AN: THIS IS HAS BEEN REWRITTEN, EXPECT A SIGNIFICANT DROP IN QUALITY FOR THE NEXT TWO CHAPTERS. See any mistakes or errors? Tell me about it and I'll change it! Thank you for reading!


They had been planning the trip to the Lake Tahoe for the past two months, it wasn't too far so Bumblebee could easily drive the distance. They would have taken the groundbridge but Ratchet had been finding issues with it after the scraplet attack and had been grumbling for the last week as the trip was coming up. Visiting the lake meant that Bee' wouldn't risk getting sand in his joints like the last time, where they visited a non-commercial and relatively quiet beach. It had been great until Bumblebee had transformed and accidentally thrown sand all into his joints. Visiting a lake, especially a rockier and dirt orientated lake meant that they could still enjoy a waterside without the risk of Bee' breaking down because sand was grinding against his parts. It also meant that Raf couldn't risk being dragged out to sea, he wasn't particularly a good swimmer, to his own embarrassment.

The plan was that they would set off the day before as it was an eight hour drive from Jasper but they would stop halfway so that Raf could sleep in Bumblebee. Unsurprisingly, Cybertronians had the ability to reorganise the interior of their earth vehicle mode that an average Camaro could not. As far as his parents were aware, June and Jack were taking him there for a camping trip, not that they would have paid much attention to whether or not he was three hundred, or three thousand miles away.

Currently, they had been driving for the last two hours with Raf safely saddled in the back of Bumblebee next to his camping bag, laptop and RC cars. They had found a way to wirelessly connect the cars to bumblebee's outside mainframe so that he didn't have to crush anymore of his controllers, his parents refused to buy him anymore after the third broke 'unexpectedly'. Now, Nevada was by no means a green state in the US and Jasper was living proof with its red mountains and spares shrubbery that made the landscape look slightly dirty from a long distance. During the summers, the sun threatened to melt the roads and plant life seemingly burnt, died and flaked away in the heat. The winters were cold and for those used to only the heat, they suffered from runny noses and the odd cold.
They were nearing the mountainsides now and the air, while still dry, was cooling slightly. Raf didn't have much experience of travelling, even around the US. With his family lacking time for himself he hadn't really left Jasper much, then after he seriously got into tech, he found no need; especially not with Vince and all his bully friends. Meeting Bee and the gang felt like meeting a new family, that cared for and had time for him, he knew his family loved him but twenty-foot tall robots didn't need to wake up at six am to go to work. Now he had Optimus to go to when he needed advice from a parental figure, Ratchet to help with his homework, he once managed to get Arcee to help with his coding and Bulkhead helped him with any lifting of his tech. Then there was Bumblebee, his best friend, his brother, who was with him the entire way.

"I don't like the way that car's been following us for the last fifteen klicks, Raf" Bee's voice startled him out of his thoughts and suddenly the cab was a few degrees cooler, he pawed one of his controllers nervously in his hand.

The music turned off and Raf could hear the whine of Bee's battle functions engaging. The sudden tension thickened the air and he could hear the metaphorical clock ticking in his head.

The silence seemed to drag on until he heard Bee grumble again "Knockout, scrap!" suddenly everything was a lot more serious.

They prodded at each other for a while, the Decepticon medic teasing them like a cat teases a mouse, edging closer only to fall back when he felt the brush of Bumblebee's field. To Raf, the silence was like when his parents argued in the car, and all that was left was the stony rumble of the road under tires, the music silenced in order to hear each other over the tension that wasn't turned back on until at least half an hour of tense quiet.
Slowly, the road cleared of other cars until all that was left was Bee, The Medic and a lone hatchback that was indicating to turn left. The clock ticked down as the car drifted off to another road until it disappeared from view.
He heard the roar of his guardians' engine before he felt it, he was suddenly firmly against the seat and before he even knew he had a knuckle white grip on the seatbelt.

The road was straight forward so there was nothing but pure speed as Bumblebee suddenly sped up, his wheels screeching slightly in protest. It took only a few seconds for the sudden thundering growl of Knockouts' engine to make an appearance, close and fast approaching. The road spat the crumbling remains of itself under the sheer pressure and velocity of their wheels against its rocky flesh. Signs blurred and merged into a blur of sensation and colour and trees became a nonsensical mass of greens and browns.

"Bumblebee!" a plea escaped his mouth under the stress and fear against his life, hurriedly grasping onto the only safety he could comprehend.
"Hold on Raf! I'm gonna get you out of here!" somehow he managed to hear his guardian over the sound of his engine and the fast approaching roar of Knockout's engine as they intermingled into one desolate, terrifying sound.

Despite being unable to see the fast approaching Decepticon, Raf could hear the sound of his engine, getting louder and louder as Bumblebee struggled to stay ahead of the other Decepticon. The speed of which Bumblebee was going, send loose stones flying into him as his wheels crushed and flung them as he went forward, trees and shrubbery merged into one and the road was one line of solid concrete ocean.

Soon the dreaded appearance of a red coloured sports car appeared in the side of his vision, almost matching speed now, Knockout was so close he could see the turn of his wheel as he made to ram into the side of Bee. His Autobot friend had only a few seconds to swerve and miss the sudden attempt to ram into his side as Knockout's sudden speed brought forth a surprised yelp from Raf.

The attempt to dodge seemed futile however, parts of asphalt broken off of the road stuck under Bumblebee's tyre causing him to swerve and hit the barrier, sparks flying for a flash moment as his left side ground against the metal barrier before it broke sending himself and his human flying off road and into a sudden drop.
It was at that point for Raf, when time stopped and the cacophony of noise turned to ringing at the sudden realisation that death was a high probability. He could hear his hastened, heavy breathing and the light breaking through dust covered trees and shrubs as they fell. Metal shifted around him, twisting, snapping and groaning into place as he flew through the air. In an instant reality came flying back with the force of a twenty-foot tall robot catching him in one hand as said robot hit the ground with a roll.

He'd barely heard the word 'run' before his feet were flying as fast as they could against the ground. It was a speed that only came when the sudden primal, adrenaline rush of 'oh god I'm going to die', Raf had never considered himself sporty up until this moment as he numbly registered his feet moving at a speed he didn't think possible. He failed to even acknowledge the tumbling robots fighting behind him or the sound of blaster plasma sizzling the dust as shots were fired, he didn't register the sudden bone shuddering feeling of a shock rod spurring into life, all his brain simply registered was the commanding urge to run away.

His feet brought him further into the thickets and underbrush of a small cluster of trees, just enough to safely be hidden away from the danger, the threat and the cold fear. Ducking around into a particularly full thicket of bushes, there he sank to his knees, under the bush and curled up as close as he could to himself. The unrelenting pounding of his heart made his chest feel sore - palpitations he thought idly- and the soreness of breathing in oxygen too fast left his lungs raw, but he was alive. He was alive! Shuddering, he curled in on himself and scrunched his eyes closed and covered his ears with his hands in a futile attempt to merely stop all the horror and pure terror that was the deception army.


He didn't know how much time passed before it went silent, the only sound was himself and the wind licking lazily through foliage, even the birds had fled and the sound of insects even seemed to have dulled. Waiting a few more minutes before taking action, slowly he unfurled himself from his foetal position, with twigs and leaves stuck in his hair and his glasses somewhat bent, he took a step out of the shrubbery.

And then a giant metal hand is suddenly flying towards him and -it's too tight, too tight, too tight!- there's suddenly a deep murderous red in his vision. Numbly he realised that it's an optic looking at him and some small voice at the back of his mind makes a comment about how he was expecting to scream and cry when he died but there's only silence, the kind of silence prey does when it knows it's been caught but desperately hopes that if it just doesn't move, it won't die.

"You do know we can smell your kind, fleshy?" The deep rumble of Knockout's voice box travelling through his arm and into Raf made his teeth feel weird. He could only swallow deeply.

Knockout continued talking "Oh yes, we can smell your kind from miles away, especially in...dirtier places such as this wood. None of that Primus awful stink that you lot produce with your oiled food products or your machinery." A sly smile crept on the Decepticons face and his insides chilled.

"In reality, we just enjoy the hunt." His smile grew into a full blown teeth filled grin.

Which is promptly smacked off of his face as a black and yellow fist smashed into his red painted helm. Raf briefly found himself in the air before a padded -blunt fingered thank god- servo caught him and safely placed him on the ground. Looking up to his Autobot guardian, he shuddered slightly at the slightly orange-tinged optics, he'd seen that look before on his other Autobot companions when they lost their temper. He'd never seen that look on Bumblebee before.

Ratchet had once said that all Cybertronians were born with either blue, pink or yellow coloured optics and only through bypassing coding could one permanently set their optic colour to red - a way of breaking past the chains the council had given them he'd said- as the Decepticons had. In reality, the natural changing of optic colour indicated intense negative emotion akin to when their optics brightened -literally- when happy or sparked when sad.

Bumblebee turned then back to Knockout and leapt at him giving the mech barely a chance to finish getting up before-he couldn't breathe- Bee smashed his fist in an uppercut with such force that the mech was lifted off the ground. With lightning speed, he grabbed the con by the arm and the kibble on his waist and launched him through the trees. The misfortunate trees -he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe! - were smashed in the process and clumps of dirt went flying upon impact, said impact was delivered with such force that the rocks near Raf's feet -which were a significant distance away- jump into the air for half a second.
The rubble had a single moment to settle until the arriving grapple of Knockout desperately clawing against the ground came into vision before Bee's hand grabbed him by the helm.

It went quiet as the dust settled - he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe!- and Bumblebee slowly stood to his full height.

With Knockout still in his grasp his hoarse screams muffled by a servo. It was a moment when everything stilled, and then with such sudden force Raf wasn't sure he saw it properly, Bumblebee slammed the medics face into the ground, then again, and again, and again. Energon splattered into the air on the fourth time and the medic didn't stop screaming for the ordeal until he went suddenly very quiet.

It's at that moment Raf lost consciousness.


Breakdown was worried, his friend had gone out on one of Soundwave's automatic bot alert systems. That had been three hours ago and Knockout wasn't like him or some of the other Decepticons, he'd pick his battles and run away from those he didn't want to win or scratch his paint. He'd requested to go to Knockouts location, he was the only medic so it's not like Lord Megatron would've had any qualms about rescuing him, and he needed someone to patch Screamer up anyways.

He'd found himself now after a half a cycle, in some destroyed woods and really, whoever the pit had done this had done a number on these dumb trees. Though that said, most organic structures were weak and easily breakable, they crushed easily in his hands and were always satisfying to throw the Autobots into walls and buildings alike.

This, however, was an all-out battleground, destroyed trees littered the ground, splintered bark and wooden entrails were scattered around so heavily the ground looked somewhat light brown. Leaves torn off of plants and trees were draped across wooden corpses and bushes had been stripped from their roots.
What was alarming was the definite pathway of bright blue liquid, it crept along the ground slowly as it left its source from a rocky platform up ahead, dripping viscously as it reached edges of shale outcrop. He shuddered a vent out and ignored the slight shake in his servo. It was so horrendously silent.

There Knockout lay unconscious cradled in destroyed trees and rock, his paint had been stripped bare from being scraped and thrown against rocks and the ground, and his chestplate had caved slightly under some unknown force. His right leg had been brutally punctured through a particularly large splintered tree trunk and his ped had been thoroughly dislocated from its join. Digits lay scattered nearby from him desperately trying to brace himself only for them to bend backwards and snap clean off under the pure kinetic force of something, multiple lacerations and dents covered his frame and his wheels had been punctured to the pit. The worst part was his helm, which had been horribly disfigured from being smashed into the ground multiple times, his headcrest bent clean off and his optic ridges cracked and slightly warped.

Breakdown clenched his fist as if to stop the rising, heady mix of rage and fear "Come on partner...Megatron ain't gonna like this" he mumbled before bending down to help his friend.