Back at Autobot-city Hot Rod drove straight to the repair-bay, hoping no one would notice him on the way there.
It was quiet in the repair-bay. Only Ratchet was there, working on Kup. When the doors opened and a battered Hot Rod drove in Ratchet looked up from his work.
"Wow… What the heck did you do to yourself now!?" He closed up Kup after the routine check-up.
"I ran into Megatron's evil twin. Or actually, they ran into me," Hot Rod replied cheerfully and transformed with some difficulty.
"And you didn't call for backup?!" Kup rebuked him with a stern look in his eyes. "Kid, if you even want to live to be half my age, you'd better loose the 'I-can-take-on-anybody'-attitude."
The sliding-doors behind Hot Rod opened op without him noticing.
"I didn't need backup, really. As you can see, I'm right here!"
Alyx growled at him. 'Didn't need back up he says! If it wasn't for me he'd be a pile of ash!' she said in her mind.
"Lucky's response tells me otherwise, Hot Rod," Prime's voice sounded behind him.
She had seen Prime coming and let him hear her thoughts about the situation.
Hot Rod turned around and Prime gave him a probing look. "So What happened?" he demanded to know.
"Runabout and Runamuck tried to total me and almost did. I crashed and when I came to they were just lying there, knocked out."
Kup jumped off of the table where Ratchet had been treating him. "Crashed?! Came to..? They could have easily destroyed you, kid!" Kup told him. "When are you gonna learn it's no shame to call for backup?"
"Kup is right, Hot Rod," Prime agreed with the old warrior. "You know better than that to take chances against those two."
"And what do you mean 'they were knocked out'? How were they knocked out?"
Ratchet gestured Hot Rod to get on the table so he could take a look at his damages.
"I don't know. I guess I got a lucky brake. Maybe they crashed into each other, I don't know. Me and Lucky didn't wait for them to wake up and tell us you know."
"Ironhide will pick up Daniel from school," Prime notified Hot Rod.
"But I'll be ready to roll by that time… Right Ratchet?"
"What do you think I am?! A miracle-worker? It's gonna take hours to get this right."
"Take your time, Ratchet," Prime ordered him. "Come on Lucky, you're with me."
Hot Rod let his head hang. Boy, did he mess up this time…
Alyx followed Prime out of the repair-bay.
"Let's go for a ride," he said and transformed and opened a door for her to jump in.
Once they had left Autobot-city Alyx transformed back to her own self.
"You know there wasn't really any time to call for backup. You'd never made it on time," she defended Hot Rod. "We were at least twenty minutes away from Autobot-city."
"Twenty minutes for a car, yes, but the Aerialbot's are way faster than that."
"It happened so fast… at first Hot Rod stayed ahead of them, but then they started shooting and this big blast threw him off the road. He was knocked out and they were coming to finish him off. I barked and I barked but he wouldn't wake up, so I had to do something."
"So what did you do?"
"I concentrated on them to try and stop them when suddenly it seemed like my mind was flowing through their circuits… I caused them to pass out. Hot Rod didn't see a thing, he was out cold."
"Impressive," Prime said. "But you might want to be careful with that if you're not able to control that kinda power."
That's one thing Prime could not teach me. Or anybody else on the planet. He did teach me a lot of other important things. Like the standards and values the Autobots lived by.
Like for example: respect and defend all that lives, including the creatures of Earth; protect the weak, defend what you believe in. And of course, defeat the Decepticons at all cost.
He let me watch a lot of interesting shows on the Discovery Channel and similar channels. That was a lot less boring than reading dusty books. I particularly loved the Animal Planet channel. And I tried to transform into every single animal that I saw on there.
Prime was impressed by all the different forms I could become. And I was impressed by his – and those of the other Autobots – transformations. It is most extraordinary to see a truck, car of jet transform into a robot. It surprised me every time again how they did that.
Now I was with them for about a year. Kup had told me lot's of stories of battles he had survived and I had asked Prime to ask him if he'd ever come across organic-transformers.
"If anyone could know about organic-transformers like me, don't you think he'd know?" I asked Prime when we were driving around again.
This time Prime was teaching me how to drive him, which I thought was a great honour he'd let me.
I sat on the leather drivers-seat, behind the wheel. Prime was still driving when he told me to take over from him.
"Are you sure I can do this?" she asked him while she put her hands on his steering wheel and her feet above the pedals.
"Positive. Don't worry, you know what all pedals do, right?" He'd just told her that earlier.
"Yeah."
"I'll guide you, just follow my lead. Hold on to the wheel and put your foot on the accelerator so I can let go."
"Okay."
She felt the accelerator come up and she pushed it down with her foot to where it had been so they kept the same speed.
"Very good. You're in control now."
She grinned a bit nervous. This was way different from driving Bumblebee, who had been at the 'mercy' of her driving-skills before. She could drive him since he knew who she was.
It wasn't hard to keep Prime steady, but than again, they were driving on a long straight highway with hardly any traffic on it.
"Can I speed up a bit?" she asked after a while.
"Sure."
"How fast are you anyway?" she wanted to know.
"If you want to know, just step right on that throttle and find out. Oh, and don't forget to switch gears please."
She nodded, bit her lip and tightened her grip on the wheel. Slowly she pushed the accelerator down with her foot. She felt the power of his engine as the increasing speed pushed her back into her seat.
At the right point she switched gears and stepped a bit more on the accelerator.
"You sure are fast! Way faster than Bumblebee or Ironhide!"
"Well, what did you expect?" he grinned.
"I hadn't expected this kind of speed from such a big rig."
In the distance another rig approached.
"I'm not just any rig."
"That's right!"
"Alyx, could you please step on it as hard as you can?" Prime asked her somewhat urgently.
"O yeah!" She smiled and stepped on the accelerator until it couldn't go any deeper.
She noticed the approaching rig. And some cars behind it.
"Shouldn't we slow down? There's some traffic coming up."
"We should if that was normal traffic. But that … is Motormaster!"
