and said "Hey, watch this," He threw the opened carton at the table Sasha was sitting at and the girl yelped as milk splattered everywhere.

The boys at the other table laughed while Sasha carefully picked apart her now soaked lunch and, after a moment of consideration, took a reluctant bite out of her sandwich.

A few girls in their class screamed. "Eww,"

"The new girl ate her sandwich after Joey dumped milk on it!"

Cody saw the girl was trying to ignore them in favor of eating her lunch and that the boys at Joey's table were preparing to throw more stuff at her.

This made him angry, he didn't like it when his older siblings picked on him even though they were just teasing him but these guys were actually trying to be mean to the new girl.

Cody got up from his seat and went over to her and held out his hand. "Hey, want to come sit with us?"

Sasha looked up at him and considered for a moment but gasped when Cody was hit in the back of the head by a wad of mashed potatoes.

"Hey!" He turned around and saw the bullies were snickering while Joey, who seemed to be the ring leader, grinned like he just won a contest.

Cody wiped the worst of the goop from his hair. "Knock it off, you guys,"

Joey sneered at him. "What are you going to do? Send your family's giant robots after us?"

Frankie appeared next to Cody and put her hands on her hips. "What if he does?"

Cody realized she had almost revealed the Rescue Bots' secret and tried to pull her away. Frankie wouldn't move until someone grabbed her other arm and started to pull her back to their table.

They looked to see who it was and saw that Sasha had gathered her lunch and was coming to sit with them.

They all sat down and started to eat. After a few moments, Frankie and Cody heard a quiet "Thank you," and looked at Sasha, who was looking down at her lunch before she pulled her sandwich out of the bag and started eating it again.

Cody smiled at her and said "You're welcome. So where are you from, Sasha?"

Sasha hesitated before telling him. "I used to live in on a farm in Kentucky close to Lexington, but then I had to move here,"

Frankie's interest piqued. "Kentucky? Isn't that where a lot of horse racing happens?"

Sasha nodded. "Yeah, we raised and trained horses for the track and for life off the track when they retired,"

"Cool," Frankie wrinkled her nose at the other girl's now soggy lunch. "Are you actually going to eat that?"

Sasha shrugged and said "I don't like to waste," she took a bite, grimacing at the taste and texture as she choked down the rest of her sandwich and pulled an apple out of the bag.

Cody looked at what the girl had for her lunch; in addition to the sandwich she had an apple, some carrot sticks and a reusable water bottle. "At least the sandwich was the only think that could be ruined by the milk.

Sasha just nodded and started to take a bite of her apple before asking them. "What about you? What's it like in Griffin Rock?"

And so the two told the girl all about Griffin Rock and its inhabitants, as well as all of their little adventures with the Rescue Bots—leaving out the part about the truth about the Rescue Bots, of course—until lunch was over and they had to go back to class.

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Eventually, school got out and all of the students were free to go.

Cody and Frankie got out at the same time and were eager to enjoy their newfound freedom to the fullest by going to the firehouse to test one of Doc. Greene's new inventions that said scientist should be dropping off by the time they get there.

"Hey, Frankie, I'll race you,"

Frankie grinned and the two of them got into starting positions. "On your mark, get set…"

They took off running, bantering back and forth as they ran until they came to the park but stopped when they heard someone screaming.

Looking around, they saw Mrs. Neederlander standing beneath a tree in a near panic. The two kids jogged over to her and Cody asked. "Mrs. Neederlander, what's wrong?"

The elderly woman cried out again as she looked up at her long haired white cat, Mr. Pettypaws. "Oh, my poor baby is stuck in a tree again," she gave Cody a sharp look as though the whole situation was his fault. "Where is that family of yours, young man? They should have been here by now?"

Cody flinched and put on a forced smile. "Don't worry. I'm sure they'll be here any minute,"

He looked around and listened for sirens, any sign of Heatwave and Kade or Chase and his dad.

Suddenly Frankie was pulling on his sleeve. "Cody, look,"

Cody looked up and saw someone climbing up the tree Mr. Pettypaws was stuck in. Taking a few steps back, he could see it was Sasha. "Sasha, get down from there,"

Sasha just kept climbing, whispering reassurances to the cat as she made her way up to it. "Come here kitty, it's alright. I'm going to get you down from here, alright?"

She made it to the branch Mr. Pettypaws was on just as Kade and Chief Burns got there with Heatwave and Chase.

Mrs. Neederlander marched right up to them with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. "About time you got here. You took so long a little girl is doing a better job at saving my baby than you have,"

Just then, Sasha lost her footing and slipped off the branch and was hanging by one arm with Mr. Pettypaws in the other.

Mrs. Neederlander screamed about how "her baby" was in trouble and everyone looked up to see what had happened and Kade looked up at Heatwave. "Heatwave go!"

Heatwave sprang into action. "On it,"

While Chase kept the crowd that was gathering back, Heatwave stood beneath the tree but to his surprise the girl flinched away from him and tried to climb down on her own.

Heatwave was confused by this and was about to snap at her to let him do his job but remembered to do so in a robotic monotone. "Human: release hold on tree,"

The girl stopped struggling for a moment and looked around before looking down at his servos as though trying to gauge how far down it was only to discover his servos were cupped directly beneath her to catch her and the cat.

So she lowered herself until she felt her feet touch his servos and dropped down into the bots servos where she held the now squirming cat to her chest to her chest, despite that fact it was digging its claws into her vest as it rubbed against her.

Once Heatwave lowered his servos to the ground Mrs. Neederlander came up and grabbed her cat to "comfort" him after his ordeal and scowled up at the bots and their "handlers". "You're just lucky my poor Pettypaws wasn't hurt!"

She walked away with her cat and Heatwave scowled after her. "You're welcome," He looked down at the girl who sat up in his servos, looking up at him.

Deciding to break the stare down he asked. "Are you injured, human?"

The girl seemed to realize she was staring and climbed off his hand. "I'm fine… Um, thank you?"

Cody and Frankie came up to make sure their new friend was alright. "You ok, Sasha?"

Sasha gave them a smile and nodded but then she looked back up at Heatwave but then froze when she saw Chief Burns standing next to Cody. "Who's your friend, son?"

Cody looked up at his dad. "Dad, this is Sasha. She's new here,"

Chief Burns smiled at the girl. "Nice to meet you Sasha,"

Sasha looked at him nervously, then she saw Chase walking up to them and started to back away. "Um… I-I'd better go,"

She grabbed her back pack from where she had left it at the base of the tree and ran away from them, disappearing as she went around the corner at the end of the street.

Heatwave stood up. "What's with her?"

Chief Burns looked at him. "She's probably just nervous about being around bots. You guys do take a little getting used to. Come on, let's go. Need a ride home, Frankie?"

Frankie nodded "Actually, me and Cody were on our way to the firehouse anyway,"

While Frankie and his dad got into Chase's alt. mode, Cody looked down the direction Sasha had gone.

Something was off about the girl; when she looked at Heatwave she had a look of wonder but not the kind that came with seeing a bot for the first time but more like she knew him from somewhere but couldn't figure out where.

"Hey, Cody, are you coming?"

Cody snapped out of his thoughts and went to get into the backseat of Chase's alt. mode with Frankie. "Coming,"

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When they got back to the firehouse and Chief Burns and the kids got out of Chase's alt. mode, Blades ran up to them in a state of mild panic. "Nobody go upstairs, I think Dani's in berserker mode!"

Chief Burns held up his hands "Calm down, Blades. Now what happened with Dani?"

Blades forced himself to act calmer than he actually was as he explained.

"Well, when we were on patrol earlier she seemed to be in a bad mood but when I asked her what was wrong she said…"

He blushed. "Well, I can't repeat what she said exactly but she basically told me to mind my own business. When we got back she stomped upstairs like we just had a fight. Did I do something wrong?"

Kade climbed out of Heatwave's alt. mode and pulled off his helmet. "Sounds like it's that time of the month again, good luck putting up with her for the next week,"

He left and Blades was immediately worried for his human partner. "What happens at 'that time of the month'? Is it bad?"

Chief Burns looked uncomfortable and started to say something but Frankie beat him to the punch. "Come on, guys don't really like to talk about this stuff so I'll explain it," she waved for Blades to follow her outside.

Graham and Boulder walked in then and had overheard their conversation. "Uh, Frankie, how would you know about that?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "They just gave us 'the Talk' in school the other day. You guys need me to explain it to you too?" she looked up at the other Rescue bots.

Always wanting to learn something new, Boulder nodded and followed. "Alright,"

Heatwave crossed his arms and snorted, about to refuse, but then he noticed Frankie was giving him "doe-eyes" and relented.

Chase also followed them outside when Boulder reminded them they were supposed to be finding out more about humans.

Once they were gone, Chief Burns looked down at Cody. "Just how much did they tell you when they talked to you kids about this stuff at school?" He wanted to know so he would know how much he would have to tell Cody about when he was old enough.

Cody shrugged. "They made the boys and girls go into separate rooms and told the girls about all the girl stuff but they didn't tell us much, just the stuff they thought we would need to know by now,"

Chief Burns sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose and put a hand on Cody's shoulder as they went to the elevator that went upstairs where the Burnses lived. "Come on, son, sounds like we need to have a little talk too,"

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By the time Frankie had finished explaining everything to the bots, she had a wicked smile on her face, enjoying the thought of making the giant alien robots squirm a bit.

To her surprise, almost, the only one that actually squirmed was Blades.

When she finished, Frankie looked up at the Bots. "So, what do you guys think?"

Boulder tapped his chin in thought. "Actually, now that I think about it this sort of cycle sounds almost like Cybertronian heat cycles,"

Chase nodded. "Boulder is correct, although Cybertronian heat cycles do not happen nearly as often and instead of increased interface drive it would appear human females bleed out of…"

Frankie looked up at the bots. "Wait, Cybertronian girls do… that too?"

Blades blushed and wanted to be anywhere but there but since he started this and he was the team's medic it fell upon him to explain things from a Cybertronian perspective. "Actually, mechs have heat cycles too…"

Frankie's eyes widened. "Wait, you guys get periods?"

Heatwave grumbled. "I don't see how that's any of your damn business,"

Blades heard what Heatwave said. "Hey, that's what Dani said earlier…" he gave the Fire Rescue mech a double-take and leaned away from him. "Oh Primus,"

Boulder whispered to Chase "Why do I get the feeling those two are going to be wanting more 'alone time' here in the near future?"

Chase considered the odds of that actually happening; since there wasn't much space to be spared to give the bot's personal quarters they ended up sharing with two bots per room and while Boulder usually roomed with Blades and Heatwave and Chase shared the other one it was no secret between them that Blades and Heatwave were together, mostly because Blades often ended up snuggled against their leader in his berth.

Chase leaned closer to Boulder to whisper. "If you want to temporarily switch roommates, should that happen, I will have no arguments.

Blades ignored them and looked down at Frankie. "Is there any way to help Dani when she has this? Or better yet a way to stop it?"

Frankie shrugged and said. "Sorry Blades, I don't think there is a way to stop it once it starts,"

Just then, Graham showed up and said. "Uh, Frankie, your dad is here. He says he had something for the bots but he won't tell me what it is. Any idea what he's talking about?"

Frankie smiled. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot," she ran past Graham and turned back to the bots. "Come on, you guys are gonna love this!"

They all looked at each other as the girl ran around the corner of the fire house and over to her father's car where he was lifting boxes out of the back seat.

Boulder followed her over, curious to see what Doc Greene had, and Graham looked up at the Bots "So, uh, what was that all about just now?"

Blades blurted out "Dani's on her cycle and we were wondering how to help her,"

Heatwave looked at him. "'We'? What's with the 'we'? You're the one that brought it up,"

Graham scratched his head under his helmet. "I don't know much about his kind of thing, being as I'm a guy, but I heard sweets help, especially chocolate. One time when this happened Kade made her so mad she pushed him down some stairs and wouldn't even look at him but she calmed down when he gave her a bowl of ice cream as a peace offering,"

Heatwave raised an optic ridge at Graham. "Wait, she pushed him down stairs and he was nice to her?" He thought for a moment. "Note to self: push Kade down stairs,"

"Heatwave!" Graham, Chase and Blades all admonished him.

He held up his servos. "Kidding!" he walked over to where Frankie and Boulder were waiting with Doc Greene. "But I'll probably keep that option open,"

They went over to where Doc Greene had stacked four large boxes and smiled up at them. "Ah hello, everyone. How are you all on this fine day?"

The others all returned with their own greetings and Chase said "Did you need to speak with the Chief, Doctor?"

The scientist nodded "Actually I wanted to talk to the whole team about this, the chief included. Is everyone here or should we wait?"

"I'll go get them," Graham volunteered and went inside to find the rest of his family while the bots each took a box and carried it in with them since they would each be receiving whatever was in the boxes.

Blades gave the one he was holding an experimental shake. "I wonder what's in these,"

Doc Greene saw what he was doing and held up his hands to get him to stop. "Please be careful with those. I'll explain everything once everyone is here,"

A few minutes after everyone was gathered in the garage Graham came back with Cody, Chief Burns and Kade. "I asked Dani to come down to but she just groaned and said she'll be right out like she did when we had to get her up for school,"

Kade rolled his eyes. "And every time she did that we had to get her up again," he looked at Graham and said abruptly. "You go get her,"

Graham gawked at him. "Me? I got everyone else, you go get her,"

Chief Burns held up his hand. "Enough, if she actually needs to be down here for this I'll go get her. If not then we can always fill her in later," he looked at Doc Greene. "Now, what's this all about, Doc?"

Doc Greene clasped his hands together. "Well, Chief Burns, ever since I have found out the truth about your Rescue Bot team I have been collaborating with the Autobot's medic, Ratchet, on a new project,"

They knew all about the Autobot medic but they didn't know that Doc Greene had been working on something with him and given their resident scientist's past record they were cautious.

"And what might this project be?" Chief Burns crossed his arms.

"I'll show you. If one of you would please…" he gestured for one of the bots to open their box and Boulder set his down to do just that so that the humans could see what was inside as well.

They all looked inside and found the box contained some sort of mechanical part with cords, cables and a thin tube coiled around it.

Cody was the one to ask the question that was on everyone's minds. "Um, what is it?"

Boulder looked at it. "It looks almost like a hologram projector,"

Doc Greene held up a finger. "Correction, a holoform projector. See, when I spoke with Optimus Prime when Chief called them to help you all return from the past he mentioned that part of the Rescue Bots' mission was to learn more about humans and I wondered how I could help with that.

"When I spoke with Ratchet he mentioned that a member of their team was a motorcycle who used a solid light hologram when a human rider was unavailable. I told him we had the means to build interactive holograms…"

Cody looked at him. "Like the one of Chester A. Arthur in the Hall of Inspiration?"

Doc Greene nodded "Correct. Since then we had been corresponding and collaborating our work to build these holoform projectors so that the Rescue bots can have solid-light hologram avatars that can interact with their surroundings much like a human can,"

Cody looked at the projector. "Noble,"

Chase looked at Doc Greene as the other Rescue Bots opened their boxes to find they also had projectors like the one Boulder had just unwrapped. "Just out of curiosity, just what will we be able to do with these?"

Doc Greene looked up at Chase. "Like I said, in theory they should allow you to interact with humans on a human level but you will also be able to change your avatars to resemble your human partners should they be unavailable when you need to appear as though you have a human handler but you can also make them look like a regular human,"

Graham leaned closer to the piece of technology that would probably be installed into his robotic partner. "This might actually come in handy,"

Boulder looked down at Doc Greene. "When can we start?"

Doc Greene smiled "Whenever you're ready,"

They all went into the Bot's med. bay, which was just a closed off section of the bunker where they had moved all of the equipment they had salvaged from their ship, so they could use their medical equipment to install the projectors.

Doc Greene looked up at the bots once they got all of their equipment set up. "Alright, who's first?"

None of the bots could decide who would go first so they handled it the way they did when Cody wanted everyone to spend time together when the other Burnses found out about them; they pushed Blades to the front of the group so he would go first.

The Copterbot looked around and realized what just happened. "Ugh, again?"

Doc Greene just waved him over to the med. berth and he laid down on it. "Don't worry, Blades, this isn't really the first time I've done this. My last trip to the mainland was actually to help Ratchet install the original prototype into the Autobot I mentioned before. Just relax and it will be over before you know it,"

"I'll help," Boulder lifted Doc Greene onto the berth and moved to stand next to it.

"Thank you Boulder. Now then, let's get started, shall we?"

Everyone else left and Blades opened his chest plates so they could install the projector.

Boulder hooked him up to a monitor and reassured him. "Don't worry, Blades, everything's going to be ok,"

Blades tried to calm down. 'Boulder's right, I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

But then Boulder said. "No, Doc, don't touch that!" and Blades felt a jolt and everything went dark.

A.N. : So, what do you think? Good so far or should I just derail this crazy train before it goes too far?

Anyone catch any references?

Comments, suggestions and predictions are welcome. Any flames will be dealt with by Heatwave.