Chapter 23: An undercover Decepticon
Aboard the Nemesis, Breakdown and Knockout are in the lab. Breakdown has Knockout hooked up to the computer. He opens his holoform program and starts typing to edit the appearance into something that would blend in better in case he would have to get out of the car.
"Why are you editing my holoform?" Knockout asks.
"I thought I could get more information about the kids you and Starscream tried to capture if you went undercover at the Earth school." Breakdown answers.
"Did you tell Lord Megatron about your plan?" Knockout says.
"No, I didn't want to get his hopes up that this plan would be successful," Breakdown says.
After he unplugs Knockout, Breakdown hacks into the school's computer system and adds the name 'Knox' to student list, makes up a human name for Megatron, a fake human address of the house they live in and a fake transcript too before logging out.
"Well, I guess it's time for me to activate my holoform to get this plan started." Knockout says.
Meanwhile, at the Autobot base, Sabrina doesn't sleep well at all because of the pain from her injuries. The teen groans when she hears the metallic footsteps as Arcee and Cliffjumper walk in her room. They stand to the left of her bed. Cliffjumper activates his holoform. He pulls down the sheets and gently shakes her to wake her up.
"No," Sabrina mumbles as she pulls the sheets out of Cliffjumper's hand.
"Come on Sabrina, do you want to late to school?" Arcee asks.
"Yes, just give me five more minutes, please?" Sabrina asks.
Cliffjumper and Sabrina spend two minutes fighting over the sheets. Sabrina finally gives in and slowly sits up.
"I'll leave so Arcee can help you get dressed," Cliffjumper says.
After Cliffjumper leaves Arcee holds out her hand. Sabrina slowly climbs onto it, and they go over to the boxes filled with Sabrina's clothes. She takes out a gold brocade t-shirt with a white, Peter Pan collar, cream tiered tutu shirt and a pair of floral patterned Ballet Flats Loafers. The teenager even teaches Acree how to braid her hair since she can't do it only using one hand. Acree also helps Sabrina put on a necklace with a cross on it. Sabrina tucks it under the collar since she can't remember if she can wear it to school. She also puts on a bracelet she found at the swap meet last summer.
After Sabrina uses her good arm to pick up her backpack, they leave the room to meet back up with Cliffjumper. Sabrina smiles when she sees Graham on Ratchet's shoulder. Ratchet walks over to them as they enter the room. Natasha is sitting on Elita's shoulder.
"Good morning Sabrina," Graham says.
"It would be a better morning if my parents didn't make me go to school. My dad asked the school to make a wheelchair ramp. My mom said you might have to help out for a while." Sabrina says through a big yawn.
"Wait, you said my parents and mom and dad, you didn't use air quotes. Does that mean you're not mad at them anymore?" Graham asks.
"I'm still mad at my parents. I'm just tired of calling them, Mr. and Mrs. Tucker." Sabrina answers.
A few moments later, the skin underneath the cast starts to get itchy, and it's starting to drive Sabrina crazy. Ratchet watches the teen take a pen out of her purse. He snatches it before Sabrina can place it underneath the cast.
"Eh, eh, you're not allowed to scratch." Ratchet scolds.
"Why not? It itches?" Sabrina whines.
"You could get an infection." Ratchet explains.
"What am I supposed to do if it starts to itch," Sabrina asks.
"Don't scratch and try your best not to think about it when it happens," Ratchet says.
"Okay, but I think Cliff should stay at the base for a few days," Sabrina says.
*Why? He is your guardian* Bumblebee says.
"I know, Bumblebee. But if he shows up, people are going to get suspicious. It normally takes a few days for a car to get fixed after a car accident depending on how bad it was." Sabrina explains.
*Okay, so who is going to take you to school?* Bumblebee asks.
"What about if Elita takes us?" Natasha says.
"She could," Sabrina says.
"You have to take me to preschool first," Brandon says.
"I know, Buddy," Sabrina says.
"How come you didn't ask me?" Bulkhead asks.
"Bulkhead your vehicle mode is kind of high off the ground. I can't hop down with only one good ankle." Sabrina says.
"That makes sense, we should get going," Bulkhead says.
"Yeah, Miko doesn't need another detention on her permit record," Sabrina says even though they all know she'll end up getting another one in the future.
Elita sets Natasha down on the floor before she transforms. Ratchet sets Graham down on the floor before Graham walks over to Arcee. She sets Sabrina down, and Graham helps her into Elita's passenger seat. She sets her book bag on her lap before closing the door as Graham goes over to Bumblebee. After he buckles Brandon into the backseat, he gets into the driver's seat. They drive away from the group. They pull up in front of Rafael's house. Bumblebee opens the passenger side door for his partner.
"Brandon, why is he here?" Rafael asks, after fasting his seatbelt.
"We have to take him to preschool," Graham says.
After they drop Brandon off, Bumblebee parks next to Elita, Raf gasps when he sees Natasha helping Sabrina out of the car.
"Who is that girl?" Raf asks.
"Oh that's Sabrina's twin sister Natasha," Graham says. "She just got transferred here; today's her first day." Graham continues.
They get out and walk over to them. Sabrina introduces Raf to her sister.
"How come your parents are still making you go to school?" Rafael asks.
"I was about to ask the same thing," Jack adds as he comes over to them.
"They don't want me to fall behind." Sabrina sighs.
"Someone could just bring you your homework," Rafael suggests.
"I suggested that too, but they refused to let me stay at the base," Sabrina says.
A few seconds later, they see a bright red European sports car, with the inner part of its wheels, painted a shiny gold color. The twins and Graham recognize that car looked a lot like the one that turned into one of the Decepticons that attacked them in the forest yesterday. A boy with short red hair, brown eyes, and a goatee. He is wearing a black t-shirt and a red leather jacket along with an expensive looking watch on his right wrist. He looks in their direction before walking over to them.
"I'm Knox; my family just moved here. I need to pick up my schedule from the office." Knox says. "Could one of you show me there?" He asks.
"Sure, I'll show you, Miko says as she runs up and quickly drags him away.
The whole way to the office, Sabrina along with Natasha and Graham are a little on edge since they will be going to school with a Decepticon. Miko, Jack, and Rafael didn't seem to recognize the vehicle so they may not have seen that Decepticon before. The twins and Graham walk into the room. Mr. Liverance and one of the workers walks up to them. The worker hands Natasha her schedule. Graham helps Sabrina sit down in the wheelchair. Natasha gives Sabrina's backpack to him, and he hangs it on the back of the chair.
"Okay, Natasha, I'll show you to your first class." Mr. Liverance says.
"Okay, bye Graham, Sabrina, I'll see you at lunch right?" Natasha says.
"Probably, and don't worry about fitting in everyone here is nice," Sabrina says.
Graham and Sabrina stop by her locker. She tells him the combination so she can get what she needs for chemistry class. While they go down the hallway to Mr. Henderson class, Sabrina can't help but ponder that the Decepticons are up to something and wants to take them to their ship to experiment on them.
Back at the base, Ratchet is in the lab is coming up with an equation to figure how fast the energon is building up in Sabrina's bloodstream and how long it be until it reaches 50 percent. He goes over to the lab table and sees the water bottle filled with the energon solution he made for the teens. He picks it up quickly, transforms and drives to the school.
Meanwhile, at the school, Sabrina starts to feel light headed as the bell rings, signaling the end of Geometry class. She reaches around to take out her water bottle and whispers some Cybertronian swear words under her breath when she realizes that she forgot to grab it when she left the base this morning. Her vision slowly starts to get blurry, but she makes out Natasha's face as she runs up to her.
"Sabrina, are you alright?" Natasha asks.
Sabrina tries to answer but faints a few moments later. Mr. Jameson runs over to them. Natasha explains to him that their friend Clark has a friend who is a doctor so that he can help her. Mr. Jameson nods and tells her to take Sabrina to the nurse's office. Knox decides to skip class and sees Natasha taking Sabrina to the nurse's office.
Sabrina wakes up long enough to see Knox come up and sucker punches Natasha. She hits her head against a locker. Knox smirks as he watches Natasha begin to lose consciousness. He picks Sabrina up and carries her to the car. He lays her down on the back seat. Ratchet arrives just in time to see the Deception drive off. He parks and his holoform runs into the school. The medic gasps as he enters to see Natasha unconscious a few feet in front of him. The school nurse and the principal are next to her trying to wake her up. He runs over to them.
"Are you one of Clark's friends?" Mr. Liverance asks.
"Yes, I am, I am a medic. What happened?" Ratchet asks.
"I'm not sure, sir, we hear a loud bang. When we came into the hall, we found Natasha like this." Mr. Liverance replies.
"Natasha, wake up!" Ratchet shouts as he tries to wake her up.
Natasha lets out a low groan as she opens her eyes and sees Ratchet's holoform for the first time.
"The new kid, Knox just shucker punched me," Natasha says.
"That is new; I've never had an incident where a new student punches another new student out of nowhere." Mr. Liverance says.
"Natasha, where is Sabrina?" Ratchet asks.
"I don't know; I think Knox took her," Natasha answers as she looks over at Sabrina's wheelchair noticing her sister is gone. "We have to find her." Natasha continues as she tries to stand up.
A dizzy spell stops her. Ratchet catches her before she hits the front of her head on the floor.
"Take it easy, Natasha, I need to take you back to my office," Ratchet says. "You might have a concussion. I'll call some of my friends to help find her; for now, you need medical attention." Ratchet continues.
"Listen to the medic." Mr. Liverance says, "I understand you're worried about your sister, but he is right. Your health is just as important as bringing Sabrina back home." Mr. Liverance continues, not knowing the full extent of the situation they're in right now.
Ratchet helps Natasha outside and into the passenger seat of his alt mode. After he pulls away, Ratchet looks over and see Natasha struggling to stay awake.
"Natasha, you have to stay awake," Ratchet says. "Tell me everything that happened once you were dropped off at school this morning." Ratchet continues.
Ratchet turns on his sirens as soon as Natasha faints after she finishes tell him everything that happened before he came. All of the other motorists pull over for the emergency vehicle as he races to the base. He gets safely outside the city and is a few miles away from the base before Knockout pulls out in front of him. Ratchet quickly transforms and lays Natasha down next a large rock near him.
The Autobot medic feels the energon inside him start to boil as the Decepticon transforms holding Sabrina in his right hand. Ratchet is worried when he notices that Sabrina's face looks worse than it did when Cliffjumper brought her back to the base the first time her energon levels dropped dangerously low, and she lost consciousness.
"Let her go, Knockout." Ratchet snaps.
"Ratchet, I never thought I'd see you outside of the base." Knockout smirks, "Why don't you hand over that energon you have inside that bottle, and I might hand this she-human over to you." Knockout continues as he spots the water bottle filled with energon in Ratchet's hand.
"Knockout, you and I both know that you're bluffing." Ratchet snaps.
"That I am." Knockout smirks.
The Deception puts Sabrina down on a rock before the two medics fight. After Knockout's saw and Ratchet's blade clash several times, sending sparks into the air, Sabrina finds enough strength to wake up long enough to see Knockout snatches the water bottle from Ratchet and then punches him hard enough to make him begin to blackout.
"Ratchet, I'm sorry," Sabrina whispers before passing out again.
Knockout walks calls for a groundbridge. As the portal of a ground bridge opens a few steps in front of him, Knockout picks up Sabrina, seemingly forgetting about Natasha, before he goes into the bridge when he exits the portal the medic heads to the medical bay with his new test subject.
"So, that is the squishy Lord Megatron wanted you to kidnap?" Breakdown asks as his partner walks in.
"One of the three yes, Breakdown. But I'm afraid that she is no use to us while she is in this condition." Knockout answers.
They get to work getting Sabrina's face to return to what they believe is normal for a human so Megatron can question her. They figure out how to reprogram their alien medical tech to work for humans and find out Sabrina's secret as well.
"This is interesting. Now I know why the ship picked up a weak energon signal coming from this she-human." Knockout says. "She has energon following inside her as well as what the human call blood." Knockout continues.
"How did it get there?" Breakdown asks.
"I'm not sure, but I do know that the she-human does." Knockout answers.
Sabrina begins to freak out when she hears two voices that don't sound like Cliffjumper or any of the other Autobots. One did sound like the Deception that tried to kidnap her when she went on the hike with Brandon, Natasha, and Graham yesterday. The other voice was harder to place since she can't even compare it anything that she's heard on Earth.
She feels her strength slowly returning as her migraine also fades away. The one thing she knows for sure when she wakes up is that she is not going to be in the Autobot base. A few seconds later, her vision to return to normal before she sees the face of a Cybertronian. It's bright red and has red optics as well and has a narrow chin.
"Alright, Decepticon, I know I must be on your warship since this doesn't look like the Autobot base," Sabrina says.
"Yes, she-human you are. Do you know why there is energon following inside your body?" Knockout asks.
"No, I don't." Sabrina lies.
Sabrina hears metallic footsteps and turns her head towards the sound to see Megatron walk in. He comes over to her, and she quickly goes back to staring at the ceiling.
"Knockout, did you find out why this human is giving off an energon signal?" Megatron asks.
"Yes, I did, Lord Megatron. It seems the she-human has energon inside her body." Knockout answers.
There must have been enough energon left in Sabrina's system for her Cybertronian side to activate because the teen feels a sharp pain in her neck. She holds her breath to keep herself from screaming. Then tries to think of a childhood memory to keep her Cybertronian side from activating, but everything starts to spin around her since her body couldn't handle the pain. She hears evil chuckles as things go black. This time when she opens her eyes, Sabrina slowly lifts her left hand and touches her neck. She feels cables instead of skin. Slowly moving it towards the top of her head the teen begins to freak out a little when her fingers don't run through her hair.
"Knockout, while she is like this, use the cortical psychic patch to scan her brain to find any information about why this just happened," Megatron says.
Sabrina's heart starts to race since Ratchet told her about the cortical psychic patch. He said that it's a procedure where the mind of one Cybertronian can be joined with another, using a cable connected directly between their brains. The victim's memories can be viewed by both parties, allowing information to be extracted. Fear begins to build up inside her as she looks to her left again and sees a long purple cord attached to a computer before Knockout walks over to her. She gasps when he attaches it to the back of her head.
~ Aliens in Jasper~
Back at the school, Graham walks into the cafeteria. He gets his food and sits down at the table next to Miko.
"Guys, I'm getting a little worried. Sabrina isn't here." Graham says.
"Yeah, someone from her Geometry class should have brought her here." Jack adds.
"What do we do now?" Graham asks.
"We have to believe the 'Bots can find her." Jack says.
"I wish there is a way so I can contact them," Graham says.
Meanwhile, at the base, Elita walks into the main room. She goes over to the computer and starts a search for Ratchet's signal. After she finds it, she locks the ground bridge onto his coordinates, opens the portal and runs through it. Elita gasps when she sees Ratchet on the ground unconscious and goes over to him.
"Ratchet, wake up." Elita says, shaking him.
Ratchet groans as he slowly opens his eyes and sees Elita looking down at him. Elita helps him stand up.
"What happened?" Elita asks.
"Sabrina left the specialized form of energon I made for her at the base that would keep her from passing out in school. I was taking it to her. When I arrived at the school, Natasha was on the floor unconscious. She told me that Knockout was there and took Sabrina." Ratchet answers.
"What was he doing there?" Elita asks.
"I'm sure Megatron must have figured out Sabrina's secret." Ratchet says. "When he transformed to fight me Sabrina was unconscious and looked worse than the first time this happened." Ratchet continues.
"Knockout must have taken her onto the Nemesis." Elita says.
"I know, Elita." Ratchet sighs as he turns around to pick up Natasha. "Even if we locate the ship, we don't have a way of getting into it to rescue her." Ratchet continues.
In the medical bay on the Nemesis, Knockout is watching one of Sabrina's memories on the screen. He and Megatron see Alpha Tron is talking with the human.
"Young one, I am here to tell you that you are part Cybertronian." Alpha Trion says.
"That's impossible. I look like a human." Sabrina gasps.
"That is how the other Primes and I decided to disguise you so the Decepticons couldn't find you." Alpha Trion says.
"Hold on, so I'm an Autobot?" Sabrina asks.
"Yes, but your Cybertronian form will fully activate in the coming weeks." Alpha Trion says.
Knockout chuckles as he walks over to Sabrina and disconnects the patch. Sabrina groans and feels the pain in her neck subside. She touches her neck again and sighs when she feels the texture of skin along with her pulse.
"What is our next move, Lord Megatron?" Knockout asks.
"She knows where their base is. If you need to redesign the cortical psychic patch to correspond to her, then do it. We need to get that information before the Autobots stage a rescue mission." Megatron answers.