The sound of a blaster shot behind him made Knock Out jump and he, along with the other assorted Decepticons, whirled in shocked disbelief. His first thought was that Soundwave had somehow given the wrong time table for the Autobot attack, and that they were already here. He dismissed this almost at once, knowing Soundwave would never be so careless.
And then he realized that, somehow, the Prime was free. In the horror of that moment of realization, he didn't even see that Bumblebee was up and mobile, but moving away from the prisoner he was supposed to have custody of. He saw the downed and smoking Piston, and the Prime bringing his blasters to bear, but it would only be some time later that he'd realize the Prime wasn't Piston's killer, couldn't have been, because Piston had been shot with a blaster and the Prime didn't have his weapons out until after Piston was already down. In the moment, he had only the capacity to realize that the Prime was lunging out from his spot on a ridge above the Pit and down into the thick of things, coming after the Decepticons feeding the slaves into the Pit.
It was an insane strategy for a single Autobot to undertake given the number of Decepticons surrounding him, even if that Autobot was a Prime. But, as would soon be apparent, he was not a single Autobot for long, as his accomplice remained in the background, maneuvering to the nearest Autobot and destroying at least one of the Decepticon guards on him while slicing him free of his T-Cog suppressing cuffs and thus permitting this second Autobot to join the fray.
Knock Out flinched away from the shots of the Prime's blaster, and took cover in some rubble that surrounded the dome and shouted, "Be careful! Do you want to kill us all?!"
There was a brief pause, as the Prime registered and acknowledged the dome to his right. Obviously he had already known of it, but it was news to him that a blaster shot might shatter it, freeing the scraplets to consume Autobot and Decepticon alike.
"Autobots! Avoid hitting the dome at all costs!" the Prime commanded, but nobody took charge of the Decepticons or gave them a similar orders; they would fire as recklessly as was their nature to do so, and Knock Out knew it.
Breakdown was already in the thick of things, brawling with an Autobot the size of himself who'd already been set loose. From his position of cover, Knock Out looked around for how the Autobots were getting free. That had to be stopped, otherwise the battle odds might tip in favor of the Autobots. They were fewer in number, but the Autobots who'd been captured were experienced combat veterans, whereas most of the Decepticons present were rookie vehicons who weren't even allowed to go by their own names. Knock Out, Breakdown, Piston and Bumblebee were the few exceptions present. Bumblebee… Knock Out spotted him up on the ridge where the Autobots were lined up, just in time to see the traitor bash roughly into the side of a vehicon and send them tumbling down off the ridge before he slashed the cuffs on an Autobot prisoner, allowing them to enter the fight.
"NO!" Knock Out snarled.
Each Autobot joining the battle weakened the Decepticon position, and increased the risk of the fight going on long enough for someone to get careless, for a stray shot to hit the dome, for the scraplets to be freed, and for them all to be doomed together, slave, Autobot and Decepticon alike.
Springing to vehicle mode, Knock Out roared up the pathway to the ridge and crashed into Bumblebee just as the latter started after yet another Decepticon guard, whose distraction with the fighting near the Pit rendered him blind to the threat that existed right beside him.
"Traitor!" Knock Out snarled, transforming to robot mode as Bumblebee picked himself up.
"We don't have to do this, Knock Out!" Bumblebee shouted back as they started to circle each other. "There is another way. We don't have to be slaves to the Decepticons."
"I am not a slave!" Knock Out threw himself at Bumblebee, but the other vehicon dodged the strike, and delivered a blow of his own that sent Knock Out reeling.
"Aren't you?" Bumblebee inquired harshly. "Have you heard the way you talk? You talk like a bot that's been programmed to. You don't speak with your own voice anymore, Knock Out."
Staggering to regain his balance, Knock Out clenched his fists at his sides. Because of the friendship like bond they'd once shared, he was not yet ready to deploy lethal weaponry on his old racing companion. And it seemed Bumblebee had the same reticence, as he too had put away blaster and blade. They'd come to blows at last over the worldviews which they had never shared, which were now clear enough in their minds to fight over, but they were not yet committed to killing and dying over.
"You may have your colors and your name, but what is that worth if you no longer have yourself?" Bumblebee demanded.
"What would you know of self? You've never had the answer to anything in your miserable life! You're nothing but a vehicon, which is all you'll ever amount to!"
His optics rotating into the black, Bumblebee growled, "And you're nothing but a butcher whose forgotten what it was to be free. If you ever even knew."
"Freedom is an illusion, a justification for Autobot violence and destruction."
"What's your justification then?" Bumblebee asked.
Knock Out intuitively knew the answer to that, and didn't like it, so he denied it, didn't say it, and committed himself instead to action by deploying his blasters and opening fire.
Bumblebee dropped, twisted and leaped out of the path of the fire coming his way, then fired return shots, which Knock Out scrambled to evade before firing another volley.
The Decepticons on the ridge had by now become aware of the fighting in their immediate vicinity, though they weren't certain what to do when they saw two Decepticons locked in combat against each other, and so mostly stood and stared, or else returned their attention to the more obvious targets in the Pit below. But their distraction proved to be their undoing, as their Autobot prisoners took advantage of it. Armed or not, the Autobots shoulder slammed or kicked their guards down, and then helped each other out of their cuffs and joined the battle, which was raging higher with each passing second.
Rather than finish the fight with Knock Out, Bumblebee sprang back out of the way of his blaster shots and then into the rising clouds of smoke and dust. While the Autobots continued to engage the Decepticons, Bumblebee redirected his efforts to freeing the slaves. He didn't know what they would do, but he did understand that Prime wanted them free and, with the Autobots now handily freeing their own and claiming most of the attention from the Decepticons, it was a perfect opportunity for Bumblebee to move in and set the least of those among them free.
It wouldn't tip the balance in anyone's favor, because the slaves were not armed, nor trained to fight, so as he freed them by breaking their restraints and knocking aside their guards, Bumblebee commanded them to flee if they were able. But, naturally, many of them did not, for the same reason Bumblebee never had. They had nowhere to go. Many of them were damaged too badly to transform, and were too energon depleted to get far on their own. So instead they stood in confusion and fear, not knowing what to do or even which side to root for. Many of them were already half-Decepticon in their thinking, and were clearly tempted to turn on the Autobots.
Somehow, Bumblebee had to get them moving, clear them out of the area.
Fortunately, Optimus Prime had a plan for that. Fighting his way over to where Bumblebee had collected the bewildered slaves, Prime shouted over the noise of battle.
"Get them to the Ground Bridge! My Autobots and I shall provide covering fire."
"I don't know how to operate the Ground Bridge!" Bumblebee yelled back, though he understood immediately that this was the most practical exit for anyone who could operate it.
"Jazz!" Optimus Prime shouted. "Here!"
One of the formerly imprisoned Autobots arrived at the Prime's side as if from nowhere.
"Help this vehicon take the freed slaves through the Ground Bridge. The rest of us will follow."
"You got it, Prime," Jazz saluted, though he gave Bumblebee a mildly uncertain and semi-hostile look.
It didn't seem as Jazz turned to clear a path up to the ridge for the slaves as if he obeyed Prime out of fear, but instead because he had absolute faith in the wisdom of his leader, even if he did not understand the reasoning and hated the very idea of working with a Decepticon.
"Follow that Autobot! Move!" Bumblebee snapped at the bemused slaves.
Accustomed to obeying Decepticon orders, they began to shuffle in the direction indicated, some much faster than others. Bumblebee took the rear guard position, but most of the Decepticon fire was trained on the Autobots and they virtually ignored the slaves, and indeed anyone who was not actively firing on them. That included Jazz, who shifted smoothly to a sleek white and black vehicle mode when he gained the top of the ridge and roared on ahead, presumably to clear out the Decepticons stationed at the Ground Bridge before the slaves got there.
With deafening sounds of battle traveling closely behind them as the Autobots retreated towards the Ground Bridge, the slaves became unruly out of fear. The noise and flashes and occasional stray shot that clipped them started to cause a panic. There was a reason one Decepticon was never given charge of so many slaves, least of all when none were restrained. Bumblebee eventually dropped into vehicle mode in order to quickly move around the group and keep it from scattering, and resorted to the only tactics of control he'd ever learned, which was a combination of bullying, threats and insults, which he backed up by repeatedly ramming his front bumper into stragglers and strays.
They had the Ground Bridge in sight up ahead, and a visual on Jazz taking out the Bridge operators with crisp efficiency, when Breakdown suddenly rumbled out of nowhere and smashed into Bumblebee's side, sending him spinning out across the road.
Bumblebee started to try to transform, but Breakdown slammed again into his side with his front bumper. The force of impact not only sent Bumblebee flying, but crumpled his plating. He flipped over and over and then tumbled down into a construction pit, landing upside down with his wheels spinning.
"Treachery will not be tolerated!" Breakdown roared as he appeared at the edge of the pit with Knock Out standing smugly alongside him.
"Is it treachery to want more from life than to see it end?" Bumblebee asked, trying to force a transformation despite the warping of his plating, and succeeding only in generating sparks.
"And what have you accomplished?" Knock Out asked, sliding down into the pit and then breaking out the blasters with the evident intent of finishing him off. "Besides your own demise, that is."
"Optimus Prime is free. The Autobots are free. The slaves are free."
"And so the war continues. Is that what you want?" Knock Out demanded. "Is that what you really believe is worth dying for? War?"
"No," Bumblebee told him flatly, giving up on transforming with a sigh.
"Then what? No one is coming for you. You are nothing to them, as you have been nothing to the Decepticons. Yet, here you are, eager to die in this pit. For what?"
"I can't tell you," Bumblebee replied.
"You can't tell me? Or you don't know?" Knock Out narrowed his optics.
"I can't tell you because you wouldn't understand it."
Knock Out rolled his optics. That was blatant nonsense if he'd ever heard it. Nothing but an evasion, avoiding answering because he simply didn't have an answer.
"I hope… I hope one day you will," Bumblebee said. "And that we can be friends again."
"We were never friends," Knock Out snapped. "And this is the end of the line for you."
A crash behind him caused Knock Out to turn, and he watched in horror as Breakdown was flung into the air, across the pit, only to land with a devastating crunching noise on the far side. Knock Out looked back at where Breakdown had been before, just in time to see the Prime step up to the edge of the pit and look down to survey the situation.
He knew it was over then, and that there was nothing left for him to do except run.
Transforming, Knock Out was so frightened he almost couldn't start his engine. Then it stuttered fearfully to life and he took off across the pit as fast as he could go. The Prime did not chase him, but instead stopped where Bumblebee lay.
"Are you alright, young vehicon?" Optimus Prime asked, picking Bumblebee up gently and turning him upright before setting him back down.
"I… I think so. My plating's just a little bent," he replied, then added, "And my name's Bumblebee."
"Bumblebee," Prime repeated, sounding surprised. "I remember that name."
"And I remembered you," Bumblebee said. "Thank you. I owe you my life."
"As I owe you mine."