Chapter Four: Something's Going on Here…
Fiorla: Now we're getting into the plot here in this chapter. There's been a change of plans that I think have made the story much more exciting.
Berry: HEY! There they are! The Transformers are here Fiorla!
Fiorla: Good, we need them for this chapter.
Miku: About time too, I thought they'd never come!
Disclaimer: I only own Giathon and everything on it, everything else belongs to ether Hasbro or the Universe.
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"Alright, I'm bushed. No one disturb me, I'm searching for the softest pile of covers, and going to sleep…" Sashi slowly climbed into her bed, and allowed her head to fall into the pillow. H.S shook his head in embarrassment, and Arsi giggled at Sashi's weird behavior.
It's been a week since they arrived in Meteor City, and the changes have started to show through in everyone's behavior. Kio is becoming more skilled in martial arts, and is maturing faster then Sashi thought possible. Arsi is learning about the basic Giathonian body, and how to cure sickness and broken bones, and other things that all medical officers should know about. Mechanic isn't as much of a problem as medical doctor is, she already explained how she rebuilt robots back home, and so that was a big help. Sashi…well, was sleeping in more and more each day, nothing had changed about her, only that her knowledge in leadership was growing, but no one saw any difference then that. They have all been introduced to their personal Space Explorer 2115, and have all received the names of their teams. Sashi, Kio, and Arsi's spaceship was named Cosmos, so the title of their team was Team Cosmos. Sashi, when she wasn't learning anything, spent most of her time with the ship, admiring, the red and white paint job and the style the space ship had been given. The front was pointed, and had a huge black visor where the passengers would be, a huge fin like item on top of the ship, jet like wings with plasma cannons on each, and an engine in the back that would expel a plasma made blue fire. It would be strong enough to send them into space and beyond.
Today they were just relaxing since it was the weekday, and Sashi had a schedule ahead of time with one word on it. Sleep. Kio, on the other hand, decided that he would read the new on the new computer that the President had set up in each of their rooms. Radio was by his side, helping him search the web with his tracking systems.
"Sashi, you've been in bed all day, it's about time you should get up, and walk around!" Kio twirled around on his chair, facing Sashi who had brought up her hover board and was snoozing with it. They had also learned how to ride their hover boards too, but they were still on the beginners level though.
"Meep, mep meep meep meo." Radio clicked after Kio finished his sentence.
"…no…too…tired…[Snore" Sashi plopped back into the bed with a snore, though Kio knew she wasn't really sleeping.
"Alright, that's it. You wanna deal with me? Or quit being a pain in the tail?" That got her attention. "Your choice, I'm coming in five…" she sat up, giving him a disbelieving look. "Four…" Fear quickly took its place, and she struggled to get all the covers off. "Three…" All the covers were off, and she scrambled to the edge of the bed. "Two one times up!"
"HEY!! That's not fair, you cheated! CHEATER!!! Shun the cheater!!!" Sashi screamed as she scampered away to escape from Kio, who was currently laughing his bum off.
Arsi came in from the kitchen. When she saw the two friends tossing about in the beds, she laughed, and said, "Hey guys, do you think you can help me with these fairy berries? I'm trying to cover them with chocolate, but there's a lot of them."
Kio ran to Arsi's side, leaving Sashi to fall to the ground with a thump while he responded, "Oh yes, of coarse I'll help you with the fairy berries, just let me loose and I'll cover them all before you can say 'Kio'."
"Showoff…he just wants to impress Asri, that's all he wants to do." Sashi mumbled, but Kio's keen cat ears easily heard her.
"What was that?"
"Nothing!"
That's when Radio said something that was unusual… "MEEP!!! MEP MEO MEOP MEEP MEEP MEEP! Mend Mof Morld!!!"
Kio came to the computer, along with everyone else in the apartment, and stared at the file Radio had found. It read in bold letters, "End of Giathon: Is our Planet Giathon Dying?" Kio read out the rest of the paragraphs.
"All over the Giathon, there have been reports of energy failure among many of the countries across the ocean. Although it is unknown as to why this is happening, we all know that Giathon depends on energy, and the radiation coming off the planets core has effected everything around it, including us. But for some reason, areas that volcanoes constantly spew volcanic lava, they have suddenly gone dry, the volcanoes are now non-active. And area's that have been in a never ending snow storm are now clear with the sun shiny down on glaciers, melting them and the lower region is now morphing into a desert. Rainforests are dying, lakes are drying up, and many creatures are going extinct. But why is this happening?"
"A local of one of the villages claims that he saw a massive black and purple being with a single eye, and a strange gun in his hand shooting at the soil, and leaving a huge crack in the ground. That's when all the plants began to die, wither up, and fall to the ground. The being seemed to be mechanical, and whatever it is, we believe that thing is stealing our planets energy, the energy it needs to sustain life. The local was lucky, he says, the being saw him, but simply walked away with an odd box with many holes on top."
"We have a global reading on the energy sources, and as you can see to your left, it is growing weaker every minute. This is a national crisis, and we must solve it as quickly as possible…or we might lose our only home."
"What does that mean? Lose our home…" H.S whispered quietly, the tone of his voice sad and worried. Sashi didn't blame him, they were all worried. The end of Giathon? Their planet dying? It seemed to be a hard thing to believe, but…the readings were there, and however slowly they were dropping, it was still losing energy.
"We have to show this to the president." Kio stated, and he plugged the computer to the printer.
"We don't know if he'll believe us…how do we know it's real?" Sashi asked. If they were going to show this to the president, the one thing she had learned is that you need proof in order to show your case.
"With that."
Arsi gravely pointed to the plant, which was green one second, but then it began to wilt rapidly, it's green changing to a yellow, then brown, and finally black, dying before their very eyes. Sashi's eyes widened in horror as the plant fell apart and became nothing but ashes in a matter of seconds. Erie silence took place as the three blinked, trying to not think about what just happened. No one spoke for a very long time…until Sashi whispered,
"I think we should go…now…"
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"Mr. President, Team Cosmos would like to speak with you."
A wolf guard in front of the large doors spoke into the radio on his shoulder, eying the six members of Team Cosmos stood tall, trying to live up to their brief training. When you're addressing to a higher rank, always stand tall, don't show your fear, and be yourself. That what they had said, but their eyes told an entirely different story as Kio held the report, and Arsi held the ashes of the plant. Sashi held nothing, since there was nothing else to be held that was of much importance.
"What would they like to speak of, if I may ask?" the president's voice said through the communicator.
The guard glanced at them, waiting for an answer. Instead of Kio answering, Sashi took a deep breath, and said, "It's private, we'll only tell the president himself."
"It's private."
"Let them in."
The guard nodded, and pressed the green button behind him that opened the door. Slowly, the door was brought up, revealing the high ceiling wide room of the president's personal bedroom, library, and kitchen. The library was on the top level; the kitchen was off to the left, and the bedroom door to the right. That left a long table in the middle with a large window overlooking the outside world of Meteor City. Sitting in front of the table, was the president, overlooking some papers that had been placed before him. When Team Cosmos entered, the door behind them closed, only then did he look up from his work. He smiled when he saw the three members of Team Cosmos, and said, "Good evening, Team Cosmos. What is it you'd like to speak of so privately?"
"We found something…disturbing." Sashi said, and glancing back at her friends, paced to the presidents chair, and took a seat two seats back. Kio and Arsi followed her lead, sitting beside each other behind Sashi; The S-Bots plopped onto the table and listened to their partners as they conversed.
Kio handed the president the papers he had printed, along with the charts, and they all waited patiently as he read it. His eyes widened, and he looked back up at all of them. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, we have proof to show." Arsi brought the jar up, and placed it in front of the confused president.
"But, this is ash on soil. How is this proof?" The president examined the black dust further, seeing nothing strange about it.
"It may look like ash now, but that was a plant that was alive and healthy this morning. There was nothing wrong about it. " Arsi pulled out a pinch of ash in between her fingers, and watched as the ash grew smaller and smaller, until there was nothing left. The president didn't react very quickly; he blinked, and then looked back at the ash with a different expression. "It's like the very life force of this plant has been drained from it, killing it, and turning it into dust."
The president shook his head. "I'm sorry, that's not the case. This was one of the experiments the scientists had worked on; it was supposed to shrivel up into nothing. I'm glad you're all concerned about the well fare of Giathon, but as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to worry about."
He signaled towards the doors. "Now, please return to your rooms, you'll begin training once again after tomorrow, so rest up while you can. And practice!"
The befuddled fox squirrel walked out of the room, mouth open and eyes wide with surprise. Did the president just kick them out? It wasn't like him at all, he was usually a very kind man, but here they we're, back outside his room, and he said there was nothing to worry about! They returned to their apartment in silence, embarrassed, confused, and overall, curious. Kio sat in front of the computer again, with Radio close behind him, but didn't do anything; he just sat there and thought for the rest of the time. Arsi decided to make a little dinner for them to eat, and went into the kitchen, leaving Sashi and H.S sitting on the bed, glancing at Kio, then back out the window overlooking the gardens.
"He's hiding something."
"What?" Sashi perked her ears when Kio said this, her long yellow and brown tail twitching at the sudden voice.
"The president. He's hiding something, and isn't showing it." Kio twirled around on his seat, facing Sashi with a serious gleam in his gray eyes. Arsi poked her head in from the door, listening.
"What makes you think that? Why would the president hide something from us?" Sashi didn't understand, the president? Hiding a secret? Now that was really wrong, he wouldn't do that without a good reason!
"When we were talking to him, he paled, but said nothing was wrong. His voice cracked, his tail started to twitch rapidly, and his fur started to ruffle. Fox squirrels hate lying, and you can tell when they lie really easily. The president was definitely lying to us." He slumped in his chair again, thinking for a minute, before admitting, "As for why he's lying, the only reason I can come up with is because he doesn't want us to get hurt. I mean, we still don't know how to defend ourselves. We have a lot of training before we can face any danger, whether it's a sickness or an enemy."
"So you're saying that Giathon really could be dying?" Sashi gulped, she was hoping the president was telling the truth, but Kio was right! He was twitching his tail when he said there was nothing to worry about, so…
"It's possible, but there's nothing we can do about it. Hopefully the president is trying to contact Talon about this, so maybe he will attempt to slow the process." He looked outside of the window; tail swishing so hard at that moment it could've broken a statue. "But that thing…that purple and black thing with the one eye… I wonder if it really is real."
"Yeah…hey, what's that noise?" Arsi walked in, and stood beside Kio. He turned away from the window, and signaled both Sashi and Arsi to come over. They both did, and as they did this, he accessed the Internet.
"It's my email alert, I must've gotten something…" He tapped the keyboard rapidly, his fingers flying across the buttons like a hyper active fox squirrel as he clicked the button saying "New Email", and continued, "Whatever it is…"
He scrolled down towards the bottom of the list, and stopped and the email saying, "Unknown" and said in a low growling voice, "Oh great, now what is this?"And on the letter, it said four words:
ALL HAIL MEGATRON
SHOCKWAVE
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A month later…
"He sent another email!" Sashi clicked on the unknown word, opening the letter and rolling backwards so the others could see. H.S, Radio, Rain, Kio, and Arsi crowded around to see the new letter that the unknown person had just sent.
ALL HAIL MEGATRON
SHOCKWAVE
I'LL BE SEEING YOU SOON, ORGANICS...
"Okay, that's the fifth time he's said that already! How many more times must he let us know he's going to be having a tea party with us?!" Kio shouted in frustration, clawing his hair and growling in annoyance. Radio began to sing a soothing tune, trying to calm his hotheaded partner.
"Yeah, and who is this Megatron? He says it in all his letters. Does he idolize the guy or what?" Sashi spoke to H.S, who only shrugged his shoulders, as confused as she was.
In the past month, Sashi, Kio, and Arsi have been getting strange emails from this guy who calls himself Shockwave. But whenever they asked any of the other teams, they all said they haven't gotten much email lately, especially letters with the title Unknown. They tried tracking down the emails with the S-Bots, but they always come up with a blank and confused look. Sashi asked H.S what was wrong the first time they tried, and H.S explained that there was no source. It was like whoever sent the mail simply placed the mail in the mailbox by hacking into their account. So there was no trail to follow, it always led to a dead end. But, besides the mysterious emails they've been getting, Sashi and the rest of Team Cosmos have improved much since they first arrived here. They've all passed the basic training of hover boards, and are now learning handy tricks and practicing how to not fall of the hover board when in gliding mode. Kio passed the first couple tests on fights, and he even beat the teacher once, and as for communications… so far, he has been taught about languages, how to respond, and even learned the dot code in case of emergencies. Arsi now had permission to use a variety of medical tools, and if was taught about plants and animal parts, what types of plants she should avoid, and what plants could help her heal. Sashi has past almost all the leader classes, and now only had two more to go until she could be a master. The teacher says she's a natural leader, though she may not seem like it, and is wise beyond her age. Though…that mood only appears when she really needs it. "She's like a coin. She keeps to one side most of the time, but when needed, will flip over to reveal the other side." That's what he said to Kio and Arsi. They're all very proud of her.
But since they were almost ready to take the test, they had finally been shown on what they would be doing in space that actually required this sort of training. When the president did tell them in a letter, it left all the teams gawking and shocked to their bones. They would be traveling across the solar systems to the farthest planet, which was Norin, then put the ship on auto pilot and let it warp to certain coordinates, which would be programmed into the ship before lift off. They would all be together, so there was nothing to worry about. Other then the fact there was an asteroid field between them and Norin.
So today everyone had to come to the main room for special control training from the president himself, but how they would do that, Sashi had no idea.
Arsi glanced at the clock that hung over their beds, noting, "Guys, it's almost time to go. Want to get there early or wait?"
Without hesitating, both Kio and Sashi turned away from the computer and said, "EARLY." It was a nightmare to travel in a huge group, even though they were in front of everyone.
So they all walked out into the hallway outside, matching their stride and allowing Sashi and H.S to take the lead. Even though she was young, she was growing to be a fine leader, and Kio, Arsi and the rest of the S-Bots knew that. So as they walked down the hallway, when anyone gave Sashi an odd glance, she simply smiled, and walked on, not even paying attention them. She could always get them later. 'Oh, I have such an evil mind.' She thought with a smirk, and she couldn't help but agree with herself.
When they came to the huge social room on the bottom floor, they were all surprised to see that there were game consoles, twenty one, lined up in three isles of seven. But Sashi took a closer look at one, and exclaimed, "Hey, these look exactly like the inside of the command room! All those buttons and switches are here!"
Noticing a slight difference between the back row and the middle, Sashi glanced at the side of the game consoles and found a title put in bold, "Communication Officers" Pointing at the title, she pointed out, "Kio, I think you go in this isle!"
"Why do you…oh." Kio stopped his question when he saw the sign. Taking in a breath, he glanced at Sashi's beaming face. "Alright, wipe that smirk off your face, and get to your seat. The other's are starting to come in."
Sashi did so, after accompanying Arsi to her seat, and skipping off to the leader's isle. There, they played around with the switches and buttons, getting the feel of their station until the rest of the groups filed in. Sashi could barley hear the voice calling her with the headphones covering her ears, but when someone poked her, she glanced up and came face to face with the large leader of Team Stardust, Ushop.
"Oh, hey Ushop! I haven't seen you for a while." Sashi waved to Ushop's little seagull S-Bot, Skipper. She had gotten to know Ushop in leader class, and eventually became friends with him along with his S-Bot.
"Yeah, I was about to say the same Sashi. How's Team Cosmos doing?" He saw the disturbed look in Sashi's eyes, and frowned. "You're still getting those emails?"
"The S-Bots tried to trace the emails to the original account who's sending them, but it led back to ours…which means the person is hacking into our computer." Sashi dipped her head, her long ears now nearly touching the floor.
"Hm…what did it say this time?" Ushop took a seat next to Sashi, and placed the headphones around his neck, but continued to listen to Sashi.
"The same thing it's been saying this past month! All hail Megatron, Shockwave. Then explaining at the bottom that he'll be seeing us soon. But the strange thing is…is that he keeps calling us organics." Sashi eyes grew wide as she realized something. "Wait, if the letters keep calling us organics…"
"Then that means that whoever is sending the letters is a robot!" H.S beeped for her, finishing the sentence for her.
"Exactly! Why didn't I realize it before?" Sashi mentally slapped herself for being so oblivious to that fact.
"We'll, the lesson's about to start, so let's think about it later, okay?" Ushop pointed through the space between the consoles and towards the president, who was programming some sort of paper into the master computer, Qutor.
"Teep teep, teop tep teep teep teep!" Skipper quickly said, doing a little cheering dance in midair.
"Yes, let's do our best crew! You can do it, Sashi!" H.S replied with a grin plastered on that tiny face of his. Sashi smiled, and turned to the computer screen, which the letters "YOUR LESSON IS ABOUT TO START" had just appeared.
The last session that they needed before finally traveling into space was about to begin.
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Fiorla: Oh boy, things are getting fired up! Sashi is going into space soon, and who's sending the mysterious letters?
Berry: It's quite obvious who's sending them; I'll give a cookie to those who can guess!
Miku: You'd better have a lot of cookies then, Berry.
Berry: I've come prepared, Miku.
Fiorla: Thanks, White Hunter for the reviews! I really appreciate your support; I hope you continue to enjoy this story! The same goes for the rest of you!