So why'd you really do it?

by Dreamingsinger

The last thing the Autobots expected was that Knockout would ever switch sides to join them. But why'd he do it? It's out of character. There are bound to be a few trust issues. But when he is badly injured, saving his team without even thinking about it, the 'bots begin to discover that their suspicious defector is far less confidant than they thought, and far more broken.

30. Chapter 30

Standing in the medbay, near Ratchet's far corner work table, Bumblebee tapped the old medibot lightly on the side of his shoulder panel. It took a second, slightly harder tap, and speaking loudly, calling his name to get his attention, before the old bot finally turned around.

"I'm… Sorry 'Bee." Ratchet stood just leaning slightly forward with both of hands resting on the worktable he used for his scientific work, and where he had the second before been doing nothing at all but staring at the wall in front of him. "What did you need?"

"I'm just not sure I understand this study case, exactly." Bumblebee set a data pad he'd been holding in his hands, down on Ratchet's near empty work table. He'd left it open on an image that was included in the study material he'd been busily reading all morning.

"Alright," the old bot finally moved from the edge of his worktable, stepped back and turned a little. He spoke calmly as he said, "let's go over this."

"Thanks," 'Bee answered, while he looked down intently at his data pad.

"First things first. Explain to me what you believe it is you are looking at here." Ratchet gestured toward the picture on the data pad.

"It's clearly somebot's wrist joint in close up view. I think it's sustained blast damage."

"Nice job. Degree of injury severity?"

"Uhh… moderate to serious?"

Ratchet nodded, and gestured again to the image. "Something like this is potentially still fixable, or may require a complete replacement of the joint, and possibility it's wiring. Deciding on the best course of action can be a tricky thing really. Scans will show greater details and give far more information about the condition of the joint obviously. We base a decision from there on the length of time it will take to either repair or replace, whether we have suitable parts and materials in stock… If you were to decide on repairing damage like this, it would be very close to the kind of repair I did for Acree and her shattered ankle during our Earth visit."

The old bot fell silent then, and after another moment he slowly turned again to face toward the wall and his work table. He began to stare again at the blank white wall now in front of him.

"I've been thinking I might ask Knockout to work with you a bit on some medical theory and anatomy lessons on data pads. He still so desperately wants to remain in the medical field in some capacity. We both know he's mentally just as sharp as ever and I see his potential for fully throwing himself right back into his work however he can. This might just work out. A way for him to work again in his own field, and for you to study and learn and question."

'Bee nodded his agreement and understanding. He answered that he liked the idea. But the old medic gave no further response. It was clear he had not likely even heard him, or seen his nodding.

"Are you alright?" the young bot questioned, suddenly concerned when the medic appeared to stare off into nothing again.

"Ratchet!" he said, speaking louder and far more urgently, when the old bot still did not answer him.

Finally the old bot turned slowly to face him again, and stood with both of his hands on the front of his head while he shook off some obvious momentary confusion.

"I'm… sorry, Bumblebee," he muttered quietly. "I've… just been…. Distracted today it seems."

"You okay?"

"Yes, yes I'm fine. Just a bit… 'Bee I think you should understand a very important lesson."

"What lesson?"

"You can't save them all, 'Bee." Ratchet stood, still shaking his head, and looking down at the younger bot, with a strange sad look in his blue optics.

"Can't save them all? You are talking about patients? Sick and damaged bots?"

"Yes."

"I know that," Bumblebee insisted, taken aback by his teammate's words and the look in his optics. "I've seen so many bots die on the battle field to know just how many can't be saved."

"You say you know and understand that, but do you really? Patients offline. It's a fact of life for a medibot. You call the time of death, and you hand the frame over to loved ones that come to say goodbye and to claim it. You tell them all just how sorry you are, how you did all you could do and you hope they understand that. Then you walk away to see to the next case, see to some other bot's strained or dislocated knee joint and you hope that he won't notice the emotions you're hiding behind a blank expression and intent focused optics and that he won't wonder if you lost your last patient."

Ratchet turned back to face the worktable and the wall yet again, and this time his optics looked down toward the top of the table. He continued on with his unexpected teaching by muttering in a strange tone of near defeat, "An offline bot is sad. Tragic. You blame yourself, and think that maybe if only you have done just a little more… maybe if you'd only tried just a little harder… But then are the ones that live. The ones that survive when all medical knowledge says that they shouldn't have. The bots left disabled, damaged and broken, making do with whatever it is they're left with, because you just don't know enough yet, because science just isn't there yet."

The old medic suddenly raised a hand, now balled up into a tight fist. And with an uncharacteristic amount of obvious anger, he slammed it down onto the work table. This was followed immediately by a kick of one large foot, against a front table leg, which promptly made the while thing wobble with the threat of falling right over.

"You mean bots like Firestorm?" Bumblebee asked with calm understanding despite the outburst of sudden rage. He hurried to steady the still lightly wobbling table with one hand.

"Firestorm… Knockout…," Ratchet mumbled quietly, and with his anger quickly gone, and replaced a look and tone of utter defeat. "I've got two bots now with damaged processors, disabled, rebooting, one is constantly stumbling, falling and can hardly talk, the other will probably never walk or regain full left arm function..."

"Ratchet," 'Bee said firmly. He lightly grabbed for the other bot's arm to make him turn and look at him again. "Knockout is doing so much now. I think sometimes he tries to do half the stuff he does just to see the looks on our faces when he gets it right and never should have been able to. He's truly an Autobot. Arcee loves him. And Firestorm never seems to stop smiling for more than a minute at a time. Last night when you had her walk the hallway, so you could make those assessments of her mobility and balance, sure she fell to the floor twice, after stumbling against the wall a few times. But she got up again as fast as she could, and even then I don't think I've seen too many bots ever smile that bright."

There was a small window mounted high up on one side wall of the medbay, left unshuttered and sitting open that day to let in the day's light breeze and bright sunlight. Bumblebee pulled Ratchet gently toward that open window, by the arm he was still holding lightly onto. The old bot grumbled under his intakes in protest, but still he walked with him willingly enough.

"Check this out for a minute," 'Bee said. He gave a little chuckle of laughter as he gestured pointedly to the window.

Outside, in a small securely fenced in courtyard on the other side of the window, Arcee was busy tossing a lightweight inflatable blue ball toward Knockout's outstretched hand, while he sat on his cart, now minus its tray, thanks to a recent modification to remount the hand control onto the left armrest. His one mostly functional arm reached up higher and his hand grabbed fast for the ball. Too slow and still lacking coordination, his fingertips light made contact with the tossed ball, and he sent it flying away from himself instead of catching it. With a clear frown of annoyance on his faceplate, he tipped his head down and shifted in his seat the bit he could do, looking to see where the ball had fallen. But when he raised his head and his optics again, he was actually laughing.

Firestorm, standing outside, close to the fence and out of the way, laughed a little too, because laughter really was catchy. The white and yellow bot leaned slightly forward against the bars of a walking frame that Ratchet had located in the medbay storage room for her to experiment with using. The walking frame was considerably bigger than it should have been for a bot of her size, but the medic had made up his mind the previous night to custom build a smaller one for her, if the temporary one proved helpful to her.

"Ready?" Arcee asked. She had run to quickly retrieve the ball and stood holding it and ready to throw again.

Knockout raised his arm again, with his optics focused on the blue ball. "Go!"

Ratchet, watching through the window, lowered his head just slightly and his own optics showed clear regret, when Knockout missed again, knocking the ball awkwardly away from him again, and sending it rolling and bouncing across the ground. But 'Bee only grinned instead, as he gestured to the bots outside.

"He's been doing great in his rehabilitation," the young bot said.

"He'll never be close to fully functional though, in any case," Ratchet protested, grumbling as he shook his head slightly in the direction of the window. "His medical career is as good as over and no amount of hard work on his part will ever change that."

"Well clearly I can't catch yet," Knockout exclaimed, still laughing a little. "Lemme throw it then."

"Catch it and you can throw it back," Arcee answered quickly with a smirk and a loud laugh of her own.

"Oh, come on..."

"Nope. Mine!" Arcee laughed. She held both hands, one of which of course contained the little blue ball, behind her back. And for no clear reason at all, other than because she could and because it was funny, she began to run backwards across the courtyard. She now laughed hysterically.

"You think I won't chase you?" Knockout said, grinning with silliness in his optics. His left hand had been resting on his lap. But he quickly managed to lift it with the right so that he could place it against his controls, and drive the cart forward. His right foot shoved the power pedal down toward the floor and he quickly reached near the speed of a bot's slow run, as he maneuvered around using his hand control, to pursue his mate as she began to run in unpredictable twists and sudden turns jokingly trying to lose him.

"Firestorm," Arcee yelled, "think fast!"

The little bot gave a momentary startled look, before Arcee gently tossed the ball at her, from a paused position close in front of her. Firestorm missed her catch just as sure as Knockout had been missing his. But leaning on her walking frame, holding onto one of its handholds with one hand, she was able to bend her knees and lower herself to pick it up from where it had landed near her feet. Her problem then was now that she was holding the ball, Knockout had quickly turned the cart around in as sharp of a turn possible, and was now pursuing her instead of his bondmate.

For a tiny fraction of a second, Firestorm's optics showed an intent and thinking look. Then she simply opened her storage compartment, tossed the ball in there with an ever shaking hand, and then with both hands once again free, she grabbed her handholds and walked as fast as she could across the courtyard balancing herself with the frame. She managed close to thirty feet before she stumbled a little, and held tighter to the frame, bracing against it to catch herself. Standing up straight and letting go of it she retrieved the ball from her compartment, and tossed it clumsily toward Arcee, who still managed to catch it despite the badly aimed toss. Arcee stepped closer to her mate, and lightly threw it back to him again from a shorter distance then she had before. He caught it, though just barely, and holding it for a moment, he looked up smiling at his own achievement.

Instead of throwing the ball back to Arcee though, Knockout turned the cart slightly again and tossed the ball gently to Firestorm, who leaned forward and reached with one shaky hand. She visibly struggled to hold her balance as she reached up and to the side, trying so hard to catch and missing anyway. But her nearly constant bright smile still never left her face-plate.

"That's so cool," Bumblebee exclaimed. He stayed standing beside the old medic, looking out the window, and now his optics lit up as he understand exactly what it was he was seeing outside. "Now Knockout is trying to start doing some rehab work with her, while he still practices his own too. I know it's been a while now since he's actually hated it. He doesn't seem to mind doing it anymore at all. And now they're both just having fun with it!"

But instead of nodding his pleased agreement, as the younger bot may have expected he would, or even chuckling a little about what he saw outside, Ratchet only huffed wordlessly, before he turned and walked away with heavy steps and a slowly shaking head, across the medbay.

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With one foot planted firmly on the floor, and his body maintaining well trained and perfect balance, Soundwave kicked his other leg forward fast, allowing his foot to connect squarely with the punching bag in front of him and hanging suspended from the ceiling. Two more repetitive kicks in rapid succession, and then he dropped his foot back onto the floor fast, found his balance on it without any conscious thought at all, and spun rapidly into a sideways kick with the other foot. Turning again to face another of the training gym's walls, he raised both arms bent at the elbows in front of him and shifted rapidly through many various angles and variations of his arm position, performing perfect and precise blocking moves just as though an opponent stood facing him.

He threw himself and his full attention into a practice in the maneuvers and motions of high level unarmed combat, and for a good while he he concentrated entirely on his patterns of spins, kicks, blocks and punches. The order of the moves, the number of repeated kicks in a row, or the direction of a spin was entirely improved, decided in the moment without truly deciding at all. But each separate and individual maneuver itself came from centuries of relentless practice, repetition and self discipline.

Time lost any real relevance, and to even wonder how much time had passed did not even begin to occur to him. Finally Soundwave sensed his body begining to slowly tire and he slowed his movements slightly and then a little more, deliberately allowing his intakes to slow and his frame and the wiring inside to cool down. Gradually he stopped altogether, and turned around in a full half circle in order to look toward the door and the outer wall of the gym, because the instinct that drove him to do so had finally caught up within his processor and caused him to turn and look. Instantly he was met with a bot staring intently and straight at him.

She was a tiny thing. Clearly classifiable under the category of 'minibot,' and well on the small side even for that bot class. And young, an adult obviously, but likely just barely so. Her coloring was mostly bright white and a fair amount of pale yellow, and she sat on the gym floor a ways from the door but close to the wall, behind a worn old walking frame that was clearly too big for her, and with her arms and hands steadily shaking.

Soundwave watched her through his face-shield, glaring at her as though he really could bore holes into her armor with only his staring gaze. He reasoned that the little bot would stand herself up as fast as she could and use that walking frame of hers to make for the door just as fast as possible. Another little bot of neutral status had been scared well away from him, while he did little more than move toward her. He hadn't meant to scare that one. But he hadn't exactly wanted her to stick around either. This new stranger was no different from the last – just unwanted company he would feel far better without. And he instantly returned her scare, through his face-shield, waiting for her to grow uneasy and hurry away.

When she appeared to hesitate for just a second, he took one long step toward her. When she still didn't make a move to hurry away, he took another step. He wondered in that moment where it was exactly that Laserbeak had gone, because she should have alerted him to the presence of the little bot when she came in, but clearly somehow had not. Soundwave broke his gaze from the young bot for just a moment in order to glace to his right, toward a bench that sat in front of another of the gym walls. The little bird lay on the seat of the bench, flat on her back, wings stretched out to either side, clearly in recharge.

"Hiii," the young white and yellow bot said. Her speech was slow and slightly mumbled and slurred. And she raised one trembling hand to wave at him, while she continued to sit on the gym floor.

Silently, Soundwave spent a moment looking from her to Laserbeak, who remained in recharge, oblivious to whole thing, and back again. The little bot, he saw had followed his gaze toward the recharging bird, and was now smiling in her direction.

"Heis… bootafull..." the strange little bot said. And Soundwave, fully unsure by that point whether he should be frustrated and angry that he couldn't scare her away from him, or actually amused by the fact, took one more long step to stand even closer to her.

"Your… fightin' skill… isimpressiff..." The small bot struggled to her feet, and then finally placed her hands onto the handholds of the frame, obviously able to hold her balance far better that way. But still, instead of walking away out out the door, she only stood still, looking up at him.

Clearly unable to intimidate her into retreating, ever after he took one more finally step toward her and stood staring down and looming over her, motionless, Soundwave instead turned around to face the other direction and he walked away, halfway back to the middle of the gym. For a couple of long moments he stood, looking at a blank wall and the doors that lead to the blaster range behind it. Though he did not physical move, inwardly he shook his head, baffled, curious, annoyed and confused all at once. When he finally turned slowly back around again, the same little bot was still standing near the wall, leaning a little against her walking frame, with a smile on her face-plate.

"Yu mussbe… Soundwave." The little bot just stayed standing still. And she looked up and toward him with calm and curious shining blue optics. "ever...one saysyu cameformda… figthin'pits. That how yulearned yamooves?"

"I hearya can talk..." the little white and yellow bot said, as Soundwave walked fast toward the door himself, deciding to simply return to his small living quarters, and just before he was able to get out. "Yu muss speak, better'en meee. Everone does. I'd listenta yu, if yu wanna talktameee."

Soundwave made right for the door, still without a word. Laserbeak, finally sensing his urgency, snapped fast out of her recharge and immediately she flew to him, landed lightly on the arm he extended to her, and allowed herself to be hurriedly carried away from there.

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Knockout opened his optics, after snapping fast out of a light recharge without ever having noticed that he had dozed off at all. He was sitting up on his mobility cart, parked in an out of the way corner of the common room, with his head tilted back awkwardly against the cart's headrest. He slowly moved to slowly turn his head one way and then the other shrugging his shoulders as well as he could a couple of times and then turning his head again, trying to relieve the stiffness his awkward and unintended napping position had caused the wiring in his neck and shoulders.

When he looked around the room, as he wiggled to sit himself up straighter, and finally finally noticed Soundwave, seated on a bench across the otherwise empty room, he resisted the urge to groan lightly with embarrassment for his unplanned recharging. The other bot, as busy however intently looking over a datapad held in his hands, and Knockout wondered hopefully for a second if he even noticed he'd been asleep at all.

"Mobility machine – unlikely to be comfortable enough for recharging." Soundwave unexpectedly spoke up. And Knockout, entirely unable to be sure whether the comment was another try at humor or not, gave a slight laugh anyway.

"It isn't," he said, giving his head another slow turn and his shoulders another stretch. "Though I don't usually make a habit of recharging in it."

"I beleive I clearly pushed myself far too hard with rehabilitation work today," he went on, as he drove the cart toward the bench where his fellow defector sat.

He had, he knew, done exactly that. That morning there had been a session of working with Ratchet in the training gym on the lower level. And because he had felt particularly good that morning physically speaking, and in a good mood to push himself a little more, and because there was not a single waiting patient upstairs in the medbay, the old medic neither of the bots had been in any great rush to stop training, since it made sense that they keep working for a while. Then not long after, Arcee had randomly tossed a ball toward him in the courtyard outside, obviously having remembered that he once said I wanted to try to catch an object. The pair of them had mostly just been having fun, and goofing around and enjoying the sunshine. But still it was good and deliberate practice as well, and he certainly put some great effort into it.

"Inquiry – identity of one small bot? Description – yellow. White. Natural. Damaged."

"I'm sorry?" Soundwave's question was so out of the clear blue and without any clear context at all, that for a moment Knockout only looked in his direction mumbling his confusion. But a second later it clicked in his processor exactly who the question referred to.

"That's just one of Ratchet's patients. Sounds like she'll be here a couple of days for medical assessments.

"Patient – nuisance."

"Nah, Firestorm is quickly becoming everybody's friend." Knockout remembered all too well a time not so long ago, when his own selfishness would have made him find the little bot far less than amusing. But as it was at present he had quickly become oddly protective of the young one that he shared a connection with due to a common disability.

"Patient, Firestorm – nuisance," Soundwave repeated. Though his face-plate was hidden as always behind his face-shield, Knockout, only through years of serving along side him on the warship, was sure he could almost sense his unrelenting glare.

Knockout did try to work out the cause of his colleague's harsh and pointed accusation. But Soundwave was Soundwave, and still as unpredictable as ever when it came to communication and social behavior. After sitting another minute with his head pointed directly forward with an assumed glare, he appeared to tune the other bot out entirely, and raising the datapad still held in his hands once again, he clearly turned his attention almost fully to that.

"Well whatever the case, she can hardly be confined to the medbay, and made to stay there," Knockout said, both baffled and frustrated. "She isn't sick. She has a damaged processor. And she needs to be able to walk and move to practice with the walking frame."

Soundwave only continued to silently ignore him now entirely.

"It wouldn't kill you, ya know, to socialize with the team from time to time," Knockout went on. He drove the cart slowly in reverse, carefully making his way toward the door, for a few meters before he finally turned around and continued on forwards. "Everything is different now, and times are changing fast. The old ways are done and they're never coming back. I can't imagine how the old silent, creepy, and far beyond anti-social thing, is possibly going to keep on working for you in the new world we're building."

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Standing in the doorway of the small recreation room on the lower level, Arcee smiled toward Knockout, who was busy inside the room. The red bot, sitting on his cart, Held onto one of Firestorm's hands with his right. Her other hand rested against his armrest for balance, as she struggled to remain standing on one foot, while he very gently pulled her slightly from side to side. The little bot very soon stumbled badly, lurching forward roughly, and dropping her raised foot hard onto the floor, before the trip without a chance to try to catch herself, sent her falling forward against Knockout's body.

Still holding onto her with his stronger hand, he used his right arm strength to push her very gently backward, and helped her back into a stable and balanced standing position. With his right hand obviously still occupied, he used the fingertips and a slight motion of the left to direct her to change feet and to try standing only on the other one. Firestorm immediately raised one foot slightly from the floor, and though she immediately began to lose whatever stability she had had, she clearly trusted that Knockout knew how to not let her fall to the floor, and she just kept on trying to hold her terrible balance for as long as she could. For all her trying and risk of falling, and the clear physical effort it took for her just to stand with her weight supported mostly on one leg, the little bot grinned just as bright as usual.

"He'll be so good with your youngling," said Speedbreaker. She stood beside Arcee in the doorway, and smiled a little herself.

"Yeah," Arcee nodded. "I can't believe now I was almost scared to tell him I was carrying at first."

"How much longer will you carry now?"

"Fourteen days. Give or take a few of course."

"Coming up fast..."

"I'm honestly amazed when I stop and really think about just how fast."

Knockout had managed a short time before, to pull his shoulder harnesses over the back of the cart with an awkward reach of his right arm, and small amount of struggling with clumsily fingers. And completely by his own choice and willingly, he'd strapped himself into the seat of his mobility cart. That way, he could maintain stability without working hard at it, while he supported the weight of the little bot pulling against him.

Eventually though, and with Firestorm leaning against his arm rest again to hold her balance, while she, at his instructions, helped him to pull the straps back over his head and over the back of the cart, he got himself unstrapped again. He motioned with his good hand, for her to sit herself on the floor facing toward him, and he leaned forward a little, the furthest he probably could without a risk of a fall and gently he pushed her slightly to one side and then the other and back again several times. Clearly he was making an assessment of her seated balance, with which she was much stronger than standing.

Firestorm got herself awkwardly back onto her feet again, and at Knockout's prompting she balanced – or tried to however terribly – on her right foot. She switched after a moment to her left foot, and nearly fell simply doing that. But she caught herself quickly against the cart's armrest again.

"No one can say how far you can go, even with work and practice," Knockout said, with a slight little smile, when Firestorm's almost constant grin momentarily let a frown of frustration show through. "But I personally see no reason why, with a lot of hard work and practice, rebuilding your strength, retraining your balance, you won't be running someday."

The little yellow and white bot's frown quickly gave way once again, to a bright and laughing grin that spread across her face-plate and made her blue optics light up. She walked carefully and slowly across the room, to retrieve her walking frame, which had been left close to the far wall of the rec room. She walked back to the middle of the room much faster holding its handlebars and leaning part of her weight against it.

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It was getting late into the evening, and Bulkhead was in the training gym, getting in a workout with his preferred heavy punching bag, before he went off to his room to recharge for the night after a quick container of his evening fuel. Heavy metal music, one of many tracks, he'd gotten from Miko, did not know the name of, but counted among his favorites anyway, blasted away on the portable music player brought down with him from his room.

"Lookin' for a quick match?" He asked, without turning around, as soon as he could hear the heavy footsteps of a bot close to the doorway, over the sound of his music. He gave a bag one more good solid punch with his large fist, and took a second to simply stand on the gym floor rocking his head and upper body forward and back in time to the beat, before it occurred to him just how loud the volume really was. He reached down toward the music player near his feet, and turned it down to a far lower volume level, before finally turning around to see who it was that had entered the gym.

Arcee's feet were far too small to stomp so loudly, and Knockout sadly, did not have footsteps at all. That left Bulk' to assume that it was either Wheeljack, Smokescreen, or Bumblebee, possibly Ratchet, that had come into the gym. And he nearly stumbled backwards from one wrong and awkward step, in his own shock at finding himself instead face to face with Soundwave.

"Sorry," Bulkhead mumbled, unsure all along what it was he was actually apologizing for to begin with. "I thought you were someone else..."

He had no idea at all what would or should happen from there. Best case, he figured, the creepy and silent 'con defector, would walk away again, realizing the gym was already in use, and come back later to use it himself. Worst case, he would silently, but no less pointedly push his determined will. Bulkhead decided in a second, he would quite happily agree to just leave himself in that case.

But instead of doing either, Soundwave, still facing Bulk' and standing a decent ways away from him, only tipped his head down and back up again, appearing to look him over once with hidden optics. He stood still another moment, and appeared to consider. Then quickly he raised both arms in front of his black and purple body in a clear and obvious fighting stance.

Bulkhead would never in a thousand years, have challenged Soundwave to a training match on purpose. For one thing, he would have assumed quickly that the bot would simply never want to train with anyone. He'd never seen him do so, yet. And for another, he quite frankly didn't exactly want Soundwave as an opponent on that or any given day, friendly training match or not!

But Bulkhead knew and understood just how hard a few of his teammates had been trying, in some way, any way really, to find a social connection with this strange and terrifying silent bot. Knockout, it seemed, had always been the best at it. He'd had more then one real conversation with the new defector, and that was far more than anyone else could do. But they had both been 'cons. They'd severed together as crewmates. And most of the time, even Knockout could barely keep Soundwave's interest in anything that even slightly resembled interaction.

Bulkhead gave a little shrug of his huge shoulders, and after picking up the music player to move it to a safer place near the wall, he planted his feet firmly and raised his own arms in front of him. He figured a good practice match never could do him any harm, and though he would more than likely lose at least he could say he'd tried...

Changing in rapidly toward him, Soundwave threw him to the rubber padded floor before Bulk' understood exactly how he'd even done it. The big green bot hauled himself back to his feet again as fast as he could, and with his head lower and his arms in front of him, she went for a good head on charge at his opponent. He was back on the mats, face up and gasping for an intake, suddenly tripped and downed quickly by a kick from one lanky and deceivingly strong leg.

Bulkhead managed, after getting to his feet again, to get in a couple of good solid punches, before his hits were blocked by one arm, while Soundwave hit him with a shocking level of force, with the other hand. Bulkhead transformed one of his hands then into it's wrecking ball mode, seeing a need to put even greater effort into the match. But before he could get in even one hit with his now weaponized hand, he was knocked to the floor by a flying kick that he could barely recover from, before he was dragged into the air by a good solid grip around his shoulders, and flipped straight up over Soundwave's head, as the silent bot shifted at the last second, to let him crash hard to the other end of the mat without tripping himself up and falling himself.

"I got ya now you pile of junk, scrap metal," Bulkhead roared, as he got himself somewhat awkwardly to his feet yet again. He managed to issue a short and fast succession of heavy blows from his built-in weapon. But it was only through sheer will and focused determination, which bordered on barely controlled anger, that let him do even that much.

He was well aware that he was fighting much harder, far more violently than he ever had before in a simple training matching. Such a thing, would typically have only been a friendly game of combat skill, meant only for a little recreation and some good practice. But against Soundwave, he was learning too quickly, that keeping himself in check even slightly would mean a terrible and humiliating loss. Bulk' knew he'd lose. He knew his opponent was better than him. But he hadn't realized until he found himself fending off rapid attacks with his own strong blows and losing anyway, just how much better he actually was.

"I'll bash your face in!" Bulkhead bellowed in threat, as he clambered to his big feet after he was grabbed and bodily thrown hard in an over the head throwing move for the second time. He managed only out of sheer determination to grab hold of Soundwave's mid section with both of his hands and shove him backward to the mats. He let his own weight fall hard on top of him, and for a moment he kneeled over him, wrecking ball poised in the air ready to slam down against the silent bot's hidden face.

But he was well out of line, and in that instant he new it. It may have been the roughest and brutal of any training match he had ever taken on. But it was still indeed only training, and meant to be only a friendly fight. He lowered his hand then, and even transformed it back, out of it's heavily weaponized mode.

"Signal your surrender," he said, slightly exhausted and fighting a little for his intakes. He knew that Soundwave may simply not know the technically rules around Autobot matches, and he went on to quickly explain while still kneeling over him, "Five seconds to surrender, or to get yourself up from here."

To Bulkhead's surprise – and though he knew it should not have actually surprised him at all – the black and purple bot rolled himself fast to one side, flung Bulk' off of him, and leapt to his feet again, with both arms once again in their fighting stance.

"Surrender – unacceptable," Soundwave declared aloud, speaking with clear if not somewhat awkward language.

"Whoa… you… you actually talked out loud," Bulkhead sputtered a little in a tone of maybe a bit too much surprise. He had heard Soundwave speak only once, a tiny declaration of his own perceived superiority while he refused to give information. And at that time it had been in a modulated computer voice, that was clearly not actually his own at all. The voice Soundwave spoke in now was strangely and unexpectedly quiet, but still so clearly Cybertronian.

"Yes," he said simply, in response to Bulkhead's surprise over the matter.

Neither of the bot's made a move to fight anymore, but instead both just stood in the center of the gym, each looking toward the other with their own individual curiosity. After a moment, Bulkhead turned and began a light workout with the heaviest of the punching bags, hung from the ceiling on its heavy duty chain.

"Hey, thanks for the match," he said, as he gave the bag a few good hard, but slow punches.

Soundwave, still in the middle of the floor, had began to practice unarmed combat maneuvers, and had quickly fallen into a pattern of fast spinning kicks. He fell backward onto the floor mats, catching himself, with his arms extended behind him, and it was clear that the fall was not a mistake or a tumble at all. But instead a deliberate and well controlled drop to the floor, and one from which he rapidly got back to his feet after a quick rolling motion.

"A bot could learn some real skill from you," Bulk' commented. He was chattering on, with no real idea if he might ever receive any reply or not. Soundwave had chosen to speak to him once. And Bulkhead knew, from a recent conversation with a very flustered and baffled Knockout, that at any point now, the odd and nearly silent bot would either other something that almost passed for conversation at least for a brief moment, or he would socially shut down entirely, falling utterly silent again, and tuning anyone at all out, just as though they were not even there at all.

"Nearly undefeated at one point in the fighting pits eh?" Bulkhead commented after another moment, and while still laying a decent little pounding on the punching bag. He went for one particularly hard hit, and then started into a simple combination of blows with steadily alternating hands. "Common knowledge is that you actually beat Megatron once in the arena..."

"Common understanding – based on partial misconception," Soundwave said. He continued on with his moves, but he did slow his pace a fair bit, clearly at least somewhat interested in conversing for the moment. "Match – ended as a draw. No true and clear winner."

"Every big shot on Cybertron always liked to say you beat him. That you were the first and last to ever kick his..."

"Incorrect. Win – undoubtedly possible regardless," Soundwave explained in his just as usually awkward speech. Instead of stopping there though, as it was so easy to assume he might, he continued on. "Megatron – up and coming leader to the masses. Visionary. Freedom fighter. A bot the world would listen to. His defeat in the pit – certain disaster for the slowly rising rebellion."

Bulkhead had never been a bot to follow or understand the ins and outs of politics, and public opinion, or the socially complicated game of leadership and influence. In his processor, Autobots were good, 'cons were bad, and the better side had won because in the end the 'good guys' always did. He could never have understood the complexities of that or another political situation his world had ever known. And quite frankly, the big green brute liked it that way. He nodded though at Soundwave slightly, in any case, trying hard to wrap his processor around his explanation.

"Previous judgment – lacking," Soundwave said after several long and silent moments, during which he had stopping his motions of hand to hand unarmed combat, and it seemed like he may simply turn to walk away from the gym.

"What, ya think maybe you should have gone ahead and beaten him after all, in hindsight?" Bulkhead asked simply, casually, when the other bot didn't go anywhere, as he might have expected. He gave the punching bag a couple more good hard blows, and felt himself finally growing satisfyingly tired from his training.

"Conclusion reached after fair consideration – Not only should I have beaten him. I should have killed him."

For a second after Soundwave had spoken again, Bulkhead stood on the padded floor mat, mouth open and wordlessly sputtering, wide optic'd with shocked disbelief at what he'd heard. He snapped out of it just well enough and barely fast enough, to stop the punching bag in its widely swinging arc, before it nailed him right in his face-plate, after he'd stopped paying attention after his last hard punch.