No Escape: A TFP OC Story Ch. 17

Overall rated T for violence, gore
This chapter rated T.
 
Summary: Zero devises a way to escape this “prison” of his, still unaware to whom the Autobots are exactly.
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Miko just stared at me for a moment and I began to worry that this was a bad idea and she was going to tell the others. Her eyes deviated away from mine as uncertainty gripped her. “I don't know, what if Ratchet found out?...And what if Bulkhead-” I was losing her.

“C’mon kid! You're really going to let yourself be bound by ‘what ifs?’ I thought you wanted to see some dragon action. Sometimes you gotta break some rules to have some fun” I pushed on, nearly pleading. It wasn't hard for me to figure out her type. She is type that loved to have things her way and she would break rules and disobey orders to have it that way. All she had to do was agree.

“Meh, what the heck” Miko spoke up, shrugging her shoulders as she climbed back on top of my chestplate. “Let the epicness begin!”

She was able to undo the crude straps around my torso but the blue restraints holding my arms and legs proved to be a challenge. Those bots, whoever they were, had indeed taken precautions, putting two sets of restraints per limb. Clever. Miko had started kicking at them before I cleared my throat loudly and gestured with my optic over to the control panel. “Oh! Gotcha!” the girl said, winking at me as she climbed off the table and onto the control console Ratchet was standing at not long ago. Of course, though, she didn't free me right away as she stood there, staring at the controls with the most dumbstruck face I've ever seen.

“Hurry up!” I hissed. Any one of those bot's could walk in the room at any minute and I'd surely be locked up here forever.

“I don't know which one of these is the off switch!” she replied.

“Try one!”

“Which one? There's a billion of them!”

“Any one!! Just hurry up before someone sees!”

Taking my advice, the human walked all over the console, pressing each button and pulling every lever. Most of them did nothing and I was really starting to get impatient.

“Aha!”

Just as she said that, all the restraints confining me vanished. Lifting my hands, I flexed my digits and very sore wrists. I sat up and dangled my legs over the edge of the table, getting a strange tingly feeling all over my body as energon rushed throughout my numbed systems. I stretched a bit more before sliding off the berth. It felt so good to be released from those horribly tight restraints and I mentally cursed the bots. Looking at Miko, I saw her staring back with an emotion I couldn't read from her face. Awe? Regret? Fear? Scrap. I had to think fast before she ran off to tell everyone else.

“Hey, check this out”

As I said that, I transformed into my Predacon mode. Her expression went from mixed to complete awe. “So cool!!” I heard her say, but as she observed me, a look of concern sprawled across her face. Confused, I looked to where she was looking, but I felt it before I saw it.

From my backside where my wings should be were nothing but exposed circuitry and leaking energon. It ran down my sides and made large puddles on the floor. Ratchet, amongst all the excitement, must've forgotten to check the compartment in my back that held my wings in bot mode, which had been filled to the brim with energon. The only thing that must've kept me from bleeding out was the tubes pumping me with energon. I growled low, immediately stopping when I realized I was frightening Miko.

“Hey, you know what? It’s alright” I lied. “They’re just..wings...n-nothing important.” It hurt to sputter those words. Miko, seemingly halfway convinced, nodded slowly. “You should have Ratchet take a look at them, though. I can go get him!” she chimed in, starting to climb off the console.

“NO!!!” I all but shouted. I mentally slapped myself and prayed that by whatever impossible means that no one heard me. Miko paused and looked to me. “I-I just really need to get out right now, it’s too stuffy in here. Whaddya say?” I could tell that she wasn’t fully convinced so I decided to go in for the kill. “Would you like to ride a Predacon?”

She grinned widely before climbing back onto the console. I, too, grinned and lowered myself as so she could climb on. Now the bots couldn’t hurt me if they found me. So good so far.

As soon as she got on, I rose. It felt odd to have someone on me, hugging to hold on. It was a...nice feeling. “Now, where’s out?” I asked her, noting that there was a ground bridge but I didn’t know how to use one. “Well, there’s a normal exit but there’s nothing much outside base unless you want to see the amazing span of never ending desert” she replied sarcastically. She hopped off of me and onto the ground bridge switch panel. I cocked my head at her. “You know how to operate a ground bridge?” I questioned. “Nope, but it can’t be that hard, can it?” she responded, tapping the screen a few times till it brightened. “Ha! Got it! So where to? Washington, California, Hawaii, Tokyo?”

“Anywhere. Anywhere far from here” I responded in a rather desperate and rushed voice. “Hurry, the others might get us in trouble.”

“Okay, Tokyo it is!” Miko piped, setting the coordinates and hopping back onto my back. “I can’t flip the switch, it’s too hard.” After hearing this, I quickly used my muzzle to flip the switch. Within a matter of seconds, a whirling spiral of green and white appeared in the tunnel and I ran into it with Miko cheering joyfully on my back before it had the chance to expand fully.

Her yell must’ve caught the attention of the others (which surprised me with all the noise we were making before) because I heard Ratchet gasp and protest just before I exited the other side of the bridge. It was dark and pouring rain; it must’ve been really late here in this Tokyo place. Brick walls were on either side of me and there were waste bins around me.

“We must be in an alley,” Miko commented, attempting to shield her already soaked self from the large bullets of rain. I heard a louder commotion behind me in the still open bridge and I booked it out of the alley and out into an open street. Cars raced up and down the lanes, several swerving around me. There were blinding bright lights all around the city on just about every wall and building, advertising weird human things in this strange language that I couldn’t understand. Miko squealed with delight and I continued to run amongst the cars, trying not to hit or trip over any of them. Several drivers yelled angrily at us, again in a language I didn't understand.

“STOP!!! ZERO STOP!!!” I heard Arcee yell out in the distance, swerving past and in between cars in her motorcycle mode. Bumblebee pursued after her, bleeping protests at me, most of which I didn’t catch over the loud commotion of the city and rain.

I didn’t stop. I was so close to absolute freedom, why would I stop?

“Don't shoot! He's got Miko!” came Bulkhead’s voice.

“Uh, Zero? I-I think that’s enough, we should go back already!” I heard Miko shout in my audio receptors, clinging onto me for dear life. I could hear the fear creeping in her voice as if she realized just how dangerous and very much real the situation was. My spark pounded fearfully as well and I didn’t answer right away as my focus was entirely centered on escape. “I can't go back, I'm almost there! I can't stop.” I was running blind; the tail lights of passing cars left bright streaks of blurred red in the dark alongside the blurs of the city lights. Miko was fastened to me so tight that her nails had begun to dig under my armor. The loud ‘boom!’ of thunder echoed throughout the sky after the flash and crackle of lightning. Rain pounded even harder on us, making it nearly impossible for me to see through it. Faster, I had to go faster, I was almost there, almost free.

Except that hope was too good to be true.

I slipped on the wet asphalt and slammed into a huge truck driving past. Miko buried her face into my neck and screamed as we were sent flying, the street speeding beneath us. Out of some impulse, I transformed into my bot mode and grabbed ahold of Miko, cradling her close to my chest as I curled myself protectively over her and closed my optic tightly as I prepared for impact. My backside slammed excruciatingly painfully into the ground, tearing up the street as I continued to skid further down the road. The noise my metal self made against the ground was horrible, high pitched enough to bust the audio receptors of anyone within the distance. I could hear the bot’s screams when I came to a stop, Miko still cupped in my hands against my chest. I opened my optic weakly to see that the line of broken road was lined with my energon. I felt my systems giving out and I closed my optic once more, shaking with the waves of pain that wracked my body. I opened my optic once more to see Miko had forcibly shoved my hand off her and was looking at me with tears and a very worried/shocked/scared expression.

“Z-Zero?” she whispered.

I could only groan in response as my optic flickered and my vision was going staticky. Four blurred figures of bots rushed over to us, one of which I didn't recognize but was much taller than the others along with a red and blue paintjob. The wrecker hurriedly grabbed Miko away from me before aiming in his cannon at my face. Smoke began to emit from my small frame and I could feel the emergency stasis coming on as the whirring sound of systems shutting down echoed throughout me.

Arcee stood over me, her blaster aimed at me as well as everyone else's, before she slapped on a pair of stasis cuffs, giving me one of the most hateful looks I have ever received.

“You're under arrest, Predacon.”