Wild Ride (Cyberverse Mech!reader X Hot Rod)

9: Chase

'Okay. How hard can it be to find a moon cheetah?' I thought to myself as I wandered about outside the Ark. 'Bumblebee seems to think it's connected to the Allspark, and the Allspark itself has telekinetic and telepathic abilities from what Windblade taught me.' An idea then formed in my head, one I was not sure would work. 'Maybe I can try and telepathically connect to it? Or at least sense it? It's worth a shot.'

I then went over to a flat boulder and sat on top of it with my legs neatly folded and my hands in my lap. I closed my optics and slowed my vents as I opened my mind like I was trained.

'Find the moon cheetah... moon cheetah.... Pits I wish I actually knew their name.' I thought as I reached out to the various minds, hoping to find one I did not recognize. Unfortunately, I wasn't very good at this sort of thing, and the thoughts and emotions of the bots I did sense became overwhelming. I tried to block them out but couldn't. I began to panic, and I started to lose control.

Sparks flew off my frame, and my optics snapped open as tendrils of light ruptured out of me and shook the area all around. I struggled to regain control and grabbed at my head as I jumped off the boulder and ran, instinct telling me to get as far away from The Ark as possible. I kept running and running as an unbearable pressure within my spark built up further and further until it burst in a massive telekinetic explosion. Slowly, the sparks faded, and my frame buckled so that I was on my hands and knees, my vents ragged and strained.

While I was straining to recover, the Autobots felt the aftershock of my telekinetic blast.

"What was that?" Hot Rod asked as the rumbling stopped.

"Felt like an earthquake." Bumblebee said.

"That was no earthquake. Felt like a telekinetic blast." Windblade commented.

"Telatraan-x, what was the source of the shake?" Optimus asked.

"All evidence points to a high energy signature not far from The Ark. It is also the same location that Y/D's life signature is reading. There is a high probability that the two are connected."

"Windblade, Hot Rod, Bumblebee, with me." Optimus said. He and the 3 others then tracked me down and saw my struggling and shaking form in the center of a massive crater.

"Holy scrap." Hot Rod whispered. "Y/D, what happened?" I didn't answer not because I didn't want to, bur because I couldn't hear him. To me, his voice was just an addition to the thousands I heard.

"Windblade, do you know what's wrong?" Optimus asked.

"I don't know. He's definitely experiencing some sort of telepathic disturbance, but yet something is off." She said as she carefully approached me and placed a light hand on me. She closed her optics and entered my mind, where she also heard the thousands of voices all speaking at once.

'Y/D! Where are you?' She asked as she floated about in my mind, eventually spotting me sitting down with shattered memory cells all blaring at me while I sat and rocked back and forth with my hands over my audials. The closer Windblade got, the more shattered memory cells she saw. 'Y/D?'

'It's too loud!' I cried out to her.

'I know you are experiencing a telepathic overfill. Just focus on me, okay? Focus on my voice and vestige.' She then teleported in front of me and gently removed my hands from my audials. I stared up at her and did my best to shrink down the other voices, eventually succeeding, and the pair of us snapped back to reality. A wave of nausea ran through me along with a blast of dizziness that made my tanks churn.

"Pits, I think I'm going to be sick." I muttered.

"Windblade, what happened?" Optimus asked.

"Telepathic overfill, he was hearing everyone's thoughts at the same time." She said as she helped me back up. "But why were you attempting any of that unsupervised? You could have hurt yourself."

"Before you yell at me, Windblade, I have a good reason." I said as I shook off the nausea and looked over to her. "Bumblebee wanted me to find the moon cheetah, and like a damn dolt I thought I could find it telepathically. Turns out that is way harder than you make look."

"You just need practice. Under supervision." She said sternly.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Geeze." I chuckled. Out of the corner of my optic, I saw a flicker of movement, and I looked over to see. "MOON CHEETAH!" The cat in question bolted, and I ran after it, changing forms and taking flight in order to keep pace with it.

"Y/D! Come back!" Hot Rod yelled.

"Hot Rod, take Bumblebee with you and track Y/D." Optimus said.  The two younger bots nodded and took off after me. I twisted and weaved through the trees in an effort to keep up with the unbelievably fast cat, the younger bots struggling to keep pace.  I then spotted our quarry dive into a cave, and I shifted forms to chase after it only to get transported right outside of the Nemesis.

"Whoah hooah aahhh!" I yelled as I was flung out of the portal and landed on my back, my frame skidding over the hard concrete to a stop right under two of my old friends. "Oh hey, Lockdown! Hi Clobber!"

"Y/D?!" Clobber exclaimed as she placed down some sort of explosives crate and picked me up like an Earth child to a cat. "You're alive! I thought Starscream killed you!" She then hugged me super tightly and spun me around while Lockdown laughed his aft off.

"Okay... that's enough... affection." I strained to say before getting released by the femme.

"Heh, sorry. What are you doing here anyway? Megatron said you betrayed the Decepticons."

"I didn't 'betray' the Decepticons." I said as I brushed myself off and regained my balance. "He betrayed me by lying about the murder of my carrier."

"Wait, what? I thought she was killed by the Elite Guard?" Lockdown questioned.

"No, she was murdered by Megatron. And he will pay for it, but right now I could use your help."

"Well, we really shouldn't help an Autobot." Clobber said.

"I'm not one." I then gestured to the Decepticon insignia that still adorned my chassis. "But I'm not exactly a Decepticon either. So technically, this isn't betrayal." Lockdown grabbed my wrists and slapped a pair of stasis cuffs on them, and I looked over to my two former friends with a sad and shocked expression.

"Sorry, Y/D, but we have to turn you in to Megatron now." Lockdown said grimly. "He's terminate us like Starscream if we didn't."

"I... fine." I said quietly, knowing what was to come and internally dreading it.