I watched Bulkhead and Bumblebee as they were being defrosted, while keeping Swiftcut #2 occupied, which was like trying to entertain a child on caffeine. "I'm telling you, we're fine," Bulkhead said, standing up while removing the cords from him. "The only way you can be fine, is to endure standard defrosting procedure. You know contact with sub-zero temperature can cause permanent system damage," Ratchet says as he pushed Bulkhead back to a sitting position.
"Ratchet, have you learned anything of our arctic fine?" Optimus steps in. "Not yet, the pod can't be opened while it's frozen solid," Ratchet replied. Bulkhead and Bumblebee have returned from the arctic with a strange pod, which of that I do not find to my liking. I watched Bulkhead and Bumblebee drive out of the base after they were defrosted.
"Don't you think that bringing that pod was a bad idea? It could have a reason to be at the arctic. What if what's inside it has the earge to kill? Like what humans said: "curiosity killed the badger"," I said. "You mean 'Cat', sir?" Swiftcut #2 corrects me. "Y-Yeah," I said in embarrassment.
"Then, Arcee and I will search the arctic for the origin of our find," Optimus said. I blinked. "W-What? Why can't we just throw the pod back into the arctic and forget about it?" I asked. "And make Bulkhead and Bumblebee's search worth nothing?" Arcee crossed her arms. "...Sorry, it's just that-" I sighed. Arcee smiled, "Don't worry, we'll be fine.
"Only until your sensor's sound," Ratchet says, "Remember, once your core temperature drops to the blue zone, system failures are likely,"
I turned my attention towards the entrance, seeing Bulkhead and Bumblebee return with the humans. "Miss us, doc-bot?" Miko smirks as she steps out of Bulkhead. Ratchet lets out a groan in annoyance, "Shouldn't they be in school?" "On a Saturday? We have the whole weekend off, to spend with you," Miko said. "Why do you think I'm here?" I rolled my optics at Ratchet with a smile.
"I wasn't expecting a car pool. What gives Arcee?" Jack asked the blue female. "It's my turn for exploration duty," Arcee replied. "Oh, too bad. It's a beautiful day for a drive, wouldn't want you to feel guilty leaving me indoors," Jack crossed his arms, looking up at Arcee with a smile. "Arctic exploration duty," Arcee corrects herself.
"Indoors where it's warm," Jack says with a grin. "The arctic? I've always wanted to see snow," Raf says with a enthusiastic smile. "I would invite you to come along with us, Rafael, but the conditions are too extreme, even for we Autobots," Optimus says. "Oh, okay, I understand," Raf said with a little bit of disappointment. Optimus starts his way towards the bridge opening, then stops. "But, I will bring you back a snowball" I let out a slight giggle.
"That would be awesome," Raf's smile returned. Once Optimus and Arcee were gone, I made my way over to Bulkhead and Bumblebee, along with the humans. "So, what should we do today?" Miko asked. Bumblebee makes excited beeps as he made gestures with his hands, as if he were holding a video game controller. "A video game tournament!" Raf grins, "Last one standing wins!" Bumblebee cheers.
"Bulkhead, Bumblebee, get over here, now!" Ratchet catches the attention of the males. I blinked and watch them leave our group to join Ratchet. I exchanged glances with the humans and shrugged my shoulders at them. I looked back up and ignored the humans playing games, but set my attention on the Autobots. I swooped down to pick up Swiftcut #2 and left the humans to join the rest of the Autobots.
"What's the problem?" I asked. "The ground bridge is down," Ratchet replied. I accidentally drop Swiftcut #2 from my arms going limp. "Hurry and move those panels," Ratchet says to Bulkhead and Bumblebee. "I-Isn't there anything I can do?" I asked. "Irresponsible parent, Irresponsible!" Swiftcut #2 shouts from the floor, mentioning about me dropping her.
"At the time being, no," Ratchet replied. I looked down at Swiftcut #2 and picked her up, while she was still rambling on. I pressed the gem-like button on the doll's chest and she was turned back into a cube. I sighed a her and placed the cube on the platform near me. There was a brownout, which caused me to yelp a bit. Ratchet removes one of the green chips from the panel, which had marks as if it was chewed at.
"We most defiantly have a problem. But, what could have caused this?" Ratchet asked. Another brownout, making me flinch. "Or that," Bulkhead says. "It might be the main grid. Hopefully it isn't a sub-station malfunction," Ratchet looks at the chip again. "Hey, look what I've found!" Raf calls out. "We're busy- Ahh!" Ratchet suddenly yells in horror.
I blinked and looked over at Raf, seeing a metal creature in his arms. The Autobots start to panic and step away from Raf while Bulkhead and Bumblebee were pointing their cannons at the creature. "Hey! What's with you guys?" Miko asked, standing in front of Raf with Jack while holding up her hands.
"Scraplet! Scraplet!" Bulkhead yells. "What's a Scraplet?" Raf asked, jumping a bit to speak directly to the Autobots while Jack and Miko were in his way. "The most dangerous vermin to ever crawl on the face of Cybertron," Ratchet replies in fear. I glanced at the Scraplet, then burst out laughing. "This? Are you kidding?" Jack chuckles slightly. "You guys are like, huge! Scrapy here is, teeny," Miko says.
"Yeah, what can this cute little thing do?" I start walking towards Raf. "Ariona, you don't understand! Get away from it!" Bulkhead shouts. I kneel down in front of Raf and smiled at the Scraplet, seeing it open it's optics. "Hey little guy," I say in a calm, soothing voice as I reached out my hand to it. The only response I get from it, was the Scraplet opening it's mouth and relieving thousands of metal shark-like teeth.
I yelped and stumbled back, quickly getting back up and running behind Bulkhead, looking from behind him while making a confused, but frightened expression. The Scraplet jumps out of Raf's arms and crawls towards us, gnashing it's teeth. I immediately bare my blades, putting them together to form a gun and shoot at the Scraplet along with Bulkhead and Bumblebee. The Scraplet jumps onto the nearest bot, Bumblebee and starts to eat it's way his leg.
Bumblebee starts to panic more and tries to grab at the Scraplet, falling backwards during the process. Once he had the Scraplet in his hand, Bumblebee flings the thing across the room. The Scraplet fixes itself and gets ready to have a go at us again. Raf ran towards the Scraplet with a crowbar and yells as he swings it down. Raf continues to his the Scraplet until it was offline. Jack grabs the crowbar out of Raf's hands before he could swing again, "Easy, killer,"
"I-I didn't expect that to happen..!" I say, still in shock. "Bumblebee, I'm sorry!" Raf says as he ran up to the yellow bot. 'Don't worry about it,' Bumblebee beeps as a reply. "Is he going to be okay?" Raf asked, looking up at Ratchet. "Only a mesh wound," Ratchet lets out breath, "He'll live,"
"Now do you believe me!" Bulkhead said, mostly looking at me, "All Scraplets do is eat anything metal, including living metal!"
I bit my lip, ever thinking that a Scraplet would be cute, "Luckily I didn't have to face any during the war..." I mumbled. "So, the bug's squashed. Game over, right?" Jack shrugged his arms. "No. When it comes to Scraplets, there are more than just one. And I fear that I may know how they got in here," Ratchet replied.
:
"I knew that we should have thrown that pod back into the arctic when we had the chance!" I shout. "It's not a pod. It's a Scraplet trap," Ratchet corrects me. "An empty Scraplet trap," Bulkhead adds nervously. "This must have been ejected into space eons ago, only for it to wind up in the arctic where the temperature kept theme in stasis," Ratchet says. "And they have the urge to kill," I crossed my arms, mentioning again of what I've said before.
"So, how many Scraplets are we talking about?" Raf asked. "A thousand. With the power outage and ground bridge damage, are sure signs that their infestation is well underway," Ratchet said. "We have to warn Optimus and Arcee about this," I said in concern.
:
"Ratchet to Optimus, do you read me? We have a situation!" Ratchet calls out. But, only to receive static from the computer as a reply. "The Scraplets have gotten into the com-link system!" Ratchet slams his fist down in frustration, "If we don't irradiate these creatures immediately, they could reduce the entire base to a scrapheap!"
"I say we bug out of here and let them keep it!" Bulkhead says. Bumblebee beeps while nodding in agreement. "And let Optimus and Arcee go offline in the arctic? The worst way to die, I say," I said with a grumble. "They will?" Jack squeaked out. "What do you think..?" I mumbled. "But Bulkhead, you never run!" Miko looks up at Bulkhead.
"Miko, you haven't seen a swarm of these things devour a bot. I have. They pick you apart from the inside out, going for the juicy bits first, fuse by fuse, circuit by circuit, until there's nothing left, and I mean nothing. Not even your optics," Bulkhead said in grief. I shivered from the scene I received in my processor while listening to Bulkhead's speech, "Really didn't need to know that..."
"You have to let us help," Jack said. "Yeah, we're not made of metal," Raf smiled. "Technically, I find your fleshiness to be your least engaging quality," Ratchet said skeptically, "But, it would appear to be an advantage, under these circumstances,"
"Okay, so we'll pair off, one bot, one human. I'll watch your back while you repair the ground bridge," Jack says to Ratchet. "I have no problem on doing that as well," I say. "And we'll go on a bug hunt," Miko says with a smirk. Bulkhead and Bumblebee exchanged glances, shivering from the sound of that. Without further delay, Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Miko and Raf were off to look out through the base.
"Ariona, I'm sure that you'll be fine, stop squirming," Jack said, noticing myself in human form and pointing my gun in every direction. "Y-You can't be too careful," I said. Suddenly, the lights in the room were shut off, causing me to let out a loud scream, along with the sound of electricity buzzing and Ratchet groaning. Once the lights were back on, I find Jack looking at me, covering his ears, and an annoyed Ratchet narrowing his optics at me, "What was that?"
"Um...A long loud piercing cry?" I defined the meaning of a scream in embarrassment. "I think he meant by: 'why did you scream?'," Jack says. "Well, uh...I kind of, um...really afraid of dark narrow places..." I twiddle my thumbs. "Why?" Jack asked. "Look, can we talk about this later?" I asked, not wanting to answer.
Jack nods in understatement, then looks over at Ratchet, "How's it going over there?" Ratchet stands up from the panel, "I've repaired the damaged conductors and re-routed the central conduits, but the ground bridge still wont receive power!"
My sesors picked up sounds of small metal clinking together. I follow the sound with my optics and see a large group of Scraplets prowling in the shadows above us. Once they see Ratchet, they all bare their teeth and fly towards him, like a hungry group of mosquitoes. "You never said they could fly!" Jack yells. The swarm attacks Ratchet and forced him down, starting to eat away at him. "Ratchet!"
I turn my gun back into blades and dash towards him, swiping away the Scraplets. A faint sound of a beat enters my audio sensors, and I turned towards the platform in horror, seeing the Scraplets eating at Swiftcut #2, almost finished. "#2-!" I gasped in pain as I clenched my chest. The cube of Swiftcut #2 was completely gone, nothing but a small ball of a miniature spark left. The pain in my chest increased as I was forced to transform back into robot mode.
The spark zoomed away from the Scraplets and entered inside my chest, returning to the main spark which was mine. I yelped as the final pain was gone, leaving me to gasp for breath. But, instead of pain from the inside, it was replaced with pain on the outside of my body. I clenched my teeth as I tried to swat away the Scraplets that were now attacking me as well.
"Get the fire extinguisher!" Ratchet shouts. Jack looks around, grabbing the extinguisher once it was in sight. He uses it on Ratchet and I, causing the Scraplets to go in stasis and fall off. I breath sharply in pain, trying to ignore it. There were more Scraplets coming, and I had to be ready. I pushed myself up and brought my blades back together again. I blinked once I hear the rest of us inside the base have returned.
"Ratchet, get the patch kit. We're leaking Energon like-Whoa!" Bulkhead yells from seeing the hundreds of Scraplets. I start shooting at them, slightly succeeding. I gasped when I miss my aim at a Scraplet, one that was now feeding on me. "Ah! [Get off me!]" I screeched, struggling to remove the Scraplets from me.
:
"Did we get them all?" Jack asked once all of the Scraplets in the room were offline. A faint sound of a Scraplets deeper into the base was heard. "Hardly. These were just scouts," Ratchet replied, disappointed. "Ugh...[You have got to be kidding...]" "Ugh... [You have got to be kidding...]" I groaned along with Bumblebee. My body was already numb from the pain the Scraplets caused, and I'm not sure if the rest of us bots can take anymore. "So the rest of them know we're in here..?" Bulkhead asked in fear.
"If we allow them to become their meal, Optimus and Arcee will never make it home," Ratchet said, "We must get the ground bridge operational," "Then, we can use it to send the Scraplets anywhere on Earth," Raf says. "Why not back to the arctic?" Jack suggests, "We already know they don't do cold,"
"Sweet. One stop shopping!" Miko smirks. "The arctic's temperature should freeze them on contact. So, if the ground bridge is stil down...there must be a breach in the Energon fuel line!" Ratchet says after giving in some thought. "I-I'll go," I pushed myself to get up from the ground, but failed at the attempt. "You are in no position to go anywhere, Ariona," Ratchet says. "None of us are in the position," Bulkhead adds.
"Where can we find it?" Jack asked. "And how can we fix it?" Raf adds. Ratchet instructs the humans on where to fine the fuel line and what to do. Once they were gone, I let out a sigh, "I hope we make it to bring Optimus and Arcee back..."
"So, if we get...-when, we get the ground bridge open, we send the creepy crawlies out, or bring our bots in?" Bulkhead asked Ratchet in a weak state. "Optimus and Arcee will be fresh meat. If we bring them in first, the Scraplets will have no reason to leave. We'll need bait," Ratchet says. "Where are we gonna get bait! The Scraplets have already helped themselves to everything here!" Bulkhead shouts. "Making one of us bait...?" I suggested.
Without getting a reply, the sounds of Scraplets were closer, making me scrunch my face in fear and pushing myself further down onto the floor. I watched in terror as the remaining swarm circled above us like vultures. "No..." I hissed slightly, becoming more afraid. "Ratchet, all systems are at go!" Jack's voice calls out. "Fire it up!" Miko was following behind along with Raf. Ratchet struggles to get up, but was able to grab the lever. "Ground bridge...activated," Ratchet falls forward, pushing the lever to go down along with him.
The bridge springs back to life, making me sigh in utter relief. I blinked, noticing Bulkhead getting up and running towards the bridge opening, "Bulkhead, w-what are you doing!"
"What you suggested, being bait!" Bulkhead shouts as he waves at the Scraplets to grab their attention, "You want the main course? Come and get it!" The Scraplets gnashed their teeth as they flew towards Bulkhead. He starts to run thorough the ground bridge, with the Scraplets following behind. I watched the bridge, waiting for any signs of familiar objects. Then, stepping through the bridge, was Bulkhead, along with Optimus and Arcee, still kicking. I sighed, smiling widely in relief once more.
:
Once Bumblebee had recovered, he helped me onto the berth he was using. 'Why did you let me go first?' Bumblebee asked in beeps. "You know I always put others first before me..." I smile up at him, despite my weak state. Bumblebee shakes his head at me, making a slight smileing expression. He steps back and walks away to let Ratchet work on me. "All you need now is rest," Ratchet says after patching up major wounds. "Thanks, Ratchet, for everything about today..." I said calmly. Ratchet nods at me with a small smile, and walks away to let me rest.
When I was about to close my optics, Optimus approaches the berth I was laying on. "How are you feeling, Ariona?" He asked. "Numb, mostly. I'll pull through," I made a grinning embarrassed expression, "By te way, you've never brought Raf that snowball," Optimus makes a face at me. I chuckle weakly, "Just kidding," I sighed.
"I'm really glad that Ratchet was able to save you and Arcee...maybe if I were the same as back then, I could help you all a lot more in the future..." I closed my optics and let out a deep sigh. I flinched, squeezing my eyes shut from feeling something stroke my cheek. I immediately open my optics again, only to see Optimus walking away. I turned my attention to the ceiling above me, feeling an emotion I've never experienced. I shake the questioning thoughts of the emotion and closed my optics again, drifting off to stasis sleep.
:
Replacing my vision of darkness, was a bright blue spark, beating strongly. The color slowly turned white. The spark starts to disappear, as if it were being deleted from existence...
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