Things have been quiet. After the fiasco with the synthetic energon and my run-in with Megatron, and promptly trumping him, activity from the Decepticon's have been a record-breaking low. Some of the others are happy with lack of movement from our enemy's and taking the time to properly relax and recuperate from the events having taken place. Interesting tid-bit, Optimus was talking to the other bots about some sort of prophecy thing that's about to happen. Unfortunately I was just barely eavesdropping on the conversation on the tail end of it so I can't exactly say anything about what they were talking about, nor give a comment about the whole thing. They did look shook up though when I saw them. Even so, some of us take advantage of the quietness for our own things.
Plus this also gives us a chance to work on other important matters and catch up on something that we humans need to do.
"Pass. Uh-uh. Kid in a costume. Balloon. Nope." Jack denies. At times we'll go ahead and scour the web and conspiracy theorist sites for anything that looks or resembles anything Cybertronian. "Uh, hold."
"Now that's a familiar looking car." I mutter. Case in point, we find one picture that is a clear and present look of Bumblebee in his car form.
"The camera sure loves Bee." Jack sarcastically says.
"What can you do? When you're a superstar, you're paparazzi bait." Miko exaggerates with a smile and faux camera clicking.
"Wait. Is that Bumblebee?" Ratchet asks in concern when he sees the screen.
"It sure is." Having seen the car multiple times on a daily basis, its hard not to see him but its easy to recognize him anywhere.
"On a conspiracy website where users post evidence of close encounters. But we have it under control, Ratchet." Raf reassures the medic as he begins to work his magic. "We just scrub and replace Bee with…" He begins to say as he hacks the site, deletes the picture, and replaces it with a much more light hearted picture.
"Mars cat says, 'take me to your feeder.'" The little cat clip says.
"Haha."
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
Much to our mutual and collective surprise, Ratchet laughed.
"Ratchet actually laughed?" Miko voices our confusion out loud.
"Uh…" Even Ratchet is flummoxed by this.
"Um, Optimus, do you want to see something funny?" Jack takes the opportunity to try to get our leader to crack a smile.
"No." Is Optimus's very blunt answer.
"Don't take it personally. Primes are built that way." Arcee states.
"Never seen Optimus laugh, cry, or lose his cool." Bulkhead adds on.
"While Optimus certainly keeps his emotions in check, I've known him far longer than any of you have, and he was different before he was made a Prime." Ratchet informs us. What he says though does get some of our attention as to what he means.
"Wait, what was that about before?" I can't help but ask.
"Optimus wasn't always a Prime?" Raf asks.
"On Cybertron, one isn't born into greatness. Rather, one must earn it."
"Oh, that's pretty cool." I comment as I look at our leader, finding myself having a newfound respect for our leader at the fact he wasn't just built or made to be the leader he is, but he actually worked for it and chosen to be one.
"So, different how? We talkin' party animal."
'Oh god, please no.' I can't help but think at Miko's suggestion. Knowing Optimus now, thinking of him like that is not something I can picture at all.
"No, no. Optimus was more like… Mason and Jack."
"Huh?" That surprises us a little as I mutter in confusion.
"What? I'm nothing like Opt—"
"Prime!" Jack begins to say but then our favorite government agent makes himself known. "Those techites my department's been tracking… We figured it was MECH on account of the stealth tactics until moments ago when a security feed at the Pennington ebbs particle collider captured this." Fowler shows us a snapshot of a picture with a specific 'con on it.
"Soundwave." My hand clenches as Jack mutters his name.
"Raf can swap that out for you with a funny cat." Miko jokes but its not really a funny matter if Soundwave of all bots is interested in something.
"The 'Con without a face made off with a cutting-edge phase conductor. Here's a punch list of everything else we've confirmed stolen to date." Fowler pulls up a classified list of top secret items that the Decepticon's made off with in the past.
"Plasma injector, neutron shield, tesseract?" Ratchet mutters in confusion until he realizes what's going on. "There's only one thing missing if they are intending to build a new space bridge."
"What that's?" Jack asks.
"A power source." I answer instead. My fellow humans turn to me as I stand next to the railing with my arms crossed staring at the items. "They have the materials, but its going to take a lot of juice in order to power that thing."
"Precisely." Ratchet confirms it.
"So what? Can't they just use some energon to power it and be done with it?" Miko questions out loud like its no big thing.
"They could IF they were using Cybertronian technology." Ratchet clarifies. At the confused looks the humans have I pitch in.
"Because they are cut off, they have to make do with cannibalizing stuff together from stolen technology."
"Technology stolen from us humans." Fowler adds in. "Technology that doesn't use energon."
"Which means they'll need something else that's not energon to power the space bridge." I finish explaining.
"Indeed. Agent Fowler." Optimus begins to address the agent. "We will do what we can to find Megatron and prevent him from completing the space bridge. I ask that you be ready in case they make another move against a human installation."
"We'll be ready." Fowler states before cutting off the connection.
"Ratchet. Be ready on the scanners. I want to know of any Decepticon activity as soon as it happens."
"Of course, Optimus." Ratchet double times on setting the system up.
"I'm going to grab my armor. I want to make sure its working one hundred percent in case we need to mobilize." I state and begin making my way to my room.
No one objects to this so I jog back to my room for my gear. I take a moment to catch my breath before I step onto the pad and let the process go in attaching my armor for me. As each piece attaches more and more onto me, I can already feel the fatigue starting to subside and before long I am standing back in my armored suit. I take a moment to step off the pad and flex my fingers in my armored gauntlet inside it. I smile as the HUD turns on, showing all systems are good to go.
"Ahhh, perfect." I say with a grin before activating my bike, making it unfurl off my torso and assembling under me. From there it's a simple coast out my room back to the others.
For a few hours its been relatively quiet in terms of the Decepticons. It was a long shot to expect them to make a move but so far we have nothing. In order to continue to fill the void of boredom with our newfound free-time, 'Bee, Raf and I decided on something to do.
"So how often do you guys do this?" I answer in the radio as I drive along the road right next to the yellow sports car carrying its sole passenger.
"Not too often. We used to go racing almost every week, but lately 'Bee's been getting too much screen time so we may have to lessen our racing sessions." Raf informs me as he plays with the toy replica of 'Bee.
"Aww, I also liked racing with you Raf." 'Bee moans in sadness.
"I know 'Bee. But we've been seeing you on those conspiracy websites too often now. I think after this time we can go again after a couple weeks."
"That may be for the best." I agree with Raf. "MECH's already on our butts trying to figure out a way to capture us and Fowler is doing what he can to keep the more eccentric of government and military people from intervening. Add the potential of regular people figuring things out and it'll be really bad." I do my best to explain why laying low is the best.
"I guess you're right."
"Relax 'Bee," I lightly tap his hood when I get close enough. "It's only until the heat dies down. We'll make this race a good one." I try to cheer him up. I think it works as he revs his engine loudly, making him speed ahead of me. I smile and do the same, popping a wheelie as I do as I catch up to the two of them.
"Bumblebee! Mason! Report in!" Suddenly, Ratchet can be heard trying to contact us, sounding a little urgent.
"Ratchet? This is Bumblebee."
"This is Mason! Go ahead!" After 'Bee reports in, I do the same.
"It seems the Decepticon's have begun their attack on another human military base near you. We're not sure what they're trying to do or steal this time but the others are already there trying to intercept them. Hold on, standby." He informs us. I look to 'Bee uneasily and even though he's in his car mode, I can almost tell he's looking at me too. "Bumblebee, Mason, the team may require backup. They are three clicks north from your current position, just off the highway. If you drop Raf at the exit ramp, I can bridge him back to base from there."
"So much for this outing." I mumble and tighten my grip.
"It's okay, Bee. We'll go racing another time." Raf mutters a little sadly. Bee moans a little sadly at the change of plans.
"Duty calls my friend." I say to Bumblebee with a small lightness in my tone. "We better drop Raf off and out of harms way. Faster we do that the faster we can backup…" I begin to say until alarms flare up on my HUD. "Hold up."
"What's wrong?" Bee asks me as Raf looks at me confused.
My eyes trail through the readings lightning fast until I catch the part that we are being locked on! "Contact on our six! He's locking on!" I yell out loud in warning. Whatever the target is, they are strong but incredibly fast. The familiar sounds of laser blasts from the Decepticons can be heard as Bumblebee and I swerve like crazy from the multiple shots that land around us. "Bee! We gotta— BEE!" I begin to say something as a plan for us to deal with our attacker but just as I do, a purple laser blast hits Bee in back window of him, making a purple shift of electricity go all over his body and making him swerve out of control. I activate my armor and feel it shift—
Bumblebee spins out of control for a second before coming to stop. He has no chance to groan in pain before he watches something go flying next to him.
It takes him a split second to realize its Mason, the same purple electricity shifting over his armored body as he goes airborne before crashing harshly into the ground, tumbling a few times before he hits a nearby road sign, a loud clang of metal can be heard as the sign bends roughly, with Mason rolling a couple times before stopping.
"Oh no." Bumblebee murmurs scared and worried as he watches the Decepticon flier shift away. His focus though is on his friends. Mason lays on the ground in a heap, not moving at all, and the limp almost lifeless hand of Raf falls onto his seat cushion. "No… please… please no." He can only beg as makes to gather his friends.
Some distance away, at the military base, the rest of the battle is continuing on with the Autobots gaining the upper hand against the Decepticons sent to procure the power source. Soon, all the vehicons are taken down, leaving an empty base besides the Autobot victors.
They are soon joined by an unfortunate and hated individual.
"Optimus." Megatron says after he flies in shifts back into his bot form. He has a particularly evil smile on his face as he spots the Autobots, now missing some members.
Optimus glares at his arch-nemesis. "Megatron, do you not see the folly in trying to force a prophecy to fruition?" He tries to reason to his former ally.
"Why leave matters to fate if one can forge one's own destiny?" He preaches to his enemies. He then gets a firm satisfied look on his face as he sees something. "Ah, speaking of fate…" Megatron sneers as footsteps can be heard. The Autobots turn around and come to see a very grim sight: Raf weak and cradled in one of Bumblebee's arms, with Mason being held in the other, unmoving. Optimus's optics widen in surprise and concern at the state of their human companions.
"No!" Arcee cries out in worry as she checks the two. She gently checks Raf before grabbing onto Mason, lowering him to the ground as she checks him. "Raf is breathing… Barely… but…" She mutters as she realizes theirs nothing she can see or tell about Mason's condition. "I can't tell…" She doesn't finish saying, frustration and worry in her voice as she stares at Mason.
"Ah, it would seem I swatted a Bee and squashed a couple of bugs."
This infuriates Bee and makes to charge Megatron in his anger.
"Bee, no!" Bulkhead stops him with an arm thrust in front of him, staring at the kid as he does. This calms Bee enough to favor taking care of Raf than going after Megatron.
Optimus stares at Megatron, who smiles evilly at the state the Autobots are now in. "Ratchet, bridge us back now." Ratchet does what he's told and the ground bridge portal opens up behind them. "Arcee, attend to them." She doesn't argue, carrying Mason as she does with Bumblebee carrying Raf through the portal as Bulkhead and Optimus glare at the leader of the Decepticons.
On the other side of the portal, everyone watches as two figures walk through the portal first.
The ones who stayed at the base stare at them for a few seconds until they notice something distressing.
"Raf? Mason?" Jack says in confusion at the state his friends are in.
"No!" Miko gasps.
"What happened?"
"Megatron." Arcee replies to Ratchet.
Ratchet grimaces and ushers the others to him. "Quickly, into my laboratory." They work quickly in setting things up for their two critical condition patients. They had to get a larger metal gurney for Mason due to the weight of his armor. Ratchet do what he can to rouse the two of them up but he groans in frustration at his lack of progress. They've already got a heart monitor system set up for Raf but its not giving them any new information than what they already know, and that's Raf's vitals are low. "Rafael isn't responding and I can't get any readings on Mason. Whatever happened is scrambling his armors systems and giving me static! We must run diagnostics of their assemblage – eh, vital statistics. Oh, my tools! They're all wrong!" He angrily throws his tools around due to them being useless at this time. They can't even tell if Mason is pale like Raf due to the polarization in his helmets window blocking out any view of him to them.
Jack stares at his two friends with worried look before sighing in frustration. "We need to call my mom." Jack makes to call his mom. With Ratchet their Autobot medic being unable to do anything for the two of them, the next best option is to get a human medic to try to help.
"Your mother may be a nurse, but does she know anything about the effects of Energon on the human body?" Ratchet tries to reason why he shouldn't call her.
"Wh- do you know anything about the human body?" At Jack's retort, Ratchet is unsure of how to reply when what Jack says is true. No longer getting stonewalled, he continues to call his mom until she picks up. "Mom, it's urgent!"
Ratchet looks away in failure before glancing back at his two patients. "The weak… will perish." He quotes the prophecy he heard. "Be strong you two." He hopes, for their sake.
It doesn't take long after Jack's call that his mother makes it to the base, her instincts as a hospital nurse kicking in making her beeline straight to where she is needed. Her car rolls through the main entrance of the building and stops in the middle of the main chamber of the base before she gets out.
"Mom, thank—"
"Grab my bag!" Jack's mom, June, orders, which her son does as he rummages inside to grab her bag. She quickly begins to get to work in examining the youngest of the two patients as Ratchet does what he can to scan them for any readings.
"Measuring the extent of the absorption should determine the proper course of treatment." Ratchet proposes for them to do but June doesn't seem particularly happy to do so.
"If I don't get either of these boys stabilized now, they will not leave here alive. Do you understand me?" She grimly but truthfully states to Ratchet. He looks surprised at the tone but nods nonetheless. Right now she needs to figure something out to help them and since she's working on organic bodies, it won't do much to try any Cybertronian treatments until she can figure out the proper way to help them. No longer getting second-guessed, she continues to look at Raf before glancing at Mason. "And get him out of that god-forsaken armor."
"I can't." Ratchet replies as he frantically begins tapping on his console. "His armor has been locked down and I've been trying to unlock but with no luck." June grimaces at the situation before she refocuses on the one injured human she can at least look at. All this infuriates Bee at the state his friends are in and angrily smashes a wall nearby, startling Jack and Miko at the display.
"Bee, listen!" Arcee slams him against the wall, stopping him from scaring anyone else and possibly breaking anything important. She attempts to calm him down. "You think I don't know how it feels to watch a partner… Harmed?" She begins to say, her own memories of her past partners coming to forefront of her mind as she grimaces before focusing back on the present, and Bumblebee. "Revenge won't help Raf and Mason right now. You need to keep your emotions in check." She says to calm him down. Bee still looks angry but nods in understanding and calms down, especially when he stares at his downed friends. He doesn't like it but trashing their base is not something that will help his injured companions.
They continue to work in trying to come up with something for the injured but they are hitting a wall.
"Ratchet, how is Rafael and Mason?" Optimus comes into the frame and asks his long time friend over the radio. While only part of the team is focused on trying to save their friends, Optimus and Bulkhead are busy infiltrating the Decepticons warship the Nemesis to stop Megatron.
"It is too soon to know." Ratchet scowls dejectedly at his own tone, not liking the truth of the matter.
"They are in good hands." Optimus does what he can to cheer up their medic of the tense situation.
"Not mine, Optimus. Curse my cybertronian pride. We've accepted these humans into our lives, yet I bothered to learn so little of their science or medicine. I worked with Mason for so long yet…" Ratchet looks away with a scoff at his lack of knowledge on the human body.
"Pull yourself together, old friend. They both need you."
"…And I have grown to need them." Ratchet admits as he works a bit more frantically in trying to unlock Mason's armor.
"Lock on to my coordinates and activate the ground bridge." Optimus orders. Without much for Ratchet to do currently, he nods and inputs the command in his console, making the ground bridge flare up to life and appearing next to the team on the ship.
"Ready." Bulkhead says to his leader, hefting a large piece of machinery that is no doubt very important to the Decepticons.
"Bulkhead, return to base. There is something I must do." Optimus orders of his subordinate to do.
"R- serious?" Bulkhead skeptically asks his leader.
"I have been foolish not to see what history has proven over and over again… that Autobots and Decepticons will never mend their ways. If there can be no diplomatic solution to this perpetual conflict, then I must not allow more darkness to fall upon this or any planet. Megatron must be destroyed." Optimus informs with a veritable amount of conviction and anger in his voice. After explaining his intentions, Optimus walks off through the door, deeper into the ship, intent on finding his long time foe.
Bulkhead lets out a sigh and slowly trudges through portal carrying the machinery. "Good luck boss." He mutters luck to his leader as he heads in.
Seconds later he makes it back to base, much to the others relief. "Bulkhead! You're back!" Miko happily calls out.
"Where's Optimnus?" Arcee asks when she notices their leader isn't with him.
"Taking care of something." He grunts as he places down the machine in the corner of the room, rolling his arms around as he does from carrying the machine. "Don't worry about him, how's are boys doing?" Bulkhead asks worriedly when he sees the state Raf and Mason are in. Before, they had just taken out a large contingent of vehicons and he was focused on the potential fight that would happen with Megatron so he wasn't able to get a good look at them. Now though, in the middle of their base his worry is well-founded.
"Not good. We seem to figure out what's wrong exactly or what we need to do in order to help." Jack explains. Raf's health is declining still with no means of stopping and Mason is still unresponsive. While they can't see anything, they can only assume that he is in a similar situation with Raf and if they don't try to figure something out soon, they both will perish.
June lets out a frustrated grunt and opts to grab Raf. "Jack, help me get Raf to the car. Get Mason into the backseat. They are going to the emergency room."
"Nurse Darby, your doctors won't be able to comprehend what's afflicting him. Not without a decade of study. And Mason's armor is locked up. I don't and can't have access to release him." Fully body scans and readings are pulled up of both boys on Ratchet's computer. While it displays Raf's life signs, Mason's is still largely unknown and scrambled.
"I don't have time to argue. They'll use the jaws of life to pry him out of that thing if they have to." While June was never happy at the idea of her son or other humans being a part of this fighting, she definitely wasn't happy to see someone as young as Mason to be a part of the direct fighting, so she has no qualms in tearing that suit of armor apart in order to make sure he survives whatever is afflicting him.
"The effects of an energon blast on an Autoboot can be devastating enough, but these are humans. I'm not getting any readings." It takes Ratchet a moment to realize something about the lack of readings before his optics widen in realization. "How could I not have seen this? Rafael's been infected with Dark Energon." He grimly states, much to the stunned states of all around them. "They both are. If Dark Energon is devouring Raf from the inside out, as well as scrambling Mason's hardware, we must expel it and fast, the only possible way I know. I need Energon." He calls out to his fellow Autobots.
"Wait. You said Energon was devastating to humans." June points out that little bit of fact. Human bodies aren't meant to have Energon thrown into their bodies.
"Under normal circumstances, quite. But I am relying upon the dark matter currently invading Rafael's body and Mason's gear to meet it head on." He quickly begins setting things up, at least until the medical monitor for Raf begins to go haywire, signaling Raf's rapid health decline and his critical state. He quickly takes an Energon injector and stabs it into Bumblebee's arm, who volunteered to donate the Energon needed to save his friends. "I need him over here now!" Ratchet calls out and directs them to the large Energon medical chamber for Raf. They quickly get to work in pushing Raf's gurney to it as he begins inputting commands.
"What about Mason?" Miko asks when no is pushing him.
"Unfortunately I can't just douse Mason in normal energon like we have to with Rafael. I have to inject it directly into his suits frame due to his suits locked down state." Ratchet informs them as he pulls out some tubes, as well as a menacing thick needle, making some of the humans pale and a couple of the bots. "But first, get Rafael in there!" He orders when everyone stops pushing Raf. They double time it and get him inside it. Once he's in, they close the chamber and Ratchet fires up the machine. From the outside, everyone waits with bated breath as they watch the chamber begin to glow bright blue with Energon. Many of them close their eyes as the light begins to be too much for them to handle as the readings on the console begins to fluctuate and start blaring out alarms. It's only lasts a few seconds but very few tense seconds it is as they hope for the best. Once the Energon has done its job, the chamber door opens and they check to see if the results are what they are hoping for as they crowd around the boy.
"Pulse rate is stabilizing." June informs everyone in awe, surprised at how it worked. Many of them sigh in relief but none more so than Bumblebee as he goes up to his partner.
Blearily, Raf manages to open his eyes weakly but steadily gaining his strength back. "Bee." He greets his partner with a smile. Bumblebee lets out a small whine of joy.
"Good. Now that Rafael is alright, we must help Mason now." Ratchet gets everyone back on track as he gets ready with the needle and some tubing. "Get him in the chamber." Bumblebee nods and gently pushes Raf away, getting away from the machine before he begins helping Arcee with Mason. Raf is out of the woods now but Mason still could be lost.
"Don't worry Mason. We got you." Arcee says in a comforting tone as they gently push his metal gurney. "Just hang on for—"
*SHU*
Everyone flinches as almost autonomously, Mason sits up. The bots back up and the humans stare at him.
"…"
"…" All is silent for several seconds,
"Mason?" Jack asks confused at his state. They still can't see his face but he glances in Jack's direction before slowly turning and glancing around at the others.
"I don't understand." Some of the others look at Ratchet as seems fixated on his computer. "I'm getting readings now from Mason's armor, but they don't seem right."
"He doesn't look right either." Miko comments as Mason snaps his head towards her, making her flinch back and hide behind Bulkhead as he tilts his head curiously at her.
"No, that's not it. I'm trying to figure out what's going on and why he's up now but… hold on…" Ratchet squints his optics at something on the screen.
"Mason? Are you okay?" Arcee asks worriedly, stepping closer to him in concern. She's had to lose too many partners now as it is. No way does she want to lose anyone else. She steps up and kneels next to him on his left as he stares at her with his blank face plate on his helmet. Slowly, he reaches forward, intending to grab onto her in a comforting gesture. She smiles and goes to take his hand.
"ARCEE!" She flinches as she turns back to Ratchet, a look mixed with fear, worry and scaredness on his face as he stares at her. "GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Just as he says that, she watches as everyone else begin to sport similar looks of their own.
When she turns back to Mason, she is greeted with the barrels of his gatling gun on his left arm pointed right at her.
Her optics widen as she looks at his face. Fear hits her as she sees not the blank face she saw before, but now two glowing purple dots, almost like eyes, on his face plate.
His gun spins up right in her face.
And there you have it. Apologies again for the delay but if any of you have not seen my other stories, they you don't know that I was having a bit of funk for a time at how slow my writing was going. So I went ahead and wrote an entirely new story, a My Hero Academia story, and just worked on that for the better part of this year. Working only on that story for so long really got my writing juices flowing and I was cranking out pages like it was nobody's business. So with the sort of revelation on myself, I should be able to start writing a bit more and slightly faster than what I was doing before.
Bladewolf101: I do too. Arcee doesn't want to lose another partner and Mason has quite never met a femme like her before, heh.
Ross2345: Oh that's a possibility. Nothing concrete but I can see Arcee being an option.
T501: I'm glad you like the story too. I've seen a few stories where they do the self-insert character thing but other times they also making stories where characters start out oblivious like Mason does, however soon things start to go completely off the rails and so on with the characters and the story and so on. I want Mason to interact and build relationships with the core characters of the show and not add who knows how many others characters to the story. As I said before, I'm glad you like this.
Bloodrage: Yeah sorry about the delay. Went into a funk for a bit of time but now I'm back to writing this.
Green Martinez: Sorry for the delay. Hopefully you'll continue to read as things progress and I'm glad you like how everything is developing in the story, from Mason himself to his relationship with the Autobots.
Ssj Shadow: I've thought about it but didn't really think much of it. Its definitely a possibility but I say so then that would be spoiler. Just bear with it as the story progresses.
Guest: Well I never did a rewrite of this story so I have no idea what you're talking about. Even so I hope you like it regardless and continue to stay reading.
Silverwingzz (Ch. 1): Well sorry about that but I thought the bike chase was pretty badass at the time so its in and staying. More dramatic that way you know?
Apologies again for the long delay of this chapter. As you can see, things have gotten very, very tense on the Autobot's side thanks to Megatron's intervention. They got Raf back to normal but now it looks like Mason will be a bit harder to save now, and much more resistant to their help. The Autobots are going to need to work harder in order to save him it seems.
This was a section of the story I was particularly excited to get to. I had something planned for when Unicron rears its ugly head and we are just about there. Safe to say Mason is going to have to deal with a fair bit considering what just happened.
Thank you all for your support. I'm still writing and I will be working on this and some of my other stories as I continue to write things out. Go ahead and fave, follow, review, whatever you wish. Have fun reading, but most of all everyone, have a great day to each and everyone of you.