Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

 The first time he saw her he was always going to remember. It wasn’t every day you saw a child of her size throw a grown man across the race track after all.

KO noticed that most people made a point to ignore her as she walked around but she wasn’t really in anyone’s way either.

it was the same dark cover of night but all of these races were under and while the same humans weren’t around for them all the same general characters could be seen.

She had black hair and wore clothing that seemed beat up compared to the rest of the racers on the track. Most people would just call her kid or something of the like KO couldn’t really be bothered with the affairs of such insignificant little creatures.

He doesn’t remember what they did or said or anything else they could’ve done to cross this little girl.  But he was always going to remember the sight of a man being thrown across a four-lane road by a little girl only to have her notice he was staring at her despite his tinted windows and distinct lack of a driver inside she looked directly at him like she could tell she was alive and just nodded and said “nice paint job”.

unlike most of the racers who seem to think he was some kind of haunted car demon she looked at him like she was looking at a person like she could tell he was alive as she stared into him in that moment. Then the moment passed

He preened the compliment, he knew he did. He took great pride in his paint job as anyone who met him would know and he didn’t have a doubt in his mind he was the prettiest car there.

Chapter Text

The second time he saw her she had just been punched in the face. And honestly she looked rather surprised for someone who didn’t have much business being these races any way, in knockout’s opinion anyway.

It was night like it always was during these events as they were preparing to race across the Sandy back roads of Nevada. Different groups of humans gather around the cars each we’re getting on. Most of them made a point to avoid the red Aston Martin towards the end of the track, they knew his reputation after all. The Red Devil they called him. He was known for running people off the road who messed with his finish or just generally crossed him on the road. He had heard stories they had seemed to enjoy making up about him, about him being a ghost of some poor dead street racer out for revenge from beyond the grave, honestly it was kind of dramatic for his tastes but that’s the price of fame he supposed.

She was knocked back into him by the force of it. The man who hit her seemed a bit nervous when he realized she was now touching him. Her own eyes were wide as she paused for a moment as though she was still processing what happened or what to do next as she leaned on knockout much to his displeasure. She looked back at knockout and she looked guilty about bumping into him. Good knockout silently thought to himself they could have seriously messed up his paint job. She looked back at her assailant who seemed to gather his courage a bit when nothing seemed to happen with the car and smirked.

“You learn your lesson now kid? Gonna run back home to mommy and daddy now?” He taunted.

“Screw you, you over cocked turkey,” she yelled. Knockout wasn’t sure what exactly a turkey was but it seemed to enrage the man further as he growled at the girl.

“Why you little—” he didn’t finish his thought as she rushed him and delivered one good kick below the belt. He made a squeak as he went down. 

Knockout stifled a laugh at the noise the man made.

“That’ll show you to tell me what to do!” He wasn’t sure what was so funny about it, maybe it was the confidence of such a small creature declaring herself ungovernable to her elders, maybe it was the sound of the man groaning as he peeled himself off the ground while his friends shook their heads not quite willing to push their own luck, maybe it was how she wore blue garments that in an odd way remained him of breakdown and how he too was less than receptive to being pushed around. But knockout laughed.

it wasn’t a powerful laugh, just a light one. It was a while since anyone but breakdown had made him laugh like this. This odd little creature on an alien world simply did not want to be ordered around and made sure this was clear to everyone present.

She looked over at him as he laughed. And tilted her head from side to side as though trying to get a better look at him. Her eyes were very focused. His windows were tinted so it wasn’t as though she could see inside of him but it still left him with an odd feeling as he stopped laughing.

“What? You bumped into me, remember?” He said, trying to shake her piercing stare.

She blinked, “Sorry about that, I wasn’t actually expecting to get punched by that guy. Plus I didn’t want your cool paint or anything,”

“Well you should never underestimate an opponent, but since you also made that skin job regret pushing you into me and gave me a good laugh, I’d say it was a fair trade,”

“You’re not a ghost.” It wasn’t a question.

“Oh?”

“I can tell you’re something but your not a ghost,”

“A bold claim,”

“I know,” she smiled, a friendly one as she tilted her head. “Good luck on the race though,”

She walked off the road and started climbing one of the near by road signs to sit on top of for a better view. Knockout’s eyes were on her as she shimmied a bit tried to adjust her grip as she climbed in a way that suggested it was not a matter of strength but balance in climbing the pole and trying to make it look convincing to the humans.

He wasn’t sure who she was trying to fool after throwing that man last time he had seen her but he had to admit she made quite the show as she finally reached the top to look down on the road.

He wasn’t sure how she could tell he was looking at her or maybe she didn’t and was just making an educated guess but she looked at him and waved. “I’m Dani by the way, what’s your name?"

“Haven’t you heard?”

"that’s what other people call you, like how some people call me kid, what’s your name? What do you call yourself?"

an odd way to phrase it to be sure but he appreciated that she didn’t assume, "Knockout,"

She seemed to light up at sound of the name if he didn’t know any better he’d say she glowed a little, “Cool,” 

The rest of the cars lined up for the race and Knockout joined them but he could still feel her eyes on him in a way he couldn’t describe. 

An odd little thing knockout thought to himself later that night as he laid next to breakdown in their berth to recharge. 

She obviously wasn’t in the room, she had waved good bye to him at the finish line and said she was headed home, she even had the manners to say it was nice to meet him which was far more than most humans had in his experience. But the way she looked at him lingered something in the wide little eyes at the track were off putting in a way he couldn’t place. If he didn’t know better he’d say it was almost like she had an EM feild but if it was a holoform the EM would be centered on the alt-mode not the holoform but that was where it, if it was an EM feild, was centered.

Knockout shook his head, he shouldn’t be losing presous beauty sleep over this he decided, she was only human.

Chapter Text

It was a night like any other before this moment. Though some little skin job who insisted on inducing himself as the new king of the track was running around with his muscle car. Vince, he thinks he heard the fleshy introduce himself, not that knockout cared. Though it did seem he did have some sense to heed the words of his elders about ‘the Devil’ being on the track tonight, though from the way he was being looked at he doubted the hesitation would last. The youth were hardly ever cautious on this planet. Knockout considered running him off the road, off of one of the cliffs to be found either by the animals or law enforcement in the morning with whatever injuries their flesh might have sustained but decided he would wait for now, after all the car’s poor paint didn’t deserve it.

It was a normal night, key word: ‘was’. Dani was panting as she dashed behind him and curled herself up into a little ball.  He could hear her trying to get the sound of her breathing under control as she trembled behind him. Whatever had scared the tiny flesh creature was of no mind to him anyway.

She started making an odd noise before he realized she had apparently decided putting her hands over her mouth and nose and resticing her own air flow was the right way to do it. He may not be a human doctor but even he understood the delicate little species needed air. And He didn’t particularly care to be a hiding spot if he was totally honest, he let out a huff as he asked, “alright, What’s wrong with you?”

He could feel the small tremors in her form even if she didn’t directly touch him it wasn’t hard to to feel it in the air he reckoned, “Hunted,”

That caught his attention. He perked up to see if he now had even more of an excuse to squish the new ‘king of the track’ “Hunted? You’re being hunted? By who?” His eyes are still on the newcomer. This was certainly different from the quite life he and breakdown had made for themselves since landing on earth, besides avoiding the occasional autobot, it wasn't a bad life.

“The feds,” what’s a fed? Knockout thought to himself before his question answered itself.

He saw some humans in well fitted white suits push past some of the racers as they held scanners looking around. They were barking demands at the racers who were less than inclined to answer as they spread out. It was pretty clear to him that these men did not belong on this tract. From the painstaking details that they would have mind with those suits to the matching sunglasses at night he could guess they probably didn’t partially enjoy being sent out into this dark desert to hunt someone. But it wasn’t just that, There was something wild in the humans that chose to race in knockout’s opinion especially when they knew he was near, and these humans did not have that. There was something cold and clinical with them as they made their way through. Dani was wild and free more than anything else he had seen on the road and these humans looked like they might just be able to take that away.

Dani pulled herself into an even tighter ball behind him as she went very still. Knockout swore he could almost feel his own spark in his throat from the suspense but wasn’t quite so sure why he was that invested, it wasn’t like they were going to do anything to him or even could if they wanted to.

“Where is the little twerp?” one of them grunted as he hit his scanner with his hand.

“The thing can’t have just vanished, it wasn't giving out enough power for something like teleportation,” his partner pointed out.

“Wherever it is, we’re going to find it, and when we do we'll take it apart to see how it pulled that trick,” a third cut in with a smile. Knockout would frown, if he could in his given form.

“These freaks never fail to surprise huh?” The first laughed mirthfully.

Knockout was less than impressed with the way they acted though he did appreciate the suits, he did know how difficult it was to keep white clean after all. 

He watched them as they looked over at him with narrow eyes. His tinted windows reveal nothing about his lack of passengers. They continued to stock their way through the area now beginning to look for places she could have hidden away from the cars as Dani began to actually catch her breath and let go of her face.

Knockout was quiet for a moment, primus knows he’s had his fair share of altercations with the law, When he was young but this didn’t feel like that at least not from where he was standing now.

He doesn’t quite know why he feels the need to be gentle as he asks, “Do you want to tell me what that’s about?”

“I really don’t,” she put her head between her knees.

Knockout huffed, “I hid you, you owe me,”

Dani hesitated for a moment before relenting, “I didn’t come from the best place okay? And my dad’s pretty bad too but I’m so totally toast if they catch me, like they’re going to take me apart kind of bad,”

Knockout snorted, “Well that’s delightfully vague, Is law enforcement on this world really that strict? Are you sure you’re not overreacting?”

“They aren’t normal law enforcement, they will destroy me if they catch me,” 

He would have rolled his optics “Dramatic much? Wouldn’t it be easier for them to take you back to your creators and have them handle it?”

“Creator, singular, I don’t need more of him and two he may be the one option worse than the Gu— the feds,”

The slip wasn’t lost on knockout, “What was that?”

Dani cursed herself as she doubled down on her choice of words,“The feds,”

“You we’re going to call them something else,” knockout song-songed before his tone darkened, “now fess up,”

“The guys in white,” Dani relented.

Dani could practically feel knockout rolling his eyes as he spoke “Very clever, now the truth,” 

“I wish I was joking but they in fact work for a federal agency called the guys in white or GIW for short,”

He would have rolled his optics even harder, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” humans in his opinion were truly ridiculous.

Dani mistook this as disbelief, “Why would I make it up?”

There was something amusing about this creature’s indignation, “I don’t know fleshy, you tell me,”

“Fleshy!” Dani huffed even more indignantly.

Suddenly his focus was else where, “Shut it!” 

Dani opened her her mouth ready to stand up and tell Knockout what’s what about calling her ‘fleshy’ before she heard a voice bark “you in the red car!” 

She immediately closed her mouth and resumed her hiding position.

“Yes?” Annoyance dripping from knockout’s words.

“Have you seen anyone suspicious out here tonight?” The agent asked.

“At the illegal race track, have I seen anyone suspicious?” Dani would have laughed at Knockout’s words if she wasn’t so scared.

“Someone who didn’t look like they belonged here,”

“Like a little fe—girl with black hair running away?” He practically purred knowing he was going to get a reaction out of at least one human for this comment.

“Exactly!” The agent agreed not realizing he was being used to mock the target in question.

I am going to melt your car into a toaster oven if you betray me. Dani thought to herself preparing to run again knowing her powers would only make things easier for their trackers.

“She ran past me and past that cliff behind you, the one with the weird out cropping? She went that way,” he pointed with his tires.

The agent didn’t even offer a thank you before turning to his men and yelling what direction to head in to find the suspect as they all began heading away from the race.

“Rude,” knockout said mostly to himself.

Dani finally took in a deepbreath of air as she leaned against him. Knockout internally cringed at the feeling of flesh before she straighten herself back out and began to stand up, “Tell me about it,”  she started walking around to the front of him now noticing how some of the racers were now talking amongst themselves.

“Are you often running from the law?”

“Just when I’m in public,”

“Good I was worried you were boring,”

“Me? Never. Plus I think it’s go time for you, people are lining up,”

“I suppose it is,” he turned and began to drive to the starting line. 

“Wait!”

“What?”

“Thank you, for covering for me I mean,”

“Well it’s not like they were going to let the race start while they were looking for you around the cars, now were they?”

“I mean it though, thank you, most people wouldn’t have done that,”

“Well I’m not most people,”

“I know and—“

“While I do appreciate the praise, I do have a race to win Dani,”

“Yeah you do, give ‘em hell knockout,”

Dani could practically feel his smug look, as he preened, “I intend to,” 

Chapter Text

Knockout had to admit having a cheerleader for him at races was something he could get used to after his last two encounters with the human child. She had seemed quite happy for his victories and he hardly had to run anyone off the road for them. 

That stupid new human Vince was there as well. Generally showing off to one of the more regular crews he’d noticed. Though none of it was particularly interesting to him.

Humans were mostly the same no matter the races he went to but there was something to races in the desert that felt better at least the last few did. Like the excitement could truly be palpable in the dry air.

He kept his distance from the other racers at the start of the race like he always did. Keeping closer to the cliffs and dunes than he would probably have liked but he’d rather the sand than the small talk or needless posturing that always happened. 

The night air was cooling rapidly tonight. The sand wasn’t holding the same heat it had before. The turning of the seasons wasn’t really as physically noticeable in the Nevada desert but there were changes if someone was willing to look. 

He couldn’t explain it but he knew he was going to see Dani again soon. It was like she had already arrived to the track in his mind, but all he could see were those annoying humans who actually thought they stood a chance against him. He had been to a few races in other places since his last encounter with her but something told him he needed to check what happened since then. But all these damn boring humans were not helping as he silently fumed to himself about it.

Of course this was when something or rather someone distinctly not boring decided to show her face. Dani no longer awkwardly stood at a respectful few yards from different groups looking at their cars and watching the people in them. Like she did before but rather the second she arrived her eyes fell on him as she walked up.

“Hey,” she said with a wave.

“Hello,” he greeted back.

“Thanks again for last time, I’m not sure what I was gonna do otherwise,”

“Well what can I say, I am something of a lifesaver,” he joked.

She smiled, “Yeah you really did save me, and now it’s time for me to return that favor,” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Those guys, that the red headed doof is talking to about his over souped green jalopy,” 

Knockout almost choked at the choice of words, talk about saying what you really think knockout thought to himself as he looked at the brand new sports car Vince sported.

“You don’t need to take your dislike of the driver out on the nice car Dani,”

“Would you rather I do his face?”

 Knockout considered what he had seen of her fighting skills and pure brute strength, “Well…” the offer was tempting.

“Anyway that’s not the point. What I’m trying to tell you is they're planning on running you off the road this race,”

He didn’t doubt it, Primus knows he’s done it to enough fleshies by now it wouldn’t have been that hard to believe some of them would try and return the favor. “They are?”

“Yeah, I heard them talking about it earlier tonight,” 

Now that caught his attention, he had been waiting for his cheerleader and she had been doing what? Looking at the other cars? “Funny, because I haven’t exactly seen you around tonight,”

“I’ve been around, just no one was seeing me,” Dani shrugged.

“You think you’re that good?” Knockout scoffed.

“I was invisible, Knockout no one was seeing me,” Dani explained.

Knockout huffed at her words, “Ok now you’re just bragging,” not realizing how literal the girl was.

“What? Did you see me?” Dani asked incredulously.

“Okay, so you’re a master of stealth, who apparently has uncovered a plot to run me off the road, what are you planning on doing about it?”

Dani stopped for a moment as she collected her thoughts on the matter, “Uhhh… let all the air out of their tires? That means their car won’t be able to drive, right?”

Don’t get soft on me now “That’s a little petty don’t you think? Almost tempting them to try again later, right?” he’d seen her throw grown men like they were nothing, he wasn’t about to hear a bit of rough driving was too much for her.

“Well what do you think we should do about it?” Dani asked.

“Frankly I’m just going to run them off the road myself,” it was a tried and true method in his professional opinion.

Dani wrinkled her nose at that, “That feels like it might be worse,”

“Yes but they’re willing to do the same to me, why not return the favor?”

“Because… uh…. Well fair enough I guess,” Dani had to admit it was fair enough from where she stood.

“What, do you feel bad for them?” 

“Not really, but won’t they like return fire, so to speak, with something like that?” She's worried about me. Knockout wanted to laugh at this realization she really thought getting run off the road was as dangerous for him as it was for humans.

“Dani, what do you know about my reputation?”

She perked up a bit at this, “You always win, and you don’t really bring friends along, and uh- most people tend to say you are really touchy about your paint,”

“Dani, do you know why they call me the Red Devil ?”

“Are you mean?”

“I have run more than a few people off the road in my time, this will hardly be the first time I’ve done it to ensure victory.”

“You just throw people into harm’s way to win? A road race?” 

“Well yes,” 

“Oh, okay,” 

Is she actually disappointed in me? Knockout wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or not. This little creature really thought he was anything other than bad news? Give him a break.

“What are you going to warn him now?”

“No, I’m gonna let you do it, and I’ll help if you want me to,”

“But you’re not going to be happy about it?”

“I’m gonna need to vanish for a while if it’s linked to me,” 

“How so?”

“I made a deal with… someone pretty powerful and there are terms to it that technically helping you run someone off the road would count as me breaking it so…” Dani didn’t even want to think about what Danny and Valerie would have to say about this.

“And how are they going to know?” He would have raised a ridge if he could.

“What?” She hadn’t really thought of that.

He wasn’t sure what was compelling him to comfort the little human femling as he kept going, “You’re not getting in this car, Dani, you don’t have a vehicle of your own to race and it’s not like anyone’s recording so unless they’re another racer, I don’t think you need to worry,”

“You haven’t met the psychiatrist on his team, she can make anyone talk,” 

“Well she doesn’t have know, no one does, so as long you can keep your own mouth shut,”

“I— okay.” She took a breath before continuing, “What do you want me to do?”

He laughed. “Nothing,”

“Nothing?”

“You gave me a warning about it so unless you have other information I don’t think you can do much else,’

“The narrow part of the road where you’re just off of RidgePass Road is where they plan to do it,”

“Clever, it’s next to impossible to get cars out of that gully,”

“Please be careful,” Dani asked.

Knockout almost felt pity for her, “You really worry huh?”

“I haven’t survived this long without worrying,” 

“Fair enough,”

“Good luck,” 

“I don’t need luck, kid”, he had been trying to tease her a bit, but the almost reflexive response to being called ‘kid’ had told him he should stop.

“You’re not a ghost Knockout,” she said it like this was meant to mean something to him. She had a dark look he couldn’t place.

“Yes we’ve established this before,” 

“You’re alive, and if you're alive you can be killed ,” she walked off. 

At the end of the race he didn’t stick around for long only slowing down enough to meet Dani’s eyes and seeing a-- no she didn’t really show it, maybe his mind was playing tricks on him but he felt like she was relieved as she saw him. Less the excitement and clapping she had the last time but like some weight had been taken from her. 

Something odd struck his mind as he looked at her, he considered the way she talked about ghosts as though she held an authority over the dead. He wondered if the human had always looked that tired when he had seen her, the color of her blue sweatshirt dull and dusty like dying color nanites on a freshly killed frame. He wasn’t sure where the image of a corpse came to him as he looked at her in his rear window driving off but of all the sparless frames he had seen in his time the bodies of soldiers were nothing compared to the bodies of the young.

Breakdown tried to sooth him when they lay in their berth that night but Knockout wouldn’t have it. The look in her eyes somehow echoed death in his mind, every death all at once. Something empty lived in that look and Knockout did not want to be under it again.

Chapter Text

The energy signal their Energon scanners were picking up weren’t like the signals the autobots had previously seen and if Ratchet didn’t know better he would have said it looked like a sparkling life sign.

“It’s probably just a bug in the system,” Ratchet muttered to himself as he punched in the coordinates, after all why would there be a sparkling on earth after the wells had gone dry around the time bumblebee was born? The youngest members of their species should all be at least young adults by this point. 

The bridge dropped Cliffjumper and Arcee a few miles outside of town to avoid being spotted by humans as they examined the area for whatever was giving off the energon signal. 

“Ratchet said it’s around here somewhere,” Cliffjumper said as they began driving towards the city that the energon was supposed to be near.

Arcee suddenly stopped “Cliff, what do you notice that’s wrong with some of these road signs?”

He stopped and back up in the empty road to look at the sign that Arcee was looking at, “that looks like a plasma burn,” 

The sign in question read ‘Amity Park, a nice place to live’ and was hanging Crooked from its supports and had a few holes blasted into it.

“You think Cons were here?” Cliff asked

“Who else on this rock could have something like that?” Arcee quipped.

“Well, then I’ll race you to them!” As he sped off.

“Cliff!” Arcee shouted as she raced after him.

As they drove into the city they noticed it wasn’t just the road signs, but the buildings had scorch marks as well, there were broken and boarded up windows in some areas. Random craters in the road and sidewalk every now and again that they carefully drove past. Though the people seemed unbothered as they went about their regular day to day lives as Cliffjumper and Arcee drove by.

Cliffjumper comed arcee on their private channel, “Does this town seem off?”

“Besides the random plasma burns on the buildings and the boarded up windows?” 

“It looks like a disaster came through here but no one seemed to care,” he said as they slowed near what looked like it had once been a construction sight for a new building with the steel skeleton now collapsed in on itself.

“We may need to call this in, humans don’t have that type of weaponry” 

“I’m not sure, I mean the humans don’t really seem to care, and Fowler said that us and the Cons have to be under the radar so it’s not like they would just leave everything out in the open like this, right?” Cliff pointed out.

“I still don’t like it,” 

The two of them continued through the town seeing more odd damage as they drove through. The energy source’s signal finally took them to a building labeled ‘FentonWorks’ in big lights with an arrow pointed at it.

“The energon is either in or under this building, Cliff. It’s not accessible without relocating whatever humans who work here and probably a lot of the neighbors too,”

“You want to drive around the block just to check?”

“Why not,”

Cliff noticed something changed in the sensor,“Arcee is your scanner showing you what mine is?”

“The signal has split and part of it is moving, up and through the building.” She said grimly

“So do you think there’s a chance some human scientists found energon and are experimenting on it or something?”

“Maybe but it wouldn’t have had a high enough signal to end up on our reader if it’s a negligible amount,”

As they pulled back infront they noticed a human looking out the window at them.

“Huh, didn’t know humans had bio lights too,”

“What?”

“The human that’s looking at us through the window, his eyes are glowing green,”

This set her nerves on edge “Cliff, human eyes don’t glow,”

The figure seemed to vanish from the window, with it the split energon signal on their sensors.

“What the…”

Suddenly the same human was standing on a roof across from the building he was just in, looking down at them.

“Cliff, did the second energon signal just reappear on that roof where the glowing human is?”

“I’m pretty sure the glowing human is the second energon signal,”

“Scrap,”

He started to float before flying off down the street. Against the flow of traffic much to Cliffjumper’s annoyance.

Arcee quickly made a u-turn cutting off another driver who honked in response, while saying “Cliff you call this in, I’m tailing him,”

The creature was fast as he flew towards the end of the street.

The creature took a sudden turn left as she narrowly avoided a collision with her optics off the road. He kept going and she kept chasing until they ended up with him floating above a parking lot. “You know you’d be better at chasing me if you actually got off the ground right?” He taunted.

“Last I checked motorcycles don’t fly,”

“You sure?” He asked as if expecting some kind of trick.

“You think you’re clever?”

“I’ve made it this far with my friends doing a pretty good job of dealing with your friend in the red car, so uh yeah I do,” he smiled.

“Cliff!” She whipped around to go after her partner. Before suddenly realizing he was directly in front of her. “Ah!”

He put up his hands showing them to be empty, “They’re not going to do anything to him,” he paused as if thinking for a moment, “yet.”

“Yet?” She bit out.

“I don’t know you guys, and I take it you don’t really know me,”

“We weren’t here for you, we were here for an energy signal.” 

He comes an eyebrow not believing it to be true. He made a gesture to keep talking.

“…That might have actually been you, but you weren’t the goal, but I swear if you’ve done anything to Cliff—“

“Cool your jets, right now he’s just being boxed in using some  traffic, and we try not to make habits of firing in areas with a lot of humans.”

“You’re not human?” Eyed him too king for any tells of what he actually was.

He crossed his arms, “I glow and fly through the air, does that sound very human to you?”

“So what do you want with us? And where’s Cliff?” She demanded.

“Your friend is boxed in on Main Street between a silver armored car and a blue sadan, as for what I want,” he paused like he wasn’t sure how he wanted to phrase it, “I want you out of my city, but if you’ve got business with me,” he got a dangerous look in his eye coupled with a confident smiled she wished she could wipe off his face “let’s settle it now,” Arcee couldn’t be sure this creature wasn’t some type of con experiment just looking at it, but honestly what else could he be?

“We came looking for something, you came up on our sensors instead we tracked you because we—“

He cut her off, “You chased me halfway across town, for what?”

Arcee was losing her patience, “energon,” like this thing didn’t probably also run on the stuff.

He kept an unnervingly strong poker face for something that looked so much like a human teenager,“Why?”

“We need it and it a danger to humans,”

“Well, I don’t have any,”

lies Arcee thinks but decided to play along, “I can tell, look we’ll leave if there’s none here but if you hurt my partner I will hunt you down,”

“Yeah you’re going to have to take a number on that one, ‘hunting me down’” he put up air quotes “isn’t really anything new so unless you have a fun gimmick like skulker or Ember I’m not really scared,”

“Is this a game to you?” She snapped.

“Well considering unlike Skulker you threatening to hunt me down wasn’t accompanied by the threat of also skinning me alive and hanging my pelt on your wall as a new trophy, yeah you don’t really scare me,”

Arcee considered those words as the thought that this Skulker person might get along with Arachnid before the idea of someone as vile as Arachnid being on earth made her tanks churn.

“We just needed the energon if you don’t have any we’ll leave,”

“That’s it?” He leaned in closer as if trying to look for a face beneath the visor on her holoform.

“What, you disappointed?” She taunted guardedly daring him to put his true colors on display.

“No, I just normally tend to end up fighting whoever’s new in town so uh it’s not a bad change of pace or anything, just weird. But I meant what I said, this city is mine, I don’t know who you are or what energon is or if it’s dangerous but I don’t want it or you here, this town is enough of a mess as it is,” the way he rattled the list off she almost believed him, almost.

“You’re why this place has plasma burns,” it suddenly occurred to her.

“I’ve done my best to keep the peace, it’s other people who can’t play by my rules. Wow I’m starting to sound like Walker…” he said getting distracted by the thought of whoever Walker was.

“That doesn’t explain the burns,”

“Oh, uh it’s not plasma it’s,” he made a ball of light in his hands. “That,”

She tried not to tense as she tried to make sure no humans could see what he was showing her before looking at the green light in his hands “That looks like plasma,”

“Well it’s not, please leave,” 

“Not without Cliff,”

He put his fingers to his ear, a com she realized, “Let red car guy go,”

Suddenly her own com came to life “‘Cee! Can you come in? Arcee?”

“Cliff?”

“Yeah, I just got trapped by some yahoos that almost ran me off the road before boxing me in, when I realized my com went dead! Did you catch the glowing human?”

“He’s not human and we need to go,”

“What happened? Arcee?”

“It doesn’t matter right now, because right now he wants us gone and we’re going to make a scene if we stay,”

“I’m going to call ratchet and have him open another ground bridge and we can figure it out from there”

As she started driving away he called after her “wait! What’s your name?”

“None of your business!” She said as she sped off.

“I’m Phantom by the way!” He called after her as she vanished around the turn.

Chapter Text

“Hey,” Dani said, walking up to knock out. She waved awkwardly like she was here for something less exciting than the race.

“Hello,” he greeted with his normal levels of swave. 

“ so, uh those guys trying to run you off the road have buddies they were talking to about you…” 

“Oh so I’m running more people off the road today?” He wouldn’t mind it really.

“Well not exactly but one of those guys said your car doesn’t have a driver online apparently and now there’s a rumor going around you’re a ghost…”

Knockout laughed. He laughed hard. She was uncomfortable telling him people thought he was a ghost after what she had to say last time? That’s rich.

“I mean I know you’re alive,” Dani blurted out quickly.

“Dani, do you want to know a secret?”

“Uh…. Sure?”

“Come a little closer, driver’s side, look in the window,”

She approached him and leaned forward but didn’t touch him, “I can’t see inside the glass is too tinted,”

Knockout untinted his windows. She looked into the car and saw no one inside. Front and back seats were empty, with no sign that there’s anyone in the car or that there had been, it looked new inside.

“Spooky, aren’t I?” He teased he figured this would probably scare her off at least for a bit while she thought of a reasonable explanation like humans so often enjoyed doing.

“This is so COOL!” She a nearly yells dashing around him looking in from each of his windows to make sure it all looked the same from every angle.

At least she won’t miss my good side Knockout thinks as the girl does laps around him looking at every window from as many angles as she can think to do.

“That’s awesome!”

“Thank you,”

“Uh, do you want to know a secret?”

“Oh?”

Dani cupped her hands. Knockout didn’t know what she was doing before he noticed a small ball forming in her hands slowly growing larger. It looked like an off color plasma bolt. 

“You gave me a secret, so here’s one of mine,” she said flatten her hands out so he could better see the ball. He looked around thankful that she had enough awareness of her surroundings to make sure he was hiding her. He realized she wasn’t just holding the light, but rather her whole body now had a small glow around her, her eyes were speckled green in the light. The ball look alarmingly like a green plasma blast but somehow stable enough to be held.

Well that’s something indeed

The light faded as the ball shrank back down to nothing.

“Yeah so the race is going to be tailed by a bunch of yahoos trying to film you?” Dani awkwardly explained.

“Ooh, do make sure they get my good side, oh who am I kidding, that’s every side,” 

“Uh… you’re not nervous?”

“Dani, why would I be nervous, you said it yourself my windows are too tinted for you to see in,”

“I don’t know, if I’m on camera I’m toast,”

“Well, then it’s a good thing you won’t be. Besides considering you look like you have some sort of built in plasma blaster, why don’t you just shoot their equipment?”

“Plasma blaster? What’s that?”

“The little trick you just showed me? You were holding a ball of plasma.”

“I was?”

“Did you not know what you were making?”

“No one really told me what it was so I was just kinda calling it my laser ball in my head,”

Not like dad did anymore than the bare basics to make sure I could trick Danny when we first met anyway.

“Laser ball?”

“Well if I shoot at someone it looks like a laser from a sci-fi movie,” she shrugged.

So she’s been in a real fight before, not just scuffles at the track then…

“So do you think if I wait on top of the billboard on the New Mexico street corner I’ll have a good shot to fry the camera they’re sticking to their car?” She continued.

“Well looking at how primitive their set up is I doubt it’s plasma proof.”

“Cool, I’ll watch the race start and then see you on the corner,”

“I think you’re forgetting something,”

“What?”

“How about we are going to be driving there as fast as we can and you, my little cheerleader are on foot,”

“I’ll make it,” 

“Oh will you?” 

“It’s a different trick up my sleeve but I don’t think you’re ready for that one just yet,”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,”

“RACERS GET READY! The race starts in 2 minutes!” The two of them heard someone shout into a megaphone.

“Well if you’re so sure of your little trick I guess I better get ready to race so I can see you on New Mexico Street,”

“Give ‘em hell,” she smiled.

“Don’t I always?” He swaggered as he slowly made his way to the starting line letting Dani keep walking alongside him. He was on the far side of the track right next to the edge.

She stepped back and out of the road when the 30 second warning was given.

A whistle was blown and they were off.

Knock Out loved racing. He loved the wind, the speed, and the knowledge that no one else on this track was half as good as him. He had the best paint job and unbeaten record.

He almost forgot he was being tailed until he passed the billboard. He didn’t see Dani.

Well I guess I was right

There was a blinding green flash behind him and he nearly hit his breaks as he saw the car that once had the camera on it spin out of control with what looks like a plasma shot that went clean through it. It hit two other cars taking all three off the road as one flipped.

He looked around for a moment, briefly forgetting where he was, looking for whatever autobot just opened fire on him until he looked at the source of the shot in his mirrors. 

Dani stood on top of the billboard with a smoking fist looking down at the destruction she just caused with wide eyes. She looked at Knock Out before he rounded his next corner and waved awkwardly with the non-smoking hand.

Danny is going to kill me

Knock Out couldn’t exactly wave back but felt better when he remembered her little plan. 

He calmed down by the time he made it to the end without much of a fight since the next 3 closest competitors wouldn’t be driving again anytime soon. Dani was standing there at the end again cheering for his victory. He wasn’t sure how she managed to beat him here or to the billboard but he could live with that. 

After all there would be other races to talk at. He’d had his fill of excitement for one night.