BRAINWASHED || BATTLE CRY (Transformers Prime)

Prologue | Behold Me

"Take Fowler and go," he instructed the two younger humans, striding toward Knock Out with purpose. "Something is better than nothing - I'm not leaving without that data drive."

Miko turned her head to see the junior scaling the Decepticon medic, her suggestion dying on her tongue. It would be easier, and safer, to just take a picture. The girl had her phone on her almost 24/7, save for the one time they were trapped in the Shadowzone, but even then Jack had whipped out his own cellular device. Taking a moment to pause and snap a good shot of the screen would take only have the time it would for Jack to scale Knock Out, grab the drive, and hop back down.                                        

But by the time she thought of such a thing he was already halfway up to the hub, so instead she hoisted Fowler's arm over her shoulder and with the help of Raf carried the semi-conscious agent back to base.

The Cybertronian race had plenty of handholds thanks to their sophisticated armor plating, though the protective shell proved to be slick and even sharp around some particular edges. Jack did not waste precious time trying not to cut his hands, instead focusing on hoisting himself onto the sleek keyboard, mindful of the array of buttons he could hit on his way over to the data drive. Rafael had managed to put it in with ease, so it would only make sense that the older teen could pull it out.

Gripping the sides with both hands he pulled, a few choice words coming to mind when the alien USB drive refused to move. Readjusting his grip he tried again, nervous sweat making it nearly impossible for him to grasp the streamline edges.

Intuition pulled at the back of his mind, chills going down his spine as something alerted him to a problem he could not yet see. Catching movement out of the corner of his eye he turned, eyes widening when he realized he somehow missed the bright red Aston Martin waking from stasis. Knock Out greeted him with a grin, raising his servo and exchanging it for the surgical drill his frame was equipped with.                                        

Jack fell on his butt in his mad dash to escape the psychotic medic's corkscrew weapon, scrambling back until his spine hit the LED screen full of alien text.

"Say ah," Knock Out jeered, bringing his drill closer until the tip nearly brushed Jack's chin. The human opened his mouth to do . . . something, be it scream or beg for his life, when another voice interrupted him.

"I'm here to give a second opinion!"

Knock Out turned to see just who interrupted him, his surprised alabaster face met with the unforgiving fist of a 'bot who had seen it all. Jack yelped, jerking his feet back to avoid being crushed by Knock Out's careening body. The stunned Decepticon crashed to the floor, Ratchet carefully picking up Jack first before easily unplugging the data drive from its port. The medic's plating bristled when his audio receptors picked up the sound of an oncoming jet, quickly turning back toward the Groundbridge to escape the oncoming destruction heading their way.

Jack heard the sound of transformation before his world started suddenly careening, the human unable to help but scream this time as metal hit metal deafeningly. Ratchet drew the human close to his chassis for protection, going down hard and nearly dropping both Jack and the data drive. He grunted in intense pain, Megatron landing between them and the Groundbridge with a final slam. Jack almost expected cracks to appear beneath his feet, but then remembered the warlord had touched down on Cybertronian metal. It was not nearly as fragile as dirt.

"Take another step, medic, and it will be your last; along with your human pet."

Jack had rarely heard the Cybertronian dialect in its raw form, Ratchet occasionally swearing in it and the Autobots speaking it only amongst themselves. It had never occurred to him why they wouldn't speak English, though he supposed they did it for the kids' benefit and Agent Fowler's. The Decepticons, contrarily, had no humans to speak to and probably despised the "primitive" language.