Sorry for the wait. Had writers block. But guess what? This chapter it HUGE! 5,508 words huge. After I had broken down the block, the words just seemed to flow from me. This is the longest chapter I have ever written for a multi-chapter fic. Amazing. Personal achievement!

So, explanation for this chapter. I didn't want to dwell too much on the data caste, so you'll only get about a few paragraphs on what she experienced there, if that is fine with you. Medical caste on the other hand? Lots of information. There are a lot of time skips in this chapter, just so I can bring you to the war faster. And Knock Out appears! Though, he isn't like the Knock Out we know until the war starts. OOC in your eyes, probably. But it's not like every Decepticon you know starts out like an evil monster. He grew up in Iacon, not Kaon (in this fic). So sorry in advance if he rubs you the wrong way.

Thanks SJSGirl, Taboo22, and Dragonmaster789 for reviewing!

Now, on with the chapter!

Megacycle = 1 week
Stellar-cycle = 1 year
Klik = 1 minute
Orn = 13 days
Orbital-cycle = 1 day
Nano-klick = 1 second

Danniluk = Mother
Opiluk = Father

4 – Data, Medics, and Decepticons – 4

I was sat down at a station like all the other ones at the Hall of Records, and was quickly taught by a mech more monotone than Default had been (when he had been faking it) on how to sort data. I quickly got the hang of it, since the station worked like the laptop I had when I was human—but this was more advance. I plugged into the station with a retractable USB plug that came from my wrist, and listened to recorded debates from scientists in a place called Crystal City.

It was fascinating to say the least. I had been learning about something similar to what they (the scientists in the recording I was currently listening to) were talking about now back just before all this had happened.

"Perceptor, if I mix this carbon dioxide with helium, will it explode? I'm not anxious to find out…"

The owner of the voice was an unknown and not very famous scientist named Quickfix. He was working under Perceptor in the study of metal—like what kinds would explode when a certain substance came into contact with it or not.

I came across several articles I found intriguing later, but after a while, this job lost its…I dunno…it became stagnant. It was not interesting for me anymore. Huh, so I must have not been cut out to be a librarian.

The few mega-cycles (which I came to believe was the Cybertronian version of a 'week') passed, and I came to the end of the Data-caste trial-run. I didn't mind the job, really, but I would have considered it as a part-time job more than a full-time job. Too bad, there was no such thing as a part-time job on this planet. It was against the law.

I liked being plugged into a station all day, every day, but I didn't like the fact that I couldn't use the station to do anything other than watch/listen and file data away. Had the Cybertronians ever heard of video games? In this society, anything that resembled video games was probably forgotten back when the caste system was constructed. That kind of made me angry at Sentinel, since through my time sorting data allowed me to learn about when the caste system was constructed, why it had been, and who had done it.

Those thoughts quickly left my mind when I found myself standing before the door of Alpha Trion's office. I blinked my turquoise eyes a few times before I raised my right hand and knocked politely on the door. I waited a few seconds before the door slid open on its own when Alpha Trion uttered, "Enter."

I walked into the office slowly, meekly. I cast my gaze around before it came to rest on the mech I had come to see. At his nod, I walked forward and sat down in the chair that sat before the desk. I couldn't help but allow my wings to droop. Though the job was boring, I would miss Alpha Trion. In a strange sense, I regarded him as a…grandfather. I had never had a grandfather when I was human.

"You've come to tell me that the mega-cycles that you were to be here have ended, haven't you, young femme?" he said knowingly.

I nodded slowly and looked down. "Yeah…" I breathed in slowly through my nose. My spark twisted almost painfully, making me want to cry. The tears pressed against the backs of my eyes. "This place is…homey…but I don't think I'd be able to work here. Sure, I'll miss the bots I met here, but I don't feel like I'd be…any help here…"

"It's quite alright, youngling. The choice is yours."

The tears threatened to escape. "But I'll never see those bots again…" I sighed. "Sentinel said that bots from different castes couldn't interact."

"In time, you will be able to see those bots again, young femme."

After I had said goodbye, a couple of bots known as Elite Guards came and lead me down to the maglev station in the center of Iacon. When the maglev train came, we boarded and were whisked away to another part of Iacon where I was dropped off at the station and left there. I was confused, but I didn't have the chance to question it before I realized where I was.

The station was built into the facility were most medical bots were stationed/lived. And I could tell from the sign that hung over the opening that must have lead into the main room of the facility.

It was strange how I could read Cybertronian. I mused over this as I walked through the opening and into the facility. I didn't say a word as I looked around and took in how quiet it was in the facility. And how white everything was. The floors were white, the walls were white, and the only things that weren't white (that I could see) was the navy-blue ceiling, the grey reception desk, and what could only be the Cybertronian version of a coffee room, which I could see through an open doorway. It looked to have soft blue walls, a darker blue floor, and a set of chairs and a table that were a warm grey. What was it with greys, whites, and blues?

I walked up to the reception desk hoping to figure out what I had to do. I felt lost, and I believed that my armor colour made me stick out like a sore thumb in this main room, since I was black and the room was a stark white. I shifted nervously as I waited for the femme behind the desk to take notice of me. I tapped my feet nervously and clicked my fingers together before the femme looked up at me and regarded me with cool grey optics. "Can I help you?" she asked with a stiff voice.

I nodded. "Yeah. I have been appointed to be a medic, but I don't have any training. Do you think you can take me to my supervisor?"

The femme rolled her eyes with a huff. She then pointed behind her, at a hallway. "Down the hall, turn left, and at the first door on the right, you'll find your supervisor. He's in there teaching his first student already. I don't know how he'll react to having another student suddenly walk in on him."

I mentally groaned. "Have a good orbital-cycle to you too," I said sarcastically before I walked down the hall, the turned left, and reached the first door on the right. I pressed an ear to the door and listened through the metal to see how many were inside. I heard one person talking and when he stopped, I heard another voice, who answered what seemed to be a question.

After I had judged that there was indeed only two bots in there, I took a step back and knocked on the door. For a few seconds, or nano-klicks as I had come to know them as, nothing happened. But then the door slid open to reveal a small room big enough for two Cybertronian-sized student desks with chairs to face a Cybertronian teacher desk with a few Cybertronian-sized feet between them. I stepped forward and looked at the mech standing behind the teacher desk and took in his red armor that was streaked with white stripes. I then looked at the mech's only student. My optics widened slightly as my Cybertronian body wanted to repeat the puberty phase I experienced when I turned thirteen.

The mech's student was also a mech. My computer-like mind instantly computed that if the student had been human, he'd of looked like a seventeen year old. He was young, like me. His armor was blood red, a red more rich than the almost brick-red the teacher was wearing. His eyes were black with blue rings acting as irises, and his face, instead of being the standard light grey, was white. His helmet was designed in a way that made me think of wet hair frozen in a way after a strong and cold wind blasted someone from the front, and on his chin, there was a tiny black piece of metal that made me think of a goatee.

I turned to look back at the teacher as both the teacher and the student turned to look at me. I smiled sheepishly. "H-hello…" I stuttered. "I am Wavelength. I'm here to start my medical training."

"I have been informed that I'd be receiving a new student. It is a pleasure to meet you," the teacher said. "My designation is First Aid." He gestured to the student. "And this is Knock Out." The student waved with a slight smile.

I waved back. "You may sit at the desk beside his, Wavelength," First Aid told me. I nodded to him before I walked over to the desk and sat down behind it. I folded my hands together and rested them on the desktop. I watched as First Aid took out an iPad wanna-be (which I had quickly learned was called a "datapad") from his desk before he walked over to my desk and set it down on it. "This is the beginning of Knock Out's second megacycle in medical training. You'll have to catch up so I can train you evenly." I nodded in understanding.

Quickly booting the datapad up, having learned how to do that when I tried out the Data caste, I glanced at the table of contents before delving in. After becoming a Cybertronian, I realized how hungry for information I had become. I know the Data caste would have been a perfect place to satisfy my want for info, but it had quickly gotten monotone for me. I had been interested in becoming a nurse, though, back when I was human.

The first topic I read was about how young sparklings were raised and schooled. According to what caste they were in, they attended an Academy for that caste. There, they learned about their anatomy, mathematics, science (mostly the medical and scientific castes learned this, but the engineering caste took advantage of Physics), how to take care of themselves, etc. It was so similar to a human school that I couldn't help but shutter. I saw Knock Out glance at me when the shutter caused my backplates to rattle against each other slightly.

The next topic I read was about the different anaesthetics a medic could use to knock a bot out.

Even though I was already missing the bots I had met at the Hall of Records, I knew that I was going to have a future in the medical caste.

Megacycles flew by as I learned about Cybertronian anatomy, and how to repair bots who got hurt in their day to day lives. My feet were actually called 'pedes'. Hands were 'servos'; the head was called a helm; eyes were optics; ears were audios or audio receptors. There was so much information to take in, but that didn't really hinder me. My medical skill was gaining slowly as First Aid had us practice on broken pieces of machinery. I was very meticulous, so my repaired machines looked just as repaired as Knock Out's, but he had more skill than I did and he was always done before me.

Soon a stellar-cycle, which was a Cybertronian year, ticked by. I was shocked to find that I had been learning in this place for that much time. We were getting better and better at fixing things and understanding how a living Cybertronian worked, so now we were going out on house-calls. Though, I was Knock Out's assistant at the moment. He was the more skilled of the two of us—still.

Even though so much time had passed since I knew myself as a human, I hadn't forgotten what it was like to be a human. To be shorter than I was now, to be freer than I was now, to have a mother and a father again, to know I had at least one friend, and to pet my cat again… I missed my old life, no matter how cool it was to be a living robot. Knock Out and I got to know each other, but I didn't know if we would consider each other friends. It made me realize how much I missed Jack.

Sometimes I had dreams of what happened in the past. I'd dream of my mother and my father and of my brother. The times Jack would comfort me if I got a low grade on a test. How Mrs. Darby fussed over me like a second mother when Mom and Dad were on business trips. My spark would twitch painfully at the memories. I could never go back to that…

"Wavelength, are you coming? First Aid wants us to pay a visit to a wealthy mech in the high-end district of Iacon. Says the mech injured himself during a turbo-fox hunt," Knock Out said from where he was standing near the door of the "classroom" (as I had come to call it).

"Oh…oh! S-sorry," I said, shaking my head a little to clear my thoughts.

"You had spaced out there," Knock Out smirked. "Somethin' on your processor?"

I closed my eyes…optics…and shook my head. "Just thinking over what we've done over the last stellar-cycle. We've…done a lot of…stuff."

He nodded. "That we have," he said cheerfully. "We almost know everything a medic needs to know. Just a few more orns and we'll be official medics!"

I beamed. "Yeah, it's so exciting. I can't wait."

"Then, are you coming with me? This is a test, you know. Though, the patient won't know that," he chuckled with a wink.

That was something I had noticed during the time I had known Knock Out. He was such a flirt. As we worked together building and fixing things, he would always comment on what I was doing with either a wink or a smirk. I don't know why he did it, but he only did it to me. He didn't flirt to the snarky femme behind the reception desk, or any of the female patients he checked up on with the help of First Aid. Maybe it was because he knew me since we were being taught under the same mech. I had no idea.

I grinned as I got to my pedes. I followed him out of the room and all the way down to the maglev station. The trip to the high-class area of Iacon was short since the medical facility wasn't too far from it. We stepped of the maglev and onto the platform before we walked down onto the road and made our way to the patient's home.

"So…what's the mech's designation?" I asked.

"Mirage."

I grinned again. "Sounds like a mysterious one. Wonder why he got that designation."

"I managed to catch one of the turbo-fox hunts before the data clerks removed it from the Grid. Mirage got his name because of his uncanny ability to either make himself invisible, or to project holograms. He uses those abilities to outsmart the turbo-foxes so that his fellow hunters can corner them," Knock Out explained.

My mouth made a small 'O' shape in realization. "I get it, I get it," I said as we turned and stopped at the gate of what looked to be a super-huge estate on the very edge of the city. "So this is where Mirage lives?" I asked.

Knock Out nodded. "According to First Aid's directions, yes." He frowned slightly. "You'll have to be careful, though. He still lives with his carrier and sire, along with his sister and his brother. The rich tend to be very flirtatious when they see a suitable femme or mech walk into the room," he explained as we were admitted.

As we began to walk up the long path leading up to the mansion sitting in the middle of the property, I wiggled my eyebrows playfully. "Are you saying that you're a 'suitable mech'?"

He rested a servo on his chest. "Why, of course," he chuckled. "But I'm also saying," he dropped his servo, "that you're a 'suitable femme'."

I covered my mouth with a servo as my optics widened in shock. My cheekplates even turned a shade of blue as I blushed. "You flirt!" I exclaimed, trying to regain my composure as we neared the front door. Thankfully, I managed to remove the blue tint in my cheekplates and straighten my composure before we stopped on the front doorstep of the mansion. But what Knock Out had said still frazzled me. Had he just said that I was beautiful?

After Knock Out rang the doorbell, we only had to wait a few seconds before the door was opened by a small black droid that I could only guess was the "butler" of this mansion. We stepped inside after we wiped our pedes, and I couldn't help but glance around.

The main room was lavishly decorated. In my studies, I had learned that the now (almost) dead Space Bridge used to connect to several different worlds. It seemed that a "Jungle Planet" had been explored, and I could see some of the souvenirs from that exploration pinned to the wall on the left. What looked to be giant-sized tiger skins of all colours decorated it like curtains. It was actually quite pretty.

Knock Out tapped me on the shoulder, regaining my attention after it had seemingly wandered. After smiling at my apologetic look, he led me up to the level where the main living quarters seemed to be. I stopped at the entrance of the quarters though, when I got a good look at what it was like in there.

There was a soft flooring, like carpet—but for bots, and the decorations were so lavish that felt it made me feel inferior. Even when I had been a human, I had never lived or stepped foot in such a beautiful place. Knock Out had already walked into the main room, but I couldn't bring myself to follow him. I suddenly felt very shy.

"Oh, have you come alone to fix my son, young medic?" a melodious voice suddenly asked.

"No, madam. Another medic-in-training has come with me in order to repair your son's arm," I heard Knock Out explain. "Are you coming, Wavelength?" I sighed and rubbed the turquoise prong/crest thing that was attached to my forehead and stuck up past the top of my helm.

Slowly, I walked into the room and glanced about, nervous. This wasn't the environment I was used to. I hadn't grown up as a rich kid, I had never stepped foot within a mansion while anyone had been living in it…

"Oh! Isn't she a pretty little thing?" the same melodious voice commented. I looked around and spotted the owner of the voice. It was a tall femme dressed in white armor. I only came up to her shoulder. She had a prong/crest like mine, but it was black and on its base, and level with the eyebrows, was an aqua-blue gem. I'd seen many of the femme medics wear those. It was like a piece of jewellery. And no matter what caste they belonged to, most of the femmes I saw wore gems like that. The only ones I didn't see wearing them (as a mass), were the ones from the really low castes. I'd always fancied them, since it looked like I was able to wear one.

When I registered what the femme had said, I blushed and looked down. I was an average femme. I was not spectacularly pretty like the femme who had commented on my looks.

"Danni…" a feminine voice sighed. "You're embarrassing her."

I glanced to the side and saw another femme who looked to be a little bit shorter than me. She had mint-green armor and a white prong/crest. She was also wearing a gem, but this one was emerald green. The femme glanced at me with a sympathetic look.

"Oops!" the older femme said. "Sorry, dear."

::What a caring danniluk,:: I said to Knock Out using my medic communicator. Not all bots had a communicator. Medics needed them in order to talk about confidential information without others overhearing.

::It's good to have a caring carrier,:: Knock Out explained. ::My carrier and sire shunned me when they found out the government had chosen me to become a medic.::

::Hmm…that's cruel, Knock Out.::

"So, Madam Windbreeze, which room is your son in? We must fix his arm and return to the medical facility," Knock Out said out loud.

We were given directions to Mirage's quarters, since he was old enough to have his own 'apartment'. I followed Knock Out up to the apartment and didn't say a word as we walked in. We found Mirage sitting in his "sitting room", staring out into space. He was probably accessing the Grid. There were several…interesting…things that you could find there. Sensing our presence, though, he blinked a few times and turned to look at us. It also gave us a view of how badly damaged his arm was. I winced at the exposed wire and torn armor.

"I had heard that there would be two medics coming to see me, but I never imagined that it would be a young femme and a young mech," the blue and silver mech said. I blinked as I listened to the accent his words carried. Neither his danniluk nor his sister carried such an accent. His accent almost sounded Italian. If he was a human living on Earth, it would have been considered an Italian accent.

"Yeah, the receptionists are never that thorough," Knock Out commented with a roll of his optics. He took his medical kit from his subspace before he walked over to the chair the noble mech was sitting in.

"I'm curious," Mirage said as Knock Out knelt down on his right side. "I like to know the designation of everyone I come into contact with. What are your designations?"

As Knock Out took out a welder he would use, he said, "It's Knock Out."

I transformed my index finger, or digit, into a pair of tiny pincers that I would use to connect wires and such as I smiled and said, "You can call me Wavelength."

As we began to work, me piecing things back together and Knock Out using the wielder to make sure my work didn't fall apart, we began to talk. It turns out that the high class castes of Cybertron were very sociable (except for the scientists over in Crystal City. They preferred to stay alone) with one another. That's why Mirage was talking so openly, though he carried almost an aloof tone. He still somewhat looked down at us because we were workers and he was not. The high caste was comprised of either scientific discovery or entertainment. The medical caste was up there, but we hovered just under what made high caste bots high caste bots.

I smiled though. I wouldn't let our differences bother me. Back when I was a human, I had been considered an "outcast" because I considered myself a tomboy, and because I never paid attention to the latest fashions. Even though fashion wasn't important here other than in the high castes, it was only a little different than what life was like back on Earth.

We were done in under a joor and I smiled in satisfaction at our handiwork. The only indication that the mech had been injured was the long silver scar that blended almost perfectly in with his colour scheme. Mirage clenched his servo into a fist before he flexed his arm in order to see if it was fixed. When a smile appeared on his faceplates, I knew we had done a good job. He thanked us for fixing him before he showed us out of his apartment.

As soon as the door was closed behind us, though, the mint-green femme from before appeared beside me. I blinked at her, astonished. "Can I…help you?" I asked nervously.

"Not really," she said. "I just wanted to say thank you, and to introduce myself as Moonracer. I'm not really Mirage's sister."

"O-okay?"

"I'm just staying with them because I'm an orphaned femme. Windbreeze has a big spark, if you know what I mean. That's why she wants me to call her Danniluk."

I looked at the femme, confused. "I don't mean to sound rude or anything—you've caught me off-guard. Why are you telling me this?"

She smiled. "Oops! Sorry. Anyway, the reason why I'm telling you this is because I really admire medics. I wish that I had been made a medic instead of an artist. And I wanted to thank you, and give you this," she held up a servo and opened her digits, showing that she was holding one of those gems. It was a sapphire blue one. "I wanted to give you it in order to show you my thanks. It'll bring out the blue in your crest," she explained.

I blinked a few times in surprise as my expression softened. "…Thank you…" I said softly. "I…I don't know what to say…"

The younger femme smiled knowingly. "You don't have to say anything. Though, I would like to keep in touch. I have a communicator. What's your designation?"

I was beginning to like the chatty young femme. "The designation's Wavelength," I told her as she helped me put the gem on.

Knock Out teased me the whole way back to the medical facility. But I didn't care. I had made a friend, the first true friend ever during the whole stellar-cycle and few megacycles I had been on this planet. Moonracer said she was going to contact me during the next orbital-cycle, when she would be doing her artist-y stuff. She said it helped her be creative. When Knock Out got to me with the teasing, though, I teased him back, saying, "Well, you didn't catch Moonracer's optic."

So the orns passed. When we became official medics, we had a toast over our accomplishment with a cube of normal Energon each. Medics couldn't afford to become drunk, and I didn't want to touch the high-grade.

But the peace was not to last in this new life I was experiencing, I realized. There had been rumours floating around the facility about two mechs named Megatron and Orion Pax. Then mechs and femmes began to come to the facility injured because of uprisings caused by mechs and femmes who called themselves "Decepticons". Every time we got patients who were injured because of the rebellions and uprisings, Knock Out and I would glance at each other nervously.

Then came the time when the mysterious Megatron and Orion Pax went to see the High Council. We didn't go because we were required to stay at the facility in case bots got injured at the meeting in the council chamber. Half the medics that were at the facility were at the meeting anyway.

The meeting was strange, we were to learn later. It seemed that the mech known as Megatron went to the High Council in order to become the next Prime. And to become the next Prime, the Council had to give you the title. And there was already a Prime, so I couldn't see how another one could be named. It was because of a squabble between the Original Thirteen Primes that caused the rule of only having one Prime ruling at a time to surface.

But Megatron wasn't named the next Prime, Orion Pax was! He obviously delivered a better speech to the High Council than Megatron, because the High Council named him Optimus Prime. It had a nice ring to it.

And the reason for the meeting? Because of the two mechs' wish for all bots to be free again, like back in the Golden Age. Now that was all fine and dandy, because I would love to live in freely like I had when I was human, but I was mortified at what happened because of it. Megatron declared war on Optimus Prime and the council chamber was destroyed. From what was said, only a quarter of the High Council members survived the attack. It was total carnage.

We medics only took care of the injured civilians as the Decepticons rose up and became a threat. We worked harder as news of bots called Autobots rising up to counter the Decepticons. And thus, a war broke out.

The war worried us. For the first few orns, we were held in absolute fear for what could happen. The medical facility was on the edge of Iacon, and any threat could sneak up on us. It was funny (in a twisted sort of way) how we had never worried before, but as soon as we were threatened, we were terrified.

I watched the fear in Knock Out's optics over those few orns. But slowly, I watched as that look of fear was replaced with a hard look. He buried his fear by becoming meticulous with his finish. He became vain and aloof. He looked down at the less experienced medics. He spent less time reading over the lessons in order to stay on the top of his game. He paid more attention to himself, so I had to work harder in order to keep the medical information fresh in my processor. Since we worked together, I had to know more so that we could still fix bots who came in broken.

I watched as the one I secretly called a friend turned into a mech I didn't know.

I stopped having conversations with him. If he ever talked to me, I hid my disappointment and talked quietly to him. When he asked me to assist with polishing his finish, I helped. I didn't argue. I didn't have the strength to do so.

What happened to the mech I once knew? What happened to the mech that used to flirt with me, and only me? Who talked to me as if we were chums even when I didn't even know if we were even anything more than partners? The mech who had been just as sociable as a high class mech even though he was just a medic?

I wouldn't find out, because it continued on.

Megacycles passed and the war grew slightly quieter, even though the Decepticons still worked to cut us off from our Energon supplies. I finally allowed myself to relax slightly, but I still steeled myself for bad news to flow across the Grid.

One orbital-cycle, I was relaxed enough to give Knock Out a massage with the help of the buffer. I put my back in it and took pleasure in the groans of pleasure that left Knock Out's voice box when I moved the buffer over a sensitive spot. I grinned as I felt him loosen up. This has been the first time since the war began that I've seen him relax.

"I take it that this feels good?" I asked as I ran the buffer over a sensitive spot again. At his nod, I giggled. I massaged him for a few more klicks before I turned off the buffer and put it away. I went to say something, but the outside wall of the room, which so happened to be attached to the wall facing out into the wilderness surrounding Iacon, exploded inward with a loud blast. I screamed and raised my servos to my helm as I was pelted by shrapnel.

Decepticons rushed by us but didn't bother to attack us. A groaning caught my attention, and I turned to watch as a section of the wall separated and began to tip in my direction. I was frozen in place as it fell towards me. But I had some sense to raise my servos and shield my faceplates as the wall crashed down on me. I screamed as the weight of the wall crinkled and bent my wings out of shape. It pushed me to the ground and buried me.

For the longest time, I listened to the roaring of the Decepticon attack, but eventually it grew quiet. All I could hear was my own breathing. But then, the rubble shifted and I suddenly was looking at Knock Out's face. His finish was terribly damaged, but the raw look of desperation stopped me from worrying about his looks. "Stay with me, Wavelength," he said as he reached for my servo.

Weakly, I reached for his servo, but it was like the energy had been sucked from me. "C-can't…" I whined.

"You can do it, Wavelength!"

Warnings flashed across my heads-up display (HUD), saying that a forced shut-down was imminent. I tried to reach for him again, but the world faded out of focus and everything went dark.

Yeah, so you see, I had to make up a lot of stuff so this could run smoothly. I read a fic in which Mirage had been still living with his family before the war began, so I applied that to this fic. Dunno when he'll reappear, since I don't know if he'll even be in Transformers: Prime. Bummer, I know.

BUT! You know who might be appearing in the next season? There's drawings of him! SIDESWIPE! Looks a lot like movie-Sides, but he's red. And he turns into a Lamborghini. We'll have to see…