All was quiet after the human left. Blades finished up with Heatwave and moved on to look over Thunderhoof. He was cleaned and buffed, and his helm felt much better. Scans of his hoof show that it still requires time to properly heal, but all in all, is doing good. Blades excuses himself to deliver the news to Boulder and Chase, leaving Heatwave to watch Thunderhoof.

A couple minutes pass before Heatwave starts a conversation.

"So, Cody seems to have taken an interest in you. Any thoughts?"

"About what? The kid's probably just curious. Doubt he's met any 'Cons," Thunderhoof replied, rolling the stiffness out of his shoulders.

"Human cons, yes. Decepticons, no."

"Technically an Ex-Con, but feel free to call me whatever you want. I don't care."

"Would being called as such have anything to do with that?"

Thunderhoof didn't have to look to see what Heatwave was pointing at.

He still wants to know about my insignia, Thunderhoof internally answered, rubbing his digits along the jagged grooves of Steeljaw's mark. Course he hasn't dropped the subject.

"Nothin' for you to worry about."

Suspicious, Heatwave narrowed his optics.

"Are you talking about the slash marks again?" Kade interrupted, entering med-bay with the rest of the family in-tow, minus one.

"Where's Cody?" Heatwave asked. "Did he get Frankie to leave?"

"Cody and Frankie are running errands for Doc today, so they should be gone for a while," Chief Burns reassured the red mech, then turned to face Thunderhoof. "Which gives us the chance to become more acquainted with our guests. Your name is Thunderhoof, if I'm not mistaken?"

Not feeling particularly comfortable around Autobots, or answering to their human partners, the addressed mech just nods.

"Right, I guess this would be a little awkward."

Chief Burns clears his throat and continues.

"My name is Charlie Burns, Chief of Police and head of the Rescue Team here on Griffin Rock, which I officially welcome you to, by the way. I understand that this is a difficult situation, but rest assured, we promised Bumblebee to give you and your charge a safe place to stay until, well, whenever he says it's safe for you to go home."

The human's smile dropped and he sighed.

"However, considering your background, at least the summary Bumblebee has given us, we can't have you going wherever you like, whenever you like, doing whatever you like."

"Not to mention you're still healing," Blades added.

"And nobody on the Island has met a Decepticon before," Boulder said.

"We'd have to explain to them what makes a Decepticon different before introductions can be made," Graham pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, like that'll go over well!" Kade retorted.

"I bet Huxley'll have a field day with the news," Dani commented.

That bit of information was enough to pique Thunderhoof's interest, and get him to start talking again.

"Wait, are yous tellin' me that the whole place knows about us?" Thunderhoof asked, optics dilated as he gestured to himself and every other Cybertronian in the room. "How'd yous manage that?"

"Not without a few close calls, and some outside problems, but those have all been dealt with, so I wouldn't worry!" Graham reassured the Cervicon.

Correction: Graham tried to reassure the Cervicon.

"Thunderhoof, is everything alright?" Chief Burns asked, noticing the unease surrounding the Cervicon's tense state.

"Just wrapping my processor around what yous said," Thunderhoof replied, shaking his helm. "Anyway, I s'pose yous have some ground rules I need to follow or whatever?"

"We'll get to that. First things first, though, we need to get to know you a little better."

"What, Bumblebee's word ain't enough for you?"

"We're just going to ask you a few questions. It's imperative for us to know who you really are, since our priority is the safety of everyone on Griffin Rock, and I mean everyone. That includes you, too, Thunderhoof. We need to know more about you before we set any limits. You'll go crazy if you're stuck in the bunker 24/7, but as I've said, we can't exactly have you wandering around by yourself, either. It'd be too dangerous, for both you and the people."

Pause.

"Alright," Thunderhoof shrugged. "Yous got questions? Fire away."

Heatwave was the first to respond. He cleared his vocalizer and pointed to Thunderhoof. The Cervicon rolled his optics.

"Fine. If yous are so curious about this…"

Thunderhoof gestured to his slashed insignia.

"Then I'll tell ya. After a little bridge mishap, – courtesy of Bumblebee and one of his rookies, by the way – I was teleported elsewhere. I's just about to be on my way when another 'Con attacks me. I was mad 'cause I was havin' a bad day, and then he up and proposes that we work together! I was feelin' better after he explained that he actually helped me by destroying the tracking chip that was embedded in my insignia. Last thing we needed was an easy way for the Autobots to track us down."

That seemed to be enough of an answer for the Rescue Team on the subject, for now.

"My own, personal concerns stem from your status as a mafia boss…" Chase started to say.

"Former mafia boss," Thunderhoof angrily interrupted.

"Right. Apologies. What I meant to get at was, are there any recent crimes as of late that you have committed that we should be aware of?"

Now, Thunderhoof had to think about that. Not that he doesn't have a whole list of recent illegal excursions to fess-up to, but the question is, does he have to tell them everything?

Eh, frag it! They're probably just gonna ask Bumblebee if whatever I say is the truth or not anyway, so why give them any other reason to distrust me more?

"If yous mean all the trouble I caused after the crash, then the first thing might have been the incident I mentioned earlier. Tried to make a space-bridge, but it kinda turned into a black hole. There's assault and battery, theft, property damage, trespassing, endangerment of indigenous lifeforms, and probably a few other, minor things I'm forgetting. Ah, I also assisted in the opening of a gateway between dimensions that allowed the Fallen Prime to enter this world and nearly caused the destruction of both Earth and Cybertron in the process."

Silence.

"YOU DID WHAT?"

All of the humans had to cover their ears, and Thunderhoof opted to save the pup's hearing over his own. After the alarm in the middle of the night, the Rescue Bots' yells were barely a hindrance on Thunderhoof's audials.

"To be fair, that incident wasn't my idea, and I didn't have a say in the matter," Thunderhoof calmly replied, brushing off the incredulous looks he was receiving.

"Seriously?" Heatwave questioned, disbelief overtaking him.

"I ain't lyin'. We had no idea what we were doing until it was too late. Admittedly, in hindsight, we should have quit when we were still ahead…"

Thunderhoof vented.

"But of course nothing can be that easy. Turns out, the Fallen can hurt you without touching you, or even being in the same space as you!"

The Rescue Team shared worried looks.

"What do you mean?" Blades asked fearfully.

"When Steeljaw first got the offer, he was convinced to go along with it after the slagger somehow reached through the dimensional barrier or whatever and crumpled a metal sheet into a ball like it was nothing right in front of his face. The rest of us didn't believe him since nobody else was there at the time, but later on when we all gathered and tried to back out of the deal…"

Thunderhoof released a shaky vent, because as much as he hated Clampdown, on that day, they were all terrified.

"He reached through, again, but he targeted one of us. He was just about to make 'em rip themself's apart when Steeljaw gave-in."

The story of the new Pack's unwilling alliance with the Fallen is not something to be reflected upon. How they all could have been killed without being able to do a damn thing about it is just a terrifying realization, one every Ex-Con at the time shared, including Thunderhoof.

And now, the Rescue Bots have an inkling of what happened ingrained in their processors, as do the humans. Whether it sticks in their minds for very long is up for debate. Still, they were all clearly put-off by Thunderhoof's story. Some of them even had sympathy swelling in their eyes, which greatly unnerved him.

"Who's Steeljaw?" Boulder suddenly asked. "Was he your leader?"

Thunderhoof went rigid.

Of course I had to mention him by name. Frag dammit, Steeljaw! Why do you have to make my life so difficult?

"Yes, Steeljaw was my leader," Thunderhoof answered, not bothering to look anyone specific in the eye, or optic. "And he still is, in a manner of speaking. We reconnected during his time with Bumblebee and a bunch of other bots as they were working on a secret-at-the-time independent mission of sorts. It had its ups and downs, but we worked some things out, came to a begrudging agreement on others, and we're both still intact… I think."

Those last words were barely above a whisper, and yet, someone heard it.

"What do you mean by 'I think'?" Dani asked.

"He's the reason I'm… I mean, we're here in the first place," Thunderhoof replied, raising his helm to look at the group before him. "Don't yous remember what I said after yous dragged me out of the ocean?"

"You mean that rushed summary you gave Bumblebee?" Kade said, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah, that. I's don't know what happened with 'em after I went through the portal. That's Bumblebee's job now."

"You don't sound too worried," Graham pointed out.

Thunderhoof just shrugged, saying…

"If anyone can take care of themselves, it would be the three of 'em."

Though Steeljaw's had a rough time of it lately. Not that I have to tell them that.

Unfortunately, the tone of Thunderhoof's thoughts had seeped into his outward demeanor. Optics clouded, back hunched; the Rescue Team knew something didn't add-up.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Chief Burns asked, his voice pinched with worry.

"I'm fine, quit your worryin'!" Thunderhoof snapped, though his tone held very little weight.

"If you need to get something off your chest…" Boulder approached Thunderhoof and, once again, placed a large, comforting servo on his shoulder. "Don't hesitate to let us know!"

Thunderhoof was tempted to shrug the green mech's servo off, but the presence of a human on his shoulder cut that line of thinking short. Not that he cared about the safety of the humans, but he did need to stay on the Autobots good side, which meant avoiding causing harm to humans.

"I'll decide what to tell ya when I want to tell ya, got it?" Thunderhoof checked. "I don't have a problem tellin' yous about my list of offenses, but ya don't need to know 'bout my personal life."

"Understood!" Boulder nodded, smiling.

The universe decided to give Thunderhoof a reprieve by activating the rescue alarm.

"To be continued," Chief Burns said. "Alright, team, let's go! Oh, and Thunderhoof…"

"Stay put and don't touch anythin', I know," Thunderhoof interrupted, waving his free servo as the other reattached itself to the pup's ears.

Almost everyone immediately left med-bay. Boulder and Graham were just a step behind. The green mech gave Thunderhoof's shoulder a gentle squeeze before running off. Thunderhoof recognized the human's expression – baffled – not knowing that his faceplate mirrored the look.