MENDED

Chapter Ten

Installment Ten

Within a few days, Stormbreaker and Bulkhead were up. Daily they went through a therapy with Ratchet, Novalee, Nathan, and Miko would pitch in sometimes. “Three steps, Bulkhead? That's all you can manage?” Miko asked irritably towards her guardian. He gave her a mix of a tired and sheepish look, “I'm sorry, Miko. My legs still hurt.”

“What did I tell you?” Miko asked, eyeing Bulkhead.

"No excuses," he quoted with a groan.

“Exactly,” Miko said stiffly.

“Try again.” Ratchet frowned and pondered in thought, just watching Bulkhead and Miko as they had their conversation. “I hope to decode the Iacon database is going more smoothly than Bulkhead's recovery” Ratchet called out to Optimus, who was busy decoding the Iacon database.

“Slow but steady, old friend,“ Optimus said. Novalee went over to where Nathan and Rafael were at the tv racing, sitting in between them. Nathan lost the game as his avatar went off the race course.

“Not good enough! You have to come back stronger than before” Miko said.

“Time for a break, Bulkhead” Ratchet interrupted.

“A break? You think the 'Cons are gonna give Bulkhead a break in the middle of a firefight?!” Miko snapped.

“If you push a patient too far too fast, you risk exacerbating their injuries” Ratchet stated.

“But—”

“Bulkhead needs to rest” Ratchet pressed, helping Bulkhead to somewhere he could sit down. Miko left soon after that up to the lift, and Novalee noticed Arcee had zoned out for a bit.

“Guys I have an idea of some games we could play!” Nathan said.

“Who do we want to play with?” Rafael asked.

“The twins, Jazz, Bumblebee, us as well as Jack, maybe Elimpitha,” Novalee said. The kids got everyone together, except Elimpitha. The femme was going to help Stormbreaker around the base and help his body get recovered faster with exercise. The group gathered into a circle; the ‘Bots in hollowforms.

“The game we’re going to play is a human game, so we’ll help explain it to you guys,” Nathan said, getting a nod from all the hollowforms.

“We’ll be playing a couple games, like hide ‘n seek, a card game or two, or we could see if we could go to a paintball gun shooting range,” Novalee said.

“Paintball range?” Sideswipe asked. “It’s like lethal fighting, but your ammunition is actually paint. There will be teams that are devised by the color of paint, winners are the team with less paint on them” Nathan summed up a quick explanation. “What are we waiting for? Let’s ask Bigbot!” Sideswipe whooped. The group together was able to convince Optimus as well as Ratchet to go to a to a paintball shooting range. Nathan knew one he liked going to with some of his friends back when he lived somewhere in New Mexico. The Odessa Area Outdoor Gun Range & Paintball range. Everyone activated their hollowforms and drove through the ground bridge.

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“So we need our teams, teams of two if there’s an extra they’ll go with one of the teams,” Jack said. Everyone gave their acknowledgment and looked at each other.

“How are we teaming?” Novalee asked.

“Spin da bottle?” Jazz suggested. They decided to use Nova’s water bottle and took turns spinning. Novalee with Jazz, Sideswipe with Jack, Sunstreaker and Bumblebee, leaving Nathan. So he spun once to whatever team, landing on the Autobot TIC.

“Ah’ll go an’ pay for da administration,” Jazz said as his hollowform went towards the front desk. “You guys excited?” Nathan asked excitedly.

“Kinda” Novalee admitted, a small blush of embarrassment grew on her creamy cheeks.

“But we got Jazz, we’d definitely win!” Nathan claimed. “But Sideswipe and Sunstreaker are frontliners,” Novalee stated.

“Right…”

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The game being fun would be an understatement. It was pure adrenaline and excitement. The human twins were covered in yellow and red paint, some black paint too. Jazz got a few splotches here and there. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were just about the same as Jazz, leaving Jack, covered in silver and orange paint. When they got back to the base back in Nevada, Ratchet and Elimpitha had made it clear to head straight to a shower or bath. Bulkhead was still lumbering around slowly, one of his peds always limp and dragging behind him. Stormbreaker was much closer to recovery, but his wings were still having pains and occasionally would freeze up. His chassis had also been giving him pain. Elimpitha made sure she did everything she could to help him.

“I wanna go back…” Nathan whined from where he sat, upside down on the couch in the human area. “I still have paint in my hair.,” Jack muttered, pulling some green paint from some of his raven black hair.

“Today was fun, but ironically Nat’ was the first one out, considering that he had the most experience with paintball gun wars,” Novalee said.

“We were up against Bumblebee, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe! You couldn’t have a better excuse!” Nathan said in his defense.

“But who was it that said we’d win when we had Jazz?” Novalee teased. Nathan pouted at the remark.

“W’ll ah surely had ah great day!” Jazz spoke up from behind them.

“It was a great day with you guys,” Novalee yawned, which didn’t go pass Ratchet undetected. The medics gazed was cast upon his adopted daughter and his creator instincts seemed to have had flipped on.

“Time for bed Novalee,” Ratchet said sternly. “Okay” Novalee yawned again.

Hey guys! To let Y'all know I will be updating more. Thanks for reading!