Arisen

5

Only once the adrenaline wears off and the three of them stop to breathe do they register a noise.

Immediately alert, they turn to see a cogless bot approach them, and behind him, several others follow.

"Nice going afthole." One bot says angrily. "Your little stunt back there's leaking our hard work everywhere."

D looks around at all the bots gathering, and immediately understands, "Miners."

"Circle of Light?" the bot asks, then notices, "But you hold yourselves like Wreckers."

"We're just going to Iacon, same as you." D says.

"Find another train." The cogless bot snaps. "This one's ours, and as I said, you just got someone fired thanks to all the energon leaking everywhere."

"Wait!" Bee pipes up. "You said you're miners?"

"Bee, don't." Pax begs quietly.

"He used to be a Technobot." Bee says, pointing at Pax. "He used to give you the knowledge we had to mine the energon more efficiently and safely."

"I'm sorry, are you saying he wants it back?" the bot demands.

"N-no!" Bee stammers. "H-he's not a Technobot anymore. He has no authority to ask for anything back. Not that he would even if he did. Or...I dunno. I guess it's a matter of who you're talking to and who's really asking for what."

The bot reaches out a servo to grab him, but he's thwarted by the shout of, "Don't touch him!" from Pax, shoving the cogless bot back.

"Hey, everyone here calm down!" D orders. "We get it, okay? Next stop, we get off."

"Okay." The bot agrees. "Let's calm down by taking a seat!", and throws a punch at D, knocking Bee back to where he almost falls off the train.

He's quick to pull himself back up, but when he tries to intervene between D and the cogless miners, Pax stops him.

"Bee, stop." He says gently.

"Sorry! I just wanted to help!" Bee protests.

"No you don't." Pax orders.

"Oh yeah, this is gonna work out just fine." The cogless miner says, once the fighting has ceased, but right when Pax moves, the miner notices D putting a servo on his shoulder to stop him.

"Oh I see how it is." The miner taunts, and that's all it takes for Pax to swing a fist, so D covers while B moves to another part of the train, peeking through a hole.

It's a mess, as both D and Pax keep getting slammed into a wall, often with their arms smashed into it, and Bee is nearly offlined when someone spots him and tries to stab him.

It's only because he moves out of the way at the last second and kicks the bot that doesn't happen, and once he's standing up again, he grabs the weapon out of the bot's servo and starts hitting back, over and over.

And then it's all finished, as the last miner is tossed off the train, and Pax's left looking at Bee in horror as he sees the weapon in his servo, and the offlined bot at his pedes.

But just as Pax tries to say, "Bee—" he's cut off by the cogless miner from before, who knocks him down and holds him down.

"Stop!" Pax yells, kicking as hard as he can. "Get off of me!"

Bee, however, seems to be in a daze. He knows he should do something , everything in his Wrecker training is screaming at him to.

But even as Pax gets closer to being pushed off the train, he can't move. It's like he's paralyzed.

So of course that means D has to save the day once again, yanking the cogless miner off of Pax, and shoving him hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

That done, he goes to Pax to pull him up, demanding, "Are you okay?", as he holds onto his shoulders.

Pax takes a deep vent, then nods, "Uh huh."

Naturally, the cogless miner doesn't stay winded for long, as more bots gather behind him, weapon at the ready to stab them all if needed, energon leaking from his faceplate.

"D-16." D says suddenly.

The cogless miner's optics widen, then he screeches, " How do you know that name? "

"D-16." D repeats.

"Do you know where he is?" the miner demands.

"It's me." D says.

At this, the miner laughs. "Oh sweet Primus. You have no idea how long we've been waiting for this."

"D, what's going on?" Pax asks, now just utterly confused.

D just shakes his helm, and goes to join the miners, ignoring Pax's call behind him.

"D!"

Once they finally jump off the train, the miner orders, "Follow me.", and D, Bee, and Pax can do little but to obey.

"D." Pax tries to get his attention as they make their ways towards the mines. "D, answer me! Why are they after you?"

D only looks at him guiltily, but says nothing as they finally reach the entrance and follow the miners in.