Chapter Seven
Trouble was brewing yet again. Ratchet had detected dark energon on the move. The bots all seemed surprised. Dana just figured that the lack of knowledge of where Megatron got it and how much he brought with him meant that it was a bit of bad luck.
"Megatron." Optimus guessed.
"Where'd he find more of the bad stuff?" Arcee asked.
"What's he gonna do with it? Recruit a new army of the undead?" Bulkhead commented.
That got Miko's attention. "Zombie Cons?"
She elbowed Dana and gestured her head at the conversation. Dana nodded to show that she was listening. The older girl had a feeling that they would be walking into potential danger again.
"We cannot rule out the possibility." Optimus decided, "Especially since Megatron seems to be heading to a familiar site."
It was pointed out that the signature was headed to where Optimus and Bumblebee had fought and buried the Decepticon Skyquake. Dana wondered if Megatron even knew about that. He'd been in stasis so Dana supposed maybe someone had written a report or gone out of the way to tell Megatron about it. As the Autobots prepared to rush off Dana silently made it apparent that if Miko was going to go rushing in to whatever danger awaited she'd be sticking by the younger girl.
"Megatron has barely emerged from stasis and it seems he's already making up for lost time. Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Ratchet prepare to roll out." Optimus said.
Optimus, Bulkhead and Bumblebee made their way to the ground bridge. Ratchet was surprised and had yet to move from the monitors.
"Me?" Ratchet asked.
"If we are dealing with dark energon I may well require your expertise." Optimus pointed out, "Arcee."
"Bridge operator. Got it." Arcee confirmed, cutting Optimus off.
'Rude.' Dana thought.
"Go get 'em Bulkhead. Bring the hurt." Miko encouraged without looking away from her coloring, mostly succeeding in playing it cool.
Bulkhead brought his fists together. They really did make quite the pair. Dana could overhear Jack noting how it was odd Miko didn't want to go. Raf agreed, both knew Miko better than to think she was keeping safe for once. Dana mentally sighed and made a note to herself of how she'd apparently have to keep an eye on Miko and the other two.
The moment the Autobots transformed into alt mode Miko and Dana jumped and raced to get through the ground bridge behind them. As predicted, Jack and Raf followed after her. Once they reached the girls Jack grabbed Miko's arm.
"Not safe." Jack protested.
"I am not gonna miss my first Zombie Con throwdown!" Miko protested, struggling.
Miko finally got her arm free but didn't notice that she lost her phone. She grabbed Dana's hand and they dashed to make it in time.
"Why do you think I'm going?" Dana called, "If you're so worried about safe stay put."
"Miko! Dana!" Jack protested.
Despite Dana's reminder Jack and Raf followed anyway. Again, just as she'd figured they would. Dana hoped horror movies didn't give them nightmares, but figured it was all Jack's fault if that did happen.
Dana and Miko helped each other climb a rock formation to watch the show. The Autobots and the two of them noticed something off at the same time. It wasn't Megatron but a bot Dana hadn't really seen before.
"That's not Megatron." Bulkhead pointed out.
"Rise, Skyquake. Rise!" Starscream called dramatically.
"Let's see some fight of the living dead already!" Miko said.
That was when the boys finally got up with them.
"What were you two thinking?" Jack exclaimed in a whisper.
"They weren't." Raf claimed.
"Hey, I totally missed out last time. This could be my only chance to take some snaps." Miko defended.
"You really think anyone could stop her?" Dana said, "I go because I figure we can keep each other safe and actually get to see something cool instead of just hear about it."
Miko was patting her clothes all over to find her phone to take pictures but she didn't have it. "My cell phone. I must've dropped it back at base."
Meanwhile the Autobots were confronting Starscream.
"Starscream." Optimus called out.
"Autobots." Starscream practically hissed.
Optimus aimed his blaster right at Starscream. "Stand down."
Dana snapped a picture best she could. She just couldn't resist the keepsake of finally getting to see how awesome Optimus was in action.
"Hey send that to me when I have my phone will ya?" Miko requested.
"Sure thing. Now let's keep quiet so we don't get caught." Dana replied.
As they spoke Starscream's response had been to launch a missile from his arm at Optimus. A pretty outdated one by Cybertronian standards, considering humans had missiles more advanced or just more powerful without even accounting for nuclear missiles. Of course, an explosion is still dangerous.
"You can't harm me while dark energon flows through my veins." Starscream boasted.
In response Optimus shot Starscream's arm clear off. Starscream ran and grabbed it. He seemed to hope he could just shove it back on, but it did not work that way for Cybertronians. It didn't even work that way for humans' robotic prosthetics that could actually be used like or mostly like the flesh and blood limb it replaced.
"You clipped his wing. He's grounded." Bulkhead informed Optimus.
The Autobots ran at Starscream. First he shouted at Skyquake's grave, clearly hoping for undead backup. Despite the purple glow nothing happened. Then he could be heard requesting a ground bridge over the Decepticons' comlink. Of course, Optimus being so cool when Miko couldn't take a picture or video herself was the last straw.
"I can't believe you made me lose my phone!" Miko shouted, bringing attention to their presence.
"How is this my fault?" Jack retorted.
"Uh, 'cause you didn't leave her to make her own decisions?" Dana suggested, "We'd have peacefully been watching and recording the action on our own, we know to stay out of the way."
"Oh no." Bulkhead said.
Just then Arcee seemed to be speaking over the comlink about their not being at the base.
"We have a visual. Send a ground bridge immediately." Optimus confirmed.
Two ground bridges opened at the same time. It seemed to surprise Ratchet.
"You four. Into our ground bridge. Now." Ratchet shouted.
"Come on." Jack insisted, grabbing Miko's wrist again to drag her back to base.
As Miko groaned in protest Dana pried his hand off of her. "Miko's completely capable of walking on her own. She's not a rowdy child or a poorly trained dog."
Right after Starscream entered his ground bridge the humans entered theirs. Or rather, they tried to. It fluctuated and part of it streamed off of the portal like smoke, reaching similar let-off of the Decepticon ground bridge's portal.
"Ratchet what is happening?" Optimus asked.
"The dueling ground bridge portals must be feeding back on each other." Ratchet explained.
"Miko. We gotta get Dana and the kids out of there." Bulkhead said, trying to rush to the humans' rescue.
Instead the portals practically exploded right as Bulkhead reached them, throwing him along with the others back and sending up smoke and dust clouds. Being so much smaller it was worse for the humans. When everything started to settle the sat up and reoriented themselves.
"Are you guys okay?" Jack asked.
"Yeah I think so." Raf answered as he stood up.
"You, Miko?" Dana asked, helping the other girl stand.
"I'm just fine." Miko assured.
Just then Bulkhead stood up with a groan.
"What just happened?" Bulkhead asked.
Finally the others stood up too. Dana noticed that on top of the colors being duller there was what might be mist or steam.
"I can't be certain. But if two ground bridges sent to the same coordinates cross streams the feedback could've triggered a system overload." Ratchet explained.
"'Could'? Hello more like totally did." Miko pointed out.
"The kids made it through right?" Bulkhead said as if he hadn't heard either girl.
That threw all four of them off.
"Huh?"
"What's he talking about?" Jack asked.
Not one to be easily phased Miko marched up in front of Bulkhead with a stern expression. "Bulkhead we're right here."
"Arcee did the humans make it safely back to base?" Optimus asked.
"No sign." Ratchet said in response to whatever Arcee said.
Miko was not pleased. "What? No sign? Okay, seriously Bulk-"
Miko got cut off when Bulkhead stepped forward. She screamed as his pede landing right where she was but passing through her instead of squashing her. Jack caught her as she almost fell backwards from the shock.
"He went right through you." Jack noted, "We're not alive."
Raf panicked. "I don't want to be a ghost."
"Calm down! Don't jump to conclusions, there's a lot of unknown factors with science and technology even without factoring in what the Cybertronians know and have that humans don't." Dana reasoned, "This could be bad but we need to keep clear heads and figure this out."
"Wait. How can we still touch each other?" Jack asked, letting Miko go.
"Dude, there are lots of takes on ghosts." Dana pointed out, "Don't just blindly assume that if they're real the version where they literally can't interact with anything is how they work."
The Autobots were walking away, probably intent on leaving.
"Ratchet could the children have been transported onto the Nemesis instead?" Optimus asked.
"Not likely. If Starscream didn't arrive at our base the most likely explanation is a dislocation. Dana and the children may have been bridged to an unintended destination." Ratchet explained.
"Okay, so there's nothing indicating we died and Ratchet can't help us the way things are. Any ideas?" Dana asked.
"Another place but the same place." Raf theorized.
"What do you mean?" Jack asked.
"We're probably in a different dimension. Some kind of- alternate reality." Raf explained, "A shadow zone."
"Hm… I'm an engineer in training not a scientist but that's the only thing that makes sense without us being dead." Dana agreed, "Quantum physics is all about things like that."
"Nerd alert." Miko commented.
"Oh like you don't like Stargate, Star Wars and Star Trek just as much as I do." Dana retorted.
"Look. Skyquake's tomb is empty." Optimus noted.
"How'd we miss Skyquake rising and shining?" Bulkhead asked.
"It would seem Starscream got what he came for." Ratchet said.
"Another matter for another time." Optimus dismissed, "Right now our priority is locating Dana, Jack, Miko, and Rafael. Arcee bridge us back to base."
Dana smiled. It always warmed her heart to see and hear that the bots cared about them. But it fell just as quickly when Skyquake's zombie walked into view. The other three immediately raced towards the zombie and the Autobots shouting to try and alert them of the seeming danger. But Dana stopped Miko and Raf from getting more than a couple of feet forward.
"Something's wrong. Bulkhead's right- how did they miss that?" Dana pointed out.
Then the zombie bot swiped at Bulkhead only for its arm to go right through him.
"Awesome. It can't touch them either." Miko pointed out.
The zombie bot looked their way. That and the ghost effect added up to a very bad scenario.
"Oh frag. Sometimes I hate being right." Dana moaned.
"If that thing can't touch the bots…" Jack trailed off.
"Just like we can't." Miko continued.
"Then we're trapped in the Shadow Zone with a Decepticon zombie?" Raf finished.
Dana picked up Raf. He was smaller and at least a little slower. She wasn't about to risk him trailing behind.
"If we aren't ghosts now we will be soon." Miko said.
"Enough chatter. My club won't do any good against an undead bot. We need to run." Dana replied as she grabbed Miko's hand- not her wrist, she could pull away if she wanted- and sped off, "Run!"
As they ran they tried to come up with ideas. Miko wanted to set a trap but the ground was the only thing besides them and the zombie bot that was solid. She was also right about how they couldn't run forever, leading to her second idea- maybe they could hide. Finally the reached an outcropping and stopped to catch their breath.
"The best thing about zombies- they're slow moving." Miko commented, swaying from side to side in demonstration.
Then Jack's phone rang. But when he answered the signal was too bad for any conversation.
"Nothing." Jack reported.
"Gee imagine that. The fourth dimension has lousy cellphone reception." Miko snarked.
Jack pointed out that they did still have a signal. Raf realized that they might be moving at hyper speed or something similar. As the others realized texting might work Dana was already on her phone trying to text Miko's phone. Then the zombie caught up and they were running again. Miko realized they were running in circles. Then they all ran smack into Starscream's arm.
"Sweet." Miko said.
"It must've gotten trapped in her during the explosion too." Raf noted.
"Well if it's solid we can use it." Jack said.
"Nope. Bad idea. We'd need to take out the zombie bot's head and I doubt we could aim it that well." Dana retorted, "And have you seen any monster movies or supernatural genre shows? If we detach a limb with our luck it'll be able to move independently."
"Well we've got to try." Jack said.
Dana wound up outvoted, unfortunately. After struggling to figure out how to make it work they made it fire. It seemed to actually hit dead on but it didn't do much good. But the zombie bot's arm did fall off. Dana's suspicions were realized when said arm twitched. As it started towards them Dana was already pulling Miko and Raf behind her.
"Come on! I told you that would happen!" Dana called behind her.
"How can the zombie arm move faster than the actual zombie?" Miko complained.
"Clearly you haven't seen the Adams Family." Dana said dryly.
A few minutes later right as the zombie bot's detached arm came back into view Starscream showed up in the proper dimension. Then luck finally came as right when they were starting to run again a ground bridge portal opened up.
"A ground bridge portal?" Raf noted.
"That has to be our way out of here." Jack said.
"The Autobots saw our text." Miko added.
"What are we waiting for an invitation?" Dana asked.
Raf weighed their options. "If we go through we run smack into Starscream. If we don't…"
"We're zombie chow." Jack finished.
"Option three we keep running in circles." Miko said.
"Option four, we wait for the right timing for the arm to attack Starscream instead." Dana cut in.
"Good idea. Follow my lead." Jack told the others.
Luckily Jack timed it just right. They ran out of the portal and between Starscream's legs- in the correct dimension. But naturally he noticed them.
"Humans? Where did you vermin-" Starscream was cut off when the zombie's arm jumped out and landed on him.
As Starscream tried to pry the arm off of him a second ground bridge opened and the Autobots walked out of it.
"Dana, Jack, Miko, Rafael." Optimus greeted.
Later back at base Miko tried to take the blame. Jack seemed delighted. Dana on the other hand didn't let her.
"No, this is Jack's and my fault too." Dana said, "Jack acting like he could control her escalated the mess and instead of going with to keep her safe I should've tried to convince her to stay put."
"Miko what you endured was lesson enough." Optimus assured, "Dana I realize that you cannot control others' decisions. I realize you did what you could. We are just glad you are all safe."
Bulkhead crouched down and held out Miko's cellphone. "Guess it was a good thing you dropped this. Too bad you didn't get any pictures though."
Miko waved it off. "Nah that's okay. I think after today I pretty much have zombie close-up seared into my brain."
"I did get one sweet picture of Optimus though." Dana said with a grin, bringing the photo up.
"You seem pretty happy about that." Ratchet noted.
"Well duh. After hearing so much about how cool Optimus is in action it was a real treat finally seeing it for myself." Dana gushed, "I mean did you see the way he shot Starscream's arm clear off?"
Ratchet chuckled indulgently. "Yes, he is indeed quite the sight."
Dana mostly missed the next big incident, bar for the end. She had both classes and work that day. Bulkhead had had an energon scouting mission. He should've been done in time to get her to base. Instead he was ambushed by Breakdown. When he came to and was bridged back to base the Autobots and Fowler figured out that M.E.C.H kidnapped Breakdown after he beat Bulkhead. The Autobots went to save him since M.E.C.H are a huge threat to humanity- with Ratchet and minus Bulkhead. Not just by the green bot's choice either. Miko had been very unhappy that he wasn't off to save his rival so they could have a rematch and talked Bulkhead into going after the others for that very reason. Naturally the timing meant that Dana had to call Miko to find out why she was without a ride and get her to make Fowler help her open ground bridge.
Not having anything else to do Dana readied Medbay and worked on changing and fixing parts needed to change the ground bridge to a space bridge. Apparently the Autobots discovered that M.E.C.H had dissected Breakdown. Plus M.E.C.H had laid a trap for Breakdown's rescuers so it was a very good thing both to stop M.E.C.H and for Breakdown's wellbeing that Bulkhead did go after them. Of course, just after Bulkhead got Breakdown out of there Starscream and some vehicons showed up. Due to sheer luck medbay wasn't actually needed for the most part.
The next incident entirely revolved around Jack, Arcee, and Jack's mom. First Mrs. Darby was getting suspicious and worried. As in Jack was grounded. When they blew Mrs. Darby believing that Jack listened to her Jack tried to tell the truth only for Arcee to refuse to break cover. Naturally thinking Jack lied made it worse. Then M.E.C.H and Airachnid teamed up and kidnapped Mrs. Darby to get to Jack and Arcee. Airachnid gave them so much trouble that Fowler actually managed to save their hides… giving Airachnid an alt mode in the process. Though Dana, Miko, and Raf were there when Jack brought his mom to base to meet the rest of the Autobots. Mrs. Darby was immediately awed and overwhelmed.
"Mom meet my science fiction club." Jack said.
"Really? Such a thin excuse, Jack." Dana commented.
With a start Mrs. Darby finally noticed the humans present, her eyes immediately finding Dana. Now that she had a clear view of the woman Dana was shocked. That wasn't just any nurse- she worked in the ER. In fact the woman was part of the medical team that kept Dana from bleeding to death in the aftermath of the accident.
"Aren't you the girl from the field trip accident about thirteen years ago?" Mrs. Darby asked.
"Field trip accident? But Miko says field trips are boring and tame." Bulkhead asked.
"I don't have all the details but I'm pretty sure it was a chaperone's fault." Mrs. Darby said.
Dana barely kept herself from groaning. Was she really going to tell a story that wasn't even important because of a crazy coincidence? Judging by the Autobots' alarmed expression and Miko's and Raf's surprise she would.
"You've had a prosthetic that long?" Raf asked, "But that's just over half your life."
This time Dana did groan.
"It's not like it was malicious or anything. The student teacher thought my old babysitter was a suitable chaperone even though she was a Miko and Jack's current age." Dana explained, "Long story short a teenage girl wasn't equipped to handle multiple rowdy kids, and the actual teacher shouldn't have even taken a bunch of six and seven and year olds to a factory in the first place. A kid knocked me over on accident and instead of keeping me from falling the babysitter accidentally shoved me into some machinery."
"You'd still have that arm if the paramedics made sure to clean the wound and prevent infection." Mrs. Darby claimed.
"After something like that it's a miracle your parents let you major in engineering or get that job fixing vehicles." Bulkhead said.
"They didn't. They complained for about a year about my major and figured there was no reason to tell them what I ended up with instead after I quit working at the game store." Dana admitted.
"Well I'm glad you didn't let them or the accident stop you." Ratchet commented, "My work around her is much easier with help."
Two M.E.C.H incidents in a row made it into the diary. Dana seriously needed to vent.
So apparently M.E.C.H has decided that they have enough guts to mess with the bots on purpose- even the Decepticons. HOW they figured out about the whole 'different factions' thing I don't know for sure. My only guess is most or all of them really are traitors from the U.S military or some government organization. They took advantage of Bulkhead and Breakdown being distracted in a fight to abduct Breakdown to dissect him in order to reverse engineer weapons. Naturally since M.E.C.H is just as big a threat to humanity as the Decepticons and more actively a threat to humanity at that Optimus set out to rescue Breakdown. Though I'm not sure the identity of the kidnappers would've affected his decision. M.E.C.H had a trap set for whoever came to rescue Breakdown but luckily the Autobots got out unscathed and Bulkhead had followed against his initial decision for the sake of being able to have a rematch. I'm not sure whether the Autobots were even needed, though because Starscream and some vehicons showed up right after Breakdown was in the clear. Plus Airachnid used them to make a second attempt on Jack's and Arcee's life. M.E.C.H seriously creeps me out so much more than Megatron ever could. I hope they aren't anywhere near ready to go after whatever they want to accomplish after they're satisfied with the tech at their disposal. It could very well be more devastating than any of the Decepticons' plans that aren't specifically geared at ending the world or committing genocide against humanity.
Soundwave: Lord Megatron forbid a rescue and Breakdown claimed he escaped alone.
CyberMechanic: Well then if Megatron didn't change his mind Starscream disobeyed orders and Breakdown lied.
Soundwave: It seems the commander is yet again letting ambition cloud his better judgement.
CyberMechanic: Haha, yeah. He's a real drama queen.
CyberMechanic: Or maybe a diva. I mean if bots' holloforms used their actual pedes to judge shoes I'm pretty sure Starscream's would be stilettos.
Soundwave: Stilettos?
CyberMechanic: A type of open toed high heels. They're ridiculously high and the spiky type of heel to boot. Then again now that I think of it some types of actual boots have similar heels.
End of chapter