Notes/ Firstly thanks again for continuing to follow this. I'm still open not only to constructive criticism (which can only serve to make any writer better,) but also to suggestions and your ideas. Any plot holes left anywhere you would like to see filled? Let me know. Any characters you, you want to see what ever become of? Ask and I might just tell you in the writting of a future chapter.
I had someone ask recently in a review if I work in rehab or healthcare. I meant to add an answer to last chapter's notes and forgot all about it. No, I don't at all. Funny enough I actually work in retail. I suppose I've just always had an interest in, and enjoy writing, the kind of stuff I've been writing. That said, some of this story and certain part one, has taken a decent amount of research regarding the medical type stuff, because of course it's not my field.
Warning for this chapter. This one involves horrible and devastating damage to a youngling bot (Not Cybershock or Hotwire, nobody panic.) But because I tend to write the bots with obvious human qualities, this would correspond quite closely to a critically injured child. I have no idea if this kind of thing requires warnings, but since I know a lot of people have children, I don't want to offend anyone with triggers over such things.
"That youngling is defective and slow," Soundwave heard his creator yell loudly over the sound of rattling pipes in the ceiling somewhere above. "That bot mocked me in the street today because of him and what he is! I won't have it, do you hear me. I won't be less because you gave me a broken creaton! That.. that creature... makes a fool of me again with his vocalizer malfunctions and his social misstepping; mark my words, Shortwave. I will kill him!"
"Stop!" his carrier screamed right back over the sound of smashing glass – a familiar sound of an energon container thrown to the floor in his creator's drunken rage.
And Soundwave lay, huddled just as close as he could get to his drafty wall, on top of the pad he used for recharging on, and wished just as hard as he could that he carrier would be quiet. She never closed her mouth when it seemed she too wisely often should have done so just to save herself. And every time she refused to do so, she got hurt – badly.
"For Primus' sake, stop," she sure enough yelled, even as heavy footsteps crossed the living room, in heavy uneven long stomps. "He's your creation too. Even if after all these years you cannot love and value me as more than the gift of property that was given to you to own - love and value him. You made him. You gave him his existence!"
"His existence was my greatest mistake. You think for a moment I wanted to sire the offspring of a slave under my ownership? Do not forget your place. I give you freedom, because I'm far from a monster. But you will never be free. That... creature you call a beloved creation missteps ever again, one single time... he's dead!"
"Don't. You. Ever. Touch. Him."
"I should never have let you carry a newspark to term. I never should have allowed you to build a frame and be carrier to a youngling. I figured I could easily have used his life just to keep you in line. But you've been nothing but disobedient and brazen ever since that... child has been. And you get your hands of me. Shortwave, if you ever grab me again out of turn, I'll not hesitate a second to rip your arm clean off your frame!"
"I'd have wished long before now for death at your own hand if I didn't have Soundwave to think of and care for..." His carrier was crying now, sobbing hard and gasping as she spoke. And Soundwave pulled the thin cover over his head, fighting back loud cries of his own, as he wished beyond anything that she would stop that in that instant. Nothing drove his creator over the edge of his limited patience faster than tears. And any tears from her drove him to new levels of violence in seconds. Sure enough it was in seemingly under a second that her cries were met with loud metallic clanging and the sound of her screaming now, as his huge heavy fists appeared from the sound, to pound dents into her much smaller frame.
"You might just be due for a good flogging!" Soundwave heard his creator scream in rage over the endless noise. He wished in that moment for the first time ever in his short life, that he had not been created at all. Logical, he reasoned shaking horribly, that his carrier would suffer so much less day day and out, if he had ot existed to cause his creator's rages. "I'll make you fetch the whip. Or better, I'll wake that busted freak youngling of yours and make him get it for me!"
"Don't call Soundwave such things," His carrier spoke back, still well enough out of turn to place herself in all too obvious danger. But at least the crying had stopped, and she now yelled in rage of her own. "Please don't call him broken and a freak. You call him slow, but he's not slow at all. You'd see if you gave him a chance that he's surely among the smartest younglings the city has ever seen... When he's faceplate to faceplate with you he barely speaks a word and when he does it's all back to front. But that's because you make him fear for his tiny life. He talks to me, and he says amazing things. Insightful, smart and beautiful things. And he can understand every single word you say to and about him! You call him a mistake, but he's not one to me. He's my youngling, I love him and I'd give up anything to hear his creator say he loves him too!"
"I told you to keep your filthy hands off me," his creator roared in reply. And Soundwave, still burried in his bedding on a pad on a cold floor of an apartment storage room, first cringed and then shook with fright at understanding she had touched him again and broke the rules. He pulled the cover higher up and tighter around himself and he hoped for all he could that he could die sometime in the night, to save her from breaking more and more rules in order to protect him.
A light was on behind the half open door of the tiny wash station. And it lit the room, enough to be disruptive. Soundwave knew at once that that was exactly what had woken him from recharge. And he sat himself up quickly on the recharge station, alarmed instantly over the presence of a light he knew he had not turned on himself. Laserbeak could certainly operate lighting herself, and she certainly did so. But Soundwave saw her at once, on her favoured perch above his work desk, and clearly in recharge. And that aside, she had little reason to be turning on lights in the night, and she would never leave it that way for even less reason.
Firestorm crept around the wash station door then, and Soundwave felt the alarm leave his processor and body at once. She'd stayed with him that night. She'd returned with him to his room after Ratchet had dismissed her from the medbay that evening. And because she'd fallen so fast into recharge, her body pressed tightly against his, her two little hands holding one of his much larger ones tightly, he lacked al spark to wake her again. And for a moment he felt a strong sense of dismay and embarrassment over having forgotten all about her presence in his room at all.
"I woke you up..." she mumbled, obviously regretful from the wash station doorway. Her walking and standing balance had shown improvement even in the last day he noted quickly - proud of her at once, as he watched her walk with slow and careful, but still steady steps across his living space. "I wanted a quick shower. I... hope you don't mind..."
"I don't mind," Soundwave answered. And he looked at her a moment across the room, before he fianlly moved to hold out a hand, gesturing to his recharge station. "Firestorm, come here..."
The little white and yellow bot walked over, just as quickly as she could. And she sat at once on the edge of the recharge station, staying there for just a moment before she lay down on it, resting against him again, with a bright smile across her face-plate.
"Firestorm, I am... sorry," Soundwave said slowly. And the little bot's smile turned quickly to a look of obvious confusion, as she half sat up again, propped on a bent elbow joint.
"What do you have to possibly be sorry for?" she asked him, laughing.
But Soundwave was entirely serious. And he looked at her intently, more than well aware of the sad expression that quickly covered his face-plate. "I... I left you in the medical bay. I promised I would stay and still I left you anyway. It was weak and terrible of me."
"No it wasn't," Firestorm said at once. And she reached out to take one of of his hands again in both of hers. "Ratchet is less than impressed. He made that quite perfectly clear. But I understand. No one knows you as well as I do now – well, aside from Laserbeak of course. It wasn't your fault."
"I dreamed again of my youngling-hood," Soundwave said, after the pair had lay silently for many long moments in a once again darkened room.
"Oh?" Firestorm raised her head curiously, from where it had been, resting against the side of Soundwave's body. She leaned up on an elbow again, and smiled a little in the darkness, urging him without any need for words at all, to explain.
"I dreamed of one night, like so many others. Awake in the night, listening while my creator first yelled and then beat on my carrier, angry because I simply existed. That was the very night I ever thought I wanted to die... that perhaps everything might be better off if only I was gone."
"I hope to Primus, your creator is dead now." Firestrom knew that was not very kind of her. The Autobots she knew so well would never have approved of such harsh words, and less so from a small young bot like her. But Firestrom was not an Autobot, and frankly she had never agreed to agree with every single thing they did and said and believed in.
"There's little chance we'll ever know for sure," Soundwave said.
"I know that. But... I still I can hope." Firestorm lowered her head again to rest again him comfortably. And she smiled a little when he held the hand she held out to him. "No bot should ever have the right to make his own tiny youngling feel like he wants to die in childhood."
"They shouldn't. And I realize that simple wisdom only well after the fact..."
"Someday you'll have your own youngling," Firestorm said, serious and smiling again. "There are little bots everywhere now. You'll create one more. And you can teach it to trust and to love, to be everything that brute you call a creator didn't have the sense to let you wanna be..."
"Never," Soundwave said quietly in the darkness. And beside him, Firestorm half say up again to stare at him blinking. "I will never be a creator. That's a thing I will never compromise on."
"Mama!" Cybershock's loud crying scream woke Arcee from recharge at once. And she sat up slowly on the recharge station she share with her mate, just waiting to see if her youngling would yell again, or settle herself back into recharge.
"Mama! Daddy!' the youngling shrieked a second later, from her own little room. And the screaming was plenty loud enough to carry well down the hall, filling the apartment.
"Arcee," Knockout said quietly. And he opened his optics beside her in their darkened room. "I think I heard..."
"You did," Arcee answered at once. And she wondered a second if she still ought to wait for the little bot to settle herself into recharge. But Cybershock so rarely woke up in the night, and she ever did she so rarely screamed and wailed like that. Those rare times she did wake up and scream, she knew well to yell only for her carrier, because her creator could not half as easily get himself up to help her quickly.
"Mamaaaaaa! Daddy!"
"I'll go and see to her," Arcee decided out loud. And she smiled assurance at her mate as she got to her feet. "I'm sure she's fine."
Cybershock sat huddled on her small recharge station, in her small room, when Arcee looked past her half open door. Her black and white checkered cover was tight around her little frame, and she looked around with wide and tear-filled optics, while she she trembled a little.
"Mama..." she whimpered, with her arms outstretched just as soon as she saw her carrier in the doorway.
"It's alright, baby..." Arcee said gently. And she crossed the room in the near darkness before she reached the little lamp on a side table, and turned it on to its dimmest setting, before she sat down lightly on the edge of the recharge station. She took the little bot in her arms and held her tightly against her frame, feeling the little one's shaking lessen at once in doing so. "What's wrong?"
"I... I..." Cybershock sputtered and cried, clearly trying hard to explain. "I dreamed of something... terrible!" She looked up with her optics still filled with her coolant tears, before her head dropped to Arcee's shoulder panel in her need for assurance. "I... I can't ra-member it now. Just that it scared me..."
"Well, whatever it was, you know it wasn't real, right?"
"I know it wasn't real," Cybershock said. Her voice was shaky now, but her tears had stopped. "Of course it wasn't real, Mama. But... but I was still scared anyway..." the youngling moved ehr head again from her carrier's shoulder panel so that she could look up into her opics. And she smiled just a little, with the trusting innocently only a child was able to possess. "I'm sorry for screaming like that, Mama."
"Hey. These things happen once in a while. And some dreams can certainly scare you good," Arcee stood up again, this time with Cybershock in her arms. She shifted the little bot's considerable weight, just to be sure she wouldn't fall, and slowly she walked with her like that from the room back toward her own. "let's go see your creator a minute."
To Arcee's surprise, Knockout was sitting up on the edge of their recharge station, when she got back to their room. And it was clear that was considering getting himself onto his mobility cart – which he often did now, by pulling himself, for the short time he could, to standing for a second with help from the grab bars on the side of the recharge station, before turning a little and dropping to sitting again on the cart's seat. When he saw the youngling though, held tightly in his mate's arms, he instead moved himself to sit on the recharge station with his legs in front of him. And he held his arms out at once to take the little bot from her.
"I had a bad dream, Daddy," Cybershock explained for herself. And she happily climbed in beside him. "Mama ra-minded me it wasn't real."
"It's wonderful that you remembered that," Knockout said. And he smiled, hugging her close to him while Arcee just stood by, smiling. "Because you and Mama are both right, you know. Dreams are never real... no matter how real they may seem at times."
The presence of her family, and just being out of the dark a short while, so clearly helped the youngling to calm herself down. Because she smiled happily as she sat on the recharge station for a few moments. And finally by her own choice she climbed off again, to stand on the floor.
"I'm going back to recharge," she said, her little voice almost comically mature in it's serious tone. "It's late, and I'm tired." She paused a second and added, as a clear afterthought before she walked away, "I'm leaving my light on though..."
"We really do have the best youngling on Cybertron," Knockout mused, as his mate lay back down close beside him.
"We do," Arcee answered. But as she did so, she considered almost a little sadly. And she added, "Far too independent though at times. I... sometimes wish she needed us more. She's not even five yet..."
"I..." Knockout began to say. But Acree heard nothing else of what he said, past the noise of loud screaming and panic far down on the street below.
Every instinct she had, to protect the innocent of the new city, kicked hard at once into gear. And she jumped to her feet again in a single move, before hurrying to the window of the recharge room.
"What is it?" Knockout questioned quickly, in obvious concern, over squealing brakes of alt modes far below. "Should I get up? I can get up."
Arcee yanked the window open, and poked her head out so that she could do a far better job of looking down to the roadway ten floors below. And quickly she worked to make sense of the scene. Headlights were on everywhere, on the fronts of bots who had stopped beside the walkway. And many of those lights pointed, it seemed to a place just past that walkway, where something dingy green lay on the rough metal of unfinished ground, in front of residential building five, across the street.
"I'm not sure yet," Arcee answered in reply to her mate's question. And with her head still halfway out the window - aware all the while of other windows open around her and filled with bots doing much the same thing – she looked again and closer.
Her optics went at once right back to the dingy light green on the ground below. Made of metal, she saw, bent and twisted at angles, with peeling paint on the top facing side that torn away from burnt, super-heated finish. And the whole thing was moving. Another screem – one of terror and horrible pain reached her ears quickly from ten floors down, and she realized that the noise had come from the metal on the ground. A living bot. And a youngling by the tiny size of it.
"Knockout," Arcee exclaimed quickly, whipping around in a single motion to face him, before she hurried to toward him in an effort to do everything quickly. "You've got to get up. This could well be a serious medical emergency."
"Mama?" Cybershock questioned, appearing once again, in the doorway of the room. "Wha' happened outside? There are bots and lights everywhere. An... an' I can hear someone screaming."
"Stay inside, Cybershock," Arcee told the youngling quickly. She turned a second to her mate then, ready to help him, by either offering an arm, or holding the cart steady. But she saw there was no need at all, because he was already on safely with no help at all. So she turned back to the youngling again. "Wait for us in here. We'll be right back. We need to see if we can help." Cybershock nodded once and her creators were off down the hall at once, out the apartment door and down the corridor beyond.
#####
"Knockout! Arcee!" a red, white and bright silver bot screamed urgently, as soon as the pair had crossed the dark and nearly empty street. Arcee recognized him, after a second of thinking about it, as a bot they'd seen only casually a few times in the market – A vendor, she realized in once more second. They visited his stall often, because he was always well stocked with the educational vid-discs their youngling so enjoyed. But the bot, usually chatty in the market and playful with the little one, was now at present panicked. And his optics moved toward the crowd, still around the small bot on the ground.
"There must be something you can do."
"Of course," Arcee said, nodding as she began immediately to push her way gently into the panicking crowd. Knockout rolled behind her on his cart. But he struggled far more, as many of the bots that stepped aside for his mate, would not move for him.
"Move!" hollered a bot at the front of the gathered group. His optics blazed with frustration, and his hands waved in the air in furious desperation. He was Speedbreaker's creator, Crankshaft. Arcee remembered that at once and nodded thanks while she shot a furious gaze from her own optics at the crowd. "Everybody, get out of his way!"
The youngling bot on the ground was still very young. Arcee saw that, to her horror, just as soon as she reached the place where she lay. A tiny bot little older it seemed than her own Cybershock. A second frame like her own youngling, based on her size. And the poor child lay, still conscious, on the rough metal ground, her body squirming weak and helpless, the upper right side of her body damaged horribly. The arm and shoulder panel had taken the worst of it – the metal melted and peeled back in large pieces down to bare and sparking wires beneath it all. But the sides of the body panels were visibly charred and heated too, blackened in places from whatever could possibly have caused this mess. And her armor on so much of her body not damaged, had the strange appearance of being wet and sticky.
"I need something to wrap her in," Knockout said, after a second of cursing under his intakes over not having anything usable for such a purpose in his medkit. "Clean wash station towels will work, unused cleaning rags... but I need it wet, and not freezing cold!"
"I... I'm on it..." Speedbreaker's creator mumbled quickly in reply. He was visibly shaken up just as soon as he had stepped closer to the youngling bot hismelf. And now he backed out of the crowd again, before transforming at once to the form of a ground vehicle, that peeled away with a roar of an engine and a sequel of tires. He was surely speeding, by the sound of it, but now it hardly mattered.
"Does anybody have any idea where this youngling came from?" Arcee questioned of the crowd quickly. And she made sure as she did that her voice left no room for nonsense from any of them. The tiny bot's optics were filled with coolant. And her tears fell down her dull green face-place while she whimpered horribly in what was so clearly terrible pain.
For a long moment that dragged on far too long, there were only murmurs of uncertainly, from at least fifteen bots who all stood helpless without an idea of what to do by stand and panic. Most of the bots that stood crowded around had only stopped after because others had already done so. And a couple that had stopped early on, had found her already out there as she was.
"She ran from somewhere over there," someone called out finally, while he gestured toward the closest edge of 'downtown.' An electronics shop, that never seemed to ever be open for business. And he seemed a bot who knew just what he was talking about. "I... saw her run away from the side door to make it this far running, and then she just fell down here."
"There?" Arcee confirmed. And her optics moved in that direction, as she kneeled fast on the ground beside the little bot. She feared she may just find more chaos – it would only make sense to. And she understood, to her growing fright, that someone did seem to live there, in an apartment on top. But nothing at all seemed amiss near the mentioned building at all
"Arcee," Knockout said, speaking quickly. And his own tone was just as serious as hers. "I need you to try to held her still a second for me." Quickly, he was powering up his scanner, which Arcee had not even seen him take yet from his med-kit. "Gently as you can of course. I need to get a decent scan of her body for hidden damages."
"Noooo..." the little bot wailed horribly the very second she was touched, however gently. Her feet kicked weakly against the hard metal ground. And the left hand formed a fist, which she barely managed to lift from it's place over her chest panel in panic. The right hand, Arcee saw then, to her shock and horror, was melted away to a mess of metal and wiring barely recognizable at all. "Don't touch, don't touch..."
"Hold still, baby," Arcee said gently to the little bot, and speaking to her just as she would have to her own little one. Both of her hands held only to the left side of the tiny frame, one gently resting on the side the body panel, while the other held the tiny upper arm. But still even there, where the body looked undamaged, she could feel heat radiating from the frame enough that it was noticeable. A strange chemical sort of smell filled the air, and Arcee knew she'd been smelled it all the while, even if she was only just becoming aware of it consciously. "Hold still. I know... I know. I'm sorry. Just hold still now..."
"I can help. I can help," and instantly familiar voice called behind her amid the sound of footsteps running through the crowd.
"'Bee," Arcee cried, barely turning away from the now screaming younling, to look at her teammate, who she reasoned had hurried over from his own home in building three. "Get over here. Hurry."
"Arcee," Bumblebee whispered under his intakes, just as soon as he was on the ground beside her with his own medical kit close to him. "This is... bad. Speedbreaker is on on the commlink with Ratchet. I told her to call just as soon as we saw this mess down here, because I figure we just might need him. But... this looks bad..."
"She'll be okay though..." Arcee said slowly. But her statement was more or less a question now, and one she didn't want to ask at all when it regarded a youngling a tiny as her own.
"I... I don't know," Bumblebee said slowly beside her and still very quiet. And Arcee glanced up then to meet optics with her bondmate, who sat to her dread, on his cart with a scanner in his hand shaking his head to say he wasn't certain either. The tiny bot, still held gently under her hands, had stopped screaming now, and instead she only whimpered steadily, with her optics half closed and dimming.
"I need to be down on the ground," Knockout said quickly. And still sitting on the cart, he shook his head in helpless frustration. "I cant do much of anything this way..."
Getting down, to sit up on the ground was not the simplest thing for him to do. But he certainly could, especially with some help to get down there. He sat often on the floor in his family apartment, and outside there was little difference. Sure enough, with the needed help, and more of it this time so that he could be fast, he'd gotten himself sitting somewhat awkwardly on the rough ground beside the damaged youngling. He hadn't even dropped the scanner he held, in the process of getting there. But he suddenly tossed it aside with a shake of his head, as if he wondered why it was he still held it in the first place. Moving still just as fast as he possibly could in his awkward though still efficient position – sitting on the ground where medical crew would generally work balanced on the knees, only because he simply couldn't do that – he injected a considerable dose of pain medication just as gently as he could into the little bot's left arm. Her whimpers at that turned again to a good loud scream, and she fought and wiggled weakly to move herself away, while she was still held in place.
"Poor baby," Arcee said, mostly to herself now, because they youngling was well beyond reason, and her bondmate was focused on his work entirely just as he should have been. She fought back coolant from her own optics, finally blinking furiously to force it back before a tear escaped, and she kneeled on the ground just shaking her head in devastation. This youngling bot, she knew well, was too scared to think, in too much pain to even try, and she may just have been too young to even understand much – if anything – of what was happening.
"Speedy comm'd back," Bumblebee explained quickly then, And his voice in that second sounded so far away. "Ratchet is hurrying over. And Arcee, she's packing up Hotwire so she can watch Cybershock at your apartment."
"'Bee," Knockout said quickly, speaking to the young student who still kneeled helpless nearby. He was already digging through his med-kit grabbing things he needed while he tossed aside then things he clearly did not half carelessly. "The armor on the entire right arm and shoulder panel is totalled well past salvage. And it's pinching tight against the wiring so badly now it's going to cause permanent damage."
"So... what do we do?" 'Bumblebee questioned. He was anxious, and that was more than obvious by now.
"We will probably need to pull most of the body armor off just as soon as she's transported to medical." Knockout answered quickly.
"Please, please... noooo... noooo..." the youngling whimpered, shaking in terror now beneath Arcee's hands. So clearly she understood everything the medical team was saying. And her optics opened wider again, before they filled instantly with a new wave of tears. The youngling, for all of her panic and seeming distance from most any reason, had certainly understood that much of that she'd just heard said.
Crankshaft returned quickly, from his home above his sweet shop then, and he'd probably set a new speed record in doing it too. He carried a good armload of dampened blue wash station towels, which he stood holding while he asked, worried, if they would work. Knockout took two of them from him at once, reaching behind just as much as he possibly could and somewhat awkwardly at that. Without wasting another second he begin to wrap the them loosely around the youngling's body, before he grabbed another of them to wrap, tighter, around her destroyed arm and shoulder panel. The tiny bot screamed horribly, in frantic wails of terror, trying to escape. And her yelling only grew worse when she couldn't. She was growing still weaker and her fighting only served to weaken her still faster. And Arcee knew that the struggling and screaming, which made her look more conscious than she was, she was slipping away – though whether online or just into unconsciousness it was not fully clear.
"Shhh..." she said, gently as ever. And the hand she'd had rested on the tiny shoulder panel went slowly to the back of a tiny still too warm but otherwise undamaged hand, which she rubbed and patted lightly and steadily, trying desperately to calm the frantic youngling. She was barely holding herself together by now, but she struggled to anyway, as the little bot shrieked again horribly, and started to shake hard, now far beyond nearly frozen with her terror. If anything ever close to what she was seeing now ever happened to her own child, Arcee was thought she would lose it entirely. And she struggled, trembling herself now over this one.
"How about I tell you a story," she said suddenly, the idea coming to her through the fog that was filling her processor. And she struggled a second to think of her own youngling's favourite one, memorized a year ago now, because it was requested so very often. Knockout was so much better than she was at telling stories. He did it most nights unless he was working – when Arcee would try it herself, feeling like she was just never half as good at it, because she could never quite master talking in funny voices as she recited every separate character's lines of dialogue. She still she was determined to do her very best.
"Hurts...," the little bot mumbled horribly. Her screams had stopped again and she looked worse then before, just trying to hold her fast dimming blue optics open in her still clear panic. "P... please... no. Nooooo..."
"You were given some medicine to make it better, " Arcee said in reply to that. And still she talked to this child just like she would have her own. She put her finger tips into the youngling's hand gently. "I know everything hurts, baby. I'm so sorry. Hold my hand for a while and listen to me while I talk to you. Deal?
"'Oh... ok-kay" the youngling mumbled, and her optics locked finally on Arcee's a moment before she closed them entirely. Arcee sighed inwardly in relief at that, because even though the tiny bot still shook and struggled, she knew she had her attention. She relief grew when she felt the tiny frame still held by her free hand, relax a little on the ground.
"You get your disgusting hands off my youngling!" a loud and clearly enraged voice hollered. And Arcee looked up in shock at the appearance of another bot on the scene while she'd been absorbed in her task at hand to notice either heavy footsteps of the noise of an engine. Dismayed, and with anger brewing at once at a bot who dared to yell and scream when it should have clear that he had little need, she looked up quickly to see the bot that had spoken. A dull green follow, she saw at once. Big and brutish, with a snarl of his face-place, and with an integrated blaster transformed from one hand and ready to fire.
"Primus' sake," she exclaimed at once, when she saw how well the blaster was aimed steady at her bondmate's own back.
"Put that away," she said. And as much she she hated to leave the child, who now cried and whimpered again when she had just calmed down so well, she stood up at once to stare the much larger bot in the face-plate. "You don't really want to fire on him. He's a medi-bot. He's only trying to help her."
"Creator..." the youngling on the ground screamed, before her screaming again turned to loud and horrible sobs and and whines of pain. She reached up just as far as she could with the arm that was not damaged, her desperation for him to go closer to her and simply to comfort her was clear in her optics. And when Arcee saw him only glare down at his little bot instead, optics full of detain where she should have seen compassion, it was all she could do not to make a first and knock him flat.
"Would ya rather then, if I fired on you?" the green brute snarled, obviously for more interested in continuing to agree and make a scene, then in his own adly injured youngling. But far short of following through on the threat, he lowered his blaster instead, and stood, still snarling. "Nah. I would never fire on an Autobot. A real one I mean... not that red optic'd, broken, so called defector, scum..."
"Neither the time, nor the place," Arcee growled in warning, sure at once that she didn't like a single thing about this bot. The things he'd said... the tone in which he'd said it, and the weapon he wielded... It was all far too familiar. And quickly now, she remembered a scene made by this bot and his friend once 'downtown.' She remembered how the other bot had hit Knockout hard and for no reason with a heavy bar, while the one she faced now shoved his own tiny youngling into the roadway.
"Get out of here and frag yourself," Arcee growled at him then almost under her intakes entirely and with uncharacteristic rage building in her body. She stepped protectively between the huge and angry bot, and the critically damaged youngling on the ground. "Your little one is injured and badly. She needs emergency care before we are even lift her to take her to the hospital for treatment. And you are the furthest thing for a loving creator I've ever seen, so you can get away from us so my bondmate here might just have a chance to save her."
"No hospital," the huge green brutish bot snarled. And he would have shoved his way right past in that second, had 'Bee not jumped up that second and grabbed him hard by the arm. "No medi-bots. I'm taking her home."
"Are you fragging kidding me?" Arcee demanded, her vice low and her optics blazing blue. She advanced toward the two nearly twice her size then, and did not even think of her blaster, instead making a tight heavy fist, which she held up in his face-plate. "Are you fragging glitched and crazy? I tell you your own youngling is critically damaged, and yes, possibly off-lining! I tell you she can't even be moved yet for transport, it's that bad and urgent. And you think I'm going to let you take her right back home? Like the pit, you're going to take her."
"She's my youngling," the big bot snarled, with a raised fist of his own. "I've got my rights."
"To scrap with your rights," Arcee yelled in his face-plate, with a hardly a care anymore. "Your youngling goes with us. You don't like it, talk to the council tomorrow. Where were you the whole time she was out here damaged? It's been a while. And not a concerned creator in sight! What the frag happened to her in the first place?"
"Our energon dispenser overheated and it blew up," the green brute answered. And his answer was far too quick and way to too simple. It also made so little sense, that it made Acree instantly angrier then ever before.
"Do you so stupidly expect me to believe for a moment that nourishment grade energon, refined for use in a household dispenser, could do this kind of damage? One could start a fire instead of shutting down, in the case of overheating. I'l give you that one. But to explode with enough sudden heat to nearly blow your own baby's arm to pieces! To melt her body armour to her frame!" Arcee looked back a second to the youngling, who was once again shrieking and wailing in pain and terror, her optics wide and her body shaking enough to cause more obvious pain, while 'Bee and Knockout struggled to power her down.
"I told you to get away from my youngling," the green brute bellowed. And he pulled his attention suddenly back away from Arcee and the dispute with her entirely. To scream threateningly at Knockout – who ignored him entirely, his focus on his tiny patient.
"Filthy, slaggin 'con!" the big bot yelled at him then. And he'd kicked the disabled medi-bot hard in his upper left side panel, before anyone had ever time to register that he did indeed have the nerve to do such a thing. He kicked him again, this time hitting him in the upper chest-plate. And it was obvious he'd been aiming for the faceplate instead, missing only by chance and bad aim. The crowd, slowly thinning now but many still gathered, gasped in shock and disbelief at such behaviour, toward a bot so clearly disabled and trying to save a tiny life. But the bots out that night were, as all luck would have it, not the sort known to be fighters in the least. And the stood, for the most part, helpless and gasping, as Knockout was kicked again, while he began to beg the brute to stop.
"You fragging glitch!" Arcee shouted over the growing noise of gasping bots and clanging metal against metal. She pulled her own blaster, because it really seemed her last resort. And she aimed it square at the chest panel of the big green brute. With her other hand though she grabbed hard for his arm in hopes of somehow yanking him back, still hoping she didn't actually need to shoot anyone that night.
Her optics locked a second on 'Bee's while he still worked kneeling beside the youngling on the ground. He moved slightly, placing himself between the tiny bot and the violence near by, and so clearly tried his best to comfort the little one while he worked, trying hard now to secure her left arm – or what remained of it – against her body, and ready for transport. Arcee knee 'Bee could not help her, or her mate. He was staying with the patient, just like any dedicated medic. But she saw in his optics, in the second they locked, and before he looked away again, his clear agreement that she should shoot if she had to.
A loud resounding clang filled and air then out of nowhere. And the brute fall backwards to the street unconscious, settling the matter before she could. And Arcee looked up at once, to see Ratchet, standing close to the newly fallen bot and waving his familiar old wrench in the air.
#####
"You be a good little bot for the medics, okay?" Arcee said to the youngling.
And the tiny bot, wrapped securely now in an insulated metallic emergency blanket that Ratchet had brought down with him – the entire thing folded well around her, fastened with clips, and covering all but her face-plate – whimpered as her frame was shifted slightly. But she smiled too, a weak but genuine childish smile, possible now only after a second good dose of medication
"You coming wit' us?" she asked, optics closing now. 'Bee never had been successful in powering the younging down, obviously, after Knockout had been forced away from helping him. She'd struggled and squealed, screamed like she was dying just from fright – and the young student, in his inexperience, had at that point left well enough alone.
"No," Arcee said. And she shook her head for a second, thinking of her own youngling, who needed her too. And there was her bondmate as well. He'd refused at first mention of it, to go to medical himself as a patient, on the promise to been see in the morning, before he reported for his own duty shift. "I can't go with you. But, 'Bee is going with you..." she gestured with her optics toward her black and yellow teammate, who stood nervously beside Ratchet, and ready as ever to go when duty called.
"I... dun' wanna go ta medical..." the tiny bot said, and tears formed once more in her optics. She was sleepier than ever now from medication, even if said medication did make her feel so obviously better. And her voice was just slightly mumbled because of it.
The youngling bot, it was more than sadly obvious, just wanted her whole terrifying night to be done with. Like any small youngling, she wanted to be home, safe in a recharge station, where she would wake up in the light of day to play and learn. But her whole ordeal was just just beginning now. Arcee imagined easily that this child's path would be a long one, far to long for one so little. And she knew the youngling understood it too, at least on a base level. She understood it and he didn't like it. She feared it terribly.
"It's alright," Arcee said gently. She wished for just a second that she could hold the youngling's hand again, to assure her a moment. But she couldn't do so because it was of course, well hidden, bundled in under the metallic cover she was packed up in. "Ratchet is a wonderful medic. He'll have you fixed up, good as new in no time. And... tomorrow I'll come and see you for a minute."
And with hands clenched again into tight and heavy fists, that barely relaxed again, even when Knockout - back on his cart now and driving it just fine giving his recent attack - held one of her hands lightly in assurance of everything at once, she fought back a new wave of anger, as she watched her teammates leave quickly with the little bot.
"That was not an overheated dispenser," she mumbled to her bondmate, allowing herself to boil now with rage, just as soon as the medical team were out of sight with the youngling. "Something is going on here and I don't like it. Not when this nonsense happens on my home world. Not when baby younglings turn up close to offline..."
"You're right, Arcee," Knockout said. He began to drive forward on the cart, pulling her gently beside him, still holding her hand in his free one. Carefully, he crossed the road and made for their own building nearby. "There's something going on, and it could well be something very bad. Little doubt Ultra Magnus and the the patrol will want to talk to us tomorrow. I'll prepare a medical report for the little one..." he paused a second, shifting in his seat, and clearly uncomfortable from his injuries, and needing to lay down a good while. "Not to mention the one I'll get from Ratchet for myself."
Soundwave's spark was heavy with remorse as he flew away from the city. And that was a feeling he was far from used to. He shoved the emotion away, firing his engines as he flew, building speed just as though he could outrun his own emotions if he just flew fast enough.
Firestorm, he knew, lay recharging exactly where he'd left her – alone on his recharge station, under the cover he'd tucked around her frame just as carefully as he could have managed to do, right before he'd left her in a hurry.
She'd fallen so fact back onto the recharge, only because he'd forced her into into it with an energy blast from his cable, in the middle of her pleading with him to listen to her. He had forced his will upon her. He had not harmed her in doing it – he'd made sure of that – sending just enough of a blast to send her processor offline. and he'd done it before she even realized what it was he'd done. She would wake up again by the time the sun was up. He reminded himself of that as he flew. She would wake up recharged and fine. He knew enough of his own mental power to know that. But still he'd done it... and now, even in his flying alt mode, he shook with the regret of it, so badly that his engine nearly stalled and sputtered.
'Soundwave!' A message blasted over his commlink. The fifth one he'd received now since the first that night, received before he'd left the base. He'd been about to go off to recharge then. And his sleepy little Firestorm reached up to hold his hands, with a smile on her face-plate. The night had been so 'normal.' Soundwave reflected for the first time, on how he'd come to enjoy his new unexpected normal.
'Soundwave I am well aware you must surely be receiving. Respond immediately!'
Soundwave wondered then if perhaps he ought to turn back, inform the Autobots of everything he currently knew, even though all he knew was still so very little. And some part of his processor, a part of himself he had only assumed had surely died centuries before, screamed at him to do exactly that. But some other part, screamed far louder still to keep on going – to proceed because his nature and his circumstance really had given him so little choice but to do exactly that.
The 'bots had been good to him. Despite his faction, his record for violence and worse, their medic had once saved his life. They'd come to be friends - or at least mostly so. Most of the Autobot team, even if many were still so clearly uneasy in his presence, were civil to him. And few had ever been less than neighborly in the very least. He'd watched them for a good while by now, as they went about just living out their lives. And for the first time in his long life, he wanted for himself exactly what they had.
Outside of the city, in the middle of the night, the world was dark. Almost no lights had been wired anywhere yet, and the moons high above gave only dull dim glow, reflecting feebly against the metal of the ground. Soundwave flew low in the sky, his flying alt mode barely above the highest of the low cliffs and hills that dotted the landscape. He powered on his nighttime lights, trying for just a little more lighting to aid him in sight navigation, and reflected oddly on how he had almost come to believe it was easier for him to fly while blind and hacking his own system. The changes to his vision mattered little in daylight. He had relearned in days how to see like anyone else did. But at night, in the darkness, it was an entirely different way of seeing anything, and it was beginning to make his head hurt. Looking down, at obstacles that covered the ground, sure he was seeing only some of anything down there with his still readapting optics Soundwave was glad as ever to be a flyer. He felt safer in the air.
Below him, the the rocky, rutted ground appeared to give way to a smooth, flat plane that ran for endless miles. And though Soundwave knew he should have known it well, he could not allow himself to trust his still strange night vision, to be sure. He checked his maps, and would have nodded his head a little in understanding, if he had been in bot mode and could have. He was, sure enough right over the south east edge of the sea of rust. That far already? And still the sky around him was black. He knew then that he was making good time. With a push of his engine, he banked a little to the right and turned sharp to the west, certain now he knew exactly where he was going. And he shuddered suddenly, his flying alt mode rocking a little, first to the left and then to the right, as fly right over a place where he'd once been shot right from the sky.
That night seemed still so recent, and indeed it certainly was – only a few short years ago, and a near blink of an optic really, to a bot who'd lived for centuries. But it seemed, at the same time so long ago too. Because a lot truly could happen within a proverbial blink of an optic. He'd seen the end to a war that his very spark had given up all hope of ever seeing an end to. He'd learned to speak up again, to use his vocal processor because he simply wanted to talk sometimes, instead of simply out of dreaded necessity. And he'd found love, in a life where such a notion had barely even occurred to him once before as a passing thought.
His Firestorm. Inwardly he shook his head with confusion at that very thought, and wondered with unease, just how wrong it might have been to call Firestorm 'his.' She didn't belong to him. She belonged to no one. No bot would ever again own another, and of that he had never stopped being relieved. But... his processor screamed loudly as he flew... could 'his' not mean something entirely different now? Yes, Firestorm was 'his' because she wanted to be. But did that not also make him 'hers'? They could truly be a pair, best friends, trusting lovers... bondmates?
No! His processor screamed loudly. No no! It could never be. He'd told her so before, and he knew she understood. He'd never once defied logic and sense before. Never given more than a fast passing thought to anything beyond the limits of his circumstance in life. Why now did he wish it could be different.
'174-34 East. 78-39 North-east...'
Coordinates, repeated for the second time by a bot that grew so predictably more impatient. A bot not used to waiting for anyone or anything. And Soundwave's spark dropped at simply hearing another transmission on his comm-link. He wished it truly could turn back. But suddenly it was no longer an option at all, and he knew it never really was. He was too well programmed to obedience to even think of backing down now.
So he turned a little more, banking hard to the left, narrowly missing the top of some strange abandoned mess of a structure that was not listed on his map and that his optics had almost failed to spot in the darkness. And he remembered Firestrom again, laying still in her unwilling recharge. He remembered that for a moment her optics had filled with worried tears of coolant, because he was not behaving like the bot she'd come to know while he listened to his comm. He remembered that he;d raised his voice to her shouting a warning to stay out of something she could never understand, when she'd begged him not to leave without notice in the dark of night. A lap was broken to pieces in his living space. He remembered that too, and realized she must have hit it with her still not fully coordinated hand, while she tried getting to her feet to quickly in despair, holding her ground when any other would have backed down.
The last last thing he'd ever said to her during civilized and 'normal' conversation, was that she would never carry his youngling...
"It's just surface damage, thankfully, from the look of things," Ratchet said. But he pulled out a med-scanner anyway, just to be sure, used it quickly, and nodded at the readings on the little screen. "I don't see any sign of broken lines or energon pooling underneath those body panels..." He locked optics then for a second with Knockout, who sat on his mobility cart, putting up with all the inspections and scans with just as much patience as he could manage in his own haste to start his own workday.
He had patient files to update, consultations to confirm, and rounds to make. And there was little doubt at all in anyone's mind either, just where his rounds would began that morning. He'd not seen his tiny youngling patient, since he'd handed her over to Ratchet the night before. He'd not yet had a chance to check for a single update.
For every doubt the 'bots might once have had about the matter, thee was certainly no denying anymore that Knockout, of any bot on Cybertron had a certain affinity for the tiniest of damaged bots. And strangely – or perhaps not so strangely anymore – he was good with every one of them. He never failed, when working on the youngling ward, to pick up any tiny bots that cried. He'd rock a little on his cart with the tiniest of them in his lap, just like he did with his very own child. And any a little bit bigger would sit on his knees as well, while he sat by the windows, and talked with them like they were smart little not-yet-adults who understood more than the world so quickly assumed, and like they clearly had an opinion and a say. A few he'd met that were bigger still, had loved to sit in adult sized chairs, their feet swinging a little just above the floor, while he sat on his cart in front of them so they could talk and back and forth like any two intelligent bots might do.
"I told you I was perfectly fine," Knockout muttered. And his hand went slowly to the hand control of the cart, just as though he thought he might get away with backing up toward the medbay doors. The old bot chuckled a little, shook his head, and promptly rested his hands on the cart's armrests to stop him before he even started to move.
"It's never unwise to check and be sure," he said seriously. "Blows to the chest panel can be serious business. And that bot was a lot bigger than you. I think you must know very well it could have been so much worse..."
"I know," Knockout answered slowly. And he nodded with genuine understanding, while he hand slowly moved away from his hand control. He looked the old bot in the optics and said seriously, "I'm grateful for you concern."
"Is Daddy... okay?" Cybershock asked, standing nervously beside Arcee – the two having stopped by with Knockout for a moment on their way to the preschool inside the youngling center. The youngling held her carrier's hand, but she stepped just as far forward as she possibly could while doing so, looking with worry over the badly scuffed dents on his body that she hadn't even appeared to notice before.
"He'll be just fine," Ratchet assured the little bot, smiling, and thankful once again that things weren't much worse.
"He might let you touch up his paint later," Arcee said, smiling at her family.
Knockout nodded slowly at that, smiling at his creation, who promptly grinned right back. And he laughed just a little under his intakes, over how entirely put off and panicked he would have been not so long ago, at the very thought of a youngling trying to paint him. But Cybershock was good at it. Her little hands were steady, and she loved to do it. She'd touched up the paint on her carrier too.
"Cybershock, come here," Knockout said then. And his optics looked over her little frame, while he shook his head just a little and laughed. When she let go of Arcee's hand and hurried over to him, he gestured at once with his optics and a waving hand, down to her knees and lower legs – badly scuffed , dull and faded from her endless climbing around, playing and sitting happily on her knees on the playground.
"You need some paint too, my girl," he said, thinking at once of the touch up paint cans made in her colors, sure enough kept handy in the family's home, right between the well matched colours for himself and his mate. And he saw his youngling cringe at once, with a look of disdain on her little face-plate.
"I don't like being painted," she declared at once, pouting with her hands loosely on her hip joints. "It's cold and it feels funny. I don't see how you can like that!" A second later though the youngling looked intent again, and serious. Her optics opened wider, blinking a couple of times, and she stepped ever closer, to grab one of his hands between hers. Slowly, with her voice shaky now with tears, she asked, "How could some bot want to beat on my creator? He didn't do anything to him!"
"Cybershock, some bots are just mean," Ratchet said. He came to kneel on the floor behind the little one, and gently tapped her on the shoulder, so that she would turn to look at him. "So many of the refugees are good bots, yes. But many are angry. Left bitter from the war that drove them from our planet. And they understand what they were taught to understand, just like anyone. They lash out. Attack what they fear. And they fear what they don't understand sometimes..."
"That all makes sense I guess," the little bot answered, with a sad heavy sigh.
But Cybershock would never fully understand and her creators both knew it. She would grasp the concept, commit to mind centuries of history... And with a loving spark as compassionate and good as hers, she would undoubtedly know so many of the parts she would never want to play should that history ever repeat itself. But she was a youngling of a new world. The Cybertron her family knew was far from the one she would know one day.
"How is the youngling doing?" Arcee asked, clearly wanting any update at all, just as much as her mate did.
"She had a terrible night, as you can probably imagine," Ratchet explained. And he sighed sadly, before he got to his feet again. For a long moment he just stood there, silent and shaking his head, sighing again sadly, before he finally went on speaking. "I took her to the special care room next to my own living space..." he gestured in the rough direction of the rooms he spoke of, and yet again he shook his head slowly. "She's by far the sickest bot in here, and will be for a while. She survived the night, and believe me, I was glad of that this morning. But it's still not entirely hopeful for this one. It amazes me a bot that small survived such damages at all. I've seen many full sized adult frames dead on the battlefield from the very same sort of mass injury. I've had her powered down all night just doing what I could in terms of emergency repairs... I let her try to wake up a bit this morning, and she did it too. But it's obvious to me how little she likes just being conscious at all. I'm considering exactly what I should do very carefully 'Bee has been sitting with her most of this morning. Another student of mine, a new one called Starsong has been no end of help too. He's been checking up on our little patient any chance he's had. That bot may be brand new to this, and barely a youngling himself at that. But he's certainly dedicated."
"It surprises me that I don't know that little bot," Arcee said. And her face-plate showed genuine dismay and confusion. "Cybershock has never played with her on the playground or anywhere little bots would usually be. She's never come to the preschool... I've called around a bit, and no one working anywhere in the younging centre seems to know her at all."
"I heard early this morning from Ultra Magnus," Ratchet answered "Naturally, he's been working on this incident all night. "The youngling is unregistered. Not only unregistered in the preschool, which of course is not a legal matter. But unregistered, period. She was born on a refugee ship, obviously. But her birth was never filed when it landed here. And legally she still doesn't exist. The youngling's name is Switchblade. 'Bee was able to get her to tell him that much during a very brief time she was talking early this morning... Her creator has also been arrested. The police have little to hold him on yet except that unprovoked attack on Knockout. But they are searching him home. The little one's injuries look to be an accident, but they have every reason to think there's something going on in that building."
"Switchblade?" Knockout cried in dismay over the name he'd heard a moment before. It was his turn now to shake his head. And did so for a good long moment, while he sat otherwise still on his cart. "That's a terrible name." He held up a hand before he went on, thoughtfully. "Granted, we can hardly say much better of my name obviously. Though as a youngling, my name was taken at least in general, as more funny than anything. But Switchblade? For a neutral, and a little femmeling no less? Surely it crosses the line. That's just so... violent."
"Well we all know how violent and angry her creator is," Arcee muttered under her intakes.
Ratchet opened his mouth then, meaning to add a reply of his own. But he paused a second, and his hand went to his commlink. For a second he mumbled into it, while he paced a moment, obviously on the comm with someone who did most of the talking while he did most of the listening. Finally, he cut the commlink again, and turned to his teammates with a look of shock and dread clear on his face-plate.
"That comm-call was from Firestorm," he explained, shaking his head back and forth in clear disbelief and denial. "She just found Soundwave missing this morning. It looks like he fled from the base sometime last night."