"Fine, but it won't be my fault if you come back changed." I lashed out with my mind, doing nothing to prepare him for what was to come. His alien thoughts crashed into mind and he physically flinched, his hands clenching into tight fists. I fused my mind with his momentarily, then carried his conscious into my own. It sounded confusing, because it was, I had no idea if it would work, and I didn't really know if he was okay with it. His mind was very weak, but I couldn't help the random flashbacks and memories that poured into my databanks. I didn't ignore them, in fact, I took in as many as I could, knowing that someday the information may be useful, but also harmful. As soon as his mind was within my own, I poured my physical feelings in him, he could now smell what I did, he felt the way I felt, and me him. Our minds had a few seconds of melting together, and my entire identity blurred. I couldn't figure out which memories were mine, nothing could separate the two of us. I concentrated on the task at hand, showing him how I knew what was going to happen. He was quick to react, responding in a positive way. His thoughts suddenly pierced my own.
"Separate us. I've seen- er, heard enough." I jerked my mind from his, craving privacy. He didn't know, but I know knew everything about him, I knew every memory, felt every feeling. He had a very strong anger for something, but what confused me was that he didn't know what he was angry about. I knew that it was the same for him, he now knew how I felt, how my mind worked. I didn't like the idea, but that was how it was now. Optimus took a few seconds to find himself, then he walked off, back to the Decepticon warship where his team was waiting for him. I watched him go, then turned back to the sky. It wasn't long before they all came back out, a groundbridge opening in their wake. They left without another word to me, although Ratchet watched me curiously until Optimus ushered him into the groundbridge. As soon as the swirling vortex disappeared I took to the sky, flying west, away from both Predaking and the Decepticon warship that harboured to Autobots, to keep them safe. I flew for a few hours, but I knew eventually I would be forced to stop and face the other Predacon.
Night had fallen when I finally decided to stop. His flight would leave him tired, not tired enough to be unable to fight, but tired enough to be exhausted easily. I knew Shockwave was tracking him, and I had to be cautious of anything the Predacon would try to trick me into. I landed by a large lake, out of the view of humans. I crawled over to the edge of the lake, curling into a tight ball and shutting down for a half an hour. I shut every system down in my body, giving me more energy. When I awoke, I could hear his wing beats, they were heavy and laboured, knowing this made me content I would win the fight. I knew he would not try to wimp out of this one, and I would make it out alive and on the winning side, but with injuries myself. My optics strained to see his metal body glint off of the moonlight. I caught sight of him and my stomach churned with excitement, but also nervousness. When his legs hit the ground I let a very angry snarl out, showing him that I was unhappy. I was going to try and tell him that I had been here, and with no one.
"What do you want, youngling?" I hissed at him. He made a loud, whining growl, he wasn't happy either. He did not speak back, having been unable to, but rather he used feelings and thoughts to show me what he felt. I watched little scenes flit through my mind, most were of Shockwave.
"I've been here the whole time, he could have just commed me." He indicated that my comm was disabled, and I tried to play stupid, telling him that I had no idea, and I was just waiting for Shockwave to give me instructions. He yowled at me like a cat, then the fight began.
He threw himself at me childishly and I quickly dodged it by dashing to the side at the last second. He was mentally fast enough to realize that this was not a playful fight and he quickly adapted to the situation. He growled deeply, the air around him vibrating as he lashed his tail back and forth. He was faster than I, being much smaller than I was. He darted forward again and I was a nanosecond too slow to dodge him. His body slammed into me, and I could feel his head whip around, searching for my neck. His claws suddenly raked my back leg, giving me a few small scratches. I growled myself and unfurled my wings slightly, throwing him off my side. He didn't give up and rather than jumping for my neck, he snapped at my legs, intending to wound me there so I couldn't properly move. I turned quickly, swinging my tail and my paw, hitting him in the snout twice. I watched the small pieces of armour fly off, and energon ran from between his jaws. He backed up, waddling as he walked. I decided to use the lake to my tactical advantage, if I could just throw him in. . .
He jumped for my head, and at the last second, I ducked, and he flew twisting and turning in the air over my head, landing behind me. I turned around quickly, keeping my tail up for balance. He swatted my face, but I snatched his paw between my teeth, and bit down as hard as I could. There was a screeching wail, and I felt his paw give out from between my teeth. He tried to jerk it back, but it only injured him more, he hobbled on his three legs, howling in pain. I tasted his energon as it trickled into my mouth. I let go of his paw and he backed off, whining. He gave me a glare and his chest began to glow. I watched him take a deep breath and he exhaled fire, which I withstood. His natural flames weren't as hot as mine, his were underdeveloped and he hadn't given it enough time to heat up before expelling it. He withstood his ground as he breathed his flame, and I walked toward him, directly into the fire and heat. I let my own flame charge deep inside me, but I gave it time to heat up. I swatted his face again and he quickly choked the fire down, backing up again. I walked around behind him, forcing him to back up toward the lake, which was a very bad thing for him. He didn't know it was there, and continued backing up so I charged him and he tripped over his tail trying to back up faster. I slammed into his body, throwing him backwards even further and pushing him into the shallow end of the lake. He screamed which was dulled with the hiss of steam pouring off of the lakes surface. I let my flame out then, it was hot enough to hurt me, but not in a bad way. His screams were drowned out by more hiss of steam and the roar of the fire that blew at him. His cries died and he threw himself from the lake, letting his wings keep him aloft. I pursued immediately, letting the flames die and rest inside of me, I would no longer need them. I jumped into the air, pumping my wings to give me altitude. I was much faster and more experienced than him so I caught up with him easily. We collided in midair, both of us trying to distract the other. I kept myself aloft, falling to the ground was not a good idea, especially from this height. He scratched and bit me with all his might, then got a lucky break when he turned and clamped his teeth around my right hip, biting down as hard as he could. I roared in pain, kicking him with my back legs, he held on, and I could feel the hot energon run down my leg as I kicked him. He had finally wounded me, and I had had enough. I wrapped my jaws around his neck, squeezing. I didn't intend to bite his neck to injure him, only deprive him from oxygen enough to make him light headed and open his mouth. Within seconds his breath became laboured and I could feel him snort, then unhooked his jaws from me. I batted him with my left hind leg, pushing him off of me. He hovered in the air, snarling and roaring at me. I roared back at him and he turned and flew away. I let him go, I was hurt, which rendered me unable to land. He was gone in seconds, but I had done the one thing I wanted to . I had deprived him of oxygen just enough so that he couldn't sense me inside his head, where I disable his tracking on me and I had tweaked around a bit, forcing him to forget my scent and get it confused with another scent he knew well. He had been hurt worse than I, hopefully Megatron didn't send him back. I pushed my mind out, searching for the Prime. No matter how far he was, I could find him, even if he was in a different galaxy. I found him, and alerted him that the danger had passed and he could return to his base with his team. He didn't thank me, but rather was concerned for the pain that was pushing back through our mental connection. I pulled my mind from him, answering no questions. I hovered for a moment more, considering on whether or not I should land. I decided against it, I probably wouldn't be able to get back up in the air if I did. I gained altitude, out of the prying eyes of humans.
The sun was rising and I had far to go, and all the time I needed to get there. It took me more than three times longer than what it took when I had led Predaking on, which I did deliberately. Optimus couldn't contact me and I could only contact him. I checked in a few times and each time I did he got more concerned, knowing I was injured greatly worried him and he knew I was getting more and more tired with every hour that passed. Finally, in the distance after almost an entire day of flight, I saw the Decepticon wreckage, relief flooding my system. I was tired and injured and energon deprived. I couldn't help that I was continuously leaking everywhere, and because of how consistent it was, my body naturally tapped into the extra energon reserves. I touched Optimus's mind once more as I neared.
"I am here, Prime. Bring out your medic." I disconnected myself from him before he could respond, but off in the distance I could see the tiny, shiny bodies that were out and about. There was five in all, not that I really cared.
When I was near enough to land, I couldn't have been more happier. It was a painful descent to the ground, my injury prevented me from safely landing. The Autobots stayed clear of me and I did not land with grace. I dropped to the ground, my legs giving out from my body as soon as my feet made contact with the ground. I flopped onto my left side, bearing my injured leg. I didn't dare move it and I knew it needed some serious tending to. Optimus and Ratchet approached, and I couldn't help a whimpering growl that came out, it was my natural reaction when I was injured. I wanted no one near me, but I was hurt. The two bots came no further than a few feet from me. Ratchet understood how I felt, and inspected me from where he was, scanning my body for anything more serious than my leg injury.
"I'm not sure I can repair you like this, can you transform?" Ratchet had brought his only medical kit with him and I stared at him.
think- I think it's safe now." I suppressed my instinct to lash out at the medic that stepped toward me. I didn't want Optimus near me and I almost snarled when he approached me too, but later realized that Ratchet could not do this alone. Optimus eyed my carefully for Ratchet, making sure that I didn't randomly start kicking them.
"I'm not familiar with your body structure so it won't be easy to repair this. You'll have a nasty scar though."
"A stupid scar to show how stupid and naive and young I am. I'll grow in time." He began cleaning, that's pretty much all he did, just cleaning the wound out and inspecting it. He seemed to know which places to avoid and which to be extremely gentle on.
"How does he know what to avoid?" I asked Optimus privately.
"I've no idea. Ask him yourself, he knows." I watched Ratchet carefully scrape out broken armour and dirt out of the bite wound, craning my neck to try and see what he saw.
"How is it you know what you're doing, medic? I don't understand. You know what is sensitive, tell me how." Ratchet said nothing, but rather continued to work like he didn't hear me.
"I've been doing this longer than you've been alive," He began, not taking his optics off of what he was doing, talking and cleaning like he was a professional. "I acknowledge your pain, then just use that to assume where it would hurt the most. I'll try to avoid those places for now, but when I do get to those spots, you may want prepare yourself." He continued to scrape and clean and whatever it was he was doing. Optimus was pretty much a maid for the entire time Ratchet cleaned out the wound. He suddenly craned his neck, sticking his utensil deeper inside of my wound, causing me to growl warningly.
"And," Ratchet paused, jerking his arm and ripping out what appeared to be a tooth from the bite, "It's kind of difficult to assume what hurts and what doesn't when you're a different species. I'm doing the best I can." He put whatever he had been using to clean down and observed his work. That's when he finally began to actually repair the armour that had been destroyed and was intact enough to actually be repaired.
"This one's a little deeper than I'm used to." As he worked he pointed out small little things that I didn't notice myself, which was weird for me.
I swear it was forever and I had started to nod off, but Ratchet kept me awake, he knew it was dangerous for my body to shut down when I was so low on energon. I insisted on a transfusion, but he always declined.
"I need to repair your wound first, so that it won't leak back out." He was very stubborn and it made me irritable. I was uncomfortable from laying on one side for the longest time. I was startled when sudden shrieks reached my ears, they were the most high pitched things I had ever heard, Optimus and Ratchet ignored them.
"What is that?" I asked.
"The children." Optimus said to me. I looked in the direction of the Autobot base, confused.
"I thought you said the Autobots couldn't produce sparklings."
"They're human." Ratchet retorted. The first one came into view. She was vaguely female and when she was close enough to make Optimus stop her before she came any closer I got nervous. She had two different colors of hair, pink and black. She wore clothing and something about her made me feel weird.
"Wow, that's super cool. What are you? A dragon?" Another one appeared, this one male and very short. His hair was crazy, it stood straight up it seemed.
"Bee said you guys were extinct." He said, he seemed a bit more intelligent than the female, although it was obvious he was much younger than her. A third stood by his two human companions, also male and he looked a bit more. . . normal if that's what someone else would call it. He had dark black hair that bounced when he moved.
"So. . . does it talk?" I growled a bit, half from what the human child had said and half because Ratchet's hand had slipped and his tool had hit me in the wrong place. I refused to directly touch their minds, they looked strange, obviously their minds would be even stranger.
"I do speak. Not aloud, as the others do." The short male grinned like he was going to murder other members of his race.
"Cool! You're telepathic!" Having heard how feminine my voice was, they changed the pronouns they were using, no longer feeling the urge to call me an 'it'.
"So what happened? How'd you get hurt?" I couldn't help snapping at the female.
"Saving your keepers. Without me, they'd be dead and Megatron would take over your species and planet." Bulkhead spoke from a distance, quickly reacting to my mood and gesturing for Bumblebee and Arcee to do the same as him.
"Alright, Miko. That's enough questions for now. They're busy and angry and I don't want you eaten." The three bots drove off in different directions after convincing their humans to go with them, with the permission of Optimus of course. I watched three Autobots drive off, glaring at them long and hard.
"I don't eat humans. Why would he infer that?"
"To get the three of them away from you. Bulkhead only used his common sense and he was vaguely concerned for Miko with your reaction to her." I had nothing to say to him and neither did Ratchet so we sat in silence, except for the sound of Ratchet's welder. Finally, he pulled his tool away and shut if off like he had finished.
"Why have you stopped?" I asked him. There was a deep gash remaining slightly behind my hip, I knew that he knew it was there.
"Optimus, I don't know if it's possible, but could you hold her down for me?" I looked over at Optimus, who was still keeping his distance.
"I can hold myself down just fine, thank you," I snapped at Ratchet, offended that he assumed that I wouldn't be able to keep still as he worked. He looked up at me, squinting his optics into a sharp glare before pressing his finger into my wound. He was not gentle and I didn't expect the pain to be so great. I growled and instinctively kicked my leg, to try and get him away from me. I missed and he pulled his arm away from me, giving me a dominant look.
"Optimus." The Prime moved, daring to approach me despite how I had lashed out to Ratchet. The medic directed him the best he could as to where he should hold me to stop me from moving, and I pointed out a few key places that would help to keep me stable.
It was a half of a human hour of excruciating pain for me, which seemed to take longer because of the pain and actually took longer because I wouldn't stop fidgeting. Everytime I moved it caused Ratchet's precise hand to slip and he would have to start over with what he was doing. Optimus was more help than I thought he would be, but eventually we finished when Ratchet called Smokescreen over, who was still standing outside watching because he didn't have a human of his own, to help hold me down.