Cybertron (Part 2)


Jazz wandered into the Command Centre, following the helpful signs that lead him straight to Ultra Magnus' office. Not that he'd really needed the signs what with all the angry yelling and ranting he could hear. Wondering what was going on, he cautiously stuck his head inside the office, only to find himself immediately met with two pairs of rather wary looking optics, one blue, and one red.

Both bots clearly transformed into sports cars, the first a dark blue with hints of yellow, and large 38s printed on both door-wings. The second was a bright, shiny red with tires on the backs of his shoulders instead. So this was most likely Smokescreen and Knock Out then.

Wandering further inside, Jazz learned the source of their discomfort; a large red and blue commanding figure with enough tires that he probably turned into some kind of truck, and what appeared to be an artificial hand, was having a…minor disagreement with an extremely large and very angry Tyrannosaurus. Ah, Ultra Magnus and Grimlock, long time, no see.

Ratchet was hovering off to the side, looking like he'd tried to intervene and then given up; probably around the time transformations and the possibility of fire-breathing got involved. Very few bots pissed off a Dinobot and came out of it un-fried. Although, Ultra Magnus appeared to be doing reasonably well so far.

"What's their problem this time?" Jazz whispered, flopping down into a chair beside Ratchet, resting his feet over one of the sides.

"The usual, Magnus is Base Commander and Grimlock doesn't like it," Ratchet replied with a heavy sigh. "He probably gave some order to one of Grimlock's little followers that they didn't like and they complained. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Who exactly put Magnus in charge? Can't Grim just take it up with them?"

"That's the problem. No one really did, he was just the highest ranked around at the time."

"Oh goodie."

"With Optimus gone, issues like this have been far too common." Ratchet added. "It is getting really old. I want it sorted before we have to throw the new generation into this mess as well."

The pointed look Ratchet gave Jazz clearly meant he expected the smaller bot to do something about this. Technically he and Magnus were of the same rank; both having commanded special divisions outside of the usual chain of command; both had only ever had to answer to Optimus, and perhaps Ratchet if medical issues were involved.

Shoving that to the back of his mind and pretending to ignore Ratchet, Jazz instead jabbed a finger in the racers' direction. "Speakin' of younglings, whatcha gonna do about those two?"

"Grimlock stormed in about halfway through their lecture on 'Appropriate Behaviour for Soliders'." Ratchet replied dryly, looking more amused than anything else. "Smokescreen will be coming back to Earth with us; Knock Out however is on his own."

Twenty minutes later, the discussion ended mostly as predicted, with Ultra Magnus slightly on fire and Grimlock making his exit through a fresh hole in the wall, probably to go continue ranting to his poor teammates. Bulkhead wasn't going to be happy; this was the second time this week one of his precious buildings had fallen victim to the bot.

Shaking his head, Ratchet gathered up the bots he was returning to Earth with and let Knock Out go. He'd just submit a written report later when Magnus was uh…feeling better.


Knock Out was out of that office in an instant, transforming the moment he got outside and driving back towards his med bay. Honestly, that Ultra Magnus was such a pain in his bumper! It had just been a little race; it wasn't going to hurt anyone. Well, other than maybe Smokescreen's ego, but in his oh-so-humble opinion, that could stand to be brought down a few pegs. The Autobot racecar had no reason to be so big-headed all the time; it wasn't like he was half as gorgeous as Knock Out was.

And that Grimlock! While Knock Out was happy for the interruption, he didn't have to barge in quite so rudely, nor did he have to yell so much. Did dinosaurs not come with indoor voices or something? Not that the sports car was going to say anything to the larger bot's face, he'd seen more than enough of that horrible dinosaur-mode today, thank you very much.

Huffing to himself, the shiny sports car transformed back to his root mode and wandered inside his building, carefully inspecting the gleam on his arms to make sure it was just right. He had been a little worried that he'd wrecked it when he and Smokescreen had practically flown out of the chairs at Grimlock's interruption. Not that he'd jumped at the other bot in fright or anything. No, that would be weird. Smokescreen was an Autobot and an idiotic one at that.

Knock Out was so preoccupied with himself and his thoughts that he didn't notice a second presence in the room, at least not until it growled lowly at him. Seriously, who does that? Oh.

Spark still racing the bot placed a hand on his chest and shook his head. "Honestly, you gave me such a fright. What're you doing creeping around here anyway?"

His 'visitor' was a small black metallic panther; well small to him at least, it was approximately the same size as Earth's versions of the animal would be. The cat was perched on top of one of the shelves containing his medical supplies, mostly hidden in the shadows, only its bright red eyes showing clearly. Carefully, it dropped down, peering around the room cautiously before staring up at Knock Out.

'I need your help with something.' A calm, smooth voice echoed in Knock Out's head; the cat speaking to him telepathically.

"And what makes you think I'm going to do that?" Knock Out replied, picking at his claws uninterestedly. "In case you haven't heard, I'm not a Decepticon anymore, Ravage."

'I'm not asking as a Decepticon, I'm asking as a friend.' The cat tried instead, optics never blinking as it continued to stare. 'And on a mutual friend's behalf.'

"Oh?" Now that was kind of interesting, it couldn't hurt to hear the cat out now could it? Much?

Ravage was a minicon, one of multiple little minions belonging to another Decepticon; Soundwave. They were obnoxious little creatures used almost entirely for spying purposes, including within their own faction. Last Knock Out heard, there were only four of them left and three had been given out to other Decepticons, allowing them to remain in contact via the minicons' telepathy and giving them an advantage over the wandered and scattered Autobots. The last one, Laserbeak, had gone way out of range of the others; to Earth with their master, and both been defeated by the Autobots, the details of which no one had wanted to share with Knock Out. Not that he really cared; Soundwave was kind of creepy.

Whatever Ravage wanted him to do was going to cause trouble, there was no doubt about it, but if Knock Out remembered correctly, the panther had been left with his fellow Decepticon cars… "Which friend is that exactly?"

'Dead End.'

Oh Frag. Knock Out had had only one real friend throughout the war, his loyal partner and protector Breakdown. Unfortunately, Breakdown had been killed years back by Airachnid, that horrible wretch, leaving Knock Out to deal with the consequences. Including Breakdown's being used as a puppet by a human, and then reanimated as some kind of zombie vampire. Admittedly, he'd had a little bit to do with that last one, but still. All things aside, he did actually give a scrap about Breakdown, and by association, his siblings.

Breakdown was a combiner, one of five bots capable of combining into a larger, more powerful bot, in this case one named Menasor. His team's leader had been killed early on in the war entirely to remove Menasor from combat, causing the rest of the team to scatter, Breakdown ending up with Knock Out. If Dead End was here asking favours, it was because she knew Breakdown was dead and she was going to try and guilt him into something.

And it was probably going to work.

"What does she want?" Knock Out asked wearily, carefully seating himself on one of the medical tables, always mindful of his paintjob.

'Nothing much, just a space bridge to Earth.' Ravage replied evasively. 'And of course a little…silence on your behalf. Perhaps some help blocking our signals as well.'

"Are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how much effort that would be and how much scrap I'd have to deal with if you idiots got caught?" Knock Out exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air dramatically. "They have Dinobots here. I rather enjoy not being fried to a crisp thank you!"

'Then I suppose you'll have to be extra careful won't you?' Ravage stated smugly. 'I'll be back in an hour at the hanger with both the other two. You had better be ready.'

Rolling his eyes and huffing to himself, Knock Out began to wrack his processor for any way he could make this work. As much as the Autobots would be against it, it really couldn't hurt much could it?

"Wait, other two?"


Knock Out fidgeted as he waited just inside the hanger, glancing around constantly; afraid he was going to get caught. Arcee had just left for Earth, and Wheeljack was apparently helping Bulkhead with something (probably the new Grimlock-shaped hole in the Command Centre), so the building was empty for the moment, but he had no idea how long that would last. He also had to somehow sneak three bots from this building into the next one without anyone noticing; in particular their fire-breathing eye-in-the-sky Swoop.

A quiet knock sounded on the hanger's outer door and Knock Out quickly moved to open it, familiar enough with the security system to keep it from alerting anyone. He had after all, been a part of designing and building the system. Ravage stalked inside, followed by a black and dark grey femme. She was similar in build to Arcee, only blockier and taller as she clearly turned into a car of some kind. She had a completely disinterested look on her face as she glanced around the hanger. Behind her followed a second bot, this one male and larger than Knock Out. He was mostly a bright gold colour with black around-

"Oh frag no!" Knock Out hissed upon recognising the last bot. "Are you kidding me? His brother just arrived on Earth and you think I'm going to send him there!?"

That seemed to catch the bot's interest, his red eyes narrowing in thought. Ravage however, couldn't have cared less. 'Just move it Knock Out, we don't have all day.'

Absolutely positive now that this was going to come back and bite him in the tailpipe, Knock Out groaned and headed to the exit, once again looking around suspiciously. It seemed Swoop had been called away, likely to assist in calming down Grimlock. Sludge, the Apatosaurus, was never any help with that, and the other two, Slug and Snarl (a Triceratops and Stegosaurs respectively), had flat out refused to be involved the next time, instead quite happy to allow Grimlock to decimate whoever he pleased.

Thanking his lucky stars, Knock Out hurried on to the next building, gesturing wildly for the three Cons to keep up with him. Once they were safely inside, the door shut and locked behind them, he sighed in relief, a habit he may or may not have picked up from humans. Ignoring the odd looks he received from the Decepticons, he turned his attention to the Space Bridge's control panel and found Ratchet's group had only recently left. Slightly altering those coordinates would be easy, and would drop these Cons off nearby enough that the Autobots could react if they tried something stupid, but not close enough for them to locate the base.

Activating the bridge, he watched as all three Cons went through without even so much as a thank you. Honestly! He was so much better off with the Autobots now; he just hoped no one learned of his part in this. If he was really, really lucky, perhaps they were just going to Earth to scan some pretty looking cars. Yeah, that had to be it.

Dusting his hands of the matter, Knock Out wandered back outside, only to be tracked down by Bumblebee less than a minute later, to handle repairs on the now-extinguished Ultra Magnus.


Ratchet's team returned to Earth, none-the-wiser about the Decepticons that had bridged nearby mere minutes later. Smokescreen and Jazz were chatting cheerily between them, Arcee mostly looking almost anxious about something. Of course when Smokes bothered to inquire as to what, she merely snapped at him and reverted back to the cranky, withdrawn Arcee they'd hoped was long-gone. So she still wasn't over it then.

Reluctantly, she followed after the others as they headed to the medical bay to check up on Fireflight and Sideswipe. 'Flight had apparently woken up long enough to have some kind of mental breakdown before collapsing again, now shivering and clinging to a concerned-looking Sideswipe's arm. Somehow he'd managed to make it over to her table despite his legs still being useless.

"I don't even want to know," Ratchet muttered, shaking his head at the red bot and hurrying over to check on the flier. "What happened?"

"Nothing, she just sort of woke up," Sideswipe replied quietly. "She's been doing this on and off since- well since she got separated from her brothers. She just kinda clings to one of us for a while, and then when she wakes up she's back to normal."

Ratchet huffed and rubbed at the flyer's wings, trying to calm her down. So this was the result of being separated from her brothers. It had never happened before, but the Aerialbots were widely considered one of the more unstable combiners, so it wasn't unexpected. He supposed they'd have to get out there and search for her siblings sooner rather than later.

Glancing over at Sideswipe to order him back to his own medical table so he could start work on his legs, he found the red bot had finally spotted Arcee.

"Arcee?" Sideswipe said quietly, smiling over at her, just glad to see for himself that she was still alive and in one piece.

Apparently the sentiment wasn't returned, as the blue femme looked at him for maybe a moment before shaking her head and rushing out of the room.


Next Episode: Reunion
Arcee and Sideswipe reunite, and someone from their past returns.


Not much to say this time around other than I hope people are enjoying reading this. Please, favourite, review, throw rocks, whatever you like, and let me know what you think.

~Saani