Retaliation

Trauma

That night everyone was recharging having just returned to their base after leaving New Vos.

Suddenly Knock Out jolted awake and jumped off his berth with a start venting heavily as his frame shook and he hugged himself with his servos and he scanned his surroundings with his optics.

Then relaxed once he saw he was safe in his own room at the Autobot base. He had just had a nightmare about the DJD attacking him.

He decided to get some energon not wanting to go back into recharge because he didn't feel like facing another bad dream right now.

Knock Out walked down the hallway to the mess hall and grab a cube of energon and sat down at a table and started sipping it quietly.

Then he heard pedsteps and turned around ready for a fight but stopped when he saw it was Arcee.

"Oh Arcee." Knock Out said as he transformed his drill back into his servo again have transformed it into his wepan without meaning too and nearly drawn it on her. "Sorry."

"It's ok you've been through a lot lately." Arcee told him understanding. "If you ever need to talk about it I'm here."

"Thank you." He said to her. Then told her about his nightmare.

And she could tell that even though Knock Out was fully healed for the most part and fortunately hadn't received any permanent damage. He had been traumatized by his encounter with and near death experience at the hands of the DJD.

It actually made her glad to see him almost use his drill on her because since he was able to transform it that meant he still had full usage of it. And he had used has saw to kill Pharma so fortunately both his servos were still working.

They had been so crushed and mangled when they found him at the bottom of the cliff they were afraid they couldn't be fixed. But Ratchet had managed to rebuild them as good as new and Knock Out was using them as though that had never been damaged.

Knock Out knew the nightmares and memories of what the DJD did to him might be something he'd always have to deal with from now on. But it felt good to be able to talk to someone about it.
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Meanwhile Megatron had watched the two from the hallway. He felt bad to learn that Knock Out had been attacked by the DJD as well.

Megatron had fought with them when they attack him he had actually been the one who jumped them. Telling them the Decepticons were over and to stop killing bots.

But they didn't listen and just added him to their list. Megatron had put up a good fight but the DJD were strong and Tarn was on pretty much the same level as him as far as strength goes.

In the end Megatron had been forced to flee something he hated because even after changing for the better he still hated showing weakness.

But he had to survive to stop the DJD he was the one who made them into the monsters they were so they were his responsibility and the energon of every bot or con they killed was on his servos or at least that's how he saw it.

He had to stop them from taking anymore lives or traumatizing anyone else like they had Knock Out.

Megatron thought about how Starscream had taken that missile for him when the other seekers had fired on him. Even after all the abuse he'd put the seeker through, all the beating, mind games and all the pain and he was still willing to forgive him and put aside their differences.

Starscream had definitely changed and so had Megatron. And the Autobots were giving them a second chance but Megatron didn't know if he deserved one after everything he'd done.

Megatron just wanted to make sure the DJD didn't hurt anyone else he was the one who started them on their path of darkness now he wanted to be the one to end it.

"You are not in this alone Megatron we will help you stop the DJD." Said Optimus who had come seemingly out of nowhere and actually made Megatron jump a bit.

"Thank you." The former gladiator told him. "And I'm sorry for the war and all I did in the past."

"You just lost your way." Optimus told him. "And I believe everyone is capable of change and deserving of a second chance."

"Something's never change." Thought Megatron with a little smile.
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Meanwhile on a different part of Cybertron the DJD were talking about who to go after next.

Pharma hadn't gotten a chance to contact them before he was killed so they didn't know Knock Out had survived. All they knew was Pharma's life signal had gone offline so he'd gotten himself killed somehow.

"Good riddens." Thought Tarn. "He was annoying anyway."

They did know that Megatron had escaped. But didn't know where the old warlord would go.

They decided to move on to the next targets on the list thinking killing one or both of them would surely get at Megatron so they could finish him when he came running after them for revenge.

They started to move on to the targets location when Tarn pulled Nickel aside.

"I have a special job for you." He told her. "We're going after one of the target now I want you to deal with the other one since you'll be harder to notice."

"I won't let you down." She smiled.

Then they she left to take care of her target while the other DJD members went to deal with their's.
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Later that night the Autobot base's alarm went off and everyone got up to see what was going on.

They all went outside but told Knock Out to wait at base in case it was the DJD knowing the red medic wasn't ready to deal with them again just yet since he was still recovering from his ordeal.

And Knock Out agreed with them saying he wasn't really ready to go into a possibly combative situation just yet. So he stayed at base in the medbay ready to prep it and help Ratchet if someone got hurt.

Everyone else went outside to see what had sounded the alarm. And Megatron was the first one out.

He spotted something flying towards them at full speed then crash into the ground.

Megatron ran over to it and knew right away what it was and rushed over to help. Optimus recognized it too.

"Laserbeak where's Soundwave?!" Megatron asked know from the hurt, banged up and panicked state the minicon was in that Soundwave was in danger.

The minicon just continued to beep and trimble. Ratchet started working on fixing him as they rushed off in the direction Laserbeak had come from hoping they would get there in time to save Soundwave.

To Be Continued.

Another cliffhanger for you guys. I'll try to have the next chapter up soon. In the meantime feel free to send feedback.