Disclaimer: I only own my OCs.


Pandimala: What took so long?

Authoress: Well, I had holidays and those are always stressful. But, I do have a surprise.

Knockout: And what would that be human?

Authoress: *smirks* You will see.


Ch. 46: The Power of the Star Saber

I could feel my spark beat racing as I looked both ways. Not a bot in sight. Good. For this to work, I had to exercise the most extreme caution that I could and I had to make sure that no one saw me.

"You know, you take any slower and they are going to see us." Frenzy commented from next to me.

Okay. I needed to make sure that no one saw me who wasn't in on the plan. "Why are we doing this again?" I asked them as I tied a wire above a door. The specific door was the reason that I was kinda nervous about this whole thing.

Rumble laughed from were he was in the air vent before saying, "Because you said that you would help us with this. It is too good not to resist and besides, we haven't pulled a prank on him since we have been here and that cannot be allowed to continue."

Sighing, I finished tying off the knot that I was working on before saying, "Finished. Now, let's get out of here before you know who comes by."

They nodded and Frenzy climbed up my leg while Rumble crawled out of the vent and onto my servo before I walked down the hall, Frenzy having crawled up on my servo beforehand. We didn't talk as I made my way to my room. Once inside, I shut the door and they turned on the data pad to watch the hall. While I didn't think that the bot in question would be walking in any time soon, we wanted it ready.

"Hey," Frenzy started. "while we're waiting, can you tell us a story from when you were a human?"

I sighed and asked, "What do you want to know?"

They gathered together and whispered before saying, "First fight."

I shook my helm and sat on my berth before letting the two out of my servo. "You two would ask me about that." I then sighed and thought back.

Flashback

Clouds were rolling in as I walked down the street toward my house. Mom was at work and so I had to walk home. It wasn't too long of a walk but I just hoped that it wasn't going to rain. That would just ruin this day like no other. Today, ma and I were going to be celebrating my birthday! While my birthday was last week, we had to deal with a pipe that broke and we haven't had time to celebrate until today because of it.

"Hey girlie,"

I turned and sighed. I had heard about the two new kids, Travis and Henry. They had come from the same school and had been bullying others. I figured it would be close to my turn soon when they had gone through almost all the guys in the class who were smaller than they were, which were most of them. Since I was one of the tougher looking girls, I knew that I would be at the top of their list. "What?" I asked as politely as I could manage.

Travis looked at Henry, who nodded, before he turned to me. "Empty your pockets and we won't have any trouble."

I raised an eyebrow at them. They weren't really original with these things. "No thanks. My hands are kinda cold and so I don't think they are going to be leaving my pockets. Do you need anything else or can I go home? Mom and I are celebrating my birthday. I turned eleven last week."

They both laughed before Henry said, "I think you should take your hands out girlie. You don't want to mess with us."

I noticed that Travis had walked behind me. Did they think I was that oblivious? "It looks like you are messing with me, and not the other way around. And the name's not 'girlie'. I'm Lizzie, Lizzie Val."

Travis then went to grab me from behind but I saw him out of the corner of my eye before he did and I dodged out of the way, causing him to fall into Henry. "Watch it Travis!" Henry yelled.

"She dodged out of the way Henry. I couldn't help it!" Travis yelled right back.

They were really disorganized. "I'll let you two leave now and not a word will be spoken about this. I can't guarantee what will come out if you don't."

Again, the two laughed at me. "Bring it on girlie." Henry stated back at me.

I shrugged. "Fine, but to warn you, I do track in the spring."

"How scary." Travis retorted sarcastically before he ran at me.

I rolled my eyes before again stepping out of his way again. But, as he passed, I turned and kicked him in the side of his leg, causing him to fall. Since he was down, I turned back to the other and barely missed a punch to the face by Henry. "You know, it's rude to try and hit a girl." I said before dodging again. Mom had put me in a couple of self defense lessons, before I dropped out, and I had learned enough to take care of myself.

He didn't respond and tried to jab me in the gut. Instead, I deflected it and turned toward him before elbowing him hard in the gut, using the momentum I had gained by turning. Thank you track. Turning away from him, I got back into a defensive position before launching a punch to his face. I smirked when it hit his nose and I heard a crack. Poor fellows nose was most likely broken. He stumbled back and Travis joined him, having finally recovered from the kick that I had given him. The two then ran at me at once and, while I was able to block Henry's punch to the face, I couldn't stop Travis' punch to the gut.

A rush of air came out of my lungs and I stumbled back. The two stood there and said, "You give up now girlie and give us your money, and we won't take this any further." Travis growled. Henry didn't look so willing to let it go.

But, I wasn't willing to give up either. "Sorry boys." I said in-between deep breaths to get my breathing back under control. "But I'm just getting warmed up." I smirked at the end of that.

They looked at me and laughed before charging again. Okay, while mom would have never been too happy to find out about it, I had been getting lessons in street fighting from my best friend, Clair Bolt's, brother. Clair and I had been friends since the first day of kindergarten and we were close. Her older brother, Ray, had decided to teach us a thing or two about fighting when we turned eight. We kept it a secret because we knew that our parents wouldn't be too happy about us learning this but, at the moment, I was glad that he did.

Grabbing the lid of a nearby metal trash can, I threw it like a Frisbee at Henry and it hit him in the ankles, causing him to fall. When Travis got close to me and took a swing, I dodged to the side before kicking out the back of his knees. He was forced down and, before he could recover, I shoved him down and jabbed my knee into his back before shoving his face down with my hand to his neck.

"Tap out or I am holding this." I growled at them. I was celebrating my birthday today and I was not going to be deterred. Hopefully, they would hurry up so I could get home and washed up before ma saw me. I had no doubt in my mind that I was filthy.

It didn't take long for Travis to tap out. Once he did, I got off of him and took a few steps back. "I thought you said you did track girl," Henry started but hesitated when I glared at him. "Lizzie?"

Smirking, I said, "I do, but I don't run. I throw shot put and discus." I then glared. "Now, you mess with me again and I won't go so easy on you."

The two boys nodded quickly before shakily standing and running. I just shook my head and hurried home. Thankfully, I beat ma home and so I ran upstairs and quickly got changed and cleaned up. As I was finishing up getting, I heard mom pull up and so I walked down the stairs, all dressed up and ready, a smile plastered on my face.

End of flashback.

The twins stared at me in shock for a bit before Frenzy said, "So, you taught them a lesson. But, why did that one boy teach you how to fight in the first place if you knew that your creators wouldn't like you learning?"

I smiled. "Because, he was bullied himself when he was our age and didn't know how to defend himself. He wasn't helped until he got into high school and had to deal with all of those years of torment that he had faced. He didn't want us to have to go through the same."

A beeping stopped all of us from talking and we gathered around the data pad and I smiled when I saw that the victim of our prank was going to be walking into it at any moment. "Oh, this is going to be great!" Rumble yelled as our victim approached the door that led to their room.

When the bot finally activated the trap, the three of us watched as the ropes that were below the victim's pedes, entrapped his ankles before pulling him into the room. The victim, while being pulled across an oil filled floor, was also bombarded with buckets and buckets of feathers being dumped on him. Once he was to the other side of the room opposite from the door, a spring board threw him up and against the mess of instant stick glue that they had place so he could be stuck. After that, the silly string shot out in the colors of pink and neon yellow all over his chassis. Yeah, he would be there for a while.

Of course, Dreadwing wasn't going to be too happy when he got out.

"That was perfect!" I laughed as we turned off the data pad. Of course, we were all laughing at that. We had been planning that one for quite some time and we had finally been given the opportunity to get it accomplished. It was definitely going to be a memory that I was keeping for a while.

Frenzy nodded. "Oh yeah. So, who are we getting next?"

I shook my helm. "Why don't we take a little break from the pranks. You know, to allow tension to build up."

They seemed to like the idea and nodded before they climbed up on my shoulders. "To the med bay!" They shouted as one.

I shook my helm before standing up. "If you two say mush, I will knock you off of there myself."

"Onward Pandimala onward!" Frenzy yelled instead with a mischievous smirk.

"You are real comedians you two." I huffed with a shake of my helm before I walked into med bay. Inside, Knockout and Joe seemed to be talking about something. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything." I stated with a smile.

Obviously, I was because the two mechs jumped before Knockout shook his helm. "Nope, just talking to Joe here about his hours."

I knew it was about more from the looks on their faceplates but I wasn't going to say much. "Well, then maybe one of you two could suggest something for me to do. While I love setting up pranks with the twins, I feel like I should be doing something a little more helpful."

The two mechs looked at each other before Joe said, "Well, if you want to, there is some work going on in the engine room and I know that a heavy lifter would be accepted with open arms down there. Plus, I bet Carl could use some company."

I didn't miss the pointed glare that Knockout sent Joe and I was curious as to what that was about but, I decided not to pry for now and so I said, "Sounds like fun. But," I then grabbed the twins off of my shoulders before gently putting them on the med berth. "that means that I have to leave you two here for now."

"I'll call Carl and tell him that you are heading down since Gary is still lurking around." Joe stated.

I smiled before walking out the door and heading down the hall. I knew that I was being watched on the security cameras but they didn't bother me. I knew that at least one of the bots watching out for me was Soundwave and so I actually felt safer with the cameras on me.

A quick thought about Paul caused me to slow my walking and to wonder about how he and the others were doing. I had lost track of the episodes that had gone by and the only thing that I knew for sure was that we had not come to the end of season two yet. There was still too much to go through. But, when exactly I was, I hadn't the nearest guess.

I hoped that they were doing alright without me. They probably thought that it was going to be a hopeless search right now and that they would just have to wait for the right opportunity to present itself...however long that was going to take. Even though I was loathe to admit it, I was really missing the Autobots. It wasn't from the fact that I don't have a lot of fun around here, because I have made many new friends among the Decepticons and there were very few that I was still hesitant around; Megatron, Dreadwing, Gary, and the drones that I didn't know were those few. Until after we met up with Unicron again, I wasn't going to be trusting Megatron for as far as I could throw him. Then, well...Dreadwing died soon by Megatron so I didn't really want to build that close of a relationship with him. Gary was...well...Gary and so I would rather hang him by his neck cables from the ceiling of the bridge than try to play nice. And, of course, I had never met the drones that I don't know so I could not trust them that much because I didn't know them.

"Fragging thoughts. Why can't I just be able to go through my day without having to question my motivations? Why? It would make my staying here so much easier if my mind could just be restful." I grumbled to myself as I walked into the engine room. From what I saw, there must have been a few breaches. A few large breaches. No wonder Megatron was focusing a lot of the attention of the drones down here. While the work looked almost finished, I could see where they had made a few repairs.

When I saw Steve working on one of the broken pieces, I smiled and walked over to him. "Hey Steve."

Steve turned to me before saying, "Oh, hi. What are you doing down here?"

Smiling, I motioned to his work before saying, "Just seeing if I could help you mechs out with anything down here."

The silence that followed in the engine room told me that everybot was staring at me. Turning around and glancing at everybot else in the room, I saw that they were all staring at me with shocked looks on their faceplates...well, as shocked as they could get.

"What?"

I turned to Terry's voice as he asked that. Raising an eyebrow in confusion, I said, "I came down here to see if you mechs needed any help. I can't think of anything to do right now and so I figured I would come down here and see if I could help with the heavy lifting since I don't know the first thing about repairing engines." I then glanced around. "So, what can I do to help?"

They all stared at me for quite some time before F1-4R3, who I met while getting some energon and who I named Flare, stepped forward and said, "We could use any help you can give. Can you haul that pile of plating over." He then turned to the others before saying, "What are you all staring at? Let's get this done."

I smiled as the others went off to work. "Thanks." I whispered to him before grabbing the first sheet off of the pile of plating. As I walked it over, I realized that there were not as many drones down here as there normally would be. "Where are the others at? Aren't there usually more down here than this?" After a quick count, I deduced that there was around ten drones down here. Six were vehicons; Jonah, Ray, Frost, Carl, 4D-4M aka Adam, and C1-4UD3 aka Claude and four were eradicons: Steve, Terry, F10-R4N aka Floran, and Flare.

Floran answered me. "Lord Megatron located the next relic that they are looking for and everyone is down below helping who isn't on the ship."

Okay, so this was a relic episode...but which one? "Can we watch from here?"

They nodded and Adam messed with one of the monitors until it showed the work down below. Scratch that, it showed a fight between the Autobots and Decepticons. It looked like this might be the episode with the Star Saber.

"Talk about some air for a land based alt mode." Floran commented about Optimus driving off the mountain and toward the hunk of mountain that we had attached to us.

I nodded. "No kidding." He then grabbed the Star Saber and I couldn't stop myself from staring at the pretty blue light...What? I liked shiny things, especially glowing shiny things.

We all then watched as Optimus landed on the ground and created a mound of dust that went flying in all directions. Once it cleared though, I could only stare as Optimus held the Star Saber in his servos. He looked fragging scary. Him cutting up the rock that we dropped on him cleanly in half. When he turned to the ship, I shivered. This camera was really good at zooming in and I could see the set look in his faceplate. I was hoping that, since I was on the ship as a prisoner, that he wouldn't attack it with the Star Saber. I figured that they would worry about my whereabouts on the ship.

Well...I was wrong.

"Everybot brace themselves!" I yelled as I covered Floran, Flare, and Frost, who were closest to me. When Optimus started to turn, of course, I knew that I had to take action. These drones didn't deserve to get hurt by the energy from the Star Saber.

When the shot hit the ship, many of the lines that the bots here had been working on exploded and the room was filled with black smoke and my intakes were starting to clog because of it. Once the ship stopped moving, though the room was still covered with fog, I stood up as straight as I could before motioning to the door while saying, "Out! To med bay!"

The ones who were conscious nodded and started to make their way out with some of them carrying a few. As they made their way, I counted them and identified them. Steve and Terry were helped out, though not exactly carried, by Floran and Frost. Flare was behind them to make sure they were alright. Then, Jonah and Ray walked out carrying Adam and Claude respectfully. I did a quick count in my helm and panicked when I realized just who it was that was missing.

"Carl! Where are you?" I yelled out for my friend as I clumsily made my way around the engine room. The panic that I felt started to increase when I didn't receive an answer. If he was hurt, that fragging Prime had better,

A cough from nearby snapped my helm into focus and I ran toward it and felt my optics widen in shock when I saw his condition. His side had a very large gash that was leaking energon and his legs were twisted. His back had a very large dent that could cause long term damage to his internal structure if it wasn't fixed now.

"Hang on Carl." I whispered as I set to work in stopping the energon leak from his gash. This room was too dangerous to actually close the leak because toxins could get in his fuel line. So, I knew that the best thing to do was to fix the line, and the serious dent damage, before taking him to med bay and cleaning him off before leaving him in Knockout's care.

Once the leak was taken care of, I worked on taking out the dent in his back. It was massive and I had to watch out for nerve cabling but, after about five minutes of work, I finally had the dent out. "Stay with me Carl. I'll have you to Knockout soon." I then picked him up gently before running out the door and to Knockout's med bay.

As I ran, my thoughts snapped back to Prime. Why had he attacked the ship, knowing that I was a prisoner on it? He had no idea where Megatron would hold me and, yet, he had attacked the blasted ship. When I got my servos on Prime...

I sighed aloud as I let the thought leave me. I couldn't do anything to Prime. I looked up to him way too much and there was no way that he would have put me in danger on purpose. There was always an explanation for these sort of things and I just had to wait and find out what that was. It should be alright. Optimus wasn't the kind of bot to do that.

When I finally arrived at the med bay, I quickly opened the door before running in. I could see right away that Knockout and Joe were done with the repairs on the others. "Knockout!" I yelled as I brought Carl closer.

Knockout snapped to attention and motioned for me to place Carl on one of the med berths. "Get out of here Pandimala. Go wash off." Knockout ordered me as he and Joe turned to Carl.

"But," I started to complain.

"Now!" Knockout yelled as he started to work. I figured he wanted me out of there so he wouldn't be distracted by my worry for Carl.

So, taking his advice, I walked to the washracks, which were in the next hallway, before turning on some warm water and stepping into the stream. It felt wonderful on my chassis and my wings felt so relieved as the grime was washed away from their surface. It felt,

A hiss of pain escaped me as I felt something stinging my side as the water traveled down. Glancing at the newly cleaned side, I felt my optics widen as I beheld a piece of shrapnel stuck in my side and the energon was now trickling out. Frag it! The grime that came from the explosion must have stopped it from flowing and my panic Carl must have distracted my mind from my own pain. I had to get to Knockout. I knew that trying to treat myself could be dangerous and I was losing energon.

When I took my first few steps to leave the washracks, I flinched as the pain continued to travel up my side. My movement was now really helping me notice the injury. Where were you ten clicks ago pain? You know, when I was in the med bay?

Once I finally got to the hall, I glanced down at my side and saw that the energon was coming out faster. The shrapnel must be by a line and, with each step I took,the injury got worse. But, I had to get to med bay. There was really no other option. Curse Prime to the Pit for this! I took a few more steps before I had to stop. The pain to my side was getting a lot worse.

"Frag it all." I groaned as I leaned against the corner between the hall I was in and the one to med bay. I didn't have that far to go but I couldn't find the energy to move. Worse yet, I saw a couple of warning signs that I knew meant that I was about to go into stasis lock soon.

I flinched when I felt an arm help me stand up straight and I turned to see who it was. A smile managed to ghost its way onto my faceplate when I saw Soundwave. Thank the Allspark that I had made friends with the surveillance officer. But, I had a feeling that he didn't see me by chance. "Soundwave...how?" I asked as he helped me walk. I noticed that there wasn't as much pain coming from my side so Soundwave's helping must be taking pressure off.

"Prepare for trouble, and make it double." Soundwave answered using a clip from Pokemon, and, more specifically, Team Rocket's motto.

I couldn't chuckle like I wanted to but a smile did cross my faceplate. "Nice clip. And remind me to thank the twins when I get patched up." I let out as we approached the med bay doors. Once we were in front of them, Soundwave opened the doors and we walked in.

"Knockout." Soundwave stated in his own voice. I was confused as to why he did before I looked up and saw that only Knockout, Joe, and a patched up Carl, were there. He must feel comfortable around them. "Assistance: required."

As he said that and Knockout looked up, the twins came out of my room with worried looks on their faceplates. They must have used their cameras that they had set up to find me.

"What happened?" Knockout asked in shock as they cleared a med berth and Soundwave walked me over. Thankfully, I didn't have to answer as Soundwave brought up a recoding of the engine room during Prime's attack and, once I covered Floran, Frost, and Flare, and the room exploded, Soundwave paused it before zooming in on the piece of shrapnel being stuck in my side by the blast. "Femme, how did you not notice that?" He sounded worried as he grabbed his tools.

Once Soundwave set me down, I turned my helm to Knockout and said, "I was more worried with making sure that everyone was alright first. When I found Carl, he became my number one priority. I was too panicked and concerned to register that I was in pain. I only noticed once I rinsed the grime off." Of course, that was all said in-between gasps of pain as Knockout and Joe worked on extracting the shrapnel and closing the line. Also, I noticed that Soundwave was gone. He must have returned to his station before Megatron noticed his absence.

There was quiet for a few clicks before Knockout started to weld my side quiet. "Femme, do you attract this trouble this often?"

I let out a weak laugh before saying, "You haven't seen the half of it K.O."

It took him about four more clicks to close my side up before he said, "Joe, go and get Pandimala a cube of energon. She lost a bit while making her way here."

Joe nodded and left. Once he was gone, I turned and saw that Knockout looked worried. "Optimus Prime now has the Star Saber. It is a powerful weapon and I think Lord Megatron will become more desperate to defeat Optimus."

I nodded. "I know, and that desperation is what I am afraid of. I am not sure how much longer our contract will stay in Megatron's favor and I want to be ready for when it leaves Megatron's favor." I knew that these next few solar cycles were going to be a challenge to everybot, both Autobot and Decepticon, and I also knew that Paul and I had to be very careful about what we changed here. I didn't need Optimus to actually die because one of us slip up. Hopefully, Paul could handle things while I was here. And, hopefully, I could stay in Megatron's good books long enough to survive being here. Finally, I hoped I would finally be able to figure out what Knockout meant to me and what that feeling was that I felt whenever I was near him.


Frenzy: That, was crazy.

Rumble: Was that the surprise?

Authoress: Nope.

Pandimala: What is it then?

Authoress: *smirks* I am doing a double update. =D


AN: And here is the long expected update. Sorry for not updating but writers block and real life have dragged me away from this. But, now it is here! Yes, I attacked 'Mala again but I just had to. Next chapter is going to be amazing and I know you will hopefully like it. Until then, please drop a review! =D