Notes/ Longest chapter so far. I saw no reason to break it up, so I just kept on going. I'm realizing as I'm writing lately that this plot is getting slightly more complex than I had planned on it being. Oh well. I'm running with it anyway. Might just end up with a longer finished piece than I thought. Starting out with this story, I decided to try my best to keep any known details accurate and in line with the TFP universe. I realized recently that I've already slightly goofed on that. Anyone who knows the series well, might notice I got a bit of 'Bee's backstory wrong. Doesn't really matter plot wise of course, but I had completely forgotten that the show actually mentioned he was interrogated and refused to give information. I remembered that only after I posted last week. My bad on that.
I'm noticing as well that some characters are much harder to write properly compared to others, and I do hope I'm getting them close enough. Arcee is trickier than I thought. Knockout is downright challenging… A couple others are actually slightly OTC for a reason, and I'm aware that they seem a bit off.
As always thanks for the reviews. I love the feedback and any ideas.
The long smooth roadway had run out kilometres before, and the terrain was becoming steadily rougher. Gigantic chunks of metals of varied sorts littered the ground, and those were closer together and larger all the time. The elevation dropped rapidly to the left, and to the right it was completely impassable. Arcee raced around a natural bend in the makeshift pathway, forced to turn sharp and dodge to the left to avoid slamming against the biggest of the metal boulders she'd seen so far. She checked her tracker again and veered to the right as soon as she had an opening between the increasing obstacles. She knew she should have been slowing down well before then, but against her better judgment she sped up. The flashing signal from the rescue beacon was close now, but she didn't see any sign of Bumblebee.
"Arcee. Watch out!" Knockout's shout from behind made her drag her attention back from her tracker, just in time to dodge another huge border before she smashed into it hard. The incline abruptly grew sharper. She stopped to think, to collect herself. Knockout rolled up beside her and braked hard.
"Thanks." Arcee said, looking out over the terrible terrain which didn't look like it would get any better. "That was close."
"Still picking up that signal?"
Arcee looked around. "He's close. But I don't see him."
She transformed to her bot mode and crept further down the incline, looking around again, and shaking her head in growing concern. "Knockout, I think he may have gone off the road."
"Over these cliffs? It's more than possible." Knockout transformed as well, and pointed over the great expanse below them. "Not likely from this trail though, but that one on the other side. You can't tell from here but the drop is sudden and the ground is loose and unstable. He wouldn't know the road, and if he was driving too fast…"
"Where are we?" Arcee questioned suddenly. She had not put any thought into it before, intent only on following the rescue beacon. But she realized she didn't know the place at all herself. Yet clearly Knockout did. She shivered slightly as she understood they had driven well outside of known Autobot territory, and she didn't think it was among the few still never claimed neutral areas either.
"This was a Decepticon training field," Knockout said. "It was used mostly by the minority ground forces, but it had its uses for the fliers too."
Arcee shivered again, and felt her fuel tank drop a little. Years upon endless years had taught her well never to race blindly into enemy territory, and though the danger in that no longer existed as it once had, still it just felt wrong to be there. Glancing back at Knockout, she saw how he appeared as uneasy as her, and maybe much more so. Looking around again for any sign of an accident, she shook off her unease and stepped back from the incline.
"This is your home ground, and I'm lost out here," she said still forcing away the fear that the place instilled in her. "I'll follow you. There's got to be a way down there."
"There's somewhat of a road," Knockout said as he transformed back to vehicle mode and Arcee immediately followed. He rolled forward and slowly began to drive again. "It's steep and narrow, and bumpy. We'll need to go slow."
He slowly rounded a bend and she saw what he was talking about. It was not a road, so much as an access trail down around the edge of a steep bank of jagged cliffs. Not only was it steeper than she would have guessed, it was also clearly slippery under the tiny and shifting bits of metal fibers and dust. She considered once carefully, and knew there was no way such a path would be safe for a two wheeler. She opted instead to run carefully down on two feet, in bot mode. Knockout's vehicle form was barely able to go much faster on that trail than her running speed anyway.
"Arcee to base," she said, speaking to her commlink as she made her way steadily down around the edge of the cliffs. "Is anyone reading me over there?"
"Load and clear, Arcee," Bulkhead's voice came back over her comm, and she sighed with the relief that knowing she could still be reached in once dangerous territory somehow brought her.
"Bulk' we'll eventually be in need of a bridge. Mind standing by?"
"On it. Hey Arcee, where are you?"
"Uh… Bulk', you probably don't wanna know. But I think we've found 'Bee."
"Just a heads up. Knockout is gone too."
"He's with me."
"With you? You're okay with that?" Obviously her hesitation in trusting the newest Autobot, had not gone unnoticed by her team.
She nodded slightly, though of course he could not see her do it. "Yeah, just fine, thanks. Stand by, Bulk'"
Once they had reached the bottom of the badly slopping, and near deadly trail, they found themselves in a field of jagged metallic rock, and smooth rounded stones of sulfur, that crunched under foot. The tiny jagged points of many tiny eroded bits of copper and iron reflected the sun above, as their footfalls and tire treads kicked up the bits that had never been dulled by friction and wear.
"This place is more horrible than I remember it," Knockout said as he rolled along carefully. "It was never nice out here, but never this bad either. Amazing what centuries of war can do to a…"
He stopped speaking and transformed quickly, before standing up and taking a slow careful step forward. He nearly tripped over, as his still not perfectly working foot bumped a larger piece of jagged metal of some kind. He managed to catch himself quickly.
"Arcee," he said, dropping onto his knees on the ground. "We found him."
"'Bee," Arcee cried in a mix of relief and dread as she dropped to her knees nearby. The black and yellow bot was completely powered down, laying awkwardly face up near the bottom of a cliff. Sure enough he must have slipped off the far road, as Knockout had assumed. He was scrapped up and chips of his paint had been peeled from his body, but there was no sign of obvious bleeding. His head rested directly over a large chunk of an iron brick, and Arcee looked at Knockout with dread. She understood at once that such a thing was never a good sign. Knockout was looking up to the top of the cliff, where the road was way out of sight.
"That's a long way to fall," he said, clearly thinking out loud. It had to be at least a hundred meters up. He had already retrieved a scanner from his storage compartment, and carefully held it in his hand while motioning for her to get closer.
"He's lying in a scrap pile at the bottom of a cliff again," Arcee gasped in horror, as she fought back the washer fluid that threatened to leak at once from her optics. The terrible irony of the whole mess was not lost on her, and for the second time in the hour she nearly lost her fuel tank
"He was knocked into power down, but he's alive." Knockout said without looking up. One hand reached behind him to hand her his scanner. "Hold this please."
Taking several long moments to check each limb over. He nodded once and mumbled to himself for a second before, he gently wedged an arm under Bumblebee's head and upper body. Very slowly he lifted him slightly, using his own body to keep his arm steady under the extra weight. Knockout's free hand quickly and swiftly pushed aside the rock, before he just as carefully placed the injured bot flat on the ground. Arcee watched silently, as he located a little maintenance panel on their teammates body, on the left side, where the shoulder met the neck. He clicked it open.
"I can only assume he must have knocked his central processor offline when his head smacked that rock. I'm going to try to reboot it and then we see what happens…. Arcee, keep his head steady, hands on either side. We need to keep him from moving until I can be sure he hasn't damaged or bent the main line through the back of his frame. Any sudden unstable moment with such damage and the line could snap, which would be bad."
Arcee nodded mutely as she moved to follow his direction. Quite strangely in the moment, she found herself thinking about just how similar Knockout seemed to Ratchet, and just how strange it was to see that comparison. Knockout may always have been somewhat of a self-centered coward, and may well have to many, seemed quite laughable as an enemy. But from her own experience, Arcee also knew the just how surprisingly formidable he could be on the enemy side. She had seen him taunt, and threaten Autobots for fun. Even humans had fallen victim, and not just once. His integrated weapons were so obviously designed for far greater use in hacking someone apart, then in actually doing any good.
Yet she saw somehow, the same devotion to his chosen field that she had seen so long in her trusted old teammate, now stationed back on Earth. Bumblebee was among the best of her few good friends, and she realized that without even questioning it, she had entrusted Knockout with his life. She wondered how her new teammate would have done in the capacity of battle field medic. No doubt, he must have done it at some point. The war had gone on and on so long. No doubt he'd hated it if for no other reason other than the amount of mess involved.
"He's survived far worse than this," Arcee said quietly. She needed to assure herself somehow as she looked at her longtime friend and teammate. He was still motionless and silent among the jagged rocks and little bits of his own chipped paint. Arcee knew that as much as she could barely face such a thought, if he were to offline, he would never have wanted this to be the way his light went out. Bee was a warrior, an Autobot. It was the only life he had ever truly known. he would he'd want it to be in the height of battle…. and he'd want to have been winning. A moment of poor judgement, and a resulting accident – that was just not a good enough end to his story.
She saw Knockout nod at her mumbled statement. He turned to look at her, and for a fleeting second she saw a strange expression of compassion that looked so out of place in optics as red as his. Turning away again, he said calmly, "Okay, ready to reboot. Keep a firm hold on him."
"Wh… What's happened?" 'Bee questioned in confusion at the same moment his optics slowly opened, and once again started to shine their bright blue. He tried to turn his head to the right. Arcee kept her hands firmly in place, and for a second he only blinked in confusion. "Why am I on the ground?"
"Bit of a spill. Right off the road and over the cliffs. We need you perfectly still for a minute," Knockout spoke with a calm, firm determination and focus that once again reminded Arcee of Ratchet. "You're probably on top of some rough ground, but I need to do a few checks with you now awake, before I can let you try getting up."
"I'm alright, I'm alright," Bumblebee mumbled in obvious disbelief and bewilderment over his mishap, as Knockout, true to his word made him lay where he was, while he scanned and rescanned him again, and instructed him to gently hold into his fingertips.
"That was completely idiotic of me," 'Bee mumbled, as he pressed the bottoms of his feet against the medic's palms, following directions. "I was just so upset. I don't know what I was thinking. I stopped paying attention to where I was going."
"I think we're all just glad you're alright, 'Bee." Arcee said gently. She moved her hands away from him as soon as she was motioned to do so.
"Everything looks, fine," Knockout said with confidence. "Try sitting up. Than you can probably stand up. Arcee, we might just be ready to call for that bridge."
Arcee called for it immediately, and she could not deny her relief when Bulkhead said he would activate one for them. Caught up in the moments of crisis, she had all but forgotten where she was, but now the knowledge of her location had quickly come back to her.
"Hey 'Bee," she said, gently grabbing her teammate's arm as soon as he was on his feet just fine. She pulled him closer to her, threw her arms around him and whispered more than half seriously, "if you ever drive that recklessly again, I swear to Primus, I'll scrap you."
He just hugged her right back, nodding silently, until the ground bridge opened.
Scene break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break
Knockout stood inside his living quarters, with his ever present rotary buffer in one hand. Bending down, he buffed and rebuffed, what in vehicle form, would become a left rear fender. Finally satisfied with that one, he worked on the right. He stepped back to sit on the edge of his recharge station and lifting a foot, he buffed the top of it for at least a minute, and then switched feet. Anything behind him was much harder to get too, and he was as frustrated as ever at being unsure he hadn't somehow scuffed up a back shoulder panel, and might never know it. Still sitting perched on the edge of the recharge station, he worked at shinning the panels that covered his headlights. In the dark, in vehicle form, he liked to think it was his headlights that showed an expression of his feelings, since his optics were hidden, tucked away under the motor.
Holding the buffer, still running and spinning idly, he looked around his room a bit. He had often considered a little decorating in there, but even after months he simply hadn't done much yet. Cybertronians generally occupied simple homes and spaces yes, but even by the standards of his world, his living space would be considered unfinished. There was the recharge station, tight against one wall and plugged into the power supply. The protective cover over both the frame and padding, were simple the simple light blue standard issue of the Autobot forces. There were a few shelves in the far corner, but they were bare expect for small stack of data pads. All that surrounded him were four dull greyish walls, and a sliding door.
On the day he'd split from the 'cons, eventually fleeing the Nemesis with the Autobots, after the warship had crashed, he'd left behind most of his own belongings. Of course going back later to collect anything was far from an option. Eventually he'd arrived at the Autobot base, almost in a state of silent shock for his own reasons, among a group of new teammates each in complete and utterly shocked states for a reason for their own. And the only things he later realized he had with him were the few things he'd been carrying in his storage compartment.
There was his medical kit, which he was grateful to still have. His energized fighting staff, which never seemed to work properly since the crash had thrown him to the floor with it stored disassembled, in his compartment. The buffer, which was easily replaced, but still one less thing of many to eventually worry about replacing. There were also a couple of random data pads, and he never was sure after the fact, why it was he'd been carrying those in the first place. Both were old fiction novels he'd read before. The rest of the pads on his otherwise empty shelf were his borrowed study material.
He began buffing again, if for no reason other reason than he somehow found the slight vibration against his finish calming, and considered that maybe it really was time to make the place home. Goods were slowly becoming available again on Cybertron, and there were so many things he could hand make or build himself. Looking at the bare wall in front of his recharge station, he thought of acquiring a digital frame to hang there. He'd had two of them onboard the warship, and displayed images of Earth automobiles in them. He thought he might like to find new photos to use again. He smiled thinking that maybe on this base, teammates would not laugh at him for it. He would need an audio player too. Most of the bots had them, and down the hall, Bulkhead's blared that blasted heavy metal for hours on end. He could hardly stand the noise. A new recharge station cover might brighten the place up. He was eager to start replacing his once decent collection of reading material, and probably get ahold of a chair to sit in to read.
A knock at the door made him jump slightly, and he shook his head at just how jumpy he'd become. Berating himself for his reaction to a simple knock, he shut off the buffer, and stood up.
"It isn't locked," he called out, before the door slid open. Bumblebee and Arcee both stepped in to his doorway.
"Is there an emergency?" Knockout questioned at once, and ready to hurry. The only reason he could think of for someone knocking would be a need of him in the medbay. He was ready to step into the hall at once, and wondered why no one had just commed him instead. It might have been quicker, if only slightly.
"No emergency," Arcee said. She chuckled a little. "You missed a spot." She nodded slightly toward the buffer in his hand and grinned.
"Where?" Knockout demanded, lifting first an arm and then more carefully, a leg, trying to see what it was that she had been referring to. "I did?"
"Oooh, Funny," he said after a second his frantic spot checking, and he had realized she was trying to kid around with him. He laughed. It was slowly becoming easier to do that.
"Arcee and I were about to go get some practice in," Bumblebee said. "We thought maybe you'd like to come too."
Curious, and admittedly more than a little bored, Knockout followed them when they walked back out to the hall. Walking behind them, almost keeping up with their faster pace and relieved that they were not actually slowing down much for him, he asked with caution, "what kind of practice are you talking about?"
"Just a little weapons practice," 'Bee answered as he stepped onto the lift that would take them down to the base's lower floor. Arcee stepped on next and knockout followed with some hesitation.
"Weapons practice?" he asked, repeating what he had just heard, and probably quite stupidly at that.
The lift led off directly into the base's large open gym, that the 'bots frequently used. Knockout had seen it only a couple times so far. He'd been shown the place, invited to use it anytime along with the others. He had been down there a couple of times, creeping in when the place was otherwise empty, to practice a little bit with the fighting staff of his. But he was far from a fighter. That and any other of his weapons were never for any actual combat. Oh they had their uses, but he was better at diving for the floor than much else. His tendency to panic and dive away shrieking had always embossed him, but he'd always just hidden it the best he could behind arrogance, and kept running before he was ever truly cornered in battle.
The gym was a huge open space with a mostly empty and lightly padded floor. The far corner was home to a couple of heavy punching bags, which were probably used mostly by Bulkhead. The rest was seemingly just space to kick and spin, to practice rolls and falls and flips. There was one of the simple, and narrow benches that seemed to be the favored model for the base, along part of one side wall. The far well held a pair of closed double doors that led to the blaster range, and Arcee and 'Bee made their way across to those doors, with Knockout still following and wondering if he had lost his mind.
"Blasters?" he questioned, making his disbelief obvious. "Seriously?"
Both Arcee and 'Bee had integrated firearms, but both grabbed one of the small blaster weapons from a little storage rack just outside the door anyway. To Knockout's surprise and while he just stood sputtering what should have been words, she handed him hers and grabbed another one for herself. The room they stepped into was far bigger than he might have guessed it would be. The door closed behind them.
"You'll never do much harm with one of these," Bumblebee said, explained while he checked and rechecked his, before aiming at a far wall add lowering it again. "They've been reformatted, for targeting only. They fire a harmless beam of light. It's flashy, but you'll never blow your own head off."
Knockout had faced them both more than once. He'd retreated maybe too quickly, but still he could not deny how much their skills both impressed and scared him half to death. He backed up a bit, hesitantly still holding the targeting weapon he'd been handed.
"You must have at least aimed a blaster at some point, right?" 'Bee questioned as Arcee hit a switch and the room was suddenly dark and filled with light up flashing and moving images.
Knockout forced a laugh. A forced shrug of arrogance hid his growing concern, or at least he hoped it did. "Well yes. I've messed around with one a bit back in basic training, many of the troops have them and handed them to me, when I used to make it quite clear that firearms had no place in my medical bay… Oh come on, surely you can't expect me to ever out target you."
Arcee laughed, as she aimed at the wall, obviously checking her targeting. She pulled the blaster close to her again and made a couple adjustments, before aiming again. "you'll never outshoot 'Bee. I barely can. Sure a decent and productive way to blow off steam though and we all have some of that to blow off lately."
She fired fast at an expanding light as it popped up from nowhere and moved fast toward her. Three more lights form any random direction and she hit them all, managing to spin herself around once to catch one behind her. One bright blue one that materialized overhead, made her reach up to target it, before a new one showed at the same time right behind her. She dropped her the ground fast, aiming first up and then backward, hitting both in under a second, before rolling sideways to aim for third, low to the floor. And expanding light glided slowly across a far wall and it looked like she would miss in in the midst of getting back to her feet. But she aimed and fired on it, reaching out beside her, balancing in her nearly standing position as though it was nothing. She reached over to the nearby control panel and shut down the flashing targeting lights.
"Yeah, I could never do that…" Knockout said with a nervous laugh at her. "There always was a reason Autobots survived the war, though so badly outnumbered."
"The thing about being outnumbered," Arcee answered, "is that you find yourself in the interesting position of ending up either better than the enemy or probably dead. Without any real exception, every Autobot knows how to shoot, and do it pretty well. Some, like bulkhead, prefer to do their own thing, and it works for them so fair enough. But they can shoot too. We're good. We know we're good. And you just don't stay good by not practicing."
Knockout was not the biggest display of confidence in the room, and he had to admit to himself that it made him uneasy to not be. Even when he was faking it, which he could admit only to himself, was much of the time, at least he was good at his act. He was not in the habit of doing anything that he knew he would not be easily able to at least pretend to be the best at either…. With more hesitation then before he stared at the blaster in his hand and shook his head, stubbornly refusing to make a fool of himself, by missing something that they may well set so that it was not even moving.
"I might just watch you two for a bit," he said, finally setting his weapon down carefully near the door and standing out of the way himself.
Neither of the other two forced the matter and for that he was relieved. He watched as Arcee reset the controls again, and this time she and 'Bee both fired on moving targets. He saw a good number of the lights flashing at them from above, and he had to commend them for the sense that made. So many of their targets in any true battle would have been flying above. He thought back to the sheer numbers of fliers that had always been constantly dumped into his medbay for repairs, back on the warship, and suddenly the numbers added up. He watched as both bots teamed up to hit series of lights that flashed in a row on first one wall then another, and then noticed how clearly they always tended to turn away from each other and aim in opposite directions, each hitting something nearly every time anything moved. They provided a kind of cover for each other with one shooting toward the ceiling constantly while the other took out lights across the wall or floor. Watching the two of them turn, jump and even roll across the floor with a blaster never leaving their hands, Knockout understood how it was teamwork, but at the same time a friendly kind of competition as well.
The set up shut down and Arcee stepped over to read the control panel. She called out loud. "My score, ninety-nine point seven percent accuracy. 'Bee, ninety-nine point six five percent."
"Really," Bumblebee said, shaking his head and laughing. "Well if I must lose by a tiny fraction of a point at least I lost to someone good.
Knockout laughed along with them slightly, but still he was nervous about their remaining level of energy. Scrap, those two were barely even winded. Arcee turned right toward him, and motioned toward his blaster, still laying by his feet. He was sure she was going to scold him for leaving a weapon on the floor like that, because truly he knew better. But she didn't bother with anything more than a slight shake of her head.
"Your turn," she said.
The system had been reset again, and now true to his earlier guess, instead of the flashing and fast motion, it showed expanding lights projected from a wall on the far side of the room. He may never have known what possessed him to think trying such a thing was actually a wise idea but Knockout dared to finally aim the baster and fire at the light. He missed by a mile, the beam from the weapon bouncing off the wrong wall entirely. No laughter met his miscalculation though and he tried it again. He still missed, but at least he had been closer. 'Bee joined him in shooting at a few simple non-moving targets too, probably for no real reason other than to score a perfect hundred percent because he could.
Knockout eventually hit one and then not many tires later he hit it again. He still missed more than he hit, but he did admit if not to anyone else that he was having some fun doing it anyway. He aimed to fire again and missed entirely, shooting at the ceiling in his alarm, when his target slowly moved across the wall. With a shake of his head and an audible cry of dread, he turned to see that Arcee was back at the control panel. Had she set it to move? Even at a slow speed as it was, he had his doubts. Yet still he hit one on the eighth try. Or was it the seventh? When the next one rolled past, he missed again. Arcee stepped up behind him, startling him from his next try at aiming.
"I think I see what your trouble might be," She said. She stood still and held her own weapon out in front of her, arms straight. "See, when you're aiming at anything in motion, you are looking at where that target actually is at the second you fire. Don't think of where it is. Anticipate where it will be by the time the beam reaches it and aim there. Watch."
Five times she aimed ever so slightly off of the targets and five times she hit them dead center. "she went on explaining, with a grin across her faceplates, "the faster it's moving the faster you think and the more off your aim would seem to someone watching you in slow motion."
Knockout dared to try it again, and he managed to hit both of the two he had aimed at. 'Bee grinned and smacked him playfully across his shoulder panels. The three of them all aimed and fired on slow moving targets for a while longer, and Knockout had to admit it really was a decent way too blow off steam.
The door slid open behind them, and Smokescreen walked onto the practice range. He held one of the targeting weapons in his hand, and obviously wanted to get in some of his own practice. He paused a second near the door, and nodded greetings to his teammates.
"Are you trying to teach him to shoot?" he glanced toward Knockout, and looked almost a little too amused.
"Hey he's not bad at it, considering he's still slightly off balance, and hasn't really tried before," Arcee answered quickly. Her attempt at dismissing the kid's obvious doubt about the wisdom of the idea was clear. "Why don't you and 'Bee practice for a while. I'm taking a break."
Knockout followed her as she left the room, partly to stay out of the way - but mostly because, as much as he wanted to deny the fact standing was beginning to become a problem. He made his way to the bench and slowly sat down. Arcee watched him for a minute from across the room. Finally, she walked closer to him.
"You okay?"
"Of course I'm okay," Knockout answered her concern laughing with a typically arrogant grin planted on his face. He spoke with his hands waving a bit for effect. "Well slightly more than okay really. Intelligent, talented… nice and shiny paint."
Arcee gave a look somewhere between near laughter and completely unimpressed. "I meant physically."
"Honestly I fear I might have at least slightly overdone it today. The driving last night was fine of course, but I can't imagine working on the ground did my leg any favors. I barely got enough recharge when we rolled back here with Bumblebee, and then we had too much fun with the blasters."
"I think I may just have pushed you too hard…" Arcee sat down on the bench.
"Well it's not exactly your fault. I push myself to keep up, to be faster than I should be. I've been doing it for days without stopping and that was a bad idea." He felt a sense of great embarrassment, felt inefficient, useless, ridiculous. His optics wandered toward the floor and he held his gaze down, hating the feeling of his own defeat.
"You going back to get in more practice time?" he asked, curious.
She shook her head. "I might get in a couple more rounds later. Right now I think we'll just let those two have their fun. Burn off some of their endless energy. It's easy to forget sometimes, well most of the time, but both of them are almost still kids. And everyone is excited about tomorrow. It'll be nice to see Earth again. It's wonderful to be back here. I think we were all losing hope it would ever be restored. But I'm amazed too, at just how much Earth became our second home."
Arcee had never seemed the chatty type as a rule. Nothing like Smokescreen or Bumblebee, both of whom he knew could easily talk for ages. As he heard her speaking though, and doing it more than usual, he could hear the undeniable excitement in her voice. And he felt a sense of anxiety and great unease creeping up on himself with little warning.
Her voice made him force himself to look back up and meet her gaze again. Her tone was She went on speaking. "The plan is basically that we bridge out as a group, in time to land during what would be late in the morning on the other side. Our human partners will be retrieved by evening, and we will all be together in the old Earth base for a few Earth days. Oh and of course agent Fowler will be around. His office is nearby so... he always was a bit of a hard head to deal with, but maybe June tamed him… I hear they got together. Sorry. You probably have no idea who it is I'm actually even talking about, at least not by name."
Knockout looked at her intently, nodding silently. He tried to speak but he could feel coolant and cleaner fluid backing up behind his optics and he didn't trust himself to make a sound. He fought back emotion and felt his own fear at not understanding it exactly what it was he felt in the first place. He could see her speaking to him still, but didn't hear a word. His processor was filled with the sound of human voices, screaming in defiance through their obvious terror.
The room spun and wavered out of focus, as he fought for control and failed. He was standing on the hard pavement in a small Earth town. He held up a hand to the level of his optics and turned his mouth up into his best menacing snarl, at the feeling the small human's squishy soft, fragile body clutched in his hand and wiggling to struggle free. His anger at the tiny helpless being overwhelmed him. How dare some humans outsmart him or even try. How dare they think they might just beat him. His own sense of inner conflict crept in and he shoved it away in a rage born of arrogance. The human had not done anything wrong. Neither had the one still on the ground screaming at him as though they had forgotten they were tiny helpless and doomed to die should he decide to step on them. He took in the fear, felt the human tremble in his hand, understood the strange somehow delightful mix of anger and sheer terror, in the poor little fleshy brain. He denied his own relief that he knew he should never have felt, when the humans managed to get away. Maybe he didn't have to kill either of them. All he'd really wanted after all was their relic.
"Knockout!" Arcee's voice made him snap back finally to the present. "What's the matter?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," He was mostly lying as the room continued to spin. He saw her as barely a blurred haze of light blue, and her voice echoed in his ears. As did his own. Behind her, where he understood the empty gym should have been, he saw a large expanse of road, and watched in a mix of delighted amusement, and crushing guilt as one as some earth build automobile flew from the edge of the pavement. He saw its tires bounce along the edge. Looked the human driver in the eyes for a second before the car vanished. He'd run that car right off the road. He'd meant to do it. The idiot had deserved it. That would teach him to key his paintjob. 'You scratch my paint, I scratch yours.' He had that coming. No, no he didn't. Oh scrap it all. Nobody had died.
He blinked frantically, shook his head slightly and then more forcefully, trying to force his processor into the present again. The road and the ditch faded out of focus and he was looking back at the gym through blurred optics. His fuel tank was flipping horribly and he fought to make it stop before he lost its contents entirely. He was not on that road anymore. He forced himself to see that. Forced himself to look at the wall behind him somewhere. He felt the sense of his vehicle mode still with his ties on the pavement but sensed at the same time that he was sitting up right with the bench under him. It was still so blurry and his intakes hitched and gasped horribly.
"Please talk to me. Tell me what I can do." He heard Arcee speaking to him again. She sounded clearly worried, unsure, confused. He got his baring faster now, mostly through sheer will power, and found himself resting against her awkwardly, her arms thrown around him and look of terrible uncertainty across her faceplate. He wondered if she had pulled him closer to her like that, or if he had started to fall and had just kind of landed like that while she tried to help. He lifted himself up slowly and then with some urgency, as he realized in shame that he had leaked washer fluid from his optics onto her shoulder panel.
"I'm alright," he said stupidly and knowing it was ridiculous to say that now.
"No. You aren't" She spoke firmly, and refused to let him off the bench though he tried to jump up fast. He wanted to run for it, and she must have known it. He said nothing. The fact was that he didn't know what to say or how to say it. She wanted to know what was wrong, what had just happened, and the true concern that made her want to know. But just the feeling of someone's concern for him, the compassion of another being, was making him uneasy all over again. He feared that the room might start to vanish again. He feared falling back into his own memories and feared that just speaking of any of it would only make it worse, and even more real.
"Do you even want to go with us tomorrow?" Arcee questioned. She was speaking slow and quiet. He recognized understanding. That question was safer. No one had ever outright asked him before. It had simply been assumed, or at least never acknowledged. He sensed that she had just realized that herself.
"I… don't know." He said.