Chapter 39 - One Day - Arcee

Arcee rushed through the space bridge with the Elite Guard - armed and defensive. Smokescreen had been rogue and off the radar for about a month, only to suddenly call in an emergency? Something was very, very off.

And she was right. The crew quickly scanned the forest, and then set optics on the source of the transmission. Knockout didn't seem fully conscious, and had taken quite a beating, sprawled across the floor. A human girl lay next to him with her head on his arm, however she was unconscious and losing blood fast. What-?

" Hands up!" Prowl yelled, aiming his blaster. "Step away from the girl."

Knockout weakly raised his head to look at them, and dropped it back down again. "Oh, thank Primus. She needs a doctor."

"You're a doctor," Arcee cautiously said, slowly circling around him. She was trying to assess the situation before taking action.

Knockout rolled his optics. "You know what I mean."

The elite guard members quickly dove in, roughly dragging the girl away from him.

" Hey ," Knockout growled, attempting to sit up but keeling over in pain and laying back down again. "Be careful with her. And hurry up and find a doctor, I thought the Autobot's fabled 'Elite Guard' was supposed to be better than this!" He talked big words for a rogue ex-decepticon surrounded by half a dozen Elite Guard warriors.

Arcee finally walked over and aimed her blaster right down at his face. "Care to explain what's been going on?"

Knockout ignored the question, looking past Arcee. "What are you doing with her?"

Arcee turned around, and the Elite Guard member carrying the girl froze, confused. "Yeah… uh… what are we doing with her?"

"What do you think?" Arcee scolded. "Get her to…" Arcee paused, actually unsure of the next step. They couldn't just roll up to a hospital - and with the time it took to get there, she might not even make it by then.

"June," Knockout said quietly, looking up at the stars.

Arcee turned back to him. "What?"

"Call Ratchet, quick," Knockout looked at her with importance. "June's here. She knows how to treat humans. Rye actually went to her once before. And Ratchet has the tools."

This made Arcee even more confused, but she pinged commed Ratchet over nevertheless. "What is June and Ratchet doing here? Care to explain your story yet?"

Knockout laughed hollowly. "Hah, they're actually at the NASCAR stadium, if it makes it any better. And your favorite trio of kids. And Fowler. And um…" he trailed off, but she couldn't tell if he was hiding something or just woozy. "Yeah, that's it. Still a lot. Oh, and Smokescreen."

The curiosity was killing her, but for the moment she was overcome by a burning shame. Great. If the kids were with Ratchet, and Ratchet was coming over…

She didn't mean to ghost the kids, to never visit. None of the crew did. But they had to focus on rebuilding their world, and in turn let them focus on their Sector E training. But she now realized that isolating from them wasn't the right call, seeing the shenanigans they were up to.

"Okay, last warning Knockout," Arcee looked into his optics sternly. "You're a wanted criminal and have been off the radar for months. Explain ."

"Now? I'm…" Knockout loosely gestured to his own body. "Sort of incapacitated and need medical attention."

"Yes, now. I'm trying to gauge if you deserve medical attention at all. Honestly, I'm surprised you're not moaning about your paint job being ruined. Maybe you've changed more than I thought."

"Is that how you treat your prisoners?" Knockout smirked, then winced in pain. "Alright so, I visited Earth legally, went racing, saved this human girl Rylee from falling off a cliff, then I was like 'Hey what if we joined NASCAR?' and Miko and Raf and Jack were snooping in so they joined too, but of course this was all Miko's idea in the first place-"

"Okay, okay, just cut to right now." Arcee gestured to his missile wound, gun still in hand. "What caused that ? And her injuries?"

"Oh." Knockout glanced over at the smoking trees. "Yeah, that was Starscream."

"That's a load of scrap!" Prowl came bursting forward, brandishing his blaster. "Starscream died when the war ended." Knockout just sighed and rolled his optics again.

"Yeah… as excuses go, you could do a lot better." Arcee crossed her arms. "Really, Starscream? And why even lie about that?"

"I'm -" Knockout finally sat up, groaning in pain. "I'm not lying! He was back, and he was mad , and he flung her into a tree, and I got missile'd."

"Then how is he alive? And where is he now?" Prowl frowned at him, speaking in a hostile tone. "Why did he magically disappear when we arrived? And how come the emergency call was sent from a wristband in her possession, yet now she's conveniently unconscious to not corroborate your story?"

Knockout opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by two approaching cars, packed with familiar faces.

"What in Primus happened here?" Ratchet quickly braked, kicking his passengers out and transforming. He bent over the girl, and June Darby rushed over as well. "In the middle of the race I see Knockout's about to win, but then he breaks out of the arena followed by an EMP, and now they're both inches from death?"

"Knockout," June said sternly. "What happened to Rylee?" She started inspecting the unconscious girl - the 'Rylee'. "On the surface level I see she's lost some blood - the head wound I patched up not too long ago reopened." She inspected her more. "Ratchet, hand me something to stop the bleeding. Then I'll need some gauze and an emergency stitches kit." She then side-eyed him. "Why does this stuff keep happening with you?"

"It was Starscream," Knockout huffed. "Check her… agh, I don't know human anatomy. Middle area. He flung her into a tree and she fell a great distance. I-" he faltered, unusually emotional. She'd never seen him like this, but then again she never really knew him. "I had thought she died." He looked back at the stars. "She saved me by calling the Elite Guard. Starscream would've killed both of us."

Prowl was crossing his arms. "I don't believe this for one second. We don't have any evidence pointing to Starscream potentially being alive." After a heavy silence, he finally sighed. "Either way, I'll send a few guards to check the perimeter."

Arcee finally looked away from Knockout to see the trio of kids staring at her, but most prominently was Jack - who looked both happy and hurt.

She knelt down in front of them. "What was this, a cry for attention? I thought you were better than this." Ouch, that was a harsh thing to say at a first reunion.

All three of them started talking at once. "No, I-"

Arcee raised a hand. "Save it." They all went quiet, looking slightly heartbroken. "I'm sorry. I… should've visited earlier. Made time for you guys. We just thought it would be easier for everyone if we… if we just…" Arcee looked down at the floor.

Jack laid a hand on her foot, and she looked down at him. "It's alright," Jack admitted. "I understand you all have a bunch of responsibilities and… maybe we shouldn't have done this. But as long as Rylee pulls through, I wouldn't regret it one bit. Because I know she would do it all again as well."

Arcee slightly smiled, looking down at their sparkwarming grins. She missed them all so much, she didn't even realize. "Yeah, yeah, alright." she playfully rolled her eyes at them. "I need to hear this grand story sometime. You're all still in big trouble though."

Smokescreen timidly walked over, with a sheepish grin. "Hii Arcee…"

Arcee put her hands on her hips. "Smokescreen? Care to explain the meaning of all this? We send you out to bring back Knockout and you end up joining him?"

"It's not his fault!" Raf quickly interjected.

"Yeah! We kidnapped him!" Miko smirked. "And stole his stuff. Because he accidentally walked in on us all."

"Yeah," Jack began. "Um, we kind of forced him to do this -"

"No, it's okay," Smokescreen cut them off. "I take full responsibility." He lowered his head. "I mean yes, I did get kidnapped by them. But then I joined their squad on my own free will. And then I told them to cover for me by saying that it wasn't my fault but… it was. I made my choice." He looked back up at her, eyes full of sympathy. "I just hope you're not too harsh on me."

Arcee just crossed her arms and grunted, then turned to Ratchet. "And you ? Ratchet, honestly, what were you thinking?"

"Hey," Ratchet raised a hand, standing up face her. "Not my fault you all decided to ghost them. The kids needed some fun, something like old times before they're forced to pack up their lives and go off to training. And you and Bulkhead and Bee refused to visit so… I suppose Knockout had to do." Arcee was taken aback, speechless for a second. "And I don't blame you, I don't," Ratchet continued. "You're busy rebuilding Cybertron. And soon, I will be too. But that had me feeling even worse - that I would be abandoning them as well. And if I busted them, I would've stopped the one last fun thing they had."

Arcee gaped. "But Ratchet-"

"Look," he continued. "I didn't know what Knockout was up to until he was already halfway through to finals. And I didn't reveal to them that I knew until yesterday. Could I have called the Elite Guard? Yes. But I didn't. So punish me in whatever way you see fit." He stood up straight. "With or without me, they would've done the race anyways. I was just there to make sure our secret - and everyone involved - was safe ." He turned to Rylee somberly. "Obviously, I failed."

"She'll make it," June nodded, her clothes now stained. "But I'm afraid she may be paralyzed from the waist down. We'll have to see when she wakes up." She removed her gloves, placing them in a bag. "On an equally important note, you all need to get out of here. Like, now . I'm surprised this place isn't swarming with people already, the EMP must have lasted longer than I anticipated. But any moment now people will be here. I mean, this sort of is a big disturbance on live tv."

Knockout looked at her, weary but with hope. "Who won the race?"

"Well…" June tapped her nails on the med box. "Nobody, actually. After the EMP struck, the game was paused. They've probably postponed it to another day. But it'll be a race you won't be in… which'll make this whole ordeal even more of a mystery."

Knockout looked away glumly, then finally back at her. "That's alright. I'm not going to put Rylee in any more danger."

June stood there for a moment, and then finally smiled. "No matter the results, trophy or not… I know everyone knows the true winner of the championship." She nodded at him. "Pretty sure soon enough your story will become so popular it'll become synonymous with 'NASCAR'." Knockout returned her smile.

At that moment, blinding headlights in the distance appeared. Everyone tensed up - the vehicle was too far to see them, but was steadily approaching.

"You're right, we have to go. Crosscut, Roadfire, carry him to the space bridge. I say we have about a minute until they're here, so we have to be out of here by then."

Ratchet nodded, and transformed. "Go. I'll stay here with the rest of the humans, pretend to be part of the search party. Say we went looking out of the kindness of our sparks and found her here unconscious and tried to patch her up, since technically we are off-duty medical experts. Well, and her kids. And a federal agent, but for this situation we might as well call him her boyfriend." June raised her eyes at that, and Fowler nervously scratched the back of his neck.

Smokescreen nodded, standing up. "Alright." He turned to the trio of kids and playfully saluted. "It was fun being here. Hope to see ya all again soon!" He then stepped backwards through the space bridge - to Cybertron lightyears away in an instant.

Two Elite Guard members lifted up Knockout, who shakily managed to get on his feet with help. He reluctantly walked with them, before stopping right in front of the space bridge.

"Wait!" Knockout tried to turn, but the guards blocked his path. "I - I at least need to say bye to Rylee! I promised!"

Arcee turned him back to the space bridge. "She's unconscious, and we have to go. Get moving." She addressed him rigidly. But when she finally met his optics, the look of utter loss begrudgingly somewhat melted her cold spark. "I'm sorry," she finally said quietly. "It's unlikely you'll see her again. But you might. One day."

Knockout looked up at her with a hopeless smile. "One day."

They looked back at those they were leaving behind. Rylee on a stretcher, sleeping pleasantly. Fowler and June standing side-by-side. The kids, packed in Ratchet's trunk, craning their heads out the side to get a proper goodbye - their eyes glistening once more. It was almost as bad as leaving them the first time. This… feeling is why she'd been so reluctant to visit again. But she will. And she'll keep visiting until not a tear is shed from her departure. Isolating from those you love won't make tough moments easier. You have to face them head-on, each and every time. Only then will pain subside and love grow.

She nodded at her family with a pained somber smile, and quickly turned. And through the portal they went, leaving behind the world they loved so much.