In Which Miracles Do Happen

Written by: CherryDrug

Disclaimer: No, I do NOT own the Transformers of any of its franchise characters, places, etc; nor do I own any other places or brands of song lyrics written here in tho story. What I do own, however, is the plot of this story, my original characters, AND myself. So please, don't bother copying off of me and I am not really fond of human trafficking. So, if you see anything that seems to be copyrighted, it is NOT TO BE FUCKING INTENDED, capishce?

Rating: For the mean time, it'll be a T-rated fic (so any kiddies out there who isn't comfortable with sexual innuendoes, jokes, pranks, etc; violence; inappropriate language; you know what I'm talking about... stop reading, k? If you are though, read on!) that'll soon become an M-rated fic, if I'm motivated in the right direction (and if I have enough guts to write a gory or smutty scene).

Genre: Humor (just mainly that), Adventure, Drama, Action, Sci-Fi, Angst, Friendship, Family, and... ROMANCE (some time down the road~ [but obviously not now])

Characters: A lot. Just a lot.

Summary: A lot of things can happen in the matter of a minute. Someone dying, someone living, but for me? In just a matter of a minute, I've been brought into a world I know all too well and dragged into a war I never even wanted to partake in. A miracle? Fraggit, this is more like a curse!

Pairing(s) (for this chapter): NA


Cybertron's Units of Time:

Astrosecond: .498 Earth second
Nano-klik: 1 Earth second (I don't normally use this though...)
Klik: 1.2 Earth minutes
Breem: 8.3 Earth minutes.
Groon: 1 Earth hour
Cycle: 1.25 Earth hours
Joor: 8 Earth Hours
Solar Cycle: 1 Earth day
Lunar Cycle: 1 Earth month
Orn: 13 Earth days
Deca-cycle: 3 weeks
Stellar Cycle: 7.5 Earth months
Meta-Cycle: 13 Earth months.
Vorn: 83 Earth years


CHAPTER 9

In Which Frozen Mangoes Are My Sanctuary


I'd like to healthily point out that I've fainted twice as much as I've arrived on Cyberton than the past seventeen years I've lived as a human, and this was speaking a lot, since I've only lived on Cybertron for a twelfth of a year—suffice to say, when my systems rebooted themselves and the cloud of darkness hazing my processor had vanished, I wasn't in the best of moods.

But seriously, who the hell would be in a good mood if they woke up from fainting and with a throbbing migraine pounding against their processor? Would you? If you said yes, then I'd like to congratulate you with the award of 'Inhumane' because I'm sure as hell nobody will wake up with thoughts of 'Ah~ I just love waking up with a migraine! 3' with the mother of all migraines trapped in their head.

"Have a good recharge?" Somebody's deep voice cut straight into the silence that I'd woken up to, and I snapped my helm to face the source of where that voice had come from. My optics narrowed in on the familiar hot red paintjob of Knock Out, who was looking at me with a raised optical ridge as he cleaned his medical tools, and I groaned audibly as I sat up, stuffing my faceplates into the palm of my hands.

I had wished that what had happened prior to my fainting had just all been a really bad yet amazing dream. That Knock Out wasn't really here on Cybertron, and that Crashthrough wasn't a traitor who had ratted out our group's deepest and darkest secret to Knock Out of all mechs, and that he may or may not have been Breakdown in disguise.

If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought I was in some crappy fan fiction with one hell of a plot twist. Ugh.

"I'm guessing you didn't," Knock Out said, and I noticed that his voice sounded a little bit louder than before, which meant that he'd either raised his voice or come closer to me.

Peeking through my fingers, I saw that he'd placed the item he was cleaning down on a metal tray and that he was slowly making his way towards me. Despite the pulses of serenity and Calm down that the foreign object within me was relaying to me, I tensed up, making the armor protecting my shoulders flare out, and in turn making me notice that I no longer had my cloak on anymore, which meant that my sleek frame was exposed to anybody who was in the room right now.

Knock Out merely rolled his optics at my reaction, and he stopped where he stood, crossing his servos over his chest. "Oh calm down, will you? I promised Crashthrough that I wouldn't hurt you," he said. "And I keep my promises to him, no matter what," he added, optics darkening a little.

That still didn't make me feel any better.

Scanning the entirety of the room while still keeping my front facing Knock Out, I noticed something that unsettled me. "Where's Crashthrough? And where's my cloak too?" I asked him.

"That ratty old thing?" Knock Out said with a grimace of disgust, and I frowned at him. It wasn't really mine to begin with, but it wasn't really ratty. Old, maybe. Well-worn, most likely. Dirty, yes. But it wasn't really ratty, since there were no holes in it, and it shielded my true gender really well. "It's with Crashthrough right now. As if I'd let such a hideous thing in my medbay," he said.

I furrowed my optical ridges at him, tightly gripping the edge of the medical berth that I was currently seated upon. "And Crashthrough?" I insisted.

Knock Out raised an optical ridge at me, and I hardened my glare at him. His dermas twisted themselves into a smirk, dentals glinting underneath the light of the medbay, and I suppressed the urge to bristle at the threatening appearance he made. "O-ho, scared now that your master isn't here, pet?" He questioned me, and this time I did bristle.

"He's not my master," I snarled, baring my dentals at him, feeling incredibly insulted that I was being treated as property of all things. "I'm nobody's pet. Nobody owns me, or do I have to pound that into your processor, mech?" I threatened, raising a clenched fist.

Knock Out didn't raise his servos just as Crashthrough would have; instead, the brightly painted mech's raised optical ridge rose even further. "First of all, it's processors, not processor. We're sentient beings, not machines, so get your vocabulary checked," he corrected me, sounding irritated at me—but hey, he didn't have to say that I was a pet in the first place, so hah! "And there's no need to get all violent over a joke," he said with a roll of his optics.

I twitched at that one—because it sure as hell didn't sound like a joke—and gritted my dentals. I knew Knock Out was a sassy bastard, even more so before Breakdown died in the cartoons, but I wasn't expecting this level of assholeness from him. Ugh. "Can you just tell me where Crashthrough is so that I can get the frag out of here?" I demanded, because even if I didn't know the layout of this maze, I sure as hell didn't want to be here of all places.

"He's down in the Pit, getting ready for his fight," Knock Out said, jabbing a thumb behind him where the entire section of a wall was made of glass. I shuttered my optics, already pushing myself off of the medical berth and making my towards the large, floor to ceiling, glass window. "And are you positively sure that you would want to go out like that, without that disgusting thing covering you?" I heard Knock Out point out, and I didn't deign him with an answer; instead flushing brightly in embarrassment when I remembered that Crashthrough had my cloak, and I had no means of leaving this medbay until he came back.

I stopped in front of the large window, and gazed out of it. My optics widened when I was met with the sight of a stadium filled with mechs, and I stumbled back, feeling an icy feeling shoot through my energon cables, and making me feel frightened for a very good reason.

"Oh, don't worry, that glass is tinted from the outside, so every mech outside won't know what's happening in here," Knock Out explained, and I could hear the amusement in his voice, making me flush even brighter. "Unless some clumsy gladiator breaks it from the outside, we're screwed," he said it so nonchalantly that I couldn't help but imagine it happening.

A gladiator being tossed through this window. Shards flying everywhere. Knock Out cursing up a storm because a few shards had managed to nick his armor. Me being stared at by every mech out there as my secret had been revealed. Venompoint staring down at me with dark red optics and a savage snarl, the purplish glow of his virused energon daggers gleaming brightly as one swung towards the cabling located in my neck—

I shuddered, deciding to erase that image of my helm rolling around the ground, and I turned to glare at Knock Out, not finding his joke funny in the very least.

Knock Out merely gave me that same insufferable smirk of his, and I huffed as I turned away from, thoroughly tired off his attitude, and went back to stand in front of the glass, noticing that the arena was half filled to the brim with mechs. In the very center of the arena, there was a huge and circular battlefield that made me feel tempted to jump through this glass and run laps around it.

Don't ask why. It just popped into my processor—oh, wait, I meant processors, as Knock out had so kindly corrected me.

I squinted my optics once I'd noticed something peculiar within the battlefield—and I reeled back in horrified shock once I realized what it had been, with the energon churning quite uncomfortably within my tanks. There was no mistaking the vivid, purplish pink liquid that stained the battlefield's floors, and I cringed at the sight, both terrified and disgusted by it, but I tried my very best to push it down, because I should have expected this the minute Crashthrough had told me that he'd be bringing me to the Gladiatorial Pit.

"Where are the gladiators?" I asked quietly, my optics flickering from mech to mech sitting in the arena. Most of them seemed the same to me—mechs with dully colored armor covered from helm to pede with either dirt or rust or maybe even both. There were only a handful of mechs that had their appearance as well-maintained as Crashthrough's, a fewer that looked as shiny as Knock Out but most of the mechs tended to move away from those shiny-armored mechs.

"They're getting prepared for now. They'll come out in a couple of kliks," Knock Out told me, and I tensed up when I noticed that he was just a few feet away from me, looking out of the window just as I had been doing not so long ago.

An uncomfortable silence hung in the atmosphere hovering above our helms, and I pressed my armor tighter to me, not liking this situation one bit.

"Crashthrough's going to be fighting next, you know," Knock Out announced offhandedly, and I snapped my helm to face him, surprise written all over my features. I'd known that he'd be fighting, but not in the next round; maybe I should have expected it, because Crashthrough wouldn't have to take so long to prepare for a battle unless he was up next.

I forced myself to relax, despite the worry and concern that bloomed from within my chestplates, amplified by the strong emotions that the foreign object within me pulsed with. "Who's he fighting up against?" I asked, looking at him in the optics for the very first time.

Knock Out didn't look back at me, his concentration mainly focused on the empty battlefield. "You'll see," was all he'd deigned to tell me, before he crossed his servos over his chest and put most of his weight onto one side of his pede until he was slightly leaning to the side.

I would have asked him for more, but when I heard the sound of the crowd screaming loudly and wildly, I merely gave him a weird look before turning to face the window. When I looked through the window, my attention was immediately enraptured by the two mechs entering the battlefield. I recognized one of them as Crashthrough, his dark blue and silver armor gleaming brightly underneath the glare of the lights, with a gigantic war hammer grasped tightly in his left hand, and seemingly easily carrying what seemed like 6 tons of pure metal.

(I resisted the urge to gasp, because with that hammer on, Crashthrough really did look like Breakdown right now, and I was once again berating my stupidity for having not noticed the resemblances sooner.)

My gaze drifted off to the other mech who too was making his way to the center of the battlefield. Crashthrough's opponent was unfamiliar to me (thank Primus. I didn't think I could handle another important character of the Transformers franchise popping out after just discovering two of them). He had a build similar to Venompoint's: tall with slightly wide shoulders to make him seem intimidating and scary, and his paintjob was a dark purple with silver accents, which didn't really seem to me as outstanding or striking in the very least; even the sword in his hand screamed out mediocre compared to Crashthrough's war hammer. The only thing he had going for him was the silver mouthguard covering the lower part of his faceplates, but that was it.

I watched as the two mechs stopped in front of the other, and I could practically feel the tense atmosphere that hovered above them as they regarded one another, trying to pinpoint each other's weak spots and what to look out from the other.

I jumped slightly when I heard the announcer's voice, and I immediately tried to pinpoint his location in the battlefield, only to find him a few nano-kliks later in one of the stadium boxes located in the wall adjacent to where Knock Out's clinic was.

"WARRIORS AND MECHS!"

I didn't know whether to be affronted by such an introduction, only to remember that there weren't supposed to be any femmes roaming around the surface of Cybertron.

"What are you to Crashthrough?" I heard Knock Out question me, and I turned my helm to face him again, barely catching the designation of Crashthrough's opponent. Backstrut. I stepped to the side when I noticed that he was a foot closer to me, and I suspiciously narrowed my optics at him. But I shuttered my optics when I remembered he'd asked me a question, and I silently mulled over it for a moment, weighing what exactly was my relationship with Crashthrough, before commonly deciding what Crashthrough had thought of me as.

"A friend," I answered, just as the announce exuberantly exclaimed for the gladiators to take their positions. I watched with rapt attention as Crashthrough and Backstrut moved to their corresponding sides without even bowing in respect to one another, and taking their positions, weapons tightly grasped in their hold. "What about you?" I asked him, just to keep the conversation going.

"A very close friend," Knock Out smoothly replied, but I didn't bother to glance back at him once the announcer had announced that the battle would start in 3,2,1, and GO. "How did the two of you meet?" He asked me once again, and it took me a klik to answer it because I was too engrossed in the fight happening before me.

Backstrut had been the first one to make a move. He'd lunged towards Crashthrough, taking but only six long strides to reach Crashthrough and make a swipe at his chassis. Crashthrough had immediately retaliated by raising his war hammer to parry the blow, which had been quite a strong one judging by the step he was forced to take back.

"He was friends with the mechs who found me," I answered simply.

"Found you?" I heard Knock out question aloud, but I didn't deign him with an answer, too absorbed with the fight going on. "Now that you've mentioned it, where did you come from? It's almost impossible for a lone femme like you to have survived for so long," Knock Out told me, just as Crashthrough retaliated by swinging his weapon forward, causing a strong gale of wind to fly about around them, and in turn forcing Backstrut to jump a few feet backwards to dodge the attack, before he lunged forward once again to deliver another blow that Crashthrough easily blocked. This continued on for a couple of kliks, and I took the time to answer Knock Out's question.

"I wasn't sparked on Cybertron," I began, watching as Crashthrough finally switched from the defensive to the offensive by swiftly wrapping his hand around the smaller mech's wrist and bringing Backstrut forward so that he could headbutt him in the forehead. "I was sparked on an organic planet far from Cybertron, with a loving and caring family. All was well, until I was forced to leave my planet because of... special circumstances," I bit out, telling myself to not feel anything. I was just telling him about from where I'd come from, and how I'd gotten here before he could even ask that question—so there was really no need for me to feel so fucking emotional of all things. But that still didn't stop the immense bitterness from welling up within my gut and rising up to my throat, making me feel as if I wanted to vomit my stomach out. "I was barely into my adult frame when I had to leave. I didn't know how long it'd taken me to reach Cybertron, of all places, but when I finally landed, Domino and Venompoint had been the ones who found me and brought me back to their territory," I recalled, watching as Backstrut stumbled back in both surprise and pain.

I resisted the urge to outwardly gasp when I saw Crashthrough swing his hammer back and into Backstrut's chassis, creating a very large dent in the smaller mech's armor. I could see even from Knock Out's medbay that Backstrut had coughed out a large amount of life energon before his entire frame gave way and he flew across the arena, where his back slammed against a wall and in turn creating a small, uneven crater within the wall.

"An organic planet?" Knock Out questioned, sounding both interested and curious about this particular detail of my life. "What is it like?" He asked me, and I turned my helm to see his dark red optics had taken on a shine reminiscent of a child, and I couldn't help but smile at the sight he'd made.

"Well for one, it's dirty," I said, offering up the disadvantages of my home planet, before I strayed my optics to the fight where I watched as Backstrut struggled to get up as Crashthrough slowly neared him. I looked back at Knock Out, and snorted at the grimace that was currently twisting his faceplates. "There's dirt everywhere, but that's to be expected because my home had been an organic place where organic life grew from," I explained, and laughed lightly as Knock Out's faceplates twisted even more. "But, for all it's dirtiness, it's a beautiful place that I've come to love," I vented lowly, a small smile curving my dermas upwards as I wistfully remembered about my home. "A sky that regularly changes color from blue to orange to black every day, with stars glowing brightly in the evening accompanied by the moon and a bright sun in the morning with wisps of white clouds that can take any kind of shape. Blue oceans that stretch far and wide around, with life swimming about in its depths and even lost secrets hidden even deeper. Lands that come in different forms are filled to the brim with life crawling about its surface, and unlike Cybertron that's a world living on electricity and energon," I said, trying my best not to insult Cybertron. "My home planet had been created to support the life living on it, with natural resources blooming everywhere," I said, and paused when I saw Backstut force himself to his pedes, trying his best to hold his shaky frame up.

I felt the foreign object within me clench at his determination to keep fighting, and I briefly closed my optics to offer a silent prayer up to Primus that Backstrut would be able to get out of this alive. I received no answer in return.

"How did you live with the other species in your planet?" I vaguely heard Knock Out ask me, and it took me a moment to answer his question and I watched as Crashthrough stopped in the very middle of the battlefield.

My optics widened in surprise when I saw Crashthrough drop his war hammer onto the ground, and the sound of the metal colliding with dirt-covered metal ground had been muted by the crowd's enthusiastic roars. I watched as Crashthrough and Backstrut stared at one another, before Crashthrough promptly took on a fighting stance, feet apart and fists raised to shield his face.

There is a tense silence that hovers above them, and though i can't hear it because of the crowd, I could practically feel it.

A fighter's duel. The proper way to fight, with only your body as your weapon. I briefly nibbled my bottom derma, feeling worried for both mechs. A gladiator's duel ended in death, I already knew that. If Crashthrough had died, I knew i would mourn for the mech because he'd been nothing but kind and accommodating to me since I'd arrived. Backstrut, on the other hand, was a total stranger to me, but I couldn't help but feel sorrowful for his death because he was still a living and though not a breathing being, he was still alive.

And the though of someone dying made the foreign object within me clench painfully.

And, though it saddens me to admit this, I'd feel a teensy weensy bit said if one of my former bullies died, because I'd been taught better and to appreciate life no matter how it may be.

I then remembered that Knock Out has asked me, and ripped my gaze from the fight. "Oh," I started off. "I guess you can say we lived in peace," I answered.

I watched as surprise bloomed upon Knock Out's face. "Peace?" He said, the word sounding a little bit foreign on his tongue, especially when we were on a war-ridden planet. "You didn't try to enslave them?" He asked me. "How strong are these organics?"

I resisted the urge to laugh at his questions. "Depends. Which organic are we talking about? There are a lot of them, but only one specie differed from the rest because of their adaptiveness and critical thinking. That particular specie had already assumed control of their world by the time my ancestors landed on their planet," I weave a good story, remembering a plot from one particular sci-fi novel.

"That one," Knock Out said immediately. "How strong was that specie, that you couldn't even colonize their planet for Cybertron?"

"Well, they're really small, like, probably half the size of my servo," I said, raising my servo for emphasis, and Knock Out's optics bulged slightly. "They're weak, and they're bodies aren't made of metal like ours are. They're made of flesh and blood, unlike our metal and energon," I explained. "They also wound easily and catch diseases much more commonly. Most of their life spans barely reach an entire vorn," I added.

"And you couldn't even enslave them?" Knock Out asked me, looking doubtful and disappointed.

This time, I frowned, and narrowed my optics at him. "What right did we have to enslave them, when it was their planet we landed on and decided to call home?" I snapped, furrowing my optical ridges and giving him a sharp glare. "Just because two different species, coming from two different planets, with two different cultures and ideals met for the first time, it doesn't mean that everything has to be decided with war," I said, my engine growling a bit. "Like I said, we co-existed in peace. I was told that we were treated with hostility at first, because of our differences in size and appearance, but they slowly grew to accept us as the years passed by," I told him, trying to calm myself down.

Knock Out looked thoughtful for a moment, and he would have asked something, had the referee not spoken up for the first time since the fight had started.

"AND IT SEEMS THAT CRASHTRHOUGH WILL ONCE AGAIN PREVAIL AND DEFEND HIS TITLE AS A GLADIATOR!" The referee cried out, and my gaze was instantly drawn to the match happening down below.

What I saw made my hands fly up to mute the gasp that had forced its way out of my throat, my optics widening at the display happening before me and probably a hundred other mechs today. It had seemed, whilst Knock Out and I were conversing, that Crashthrough and Backstrut had let their fists do the talking to the fight. Dents marred both of their armor, Backstrut's even more and much deeper compared to Crashthrough's, and I could see that Backstrut had managed to land a strike on Crashthrough's face, if the three-clawed scars on Crashthrough's left cheek that bled an unusual amount of energon were anything to talk about.

And right now, Backstrut had his back on the ground, his entire frame heaving, his faceplates twisted into an expression that was part anger but part fear for the inevitable; Crashthrough, on the other hand, was towering over Backstrut, venting roughly, and his shoulders threatening to sag from the exertion of energy he'd wasted.

I could hear the crowd going absolutely crazy as a blade shifted out of the armor in Crashthrough's wrist, and he went down on the floor on knee, the tip of his weapon poised over the center of Backstrut's chassis. I felt the foreign object within me pulsed at this display, fear wracking my entire body and I suddenly found myself frozen to the spot, unable to tear my gaze off of what was about to happen to Backstrut.

But then, Crashthrough seemed to pull back, the blade shifting back to his wrist, and he stood up.

Stunned silence filled the entire arena, and I felt myself minutely relax, hoping against hope that what I was seeing was right and that Backstrut would live.

Crashthrough turned away from Backstrut's fallen body, and began walking away. The crowd instantly reacted in a negative way, furious and agitated yells echoing off of the mechs who acted as audiences, with booing sounds every now and then.

I turned to Knock Out, my faceplates taking on a relieved expression, until something dawned on me.

Gladiator battles ended with one victor and one corpse.

"He's not done yet," Knock Out's voice broke me out of my horrified realization. "Look," he said, his clawed finger pointing at something through the glass window, and I immediately snapped my helm to the side to see what was going on.

Crashthrough hadn't walked away; he'd walked towards something. I watched as Crashthrough bent down to pick up Backstrut's sword, the blade gleaming underneath the glare of the arena's lights, and almost immediately the crowd's booing and angry shouts transformed into cheers once again as they chanted a single phrase that I couldn't for the life of me understand.

A neon green box appeared within my mindscape, but I stored it away, too concentrated in the battle to even glance at the contents written in the notification box.

I watched as Crashthrough walked back to Backstrut in long and slow strides, carrying his opponent's sword in one hand. Finally, he stopped in front of Backstrut's frame, and I could see that Crashthrough was looking down at Backstrut with a dark expression upon his features compared to Backstrut's unreadable one because of the mouthguard.

And then, the moment that almost everyone had been waiting for, Crashthrough wrapped both of his hands around the hilt of Backstrut's sword, poised the tip over Backstrut's chassis, raised it over his head, then it plunged it downwards.

I watched in complete horror as Backstrut seemed to spasm uncontrollably for a few moments that felt more like hours to me, and I could even see from here how Backstrut's optics dimmed then brightened in a terrifyingly cruel manner that I should turn away from.

But I didn't.

I watched every single moment of Backstrut's demise. I watched as his frame suddenly stilled, before it completely slackened; I watched as his helm fell back against the ground, the color in his optics slowly dying out until all that was left was a deathly grey shade that I knew would haunt me in my dreams when I would recharge later; I watched as the color slowly drained out of Backstrut's armor, until all that was left were dull shades of colors that had once been his paintjob; I watched everything, and I couldn't even look away.

Everything suddenly felt numb on the outside, and I vaguely noticed the crowd screaming their approval as Crashthrough pulled Backstrut's sword out of his chassis. I felt my vision cloud about, marred with black spots, as I concentrated on what was happening inside of me.

The foreign object reacted to Backstrut's death in a very negative way. Instead of pulses or throbs, it reacted by emitting out screams. It felt as if it was slowly growing within me, pushing against the casing that kept it within, as it kept emitting screams that felt more like lightning wracking against my insides, filling my entire being with pain as emotions and feelings whirled about into a catastrophic thunderstorm.

I didn't know how to handle the sudden influx of emotions that the foreign object within me had poured out for a total stranger's death—Sadness. Grief. Despair. Anger. Fury. Disappointment. Sorrow—and I vaguely managed to decipher the words that it was trying to convey to me.

Why is this happening? For what reason? Why kill? Did you enjoy it? Why cause pain? To what extent? Why destroy? What good came out of it? Why do you children fight like so? Don't you know how to spare? Why eliminate a spark? Why terminate your own brother? Why do you allow grief and pain to consume you? Why do you let it consume others? Why didn't you stop? Why did you continue? Why didn't you choose mercy instead?

Why why why why why why why why does death have to be the answer to almost everything now?

A hand clamping down on my shoulder suddenly startled me out of my thoughts, and I immediately reacted out of instinct. My hand immediately flew to grasp the wrist that the hand was connected to, and I whirled around, my optics blazing, and I pulled my dermas back to reveal my canines as I raised my other hand that already had its claws out, poised to claw, whilst the other was too preoccupied in painfully gripping the slightly twisted appendage in its hold.

I immediately met the surprised faceplates of Knock Out, his dark red optics meeting mine.

And then, something clicked, and I remembered where I was and what I had just done.

Almost instantly, as if I'd been holding scalding water, I let go of his wrist and backed away until my wings were painfully and tightly pressed against the cold surface of the glass window. "I—" I started, only to stammer out a bunch of words that didn't make any sense, and clamped my dermas shut instead, deciding that the best thing to do was to shut up and look down, with my frame ever tense and stiff.

It was evident to me that shame was curling within the depths of my energon tanks as embarrassment burned my faceplates a dark pink. I'd lost control of myself—all because of a stranger's death—and I'd nearly clawed off Knock Out's face if I hadn't returned to my senses quickly enough too. I fidgeted on my pedes, nervous to meet the red mech's gaze.

I heard Knock Out mutter something incorrigible that I couldn't pick up, before I heard him vent out loudly. "Hey," his deep voice sliced through the tense and awkward silence. "Are you okay?" He asked me, and I pursed my lips, weighing the positive and negative effects of talking to him.

Instead, I chose to quietly bob my helm up and down, still too nervous to utter a single word.

I could clearly hear Knock Out release a heavy and stress-filled vent, before I saw a clawed hand appear within my vision. Shuttering my optics, my gaze trailed up the servo that the hand was connected to, until it passed by a rimmed chassis and finally landed on Knock Out's admittedly devilish faceplates that were twisted into an expression of slight concern that had been shadowed by pure annoyance.

"Come on," Knock Out beckoned, curling his clawed fingers a little bit, and causing the appendages to glint underneath the light, and my gaze strayed towards those dangerous weapons, feeling a little uneasy with their sharpness. "Let me get you some energon treats, then we can talk about it," he said, and I wordlessly stared at him for a very long moment.

Normally, I would have denied his offer, because I didn't need to talk, I could handle whatever storm was brewing up inside of me yet again—but now, when the storm within me was just too much to handle for little ole me to contain, when someone had finally offered some conversation that I really needed after so long, who the hell was I to deny such a blessing? Especially when life couldn't get even more fucked up, huh?

"Okay," I muttered, reluctantly clasping his hand with my own and resisting the urge to flinch when his claws wrapped around my hand into a firm grip. I let myself be dragged over to a medical berth where Knock Out barked at me to 'sit' and I obediently did so, planting my aft on the cold metal. I watched as he rummaged over the contents within one of the many cabinets of his medbay.

"Was this your first time seeing a Transformer offlined?" Knock Out asked me conversationally, and I pondered for a few nano-kliks on what answer I should tell him.

"Not really," I said carefully. "I've seen it in videos, but never like—like this," I vented out. "I've never seen someone killed right before my ey—optics," I corrected myself, shuddering a little when I remembered the purplish-pink life energon that bubbled out of Backstrut's mouth, his entire frame convulsing as his systems overcharged from trying their very best to close up the fatal wound that just wouldn't stop bleeding, the way his optics just went grey and

The sight of something glowing a purplish-pink color made me snap out of my train of thoughts and reel away in surprise. I shuttered my optics at the several stick of glowing...something in Knock Out's hand, and I lifted my gaze to give him an unsure and bemused look.

"Here," he told me, and promptly dropped the radioactive shit in my hands. I didn't know whether to throw them far across the room or hold it; anyways, I did the latter, not wanting to be rude. "Eat," Knock Out told me, and I switched between staring at what was deemed to be an energon treat and at Knock Out's faceplates, unsure if the substance in my hands was poisonous or anything. Having seen the look of reluctance on my face, Knock Out merely vented out and picked up an energon treat from my hand and began nibbling on the treat.

The action was endearingly adorable.

"See?" He told me in between devouring the energon treat. "It's edible. A little bland, but it's still sweet," he said, wiping the leftover energon juices on his fingers with a rag that he'd subspaced out.

I looked down at the energon treat and slowly picked one up with my other hand. I stared at it unsurely with narrowed optics, before biting off a part and chewing experimentally. I shuttered my optics once the flavor immediately hit me. Knock Out was wrong; the energon wasn't bland at all, it was really sweet, sweeter than the regular energon I'd drink and it had a crunchy texture to it as well. It was like eating a chocolate rage bar all over again.

Overall, it wasn't really all that bad, I thought as I began nibbling my way through another energon treat. Knock Out had given me six pieces, multiplied that by the time it had taken me to eat a single treat, and with the help of my fucking super robot brain, I was able to calculate the time it would take for me to finish my treat.

Which was right about now.

"You like it?" Knock Out asked me, an amused smirk playing on his lips.

I flushed a little in embarrassment as I licked the leftover energon off my fingers. No use in wasting some very good food; nonetheless, I nodded my helm.

"Would you believe me if I said that was how Crashthrough and I met?" Knock Out said offhandedly, but that made me shutter my optics and look at him with interest bubbling up inside of me.

Even from the cartoons and comics, when Crashthrough had still been Breakdown, I had no clue about how the two mechs had even become friends in the first place; much less how they even met. And now that Crashthrough was no longer Breakdown, and that both Crashthrough and Knock Out weren't Decepticons in this universe, the story behind their meeting really piqued my curiosity. Because the Decepticon faction had most likely been their only connection to one another, so if they were no longer Decepticons, how did the two of them meet? Or maybe they'd met when they were Decepticons and had defected together?

Fuuuck. This is what happens when I overthink a lot of things. Crazy conspiracy theories just start popping out from nowhere and I have to deal with the and sort them out accordingly.

"He gave you energon treats?" I asked

Knock Out's smirk grew softer; until all that was left of it was a soft smile upon his face. I shuttered my optics, refusing to believe such a sight. Knock Out rarely smiled truly in the world of fiction, much preferring smirks and suave smiles, and to see him smiling so softly and gently; I couldn't believe my optics.

"He gave me a fighting chance to survive," Knock Out clarified, and I looked down at my empty hands where the energon treats had been, completely mystified.

Huh. Who would have known energon treats could give anybody a fighting chance. But hey, if this was their version of chocolate, then I couldn't really blame Knock Out.

I raised an optical ridge at Knock Out. "What do you mean?"

Knock Out looked away from me, a solemn expression upon his faceplates with his dermas pursed thinly. "I was a Decepticon once before," he informed me, and I widened my optics to look shocked. I'd already known about this piece of information, but technically Galactica didn't, so I had to pretend to keep up appearances. "During the early stages of the war, I'd decided to join the Decepticon forces because they offered me much more than what the Autobots ever could," he said. "You see, Galactica, I too hadn't been sparked here on Cybertron," he told me, and that was when my optics widened for real.

"I'd been sparked on a planet called Velocitron, where a Transformer's worth was measured by how fast they could run and how long they could push their legs to their very limit. My creators were merchants, if you must know, and after my sister and I'd been sparked, they decided to bring their wares to other worlds.

"We traveled to many different planets, and encountered many different species. Eventually, we landed on Cybertron, where the Transformers race had originally been created on. My creators had decided to stay here, since they were entranced with Cybertron's numerous and unique cultures. This was also the planet where my sister and I had received our adult upgrades, and chose our separate ways from the family.

"I became a medic, whereas she became a news anchor. We lived busy yet peaceful lives, and that kind of lifestyle lasted for several vorns, until I received a rather troubling message from my creators. Apparently, their business had gone bankrupt because according to my creators, one of their most trusted confidant hadn't really been a very trustworthy mech and had ran off with their money.

"My sister and I did everything we could to help them. We gave them most of the credits we earned to help them rebuild their business and pull themselves out of poverty, and eventually our creators manages to raise their business back from the ground. Normality returned once again, and all was well for several vorns until one day, something...horrible happened.

"My sister and I received a phone call from the enforcers, informing us that our creators had been found dead in their very own home, with their spark casings and brain modules found ripped out of their own frames. I was...horrified, to say the least. The enforcers told us that it was simple burglary attempt that had gone wrong but the way our creators died seemed too...staged. It was only later on that we found out about the truth of our creators' deaths.

"We found out through our creators' shared daily log, which my sister knew that they hid in a hidden compartment within their berth, that they'd expected their death, and that they'd know about it for quite a while. Apparently, they had a rival company that took the competition...deathly serious, if you know what I mean," Knock Out said with a grimace, and I hesitantly nodded my helm, my own dermas pursed thinly. "Fortunately, our creators had left one little detail for us. The designation of the mech who'd ordered their assassination. I'd recognized that designation from anywhere. He was an important businessmech who, at that time, was a major supporter of the Autobots. Both me and my sister were stricken with grief, but whereas I mourned about the terrible truth behind our creators' deaths, my sister was downright vengeful.

"She'd used her job as a news anchor to her advantage, using every single one of her contacts to dig up any bad leads concerning our creators' murderer. For an entire orn, the news were filled about vi-drugs, murders, and corruption, and how that mech was connected to each one of them. My sister had immediately been removed after that by request of that mech, and she'd been sent to be tried the solar cycle after. Half an orn after my sister's trial, where the case hadn't yet been solved and where a new trial was going to be in session the solar cycle afterwards, she'd...gone missing."

I felt all of my systems lurch to a sudden stop when I'd heard that.

"Missing?" I breathed out with wide optics.

Knock Out solemnly nodded. "Yes. Missing. The enforcers on my sister's case weren't able to find a single piece of evidence regarding her disappearance. It's as if she'd just...vanished into particles and took off with the wind," he said wistfully. "But I knew better than that. I knew that my sister hadn't simple gone missing, especially when she was going to attest to that mech's crimes. No. She'd been taken. By the very same mech that had murdered out creators and who she'd just ostracized. He'd taken her. To where, I don't know. Frag, I don't know if she's even online until now for Primus's sake. I'd given up hope long ago," he vented out. "I pleaded to the court that my sister had been taken by that mech, by they just wouldn't listen. The claim that since there was no evidence, then my sister had just really vanished out of thin air.

"Because of that that, and out of my anger and misery for having my family taken away from me by one stupid mech—I...I'd done the most moronic thing ever. I'd joined the Decepticons. Because if the mech that'd destroyed my whole life was supporting the Autobots then why don't I join the faction who's sole goal was to bring down the caste system and execute the corrupt mechs at the very top of the caste?

"When I'd enlisted myself, I'd first been treated as a foot soldier and eugh! The things I had to do to please my superiors. My poor, poor frame went to recharge everyday with scratches and dents everywhere because of the harsh training that I had to go through.

"But then the war happened for real. I'd been placed onto the battlefield underneath the command of the Constructicons. You know the Constructicons, right? The first and strongest combiner team of the Decepticons. I was flattered to be on their team to be honest, but only for a brief moment because there was a war happening around us and mechs were starting to kill one another and die.

"I was terrified at first, and I'd forgotten about the training I'd been taught. Because of that, I hadn't noticed the energy blast heading my way. Fortunately, I'd been pushed out of the way by Scrapper, a member of the Constructicons, who told me to stop looking slagged because the battle had only started. His words motivated me enough to snap me out of my terrified state, and I picked up my weapon and began fighting.

"We'd won that battle on that day, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't happy on that day, despite being covered from helm to pede in the energon of the mech's I'd killed," he said with a wince, and I winced as well. "And I guess you can say that was when my medical prowess had been discovered when I offered to repair Scrapper as thanks for saving my life.

"Hook, another member of the Constructicons, had recognized my talent and skills in repairing, and I remembered that he'd asked for my designation before he left. The cycle afterwards, I received a data packet which told me to pack my things and transfer to the barracks for the battalion underneath the command of the Constructicons. From then on, I became Hook's assistant in the medbay," Knock Out said, a bitter smile on his dermas.

I stared at him, trying to process his words to the very best of my capabilities. I hadn't known this side of Knock Out before—ever. His background story had always been a total mystery in the canon series, so this—this was most definitely a first for me. I licked my dermas, one question lingering on the very trip of my glossa. I was really hesitant to ask about this but I also really wanted to know. "How did you leave the Decepticons?" I asked, looking him in the optics.

Knock Out merely gave me a strained smile. "I left."

I shuttered my optics. "You left?"

Knock Out nodded. "I just left," he confirmed with a shrug.

"Why?" More importantly, HOW?!

"I was tired," was his simple reply.

"Tired?" I asked, bemused.

"Tired. I was just tired of seeing mechs die every cycle, with my hands buried deep in their chassis, trying my best to jumpstart their spark back to life, only to fail in the end. I was just tired of having nobody to talk to about my problems in the Decepticons, when so many of my so called comrades took to bullying me because of my position as a medic and also because of my height," he said, gesturing to his, ahem, small size. "I was tired of being alone. But, to be honest, I was just tired of everything," he vented out loudly at the end.

I felt the foreign object within me twitch with a twinge of pain for the sorrow on Knock Out's faceplates, and I vaguely noticed that my optics were slightly glossy with unshed tears. I understood what Knock Out was telling me—the feeling of being alone, of having nobody to tell my worries to, of having nobody familiar to connect to, or just simply having nobody who'd known you for who you really were.

"So I left," Knock Out has said it so simply, as if it was that easy to leave the Decepticons. "During one battle, I hid myself underneath several offlined mech's frames when nobody was looking and I just...waited. I didn't know how long I'd stayed underneath those frames, but when I couldn't hear the sounds of mechs killing one another and dying anymore, I peeked out of my hiding place and saw that the field was filled with nothing but destruction and chaos, with the corpses of mechs littered everywhere.

"And I guess that was when I decided that the war had gone on long enough for me to become a murderer like that mech as well. For all of us to become murderers as well. So...I tore out my Decepticon sigil and simply ran away.

"I wandered about Cybertron for a few orns, before I finally settled down in Kaon, too tired and hungry to do anything. And that was where I'd met Crashthrough too, you know," Crashthrough said, his smile growing warmer and softer as his features lost its hard edges and took on a softer glow that made the foreign object within me flutter in delight. "He saw me. Out of the hundreds of dirty and tired and hungry mechs milling around, he saw me. And he helped me too, y'know. He helped me get back on my pedes by enlisting me into the Gladiator Pit as a medic when I'd I told him about my occupation during the peaceful times of Cybertron.

"He gave me energon, a roof over my helm, and someone to talk to. He gave me everything I could ever need, plus more and a lot of wax&shine," he said, his dermas twitching into an amused smirk. "In return, I eventually told him everything about me. About the death of my creators, how my sister had gone missing, how much I hated that mech, and my defection from the Decepticons. I told him how I'd felt when I tore threw mechs on the field, how I used to enjoy it before I began to realize how disgusting I'd become. I'd expected Crashthrough to be fearful or disgusted by me, as most Neutrals had treated me when I'd been a Decepticon.

"But...Crashthrough just looked at me in the optics, patted me on my helm, and told me that he understood. And I guess that's when I decided that Crashthrough was a good mech despite his status as a Gladiator," Knock Out finally ended.

When he'd finished, suffice to say, I was speechless. I couldn't muster any words to form from my voice box, and for a few kliks, I was helplessly closing and opening my mouth, probably looking like a fish out of water. Knock Out smirked at my entertaining expressions, and I snapped my dermas shut, faceplates flushing brightly as I felt mortified for being unable to say anything.

And then, when I'd finally manage to form a single word, I still sounded dumb.

"Why?"

Knock Out raised an optical ridge. "Why what, Galactica?"

"Why are you telling all this to me?" I asked, looking at anywhere else but him.

"Why did you tell me about yourself?" Knock Out shot back. "It's simple, really. I asked and you answered, and you asked and I answered."

I turned my gaze to meet his. "You didn't have to answer, you know," I drawled.

"You as well," Knock Out replied.

"But you didn't have to tell me that you were a Decepticon, or that you weren't from Cybertron to begin with too," I snapped, folding my servos over my chassis. "So why are you telling me all this?" I demanded from him.

There was a brief moment of silence from the red-painted mech, before he quietly answered, "Because Crashthrough trusts you, and that's enough for me to trust you as well."

To say that was I was shocked in stupor, would be quite an overstatement. I wasn't shocked, to be honest—surprised, maybe. I mean, it wasn't really that much of a surprise from since I've already heard it from Crashthrough himself that he trusted me (and I might admit that I trusted him as well, because he was nice and funny and so patient and generous to me that I really had no choice but to trust him) but not as much as he trusted Rouge and Vitallium. He told me that I was somewhere in between, right below Domino but way over Venompoint.

But to hear it from another person made me feel all giddy and happy. It was a feeling similar to watching hot anime guys taking off their shirts, or Megatron laughing sexily in the Prime series, or maybe reading a fic about Sunstreaker and Sideswipe getting it on with the main fictional character.

It just made feel happy and embarrassed at the same time; but I was pleased, nonetheless, and I could tell by Knock Out's optic roll that I was preening.

At what could have been heart/spark-touching moment had been completely ruined by Crashthrough once he'd walked into the medbay.

"Hey," Crashthrough greeted, giving a two-fingered salute. "What'd I miss?" He asked, his gaze flickering from me to Knock Out.

But I wasn't looking at him. I was too busy staring at the energon stains on his frame—on his hands, his knees, his pedes, and even a few specks of it on his chassis.

Knock Out must have noticed my internal distress at seeing the life energon splattered about on Crashthrough, because his dermas pulled back into a haughty and disgusted sneer, and he pointed at a door that I'd never really noticed until now.

"Go wash yourself off. I will not allow you to have an energon treat unless you do so," Knock Out ordered.

Crashthrough looked every bit of a kicked puppy, but with a whirr of his engine, he relented and trudged off towards the what must be the wash racks.

I didn't notice that he was still carrying Backstrut's sword, the blade still covered with the life energon of its previous owner, and the pinkish purple liquid dripping down on the floor.

"Hey, Knock Out, where do you throw your things?" I asked, rubbing my armored stomach.

Knock Out gave me a curious look, but answered anyways. "At the trash chute, over there," he said, pointing over to a compartment in the wall that had a circular opening.

Nope. That wouldn't do for me.

"Do you have any empty containers with a wide opening that you don't plan on using anymore?" I asked instead, knowing that I need to be specific and detailed with my request.

"Ugh," Knock Out looked around, before he rummaged in one of the cabinets below and pulled out a big metal bucket. "Here. You can have this," he said, handing over the bucket to me to which I graciously accepted, before he furrowed his optical ridges at me. "You don't look alright, Galactica. Do you need any—"

I promptly emptied the contents of my energon tanks into the bucket, purging for all I was worth for a few nano-kliks, gagging and retching and all.

Knock Out just stared at me with wide optics, before he meekly nodded and backed away from me. "Ugh. Okay. I'm just gonna..." Knock Out trailed off until his back collided with the nearest wall. "Stand over here," he ended lamely.

I just rolled my optics after I was done puking my guts out.


Requesting to open Internal Logging...Requesting...Requesting...Request: granted.

Opening Internal Logging; Accessing New File...New File: accessed.

Opening New File... New File: opened; Opening New Unit File...New Unit File—DWE239595JGT9HGS88GFBCIJIW83BDWUBCUIWDBC0HDLPBF29

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! UNKNOWN LINK TRESPASSING!

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! FIREWALLS TURNED ON TO SETTINGS: MAX. ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! FIREWALLS HAVING BEEN OVERRIDE BY UNKNOWN LINK!

PREPARING TO ENGAGE UNKNOWN LINK WITH DEFENSIVE—

DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS: OVERRIDED; PREPARING TO ENGAGEERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

My vision turned red.


"Hello there, little one."

A light that blinded my optics. A familiar voice that sounded soothing and relaxing to my audial sensors. A towering, hulking frame over my teeny weensy one, with glass orbs the color of blazing flames looking down at me.

I stared up, at a loss for words to say anything, much less breathe, and looked down at myself, only to blink when I caught sight of my originally fleshy body that could be squished into a incomprehensible and gory mess of blood, bones, and organs instead of the metallic body that I'd grown accustomed to over time.

"...What?" Was the only thing I'd managed to say.

In all his deep blue armor, Primus just gave me a gentle smile compared to his benevolent holy status as a motherfucking deity of a race of beings made out metal that were the size (or maybe one and a half of the size) of the empire state building. "It's so very nice to see you again," he offered politely enough.

I just continued to master my expression of a dying fish.

Because of my silence, Primus furrowed his optical ridges, looking concerned and confused. "Are you alright? I was sure that nothing too damaging had happened to you before we could talk again..." He said, before he bent down and grabbed me by the back of my shirt—and woah, I was human again. A human with clothes, and not a gigantic sexyass being made out of pure metal that felt like I was naked all the fucking time.

Him treating me like a doll seemed to snap me out of my stupor, because my body immediately went into get-away-from-the-crazy-and-freaky-robot-who's-ruined-your-life mode. I struggled against my captor, twisting and wriggling—fortunately, Primus seemed to understand that I didn't like to be lifted, much less touched by him now because oooh, that fucking bastard!—because Primus then settled me back on the ground.

"YOU!" I started, jabbing an accusing finger at him, face twisted into an expression of what felt like pure and utter rage, and prepared to give him the lecture of this millennia. "HOW DARE—"

"Wait," Primus said, holding up a hand in the universal sign of stop, and I did, with my mouth frozen open as I glared up at him. "As a sign of my goodwill and my sincere apologies for having not respected your denial towards my request, as well as for all the trouble I've caused you, I bring a peace offering," he said and, with a snap of his fingers, a straw basket appeared in front of me.

Dumbstruck, I stared down at it before curiosity got the better part of me and I knelt down to remove the cloth covering its content, wondering why the cloth was so cold.

Ah.

I stared down at Primus's offering to me, not really knowing what to do.

I looked up at the metal behemoth. "These are mine?" I asked, pointing at the mangoes—fuck, they weren't just mangoes. They were frozen mangoes!

Primus nodded. "All of it."

"..." I honestly did not know what to say, because I was too busy and serious contemplating over which was better. The frozen mangoes, or getting mad at Primus.

But wait. I could always get mad at him later, right? And I could ways barb him with words, right? And frozen mangoes were more important, right?

"Okay," I decided, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I'll accept your offering for now," I told him, and reached out for a mango.

I didn't bother looking up at him—because for all I knew, he could be wearing an arrogantly smug expression on his face.

That bastard.


ROUGE - III

As Cerise and her carrier walked along the busy streets of Kaon, it was evident to the newly-upgraded youngling that there were stark differences between this city-state and Praxus. It was dirty and crowded here, unlike the normally pristine and less populated streets of her original city-state. Cerise could still smell the scent of rust and something unpleasant burning in the air, and she scrunches her nose in disgust.

Her carrier looks down at her when she tugs on her hand. "Hm? What's the matter sweetspark?" Carousel asked, her pretty faceplates twisting into an expression of concern.

Cerise resolutely shakes her helm. "It smells here, carrier," was all she'd said, her bottom dermas jutting out to form a displeased pout.

Her carrier chuckles at her comment, her engine rumbling lightly in accompaniment. She moves them towards the front of a shop to avoid the flow of Cybertronians that would likely push them forward if they had not stopped at the side.

Cerise shutters when she feels her carrier's hand move to the top of her helm and rub it affectionately, making Cerise coo softly in reply.

"Don't worry, sweetspark," Carousel says softly, before taking her much smaller hand in her big one and guiding her to the inside of the shop that, when Cerise looks up, was actually a really tall building painted in dark colors that make her frown.

They enter the building, and Cerise is immediately hit with the smell of…something. It's a foreign smell to her, and she decides that she doesn't like the smell of it because it's sweet and sour at the same time and makes her main processor ache and makes her feel woozy all over.

She and her carrier stop right in front of a large desk, where a slight mech sits behind, his red optics the only thing Cerise can see interesting about him before she turns away, a look of boredom on her faceplates.

Her carrier lets go of her hand, opting to place it on the counter where she leans forward and against it so that she could greet the unfamiliar mech with a brilliant smile. Cerise takes a moment to admire her carrier's beauty, her tall frame full of sleek curves and shiny armor that practically gleams underneath whatever light there is in the dim room. Felling a little envious of her creator, because she can never be as beautiful or pretty as her carrier when all she'll ever be is adorable and cute, Cerise promptly looks away with a huff.

Several kliks pass by and Cerise looks away, disinterested and irritated. She looks around the room for a better place to go to, before the disgusting smell of the room hits her in the faceplates and she decides enough is enough and proceeds to go to the front door.

Cerise looks back at her carrier, who's still in conversation with the receptionist at the desk, and feels guilt curl around her spark for a brief klik before she exits the building and steps into the dirty streets of Kaon. The air in Kaon is still smelly and disgusting, but it's infinitely better than that stuff in that building.

Cerise decides to pass the time by leaning against the building and watching the several dozens of Cybertronians that pass by, trying to find the most notable one as of yet.

And then, from the sea of dully colored Cybertronians, Cerise spots a sudden flash of bright blue in the crowd that makes her shutter her optics and struggle to find the source of the blue out of curiosity.

Cerise's red optics twinkle when she catches sight of that bright baby blue coloring once again, and she's surprised to find it on not only a youngling that seems to be about her age, but two younglings.

Cerise furrows her optical ridges, tilts her helm to the side a bit, and squints her optics to get a better look of the two younglings. Both seemed to be of the same height, with dark brown smudges of dirt and rust covering most parts of their frames; what little colors that Cerise could distinguish from the obviously physically unhealthy mechlings were dull, but Cerise could see that one of them had a bright red paintjob whilst the other had an optic-catching shade of yellow.

But it's their optics that catch her attention. Throughout a sea of mechs with optics that vary from shades of red to yellow, they're the only ones with pairs of bright blue optics

And then, Cerise notices the pair of younglings struggling against the hold the mech who had their servos in a tight grip.

If Cerise had been any other youngling, she'd assumed that the younglings were most likely being dragged off to a much private corner so that their creators could berate them for what must be their acts of naughtiness—but, Cerise is no ordinary sparkling; she's the creation of two of the best enforcers of Praxus, and she's reminded of it everyday, so Cerise notices the terrified expression on their faceplates and their cries for help and their snarls to let go of them that's drowned out by the crowd's incessant chatter and feigned ignorance from Cybertronians neaby.

And, even if she's raised to know better, instead of alerting the nearest enforcer, the femmeling dives straight into the crowd, clumsily weaving through several Cybertronians' legs, doing her very best to reach the two mechlings who are most likely in danger of getting kidnapped and receiving a good and solid beating judging by the anger on the older mech's features.

For the first klik, Cerise is running blindly within the crowd; searching and scanning for bright blue optics. And then, Cerise sees it. It's a vague flash of blue that might have been a trick of the bright lights from above to her vision, but it's enough to make Cerise turn her helm and see those pair of mechlings a few meters away from her, with a few Cybertronians blocking her way

She sees their faceplates, that are a mix of pure terror and fury, and she doesn't even waste time by second thinking about her decisions as she begins to squeeze her way through the mechs and femmes in her way, with a few even snarling at her to watch her Primus-slagging way.

And then finally, after much squeezing through and running, Cerise reaches them, just close enough to reach the hip armor of the mech that's dragging those two mechlings. And Cerise does so too. She curls her fingers into a particularly deep groove located in the mech's left hip, and she doesn't even hesitate as she pulls down on it and says,

"Hey!"

The mech immediately halts when he feels an immense pain flare up from his side, causing the two mechlings that he's been dragging around to crash in the back of his legs that hardly makes him flinch. His dark red optics immediately meets Cerise' bright red ones, and Cerise feels a bubble of fear well up inside of her spark when she sees the pure and unadulterated anger that's sparking from his optics

But Cerise is anything but cowardly, so she swallows down her fear and tilts her chin up a little higher.

"What do you think you're doing to those younglings?" She sees the irony in her words, but she doesn't correct it. What's done is done, after all.

The mech and the mechlings shutter their optics in a startled manner, and Cerise's glare meets the yellow mechling's gaze for a brief moment before she moves her gaze back to the tall mech who's now snarling at her with a dark look plastered upon his features.

"A nosy sparklin' like ya has no slaggin' business with adult business," the mech growls out lowly to her. "So stay the frag away from'it," he says in a threatening voice.

In reply, Cerise's doorwings hike up, quivering from the tense grip she has on them, as she tries to contain the rage bubbling up inside of her. "Sparkling?!" Cerise practically screeches out, and she sees the mech and mechlings wince at the pitch of her voice. "I'm a youngling, for your information! And it's automatically my business when I see mechs like you go around kidnapping younglings like them," she says, pointing at each one of them throughout her tiny speech.

The mechlings shutter their optics at her, whereas the mech's faceplates have turned a bright purplish pink as he sputters aloud.

"Now look 'ere ya—"

"NO!" Cerise bursts out. "You look here! You have no right to tell me what to do when you're the one dragging a pair of screeching younglings, who're screaming as if you're about to kill them, off to who knows where!" she exclaims.

The mech stares at her blankly for a short moment, taking the time to process her words, before his faceplates twist into an expression of anger, so much of it that Cerise can even see it burning in his optics, as his dermas pull back to reveal canines that are much sharper than her carrier's.

Cerise takes a nano-klik to reflect over her past actions, and decides that she hasn't really been thinking all too clearly.

"Shut yer trap, ya fragging glitch," the mech snarls, letting go of the two mechlings from his hold. "Ya ought tah be taught some manners," he says, before his hands suddenly surge forward with the intent to hurt her.

Cerise reacts out of pure instinct, whipping out the device her sire had given to her in case of emergencies from her subspace, before jabbing its coiled end into the mech's knee joint and pressing the button that would activate it.

The reaction was instantaneous. Bolts of electricity start to form from within the device, until it curls around the coils of the device, sparking and crackling with dangerous and bright energy, before it surges toward the mech's knee joint, where a series of energon tubes laid on top of it. The electricity crackles once before it curls around the energon tubes and attacks.

The mech roars in pain as electricity envelops his entire being, his optics brightening up to its brightest limit. This lasts for a few kliks, and all Cerise can do is watch with a mix of anger and slight fear for having used it on a Cybertronians for the first time.

And then, after realizing that Cerise still has the tazer glued to the mechs frame, she pulls back and stops pressing down on the button, and the surges of electricity immediately comes to a halt. Cerise warily watches as the mech's optics brighten and dim for a few astroseconds, before the mech's frame tips back and he crumples to the ground, his entire frame convulsing a few times from the remaining sparks of electricity.

Cerise vents out heavily, trying to overcome the shock that's still enveloping her. She shudders deeply, looking at the tazer in her hands with fear for the power it holds, before she subspaces it back. Her doorwings tremble a little, but Cerise forces herself to be strong. She'd already done it, so there's no use in regretting it.

It takes her a moment to realize that Cybertronians are starting to stop and stare at the incident that had just occurred, but she'd already been grabbed at the servos and pulled into the crowd before that detail could even be registered.

Cerise shutters her dark red optics at the two mechlings that are currently dragging her off to who knows where, her servos held tightly in their grip with the red one on her left and the yellow one on her right. Cerise stumbles upon her pedes a few times from how fast the two mechlings were moving.

It takes them a while before Cerise is suddenly pushed into a dark alleyway, and she gasps when she lands on the dirty and slightly gritty ground that grates against her rump when she lands on it. She grumbles underneath her breath as she rubs her bottom, and turns her narrowed gaze upon the two mechlings who are currently peering around the edges of the alleyway and chattering amongst themselves in quite voices.

"Couldn't bother giving me a warning, huh?" She speaks aloud, hoping to garner their attention.

And it did.

Both mechlings instantly stop talking, and slowly turn their helms to face her. Their bright blue gazes meet her bright red one, and Cerie could practically feel the awkwardness crawling up her frame and trying to strangle her.

"You 'kay?" Red, as Cerise had decided to call them by their paintjobs, asks her in broken and awkward Universal Cybertronian, and Cerise squints her optics to inquisitively stare at the mechling.

It's quite obvious to her that the mechlings are Kaonians by spark and growth, what with their naturally formed sharp dentals and the spiked armor protecting their knee and elbow joints; so it's natural for them to be fluent in Kaonian and struggling with Universal Cybertronian as most younglings are upgraded with the knowledge modules of it.

Too bad she knows slag about Kaonian though.

"I should be asking you guys about that," Cerise says, smiling faintly, and her smile only grows a little bigger when she sees Red's faceplates brighten up.

"We's fine," Red says, beaming, and Cerise resists the urge to giggle at his slip-up.

"Thank you," Yellow says quietly, shifting from pede to pede as he shyly avoids her gaze, his bottom derma jutting out to form a sullen pout.

Cerise really wants to coo at how adorable Yellow looks right now, but she decides to hide her desire to glomp him by grinning widely. "It's no problem. It's the least I can do for you guys. Us younglings have to stick together, right?" she says.

Cerise shutters her optics in confusion when she sees Red's dermas curl downwards whilst Yellow's faceplates twist into a grimace at her words, and she's about to question it when she feels a pulse of worry and fear coming from the bond she shares with her carrier.

She panics for a moment, because she doesn't know if she still remembers the way back to the building, but Cerise remembers that it's located in the main road, and all she has to do is to get out of the alleyway, stick as close as possible to the lines of buildings, and avoid any suspicious mechs. So, she sends her carrier a wave of comfort, with the silent message of 'I'm safe'

Cerise pushes down the guilt when she sends her carrier a message through their private comm. Lines, telling her carrier that she'll return in a klik or two because she'd seen something interesting across the street.

"Hey, ugh, I have to go," Cerise says. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Red, Yellow. I hope we'll see each other again someday," she says absentmindedly, not even noticing that she'd used her temporary nicknames for them.

Cerise is already out of the alleyway by the time Sideswipe and Sunstreaker exchange looks of bemusement.


Word Count: 15,500

Time of Finish: March 29, 2016 at 8:59 PM


Prizes of the Winners:

For Gavoot The Scout, who'd only asked for one or two extra, but got three because I'm hyperactive.

EXTRA 1: In which no mech can resist a sparkling, no matter how tough or cold they are.

Cerise stared up at the big mech standing in front of her, bottom derma jutting out and trembling slightly as her ruby red optics gazed into icy blue ones. Her tiny doorwings fluttered a little bit, and the light and soft armor protecting the shell of her protoform bristled a little bit, showing how distressed and upset she currently was right now.

Cerise mewled softly, raising her servos, and shaking them wildly in the air, demanding to be picked up.

Prowl merely stared down at her, a blank expression taking over his features, before he vented out softly and shook his helm. "No," he told her sternly, making Cerise's optics widen a bit at the negative word that she had come to be very familiar with. "You need to start walking on your own, young one. You're nearly half a vorn old now, and sparklings your age usually know how to walk properly by then," he told her.

Cerise gave off a high-pithced whine, shaking her helm from side to side, showing her displeasure with having to get up own her own two legs. She'd already shown her creators that she could do it, and wobbly walk from sire to carrier and vice-versa; so why did she have to do it for a mech she barely knows? And without any reward whatsoever?

Prowl merely watched as the sparkling threw a mini-tantrum, before he vented out once again, deciding to sit down on the floor with his legs bent into an indian-style of sitting. He vented out once again, propping an elbow on top of his tibulen, and placing his chin onto the palm of his hand, deciding that he could pass the time by pondering deeply about the next assignment Cruiser and Gunner would give to him and his partner, Tumbler. Prowl could only tell that it'd be another impossible one that would require his superiors help, again.

The feeling of something warm and small being placed on his cheek had snapped him back to reality. His optics flew from their gaze on the dark spot between his legs, and immediately connected with wide, red optics that were looking up at him with furrowed optical ridges. Prowl shuttered his optics, but he didn't recoil away from the sparkling's palm on his cheek. Instead, he looked down at Cerise, and saw that she was standing on both of her legs that were a little bit too wobbly, with her other hand gripping the armor protecting his knee, bracing herself up with it.

He returned his gaze back onto Cerise's face, and finally noticed the worry clouding her features. "What's wrong, young one?" He asked her softly, feeling something inside of him twist at the thought of his captain's sparkling getting hurt underneath his care. Oh, the extra trainings from the Pit he'd receive...

Cerise shuttered her big optics at him, before she opened her mouth and clicked a little.

Prowl merely furrowed his optical ridges at the young one, before he allowed his usually calm energy field to relax itself from its tight hold on itself. Letting it slowly trickle itself out and brush against Cerise's calm and very small energy field so as to not alarm her, he tensed up when her energy field surged towards his, and immersed herself with him.

Worry. Prowl fine? Concern. Prowl sad? Fear. Prowl hurt?

Prowl blinked through the sudden onslaught of emotions that weren't his that whirled within him, and it took him a very long moment to reorganize what were his and what were hers. It took him half a klik to understand what Cerise was so worked up about, and his lips twitched upward as he looked down at the sparkling that was still looking up at him with worry.

Prowl ok?

Prowl let out a deep, yet very short, chuckle. He brought one of his hands up to pet Cerise's helm, using his thumb to rub the bright red surface of her chevron that were starting to curl towards the back—a sign that she was a femme Praxian through and through—making the sparkling purr at the affectionate touch. Prowl remembered that his carrier would do this to him whenever he was about to slip into recharge when he'd just been a sparkling that couldn't be any older than Cerise was right now, so he really couldn't help the warm smile that slowly bloomed upon his dermas.

"Yes, I'm alright, young one," Prowl rumbled deeply, and he didn't hesitate to slip his hands underneath Cerise's servos, so that he could carry her and plop her down onto his lap. Cerise's wings fluttered in delight at that, and her frame slowly began to relax from its intense workout of having to stand up. It looked to Prowl that she hadn't been using her legs up as much as a sparkling her age should. "You're creators really spoiled you, huh?" He murmured softly, continuing to rub her chevron.

Cerise's optics onlined from when she'd closed them to enjoy the sensation of having her chevron rubbed, and she looked up at him with wide, red optics that made his spark warm up just a tiny bit and made his own doorwings flutter in response to her fluttering doorwings. Then, Cerise began to insistingly butt her helm against his hand that had stopped rubbing her chevron, and Prowl merely sighed as he resumed feeding the little sparkling a lot of affectionate rubs.

For a sparkling with a loving sire and a doting carrier, Cerise was a very attention-seeking sparkling.

However, as Prowl looked down at the purring sparkling, he couldn't help but admit that she was a rather adorable thing.

EXTRA 2: In which Tumbler becomes a playground.

Tumbler really had no idea how it'd come to this. One klik he'd been standing in the middle of the training room that Gunner had so cruelly locked him in, with the order of practicing the katas Tumbler had been taught an orn ago; then the next thing he knew, he had a tiny sparkling sitting in front of him, looking up at him with big red optics that were starting to creep him out.

"Uh, hey there, um, Cerise was it?" Tumbler greeted, crouching down to pat his captain's sparkling on the helm. He smiled behind his faceguard when Cerise purred underneath his touch, her tiny doorwings fluttering in delight. "It's nice to officially meet you. I'm Tumbler, your sire's subordinate. I hope we'll get along from now on," he introduced himself.

Cerise onlined her optics, shuttering a few times at him, before she nodded exuberantly at him.

Tumbler's visor crested from the bottom, indicating that he was grinning widely.

Suddenly, Cerise tilted her helm at him, dark red optics widening just a tiny bit more as she seemed to scrutinize something on his helm. Tumbler shuttered his optics, placing his hand on the top of his helm and feeling around, only to discover that there wasn't anything wrong with it. Furrowing his optical ridges behind his visor, he opened his dermas to ask what had interested Cerise so, only to shut up when she reached up at him and grabbed a hold of one of his fins.

"Huh?" Tumbler spoke aloud, pulling back in surprise; in doing so, since he had underestimated Cerise's strength and determination, Cerise pulled back with him, wrapping her tibulens around his neck as she clung to his fins, emitting a soft thrill of delight. "No. Oh, no no no no," Tumbler said as he tried to pry the sparkling off of his fins.

Cerise just thrilled even louder, thinking this was part of the game, and began digging her fingers into the grooves on the side of his fins.

"OW! Cerise! No! Don't—OW!" Tumbler cried out.

Cerise just giggled in glee.

EXTRA 3: In which Prowl is a bad mech.

Prowl looked to the left, where Gunner was currently yelling out in his loudest voice at the new recruits to 'hurry it up, you fragging lugnuts. You have engines, for frag's sake! Use them!' through a megaphone. Prowl looked to the right where Cruiser and Tumbler were having a one-sided match, the former proceeding the beat the latter out of his own armor whilst giving out tips that the latter would most likely never remember.

He looked to the left then to right once again for a few more times before he popped out a metallic container out of his subspace, then hid said container behind his back.

He looked downwards to his side, where Cerise was idly playing with her glowing blocks, mesmerized by their appearance.

Prowl gave the metallic container a shake, its contents creating a rather loud clang.

Cerise froze, before she turned her helm up towards him, shuttering her big red optics.

Prowl sat down on the ground, knees bowed. "Do you have what your carrier gave you?" He asked, rubbing her helm, so that it'd looked like he was just praising her from the eyes of others.

Cerise just shuttered her optics up at him, before she looked back down at her glowing blocks and got the dark blue one. Prowl bemusedly accepted the block from her, before realizing that she'd been holding the memory stick between her thumb and the glowing block.

'Smart,' he noted, and Cerise just blinked up at him as Prowl subspaced the memory stick that contained delicious, delicious blackmail material of his captain's superiors.

There'd been a few mechs who'd been harassing his captain, probably because of the specialization unit he'd personally opened, and most of them had been both vocal and physical about their opinions about it. A few had tried to offline Cruiser in some missions, all of which had failed, and it didn't take too long for Carousel to hear about her sparkmate's predicament.

Prowl too had been displeased to hear about it, but he didn't act out on it like Gunner and Tumbler had tried to, which Cruiser had scolded them for their improper decorum. No. Instead, Carousel had recruited him in her mission to silently destroy a few of these mechs who weren't really needed, slowly destroying their reputations within the department until the Chief-Enforcer-of-Praxus had no choice but to abolish them from their positions in other to save the reputation of the overall department.

Carousel was going to send a warning to them. Don't mess with Cruiser's unit. And Prowl was going to deliver it. His captain's unit was useful to Praxus, and it'd mostly restored the order in the city. Abolishing it now would just cause some unneeded ruckus and probably increase the crime rate of the city-state.

Prowl was a mech of honor and order. But even he had to shed his honor and cause some chaos within the ranks to maintain a somewhat temporary peace for Praxus.

Prowl discretely handed the metallic container to Cerise, who'd shakily walked over to sit behind him. The sparkling purred as she opened it, and began munching on her reward, making pleased noises.

Prowl just smiled as he rubbed her chevron, making the sparkling coo mid-chew.

'And besides,' Prowl thought, inwardly smirking. 'They'll never know who started all this chaos.'

Prowl may be a stoic mech, but even he found amusement in his own ways.


Special Event!

IT'S SUMMER FOR ME, BITCHES! In celebration, I'm willing to take in the requests of the first five reviewers or people who'll contact me their request via PM or review mwahahaha! Come on, now! GO GO GO! i gotta get my juices running, I swear.


Question/Task of this Chapter:

To be honest, just how much do you think of the troublemaker twins? I mean Sunstreaker and Sideswipe (not Skids and Mudflap). I know that a lot of you are googoo-gaga over them (heck, I'll admit that I have gone googoo-gaga over them, but that's all in the past now.) For me, as characters, they have a lot of angst in their past, and they make excellent reasons to have threesomes with if they're a character's love interests, but, other than that, well... _

They're pretty hard characters to grasp on, especially Sunstreaker's personality. Sideswipe's pretty easy, it's just that his twin is fucking hard as hell. I can tell that many of you want them to be Meg's love interests (what with the PM's I get) and I've been mulling over that fact, but it just doesn't fit right with me. Meg's love interest has already been set, and, well, to be honest, her love interest's pretty intense (and insane), and have most of you gawking by the time you realize, woah, what the hell, why him?!

So...yeah. Just wanted to know what are your thoughts about Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, because they're a pretty big part of this fic's future, and I need to gather some insight from you guys ahaha.


Beta? What Beta? Is it something you can eat? Ara? My co-author? That lazy old hag? She can't edit for her life! Sometimes...but she's lazy af. So excuse some mistakes. Please point it out for me so that I can correct it uhuhuhu Q_Q