This started yesterday morning when he started displaying very weird movements, which were slowly chipping away at the nerves of Megatron while he was at it.
This warranted another day locked up in quarantine, lest he hurt himself and others. IF they could catch him...
For starters he started taking random walks around the ship, ending up in strange locations all throughout and not remembering walking there in the first place!
One time he was busily welding injuries on the troopers, when suddenly he got the urge to run out the Medbay for no good reason and started storming down the hall! Even knocking down several other drones on his way to 'who knows where'. Once he managed to get control of his body again, he found himself having to walk all the way back.
All this kept repeating several times over in the middle of procedures of all kinds, which left poor Breakdown to finish the job up to the best of his abilities! It was as if there was an invisible force tugging at Knockout from all sides, and making it particularly hard for him to do his work, as well as getting caught to be shoved in the cell in the first place.
After he caught wind of this, Megatron had ordered him to get better control of his actions as soon as possible so they could move on to the next plan to lure out and capture Zucky, but kept finding his medic anywhere and everywhere but his post! Either personally, or through Soundwave finding out when Megatron ordered him to keep an optic on Knockout.
After so many attempts to control himself and failing to deliver, the guards managed to get Knockout locked up, as per Megatron's orders, but somehow; Primus only knows how, but he managed to escape his cell!
With Megatron promising to have their heads mounted on the walls of his throne room, the drones scrambled all over the Nemesis in search of Knockout. When they did find him though, this was met with some pretty creative resistance as the medic dished out some very primitive moves for a Cybertronian, but it got the job done!
He threw himself into the arm of one, knocking him over. Then he hopped onto the head of another, forcing the bot to collapse to the floor! Once that one was down, he went for Breakdown's shoulder. The blue boy having since finished his work in the Med bay, was ordered to come help out as some serious backup was required.
*Grunt* "Gotcha! Now please, just let yourself be locked up, Knocks...It's for your own good, and ours!" Breakdown tried reasoning with Knockout.
"I'm trying to, but it's like I'm being controlled somehow!" The Medic struggled to get his words out.
When Breakdown tried grabbing him off his shoulder pad to get him into the cell, Knockout crawled to his backstrut and clung on!
"Hey! What the?!" The blue bot exclaimed.
The red bot then climbed back up and hopped off his head. This went on and on; taking down the drones without meaning to, scampering and hopping from place to place like a certain monstrosity they all knew and hated...
With their poor chassis' aching because of a full sized Cybertronian jumping onto their shoulders as if he was a servo-sized fleshling, they finally were able to slap some cuffs on all of his extremities for good measure!
Dragging his sorry skid plate all the way to the heelstruts of their Lord Megatron, they tossed him at his peds and awaited further orders, half wishing it involved them kicking the living daylights out of the medic for putting them through all sorts of trouble!
"You deliberately disobeyed my orders again and again; making a mockery of my authority while you're at it...What do you have to say for yourself, Knockout?" Megatron asked.
"Anywhere but wherever you wanna take me, Jerkwad!" Knockout accidentally snapped in the face of his master. He was both surprised and fearful now that he saw Megatron's face contorting in the most horrible way she ever seen it do!
Megatron being just about ready to rip knockout's faceplate off, being aggravated further and further the more the red bot quoted Zucky instead of actually coherently answering for his earlier transgressions.
"Please Lord Megatron, it's not me! It's that Fleshling, she's behind my malfunctioning!" He begged the warlord for mercy.
"Oh really?! That same fleshling you've promised to hunt down, but have yet to bring to me? That Fleshling?!" Megatron seethed as he dragged the medic's chassis outside.
No matter how much he tried, poor Knockout ended up pissing his Master and Warlord off for the last time, and got kicked off the Nemesis by Megatron himself, only to land in the sea!
"Please...my Lord...SPARE MEEEEEEEE!'' With one swift and powerful kick, Knockout was sent flying off deck into the precarious depths below them.
Almost as quickly as he was kicked overboard, he landed into the ocean...the initial shock of the impact stunned him, which made him unable to transform into vehicle mode for quite a while!
"Thaaargh! Ugh..."The last thing he saw was the ship moving quickly away as he sank and his vision was distorted by the waves engulfing his form as he sank down. Once he had sunken to the bottom of the ocean, he woke back up hours later. Fishes zipping away from him as quickly as they could once he started showing signs of life.
["Huh? Where am I?"] The red bot sat up and felt soreness in his skid plates, backstrut, and helm. Seeing that he was at the bottom of the ocean, the events from earlier started coming back to him.
["Grrrr...that little Scraplet's gonna pay for this!"] He snarled as he attempted to transform, but couldn't.
["What the?"] *Tries to transform again but to no avail.
["SCRAP! The impact of the fall must have affected my T-cog."] He concluded after a quick troubleshooting scan of his systems to make sure he was alright.
["Curse Megatron and his Impulsiveness..."] The medic cursed inwardly as a school of fishes decided to swim across his vision. He swatted at them, but didn't manage to hit even one! Feeling defeated he settled with his current options. ["Well, not much I can do now, but *sigh* walk all the way to shore."]
After checking if his navigation system was still working properly, he had to then trudge through the ocean for quite a distance, for hours on end, before he'd recovered enough to assume vehicle mode and zoom the rest of the way out of the ocean.
Once he did reach land, he was covered in barnacles, seaweed, and beginning to rust in some small patches due to saltpeter and of course; soaking wet!
=See author's note=
He struggled a bit to climb up onto the beach, due to the sand being so soft and him sinking into it as if he was riding on quicksand. It took him a couple tries, but he managed it. There were several humans on the beach who witnessed the deplorable looking vehicle climb up from within the ocean onto dry land, which did absolutely nothing for his self confidence.
"What are you all looking at?!"Some people got up, grabbed their kids and bolted away, thinking it was some haunted vehicle.
He opened a car door just slightly to let out the water from within his cabin, which revealed that some fish have gotten trapped in there as well.
"Oh, for the love of Solus Prime!" He grumbled as he closed it back.
"Hey man, we were here first, okay? So, Chill..." Some stupidly brave beachgoer decided to talk back.
"Nobody asked you, Fleshling!" The Red car retorted.
"HEY! Who do you think you are?!" The human continued as he started banging on the windows trying to peer in through the tinted glass trying to spot the driver. "It's not our fault you trashed your glorified beancan..."
*Record scratch sound effect
The car suddenly transformed into a terribly aggravated, red creature from the black lagoon-looking monstrosity that loomed over him! The human screamed in terror as he desperately backpedaled for his life! Next thing he saw was it's arm transforming into a sawblade and the other into a drill as it chased him off the beach!
Several close calls later, the tiny human barely managed to escape, leaving Knockout picking seaweed, barnacles and whatever disgusting surprises he managed to find between his joints, besides the horribly uncomfortable beach sand! The car seats were drenched, so were the capetting and ceiling lining. He was pissed off to no end and fuming over his poor appearance and ruined paint job!
Regretting having woken up out of recharge that morning; he went for a long drive to get his mind off what had just happened.
Meanwhile...
Zucky looked around at the mess she made on her little adventure...
"Uhm...I really should clean this up...I hope the fragile things didn't get broken in the tussle." She said as she pulled a small box closer and started picking up objects.
"I shall help you stack them...some of these boxes look very heavy." Prime started stacking the boxes that weren't open and strewn about, and later helped Zucky pick up as well. He secretly hid the cube in his storage compartment while he was at it.
They managed to get the place as organized as possible, before heading back to the main area where Ratchet was met with a scuffed up looking dragon, perched upon Prime's shoulder.
"What in the Allspark... Happened?!" The medic cried.
"I was bored...So I went exploring and I found a Cube..." Zucky carefully explained.
"And here I was thinking; 'Well, Ratchet...you might go offline on the battlefield at an early stage of your functioning period. You're a field medic after all.' But Optimus, I'm afraid these children might be the death of this old bot for sure..." Ratchet couldn't believe how quickly Zucky got hurt again, not very long after he took the bandages off her.
"Don't be so Melodramatic, Ratchet. They're just bruises...at least I didn't get sliced open again. They're gonna hurt, but I'll be fine. Zucky reassured him.
Optimus just placed a servo on his Autobot friend's shoulder, gave him a supportive smile and placed Zucky back on the platform. Zucky dug out her shower things and went to get herself clean again.
Optimus having pitied Zucky's thirst for more excitement, thought of a way to circumvent in a safe manner for all of them. He still was uneasy about the fact that the decepticons might be targeting her, and while she was away, had Ratchet plant a small signature dampening device that surrounded the target with a barrier that only they got passed when tracking; into the collar she always wore. The medic made short work of the procedure and they placed it back on the sofa where Zucky left it.
He also remembered to explain the events that happened in the back storage area, especially the cube being drained, to Ratchet. The medic decided to look into it when he finished what he was doing.
After a while, she came back, put the collar back on and watched some TV, but this didn't help her much and she turned it off less than 15 minutes later. ["Face it old girl... You're still bored..."] She thought.
Optimus crouched next to the platform as Zucky sat there staring ahead. She looked at him when he got settled and silently lipped 'I AM SO BORED!' With exaggerated movements of arms and legs.
"I believe it would be wise to have a change of scenery for you." Optimus answered.
"*GASP* Really?!" Zucky flew off the sofa in excitement. She hovered in place and was struggling to contain herself.
"So long as the doctor agrees with this..." Prime looked over to Ratchet for an answer, but didn't find the medic at his workbench, but heard him typing on the computer and placing his servo on the pulling-lever of the groundbridge.
"Literally anywhere in the world, but here...you name it, I'll make it happen." The medic responded.
"I believe that is an affirmative..." Optimus cocked his Optical ridge and then Transformed. "However I meant to take the scenic route, if you don't mind..."
"I never doubted your leadership Prime, I'm not gonna start now." Ratchet deactivated the bridge and continued on his work. "I'll inform the others once they come back..."
"Thank you old friend..." Prime opened the door to his cabin. "Climb in."
Zucky didn't have to be told twice, she zipped right in and the seatbelts were secured.
"My only request is that you cover your eyes." Optimus said. "We don't know if Knockout is still able to look through your eyes... and we certainly don't want him to find our base."
"Okiedokie!" The dragon didn't care what measurements had to be taken for this trip to happen, so long as it happened! She needed to get some well needed sunlight, fresh air and exercise. The Prime drove to a different woodlands area, with enough cover for both of them to be able to move about safely.
"We have arrived." The Prime announced as he removed the belt and opened the door.
Zucky in turn removed her hands from her eyes and climbed out happily as she stretched out her limbs and wings, took a deep breath of fresh clean air and sighed in content.
"This feels so awesome, it's crazy!" She laughed and fell over chuckling.
Optimus got worried and transformed as quickly as he could, but failed to catch her.
"Are your legs failing you?" He asked.
"Relax, Big guy...I'm just so happy to be out here! I wish you could feel it, it's...it's amazing!" She tried to explain to the confused bot. "It's like this; we depend on our environment for survival, if we don't see sunlight for a very long time, or too less of it...or if we lack fresh air, we can get very sick and depressed."
"Hmmm..." Prime nodded.
"It kinda threw me off to suddenly be out here again, but I'll be fine. It's healthy for me, after all." The dragon finished.
Zucky took the opportunity to teach Optimus to play hide and go seek, as well as it serving as a good bonding experience for them both, as Optimus thought zucky to play cube as well.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Yes, I am aware that Barnacles take 6 months to grow and rust doesn't set in that quickly ^^; (Unless we're talking about cosmic rust)
It's just for comic relief XD
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