Tough Love

FIRST ATTEMPT

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

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

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

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

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

Pause.

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

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

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

Thunderhoof gestured to his slashed insignia.

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

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

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

"Former mafia boss," Thunderhoof angrily interrupted.

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

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

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

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

Silence.

"YOU DID WHAT?"

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

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