Chapter 7

Sucker-punched!

"Optimus?!"

Stripes was overjoyed when he saw the Autobot leader.

"You're back? All right! This is great news! I should go get the others! Did you find your…"

Before Stripes could finish, he saw Optimus swing his fist straight at his face plates!

The impact was so great, it crashed his processors!

# # # # #

"Stripes! Stripes! Hello, Wake up, Man!"

Stripe's vision was swirling as his systems started, a jumble of blurred shapes and bright lights in his vision as he heard Cade, Hound, and Jack's voices. Warning messages popped up like no tomorrow as his optics attempted to re-calibrate themselves to correct the distorted images. One question kept looping through his processors:

What in the name of Primus just happened?

"Stripes, how many fingers am I holding up?" Cade asked, holding up his hand with five fingers.

"...Seventeen… There is… five of you, and each of you is holding seventeen…" Stripes said, woozy. "Ugh… Could someone stop this carnival ride? Not to mention the sound of the tuning forks…? Seriously, besides your voices, the only other thing I can hear right now is a high-pitched whine..."

Hound scanned Stripes' Helm.

"By Primus, whatever hit him last night sure did leave a dent. He's lucky the frame around his processors held, because his helm has a pretty good-sized crack right now. Seriously, it's the size of the San Andreas..."

"What… Since last night?" Stripes asked, still out of it.

"You've been out-cold for two days." Jack said.

"Technically, one day, eighteen hours, twenty-seven minutes, and..." Drift started.

"I get it." Stripes growled, one hand gripping his helm. "Just stop this freakin' headache..."

"So what happened?" Cade asked, turning to Jack. "I got woke up at two in the morning last night to find one of the Autobots knocked flat on his back, out cold with a fault-sized crack in his head! I want you to be straight with me, Rourke: Who, or what did this to him?"

Jack sighed.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you..."

"Then you'd better start." Hound said.

Jack groaned, and started explaining.