Underbite couldn't stop his curiosity.
It was far better than listening to Ped at the very least.
Leaving the blabbering Decepticon behind he made a slow and gentle bee-line to the cave, or at least it's outer edge.
It was probably the longest time either had gone without bickering at each other, but the longer Underbite stared at their blank faces he thought more about how he preferred the arguing to this.
Passing a glance around Underbite felt the urge to make sure he wasn't being watched.
He was, but Ped's long distance stare of confusion wasn't enough to deter the Chompazoid.
Satisfied Underbite sat back on his haunches and waved a paw in front of Steeljaw.
Nothing.
The flat new purple of his optics didn't so much as flicker, let alone attempt to follow any movement.
He also didn't blink, neither of them did, their optical shutters didn't twitch or finally close no matter how close Underbite put his finger to their optics.
With an awkward shuffle, Underbite repositioned himself and touched Steeljaw.
Giving a gentle press to his chest plates the other Decepticon didn't move, not even to stop themself from going backwards as Steeljaw wobbled on the spot.
Thunderhoof was the same as he gently rocked back and forth when Underbite gave him a small shove too.
Unable to stop the urge to look around once again, as if someone had crept up on him, Underbite readied himself for the bit he was avoiding.
Closest to Thunderhoof he peered at the Decepticons chest.
The hole on his chest didn't seem too bad now as his self-repair systems had already gone to work.
Yet the edges were still an uncomfortably vibrant shade of purple, a shade that almost seemed to throb with life.
He turned to Steeljaw, the thinner more sensitive plates of his neck still looked awful with thick webbed veins of purple branching off from the small puncture wounds.
"BOO!"
Underbite bolted backwards, his rear legs slipping out from underneath him sending him rolling back, a grating gasp of surprise the mixing with a small shocked screech as he tumbled away.
Thunderhoof slowly righted himself, quietly clearing his throat and paying the startled Chompazoid no mind as he returned to his silent vigil.
At the mouth of the cave, Galvatron sat with his head in his hands, fingers wrapped around his cheek-plates framing the large grin he wore.
Along with framing his fangs prompting Underbite to scooch back a little further.
"You ain't won!" Bravado instantly spewed out to mask his outburst "You got me by surprise is all! It's the only way you two can get anything over me!"
Galvatron seemed further amused by this statement and looked over to Ped for a second opinion.
Ped shrugged
"I was telling him all about the time I visited Nuon city but he suddenly doesn't seem interested in the place anymore!" Was all he said.
"I ended interest in that place!" Underbite snarled "You just won't shut up, he knows nothing!"
"I think you'll find I'm your superior here!"
"I HAVE NO SUPERIORS!"
"All right children behave" Galvatron finally spoke up before the two started outright arguing.
He left the confines of the cave and made a beckoning motion, waving everyone into following him.
Underbite watched as Thunderhoof and Steeljaw silently obeyed and trailed after the goat-faced Decepticon.
He watched the quartet group up along the beach before he noticed the missing fifth, Cyclonus, standing over him.
Now, maskless the silent Decepticon jerked his head telling him to follow too.
"Urgh, you have even more pathetic jaws as a biped! No wonder you won't actually prove your strength!" Underbite sneered looking over Cyclonus's real face.
Cyclonus promptly unhinged his jaw and hissed.
Underbite promptly scurried to join the group as fast as his feet would take him.
Watching the last two members of their group finally catch up to him Galvatron beamed happily.
"Right then! I hope you're excited! We have something planned for you!"
"Oh! What are we doing Boss?" Ped was obliviously excited.
"Since you two widdle guys have been SOOO well-behaved, and NOT needed some gentle persuasion like these two" Galvatron gestured to Steeljaw and Thunderhoof as if what had been done to them was some sort of light punishment "We have a treat ready for you!"
"A treat?! A reward! OH! You're the best Boss I've ever known!" Ped squealed delightedly and Underbite felt the urge to purge his tanks.
"Yes! We've decided to reward your good behaviour" Galvatron clasped an arm around Cyclonus "We're taking you two on a trip! We're all going to Nevada!"
"EEEEE-HEE!" Ped squealed again jumping up and down "Isn't this the best Underbite!? Rewards! Treats!"
Underbite gave the worm a look up and down, wondering if he had some kind of mind-controlling purple wound on him too, but there was none and Ped was just deliriously ignorant to what was at hand.
"I'm hungry" Underbite decided to push this so-called 'treat' thing further as he sat down defiantly.
"You're always hungry though" Galvatron was nonplussed by his actions.
"So?" Underbite had always been stubborn and wasn't stopping now.
"So go feed yourself, we'll pass some areas of populace, just keep yourself scarce! We don't want any Autobots to find us and interrupt our fun time!" The first half of his sentence was spat out with commanding force before the last half quickly dissolved into a cheery tune.
"What? Nooo, they wouldn't! Would the Autobots really stop us? When were just going to have some FUN?" Ped whined "Can't they let us do anything!? I tunnelled under many cities on Cybertron but one city here on this dump? Oooh nooo, they had to have a say about that!"
"They're no-good fun-suckers aren't they?" Galvatron put on a weird tone as he agreed with Ped "Well we'd better hurry then! We want to get a head start! After all, Reed, when we get there, there's a great place for you to burrow!"
"I love it already!" Ped rolled over into his vehicle form, Steeljaw and Thunderhoof quietly followed and then both Galvatron and Cyclonus shifted into their beastial forms.
Underbite couldn't bring himself to make a remark about it all, it was surreal and bizarre, he almost preferred going along with another of Steeljaw's haphazard schemes.
He was being watched and an elbow to his rib-structure reminded him that while the others had started walking away Cyclonus was still stood over him.
Underbite shot him a glare and Cyclonus flared his wings until the Chompazoid relented and transformed, following after the others.
Back at the Scrapyard Bumblebee paced back and forth between two areas, keeping track of the injured.
Or at least he still thought of them as injured.
They did suffer some bad injuries.
It couldn't be good for either of them to be up and about so soon.
Between Strongarm and Jetstorm, Bumblebee was close to wearing a ditch into the ground between them as he paced.
Jetstorm was happily hopping around, listening enthralled to Slipstreams tale.
The story of being thrown at Galvatron and totally saving Drifts life single-handedly.
Of course, Slipstream was telling it far more dramatically, laying emphasis on how they punched him in the jaw and bravely fought off the other heads.
While leaving out the parts where he was actually just clinging onto the hydra in a panicked daze while merely avoiding the other heads.
Drift seemed somewhat content to let his student draw out this tall tale as he stood a short distance away only glancing over his shoulder every few minutes to check they were still there and not moving away.
Strongarm looked as good as new, however.
She stood before Fixit stretching and bending her joints, hopping from foot to foot running herself through basic warm-up exercises.
She even transformed a few times, the first time a stiff straining noise accompanied her but every other time she transformed flawlessly.
It was still bad, that strained noise had to have meant something, Bumblebee was sure of it, he couldn't let her back out on the field without it being fully checked out.
Couldn't anything be normal?
Sideswipe had distanced himself from the group, having angrily muttered something to himself the only clue as to his irate behaviour was a single yell of
"I CAN READ LIP PLATES Y'KNOW!"
It didn't give much of a clue but whatever had happened had clearly rubbed him the wrong way.
The only remotely normal thing going on that provided any kind of relaxation to his over-thinking processor was Grimlock of all people who had been fixed up pretty quickly and was now sat with Russell at one end of the Scrapyard.
The two apparently deciding to build some kind of sculpture out of odds and sods lying around while Denny wasn't watching.
Bumblebee slowed down slightly in his pacing.
It was nice to see, maybe everything wasn't so bad, he was overthinking of course.
Strongarm suddenly blared past him, engines revving as Fixit noted down her vehicle modes performance from afar.
"Strongarm don't over-exert yourself!" Bumblebee suddenly screeched his vocal processor sounding like it had glitched out half-way through the sentence.
"Don't worry core-door-Sir! It's quite within the safe range if anything she's back to normal!" Fixit fiddled about with his pen and notes flashing Bumblebee a smile, trying his best to be cheery and put away any of 'Bees fears.
"Are you sure?" Bumblebee felt like he was a broken record.
"Yeees! Positively, absolutely, definitely, utterly, totally, incredulously sure! … No, incredulous wait?" Fixit started out great but stuttered out the wrong word and was now staring at his hand as if it had turned into a fish.
"But what I mean sir is that she is completely fine!" He shook off his slip-up quickly.
"Fine, fine I believe you" Bumblebee sighed "Just keep me posted on any sign of Decepticon activity"
"Of course I will sir! I've kept focus on the place-space-area I bridged you, Sideswipe and Grimlock back from! I'll know if they do anything and tell you!" Fixit beamed his little chest puffed out proudly "In fact I even think I've got the lock on Dark Energon too! I do believe I can track them directly now!"
"Excellent Fixit!" Bumblebee felt his mood skyrocket.
"I know!" Fixit clearly felt the same "And I'm happy to report they're not doing anything other than walking around!"
"Walking… around?" Bumblebee felt the weight of doubt and nerves drag his skyrocketed feelings back down "As in walking around on the spot? Why? What are they doing?"
"Oh…" Fixit picked up quickly on Bumblebee's change in tone "I don't know they were just walking along the beach slowly last time I checked really…"
"Fixit!" Bumblebee squeaked through a tight expression of panic.
Fixit shrank back a little as he wheeled away back to the command centre.
"Look sir see? They're just walking along!" He pointed at the screen that popped up, showing two purple blips, being trailed by two purple dots.
"The dots Fixit, what are the dots!? And what are they doing so far from that cave-place where we met Galvatron!?" Bumblebee didn't mean to sound angry he knew Fixit had been busy but this was something important dammit! "Look just tell me what the dots are and where they're going!"
Fixit had been tapping away frantically at his controls the moment Bumblebee had started talking again.
"Would… Would it help your mood if I said the two dots are showing up because they're emitting the same signal as Dark Energon, but not as strongly as the two prisoners? Or should I not?"
"Fixit…"
