Notes/ This chapter is quite a bit more intense and serious than I had planned on, but I'm pleased with it. I do feel like I better post a slight warning though for anxiety and panic triggers again. Also slight violence. This is an important chapter, intended to lead the plot forward, but it's also sad, and hopefully not somewhat horrifying. Just saying.

I have a couple of reviewers who have reviewed pretty well every new chapter so far. Thanks! That's amazing!

Now here's hoping my formatting works out…

Knockout half ran and half stumbled down the dark hallway of the warship. One trembling hand covered a gushing wound in his cheastplate. The other grabbed for the wall, trying for balance. The long corridor in front of him faded in and out of view. His forced his optics open, forced himself to see, to keep moving. His medical programming that ran constantly in the back of his mind over years of practicing, told him he dare not fall over. The wound itself was hardly fatal. It was more than possible to survive perfectly well with an injury much worse. But he knew he was losing consciousness. If he fell down here, he would only be left to bleed to death as an example to the crew. He refused to offline only as an example of what happened to the ones that dared to talk back.

He leaned against the wall, and forcing his vision to focus forward, onto a door that was of no concern to him except as something to look at, Knockout activated his comm-link. "Breakdown. I need an assist at once. Junction foutrteen, near medmay."

Surely his one friend left on board would help him. But no answer come over his comm. Dropping to his knees, as his weakening body refused to stand, he listened to the rushing of oncoming footsteps. He looked down in horror at the growing pool of energon, leaking between his fingers. The metal of his hand glowed from the mess. "Breakdown, please help me…"

"Knockout," Starscream bellowed over him. His optics alone showed a murderous fury. "I don't recall dismissing you from my presence."

"Com…mander… I'm sorry. I had…. assumed…"

"Never assume, Knockout" the commander smirked wickedly. He kicked the medic square in the faceplate. "It only gets you in trouble."

"I'm injured…" He knew at once that statement was a stupid one. It was Starscream that had inflicted the damage in the first place. Knockout forced his head up and made himself look into the commander's optics. He tried to play on his sympathy. But he remembered in a second that he would never get such a thing from Megatron's treacherous and favored little pet. He knew he should never have spoken up when Starscream had murdered that Autobot. It had been wrong. It had been overkill, and needless. But what had speaking out actually changed?

"I am faced with my own failure," Starscream growled. He yanked the medic to his feet roughly. A hard smack from pointed fingertips tore his faceplate open. "You should well be dead now. I wouldn't have thought a shaking weakling would be so hard to send to the pit."

He felt his own body hit the floor hard, as Breakdown came running from somewhere up the hall. Surely the commander had only grown bored and given up on his brand of discipline.

Knockout snapped out of recharge quickly, and found himself partly sitting up on the recharge station, his hand over his chest plate, as though still trying to preserve his own life. In the dim glow of the station's power supply, he looked down. No flow of energon pouring down his body. He was fine. He forced himself to pull his hand away, and he shook his head at himself. He lay back down on the recharge station, and allowed himself a moment to get comfortable again. Looking around the room he began to calm down and only then realized just how panicked he had been in the first place. He badly needed more recharge time, and berated himself silently when felt his optics almost refusing to close out of fright. He forced them shut and with great determination forced himself lightly back toward recharge again. He knew full well it was the middle of the night. He felt foolish and silly. But no sooner had his processor began to power down, then he found himself back in his own memories.

"Offline both of those, Knockout. Then dispose of them out the airlock."

He found himself staring down at a pair of powered down and half way to scrapped troopers, both of whom had been dumped roughly into his large brightly lit medbay minutes before.

"But… commander… they can be saved. If I could have my day freed up to do the repairs… I can have both back in the air in six, maybe seven days."

Starscream grabbed him by both of his arms, yanking him closer to him, over one of the troops roughly tossed bodies. "Knockout, until our dearly missed great leader, gets well, if that should ever happen, I am your lord, not your commander. And I didn't ask if these two piles of scrap could be saved. I asked you to offline them!"

"Command… Lord Starscream, I am a medical officer. I am sworn to preserve the lives of my crewmates… not destroy them when…"

Starscream's pointed fingertips scraped against the medic's shoulder panels, making awful scratches on his paint. He pressed his face in closer and growled at barely more than a whisper, filled with unmistakable hate. "Now why would I want to save two simple troopers while clearly be useless to me, while their recovery forces them to do little more than take up space. It was their own fault they were shot down by Autobots. They were too slow. Too slow gets you scrapped, medic. As does talking back if you fail to recall our last conversation. And know full well that I'd have you offlined if you ever got scraped as bad as those two wastes of metal. It's hardly personal."

"M…my Lord… give me a few hours. Let me try to…" Knockout never fished his argument for the lives of the troopers, before he was grabbed hard from behind, a rough hand at the back of his neck. His head was bounced hard against a monitor. Starscream may have been on the small side, and certainly appeared fragile. But he was stronger than one might have dangerously assumed. Knockout could only recall the last time he'd dared argue with him. He could feel the result of his courage pouring down his chestplate again.

He prepared to follow the unethical order, as his commander screamed about how much his was starting to sound like a pathetic Autobot.

He sat upright on the recharge station fast, and with such a lack of control over his own body. A hand, carelessly flung to the side, sent a data pad from the bedside table, crashing to the floor. The sound made him nearly jump a mile. He moved to turn on a light, needing to light the room as brightly as he could to chase away the memories. But the control for the lighting must already have been sent to the floor earlier, in another fright.

He got up from the recharge station quickly, found the lighting control nearly underfoot as he stepped forward, and swore out loud. He rushed out of the room as silently as he could. The dim overhead lighting of the base guided his way through the hall, and he kept on moving, trying to escape, and asking himself all the while what exactly he thought he was escaping from. He needed to be outside, of the place, out in the open. Oddly the openness of outside felt safe. Outside it was harder to feel cornered and that was what he needed; to not feel cornered by something he couldn't understand or see. He rushed toward the common room, silent and empty, and made his way across it. On the far side of the room, a huge ladder led up to the roof across, and he climbed up there. From the roof of the place, he could calm down watching the sky, assuring himself that the warship was not on Earth anymore and he was. The thought of lightyears currently between him and the life he once been sure he wanted, made his intakes finally slow considerably.

An Earth hour must have passed. Maybe more than that. Knockout sat still, learning gently against the base of a huge radio antenna. The fright he had woken up in had long passed and he sat watching the sky ideally, just waiting for morning to come. The night air was warm, and he enjoyed the slight breeze against his body. He reflected on the trip so far, and laughed slightly over something the small boy, Raf, had asked him while laughing. Something about a chicken crossing a road. 'Bee and Bulk' had laughed loudly at the next line. Apparently the bird simply wanted to reach other side of the street, and thus had crossed. Knockout still wondered silently why they found that so funny. Miko had explained it was the obviousness of the answer that made it funny. But he wasn't convinced. Agent Fowler agreed that it was silly. The rest of the bots had only looked confused.

"Hello?" The voice of a small human interrupted his thoughts. Knockout looked to the side, toward the access, which he had left propped open. Miko peeked up over the open hatch. Obviously she had climbed all the way up there, and he watched as she completed her climb to the roof, pulling herself up over the edge of the hatch grinning.

"I saw from the bottom, someone had left the trapdoor open," she explained, trotting across the tin roof in bare feet. "I knew someone had to be up here." She flopped down on the roof, near the seated bot and the antenna. She rested her head in her hands. Her wide eyed gaze studied him. "You okay, Doc Knock?"

"I'm fine," Knockout answered. He looked the girl over, marveling at her ability to have actually climbed up there to begin with. He knew there was a human ladder too, a little left of the bots' one, but it was still very high. The kid certainly had nerve, as the humans may have put it.

"You're up in the middle of the night again," she observed. She actually sounded concerned.

"So are you," he countered, before she could question him.

"Time zone issues," Miko said. He heard her groan softly, as she moved to flop backwards onto the roof, landing nearly under his left arm. "It's close to suppertime in Japan."

"Ah,' Knockout said, simply. "That would be a problem…"

"So what's your excuse then?" Miko asked. She rolled over and looked up at him, flat on her front, with her head over her elbows and both legs kicking behind her. "You can't blame it on a time difference. The other bots recharge fine here."

"I don't recharge very well," Knockout admitted hesitantly. "Well at least not lately."

"An insomniac Cybertronian? That can happen?"

"Well not ideally…"

"Not ideal for us humans either," Miko laughed. "Sleep is good. Wide awake is bad. Hey Knockout… can we see Cybertron from here?"

"No. It's too far away."

"Am I bothering you?"

Knockout shook his head at her question. In truth he was happy for company, even if it was that of a tiny human.

"Okay," Miko's small legs continued to kick and swing behind her. Her face showed concern again. "So why can't you slee… er… recharge?"

Knockout was silent for a moment, considering. He wondered if he wanted to explain, or if he even could. He thought of sending the tiny human back inside. He knew full well that she was not exactly supposed to be so trusting of him to begin with. All three had been warned and he had overheard that warning repeated more than once. The other two children were clearly nervous of him. One talked a bit with the other bots nearby – earlier he had tried to tell that silly joke. The other still stared him down and said little. But Miko showed no fear. She trusted him when she'd been told not to do exactly that. He wondered if perhaps that meant he should trust her too.

"I think you would refer to it as having very bad dreams," he said. He saw her eyes grow wider, and she sat herself up again.

"Bots can dream?"

"Yes."

"Is it the same thing as a human and our dreams?"

Knockout thought for a second. "I couldn't say. I'm not a human."

"Yeah, fair enough I guess," Miko shrugged. She inched closer, wigging a bit to move without standing up. "What do you dream about?"

"You really don't want to know."

"Sure I do. Maybe if you tell someone about it, you can stop dreaming it."

"Miko, life among Decepticons, will never be the same as life among Autobots. I did so many terrible things, but I was so often also on the wrong end of things nearly as bad. At least when it was me at the hands of my own people, I could defend myself. The humans barely stood a chance against me. It all just plays and replays all night long some nights. Autobots debate and reason, talk things over and hear you out. A 'con would sooner tear your optics out for talking back to him. We never learned to follow out of respect. It was always pure fear really. You obey or there is always pain. You obey, follow a thousand rules and maybe they like you. Maybe you get to take your place higher in the ranks. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense, or you have a better idea. You don't exist to think. Some days it got bad and brutal and those days will never stop replying when I want to recharge."

Knockout's optics lowered in disgust and he stared at the metal of the roof. He berated himself for speaking, for losing himself in his own honesty. He turned the fingers of both hands inward, forming light fists and refusing to look up. He wanted to stand up and retreat from the roof, but he couldn't bring himself to stand up, or even to look back at the little human to be sure he wouldn't hurt her by moving. What had compelled him to even try speaking as he had? The poor child must have been horrified and shaking. He hated himself knowing he had already done so much worse to that child before he had even really met her. He knew she could well have been as scared as he was, from that one life experience alone, and if she, or any human still screamed at night dreaming of his deeds, it would be entirely his fault. He heard small footsteps of the tin rooftop.

He could only have assumed the small human was about to walk away. At best she would only leave laughing at his weakness, call him the coward he knew he was already. At worst he had scared her badly. But instead of hearing the expected sound of the human retreating fast down the ladder into the base, the footsteps stopped again quickly. Knockout felt her jump up, clambering onto his right leg before she plopped herself down on top of him. He dared to look at her again and saw as well as felt her reach for a hand that he'd rested in front of him. She jumped again, holding on to him firmly. He almost chuckled through his own upset, imagining that clearly she had climbed on Bulkhead more than once. Finally, she stayed sitting on him, balancing on one of his legs, with her feet almost reaching the rooftop below. She wiggled and shifted more so that she could look up at him.

"So, why'd you end up with the 'cons to begin with?" She questioned. Her tone seemed the farthest thing from judgment that he may have expected.

Knockout thought about it a while. Then he thought longer. He had never tried to answer that before. Never actually been asked.

"I was born to a world already at war," he said, slowly, considering his answer. "Everyone had their side and they just fought and fought. The home I knew was divided by hate and anger, and looking back I wonder how many of us even knew what we were fighting for. Neutrality was still a bit of a thing once. I tried to stay neutral for a while. But there always comes a time to pick your side."

"Couldn't you just have picked Autobot instead?" Miko questioned. Her question, and the innocence of it, made him see just what a child could be in a world not torn to pieces by centuries of endless war.

He wondered if she would truly comprehend his answer. But he slowly gave one anyway. "Miko, entire families, whole cities, had their own sides in this. Neutral was one thing, and still not exactly well loved by the masses. But to me, Autobots were the enemy of everything I was taught to be true and ideal. I come from a 'con city. The Autobots were rebels, daring to stand against a new and better way that was taking a firm hold, living in some ancient and dead past. I was taught that we working to rid the eorld of an outdated caste system. Taught that our people were dying for the simple crime of being created lower class. I grew up to believe the leader of the Decepticons was a great thinker and planner, who would lead us to worldwide equality. I was taught to believe he would free the Autobots as well as ourselves when the war was won. Besides the 'Bots could never win the war, they were apparently lost, ill-informed and they needed us."

"But the Autobot side followed a Prime that wanted the same thing, equality, and end to the caste system of ancient times… That's what Ratchet once said."

Knockout nodded at her comment. He was impressed by this child. "He's right of course. The Prime fought for the very thing we claimed to fight against him for not wanting. We followed a power hungry tyrant who had mastered telling lies. But in war no one will ever tell you the other side of the story, only that we are right and they are wrong. And most never dare, or even think to look for truth ourselves."

He looked at the small human, sure he should stop talking. Surely she had only grown bored. But Miko still sat, balancing on him like anyone might sit in a bench, looking up at his optics and waiting to hear the rest.

"I dreamed of going to medical school," he said, continuing on. "But I had been born in a low caste. We didn't have such dreams, and as you can now imagine I was taught it was all the Autobots' fault my dream, and those of a thousand others had been taken from us. The 'con forces needed medics. There were just never enough, and given the choice most just wanted to be soldiers. Well a young one from the low class, that actually wanted to do the job no one wanted and the deal was made. I wanted to study. Megatron himself wanted to let me, wanted to help me, to sponsor my education. I would never have given up my neutral status and served the 'cons to be a solider on the front lines. But to be a medical officer… I felt I was as close as I could ever get to my dream… I may never know how he found me exactly. I was a nobody in a city of a million. But it's often been said that he had ears in the walls of the cities, and I guess those ears just listened and waited for young dreamers like I was."

Miko's eyes opened wide in clear surprise. Then the look faded as it became obvious she was taking it all in, understanding it. She shifted again so that she could sit leaning up against one of his lightly folded hands, clearly seeking a more comfortable sitting position. "So you wanted to help, once. You wanted to save lives."

Knockout nodded again, struggling to form words as coolant and washer fluid started to pour from his optics without any warning at all. He hoped the human wouldn't notice, but of course that hope was ridiculous. She was looking at him intently and her own eyes were sad now. Miko leaned forward, to wrap her hands around his fingertips.

"I think I must have ended as many lives as I've ever saved," Knockout said. He tried to make himself stop crying but it wasn't working very well. "I killed Autobots when I could and thankfully I was never a fighter or it would have been many more of them. I've killed my own people, the troops under my care, off-lining them because I was told too. If you are too damaged to rejoin the fight quickly, you are just a waste of space that can be replaced. You take up space, you don't get to live… Finally, I think I almost stopped caring if they lived or not, I stopped caring if I did. The war would never end, I would never be what I wanted, not like I remembered what that was. Nothing mattered but the war, the constant piles of damaged bots, my own survival one more day. I'd escape when I could. I'd drive faster and faster. I'd race on Earth and I'd win. I liked winning. Then I ran a guy off the highway because I was so angry all the time… I wanted to feel powerful, and then I hated myself later. And that one lived. I lost a friend not too long ago. The only true friend I'd ever have among the 'cons. So many of them laughed and mocked me for being sad… for caring…"

"Breakdown?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry he died. Bulk' may not have liked him, but you never deserved to lose your best friend."

"Thank you."

"Maybe, if only he'd lived, he'd left with you… you'd both be Autobots…" Miko mused. She sounded hopeful. It gave him hope too, and he nodded.

"I would have begged him to consider it… to at least try…"

For a while they sat together up on the roof of the base. Neither said anything. The girl stayed where she was, sitting on top of the bot, and he sensed her strange and unexpected trust in him not to hurt her. He felt himself undeserving of her trust, or that of anyone else. He understood without any words, that she was trying to teach him to stop thinking that. Knockout knew that a human lived only a short time. A link of an optic really, in the timeframe of his own people. And this one was still young for her own kind besides. But she was smart, and somehow seemed to know and understand things she shouldn't need to.

A noise from inside the small pocket of her sleeping pants got both of their attention. A small and quiet chiming sound. Miko sat up straighter and reached into her pocket. Knockout watched her pull out a comm device – cellphone- he thought that word was right. The little pink device chimed again in her hand.

"It's Jack," she said, reading her tiny screen. "He wonders where I am. Said everyone is already up and they want to play a video game."

Knockout looked up to the sky again. He had never noticed when the sun had come up, and it seemed the human hadn't either, but it was blazing overhead. His internal clock told him it was nearly, what the humans would think of as nine in the morning.

"Miko, you've got to get back inside," he said. He nudged her gently with one fingertip, to urge her to stand and go. The small human stood up, but instead of running off she stopped and turned back to him.

"Come back in too," she said, laughing a little. "You can play with us. I'll tell those boys to let you. We let 'Bee and Smokescreen play…. They just use very big controllers."

"Knockout shook his head and waved her away gently. "I don't understand video games. And the last thing I want is to get you into trouble."

Miko laughed loudly. "Trouble for being your friend? June said specifically don't try to talk to you because you are, and I quote, 'some Decepticon!' I don't think that's what you are at all. Not anymore. Therefore, I don't think I broke a single rule. Nothing wrong with being friends with an Autobot."

Knockout smiled at her strong implication of his chance at the redemption he so honestly sought. But he didn't know what to say to that and still felt there was no time to say anything at all. Her phone chimed again.

"Your logic is strange," he said simply, laughing.

She ran for the ladder. He worried she might slip off the roof, but of course she did not.

"Hey, Doc Knock," she said grinning before she disappeared from view under the trapdoor. "Logic is logic, right?"

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

Knockout had tried with little success to get in a little bit of recharge, late in the morning, after he'd gone back inside the base. Once again he'd been woken up by a terrible dream. He could barely recall the details this time, only that it had been bad, and that the human child, Miko was involved in it. He remembered waking up suddenly and might have actually yelled out loud as he'd seen her die somehow. This time at least it had been a dream of something that had never actually happened, instead of the usual repeating flashbacks. He wondered if that might almost be good news somehow.

The base was partly empty. He knew that Agent Fowler and June had taken all three children out for a meal somewhere, and someone had mentioned something about an amusement park. A few of the bots were away as well. He wasn't sure where they had gone and it didn't seem that important. Knockout made his way outside the base's main building and crossed the property to a usually empty hanger that he'd been told the bots used once in a while as a makeshift training gym. Knockout wondered in there for no real reason.

He had expected he would find a large unfinished space completely empty. But instead he found Bulkhead and Wheeljack. Both were working out with heavy punching bags and quite clearly competing to find out who could hit harder. Bulkhead was clearly winning that one. Knockout would never have expected any different. Both of the bots laughed, taunting and egging each other on, using language that would have never have been suitable in decent company. It was only when the punching bag that Bulkhead had been pummeling, was knocked loose from its heavy ceiling hook and swung wildly before hitting the floor with a mighty thump that their game was clearly over. Bulkhead swore again, kicking the thing. Wheeljack laughed, shaking his head at him.

"Fowler might just peel your paint if that left any damage to the ceiling in here," the white wrecker said, pointing upwards.

"Nah," Bulkhead answered. He slugged his friend hard in the shoulder panel, with a resounding mental clanging sound. "I'll just tell him it was your fault."

"Ha! You always did have a knack for keeping your own gears outta trouble and landing me knee-deep right in the scrap, Bulk'"

"Knockout, tell me you didn't see anything," Bulkhead laughed, as he turned and clearly saw him in the doorway.

Knockout gave a laugh of his own. Quickly he answered, "well that all depends… if Fowler asks, I didn't see a thing. If it's anyone else… well I might just have another funny story to add to the team's list of Bulkhead related disasters."

Wheeljack walked over quickly. He smacked the red medic on the back panel, before he could expect it. "Haha… looks like this guy's fittin' in around here. He's catching on, Bulk'. He's catching on."

Knockout might have laughed loudly with the wreckers at that, had he not been entirely winded from the needlessly hard blow. He never was sure exactly what to think of Wheeljack. The two of them had never really been too bothered with each other, or with being friends. The wrecker could be downright obnoxious, especially for an Autobot. And he had gone too far, that recent evening, with his high grade influenced ranting. But all the same, he had apologized sometime well after the fact.

"Seriously," the white wrecker said, he smacked the medic again, though thankfully not nearly so hard as the first time. Clearly he had taken the hint about that. "You're not such a bad bot. I was thinkin' this over the night we all got back to Earth. Even with the 'cons, I'm not sure you were ever that bad. Real pain to deal with, yeah. But pure evil like your big boss, or his second in command? No way."

Knockout was silent again. He didn't know exactly what he was supposed to say to that, but he supposed what he had heard was a good thing. He watched Bulkhead drag the punching bag away to throw it roughly in the back corner of the room, out of the way. The big green bot kicked the thing again swearing. He clearly hurt his toe doing so, and that made him hop for a second on one leg, swearing again. Wheeljack shook his head, and this time it was Knockout who laughed out loud.

"Bulk' ya down for a little hand to hand practice?" Wheeljack called across the huge room. Bulkhead waved a hand, declining.

"Miko should be back soon. I promised her I'd take her for a drive. Why don't you practice with him?"

"Me?" knockout exclaimed in disbelief. He backed up slowly, sure that the look on his face must have been ridiculous.

"Fight Knockout?" Wheeljack questioned. He sounded unsure about the idea. "I don't know about that…"

"I'm a medic," Knockout said firmly, shaking his head. "I'm not made for battle. My purpose is simply to step in once any of you nitwits manage to break something."

His attempt and banter bordering on trash talk, made both wreckers laugh loudly.

"Stuck up, little slag pile," Wheeljack said, staring the medic down.

"Obnoxious hunk of scrap," Knockout countered quickly.

"Think you're so far above obnoxious yourself?"

"Me? Obnoxious? Not possible."

"Ha. Arrogance is only another form of obnoxiousness."

"I take pride in my paintjob, you scuffed up, dull finished, mouthpiece."

Across the room, leaning against the wall closest to the door, bulkhead was still laughing loudly. Knockout laughed again a little too. They were all still just messing around… weren't they?

"You can talk just fine, but that's no good in battle," Wheeljack said. He stepped forward and shoved the medic backward, hard. He nearly caused him to stumble before he caught himself and stood backing away. "Bulk' might be right. We should have a go at this."

"I…. I'm not…"

"Ah come on. We're just having fun. You have a weapon. You must have a few good moves."

"I'm… not very good at it. Better at holding someone off, while I wait for back-up, or a ground bridge..."

"Well, there's your trouble!" Wheeljack exclaimed. His laughter had died out. He looked far too serious. He shoved Knockout backward again. This time the red medic was sent to the floor, hitting hard, landing flat on his back. "You don't try. You just run away."

"Running away makes the most sense to me," Knockout blustered out before he realized even what he was truly saying. He tried to get to his feet, but was kicked lightly in the chest plate and knocked back down again.

"Running away gets your own fraggin' team killed," Wheeljack answered. His voice now bordered on shouting. "And hitting the deck, shrieking, is not a blasted attack move!"

"I… I realize…. that…"

"You don't know what it's like to be drastically outnumbered. You got lucky. The 'cons are disabled, and you've never seen our side of an attack. But they'll be back. This war is hardly over." Wheeljack was full on yelling now, and his foot was planted firmly against Knockout's chest. He began to press down with some force. "No one faults you for having been on the wrong side. But you've never fought twenty troopers with only two bots to help you. You've never needed to look up, watching for fliers, while you fire at others on the ground. Your enemy was always on the ground. Most of ours are up, above us. There is no running from that!"

"I… I'm sorry… I…" Knockout could only stammer in shock and confusion over what he was actually supposed to do or say.

"Wheeljack," Bulkhead said loudly from the side of the room. Knockout could see the green bot moving slowly closer to them. "Maybe this wasn't a good idea. I only suggested you fight him for fun, for practice. Not scream at him like that…"

"He's gotta understand somehow, Bulk'"

Wheeljack pressed his foot harder into Knockout's chest plate, still not hard enough to really harm him, but more than hard enough to make him panic. The medic fought it back, felt the overwhelming need to run, fought back tears of shame and rage and confusion. And he listened as the two went on speaking.

"This is how it worked back in the wreckers. Rough 'em up a bit, scare 'em til they really started trying. There was no try back then. There was only do or die…"

"Knockout is hardly a wrecker. This is a medical officer. Get off him."

"They was never any real law against bashing up the medics a little…" Wheeljack pressed down harder with his heavy foot.

Knockout still quite fully trapped on the floor, looking up into the angry face of a wrecker still attached to some dead past, felt something rise up within his own processor. A kind of anger he had never truly felt before. Sure there had been anger. There had been downright rage. Anger and hate directed right at himself, at so the pointless war, at his own mistakes, his weakness. But he had only ever forced it back, down into the darkness of his own head, forced himself to deny he was angry at all.

"Frag you!" He screamed, with every bit of the all-consuming rage he had hidden since he'd defected, and probably so long before that. His arms reached up and he grabbed the white wrecker around the knees. Before the bot above him knew what hit him, he had forced him forward, sending him crashing facedown onto the floor. Knockout rolled quickly, coping the move he had seen so many times from other but never tried himself. Now on his side, he kicked hard, landing a good solid kick against Wheeljack's side panel. He stumbled to his feet, and prepared to hold his ground by the time the stunned wrecker got up himself.

"I'm not a slagging coward," Knockout yelled dodging a fist as it narrowly missed his faceplate. The next three managed to hit him but still he held his ground. His own rage keeping him on his feet. He managed to land a good kick, striking Wheeljack in the knee. Somehow, while his opponent stumbled backward, Knockout found time, the second he needed, to take his fighting staff from his storage compartment. The wrecker laughed in his face, egging him on, making him even angrier.

Knockout had never used the thing for any real combat. It barely worked anymore in the first place, but he wasn't planning on powering it up, only hitting and blocking with it. The second he had it in his hands and assembled in record time, he used it to block blows and an endless string of kicks. Every try at knocking it from his hands and he'd only fight harder, blocking and finally striking back. He had no hope taking the wrecker down and he knew that. But on some other level he hardly cared. Knocking him to the floor was not important. Simply beating him back as he himself was beaten down was what mattered to him. Soon though, just holding him off, just beating him back was not enough. He wanted to win. He wanted to beat the bot that had taunted him.

He made a bold move, swinging the staff wide, going for the wrecker's knees. His attack was quickly dodged and the staff continued its swing, sending him off balance. He tripped himself up, and fell over his own foot when he tried to catch himself. He fell to the floor. He wanted to hold a hand up, beg for a second to get back up, but there was no mercy in battle and he knew there would be none here either, as a kick landed against his front plate while he was down.

"That was dirty," he spat, still struggling and now struggling harder.

"And you assume your enemy will always be nice and clean? You know they won't. You were one of them for Primus sake. And they want you to die, maybe more than they want to kill any of us!"

Another hard kick. Knockout sputtered and gasped, winded all over again. A blow to the faceplate knocked him backward from his already half standing position. He refused to fall over again. He hated the very thought of another fall. There was so much he hated, and he used his anger at that fact, to haul himself up fast, and swing hand. His staff hit the wrecker in the middle another of his purposefully dirty attacks. Wheeljack hit the floor with a look of surprise and a slight gasp. He was back on his feet fast and charging at him. The next long minutes seemed to drag on and fly away all at once, in a mix of hits, kicks, dodges, and blows that just got harder and harder.

From somewhere in the room, Bulkhead had stopped yelling about it all being a bad idea and to please stop it, and instead began to shout at Knockout to block and kick, to darn well just try even harder. In moments though he was back to shouting at them to both stop, and something about it going way too far. Knockout landed another good blow, smashing a fist into the wrecker's front plate with all the rage he had not yet spent, and heard Bulkhead now shouting about how it was getting too violent, on both sides of the training match. Knockout all but ignored him and he knew Wheeljack must have been too, because the hits and kicks and constant hard impacts never stopped.

"I refuse to be scared anymore," Knockout yelled, without knowing where exactly that had come from, or why then. "I'm not some worthless retreating coward."

"I still don't believe you," Wheeljack shouted back, as he grabbed the medic violently by the back of his neck and slammed him face first to the floor.

"Wheeljack, what were you thinking?" Bulkhead demanded. Knockout could hear his large heavy feet running fast across the room toward them. But he didn't get up from the floor. The wind had been knocked from his intakes again and this third time it was worse than ever. He gasped and struggled and heard his own fans overworking.

As his systems began to settle and his intakes slowed down out of their sputtering gaps, he felt the stream of coolant pour from his optics. His hands shook, and he looked up into two concerned and visibly nervous pairs of blue optics, as both wreckers on their knees nearby reached out to help him up. He only waved a hand to make them back up, and looked around with his own confusion closing in on him.

"I don't think I'll make it," he cried, trembling hard. "I can barely close my optics without being terrified of myself, or seeing the past like its right now. I'd rather die than go back. But I can't stay on this side either without going insane trying to forget that I did so many terrible things. I won't go back. I won't go back. I'll never hand myself over. I'd rather die. I'd rather die."

"I should… get help…?" Bulkhead spoke quietly, uncharacteristically uncertain.

"No Bulk', well maybe so. It can't hurt anything," Wheeljack said with confidence. He stayed on the floor, no longer even trying to help Knockout up now. The medic only looked at them both through coolant clouded optics. He could feel his own body trembling even worse and couldn't make anything stop. "I've seen situations like this before. He just needs to process everything. And there is likely a whole heap to process."

"Bulkhead," a small human voice called from the doorway of hanger. Miko appeared, standing inside the proportionately huge doorway. Knockout made our outline, through a new stream of coolant and washer fluid. He tried again to stop his awful state and trying only made it all worse. "Hey Bulk' Smokescreen said he thought you came in here. I'm back if you still wanna go for that…"

She stopped speaking in mid-sentence and Knockout heard her small feet racing across the concrete floor. Her was much louder with her shoes on. He could only listen as she come closer. He heard her speaking, quietly, concerned. "Bulkhead…. Wheeljack… let me help."

"Miko, I'm not sure you should be…" Bulkhead had begun to say something back but he stopped before he finished.

"Bulk, back up! I don't wanna get stepped on by those big feet." Knockout heard Miko speak, taking charge like he had so far never heard before. Then her small body made a tiny thud as she dropped to the floor.

"How did this happen?" the small human demanded.

"I think it was my fault," Wheeljack answered. He sounded regretful. "We were just training. It wasn't meant to be serious, but it got out of hand. I thought I'd push him a bit, make him angry, make him want to win. I ended up throwing him to the floor, but I don't think I hurt him. I guess his processor started... well… processing basically. Dumping some of the emotional center, memory files…"

"Miko, I don't think you should be…" Bulkhead said. Their voices all sounded far away, but at least they were clear, and understandable.

"Bulk' try to find Jack's mother or Ratchet," said the small human voice. "Either one should know the right thing to do."

"Knockout," she said, speaking much quieter now. She slowly wigged her seated body into his field of vision, near his shoulder panel, which was still pressed awkwardly against the floor. "Do you wanna sit up a bit? I'm too small to help you, but a bot could. It looks uncomfortable down there."

He could only shake his head at her silently. His violent trembling had all but stopped and there were no more tears to cry, but still he was too overwhelmed, nearly frozen with shock and utter terror over something he could not see or comprehend and moving seemed far from doable. He was unaware of the position of most of his own body, and he only vaguely realized that fact when he saw her wiggle to her knees and scurry a slight way so that she could reach his fingertips. His right hand was somewhere to his right side, stretched across the floor as he had tried badly to catch himself when he was knocked down. The left had ended up right underneath his chest panel. He weakly moved a bit and tried to free that one. He knew he had landed horribly. He knew it should have been uncomfortable to stay that way for much longer.

"Okay" the small human said, slowly. She seemed to be very low to the floor, with her head pressed against the tips of his fingers. Her tiny arms wrapped around what would become a front side panel in his car form. "You can stay like that for a while, if you want. Do you want to talk to me?"

Again he could only shake his head slightly.

She had sound closer that time though. Other sounds seemed closer too, more real. Reality was good. Panic and terror over things he couldn't see was not so good. He noticed his own body, felt a sense of it as a complete form. One knee bent to the side awkwardly, and in growing discomfort. The other just far too straight and out behind him. One arm still wedged under his body, the side of his faceplate still in the dust that covered the floor. One hand still partly contained the human half sitting and half laying over top of it to hug his arm. That hand and lower arm was attached to a badly cramping shoulder, disagreeing with his body's bad positioning entirely. He thought finally of moving. Discomfort motivated him to get up, and he thought of the human still in his hand. He wondered how to move without throwing her off hand. He remembered that the other bots knew how to work with those tiny beings, and that he was still shocked at one determined to befriend him too.

He slowly moved his hand and felt her wiggle off quickly. She sat on the floor looking at his optics. He looked back at her, made a careful note of where she was, and carefully pushed himself up so he could sit. Being so cautious of someone tiny gave him focus. That was good. That was useful.

"It may not have been your fault," Miko said to Wheeljack, looking back and forth between both bots quickly. "He had a very bad night and I guess it's a bad day too."

"It… it's no one's… fault," Knockout finally managed to speak again. He sounded badly shaken and he knew it but he made himself go on speaking anyway. "You were… were well… intentioned. The training helped a bit…. I was so angry…"

He looked right at the little human who sat on the floor, with tears in her eyes, staring up at him. "Miko, I think I'm broken…"