Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers. Only the plot and OCs.
Look! I got a chapter done! ^-^ Enjoy!
Chapter 23
He ran.
He didn't stop to think, he didn't stop to hear the snarling of his family he left behind, he didn't even stop to care about the coming sounds of blaster shots ringing out behind him in tune with Lockdown's shouting over the ship speakers.
He just ran.
Because the pack of snarling hounds snapping furiously at his heels was far scarier at that moment then some creepy mech with a blaster. No matter how much that look in his optics made Bee's spark shiver.
He had needed to get Lockdown's attention, hadn't he?
Well, here it was.
"Yes," Star snapped through his spark, that deep voice echoing around his pounding chamber in a way that nearly made him stumble. "You've got their attention, and they want to kill you. Or worse. Congratulations. Now will you please duck?"
Duck, why?
Bee's doorwings quivered and he hit the cold, wet, metal floor just as a burning round slammed into the wall where his head had just been.
"Pit."
"That's why." Star huffed. "Now, up!"
Bee decided it was best to stop asking questions to the crazy voice inside his spark as he scrambled to his feet again.
"Probably for the best."
Desperately trying to get a grip on the slippery floor, he just managed to shove himself up as the crashing of a pack of hounds made it up the stairs behind him. He threw a glance over his shoulder catching sight of the big flier laughing as he topped the stairs, smoking blaster still raised, the barrel charging with another round.
It was the hounds launching forward that had him snapping into action again though. Those clamping jaws full of razor sharp fangs and a bite that would shred far more then armor. Burning red, black, and yellow optics searing with the king of fury that only trained cruelty brought.
Hungry, hateful, and far too smart.
No.
That big mech was far from his biggest problem.
The look in his optics was scary, it made Bee's spark shiver in a wrong kind of way he didn't know how to define, but the hounds were going to catch him far before that big mech did.
Feet under him in another panting breath, he bolted back down the hall he'd snuck through before. Running as fast as his legs could carry him while his hand whipped down to the glittering black knife in his subspace. Grasping it tight as he flipped it around. Skidding around another corner, ducking under a fallen pipe, and slashing out with the dark blade as he came up again.
The resulting shower of hissing steam and wet smelt like drive fuel caused one of the wolves closest to him to let a scream of agony. Crashing sideways out the scalding black fluid into a huddled ball of whimpering, burnt protoform and plating.
Bee didn't want to glance back. He knew better. Really, he did. He was running for his life here, looking back was only going to slow him down.
He knew that.
Both in processor and in spark.
He knew it.
But that screaming was horrible.
Audio piercing, grating, and stabbing him deep in the chest.
Skidding through a tangle of wires and pipes, choking on the hot air from the severed pipe, he had to shove himself through the tangle of falling mess that before he had snuck through with little trouble. It was a little harder when he was trying not to get ate.
Rushing and all that.
He figured he couldn't be blamed for getting a wire tangled around his ankle and nearly busting his aft. Well, apart from the fact that if he fell he'd get eaten.
That, and glancing back.
Optics stretching wide as he paused there on the other side of the mess he had made. Bright blue optics spiraling as they took in the crumbled, burning wolf. Screaming just outside the flow of burning fuel he had sliced down to spill over the hallway. The other hounds and wolves had stalled at the sound and sight of their packmate's pain. Snarling on the other side of the burning liquid in a collection of darting optics and glittering fangs.
Bee glanced over them.
Vents pulling hard and spark pounding. Watching them hiss through the heat that they couldn't pass.
He looked down again.
Watching the wolf that had been closest to him quiver there on the ground, whimpering and whining, plating and protoform melting as the fuel slid down it.
A blaster shot went off.
Bee jerked back, falling deeper into the wires and pipes, and the wolf went quiet.
Dead.
Dead, with a burning blaster hole through its head. The whole pack jerking away from the big purple filer as he appeared on the other side of the burning pipes.
"Oh, little mouse! Come back, little mouse! Cutting the pipes is cheating!"
"Keep going. Now."
Twisting back through the wires and pipes he ran on. Shaking off the lingering sounds of that screaming wolf before the flier shot him. Guilt and a heavy feeling he wasn't sure what was in his tanks making him glance back again and again even while he ran.
Dodging back through the halls he had snuck through before. Hearing the shouting over the ship's speaker systems. The running and shouting of Lockdown's crew surging about the ship.
Well, he had wanted their attention, and he surly had it now.
Problem was, what the pit did he knew now that he had it?
The young mech ran on.
Retracing his steps as best he could with the panic pounding in his chest. Ironhide was reaching through the bond. Just as Optimus, and Jazz, and Ratchet, and the twins were doing. But Star shoved them out.
Slamming up Bee's walls while the mechling ran. Trembling as he skidded around corners and upstairs. Knife dripping in black fuel as he scrambled up another set of stairs. Panting, scared, but knowing he had to run. Knowing he had to keep them all occupied.
If he could give Rider, Hammer, and Smokey time then they could get help. They could get them out.
He just had to keep Lockdown from leaving the planet.
Chasing Bee around the ship would last for a bit, but it wouldn't last long. Somewhere deep in Bee's spark he knew that. He knew Lockdown wouldn't play hide and seek. He didn't play other's games.
The truth had been written quite clearly in those dark green optics.
No.
Running wouldn't work for long. There were simply too many, and Lockdown was too proud to hunt him on his own ship.
Then, suddenly, he skidded to a stop.
Nearly tripping over his own peds as a thought slammed him to a stop. Right there in the middle of an empty hallway somewhere near the center of the ship.
The shouting over the comms fading out along side the pounding of feet on metal coming after them.
"That's it." He whispered, optics widening as he suddenly twisted around. "That's it!"
It was crazy, yeah, but it might actually work.
"Grand," Star's voice drawled through his shivering spark. "Would you like to share your crazy plan with the rest of the class? Or do you just want to stand here until they shoot you? Because they will shoot you, and Lockdown will hang your hide on the wall to mock your family."
Bee shuddered with the sudden visual that got shoved through his spark up to his mind's optics. "Eww! I did not need that picture, Star!"
Twisting away from both the fall he was facing and the image that was getting burned into his optics, he darted for a hall off to the left. He wasn't pretty sure this one looped back to the control room.
Okay, eight-five percent sure.
"Of what?" Star hissed at him.
"His Pride." Bee panted out, dodging around a broken stairwell. Latching hold of a railing and vaulting himself up by seer speed and determination alone.
Jazz would be proud of him for that move.
The thought made him grin despite himself.
Landing with a thud on another cat walk, he darted down one of the darker halls as the sound of barking, snarling, and pounding feet echoed up form the pathway just below him.
Well, sounds like the canines got around the pipe. Probably meant that big mech did do.
Wonderful.
"What about the old bastard's pride!?" Star shouted, apparently not liking how frantic Bumblebee's thoughts were rolling.
The young mech didn't know it, but the faster the thought the harder it was for Star to keep up with. Especially when he was doing more wild feeling chasing then anything else.
"That's how I beat him!" Bee shouted back, even if all it did was echo around him and get a blaster shot fired up from a stair well below. Biting back a yelp at the searing round of plasma that went flying up through the floor and nearly nailing him in the hip.
Big bastard was a good shot.
Throwing himself forward again, trying his best to ignore the rest of Star's shouting and grumbling, he ran as fast as his short legs would carry him.
He was almost there.
Two more stairwells and hall, then he'd be back at the door. He was sure of it.
He would have made it just fine too, had that big purple flyer not shot the creaking cat walk out from under his feet.
The high pitch squeal he let out as he suddenly went plummeting down three layers of ship echoed all around the miles and miles of halls and floors through the ship. Bee wouldn't know until much later that his family heard it down in their cells. He wouldn't know until he saw the burn marks on Hide's armor or that Jazz had several broken claws just what they had done trying to get out of their cages at the sound of it either.
Right then, all he knew was that suddenly he was falling. Limbs wind milling before a sudden flash of—think—jarred through him and he tucked himself in tight. The smaller he was, the more tightly he pulled his limbs, the less damage he could take when he finally hit the ground.
It still wasn't a nice experience though.
There was a sudden flash of jarring pain as he stuck metal and then everything went black.
Groaning, head pounding and aching in more places then he knew he had, Bumblebee slowly blinked his optics open.
In all honesty, he was a little bit surprised to find himself blinking up into the snarling muzzle of a wire-wolf snapping its jaws down at him.
He felt pretty justified in screaming and jerking backwards when it registered though.
"Get up, you foolish youngling!" Star's fear filled voice wasn't really helping the pounding in his head, but it did do the job of snapping Bumblebee into action.
Throwing his weight to the side he rolled to his peds with a gasping shout. Optics widening as the scrambled backwards. Watching as the big grey wolf snapped its jaws shut on open air where his neck had just been.
The resulting snarl had him scrambling backward another several yards until he smacked into a piece of the catwalk that had come down with him. Tripping backward with the sudden jarring stop he went cartwheeling back over it.
Landing in a heap of aching doorwings and a smarting head he didn't even have a moment to process the amount of error messages literally singing through his processor when the big grey wolf came leaping after him.
"Slag!"
Rolling again, he came to his feet in a wobbly and shaking tumble, but having sense enough to keep running. The scrambling wolf snarled, snapping at his feet as he tossed himself up a pile of crumbled metal and broken pipes. Bits and scrap of knocked down from where the catwalk had come crashing down to one of the main floors of the ship belly.
"Knife," Star shouted through his spark. "Find your knife."
Knife. Bee panted, climbing a hill of broken stairs hearing the wolf chasing after him. Where is the damn dagger?
Leaping off the other side he rolled the last bit, tucking his doorwings even if they were too numb for him to feel. Coming back up with another stumble to cast his gaze around the chaos of the mess that had become of this section of the shop.
Sparking wires, steaming billowing like fog from busted pipes and busted pressure lines, the floor beneath his feet was stick with fuel and energon. The sudden question of what answered rather gruesomely when he stumbled down the hill of metal and tripped over a dead hound.
He jumped the frame, gaze still flicking around in search of his dagger. Audios turned up and back to the sounds of the wolf hurrying after him. Tripping over another frame which turned out to be a grey with death mech and not a hound.
Shaking off the tingle of nausea that went up the back of his throat as he realized that big flyer did more than just shot him down. He killed half the pack, if the amount of scattered frames was anything to go off of. Also quite a few mechs that had been closer to snatching Bee then he thought.
He tuned it all out.
Only allowing himself to look, then move on, as he ran through the burning steam and broken metal. Lockdown had stopped shouting over the ship's comms, but the wolf snarling on his heels was more than enough incentive for him to be finding his knife and finding it now.
He skidded around another pile of broken metal and got crashed into by a blur of white.
The shout that broke through his vocal processor was part shock and part in pain as long, jagged fangs clamped down on his arm. Crashing onto his back, he rolled on instinct. Arm on fire by the jaws shredding through plating and protoform to the struts underneath. The heavy weight crashed into him with scrambling claws not making his desperate flip any easier.
But Sides' voice was echoing through his memory and he knew he had to get up.
"They pin you, you're dead. That's it, Half Pint. No other way about it. You hit the ground, they keep you there, that's it. You're two small to wiggle your way up again with most cases. So. You. Never. Let. Them. Pin. You. Get up, and get up fast. I don't care if you have to rip an arm off to get back on your feet. You do it. Better an arm then your spark."
Get up. He shouted to himself, trying to roll through the weight of the hound shredding into his abdomen armor and slicing his arm in splashes of energon. Get up! Get up! Get up!
A sudden shift in the pile of slag he'd landed in and they were rolling. The hound letting out a yelp of shock at the sudden tip of movement they were both in. Those razor filled jaws parting just enough that Bee yanked his arm back—losing a good portion of protoform and plating with it, not to mention a shower of energon—and kicked out with his foot.
The hound when tumbling away from him as he went the other way. Crashing head over aft for what felt like forever before he finally hit the solid ship floor again.
A bolt of agony went through his neural net as he caught himself on his bad arm. Gritting his teeth through the flare of pain, he pushed himself back up. Already tripping over his feet as he shot out back through the wreckage.
Because there!
Laying in a pile of scrap, was his glittering black dagger.
Bolting for it, he somehow managed to dodge the blur of white that tossed itself at him again. Ducking down when Star sent a hot pulse of warning through his chest.
Got it!
Spinning around, hilt grasped firmly in hand, he twisted just in time to come face to face with the snarling white static-hound. Sharp plating standing on in with a bristle that made the huge mech hound look even bigger then he already was. Strange, burning red optics searing against the white backdrop of its plating and protoform. Long tail lashing behind it, long sharp audios pinned to its helm, and narrow jaw parted in a wicked snarl stained blue with his energon.
Baby blue optics narrowed back to that burning red.
His dominate arm was shredded, leaking, and felt like it was about to fall off, but he clutched the hilt in his hand all the same. Knowing he had a better shot with that arm bum then he did with his other.
Damn, he really was going to have to do what Jazz said and learn how to use his other hand better.
Right now, though, he was going to have to survive that hungry look of anger glowing back at him from boiling red optics.
Instinctively, for the second time in his life, his battlemask snapped into place.
And the white hound sprung at him.
Bee threw himself left. Bringing the blade up to swipe down at the snapping jaws that lunged past him. He grazed that strange white plating along the side for the effort. Not very deep, but enough that a string of blue followed his blade as he swirled away.
However, he didn't have time to feel bad about the surge of pain he suddenly picked up through his field—wait, he could feel this hound!—when a blob of grey was suddenly throwing itself at him from the right.
Tripping over a pile of leaking pipes he barely managed to swipe out at the wolf along its back. Earning a wicked snarl as the large canid sprung away. Shaking its bristled plating and baring its fangs as he circled around him. Joined a breath later by the growling white hound. The two of them closing the noose far quicker then Bee could work a way out of it as they circled closer and closer to him.
He knew the only reason he was still breathing was the knife in his hand that had hit them both. He also knew, that eventually they would figure out he couldn't stab both of them at the same time.
It was only a matter of nanos he had to work with here.
Wire-wolves and static-hounds didn't normally hunt together, but there was nothing normal about that pack that had been sent after him. This was a pack of hungry hounds trained and abused into cruelty. Into snarling jaws and slashing claws that would eat him just as fast as they would kill him. He could feel it in the hatred and the resentment that curled around them.
They wanted to hurt him.
Not because they were bad, but because they were hungry. Because they feared what would happen to them should they not catch what they were sent after.
It was hard to keep his trembling arm held up with his dagger ready when he knew that. Even if he knew they didn't care if he felt sorry for them. They'd kill him either way.
"Kill or be killed, Young Spark." Star's voice drifted in again, sounding far sadder and much more tired then it ever had before. "Such is the price of Life."
Something in Bee's chest tingled at the words. Something he wasn't sure what was, but made him tighten his grip around dagger in his hand.
He still didn't want to hurt them.
"Do you want to ever go home?" Star huffed at him.
His spark tightened. Yes.
"Then fight."
The grey wolf lunged, apparently not interested in working with the big white hound at its side. It would be the last mistake the canid made.
The whole weight of the wolf came flying forward. All parted fang and sharp claws.
Bee braced for it, swung up the knife, and let himself roll when the weight crashed into him. A shower of energon and a horrible weight slamming into him before the roll took them over in a flip.
Kicking out and taking the going limp weight up and over him while he shoved himself back up. Yanking back his slippering knife with an awful rip, the young yellow mechling stumbled back to watch the still grey lump of dead metal slump onto the floor before him.
Panting as he yanked his gaze back up. Refusing to focus on the hot gush of energon sliding sticky down his arm from the blade in his white knuckle grip. He refused to focus on the jagged hole he'd torn through a now death grey chest.
He refused to let the sick in the back of his tanks raise.
He couldn't.
The shaking in his hand while he brought the knife up again distracted him. Wide blue optics darting back up to find the big white hound snarled there where he still was.
Optics narrowing behind his mask, Bee forced a growl out back at him. "Well come on then!"
The hound leapt, claws extended and fangs flashing. Bee dove under the jump. Rolling down under the spring of movement. Coming back up with a slash as the hound sored over him. Barely clipping the hound on one leg before they both landed and came back up. The white hound spinning around with a growl while Bee shoved himself back to his feet.
The blade still glittering before him. The energon dripping down the black blade pausing the ruffled canid as it gleamed there between them.
White protoform peeled back over jagged grey fangs.
Bee narrowed his optics under his mask. "I'm waiting."
A wicked snarl and another spring. This time, Bee didn't dodge it. Throwing himself forward he brought the dagger around in a hard slash. Meeting the hound halfway through his leap and sending them both crashing into the ground with a hard bang.
Claws dug in, fangs snapped, and Bee slammed his knife through plating again and again. Energon splashing around them while the mechling kicked out once again. Managing to lever enough weight up to toss the hound from him once more.
White plating now streaked in energon screeching as it went sliding across the cluttered, sticky floor. The hound spinning itself around with a pained snarl while Bee struggled back to his feet.
His right arm ached.
Plating ripped and torn. Wires sparking and protoform wretched. He knew he'd see struts and joints should he bother to look down at it, but he had more sense then that. So, he did his best to ignore it. Canceling out the symphony of error pings coming from his arm, his slashed up chest, and his left hip joint now. He tightened his trembling fingers around his dagger.
Jaw set, optics narrowed, glaring across the space that had opened back up between, Bee tracked the damage he had done.
Energon slid steadily down the hounds left flank. The large creature favored its right back leg where it looked like Bee had actually managed to get it in a major gear joint. The wary look now burning in those red optics proved it to be true.
See, I can fight back. I will fight back.
The feel curled around in his spark, pressing outward in a flex on his field before he even really knew he was doing in. Being raised silently communicating with a pair of hounds would do that, he supposed.
He didn't expect to feel the hound's field flex back at him in an angry snort. "Fight like a pup."
Bee's optic ridges shot up.
It was all he could do to keep from dropping his knife. His jaw going slack for a moment in a way that made the ruffled up hound snort again. This time in amusement.
Jaw snapping back shut, Bee glared across the space between them. "You can understand me?"
"Should be asking you that question." The hound shot right back. "Never been answered before. Prey shouldn't speak back."
Bee's doorwings hiked up high behind his back. "I'm not prey! I'm a bot!"
That long white tail lashing out behind him as the hound let his audios pull up and flick in amusement. "See no difference. Prey runs. You run. Told to hunt."
"And that got your pack killed."
He snarled. "I have no pack."
Oh.
Well.
So the hound had no loyalty to his masters or the rest of the canines. Which meant it really was just fear and pain that drove the mech hound to obey. A lifetime of being taught to be angry.
It showed in the snarl in his chest and the gleam in his optics. There was a counterbalance to the hound though. Proof of that was that the mech hound bothered to talk. He could have leapt the distance between them again. He could be trying to tear Bee apart right now, again.
It was more then the knife in Bee's hand and the fact that he'd already killed one of them that kept the growing hound where he was. One very simple one.
Animals didn't hide emotions like bots did.
They had no need for it.
It was why Scout and Echo were so easy for Bee to understand so long ago.
This hound was no different. His anger and fear of failure was plain on the surface of his static filled energy field. However, so was his curiosity.
"Curiosity is a dangerous thing, Young Spark." Star's voice drifted in over the prickling of Bee's and the hound's field. Somehow, the young yellow mech thought the hound might have been able to sense his friend's presence.
Maybe.
If the way his plating ruffled and he snapped his gaze around was anything to go by, at least.
"Not always." Bee shot back, the knife held by his aching arm growing heavier by the moment.
"I think you'd find there are quite a few races with sayings about that." Star snarked right back. "Including our own. Measure your mind, Young Spark. You only get the one to gamble with."
Gambling.
Well now, wasn't that a good way to put the slowly forming idea in the back of Bee's mind?
"Think it would work?" Bee muttered, watching the hound's plating rustle even pricklier as Star's voice kept drifting through Bee's spark.
Star was quiet for a long moment after that, then, quietly. "I think you've long since grown past heeding mind over spark. As is Life's way."
Yep.
So.
"I'm Bee." He offered the words out loud in stead of through his field and spark. Answering both Star and drawing the albino hound's focus back to him.
Those tall, pointed audios twitched in time with the long whip tail behind him.
"Oh come on," Bee pressed, a smile growing up his lips when the hound had yet to thrown himself at him again. "You know you wanna know. Not every orn you actually find somebot that can talk back."
"Nothing but an uppity pup." Lips peeled back over long razor fangs. "Don't know your place."
Bee scoffed, flexing his doorwings behind him. "I can make you leak easy enough."
The hound snarled.
Bee glared right back. For he knew all too well how it was rank worked in the world of static hounds. It was about strength, but it was also about mind. The one that could win the fight by brains instead of brawn had just as good a shot of leading the back as the hardest hitting among them.
Bee didn't need to be stronger then this hound to hold his curiosity, but he did need to be able to prove he could fight. Both with mind and muscle.
"You know I can." He flexed the knife in his hand, trying to ignore the flickers of pain it sent through his neural net. "So how about we stop snarling at each other? I can get you out of here."
The hound growled even lower.
"You don't have to obey this glitch."
"Oh but he does!" A dark chuckle sounded behind and before Bee could even prickle and swing around he was backhanded with the force of a freight train. And that was before the shock of another explosion rocked through the belly of the ship.
Bee hardly noticed the splashes of new fire that sparked around his spinning vison. The stinging of broken struts and plating was a little too pressing on his processor. Slowly trying to pick himself up from the slump in busted metal that he found himself in. Head a messy pool of pain and rattled processor he stumbled his way back to his feet just in time to let out a startled yelp and throw himself to the left of a plasma blast.
"Pay attention, Young Spark!" Star hissed at him, tugging his mind hard to the right. Bee went without even meaning too, hardly managing to get out of the way next blast that came his way.
"Stop running, pretty little mouse! It's hard to hit you!"
Oh wonderful. Creepy purple flier.
Yay.
Bumblebee tossed himself over another pile of rumble. Rolling back upright and slashing with his knife to bring a hanging tangle of pipes and wires down behind him.
"This creep just won't go away!" He panted, dodging around another plasma shot sent after him.
"Creeps tend to do that." Star drawled.
"I don't need your input!"
"Oh, well then, I suppose you don't want me to tell you to duck?" A sharp downward tug and Bee threw himself flat over a torn pipe as another shot went over his head.
A hysterical laugh tore its way out of Bee's throat at the smug filling that came after that.
"Tell me something," Bee snarled, shoving himself back to his feet and making a mad dash for what was left of a door near the other end of the ship belly. "Are disembodied voices in my spark supposed to be smug sarcastic bastards?"
"You haven't even begun to see how much of a glitch I can be, mechling."
There was a hint of laughter in that statement, and if Bee wasn't currently running for his life from a creepy pervert he would probably pause to marvel that fact. Star wasn't normally humorous. That is, if disembodied voices could do something normal.
Then again, he very rarely showed up in times that Bee wasn't being chased, threatened, or almost dying.
"It's happening so much, I've decided that laughing at it is the only manner in which to remain sane."
"You're a smart aft is what you are." Bee shouted which turned into a yelp as the purple flier suddenly crashed down before him again—bastard can fly after all, should have thought of that—forcing Bee to dart around another catwalk that had fallen from the sky when things blew up.
"Ah, so the mechling can learn."
"Aft." Bee grumbled back, breathing in pants while he scrambled up another bank of scrap metal and piping. Doing his best to tune out the eerie laughter following after him.
"Come back, little mouse! I want to shoot you!"
"All the more reason to stay away from you!" Bee yelled, mostly to himself, but who knows, maybe big creepy would listen?
He doubted it, but maybe.
Another explosion rocking through the ship knocked him flat on his face once more. Sharp bits of metal and spites of fire splashing out over the burning ship belly once more. Something told him Lockdown was not going to be pleased about the inferno that was quickly eating up the middle of his ship because one big creep had spectacularly bad—or good depending on how you looked at it—aim. Something also told him he was going to be blamed for it should the big bounty hunter catch him.
Yeah.
Best to not get caught.
"For far more reason then just that." Star grumbled, twinging him on the left side of his spark to get him back on his feet and darting to the side when a huge piece of catwalk came crashing down from above. "I wasn't joking about the skinning thing."
"That's so messed up." Bee hissed, taking off at a run once more.
"Lockdown is messed up. Get use to it." Star shot back at him. "It takes a very special kind of evil to sell out your own kind to alien markets. For more then just slavery."
"There is more?" Bee asked with a quick flash of horror curling up his spark.
"Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer too, Young Spark." Star shot back at him, all his humor gone. "I doubt you want to know the horrors of the galaxy outside your own just yet."
No, he was probably right about that.
"How about for now, we just get out of this house of horrors alive. Then I'll tell you about the Vixicob's taste for protoform."
Bee's spark stuttered, tanks twisting deep in his gut. "Wait . . . you mean . . . taste as in—"
"Yes." Star rumbled. "Now jump."
Bee didn't even pause to question the instruction. Coiling his muscle cabling instead, and flinging himself up. It saved him from the plasma blast shot at his legs. But it didn't help much when that same blast caught in a pool of oil and fuel seeping from a busted pipe that had crashed down from overhead.
That resulting boom sent not just him flying, but a blur of white that had appeared near his side a moment before.
He wasn't lucky enough to blackout for this hard hit. White noise, searing pain, and crunching metal all came full force as he went crashing into who knew what with fire licking up his back. He might have screamed, he wasn't sure. Over the explosion induced white noise filling his head it was hard to tell much of anything.
All he knew was that after an unknown amount of time the world was spinning, everything hurt, and he was literally on fire.
Then, of course, instinct kicked back in and he went scrambling back to his aching feet swatting franticly at his arms and legs to try and put out the fire licking at him. He managed about thirty nanos of that before the real pain kicked in and his knees buckled.
It saved his life.
He hit the ground just as long, jagged purple claws slashed over his head. Yelping he pitched himself to the side. Dodging to the right, nearly falling down another massive tear in the ship belly that this last explosion. Bits of pipe and metal, made sharp by explosion and fire, jabbed her and there in jagged points. Crushed and crumbled in shredded bits of sparking wire and leaking fuel. And under a good half of all that busted pipe and sharp metal, lay the now broken and leaking white hound.
For half a nano, Bee's spark froze up as he flung himself over the hole to land on the other side away from the flier.
"Let it go." Star hissed. "More important problems right now."
Bee's chest felt tight, but he did as he was told. For the next moment, thinking about much more then ducking was more luxury then he had.
The big purple mech came after him. Laughing a note that made his protoform crawl as he landed. Tripping about himself, tightening his grip on the dagger he had held onto, looking up just in time to duck again. Burning red optics and slashing claws.
"Hello, little mouse!" The flier sang, plasma rifle charged, and eerie smile in place. "Found you!"
Bee ducked again.
The shot going wild over his head as he darted forward. Slashing out with his knife as he threw himself between the mech's legs. Energon splashed and metal screamed to match the grunted shout of the mech that he took off running from again.
Chromia's voice ringing in his spark: "It doesn't have to be a bad thing to be small, Bee. So many underestimate what we femmes can do because we are so much smaller then the mechs. It is the last thing many of them will ever do. If you use your size to your advantage, it will be no different for you. You don't have to be the biggest bot to win a fight. You just have to know how to use your frame, and theirs against them."
So many bots thought Ironhide was the dangerous ones when it came to Bee's creators.
They were very wrong.
Ironhide would take and give massive hits, but Mia was the one that was cleverly deadly. She was the one that ignored every notion Prowl puffed about—he'd been lying after all, Bee got it now—and preceded to teach Bee whatever she had saw fit.
"He's my mechling!" She'd shouted the Praxian into a low winged slump one orn not so long ago. "I will teach him anything I damn well see fit!"
Bee hadn't understood that argument that orn. Hadn't grasped what it was Mia was so mad about or why Prowl would back down so easily. Even from the more dangerous of the sisters. He got it now though. And right now, he was thanking every lesson his carrier ever taught him.
Throwing himself between the big mech's legs he rolled through his jump. Coming up the other side with hard slashes in both directions.
Knee joints.
Ankle lines.
Calves wiring.
Anything that hurt, but mainly what was vital.
Stop him moving. Bring him to his knees.
Cripple him, and he'd have a chance.
The huge flier howled as the dark dagger sliced deep through the wide gaps of his much larger plating. Energon splashing and splurging in hot waves coving both Bee and the mech's thighs.
The little yellow scout forced himself to ignore the sick twist in his tanks at the stick shower all over him. Rolling through the end of his jump. Knowing that he now needed to slide back out of reach.
As he figured, those long purple claws slashed down by the mech's legs where Bee had just been. The huge weight of the flier stumbling with the pain and the errors of cut lines. One leg buckled under him—Bee had managed to nick something important in his left thigh—bringing him down in a crashing stumble.
A shout of anger and pain that was more sound then word came next. Bee barely dove out of the way of the plasma blast that followed. Falling behind a bumble of fallen pipe and wires that was hanging from a broken catwalk overhead.
Pushing himself back to his feet in a jumbled, panting mess of aching arm and pounding spark when three shots that flared in over his head, Bee bolted again. Burning like flaming punches through the tangled webbing of the wires and cabling Bee was scrambling himself through. Sending showers of boiling fuel and hissing coolant down in showers that made him both yelp and hide behind the raining liquids. Because he could hear the sounds of that now very angry mech shoving himself back to his feet.
"If you wanted between my legs you'd only needed hold still, little mouse!"
Bee cringed as a pulse of wrong went through his spark. That and Star snarled through his chest forcing him back several more steps into the shadows of the mixing tangled lines.
"Still." Star ordered. "Don't you even breathe."
"Come on out, little mouse! I promise I won't give you to Lockdown. Then we wouldn't get to have any fun!"
Bee's tanks shivered as he watches the hulking mech limp his way into the tangled mess of burning, dripping wires and cabling. They were all tangled together into a mess that even Bumblebee was having trouble squeezing through. The massive mech was simply sweeping this claws about him though. Anger and that wrong glow to his optics leading him to slashing out widely. Cutting and dragging through the wires, tangling a good many of them about his arms and shoulders while he shoved himself deeper and deeper into Bee's hiding place.
"Wait."
"Wait for what?" Bee hissed, trying very hard to not let his shaking rattle his plating. Peaking through the shadows of the swinging cables and wires while the mech swayed closer. Energon leaking heavily down his claves and a hobbled knee.
If only it was enough to make that eerie gaze stop sweeping this way and that for him. Bee wasn't that lucky though. He was never that lucky. Star was pulsing a steady stream of wait, calm, think at him. It wasn't easy to do, when that burning gaze swept over him.
"Until the right moment."
Right moment.
Right moment of what?
Bee wanted to scream it, fear pulsing hard in his chest.
"Trust me, Young Spark. We're in this together, after all."
"I trust you." He did. For all that he didn't understand what it was his weird friend in his spark was, but he knew him too. He knew Star like he knew his own spark. On some level that felt the same a breathing. Something he knew he could do, that he knew how to do, but never really thought about why or how he knew it.
A pleased hum was a strange contrast to the anger boiling in Star's feeling.
"Then wait."
Okay.
Okay, he could do that.
Tightening his jaw, pinning his doorwings as still as he was able, he tightened his grip around his dagger. Trying to calm himself down. Trying to making himself be quiet. Trying to do as Star said.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait as the massive mech slapped and cut and hissed. Dragging himself further and further into the jungle of wires. Closer and closer to Bee he came until the little mech was holding his breath. Only kept still by Star's vice like grip around his spark. The shadows and steam surrounding him made even his bright plating vanish if he kept still enough. If he held his breath, kept his plating from shaking, and his field pulled in then the mech might just walk right by him.
"We're not that lucky, Young Spark." Star whispered to him, making sure he held still with a hard grip on his spark. "Life is only one third luck. You want luck you'll have to look to miracles. Unfortunately, neither of us are my sister."
The words sent a pulse of confusion through Bee, but too much of his attention was focused on the snarling mech cutting deeper into the tangle of wires to pay more mind to them.
"Sister?"
Star hummed, seemingly both pleased and angry all at the same time. To say the least, it was a weird feeling for Bee to try and make sense of as it bubbled through his chest.
"A story for a later time. For now, strike when I say."
The huge flier was right in front of them now. Hissing against the steaming fuel and tangled wires. His long, thick arms tangling the thin, strong cables around him when his frame swayed this way and that.
"Strike what?" Bee whispered, optics dimmed to hide in the darkness, his frame hardly daring to breath. Watching while the massive mech snarled, swiped, and slashed. Burning optics searching everywhere but passing right over him time and time again. "He's massive!"
"All the more to hit."
"Now you're just being a smart aft again."
"I'm always a smart aft, you'll get used to it."
Bee wasn't sure getting use to the weird voice in his head was a thing that he actually needed to be doing.
"You worry too much."
"Coming from the disembodied voice in my head, again, not comforting."
Star chuckled. "Life is rarely comforting, there is purpose though. Find comfort in that."
Eerie red optics snapped to the shadows Bee was hidden in.
The mechling froze.
Spark stuttering in his chest at the leering smile that curled up those thin lips. "Ah, there's the little mouse."
"Uh, Star?"
"Wait."
That huge frame shifted towards him. Optics burning while that leer curled higher and higher up his cheeks. Until his whole faceplate seemed to split into a sharp grin that made Bee's plating crawl. Every instinct inside him screamed run, but Star squeezed him around his spark.
He held still.
Plating trembling, processor whirling, and spark thudding he stood there. Optics widening all the more when the huge mech twisted toward him.
"Star?"
"Wait."
The plasma cannon was dropped. Skittered across the sticky, wet, tangled floor. The huge mech taking a step forward only for the cables and wires tangled around him to suddenly yank him back. A vicious snarl tore through him at that. Sharp glare pinning down to the offending strands of metal and wire.
"Now!" Star shouted.
Bee flinched. "Now what?"
"That cable, right there, cut it and run! Now!"
Oh.
Oh!
Well, that could work.
Without another though, Bee slashed out. Black blade glittering in the steam filled air as it sliced through the thickest dark cable dangling right before the little mech.
What happened next would have been impressive, if Bee wasn't so slaggin' scared.
The dagger went through easy as grease. A shower of burning fuel and hissing steam spewing out as a result. The mech howled as it sprayed outward at him, Bee hissed through the drops that stung against his own armor as he turned and bolted.
Racing, tripping, stumbling through the maze of cables and wires as a very pissed off creep charged after him. Plating and protoform burnt to the point of melting in some places when he charged through the spray to chase after Bee.
The little yellow mech didn't dare look back. He simply dodged and ran. Shoving his way in a tumble through the forest of destruction caused by the one chasing after him. Following not his own processor, but Stars sharp jabs of left and right through his spark.
He tripped once over a thicker cable, nearly ending up on his face. Sharp claws swiped over him drawing a yelp and a scramble, but the next tangle of wires slowed the big mech down again. Earning Bee a few precious nanos to bolt forward again.
"Come here you glitched mouse!"
Not on your life!
Shoving Bee threw himself forward in another run. Hardly daring to thick about the massive weight crashing after him, and then, suddenly the ground vanished.
His yelp of surprise was cut off by Star sending a hard yank through his spark of grab it!
Bee's good arm flew up and out almost without thought. One moment he was tumbling down into a deep hole burning through the middle of the ship, and the next he was jerked to a stop. The cable before him, jerking tension with his weight to send him bouncing upward like a spring. The movement so sudden and jarring he didn't have time to do anything else but gasp.
Tension sending him slinging upward only to jerk to a stop again when the cable caught itself around a hanging piece of pipe. Grip tightening instinctively when the cable bounced, the little yellow mech was twisted just enough in the bounce that he ended up facing the way he had run. Looking down at the hole he had almost dropped into the same time that massive flier came charging out in a tangle of wires and cables—and went on a sudden fall straight down only for it to come to an even more sudden stop.
The shocked cry left him without consent.
Optics spiraling wide as one hand lifted from his death grip around the wire he hung of. Plastering over his mouth while he watched the huge purple frame now dangling lifelessly from a serious of cables wrapped around it's neck slowly start graying out.
All Bee could do was stare.
Gazing down at the too still frame jerked to a halt in that tangle of long slim wires. The ones that took the life with them.
The fall and tangle of cabling leading to a jerking snap that cracked his main neck strut, taking with it that all too sensitive cluster of important parts in the middle of a neck.
Dead.
Just like that.
Bee never even scratched him.
And yet, he'd killed him.
That makes two. A cold part of his processor whispered to him.
"Come now, Young Spark." Star's voice had gone quiet. Hesitant and careful.
Then again, he could feel the sudden cold that had taken up residence in Bee's chest.
"It is more my fault then yours. It was kill or be used, Young Spark. You will not feel guilty for this."
Bee just kept staring.
"Bumblebee," Star sighed. "Look away now, mechling."
A tug pulled through his spark until finally Bee pulled his gaze back up. Tearing his wide optics away from the dangling sight below him. Forcing down a deep breath he didn't wasn't sure might not turn into a gag any time soon. He tightened his hand around the cable he dangled from before twisting about to look for a place to land.
A few twists of movement got the long wire swinging. A flap of his doorwings, a twist of his hips, and he went flinging back toward solid ground. Landing with a grunt between a cluster of wires, he forced himself not to look back.
He was panting, wings and fingers trembling, but his jaw was set and Star had a firm but soft hold on his spark.
Then, quietly: "I don't like killing."
"I know, Young Spark. It is what makes you, you. But death is a part of life. Be it violent or quiet. The illusion that they are different was always just that, an illusion. It is that illusion that caused all of this. But you're gonna fix it."
Bee's doorwings twitched. "How am I supposed to fix it? What does that even mean?"
Star simply sighed, feeling much older and tired then Bee had ever noticed him to be. "It means we have to get off this ship. Didn't you say you had a plan?"
Bee nodded, optics flicking through the wreckage that had become the belly of the ship. Sirens were still going off over the comms, but the shooting and shouting had stopped. Chances were that flier had killed all the help Lockdown had sent after him in his sick attempt to get ahold of Bumblebee. He sure hadn't seemed to care what he hurt trying to catch him.
Speaking of which.
Bumblebee slipped carefully back through the cable maze. Ignoring Star's curious pulses as he watched the shadowing heights on the floors above. There didn't seem to be anybot up there. For now at least. The little yellow mech knew that wouldn't last long. He didn't need Star's unease or his warning to figure Lockdown wasn't far away.
So far the stalling was working—sort of—but he needed to not be stuck in the burning belly of his ship for that brilliant idea of his to work. But first—
He came to a stop beside the smoking pile of pipes and metal with a wavy edge to his conscious. Star was tugging at him, pulling him away and toward whatever notion Bee hadn't shared yet.
Bee ignored him.
Kneeling down at the edge of the smoldering pit he waved his hand through the hissing steam. Catching sight of the white form laying near the bottom. Pinned beneath broken bits of metal and heavy pipe the albino hound laying still with his optics closed.
It was only the fact that his extremely strange color was still there that the little mech could tell the hound was still alive. He was hardly breathing, a huge piece of jagged metal stabbed through his right back leg. Forcing in painful sprawl into an even odder angle.
Long, strong jaws parted to pant in pain with those fire red optics squeezing tight against the hurt that had to be radiating through him from the fall and the pipe. Energon stained all around him, splashing against that white plating in an eerie shade of life ebbing away.
"Young Spark," Star whispered. "That one is already leaving, move on if you don't want to join him. Get on with this plan of yours."
Crouched there, Bee stared for a moment longer before he whispered. "No."
He jumped.
Ignoring the sudden snarl cutting up through his spark from Star. Slipping and sliding down through the billowing steam. Doing his best not to get tangled up in the mess that grew the further down the hole.
Landing at the bottom was more stumble then anything else, but he managed to not stab himself through the gut on a busted pole. The bottom of the hole was more sticky, hot fuel then metal now. Burning as it sluggishly made its way through the gaps in his leg plating to the protoform and gears underneath. Itchy and hot and doing damage slowly, but there all the same.
Pings of errors started sliding through his neural net only to be quickly dismissed while he trudged forward through the thick muck.
"Young Spark." Star grumbled.
"Mute it." Bee shot back at him. Spark a ball of quivering emotions the young mech didn't have time to pick apart. Half of him wanted to throw up, the other half wanted to sink to his knees and whimper until his sire came to find him.
He wanted Ironhide.
He wanted Mia.
He wanted to go home.
But he was going to have to get out of here first.
He couldn't walk away though.
He . . . wasn't even quite sure why. He just knew he couldn't turn his back on this strange white hound he had felt. This one laying in a bottom of a pit slowly drowning with a pipe shoved through its leg.
"I can't let him drown." Bee hissed out loud to Star. Forcing his way forward through the hot sludge, mindful of all the sharp points around them. The closer he came the more he could make of just how bad a spot the white hound was in. The thick dark sludge was now covering nearly all his frame. His head and snout only above because of the awkward fall he'd had. His head had ended up propped on the side of a busted pipe with his neck bent oddly, but not enough to break.
He was lucky.
Two inches higher and he'd have ended up with a pipe in his processor.
Then again, a quick death would be better then slowly choking to death on burning sludge.
Maybe.
Shaking the thoughts away, Bee pulled himself up to the side of the mangled hound. A low, pain filled growl stopped him in his tracks a moment later though. Hands coming up short as burning red optics slowly squinted up at him.
Hurt, and fear, and anger burning in their depths. Lips peeling back over razor fangs while the hound hissed. "Go away."
Bee's spark shivered at the defeat, the acceptance in that tone.
His jaw clenched, doorwings flaring wide behind his back.
"No." He hissed right back. "I'm not leaving you here."
"This is not one of your pets." Star grumbled at him. "This is the mutt that was trying to eat you."
"Yeah, and he didn't, now didn't he?" Bee hissed at him too. Emotions a shivering ball in his chest that he didn't know what to do with. There was too much. Just too much.
The image of that flier swinging by cables around his neck burned into the back of his optics.
He shook his helm again. Refusing to think about the way his hands were shaking.
"No." He hissed again, surging forward to latch hold of the pipe drove through the hound's leg. "This isn't right."
The growling tapered off. Surprise and confusion taking its place even as the big white hound struggled to try and keep his muzzle above the rising sludge. He was running out of time. Bee knew it all too well. The busted leg and energon flow might not kill him, but vents full of sludge would.
He knew it just as well as Bee did. He was resigned to it, before Bee had appeared at his side. It was very clear he had no idea why this was happening though. Those fire red optics fixed on Bee as he latched hold of the jagged edge of the pipe.
"This is gonna hurt." Bee warned, and then, before the hound could tense, he pulled out his dagger and cut deep.
The growling roar of pain echoed around the quickly filling hole made Bee cringe, but he didn't dare stop. Energon gushing around the point of his knife, he cut, sliced, and then heaved. Plating busted, protoform shattered, energon splashed but at last the pipe came free.
Then, suddenly, so did the hound.
A flash of movement, a hard slam to the chest, and suddenly Bee was blinking up into the snarling muzzle and flashing optics of the hound he'd just saved.
Star growled through his spark, tugging harshly at him to grab his knife, but all Bumblebee could do was lay there and blink up at those rows of razor teeth a breath away from his nose. The full weight of the hound was pining him by the chest. His whole frame only saved from being pushed under the sludge by a well placed slab of catwalk behind him.
It was making his doorwings hurt pretty bad though.
He didn't dare breathe.
Big blue optics wide and plating quivering even as he tried to speak. "Hey, hey, come on now! I was helping you! I was trying to help you! You really gonna eat me now? That mech's dead, he can't hurt you anymore. You don't have to do what he says anymore!"
The growling quieted though it didn't stop. The huge white hound backed up a few inches. Just enough that Bee found he could see those burning red optics—still quite a lot of teeth, mind you, but optics now too—that narrowed into thin slits down at him.
"Master still here. Master still can hurt."
Bee flicked an antenna much like a hound would an audio as he begged with his frame language to be listened too. "I can help you get away from him too. I'm gonna blow this ship of his out of the sky. Come with me and you can get off of it. You can be free. You won't have to have him for an alpha anymore."
A snarl was roared into his face. "Master is no alpha! Cruelty and temper do not make alpha! Just make monster! Master no alpha of mine!"
Flicking his audio again, Bee nodded as much as he was able in the pin he was in. "Then stop obeying him. Be your own alpha. Leave. I'll help you."
The hound pulled back again. Confusion, but also contemplation in those strange red optics framed in that strange white color. The snarl slowly fading away until he was left simply standing there on Bee's chest staring down at him the way only predators could.
Assessing.
Measuring.
Testing.
What?
Bee didn't have a clue.
All he could do was lay there, hold his breath, and hope he passed the test.
"Havoc." The hound stated quietly. Pulling away and stepping off so that Bee could carefully push himself back.
"What?" He questioned.
"Me Havoc. Who you?"
"Oh," Bumblebee felt his spark loosen. "I'm Bumblebee."
The white hound regarded him quietly for a moment longer, then let out a heavy snort. "I follow you now."
Bee found himself grinning.
It's Havoc! He's finally joined the party. Who else is as excited as I am? ^-^
Anyway, sorry for being so long between chapters this time. RL has been crazy-a good crazy-but still crazy. On the bright side I'm done with class forever and managed to find myself a really good job!
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and I can't wait to see what you have to say about it! We're nearing the end of Part Four now. A whole lot is about to go down, so strap in. This one only gets wilder from here.
See you next chapter!
-Jaycee