"That's hard to say June..." Ratchet had something else in mind, something that this situation mirrored all too well, but he was afraid to admit it... he only hoped it was not that.
"Speaking of the Con, I have been seeing him in mind..." I showed them my latest drawing. "At least, this is what I see."
June picked up the sketchbook and gave me a worried, but understanding look.
"Look Zucky, you've seen and been through way too much in a very short period of time..." She began.
Zucky lifted a hand up in a 'stop' gesture. "Sorry, but I have to stop you right there. I know you think I'm just traumatized, and I can understand why you think that, but I'm pretty sure whatever is going on inside my head right now, is not normal."
The nurse nodded. "I know, but you need help..."
"Yeah... We'll just take a quick trip to the Therapist and have them sort this out." Zucky had a grim tone.
June was just about to agree with her, when she realised what showing up to the Therapist's office will look like with a Furry Blue dragon. She dragged a hand across her face tiredly and sighed.
"How can we even be sure if this is real or not, whatever it is...?" Nurse Darby asked.
"Well, lately I've been feeling like I'm in two places at once..." Zucky began. "Like, even now, I feel like I'm at another...hold on; an... 'energon mining operation'? Something like that?"
Prime and Ratchet looked at eachother and quickly the medic started looking for exposed energon crystals. Shortly after he began searching, he came across a signal.
"By the Allspark..." His Optics widened.
The Autobot leader quickly left the medical bay and headed to the common room.
June finished up the bandage work and Ratchet helped them off the berth afterwards. He then headed after Optimus to man the groundbridge.
"Autobots; The Decepticons have found another deposit of Energon crystals. Transform and Roll out!" He was in a hurry to get there before the Cons had a chance to get away with all the crystals, but also anxious to find out if what Zucky was experiencing was as real as she was making it sound, or as Nurse Darby said, all in her head, due to trauma.
When the teens noticed the bots leaving, Miko true to form; hopped off the stairs and made a Beeline to the groundbridge portal.
"Miko, come back!" Jack yelled as he tried grabbing her by the wrist but missed.
"Oh boy, Bulkhead's gonna be pissed." Raf worried.
The girl sprinted as fast as she could to the portal, and in the corner of her eye saw Ratchet pulling the lever back to the 'off' position.
["No problem, I've done this a million times already."] She thought.
Miko was almost home free when her sight was suddenly obscured by Ratchet's Pede landing in her way in a rather forceful 'thud'.
This knocked her off her feet and she landed slumped over the bot's pede. "Hey, Watch it!"
"I did." He answered smugly.
When she pushed herself back onto her own feet, she saw just when the portal disappeared.
Miko was going to kick Ratchet's toe, but missed when the bot lifted his pede away to walk back to the console, and she fell over.
"Awww! Not fair!" She threw a mini tantrum. "And I'm telling Bulkhead on you!"
"For what?" Ratchet asked.
"You almost stepped one me!" She cried out.
The medic scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous! I merely did exactly what they asked of me."
"They?!" Miko asked.
"If you remember, Optimus asked for us all to, and I quote; 'watch where we step' and Bulkhead asked me to stop you from following him through the groundbridge when he leaves for missions...By any means I see fit." Ratchet explained confidently and added; "He just never specified what was unacceptable."
He stomped the floor for emphasis. "So. stay. put." He concluded in a grim tone.
"Capiche?" The medic asked and turned his gaze to the other two teens who were carefully peeking over the back of the couch.
The boys nodded and Ratchet continued on his way. Obviously there was something bothering him at the moment, but they knew better than to poke him for answers.
"Hmph!" Miko pouted on the floor for a while.
Meanwhile...
Zucky and Nurse Darby walked the rest of the way to the common room, because the dragon was getting bored of being inactive for so long, and some exercise was certainly welcome.
When they made it to the room, they found Ratchet already hard at work and the teens sitting in silence, with Miko still pouting in one of the chairs.
"Did we miss something?" I asked.
"Duh...yeah we did!" Miko fumed. "I just missed out on an opportunity to snap some awesome pics of Bot-on-Bot showdown action!"
Miko was being so loud about it, that the dragon had to fold her ears back to save her eardrums from being assaulted.
"All because of crankcase over there!" The girl stood and screamed, but the medic was so concentrated in his work, he hadn't even noticed it.
Miko then growled and sat back down. Pouting even harder than before.
Zucky had a feeling that whatever happened in here might have been partially her fault, but it wouldn't be of any use to add fuel to the fire, so...
"Hey Miko, I couldn't quite put my finger on why you kept saying I'm..." I was going to ask the question, but she beat me to it.
"You're so Tiny! Why are you so tiny?!" Miko exclaimed.
"I still don't get what you're going on about..." I answered.
"Well, Duh! Aren't dragons supposed to be these huge fire breathing lizards with wings?" She asked while she threw her hands up above her head and curled her fingers to simulate claws.
"*sigh...Miko, I was just an ordinary human like any of you four; long before I became a dragon." I explained. "Besides, size isn't everything."
"Uh...Says you. That's exactly why Bulkhead's the ultimate tailpipe kicking machine!" The girl insisted.
"Fine, I've never seen 'em fight Cons before, so I can't argue with that." I said.
"Why can't you fly though?" Jack decided to join the conversation.
"That's an easy one... I never learned how. Though I can sort of glide, it's nowhere near perfect. And only when my life depends on it, but that's just adrenaline taking over...makes you do crazy stunts, ya know?" I chuckled.
"I guess that makes sense, humans were never meant to fly; that is until we started building air vehicles..." Raf added. "So it's no surprise you wouldn't know how that works."
I nodded. "The only reason I know the very few things I do, is from looking at birds and other animals that fly."
"Not a bad place to start. But obviously it's going to take a lot of practice, and it wouldn't hurt to have guidance..." The boy thought out loud.
I put 2+2 together and nervously hissed when I realised what that meant. "Yeah...I'll just stick to practicing some more..."
"Can't you even breathe fire?" Miko asked bored out of her wits.
"You know what? I never tried it before..." I thought out loud.
"Well, what are you waiting for?!" She perked up so fast she almost hopped out of her seat.
"Where do I even start?!" I replied.
"Oh, Come on!" She fell back into the chair.
"Could you give her a break?" Jack asked Miko in an exasperated tone.
"But I'm bored!" Was Miko's answer.
"Then try doing something you like, to pass the time." Raf suggested. "Like...eh...playing your guitar?"
"Oooh! I almost forgot to show you my sick tabs!" The girl got up and went to get her guitar and amp. "I'll go get everything set up!"
"Very impatient, isn't she?" I asked.
"That's Miko for ya..." Jack shrugged it off.
"Seriously though...how does a dragon breathe fire?" I wondered.
"Well; according to this, dragons have a special organ in which they collect the gasses from the food that they eat, this acts as the fuel." Raf had already looked up the answer to my question.
"Okay, how am I supposed to ignite said fuel?" I asked.
"Well, it says here that if the dragon eats rocks to aid with digestion, they can create a spark by clicking their teeth together to create a spark that ignites the fuel...or they expel the fuel so fast out their throats that something called 'static ignition' takes place."
"Oh...well, static ignition it is then." I finally said sheepishly. "I never had trouble digesting my food before, so I don't really need to chomp on rocks to get the job done."
Raf nodded.
"One problem though...where's this fuel organ-thing supposed to be?" I honestly felt embarrassed with how many questions I was asking about dragon physiology, but like I said; I was a human for the most of my earlier life.
I brushed it off for now and focussed on my food, as it was lunchtime and I was starving anyway.
"Hey Zucky, wanna hear something cool?" Miko asked from across the platform.
"Sure!" Anything was better than hear her whine constantly over the fact that she couldn't follow Bulkhead through the groundbridge this time. What I didn't know however, is that she raised the volume of her amplifier up way too high!
As soon as the pick touched those snares, everyone's hands were slapped up against their ears, even Ratchet! But not Miko, she was in the zone and ripping into those chords like there was no tomorrow.
This caught me so off guard, that I almost choked on my food! Luckily I quickly swallowed it properly (though still a bit whole) before it got the chance to go down the wrong way.
Unfortunately, I was rewarded with a violent fit of hiccups for pulling off such a stunt. But I was more worried for my poor eardrums, and having enormous ears wasn't helping me one bit!
"Turn that Primus forsaken monstrosity down!" Ratchet roared.
Nurse Darby to the rescue, as she pulled the plug on the amp. Everyone slumped down in relief, ears ringing. Poor Ratchet had to reset his audio sensors, as they were left glitching out after the musical hurricane; courtesy of Miko Nakadai.
I on the other hand, was left trying to tame hiccups that didn't want to go away! It got so bad I even started burping at the same time as I hiccuped!
I tried holding my breath several times, but it didn't seem to work, so June dove into my bag to retrieve a bottle of water, but before she could get it to me...
"*Hic-Whoosh*!" I breathed fire...I actually breathed fire?! Everyone's jaws simultaneously dropped at the sight.
I clamped my own jaw shut with my hands, but it was no use, my hiccups weren't cured yet!
"*Hic-whoosh, *Hic-whoosh, *Hic-whoosh!" It just kept going.
"What in the Allspark is that?!" Ratchet asked as he pulled out his scanner.
"She has the hiccups, but...?" Raf couldn't believe it.
"AWESOME!" Miko cheered as she pulled out her phone and started filming.
I had to keep my mouth pointed to the ceiling, so I don't scorch anyone's hairs off, but between the never-ending hiccups interfering with my normal breathing and the sudden pocket of heat radiating inside my torso, I was beginning to feel light headed and struggled with that.
"*Hurk! *Hic-whoosh! Help...me..*Hic-whoosh!" I had to fight the urge to hiccup and force my words out.
Ratchet quickly snatched the open bottle of water from June's hands, almost stuffed it down Zucky's throat, carefully clamping her jaw shut and squeezed the part of the bottle that still stuck out, forcing the water down her throat!
She started choking on it, but remembered that one of the ways to cure a hiccup was indeed to drink water really quickly.
Once it was empty, the medic finally let go of her jaw, which admittedly was now pretty sore, but she was thankful the ordeal was now over.
"*panting* Thanks Ratchet..." she said.
"What in the name of Cybertron, were you kids thinking?!" Ratchet roared.
"It was an accident, honest!" Raf quickly explained.
"Zucky didn't even know she could breathe fire, let alone how to do it." Jack added.
"They're telling the truth, I never did this before." I answered after I pulled the slightly softened water bottle out of my throat. The heat that clung to my insides must have started melting it.
"Then what. just. happened?" The medic demanded to know as he gritted his dentas.
"It's called fire breathing... according to mythology at least; dragons are able to spit fire from their throats." Raf pulled up images of medieval paintings and drawings depicting dragons breathing fire.
Ratchet was about to go on a long winded rant about Myths not being real, until he thought about the living 'Mythology' sitting right in front of him that according to all his senses, DID just breathe fire.
He dragged a servo across his faceplate, ["Primus...Grant me your patience, I beg of you..."] and vented long and slow. "I will never understand the logic which you creatures live by..."
Miko was playing back the video she shot; "You gotta admit though... it's the coolest thing you ever saw, right?"
Everyone looked at her, as Ratchet shot her a glare; "Don't even get me started on yours..." He turned to walk back to his post and attempted to continue what he was doing, before whatever that was, happened.
I sunk back into my seat as I tried my hardest to blend into the environment. ["I might be overstaying my welcome...at least as far as Dr. Grumpy is concerned."]