So here's the next chapter! Sorry for making you guys wait so long. I hit a small writers block, but then I took the hammer of Inspiration and smashed it to pieces. And I sure felt like Thor as I did it XD

9 – Video Games and Doubts – 9

::Wavelength: come to the bridge immediately!:: thundered the leader of the Decepticons over a comm. that had been forcefully opened. I flinched away from the sudden intrusion, and Knock Out looked at me curiously. I was currently working on Dreadwing, who's wings had been singed when some of the Energon at one of the Energon mines had blown up. I was halfway through replacing the tip of his left wing when Lord Megatron comm'ed.

I looked at the wing-tip, which was half welded on, and quickly continued to weld it on, having a mental policy of not leaving a part of a procedure half done. ::Yes, sir. May I finish patching up Dreadwing first?:: I asked.

::No, you may not. He will have to wait until I'm finished with you.::

::But—::

::NOW!::

I grimaced at how his voice seemed to echo in my helm. Quickly, I finished welding the wing-tip, and examined it. It was going to heal nicely. I looked up at my "patient" and sighed. "I'm sorry, Dreadwing, but Megatron wants me in the bridge right now. Knock Out will continue repairing you while I'm gone," I told him. And get scrapped, I thought as my wings drooped.

Hastily, I ran from the med bay. ::On my way, sir,:: I comm'ed as I dashed down the hall, skirting around Insecticons and Vehicons as I approached the bridge. I knew Megatron was going to punish me before everyone on the ship for what I did, and I was afraid. Was this what Starscream expected every day?

The bridge doors opened as I slowed. My spark twisted uncomfortably. This was going to hurt. Really, really, really hurt. But that didn't stop me from entering the bridge, where I saw Megatron standing before one of the large monitors with his back to me and his servos clasped behind him. My spark sunk. This meant that Megatron was really mad at me. He knew I had gone after Cylas without his consent. "I'm here, sir," I announced, my voice threating to wobble. I walked up behind him and bowed.

"Good," Megatron said. "Now, do you know why I have called you here?" he turned to stare down at me.

I didn't move. I didn't want to speak in fear that I might say the wrong thing and enrage him more. I allowed a nod.

"Even though Cylas turned out to be a failure, I had ordered you to stay in the medical bay with Knock Out until I summoned you. Not only did you not stay in the medical bay, you followed him and engaged him in battle." Out of nowhere, his pede slammed into my side and sent me flying across the bridge. "Aiding Autobots!" Two Vehicons grabbed me and dragged me back up to Megatron before dropping me at his pedes. Slowly, Megatron crouched and roughly grabbed my chin, forcing me to look up at him. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't offline you right now!"

I gulped, breathing faster out of fear. I scrambled to figure out an answer. "Uh…y-you need me. I-I'm a medic and Knock Out can't do it all himself…a-and you can use me on re-recon. I-I know how to get information about the Autobot allies…"

The instant after that came out of my voicebox, Megatron let go of my chin and allowed my head to tip downwards. "Wise words. Wavelength, I want you to scout out Jasper, Nevada. Report back in one human solar cycle. If you do not, I will consider that you will have gone rogue." And with that, Megatron walked away. With a small whimper, I got to my pedes. Once I had straightened, I glanced at the Vehicons that worked on the bridge. They had watched the whole thing. As soon as they saw me looking at them, they quickly turned and focused on their consoles.

I guess this visor kept them from knowing if I was glaring at them or not.

With a small sigh, I quickly made my way to the Ground Bridge control room. My abdomen throbbed with pain from the kick, and I absentmindedly wondered if he had bruised the bottom of my sparkling chamber. But I rubbed the area and continued on before I walked into the med bay. Knock Out and Dreadwing weren't there, so I continued on until I was in the control room. Quickly, I typed in the coordinates for Jasper and opened a Ground Bridge. I quickly ran through the portal and transformed into my air-mode.

I soared over the trees near Jasper, wondering about how much Megatron valued my life. Probably not much. And that scared me.

When I decided that driving through Jasper could help me forget about what happened on the Nemesis, I transformed down into my ground alt and drove into the small town. But even when I tinted my windows to a point where people couldn't see inside me, and even though I was surrounded by familiar buildings and other things, I still felt depressed. It took a while for my spark to not feel so heavy, but even then, I wasn't all that cheerful.

Like, how was I supposed to? After living a life as a giant robot from a distant planet for thousands of years, and being forced into the Decepticon ranks, how was I supposed to be happy with a boss that thought that I was as worthless as slag? I was too scared to leave the Decepticons—and Knock Out—behind. I was afraid, that as soon as I was gone, Knock Out might be degraded, abused, mistreated. Yes, Knock Out was the Decepticons' "best medic", but Megatron didn't care. He didn't care how good you were at doing something like repairing troops. Knock Out was just as expendable as the next Vehicon. Breakdown was already gone, I don't know how I would feel if Knock Out was offlined as well.

I sighed and pulled over by the sidewalk that ran in front of a small mall. "Jasper Mall" was displayed on a faded plaque mounted on the wall facing me. I settled down on my axles with a relaxed hum, and activated my holoform. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes as the windows of my alt faded to the normal tint and I made it look like I was resting. I made a pair of pink-rimmed aviator glasses appear over my eyes as I relaxed.

I couldn't leave the Decepticons. Not without Knock Out. And he couldn't defect because of the glitch in his processor. If he took one step off the Nemesis with the intentions of defecting, the glitch would activate and send him into stasis lock. That would leave me alone to try to lug him away to safety.

But how could I get him away? Would I have to hook up to him with my dataplug and remove the glitch manually?

A rapping on my window brought me out of my thoughts and I opened my eyes. Taking the aviator glasses off, I looked out the driver's side window and saw Jack standing there, smiling at me. He must have been off work. He still had a KO Burger hat on. "Jack?" I asked before I point to my own head, indicating the hat. I rolled down my driver's side window just as Jack blushed and took the hat off.

"Uh…thanks?" he said meekly. I chuckled.

"Nice to see you, Jack," I said with a smile. "What are you up to? Are you in a rush?" my eyebrows rose and my smile turned into a smirk.

Jack rubbed the back of his neck with a small smile of his own. "Well…yeah. I had to get to the mall in order to meet up with a couple of friends. You know them, Miko and Raf?" I nodded. "Anyway, they want to try out the new arcade game machine for Zombie Smackdown III before the rest of the town finds out."

I hummed in interest. "Well, that sounds like an exciting game. I remember playing a zombie shooting game back before I moved here, and me and a friend of mine totally slaughtered the undead."

The raven-haired young man rolled his eyes. "Gee, is Mikaela another Miko in the making?" he mused out loud.

I pressed an index finger to my chin. "Oh, I don't know…"

There was a bout of silence after that where we stared at each other. But then we both burst out laughing. "Is Miko still hyperactive?" I managed to ask between giggles.

"Y-yeah," he replied. "And still loves the same gory, scary movies under the monster genre."

I climbed out of my alt with a goofy smile plastered on my holoform's face. I began to walk towards the entrance of the mall while pretending to lock my alt with a holographic controller. Jack followed me to the entrance and opened the door for me. I had to giggle at his chivalry. I guess he was happy to see me.

Inside, we bumped into the teen and almost-teen that Jack was supposed to meet up with. "Good, you're here! C'mon, let's go to the arcade!" the hazel-eyed Japanese girl exclaimed as soon as she saw us. She latched onto Jack's left wrist and began to drag him towards the aforementioned part of the mall, leaving Raf and I standing there, staring after them. I glanced down at Raf and he shrugged.

We followed the two into the arcade and as soon as I was in through the door, I spotted Miko standing in front of the Zombie Smackdown III arcade machine, holding up a purple plastic pistol and was pointing at the screen. I left Raf with Jack and walked over to the black and pink haired girl. She was halfway through a game by the time I came to a stop beside her, and it seemed that she was having a blast.

She was shooting zombies left and right, but she was soon overwhelmed and the screen went dark. In a flash, big red letters dripping drops of blood spelt "GAME OVER". Miko groaned before she began to fish for some more cash in her pocket.

"Hey," I said, catching her attention. "Can I play with you?"

"Sure," Miko said, studying me. "How good of a player are you?"

I shrugged. "Before I met Jack, I was pretty good at playing the first Zombie Smackdown." I smiled. "I'll pay for myself."

And with that, we began. Both of us inserted our coins at the same time and picked up our pistols. I weighed the gun in my hand and experimented in holding it as we waited for it to load. My sonic cannon replaced my right servo when I brought it out, so I never really held any weapons, other than when I managed to take a sword or gun from an enemy. But that wasn't going to stop me from taking out as many zombies as I could on the game.

Miko selected the 'One on One' option for two-player and we were plunged into a world made up of an abandoned mansion and sprawling courtyards and gardens…filled with zombies. I grinned and cocked my weapon, ready for when the zombies would start to swarm us. 'One on One' was a two-player game mode for Zombie Smackdown that tested the skill of the player, making both players fight to kill the most zombies and gain the most points. So Miko wanted to see how good of a player I was, then? You're on, I accepted the challenge mentally.

As soon as the zombies began to appear on the screen, I began to shoot. Every shot was precise, taking down each zombie with pin-point precision—actually that's a little bit of an exaggeration. Many of the zombies needed two shots to take them down because I often missed the "vitals".

The points ratcheted up as the zombie-death toll rose steadily. Constant gunfire filled the arcade as Jack and Raf watched us slaughter the computer-generated undead.

And then the game was over. I looked at the scores with a grin on my face as I set my gun down.

Player 1 (Miko): 200224 pts

Player 2 (Mikaela): 200538 pts

"Ah-ha! Beat you!" I exclaimed. Miko frowned and crossed her arms.

"Rematch!" she proclaimed, throwing her right arm up and pointing at the ceiling dramatically.

Later, after I had spent a lot more time having fun with Jack, Miko, and Raf, I found myself in my robot form, sitting on a large log out on the edge of town. Absentmindedly, I rubbed my crest and fingered the jewel I had gotten from Moonracer that was still imbedded in it. How times had changed since before the war. I went from being a normal girl, to a giant alien robot medic, to a warrior/medic that was on the wrong side of the war.

I hugged myself as a GroundBridge opened up before me and Knock Out stepped out. "Sulking, are you?" he voiced teasingly as he walked up to me.

I chuckled dryly. "You know me, Knock Out. I don't sulk," I told him.

"It sure looks like it," he said, sitting down on the log next to me.

A long, weary sigh escaped me as I propped my elbows on my knees, leaned forward a bit, and rested my chin in my servos. "It's been a long time since I've had any fun like I had today…" I said wistfully.

Knock Out lightly rested a servo on my left shoulder, the one closest to him. "What did you do this solar-cycle?" he asked.

I hummed. "I impersonated a human and spent time with the Autobot allies," I said, looking at him out of my turquoise optics. I had retracted my visor as soon as I heard Knock Out was going to GroundBridge to my location. "They are…nice…they were kind. I felt welcome, something I haven't felt since we were sucked into the Decepticon side of the war…"

Knock Out nodded.

"I looked for information about the Autobots, but got nothing. They were without their Autobot friends," I added. I turned my head fully and looked at the red mech sitting beside me. "Do you think Megatron will punish me again because I didn't get any useful information?"

My friend looked at me with his red on black optics, and didn't say anything. But I could see his answer in the depths of his optics. They said: I'm not sure. My wings drooped in despair and I shrank down a bit. Fear raced around my spark for a couple of nanokliks before I managed to quell it. But I didn't stop the shudder.

A pair of strong arms wrapped around me and squeezed, giving me a hug. "Don't worry, Wavelength, everything will turn out fine."

I wish that was true…

SJSGirl: Yeah, I was happy writing that slaggers end, or what Wavelength had heard about his end. Megatron is scary-scary… *hugs myself*

Taboo22: Glad you do!

markzilla6895: You'll see… ;)

zrexheartz: Not good at all…

Sunstreaker's Squishy: I don't know how you missed it. I must have updated it on the days you weren't online… but oh well, at least you discovered it. :D Thanks!

KayleeChiara: Glad you like it, and thanks for the advice. There will be more daughter-son moments between Mikaela/Wavelength and Bumblebee coming soon!