DeceptiKids

Meeting

Alex twitched, the cold was started to get to him. His breath came out as billowing smoke as he adjusted his coat collar, not that it helped much. The weather seemed to just be getting worse and worse recently, he considered basing his next paper on the effects of weather on the wildlife but the decisions he made at 11pm walking home rarely tended to be ones that stuck with him for more than a few moments. The street around him was deathly quiet, unsettlingly so. He always hated walking home alone but he didn't have much of a choice now. Well, he could ask one of his fellow students if they'd like to bunk with him, but he'd still more than likely be taking the trip back home himself, it wasn't like the others stayed behind for hours and hours on end to research things that ultimately had no bearing on his life. This was all so pointless. And stupid. He more than likely wouldn't live into his fourties so why did he even bother trying?

His internal self-destructive tirade was interrupted by the incredibly loud rumble of a jet engine. It sounded close, to the point where Alex was considering the idea that the pilot was drunk, when a silver shape came into view and changed shape into a humanoid figure.

The jet-thing landed with an amazing amount of force, to the point it almost knocked Alex over. The thing was bigger than the street lamps surrounding them, so he couldn't get a good look a the things face, but he could tell it had glowing red eyes. The parts he could see were extremely intimidating, sharp claws and a slight build. Whatever this thing was, despite its size it's fast.

The thing angled it's head slightly, "Are you Alex Banes?"

It's voice was scratchy and filled with annoyance, all Alex knew was that he didn't want to anger the thing further.

"Uh, yes? That's me." He responded, painfully aware of how weak he sounded.

"Urgh, good. Do you have any idea how hard it is to tell you little organics apart?"

Alex had no idea what it was even talking about, what even was this thing? Alex wasn't exactly a conspiracy theorists but he didn't exactly trust the government; but this thing, the way it was talking.

It clearly wasn't a military creation, it spoke too casually. The sheen on the metal was oddly colourful, too much to be a regular metal. And it's eyes.

"You're not from Earth, are you?" Alex asked, curiosity overriding his fear.

The thing laughed, not particularly harshly but more in genuine amusement, "Good. I see your students file was correct about you. 'Fast thinking. Intelligent. Insatiably curious.'"

Alex crossed his arm, confident after being filled with pride that a robotic space alien recognized his work, "I'm going to assume you didn't hack into my schools confidential files and approach me in the middle of the night just for a conformation that I exist."

The light reflected off the things teeth (it had teeth? That's unsettling), it was smirking, "I have... a proposition for you."

- - -

Well, Knockout's day had been absolutely awful. First he and his partner had been given the obnoxious task of finding a human pet, which neither really liked the sound of. Then, the two had been separated after being tracked by Autobots. Not to mention their damned scout had hit his altower and knocked his communications relay offline, at least his finish was fine. Oh and the damage to his altower meant he could transform back into his root mode. Wonderful.

He considered activating his distress beacon, but chances were the Autobots would find him faster than Breakdown.

Slag. His self repair would take care of the damage to his communications relay but he'd need Breakdown to fix the damage to his altower. Meaning he was stuck for the time being.