It had been a bad idea from the start.
"Arm wrestling. You and me. Loser gets to babysit Raf," Miko said.
The responsible thing to do would have been to refuse. Jack should have refused. Any other time, any other person, Jack would have ignored... but Miko had a certain quality about her, a way of challenging and infuriating, that simply demanded to be countered.
Plus, Raf was smarter than them both combined. He certainly didn't need babysitting. Jack couldn't help but feel a little offended on Raf's behalf.
"You're on," Jack said, glad for once that Mom worked late shifts and never dropped by the Autobot base unless absolutely necessary. She surely would have scolded him for this.
Arm wrestling escalated into actual wrestling. Jack won by the simple virtue of size. Miko was scrawny, fourteen, and a girl. Jack was also scrawny, but he had thirty pounds and six inches on her. Plus, high school PhysEd had given him wrestling experience while Miko suffered through whatever excuse for "sports" they let girls play. Miko had the fighting spirit, but she didn't have the strength to back it up.
When Arcee came looking for them, Jack had Miko in a headlock, and Miko was doing her very best to claw his eyes out. Mom would be furious when she saw the scratches.
"Admit it. You lost," Jack gritted out.
"I'll never surrender!" Miko shouted, and she sank her teeth into Jack's arm.
"Ow!" Jack released her, scrambling away to check his sore arm.
Arcee watched them both with considerable amusement. "You kids doing alright? Do I need to call June about a medical emergency?"
"No," they said simultaneously. Jack grunted.
"I'm fine." The bite hadn't broken the skin. Not much, anyway. Not more than a couple tissues and a band-aid could fix. "Anyway, I won."
"Only 'cause you're bigger and heavier," Miko complained.
Jack shrugged. "No argument there."
"You think it's because of Jack's size that he automatically won?" Arcee shook her head. "It's all a matter of how you use your strength. Miko, don't treat this like a fight between equals, because it's not. You have to use your smaller frame to your advantage. See, if you'd twisted toward Jack's shoulder when he had you…"
Arcee explained how Miko could have broken Jack's hold, dislocated his shoulder, and probably shattered three of his ribs in the process. Jack winced. Arcee was absolutely ruthless when it came to hand-to-hand combat.
"You're supposed to be my guardian. Whose side are you even on?" Jack teased.
Arcee wasn't joking, though. She glanced between Jack with his bitten arm and Miko with her wounded pride.
"The best way to learn is by example," Arcee decided, bringing two fingers to the side of her head. "Hey Bulk, you got a minute? Practical sparring demo in the training room. Miko needs to learn to fight a bigger opponent. Yes, right now."
When Arcee and Bulkhead faced off in the middle of the training room, Jack couldn't help but worry for Arcee a little. Bulkhead was at least five times her size. Of course Jack knew that Arcee was a capable warrior. He'd seen her fight Vehicons, Airachnid, and plenty of other enemies. He'd seen her win and deal massive damage in the process.
Arcee was quick and sharp, but one hit from Bulkhead's wrecking balls and she'd be toast.
They faced off, fists clenched. Neither one of them had their weapons out, which helped Jack see the situation as the training exercise it was. Sparring match. Practice, not a real fight. That had to count for something. Bulkhead and Arcee weren't actually aiming to hurt each other here.
Bulkhead charged.
Arcee did… something, too fast for Jack to see, and flipped Bulkhead through a wall. It shouldn't have been possible. One moment, Bulkhead was running toward her like an unstoppable rockslide; the next, Bulkhead was halfway through the training room wall and upside down, peering at them all with dazed blue optics.
"Thought you said this was a demo, not a demolition," Bulkhead groaned.
Jack shook off the astonishment and cheered. "Whoa. Sweet. Go Arcee!"
"No way." Miko sounded torn between disbelief and disappointment. "C'mon, Bulk. You threw the match, right? Or… or you must've tripped. Bulk?"
Bulkhead rolled over like a large green turtle, crunching through the rubble of the destroyed wall to land on all fours. Old metal pipes squeaked and crumpled under his weight as he shifted. He had apparently taken out a good chunk of the base's plumbing and air ventilation ducts when he crashed through the wall.
"Nah. That's Arcee for you. Meanest little fighter in the Autobots, bar none." Bulkhead stood up and looked at the mess of the wall. "Oh, not again. Ratchet is going to be so mad."
Arcee grimaced. "Don't worry about it, Bulk. This one's on me. I'll talk to Ratchet."
"Yeah, but I'm the one who actually smashed the wall." Bulkhead lifted up a slab of concrete and tried to slot it back into the hole in the wall. It stuck, if only just. Bent pipes stuck out at odd angles. He picked up another broken piece, and another. "Scrap. Ratch isn't coming back from patrol for another… five minutes, right? Maybe we can patch this up before—oh?"
Bulkhead broke off in surprise, staring at the rubble beneath the last concrete slab that he had lifted. Amid the crumbly mess of the ruined wall and some old broken ventilation pipes that had been inside that wall, there was also a flash of red. Metallic red. It belonged to a humanoid red and black Cybertronian who was about the same height as Jack.
"Aw frag," said the little red bot crouched in the rubble, and he bolted for the pipes.
It had been a—well, not quite a bad idea, but perhaps not quite as well thought-out as Frenzy's past ideas were.
He missed having Rumble around, okay? Bouncing ideas off each other had come so naturally in the past. Pranks, ops, tunes—you name it, they'd collaborated on it. Working solo was different, and not in a good way.
It was one thing to wake up on an alien planet several megavorns after being captured by the Autobots. It was another thing entirely to discover that the boss had lost everyone except Laserbeak. Rumble, Ravage, Buzzsaw, Ratbat. All of them, missing in action, just like Frenzy had been for all those eons while he was locked up in resonance blaster mode inside that stuffy Iacon relic box. Frenzy should've been there for the others. He should've been there for the boss. He should've—
A powerful blow shuddered through the concrete around Frenzy, making the air conditioning pipe rattle against its supports. He stumbled and caught himself with one hand against the side of the pipe. Flimsy sheet metal flexed under his weight.
Frenzy should've thought this through better.
In his defense, the infiltration had been going splendidly up until two minutes ago. Frenzy had been nice and cozy in the overly large air conditioning ducts that ran through the Autobot base, listening to everything that went on around here. Not much, as it turned out. Autobots were pretty boring when you thought about it, but there were still a few things that the boss might find interesting. Frenzy recorded two solar cycles' worth of footage, packing away terabytes of juicy Autobot secrets with nobody the wiser. Then, that clumsy green oaf decided to somersault through the exact wall Frenzy happened to be sitting inside.
Frenzy fled through the vents, hotly pursued by the huge green Autobot and the smaller blue one. Bulkhead and Arcee. Luckily, the vents and tunnels here were just big enough that Frenzy could fit through them. It was like they'd been made for someone his size. It probably helped that Frenzy was about the same size as those squishy fleshling pets that the Autobots kept around.
As he scurried along horizontal traverses and shimmied up vertical shafts, he sent out a frantic comm signal. "Hey boss, I'm kind of in the middle of the Autobot base—long story—and I could really use a bridge right now… hello? Boss? Are you hearing this?"
No one answered. The Autobot base must have a comm-blocker installed. That probably explained why nobody knew where the Autobots were hiding, but it sure didn't help Frenzy's case right now. Frenzy swore and boosted the power to his comms.
"Boss? Megs? Anyone?"
The pipe vibrated again, hard enough to knock Frenzy off his feet. He tucked into a roll and slid to a stop just before the pipe in front of him sheared away. Hands as big as his entire frame tore through the sides of the pipe like tinfoil, peeling it open as he scrambled backward. Light streamed in from the room outside. All of a sudden, the path leading to the command center heat exchanger terminated in open air.
A massive face blotted out the room beyond, blue optics smoldering ominously.
"Found you," Bulkhead said. He tugged on the pipe, and the pipe tilted downward.
Frenzy slid down, clawing for purchase against the slippery walls. His magnets snagged on something vaguely iron-based, but the grip was too weak. He barely slowed.
Out of options, Frenzy transformed and fell like a brick.
The blue optics at the end of the pipe widened. "He's the resonance blaster—"
Smart mech. Frenzy fired off a sonic attack, and Bulkhead crashed backward. The clatter shook the entire base. Frenzy slid through the end of the pipe, transforming as he fell. He dropped onto Bulkhead's torso and stuck the landing. Bulkhead was flat on his back, momentarily paralyzed by the sonic stun attack. His audios were probably fried too. Frenzy hadn't held back.
Arcee lunged in from the side, swiping at Frenzy with razor-sharp claws. Frenzy dove in the opposite direction and narrowly avoided losing a leg to her arm-mounted blade. He tumbled to the floor and sprinted toward a human-sized tunnel.
The ground shivered, and the air took on an electric tingle. Groundbridge activation. Frenzy changed directions and ran toward the command center. The Autobots had a groundbridge in there. Frenzy had several recordings of them coming and going through that bridge. He couldn't outrun them forever, but he didn't have to last forever. He just needed to escape the comms blackout around their base.
After sneaking around the Autobot base for two days, Frenzy knew its layout inside and out. He used those human-scale tunnels whenever possible to throw Arcee off his trail. There weren't a whole lot of those tunnels around base in general, though, and the last stretch was a wide-open dash through the command center.
The groundbridge was active, blue and green promising safety on the other side of that portal. Frenzy ran as fast as he could, diving right between the oversized feet of Optimus Prime—who did a funny little one-footed hop when Frenzy dashed by.
"Optimus, stop that minicon!" Arcee shouted, chasing after Frenzy.
Prime made a confused noise. That was the last Frenzy heard before he rushed into the portal and the howl of space-time tearing itself apart overwhelmed his audios.
Inside the portal, Frenzy ran past an ambulance who transformed into a puzzled looking Ratchet.
Frenzy crossed the event horizon, and the Autobot base vanished into a desert sprawl.
Desert. Nowhere to hide. And Arcee was still hot on his tail.
"Boss, I need a pickup, stat!" Frenzy shouted over comms, putting as much distance between himself and the Autobot groundbridge.
Arcee charged through the portal behind him, optics blazing the color of spilt energon. Her razor claws and furious scowl promised certain death if she caught up to him. Ratchet loomed a few steps behind her. Ratchet was not wielding any visible weapons, but he was a medic; he didn't need any weapons to take a mech apart.
Frag. Frag. Frag.
Blue-green light flooded the world in front of Frenzy, and a dark silhouette emerged.
Soundwave!
"Boss!" Frenzy had never been so happy to see the boss. He leapt up, transforming as he flew through the air, and stuck to the solid plane of a right arm in resonance blaster mode.
The boss was not panicking like Frenzy. The boss was calm and immovable as ever. He nodded once at the Autobots and turned around, retreating through the groundbridge as naturally as walking. Behind them, frustrated shouts carried over from the Autobots.
Once they returned to the Nemesis, the boss stared at Frenzy for a long time. Frenzy transformed and jumped off his arm. The boss continued staring at him.
After a while, Frenzy started to get bored. He shuffled his feet. He tapped a little rhythm against his arm. He looked anywhere but at the boss's visor, which was replaying a video loop of one terrified Frenzy running from that crazed Autobot Arcee.
"Uh. That was." Frenzy started. He glanced up, but the boss's visor was still looping that clip.
Disapproval radiated from the boss.
"I know, I know, not cleared for active duty yet—but I've got two solar cycles of Autobot intel recorded. That has to count for something, right?"
The boss was quiet. He'd been quiet for ages—ever since he took that vow of silence back in the day, devotion to the Decepticons and all that—but this was a different type of quiet. Frenzy wasn't quite sure that he liked it.
At last, the boss picked Frenzy up by the scruff of the neck and unceremoniously ported him over to Knock Out's medbay.
Medical checkup, the boss conveyed through a surprisingly simple sequence of visor charades, depositing Frenzy in Knock Out's tender care. Then, he left.
Knock Out raised an optic at Frenzy, sprawled in a rather disgruntled heap on one of the medbay repair berths. Frenzy stared right back, daring Knock Out to comment on the indignity of his arrival.
Wisely, Knock Out only commented on the state of Frenzy's paintjob, which was perfectly fine by Frenzy's standards and apparently abhorrent by Knock Out's standards.
Whatever. Frenzy certainly wouldn't complain if Knock Out wanted to treat him to a free repaint.
Once Frenzy's chronometer reached ten millicycles on the dot, Knock Out set aside the polishing supplies and smiled.
"Well, Frenzy, you're free to go. Soundwave will be delighted to know that you're in perfect health."
Frenzy stood up and stretched, rolling his shoulder joints. "He sure will… right before he kills me for sneaking off."
"Hmm, yes. In that case, I suppose we'll be seeing each other again soon." Knock Out paused, glancing sideways at him. "Oh. Before you go, I was wondering. How did you manage to infiltrate the Autobot base after all?"
"Oh, that?" Frenzy smirked. "That was super easy."
Two solar cycles ago…
Frenzy wandered the halls of the Nemesis, bored and scheming. He passed an Eradicon flier. E-27, according to his ident codes. E-27 nodded in greeting and very carefully didn't step on Frenzy. Smart fellow. Frenzy turned around and matched E-27's walking path.
"Hey, mech. You wanna go out and shoot me?" Frenzy asked.
E-27 misstepped and nearly walked into a wall. "W-what? Uh. No, sir?"
"I mean, do you want to use me to shoot something? Feel some real sonic power in your servos. Sounds like fun, right?"
"Uh, I guess maybe…"
Not the quickest flier in the squad, clearly, but E-27 would do just fine for Frenzy's purposes.
After some coaxing, Frenzy got E-27 to take him outside. E-27 flew through the clouds with Frenzy riding along in resonance blaster alt-mode, magnetic clips adhered to the edge of E-27's wing.
With a bit of internet consultation and Frenzy's guidance, it wasn't long before they came across a suitable target: a yellow and black Autobot driving down the road.
"Look, an Autobot! Let's shoot him," Frenzy suggested.
E-27 obliged, dipping into a steep dive to point Frenzy's muzzle toward the Autobot. Frenzy fired the moment they were pointed in about the right direction. The sonic attack missed by about twenty meters, but that was alright. Frenzy wasn't overly concerned with aim.
The Autobot transformed into Bumblebee and shot back. E-27 dodged, spinning away in evasive maneuvers. Frenzy unlocked his magnetic clips at exactly the right time and tumbled off E-27's wing, dropping into the open air.
"Oh no—sorry sir, my bad! I'll call for backup," E-27 shouted after Frenzy, using a short range commline.
"No! You gotta keep quiet about this. If you tell Soundwave that you lost me, he'll melt your brain from the inside out," Frenzy warned as he fell. It wasn't far to the ground. He had fallen further and emerged unscathed in the past.
"But sir—"
"I'll be fine. Scram!" Frenzy hit the road in alt-mode and bounced, skittering to a halt right at Bumblebee's feet.
High above, E-27 wheeled around and fled to avoid Bumblebee's plasma stingers.
Once E-27 vanished into the distance, Bumblebee stooped to look at Frenzy. In resonance blaster mode, Frenzy bore no resemblance to the deployer he truly was. Bumblebee certainly couldn't tell that Frenzy was anything more than a fancy weapon. Bumblebee whirred in amazement, broken vocalizer approximating the shape of Cybertronian words.
"Wow, that random 'Con dropped the resonance blaster! Lucky me." Bumblebee picked up Frenzy without a second thought, calling the other Autobots as he did so. "Hey Ratchet, you'll never believe what I just found."
Bumblebee brought Frenzy to the Autobot base via groundbridge. After a quick inspection by Ratchet confirmed that Frenzy was indeed the real resonance blaster, Bumblebee stashed Frenzy in a storeroom alongside the rest of the Autobots' Iacon relics.
Knock Out delicately reset his vocalizer. "Iacon relics. Let me get this straight. You found the Autobots' entire stash of Iacon relics… and you didn't retrieve them."
"Yeah. I'm just a little guy, you know?" Frenzy said, shrugging. "I couldn't fit any of those clunky relics in my subspace, so I just figured I'd get some intel and then skip town. Show all you big mechs that I'm good for more than sitting pretty on someone's arm."
For the first time in quite a while, Knock Out was stunned speechless.