Dents and Bruises

Talking:

"English or other Earth language"

"Cybertronian"

'Thoughts'

:Comm. Links:

(Bond talk)

"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, slash, 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.

He raced through the streets of Tyger Pax at top speed, everything around him a blur as he careened around dangerously sharp turns. He winced internally as the anti-grav panels of his alt. mode slammed back onto the metallic street after being lifted off the ground from the inertia.

'Whoa, that was close,'

The copper-colored racer sped through traffic until he heard a siren behind him and a now-familiar voice yelling at him over an intercom. "Pull over to the side of the road or we will have no choice but to use force,"

The Speedster, formerly known to his racing buddies as "Cutting Edge", wasn't worried; he was one of the best racers in the district circuit and he had these streets memorized, if he could race on the track why couldn't he race there?

The answer literally hit in in the form of a solid titanium wall as he swerved to avoid hitting a Youngling that ran out into the street after a ball that had rolled away from him.

Blades woke up from the dream, which wasn't an actual dream but a memory purge, as his systems were slowly starting to reboot.

As his systems finished rebooting, he could hear voices talking. Wanting to hear what they were saying and knowing they would change the subject if he woke up, Blades pretended to still be in stasis.

He tried not smile at his decision when he heard Frankie joke. "Maybe he needs to be kissed awake like Sleeping Beauty,"

Kade, not seeing why Frankie would make such a comment, went along with it. "Yeah, too bad Dani's not here to wake her partner up,"

To everyone's surprise, Heatwave went over to the berth Blades was on and leaned over him to kiss him on the lip components.

To the fire truck's surprise, Blades pulled him closer and kissed back.

Heatwave pulled back and realized what just happened. "You little faker, wake up," Heatwave shook Blades until the mech's optic shutters opened.

Blades looked around and groaned sat up. "What just happened?"

Kade made a look of disgust. "You passed out while the Doc was working on you and woke up in the middle of a make out session with Heatwave,"

Heatwave glared down at his human partner. "So it's ok for you to make out with Hailey in the cab of my alt. mode but I can't kiss the bot I'm seeing?" he crossed his arm-servos and looked away. "Frag you,"

Everyone looked up at Heatwave and Blades, the latter one blushed at the sudden admission, and Kade asked "Whoa, wait, you and Blades…"

Kade pointed at Graham. "HA! Told you Blades was actually a chick!"

Blades huffed "I am NOT!"

Chief Burns held up his hands to silence everyone. "Calm down everyone," he looked up at Blades and Heatwave. "Just out of curiosity, how long have you two been together?"

Blades blushed and Heatwave glanced at the Copterbot. "A while,"

Cody piped up "Right around the time Dani first hooked up the scoop claw to Blades,"

Everyone looked at him. "How would you know that Cody?"

Cody shrugged. "Just a guess, sometimes I hear you guys sneak out at night. You guys really aren't that sneaky,"

Frankie threw her hands up. "That's what I've been saying!"

Doc Greene cleared his throat, feeling like the others had forgotten he was there and wanting to get back on topic. "Now then, Blades, before we install the remaining three projectors into your teammates I would like to see how well yours integrated with your systems,"

Boulder made an encouraging gesture. "Go on Blades, give it a try,"

Blades closed his optic shutters and ran a systems' check and found a new set of subroutines had been added to his coding and a new bio-mechanism had been connected to his processors, Spark chamber and T-cog via various tubes and wires.

Curious, he ran the new subroutines and heard everyone gasp in surprise when a smaller version of Blades suddenly materialized in front of him.

Blades' holoform opened his optics and looked at himself. "Huh, what?" Blades looked at his arm-servo and flexed it. "Hey, I'm still me… a mini-me!"

Doc Greene looked over the holoform like a regular doctor giving a patient a physical. "I set the projectors to project smaller versions of your robotic forms so you are more familiar with them. You can change them as you see fit once you are more accustomed to it,"

Blades lifted his other arm-servo while Doc Greene checked over the one he had held up before; everything felt the same just lighter and smaller. "Cool,"

He looked at Boulder and Doc Greene. "Wait, right before I blacked out before I heard Boulder say 'No, Doc, don't touch that' and I got this huge shock and then… nothing. What happened?"

Boulder calmly explained. "When Doc Greene leaned in for a closer look at your internals he had his hand on one of your energon lines. If he had pulled that loose not only would you have bled out but the Doc would have gotten energon all over him,"

Blades shuddered. "Yeah, that would have been bad,"

Frankie looked up at them. "What's energon and what happens if humans get energon on them?"

Chase told them. "Energon is the life blood of our race; we fuel ourselves with it and it runs through our systems much like blood flows through human veins. Although while it keeps us alive, it is hazardous when it comes into contact with organic flesh,"

Doc Greene face palmed and shook his head. "Radiation poisoning and chemical burns that permeate the flesh right down to the bone. Ratchet told me about it but I didn't realize that was what I was holding. I am truly sorry, Blades,"

Blades smiled and shrugged "Well, now you know and knowing's half the battle,"

Heatwave grumped "It would have been nice if he knew that before he decided to work on us…"

Blades turned off his holoform and got up off the med. berth to let the next Rescue Bot get their projector installed. "Ok, who's next?"

Boulder, Heatwave and Chase looked at each other before the latter gestured towards the med. berth. "After you,"

Boulder held up his servos. "Actually, maybe I should help Doc with another one so he can get a better hang of this…"

Heatwave put his servos on his hips. "As team leader it is my responsibility to see to the wellbeing of my team before my own so…"

Blades cut in hesitantly "Heatwave, remember what happened last time you pulled rank on us?"

He gave them all a moment to think of the time Heatwave went against Chief's warning to not follow them up to Griffin Crest and what a disaster that was. Blades' tone became sharper and more exasperated when he added. "Bad things always happen when you try to pull rank on us like that!"

While the arguing continued amongst his team mates, Blades remembered something and leaned down to talk to Cody in a low voice. "Um, Cody, think you could help me with something?"

Cody looked up at the helicopter Rescue Bot. "What is it, Blades?"

Blades leaned down and whispered into Cody's ear and the boy smiled. "Come on, it's upstairs so you might want to use your new holoform for this,"

Blades transformed into his alt. mode and his holoform appeared and followed Cody to the lift that went to the upper level of the fire house.

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A few minutes later found Cody, Blades' holoform and Kade—who got bored down in the bunker and came upstairs—in the Burns' kitchen where Cody showed Blades where the bowls and the ice cream scoop was.

Blades looked at the scoop and started fiddling with it. "What's this thing here?"

Cody looked and saw he was referring to the small lever that worked the scraper that cleaned out the scoop to empty it completely. "That's to get all of the ice cream out of the scoop in case some of it sticks to the sides.

Blades pressed the lever few times, oddly amused with how all the interlocking pieces got the thin metal band to move back and forth in the scoop.

Kade turned one of the kitchen chairs around and straddled it. "Never thought I'd be giving 'guy tips' to an alien but seriously dude, if you're trying to impress a lady go for chocolate. Ladies love chocolate,"

Blades stopped fiddling with the ice cream scoop and looked at him. "Guys, I'm not trying to impress her, I just thought I'd try to cheer her up,"

Kade rolled his eyes "Uh huh, sure,"

Cody just shook his head at Blades to tell him to just ignore his older brother—although Blades did opt for the chocolate portion of the three-flavored ice cream like he said-and showed him how to use the ice cream scoop to dish the ice cream into the bowl.

"Ok, that ought to do it,"

Blades picked up the bowl and stuck a spoon in it and carried the bowl down the hall to Dani's room.

Kade raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you even know where you're going?"

Blades pointed down the hall "Dani's room is the one on the left with the door closed, right?"

"How would you know that?"

Blades rolled his eyes. "I know it's on the left because sometimes she yells at me out her bedroom window and you guys said she's in her room and I don't see her in any of the rooms that are open. Duh!"

He stopped at the door he thought was Dani's room and turned to see Cody had followed him. "It is this one, right?"

Cody nodded before going into his own room. "Yeah that's the one,"

Blades hesitated before hesitantly knocking on the door.

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Dani lie on her bed face down in her pillow, swearing that she wouldn't move from that spot unless she absolutely had to because of the horrible headache she had and the throbbing ache in her stomach that felt like someone hit her in the gut with a baseball bat.

To her surprise, somebody knocked on her door. Dani buried her face into the pillow and pulled the edges over her ears, hoping whoever it was would go away.

When the knocking persisted Dani groaned, stomping up to her bedroom door and throwing open the door and, not really seeing who it was, screamed at whoever was on the other side.

"WHAT?!"

Blades squeaked and dropped the bowl on the floor and ran down the hall as fast as his holoform could go. "I'm sorry, please don't kill me!"

Dani realized that she had just screamed at her skittish partner and wondered how he got to be human-sized. "Blades?"

She looked down at what he had dropped and saw it was a bowl of ice cream with a spoon in it; or rather the spoon had fallen out of the bowl and onto the floor when it landed.

The ice cream was mostly chocolate but judging by the flecks of vanilla and strawberry here and there she figured he had picked the chocolate portion out of a pail of Neapolitan ice cream.

"Oh Blades,"

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Blades ran as fast as his holoform could go until he made it back to his real body and dove into his cockpit which closed as his holoform faded out and his real body transformed as he woke up screaming like he just had a nightmare.

Chase and Boulder held up their servos to try to calm the frantic mech. Heatwave did the same although he was also prepared to restrain Blades if he got out of control. "Blades, calm down. What happened?"

Blades stopped trying to flee the fire house and blurted out. "Dani is P. at me!"

Chase was confused by what he said. "I am afraid I am unfamiliar with that phrase,"

"It means 'pissed off'," Kade said as everyone that had been upstairs stepped off the lift.

Much to Blades' chagrin, Dani was among them. She walked up to him holding the bowl of ice cream he had dropped and put one hand on her hip. "Were you the one that dropped this outside my bedroom door?"

Blades flinched and considered his options; which included running away, lying or telling the truth.

Since the other two would have only gotten him in more trouble, Blades opted for the third. "Yeah, you seemed to be having a bad day so I thought I'd try to cheer you up,"

Dani pointed upstairs. "But how did you…"

Always the mediator between the bots and his family, Cody interjected with an explanation. "He used his new holoform. Doc Greene is putting them in all the bots,"

Dani tilted her head in confusion. "Holo-what?"

Chief Burns looked at her. "Doc Greene just brought over these new hologram projectors for the bots that can project solid light holograms called holoforms. He just got done installing one in Blades and when he mentioned that he wanted to do something to 'cheer you up' the boys showed him where the ice cream was and he brought some to your room,"

He put one hand on his hip and the other on his chin. "Although with the way he ran down here screaming I take it you two startled each other,"

Dani looked up at Blades, then at the bowl of ice cream in her hand then she smiled up at Blades. "Ah, Blades, that was so sweet. Thank you,"

Blades blushed and fiddled with his digits. "You're welcome,"

Doc Greene looked up at the three bots that still had yet to have their projectors installed. "So, who's next?"

Boulder, Chase and Heatwave looked at each other uncertainly before Boulder held up his servo. "I'll go,"

Seeming oblivious that the bots were all trepidatious of having him work on them, Doc Greene smiled. "Alright, Boulder, if you would please lie down like Blades was just a moment ago…"

Boulder did as he was asked and Blades stepped up to help Doc Greene; being the team's Cybertronian medic he was more adept for helping with the procedure and there was still the risk of the accident prone doctor coming into contact with energon if he was left to working on the bots' systems.

Once Boulder had his projector installed and tested out he helped install Heatwave's while Blades installed the last one in Chase; the two of them couldn't agree on who should go next so since both Boulder and Blades now knew how to install them they both worked on one of their teammates to get it done faster.

Once everyone had their projectors installed, Doc Green wanted to run some tests to see how well the holoforms worked but they got an emergency call.

Chief Burns checked the monitors and told the others. "Looks like Huxeley Prescott decided to do another episode of his "I dare me" segment, this time he tried to scale Griffin Peak and his harness malfunctioned,"

Heatwave pointed towards the door to the garage. "Rescue bots, roll to the rescue!"

Heatwave, Boulder and Chase transformed into vehicle mode while Dani and Blades went to the lift that would take them up to the roof where the helicopter pad was.

While Chief Burns and Graham just had to climb into their partner's alt. modes, Kade had to take a few extra minutes to get his gear back on.

Heatwave huffed impatiently and activated his holoform to, in a flurry of motion that was almost too fast to follow, throw the rest of his partner's gear onto him like he was dressing a doll and then carry him by the scruff and throw him roughly into the driver's seat.

He deactivated his holoform when the door slammed shut and Kade looked down at the screen to see the holographic image of the Rescue bots face appear as he grabbed the wheel to make it look like he was driving; or possibly try to drive for real. "What was that for?"

"You were taking too long," Heatwave said simply and rolled his optics. "And you wonder why we're usually the last ones there?"

After everyone else left, Cody went to the control center and put on his head set to monitor the situation. Frankie and Doc Greene followed to see the bots in action.

While they were watching the bots and Cody gave them a heads-up whenever they hit a delay—for instance, when traffic at the stop light was stalled because the person at the light didn't realize it was green until it had turned red —and giving them an alternative route, the team made their way to the mountain.

While the other bots transformed in preparation for the climb, Dani and Blades flew over the mountain side to find out where Huxeley was.

When they did, Dani radioed it in to the others. "Found him, he's trapped on a ledge about thirty feet above you guys to the left,"

They all followed her directions and Heatwave started climbing up with Kade riding in his cab while Chase and Heatwave made sure no one stumbled upon the rescue scene.

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Meanwhile, on Huxeley's ledge.

Huxeley struggled with his harness, cursing himself for not actually taking the mountain climbing lessons his co-workers recommended he should get before climbing up Griffin Peak.

'"Oh, no, I'm a professional. I don't need lessons." Stupid. Stupid. Stupid...'

But then he remembered the camera was still rolling and smiled at it "Well, viewers, this is quite a pickle I've gotten myself into but do not worry. I always have a way of getting out of these messes,"

Just as he said that, Heatwave climbed up onto the ledge he was on grumbling "Yeah, getting us to save your sorry aft,"

Luckily, it was too quiet for the camera to pick up but Prescott swore he heard someone say something and was about to comment on it but Kade was already climbing out of the Rescue bot's cab and going over to help the stranded newscaster out of his harness, which he was dangling by a foot or two off the ground.

He tugged on the straps only to realize they were tangled up in the buckles; from the looks of it the ropes Huxeley had been using to climb got caught on the harness and instead of carefully detangling himself he reporter yanked on the rope and now the winch was broken and the whole works was a tangled mess, which had resulted in the man's stranding in the first place.

"No good, this thing is seriously tangled,"

Just then, some bushes that were on the end of the ledge they were on started to russle. Naturally, Huxeley's imagination ran away with him. "Ah! What was that?"

Kade struggled to hold the man still with one hand while trying to undo the harness with the other. "Hey, quit squirming,"

Heatwave glared at the bushes, cursing his luck. If it weren't for the fact that Huxeley's camera was still rolling, or that the reporter himself could blab to everybody, he could easily pull the piton out of the rock it had been hammered into or scare off whatever was lurking in the bushes.

However, since the ledge was too narrow for him to climb onto he couldn't just nonchalantly block the creature's path to the humans and since he had to keep their existence a secret all he could really do—unless Kade "commanded" it—was hang there by his elbow joints until he had no other choice but to step in.

'Stupid fragging camera, why don't you ever shut off when we need you to?'

Huxeley started freaking out even further. "What if it's a mountain lion?"

Kade clenched his fist and resisted the urge to punch the reporter. "There aren't any mountain lions on Griffin Rock,"

Just as he said that, and at the height of Huxeley's hysterics, the animal stepped out of the bushes and into view. It was a small animal with reddish brown fur, amber colored eyes and black on its legs with white on its face and on the tip of its bushy tail.

Kade huffed "It's just a fox,"

Heatwave looked at the tiny animal that was shyly investigating the noisy intruders and took a few image captures for Boulder—who loved nature—and so he could show the team what had gotten Huxeley so spooked.

A grin came to his face when he realized that said newscaster's camera had recorded he whole incident and broadcasted it to the entire island. 'On second thought… maybe leaving the camera on wasn't so bad,'

Kade seemed to have the same idea and pointed to the floating camera that always followed Huxeley around like a puppy. "Hey Huxely, say cheese,"

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Back at the base, Cody and Frankie burst out laughing at the look on Prescott's face when he realized he had just made an utter fool of himself… again.

Doc Greene also smiled humorously. "I must say, this is the first rescue I've seen your family do that I wasn't somehow part of,"

They all watched as Kade finally relented and asked Heatwave for help, carefully wording how he did so that Huxeley wouldn't catch on and realize that the Rescue bots weren't really mindless machines.

Heatwave simply reached up and pulled the piton out on the mountainside as though it were a thumb tack, causing the reporter hanging by said piton to drop two feet and land on his bum.

Huxeley grunted and stood up rubbing his backside before turning to the camera and speaking cockily as though the past few minutes never happened. "Well, folks, it looks like we're out of time so I'm afraid we're going to have to save the courageous mountain climb for another segment of 'I DARE ME'!"

He reached up and turned off the camera, leaving them without a direct visual of what was going on up on the ledge aside from what the bots were giving them.

Back at the site, Huxeley looked down at the ground where the rest of the rescue team was looking up at them. He hadn't climbed that far but it still seemed high for him. "Mind getting me down from here?"

Heatwave frowned, wanting nothing more than to climb back down with Kade and leave the guy up there—if he got himself up there, he can get himself down—but their job was to rescue him so they had to make sure he got down somehow.

Kade seemed to be thinking the same thing and huffed before motioning for him to follow as he went to Heatwave "Come on, grab your gear and we'll give you a lift down,"

Heatwave rolled his optics behind his visor, not liking this arrangement one bit, as Prescott grabbed his camera and stuffed all of his mountain climbing gear carelessly into a bag and climbed into the cab along with Kade.

Once they were both inside and buckled in—or at least Kade was—Heatwave let go of the ledge and slid down to the ground, smiling when this made the two humans in his hold scream like little girls, to land in a crouch.

As soon as he was on the ground, the Fire Rescue bot transformed into vehicle mode and opened his doors to let the humans out.

Kade waited a moment to get his bearings before climbing out while Huxeley Prescott simply fell out of the cab to land gracelessly on the ground.

Before leaving the cab, Kade looked at the screen where Heatwave's smiling face appeared and hissed "A little warning next time,"

Heatwave's grin grew "Where's the fun in that?"

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Cody and Frankie were still snickering to themselves about Huxeley Prescott's "Series of self-inflicted unfortunate events" in school the next day.

Frankie giggled. "Oh man, did you see the look on his face when he realized the entire town and anyone else that watches his show was watching when he freaked out because he thought a mountain lion was going to get him?"

Cody covered his mouth, trying not to laugh out loud. "And it turned out to be a fox hiding in the bushes. When will he learn?"

Cody looked up at Sasha as the girl came in and sat in her desk next to him. "Hey, Sasha,"

The girl jumped and glanced at him. "Um, Hi Cody," she turned in her chair to look at Frankie and Cody. "So you guys weren't kidding about what you said yesterday. Giant robots, really?"

Cody nodded "Yeah,"

Frankie looked at her with a "Are you kidding me?" look. "Why would we joke about that?"

Cody looked at Frankie and then at Sasha. "By the way, about yesterday, why did you…"

Sasha got out a notebook and a pencil and started doodling. "Save that lady's cat? I used to do that kind of stuff all the time back home. Didn't see why we had to wait for someone…" she looked at Cody and Frankie. "Why?"

Cody frowned; he was referring to why she suddenly ran when she saw Chase and his dad even though she didn't seem to have a problem with Heatwave holding her. 'Maybe she was more afraid of him than she looked…'

"Mrs. Neederlander's cat gets stuck in trees all the time, we're kind of used to having to get him down from wherever he's gotten himself stuck on a regular basis, but you could have been hurt,"

Sasha grabbed her arm and looked away. "Why would you care?"

Cody's mouth hung open for a moment before he got his usual look of determination on his face. "Because we're friends,"

Sasha looked at him like she never heard that word before in her life. "Seriously?"

Cody and Frankie nodded. "Yeah"

"Why not?"

Sasha twirled her pencil between her fingers. "Thought you were just playing nice because you felt sorry for me, being the new girl and all that,"

Frankie laughed and Cody smiled at her. "No, we just wanted to try to be friends with you. So, want to sit with us at lunch again?"

Sasha considered for a moment then smiled. "Okay,"

Frankie asked what she was drawing and she showed them that that particular notebook was full of pictures of her old home and all the horses she worked with, the actual photographs were taped to the pages she was trying to copy them down onto.

She quickly put the book away when Mr. Robbins came in and started class for the day.

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When school ended for the day, Blades landed in a small field close to the school to wait for Cody to come out of the building. "Um, why are we the ones that got to pick up Cody again? Isn't it Chase and the Chief's turn?"

Dani sighed. "Dad and Chase are currently chasing a speeding driver that thinks he's above the law, probably the same guy that's always getting caught speeding and then tries to outrun Chase…"

Blades snickered "When will he learn?"

Dani rolled her eyes with mirth and continued.

"Boulder and Graham are in the middle of a construction project so they're stuck and Kade snuck away to meet up with Hayley as soon as she's done with her preschool class and since Heatwave still hasn't figured out how to make his holoform look human he can't go anywhere without an actual human,"

Blades sighed. "So I guess it's up to us,"

Dani squinted in mock suspicion. "Sounds like you don't want to pick up Cody,"

Blades didn't realize she was teasing and got flustered. "Oh no, it's not that. I just hope he doesn't take too long because there's this one show I really wanted to see. It's going to start in a few minutes and I don't want to miss it,"

Dani leaned back in her seat with a sigh. "Okay… what show is it?"

"It's called 'As The Kitchen Sinks',"

Dani sat up. "You watch 'Kitchen Sinks' too?"

The holographic image of Blades' face on his screen nodded. "Yeah, it's about… wait 'too'?" then he realized what Dani just said and grinned. "Dani, do you like that show too?

"Uh, maybe," Dani blushed and noticed the look her partner was giving her. "What's that shit-eating grin for?"

Blades looked confused "What's…" he did a quick internet search of the word Dani used and got a winced with disgust. "EWW!"

Dani crossed her arms and looked at the school entrance, no longer paying attention to Blades, who seemed to want it back.

"Dani?"

No response.

"Dani?"

Again no response so he took a deep intake of air, not that he needed to breath but he had picked up the habit from the humans, and raised his voice slightly.

"Dani-Dani-Dani-Dani-Dani-Dani-Da…"

"What?" Dani asked suddenly.

Blades cried out in surprise before going quiet for a moment and asking sheepishly. "You want to watch it with me? If Cody ever gets his butt out here, that is,"

Dani considered for a moment and smiled. "Ok, sure," her smile disappeared and was replaced with a pleading look "But please don't tell anyone. I don't usually watch soap operas but…"

Blades nodded. "I know, right? Tonight's episode is supposed to be the one where we find out what Bob left for Jack in his will,"

Dani looked at him with confusion. "I must have missed an episode. Last one I saw was the one where Donna thought she was pregnant,"

"She's not, which means her affair with Gordon will remain secret,"

Dani rolled her eyes 'Never thought I'd be talking soap operas with someone, much less an alien,' she looked at her watch. "Where is Cody? He should have been out here by now"

Blades immediately jumped to several different worst-case-scenario conclusions as soon as she said that. "Do you think something might have happened to him?"

Dani took off her helmet and set it on the console. "He probably just doesn't know we're here yet. I'll go see if he's waiting inside. Wait here, and don't talk to strangers" she added the last part as a joke as she unbuckled her seat belt and got out of her seat.

Blades opened the canopy of his alt. mode to let her out. "I'm an alien robot that transforms into a helicopter and has to pretend to be a mindless machine around just about everyone. What could possibly be stranger than that?"

Dani pretended to manually close the canopy even though Blades was actually slowly closing it himself. "Just behave, okay?"

"Yes ma'am,"

Dani jogged over to the school building and went inside to try to find her brother, leaving Blades alone with his thoughts.

A few minutes later a young girl around Cody and Frankie's age came out of the building and started to walk home but then she saw him and stopped.

Realizing a stranger was looking at him, Blades stayed as still as possible so as not to slip up and reveal he could move on his own in the event she could see he didn't have a pilot.

The girl looked around to see if anyone was about before cautiously walking towards Blades, looking around for anyone that might see her until she got about halfway to him and stopped to look him over.

Blades froze up altogether as the girl inched closer as though he were a dog she wanted to pet but was afraid he would bite her.

She stopped once she had stepped into his shadow and relaxed, seeing nothing bad had happened yet.

"Wow, so cool," She looked him over again, this time taking note of every inch and angle of his frame with a small smile. "I wish I could fly like you can. Must be nice, to be way up there in the sky…"

Blades silently mused 'It's really not all it's cracked up to be,' but then he saw the smile disappear as the girl looked down at the ground and gripped the strap of her back pack like lifeline with one hand while the other hand rubbed that arm like it was sore.

"…Where nothing bad can get you," The girl seemed to realize that she was talking to a helicopter and that said helicopter probably belonged to someone and looked at her watch. "Dang it, I'm going to be late again. Well, goodbye,"

She gave Blades a polite wave that made him wish he could wave back as she took off at a run across the field they were in until she was out of sight.

Just then Cody and Dani came up to him. "Hey, Blades, who were you just talking to?"

Blades opened the canopy to let his passengers in and answered Dani's question as soon as they were inside. "I don't know, she just came up and started talking to me. I didn't say or do anything, I swear,"

Cody fastened his seatbelt. "Her name's Sasha, she's new here. Didn't Chase or Heatwave tell you about how she tried to get Mrs. Neederlander's cat down herself and nearly fell out of the tree?"

Blades nodded "Oh, her. She seems nice,"

Cody smirked as he put on the spare helmet they had in Blades' cockpit. "She wasn't all that nice to Joey and his pals after P.E. today,"

Blades looked at him "Who's Joey?"

Cody crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat. "He's just some jerk who's a year older than me,"

Dani looked at Blades' holoscreen. "Remember Milo? The guy that built his own hot air balloon when Huxely tried to convince everyone there was an alien invasion going on and ended up crashing when he accidently popped the balloon with the pitch fork he was holding? Joey's his younger brother,"

Cody nodded. "He picks on everybody but he's been extra mean to Sasha since she got here. Yesterday he and his friends threw milk cartons at her… and then he threw mashed potatoes at my head when I asked if she wanted to sit with me and Frankie so she wouldn't be sitting alone,"

Blades gasped "That… that… meanie! Why would they do that?"

Dani looked at Cody, almost afraid to ask. "And what happened today?"

Cody looked out the window. "They tried picking on her at lunch again. Frankie and I asked him to stop and he grabbed me by the shirt and was about to beat me up when a teacher stopped him. Joey tried to blame the whole thing on me but the teacher didn't believe him so he and his buddies skipped class when I had P.E. and dragged me into the boy's locker room to give me a swirly,"

Blades looked at him. "What's a 'swirly'?"

Dani tightened her grip on the controls with a frown. "It's when someone sticks someone's head in a toilet and holds them down while they flush it,"

Blades gasped. "That's horrible! How did you get away?"

Cody smiled and looked at them. "Funny thing is, they didn't get that far. Sasha saw them drag me into the boy's locker room after telling me what they were doing. She actually followed us in there and hit Joey in the back of the head to knock him down and pulled me out of there so we could go tell the teacher,"

The smile fell. "But one of the bullies went and told the principal they had just gone into the locker room to get something and she went in there and beat them all up. The reason I took so long was because I had to explain to the principal what really happened,"

Dani looked at him. "I'm glad you stood up to the bullies Cody, but we're going to have to tell dad about this,"

Cody frowned, it was always difficult for any of the Burns kids to tell their dad about things like this since he was the police Chief; not only because they didn't want to bother him when he had more important things to worry about but because whenever they got him involved it was like getting the police involved and people aren't supposed to do that for every little thing.

Their conversation was interrupted when the Chief himself called them on the comm. links.

:Emergency, team. A speeding car just crashed into some fuel tanks after the driver lost control. The driver was able to exit the vehicle in time but the tanks exploded and caused a nearby building to catch fire,"

They heard Heatwave's voice as he patched into the conversation. :I'll be there as soon as I can get Kade away from Hayley.:

Blades pointed out "and I'll need to stop and get the scoop claw so I can help too,"

:Alright, Chase and I are already here. Meet us at the warehouses downtown. We'll try to do what we can until you get here,"

Dani's eyes widened. "Dad… weren't Graham and Boulder working there today?"

Chief Burns sighed and said somberly. "I know, they're trapped inside the one that caught fire,"

A.N.: DUN DUN DUUUN!

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