Notes/ Shorter chapter this time. I know many people, (including me) prefer to read longer chapters in fanfictions. I hope to start doing some longer ones. But this one ended where I thought the flow worked best for it. I'm glad people seem to like the direction I'm taking poor Knockout's state in. Of course in the series, he was also just over the top arrogance and snappy comments to anything, and even when he switched sides, he did it with his usual flare. But of course that's also basically a kids show that just happens to have a large enough number of adult fans. Though this would never have made sense in the TV series, I can easily imagine that Knockout would have at some point looked for a good place to run off to and cry his optics out in confusion at least once.

There will be more anxiety and guilt type stuff coming up again in later chapters as well, so maybe I should give a warning in case that kind of thing is a triggering issue some anyone. This will also get a bit darker in parts later on.

Humans in this chapter! A good bit of it is interaction between, and with the humans. So lots of dialogue, lots of banter and silliness, but it was fun to write this one.

Heeeeeyyy… I actually have a tiny little favor to ask of any readers as well, since I know some readers are also writers. My word software is about to expire next week, and I don't want to end up paying to renew it. I have another which is freeware, but not compatible with . Grrrrrr. If anyone knows of a free downloadable and legal program which is also compatible, so I can still post, please, please, let me know?

The swirling bluish vertex of the space bridge spun in front of them and slowly each of the bots stepped through. The two wreckers disappeared first, vanishing into the glow of interdimensional space. Smokescreen followed behind them. Arcee walked toward the bridge next, with Knockout close beside her. He carried a small stack of data pads in his hands.

"Hey, Arcee…" he said speaking quietly as the first few disappeared into the space bridge. He stopped both walking and speaking, and waited until she stopped too. "You didn't tell anyone, did you? About… "

"Yesterday?" she shook her head, but looked at them seriously. "No I didn't. But I think you should. While we're back on Earth you'll have a good chance to talk to Ratchet…"

"No, no, no," Knockout shook his head hard, and steadied a hand on the pads trying not to drop the whole stack. "Probably bad enough having one bot thinking I've lost my mind."

"I don't think you've lost your mind. I do think there might be something wrong though, and I think he could help you. He's been in the field longer than either of us has lived. Seriously from my perspective last night things got a bit scary. You were just kind of staring at nothing for several minutes. I don't think you could see me, hear me. Even when I pulled you toward me, you didn't notice. I know I probably shouldn't have done that, but I had no idea what to do."

Bumblebee hurried out of the hallway that led away from his living quarters and walked toward the bridge. He paused near the two others for a second. "You two coming?"

"Run ahead 'Bee," Arcee said quickly gesturing toward the space bridge. "We'll catch up in a minute."

"See you both on the other side," 'Bee called back as he ran though the bridge and disappeared from view.

"If whatever the frag it was that happened last night ever happens again, please promise you will talk to Ratchet," Arcee said when her other teammate was long gone. "Or at least talk to me, even if I'm not exactly helpful with this. Autobots would never want to see a teammate suffer alone."

She relieved when Knockout nodded, however hesitantly.

"So, what's with the data pads?" she asked him.

"This is the study material I've been reading over. I'm finished all this, and hoped to borrow a few more pads to review."

"You've read all that?" Arcee was both impressed and surprised. She berated herself silently for wondering at the fact that he clearly enjoyed studying and reading. She wondered silently why exactly it was that she was always so surprised to see that he was smart and driven toward success. She asked herself why that could not or should not be the case, and knew there was no answer to that.

"Ready?" She asked, stepping toward the bridge.

He nodded slowly, again with obvious hesitation and doubt. "I never did get used to space bridging."

Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break

Agent Fowler and June sat on a sofa, against the wall a ways back from the railing that surrounded the upper walkway surrounding the inside of the base. Fowler had left his office on the other side of the upper level, to join her when she'd shown up five minutes before. June reached into the plastic bag she'd set down on the coffee table in front of them.

"I grabbed us some lunch from that sandwich shop over on sixteenth." She handed him a wax paper wrapped package. "You're usual roast beef, extra cheese and tomato. If they put too much mayo on these again I swear this time I'm calling to complain. Remember, last time we both wore it on our laps when we ate on their patio." She opened her ham and swiss and rolled her eyes. "Oh, Bill, Jack had some good news today. He finally got a new after school job."

"Nice. I know he wanted one since his old one in Jasper kind of blew up. Where's he working?"

"Sloppy burger down on James street. Another drive thru job. He's good at that. Hey he's been talking more about maybe going into the air force after high school. I told him to ask you about it. Maybe you can grab him some recruiting information?"

Fowler took a bite of his sandwich, dropped mayonnaise on his brand new tie and frowned. "He did. It's in the mail. He and I talked a bit last night when I stopped by the house. He says he's looking at buying a motorcycle. I guess it's a bit older but he thinks he'll fix it up nice. I promised I'd discuss it with his mother."

"Bill. I don't want Jack riding a motorcycle!"

Fowler shrugged, while he tried to wipe mayonnaise off the top of the table with a napkin from the bag. "He rode on Arcee, and he was fine. We need to find a new favorite sandwich place, June. Again with the mayonnaise. Second time this week."

"Yes, but Arcee drove. Not Jack. She's an Autobot soldier. He's a teenage human who can get distracted on the highway and wreck. I'm going to the manager of that diner later. What a mess. This is worse than last time."

"Please tell me I don't need to worry about you two humans up there, dropping any of that apparently far too messy sandwich condiment on my control board!" Ratchet griped from his place at his work station on the level below. He turned quick to glance over the railing at his optic level, with a less than impressed look on his metal faceplate.

"No problem agent bot," Fowler said chuckling a little. "Our mess is nowhere near the edge."

"Well it had certainly better not be." Ratchet warned, waving an arm in the air. "Please clean up later with some good detergent. I need a sticky mess around here about as much as any bot needs a scraplet in the cooling fan. And don't call me agent bot!"

"Someone sure has a kink in his tail pipe today," June whispered. She stifled her laughter with a hand clamped over her mouth.

"I heard that!" Ratchet exclaimed, waving a finger over the railing, before he turned back around again to work.

"As the kids seem to be saying these days, I think you're busted," Fowler whispered back, before he finished his sandwich. The Autobot made a clear point of tuning out both of them, and tapped away on his huge control panel below, still grumbling.

"Bill, we need to have a talk before the bots get back here, and then the kids are picked up," June's tone was far more serious now, as picked up the wrappers and cleaned up. "This military type stuff and the deal with the bots is not is not really my thing. I'm just a mom that kind of fell into all this because my kid made a friend that turned out to be a fifteen-foot-tall transforming alien robot. But what exactly is the deal with that 'con?"

Fowler laughed a little, confused. "Can you be more specific? Which one?"

"I don't know which one it is," June grew more than a little frustrated. She knew she should have asked about that whole matter much sooner, but just how did one address such a thing? "I guess some Decepticon is now siding with the 'bots, or at least claiming to be. Now I know it's a war and I know once in a while in war someone will defect and might switch factions… hey if it works out then great for that 'con, right. But they are bringing him back here?"

"Apparently so. Listen, June, the bots know what they're doing. They wouldn't bring a former 'con with them if they thought he'd endanger us, them, or anyone else."

"I just don't know what to think about any of the kids, or myself for that matter casually being around a Decepticon. These are the bad guys, remember. The Autobots are the good guys."

"Well basically, yes. But, the 'bot troops believe in the right to redemption. They claim he seeks his chance."

"Is it anyone we know?" June asked the question, unsure if she wanted the answer to be yes or no. She wondered which would make it seem safer.

"Possibly." Fowler put an arm around her and pulled to close to him. "I don't know many of them by name. He was one of the higher ups. An officer of some sort. Head of medical or something. I know he's red, and transforms into a ground based vehicle. Some kind of sports car. It's quite impressive in my opinion. This was a high up ranked officer, with a future. Gave it all up and ran with nothing. They're not so different from us humans in so many ways…"

"Bill," June cried in alarm. She grabbed his arm to make him stop talking and listen. "A red sports car 'con? Oh god. He's the one that went out for a joy ride all over the county with us stuffed in his trunk! He wanted to take us to Megatron. We might be dead right now if communication hadn't gone down. He almost killed Jack at least twice."

The sound of Ratchet's huge metal feet moving toward them with a slight vibration of the floor made them both stand up to approach the railing. Ratchet spoke to them both seriously as ever, but without any of the earlier cranky edge left in his voice.

"I feel I may well owe you both an apology. I should have said more, far sooner. Yet I did not. The former Decepticon is named Knockout. Yes, he was indeed responsible for several incidents, including the one you mentioned. I believe he's truly and honestly on his own road to the redemption a great leader once taught all Autobots to believe in the right to. Recently I was called on to repair him after he was severely damaged in the collapse of a building under construction on Cybertron. It later came to light that he had been tapped in there trying to let Autobots escape after the site was bombed by a 'con flier out to settle scores. I had a considerable hand in convincing the rest of them to trust him, and if I'm wrong about this, I will find myself forever living with my mistaken judgment. But I don't believe he's dangerous."

"Think we can trust him?" June questioned, turning to Fowler. He said nothing.

"I was back on Cybertron, my home planet, for several days taking care of this badly injured former 'con," Ratchet said, when the humans stayed silent, thinking. "He's as terrified as any of us might be, human or bot. It takes nerve to walk away like he did, and even more to keep going, to still insist you did the right thing, when your former friends try to kill you for it."

Both of the humans on the second level of the base, might have taken another moment or much more, to think everything over and take it all in. But there was simply no time to. A comm link bleeped below, and a monitor flashed an alert.

"Incoming space bridge connection," Ratchet said. He gestured toward the far wall, and sure enough a swirling vertex appeared near where he was pointing. The old Autobot took a head count and spook out loud as each of his teammates hurried through into the Earth base. "Bulkhead, Wheeljack, Smokescreen, Bumblebee. Welcome back."

"Two more were still behind me," 'Bee explained. "I ran ahead. It looks like they needed a minute." He waved with enthusiasm at the humans above on the second level. The three other 'bots nodded their own greetings quietly.

"Bumblebee, you get bridged to New Mexico. Bulkhead, you get bridged all the way to Japan," Ratchet explained with a more cheerful air than was common for him. "When the others come over, we can close the space bridge and open ground bridges. You first Bulk. You'll need a while. You'll be stuck in Tokyo traffic."

As Bulkhead gave a single quick nod of understanding, Arcee stepped out of the bridge and into the base. Knockout followed closely behind her.

"June!" Arcee exclaimed. She raced over to the railing in a few long paces.

"Hi Arcee. Jack is coming by after school. He's writing a midterm. How was your… err… walk through time and space…?"

The bot laughed. "Uneventful. Actually when bridging it just feels basically like walking through a doorway. Nothing much to tell about the trip over."

"How's Cybertron?"

Arcee started to answer, going into some complex information about endless construction and the numbers of returning refugees, the rebuilding of roads, a plan for a new center of higher learning.

June listened with interest, but her attention was quickly pulled away by the red bot that stood in the middle of the lower level. His optics glanced around the place, and finally drifted up to the railing. The human staring back knew bots well enough to know their still amazingly human like expressions. And his looked entirely awkward if nothing else. Still the red optics caught her gaze and she stared back, shuddering for a movement at least as she remembered the feeling of his cold metal fingers wrapped tightly around her waist, holding her suspended meters in the air. The red bot smiled slightly, a slight nervous grin of a child caught with a hand jammed into the cookie jar minutes before suppertime. Those once terrifying red optics moved to the floor. June thought back to those optics glaring down at her in the train yard, his stomping heavy feet pounding against the ground as she cowered beneath a boxcar, and her eyes finally looking up to him, bending down snarling in triumph.

Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break Scene Break

Traffic anywhere in and near Tokyo had been worse than usual. The sun had not yet risen when Miko left home to find Bulkhead at the far end of her crowded apartment complex. But even given the early hour, the main streets of the city were overrun with cars and tour busses, transport trucks, and the air filled with the typical constant blasting of horns. Bridging from inside the city would have been ridiculous, and just a flat out bad idea. So the plan was to make it through that mess and call the bridge from a backroad somewhere outside the city.

Miko had barely slept at all, confirming her cover story with Fowler of a class trip to another city, and finally starting her packing last minute. Then she'd gone after a couple hours of lying awake to meet up with her 'bot. She spent a good bit of the long slow commute across the barely drivable city, lightly dozing in Bulkheads backseat.

After an hour or so of napping, she jumped up fast, nearly smacked her head on the roof, and leaped over the seat to land up front hard. Her feet nearly took out an overhead light in the process and the backpack she had thrown up there ahead of her, hit the floor of the jeep with a hand thump. The endless traffic had died out and the tall buildings and lights had given way to lower structures and suburbs sprawling with small houses on narrow streets. She sat behind the wheel and put her seatbelt on.

"I missed you Bulk'" She said, hugging his steering while for a moment, until he turned a corner and made her learn too far to the left.

"I missed you too Miko. But like we always said, just a space bridge way, right?" Bulkhead's voce come from somewhere inside his stereo system. "You are bigger."

"Taller maybe. Hey… you're twenty-five feet tall, Bulk'. How would you notice like two inches?"

"I dunno."

Miko reached for her pack and dug through it, until she found her make-up compact. She looked around the inside of the jeep, and then looked again, flipping down the visor in front of her, then the other one. "I never noticed, Bulk'. Your vehicle form has no mirrors."

"Hmm… I didn't notice either."

She thought of using his rearview to put her make up on, but she knew he used both that and the side mirrors on the doors, to navigate. She settled for the tiny mirror inside the compact and got busy between small bumps against the pavement under the jeep.

"Did you always paint your face like that?" Bulk was watching her put on eye liner and lip-gloss.

"Nope. But now I kinda like it."

"You look different. I forgot how much humans change so fast."

Miko looked at her reflection in the tiny compact mirror, and saw herself as he must have seen her, different after months away. Her hair was shorter now. She'd decided a month before to cut it into shorter layers, and she loved it. The pink was long gone. Perfectly fine for her last school in America, but a code violation in her new one back home. Her clothing over the past months what slowly evolved to, from the old look of t-shirts skirts and leggings, to fitted jeans, button downs and jackets.

"Yeah, Bulk', I guess I do. Hey, can we stop at a store quick?"

"A store?"

"Yeah, the grocery store. There's one just west of here I think. Turn left at that stop sign."

"Okay."

"Soooo…. How's Cybertron? Construction nearly done yet? Anyone coming back home? Met any pretty bot girls yet? Gonna settle down with a couple of cute little metal babies one day now that your home is back…. Hmmm…. Do Cybertronians even have babies? Bulk'! Bulkhead!"

"Yeah Miko?" Bulkhead had been listening to her endless string of questions, not bothering to answer because there was no time between to do so. But her voice had changed from excited questing to urgent yelling and that got his attention.

"You're driving on the wrong side of the road!"

Bulkhead had turned onto the wrong side of the street when he'd made his left turn. He quickly steered to the other side as an oncoming tour bus blasted its horn.

"Sorry. Usually when I drive on Earth, I drive in America." That was the second time Bulkhead had done that that morning. He was only thankful Miko had not been picked up yet the first time.

Miko ran into the store, trying to be fast, and when she got back Bulkhead was parked facing the other way. His hood faced a road still under construction, and on either side of that was nothing but a partly dug up grassy field and a couple of parked and unmanned backhoes. She knew he must have been considering bridging from there and nodded her agreement to his unspoken plan as she leapt back into the front seat. She tossed her just purchased bag of goodies on top of her backpack, opened a fizzy drink she had grabbed for herself, and finally thought to plug in her ipod and crank up some power metal over the stereo speakers.

"I love this song!" Bulkhead yelled. Just like old times. Miko laughed.

"Me too. Hey Bulk', I got a bunch of new music too. Let me play you some new stuff."

"Nice," The Autobot said as he drove toward the construction zone and prepared to call for a bridge over the sound of banging drums. "Lovin' the guitar riffs in this one."

"I can almost play this on mine." Miko had been putting much more time into her music, getting serious about playing both guitar and keyboard, since the 'bots had left Earth.

"Haha, I still listen to that nice collection you sent me home with. Maybe I can add some new ones. It's fun to just crank it up in my room in the base while I work out in there. Most of the others don't mind it much. Trouble is my neighbor is Knockout and he doesn't call this music. He's started bangin' on the wall. Now if only I coulda ended up next to Smokescreen or Wheeljack. They're both cool like us about that kinda thing. Ah well…"

Miko nearly spat her drink over his windshield as she listened to him ramble on. "Wait Bulk'. Sorry? Knockout?"

"Yep. I guess he's just not a metal head."

"Knockout, the 'cons' medic? Like evil version of Ratchet, street racing worst nightmare, terrorizing Autobots 'cause he can?"

"He's an Autobot now. Well kinda. It not official yet."

"What? Bulkhead!"

"I told you about him once in a text message from Cybertron."

"Bulk, seriously? I assumed you were joking!"

"We thought he was joking once,"

"Wh… what…? Miko had never forgotten the day she had heard Knockout declare he was joining the 'winning team,' seconds before she knocked him to the floor in the apex armor. She'd laughed about it to herself later and not given the matter much more thought.

More little notes/ Okay I don't know a lot about Japan. As much as I would love to travel the world, and Tokyo is definitely on the list of must see cities, I can't say I know a pile about the place. I hope I didn't make it sound too much like an American city. I know it's huge and crowded, so I could only assume the traffic would be horrendous. I'm pretty sure they drive on the opposite side of the road… Oh wow I hope I didn't get that bit wrong. I really liked putting in Bulkhead's silly mistake.

The sandwich thing is loosely based on one place near where I live, that actually does have a constant problem with the mayonnaise. Either waaaaaay too much or barely any. I was just discussing the place yesterday with someone who was complaining about mayonnaise and I ended up sticking it in because it was funny. Plus, dripping mayo is a perfect reason to get Ratchet complaining…